more on Science is for Pansies - REAL Men believe in Genesis!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Steven Champeon <schampeo () hesketh com>
Date: August 6, 2005 1:37:34 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: jhuggins () kettering edu
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Science is for Pansies - REAL Men believe  
in Genesis!


on Sat, Aug 06, 2005 at 09:39:25AM -0400, David Farber forwarded:

> Subject: Re: more on Science is for Pansies - REAL Men believe in
> Genesis!
>
>
> > From: "Kobrin, Steve" <kobrins () wharton upenn edu>
>
>
> > More importantly, where have we failed as educators?
>
> When we generalize and ridicule those who disagree with us instead of
> seeking to educate and inform.  Forgive me, but I'm going to pick on
> something you said a little later in your message:
>
>
> > Most of these people have had science in high school or college.
> > However, if someone tells them that it is all nonsense and the
> > world was created 5000 years ago, they believe it.  One has to
> > wonder about the quality of science education in this country.
>
> This lumps all the "intelligent design" and "literal creationists"  
> into
> the same boat.  There are *plenty* of people who believe in a Creator
> who also believe that the world is millions of years old.  The two
> beliefs are compatible.  But you wouldn't know that from the way this
> so-called "debate" is actually conducted in the public sphere.  All we
> hear about are the extremes.

That's standard practice when constructing a debate - isolate the most
dramatic examples of opposing arguments and then zero in on them. It's
rather pointless to debunk potentially flawed compromise positions.

In this case, the folks promoting "intelligent design" attempt to find
authoritative statements of inquiry into "holes" in "evolutionary
theory" as preachers try to find illustrative passages from the Bible
to support their sermons. Not as debate, not as a pursuit of logical
conclusions or demonstrable facts and processes, but as an emotional
appeal to the heart.

Evolution, and the supposed implication that behind it all lies nothing,
no God nor loving heavenly Savior, frightens the wits out of some people
- and so rather than trying to embrace the idea that the universe is
even more wondrous than their religious leaders and prophets could have
ever imagined, they run like scared rabbits into the comforting beliefs
of childhood.

It's not a debate - it's a querolous mob looking for comfort. And no
amount of pretending that "intelligent design" is anything else will
bring forth a "debate". You cannot reason with those to whom reason is a
stranger, or with those driven by fear and ignorance. You can only, at
best, make a contrasting emotional appeal, one which is likely to fail
due to the underlying fact of the matter, which is that many people hold
ludicrous beliefs; those beliefs are not remotely systematized nor
falsifiable, and ultimately in any honest person must be shed as the
comforts of a younger and more ignorant child, species, culture, or
community.

I've spent a long time trying to argue with people and wasted many long
hours before realizing that I approached many of those arguments with an
implicit assumption about the rules of the game, all too often not
shared. This assumption? That both parties understood that the processes
and techniques may be manifold, but that the final goal was to obtain a
better understanding, or a belief worth holding, even if that meant
shedding or reexamining other, perhaps cherished, sets of beliefs, sadly
founded on nonsense.

Science's attempt to survive (later mirrored by theology's attempt to do
the same) by splitting off questions of fact from questions of faith is
coming back around on us now, where education has actually made it
possible for the average person to be exposed to questions and proposals
that were once the realm of the natural philosopher and gentleman
scholar and don.

Naturally, the dishonesty of science's (and theology's!) attempt to
sweep under the rug the fundamental relatedness of the basic questions
asked, and often answered, by both, is obvious to anyone who thinks
about it for very long. Unfortunately, for someone to whom the
theological answers are more familiar, more deeply ingrained, the
instinct is to defend the old, rather than examine either or welcome
the new.

I don't know if "evolutionary theory" is true, or sound. It seems to me
to make much more sense than the Genesis story. As with all science,
future discoveries may require its extension or modification or that it
be discarded like Newton's physics or Scholastic mathematics or
Aristotelian dentistry. But I do know that "intelligent design" is
Creationism drawn not from the wells of honest inquiry but from the fear
of modernity and ignorance of logic and language and precedes not from a
fact to belief in a Creator, but from a belief in a Creator to a desire
to see science dethroned.

As an old friend of mine used to say: "It's too bad ignorance isn't
painful". We might be encouraged to educate ourselves instead of
remaining in bliss.


> If, as educators, you really believe that intelligent design is bunk,
> then use the tools of education to fight that battle.  Ignorance is
> curable.  But dismissing your opponents as uneducatable and  
> unlearned by
> making dismissive remarks about the quality of their teachers  
> serves no
> useful purpose.  Show the folly in your opponents' arguments.  But
> then be prepared to have your arguments examined with the same  
> scrutiny.
>
> Come ... let us reason together ...

You've missed the point. Yes, ignorance is curable, if the patient will
submit to the appropriate regimen.

Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated countless times throughout
history, long past and recent, religious beliefs have had a dreadful
effect on the ability of those who hold them to "reason together".

Part of this effect is due to the lack of basic understanding or
acceptance of logic, the scientific method, and so on. The usual "and
then a miracle happened..." line.

Part is due to the lack of applicability of the scientific method and
the principle of falsifiability to esoteric beliefs in such as a Creator
who stands outside space and time, or a Messiah who can bend physics to
his will, or for that matter a Prophet who listens to angel and in the
process is delivered the Qur'an.

But in the long run, for those who have been indoctrinated in a belief
system that involves fairies or angels or a life everlasting dependent
on a violation of physics, faith in a book and a deity and a church that
stands against science over and over again, it is not /possible/ to
"reason together", for those so exposed have been damaged irreparably by
their exposure. Reason is not possible, for at the heart of their sense
of reason is a myth that disallows reason's findings, a myth that has
been so tightly wound round one's hopes and fears and condition that to
reject it is to reject all that is tied to it, to question all you've
been told by those you've trusted and loved.

That is what this "debate" is, not an honest examination of evolution,
but a fear-driven rejection of science based on an excess of emotional
appeals masquerading as religious belief.

The wheel has come round again, from the tragedy of the "reconciliation"
of science and religion (and, more importantly, of the necessary
attitudes of scientist and believer) which was at its heart a farce
decided by the leaders of both camps in order to allow religion its
continued hold over morals and science its utility in politics, war,
industry, and economics. Now, instead of the leaders deciding to make
peace, it is the masses (represented by the woefully ignorant school
boards of places like Kansas) who are following their heart and
rejecting their children's minds in the name of a fear of the void.

If we had any leadership in this country worthy of the name, they'd
be standing against the destruction of our educational system. Instead,
George Bush thinks we should allow so-called "intelligent design" into
the classroom. Yale and Andover aside, he knows where his power base
lives and how they feel (not think) about the matter.

In no sense can it be said that "debate" is the desired outcome here -
more likely, we'll see other cultures not so bound to the stupidity of
the perceived need to "reconcile" faith and science simply take over
the mantle of intellectual and scientific leadership, if they haven't
already, and we'll have nobody but ourselves and our shared history
to blame.

Steve

--
hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2554 w: http:// 
hesketh.com
antispam news, solutions for sendmail, exim, postfix: http:// 
enemieslist.com/


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/