Creationists challenge those who do not hold their opinions to be open minded and they criticize scientists for being closed minded for failing to consider the creationist position. Creationists also state that they are scientists doing scientific things, it is just that they have a different starting point than evolutionists. All of these assertions make an appeal a reasonable fair person, why then is the creationist position so rejected by the scientific community?
One of the main points where the scientific and creationist viewpoints diverge is that "starting point," the age of the Earth. On the authority of Genesis, creationists assert that Bishop Ussher's 6,000 year (+/-) estimate of the age of the Earth is true. The bulk of the arguments presented in support of their hypothesis consist of attempting to demonstrate that various processes occur very quickly (rapid burial of coal, fossilization of creatures giving birth, etc) or that the Earth would be a very different place "if it were as old as evolutionists say" (all continents eroded to sea level, seas filled with sediment, seas saltier, 14C at equilibrium, etc.).
Scientists started with the same viewpoint as did creationists. There was a time when the age of the Earth, on Biblical authority, seemed to be young, and Bishop Ussher, using genealogy and other text clues set the date of creation to about 4004 BCE. However, as people began looking at the world around them, this date was not consistent with physical evidence. The layered rocks weren't formed as the result of a single event; they weren't even formed by one single process. Rather, the layered rocks were formed by many different processes. From this point, scientific and creationist views diverged; scientists realized that on human terms, Earth is unimaginably old. From this viewpoint, scientists say, yes, some coal was buried quickly, but there are many different coal layers. Formation of coal and burial occurred not once, but thousands of times. Rapid burial is a condition necessary for preserving fossils; without rapid burial, scavengers and decomposers scatter and break down the body and bones so that no remains are left.
Are scientists open-minded? There are scientists who have developed a cherished idea and have force fit all observations and evidence into that framework. That is the weakness of an individual. Science, however, has a requirement that an idea be reproducible and verifiable by others. A scientist starts with evidence and comes to conclusions. OK, I will concede at this point that scientists operate within a framework of the evidence and ideas of their predecessors. Scientists, don't automatically assume their predecessors are correct. What real scientists do not do, is pledge that no matter what they do, it will always and invariantly be in compliance with a preconceived notion revealed in a sacred text.
Creationists do not appear particularly scientific or open minded. If one chooses data on the basis of whether it demonstrates a preconceived idea and rejects contrary information, if one repeats the same arguments and holds to the same idea in the light of new information, these are the hallmarks of someone who is not doing science.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Science and Religion
On the question of religion and science, faith-based ideologies have not fared very well in judging the validity of science-based propositions especially when science is in apparent conflict with revealed knowledge as set forth in sacred texts. Galileo demonstrated that Copernicus was right about the structure of the Solar System, but it took the Catholic Church centuries (1737 to 1992) to express regret over the supression of his work. Evolution is another idea that stands in opposition to sacred teachings. Stephen J. Gould sought a way around direct conflict by suggesting that religion and science were "non-overlapping magisteria." Science and religion exist in parallel but don't come into conflict because they answer different types of questions: religion examines who and why, whereas science examines how and when.
Richard Dawkins rejects Gould's ideas as soft peddling to vocal religious minorities. Dawkins and Victor Stenger posit that religion makes certain claims about the way the world (or universe) works and have the chutzpah to say those propositions can be investigated scientifically (the reason Dawkins rejects Gould's NOMA idea). Sam Harris rejects faith in general as a very dangerous and divisive idea. Eugenie Scott sees a continuum of belief systems from literal flat-earth fundamentalists to atheism. Eugenie Scott and E.O. Wilson feel that religious moderates who accept scientific propositions can be enlisted in the campaign to increase scientific literacy.
The majority of folks, when they consider the question at all, are somewhere in the middle: accepting of religion and sacred texts, but also accepting of science and its findings. Often the debate makes them uncomfortable. When questioned, the controversy seems to require them to make a definitive decision one way or the other with no middle ground. For a politician, accepting a concrete position is establishing them as a target whereas waffling offends the fewest number of potential voters. Personally, I think taking this middle ground is why most of the opinion polls show a high percentage of persons who reject evolution. The poll questions are often phrased so the respondent either has to reject God or choose among faith-based answers. Most will choose an answer that is flavored by their faith.
It turns out that the vast majority of religious persons are religious and accepting of particular traditions for no better reason than that their parents were religious and passed those traditions to them. As thinking and educated adults, no one I know of has embarked upon a comparative study of religion to determine which is the most satisfying (or "truth full" if you will). Most people are simply indoctrinated as children. [I know this is simplistic and cynical, but psychologically and developmentally it is true. Why is someone Baptist instead of Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, or Muslim?]
The point I am getting to is that religious persons who endorse scientific propositions have accepted a fundamental proposition: the sacred text on which their faith is based (Bible, Koran, or other) is not literally true in all its aspects and was not transcribed without error from direct communication with a creator. In other words, they have chosen to disregard outdated or inconsistent parts of their particular sacred text. The canonical works become a guide to morality and ethics, a source of hope and inspiration. This redacted framework then does not come into conflict with the fact that today we simply know more about the way the world works than was known thousands of years ago.
It has been stated by Dawkins and others that there is only one group of persons who are not electable. We have politicians at local, state, and federal levels who are Jewish, female, Muslim, African-American, bi-racial, Puerto Rican, Irish, Italian, Baptist, Catholic, and all other denominations. But of all the diverse groups, no candidate has ever run on an Atheist platform or stated before an election that that was their position. Maybe, a Secular Humanist could be elected because many voters wouldn't know what that was. But, if you run a Baptist against a Secular Humanist, my bet is the Baptist would be a shoe-in.
Richard Dawkins rejects Gould's ideas as soft peddling to vocal religious minorities. Dawkins and Victor Stenger posit that religion makes certain claims about the way the world (or universe) works and have the chutzpah to say those propositions can be investigated scientifically (the reason Dawkins rejects Gould's NOMA idea). Sam Harris rejects faith in general as a very dangerous and divisive idea. Eugenie Scott sees a continuum of belief systems from literal flat-earth fundamentalists to atheism. Eugenie Scott and E.O. Wilson feel that religious moderates who accept scientific propositions can be enlisted in the campaign to increase scientific literacy.
The majority of folks, when they consider the question at all, are somewhere in the middle: accepting of religion and sacred texts, but also accepting of science and its findings. Often the debate makes them uncomfortable. When questioned, the controversy seems to require them to make a definitive decision one way or the other with no middle ground. For a politician, accepting a concrete position is establishing them as a target whereas waffling offends the fewest number of potential voters. Personally, I think taking this middle ground is why most of the opinion polls show a high percentage of persons who reject evolution. The poll questions are often phrased so the respondent either has to reject God or choose among faith-based answers. Most will choose an answer that is flavored by their faith.
It turns out that the vast majority of religious persons are religious and accepting of particular traditions for no better reason than that their parents were religious and passed those traditions to them. As thinking and educated adults, no one I know of has embarked upon a comparative study of religion to determine which is the most satisfying (or "truth full" if you will). Most people are simply indoctrinated as children. [I know this is simplistic and cynical, but psychologically and developmentally it is true. Why is someone Baptist instead of Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, or Muslim?]
The point I am getting to is that religious persons who endorse scientific propositions have accepted a fundamental proposition: the sacred text on which their faith is based (Bible, Koran, or other) is not literally true in all its aspects and was not transcribed without error from direct communication with a creator. In other words, they have chosen to disregard outdated or inconsistent parts of their particular sacred text. The canonical works become a guide to morality and ethics, a source of hope and inspiration. This redacted framework then does not come into conflict with the fact that today we simply know more about the way the world works than was known thousands of years ago.
It has been stated by Dawkins and others that there is only one group of persons who are not electable. We have politicians at local, state, and federal levels who are Jewish, female, Muslim, African-American, bi-racial, Puerto Rican, Irish, Italian, Baptist, Catholic, and all other denominations. But of all the diverse groups, no candidate has ever run on an Atheist platform or stated before an election that that was their position. Maybe, a Secular Humanist could be elected because many voters wouldn't know what that was. But, if you run a Baptist against a Secular Humanist, my bet is the Baptist would be a shoe-in.
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