“Even though I walk through the valley of dumb, I will fear no stupid, for you are with me; and I will dwell in the house of Chuck Darwin for as long as my reproductive fitness and that of my descendant allows for the continuation of my genetic line…”
So, yeah, it is a bit of a hypocritical title. First of all, it does play on the old ‘Evolution as another religion’ bullcrap that I, among others, so often oppose. More pointedly, it is especially hypocritical to start a post with such a base name-calling considering my latest post…
Meh; it is said that every man has a price to renounce his principles, mine apparently is the promise of a possibly somewhat funny-ish post-title…
Pictures of boobs would probably also have worked.
Let me add, if it may lessen my case, that the creationists I met are not just dumb, they are willfully, proudly, explicitly so. Being ignorant is ok, it is, actually, unavoidable, but being willfully so, purposely ignoring knowledge to cotton to your personal held beliefs… this just goes against all my sensitivities…
Anyway, following is a summary of two lectures organized by the campus ‘society for the promotion of creationism’ that I had the (dis)pleasure to sit through…
The first lecture was about the “theological implication” of the genesis account (I don’t really wish to publish any names here; after all, the speakers are not here to defend themselves). Essentially, I was expecting a long protracted lecture around the notion of substitutionary atonement, probably allusion to the Saint Augustine and his doctrine of the original sin and even, some allusions to Calvin’s notion of ‘total depravity’.
None of these is particularly advance theology, of course, still, I guess, I was overly optimistic…
The speaker started by referencing how the various writers of the Bible seem to believe in a literal genesis and refer to it.
Then he moved to his main point: “If the words of Genesis 1 to 3 cannot be taken literally, how can we know the rest can be taken literally?” which, I think, candidly cuts at the core of creationists’ beliefs. They have nothing to do with the scientific reality of things. Simply, if these facts are accepted has not being literal literal, then their literal interpretation of the rest of the Bible is also unjustified…
For example, his, hackles-raising in my opinion, views of women role were justified based on first Corinthian, a Pauline epistle itself based on the Genesis chronology: “Woman was created for man, not man for woman”. This was further clarified by the equally chauvinistic “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”. Interestingly, first Timothy makes no allusion to Genesis, but, I guess, the speaker wanted to drive the point home… (The previous verse, as I am sure you were wondering, was: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection”).
A significant portion of the talk was also devoted to seek parallels between the genesis and the Jesus mythos, often stretching quite a bit. For example, in both case the miracles, of creation or healings, are achieved by the divinity uttering magic words… Yeah… I know…
Apart from the aforementioned argument that, unless you accept unquestionably all of the Bible, the whole edifice collapses, an point, easily disproven by the tenth of thousands of Christian sects that do believe in the Bible, but accept part of it as not being literal (the speaker did not touch on that subject), there was not attempt at justifying these beliefs. The argumentation never rose above the level of an old, tired bumper sticker…
www.AnswersinGenesis.org: when facts aren’t on your side, try something else…
A bumper sticker with a nasty little threat added (actually a quote from Isaiah 50:11):
“But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment.”
In this case, the fire in question is that of knowledge, God, here, threatens people that look for their own answers rather than blindly accept the Bible…
There was also his answer to the old conundrum of God creating the light before the sun and star… “God himself is light”, “metaphorically?” I ask. “No, real light”. “Like, made of photons? A glow-in-the-dark God?”
Finally, there was my question of the snake being punished… After all if it was, as usually presented, since his rise as a baddy in the New Testament, Satan, why, then, punish the actual animal snake? Well, the speaker answered, the snake actually sinned. He was an accomplice of Satan… Yeah… That kinda let me speechless long enough for the talk to end…
This talk, mostly, was a disappointment, even by Creationist standards; there was not even an attempt at logic or reason… Still, it yielded a few funny moments. For example, the speaker mentioned Jesus calming the seas (in Mark 4:35-40): “He is not going to allow his disciples to suffer… [after a pause; probably realizing that, according to Christians traditions, all but one of the disciple would end up gruesomely martyred]… In this situation”
There was also his answer to the old conundrum of God creating the light before the sun and star… “God himself is light”, “metaphorically?” I ask. “No, real light”. “Like, made of photons? A glow-in-the-dark God?”
Finally, there was my question of the snake being punished… After all if it was, as usually presented, since his rise as a baddy in the New Testament, Satan, why, then, punish the actual animal snake? Well, the speaker answered, the snake actually sinned. He was an accomplice of Satan… Yeah… That kinda let me speechless long enough for the talk to end…
The next talk was devoted to the flood and seeking an insight into its possibility. It started with another candid acknowledgment: “I am a scientist and I am a Christian at the same time; sort of contradictory ideology” and then became more what I would consider as a traditional creationist talk, devoted to justify the incredible (in whatever definition you feel like using) events described in the Bible.
The most interesting part was the hypothesis that the humanity, at the time of the flood was “confined to the cradle of civilization”. This is an interesting twist, after all, this allows to reduce the scope of the event: “If human life had not spread beyond Mesopotamia, God would have had no reason to destroy these distant regions and the animal life there…” And hence, reduces the extent of the aberration more limited… It also solves some problem, such as the diffusion of the surviving animals all over the world… The Digital elevation models of the region, according to him, show that the topography actually makes a funnel… He did not elaborate further, but, it actually does not as the region empty, to the South, into the Persian Gulf…
Of course, his hypothesis also raises a whole host of problems, after all, humanity, by all accounts, started in Africa and diffused into Asia. At no point was humanity’s geographical range limited to a spot in Mesopotamia…
There were old creationist canards also thrown in there for good measure, the use of ‘animal kinds’ to arbitrary reduce the number involved (as an aside, the various kinds of clean animals, as detailed in Deuteronomy do make a distinction between “goats” and “wild goats”, or between kites or various owl species, so the idea that is, somehow, represent a very broad category is not supported by the Bible itself). There was also some silly calculation of the ark volume aimed at proving that they all fitted and the argument that the water from a “deep enough water resource” (the springs of the deep mentioned in Genesis 8:2) alongside plate tectonic that “actually happen”, presumably alluding to Walter Brown’s hydroplate theory that was debunked pretty thoroughly by geologist (and former creationist) Glenn R. Morton.
He alluded to several other flood myth around the globes, of course, as corroborative evidence of the historicity of the event, most particularly to the Epic of Gilgamesh not, apparently, being aware that the Bible writers, most likely, copied the Babylonian text, itself being the product of a long-standing, definitively pagan, legend.
He also, amusingly, explains how insect were not in the least of the species required by God but never went around explaining how they survived, presumably, they died and the area was repopulated by species migrating from the surrounding un-flooded areas…
Interestingly, this second speaker seemed to me that he was a bit thorn between his religious adherence to a literal reading of the text and the obvious nonsense of this position. For example, in addition to the aforementioned plate tectonic, he explained that “evolution is a given process”, and alluded to “geological time”. However, maybe in an effort to placate the young earth creationists in the crowd, he never elaborated on these subjects and did not make any effort to offer a dating of the geological times he mentioned… If placation was his attempt, it did not work very well and several members in the audience seemed unsatisfied by his lukewarm approach describing his “model” as one that “potentially could be manipulated into being supported by scriptures”.
So, to conclude, I was surprised at the limited scope of his approach, it was new to me… and, I would say, it might hold the key to his dilemma. After all, he already reduced the scope of the flood from a world-wide to a regional event. Maybe it could be reduced even further into something that actually makes sense? A particularly bad flood involving a local river, or river system, maybe? After all, we mentioned the long tradition of the flood myth in Mesopotamia, but it seems that the earliest version of the myth, that of Ziusudra, do not involve a world-wide flood, just a local one (seemingly backed up by archaeological evidence) and a runaway barge that ran down river to the island of Dillmun (likely Bahrain)…
But, of course, that is probably too far away from the Biblical story. The implications, especially, of a local flood, another of these annoying natural catastrophes, rather than a worldwide punishment from above, would probably have too many theological implications to be acceptable…
Ultimately, I got the impression, and not for the first time, that most creationists have no interest in actual truth. They have it already and, for the most part, won’t make the effort to investigate the subject further, they, after all, have nothing to win by doing so. The only thing that could happen is them losing their “truth”.
This lack of curiosity, this, carefully cultivated willful ignorance is, really quite depressing but, can we blame them? There is an implicit blackmail at the heart of such authoritarian denominations, one the first speaker reminded us of… Either blind acceptance, of the threat of losing eternal salvation, as well as the expulsion of the earthly human network of social relation the creationist belongs to… This, ultimately, make the voyage of people like Morton, who care about truth and were courageous enough to follow where the evidence lead them, all the more impressive and admirable…
I have long leaned towards intelligent design (ducks at the things being tossed my direction) and here is why.
1. I cannot see how the creation account in Genesis is anything but lyrical. It leave out far too many details, although it is a very poetic rendering of the origins of earth. It just seems to fall way short of an actual, literal accounting. The Flood account and others have more of a legendary feel to them, rather then an actual. I have heard some creationist, insists that dinosaurs were on earth the same time as man, and then don’t account for their disappearance. The answers I keep finding from young earth theorists just don’t add up.
2. I can’t completely buy the whole big bang, then things just developed into the amazing diversity that we find in the universe. The big bang theory and others, do not explain how chemicals came to be, where matter came from, and how things such as light, heat, and inertia came into being.
I am therefore left with the leaning that someone designed it. made the elements that make up the universe and unleashed it with a purpose. It developed largely along the lines that science has supposed, but I think there was certainly more input when it came to life itself.
Of course all three, creationism, straight up evolution-ism and my intelligent design leanings are just that, theories. We weren’t there, when things went down. All we have are a few clues, that are quite difficult to put together and put together. The scientific approach has the most proof, but we can all agree that there is quite a lot that science hasn’t gotten close to answering, they are guessing along with the rest of us. At least they are willing to alter their views when more actual evidence comes along to strengthen a theory.
Sadly creationists refuse to do that. Especially the literalists. Your point Simon is spot on. If the bible isn’t literal, and a good portion isn’t, then the whole house of cards fall down. They don’t want to let that happen.
*Looks for something to throw, then give up*
Well, I kind of need to scold you on your use of the word “theory”. It is a word that has a different meaning between scientist and laymen. In science, it ca nbe defined as an “explanation, that accounts for all observed facts and observation and make predictions that can be tested and proven wrong”.
The theory of evolution makes such prediction and is a scientific theory, intelligent design does not and is not (after all, the intricacies of the design is supposed to be evidence of an intelligent designer, but the faults and numerous instances of crappy design -Neil deGrasse Tyson has a talk on this- are not taken as counter-evidences).
More importantly, I think you are selling our scientific understanding a big short.
The creation of matter is due to leftover fermion after the Big Bang cooled a bit.
The apparition of the various elements has been explained by nucleosynthesis, a theory that has made many verified prediction.
I think that you are arguing for some kind of divinity setting things in movement before the Big Bang, setting the various laws and constants of nature into such position that this divinity knew, in his perfect understanding, that it would produce the desire results through natural process…
That is a position that is difficult to argue about, althought the multiverse interpretation, hinted at by some work on string theory, might make this point moot. Nonetheless, this position, I think, would be more rightly called one of ‘Theistic evolution’, held for example by Miller, than the actual Intelligent Design defended by Demski.
There are indeed many things that science cannot explain right now, but that does not preclude those things from ever being known. At one time people thought there was some supernatural reason for disease and earthquakes, but as technology improved so has our ability to explain these once mysterious things. Answering one questions always leads to 100 others and those will often eventually be answered and that is what makes it so much fun.
That’s a good point Lisa, I should have mentioned it too…
I understand about theory Simon, and thank you for clarifying that for me. Obviously I didn’t do a very good job with my word use there.
I know I can’t exactly prove what I believe, and I know well that science has proven so much more then the concept of creationism ever could. I just happen to think that there just may be something to both ideas, with the understanding that it is simply what I think.
I know well that it is a difficult thing to argue about, and arguing about it is not my desire. I do like the label Theistic evolution. That seems to sum things up for me.
Science to me gives much better into the what happened. I grew up being taught that Genesis was literal, and I always questioned it in the back of my mind. I have shifted much more to accepting what science has accepted, but with the understanding that science can’t explain it all. At least it hasn’t yet. But like Lisa pointed out, asking all those questions is half the fun.
Would it be accurate to say that, while you understand and accept the findings of science, you do feel that ‘there is more to it’? And that ‘more’ lies beyond the reach of scientific inquiry?
Obviously, that would not be a position that could be argued for or against, as it is based on subjective feelings and makes no pretense as being based on reason.
I see nothing wrong with that, provided it does not interfere negatively with your life, and I don’t think it does…
yeah you would be accurate in that assessment, Simon. I am just not as adept in phrasing it in such a way as you are.
ETA: a lot happened while I was writing this, most of it is technical not specific so I’ll leave it as is.
There is a difference between ‘unexplained’ and ‘unexplainable.’ Evolutionary theory makes predictions and has been verified in exactly the same way as other scientific theories. For example electromagnetism is just a theory, but your lights still work.
Most of the arguments based on probability, which is basically what both your idea here and ID are, have a fundamental problem because only a future event can have a probability of happening. If it’s already happened, it’s happened and you know what it was. For example if you flip a coin and there’s a head sitting on the table in front of you you don’t ask what is the probability that that is a head – you already know it’s a head. Out of all the infinite things that could have happened the probability that humans are here is 100% – we’re here.
So the way they work is to pretend to go back in time and ask ‘before it all happens what would be the probability of humans?’ and the answer is infinitely small. But the chances of dino-people, diprotons, clouds of gas or any other world you care to imagine would also be infinitely small. Something had to happen, so one of those infinitely small probabilities lucked out, but which one was chance.
Unless of course you assume that humans were intended from the beginning, and then you have a tautology. “Assuming that there was a designer who wanted to end up with humans, the chances of that happening are infinitely small, therefore there must have been a designer.”
Well; there is, rather anthropomorphic, current of thought that says that intelligence is such a great tool that given enough time, you will have an unavoidable trend toward more intelligent beings.
Similarly, at least in tetrapodes, you could conjuncture that bi-pedalism is necessary to allow for the liberation of the other great tool, the hands…
Then, you can go further and think that, for a creature that is evolving toward greater intelligence you would require a longer socialization and education time (especially because the bipedalism would put constraints on the females’ pelvis) so that means some kind of societal lifestyle…
At the end, you could argue, the evolution of something surprisingly similar to human (as in smart, bipedal, social creature, probably a meat eater because you need to fuel that big brain) is a logical expectation… A bit like evolution keeps on inventing the eyes or the wings… Such a great advantage that you have a strong and constant evolutionary pressure in this direction…
I don’t know how much I buy into it, but I can see the logic behind it… It’s hard to make much conclusion with a sample size of one…
I can get that to a certain extent but it’s still using a lot of assumptions. As you say, it’s very anthropomorphic. Right up front – you can only get intelligent life if you have life! While life began pretty quickly here on earth, what if the universal constants were a bit different and diprotons were the most complex bit of chemistry around?
I’ve read a Conway-Morris book about this and it does seem logical, but it all relies on things having developed this way for a certain amount of time before the deviation from what we have now. So as far as I can see you are still setting up a scenario with a pre-determined solution then trying to calculate the chances of it.
And while I certainly agree that intelligence is useful, does nature? You use the example of eyes and wings, but they are both ancient. They have been around for hundreds of millions of years, sapience has only appeared in the last million or so. That doesn’t seem very inevitable, it suggests that there are strong selective pressures slowing it down. Such as the extremely high energy costs of building and developing big brains.
While there are several animals we can point to as ‘intelligent’ we are the only ones that can actually test other animals to see how intelligent they are – is that a difference of quality or quantity? Would octopi or crows (some of the intelligent animals) develop civilisation if given a few more million years? Birds may be too specialised but octopi don’t seem to have that problem. Would they talk about the inevitability of developing many arms because they are so useful for manipulation and argue that tetrapods wouldn’t be able to manage true intelligence because they are too limited?
“Inevitable humans”? It’s on my reading list… Somewhere.
I remember reading a review by Dembski that utterly fails to comprehend the point.
Anyway, it is a vast and fascinating subject but one where it seems difficult to reach any firm conclusions… I will have to wait Conway-Morris’ book first, and then, will likely write a book review…