New Scientist on Fundamentalism
Oct. 22nd, 2005 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyNew Scientist recently (8 October 2005) ran a series of articles about Fundamentalist* religious belief. The articles were courteous about those beliefs and their adherents (and one piece discussed scientists' tendency to overestimate their omniscience), while still strongly challenging moves from some Fundamentalist quarters to get rid of science. I want to summarise a few key points here.
Three crucial things to know and my suggestions:
- Studies find few differences between Fundamentalists and the rest of us. They are no less sane, smart, sincere, and happy than the average person. Many of them hold comparatively "liberal" political views. Treat them with basic courtesy.
- Fundamentalist theology is not accepted by mainstream religions. Don't equate "religion" or "Christianity" with Fundamentalism or Creationism.
- There is a well-organised, well-funded political Fundamentalist movement, trying to have Intelligent Design taught as science and climate change dismissed as "superstition", with the ultimate goal of replacing science with "faith-based reasoning". Religion should be respected and taught - but not in science classrooms.
Fundamentalist believers are not a faceless bloc of crazy right-wing arseholes. One survey of Christian fundamentalists in the US found that nearly half opposed banning stem cell research, and their opinions on abortion and homosexuality were about the same as the general population. Studies have shown that Fundamentalists are not insane or stupid. They're not more likely than the rest of us to worship or obey authority figures. They're not more likely to be racist ("homophobic is a different matter"). Their thinking is no more simplistic than anyone else's. They're well-balanced, with little depression and anxiety and high scores for marital happines, optimism, and self-control. Now it's a cinch to Google up examples of vicious, illogical, unpleasant, loopy, money-grubbing Fundamentalists - but the thing to remember is that for the most part they are "happy, sincere, and healthy". They are no more devils than those of us in the "reality-based community".
One expert suggests that Fundamentalism arises out of "small group dynamics rather than personal psychology or indoctrination": a group of fellow believers become a "family" and it becomes enormously important to maintain and protect that family.
Another expert noted that "traditional religions... are geared to the needs of people in traditional agrarian societies... They see life as cyclical, not progressive..." This alarmed me a little, because it made me think at once of Paganism, with its emphasis on seasonal cycles and ideas of a golden age of agriculture and peace. OTOH, Neo-Paganism is very much a product of the "modernity" with which those traditional beliefs painfully collide: "pluralism and tolerance of other faiths, non-traditional gender roles and sexual behaviour, reliance on human reason rather than divine revelation, and democracy, which grants power to people rather than God." That collision must seem like the world has turned upside down.
Why claim a scientific basis for Fundamentalist beliefs? Because it's the dominant world view. "... a certain level of evidence is required in order for knowledge to count... they 'science-up' their faith, framing it in a way that they think ought to make sense to a scientific culture." But Fundamentalists have "failed to gain intellectual acceptance even within mainstream Christian scholarship" and their beliefs are "widely considered as irrelevant to modern theology as it is to modern science."
For some Fundamentalists, science is also politically inconvenient. George Gilder of the Discovery Institute describes climate change, pollution, and ozone depletion as "chimeras of popular science" - that is, imaginary monsters. A leaked document from the Institute on Religion and Democracy describes discrediting the Kyoto accord as a top priority.
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* A note on terms: some folks prefer to be called evangelical Christians, Bible-believing Christians etc. (There may be Islamic equivalents of which I'm ignorant.) I mean no offence by using the catch-all term "Fundamentalist".
Three crucial things to know and my suggestions:
- Studies find few differences between Fundamentalists and the rest of us. They are no less sane, smart, sincere, and happy than the average person. Many of them hold comparatively "liberal" political views. Treat them with basic courtesy.
- Fundamentalist theology is not accepted by mainstream religions. Don't equate "religion" or "Christianity" with Fundamentalism or Creationism.
- There is a well-organised, well-funded political Fundamentalist movement, trying to have Intelligent Design taught as science and climate change dismissed as "superstition", with the ultimate goal of replacing science with "faith-based reasoning". Religion should be respected and taught - but not in science classrooms.
Fundamentalist believers are not a faceless bloc of crazy right-wing arseholes. One survey of Christian fundamentalists in the US found that nearly half opposed banning stem cell research, and their opinions on abortion and homosexuality were about the same as the general population. Studies have shown that Fundamentalists are not insane or stupid. They're not more likely than the rest of us to worship or obey authority figures. They're not more likely to be racist ("homophobic is a different matter"). Their thinking is no more simplistic than anyone else's. They're well-balanced, with little depression and anxiety and high scores for marital happines, optimism, and self-control. Now it's a cinch to Google up examples of vicious, illogical, unpleasant, loopy, money-grubbing Fundamentalists - but the thing to remember is that for the most part they are "happy, sincere, and healthy". They are no more devils than those of us in the "reality-based community".
One expert suggests that Fundamentalism arises out of "small group dynamics rather than personal psychology or indoctrination": a group of fellow believers become a "family" and it becomes enormously important to maintain and protect that family.
Another expert noted that "traditional religions... are geared to the needs of people in traditional agrarian societies... They see life as cyclical, not progressive..." This alarmed me a little, because it made me think at once of Paganism, with its emphasis on seasonal cycles and ideas of a golden age of agriculture and peace. OTOH, Neo-Paganism is very much a product of the "modernity" with which those traditional beliefs painfully collide: "pluralism and tolerance of other faiths, non-traditional gender roles and sexual behaviour, reliance on human reason rather than divine revelation, and democracy, which grants power to people rather than God." That collision must seem like the world has turned upside down.
Why claim a scientific basis for Fundamentalist beliefs? Because it's the dominant world view. "... a certain level of evidence is required in order for knowledge to count... they 'science-up' their faith, framing it in a way that they think ought to make sense to a scientific culture." But Fundamentalists have "failed to gain intellectual acceptance even within mainstream Christian scholarship" and their beliefs are "widely considered as irrelevant to modern theology as it is to modern science."
For some Fundamentalists, science is also politically inconvenient. George Gilder of the Discovery Institute describes climate change, pollution, and ozone depletion as "chimeras of popular science" - that is, imaginary monsters. A leaked document from the Institute on Religion and Democracy describes discrediting the Kyoto accord as a top priority.
__
* A note on terms: some folks prefer to be called evangelical Christians, Bible-believing Christians etc. (There may be Islamic equivalents of which I'm ignorant.) I mean no offence by using the catch-all term "Fundamentalist".
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 10:09 am (UTC)I always thought he was at best dubious as a tech commentator, and I'm becoming a bit clearer on some of the reasons why (he was also a big supply-side economics booster, loved by Reagan).
Anyway, I generally use the term 'biblical literalist', which to me captures the particular element in their theology that I find problematic.
Stats from the US tend to distort things a little -- in the US, as far as I can tell, biblical literalism is mainstream Christian belief, possibly even actual mainstream opinion. I'm not convinced statistical evidence about US fundies would translate to here (where they are a small minority) well.
And lastly -- biblical literalists in general may be reasonable, and deserve politeness and respect. Those groups who are their public face, however, do not always fall into the same category. The ID folks are engaged in a knowingly dishonest campaign. They don't necessarily deserve to be attacked for their views, but it conversely, but when they use dishonest or dirty tactics to promote them, they deserve to be attacked for that.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 11:22 am (UTC)From adherents.com: in 2001, about three-quarters of the US population was Christian. In 2002, about half of those Christians were Protestant, about a quarter Catholic. The 2001 survey found that about 16% of the entire US population were Baptists, about 7% Methodist/Wesleyan, and about 5% Lutheran.
Of course, sheer numbers are not as important as who's got the money and the power. President Bush was brought up Episcopalian but converted to the United Methodist Church. The NS section mentions the involvement of members of the Baptist, Episcopalian, and United Methodist denominations as being part of the attack on science.
The New Scientist section notes that a 2004 survey found that 37% of Americans thought Creation should replace evolution in science classes - only about half of that 37% were evangelical Christians.
Stuff on Australia coming up.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 11:31 am (UTC)(I should look up stats for other Western nations - Canada, the UK, and New Zealand, just for a start - but as the anti-science campaign is based in the US, it's the central country to consider. ID proponents here have been prompted by campaigners from the US.)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 12:45 pm (UTC)ABC News Poll Feb. 6-10, 2004. N=1,011 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
60% literally believe the story of Noahs Ark
61% that the world was created in 6 days
64% in the parting of the Red Sea
They were specifically asked if they believed in it as the literal truth, as distinct from a lesson or parable.
"The poll found that 75 percent of Protestants believed in the story of creation, 79 percent in the Red Sea account and 73 percent in Noah and the ark.
Among evangelical Protestants, those figures were 87 percent, 91 percent and 87 percent, respectively. Among Catholics, they were 51 percent, 50 percent and 44 percent. "
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040216-113955-2061r.htm
A Harris poll of 2,201 adults charting "Religious and Other Beliefs of Americans 2003" found last year that 93 percent of the nation's Christians believe in miracles, 95 percent in heaven, 93 percent in the virgin birth of Christ and 96 percent in Christ's resurrection.
Gallup Poll of 1,004 adults released Dec. 30 found that 61 percent of Americans believe "religion can answer all or most of today's problems,"
Another Gallup Poll released in November found that six out of every 10 Americans said religion was "very important" in their lives — compared with 28 percent of Canadians and 17 percent of the British.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 03:29 am (UTC)http://www.pollingreport.com/religion.htm (http://www.pollingreport.com/religion.htm)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 12:36 am (UTC)A lot of Americans know too little about the First Amendment.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 01:25 pm (UTC)I still don't understand why that would be the case.
Some fundamentalists surely believe that 'stewardship' of the Earth means taking care of it and protecting it. Pollution is as instantly observable as littering-- you can see it and smell it and you don't need science to tell you that it's happening. Why does denial of its existence fit with fundamentalism?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 03:50 pm (UTC)Personally, I happen to be one of those crazy biblical literalist types (and one of these days I really must do a post/rant about the common misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what it means to take the Bible "literally") and I've always taught my children that when God created human beings He commanded them to take care of the world He had made (that's straight out of Genesis 2, there), and that littering and other abuses of the environment are acts of disobedience to Him and disrespect for His creation.
I can't think of any Bible verses that even begin to hint at the idea that we have any right to exploit and despoil nature as we please, and a whole lot of verses that argue otherwise (God rebuking Israel for working the land too hard and not allowing it to rest once every seven years as He had dictated, for instance; and also the commandments in the Law about the proper treatment of animals -- "Do not muzzle an ox as it is treading out the grain," etc.).
Unfortunately, some people ignore this, and instead take the Biblical teaching that the earth will someday be destroyed to mean that the world in its present form is a dead loss and we should just forget about caring for the environment. Or at least I'm told that some people do. I've never heard anyone preach this myself, and I can't imagine anybody getting away with it (at least not in my church circles) if they did.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 05:51 pm (UTC)Yeah, it doesn't make sense, unless you honestly believe that every single thing in creation exists solely for your benefit, and that the order for that comes direct from an all powerful deity.
The bottom line is that these are extremists, just like the guys who strap explosives to themselves and try to murder civilians. They don't represent anything other than their own arrogance and fear.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 11:07 pm (UTC)To clarify this, let me quote from the NS article:
"One of the fruits of a faith-based approach to science will be a dismissal of what [George Gilder, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute] calls the 'chimeras of popular "science"': ideas such as global warming, pollution problems and ozone depletion. And that, unsurprisingly, has political ramifications, including climate-change denial and the pursuit of ruthless free-market economics. Gilder claims credit for formulating the "supply-side economics" embraced by the Reagan administration."
I've already mentioned the Institute on Religion and Democracy's policy of discrediting Kyoto. These guys are real, rich, and scary.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 11:52 pm (UTC)"Christian fundamentalists are making their presence felt in Washington but not on the issues you might expect. Conservative Christians are going green, seeing "stewardship of the earth" as a sacred responsibility. And, in an organised campaign they've been ringing the White House switchboard protesting at the administration's opposition to the Kyoto protocol."
How cool is that???
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 04:29 pm (UTC)As a Biblical literalist I have no objection whatsoever to hard science of any kind -- science meaning observable data and reproducible results. When, however, I hear scientists loudly declaim that the only logical or "scientific" conclusion from the available data is that the universe evolved entirely randomly and by chance, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is anti-scientific, I believe they have overstepped the bounds of science and leaped to a conclusion unwarranted by the evidence.
If scientists like Simpson and Dawkins are allowed to dogmatically proclaim that science proves there is no God and no need for one, and still be respected as scientists and their writings upheld as examples of good science, why are scientists who argue there is evidence for intelligent design marginalized and dismissed as credulous idiots?
I'm not talking about Professor Hayseed who obtained his degree by correspondence and now runs the Bishop Ussher Skool of Creationary Scientificness, here. (I think we can all agree how ridiculous that kind of thing is, and it's why I don't put much stock in some of the "leading" Creationist writers.) I'm talking about legitimate biologists, microbiologists, geneticists, chemistry professors and pure mathematicians who obtained their degrees through well-known and respected institutions, and have even gone on to teach at such institutions -- albeit with the understanding that they not talk about their "religious" beliefs in the classroom.
If my husband's Evolution professor at university had the freedom to mock the idea of special creation (and specifically target those students who believed in it), why shouldn't equally well-educated professors who hold a different view of the evidence be allowed to present their side of the argument in an academic setting? Don't they have just as much right to say, and write, that in their view much scientific evidence points to an intelligent Designer of some sort, rather than just a long series of incredibly fortunate accidents?
In my view, the only truly fair way to settle the debate is either to present both views (or at least admit that both views exist and may be held intelligently) or else to present nothing but raw data and leave students to draw their own conclusions from it regarding the possible origins of life and the existence or non-existence of a Creator. From what I understand of the Wedge strategy (and it's no secret -- Phillip Johnson has laid it out in detail in an openly published book which I actually own a copy of, so the idea that this comes from a "leaked document" is mystifying to me), the former is what Wedge adherents have in mind. The strategy, at least in its pure form, isn't aimed at suppressing science -- only in encouraging the public to realize that materialism is not the only "scientific" philosophy, and that science and faith are by no means enemies.
There is also a sizeable gap between ID advocates and old-skool young-earth Fundamentalist Christian Creationists, which very few people seem to recognize. In fact I've been amazed at the smear campaign going on against ID, particularly online, which would lead one to think that it's nothing but Gish and Morris with new haircuts, or else a bunch of embarrassed Christians hiding behind the idea of an Unknown Intelligent Designer to conceal the fact that they really believe in that unfashionable Jehovah guy. Neither is the case, and the sheer pettiness of the arguments I've seen made against ID and its advocates astonishes me.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 06:03 pm (UTC)Random evolution has, as I understand it, been viewed in operation, albeit on a small scale. We have actually seen random mutation produce changes in living organisms, and until we can observe an intelligent designer in action, defying the laws of physics as we know them, we are stuck with a theory that holds up under scrutiny.
Science NEVER requires the intervention of a deity to get you from point A to point B, or to fill in the gaps. Science is about observation, hypothesis, and testing. It's an iterative process, and when you teach science, you're teaching not just what we've learned from applying the process, you're teaching the process itself.
A theory holds until a better one comes along that does a better job of explaining the facts as they are observed.
ID *cannot* be tested. Therefore it is not science.
It's philosophy, and I have no problem with teaching it there, but to pretend it's science? Sorry, it is not.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 06:34 pm (UTC)So no, I am not arguing that ID is some kind of sophisticated scientific theory, because I don't think it is. It's a presupposition that leads to a certain interpretation of scientific data, just as materialism is a presupposition that leads to a different interpretation of the same data.
The complexity of certain organisms and natural processes leads the ID-minded scientist to say, "This is an argument in favour of an intelligent designer, because however it came about, surely this could not have happened by chance." Whereas the materialist-minded scientist will look at the same thing and say, "The appearance of design is an illusion, and should be discounted; this all came about as the result of chance mutations over a period of millions or billions of years, and no Creator of any kind was involved."
I'm just saying that one set of presuppositions should not be permitted to bludgeon the other into silence, nor does one have more "scientific" weight than the other.
Also, if I ever meet a scientist, however religious, who thinks that any scientific problem can or should be solved by saying, "Oh, well, God just made it that way," I will eat my hat, because none of the Christian scientists I know, however conservative, think anything of the kind. On the contrary, it weren't for belief in a reasonable, personal God who was separate in essence from the world He created and who could be appreciated more fully by investigating His creation, a good many important scientific discoveries in history would not have been made. So why should belief in a Creator suddenly prove a threat to science now?
On the whole, people committed to a materialistic worldview are just as capable of carelessness and faulty reasoning as any religious scientist -- and I believe that's part of what ID advocates are at pains to point out.*
--
*Even if this process of fault-finding is NOT SCIENCE, as others here have repeatedly insisted. Me, I think that if a loophole or an error can be found in someone's scientific research, then the conclusions drawn from that research may well be justly suspect; so even if that isn't science in itself, it certainly serves a valid purpose.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 12:12 am (UTC)There are a couple of points I want to make about the "materialist-minded scientist" you mention.
Firstly, natural selection is the opposite of chance. Mutations occur spontaneously - randomly or by chance, if you like - but it's not chance that the fastest cheetah is the best hunter. (This is a common point of confusion, so it's always worth restating. Plus "We're here purely by accident, alone and unloved" is such a horrible idea.)
Secondly, our "materialist-minded scientist" has the benefit of over a century of empiricial research - a huge body of tested facts which combine to form a coherent Theory about how eyes and whales came to be. No matter what their personal philosophy or religion, they have empirical evidence to back them up. The ID proponent does not and cannot produce empirical evidence.
If a scientist spots an error or bad reasoning in another scientist's work, they challenge this by doing their own research. A good example is the cold fusion fiasco some years ago, where two scientists claimed they'd found a miraculous power source, and a bunch of other scientists immediately ran tests which showed they were talking through their hats. Why don't the ID proponents run such tests?
Belief in a Creator is no threat to science; nor is pointing out scientific blunders. Teaching lies to children is definitely a threat to science; so is trying to replace empiricism with philosophy. Conversely, science is no threat to religion. Discoveries about nature inspire awe and reverence - even hard-bitten atheists admit to that. No science lab will ever explain why we're here or how we should live.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 12:19 pm (UTC)I've said before and I'll say again that I have no difficulty whatsoever with the idea of natural selection: it's readily observable and, to my mind, poses no problem and indeed no challenge to belief in a creator God (even if you're old-fashioned enough to believe He did it by fiat and not through billions of years of evolution). Like you say, the fastest cheetah is probably the best hunter (assuming being that fast doesn't make him overshoot the impala every time and get beaten to the punch by some less fast but more coordinated cheetah, but I'm obviously overthinking the analogy).
But give the cheetah a billion years and will he have ceased to be a cheetah and become a Cheetah Person? That's the part that depends on inference and speculation rather than concrete observation (by which I mean that we can neither take a time machine into the past to confirm how cheetahs supposedly evolved from some ancestral organism nor take it into the future to see what they will supposedly become given sufficient time and sufficient accumulations of beneficial mutations). Like you say, the theory of evolution is supported by reference to tested facts, but it remains an interpretation of those facts based on certain presuppositions which may or may not be correct (either the interpretation or the presuppositions). I am reminded, for instance, of just how many vestigial organs Darwin and his contemporaries believed the human body to have, and how after years of scientific research and study we've found that nearly all of those organs have a definite purpose and use. Or the fact that I was taught quite authoritatively in school that both Cro-Magnon Man and Neanderthal Man were in the direct ancestral line of homo sapiens, and now the former has been dismissed as nothing more than modern man by a different name, while the latter is (I believe) currently regarded as an offshoot from human development rather than an ancestor.
The good thing about science is that it is changing and correcting itself (hopefully, anyway) all the time; the bad thing about science is that it is having to change and correct itself all the time, and that sometimes the scientific community becomes so wedded to a particular idea that it resists correction and marginalizes dissenters as fringe lunatics.
As for ID advocates doing scientific studies and publishing papers of their own, I rather thought they had been doing so. I mean, one may argue with Michael Behe's interpretation of the microbiological evidence (and many do, obviously), but he's certainly talking and arguing his position in scientific terms -- and responding specifically to his detractors. If you're confining the idea to making new discoveries rather than merely rethinking the available data, I'm sure (well, actually I know, as a Christian laboratory specialist of my acquaintance discovered a new process for purifying water just a few years ago) that most ID scientists have done that too in their daily working capacity -- but the science they do is no more "ID science" than it is "materialistic science", it's the simple discovery of observable facts. Only the interpretation of said facts leads to an ID or a materialist (or a theistic evolutionist) point of view, and that, as you say, is a matter of philosophy rather than science.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 01:33 pm (UTC)Let me address the idea that what happened in the past can only be guessed at. - "Were you there?" as one Creationist puts it. :-) Past events leave evidence which can support or disprove a hypothesis*. A simple example Jon and I have been throwing around is a car crash. My hypothesis: the driver, sadly deceased, was drunk. "Were you there?" No, but my hypothesis can be *tested* by the coroner. Examples of evidence about past life include fossils, "homologies" (similarities in structures), vestigial organs (eg whales' tiny internal leg bones, which I'll bet a buck serve no function!), genetic family trees, and living "missing links" such as monotremes.
I agree, absolutely, that scientists can be pigheads. In fact, the development of science in the former USSR was held back for decades because on powerful state geneticist was an adamant Lamarckian (cut off a mouse's tail, and its offspring will be tailless). However, there's a great quote from Carl Sagan: "They laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." All "fringe" proponents claim they're being marginalised by the establishment. Ultimately only the evidence can help us sort out the innovators from the nutters.
To the best of my knowledge, no ID proponent has carried out a scientific experiment on ID and published the results, even though some are professional scientists. To show that ID qualifies as science, Michael Behe need only design an experiment to test it - ie, come up with a hypothesis which could be proved wrong. (He need not even run the experiment!) He hasn't, because he can't - it's a philosophical idea, not subject to empirical enquiry.
I am for bed!
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* Technical stuff for those who are interested. Theory = Theorem; the Theory of Evolution is not a single hypothesis (eg "That driver was drunk"), but a huge collection of interlocking evidence and ideas (eg Road Safety). Hypothesis = a guess you can prove is wrong. In science, technically you can never prove anything; your experiment or research can support your hypothesis, or disprove it. When enough evidence supports a hypothesis, it's broadly accepted as a fact - but a single experiment could still disprove it. A sixty-million year old human skull would do nicely!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 06:13 pm (UTC)I was also raised as a Catholic and although I can no longer support many of my religion's dogmatic principles (especially against homosexuals), I admit to believing in a higher power possessing a basically benevolent character.
However, I stand with the people who are against Intelligent Design being taught in the science curriculum. I respect the right of people to believe in ID (I do myself), but ID is in no way a hard science. It is a philosophy and a personal belief and should be respected as such, but there is simply no testable, repeatable evidence to support its claims. It is a hypothesis, that's true, but it falls short of being a scientific theory, as evolution has been long established to be.
Theory requires a body of evidence that can be subjected to assays that can prove or disprove a given point. For evolution, we have the fossil record and of course, modern selection happening under our noses, specifically in the effects of pollution altering moth wing color, or the existence of vestigial leg bones in whales and the appendix in humans. I also see evolution (mutation and selection) happening at the tiniest molecular level in bacterial pathogens.
Intelligent Design expounds on "negative evidence," pointing out holes in the evolutionary record. No reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journal will accept a publication that fails to produce test-able, repeatable evidence for its claims, and only supports its theory by attacking the opposing theory. THIS IS NOT SCIENTIFIC PROOF.
Furthermore, it would be wrong for a secular curriculum to present an essentially philosophical point of view as a scientifically supported theory. The main issue here is not whether Intelligent Design has the right to exist, but rather the necessary separation of Church (or Philosophy) and State. If one is to have true freedom of all religions (including the freedom of no religion), one cannot place faith-based beliefs in an arena such as the science classroom. Whether a person believes in Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, the Earth Goddess, or no higher power at all, they have the right to be presented scientifically-supported data without being asked to change their innermost philosophy of Divinity or the lack thereof.
The evolution theory professor who mocked creationists in his classroom should not have done that; it's just plain rude. The theory of evolution as I was taught it never once made claims against creationism; it never mentioned creationism at all. All that I had been taught in the classroom simply presented the body of evidence for the evolutionary theory and left religious belief to the individual and the theologians…as it should be.
And I'm sorry-I'm a slow typist, so I didn't deliberately repeat what jvowles has just said. :P
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 11:26 pm (UTC)But their rudeness and cluelessness does not turn ID into science. Only experiments and research could do that - tests to see if the idea is supported by the evidence. The handful of genuine scientists who support ID need to carry out those experiments if they want their idea to be science. To present students with the "raw data", there would have to be data. Without experiments, there isn't any data - just ideas.
NS takes the right attitude, I think - it doesn't mock or insult believers or their beliefs, but instead shows how those beliefs are not science. (I'm afraid Michael Behe brought the laughter on himself!)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 12:59 am (UTC)If my husband's Evolution professor at university had the freedom to mock the idea of special creation (and specifically target those students who believed in it), why shouldn't equally well-educated professors who hold a different view of the evidence be allowed to present their side of the argument in an academic setting? Don't they have just as much right to say, and write, that in their view much scientific evidence points to an intelligent Designer of some sort, rather than just a long series of incredibly fortunate accidents?
ID proponents do have that right, of course and they use it - publishing their views in non-science academic journals and popular books. (To be published in science journals, they would need to do experiments or research.)
Why that professor brought up Creationism at all in a class about evolution I have no idea - it certainly wouldn't have been part of the curriculum. (Unless someone tried to do Big Daddy?) Making fun of silly claims, as you and I both do, is one thing; picking on individual students is quite another. However, fair is fair; if the biology prof is allowed to act that way, nothing stops the divinity prof or the philosophy prof from making fun of evolution and students who accept it in their classes!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 03:17 am (UTC)materialism is also a faith-based philosophy which cannot be proven by science, and yet it reigns nearly unchallenged in science classrooms.
I'm not sure this is correct. Materialism is the belief that nothing exists except the physical world. Science's project is to describe that physical world. That's not the same as saying that nothing else exists - it's just that it can't be learned about with science. I was certainly never taught materalism in school or at university, I had to go and look it up! I was taught empiricism, however, which I think is the real defining characteristic of science.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 06:21 pm (UTC)I've been struggling with my own issues with Christian fundamentalism lately, as I'm taking an anthro class on apocalyptic religious movements, and there's a lot of Christian fundamentalism involved in that. The professor structured it wonderfully -- we started on the Branch Dividians and the Waco tragedy, which makes the believers pretty damn sympathetic, and then moved on to the Left Behind novels and kept going further and further right-wing. Once you've felt sympathy for and defended one group, it's harder and harder to rationalize a dislike for the rest of them that's sheerly based on their religious beliefs. (Well, until you hit the ones whose religious beliefs state that the end of the world will come when the white people have wiped out everyone else...but that's something else entirely.)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 10:56 pm (UTC)Shit! Better be nice to the darkies!no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 01:14 am (UTC)You have my sympathy. Worst written pieces of rubbish I've read in ages.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 12:55 pm (UTC)Slacktivist is slowly (very slowly) doing a page by page critique of them from an evangelical Christian perspective which I'm finding highly amusing and quite informative.
I may have to read the second (if he ever gets that far).
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 09:05 am (UTC)I personally don't think there is difinitive grounds to say that evolution did happen but it is a theory that has some scientific reasoning behind it. I would not be impressed however by anyone who tried to tell me it did happen that way and that I was an idiot for believing otherwise.
Personally I think God made the world so it could work on it's own without Him having to constantly adjust it's mechanics (let's not bring up His work at trying to bring people back to Him - that's not the physical workings He's trying to change) and it takes far more willpower to stand by one's faith in a God who is not readily provable than if one could point and say "See! THERE He is!".
Oh, and anyone who believes that environmentalism is a "chimera of popular science" is being a fool. The Greenhouse Effect is very evident in the way climates are changing - the changes in Brisbane weather over the years is enough to show that.
And anyone who thinks that the Second Coming is allowance to destroy the enviroment... well that's just an excuse to be callous and uncaring. If they believe in the Second Coming they probably also believe in the Final Judgement and will get judged for their own unrepentant evils - including being uncaring about the environment (which goes right back to the "Stewardship of the World" thing).
no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 09:16 am (UTC)