The definitive book on the history of the creationism movement is The Creationists(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) by Ron Numbers (and I have to remember to get a copy of the new expanded edition). Numbers has an interview in Salon which starts off well, but as it goes on, my respect for the guy starts sinking, sinking, sinking. He’s another hamster on the exercise wheel, spinning around the same old ineffective arguments that get us nowhere, and he can’t even follow through on his own chain of logic.
Here’s that reasonable beginning.
Given the overwhelming scientific support for evolution, how do you explain the curious fact that so many Americans don’t believe it?
I don’t think there’s a single explanation. To many Americans, it just seems so improbable that single-celled animals could have evolved into humans. Even monkeys evolving into humans seems highly unlikely. For many people, it also conflicts with the Bible, which they take to be God’s revealed word, and there’s no wiggling room for them. And you have particular religious leaders who’ve condemned it. I think there’s something else that I hate to mention but probably is a serious contributing factor. I don’t think evolution has been taught well in the United States. Most students do not learn about the overwhelming evidence for evolution.
At the university level or the high school level?
Grade school, high school and university. There are very few general education courses on evolution for the nonspecialist. It’s almost assumed that people will believe in evolution if they’ve made it that far. So I think we’ve done a very poor job of bringing together the evidence and presenting it to our students.
I agree with that, although I think he’s failing to pull his story together. There is a general degree of ignorance about evolution and basic biology; there are large numbers of people actively opposing evolution in the schools for religious reasons; evolution is taught poorly in the schools.
Now, why is it taught poorly? He’s already answered that (isn’t it obvious?), but he’s going to dance evasively around it throughout the interview.
First, though, he’s going to make another valid point.
There’s a stereotype that creationists just aren’t that smart. I mean, how can you ignore the steady accumulation of scientific evidence for evolution? Is this a question of intelligence or education?
Not fundamentally. There is a slight skewing of anti-evolutionists toward lower levels of education. But it’s not huge. One recent poll showed that a quarter of college graduates in America reject evolution. So it’s not education itself that’s doing this. There are really dumb creationists and there are really dumb evolutionists. Of the 10 founders of the Creation Research Society, five of them earned doctorates in the biological sciences from major universities. Another had a Ph.D. from Berkeley in biochemistry. Another had a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. These were not dumb, uneducated people. They rejected evolution for religious and, they would say, scientific reasons.
Correct — creationists are not necessarily stupid people, so we can rule out simplistic explanations that involve all of them being at the bottom of the scale of intelligence. Some of them are entirely capable of working their way to the highest levels of academic accomplishment.
So he has ruled out diminished capacity as an explanation. What could the reason be that so many people get the science wrong? Here’s where he starts going off the rails, and the interviewer, Steve Paulson, is going to start actively promoting the usual dogma with him.
My guess is that the most persuasive arguments for evolution are not going to come through scientific reasoning. They’re going to come from scientists, and from theologians and other people of faith, who say you can believe in God and still accept evolution, that there’s nothing incompatible about the two. Do you agree?
To a large extent, I do. But I think the influence of those middle-ground people is limited. Conservatives don’t trust them. They think they’ve already sold out to modernism and liberalism. And a lot of the more radical scientists spurn them as well. Richard Dawkins, for example, would argue that evolution is inherently atheistic. That’s exactly what the fundamentalists are saying. They agree on that. So you have these people in the middle saying, “No, no. It’s not atheistic for me. I believe in God and maybe in Jesus Christ. And in evolution.” Having these loud voices on either side of them really tends to restrict the influence that they might otherwise have.
So much wrongness…the source of the problem of creationism that Numbers and Paulson are apparently too blinkered to see is religion: major religions in this country actively fight against good science, pressure schools into dumbing down their science curricula, lash out against teachers who try to teach that ‘controversial’ idea in their classes, and just in general promote ignorance, dependency on emotional blather, and this meaningless twaddle called “faith”.
Those “people in the middle” are ineffective because they are trying to peddle two inconsistent views—they try to encourage science on one hand, and then on the other they promote an unscientific position. They cancel themselves out, and are basically forces for the status quo…a status quo which is currently unacceptable.
There is nothing radical about rejecting religion. It’s a sensible, ordinary, quite simple process; Numbers is simply damning atheists with his labels. And it gets worse.
My sense is that you don’t much like the stridency of certain atheists. The most obvious examples would be Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.
Right. I don’t know what the figures are right now, but I bet half of the scientists in America believe in some type of God. So I think Dawkins and Dennett are in a minority of evolutionists in saying that evolution is atheistic. I also think it does a terrible disservice to public policy in the United States.
So even if they believe that, you’re saying, politically, it’s a real mistake for them to link atheism to evolution?
Yes. Because in the United States, our public schools are supposed to be religiously neutral. If evolution is in fact inherently atheistic, we probably shouldn’t be teaching it in the schools. And that makes it very difficult when you have some prominent people like Dawkins, who’s a well-credentialed biologist, saying, “It really is atheistic.” He could undercut — not because he wants to — but he could undercut the ability of American schools to teach evolution.
Evolution and science and math and history and spelling and the whole of the public school curriculum are inherently atheistic, in the sense that they do not endorse any gods. Atheism is not a religion; it is an absence of gods, and of course the only way to maintain religious neutrality is to teach without the promotion of any gods at all. I don’t understand why some people find this so difficult to grasp. Teaching science without god in it does not mean that kids are assigned homework to skip church and blaspheme against the holy spirit — it just means that they are told that evidence is important, that we test hypotheses against the natural world, that it is not enough to say that we want the answer to be X, we need to critically evaluate X.
Now the only way that could undercut the ability of schools to teach evolution is if we have these well-meaning but religiously biased people simultaneously declaring that that business of critical thinking and evaluating natural hypotheses is “radical” and defying religious neutrality by promoting a specific religion. The problem is not the atheists, it’s damned shortsighted apologists for religion who criticize people for teaching science without gods. That’s all it means to teach good science.
Now Dawkins and Dennett and others are finally stepping outside the classroom and promoting a deeper, wider acceptance of atheism in the social realm; they are saying you ought to skip church and feel free to blaspheme against the holy spirit and maybe you should critically evaluate Lutheranism or Catholicism or Islam or whatever tradition you’ve been brought up in. That’s different than merely insisting that geology should be taught without Jesus and entirely on the evidence; it’s also a good and necessary move to break the de facto lock religious thinking obviously has on way too many people’s heads.
I am really exasperated with those who complain that the people who say “Evolution is supported by the evidence, teach it without your religious biases” are the problem, a greater problem than the multitudes who say “Evolution is false because Jesus or Mohammed say so”. Numbers is being absurd, and he ought to know better; creationism didn’t take off because myriad scientists were attacking religion, quite the contrary. Science has been attacked by the religious because good scientists refuse to defer to religion, as is the only way they should act.
The problem is not a handful of prominent scientists with the courage to speak out against religion as an avocation, it’s the millions of religious authorities around this country who are paid to speak out against science every week, who are supported by tax breaks from the government, and whose damaging influence is rationalized away by unthinking apologists, many of whom are a self-defeating force within the anti-creationism movement.
But if the only way for scientists to break this superstitious stranglehold, this default assumption that faith is equal in power to evidence, is for them to get out of the classroom and begin fighting back, I say more power to them. I am not going to make excuses for a religion that is encouraging ignorance and scientific illiteracy, as Numbers is—I’m going to point out repeatedly that the only religious neutrality we’re going to have is no religion at all.
Wow, if I had thought that I could get out of PE by saying that it was inherently atheistic life would have been beautiful!
(I live too near Wheaton College for this to have been an abstract idea. This area is filled with people who are full of that fine Christian hate that we see so much of these days. Remember when the fundies were considered to be a bit nutty and no one listened to them? Sigh.)
If evolution is in fact inherently atheistic, we probably shouldn’t be teaching it in the schools.
maybe we could start teaching the standard definitions of words, so that numbskulls like this wouldn’t be tempted to cast atheism as a religion.
Great post. Except… “millions of religious authorities around this country who are paid to speak out against science every week” – ? Slight exaggeration?
A fine premise, maybe we could expand on it.
“If the heliocentric model of the solar system is inherently atheistic, we probably shouldn’t be teaching it in schools.”
“If the conservation of energy is inherently atheistic, we probably shouldn’t be teaching it in schools.”
“If the claim that a bat is not a bird is inherently atheistic, we probably shouldn’t be teaching it in schools.”
I took Numbers’ statement to mean that it would be unconstitutional to teach the non-existence of God as a fact in public school. Let’s assume you believe that the non-existence of God (within the standards of certainty we apply to other things) is a fact, readily established beyond reasonable doubt to any reasonable person. Teaching it as such would still set down an official, preferred view regarding religious beliefs. It strikes me as a definite violation of the establishment clause.
Note that teaching evolution conflicts with particular religious beliefs, but evolution is a fact that can be taught without any reference to religion. Statements about God clearly refer to religion and make absolutely no sense out of that context. Numbers’ statement is that IF (counterfactual hypothetical) one were to teach evolution as an argument against the existence of God, THEN this would violate the establishment clause. Reasonable people can disagree about this claim as well, but using it as some kind of litmus test to rule out Numbers from the set of friendly viewpoints strikes me as ridiculously partisan.
This conflation with atheism and a belief in evolution really galls me, and I would think that an authority as well-versed as Numbers would know better. I myself am an atheist, but my personal disbelief in the supernatural informs my acceptance of the principle of evolution no more than it does my acceptance of the principle of gravity. It is simply not relevant. While it is true that creationism makes no sense without a belief in the supernatural, the opposite is not true. Atheists and scientists both would benefit tremendously from the successful dispelling of this conflation: scientists, because the religious would see that there is no religious objection to science, and atheists, because it would give them one less misunderstanding to fight.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration — it’s an estimate of the number of low-level pastors and reverends and ministers and priests all doing their regular business around the country. Does anyone have a number for how many evangelical/charismatic/fundamentalist preachers infest the US?
Millions is a reasonable word. I was born in a town of 2000 people, which has 48 active churches today. That’s about a 40:1 ratio of people to preachers. When you add in a handful of deacons, you have less than a 8:1 ratio of people to religious authorities, which would yield over 37 million religious authorities in the US. I know cities outside the South have smaller numbers of churches and that bigger churches exist in large cities, but even a 300:1 ratio would yield 1 million religious authorities in the US.
somehow I think this bit of the interview is important:
SALON: otherwise, science keeps chipping away at religion.
NUMBERS: exactly. it never ends. it always changes and it means you’ll have to be constantly reinterpreting god. it wasn’t so much that they invested in the genesis account as that many of them were concerned about the last book of the bible. revelation foretold the end of the world. and they would argue, how can we expect christians to believe in the prophecies of revelation, about end times, when we symbolically interpret genesis, and interpret it away? so if you want people to take revelation seriously, you have to get them to take genesis really seriously.
it is important why people hold on to these beliefs. very quickly i think there are two basic reasons:
1. people are afraid to die. they long for an afterlife and religions tell them that it’s ok, to not be afraid and that they will exist, in some way, forever.
2. people like to control the actions of others to their benefit. the final judgement is the tried-and-true mechanism for getting people to do what you want them to do.
I think Alan Sokal’s analysis is pretty much spot-on:
This quotation comes from pp. 66–7 of Sokal’s essay “Pseudoscience and Postmodernism: Antagonists or Fellow-Travelers” (PDF link).
If anything, I think Sokal is being a bit too optimistic. After reading that New Yorker article we discussed a while back on the bible-printing industry, it’s hard to see organized religion as “an ethical counterweight to the untrammeled power of money”. Likewise, it is undeniable that our churches have given us great leaders in the civil-rights struggle — but who made Martin Luther King, Jr. a universally admired hero, the churches or the public schools?
From the interview:
Does anyone want to fact-check Numbers’s numbers? I mean, first of all, saying one believes in “some type of God” doesn’t say very much. This might include Einstein, for example, whose “God” was basically a poetic shorthand for the sum total of natural laws, some of which we do not yet know. And honestly, if Jack Chick’s Jesus is the one sitting in judgment, everybody who believes in a Deist Watchmaker will find themselves broiling in the lake of fire, right alongside Sokal, PZ and me.
Furthermore:
Whenever I start feeling even a twinge of empathy for hardline religionists, something like this comes along that blows my mind. What sort of nutcase thinks that Revelation is the most important, literal book of the Bible? Wouldn’t any sane, rational Christian (for the sake of argument) think that it was considerably more important for John, say, or even one of Paul’s books, to be literally true than Revelation? I mean, the book could be complete and utter bollocks from start to finish and it wouldn’t make a single bit of difference to whether God loved you and Christ died for your sins and if you repented you’d go to heaven.
It’s people like that that make me wish that God did exist, and that he were Allah.
Are you sure there isn’t a ‘g’ at the end of his Forename?
And Numbers would agree with you; hell, Ken Miller would agree with you. You are just playing word-games. When people say “evolution is atheistic”, as some people do on both the creationist and militant atheist fronts, they mean “evolution implies the non-existence of gods” not “evolution is compatible with the non-existence of gods”.
I suppose they are playing politics in the interview, rather can calling it out. It is religion exclusively that causes evolution to be non-accepted, when compared to other scientific fields of the magnitude. Of course religious evolutionists are still as much interested in bringing people to Jesus as they are about teaching evolution. This means religion must remain holy. It cannot be faulted for its impact on scientific teaching. This pandering totally ignores the need for self-criticism that we think to be so important about personal development. If I find myself guilty of hindering someone, I need to take upon myself to self-examine and improve upon myself. It’s not an act of self-hatred to question your own acts.
I know that there are too many fundamentalists trying to remove evolution from the science curriculum, but which major religions are
This isn’t the official position of the Presbyterians, Methodists, most Jewish organizations, or even the Catholic church.
As an example, most Jews accept the 12th century position of Maimonides that when there is a conflict between science and the bible the solution is to read the bible figuratively.
The Presbyterian church writes:
http://www.pcusa.org/theologyandworship/science/evolution.htm
Why, I’m not playing word games at all. Numbers berates Dawkins for being too strident, but can you find one instance of Dawkins saying anything like “Textbooks should say there is no god”? Numbers, Miller, and Dawkins would agree that we shouldn’t do that; he’s setting up the usual apologists straw man.
And yes, if we apply the same kind of scientific thinking to the Bible that we do to the natural world, the answer is that god is BS. We do not advocate wasting time in the science classroom doing necropsies on the superstitions of ancient peoples, though, so that’s an issue that won’t be dealt with there…we will address it outside of our classes, though, and do so freely without concern that Ron Numbers or Pat Robertson or whoever is offended by our heresy.
I admire Dawkins. He reminds me of Diogenes Laertius, the celestial dog, who when invited by a man into a richly furnished house and asked to be careful not to spit on the floor, turned and spat in the man’s face, exclaiming that it was the only dirty place he could find where spitting was permitted. If he were alive today, searching as he once did with his lantern for a truly unbiased and indifferent individual, his best bet would be among the atheistic scientists, not the priests, nor the philosophers. Dawkins likewise, is not afraid and will not swallow his spit out of fear of launching it into the faces of those who, like thieves, can only pretend and pose.
Prudence and timidity are useless in the face of those who project a world of unreality. The only fault I can see with these men is that both prefer to live within the world, free to reflect without illusion upon human reality.
Thank you E Cioran.
Where does Numbers claim that Dawkins wants to say “Textbooks should say there is no god”? You are putting words in his mouth. Numbers is simply saying that if evolution *is* presented as atheistic in the atrong sense of implying the nonexistence of god(s), then it opens the case for creationists to get it banned in school on constitutional grounds in the US, just like creationism is banned for implying the existence of god(s).
I don’t get the impression that Numbers is “offended” by Dawkins.
Since I didn’t say Numbers said that, I’m not putting words in his mouth.
I am saying that your interpretation is nonsensical. No one is pushing to have schools advocate the nonexistence of gods, so it’s silly for Numbers to complain about it. Is anyone jumping on Francis Collins for arguing that the natural world supports the idea of the christian trinity? Doesn’t that make evolution violate separation of church and state, because evo then promotes a sectarian religious faith?
It’s a ludicrous argument. What it would mean is that no one could draw any conclusions that would affect religious belief on any subject without putting the entire high school curriculum in jeopardy. Someone says physical forces generated the spherical shape of the earth, rather than the personal hand of God? Oh, no — that’s religion! Can’t teach physics or geology now.
BTW, has Dawkins ever actually commented that if something is ‘atheistic’, it means only atheists can accept it?
Just wondering because Numbers characterizes the middle-ground as follows:
PZ:”I don’t think [millions is] exaggeration — it’s an estimate of the number of low-level pastors and reverends and ministers and priests all doing their regular business around the country. Does anyone have a number for how many evangelical/charismatic/fundamentalist preachers infest the US?”
—————
This is not an answer to your question but it is a start.
There are about 160 million self identified adult Christians in the US depending on which year the data are from and other factors.
A large majority of those are distributed among the top ten US “churches” (as in sects, etc. like Catholic vs. Baptist).
These top 10 (“churches”) religions in the US, all Christian, have about 103 million members, distributed among 169,100 churches (as in “I wend down the street and there was a church on the corner”)
The number of catholics per church is way higher than for the other groups, which are mainly evangelical, baptists, and such. The non-catholics have a higher rate of operation in the Evo-Creo area.
SO if a “church” has a few operatives, you’ve got 170,000 + a bunch (those not in the top 10) times F, where “F” is a fudge factor roughly equal to “a few.”
So not “There’s millions of ’em”. Rahter, “There’s gotta be a million of ’em…”
Source: http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html
No, he hasn’t, nor have I. Most human activities are “atheistic”, in the same sense…unless you’re waiting for angels to descend and cook your dinner, or if Jesus manifests himself in the bathroom to flush the toilet for you.
Numbers is basically protesting that some people are willing to say you don’t need to say a prayer to Mohammed in order to get your car repaired.
You brought up the example, not I. To claim that you didn’t give the example as something that Numbers was claiming Dawkins would support is rather silly.
Yes. In nearly every review of his book. All the reviews I’ve read have been pretty negative.
No, only that such conclusions shouldn’t be *taught*. Students are free to notice that natural law doesn’t give much room for a deity to work in. It’s just like teaching modern history — a teacher that taught that a certain political party was composed of corrupt hypocrites would be inappropriate — but teaching events including Watergate and Iran-Contra may make the students draw their own conclusions.
We’re going round and round in circles. NO ONE IS SAYING THAT SUCH CONCLUSIONS SHOULD BE TAUGHT. OK? The Numbers objection is that Dawkins holds such ideas and speaks them in public…and that’s enough for him to claim that atheists are going to damage the American curriculum.
Is Dawkins really saying evolution is atheistic, or leads to atheism? Well, yes and no. The theory itself is neutral. You can accept both evolution and God — as long as you make sure God is a bit vaguer than the kind of God which made everything 6.000 years ago (which is easy to do, of course.) Dawkins is clear on that. PZ points this out here too. Teaching evolution in the schools is NOT the same thing as teaching there is no God. There is no direct conflict between evolution and religion.
But God per se — any Higher Intelligence or Life Force or Cosmic Consciousness — *indirectly* conflicts with evolution, because evolution explains how complicated things like intelligence, life, and consciousness grow up from unintelligent, lifeless, unconscious processes and things. Evolution is atheistic if you apply it ALL THE WAY — all the way down, and all the way up.
In other words, it’s atheistic only if you think reality is going to be consistent, and there is nothing particularly virtuous in compartmentalizing religion from everything else (and a good deal to be said against it.)
[Sastra: Is Dawkins really saying evolution is atheistic, or leads to atheism? Well, yes and no. The theory itself is neutral. You can accept both evolution and God — as long as you make sure God is a bit vaguer than the kind of God which made everything 6.000 years ago (which is easy to do, of course.) Dawkins is clear on that. PZ points this out here too. Teaching evolution in the schools is NOT the same thing as teaching there is no God. There is no direct conflict between evolution and religion.]
I’m not sure I would totally agree on that, though I quickly admit I have not read his latest book. This is a problem that needs a more subtle examination.
Imagine a thought experiment in which a normal person is de-integrated by a newly designed neruodeconstructifer device. The person is now two people, one we’ll call Richard and he is only capable of thinking like a scientist. The other we’ll call Duane, and he can only think like an Evangelical Preacher Creo-simp.
Richard is incapable of believing in god because he thinks like a scientist. He can no more easily believe in god than he can believe in evolution or gravity.
Richard expects the world to work a certain way because he is capable of inferring likely states or futures based on an ever-refined model of how the world works. It is quite possible that Richard can have a model of the world in which there is a god, should the evidence suggest this, and as well, Richard can have a model of the world in which there is a force called Natural Selection, and a model of how DNA works etc., if there is sufficient evidence to suggest these things. But he cannot believe in god nor can he believe in DNA.
Duane, on the other hand, may have faith that god exists, or he may have faith that god does not exist. Either one of these is a religious inference.
If god does not have a place in Richard’s model, he may have to classify himself as an atheist on some government form. If Duane does not believe in god, he may have to classify himself as an atheist on some government form. But if we arbitrarily state that atheism is never a religious act, then Richard could be an atheist technically, but not if sufficient proof arises suggesting the existence of god. Duane could never be an atheist even if he chooses to have faith that god does not exist.
If god does have a place in Richard’s model, he would not be an atheist, but he would certainly not be religoius. (Of course, if Duane happens to believe in god than neither would he.) If we arbitrarily state that atheism is an act of faith just like Hinduism or whatever, then Richard can never be a theist despite overwhelming evidence of the existence of god, should such evidence arise. Duane will remain religious under all circumstances regardless of what he believes.
In practice, it is probably true that almost all atheists are self-consciously rational, so don’t worry, most of this weird stuff will hardly ever happen.
If all you have is a hammer, you will treat everything like a nail. If all you have is rational thought, you are very unlikely to shape your life around a concept based on faith. If part of you is religious, and you value rational thought, you will probably be not very religious. And, if that goes to a certain point, and rationality emerges as fundamental to your world view and way of being, pretty much the best you can do is become a Unitarian.
(How do you get a unitarian to move out of your neighborhood? Burn a question mark on his lawn…)
Oh, well, the confusion between methodological naturalism (a prerequisite for science) and ontological naturalism (a philosophical speculation that doesn’t look testable, and is compatible with science but doesn’t strictly follow from it). Same-old-same-old.
Oh, well, the confusion between methodological naturalism (a prerequisite for science) and ontological naturalism (a philosophical speculation that doesn’t look testable, and is compatible with science but doesn’t strictly follow from it). Same-old-same-old.
“Numbers is basically protesting that some people are willing to say you don’t need to say a prayer to Mohammed in order to get your car repaired”
That is quite an obviously false misrepresentation of what numbers intended to say.
[PaulC:I took Numbers’ statement to mean that it would be unconstitutional to teach the non-existence of God as a fact in public school. Let’s assume you believe that the non-existence of God (within the standards of certainty we apply to other things) is a fact, readily established beyond reasonable doubt to any reasonable person. Teaching it as such would still set down an official, preferred view regarding religious beliefs. It strikes me as a definite violation of the establishment clause.]
I don’t think so. If, when a fully rational person is forced to answer the question “does god exist, yes or no and we’ll kill your first born if you don’t give us an answer,” that person answers “No” then that’s it. Teach that global warming is real despite the oil company’s best efforts to lie, teach that Nixon really was a crook, and teach that god does not exist.
However, this is complicated by the problem that proving the non existence of something is not only difficult, but worse, generally uninteresting. Rational thinkers generally assume you can’t do this with vague things like “god” and such.
Again, the problem is in the use of the term “belief” … perfectly good English word but drenched with meaning when speaking of religion. Do you really mean “belief” when speaking of “reasonable doubt” and “reasonable person”?
Anyway, I don’t think the rational assertion that there is no evicence whatsoever of the existence of god is a violation of the establishment clause becuae the existence of god is not “known” to religious individuals or religious people by this line of reasoning.
The Catholic Church seems to have a grasp of this now and then (like once every other century?) On one hand, burn the scientists, on the other hand ignore them. The church tried to be careful not to make too much of the “acceptance” by scientists of the Big Bang, which for some reason that is way beyond me was supposed to be confirmation of Genesis. (“Let my photons go!” spoketh the plasma on the first day)
Let’s not get confused. That evolution, or in fact any field of science, does not require for any concept of god, does not imply that evolution has special status to reveal the existence or non-existence of god. People like Dawkins send the message, veiled or not, that evolution is intrinsically atheistic in suggesting that GOD must not exist; and not so, in the sense that “god is not required for understanding evolution”.
I agree with Badger, PZ’s confusion seems pretty plain to me
Somebody earlier wrote : “Numbers is simply saying that if evolution *is* presented as atheistic in the strong sense of implying the nonexistence of god(s), then it opens the case for creationists to get it banned in school on constitutional grounds in the US, just like creationism is banned for implying the existence of god(s).”
1. Atheism is not a religion; it’s simply the denial or rejection of the existence of gods. Some religions rely on the existence of gods but no religion relies on their non-existence.
2. creationsim is not banned (from Science classes) for implying the existence of gods. The Genesis story of creation is banned from the Science classroom because the reliance of Genesis as evidence for the origin of life would would require the teaching of scriptural authority, and therefore privelege Judeo/Christian/Islamic religon.
I wanted very badly to believe this for much my life. The trouble is that the overwhelming majority of religious people I have encountered are 100% certain that humanity is the result of a deliberate design, and furthermore, their religion requires this belief. Evolution rejects design, and this is inescapably relevant to every religion that preaches either deitic intervention, or deitic intention. Those religions are the majority.
Greg Laden wrote: “Duane, on the other hand, may have faith that god exists, or he may have faith that god does not exist. Either one of these is a religious inference.”
No, faith that god does not exist is not religious inference. In Duane’s case, its simply ignorant inference. Religious inference is the conclusion that something “is” because of scriptural (or spiritual or guru) authority.
Are you people really incapable of recognising that “Evolution provides a non-supernatural mechanism for the origin of life and intelligence” is a distinctly separate argument from “Evolution provides proof that God does not exist”? Are you further incapable of recognising that people like Dawkins and PZ are arguing the former point?
With regards to the teaching of evolution in schools, this is the only point that has any relevance. So to that extent, there is absolutely no grounds for claiming that Dawkins, PZ, or pretty much anybody else are pushing evolution education in order to stamp out religion, which is precisely what Numbers says they are doing.
Yes, it’s true that Dawkins and PZ go farther. They are both atheists. Having evidence for a non-supernatural mechanism for the origin of life, they apply principles of parsimony to conclude that there’s no reason to assume the existence of the supernatural. Yes, they do talk about this, sometimes at length. But they acknowledge — publicly, openly, repeatedly — that this part of the discussion has no place in science class because the existence or non-existence of God is utterly irrelevant to science.
Numbers is conflating two different questions here to create an extremist straw man that doesn’t exist so he can knock it down and play the Serious, Reasonable Commentator. Hey, why not? Everybody else is doing it.
I’m an atheist and yet not a big fan of this tedious slogan; there *are* atheistic religions — if Zeus or Jaweh exist then some forms of Buddhism are falsified; what most people mean by atheism (and what I subscribe to) is more properly termed “metaphysical naturalism”; besides, the practical fact is that in the US, both atheists and theists have invoked the establishment clause in order to protect their rights; in other words, “atheism” is legally treated just like a religion.
The whole point of Dover was that ID is creationism even if doesn’t rely on Genesis.
All Dawkins argues is that evolution explains design and design can no longer be used as evidence for God. He’s never said that it entails that “God must not exist” or that it should be taught in schools. Even if he did, Dawkins is British, so establishment is irrelevant. And, technically, since atheism is not a religion, having a course on atheism, where atheism is taught as absolute truth, wouldn’t be establishment anyway.
[Middle Prof:Greg Laden wrote: “Duane, on the other hand, may have faith that god exists, or he may have faith that god does not exist. Either one of these is a religious inference.”
No, faith that god does not exist is not religious inference. In Duane’s case, its simply ignorant inference. Religious inference is the conclusion that something “is” because of scriptural (or spiritual or guru) authority.]
No right back at you! My premise, my thought experiment, I get to decide. Duane is an entirely faith based person. SEe?
both atheists and theists have invoked the establishment clause in order to protect their rights; in other words, “atheism” is legally treated just like a religion.
people use the law in whatever way will benefit them. the state police in NC used anti-terrorism laws against operators of a meth lab because of the amount and type of chemicals they were using. that doesn’t mean people who operate meth labs are “terrorists”.
The First Amendment’s stance on religion is pretty clear. It works both ways. It not only prevents the government from restricting the practice of any one religion but also prevents the government from supporting the practice of any one religion (which de facto restricts all the others, but the wording mentions both these cases).
This is the key thing when it comes to protecting atheists. You don’t need to define atheism as a religion in order to protect it under the First Amendment, because most of the acts that might oppress atheism constitute the support of some other religion.
Whatever happened to the argument that fundamentalist religion requires and demands faith to obtain salvation? Faith is belief without proof. If the universe could not be entirely characterized without invoking God, then that would be proof of God’s existence, thus eliminating the need for faith. This is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, that science does not conflict with religion since faith is central to salvation. Thus to argue against evolution is to argue against faith, not for it. Does not the Bible say that God gave man free will in order to choose whether or not to believe in God? If that is so, then it MUST be possible to understand all of creation without invoking the existence of God, otherwise one would not be free to choose to believe in God’s existence. I find it so frustrating that the science community does not use this argument; that the fundamentalists’ own scriptures essentially commands them to leave science alone and stop trying to subvert it to “prove” God’s existence.
Greg Laden wrote:
“No right back at you! My premise, my thought experiment, I get to decide. Duane is an entirely faith based person. SEe?”
in response to Middle Professor writing:
“No, faith that god does not exist is not religious inference. In Duane’s case, its simply ignorant inference. Religious inference is the conclusion that something “is” because of scriptural (or spiritual or guru) authority.”
Greg: to take your thought experiment seriously, I have to agree with your definitions. I disagree that “faith that god does not exist” is a religious inference for the reason stated. But I will modify that to say that “faith that god does not exist” is not *necessarily* a religious inference. If Duane has reasons within his system of worship or spirituality to believe that gods do not exist, then the statement is religious inference. By reasons I don’t mean empirical evidence, I mean something like an ancient text or the high priest of Duane’s religion stating that “only disbelievers in gods will reach such-and-such state.”
[MidProf:Greg: to take your thought experiment seriously, I have to agree with your definitions. I disagree that “faith that god does not exist” is a religious inference for the reason stated.]
Yes, I don’t think we are disagreeing here all. The Duane that says “no” to the question “tell me if god exists, yes or no” is not common among, say Christians. Such beliefs are widely held, however, among Buddhists (or so I am told) as a matter of religion, so Duane is not unlikely and certainly not impossible. But we’re talking mainly Christian/Western-Atheist disputes here.
The apparent fact that god does not exist as held by many Western free-thinkers is as you are suggesting based mainly on lack of evidence that s/he does exist.
Joshua and SteveM are spot on.
Joshua and SteveM are spot on.
Joshua: The First Amendment’s stance on religion is pretty clear. It works both ways. It not only prevents the government from restricting the practice of any one religion but also prevents the government from supporting the practice of any one religion (which de facto restricts all the others, but the wording mentions both these cases).
You may be interested in: Drinking Blood. I’m sure you are right, but it is interesting to consider the degree to which the founders were interested in the conflict between rationality and religion. Probably, for some of them, quite a bit.
It’s pretty astounding how low the level of discourse is here and how quickly otherwise intelligent people (seemingly, anyway) get dragged down by the one-issue idiots.
Numbers is bad why? Because he isn’t sufficiently radical? Because he has a notion of politics that extends beyond PZ’s incredibly naive belief that politics is a debating society:
PZ, have a look at history. Have a look at George Bush. Political figures hold and espouse contradictory views all the time. A lot of times this accounts for their success. Views don’t cancel out in politics like a math equation. Stop playing at politics if you’re this stupid about it.
And with this sense of atheistic you have emptied Numbers’ point of any meaning. Clearly that’s not what he meant by atheistic. What he meant was that evolution is often presented as if it positively endorsed the belief that there is no god. Evolution has nothing to say about whether there is any god at all. I can imagine many gods who would be perfectly consistent with evolution. So Numbers’ point is there’s no point in making a big ballyhoo out of the fact that these would be different Gods than most people believe in.
Because most people don’t believe in God because it provides them an explanation for the origin of species anyway.
This isn’t what Numbers is talking about. He’s talking about Dawkins, not high school science teachers.
But if the only way for scientists to break this superstitious stranglehold, this default assumption that faith is equal in power to evidence, is for them to get out of the classroom and begin fighting back, I say more power to them.
That’s a mighty big IF there, and that if is precisely the issue. And I think that IF your political instincts are as bad as they seem reading this, you’d do us all a favor by sticking to more strictly technical matters.
Your condemnation of “apologists,” btw, sounds a lot like the Bush administration’s condemnation of “appeasers.” The answer here is the same: Not buying into problems you don’t need to buy into is not appeasement. It’s called playing to win.
And winning does not mean being perfectly consistent, forcing everyone else to kowtow to your truth and winning every little skirmish along the way. It means basically getting your way in the end.
Your strategy seems to me to concede loss and to go down in a blaze of righteous glory. Personally, I’d rather win, even if it means a bit of inconsistency and a letting the religious have what we don’t need.
It’s pretty astounding how low the level of discourse is here and how quickly otherwise intelligent people (seemingly, anyway) get dragged down by the one-issue idiots.
Numbers is bad why? Because he isn’t sufficiently radical? Because he has a notion of politics that extends beyond PZ’s incredibly naive belief that politics is a debating society:
Those “people in the middle” are ineffective because they are trying to peddle two inconsistent views–they try to encourage science on one hand, and then on the other they promote an unscientific position. They cancel themselves out
PZ, have a look at history. Have a look at George Bush. Political figures hold and espouse contradictory views all the time. A lot of times this accounts for their success. Views don’t cancel out in politics like a math equation. Stop playing at politics if you’re this stupid about it.
Evolution and science and math and history and spelling and the whole of the public school curriculum are inherently atheistic, in the sense that they do not endorse any gods.
And with this sense of atheistic you have emptied Numbers’ point of any meaning. Clearly that’s not what he meant by atheistic. What he meant was that evolution is often presented as if it positively endorsed the belief that there is no god. Evolution has nothing to say about whether there is any god at all. I can imagine many gods who would be perfectly consistent with evolution. So Numbers’ point is there’s no point in making a big ballyhoo out of the fact that these would be different Gods than most people believe in.
Because most people don’t believe in God because it provides them an explanation for the origin of species anyway.
“Evolution is supported by the evidence, teach it without your religious biases”
This isn’t what Numbers is talking about. He’s talking about Dawkins, not high school science teachers.
The problem is not a handful of prominent scientists with the courage to speak out against religion as an avocation, it’s the millions of religious authorities around this country who are paid to speak out against science every week, who are supported by tax breaks from the government, and whose damaging influence is rationalized away by unthinking apologists, many of whom are a self-defeating force within the anti-creationism movement.
But if the only way for scientists to break this superstitious stranglehold, this default assumption that faith is equal in power to evidence, is for them to get out of the classroom and begin fighting back, I say more power to them.
That’s a mighty big IF there, and that if is precisely the issue. And I think that IF your political instincts are as bad as they seem reading this, you’d do us all a favor by sticking to more strictly technical matters.
Your condemnation of “apologists,” btw, sounds a lot like the Bush administration’s condemnation of “appeasers.” The answer here is the same: Not buying into problems you don’t need to buy into is not appeasement. It’s called playing to win.
And winning does not mean being perfectly consistent, forcing everyone else to kowtow to your truth and winning every little skirmish along the way. It means basically getting your way in the end.
Your strategy seems to me to concede loss and to go down in a blaze of righteous glory. Personally, I’d rather win, even if it means a bit of inconsistency and a letting the religious have what we don’t need.
And my point is that we need to buy into those problems. Does anyone seriously believe we’re winning the fight against creationism in this country? The apologists keep babbling about how they want to win, as they keep doing the same old thing that has led to a country thick with creationists, run by people who think religiosity is a prerequisite for government office.
Despite the many disagreements on this thread, there seems to be a unanimous agreement (or at least no stated disagreement) that schools cannot directly teach that gods do not exist. For example, PaulC wrote:
“I took Numbers’ statement to mean that it would be unconstitutional to teach the non-existence of God as a fact in public school. Let’s assume you believe that the non-existence of God (within the standards of certainty we apply to other things) is a fact, readily established beyond reasonable doubt to any reasonable person. Teaching it as such would still set down an official, preferred view regarding religious beliefs. It strikes me as a definite violation of the establishment clause.”
I disagree. Again, the statement “such-and-such god does not exist” does not establish or privilege any one religion, and certainly doesn’t establish a “preferred view”.
Of course simply stating that gods do not exist without discussing different god concepts and reasons for reaching this inference would simply be bad teaching, but bad teaching is not unconstitutional. Discussing different god concepts doesn’t establish religion unless we said that one concept is correct. But rejecting all of them does not establish any religion.
There are fields more relevant to the discussion than evolution. For example, there is a lot of very interesting anthropological, psychological, and neurophysiological work that suggests why and how humans create god-like agents. That is, this work suggests that gods are illusions created by humans. From much of the discussion above, I would infer that most of you believe that these studies cannot be taught as this would violate the constitution.
Oran and PZ:
I am very concerned about this middle ground discussion.
I don’t like the “middle ground” for a lot of reasons. It is logically inconsistent and fails to produce real compromise, so it has very little value. But the most significant problem is that it is often not really the middle ground, though many good people who reside there may not realize it.
At a recent conference for teachers, someone whom I believe would be called a “middle grounder” suggested “Finding Darwin’s God” as a resource that public school teachers could pass on to children (HS) in their classes who had questions about religion and evolution.
“Finding Darwin’s God” is a work explicitly designed to reconcile Abrahamic religion with evolution. It’s endorsement by a teacher is a very clear violation of the civil rights of the students in that classroom.
Yet in a roomful of mostly middle grounders (and I generally respect and appreciate their efforts, I quickly add, but just wish they would be mean and grumpy instead) this suggestion was made and no one blinked. (Well, my wife, a HS bio teacher, blinked, and whispered in my ear: “Whoa, I should get fired if I do that!”)
But of course, she wouldn’t get fired because nobody would notice! Nobody would notice because the middle ground is not only soft but foggy!
Furthermore, I think we need to move towards where the following concept:
RATIONAL THOUGH
is NOT considered extreme. Please.
The reason why the middle ground is in the middle rather than an extreme is because the extreme (right) is so flaky and far out and deranged that giving a book on how to reconcile science with a belief that god created the universe TO A STUDENT IN A SCIENCE CLASS (Oh crap, sorry for shouting…) is considered an OK strategy discussed among people attending a conference to strategize how to support teachers who are getting attacked by creationist school board members, parents, and students!!!!
(I can’t believe this is happening…. really.)
Now we start getting into the tricky stuff.
Is it OK to say in public school that Zeus is a mythical, fictitious character who does not exist?
I’d say yes. I suspect most teachers would, too.
What about Vishnu?
What about Jesus (not the man, the redeeming-god-being)?
The political compromise I’m willing to make is that it’s fine with me that teachers (especially in science classes!) don’t get into the business of debating the existence of supernatural creatures. I agree that it wouldn’t be establishing or preferring a religion if we did, but I think it’s fair to avoid the conflict by not making a big deal of it.
Now if only the creationists would return the favor.
And my point is that we need to buy into those problems. Does anyone seriously believe we’re winning the fight against creationism in this country? The apologists keep babbling about how they want to win, as they keep doing the same old thing that has led to a country thick with creationists, run by people who think religiosity is a prerequisite for government office.
1. Give me an example of a school district where your approach has won. Give me a single example of a place where creationists tried to stop the teaching of evolution, and they were turned back by people loudly proclaiming the creationists’ so-called god was nothing but a myth and they should be ashamed of themselves for believing in Him. Not just in fighting evolution on his behalf, but for believing in him at all.
2. What was the approach taken in Dover? How did those folks get turned out of the school board? Was it through the leadership of people who had open contempt for religious belief?
3. Which do you think would make more headway against those who demand (nominally) Christian leaders? Saying “screw you, I’m an atheist”? Or doing as our forefathers did, making vaguely Christian-sounding noises, getting elected and pursuing a secularist agenda as best they could?
Oh sorry, that’s
RATIONAL THOUGHT
(not rational tough. Rational tough would be, say, the former governer of Minnesota getting a job in a soup kitchen).
PZ:What about Vishnu?
It is not appropriate for a science teacher to specifically go out of their way to mention that Vishnu did not exist or that Jesus was not god, etc., because it is not science.
But what about a science teacher who uses something like water to wine? I remember this myself from 7th grade. My teacher demonstrated how to turn water into wine and very specifically indicated that in the modern era things like physics and chemistry could be used to understand the world in a way that the ancients could not, thus, you would not see a lot of these “miracles” happening like in the bible any more.
No, PZ, you are right. We are not winning the war, and in fact, are losing it. That teacher, making a direct reference to the fact that the bible is not a valid historical account (and this was the New Testament) and that science was a better approach, and my other teacher (social studies) who was even more explicit about how religion was the opiate of the masses, etc … these teachers would probably have a pretty hard time in today’s public school system.
G:
I don’t see how teaching straight up science and leaving non-science topics alone constitutes a middle-ground position.
I am not endorsing “Finding Darwin’s God” or on the road there, so far as I can tell. I am in favor of conceding absolutely nothing within the realm of science to religion.
All I am in favor of is a bit of diplomacy in how we present ourselves and a bit of respect for non-science. Dawkins displays neither.
Don’t equate “non-science” with “religion”.
I’m all for showing disrespect for religion. Art, literature, history, poetry…those are fine.
Yeah! Fucking atheists! Get back in the closet! Fundamentalists only hate you because they know you exist!
Again somebody explain to my why religion deserves a special kind of respect?
Tolerance is different than respect. One is desirable the other is unfounded.
Infidels! Zeus will strike you down with thunderbolts!
Infidels! Zeus will strike you down with thunderbolts!
Oran, et al.
To be honest, and don’t spread this around (like on the internet and places) but I think it requires both. I have worked (indirectly) with the NCSE, for instance, and appreciate their approach. And it is needed in many cases. I think there are “middle” areas that are quite necessary and reasonable.
But every jeff needs it’s mutt (or the other way ’round).
I guess what gets me is this: I lived for years in the east, went to graduate school in Cambridge Mass. I could go for months without meeting a religious person of any kind, and my lab was next to the Divinity School! (I swear to god, that place was thick with atheists.)
Out here in the midwest, I find that the assumption that is made is that everyone is a Christian, and there is a lot of pussy footing around to make sure nobody offends any of the christians.
I swear to you: I’ve seen people pray to Jesus Christ our Lord at passover. I am not making this up.
Beyond that, I’m not exactly low profile in my involvement with evolution. I get everything from demands (occasionally requests, but usually just demands) to debate or else I’m “conceding evolution,” to threats.
The god-damn christians, you see, are the barbarians at my door. The NCSE is in Berkeley, they can afford to be nice. I live in Coon Rapids Minnesota. If my neighbors knew the truth about me, they’d probably dial 911. So, I feel a little defensive.
From where I stand, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between the benign creationists and the middle grounder evolutionists creationists.
Oh, and I’m in the boonies. But from where I sit, PZ is REALLY in the boonies!
Don’t equate “non-science” with “religion”.
I’m all for showing disrespect for religion. Art, literature, history, poetry…those are fine.
And on what day in this coming week do you figure disrespecting of religion will turn into a paying proposition? When do you think this will actually start helping the cause of science rather than just allowing you feel like a BIG man and cut a romantic figure at scienceblogs?
PZ: This is going to seem a little bit off-topic, but since many of us are teachers I thought it might be well to consider the pro’s and con’s of what might be called accomodationist strategies in the classroom.
As you know, I’m committed to evolution education to the extent that I advocate for it outside of my high school classroom. I agree one hundred percent that all scientific claims are atheistic in the sense that they presume/delimit themselves/appeal to natural causes only. No leprechauns, no astral projection, no Holy Spirits need apply. So the law of gravity is as atheistic as evolution.
But (and I don’t think you’re saying this) that’s not the same thing as saying that evolution should be taught without an acknowledgement of religious concerns. As a practical matter, I never have to refer to religion when I’m teaching universal gravitation, but I absolutely have to address religious concerns about evolution if I am going to be effective.
If you don’t address it many of the students who’ve heard other views may well come to the conclusion that you have something to hide. Now I would like to think that most teachers do address it, but the tendency of many is to instantly slap an accomodationist bandaid on the problem, something like ‘many scientists believe in God AND evolution’ and then defer discussion of it for the rest of the course. If you do THAT, students may conclude that you not only have something to hide, but that you’re scared.
I conclude that both choices are bad for science education. I think the only thing to do is not only address it, but address it substantively. In order to do that, I require my biology students to have a culminative experience that requires them to investigate such things for themselves, a guided essay with a scoring rubric on evolution. BTW, if anyone would like a copy of the assignment I would be happy to email it to them by contacting me at:
epigene13@hotmail.com
Now these are young people, and many of them are smart, and they will respect you for being open to considering religious concerns as long as you maintain religious neutrality. A real neutrality does not mean that the instructor has no opinion on such matters, but it does mean that all views are on the table, including those which conflate evolution with atheism (a characteristic shared by fundamentalists, Darwinian or otherwise).
I would be willing to bet if I were to audit PZ’s coverage of evolution (I should be so lucky) that I would find that attitude in residence. Ironically, while as a personal matter I am interested in accomodating religion I think that many of those wringing their hands about Dawkins’ insensitivity to religion are missing the point, and I have less confidence that these matters would be well-handled in any courses they taught.
Look: it’s not the job of teachers to resolve the very real conflicts that emerge between reason and belief. It’s our job to know them well ourselves, be honest with our students and encourage them to honestly engage these matters on the basis of the scientific evidence. How they square that with religious belief is their business, not ours.
Respectfully submitted…SH
Coon Rapids? Wow. That’s like a major metropolitan area. I bet you’ve got, like, stores and stuff there.
A Dim Christian Man is back.
Did you answer why you go to church 2-4 times a week and what form of christianity you follow?
You were banned because you were sock puppeting and posting the same crap over and over again without ever addressing the questions put to you.
And you’re boring.
I disagree. You’re thinking way too small. What has IMNSHO led to this sorry state is the fact that the US school system is dreadfully underfunded* and has been for decades. It isn’t just evolution that isn’t taught in a reasonable and successful way, it’s geography, history, everything.
Peanut Gallery, drop your hate. I’m an apathetic agnosticist, I’m not in the hate business, and I haven’t been threatened with disemvoweling or got any unfriendly comment.
* Like the universities are in Europe…
I disagree. You’re thinking way too small. What has IMNSHO led to this sorry state is the fact that the US school system is dreadfully underfunded* and has been for decades. It isn’t just evolution that isn’t taught in a reasonable and successful way, it’s geography, history, everything.
Peanut Gallery, drop your hate. I’m an apathetic agnosticist, I’m not in the hate business, and I haven’t been threatened with disemvoweling or got any unfriendly comment.
* Like the universities are in Europe…
Meno reports living near Wheaton College (the one in Illinois, I’m assuming) and deserves sympathy for having to deal with lots of ultra-Christian people.
However, have they stopped teaching evolution at Wheaton? That would be news. The last I heard (many minutes of coverage in the big PBS special) they were upsetting a lot of their narrowly miseducated new students by teaching evolution honestly; the poor kids interviewed on the show had never imagined that this evolution stuff was real science, and they had had to reconsider.
It would indeed be sad if they’d backed off. Odd, too, in a place liberalizing so fast that they actually had a dance a year or two (covered in this blog, ISTR).
OTOH if they haven’t backed off on telling that truth, then they’re achieving more for the understanding of evolution, and for science generally, than most of us can hope to achieve in a lifetime of the logical approach: simply getting people to abandon everything they grew up believing, all in one heap, and then by plain inexorable logic accepting evolution.
Exactly right. This country has the (or had) the funds to have the most impressive school system in the world. But we like our aircraft carriers and corporate tax ride offs more apparently.
Due respect, Scott:
I would worry that an assignment that happen to involve reconciling students potential beliefs in one or another religious concepts and evolutionary biology would be hard to do without messing with LeVake vs. Ind. School District 656 or McLean vs. Arkansas.
I’d love to see the assignment, though. I’ll preferred email off list.
We don’t have a problem with the religious.
Just the stupid. You just happen to be both.
Coon Rapids? Wow. That’s like a major metropolitan area. I bet you’ve got, like, stores and stuff there.
Posted by: PZ Myers | January 2, 2007 05:18 PM
I’m sure you drive right through Coon Rapids on your way to the satanic atheist meetings in St. Paul …. oh, no, these meetings would be in Minneapolis…
Stores and stuff? But of course, this is Minnesota! Coon Rapids has RiverDale, 11 square miles or so of strip mall for your shopping pleasure.
I can get fashion clothing, udder rub for the cow, and bait in no fewer than three places withing a hog’s sniff.
So do I.
I can answer questions. You just seem to wait to be banned or disemvoweled.
Poor offended Quaker, or is it Methodist? And why 156 services in one year?
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
Thomas Jefferson
For the Dim Christian Man who insists we are a “Christian Nation”.
Being one of those “middle ground” people who constantly argue with more conservative evangelicals I should note that Numbers is dead-bang right here. The questions Numbers was answering are why are the conservatives concluding apparently irrational things when they are by and large rational? It’s because the situation has completely polarized. The conservatives don’t listen to us because of rants like this from PZ which merely throws gas on the fire.
In fact, I really don’t see what PZ’s beef with Numbers is. It appears to be the case where secular gets conflated with atheist — which is precisely the same thing done by the creationist and ID crowd. As far as I can tell both PZ and Numbers advocate true neutrality in the sense of neither promoting or detracting god(s) in public education. Yet, when agnostic Numbers counsels atheist Myers that being too strident was politically stupid, PZ loses a hinge.
Both the atheists and the creationists have decided to ignore those of us in the middle. That’s both of your choice which I don’t begrudge as the atheists see us as inconsistent and the creationists as crypto-atheists. What Numbers is noting is that the creationists get a free pass for ignoring us while the atheists pay dearly for their choice.
Why should I care that the atheists are hurting themselves politically (e.g., Richard Dawkins latest escopade was a political boner of epic proportions)? Because the real loser in all this is science education. As long as this is played out as a zero-sum game then the politically dominant force will win and given a 90/10 theist to atheist ratio it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who that is. If on the other hand it is viewed as a non-zero-sum game then there is some hope for quality science education and public policy in this country.
This is absolutely 100% incorrect. I’m a biology educator and in TEXAS for goodness sakes and we do not address religious concerns in class. We just teach evolution.
Perhaps if your one of those teachers who engenders this sort of thing in students. In my 14+ years of teaching no student has ever questioned my or my collegues motivations. When they have questions of a religious nature we deal with them but as a whole I think your scenario is self defeating.
Yes but after hearing my preacher says ‘this BS or that BS’ where do you go? We approach it a different way. We include evolution at the inception of the course right after what is science and the scientific method. We show how to determine pseudoscience from real science and talk about evidence based ideas vs. non evidenced based ideas. We let them know they can quite literally believe anything but in science you need evidence.
Taking this tact lets them see clearly the difference between what science does and the stuff the preacher spews down the street. It eliminates the problems you seem to struggle with by the STUDENTS applying critical thinking skills themselves. Your not addressing the root cause at all.
Could it be that these two groups realize using evolution in religion leaves neither either satisfying, honest, or compelling?
All hinges present and accounted for.
Now, define “strident”. Near as I can tell, it’s simply being an atheist and publicly arguing against god-belief. We’re getting a little tired of every believer having the vapors at the thought of openly atheist people in the world — get used to it. Grow up.
What’s “politically stupid”? I say that doing the same thing over and over, pandering to a non-committal middle that then turns around and reinforces the absurd beliefs of the religious extremists, is politically stupid. It’s how we got to this point in this country right now. I think shaking up the religious and letting them know in no uncertain terms that they are sharing a nation and school districts with people who disagree with their religiosity strongly is an excellent idea. They don’t have to change, necessarily , but they do have to know that their assumptions about people aren’t always correct.
A reasonably close reading of Numbers (and his interviewer) shows unmistakable bias towards the bad guys. PZ demonstrates this neatly.
From there, lots of people, including PZ, seem eager to make him an enemy, a fifth columnist if we’d let him into our ledgers, a representative of all that’s anti-rational — worse yet, anti-rational without even the excuse of being stupid. Arguments against and for this position:
A couple of days ago my local Senator (junior senator from the only state with two Jewish female senators) made a complete horse’s ass of herself by over a mildly conroversial Muslim organzation — though I may be exaggerating its controversiality — inspired, no less by a David Horowitz piece! A couple of days from now she will be chair of the committee on resources etc., replacing the Senator from Unconcsious Parody of Idiots, Daryl Inhofe. What do you do about someobdy like that? Vote for her in the next election, that’s what. And in the interim apply whatever pressure is possible to make her wise up. That’s my parable of an argument agains the position, noting that you don’t for FSM’s sake need to VOTE for Numbers or anything.
The other side is that Numbers can go bleep himself if he’s gonna parrot the anti-science line about the True Story of Galileo. This is the sufficiently reliable mark of a person who wants to put scientists in their place and doesn’t care where he gets the party line to do it with.
“He put the pope’s favorite argument against heliocentricism into the mouth of the character Simplicio — the simple-minded person.”
One detail: calling it an argument against heliocentrism misses the point; and that the Pope ordered him to put that story in the book; but never mind. But if he cared, he might find out that Simplicio does not mean the simple one in Italian (their root is semplic…) or in Latin; but it is the Italian name of the eminent Aristotelian philosopher Simplicius (look him up in Wikipedia if you suspect a trick here; but don’t look up Galileo, it’s probably still too sickening). Galilleo’s real-life opponents, like Ludovico della Colombe, were fans of Simplicius, whom G also read approvinglly in his youth.
“summoned down to Rome” is sure a polite way of describing a demand that the 70-year-old suspect should drop his defiant tactics like getting doctors to attest that he was sick, and get down to Rome in the middle of winter, else they’d drag him there in chains and charge him for the expense. (Again, there is no exaggeration whatever in that description.) He was indeed allowed to stay in the Tuscan ambassador’s palace, due to his very powerful political connections, like the Grand Duke of Tuscany; it would be mean-sprited, of course, to suggest that the Inquisition’s motives were anything but humanitarian. He had lots of time in that luxury too: After rushing down there in the worst weather, he was left sitting till Spring while the Inquisition thought about what they might want to do about trying him.
You don’t want me to go on about what fun life-long house arrest is, or the profound respect for Truth shown in working a personal vendetta — that is Numbers’s own interpretation! — by making someone sign a flagrantly false confession and recantation under threat of — well, I can’t say torture, though they did formally show him the instruments of torture, but it’s all their fancy, that; they never really tortures nobody, yhou know.
How better to end the tale of Galileo as told by the apologists for the Inquisition than by quoting Alice in Wonderland?
Read the first sentence of my post.
I have a question for the teachers here. I had a friend who taught a human evolution class at the local communtity college. He had to put a disclaimer in his syllabus about how he was going to teach the class as purely evolution because he did have a few students get in his face about creationism. First of all, IMO people who are taking a class at a college level, even if it is first year, get to choose which electives they want to take so they really do have no business in a class that they are so offended by. Am I too harsh with this? My other question is why the teachers can’t pretty much say that they are going to go by the book for the classes and this is the information that they want the students to know for tests. Answering “God did it” would be marked wrong just like answering a question in microbiology about getting a cold would be marked wrong if the student answered “Because he didn’t zip up his coat”. It doesn’t matter what the student believes, there can be open discussion, but stuff can’t be based on whatever dumb theory the majority of people have.
(Sorry for the rant, I’m a little ticked off at the Massachusetts legislature right now and majority rule sure does work better when the majority aren’t idiots.)
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=C78039FC8563CCBBD1F4C512CE37FC46?diaryId=330
Whether society at large turns away or closer from religion, it has little to do with Dawkins or PZ Myers. They are more kinda “dragged” along. This does not mean that PZ and Dawkins are OK, and numbers is not. Maybe we can start putting things in place by also acknowledging that Numbers cannot be a much terrifying “tool of the religious establishment”
Even if dawkins and PZ cannot do much to make things worse, one can simply find their ideas and “ethical postures” to be wrong. I disagree with them.
Creationists, contrary to their claims, can’t use science to prove that god exists. Similarly, I disapprove of any attempt to use science as a means to disprove the existence of god. The whole god subject is off for science.
That is how I am an atheist, yet evolution is not specially “atheistic” to me. I do not believe in god nor jesus etc. For this I have been called an “appeaser”, a “neville chamberlain” a “fencesitter”, etc.. Dawkins seems to be always pushing some kind of “morality of reason”… something wrong with that dude, people.
Actually, this paragraph is very misleading. To say that there is “a slight skewing of anti-evolutionists toward lower levels of education” is inaccurate. I saw a poll comparing education with belief in evolution. It was quite stark. People who dropped out of high school had overwhelming support for Creationism. As education increased (high school dropout -> high school diploma -> bachelor’s degree education -> PhD) belief in creationism declined and until something like 95% of PhDs believed in theistic or atheistic evolution.
Actually, this paragraph is very misleading. To say that there is “a slight skewing of anti-evolutionists toward lower levels of education” is inaccurate.
I had been wondering abut this. It would seem that the guys who have it right would generally be smarter than the guys who have it totally unbelievably wrong.
No, I’ll tell you why the conservatives don’t listen to you. It’s because they have no interest whatsoever in a non-interventionalist God. Even the ones who don’t go for the Hellfire & Brimstone approach still want a God who’s sitting there, watching over them, listening to their prayers, and doing them favours when they’re good little girls and boys who pray nicely and believe hard enough (except when their wishes go against His Divine Plan, of course).
This God has the same name as the one “middle-of-the-road” Christian theists believe in, but it is emphatically not the same God. They don’t want your liberal pansy traitor God who needs to follow the rules of science whenever He does something. It holds no interest to them. Theistic evolution holds no interest to them, and it will never sway them, because it doesn’t get them what they want.
There’s nothing inherently harmful in the theistic evolution position, although I personally think it’s a bit daft. Its continued existence as an idea certainly won’t Lose Us The Culture War, and nobody seriously suggests that.
HOWEVER, you supposed “middle-ground” types are all too ready to call those of us who hold a firm, vocal atheist position that we’re “too strident” and “not helping”; in essence, you’re telling us to get out of the way and let you do all the talking. You want to own the issue, but you don’t. That’s why PZ is criticising Ron Numbers, because Ron is arguing for the exclusion of atheist voices from the public discourse for some alleged tactical gain (for which there is no evidence, only anecdotes and assertions and the insistence that because it is the Middle Ground it Must Be Right).
No. Just no. That’s not how it works.
My position, and I think PZ’s and Richard Dawkins’ as well, can perhaps be well summed up by paraphrasing Bob Dylan’s “Talkin’ World War III Blues”: we’ll let you be in our dream if we can be in yours.
PZ Myers: “Now, define ‘strident’. Near as I can tell, it’s simply being an atheist and publicly arguing against god-belief.”
No, this is the attitude I’d call strident:
“Next idea for a blog post is ‘Why I don’t believe in god.’ I suddenly realised how necessary it is for me to condense my beliefs and reasoning in retard-friendly format. This format is important for the audience I am targeting with it” [emphasis mine]
Luckily, these are just the words of an adolescent. A full-grown adult would never write something so immature. Right?
You want to snark at me, that’s one thing; you come over here and snark at my daughter, and I call that cowardice.
Bugger off, Ramsey. Go sneer at her to her face, so she can kick you in the balls herself.
“to own the issues”? see who came up with a capitalization. Jeez.
Don’t worry, the true fans are mostly yours. More one-liners and clear cut sentences, greater numbers…slogans like “fighting unreason”, sunsets, etc.
Plus, you make it very clear, you guys own REASON!!!
… I guess you got pretty much everything covered with that one (hahaha)
To make the point clearer I prefer to call them secular. The extent to which observational knowledge debunk various superstitious ideas is another and independent question.
Ideally religious people could use secular things. Just as long as they don’t fool kids to think that the laptop really works with small gnomes instead of transistors.
To make the point clearer I prefer to call them secular. The extent to which observational knowledge debunk various superstitious ideas is another and independent question.
Ideally religious people could use secular things. Just as long as they don’t fool kids to think that the laptop really works with small gnomes instead of transistors.
Joshua: Fuck Yeah! Exactly right. The god damn Golden Meaners are worse than Ed Brayton’s Bully Bluster.
J.J. Ramsey:
It may be impolitic to argue with the host, but involving a member of the host’s family in the discussion? That’s just not cricket. You should apologize. I hope you will.
Sincerely…SH
Greg Laden, others:
I think I may have given the wrong impression. The assignment I referred to in my earlier post does not explicitly attempt to discuss any sort of rapprochement between religion and the facts of evolution.
It’s focused on the science, even the topic choice that allows students to raise creationist-type arguments, because the rubric forces them to address evidence and counter-arguments.
Again, as I mentioned, what students believe is none of my business and I think I would fall afoul of the law there (not to mention my own conscience) if that was what was being done.
Incidentally, even though it is a mandatory assignment I have never ever had a single student or parent request an alternative assignment, much less complain.
Uber:
With all due respect for a fellow instructor, I believe you’ve misread me, almost completely, both in terms of intent and in terms of practice. And, if I was do something similar (forming a snap judgement of your pedagogy on the basis of a few sentences) I would be tempted to describe your take as a bit naive. Here’s a few reasons why:
1) The fact that you don’t deliberately address the religious context doesn’t mean the context doesn’t exist in many of your student’s minds. Trust me, whether you’re in Texas or (as I am) in California, that context is there. It’s unwise to pretend that it doesn’t and only address religious concerns when students raise them. Your approach is reactive; mine is proactive.
2) The fact that students don’t to your face openly question your motives, or the motives of the state, or (for that matter) the motives of their pastor/minister/priest etc. doesn’t mean those questions aren’t being asked.
3) The cat’s already out of the bag if you use Miller and Levine. Ken Miller’s been all over the media. His textbook is probably the most-used biology text in the high schools right now, and it’s been at the center of two major court cases recently. The textbook addresses religious concerns (appropriately, in my judgement). Miller’s also written a book that is both a critique of creationism and a personal attempt at accomodation for religion. The PBS ‘Evolution’ series (a fabulous resource) refers to this directly.
His website makes all of that clear, with even more detail, including why he and Joe Levine revised their textbook to address the concerns that Jonathan Wells tried to make such a big deal about. Your approach, if I were to take you seriously, is that you would never even mention
What textbook do YOU use in that part of Texas?
SH
Think of it this way: When you have contrasts of any kind (and a common tactic of debate is to highlight whatever constrast you can find in the other side of the debate, even if it means constructing straw man arguments), then people tend to compromise in the middle. If you soften your views to try to appeal to what you think would be the middle, then the actual resulting middle just shifts toward the other side. Witness American politics. Democrats come to the middle, Republicans shift away to the right, and the middle shifts with them.
So yes, we need our “radical” position, and we need “stridency.” Why exactly is being “strident” only bad when it comes to dispelling myths?
It doesn’t matter if you’re an atheist or Francis Collins to the religious right. These are the people, remember, who say Allah isn’t THEIR God, and how the Muslims are all evil pagans– even though the Koran clearly says that Allah is the God of the Christian Old Testament, of Abraham and Isaac, that the bible is a holy book, and that Jesus is a holy prophet and the son of holy Virgin Mary. If the fundamentalists are rejecting religious teachings as close to their own as Islam is– and vilifying everyone who accepts those teachings– what makes you think saying, “I know that evolution has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but I get these warm fuzzy feelings when I think of Some Intelligent Power in the Universe, so I’m not an atheist” is going to fly? My own theory is that the creationist movement defines decent, God-fearing people as those who give money to Institute for Creation Research. EVERYBODY else is an atheist. Waffling around about it doesn’t do any good. You might as well say what you believe right out loud and let people know they don’t have to give in to that theological extortion racket. I think PZ is on the right track.
When? By whom? Dawkins certainly doesn’t do that; the most he says is that evolution removes biological design as an endorsement for God.
Who are these “radical scientists” who are using evolution to endorse atheism, and how did Dawkins get stuck in with them?
Dawkins goes quite a bit beyond that — even back in the days when he cared more about popularizing science than bashing religion — note that the subtitle of his book “The Blind Watchmaker” is “Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design” and not “Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Whose Structure Is Not To Be Taken As An Endorsement Of Design”.
Scott-
I didn’t misread you but you clearly don’t understand what we have done successfully over here.
No Scott you have it exactly backwards. Our entire start of the semester is geared towards making students able to discern science from what is not. It is about the most proactive form of science education that can be done. Of course I realize students come to my class filled with superstition. Thats the entire point of our CT section. They essentially see the light for themselves and by the time we wander of to evolution they don’t have a problem aside from the questions about how did we come from monkeys.
Nobody said they weren’t. But we give them real tools to discern what washes and what doesn’t. I sincerely hope they question everybody and everything and then use the CT skills we teach them to discern the best answer. Like I said it has worked well for us. Alot better than peddling some uneeded religious ideas when the science when taught properly takes care of itself.
Yes it does and? We use Millers book and I have spoken with him personally. I would not recommend his ‘Finding Darwins God’ book simply because I find his take on evolution and religion so appalling bad. His science in the first part is first rate. The textbook basically says science can’t have a say in morals and such which is a blantant falsehood. So while I see where he is going with it I think he could have left it out and it wouldn’t have mattered.
You act like we avoid it. It’s exactly the opposite. We confront the underlying issue head on. There is no cat in the bag because we remove the bag and let the cat out wayyy before evolution. The battle is not over evolution. Evolution is but a symptom of a larger problem. The inability to discern fact from dogma. Real from pretend.
I would see no reason to tell my students ‘Hey look your book was written by a biologist who just happens to believe in God’. How does that matter to the evidence we are presenting and how would that help a kid determine science from pseudoscience? Our CT section does and it wards off any necessity for this. If and when these type of questions occur we may(and I have) make mention of the book author. But it generally doesn’t impress them and once they have a good set of CT skills thenext question is as likely to be why does he believe this or that?
Bottom line it doesn’t help a kid think better, it doesn’t help a kid learn better, and frankly our method has proven itself out. Like most things in education there is more than one way to go. But I’d rather be on the front end giving the kids tools of discerment that running around saying look it’s ok to think evolution is true because so and so does. That teaches them nothing but ‘oh my authority says this so it must be ok’. We prefer to build thinkers.
What textbook do YOU use in that part of Texas?
oops sorry from the change in screen name, different computer.
In that case Ken Miller must be a religion-bashing atheist as well, since he has no problem saying, “The cell does not contain biochemical evidence of design,” and “The scientific community has not embraced the explanation of design because it is quite clear, on the basis of the evidence, that it is wrong.”
Or perhaps neither of them is using “design” as synonymous with “any possibility of divine creation?”
Apologies to all, especially Uber, for the garbled post above. I got lost in composition (hangs head). The central point is that I feel it’s good pedagogy to be proactive in addressing religious concerns in a high school biology course, not reactive.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we should be anything other than studiedly neutral with respect to religion…SH
I enjoyed talking to a fellow educator Scott. Best of luck.
Uber/GH (hope I got that right):
Actually, I may have failed to understand your point, that by teaching critical thinking skills up-front and immediately following it with evolution you dispense with the need to address errors from faith-based thinking. OK, that’s a good point.
However…..I live in a district where I don’t have that luxury, Uber. The brain-deads who run my district have mandated a pacing guide partly in response to the thrice-cursed NCLB. According to them, about 160 days of instruction should be devoted to other topics, and we should only get to Evolution and Ecology in the last three weeks before the state-mandated standardized test in Biology.
As you might imagine, I’m not too thrilled with this approach. In my circumstance, though, you might see why I find it helpful to broach these issues again. And please understand that when we do, we review again and again lessons in the nature of science. I would like to say that I believe all my fellow instuctors are really consciously trying to inculcate critical thinking skills, but (frankly) I can’t even guarantee all of them are covering evolution in this district.
It sounds, though, as if your school site (and perhaps your district) has mandated an aggressive approach which may indeed by proactive in another sense. So perhaps you are fortunate and I am in no position to judge you. What would you do if you were in my position, and why?
SH
Scott,
I find this a really interesting discussion. Mostly because alot of what I read and hear about the fear educators have over evolution seems absent from my life and my school and we are in a very fundie rich area. Hard to be more fundy I think. I tend to think for many teachers they borrow trouble and anticipate problems when there may be none.
We made a decision, at my urging, to move evolution to the beginning of the year following the sci method simply because it is a wonderful example of the sci method in action. It is a seemless flow and really does help them understand why evolution is so well grounded. Heck, it helps me.
In your spot I’m not sure what I would do. Educational choices are so varied and I’m not sure there is a right/wrong. So I respect your choice. I can only speak from my experiences and that has been very positive using our methodology. And we are deep in an area of superstition.
Miller’s belief is that the structure of the cell is not evidence in favor of design, not that design didn’t occur. Miller is a practicing Roman Catholic who by definition believes that his deity designed the world. He just believes that his deity did it by means of evolution and so the end result is indistinguishable from a natural process without a deity in charge.
ID creationists on the other hand *do* believe one can infer design because they believe that evolution cannot create the structures we see. The scientific community has rejected that — that’s the “explanation of design” that Miller is referring to.
On the other hand, by stating that evolution “reveals a universe without design” Dawkins is taking yet another position — that the end result is incompatible with a deity designing the world — even Miller’s naturalistic deity.
Of course that’s what they mean by “design”. Both the ID creationists and Dawkins are directly referencing William Paley’s 19th century “watchmaker” theology (very similar to modern ID) in which the structure of the natural world was thought to be proof of a designer deity.
Uber: This is a very good discussion. I find myself a lot less interested in debating methodological points than in learning from your experience. It sounds to me as if your district trusts science teachers to sequence their own curriculum, and my district doesn’t.
All of this can be laid at the feet of the mania from ‘standards-based reform’ which at the local level often ‘devolves’ (sorry) into teaching to a standardized test. Or two. Or three.
Just to make sure that my colleagues are following the district’s script on the order, pace and content of curriculum items, my district is dedicating three instructional days a year to ‘practice’ benchmark exams, each in the style and length of the actual CST’s we’re on the hook for toward the beginning of the fourth quarter.
My understanding is ‘standards-based reform’ was all the rage when Mr. Bush was the governor. Is this how things play out in your district? We are understandably dismayed at how things are playing out in Fresno Unified…SH
Coon Rapids? Coon Rapids, Minnesota?
Used to be home to a Honeywell factory where the intertial navigation systems for about 60% of the world’s passenger airliners were manufactured. Is that manufacturing facility still there?
I wonder why we cannot insist fundies treat biology as we treat aviation. It’s one thing to have faith in a deity, and another, wholly unacceptable thing, to think that faith will keep aircraft in the air. Inertial navigation systems, especially, must be built to exacting standards of (secular) science. These are the tools that allow passenger airplanes to turn in a cloud, where the pilots lose sensation of what is up and what is down. These machines, made in “superstitious” Coon Rapids, are at the “demarcation line” between faith and science. And we insist that science hold sway. May the religious work there? Sure. And we allow them to say prayers that they do their jobs well, that the devices work perfectly. Prayers are not acceptable answers from the quality control department. Everyone understands that.
At the edge of biological science, where we use evolution theory to devise tools to beat back cancer, why can’t we insist that the people of Coon Rapids use the same understanding of science that they bring to the manufacture of navigation systems for aircraft? Prayers are acceptable, but we rely on the science that is proven, that is tested.
While it has been disproven that there are no atheists in foxholes, it has been fairly well established that there are no creationists in the infectious disease wards, nor any in the cancer wards. When these diseases advance, no one rejects atheistic or evolutionary medical treatment. They take the treatment, and some pray to God to help make the treatments effective.
It may be that evolution has serious flaws in it. Still, it seems a bit odd to tempt fate — ooh, there’s a religiously-loaded phrase! — and allow children to smoke tobacco cigarettes for fun.
(By the way, why aren’t there more cancer examples in the evolution texts?)
This religious belief vs. science debate is something most of us deal with every day. And we resolve it in favor of using the science that is bench tested and known to be true, by the methods of “materialistic” science. Biology is just the last place where that is an issue.
So, which is it? Should we have our passenger jets fly with machines made by people who pray that the machine might work? Or should we fly them with machines tested with the godless methods of science? Let’s start the debate there, and move on to biology later.
Coon Rapids, indeed.
David Sloan Wilson’s approach in “Darwin’s Cathedral” — to naturalize and thus seek to understand the secular utility of religion — offers a fertile middle ground that has received far too little attention here. (Nothing searching PZ’s site for either D.S. Wilson or Darwin’s Cathedral.) I use this approach all the time and even my most religious students find it constructive. By explaining the functional role of religious (and other) groups, we would go a good way toward neutralizing the worst consequences of supernaturalist zealotry.
For an example of Wilson’s approach see” Wilson, D.S. 2005. Testing major evolutionary hypotheses about religion with a random sample. Human Nature 16: 419-446. Wilson’s 2005 PLoS essay “Evolution for Everyone: how to increase acceptance of, interest in, and knowledge about evolution” outlines a constructive approach.
Dann: I found the essay you commended to be enormously helpful. Thanks! SH
Scott: I wish Wilson’s work would receive more attention here on Pharyngula. I think it is a “middle ground” position in the best sense of the phrase — at the truly radical center. Here’s a Cmap graphic of my take on the recent spate of biology and religion works.
Jonathan Badger,
Miller is a practicing Roman Catholic who by definition believes that his deity designed the world. He just believes that his deity did it by means of evolution and so the end result is indistinguishable from a natural process without a deity in charge.
I love the “just,” as if evolution doesn’t present any serious challenge to Miller’s conception of God. Let’s see: An omnipotent, benevolent God brought us about using a trial-and-error process that took billions of years, that is full of false starts and dead ends, that involves an immense amount of suffering, that relies on what appear to be a series of cosmic accidents, like the meteor impact that wiped out the dinosaurs and paved the way for mammals, and that contains no hint of purpose. Miller “just” believes that, does he?
And actually, the Catholic Church does claim that the existence of God can be known by reason and observation, that we can somehow infer it from our ordinary experience of the world, without the need for some more specific kind of divine revelation. It’s vague about the details, but this is clearly a flavor of Intelligent Design, even though the Church is not (yet) pushing for it to be recognized as any kind of formal scientific theory. The statements by Pope John Paul II that Dawkins cites arguing that “theories of evolution” that do not involve some kind of divine intervention in the evolutionary path from early hominids to homo sapiens are inadequate and false, last year’s kerfuffle over the remarks of the Catholic Cardinal Schoenburn that “evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense–an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection–is not [true],” and other such things also indicate that the Catholic Church is not nearly as comfortable with evolution as Miller would like us to believe.
Nope. More Miller:
“In short, birds have a genetic mark of their own history that no designed organism should ever possess. Designed organisms, after all, do not have evolutionary histories.”
“A true designer could begin with a clean sheet of paper, and produce a design that did not depend, as evolution must, on re-using old mechanisms, old parts, and even old patterns of development.”
In Finding Darwin’s God, Miller is quite emphatic that the world was not designed by God, even indirectly via natural processes. It was created by God, but permitted to develop through an indeterminate process whose precise outcome God either didn’t know or didn’t care about. “No design” is not equivalent to “No God.”
No, he’s not taking that position. He’s saying that evolution provides no evidence for a deity designing/creating the world. It’s not incompatible with that position at all. Dawkins is quite clear on this:
“So, it is a fact that there are evolutionists who are religious and there are religious people who are evolutionists.
“My own personal feeling is that it is rather difficult. I find that the reason that I am no longer religious is that the argument from design has been undermined by evolution. So if the basis for your religion is the argument from design, if the reason why you are religious is that you look at the world and you say, “Isn’t it beautifully designed! Isn’t it elegant! Isn’t it complicated!” then Darwinism really does pull the rug out from under that argument. If your reason for being religious has nothing to do with that, if your reason for being religious is some still, small voice inside you which utterly convinces you, then the argument from design, I suppose, has no bearing on that. But what, I think, Darwinism has done is utterly to destroy the argument from design which, I believe, is probably, historically, the dominant reason for believing in a supernatural being.”
Key words: “proof,” and “designer deity.” Dawkins and Miller, and every religious evolutionary biologist, agree that Paley’s proof is invalid–design such as Paley suggested just isn’t there. But that clearly doesn’t imply the nonexistence of any God, since Miller and other religious biologists continue to believe on other grounds. Moreover, there are even biologists like Conway-Morris who believe in a designer deity in particular, but who still agree with Dawkins that Paley’s argument fails.
Surely I can’t be the only one reading this who is struck by the parallels between the criticisms routinely launched against the current upsurge in avowed atheism and the slurs used against the women’s movement, particularly in its earlier days.
Atheists are “angry”, “vitriolic”, “divisive”… can “shrill” and “nagging” be far behind? How long until we’re told “atheists can’t get a date”, or somebody concocts a “bible-burning” myth and pushes it into mainstream discourse?
Actually, Miller doesn’t seem to think God particularly intended for humans or even mammalian intelligences to appear.
“…do we have to assume that from the beginning he planned intelligence and consciousness to develop in a bunch of nearly hairless, bipedal, African primates? If another group of animals had evolved to self-awareness, if another creation had shown itself worthy of a soul, can we really say for certain that God would have been less than pleased with His new Eve and Adam? I don’t think so.”
No, that isn’t exactly Vatican-approved reasoning.
Whaddya mean, how long? It’s pretty much happening now. See Anthony Stevens-Arroyo:
“I never met an atheist I could like. Surely, somewhere on this planet, there is a friendly atheist, but I haven’t bumped into one yet.
“The atheists who have crossed my path are obnoxious. They create the world in their own image and likeness, where only they are right or reasonable, and everyone else is either a fool or fanatic.”
Porlock Junior: The other thing that apologists for Galileo’s treatment also forget is that – does being an asshole necessitate being arrested?
Jonathan Badger: Except that the RC position is not naturalistic at all. Putting aside the ludicrous notion that the universe was created, the official RC position is that various human psychological faculties are the result of divine intervention, and not evolution and biological processes.
I’d still like to hear some thoughts about D.S. Wilson’s approach (see my prior posts above). PZ seems strangely silent on Wilson whose group selection interpretation of religion seems most coherent among recent books from a biological perspective. Understand the rational, secular utility of group (religious and otherwise) membership in the context of multi-level selection and the most pernicious effects of supernaturalistic self-righteousness wither away while preserving whatever social benefits religion(s) might offer.
I confess to only knowing Miller from reading interviews which gave the impression that he was more orthodoxly Roman Catholic. From your quotes he seems to be little more than a inoffensive harmless deist in the Jeffersonian mold.
If that’s a true depiction, I guess I don’t understand either his attraction to non-creationist theists (who generally do believe that evolution was part of their god’s directed plan and would be unlikely to be satistified with undirected evolution by an uninterested deity), or why people like Larry Moran see Miller as only a tiny step above ID supporters (see Moran’s spectrum in “Theistic Evolution: The Fallacy of the Middle Ground” and look at Miller’s ranking; hell, even the mystic woo-woo crackpot Teilhard de Chardin ranks better than Miller in Moran’s scheme).
A correction; apparently the spectrum is not Moran’s and it isn’t clear if he supports the ranking of Miller — he disagrees with Ursala Goodenough’s ranking so it is conceivable that he does so with Miller’s. However in the same essay Moran states clearly that Miller is no deist in his opinion: “Miller’s version of theistic evolution is close to intelligent design. So close, in fact, that I can hardly tell them apart.”
I’ve thought for some time that neurobiology is the place where sooner or later the feces will really hit the ol’ ventilating device. You can easily enough fudge up a Miller-style “theistic evolution” dodge that “works” however intellectually disreputable it may be (i.e it’s minimalist enough to save the phenomena), and I think this will remain true regardless of future progress in evolutionary biology. On the other hand, the more we know about the human brain the more utterly laughable is the idea that some kind of non-physical cloud of something or other- be it a deity or a human “soul”- could somehow think and feel. That’s really hitting religions- all religions- where they live. It’s not a major issue at this time merely because not much is really being taught about the brain at the K-12 level, and because big issues like consciousness are still far less well undertood than evolution is. The latter factor, at least, will certainly change.
No, that isn’t exactly Vatican-approved reasoning.
To put it mildly. So Miller may be a “practising” Catholic, but he’s not, apparently, a believing one.
Re: Dann Siems’ ‘middle ground’: I hope you’ll forgive us for being wary of a middle ground, because as of late the term ‘middle ground’ has been a code word for compulsive centrists, used to mean “Shut up you stupid atheists! Why do you hate God? Go back in your closet so we can trade your rights away!”
Atheism is not a religion; it is an absence of gods, and of course the only way to maintain religious neutrality is to teach without the promotion of any gods at all. I don’t understand why some people find this so difficult to grasp.
sure you do. In a society whose socialization is in large part based on a judeo-christian ethos (wanted or not), all things are filtered through this. It certainly should be no suprise that anything perceived as a social organizing construct of any kind, would then be viewed as religious in nature. Even the perception of atheism as an organizing construct to begin with mostly flows from the same.
again, it boils down to the same thing the IDists do: change basic definitions of concepts and ideas to better fit their worldview. It is often done unconsciously.
Numbers either doesn’t realize he himself is doing that very thing, or he DOES, and feels it more politik (and profitable) to do so anyway.
the best thing to do is simply make those who do it conscious of the fact that they ARE doing it.
Stogoe: Middle ground as a tepid, lukewarm compromise is not worth pursuing. However, an evolutionary account of religious propensity that acknowledges it function (its secular utility) offers an interesting twist. Read Wilson before ruling out a constructively synthetic alternative to polarized name calling.
I’m not convinced religion has a secular utility (or, at least, one that could not be wholly excised from the superstition and authoritarianism). Still it might be an interesting read.
@Steve LaBonne:
Your thinking echoes mine; the “soul of the gaps” problem will, I expect, cause even more trouble around the year 2020 than the “god of the gaps” issue has provoked so far. I believe there was a letter to the editor of Nature or Nature Neuroscience about this very issue, some months ago.
I’m not convinced religion has a secular utility
Me neither. I assume “secular utility” is supposed to mean something to the effect that, overall, religion does more good than harm. Not only am I not convinced of that, I think it is very probably false. A disposition to believe in supernatural beings and other religious claims may have been adaptive in our ancestral environment, but that obviously doesn’t mean it’s good for us today, in modern industrialized societies.
I’d still like to hear some thoughts about D.S. Wilson’s approach (see my prior posts above). PZ seems strangely silent on Wilson whose group selection interpretation of religion seems most coherent among recent books from a biological perspective. Understand the rational, secular utility of group (religious and otherwise) membership in the context of multi-level selection and the most pernicious effects of supernaturalistic self-righteousness wither away while preserving whatever social benefits religion(s) might offer.
actually, this was addressed tangentially in a post PZ made a couple of months back looking at territoriality amongst religious sects within a given community.
As I recall, the bottom line from all the discussion in that thread was that there is no inherent advantage in group formation when comparing religious vs. secular nucleii, and there are some measurable disadvantages to group formation via religion that are lacking in similar secular groups.
the more likely explanation is not that there is inherent advantage to religious groupings, but simply that they came first in a particular society, and managed to maintain themselves through squashing competetive grouping structures.
there is NO inherent advantage to religion, at all, over any secular grouping dynamic. It is arguable that there might be advantages over a complete lack of group dynamics.
the multi-level selection approach to viewing this issue is entirely and purely speculative, with no objective data in support.
…and yes, we already have had some debate on multi-level selection models, and when push came to shove we see that the largest supporters of these models are actually philosophers, and NOT biologists; the reason being that there is very little objective data to support anything other than selection at the individual level.
hence, the reason you probably don’t see PZ discussing group selection and religion is that while plausible, there is simply no objective data to support it.
I agree that group selection applied to human institutions (like religion) will not do that much as to creating research goes. Of course, since it must talk mostly of “costs and benefits”, it will remain an understandable and interesting to many.
Scientifically, however, it is speculation at best and, more probably, another false oversimplification framing sociological.-cultural phenomena as “evolutionary”.
I disagree with Icthyic though in that I do not think that selection at the supra-individual levels has no empirical basis. For example we may observe a change in environmental conditions, that leads to the selective survival of a sample of different taxa, and the extinction of others. I’m OK with calling that “species selection”.
I’m OK with calling that “species selection”.
then you aren’t an evolutionary biologist, cause it simply ISN’T.
I’ve asked for studies detailing recent empirical evidence in support of multi-level evolutionary models before, with no response after multiple requests (most recently on a thread here on pharyngula last month).
From my research into the issue the reason is that these models are typically proposed and championed by philosophers of biology, not field or lab biologists. Being a field biologist myself, I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of field biologists (99.999%), who actually have seen and tested individual selection models have found them more than sufficient to explain the vast majority of behavioral and morphological traits studied to date.
please, feel free to enter into evidence the recent empirical support for multi-level models you seem to think exists out there, cause I sure haven’t been able to find it, only more and more philosophical papers regarding the plausibility of said models, which really is not in question.
parsimony, lad.
“then you aren’t an evolutionary biologist, cause it simply ISN’T.”
Don’t be silly. SJ Gould champions supra individual-selection so I guess you will have to tick him off your list of evolutionary biologists hahaha.
Maybe you meant that I am not a BAD evolutionary biologists (hahaha)
“I’ve asked for studies detailing recent empirical evidence in support of multi-level evolutionary models before, with no response after multiple requests (most recently on a thread here on pharyngula last month).”
Yeah, well, has it occurred to you this is not a likely place to find such knowledge? If you want good empirical examples, don’t be lazy and look for it seriously, for example in Goulds book, the chapter “species as individuals in the hierarchycal theory of selection”. That sounds like a good place to start, doesn’t it. There are some paleontological examples.
“Being a field biologist myself”
“Field” meaning ecological, adaptationist. Dedicated to measuring fitness and heritability on the filed kinda guy? quantitative gentics?
No paleontologists or evo-devo lab rats allowed, I guess.
“(99.999%)… have found them more than sufficient to explain the vast majority of behavioral and morphological traits studied to date”
99.999??? “MORE than sufficient??? OK, OK we get the idea! You and your buddies in your specific specific field have a tremendous sense of satisfaction regarding your very own work. Charming. That’s probably why you may not feel much compelled to research much about anything other than “selection on the field”
But remember, you are not the definitoon of evolutionary biology, even if you claim to be so. some of us like to study development, paleontology too.
“parsimony, lad.”
Parsimony, ALREADY? That is sooo amateur. Jeez man, save parsimony for when we can count steps
Ichthyic: A quick Google Scholar search on “multi-level selection” and “empirical” limited to 2001-2006 yielded 91 results (admitted some more theory than empiricism). But Wilson’s 2005 Human Nature piece I cited earlier in this thread certainly merits a look since it is entirely empirical and deals specifically with the secular utility of religion.
The fact is, evidence can certainly be presented as support for supra-individual levels of selection (not only paleontological evidence, see for example sex ratios in some acari).
You are simply saying “there is no evidence for it” which would in fact be like saying “all evidence that has been presented is phony” yet without discussing it.
Rather, tells us what would you consider evidence of supraindividual selection, you must know what you are talking about if you say there isn’t any.
I think the best thing is for you to think it out and then tell us why the notion of supraindividual selection is fundamentally incoherent.
Don’t be silly. SJ Gould champions supra individual-selection so I guess you will have to tick him off your list of evolutionary biologists hahaha.
you laugh like an ass, because in this case, most evolutionary biologists do in fact “tick him off the list”. You’d know that if you studied evolutionary biology, and also know that Gould never really had empiricle support for his hypothesis.
Gould NEVER tested his theories in the field, and since he initially proposed them, they have been found unnecessary to explain the phenomenon he thought they fit so well.
You need to get youself up with the times, brother.
“Field” meaning ecological, adaptationist. Dedicated to measuring fitness and heritability on the filed kinda guy? quantitative gentics?
No paleontologists or evo-devo lab rats allowed, I guess.
in this sense, nope, I do tend to side with the folks who actually can go out and test theories in the field. Yes, I participated in the evo-paleo wars at Berkeley, but I always sided with the evidence, and the evidence as it currently stood at that time (1990) did not necessitate the inclusion of group selection models. Hence the reason I occassionally resurrect the search for potential new data that might actually warrant a multi-level model. The fact that I haven’t found any might mean my searches have been futile, or it might mean they simply don’t exist. Since it IS an active area of interest on this board, and since YOU expressed specific interest in group models, I had hoped you would be able to provide such evidence in suppport. Alas, it seems I am dissapointed yet again.
Yeah, well, has it occurred to you this is not a likely place to find such knowledge? If you want good empirical examples, don’t be lazy and look for it seriously
ahh, i see you being the hypocrite here, as I already stated I have spent much time researching the issue (about 15 years, in fact, and am well aware of Gould’s hypotheses, as explained above. I specifically asked YOU to provide RECENT evidence in support of multi-level selection models, which i would be happy to discuss, but apparently you confirm my notion that these simply do not exist.
But remember, you are not the definitoon of evolutionary biology, even if you claim to be so. some of us like to study development, paleontology too.
I’d certainly hate to be the “defintoon” of anything, but please, feel free to introduce whichever empiricle studies you feel relevant to the issue, but know that Gould has been left behind ages ago on this one.
Perhaps you aren’t even aware of the philosophical advances in this area that have occured since Gould. Here, I can help you out:
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/03/okasha.html
not a great article, but at least a reference to get you brought a bit more up to date on the thinking in this area.
still, I find myself back at square one: NO EMIPIRICLE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT MULTI_LEVEL SELECTION MODELS.
parsimony is indeed applicable here, as if we see no need for a multi-level model when a single level model will do…
go ahead, say I’m wrong, but I’d prefer you prove it.
That’s science, after all.
I still remain open to the idea that multi-level models might provide better resolution in some instances, much like quantum mechanics provide better resolution than newtonian. However, unlike quantum mechanics, multi-level selection models still have no data I can find to actually support them.
I think the best thing is for you to think it out and then tell us why the notion of supraindividual selection is fundamentally incoherent.
I never said that, now did I. don’t put words in my mouth, ass.
I rather said that I have seen no cases where a multi-level model was required to explain observed data.
you can’t backpeddal here.
If you feel you have good references to support the efficacy of a multi-level model, spit em out man!
that’s all I’m asking.
for the person who suggested the google search, i suggest you actually READ some of the articles that pop up, and then tell me whether your 91 hits actually provide direct evidence in support of those models.
I rather think it inappropriate to tack this topic in one of PZ’s threads, but if you all think you have a good article on this topic you would like to discuss in detail, I make the same offer AGAIN that I have made twice previously in threads here on Pharyngula:
find an article which actually tests the efficacy (NOT the plausibility) of a multi-level model, and we can hash out the details in another forum.
I can make a thread on ATBC, or anyone can make a google thread to continue discussion.
Hey, I have no problem being proven wrong; maybe I missed an important paper somewhere, and could easily be convinced to re-evaluate my opinion as to whether the multi-level approach should garner more general support.
I’m still waiting to see even one critical paper that actually has tested some of the predictions of these models beyond the level of correlation.
Again, and for the last time, I have no inherent objection to the notion of multi-level hypotheses. I simply don’t see the need for them.
Allrrrrightt…..so Gould must be ticked off the list of evolutionary biologists?
Jeez dude.
I guess that says enough on its own. Truth is, he was an excellent evolutionary biologist that among many other things helped resurrect evo-devo. That some ultradarwinians hate him and want to define an independent elite is another totally different matter.
I guess your basic argument is “anyone that does not agree with me on this one should not be considered an evolutionary biologist”. Good luck with that “scientific argument” – but why don’t we cut the crap and go back to science?
Evidence has no reason to be “recent”. I don’t doubt recent evidence is out there, but evidence does not automatically become refuted just because it gets old, you know. I don’t know what is wrong with the evidence I have mentioned (sex ratios, selective extinction) It is you who refuses to give the reason why you think this evidence is dated. You can’t just ignore it by whining “it is old”. You are avoiding, you are being slippery.
Either that, or you tell us what would be evidence to you, that you can’t see any.
“I still remain open to the idea that multi-level models might provide better resolution in some instances”
How would that be possible, that multi-level models may have” better resolution” while the same time, without producing evidence?
Let’s see Icthyic.. do you know a man called… ·Williams?
Yeah, Williams. He proposed sex ratios as an acid test for the existence of group selection. He said that female based ratios would point to group selection. In those times, female biased ratios were unknown.
So, now that we know hundreds of cases of female biased ratios, will you care to tell us what was wrong with Williams’s thinking?
Truth is, he was an excellent evolutionary biologist that among many other things helped resurrect evo-devo. That some ultradarwinians hate him and want to define an independent elite is another totally different matter.
you’re an idiot. I never said I hated the man. hell, he was an early inspiration to me to become a biologist to begin with. As to whether Gould was an excellent “biologist”, er, most would have classified him as a paleontologist.
doesn’t mean all of his ideas were on track, even if they did a great job of promoting discussion of the issue at the time (and still do).
How would that be possible, that multi-level models may have” better resolution” while the same time, without producing evidence?
well, now that kinda answers the question, don’t it?
I am not arguing that the logic behind some of the hypotheses is sound, what I AM saying, is that there is simply no evidence to support their efficacy over models based on selection at the level of the individual.
why is that so hard for you to parse?
are you that thick-headed (I’m thinking yes at this point)?
obviously, there is little point in discussing the issue with you further, since you seem to have little interest in actually discussing any specific evidence or data.
feel free to call yourself a proponent of group selection if you wish, but don’t think you’re doing anyone who actually does science for a living any favors, based on your responses so far.
worthless.
last chance:
put up or shut up.
find a specific study testing a specific prediction of any multi-level model that has shown more than correlative data in support, and we can discuss whether that set of data should support the adoption of multi-level models more than they presently are (which is not, really).
This is the way these things are discussed at every symposium and research group I’ve ever participated in, and so far, the results have not been promising for the adoption of these models.
that could change, and even symposia miss importan works sometimes. However, it seems pretty clear you haven’t spent much time actually looking at the papers in this field, or you would already be throwing cites at me in support which we could discuss in detail somewhere else.
so, unless you have something productive to contribute, I guess we’re done.
going once…
ah, there we go, female biased sex ratios, you say?
have you ever even considered the multiple factors that might contribute to sex ratio bias OTHER than group selection?
did williams?
not really.
here, this is how this is done:
let’s take a look at one of the papers purporting to show sex ratio bias as a result of group selection…
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v290/n5805/abs/290401a0.html
this isn’t exactly recent, but if you wish, we can discuss in detail the relevance of group vs. individual selection hypotheses in explaining the observed data in that paper.
up for it?
Gould is not a billogist? How many silly adjustments must one hear after the first has ben uttered?
We are better off if we just pretend you never said Gould was not an evolutionary biologist.
For the third time: My evidence is William’s evidence: sex ratios. Indeed, group selection seems a better explanation than individual selection there.
Your attitude of “there is no evidence” is typically ultradarwinian. Evidence is hurled at you all the time: you just ignore it.
And stop geting all hot and bothered, but hey, if you wan to leave now, I understand, believe me. You do put up quite a show…. so take care now. By bye then?
…if so, and you find the paper relevant to the discussion, just say “aye”, and on Friday (too busy tommorrow and thursday), I will post a thread here:
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=14
with an appropriate title, and we can discuss the interpretation of the data and alternative explanations in detail over the weekend.
the implied question being:
is, as the author claims, group selection NECESSARY to explain the data observed?
If you (or the author) can convince me that the observed data could not be most parsimoniously explained via selection at the individual level (inclusive fitness defacto), then you (or the author) will have convinced me of the value of multi-level models.
fair?
oh, by the way, since you seem to think the word of Gould is omniscient, perhaps you also support his idea of non-overlapping magisteria?
big fan of punc-eek too, i suppose? shall we argue the current value of punctuated equilibrium?
so, a scientist can still be wrong and be respected.
Darwin was wrong about quite a few things as well.
I’m only “ultra darwinian” in the sense that I have seen no reason to support the general adoption of multi-level selection models.
again, if you want to actually get into the details, let’s tear apart a couple of actual papers and you’ll see why I don’t see a need for these models as of yet.
If you don’t want me to get “hot and bothered”, stop trying to put idiotic words in my mouth.
Oh, you didn’t leave!
Now you are saying, “lets read this article and debate it…” an article whose title says it presents evidence for group selection.
I might read it if I get bored enough, but hey buddy, here is a point: not all article reviewers think like you do, don’t they. Stuff like this, gets published, in nature and other journals, even if you think its dated or phony and should not be published. So just calm down a bit before you go around splitting people between evo bio and “not” evo bio, leaviong Gould out, because you make a complete fool of yourself.
This question of Gould’s being or not being a real evolutinoary scientist who is taken seriously by real e.s.’s needs to be settled.
How about circulating a couple of petitions for and against, and seeing how many biologists named Steve will sign either one?
My point is: multi-level selection is a live topic, still under discussion. There is no such thing as scientific agreement over its invalidity. Yu may have gangs of semi-anonymous people that agree, but I am more interested in how the great thinkers of evolutionary biology have dealt with this topic.
I have no conceptual commitments to multi-level selection, but then, I don’t find individual selection all that powerful either. I think you cannot doubt that roup selection occurs: what you can put into doubt, is its evolutionary relevance. can this kind of selection guide the course of evolution. I think selection can obviously ocurr at all levels, but at all levels, the relevance of selection tends to be overrated.
I am not a gould fan. Gould gave selection much more credit.
I might read it if I get bored enough
LOL.
I see, so these ideas appeal to you in theory, but when it comes down to analyzing how well they perform in actual application, it bores ya, huh?
*sigh*
I’m wasting my time with you, aren’t I?
Stuff like this, gets published, in nature and other journals, even if you think its dated or phony and should not be published. So just calm down a bit before you go around splitting people between evo bio and “not” evo bio, leaviong Gould out, because you make a complete fool of yourself.
I never said anything about the article not being worthy of publication. again, you put words in my mouth that obviously don’t belong.
yes, I’m obviously wasting my time with you, but I’ll go ahead an put up the thread on friday anyway, in hopes that you might actually be more intelligent than you seem, or that someone who actually DOES know how to analyze an article will have something positive to contribute.
I don’t know, I don’t care if I am “wasting my time” or not. I guess I am just amused-alarmed by some of your attitudes. I don’t think you are non-intelligent, but I must say I think you let yourself to be influenced by not-so-scientific, elitistic feelings.
Back to science: Selection at the group or species level can certainly occur. The point is whether it has any evolutionary consequences. Do you agree with this distinction?
I am not a Gould fan either, Mr. Vargas, but it seems to me that the burden of proof is still on those who argue for group selection, especially in humans. And, yes, of course S.J. Gould was a biologist as well as a paleontologist. His taxonomic speciality was Bahamian land snails, both living and fossil species and he at various times held professorship or research fellowships in zoology.
If these vaguely conspiratorial-sounding claims are the best you can do, then I agree with Icthyic: she IS wasting her time.
SH
She is not wasting her time, if she gets better at not letting her elitistic motivations get all mixed up with her scientific argumentation.
Of course I am not whining about any conspiracy. People like Icthyic have no power to diminish the success of evo-devo and paleontological research. Even if they were truly black-hearted and evil haha
Back to science: Selection at the group or species level can certainly occur. The point is whether it has any evolutionary consequences. Do you agree with this distinction?
but if selection occurs at the group level in any sense, then of course it DOES have evolutionary consequences.
I’m missing your logic here. Do you mean more along the lines of whether we should consider group selection to be a significant level of selection?
Aside from that, depending on your definition of “group selection”, it is certainly still arguable that there is any group selection demonstrated at all, in anything other than a human sociological sense.
Hence the reason I was interested in seeing your take wrt the specific data in the paper i cited, which i thought would be of specific interest to you for multiple reasons:
1) you brought up Wilson
2) it’s old enough to have already been dissected in the literature that came after (a science citation index search would give relevant results).
3) I actually studied sex ratio bias (towards females, go figure) in a couple of species of elasmobranchs in Monterey, so the subject is of specific interest to me as well.
How better to discuss the issue than to look at it from a direct analysis of a data set?
well, regardless of whether you are bored with actually looking at real-world application of theory or not, I’ll go ahead and start the thread on friday afternoon. Who knows? you might decide you have an interest after all, and ya never know who might see it and participate.
I see no further need to discuss it in this thread.
@scott-
er, not that it matters in the slightest, but it’s “him”
the handle simply means “all things of and pertaining to fish”, that taxonomic group being my specialty.
as to the consipiracy theory, it’s possible Vargas sat through some of the same things I saw when a graduate student at Berzerkeley, and there WAS a whole lot of tension at times between the evos and the paleos (especially at Berkeley).
both groups liked me though, and the conflicts were healthy enough, most oft.
:)
Again, I am not a fan of group selection. Selection can occur at any level, but the point is whether this selection leads to a direction of organic change, adn I thionk that selection at the group or species level may have little if any consequence on the direction of organic changes. After all, at the individual level, selection can also occur without guiding organic change.
It also mesmerizes me how people like Icthyic pretend as if they had no ideas at all as to why group selection may be ineffective, and act as if they only ” need the evidence”: Don’t belive it. People may indeed have ideas, and they may be unwilling to get rid of them; therefore, they fail to acknowledge anything presented to them as true evidence.
Since nay saying is all too easy, I think it is their burden to say exactly WHAT would they consider positive evidence of evolution by group selection.
If Ichthyic would just do that, it would certainly be a lot more faster and simpler than sending us to read papers she feeels she can debunk.
He’s an honest-to-God theist, though. To quote him again, from FDG:
“The Christian God isn’t a deist one; neither is Allah, or the God of Abraham. Any God worthy of the name has to be capable of miracles….A key doctrine in my own faith is that Jesus was born of a virgin, even though it makes no scientific sense….”
Miller does believe in miracles, scientifically inexplicable miracles; he just doesn’t think they were involved in evolution.
IIRC Miller also refers to his own position as “theistic evolution.”
I think Larry’s just wrong on that. Miller’s a theist, but his version of evolution is literally God-forsaken. About the most he says linking God and evolution is that God wanted it to be a hands-off, random process, to preserve free will–and that’s 180° from the intelligent design viewpoint.
However, I do think Miller, like Francis Collins, does support an ID-esque god-of-the-gaps; they just park those gaps in a different field. Collins doesn’t like genetic arguments for ID–understandably, since that’s his field of expertise–so he puts his God in evolutionary psychology instead, via “Evolution cannot explain morality.” Miller doesn’t want God anywhere near evolution, so he puts him in human history instead, via various ancient miracles which “make no scientific sense”.
In that sense, they’re playing exactly the same game as Behe, just in a different arena. But no, Miller isn’t what I would call a theistic evolutionist at all–although he’s certainly entitled to call himself one.
“but if selection occurs at the group level in any sense, then of course it DOES have evolutionary consequences”
Well, not necessarily. Remember that selection is not the same thing as evolution: there can be selection on non-inheritable traits, or there can be negative selection that does not produce directional accumulation of organic change.
“I’m missing your logic here. Do you mean more along the lines of whether we should consider group selection to be a significant level of selection?”
Yup
“Aside from that, depending on your definition of “group selection”, it is certainly still arguable that there is any group selection demonstrated at all, in anything other than a human sociological sense”
You mean, no demonstrated case where organic evolutionary change has been directed by group selection.
“1) you brought up Wilson”
Actually, Williams
“I’ll go ahead and start the thread on friday afternoon. Who knows? you might decide you have an interest after all, and ya never know who might see it and participate”
I might show up, and make use of your special knowledge on sex ratios, but notice, once again: I am no enthusiast of group selection. To be sincere, I am skeptical of scenarios of competing groups driving the evolution of female-biased sex ratios. I guess my interest is whether I will find the individual level selective explanation equally bad.
I guess I find the subject interesting, because the bare logic of natural selection seems to apply perfectly at all levels. People expect selection to work wonders at the individual level yet it is unclear why would it not work at other levels too. Why? Indeed, even if this is just a brazen “empirical reality” as Icthyic likes to think.
And what I suspect is that selection does not work all that wonderfully at the individual level, either.
1) you brought up Wilson”
Actually, Williams
yeah, I’m current reading some old work of EO Wilson and Hamilton, and just put it there when I meant Williams.
People expect selection to work wonders at the individual level yet it is unclear why would it not work at other levels too.
I suggest you study some game theory to see why it works so well at the individual level from purely theoretical standpoint.
Indeed, even if this is just a brazen “empirical reality” as Icthyic likes to think.
It’s not just how I “think”, go take a gander at the overall literature sometime and see the thousands of articles demonstrating the efficacy of the individual selection model from both explanatory and predictive viewpoints. You have a thousand instances where the standard model works just fine to explain and predict, vs. one where there is some question, and mostly that ends up being about semantics rather than the data itself.
If you only focus on papers dealing with group selection, you are missing the vast, vast, bulk of the research that clearly shows individual selection working just fine.
so, it ain’t just an opinion.
…and stop trying to claim the evidence is on the side of group selection, and standard model supporters are ignoring it, cause that’s simply complete BS, and seriously erodes your credibility, as Scott pointed out himself.
you want to play mental masturbation, that’s fine, but if you’re serious about seeing whether group selection models work or not, then the way to do that is by actually testing them, and then analyzing the results.
If you don’t want to do that, then at best you can claim yourself as lazy, and at worst, you are being intellectually dishonest both with yourself and the rest here.
If by your “elitist” commentary you are really trying to say you simply can’t access the paper I cited, then say so, and I can find others that are freely accessible to discuss. I just thought this particular paper would be of specific interest because of the year it was published and the subject matter.
You might also note something the author said in the abstract:
Existing treatments of the evolution of female-biased sex ratios1,2,4−6 correctly predict the result of evolution, but do not make clear that it is a balance between opposing forces at two levels of selection.
because that IS the crux of the entire argument about group selection, in a nutshell.
nuff said.
i’ll post the link to the exact thread here on fri.
So what’s the gene’s eye explanation of religion and self-sacrificing religious or religious-type behavior (like self-sacrifice during war)?
“I suggest you study some game theory to see why it works so well at the individual level from purely theoretical standpoint.”
That would explain why it works so well at the individual alevel, but does not explain at all why it would NOT work so well at the group level. Read this again, make sure you follow me this time.
Now, if you ask me about the purely theoretical standpoint of game theory.. what I can I say. Lots of brains, math and and theory; not enough potatoes. I am awfully bored and disappointed with the whole “economization”, tradeoffs and such in evolutionary biology. There are much more useful and empirical things to do, from phylogenetic analysis, evo-devo comparinson of developmental mechanism, integrative field work, etc.
I hope we can get back to science now.
Lets be clear about what I think of the evidence for supraindividual selection: I feel you have very low standards for accepting evidence for individual selection, while at the same time you set very high ones in the face of data that can indeed be intriguing as to group or clade selection. For instance, you want group selection to have evidence beyond mere corelations. That is fine, I agree, but then it is a fact that most studies in a framework of evolution by individual selection are not precisely mechanistic or too experimental either, and rely heavily on statistics, correlations etc. Do not delude yourself, many lab scientists get quite amazed at how “soft” the studies of field-ecological people can be.
I woud agree that prediction is of course an important acid test: but then again, only the most elemental things in the most immediate future can be predicted by standard models of individual selection. Lets be real, there is no great predictive power like that of newtonian mechansincs just becuase you got a mathematical formalization (the same thing is also true for the economical sciences). So where indeed is the much greater predictive power of individual selection, such that group selection lacks it?
Say predictive power is equal. You have brought up the notion of parsimony. As far as I can see, there is nothing more intrinsically complicated about a mechanism of group selection explanation, than an individual selection explanation. That is there is no greater pasimony in strict sense. However, you may think that “parsimony” forces us to choose the individual expalantion, which we “know that exists”. This seems to me like you are quite plainly rocking on your wooden horse there, and exemplifies to me how you lower your standards to accepting individual selection.
We can only wonder then, how much the notion of the “dominance” of individual selection is due to these common attitudes, that is, some self-fulfilling prophecy
Of course I have acces to Journals. It is obvious what I meant when I said you are an elitist. You are an elitist, when you wave your condition of evolutionaty biologist and then say that Gould or me are not evolutiopnary biologists, or when you repetedly feel the need to insult, to question intelligence…. That is not scientific argumentation, that is pathetic. I am an evolutionary biologist too, but I dont bring it up because I know smart people can tell this is unconnected from the scientific argumentation. My recommendation is that you learn to do likewise if you want any true discussion, rather than simply attempting to impose yourself.
That would explain why it works so well at the individual alevel, but does not explain at all why it would NOT work so well at the group level. Read this again, make sure you follow me this time.
LOL
now we’re back to parsimony. seriously, either read the paper or don’t, show a direct interest or not, but give up playing the game otherwise.
my personal opinion is that you’re full of shit, but you’re welcome to prove otherwise. If you have access, read the paper, suggest others if you wish, and particpate in the thread. Right now you have no standing to suggest you have even the slightest clue what you’re talking about.
hence epithets are deserved, as far as I can tell.
anybody who tosses around the word “elitist” has been a moron every time I’ve bothered to followup, and i expect this time to be little different.
I hope we can get back to science now.
you never went there, and still evidently don’t plan to.
you are a waste of time so far. see you friday, or not.
Now, if you ask me about the purely theoretical standpoint of game theory.. what I can I say. Lots of brains, math and and theory; not enough potatoes. I am awfully bored and disappointed with the whole “economization”, tradeoffs and such in evolutionary biology.
then you haven’t the slightest clue of the theoretical value of multi-level models, if you think game theory plays no role in the argumentation.
as i thought, you’re full of shit.
don’t bother wasting my time any more.
and don’t waste other’s time with your blather, either.
I’ll call you on it every time you try to post that group selection models are well supported in the literature.
..and one more thing:
don’t EVER call yourself an evolutionary biologist. You’re nothing of the sort, and you make statements that even an undergraduate wouldn’t make.
I can show my pedigree, and my publications.
You?
thought not.
at best you are an interested observer.
and you are 80% dick waving, 20% science. You are a token elitist ultradarwinian. .
If you relly think this, search my name in pubmed and be refuted. Its a totally frivolous thing yet it seems to be THE cebtral matter for your pathetic nd frivolosu elitims: WHO is the RWAL evolutionary biologist? Jezuz. 12 year-old level thinking.
If I have said any fundamental mistakes, please point them out rather than just stating it. you make many mistakes, but if I dwelled on them too much, that would be frivolous and boring, wouldn’t it.
An important observation that I haven’t seen in this conversation is that it doesn’t mean the same thing to say that a person is an atheist and that an argument is atheistic.
An atheist is someone who is making a claim about ultimacy by saying the existence of God is not a possibility. But the way we’ve been describing arguments in here as “atheistic” includes those that simply don’t make a claim one way or the other — perhaps they are more accurately called “agnostic”, then. It’s clear to me that the concern Numbers raises is that Dawkins is saying that evolution actively debunks theism, not that it is neutral with respect to theism like the heliocentric model of the solar system. (Mind you, I don’t know for myself whether Dawkins does indeed say this… I haven’t read the book yet.)
And I confess that I don’t understand the resistance to considering atheism as part of a spectrum of religious belief systems. I don’t define religion as only those beliefs which are theistic, since this would unreasonably exclude varieties of Buddhism, among others. As a religious professional, I prefer to think of religion as our claims about ultimacy, and the structures, communities, and traditions we construct around those shared claims. In my mind, that makes atheism one among many claims about what’s out there, and in here.
If you relly think this, search my name in pubmed and be refuted.
looking… looking….
nope not finding. Your poor grammar and spelling also suggest you to be full of shit.
here’s one of mine for you:
A Test of the Function of Juvenile Color Patterns in the Pomacentrid Fish, Hypsypops rubicundus.
Pac. Sci., 47(3): 240-247
as already mentioned, I waded through the middle of the arguments about group selection when I was a grad student in the MVZ at Berkeley.
why is it important? because you haven’t given me the slightest clue you know what you’re talking about, and knowledge of your actual background helps one to figure out what your actual experience in this issue is.
as far as “12 year old thinking” goes, YOU were the one who brought up the “elitist conspiracy”, and continued it with:
. You are a token elitist ultradarwinian.
projection. you’re full of it (look it up if you are unfamiliar with the term, as you really need to understand it).
and you’re still wasting my time.
again, I no longer care WHAT you have to say on the subject, as you show so little interest in the actual practical application of it.
I’m totally done with you, except if you decide to post yet another set of false information about group selection support within the community of evolutionary biologists.
at this point, I consider you little more than a troll.
Rev. Scott,
An atheist is someone who is making a claim about ultimacy by saying the existence of God is not a possibility.
No, Reverend, that is not what an atheist is. Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in God or Gods. That’s it. That’s what atheism is. It means, literally, “without theism,” “without belief in God.” Particular atheists may believe that the existence of God is not a possibility (though I’ve never met one who does), just as particular theists may believe that the non-existence of God is not a possibility, but the terms “atheism” and “theism” encompass a much broader range of beliefs regarding the existence of God.
…the terms “atheism” and “theism” encompass a much broader range of beliefs regarding the existence of God.
I’m glad you bring this up, Jason; in the world of religious studies, we do discuss the shades of meaning in “theism”. When it’s contrasted with “deism”, for example, it tends to highlight the belief in a God that is actively involved in the progression of events, rather than one that created the universe and let it run according to its own laws. In contrast with “atheism”, its emphasis tends to be simply that a God exists. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary gives these two definitions for atheism:
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
I probably would have been smarter to say simply “an atheist is someone who believes there is no God”. I don’t think that I would agree with the definition you offer, though, “an absence of belief in God or Gods”, since it seems to me that this would include agnostics under the label of atheism. I want to give this some more thought.
I think that what little I can offer this conversation is that these labels are inexact, and we choose them for ourselves and throw them at others with a variety of meanings. I’d want to be very clear about what someone meant by a word before I flamed them for it.
Last comment on group selection:
here’s the words from the latest review I have read on the study of group selection models:
Long-term observations of birds, mammals, and other higher organisms have not encountered populations in which GS seems to operate (Zahavi and Zahavi, 1997; Clutton-Brock, 2002).
Heredity (2005) 94, 143-144.
emphasis mine.
in short, we simply DON’T see group selection operating in the field.
There is an interesting discussion in that paper about the possiblities for group selection acting at the level of microorganisms, but even then, there are standard model explanations that fit the observed data just as well for the most part (it’s a decent review, for those interested, and it’s free).
…and for those actually wondering, the reason game theory is important in the discussion of group selection is primarily for the reasons expounded by Maynard Smith way back in the 60’s, who pointed out that GS is vulnerable to cheaters. His conclusion was that GS requires a population structure that might not be found in the real world.
and it still essentially hasn’t been, as of the review quoted above.
for anybody who finds a paper documenting an actual observed instance of group selection in the field, I would greatly appreciate the reference, and will keep the thread on ATBC open for any contributions.
cheers
Rev. Scott,
I probably would have been smarter to say simply “an atheist is someone who believes there is no God”.
Well, that’s better than your previous definition, but it still excludes atheists who merely lack a belief in God. The terms “agnostic” and “agnosticism” were invented by T.H. Huxley to refer to a belief regarding knowledge of God’s existence. They do not refer to an absence of belief that God exists.
I don’t define religion as only those beliefs which are theistic
How do you define religion? I think the following definition, from sociologist of religion Steve Bruce, is about the best I’ve seen:
Clearly, atheism does not qualify as a religion by this definition.
Well, that’s better than your previous definition, but it still excludes atheists who merely lack a belief in God.
Can you tell me more about these kind of atheists, Jason? I have quite a few atheists and agnostics in my congregation, but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard about this variety. My first reaction to that categorization is, but it lumps together people who have given the God-questions real critical thought and chosen atheism with others who haven’t. What kind of beliefs (religious or otherwise) would this second group have? If you’re talking about people like non-theistic Buddhists, is this really a useful grouping? This is interesting, and I’d like to hear more!
I agree that Steve Bruce’s definition of religion is a good one; thanks for that. I’m genuinely curious whether you would include scientism under his definition. (Fair disclosure statement: I am a former physicist, and I’m not asking this disingenuously.) My quibble with it would be that it seems to be an a posteriori definition lumping together a broad range of theistic and non-theistic belief systems, but stopping at what looks to me like an arbitrary point. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I disagree with it, but I’m a little puzzled at where he chooses to draw the line.
In seminary we acknowledged that the diversity of belief systems made a formal definition of religion a problematic venture, but what we used as a first approximation was based in its etymology re- + ligāre, “to bind back together”. Our interpretation of this etymology (and we acknowledged that it was an interpretation) was “those shared ultimate beliefs, values and loyalties by which we join ourselves to one another and to that which we name as ultimate”. I think that the word “ultimate” is what distinguishes this from ideology in general, and I would say that the distinction is not a black-and-white one, but a gradual shading.
I appreciate the conversation, Jason, and one of the things I’m getting from it is an appreciation of how important a word’s context is: our definitions are shaped a lot by what we are intending to accomplish with them.
That’s so fascinating, Rev. Scott Prinster! Can you tell me more about [subject]? I appreciate your conversing with us on the topic of [subject] and I’d like to learn more!
Re: your brains
I probably would have been smarter to say simply “an atheist is someone who believes there is no God”. I don’t think that I would agree with the definition you offer, though, “an absence of belief in God or Gods”, since it seems to me that this would include agnostics under the label of atheism. I want to give this some more thought.
Most agnostics could fall under the label of atheism, and vice versa. Typically the atheist/agnostic distinction is either based on social pragmatism (“What reaction do I want to produce in the religious people I meet?”) or linguistic preference (“Do I prefer to emphasize non-belief or uncertainty?”)
Agnostic: “I don’t believe in a god, but I can’t be sure there isn’t one, so I’m an agnostic.”
Atheist: “I can’t be sure there isn’t a god, but I have no reason to believe in one, so I’m an atheist.”
I have heard of a few people who called themselves agnostic and really weren’t atheist, in the sense that they were very close to believing and just didn’t have quite enough evidence. I switched my own label from “agnostic” to “atheist” when I discovered that a lot of believers take that as the default meaning of the former term.
OTOH I’ve never even heard of an atheist who was certain that there was no deity at all. Dawkins goes further than I would, in that he says there “almost certainly” is no personal God, and describes the probability of such as “very low.” (I don’t think probability can be meaningfully defined in such a case, myself.) But he also restricts this to the most concrete, personal, predictable versions of God:
Ichthyic writes:
Well, maybe–are you this Vargas?
1: Vargas AO, Fallon JF. The digits of the wing of birds are 1, 2, and 3. A review. J Exp Zoolog B Mol Dev Evol. 2005 May 15;304(3):206-19. Review. PMID: 15880771 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
2: Vargas AO, Aboitiz F. How ancient is the adult swimming capacity in the lineage leading to Euchordates? Evol Dev. 2005 May-Jun;7(3):171-4. PMID: 15876189 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
3: Vargas AO, Fallon JF. Birds have dinosaur wings: The molecular evidence. J Exp Zoolog B Mol Dev Evol. 2005 Jan 15;304(1):86-90. PMID: 15515040 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
Not going to inject myself into the rest of this argument, since I put Vargas in my killfile a long time ago, but after reading Ichthyic’s comment, I couldn’t imagine Vargas trying that kind of a bluff before this audience.
I skipped one message and feel compelled to do yet one more commentary haha
And this time I’ll try to keep it more scientific (no answer is expected but it IS an interesting topic, multi-level selection).
I have not said there is no role for game theory in multilevel selection: In fact, game theory should be easily applicable at ALL levels. This just makes it all the more intriguing as to WHY selection and evolution may only exists at the individual level.
THIS is the value of having a multi-level “discussion” even if there is no such thing as evolution by group or species selection.
We can apply game theory to some quite different things, such as cards and economy. These models cannot provide much help for entire areas of research on evolutionary biology, but they can be assummed to always “operate”.
Is this a truly “evolutionary”, biological theory? . For some it provides a great representation of how evolution works. Yet, it is just another tool that may help out for some specific kinds of questions. It is clearly insufficent for an adequate understanding of evolution.
haha.. funny how Ichtyic “simulated” not finding me.
There is no such thing as academic conspiracy. I am not a paranoid. Maybe “academic alienation” is a better concept for what I am talking about. There is no bad intent.
I am not a paranoid.
Nixon said that too.
There is no such thing as academic conspiracy.
funny, you sure seemed to imply one with your token ultra-darwinist running commentary. Scott seemed to think so, too.
You talk out of both sides of your mouth in just about every post you make.
you simply aren’t worth dealing with, whoever you think you are.
so you can have the last word if you wish.
Rev. Scott,
Can you tell me more about these kind of atheists, Jason?
Not really, no. It’s like asking me to tell you more about people who lack a belief in space aliens, or the Loch Ness Monster. People who lack a belief in God are probably as diverse in other ways as people who lack a belief in those other things.
My first reaction to that categorization is, but it lumps together people who have given the God-questions real critical thought and chosen atheism with others who haven’t.
I don’t get this, either. The distinction is between simply lacking a belief that God exists and holding a positive belief that God does not exist, not with how much thought they’ve given the question. Obviously, there are thoughtful people in both groups.
I agree that Steve Bruce’s definition of religion is a good one; thanks for that. I’m genuinely curious whether you would include scientism under his definition.
No, I would not. I don’t see how “scientism” would qualify as a religion under any reasonable reading of Bruce’s definition.
My quibble with it would be that it seems to be an a posteriori definition lumping together a broad range of theistic and non-theistic belief systems, but stopping at what looks to me like an arbitrary point. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I disagree with it, but I’m a little puzzled at where he chooses to draw the line.
Sounds like more than a quibble. I don’t understand why you think Bruce’s definition is arbitrary. It seems about right to me because it properly distinguishes religion from philosophy or ideology. Calling atheism a religion seems to me not just wrong, but ridiculous, like calling the absence of belief in ghosts a religion.
Ichthyic Wrote: “for anybody who finds a paper documenting an actual observed instance of group selection in the field, I would greatly appreciate the reference, and will keep the thread on ATBC open for any contributions.”
Sorry, i’m new and I couldn’t find the thread at ATBC, but What about: Goodnight et. al. (1995) Multlevel selection in natural populations of Imapiens Capensis Am. Nat. Vol. 145, No. 4 pp. 513-26 ?
Rev. Scott,
It’s clear to me that the concern Numbers raises is that Dawkins is saying that evolution actively debunks theism, not that it is neutral with respect to theism like the heliocentric model of the solar system.
Dawkins most definitely believes that evolution, and science and reason more broadly, debunks theism. Not to the point of being proof that theism is false, but by exposing it as wildly implausible, unreasonable, unjustified. I share that belief.
But it’s important to understand that Dawkins is talking about theism in its traditional forms here (e.g, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism), not the abstract philosopher’s God of deism. See Anton Mates’ post for a relevant quote from Dawkins on this point.
Another suggestion for Ichthyic from a fan of Dawkins, Dennett, PZ, Gould, Wilson (both E.O. & D.S.), Carroll…and any other scientist who writes well enough to make me question my own understanding…note that neither Ichthyic or Vargas made that list. Also the 2005 D.S. Wilson paper I cited above and which unfortunately initiated the ugly food fight above still merits consideration…
“for the reasons expounded by Maynard Smith way back in the 60’s, who pointed out that GS is vulnerable to cheaters. His conclusion was that GS requires a population structure that might not be found in the real world”
I wonder what that population structure is like. I know Maynard Smith will provide a mathematical-conceptual explanation; I am just wondering if there are any predictions we could test from it, with new observations (explanation is always possible).
As I said, I am not impressed by models of evolution by GS, but I disagree with ichthyic on the reasons for this. In my opinion deme or species selection undoubtedly occurs (example: selective episodes of taxa extinction), but it does not direct organic evolution.
The point is, I feel very much the same about individual selection. Selection is not as much a guiding force of evolution as some would think.
If icthyic rejects any kind of GS for lack of evidence he should point out WHAT evidence is it that he is talking about, specially if others see evidence for group selection, where he sees none. If not he is just bouncing off anything that comes. Beware from people who say they only deal with the evidence. I known nany see evidence for evolution by individual selection where there really isn’t any. It’s become a “default evolutionary explanation”
Icthyics argument of “parsimony” is wrong. His demand for mechanism instead of correlation is vacuous if expected mechanisms are not made explicit.
I know I am dead to ichtyic who has condemned me to trolldom, in ole internet fashion; thus he will never never answer me again no matter what I say
errr…I am not Nixon
Telling you that you ARE a token elitist ultradarwinian, does not make me a paranoid. I still dont know how you made that one up. I have also said you guys have no power to diminish any succes made in development, paleontology, etc.
I anything YOU show paranoia of being accused of conspiracy (hah)
Hey, all I say, it is not ME who is using a nick, isn’t it.
Reason does perfectly well at showing the philosophers’ god of Deism to be ridiculous, too, Jason.
Think about stasis. Negative selection is always present, but it is not producing organic change.
Reason does perfectly well at showing the philosophers’ god of Deism to be ridiculous, too, Jason.
I always thought Wilkins had it right that philosophers, who deal with the mess from the scientists’ workbench aren’t in much of a position to criticize. Observation and evidence trumps philosophy.
Deism is not so much ridiculous these days as it is uninformed. From the perspective afforded by scientists, deism is merely superfluous.
What on Earth does this tit-for-tat quibbling over parsimony in evolutionary biology have to do with Ron Numbers’ logic concerning teaching science and faith?
What’s so horrible about parsimony, anyhow? So you’re not supposed to eat them before they start to rot. So what? I like eating parsimony, and so does my dog.
Did Ichthyic ever start the promised group selection thread elsewhere?
i’ve been very busy today; I’ll just put up a placeholder in a little while to act as a repository, and will get back to filling in details over the following days.
I’ll put the placeholder up in about a hour, then place the link here.
OK, i made a thread with a very quick and dirty intro, feel free to put and discuss whatever anyone thinks are relevant papers on the subject.
I’ll keep it open indefinetly, and hopefully over time we will have some detailed discussion about some of the references that appear there.
cheers
http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=459ef1d21344287c;act=ST;f=14;t=4070
I can’t log in at antievolution
Inclusive fitness does not explain how altruism may result of individual selection
You basically assume that altruistic behavior is determined by genes. Because of inclusive fitness, they are favored by selection. If so, you should check on the ample evidence for the importance of epigenetic interactions in the establishment of altruistic behavior. Interfering with the developmental history of interactions between organisms can have drastic effects, regardless of standing genetic variation, or the degree of genetic relatedness between individuals. In these cases, altruistic behavior toward relatives is a by-product of their shared ontogenies. Genetic relatedness is not mechanistically involved nor required. Inclusive fitness does not explain the origin of altruism: rather, it is the by-product of altruism.
Has any selection for actual altruistic genes ever been documented in the field or in experimental evolution?
Posting this here as well as my blog in case people read the backlogs. Clearly there was some misunderstanding in regards to what J. J. Ramsey was quoting.
I was referring to the stupid theists, not saying that all theists are stupid. There are stupid people in every group, even atheists. I was aiming the post at the especially stupid high school people who can’t seem to understand anything I say and completely miss the point in almost every reply to me.
Felt that should be clarified.
I can’t log in at antievolution
really? first complaint of that type I’ve heard.
did you get banned from there at some point? that would be a VERY rare occurence.
if something else is going on, write to Wes Elsberry and find out why you can’t get access; it is a simple public forum, after all.
another suggestion:
try going to the Pandas Thumb website and clicking on the link to ATBC from there, and see if that works for you.
Inclusive fitness does not explain how altruism may result of individual selection
*sigh*
yes it does.
I suppose you think you can just hand-waive away 20 years of work by Hamilton, eh?
phht.
You basically assume that altruistic behavior is determined by genes.
…and do stop putting words in my mouth, moron.
whatever. I guess it shouldn’t bother me then, if you can’t figure out how to access a public forum that nobody else seems to have a problem with.
I can log in, but I get the message “you cannot comment on this” when I try and reply to your post , so obviously some safety mechansims has been implemented. I think I have never visited antievolution before, certainly not banned there.
You may not realize this, but you MUST assume that altruistic behavior is determined by genes if selection at the individual level is to produce any evolution.
And stop insulting at each post… is it so necessary for you? Not that I am moved or bothered in the least, but rathe I am intrigued. You know, most people have a much frailer stomach than I. Scientists like you give us all the reputation of being real assholes.
In a hamiltonian framework individuals may die for their altruism but copies of their altruist genes are preserved by their surviving relatives.
How then could your framework not require for the genetic determination of altruism?
Again, has any selection for actual altruistic genes ever been documented in the field or in experimental evolution?
I am not hand-waving hamilton’s research , I am saying that before we go on with this we must have a close look to the biology of altruism to see whether the model is applicable or not.
One of the conditions is that the differences in altruistic behavior must be determined by genes.
Unless we find these genes, Hamilton remains entirely hypothetical. If we find evidence of epigenetic determination of differences, Hamilton is unapplicable.