Okay, so I’m watching NOVA last night and they ran a pretty interesting little piece on the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover creation/evolution court case. It was fairly well done and very informative, yet I found myself getting increasingly angry as the program went on as I saw more and more Christian interviewees make complete and bumbling fools out of themselves. Not only did they succeed in making Christianity come off as incredibly stupid, they managed to do so in such a confrontational, attacking, and over-the-top manner as to impugn the supposed Christian value of loving your neighbor in addition to the supremely rational basis for Christian thought. When we have representatives such as these, the real rational and orthodox position on Faith v. Reason drowns in the sea of fundamentalist paleo-speak.
Luckily, I found an essay by the always entertaining and informative Mark Shea that at least calms me down a bit and provides a small measure of hope for the future. We need more people saying these things and Christians involved in the sciences need to make this case as often as possible to let the world know we’re not complete dunderheads.
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"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around."
- G.K. Chesterton
- G.K. Chesterton
8 comments:
" When we have representatives such as these, the real rational and orthodox position on Faith v. Reason gets drowned..."
In the words of the immortal Jed Clampett;
"Stop helpin' me, boy..."
I grew up in the state of Alabama; I hated it when hurricanes would come through the bottom of the state because you could rest assured that when the national press arrived to interview one of my state’s native sons he would be shirtless and incoherent. He could however talk ad nausea about how the hurricane “done sounded like a big ol’ train.” Now granted I was sheltered in a college town, but I didn’t know many people who sounded like that. However it is the image that most people have of my state.
When it comes to Christianity in our secular country, I think they might be going to the same well that my bare-chested fellow Alabamian had done been a drinkin’ from. It is much easier to prove your point when the people you interview are tainting the telling. It is the way baseball is played to some extent. Edutainment typically obeys the rule of the “tainment” and not so much the “edu”.
Also I think we suffer from a lack of speech in general. The community of faith that is made up of scientist is all inclusive. They have numerous journals, conferences, and parties. They argue the nuances in labs and classrooms and then present a unified front in the guise of those searching for knowledge. This is a hard group to debate with. Then on the other side you have group that argues its differences in public; from the streets of Ireland to the local Methodist vs. Baptist chili cook-off. This is a simplistic answer but: I think we dogmatically fight with each other so hard that when it comes to the infidels that don’t believe at all we just lay into them as hard as we did to each other. I have read great books on the subject from well researched scientific authors, but they don’t interview those cats because this country is more about Springer than the Lincoln Douglas Debate.
I didn’t see the program, but I did listen to the podcast with the judge interviewed. Right or wrong the guy is pushing his agenda. A fiver says he runs for office in a few years.
What is the harm in saying it’s a theory. I mean for a while there these folks thought eugenics and phrenology were pretty good ideas. Why not cover the bases. Might be a good idea for the faithful as well.
I guess by the same token we should mention that technically gravity is still a theory, it could be replaced by a better explanation some day!
To be fair, the program did reenact Michael Behe's testimony in the trial and he did a very poor job of making a scientific case (in a cringe inducing moment, Behe defined science in such a way as to have to admit Astrology under his definition during cross-examination). The problem with I.D. as applied to biology and origins of life is that it attempts to apply mathematical standards of logical analysis to first causes, a tenuous position at best. While I.D. might be successful at sorting radio waves using probability theory to find intelligently created broadcasts, it does not do so well at applying that same probability to biology. Unfortunately science has moved beyond many of Behe's theories and the biological I.D. crowd is refusing to move on because there isn't anything to move on to right now. They've been stuck in the late 90's for a while now and science is well down the road. They need to focus on science and not activism at this point.
The program did a very good job of showing that I.D. has not covered its bases scientifically and that it suffers from being backed by fundamentalist Christians who are only interested in it as long as it supports their narrow view of creation. While I have no problem with identifying evolution as a theory, we all know why this is being done and it has absolutely nothing to do with science. We would be better served by remembering that science is not antagonistic to faith, though certainly many scientists are. If you ask me, we should leave evolution alone in the science classroom and bring back humanities and comparative religion classes to deal with first causes. Where in this country can you still find a dedicated Humanities class at the high school level? No wonder we're trying to shove God in wherever we can (as if he actually needs to be shoved into a science classroom - he's been there all along).
I edited the original post to correct the linguistic wreck that was the end of the first paragraph. My apologies!
Gravity isn’t solved. It is perceived, measured, and predictable but not understood. Evolutionary theory is much the same way. We argue about the effects and try to understand how. With most things scientific they are right until wrong few years later. To be ridiculous let’s take the egg. I can’t eat them because they are bad for me. Two year later they are an important source of protein. They were always a good source of protein, but now there is something to be gained. There are few pure scientists anymore. They can’t really exist if they are professionals. If you work for a company doing research there is a goal that must be reached like fake Korean cloning. I could be a scientist because I’m good a photoshop too. Or you are in the academy and you most publish something in order to keep funding. It’s a business; churches are becoming the same way. The Newtons, Mendelsons, and Einsteins are not working when they get home from the patent office anymore. The must produce a peer reviewed work or die. This doesn’t make them wrong it just taints the process.
Much of this saber rattling; because many folks want religion in classrooms. I think schools are a great place for open discourse. Science is an open discourse, why then not have a discussion about it with children. A humanities class would be nice too, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. You have to remember these schools are also saying that in the lunch room ketchup counts as a vegetable. Interesting fact ketchup can have up to 1 percent insect parts in it and still be approved as safe. So maybe it should also count as a meat; making the ketchup sandwich a balanced meal.
My oldest daughter would love it if the wonderful ketchup sandwich was considered a balanced meal - she's a ketchup nut.
The one thing I was struck by while watching the show was that I.D. (at least as applied to biology) is not science in the rigorous sense. While I'm all for reinforcing Darwinian evolution as theory, I'm hesitant to then allow I.D. in the science door for the sole reason that it claims to be the yang to Darwin's yin. There is no experimentation to be made to support I.D. Their crutch is to say evolution can't explain X, so therefore X must have been intelligently designed. That's a pretty basic logical flaw of causation and a poor foundation for an essentially un-falsifiable science. Why so many Christians have a problem with that is what baffles me. Is a neatly packaged pseudo-scientific Theory of God really what Christianity needs? Methinks not.
I agree I.D. has many flaws. However (and I could be wrong) the court case centered on a disclaimer before evolution’s current iteration was taught. After that let the kid-os decide for themselves. In economics classes you show the students bout Adam Smith and Karl Marx. In literature class you should talk about transcendental as well as romantic poetry. Maybe if the class section ended or began with a discussion on the origin and development of life on the planet that might not be so bad a thing. Or is the school to be an indoctrination center. If you show only Marx or Smith you are attempting to program students. And that to my way of thinking is not education.
My wife Sarah would also eat a Sandwich De La Ketch. The boy might eat a hot sauce sandwich, he makes his cajun papa proud.
You're partially right on the cause of the case, it came about because of the statement the school board tried to make science teachers read. However, they also provided an alternative textbook entitled "Of Pandas and People" for students to peruse to supposedly learn about I.D. theory. In the course of the court case it was shown that "Of Pandas and People" was originally written as a creationist textbook (including a definition of intelligent design that was the same word for word definition used for creationism in an earlier draft.) The science teachers wrote an open letter refusing to read the statement on the grounds that I.D. theory is not a scientific theory and doesn't belong in the science classroom. The actual court case decided that the statement was introduced for religious, rather than educational, reasons. It was a ruling on intent of the statement rather than the statement itself. The statment mentioned that 60 copies of "Of Pandas and People" had been provided in the school Library for students to read - unfortunately the money for those books was raised in a school board member's church and funneled through another school board member's father to be donated "anonymously" to the school. Even the most I.D. friendly judge would have to find in favor of religious intent on that one.
Once again, my only beef is that there still exists the belief that evolution itself poses some sort of threat to Christianity. That's pretty stupid to me. Also, I'm just not sure I.D. is science. I'll link to interviews from both sides in a separate post that I think pretty clearly spell out the physical vs. the metaphysical aspects of the case.
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