The Creation of Confusion
Religious narratives have a place in schools – but not in the same classroom as scientific theories
Simon Mundy
Friday 19 September 2008, The Journal Issue 9
Article tools
- Print article
- Increase or Decrease text size
- Share:
- Show 11 comments
There's just no stopping Sarah Palin. A Democratic presidential campaign that seemed almost impregnable three weeks ago looks newly unsettled as John McCain's glamorous, moose-hunting running mate mops up women and conservative voters from Nevada to New Jersey. Attacks from America's liberal elite have rolled in thick and fast. "She's going to have her hands on the nuclear code," wailed Obamaphile actor Matt Damon, as he condemned Palin's closed mentality. "I need to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago."
It's easy to mock the new breed of Hollywood activists, but Damon makes an important point. Palin has studiously refused to say whether she believes in the theory of evolution. Pressed on the subject during her 2006 campaign for the governorship of Alaska, she suggested that creationist doctrine should be taught in schools alongside Darwin's natural selection model. "Teach both," she urged. "Healthy debate is so important. You know, don't be afraid of information."
To label as "information" the murky doctrine of creationism (now repackaged as "intelligent design") is ludicrous. The intelligent design movement represents a desperate attempt to accommodate within American schools the religious fundamentalism that is undiminished—even resurgent—in many parts of the country. Clearly, the Christian creation story should be taught in religious education classes, alongside those of the other major faiths. But there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the Garden of Eden fable should be given no more credence than the Hindu belief that the world rests on the back of an elephant.
One of the most formidable obstacles in the battle against climate change has been the concerted effort, notably by oil industry lobby groups, to propound the myth that experts have yet to agree on the fundamental principles of global warming. That a similar campaign is making headway on the subject of evolution, 150 years after the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, simply beggars belief. None would favour the suppression of debate in schools. But for a supposedly secular education system to give an artificial impression of high-level disagreement where none exists, at the behest of a fundamentalist religious minority, is inexcusable. To compromise scientific integrity in this way would set a dangerous precedent.
Until recently, few on this side of the Atlantic have been swayed by the arguments for including intelligent design in science lessons. But last week saw a dark moment in the history of the Royal Society—the world's oldest scientific body—with the claim by its education director that "simply banging on about evolution and natural selection" is a waste of time, and that creationism should be explored in British schools. Critics gleefully seized upon the fact that Professor Michael Reiss is an ordained Church of England minister, with Nobel laureates virtually queuing up to condemn his "inappropriate" appointment.
But the question of Reiss's own faith is irrelevant. He is clearly well aware of the fatuity of the intelligent design dogma, and wants time to be taken to explain to children why it has no scientific basis. Similarly, it seems unlikely that Palin, the daughter of a natural science teacher who grew up poring over her father's collection of fossils, has turned her back on Darwinian thought. Yet both are among a growing number of academic and political leaders who find it convenient to make concessions to the intelligent design lobby, adding momentum to an actively antiscientific movement that is coming perilously close to respectability. The right to a dissenting opinion lies at the heart of our society. But future generations will not thank us for undermining scientific theories that have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
Simon Mundy is The Journal's Deputy Editor (Comment & Features)
Simon Mundy-â€The Creation of Confusionâ€.
When I read your article it appears you are describing yourself when you write about creation of confusion.
First, Intelligent Design is not Creationism. You should do a little homework before making such brash statements about something you seem to know nothing about. In addition you seem to think there is some proof for Macro-evolution (evolving from one body plan to a new body plan such as a frog evolving into a mouse). There is no verifiable evidence for macro-evolution and if you think you have such evidence please enlighten the rest of the world.
No doubt you are mixing Macro-evolution with Micro-evolution (sometimes referred as breeding). Man has been breeding ( Micro-evolution, variation within a species) for as long as man has been raising domestic animals. There is not now nor has there ever been a verifiable case of one species evolving into a difference species with a different body plan.
Based on your article, I guess you also think scientists have created life in the Miller experiment. That was when they mixed water, dust and lightning and tried to create life. You also probably believe that there are fossils proving macro-evolution. All the above are just pure speculations. During the last 150 years, there has never been shown any proof of macro-evolution using scientific methods. Thus the need for a new theory called Intelligent Design having nothing to do with Creationism. ID is based on more science than Macro-evolution, which to my knowledge has no verifiable scientific evidence supporting the just so stories.
One other thing, there is no scientific proof that Co2 causes global warming, in fact it is just the reverse. Global warming causes Co2 to rise.
Are you a resent college grad that has not yet overcome the liberal indoctrination?
tfagan
While the two are very different, intelligent design is - as a scientific hypothesis - as empty as the original creationist dogma. Simon is right encourage ID's teaching in religious classes and discourage it as bad science.
Clearly evolution is a scientifically sound, but far from provable theory. After all, if you'd have thought that social and political evolution would have done away with attitudes such as yours long ago, Fagan.
Paris-Your response is a bit confusing. This is the first time I have seen Intelligent Design Theory referred to as a hypothesis. Perhaps we are working at such huge differences of understanding that further discussion is worthless. A theory is generally understood as systematically organized knowledge applicable in a relatively wide variety of circumstances, especially a system of assumptions, accepted principals, and rules of procedure devised to analyze, predict, or otherwise explain the nature or behavior of a specified set of phenomena. You appear to be far behind the curve in understanding of the theory of Intelligent design. I suggest that you do a little reading first and discuss later. A good book that I enjoyed reading is “The Edge of Evolution†by Dr Michael J Behe. Dr Behe is also the author of the famous “Darwin’s Black Box†which is also good reading. Reading such books might help you to understand that Intelligent Design is not Creationism, ID in fact is not religious at all.
tfagan
I should note that I wrote this for publication in the 'Letters to the Editor' section. However, I could find no clear contact address for such section and, with all respect to Mr. Mundy, did not feel it to be in good taste to send him a personally critical letter to publish. Thus, if my letter could be published from here, and more information given for the future, I would be very grateful.
"It is lamentable that Simon Mundy has sunk into the journalistic gutter by pontificating on a subject that he clearly knows very little about. For Mr. Mundy’s future reference, I would like to point out that Intelligent Design is not merely Creationism ‘repacked’. Indeed, the founders of the modern ID movement, such as Johnson, Behe, Denton, and Debenski, disavow the doctrine of so-called ‘Young Earth Creationism’. Whilst the latter is a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, ID is based on the scientific observation of Irreduxible Complexity: something Mr. Mundy’s anti-theistic prejudices may block him from looking to see. Furthermore, in dealing with Natural Selection, no thinking Creationist denies this basic Darwinian principle. Indeed, a cursory glance at any reputable Creationist literature will show that Natural Selection plays a vital role in this Biblical model. Mr. Mundy may wish to consider Noah while he ponders this…
Mr. Mundy is clearly shocked that Christian Fundamentalism still exists. But we have not been slain and resurrected like our Saviour. We have always been here, and the challenge to Mr. Mundy’s enlightened worldview will only grow as the masses grow tired of unfettered naturalism. If Mr. Mundy wishes to stop this, perhaps he would do well to present reasoned arguments, as opposed to a shrill injunction."
I should point out that, whilst I stand by the criticism levelled at Mr. Mundy's article, I did not intend it to be taken as a general slur against Mr. Mundy's otherwise splendid writing.
Mr. Fagan is also incorrect regarding there being no case of new species being formed. There is an abundance of evidence showing speciation. Rather, there is no evidence of a biblical Baramin evolving into another Baramin (e.g. a dinosaur gradually evolving into a bird).l As for a frog evolving into a mouse, I don't believe any 'common-ancestor evolutionist' has taught this. Rather, there is a lack of evidence that the two share a distance common ancestor. This may sound picky, but accuracy is a necessity if one wishes to stand up to ridicule.
I retract my request to have my comment published in letter format. The intention of my letter was not clear, and far too hostile in its wording.
Nobody seems to have pointed out that 'Baraminology' is an invented subject, and thus there will be no evidence for any transition. The joys of creationist evolution is that it can always be accepted with a major 'but'. Yes, evolution has happened 'but' in the same Baramin. Yes, that species has evolved into another, 'but' they are still the same Baramin.
Nobody has pointed out that while Natural Selection is accepted by Creationists, the speed at which they claim it to have occured in the last 4000 years is simply impossible.
The evidence for a common ancestor?
You're probably confused at my position; getting the facts right is the fundamental here. Understing of the other is vital. As someone who has been on both sides of the debate, I think it matters.
Intelligent Design, is indeed a scientifically vacuous concept, despite the fact that some 'scientists' have attempted to dress in up with some respectability.
Let me explain how ID gets away with it. How many people know how ID defines 'design'?
"Design is the set theoretic complement of the disjunction regulary-or-chance"
That's all there is, design is that which remains when science is unable to explain it. But while science prefers to refer to such position as "we don't know", ID insists that we call it 'designed' and once they call it designed, they perform a bait and switch where 'design' becomes 'ordinary design'.
But this is not where it ends, in order to infer 'agency' aka 'the Designer', another step is needed and as Ryan Nichols explains:
PvM
Confusion part 2
2. So far, many people have yet to realize that the concept of 'design' as defined by ID is actually quite limited. In fact, few seem to be familiar with the major concessions made by William Dembski.
--
Before I proceed, however, I note that Dembski makes an important concession to his critics. He refuses to make the second assumption noted above. When the EF implies that certain systems are intelligently designed, Dembski does not think it follows that there is some intelligent designer or other. He says that, "even though in practice inferring design is the first step in identifying an intelligent agent, taken by itself design does not require that such an agent be posited. The notion of design that emerges from the design inference must not be confused with intelligent agency" (TDI, 227).
--
Since the step from design to agency includes an inductive step, this step cannot even exclude natural processes as the Designer, and in fact, this is not surprising since Darwin himself got his ideas about natural selection from 'artificial selection'.
So in other words, the so called 'design inference' which attempts to reliably detect design and according to Dembski is useless if it accidentally detects design where there is none, has in fact show to do exactly that:
People perhaps are less familiar with Isaac Newton's position on the orbits of planets. Since according to his understanding of the mathematics involved, planets could not remain in a stable orbit, he insisted that God would continuously intervene to correct the orbits. Not until LaPlace, 50 years later provided the solution to this ignorance, was this 'design inference' shown to be a 'false positive' rendering the whole design inference approach 'useless'.
More recently we have seen how Behe has argued, mostly through an incomplete understanding and representation of scientific knowledge, that the bacterial flagellum is what is known to be 'irreducibly complex' and although science has shown how in principle 'irreducibly complex' systems can trivially evolve, Behe has refused to accept the consequences. Science, not constrained by ignorance, but rather spurred on, has since shown that various predictions made by Nick Matzke regarding the homologies between the flagellum and the type III secretory system, have been validated, rendering the 'design inference' less and less likely.
As to what happens when you ask ID proponents to explain how ID explains a particular 'designed' system, Dembski explains it all very well
PvM
AC Grayling v Fuller
Grayling explains, in his review of Fuller's latest book, quite well how ID is doomed to remain scientifically vacuous
--
Fuller has written about Popper; he seems to forget Popper’s killer point, namely, a theory that explains everything explains nothing. ID is such a theory; everything is consistent with it, nothing disproves it. The idea that there is such a thing as a deity behaves logically as a contradiction does (unsurprisingly, because the idea is indeed contradictory): anything whatever follows from it. (But presumably this is okay for Fuller because he was educated by Jesuits.)
--
AC Grayling, Origin of the specious, New, Humanist, Volume 123 Issue 5 September/October 2008
http://newhumanist.org.uk/1856
In his response, Fuller shows that he has fallen victim to the bait and switch of ID
--Fuller
But on to Grayling’s most glaring deficiency vis-à -vis the topic of Dissent over Descent: his sheer ignorance of ID’s argument structure, which is not that of a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) who looks for whatever evidence supports his pet theory. Generally speaking, ID is defended on the basis of what philosophers of science call “inference to the best explanation†for the plausibility of design over chance in nature
--
But ID is NOT about an inference to the best explanation, something trivially shown by asking any ID proponent how ID explains the bacterial flagella, which due to lack of sufficient scientific understanding was claimed to have been 'designed'
Of course, this somewhat foolish argument sets up Fuller for a scathing response
--Grayling:
I am, says Fuller, ignorant (sheerly so; this is the glaring deficiency in my case) of "ID's argument structure", which is - argument to the best explanation! Oh pul-eese! I ignored this bit in my review out of a kind of residual collegiality, for even among the toxicities that flow when members of the professoriate fall out, embarrassment on others" behalf is a restraint. But he asks for it. Argument to the best explanation! Look: there is a great deal we do not know about this world of ours, but what is beautiful about science is that its practitioners do not panic and say "cripes! we don't understand this, so we must grab something quick - attribute it to the intelligent designing activity of Fred (or Zeus or the Tooth Fairy or any arbitrary supernatural agency given ad hoc powers suitable to the task) because we can't at present think of a better explanation." They do not make a hasty grab for a lousy "best explanation" because they have serious thoughts about the kind of thing that can count as such. Instead of quick ad hoc fixes, they live with the open-ended nature of scientific enquiry, hypothesising and testing, trying to work things out rationally and conservatively on the basis of what is so far well-attested and secure. What looks like having a chance of being both an "explanation" and the "best" in a specific case turns on there being a well-disciplined idea of "best" for that specific case. But an hypothesis has no hope of becoming the best explanation (until a better comes along) unless it survives testing, is specific, and is consistent and conservative with respect to much else that is secure. This is a far cry from the gestural "best explanation" move that ID theorists attempt, which - and note this carefully - does not restrict itself to individual puzzles only, but applies to Life, the Universe and Everything. It has to, at risk of incoherence; and yet by doing so, it collapses into incoherence.
--
Well said. Seems that many people have fallen victim of the erroneous claim that ID is an inference to the best explanation. After all he should have consulted Dembski who is on the records as
--Dembski
As for your example, I’m not going to take the bait. You’re asking me to play a game: â€Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position.†ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it’s not ID’s task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots. True, there may be dots to be connected. But there may also be fundamental discontinuities, and with IC systems that is what ID is discovering.
--
Are there still any ID proponents out there willing to defend the position?
Ryan Nichols, The Vacuity of Intelligent Design Theory (TDI: The Design Inference, William Dembski)
Thomas:
1) Intelligent Design implies that the object was designed intelligently. The vast number of design flaws in organisms contra-indicate this theory. examples include the human respiratory contaminant removal system (gravity pulls contaminants INTO the lungs where they are trapped) and the human eye (prone to failure, retinal detachment, and optic nerve attachment on the receptor side rather than the backside.) These flaws can be explained if design is done by trial and error in a "works well enough" approach. This, however is not intelligent design. Evolutionary theory does explain this.
2) The presence of similar genes in diverse organisms MIGHT be explained by ID if they were used (conservation of effort) for the same purpose, but when they are "turned off" and not used, that argument falls flat. Evolution does offer an explanation for this observation.
3) The concept of irreducable compexity has been gutted repeatedly. Every structure so lauded has been reduced. The straw man of this arguement is that a) the structure cannot be useful without ALL parts (false) and b) the structure must be used for the same purpose throughout (false) and c) the structure must function with great efficiency (false--they don't even do that NOW.)
4) The fossil record shows a clear transition from simple to complex. PERIOD. ID predicts all species should appear at the same time. It fails to describe reality and fails as a theory.
5) Multiple independant methods indicate an earth of approximately 4.5 billion years old. It is possible that one or more methods may be wrong, but to have ALL of them wrong TO THE SAME EXTENT is of such low probability as to be discounted. That would be like taking rifles from 10 different people and having ALL of the sights be off by EXACTLY the same distance and amount.
No methods (other than reading a book) indicate an earth of less than 10,000 years old.
6) IF a world-wide flood occurred, there would be evidence of such an event. At the time of it's supposed occurance, the empires of China were happily going about business and failed to mention it. No physical evidence exists of this event. To suggest that a CHAOTIC event like a flood could produce ORDERED STRATA and separation of organisms by COMPLEXITY rather than body type is ludicris.
I am sure this this has failed to educate you. I suggest you read "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. It is the best explanation of evolutionary theory I have read.
Rogue74656
Intelligent Science Teacher
Scientific and pseudoscientific criticisms of evolution should be taught only by qualified science teachers, not by people who have no expertise in biology, e.g., typical parents, Sunday school teachers, and non-science public school teachers. The typical parent with a 6th-grade education doesn't know beans about irreducible complexity, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, co-evolution of obligate mutualism, etc.. This isn't just "poof" creationism -- these criticisms are just too sophisticated to be taught by people who are not experts in biology.
Really, what a ridiculous comment to make. The majority of what we learn is not from 'qualified experts' but from our parents, our friends, books etc. We have the ability to further explore any subject we find to be enlightening, and then seek the experts. According to your logic, only a trained Historian should be able to discuss WWII, a trained Geographer to discuss the globe, and a trained Philosopher to discuss the existence of God. The latter would certainly shut up a good few God-haters in Edinburgh...
There is plenty of evidence to support a world-wide flood. I suggest you look again at your evidence, and pay close attention to the words in Genesis.
I often type faster than my mind thinks. 'Simply' should be 'supposed'. The evidence for the Scripture must be there; you must not be looking, or must look harder.
SGM:
>There is plenty of evidence to support a world-wide flood.
I state again...THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF A WORLD-WIDE FLOOD. If you have some, please tell me what it is.
>I suggest you look again at your evidence, and
>pay close attention to the words in Genesis.
OK. No my evidence has not changed. The words in Genesis have not altered the facts. There is no sedimentary layer indicative of a world wide flood. Ancient cultures, such as the Egyptians and Chinese do not mention a flood consistant with Genesis.
>I often type faster than my mind thinks. 'Simply' should be 'supposed'.
I have no idea what you mean by this.
>The evidence for the Scripture must be there;
Why? Because you believe it to be true and do not wish to admit (to yourself mostly) otherwise?
>you must not be looking, or must look harder.
I am looking. That is the whole point of science. We develop an explanation and then ATTEMPT TO DISPROVE IT. Our peers try to knock it down in every way possible. ONLY if it stands up to this incredible abuse and scrutiny AND FITS THE FACTS do we accept it as a provisional truth. What you suggest is the opposite of science.
If you look at the facts without the need/desire to make them fit a pre-decided position, I am sure you will come to the same conclusion I have and reject a literal interpretation of all the scriptures.
I can come up with all sorts of ways in which GOD could have achieved the world as we see it (including in toto five seconds ago), but since only one entity is the father of lies, I have no desire to worship such a god.