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Darwinism Must Die So Evolution Can Live
Pickens writes "MacArthur fellow Carl Safina, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, has an interesting essay in the NYTimes that says that equating evolution with Charles Darwin opened the door for creationism by ignoring 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution — Gregor Mendel's patterns of heredity, the discovery of DNA, developmental biology, studies documenting evolution in nature, and evolution's role in medicine and disease. Darwinism implies an ideology adhering to one man's dictates, like Marxism, says Safina. He adds that nobody talks about Newtonism or Einsteinism, and that by making Darwin 'into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching.' By turning Darwin into an 'ism,' scientists created the opening for creationism, with the 'isms' implying equivalence. 'By propounding "Darwinism," even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one theory,' writes Safina. '"Darwinism" implies that biological scientists "believe in" Darwin's "theory." It's as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.'"
That is, as the Brits say, bollocks.
The issue is that this ignorant view may be perpetuated in America. I have never heard anyone in Europe utter such crap.
Let us pray that Obama can wipe public references to deities into oblivion.
I'm sick of pandering to the ill-educated buffoons who want to drag civilisation kicking and screaming back into the dark ages.
Darwin wasn't utterly and completely right first time out of the bag. So what?
His discoveries have been validated, refined, added-to, improved in ways he could never have predicted.
Again, so what?
Darwin laid the bedrock, the foundation, upon which stands much of modern science, let alone biology.
And until you can give me a reason why we should metaphorically bury the giants upon who's shoulders we collectively stand, I will resist this utterly foolish idea.
I sit here in this cafe, drinking a latte and typing on my laptop computer. Both the latte and the PC are hot, one from being prepared that way, the other as a result of internal processes. Both are hot as I have defined them.
Does the fact that one requires an external entity to prepare it make it any less hot than the one that becomes hot of its own accord?
Newtonian physics/mechanics is in common usage and although there's no 'Einstienian", there is the term 'relativistic' applied to the branch of physics he's most famous for
The only people who go on and on ad nauseum about "Darwinism", as if it were the be-all and end-all of Evolutionary Theory, are the Creationists.
The reason no-one talks about "Newtonism" or "Eisteinism" is because neither of those things threaten the basis behind the belief systems of a significant chunk of the planet (and therefore the power weilded by the people behind them). Why waste time attacking something you couldn't care less about ?
I could be hanging out with the wrong scientists, but I rarely hear anyone describe what they work on as "Darwinism". There are "evolutionary biologists", who research evolution, not Darwinism. The well-accepted name for the process is evolution, and as far as I can tell nobody calls the idea Darwinism, though Darwin is widely credited as having had an important early role in its development.
We do actually speak of Newtonian mechanics, for what it's worth. Probably more than anyone in science actually speaks of Darwinian evolution. So we've sort of already done what this guy is asking for, it seems?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Darwin didn't have a true theory because the idea he had had no predictive power and little explanatory power, therefore was inherently untestable and not able to be used to answer questions. He wasn't aware of DNA, genes or chromosomes.
Arguably his hypotheseses were quite testable - just not by the science and technology of the time.
Also, not understanding the underlying mechanics of a system does not automatically invalidate a theory explaining them. Exhibit A: Gravity.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but these days the term "Darwinism" refers to a 19th century understanding of evolution, specifically to distinguish it from modern evolutionary theory.
The only people who use "Darwinism" to mean "theory of evolution" are creationists.
sic transit gloria mundi
A quite skim over the article. It's rubbish. That Darwin distracts from all the others who have helped strengthen our understanding of how the variety of life on the planet came to be, I'll accept that.
That 'Darwinism' must die so people can understand evolution? That's just bollocks.
Education must simply improve, and ignorance should never be tolerated.
Any theory that does not provide a method to falsify and validate its claims is a useless theory.
Example; if someone said a watermelon is blue on the inside, but turns red when you cut it open, how could you prove them wrong? How could they prove they're right?
You couldn't and they can't. There is no method available to confirm or disprove what was said about the watermelon. Therefore we can dismiss the theory of the blue interior of watermelons as being pure speculation and guess work, not science. You can not say something is true without demonstrating how it is not false, and you can not say something is not true without demonstrating how it is false. Any theory that can not explain how to both validate and falsify its claims in this manner can not be taken seriously. If one could demonstrate clearly that the watermelon appears to indeed be blue inside, without being able to demonstrate what colors it is not, we still have no absolute confirmation of its color. That is to say asserting something is the way it is, without being able to assert what it is not, is a useless claim. Therefore, in order for any theory to be confirmed to be true, it must be shown how to both validate and falsify its claims. It is circular reasoning to be able to validate something, without saying how to falsify it, or vice versa. This is the nature of verification and falsification. Both must be clearly demonstrated in order for a theory to be confirmed to be true or false. Something can not be proven to be true without showing that it is not false, and something can not be proven to be not true, unless it can be proven to be false.
Unfortunately, Darwin never properly demonstrated how to falsify his theory, which means evolution has not properly been proven, since it has never been demonstrated what the evidence does not suggest. In the event that evolution is not true, there should be a clear and defined method of reasoning to prove such by demonstrating through evidence that one could not possibly make any alternative conclussions based on said evidence. It is for this reason we must be extremely skeptical of how the evidence has been used to support evolution for lack of proper method of falsification, especially when the actual evidence directly contradicts the theory. If it can be demonstrated how to properly falsify evolution, regardless if evolution is true or not, only then can evolution ever be proven or disproved.
It will now be demonstrated that Darwin never told us how to properly falsify evolution, which will also show why no one can claim to have disproved or proven the theory, until now. It must be able to be demonstrated that if evolution were false, how to go about proving that, and while Darwin indeed made a few statements on this issue, his statements were not adequate or honest. In order to show Darwin's own falsification ideas are inadequate, rather than discussing them and disproving them individually, all that needs to be done is demonstrate a proper falsification argument for evolution theory. That is to say if the following falsification is valid, and can not show evolution to be false, then evolution theory would be proven true by way of deductive reasoning. That is the essence of falsification; if it can be shown that something is not false, it must therefore be true.
So the following falsification method must be the perfect counter to Darwin's validation method, and would therefore prove evolution to be true in the event this falsification method can not show evolution to be false. As said before; if something is not false, it must therefore be true. This would confirm the accuracy of this falsification method, which all theories must have, and show that Darwin did not properly show how evolution could be falsified, in the event that evolution was not true. In order to show evolution is not false (thereby proving it to be true), we must be able to show how it would be false, if it were. Without being able to falsify evolution in this manner, you can not validate it either. If
I'm really sorry anyone is comparing any scientific idea to "Creationism" or the current flavor of the month "Intelligent Design" which from every angle I can see is neither. Evolution as a general study covers everything from punctuated equilibrium, to impact of ionizing radiation on nucleotides. There must be dozens, maybe hundreds of different disciplines, technologies, framed of reference, scientific venues, and interrelated studies. This would be like comparing a sequoia to a blade of astro-turf, and arguing they are equal because they are both green.
Creationism is a belief system in search of evidence to justify it's validity. This someone opening a box of puzzle pieces, cutting all the none conforming bits off the pieces, and forcing them into some semblance of a presupposed picture. In short this is a mental illness. It is someone who places more importance in the way they want things to be, than the way they in fact are. This is magical thinking. Most human beings develop beyond this level of function at about the age of 10. It is no more ludicrous than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
The nature of science is you have an idea. You test it against the world. If the data doesn't match the theory, the theory is wrong, and you need to rethink it. No handpicking data to match your theory. Scientist who do that are called frauds, and lose the respect and recognition of their peers almost instantly. This isn't to say that there isn't belief, politics, and hubris among scientists. It's hard to ignore human foibles, but at least one can account for them. Magical thinking doesn't even try. Those same foibles are point and purpose to magical thinking, and any truth that happens there is purely coincidental.
Actually, it _still_ isn't testable, since it has idiocies like "sexual selection" tacked on to it as a catch-all for everything it couldn't actually explain. (Why did the peacock evolve such a big and handicapping tail? Hur-hur-hur, to impress women, Beavis.)
The problem is that no matter how you slice it, it proposes that an organism can also evolve towards _less_ fit, i.e., that sometimes natural selection works against the logical direction or in some random direction. You can't falsify something with such a catch-all clause. It predicts that something will get more fit for the environment... except in the unpredictable cases where it actually evolves to be less fit.
It's like saying that gravity makes bodies attract each other... except when they repulse each other, or make each other move in a random direction. That's not falsifiable, i.e., plain old not science.
Why do I call it idiotic?
A) Because it handwaves away half the problem. Ok, so male peacocks evolved so to impress the females. But why did females evolve that trait then? Going strictly natural selection, if that tail were indeed a disadvantage, some females would be randomly born with a preferrence for smaller tails and mate with males with smaller tails, their children would have less of a disadvantage, repeat. So natural selection would guide things towards removing that handicap anyway.
Just because sex is involved in selecting that, it doesn't mean it is the only factor or evolutionary pressure. If it were a disadvantage for males, then natural selection among _females_ would phase it out.
B) Because it doesn't even try to see if there's another advantage to that. It's a catch-all "I don't know why it's like that, so it must be about sex." And I mean other disadvantages like:
- disruptive camouflage. Just because for the advanced image recognition circuitry of a primate something stands out like a sore thumb, it doesn't mean it's like that for other species too. E.g., an orange tabby tomcat is actually very well camouflaged for its prey, because its many lines prevent a mouse's simple circuitry from figuring out the shape of the cat. E.g., the lines of the zebras are a nightmare for lions.
A peacock's tail's patterns would be a right nightmare for many species of predators.
- apparent size. Most animals don't have the circuitry to really figure out the real size of an opponent, so a bigger total shape means a bigger animal. E.g., there's a reason why your cat puffs up and turns sideways when it tries to scare off a potential enemy. For your advanced brain it's the same cat, but for another cat it's "whoa, it just got a lot larger." E.g., just putting a tophat on a kid makes him/her look like a less tempting prey to a hyena, because it looks bigger.
A peacock's tail makes it look freaking big. A lot of the smaller predators would be a lot less inclined to mess with it.
- protecting one's young and females. Many species essentially take a personal risk to try to lure a predator away from their children. Even a personal disadvantage can be an evolutionary advantage if it helps save your kids.
- aposematism. Sometimes you want to make yourself visible as an easily recognizable warning. E.g., see ladibugs being that brightly coloured. It was actually an evolutionary advantage to make sure that whatever bird tasted a ladybug once, can easily recognize and avoid others.
But here's the fun part: sometimes it's an evolutionary advantage to imitate such a species. If the predators already are "trained" to avoid species X, it can be an advantage to look like species X although you don't have the same defenses.
So the peacock could have simply evolved to look like _something_ that the predators would rather avoid. E.g., to show a bigger version of a pattern of a more dangerous predator, or of a toxic/stinging plant that everybody avoids, etc.
- changing conditions. Just because something looks like a pure disadvantage to you now, it could have been an advantage against
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The problem with Darwin is that nobody actually read his books but everybody is talking about him. Therefore he is one of the most misunderstood man in history. :-)
It is the same with Slashdot, everybody comments on stories they didn't read. Including me right now
They do believe in natural selection obviously, since you can't make predictions (hence, do any science at all) from ID.
From a strict technical, linguistic-nazi, point of view : they don't *believe in* natural selection, they *believe that natural selection is an useful model they can use*.
Usually the phrase *believe in* implies some form of faith.
Whereas scientist *just pick up* a model they consider the best for the situation, based on how much usable it is for making accurate predictions.
No faith required.
But apart from the nit-picking about words, I agree with you : ID is useless because its principle simply contradict the way science work - it's not a model you can use to make any useful prediction at all.
Sometimes deprecated model are used because they are accurate enough in a simpler subset of problems : Newton's physic is simpler to use than Einstein's, yet still good enough at low energy/speed/mass.
In the case of evolution and natural selection, the model is currently still the best one, considering the tons of additional material that has been added to it.
And considering the fact that each time a completely brand new branch of biology appears (like genetics), the data produced results still in accordance to what would expect when using the evolution and natural selection models.
Currently that's the best model we have and a better one has yet to come.
ID is no possible contender, as its fundamental principle aren't scientific : scientific model are made to be used to make prediction, and to model the world in order to understand it better. ID tells us that everything is done on the will of some higher being (and thus nothing could be predicted) and some things are just too complex to be explainable (and thus you can't model the world).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
He adds that nobody talks about Newtonism or Einsteinism
No one talks about "Darwinism" except the creationists. The reasons he gives are exactly the reasons they invented the term - it's far easier to discredit a dead guy from 100 years ago than it is a scientific concept.
By making it seem like the work of one man with millions of blind followers it appears more fallible.
Their tactics are pretty ironic really.
Allow me just a few points. BTW I am an evolutionary biologist. Carl Safina, with all due respect, is not.
First, let's get one thing straight that the author of the article confuses. "Evolution" is the observation that all living things seem to be related, plus the observation of the change of the living world in time. This observations are older than Darwin. "Theory of evolution" is any theory that tries to explain this observation. "Neodarwinism" or "Synthetic Theory of Evolution" is one particular theory that involves the mechanism called "natural selection". Natural selection is a mechanism that can be observed. Darwin's greatness was in linking this mechanism to the rise and change in complexity of all living things, and in the ability to foresee the consequences that only recently started being fully understood.
1) "Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries"
First, nowadays formally we use the terms "neodarwinism" or "synthetic theory of evolution". "Darwinism" is most often used in certain popular (non-scientific) texts, and also by creationists.
2) "Using phrases like Darwinian selection or Darwinian evolution implies there must be another kind of evolution at work, a process that can be described with another adjective."
Well, of course, as any of my students would immediately ask "what about lamarckian evolution?" (an alternative explanation for the process of evolution, largely rejected or falsified by observations)
3) "And isms (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science."
Yeah, right, like electromagnetism, empiricism or autism.
4) "What Darwin had to say about evolution basically begins and ends right there."
If this only was so simple. Darwin, as I mentioned before, not only proposed natural selection as an important mechanism of evolution, but also was able to point out the consequences, ranging from kin selection to the role of sexual reproduction.
5) Do you really believe that creationists would less fiercely attack a "synthetic theory of evolution"? The problem is much, much deeper than just an association or a given name.
Cheers,
j.
I thought that "Darwinism" was a term thought up by the religious anti-evolution side.
Why? I suspect that it is because they associate their beliefs with an entity, God in this case, and thus cannot see how other people don't need to also do that. Thus they ultimately project this viewpoint that people who believe in evolution are actually believing in a false God as part of their propaganda against evolution.
Darwin, of course, studied theology at Cambridge University. He was also a depressive, presumably because of how stupid (and stubbornly-so) most people were. I think he would be depressed today. Especially if he saw the creationism museum.
Btw, there was a pretty good David Attenborough programme on BBC TV last week about Darwin and Evolution that showed many of the subsequent discoveries. I forget the title, but it must be available on popular video sharing sites.
Ok, that makes more sense then. However, I'm not sure that the standard view of sexual selection is that the feathers are a disadvantage that just happen to impress females. As you said, if the tail was a disadvantage that would seem absurd.
What do you think is wrong with the more likely scenario that the tail is neutral to survival, while at the same time being preferred by females thus giving the male a reproductive advantage. I don't know what the peafowl's habitat is like, but the somewhat awkward creature could thrive due to a lack of natural predators. After all, the tail doesn't prevent the bird from flying, and flying is always a strong defense. The females preference could also have a logical basis since individuals that are healthy and well-fed would be better able to produce an extravagant tail.
It's also possible that the tail could have multiple purposes. It could have one of the survival advantages as you outlined so well above as well as the reproductive advantage from sexual selection. There's no reason it has to be only one or the other, is there?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I thought that "Darwinism" was a term thought up by the religious anti-evolution side.
I was taught 'Darwin's theory of natural selection' in school, as part of the basic theory of evolution. Mendel and his peas were in there as well. I'll also note that the theory of evolution in my textbook explicitly didn't cover the start of life; there was some mention of 'primordial soup', but fully admitted that scientists don't really have a clue.
I have never heard it called 'Darwinism' by anything other than creationists and the people handing out awards in a bit of black humor.
I wonder if the anti-evolutionists were around when I was a kid; I don't remember ever hearing about them. I wouldn't be surprised if a big part of the yelling right now is the last gasp of the creationists, as they can no longer hide in small areas in local or church schools. News is far more national now than it was even 20 years ago. If my study of history has shown me anything; it's that rarely is anything having to do with the human condition new or unique. There's creationists over in Europe; in China and India.
I don't read AC A human right
I haven't studied that stuff for years, but "Darwinism" has not been the alpha and omega of evolution for quite some time.
I've read about some of that stuff as well, but having to gone to public school and been stuck in 'regular' classes on occasion, I'd say that 'Darwinism' is about the right level for basic grade school scientific theory. Just don't go trying to apply it to bacteria too much. Bacteria sex is one of the weirder things out there. Mendel's Pea experiments are good for heredity.
Honestly enough, I've never really understood any but the most literal creationist's objections to evolution. I mean, why aren't they protesting dinosaurs? Isn't the Earth supposed to be too young for them to have existed?
I don't read AC A human right
I think it depends on where you were taught and who you were teaching. I've known both sane biology professors, and some who practically canonized Darwin as their patron saint. I agree with the Author's premise; there is too much religious zeal among many biologists. Religion is not science, and confusing the two is detrimental to both.
I say this as a deeply religious man, and a scientist.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
Absolutely.
I don't know where the author got his information from, but equating Darwin directly with evolution and setting him up as the absolute authority on evolution and natural select is exactly the straw man argument used by the ID/creation morons.
They try, in their pathetic attempt to debate, to equate "The Origin of the Species" with the bible and insinuate that it is a text that "atheists" (i.e. everyone that doesn't agree with their exact take on biblical inerrancy) hold to be inerrant, holy and the subject of religious fervour. Or that "atheists" hold Darwin to be some sort of messiah, and ascribe that view to belief and faith. This then allows them to knock down their hastily erected straw man by saying "my religion is as valid as yours". It's not only an invalid argument, it's intellectually dishonest, as is the entire ID movement.
That the NYT thinks this is really the case is shocking.
Darwin was a smart guy. He wasn't *the* smart guy, and in fact some others around his time were starting to explore similar ideas. A lot has happened since then, some of his work has been extended, some parts contradicted or corrected.
"I mean, why aren't they protesting dinosaurs?"
I'm pretty sure they used to. There's a whole set of Fundy arguments about the validity of carbon (and other) dating methods, and a load of stock rants on how it's all based on faulty assumptions and circular reasoning.
They tend not to even touch on the fact we have records of humans and human civilisation back before they think the world was created...
Bunch of hateful, wilfully ignorant assholes. Wilful ignorance on this scale should be the greatest sin.
Indeed they have. This doesn't, however, mean that they respect the rules of debate or any sort of historical precedent. I think it's because the general public, even the religious general public, laugh out loud when they say that dinosaurs are a lie/a test/all fake/a set of species that lived with humans 4K years ago.
They've moved on to evolution in general because it's a complicated issue, and the rhetoric they can use on their congregations becomes simpler - "you don't want to understand what all these egghead sciency guys are saying do you? That would be a lot of effort and you like easy answers! They're all elitist and liberal and stuff! They believe this really complicated thing that I'm going to summarise as them saying there's no God! You believe in God right? Right!?!"
It's not really a debate as such, it's them trying to turn the tide of popular opinion and latching on to whatever they can, whilst trying to persuade people that "we can do science talk too!" and then talking in circles and trying to keep their ideas from too much scrutiny.
It would be a pity if we had to purge the name "Charles Darwin" from the history of science in order to satisfy some religious fanatics who simply refuse to live in a world where not everyone shares their superstitious beliefs. That they would insinuate themselves at all in the world of Reason is outrageous. How many advances in biology and medicine have been delayed because of researchers' fear of these medieval god-botherers getting all up in their beeswax?
I'm starting the countdown until we tell all the "fundamentalist" bullies in this country to go fuck themselves right...now.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Science and Religion are different bodies of knowledge, but not mutually exclusive
That's a politically correct lie used to avoid alienating religious folk (maybe even to avoid the cognitive dissonance of alientating yourself if you're a religious pseudo-scientist!).
The fact is that science and religion really are, in at least one very core area, mutually exclusive.
If something happens then it's either happening according to the laws of nature or it's not (maybe it's happening due to the intervention of god, or the flying spaghetti monster). It can't be both. Given that scientists believe that the laws of nature (as revealed by the scientific method) govern EVERYTHING that happens (with major reason - there's never, by definition, been any exception to any scientifically accepted theory), it means that science is incompatible with any notion of god other than a totally impotent one that can have no influence on your life, or anything else.
So, science may be compatible with going to church, living the ten commandments, or whatever else you like to do, but it's not compatible with belief in a god that has any power in any domain covered by a scientific theory.
There are two issues here and they are often conflated:
Evolution as a process and evolution as a path.
The "process" of evolution is what Darwin documented extensively in "The Origin of Species" and scientists have proved beyond any doubt. The "process" of evolution is a fact.
The "path" of evolution, i.e. where and how a specific species has come to exist is a "study." We can speculate, research, and document what we think archaeological remnants mean, but we can *never* prove that A begot B beyond any doubt. We can only speculate that somewhere in the path of evolution Archeopterix is a predecessor to modern flying birds based on similarities and features.
The beauty of science over religion is that science isn't required to be all knowing and infallible. We can and do make mistakes, but all mistakes are not equal. As Isaac Asimov wrote, the mistakes of science are not arbitrary, they are of the character of increasing precision.
We used to believe the world was flat. That was because the earth looked flat to the available technology of the time. We then measured that the earth MUST be round. The earlier "flat earth" was not wrong, per se' it was the best we could do. The round spherical earth was a better model. Well now we know that the world isn't spherical, it is kind of egg shaped. Again, the spherical thing wasn't wrong, it was the best we could measure. It isn't as if science is going to through up its hands and say, "oops! the world is flat, we were wrong" because the nature of scientific errors aren't like that. The mistakes of science are in the form of new knowledge correcting old conclusions in an ever increasingly accurate set of models.
Good GOD! Maybe he was depressed because his theory left him no HOPE! At least with my belief in God, I have some hope that the world situation won't suck as much as it does now, but what hope do people have who REFUSE to believe in ANY higher power?
We don't refuse. Refusal implies a choice; I suppose we could pretend to believe in something, but who would we really be kidding? Personally, I think that my interpretation of the world, in which suffering is a side-effect of the laws of physics, is less hopeless than yours, in which suffering is all part of God's plan.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
but what hope do people have who REFUSE to believe in ANY higher power?
Hope for what? Life after death? Why do you need "hope" in *anything*? What's going to happen is going to happen, regardless of what you believe. And what's going to happen is that you wink out of existence when you die.
This is what I don't understand. How is it better to believe in a lie that you know isn't true?
[I'm fairly convinced that all religious people know, in their deepest, darkest, secret place that most will never admit, they know that the God and the bible is a bunch of nonsense. But the idea frightens them to their core.]
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
You are equivocating on the word faith. This is a common error, please don't perpetuate it.
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/equivocation.html
The half-life of Carbon 14, which is the radioactive isotope of carbon used in carbon datingm is 5730 years, +/1 40, says google.
Fundamentalists also use Bishop Ussher's calculation for the age of the earth, which puts creation "to the night preceding 23 October 4004 BC, according to the proleptic Julian calendar.", from wikipedia. So the universe, and the earth, are 6013 years old.
Buildings don't start falling down because they're based on Newtonian physics and Newton's theory has had centuries of refinement. Likewise, Darwinism is well understood in the sciences and there is nothing wrong with associating his name with the theory.
We won't get "creationists" to see reason by changing the name. If we called it something else, they'd find something wrong with that term as well. You simply cannot expect a single word to be an intrinsically accurate representation of an entire theory.
Creationists fall into the categories of people too stupid to understand the science and people who deliberately misunderstand in order to win rhetorical arguments. Both kinds of people are a lost cause. We should let them all move into a bunch of religious states and nations and stop sending them technology; everybody would be happier that way.
I think the key to winning the evoultion vs. creationism argument is to have respect for the other side. I know this is hard to do when creationism seems so ludicrous, but keep a few things in mind.
Firstly, properly constructed creationist theories are not falsifiable. If I said that God created the universe 5,000 years ago, but he made it look as if it'd been around for billions of years in order to test our faith, you couldn't prove me wrong. Radio-Carbon dating is based upon the assumption that at one time the ratio of carbon isotopes was at a certain level - you can't use it to prove the age of an object unless you first posit that the object had, at one time, a certain ratio of isotopes. If I just claimed that the object never had that ratio because it was never alive (i.e. that fossil was created as a fossil), you couldn't prove me wrong. Falsifiability is KEY to science, which means creationism can never be science, but it also means that creationism can never be shown to be wrong.
Second, There are intelligent creationists out there. I am working with a guy who got a Ph.D. in theoretical computer science at Stanford. He's absolutely brilliant, and he's also a young earth creationist. You're never going to win a guy like that over by telling him he's stupid and that he's destroying science.
The ONLY way to win someone's mind over is to be patient and respectful. Every human being (even creationists and republicans) deserves that much.
My blog
I'm not posting to disagree with you because I believe in an afterlife. I don't, per-se. But consciousness amazes the fuck out of me, and the amount of certainty you express seems to me to be at odds with just how amazing it actually is, especially given that you (and I) have zero firsthand experience with the experience in question -- death.
That we experience things is incredible. Where does consciousness "live?" I can explain the outward behaviors of organisms by saying that they are governed by amazingly complicated differential equations that give rise to all of this. But what about consciousness, experience? If this really is the true nature of things -- and, maybe, it is -- then differential equations think and feel and experience, in their own way. Why should we be different in anything but degree from an atom? And what does an atom experience, running the Schrodinger (or, Dirac) equation at its heart? More importantly, what do /our/ constituent atoms, molecules, proteins feel? Surely they carry on after our organs have stopped working. How much of our-"selves" is in them?
I don't know. Nobody does.
I don't think we need to take the dark-age proponents of Creationism all that serious. We're only doing them a favour by doing so, as well as wasting time that could be better spent on conducting scientific research and teaching young people about real science.
What we should do is point the complete idiocy of their anti-scientific stance. It isn't as if you can pick and choose in science; if you accept, say, that quantum mechanics is valid, or astronomy or any of the other branches of science, then you will have a very, very hard time not accepting the theory of evolution. So if you want to reject evolution, please get rid of your computer and anything else with semiconductors in; we wouldn't have had those things without scientific research and the insight that quantum mechanics gives us. And stay out of cars and away from bridges too.
Apart from that - there is nothing in science that says there is no God or gods, science simply deals with what can be measured and which is subject to logical reasoning. And there is nothing in the Bible that claims that "this collection of stories is God's infallible truth" - that is simply a viewpoint that has been added since the time of Christ. I think what scares Creationists is that they don't understand what science is about and they basically don't understand what faith is about; and when people are scared, they become reactionary, they close their eyes and ears to shut out every part of reality that seems scary, and they become control freaks who want to decide everything. Creationists are, in a way as far from what their faith states, as you can get. They are not seeking the truth and they don't trust God; who, when you get right down to it, allegedly created this world in such a way that evolution seems to be very convincingly real.
All in all, I don't think we need to distance ourselves from Darwin or his views on evolution. If you read his works (which are available online), you will see that he is very careful in all his statements, that his reasoning is scientifically very sound and that his writing style is still very, very pleasant to read. What we should do more, all of us, is simply to stand up for science - understand it better, communicate it better.
Science and Religion are different bodies of knowledge, but not mutually exclusive
So, science may be compatible with going to church, living the ten commandments, or whatever else you like to do, but it's not compatible with belief in a god that has any power in any domain covered by a scientific theory.
This distinction is fine and the original statement is still true. Not all religions make assertions about the observable world, and only those that do (specifically the parts that do) are in conflict with science (which deals exclusively with what we can observe). Discussion of metaphysical concepts is (IMHO) the primary realm of religion and is in no way at odds with science. Belief (or disbelief) in these concepts doesn't clash with rational observation of our surroundings at all. Only the dogmatic aspects of religion conflict with a scientific worldview and these are exclusively the case for religious fundamentalism.
As an aside, I'm a scientist (a chemist) and not religious, but these stupid fights coming from misunderstandings of the "opposing" side are ridiculous and I'm sick of hearing them. Pretending that every religious person is a fundamentalist lunatic is just as counterproductive as pretending that every scientist is a godless Darwinian atheist.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
This whole summary is based on the supposition that people haven't even bothered to understand evolutionary theory, and view it through a lens of "belief".
There's no reason to waste time on trying to convince people when they won't take 5 minutes to understand the underlying fundamentals of your argument.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Right. And, and there Safina is simply wrong, Marxism is not "one man's dictate", although it was made to something like that in the socialist dictatorships misusing and abusing it.
Most of Marxism is simply a kind of scientific, socio-economic analysis. Even today many economists admit that Marx' magnum opus does a great job in explaining capitalist economy (and its shortcomings).
The misconception that Prof Safina rails against is due to the vulgar notion of Darwinism which is no more like what Darwin wrote about than does "begging the question" have anything to do with its common misusage.
Lots of religions and religious-minded people accept evolution, natural selection, and even biogenesis. The reason being, they regard the universe as a whole as being intrinsic to spirit, in a sense alive, even aware... but the conception of these things is tempered. The point is, the universe as it is is miraculous and amazing, and when you really dive into the mysteries of reality in situ there's no need to imagine that allegories like Genesis are literally true.
And if you want a connection with the divine, the way has been explained over and over again by countless teachers and practitioners for those who care enough to apply it. But although even Jesus prescribed meditation, forgiveness, and somewhere in there - I hope - intellectual curiosity, the sort of people who reject science and evolution in favor of old myths are simply cultist ideologues. They're not what you might call open spiritually-inclined minds, and they're certainly not improved by their adherence to foolish literal beliefs.
Those who still conceive of God as a powerful celestial being who observes, reflects, and modifies outcomes are holding on to an outmoded view, and perpetuating within themselves the very dualism they purport to abhor. Science does in fact undermine such outmoded conceptions of God, and challenges all of us to reconsider the nature of the universe, the scope of its "visceral concerns" over ideological ones, and our deep connection to the present.
To use the Biblical language, science is the disciplinarian "Father" (and "son of Man") which tells us things we may not like, but which we must learn to accept in order to mature. And of course, there is much more to life than merely investigating and applying science. But if we want to dance into the night, isn't it nice that science has helped us to be warm, lighted, and dry while we twirl?
-- thinkyhead software and media
> If something happens then it's either happening according to the
> laws of nature or it's not... It can't be both... scientists believe
> that the laws of nature govern EVERYTHING that happens
Horseshit. Or if you prefer, the fallacy of false dichotomy. When a baseball player hits a ball, is that "according to the laws of nature"? What about a geneticist who tinkers with DNA and makes a glow-in-the-dark tomato? Did you post to Slashdot "according to the laws of nature"? It's a meaningless phrase.
The phrase "scientists believe" makes my skin crawl. Scientists are fallible humans who use the scientific method to try to figure out what the laws of nature are. By bringing their "belief" into this you're committing exactly the kind of error the author complains of - framing the debate in a way that puts science and religion on linguistically equivalent footing.
Science has a pretty good track record of figuring out how things work. Organized religion has a pretty good track record of telling people what to think, say, and do. There are lots of scientists who like to go by some particular roadmap or code of conduct, yet still manage to theorize, conduct experiments, and publish findings.