Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Philosophy of Confusion
Wes Elsberry at The Austringer has a post up, entitled "Intelligent Design: Philosophical Bogosity," about Bradley Monton, a philosopher at the University of Colorado at Bolder and a self-described atheist, who is humping a manuscript of a book about Intelligent Design that argues that ID is science. Given that the title is tentatively "An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design," the Discovery Institute will no doubt be more than helpful with contacts to such publishers as the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, one of William Dembski's favorites.Be that as it may, Wes investigates Monton's blog for some idea of what we are in store for and finds Monton criticizing Ken Miller's book, Only a Theory for calling ID a "science stopper." Monton endorses a response proposed by Alvin Plantinga:
[W]hile theistic scientists could choose to stop investigating the world, and be satisfied with the answer "God did it", they need not. What theistic scientists can do is investigate the questions: "what did God do?" "What structure did God choose to give the world?" As long as scientists are willing to investigate those questions, then science can go on in pretty much the standard way. Allowing supernatural hypotheses won't really change anything.Wes correctly responds:
The essential point is conceded by Plantinga and Monton in this summary: the supernatural explanation fails to explain, and explanation must await someone willing to seek a naturalistic secondary cause that will itself actually explain the phenomena of interest. The mere possibility that someone working in a theistic science could choose to do so does not validate "theistic science" as something good and to be desired.Go read Wes' post for his further cogent arguments as to the superfluous nature of ID vis a vis science. What I want to discuss is the category error that Monton and the IDers make but you'll have to hang in while I set the stage.
In another post, Monton criticizes Miller claim, as Menton puts it:
... that the intelligent design movement doesn't just want to "win the battle against Darwin"; the intelligent design movement wants to "win the greater war against science itself" (p. 183).Menton states that "as far as I can tell" the only evidence that Miller gives for that "strong claim" is a passage from William Dembski:
The implications of intelligent design are radical in the true sense of this much overused word. The question posed by intelligent design is not how we should do science and theology in light of the triumph of Enlightenment rationalism and scientific naturalism. The question is rather how we should do science and theology in light of the impending collapse of Enlightenment rationalism and scientific naturalism. These ideologies are on their way out … because they are bankrupt. (p. 190)This itself raises questions of Menton's agenda since, on p. 183, in the very paragraph before the one Menton quotes in connection with Miller's claim, Miller cited to the Wedge Document, which makes all the same arguments Dembski does in the cited passage. But to continue just on the issue of ID's status as science, Menton gives two "interpretations" of Dembski, one Menton calls "anti-science" and one "pro-science." Here is the "pro-science" interpretation:
On the pro-science way of reading the passage, one would hold that naturalism is a key part of Enlightenment rationalism, and there is a style of science where one takes an assumption of naturalism to be part of the methodology of science. One would hold that intelligent design is opposed to the naturalism in Enlightenment rationalism, and naturalistic science, but one would not hold that intelligent design is opposed to science itself.So, let's follow along: It's okay to posit a supernatural cause for natural phenomenon because a scientist can freely choose to ignore his own, science stopping, "hypothesis" about God and continue seeking naturalistic causes "pretty much the standard way." Then what does it mean to be "pro-science" if one rejects "naturalism-as-a-scientific-methodology"? What, pray tell, is non-naturalistic science anyway, if supernaturalist explanations are admittedly "science stoppers"? If science only advances through ignoring the supernatural, how can rejecting methodological naturalism be a part of science?
It is pretty clear to me, judging from everything I've read by Dembski, that he intends the latter, pro-science, reading. ... ([I]n my opinion, at least) it becomes clear that Dembski is pro-science; he's just not pro-naturalism, and hence he's not pro-naturalism-as-a-scientific-methodology. Now, Miller apparently thinks that if one drops methodological naturalism, then science will stop, because one can simply appeal to God as an explanation of any scientific phenomenon.
It's clear enough that the only way you can hold these two contradictory ideas together is by smearing science together with philosophy and/or theology and denying it has its own status separate and apart from them. It is a simple category error and a failure of proper definition. It borders, at least, on the post-modernist maneuver of claiming that science is only a "social construct" no different than the IDers' theological musings.
You can see this impulse to trample the borders between science and philosophy, in an example given by Miller, at Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent. Dembski cites to a "fire rainbow," a phenomenon he, himself, gives a naturalistic explanation for:
Clouds have to be cirrus, at least four miles in the air, with just the right amount of ice crystals; and the sun has to hit the clouds at 58 degrees.But Dembski goes on to say "It's the gratuitousness of such [beauty] that leads me to rebel against materialism." There is no conceivable way that the "gratuitousness" of beauty can be measured scientifically, nor can the conclusion that materialism is wrong on that grounds be tested by scientific means. Dembski is, of course, free to make whatever philosophical conclusions he wants but if he wants to do science, he must restrict himself to ice crystals and the refraction of light in naturalistic interaction that can be tested by scientific methods.
The main objection to ID is not that it lacks "arguments," as Menton seems to think. After all, it is an ancient concept dating back as far as Empedocles (c. 490 – 430 BCE), at least, and has been kicked around by philosophers ever since. The objection is that the arguments are not scientific or amenable to scientific testing, which means that calling it science only confuses. No one seriously objects to teaching about ID in history or religion or philosophy classes, even classes on the history and philosophy of science. The objection is against teaching that ID is science, instead of philosophy or theology.
But get to know the name of Bradley Monton. He's going to be the next star of the Intelligent Design movement ... whether he wants to be or not.
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Saturday, July 19, 2008
Mosaic Rationales
A thought:Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the creation, I am at a loss to conceive. Moses, I believe was too good a judge of such subjects to put his name to that account. He had been educated among the Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in science, and particularly in astronomy, as any people of their day; and the silence and caution that Moses observes, in not authenticating the account, is a good negative evidence that he neither told it nor believed it. -- The case is, that every nation of people has been world makers, and the Israelites had as much right to set up the trade of world-making as any of the rest; and as Moses was not an Israelite, he might not choose to contradict the tradition. The account, however, is harmless; and this is more than can be said for many other parts of the Bible.
- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
Friday, July 18, 2008
Present Chapeaus!
Ohhh! Ron Bailey really punctured the Discovery Institute contingent at Freedomfest!The DI never admits defeat and never admits it has no response to any argument. In response to Michael Shermer pointing out that IDers have produced no science, Robert Crowther actually replies:
I guess he's not familiar with the Biologic Institute, or the lab research being done by scientists like Scott Minnich, Ralph Seelke and others.
But the best that Crowther can do with Bailey is call the "Designer" he proposed to discuss -- super-intelligent purple space squids -- "purple people eaters" and huff that Bailey's tack "disrespected his audience," presumably by taking ID less than seriously. But nobody in the scientific community takes ID seriously as science, not even the IDers themselves, given that they have to propose a change in the definition of science in order to get it included. What was "disrespected" -- when the term is interpreted to mean "exposed as inane" -- was ID itself.
Leaving the DI speechless is an accomplishment few if any have achieved. My hat's off, sir!
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
You Can't Keep A Good Film Down
It seems you can't kill a stinker either:The controversial film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" will be re-released theatrically this summer across the United States to celebrate the film's legal victory over Yoko Ono, according to the documentary's producers. ...A lawsuit about a copyright is a "cloud"? In any event, the producers seem to have a little difficulty with numbers:
"We had many individuals and groups who had planned to see the film, but decided not to because the cloud of doubt this lawsuit brought to the film," noted one of the film's producers, John Sullivan.
"We came out of the gate with strong momentum only to have our integrity questioned by this frivolous lawsuit. While we're thrilled with the film's having earned nearly $8 million during its first run; we've heard from enough people and groups who want to see it in their theaters that we've agreed to re-release it this time without an undeserved cloud over its head." ...Now let's see ... at an average of $8 a ticket nowadays (even now the producers say that the film "will be made available to any group of 250-300 people at a cost of low as $6 per ticket"), it seems that millions didn't pay to see it the first time, despite that alleged "strong momentum." Why it would be expected to do any better the second time around is anyone's guess. Nor is it clear that they are actually distributing it to theaters. They may just be making prints available for private groups to show at rented theaters.
"We will not be silenced. In fact it will have the opposite effect: we will re-release it and allow millions of Americans to go to the box office and register their vote against Ms. Ono and her attempt to keep them from watching our film."
Still, it demonstrates that the producers have made the judgment that there is a ready market for stupid ... and that they're just the people to meet the demand.
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Healings
You may have heard of Todd Bentley, the latest in a long line of Pentecostal Christian "healers" who have aroused controversy. Besides Bentley's ... um ... unique personal appearance -- close-shorn head, multiple tattoos, body piercings, etc., rather than gaudy suits, pinkie rings and overdoses of hair spray -- he has a ... how shall I put it? ... surprising method of laying on hands ... balled in a fist. Bentley regularly punches and kicks the sick people who come to him to be cured, allegedly at the direct instruction of the Holy Spirit. He has even kicked a man with stage IV colon cancer in the gut. Orac gives the medical view of such a procedure, which is, as you might imagine, more than dim.This story from the Louisville Courier-Journal gives an overview of Bentley's "ministry" and the criticism, from both inside and out of the Pentecostal movement, that surrounds it. What caught my eye was this:
One person unimpressed with Bentley is William Dembski, a former professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, who is best-known as a proponent of the "Intelligent Design" theory as an alternative to evolution.
Dembski, of Texas, said in a Baptist Press column that he and his wife drove 130 miles with their 7-year-old autistic son to a service led by Bentley, hoping for a divine healing.
But after hours of music and preaching, the family was turned away when they tried to bring their son up for prayer, Dembski said, though others were allowed up.
The family left at midnight, feeling exploited, Dembski wrote.
"Nowhere in Bentley's message did I see an emphasis on the love and compassion of God -- that healing is an expression of God's goodness and care for humanity," Dembski wrote. "Rather, the emphasis throughout was on power."
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P.S. Here is Dembski's article in the Baptist Press. It ends:
We found ourselves avoiding talking about the event until the children fell asleep. Then, as they drifted off in the early morning, we talked in hushed tones about how easily religion can be abused, in this case to exploit our family. What do we tell our children? I'm still working on that one.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Consequences
Mostly lost in the manufactroversy that was the tenure denial of Guillermo Gonzalez was a real firing that had to do with a college instructor's positions being contrary to the majority view.Steve Bitterman, was teaching at Southwestern Community College when some students in his class threatened legal action over Bitterman's remarks in a western civilization class. It seems that he told some of his students that the Hebrew religion (and, presumably, the Old Testament) had extremely meaningful stories, but that it was proper to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense. If, instead, you took it literally, you were going to miss a great deal of the meaning. According to the news story, Bitterman used the term "fairy tale" in a conversation with a student after the class and some students complained that he had "belittled their religion."
Unlike the case of Gonzalez, who was merely denied a guaranteed lifetime contract and then only after having clear guidelines for what was required for tenure and at least two appeal processes, Bitterman was fired by the administration posthaste.
Well, as they say, fire in haste, repent in leisure:
An Iowa community college has reached a financial settlement with a professor who was fired last fall after he told students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be taken literally. ...On the other hand, the attorney for Bitterman, Brad Schroeder, said:
The school's lawyer, Patrick Smith, said Bitterman is no longer on the Southwestern faculty and that a settlement should be finalized this week. He did not disclose the amount.
What was for him a purely objective, academic exercise in studying the religious beliefs of different western civilizations became a group of fundamentalist students taking exception when it came time for their God to be put under the microscope.Interestingly, Bitterman recently "taught on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in Norfolk, Va., through Central Texas College's Instructor At Sea program for sailors."
That's one way to get used to firings.
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Update: It is now being reported in the Des Moines Register that the settlement was $20,000.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Purple Pain
Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine has a version available of his remarks during the FreedomFest 2008 debate: "Is There Scientific Evidence for Intelligent Design in Nature?" They are good reading.One point well worth emulating when discussing the subject with doubtful but still open minded people is Bailey's skillful weaving together of various forms of evidence from the fossil record, genetics and development to make a multifaceted case for evolution that is neither too complex to be understood by people with no particular expertise nor too simple to convey the true richness of the evidence for evolution.
In this instance, though, that part of Bailey's case is only the substrate to his real aim. Noting the Discovery Institute's statement: "Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text," Bailey sets the stage:
Near the end of the silly new anti-evolution film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed—in which fellow panelist Steve Meyer appeared—host Ben Stein asks Richard Dawkins, who is arguably the best-known living evolutionary biologist on the planet, if he could think of any circumstances under which intelligent design might have occurred. Incautiously, Dawkins brings up the idea that aliens might have seeded life on earth; so-called directed panspermia. This idea was suggested by biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel back in the 1970s. In the film, Stein acts like this is a great "gotcha," like it's the silliest thing he's ever heard. Of course, the irony is that this is precisely what proponents of intelligent design are claiming—that a higher intelligence has repeatedly created life on earth.
So, since our esteemed opponents are agnostic with regard to the "source of design," and because intelligent design cannot rule out the hypothesis that super-intelligent purple space squids are not the "source of design" of life on earth, I will provisionally accept that hypothesis for the remainder of my talk.
As I understand it, intelligent design proponents—such as our distinguished Discovery Institute panelists here—fully accept the fact that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old and that some form of life has existed on earth for about 3 billion or so years. If that is the case, it would seem the record shows that the intelligent designers—which I am hypothesizing are super-intelligent purple space squids—evidently spent more than 2 billion years tinkering with single-cell algae and bacteria before they got around to creating multi-cellular species. Do intelligent design proponents have a theory to explain that? Were the space squid creators just lazy?
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Time and Tide
One of the more interesting phenomena to arise out of the Great Frackin' Cracker Flap is the seeming fixation that some Christians (I gather mostly of the conservative bent) have with getting the "New Atheists" to pick on Muslims. Some of them, such as the crude and threatening anonymous correspondents PZ has revealed, apparently think that it is a cheap and safe way to play Henry II and be rid of a troublesome anti-priest. So great is the reflexive fear response of the right, after seven years of Bush playing their nerves like a five year-old sawing on a violin for the first time, that some seem to think that a mere sideways glance at a Muslim is the equivalent of a death sentence.A step up from there -- in that he uses his real name ... nobody would make up "Rod Dreher" -- is the "Crunchy Con," who delivers, under the title "P.Z. Myers, coward," this alleged, and profane, sarcasm under BeliefNet's banner of "Inspiration. Spirituality. Faith.":
If P.Z. Myers had any guts, he would put out a call for someone to send him a Koran so he could blow his nose and wrap fish in it. After all, it's nothing but frackin' ink on paper, right? So what's stopping you, Big Man? It's easy to shit on what Catholics regard as sacred. But just try doing the same thing to what Muslims regard as sacred. Let's see what you're made of.
Besides which, I think we all know if a professor at a major American university had issued a public call for people to send him a Koran or a Torah for the purpose of desecrating them, it would be front page news. Does anybody doubt that?
My final exhibit is the truly erudite Francis Beckwith, who should know better, but who at least displays some subtlety. Professor Beckwith dredges up an old post of PZ's which actually defended the outrage that Muslims felt over the Danish cartoons of Mohammed and notes that PZ didn't say "It's Just a Frackin' Cartoon." But Professor Beckwith stopped just short in the quotation of where PZ said:
It also doesn't help that their riots are confirming the caricatures rather than opposing them. Once again, religiosity turns people into mindless frenzied zombies, and once again it interferes with progress.
On the other hand, it can't be helped that there is a certain irony in the fact, given that this all started because of the supposed "over reaction" of Catholics to reports of a college student's actions with a eucharist, that PZ has had to append to his post about his emails a prominent and emboldened plea to his own supporters:
Please STOP SENDING EMAIL TO THESE INDIVIDUALS. There are too many of you, the over-reaction is excessive, and you are not doing our reputation any favor.
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Initiating Faith
Here is a pretty good op-ed piece by Reg Henry of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (via the Nashua Telegraph) on Barak Obama's suggestion that he will continue Bush's "faith-based initiatives":What next? Will he promise federal funding to facilitate the rapture? Turn the Erie Canal into a national baptismal font?Mr. Henry makes the basic point that the wall of separation between church and state was intended to protect religion and has done the job so well that the US is the most religious of the developed nations by far. He correctly notes the wall:
... is the best friend religion in America has ever had. We only have to look at the example of Britain to see what the dead hand of government sponsorship has done to church attendance. Churches in England are often where old people go to feel more lonely.Putting it humorously doesn't diminish the essential danger involved:
I do not want Episcopalians punching people who dare to use the wrong dinner fork, Presbyterians feeling predestined to punch back, Baptists throwing cold water in all directions, Catholics getting feisty for fear of being left out, and Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Rastafarians and Druids also joining the fray in the interest of inclusiveness. I do not want the Unitarians, who take a broader view, giving everyone a good sulking.And I'd add that I wouldn't want atheists skulking in churches hoping to purloin communion wafers.
We see a precursor of such mischief every time a school board, in a fit of religiously inspired creative deception, attempts to introduce creationism into a curriculum under the guise of intelligent design. Fistfights would be breaking out more often if lawsuits were not more fun.I'd add that, without the recognition by the courts of the wall of separation, there'd be no alternative to fistfights.
On the practical side:
Obama should shore that wall up, not seek to curry favor of those who would knock it down.Amen!
He hasn't got a prayer of getting their vote anyway.
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
Catching Up
Here is a nice story by Bronislaus B. Kush in the Worcester (Massachusetts) Telegram & Gazette giving an update on Matt LaClairMatthew LaClair looked forward to taking his accelerated 11th-grade American history class, hoping to learn how the founding fathers, among other things, framed the U.S. Constitution to guarantee that the government would be free of religious influences.
The 16-year-old got more than he had hoped for — becoming the focus of a lingering separation of church and state controversy that some feel will be discussed for years to come in constitutional law classes.
He was surprised that most people in Kearny ended up supporting Mr. Paszkiewicz, a well-liked 16-year veteran of the school system.
Mr. LaClair said that even many longtime friends turned against him. One student sent him a death threat. ...
Frustrated with a lack of response, Mr. LaClair told his story to the local newspaper. He said he was surprised with the response, with many charging that he had set up the teacher and that he had an "agenda" that he wanted to pursue.
It wasn't until The New York Times reported the issue a month later that Mr. LaClair said he finally started to get some support.
Matt will be attending the New School in New York City this fall, aiming to become a broadcast journalist. If he does, he will likely become a considerable asset to that profession. But whatever path he takes, he has already done greater service to his country than most people and I wish him well.
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Picture adapted from the article.
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Saturday, July 12, 2008
Approximately
Here's a story that might tickle, though given the Associated Press' recent tantrum, I'll relate it in my own words and won't link to the AP piece:A man alleges that he was so stricken by the Holy Spirit that he was caused to fall and be injured when his fellow congregants failed to catch him. Therefore, Matt Lincoln of Knoxville, Tennessee's Lakewind Church is suing the church for $2.5 million for injuries to his back and legs, supposedly resulting in two subsequent surgeries.
The Church's defense will apparently be that Mr. Lincoln didn't take care to insure that someone was behind him to catch him before he started praying (and that he wasn't really injured by the fall, since he was supposedly seen laughing afterwards).
In the law, we have a concept called "proximate cause." There is no exact definition but roughly it refers to those causes that people of ordinary sensibilities would consider to be the actual cause of an incident. An illustration might help: a person is driving along and a squirrel runs in front of her car. She swerves, loses control and runs down someone on the sidewalk. The victim doesn't have to sue the squirrel.
Now, it seems to me (but, of course, I'm no ordinary person) that, if Mr. Lincoln was really stricken by God's spirit, which is presumably unpredictable, it is God's fault for not waiting until someone was there to catch him and Mr. Lincoln has sued the wrong party. The congregation can't be expected to know the mind of God and anticipate His actions. On the other hand, if Mr. Lincoln was just playing a social game of demonstrating his "righteousness" to his fellow churchgoers by flopping about, then the onus was on him to make sure that the other congregants were ready for his act. In any event, the lawyers, if no one else, are going to have an entertaining time.
Finally, Mr. Lincoln was reported to have said that he was praying for "a real experience." Which makes this just another data point in favor of "be careful what you wish for."
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P.S. The Ridger at The Greenbelt has an account from a less money-grubbing news outlet. Ridger has much the same reaction as I did to the story but makes an additional good point:
And his pain and suffering? I don't doubt it's real, like his lost income and medical bills. But isn't it the will of his God? Surely if his God had wanted to slay him in the spirit he could have done it without injuring his body. Lincoln should be looking for the purpose here, not seeking someone to blame. God's will, after all, is done, isn't it? This is just another of those mysterious ways, one of those crooked lines with which God draws straight.Oh ye of little faith!
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Friday, July 11, 2008
Religion's Everest
There are certain obstacles one has to climb in order to maintain, as I do, that religion doesn't make people stupid.And one of the biggest this side of Kent Hovind is Bill Donahue. PZ has already dealt with Donahue's insistence that the entire Republican party is afraid of one vocal, but otherwise mild-mannered, professor of biology. But another part of Donahue's paranoid fantasy is also threatening to peg the needle on the stupid dial hard enough to make it a dangerous missile:
[PZ] Myers went on Houston radio station KPFT last night saying that Bill Donohue has 'declared a fatwa' against him. He should know better -— I don't need others to do the fighting for me. I'm quite good at it myself.
Then this:
But [PZ had] better be careful what he says, because if I get any death threats, it won't be hard to connect the dots.
Doh!
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Thursday, July 10, 2008
Replay
Eighty-three years ago today, the Scopes "Monkey Trial" began in Dayton, Tennessee and ran over 12 days, though surprisingly little of that was actually trial time. Anyone who missed my series of daily posts from last year (and who is interested), can read them here.
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A Letter to the President of the University of Minnesota, Morris
I write to you in support of Professor Paul Myers, a man who I have known through various forms of correspondence over many years.
I know him to be a passionate and more than capable teacher, as he has been exceedingly generous with his time and knowledge and I have learned much from him during that time. I know him to be a man of staunch moral principles and, while I have disagreed with him on some of his stands, he has never left me with the slightest doubt that the notion of harming any of his fellow human beings is utterly abhorrent to him.
It is inevitable that such men as Dr. Myers will engender enmity from those in our society who view knowledge and freedom of thought only as a danger and who think that all but their moral code must be stamped out. Such are the people who have initiated the present writing campaign against Dr. Myers. Those people are as much enemies of the university and what it stands for as they are of Dr. Myers. It would be ironic indeed if the university was chivvied by these people into aiding in its own destruction by targeting Dr. Myers.
I urge you in the strongest possible terms to ignore this ugly campaign against Dr. Myers and to continue to support him with the full weight and resources of the university he has served so well to date.
Very truly yours,
John T. Pieret, Esq.
(Address and Phone #)
Flatfooted
Once again an evolutionary puzzle has been illuminated by an expedition into one of deepest, darkest regions known to humankind: museum drawers.The Chicago Tribune is reporting, based on an article, "The Evolutionary Origin of Flatfish Asymmetry," appearing in Thursday's edition of the science journal Nature, that the issue of how the eyes of flatfish, such as sole, plaice, turbot, flounder and halibut, wound up on the same side of their head.
Essentially, Matt Friedman, a 28-year-old University of Chicago doctoral candidate, discovered a series of fossil flatfish in museum collections, the significance of which had not been recognized before, that formed a "transitional series" showing one eye socket slowly migrating from near the top of the head towards its modern position, thus favoring a slow evolution of the eye position over some sort of "sudden" appearance of the trait. In a paragraph that will doubtless set Larry Moran's teeth on edge, but which we must remember is the work of a journalist, it is explained:
Scientists have until now largely assumed the asymmetrical, one-sided eye arrangement was a trait that must have arisen suddenly in flatfish because they could not see a benefit for the fish if it took millions of years for an eye to migrate from one side to the other. Even Charles Darwin had trouble answering critics who used flatfish and their strange eyes as an argument against his evolutionary theory after he published it in 1859.
In 1871, St. George Jackson Mivart, a Catholic lawyer and zoologist, published "On Genesis of the Species" as a challenge to Darwin, and prominently used the example of flatfish and their eyes in his argument.
"Darwin feebly responded with a scenario that relied on evolution of inherited traits," said Friedman, and the flatfish argument has been an arrow in the quiver of anti-evolutionists ever since.
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Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Irrationality Squared
Knowing full well I'm taking on an 800 pound gorilla with nothing more than a popgun, let me explain why I think PZ is only partly right -- and the smaller part -- about this.First, the background: a student at the University of Central Florida, for reasons not made clear, apparently took communion at a Catholic church, a ritual supposedly reserved for members in good standing in the faith. This involves being given a small piece of unleavened bread officially dubbed "the Eucharist" -- what PZ calls "a cracker." Instead of swallowing the bread, which is a part of the ritual, he carried the eucharist away, supposedly to demonstrate to a friend "what it meant to Catholics." The student apparently succeeded in that objective beyond his wildest expectations, in that Catholics the world over are furious and the young man has even received death threats, despite his having returned the eucharist.
PZ is, of course, one hundred percent correct about death threats being insane and anyone who made one is a demented fuckwit -- though I prefer the more correct technical term "criminal."
Where I disagree with PZ is the notion that the arational nature of the symbolism that Catholics attribute to the eucharist means that others should be able to violate those symbols with impunity. PZ goes as far as to propose to obtain, no questions asked, eucharists for his own purposes:
Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I'll send you my home address.
Quite apart from the fact that eucharists are personal property belonging to the church and it is the church's right to dispose of them with whatever conditions it chooses -- making what PZ proposes technically theft and the receipt of stolen goods -- let's try running another scenario to see if symbolism is meaningless:
Say someone -- Kent Hovind, just for fun -- sent a message to his considerable number of supporters asking them to do what it takes to get him Darwin's notebooks, which Hovind promises to joyfully and with laughter in his heart to treat with profound disrespect and heinous notebook abuse resulting in their destruction. Remember that THEY'RE NOTEBOOKS -- pieces of paper smeared with ink. They have as little intrinsic value as those crackers. Before you start telling me that the notebooks have "historic value," give me a rational definition for that notion. You can't even argue that any of the information would be lost, as the notebooks have all been copied and translated (from Darwin's bad handwriting) and photographed and scanned. Despite all that, when I saw some of Darwin's notebooks at the American Museum of Natural History a few years back, I nonetheless felt a deep emotional and intellectual connection to the man and his work that was not diminished by the fact that I was fully aware the feeling was arational.
Think of all the things we value in our lives far beyond any rational worth they have -- a wedding ring, a deceased parent's picture, an old book. We are a symbol-creating species and, if we have any such thing called "rights," we have as much entitlement to be reasonably secure in our symbols as we have to be secure in our other metaphorical "possessions," such as our "dignity" and our "honor."
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Economy of Explanation
A thought:
Capitalism, as conservatives never tire of pointing out, produces economic efficiency not by design from above, but from innovation, investment, and self-interest from below. The ability of modern capitalism to invent, adapt, and prosper stands as dramatic testimony against those who would argue that complexity and efficiency cannot arise spontaneously, but must be planned into a system by a supervising authority. Charles Darwin would have loved it.
What impressed Darwin, as well as many others, about living things was how well-suited they are to their environments. Other naturalists could do no better than to attribute this to careful, centralized planning, but Darwin knew better. He supplemented his observations on natural systems with studies of the economic theories of Thomas Malthus and Adam Smith, whose work preceded his by a generation. From economics he gained one of the key insights of his theory: namely, that allowing individuals to struggle for personal gain helps to weed out inefficiencies and produces a balanced system that ultimately benefits society as a whole.
In a certain sense Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is unadulterated Adam Smith translated into the language of biology. The unthinking acts of individual organisms, seeking no more than survival and reproductive success, produce biological novelty just as surely as venture capitalists foster innovation.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century evolution has won the scientific argument just as surely as capitalism has won the economic one. Ironically, the critics of evolution, who otherwise fashion themselves as conservatives, are the ones who argue for central planning and design in the organization of living systems. By doing so they fail to acknowledge Smith's great lesson that the most intelligent design of all, whether in economics or biology, comes from having the wisdom to let nature work its course.
- Kenneth R. Miller, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul
Monday, July 07, 2008
Swordplay
For a bit of the ol' "good news, bad news" meme, there is this review by Scott McKeen in the Edmonton Journal of our favorite cinematic speed bag:It is aptly titled. But only because you have to check your intelligence at the door to buy this one.
Expelled, a propaganda piece by the religious right, fails to argue justly for a place in science for the divine. Instead, it insults the intelligence by blaming Darwin and evolution for Hitler, Nazis, the Holocaust, eugenics and pretty much every other evil concocted by humankind.
Darwin should be ashamed. But only because the asinine creators of this movie were naturally selected ahead of other possible sperm-egg combinations.
The flaw in Charles Darwin's pre-eminent theory is its failure to explain why some humans de-evolve to infant primates when debating the existence of God.
Put atheists in the same room as the devout and, well, it's back to the sandbox. (There is a God; no there isn't -- is/isn't, is/isn't, is/isn't.)
The combatants are so entrenched in their world views that if God were to arrive one day in the town square, two things would happen: The pious would go "Na-Na Na Na-Na," and the atheists would punch them in the face, then go to hell. ...
[U]ber atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins -- he wrote The God Delusion -- is so dead-set against the idea of a God-soaked universe that he prefers the idea of aliens seeding the Earth with life. ...
Dawkins argues that he's only citing aliens to make a point. But his lack of respect for people of faith is both arrogant and galling.
But, hey! What do I know?
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