Ben Stein: Front Man for Creationism's Manufactroversy
The religious right has launched yet another wave of efforts this spring to get creationism into science classes. Their new strategy is to talk about academic freedom, "teaching the controversy" and allowing all ideas to be weighed on their merits. They allege that “big science” is keeping dissent out of the laboratory and out of the classroom. It’s all so Orwellian that it’s positively dizzying. Please help the public understand that their controversy is manufactured. After reading this article, please weigh in at MySpace and Manufactroversy.NewsLadder.net as well as in the comments here at Debunking Christianity.
Biblical creationism, repositioned as creation science and most recently intelligent design has lost the contest of ideas on all counts: the rules, the criteria and the judging. It doesn't follow the scientific method; it doesn't allow us to explain, predict, and control better; and the jury of relevant experts (aka biologists) keeps returning the same verdict.
Now the creationists have taken a new approach that they hope will help them achieve their goal of teaching religious beliefs in our schools as science. That approach can be summed up in one simple word: whining.
One week from today, the new movie, Expelled, attempts to turn creationist complaints into mainstream media. Featuring Ben Stein, one of the conservative right's biggest whiners, the film makes several plaintive appeals: There's a conspiracy among big government and big science, and it's not fair! All we ask is for our perspective to get equal time! (Read: we lost, so let's split the prize.) All we want is for teachers to "teach the controversy"! This is all about academic freedom. Americans like freedom, right?
The whiners actually have spent millions of dollars on the movie, and even more on the marketing of it. You have to give them credit: by bundling Creationism with freedom, they have created a sophisticated strategy. Of course, Americans like freedom! More importantly, both democracy and scientific progress depend on intellectual freedom -- the freedom to ask questions and, unencumbered by ideology, to follow the answers where they lead. After centuries of heresy trials and book burnings, for biblical creationists to position themselves as the champions of academic freedom is a brilliant Orwellian move.
University of Washington professor, Leah Ceccarelli has pointed out that their "teach the controversy" strategy depends on a very specific sleight of hand: blurring the difference between scientific controversy and manufactured controversy or Manufactroversy.
You can say you first heard it here, well, if you haven't heard it already on MySpace or Facebook: Manufactroversy -- a made up word for a made up controversy. There's even a new website, Manufactroversy.NewsLadder.net that aggregates articles and blog posts about this manufactroversy and some other pretty famous ones as well.
Scientific controversy exists only when the jury of relevant experts is out on whether a new finding meets the standard of evidence. The debate and evidence gathering still are in process. A manufactroversy is when someone motivated by profit or ideology fosters confusion in the public mind long after scientists have moved on to the next set of questions. Think tobacco and lung cancer. Think Exxon and global warming. Now think Ben Stein and evolution.
The fact is, there is no scientific controversy about evolution, just like there is no scientific controversy about whether tobacco causes lung cancer or whether human activity causes global warming. However, in all three examples, someone powerful and well established loses out when and if the scientific mountain of evidence becomes common knowledge and widely accepted.
The tobacco industry in the 1960's wasn't anxious to part with its profits just like the oil companies of the 1990's had no desire to walk away from theirs. So they manufactured controversies, paying scientists to publish papers they knew would distort the issue.
In the case of creationism, the a vast preponderance of evidence, conflicts with traditional mythos. What possible explanation but that the scientists are colluding, corrupt, and biased. But, of course, they're not. The proponents of intelligent design can't gain credibility among hard scientists because their evidence is pathetic. So what do they do? Follow in the footsteps of the tobacco and oil companies and spend millions in an effort to create public doubt. They plea for their side to be told, they imagine vast conspiracies and they cry out for fair play, but the reality is much simpler.
The mountain of evidence supporting mainstream biological science is overwhelming. The paltry evidence for "insurmountable gaps" and "irreducible complexity" is actually shrinking. Evolution should be taught as science and creationism, in its many guises, as religion, including the rich pre-scientific stories about origins from many cultures and traditions. So why not just ignore the whiners and hope they will go away? Because they won't until we force them to stop their marketing of religious beliefs as science. We're still fighting the tobacco industry to this day. Oil companies still fund global warming deniers.
Besides, how long has it been since the famous Scopes trial? How long have creationists been talking about "Darwinism" as if no one but Darwin had noticed the fossil record or the DNA code in the last 100 years? It does get tiresome, responding to their ever evolving anti-evolutionary rhetoric. But we need to expose the bizarre supernaturalist agenda behind all the sudden whining about academic freedom. And somebody needs to gently remind Stein and his creationist cronies that they haven't been expelled from school, they flunked.
Biblical creationism, repositioned as creation science and most recently intelligent design has lost the contest of ideas on all counts: the rules, the criteria and the judging. It doesn't follow the scientific method; it doesn't allow us to explain, predict, and control better; and the jury of relevant experts (aka biologists) keeps returning the same verdict.
Now the creationists have taken a new approach that they hope will help them achieve their goal of teaching religious beliefs in our schools as science. That approach can be summed up in one simple word: whining.
One week from today, the new movie, Expelled, attempts to turn creationist complaints into mainstream media. Featuring Ben Stein, one of the conservative right's biggest whiners, the film makes several plaintive appeals: There's a conspiracy among big government and big science, and it's not fair! All we ask is for our perspective to get equal time! (Read: we lost, so let's split the prize.) All we want is for teachers to "teach the controversy"! This is all about academic freedom. Americans like freedom, right?
The whiners actually have spent millions of dollars on the movie, and even more on the marketing of it. You have to give them credit: by bundling Creationism with freedom, they have created a sophisticated strategy. Of course, Americans like freedom! More importantly, both democracy and scientific progress depend on intellectual freedom -- the freedom to ask questions and, unencumbered by ideology, to follow the answers where they lead. After centuries of heresy trials and book burnings, for biblical creationists to position themselves as the champions of academic freedom is a brilliant Orwellian move.
University of Washington professor, Leah Ceccarelli has pointed out that their "teach the controversy" strategy depends on a very specific sleight of hand: blurring the difference between scientific controversy and manufactured controversy or Manufactroversy.
You can say you first heard it here, well, if you haven't heard it already on MySpace or Facebook: Manufactroversy -- a made up word for a made up controversy. There's even a new website, Manufactroversy.NewsLadder.net that aggregates articles and blog posts about this manufactroversy and some other pretty famous ones as well.
Scientific controversy exists only when the jury of relevant experts is out on whether a new finding meets the standard of evidence. The debate and evidence gathering still are in process. A manufactroversy is when someone motivated by profit or ideology fosters confusion in the public mind long after scientists have moved on to the next set of questions. Think tobacco and lung cancer. Think Exxon and global warming. Now think Ben Stein and evolution.
The fact is, there is no scientific controversy about evolution, just like there is no scientific controversy about whether tobacco causes lung cancer or whether human activity causes global warming. However, in all three examples, someone powerful and well established loses out when and if the scientific mountain of evidence becomes common knowledge and widely accepted.
The tobacco industry in the 1960's wasn't anxious to part with its profits just like the oil companies of the 1990's had no desire to walk away from theirs. So they manufactured controversies, paying scientists to publish papers they knew would distort the issue.
In the case of creationism, the a vast preponderance of evidence, conflicts with traditional mythos. What possible explanation but that the scientists are colluding, corrupt, and biased. But, of course, they're not. The proponents of intelligent design can't gain credibility among hard scientists because their evidence is pathetic. So what do they do? Follow in the footsteps of the tobacco and oil companies and spend millions in an effort to create public doubt. They plea for their side to be told, they imagine vast conspiracies and they cry out for fair play, but the reality is much simpler.
The mountain of evidence supporting mainstream biological science is overwhelming. The paltry evidence for "insurmountable gaps" and "irreducible complexity" is actually shrinking. Evolution should be taught as science and creationism, in its many guises, as religion, including the rich pre-scientific stories about origins from many cultures and traditions. So why not just ignore the whiners and hope they will go away? Because they won't until we force them to stop their marketing of religious beliefs as science. We're still fighting the tobacco industry to this day. Oil companies still fund global warming deniers.
Besides, how long has it been since the famous Scopes trial? How long have creationists been talking about "Darwinism" as if no one but Darwin had noticed the fossil record or the DNA code in the last 100 years? It does get tiresome, responding to their ever evolving anti-evolutionary rhetoric. But we need to expose the bizarre supernaturalist agenda behind all the sudden whining about academic freedom. And somebody needs to gently remind Stein and his creationist cronies that they haven't been expelled from school, they flunked.
28 comments:
Dr. Tarico's essay here can be found over at The Huffington Post. Check it out!
The bizarre thing to me is these people act as if the biologists in the 19th century that Darwin had to convince were all atheists. They weren't, they were all religious creationists.
Yet they were all convinced.
Not one of the experts in "ID" is a biologist.
Who cares whether or not ID is science when we can have such a great time laughing at the nitwittery that is evolution?
Never have I seen so many proponents of a worldview that ends (let's assume for a moment that it's true) with one rotting in the grave. Wow, now there's a worldview worth pursuing to the end of one's meaningless life. Rather than wasting time arguing the equivalent of whether or not Zeus exists, one should be eating, drinking, and being merry for tomorrow one will certainly die and rot. Which is pretty much as good as it gets for evolutionary theory.
I don't know why the "right" distrusts science so much. It is a shame these people will allow their kids to think science is based on lies. Great article!
"Who cares whether or not ID is science when we can have such a great time laughing at the nitwittery that is evolution?
Never have I seen so many proponents of a worldview that ends (let's assume for a moment that it's true) with one rotting in the grave. Wow, now there's a worldview worth pursuing to the end of one's meaningless life. Rather than wasting time arguing the equivalent of whether or not Zeus exists, one should be eating, drinking, and being merry for tomorrow one will certainly die and rot. Which is pretty much as good as it gets for evolutionary theory.", John Murphy, 7:22 PM April 11, 2008.
I'm going to have to send this into the Guinness Book of World Records as the worlds longest non-sequitur.
Of course, I'm sure you realized that. You must just be trying to get everyone to laugh, cause that's all we do at your silly comments anymore.
Been Stain's movie Eggspoiled, on the other hand, is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Dr. Tarico's insights are pretty impressive, though you can see just how hard it was to avoid using too much name calling. :)
"The bizarre thing to me is these people act as if the biologists in the 19th century that Darwin had to convince were all atheists. They weren't, they were all religious creationists.
Yet they were all convinced.
Not one of the experts in "ID" is a biologist."
There have been people ever since Darwin who have rejected Darwinism in favor of "Directed Evolution".
Read Michael Denton: Evolution a theory in Crisis and Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose In The Universe.
Darwinism is a joke just as Young Earth Creationism is a joke just as the modern I.D. is a joke. I have gotten word that I.D. are working on a testable model though.
Tom2 said:
There have been people ever since Darwin who have rejected Darwinism in favor of "Directed Evolution".
There have been people that think the earht is flat, it doesn't make them correct. Where does the evidence point? What evidence is there for ID? And does ID explain the evidence at hand?
Based on the theory (evo) what predictions has it made and have those pedictions bore fruit?
What predictions has ID made and have any of them bore fruit.
ID has made no predictions at all. Nor does it explain anything at all other than "goddidit" which explains nothing.
I believe the root of the issue is that science removes humans from being the center of the universe and you don't like that very much. I removes for some reason purpose in your life. Why it does I don't know.
But much of these debates seem to have this undercurrent to them. Xians just can't, after centuries of brainwashing, that you are not all that important in the grand scheme of things.
Sort of reminds me of my kids when they were two yrs old.
I have gotten word that I.D. are working on a testable model though.
Was that revealed to you? lol
Carbon Based,
If you will read what I wrote I am not an I.D.er. I'm an Old Earth creationist. For a look at the different models and their predictions see Creation As Science by Hugh Ross. He gives 80 predictions for the Old Earth Creation model.
I.D. Doesn't make any predictions. So I would agree that it's not science.
john murphy, you have crowded so much ignorance in such a short comment that it defies belief. You are the nitwit if you don't believe 150 years of science concerning evolution simply because you don't like the sound of it. There are many Christians who find no problem of compatibility between Christianity and evolution. You seem to think it's a bummer because we all end up dead. Well, we do. If you want to throw out actual evidence because you don't like the implication you take from it then you are the nut.
Evolution has nothing to say about life after death or any morals whatsoever. It is purely unbiased observation and testing that best explains how organisms change over time. It says nothing about how life began or why or what is our purpose. Please do not project your nonsense onto the theory of evolution.
By the way, if you want to read what the Bible says about purpose and life and death read Ecclesiastes. No life after death and the only meaning is to enjoy life. Why don't you rant about that? It seems to speak more to the futility you abhor than evolution does.
John Murphy : “Never have I seen so many proponents of a worldview that ends (let's assume for a moment that it's true) with one rotting in the grave. Wow, now there's a worldview worth pursuing to the end of one's meaningless life. Rather than wasting time arguing the equivalent of whether or not Zeus exists, one should be eating, drinking, and being merry for tomorrow one will certainly die and rot. Which is pretty much as good as it gets for evolutionary theory.”
John, Duke Energy was building Lake Jocassee back the early seventies here in up state South Carolina. The lake was to cover a Baptist church and its grave yard which had about 70 graves. Duke Energy paid a funeral home to mover about 67 graves as requested by the descendents of the families of the deceased. I was there watching the graves being dug up and the bodies exposed. There were pieces of hair and bones and some of the exhumed bodies sure stank!
Since this was a Christian cemetery and since most of the dead were “saved” God fearing Creationist Christians, why, John Murphy, were these bodies “rotting in the grave“? Then you stated: “Wow, now there's a worldview worth pursuing to the end of one's meaningless life.” So you are telling me these good Creationist Christians lead a “meaningless life” too?
Your conclusion is that evolution is true since these Creationist Christians are “rotting in the grave” just like the old godless evolutionist. Great point in defeating Christianity! Thanks John. (Are you sure you are not a “closet atheist“? You can come up with a strong case to defeat the Christians.)
Tom2 you say:
If you will read what I wrote I am not an I.D.er. I'm an Old Earth creationist. For a look at the different models and their predictions see Creation As Science by Hugh Ross. He gives 80 predictions for the Old Earth Creation model.
As if to prove my point for me ... Dr. Ross is a physicist. In addition all his predictions are known facts. Thus they are thus ... not predictions.
Evolutionary theory predicted many things and the facts were not known at the time of Darwin. In fact natural selection was disregarded by large numbers of biologists as the mechanism for descent with modification until the discovery of DNA and its identification as the means of the transmission of Mendelian heritability.
But Darwin predicted that something like Mendelian DNA genetics would exist. Ross predicts nothing of the sort.
Darwin predicted we would find evidence that snakes at one time had legs. And guess what? We just did, 150 years later.
Old earth creationism is once again the inability to accept biology as a science by non-biologists.
To refute ID on the basis that Evangelical Christians attach themselves to it is committing the genetic fallacy. ID has sufficient objective evidence to make it a worthy contender for origins of life and all of life's complexities.
Many top-of-the-peckingorder academic bioevolutionist admit that the fossil record does not have the goods to support Darwin's general theory. Ergo, dogmatic adherents to Darwin's general theory of evolution, are really accepting the theory to a large extent on blind faith based on a presuppositional philosophical view and not good science.
Even,
Your wrong if you will read the book you will see that there are 80 predictions.
One being that the evidence for a finite and singular beginning to the universe will grow stronger. And therefore the need for an outside Cause that brings the universe into existence. A Creator of the entire universe. He also deals with the origins of life and predicts how the evidence will grow stronger and how the fine-tuning will grow stronger not to mention all the other evidence that will become stronger. There's a whole host of evidence.
There are numerous Biologists who are Old-Earth creationists with Ph.D's.
Evan said,
The bizarre thing to me is these people act as if the biologists in the 19th century that Darwin had to convince were all atheists. They weren't, they were all religious creationists.
Yet they were all convinced.
Then later Evan said,
Evolutionary theory predicted many things and the facts were not known at the time of Darwin. In fact natural selection was disregarded by large numbers of biologists as the mechanism for descent with modification until the discovery of DNA and its identification as the means of the transmission of Mendelian heritability.
So which is it? Were all the biologists of the 19th century convinced of Darwinism? Or did they mostly reject Darwinism until the 20th century when DNA and Mendelian inheritance came to be accepted?
charlee,
To refute ID on the basis that Evangelical Christians attach themselves to it is committing the genetic fallacy.
If anyone were doing so, it would indeed be a logical fallacy. I've been very interested in the ongoing debate about ID, and I don't see the leading critics of ID doing this. Richard Dawkins, Kenneth Miller, and Eugenie Scott, to name a few, are all strong advocates of evolution with very sound and cogent criticisms of ID. None of them are committing the fallacy you mention, and all of them are talking about things that are within their areas of expertise (a zoologist, a biologist, and a physical anthropologist).
ID has sufficient objective evidence to make it a worthy contender for origins of life and all of life's complexities.
I don't know of any such "sufficient evidence". Most of the working scientists in the various disciplines that make use of evolutionary theory don't seem find anything "worthy" about ID -- or anything useful about it -- at all. These are people who, in general, are willing to listen to any good hypothesis that might help them in their research. They want ideas that are well supported by evidence, and have good predictive power. ID gives them none of that, so they reject it.
Many top-of-the-peckingorder academic bioevolutionist admit that the fossil record does not have the goods to support Darwin's general theory.
I'm not sure where you're getting this from. This seems overly broad, a vague generalization, and simply false on top of all that. The fossil record is an amazing source of evidence for the life that has lived on this planet in the distant past. We have literally mountains of fossils providing this evidence, with new ones being uncovered all the time, and all of them fit within an evolutionary framework. Even if we didn't have all the other, independent lines of evidence for evolution, the fossil record would be great evidence for the theory. And, it's evidence that's only getting better with time.
Ergo, dogmatic adherents to Darwin's general theory of evolution, are really accepting the theory to a large extent on blind faith based on a presuppositional philosophical view and not good science.
First of all, what the heck is "Darwin's general theory of evolution"? The basic name for our current, working theory is the "Neo-Darwinian Synthesis". It's composed of Darwin's own Evolution by Means of Natural Selection melded with Mendelian Genetics, informed by Molecular DNA biology, and Game Theory, and other ideas.
Secondly, I don't know of anyone who holds a "blind-faith dogmatic presuppositional adherence" to Darwinian ideas. This sounds like a simple straw man argument.
Perhaps there are such people. If so, then yes, they're committing a fallacy. But, I think that all of the evolution advocates here, including myself, have actually been convinced by the staggeringly overwhelming evidence for evolution, and don't in fact hold to it for irrational reasons. It really is by far the simplest explanation for the diversity of life.
john murphy,
Who cares whether or not ID is science when we can have such a great time laughing at the nitwittery that is evolution?
Can you explain the "nitwittery of evolution"? While I applaud you for using such a fun word, I must object that this characterization seems unsupported by your further comments. As I understand it, the theory of evolution is concerned with explaining the diversity of life, and how living organisms change form and function over time. And, as I understand it, this theory is not at all concerned with any metaphysical "meaning of life". Wherefore thy nitwittery charge?
Perhaps you're raising a tangential issue in your further comments: the question of the meaning of life. I've often heard Christians point out what they perceive as the meaninglessness of an atheistic existence. This makes sense from a Christian perspective: God is the person who gives everyone's lives meaning. Your life has meaning because it means something to Him, in a sense. An atheist, therefore, can have no meaning of life.
I acknowledge that there's no ultimate meaning of life, because I don't think there's an ultimate person for life to mean something to. "Meaning" applies to conscious beings. We're it. Therefore, if life is to have a meaning, it's the meaning that we give it. The meaning of life is what your life means to you, or perhaps, what this universe and your place in it means to you.
To a Christian, this seems like a loss. If you were to go from Christianity to atheism, it would seem like you're trading in a great and comforting "ultimate meaning of life", bestowed upon you by God, for a small and human "meaning of life", which you yourself are responsible for. You're trading an eternal and unchanging "meaning", carved in stone or written in scripture, for a "meaning" that requires a lot of thought on your part, and might change over time as you learn new things and your perspective changes.
But, what if... what if the "ultimate God-given meaning of life"... was never really there? What if, instead of having a privileged access to divine meaning, what you were really doing is just accepting something that some priests 2000 years ago thought would be good for their community? In that case, you'd have missed your chance to find a genuine and personal meaning for yourself.
I've said it before and I'll say it again... I'll agree to ID in school science classes when churches are required to present evolution in the pulpit.
Rachel you ask:
So which is it? Were all the biologists of the 19th century convinced of Darwinism? Or did they mostly reject Darwinism until the 20th century when DNA and Mendelian inheritance came to be accepted?
The answer is that after Darwin proposed his theory of common descent with a mechanism of natural selection, the idea of common descent was universally agreed to within two decades of its publication and continues to be the most influential idea ever propounded in biology. It has led to countless discoveries corroborating its basic truth.
Between the time of the publication of his theory and the discovery of DNA as a mechanism of Mendelian inheritance, there was never any doubt about descent with modification, but there were some biologists who began to question natural selection as its mechanism.
This was put to rest permanently by the Neo-Darwinian synthesis.
So the answer is that once again it's important to describe Darwin's TWO theories as separate and realize that the most important one, descent with modification, has never been questioned seriously since it was proposed.
For goodness sake, even Young-Earth Creationists believe in descent with modification -- although they disagree with common ancestry for religious reasons.
However, the mechanism of the descent with modification proposed initially by Darwin and Spencer was natural selection, and while initially this mechanism was accepted, by the turn of the 20th century there had begun to be some doubt about this. That doubt was abolished with the discovery of DNA.
I hope that clears it up for you.
Next one to get a response is Tom2.
Tom2 you say:
Even (sic),
Your wrong (sic) if you will read the book you will see that there are 80 predictions.
One being that the evidence for a finite and singular beginning to the universe will grow stronger.
First, my name is Evan. Second, there is zero evidence for that, so any evidence would be an infinite increase. What evidence do you have that the universe is finite?
And therefore the need for an outside Cause that brings the universe into existence.
This is a sentence fragment, so I'm not clear what you are asserting, but again, starting with zero and multiplying by anything leaves you with a zero.
A Creator of the entire universe.
Another sentence fragment. Tom2 typically sentences have a noun phrase, a verb phrase and are directed at some point. If you have a sentence you'll need to include a verb at least once to make any kind of assertion.
He also deals with the origins of life and predicts how the evidence will grow stronger and how the fine-tuning will grow stronger not to mention all the other evidence that will become stronger. There's a whole host of evidence.
Evidence you appear to be ignorant of, enough so that you can't actually bring any of it forward. That's odd, don't you think? At least you make some sentences in here.
There are numerous Biologists who are Old-Earth creationists with Ph.D's.
Are there really numerous ones? Where do they publish? How come they never published this theory? What evidence do they have from biology that this is the case? This is asserted with no evidence, so I guess I can dismiss it in the same fashion, but again, good work on getting in a verb.
Tom 2 said,
"One being that the evidence for a finite and singular beginning to the universe will grow stronger. And therefore the need for an outside Cause that brings the universe into existence. A Creator of the entire universe. He also deals with the origins of life and predicts how the evidence will grow stronger and how the fine-tuning will grow stronger not to mention all the other evidence that will become stronger. There's a whole host of evidence."
Evan pointed out the bad grammar but I can't help but notice that none of this has anything whatsoever to do with evolution. It seems you want to conflate the Big Bang and abiogenesis with evolution which shows considerable ignorance on your part. Please try to understand the subject before you speak so that you don’t make these big gaffes. Maybe you could get your information from somewhere other than an ID source. Try reading “Your Inner Fish” which is a fast and enjoyable read covering anatomy, paleontology and genetics. You will soon see that debunking evolution is not so easily done.
john murphy wrote: Never have I seen so many proponents of a worldview that ends (let's assume for a moment that it's true) with one rotting in the grave. Wow, now there's a worldview worth pursuing to the end of one's meaningless life. Rather than wasting time arguing the equivalent of whether or not Zeus exists, one should be eating, drinking, and being merry for tomorrow one will certainly die and rot. Which is pretty much as good as it gets for evolutionary theory.
Clearly, John, not everyone is ready to accept reality as it is. That's why we have religion!
Terrific essay, Valerie! Kudos!
I must say that it's depressing how easily people are led to believe stuff that's not true. Chalk it up to confirmation bias, aka wishful thinking, I'm afraid. In this case, all the salesmen need is a little artful application of smoke and mirrors, and they can convince anyone eager to be convinced that there's a real crisis in evolutionary science.
Just how obviously tendentious and dishonest does someone have to be, before their message of joy is questioned? I really thought that Dover would be the death knell of ID, what with Behe admitting on the witness stand, that if ID is science, so is astrology. But the Nigerian email scams flourish, and so does ID.
There's a sucker born every minute, and if the sucker is convinced that eternal bliss is at stake, he's willing to do a very elaborate dance to ignore the truth.
If theistic evolution is true, then God is interminably slow. If he had any accelerating effect whatsoever, it would be insignificant relative to the timescales we are talking about here. One might speculate that intelligent agents manipulated probability to favor one direction of evolution over another, but such speculation is unfounded and would have to be SO subtle as to be untestable--otherwise, it has been demonstrated false.
Ergo, dogmatic adherents to Darwin's general theory of evolution, are really accepting the theory to a large extent on blind faith based on a presuppositional philosophical view and not good science.
Actually, I disagree with this. It is impossible for everyone to be an expert on everything; there's not enough hours in the day. So, one can justify conditionally accepting the consensus answers of experts who have motivation and opportunity to upset the current paradigm if such were possible. Additionally, when the experts offer the public the chance to become experts as well if they so choose and look at the evidence themselves, it further justifies accepting their expert opinion as the truth can be checked at will if a person is willing to commit the resources to do so.
Academic scientists succeed by upsetting current thinking; me-too science is not well-rewarded. So, were it possible to upset evolution through evidence, they would have every incentive to do so. Scientists are not reluctant to educate the public on evolution; indeed, we are eager to do so. So, for someone who has chosen not to make evolution their field of speciality, they can rationally justify their belief that the experts probably know what they are talking about, and evolution is probably true. You do this implicitly just about every time you take a new vaccine or synthetic antibiotic, antiviral, antifungal, or other anti-pathogen drug, as these drugs are almost always generated by using neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Indeed, in a slightly more indirect sense, all of modern biomedicine can be said to be founded on neo-Darwinian theory, and in trusting your health to modern medicine you are implicitly accepting the opinion of informed experts over your own. Nothing dogmatic about it; it's justifiable trust.
What I find strange is how theists continually go from an "is" to an "ought" with evolution. That is, just because science has discovered natural selection, it somehow must be the preferred or approved method for humans to evolve.
We see this sort of thinking when evolution is linked to the Nazis, fascism, etc.
Could it be that Christians claim God created human beings simply because that is their preferred method? As such, they think scientists who claim humans evolved also prefer natural selection ("ought") instead of it simply being a fact ("is")?
Or perhaps they know this is a non-sequitor and they are just trying to discredit it?
I think it's probably a combination of the two.
NCSE has a great site debunking the trash of the idiotic propaganda movie Expelled
charlee said...
To refute ID on the basis that Evangelical Christians attach themselves to it is committing the genetic fallacy. ID has sufficient objective evidence to make it a worthy contender for origins of life and all of life's complexities.
Many top-of-the-peckingorder academic bioevolutionist admit that the fossil record does not have the goods to support Darwin's general theory. Ergo, dogmatic adherents to Darwin's general theory of evolution, are really accepting the theory to a large extent on blind faith based on a presuppositional philosophical view and not good science.
Charlee is a liar and is spewing a classic creationist talking point made up out of whole cloth. Charlee, like virtually all Creationist Warriors, just pulls "facts" out of his butt then expects people to believe them because nobody would tell a lie that big unless it was true.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
That's a great, if old, link to the hundreds of false creationist claims. It includes brief explanations of why they are false.
It's old. But, then, so are their claims.
Interesting YouTube videos on ID and Exposed...
Senior ID researchers refused to testify under oath in 2005 Dover PA trial
View Video
Blatant misrepresentations and falsehoods in Ben Stein interview
View Video
These are two of 22 videos which debunk creationism and ID.
The National Center for Science and Education site details as to how the Exposed "controversy" was manufactured.
Expelled Exposed
For those of you ranting against EXPELLED! I recommend watching it! Dawkins concession to ID near the end of the movie is mind boggling. And even if you think he was duped into appearing, its still eye opening and a death blow to his position.
GRIN!
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