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Thog's Science Masterclass #18: what twaddle the Creationists do talk
The Discovery Institute, purveyor of pseudoscience to the credulous masses, has an e-zine called Nota Bene to which, for professional reasons, I have just subscribed. Already my very first issue persuades me how wise I was to do so. Its lead article, by one Cornelius Hunter, displays such a blithe disregard for anything that might too frighteningly resemble rational thought that I know I'm going to be in for many happy hours trying to convince people that, no, I'm not making this stuff up.
His article is called Are Evolutionists Delusional (or just in denial)?, and, after a few words swiping at PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, begins thus:
In one moment evolutionists make religious arguments and in the next they claim their theory is "just science." Their religious arguments, they explain, really aren't religious arguments after all. Gee, that was easy. In light of such absurdity, I don't have much confidence that evolutionists are going to think more deeply about this. But it would be nice if they would stop misrepresenting science.
This is, although Hunter doesn't seem to think it might be honest to let us in on the secret, an almost direct quote -- with just a few obvious words altered -- from an evolutionist about the logical contortions of the IDeologists and other Creation "Scientists". (Maddeningly, I can't offhand pin down the original, which I've read within the past few days. I'll phone you up at the three in the morning when I remember . . .)
Hunter then continues with some eye-poppingly specious logic of his own:
. . . it would be nice if they [scientists] would stop misrepresenting science. And it would be nice if they would stop using their credentials to mislead the public. In short, it would be nice if they would stop lying.
I don't like to think that people are liars. Perhaps evolutionists are merely delusional or in denial. I know they are smart people so this isn't just a case of acting stupidly. Whatever the case, it is a fact that evolutionists engage in substantial misrepresentation of the facts. Here's how Coyne attempts to explain why his religion isn't really religion after all:
the argument from imperfection — i.e., organisms show imperfections of “design” that constitute evidence for evolution — is not a theological argument, but a scientific one. The reason why the recurrent laryngeal nerve, for example, makes a big detour around the aorta before attaching to the larynx is perfectly understandable by evolution (the nerve and artery used to line up, but the artery evolved backwards, constraining the nerve to move with it), but makes no sense under the idea of special creation — unless, that is, you believe that the creator designed things to make them look as if they evolved. No form of creationism/intelligent design can explain these imperfections, but they all, as Dobzhansky said, “make sense in the light of evolution.” [The emboldenings seem to be Hunter's.]
Should we laugh or cry? According to Coyne the design "makes no sense under the idea of special creation" and this "is not a theological argument, but a scientific one." Coyne's misrepresentations and sophistry are, frankly, astonishing.
It's more or less at this point that I gave up taking seriously anything Hunter had to say. He apparently belongs to that school of determinedly irrationalist thought which seems to believe, Humpty Dumpty-style, that anything Hunter wants to call theological actually is. Coyne's "argument from imperfection" may or may not be a valid one, but it most certainly is a scientific one, and most thunderingly it is not a theological one.
What Hunter is trying to do, of course, is perpetuate the old Creationist smear/myth that acceptance of one of the cornerstone theories of modern science -- the theory without which the entirety of the biological sciences would make no sense at all -- is in itself a religion. If you believe this canard you'll believe anything: by such reasoning, gravity is a theological phenomenon.
Does Hunter believe the twaddle he himself is emitting? Who knows? It's hard to credit that anyone capable of piecing together coherent sentences could do so, but stranger things have happened. Or is he just another liar for Jesus, as Chris Rodda so poignantly nicknames those who reckon any sort of dishonesty is acceptable as they covertly advance their Fundamentalist agenda? Again, who knows? But, reading Hunter's conclusion, one begins to wonder if one should maybe hazard a guess:
Whether evolutionists are liars, delusional or in denial is difficult to say. What is obvious is that evolutionary thought is bankrupt. Religion drives science, and it matters.
This is pulpit talk, calling upon the higher power of religion to "validate" an argument that any rational analysis reveals to be full of holes -- in fact, in this instance, Hunter hasn't, despite copious camouflaging verbiage, even bothered to make an attempt at a rational construction for his argument. Perhaps he's relying on the fact that many of his readers won't know the meaning of the word "theory" and may be susceptible to the old principle that, if you claim loudly enough, frequently enough and long enough that the direst bilge is self-evident truth, eventually some of the weaker-witted will believe you.
Yet again, who knows?
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As for Jesus, I read somewhere, I think it was a book on Freemasonry, that Jesus was a hump backed dwarf. Really. I read this . . . and quite frankly, I love the idea.
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"Why would one waste his eyesight reading religious bilge-water about evolution and mutation?"
As I've just said to the Selkster:
"Thog, sir...WHY do you do this to yourself?"
Because unless at least some rational people keep an eye on the activities of this crowd, we're likely to wake up one morning to find the teaching of evolution banned in our schools and universities, with US science consequently being sent into terminal decline.
Something similar happened in the USSR when Lysenkoism became official policy while genetics and evolution were despised. The consequential deaths numbered in the tens of millions. Do we really want something analogous to happen here, with ideology trumping not just science but common humanity?
Without joking, then, the answer to your question is really: it's a dirty job but . . .
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I always blame the demiurge. In fact, I frequently vent all my rage and ire on him, he who is not really a him or a her, but rather a dynamic that people have come to idolize and worship over the eons, when they are not emulating it -- behavior that is something akin to "identifying with the offender", in a sense.
While I consider myself a spiritual person, I do not support organized religions that promote the ego-centric concept of authority; nor do I support churches with a history of dominance, cruelty and ignorance.
I think Selkie and I were really just giving you a hard time . . .;) And you made good use of it.
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Well, yeah, there's that. :-D I like to put in the quarters and pull the arm.
But also legitimately asking Thog why he's spiking his own blood pressure. *grin*
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What I really don't understand is how people can reject the obvious truth of evolution.
Because it disagrees with the explanation that represented state-of-the-art scientific understanding several thousand years ago. That same science was of the level of sophistication that maintained the earth was flat and the sun went round it (although the Fundies are now desperately trying to pretend this is not what the OT in several places says). It beggars belief that some people can think thousands-of-years-old science is superior to all the advances in human understanding that have occurred since.
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"Thog, sir...WHY do you do this to yourself?"
Because unless at least some rational people keep an eye on the activities of this crowd, we're likely to wake up one morning to find the teaching of evolution banned in our schools and universities, with US science consequently being sent into terminal decline.
Something similar happened in the USSR when Lysenkoism became official policy while genetics and evolution were despised. The consequential deaths numbered in the tens of millions. Do we really want something analogous to happen here, with ideology trumping not just science but common humanity?
Without joking, then, the answer to your question is really: it's a dirty job but . . .
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Fair enough. If you're willing to fall on the sword, so be it.
See, it's me innate nobility of spirit wot makes me do it, y'ladyship.
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Whether evolutionists are liars, delusional or in denial is difficult to say. What is obvious is that evolutionary thought is bankrupt. Religion drives science, and it matters.
Religion drives science? That sentence has two trees (either evolution is a religion, or all scientific inquiry is, as a matter of fact, religious), and neither of them is acceptable.
I am, as a matter of fact, an excellent liar; I'm probably a bit delusional, and I know I'm in denial about some things, but I don't think any of that has to do with, you know, evolution.
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That sentence has two trees (either evolution is a religion, or all scientific inquiry is, as a matter of fact, religious), and neither of them is acceptable.
Precisely. Yet Hunter seems to think that his very act of saying they're religious makes them become so.
Evolution isn't a religion any more than inorganic chemistry or solid-state physics, yet the Creationists feel free to call it so, however ridiculous the depiction, because too few people seem willing to call them out on such nonsense: they are, after all, merely expressing an opinion, and everyone's got an equal right to an opinion, don't they? In many ways, yes, but it's not a line of reasoning I would apply to, say, neurosurgery -- especially not if I were the prospective patient! -- and it's not a line of reasoning that can sensibly be applied to the rest of the sciences either. Really, what everyone's entitled to is an informed opinion, but this is a distinction the Creationists either cannot comprehend or deliberately obscure.
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"When are you next due in the UK? I want to take you to Glastonbury . . ."
I'd be delighted! It's a long time since I've been there, and Pam's never been there at all -- she doesn't even have a Joan the Wad.
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"It was the perfect gift for a certain friend of mine."
But did it bring him good luck or a raid?
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You islanders are a hoot . . . ;P
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You're on!
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The fact that nutballs like these exist and have an audience is a testament to the threat's effectiveness. They deserve a certain amount of pity, like abused children who grow up to be abusive parents.
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The religious aspect may genuinely be of importance to some of these people, but I suspect to most of them it's merely a tool -- just as Hunter in his conclusion uses it as a tool to kind of cement his claim in the eyes of those who see the holes in his attempt at rational argument.
A lot of the Discovery Institute fellows, I'm convinced, are driven primarily by mercenary considerations. It's a wealthy foundation that apparently pays pretty well, and being a fellow of it wouldn't seem to be an especially onerous affair, since as far as one can gather no actual research is required: this came out very clearly at the Dover Pa trial a few years back, when the IDeologists were asked to produce all the scientific papers they'd written and, er, couldn't.
So far as their audience is concerned, I think the main motivation, aside from religion-based self-persuasion, is that streak of bloody-mindedness which makes certain individuals believe that, just because they've been able to plow their way through a Reader's Digest science article in the dentist's waiting room, they're able to argue science on an equal level with, y'know, yer actual scientists. Most of us realize this is a delusion, and channel our wacky ideas into writing (or thinking about writing) SF, or perhaps for the kind of speculation that sounds so fascinating during post-coital blether but at no other time. But for a few, convinced they now know science, the next step is thinking they know science better than them bloody scientists do -- so that contradicting modern scientific thinking is almost a macho thing: a "proof" of their intellectual virility.
This is why they're so impervious to logical argument: to concede they were wrong would be to undermine their sense of self. They're like the guy in the pub who solves arguments with his fists, because any rational debate would give the wrong result and involve a loss of face.
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LOL!
Talk about a turn-off. "No second helping for you . . ."