Transterrestrial Musings

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"Scientists do not shun Creationism because it is revolutionary; they shun it because Creationists don’t do any science."

This statement alone is why I quit arguing my beliefs on creation. I don't have any science that can prove what I believe.

With so many other things to be solved in the world I can't see why this issue is so hot. Teach your kids what you want them to believe, how simple can that be.

I don't believe the seperation in church and state was meant to be interpretted the way it is currently being used. But I do believe that schools, especially public schools, are devoted to the general public. IF you want little Johnny and little Janey taught something else or something different, do it!!

It may be a small experiment, but people who I know who have done this, find that it works.

Posted by Steve at July 13, 2006 12:10 PM

I've been disappointed at the lack of real communication on this issue. Each time I try to weigh in with what I believe to be an impeccably scientific statement, somebody tells me it isn't "science." Yet when folks like David Deutsch ("The Fabric of Reality") makes exactly the same point, it's perfectly acceptable.

I had Stephen Jay Gould for a professor for one semester at Harvard. He'd make a point and it was "science." I'd make the same point and it was "religion."

I've pretty much given up on this subject. Once we get a working quantum computer going, folks may be willing to discuss the possibility that you really need a multiverse to make evolution work. Until then, any such statement is branded "creationist nonsense."

Posted by Scott W. Somerville at July 13, 2006 01:05 PM

Derb displays his mathematical inclinations by absolutely whaling on a horse that, if not dead, is damn close to it. I know a few biologists, but I can't think of one that would waste above 100 milliseconds considering challenges to the core principles of Darwinian evolution, which are at least as well established experimentally as the principle that stones released from above the ground will accelerate downward.

It mystifies me why anyone would want to jam an understanding of evolution down a non-believer's throat, however. Why bother, when it's such a perfect intelligence test? You could, for example, freely allow high-school seniors to sign up, or not, for a course in evolutionary biology. You would then instantly get a list of those who are worth educating further and those who are not.

The fact that this is not already done I blame on a vast conspiracy by ETS and The Princeton Review, since it would eliminate the need for the expensive SAT test and its prep course camp-followers...

Posted by Carl Pham at July 13, 2006 06:16 PM

Derb displays his mathematical inclinations by absolutely whaling on a horse that, if not dead, is damn close to it.

Intellectually, perhaps, but politically, it's quite alive and kicking. And many proponents of evolution do it no favors with their defense of it (see Flock of Dodos).

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 13, 2006 06:32 PM

i think a lot of creationists recognize that creationism isnt really a testable science, or isnt yet at least. they dont want creationism taught in class, because, what would they teach? it seems their main goal is to find flaws in evolutionary theory.

scott, when you say you need a multiverse for evolution to work, do you mean for it to start in the beginning?

Posted by at July 13, 2006 08:43 PM

I've been disappointed at the lack of real communication on this issue. Each time I try to weigh in with what I believe to be an impeccably scientific statement, somebody tells me it isn't "science."

Did your statement present a testable hypothesis? No? Then it's not science.

I had Stephen Jay Gould for a professor for one semester at Harvard. He'd make a point and it was "science." I'd make the same point and it was "religion."

On the evidence you've just presented (none) i'd have to say that I don't believe you.

Posted by Chris Mann at July 13, 2006 09:04 PM

Once we get a working quantum computer going, folks may be willing to discuss the possibility that you really need a multiverse to make evolution work.

Well, where have you published details of your model? Bring something to the table.

I can't really seem to find anything in google other than your ranting on creationist blogs.

Posted by Chris Mann at July 13, 2006 09:11 PM

I'm an Atheist, and not at all a scientist, though I think that some of the Big Bangers are wrong, for various reasons that I will completely screw up in describing. My opinions about the big bangers, at least those who believe in a SINGLE big bang I don't have the expertise to counter, and DEFINATELY I don't have the information to even start to refute. I'm honest about my disagreement with the whole big bang, stardust carbon atom stuff, and that honesty is "I don't know JACK!" But I know that I believe that it is wrong.

Also, I'm honest enough to admit that "I don't know" and I only judge those big bangers because they think they DO know. I think there is something more, I think everyone does, but there doesn't have to be a creator behind it, there doesn't have to be a MIND behind it. The creationist, the intelligent designers, and other such mythos pushing advocates, including big bangers, are unwilling to EXPLAIN it.

The geneticist who thinks he is looking into the mind of god, well, thats fair, but it doesn't have to be a knowing god, it only has to be a nature of life, and by identifying life, doesn't explain any of the other things that exist in this universe.

Once again, I'm an atheist, but I love this joke.

Joke:
One day, humanity had moved beyond the stars, touched the rims of many galaxies, and they created Intelligences seperate from themselves, and minds that were at almost as significant as the whole of humanity. One day, once the efforts of man seemed supreme, and life would be lived without necessary effort, some scientists and engineers gathered together, and they said that nothing that the universe could offer would be any challenge, and in fact, they were like God himself in their abilities.

Upon this statement, the chief scientist vanished, and found himself alone in an empty space, only to hear the words of God himself in his ears.

"You are like Me, your God?"

"Well no offense, but we have created whole planets, we have seeded life, we have expanded knowledge to the point that rules might not ever exist"

"is that what you believe" god says?

"we have created life, and we can create light where light never existed, we can create any energy in this universe, and we can generate thought where there was no thought, we have become every bit as powerful as you." said the scientist/engineer.

"Very well," said god, acknowledging the accomplishments of the engineer/scientist,"Then, to prove myself, and yourself, may I ask for a demonstration? I created life from the soil of the earth, I created the rules of creation, can you answer that challenge?"

The scientist/engineer laughs, and reaches down to grab a handfull of dirt from the earth, so he might create life, such a simple at this level of human advancement.

God laughs, reaches down, grabs the engineer/scientists wrist and turns the soil out of their hand, "you misunderstand me my son, get your own dirt."

Fin Joke.

Like I said, I'm an atheist, however IF there is a god? The understanding of "him" or "them" or "it" or "she" is beyond us. So the creationists really need to shut up when it comes to science.

Posted by Wickedpinto at July 13, 2006 09:27 PM

Intellectually, perhaps, but politically, it's quite alive and kicking.

And will be until the end of time, I think. Certain intellectual patterns (I hesitate to call them "thoughts") seem as endemic to H. sapiens as the patterns of cerebral electricity that make them swim upstream are to salmon. That there exists a free lunch somewhere would be one of them. I expect this is another.

I'm suggesting that for every man for whom the question of Darwinian evolution is a purely intellectual exercise, a question with no more emotional weight than whether the garbage needs taking out, or whether the Sun converts hydrogen to helium or vice versa, the issue is long settled. Hence I suggest anyone for whom this question is still a big deal is someone who enjoys, or is at least enthralled by, the debate, and will never be convinced one way or the other. There is no more point in trying to convince him than there is in trying to reason with that certain percentage of modern adults who are still fully convinced that Marxism is a good idea that just hasn't been given a fair trial yet. Such folk are more obstacles to be avoided by, not potential recruits to, the forces of scientific progress. That's why I say Derbyshire is wasting his time and considerable talent.

And many proponents of evolution do it no favors with their defense of it (see Flock of Dodos).

Oh absolutely. I think these are perhaps just the same type of people on the other side, those who enjoy the debate for its own sake. They may not want a final resolution either. On whom could Richard Dawkins spend his energies if all the creationists just meekly gave up -- Well gosh if it doesn't look like you were right after all, Dick -- and went home to start dinner?

Posted by Carl Pham at July 14, 2006 02:31 AM

Pham: "You could, for example, freely allow high-school seniors to sign up, or not, for a course in evolutionary biology. You would then instantly get a list of those who are worth educating further and those who are not."

And what would you label those unworthy ones; untermenchen?

Posted by Cecil Trotter at July 14, 2006 04:36 AM

The amazing part of this ENTIRE argument is no one is middle ground.

I sincerely believe that Darwin is right, TO A POINT. I tend more to believe that right after the almighty creator ENDED his work, Darwinian evolution took over. But I'm like a man crying in a wilderness between two warring tribes. It's sad.

How thinking, supposedly, people can continue to argue this is weird to me. If anybody else reading this sees what I see, lemme know. Have I lost it? Am I really a lone thinker on this?

Posted by Steve at July 14, 2006 05:16 AM

You're not alone Steve, in fact you're probably in the majority. It's only that the shrill voices at the ends of the spectrum get most of the press. That includes here in this blog.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at July 14, 2006 06:30 AM

Am I really a lone thinker on this?

I'm with you on this one. But just because I have faith or believe in God doesn't mean I think creation (in any of it's myriad forms) should be taught in a science class. Of course, they shouldn't be teaching evolution in a religion class, either.

I also think that most creationists look like naive idiots when they try to poke holes in evolution.

Posted by Stephen Kohls at July 14, 2006 07:51 AM

Cecil says: And what would you label those unworthy ones; untermenchen?

Easy, those are the jocks...right?

Yeah Steve, you're the majority. Most of us who avoid the debate have pretty much the same view...I think..Big Bang is a good theory, but what created the matter and what caused it to explode in a....um....deity-like moment.

Mac :)

Posted by Mac at July 14, 2006 10:45 AM

A lot of what motivates Creationists is the fear that a completely mechanistic universe, with no Divine creator, provides no basis for moral behavior. If we're all just a bunch of wet bags of organic molecules which arose through a long series of accidents, why be good? All our moral codes ultimately derive from "because God says so." Without God, they fear there is no right and wrong.

What evolution supporters need to acknowledge is that the Creationists _may not be wrong_ about that. It _is_ hard to have morality without a supernatural agent of justice, and one need only look at how many nations of Europe have fallen into a kind of post-religious funk of nihilism to see that this is not a problem one can handwave aside.

Posted by Cambias at July 14, 2006 01:51 PM

Pace Carl Pham, I've come to think that a two-track system may be the best alternative for the public schools. At some point, a child's parents/guardian is asked whether or not the child is to receive exposure to the historical sciences. If the answer is "no," that child is placed on a track which includes no mention of any topic in astronomy, climatology, ecology, evolutionary biology, geology, or paleontology. And their transcript says so.

Posted by Jay Manifold at July 14, 2006 03:27 PM

Here I cast myself into the flashing knives of the creation-vs.-evolution argument.

I will be upfront here about what I believe. I am a Christian, and although I leaned towards a "theistic evolution" belief until about 15 years ago, I now lean much more heavily towards a "creationist" viewpoint. You can stop reading now if you think that makes me irrational about all things, because clearly anything else I have to say would be irrational.

I have many thoughts about many discussion items here, but I don't want to dilute my main points.

First, name calling and declarations do not prove anything. I think most rational people will agree on that point. If I say "only irrational fools believe in evolution/creation" that doesn't make the declaration true. If I say "evolution has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt," that may be a true statement, but it's not true just because I said it. If I say "creation is the only reasonable explaination for the complexity we see in nature," that may be a true statement, but it's not true just because I said it.

We get lots of name calling and declarations on both sides of the creation/evolution debate. I'm thinking that might be useful in trying to pull people in the middle towards believing one side or the other, but it's not terribly helpful in determining what the truth is.

So how do we decide what is true? (Yes, I realize this brings in a whole host of "what is truth" kind of questions.) And how does the assumptions we are bringing affect how we decide what is true? These questions are driving us towards "philosophy of science" issues, something that I will claim no expertise in. What little I've read about the philosophy of science, I find interesting.

Many claims against creationism (remember from the start--I'm an admitted creationist) start with the argument that it is "not science" or it is "pseudo science," and should therefore simply be ignored. (One aspect I see is the idea that if you even discuss things with the creationists, you're giving them undeserved credibility.) Other claims have to do with how all the evidence points to evolution.

I think (my opinion here), that there are two completely separate debates here. There is the debate that (1) creationism is not science, in which case it may be ignored as far as science is concerned, and (2) creationism, if it is science, is a willful ignoring, misreading, misunderstanding, etc. of the evidence, which supports darwinism.

I'm not going to attack (2) here, especially not in a discussion item, and I may or may not be a good spokesman for the creationist viewpoint.

I'm not an expert for (1), either, but I think that (1) is not a settled point at all. People bring up issues about testability and prediction precisely because they are trying to define evolution as science and creationism as not-science. If I understand what I HAVE read about the philosophy of sciece, most of the philosophers have abandoned trying to define "this is science" and "this is not science" (the "demarcation problem") as not really definable, and, probably, uninteresting. I read a very interesting essay (again, my opinion), which reasoned that most demarcation efforts which define creationism as non-science also define darwinism as non-science. At the root of the essay I'd say was the following question: "Is there an objective reason to assume pure naturalism or materialism is true?" Maybe another way to ask this would be "without assuming a priori that everything that ever happens is the result of purely natural processes, is there an objective reason to believe there is never any influence by forces outside what we are here calling natural?" I don't think I'm doing a very good job stating the question, but hopefully you get the gist.

So, has anybody established a good, non-name calling, non-universally declarative way to discuss these things? Or shall we just flame each other? :)

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at July 14, 2006 04:25 PM

"It _is_ hard to have morality without a supernatural agent of justice"

no its not. the only difference is that you need reasons for the natural morality, whereas the supernatural one is just something someone told you. its also better to keep it in the natural realm, because then you can discuss morality, you dont hit a wall when you find someone else has been told something different about what is the ultimate supernatural good. you can say why it is good if you have reasons other than "someone (who professed to be speaking for god) told me its good".

also, religion hasnt shown itself to be the most moral enterprise through its history.

Posted by at July 14, 2006 06:49 PM

Cecil, why must I label them? I'm not very interested in labeling. But if you insist, I'd label them the way I said: people for whom further education is a waste of time and resources.

Does that seem mean-spirited, and equivalent to calling them untermenschen? If so, maybe you've got some unexamined unpleasant prejudices that make you think people with less education are less worthy. Me, I don't work that way. I don't measure a man by how much parchment he's got framed on his wall. My grandfather dropped out after 6th grade and believed the Bible word for word. I doubt he'd have given any credence to the damfool notion that the world condensed from a cloud of gas and dust 5 billion years ago, and a college education would have been totally wasted on him. But he was an ace steelworker for 45 years, a decent husband and father, and a better man generally than many a PhD I've met.

Would I have wasted my breath trying to convince the old man that Darwin was right? Nope. And if he'd given me an earful about how God created the world in 7 days, literally, I'd have listened perfectly politely, nodding my head agreeably, and then tactfully ignored his opinion.

Posted by Carl Pham at July 14, 2006 07:12 PM

Mr. No-name's reply shows what I'm talking about. He claims you can have a moral system without God. Really? Show me. Kant and Socrates failed to demonstrate it. Any system of ethics ultimately comes down to what we _ought_ to do, and to any "ought" statement the question can be asked "why?" _There is no answer to that question_ except for the purely practical kind ("you ought to obey the law or the cops will kill you"). That's not an ethical system, it's pure coercion.

Religious people have an answer to "why?" and they are legitimately concerned that if that answer is dismissed, the only thing left in the world will be rule by force. I'm concerned about that, too.

And _so what_ if people have done bad things in the name of religion? That wasn't what I was talking about _at all_. This kind of reflexive anti-clericalism is one of the things which poisons this whole debate. It's very hard to persuade Creationists that supporters of science aren't actively opposed to religion when they see statements like those.

Finally, over on the lower right-hand side of the keyboard is a button labeled "SHIFT." Try it sometime.

Posted by Cambias at July 14, 2006 07:36 PM

"That's not an ethical system, it's pure coercion."

how is that different from only doing good because you're afraid of god? the naturalistic approach means you do things because you feel they are right, not because someone tells you there will be consequences if you dont. i am not arguing for "might=right". it seems like you are though.

i think if you take religion out of morality, there are no longer any moral absolutes. is this what you are complaining about? thats quite different from no morality.

i would rather have no moral absolutes. they dont change, and the morality of the bible is awful. fundamentalists are correct that the bible preaches gays should be stoned to death (though i think it says similar things about adulterers etc).

"And _so what_ if people have done bad things in the name of religion?"

my point was that this is going to invariably happen because not all religions agree on what the moral absolute is. if one group is working against the other's absolute, its not merely a difference of opinion, that person is an agent of satan and must be destroyed for the good of humanity. theres no possibility for any middle ground. because the morality is untouchable, there can be no compromise. if there could, then the morality wouldnt be absolute.

(btw, as an aside, i wonder why god would create such various moral absolutes, or such various religions even. it seems like a recipe for disaster. unless of course the majority of religions were created as deceptions by satan. or there is no god. i dont really see any other explanations, and none of those make any sense to me, except the last one.)

if you have reasons for what you value and what is right and wrong, you can try to reason with others and convince them of this.

"It's very hard to persuade Creationists that supporters of science aren't actively opposed to religion when they see statements like those."

im only opposed to religion when it denies humanity the right to question things.

Posted by at July 14, 2006 08:04 PM

Pham: "I'm not very interested in labeling. But if you insist, I'd label them the way I said: people for whom further education is a waste of time and resources."

Because they don't agree with YOU? Because you have deemed them not intelligent enough to be bothered with?

Heil Pham.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at July 14, 2006 08:42 PM

The Man With No Name doesn't see the problem. With no absolute moral standard, we can change. I agree that's a good thing -- sometimes. Unfortunately, sometimes it's a _bad_ thing, too. Standards can change so that being gay isn't a crime, which is a good thing. But they can change in bad ways, too -- in Pol Pot's Cambodia it was a death sentence offence to have a college degree.

The whole reason religious people like to have a Divinely-ordained moral standard is that they assume God is _better_ and _wiser_ than mortals, so those rules are somehow above merely human edicts. In other words, it's not that God has superior force, he's just more right than we are. That's what the religious people fear will be lost, and that "whatever feels right" isn't a good basis for a society.

Look, I'm not religious myself. But this kind of hostile anticlericalism is a millstone around the neck of any attempt to create a way for science and religion to coexist. If science advocates are offensive and overtly anti-religion (like the Nameless One), then the "neutral" majority will side with the Creationists.

Posted by Cambias at July 15, 2006 06:58 AM

yes but i would also question pol pot's morality. im saying no morality should be so sacred as to be beyond questioning, and that this includes the morality of any church, and especially churches with extensive historical/current ties to immoral actions. i agree change in general is not always for the better, but that doesnt mean it should be banned.

any belief that is beyond questioning is dangerous. that doesnt mean you cant believe things, but no belief should be so sacred that you would rule out the possibility of changing it. religion wants to rule out that possibility (however, im only criticizing the segment of religion for which this is true). this is especially problematic with the religions that are especially ancient.

Posted by at July 15, 2006 08:28 AM

fundamentalists are correct that the bible preaches gays should be stoned to death (though i think it says similar things about adulterers etc).

Hell, the old testament says disobedient male children should be stoned (Deuteronomy 21:15-21).

Posted by Paul Dietz at July 15, 2006 08:46 AM

Hell, the old testament says disobedient male children should be stoned

See, even the Bible says that we must legalize marijuana.

Posted by SpongeBob at July 15, 2006 12:57 PM

Hell, the old testament says disobedient male children should be stoned (Deuteronomy 21:15-21).

It also makes a point about stoning those who wear fibre blends. Is that a polycotton shirt? Blam!

Posted by Chris Mann at July 15, 2006 09:37 PM

The man with no name wins, because you are arguing with him, rather than aggreeing with your bretherin.

You are defying your theory, by denigrating another.

winner takes all, and, so you are saying that "no name" is the "other" argument, rather than your supporters in other methods.

Posted by Wickedpinto at July 18, 2006 10:51 PM

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