Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
A topic that probably causes among the most heated discussions on this blog is the attempt to either displace evolution from Public School Curriculum, or to at least give “intelligent design” equal footing to evolution. My own opinion is that “intelligent design”, or “Creationism” as some call it, has no place in our public school system. Those who would force it on our schools would be destroying the Constitutional separation of Church and State. We saw a blog post by Professor Turley a week ago discussing some crazy State Legislator in Missouri introducing a bill to teach “Creationism” as a scientific theory and to teach “Evolution” as a philosophy, almost all who commented were not only outraged, but some disparaged Missouri as a backward state. A few of the comments belittled religion in general. http://jonathanturley.org/2013/02/15/missouri-legislator-introduces-bill-to-teach-creationism-as-a-scientific-theory-and-to-teach-evolution-as-a-philosophy/ . Another blog post by Professor Turley in October 2012, about Missouri Senate Candidate Todd Akin brought a firestorm of angry comments, also disparaging Missouri. http://jonathanturley.org/2012/10/15/akin-disproves-evolution/#comments Interestingly this Conservative State voted for Todd Akin’s opponent when Election Day came around.
Earlier on April 1st, 2012 David Drumm (Nal) did a guest blog titled “The Evolutionary Gorilla in the Room” http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/01/the-evolutionary-gorilla-in-the-room/ and received almost 240 comments. Now in truth this was an excellent guest blog and certainly drew a lot of discussion. But as I perused the comments, all 238 of them, I noticed something that I think is worth discussing. More than half of the comments were between Gene Howington and Dredd as a continuance of their ongoing argument about Dredd’s microbial theories. I must admit that when it comes to the scientific aspects of biology, I tune out as quickly as Lawrence Rafferty does when Calculus is raised. Another long time regular Bron did have more than a few comments as he tried to insinuate Ayn Rand into the discussion as usual. J Now here is the interesting part, on all three of those blogs there was nary a voice raised in defending “intelligent design.” While here at the blog many of the usual suspects are hostile to organized religion, we do have more than a few “religious” people who drop by and comment. Given the tradition of contentious, yet “civil” discussion here how can that be? I think I have a possible answer to that coming from a study done at MIT, by a renowned Physicist and I must admit I found his answer surprising.
In a Huffington Post article dated 2/12/13 (Darwin’s birthday), Mark Tegmark, MIT Physicist, wrote this to begin his article titled: “Celebrating Darwin: Religion and Science Are closer Than You Think”:
“He looked really uneasy. I’d just finished giving my first lecture of 8.282, MIT’s freshman astronomy course, but this one student stayed behind in my classroom. He nervously explained that although he liked the subject, he worried that my teaching conflicted with his religion. I asked him what his religion was, and when I told him that it had officially declared there to be no conflict with Big Bang cosmology, something amazing happened: his anxiety just melted away right in front of my eyes! Poof!
This gave me the idea to start the MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins, which we’re officially publishing today in honor of Charles Darwin’s 204th birthday. We found that only 11 percent of Americans belong to religions openly rejecting evolution or our Big Bang. So if someone you know has the same stressful predicament as my student, chances are that they can relax as well. To find out for sure, check out the infographic below.”
I frankly don’t know how I could present the “infographic” chart from the article because the technology is beyond me so I suggest you follow this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-tegmark/religion-and-science-distance-between-not-as-far-as-you-think_b_2664657.html and see it for yourself because I think it is of great interest to those, who like myself are nonplussed by the resurgence of religious Fundamentalism, The “infographic” is done as a circular chart that lists all the religions practiced in this country, their percentage of the population and each religious belief’s official view of Evolution. Only about 11% percent of the religious population of this country belong to faiths that are opposed to Evolution, For instance:
Catholics are 23.9% of the population and their official teachings see no conflict with Doctrine.
Methodists represent 6.1% of the population and feel evolution is “not inconsistent with religious doctrine.
Lutherans represent 4.6% of the population and of them only 1.4% (The Missouri Synod) are opposed to the theory of Evolution.
People with no Church affiliation represent 16.4% of the population and see no conflict.
Jews represent merely 1.7% of the population and 1.3% see no conflict with Evolution, while the other .4% have no official position on it.
There are conflicts between the various Baptist and Presbyterian Denominations, with some accepting Evolution and some rejecting it. Again please look at the chart at the link because I guarantee you will find it as absorbing as I did.
What are we to make of this data which demonstrates that of the various religious beliefs that make up our country, 89% seemingly have no religious conflict with Evolution? Yet Evolution has become a major issue. Professor Tegmark comments:
“So why is this small fundamentalist minority so influential? How can some politicians and school-board members get reelected even after claiming that our 14 billion-year-old universe might be only about 6,000 years old? “That’s like claiming that my 90-year-old aunt is only 20 minutes old. It’s tantamount to claiming that if you watch this video of a supernova explosion in the Centaurus A Galaxy about 10 million light-years away, you’re seeing something that never happened, because light from the explosion needs 10 million years to reach Earth. Why isn’t making such claims political suicide?
Part of the explanation may be a striking gap between Americans’ personal beliefs and the official views of the faiths to which they belong. Whereas only 11 percent belong to religions openly rejecting evolution, Gallup reports that 46 percent believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Why is this “belief gap” so large? Interestingly, this isn’t the only belief gap surrounding a science-religion controversy: whereas 0 percent of Americans belong to religions arguing that the Sun revolves around Earth, Gallup reports that as many as 18 percent nonetheless believe in this theory that used to be popular during the Middle Ages. This suggests that the belief gaps may have less to do with intellectual disputes and more to do with an epic failure of science education.”
Professor Tegmark’s is of the opinion that scientific education in America has been a failure and thus we have the gap between religious belief and science. I think his explanation is a rather middle of the road one and to that extent I disagree with him. The science education I received in elementary and high school was excellent, even if I was too lazy a student to study much. How much I do know scientifically and how much those peers of my age know is quite adequate. There has been a two pronged attack on our educational system that began in the late 60’s. A conscious effort to “dumb down” the people of America has been in effect since then to make them more pliable and easier to fool. The first part has been cutting funding and the second part has been attacking the curriculum. If you add to it the evolving of the Internet and the changes that has wrought, we see that it is not that the scientific education has failed, but the political support for it.
Most of us assume when we are told by someone that they are deeply religious and know their “bible” front to back, that they are truthful. I believe that in their hearts most feel they are being truthful, but their truth falls far short of reality. Many people don’t read their entire holy documents, but instead rely on their religious leaders to guide them as to what is “true” and what is important. We know that some religious leaders focus on what THEY think is important like The Book of Revelations and they don’t “preach” the Jesus who gave The Sermon on the Mount” I think there are many, like Professor Tegmark’s first year student who didn’t know just what his denomination believed about the Cosmos. This is not just true for Christians, but I believe it is true for Jews, Muslims, Hindu’s and Buddhists.
Another problem is our mainstream media plays a role in religious ignorance. I addressed this in July 2011. I was writing about the many TV documentaries being produced on networks like The History Channel and even ABC’s Primetime-Nightline which ran a series titled “Battle With the Devil”, a show that “investigates the belief in satanic will or possession by a demon”. Because the Religious Right in this country is so well funded, they speak with a loud voice. Our media, corporate controlled, fears anything that might hurt the bottom line, so they cater to those with the loud voices and the money behind them. http://jonathanturley.org/2011/07/23/fundamentalist-religion-and-tv-documentaries-a-problem/ What we see then is that a population if 11% in our country, that is working to force their silly, medieval beliefs onto all of us.
Two days ago Professor Tegmark followed up with a second Huffington Post article relating his experiences after he posted his first article. Here are some snippets from it:
“I’d been warned. A friend cautioned me that if we went ahead and posted our MIT Survey on Science, Religion and Origins, I’d get inundated with hate-mail from religious fundamentalists who believe our universe to be less than 10,000 years old. We posted it anyway, and the vitriolic responses poured in as predicted. But to my amazement, most of them didn’t come from religious people, but from angry atheists! I found this particularly remarkable since I’m not religious myself. I have three criticisms of these angry atheists:
1)They help religious fundamentalists:
A key point I wanted to make with our survey is that there are two interesting science-religion controversies: a) Between religion & atheism b) Between religious groups who do & don’t attack science
2)They could use more modesty:
If I’ve learned anything as a physicist, it’s how little we know with certainty. In terms of the ultimate nature of reality, we scientists are ontologically ignorant. For example, many respected physicists believe in the so-called Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, according to which a fundamentally random process called “wavefunction collapse” occurs whenever you observe something. This interpretation has been criticized both for being anthropocentric (quantum godfather Niels Bohr famously argued that there’s no reality without observation) and for being vague (there’s no equation specifying when the purported collapse is supposed to happen, and there’s arguably no experimental evidence for it).
3)They should practice what they preach:
Most atheists advocate for replacing fundamentalism, superstition and intolerance by careful and thoughtful scientific discourse. Yet after we posted our survey report, ad hominem attacks abounded, and most of the caustic comments I got (including one from a fellow physics professor) revealed that their authors hadn’t even bothered reading the report they were criticizing. Just as it would be unfair to blame all religious people for what some fundamentalists do, I’m obviously not implying that all anti-religious people are mean-spirited or intolerant. However, I can’t help being struck by how some people on both the religious and anti-religious extremes of the spectrum share disturbing similarities in debating style.
Having watched the religious debates that go on here continually, I do think that Professor Tegmark has a valid point. Although I am a Deist, I have no affection for either organized religion, or for the “holy books” that make up their various canons. However, I have in my life experienced what I would call the ineffable, so I personally won’t preclude the fact that there is a “Creative Force” of some kind that drives this Universe. Please understand me in this, because as Tegmark saw even his peers criticized him far too quickly: Because I don’t preclude doesn’t mean I think there is one, I just won’t rule it out. From what I know of modern physics in its current fashion there is the belief that the Universe is a lot “weirder” than science at the beginning of the 20th Century imagined it to be.
While I understand that most of us are angry and fed up with those 11% who believe in something like Genesis, perhaps we should aim our fire directly at that group of benighted fools and accept that others might be more approachable. What do you think? As I finish this I have a vision in my head of having to duck, where do you think that comes from?
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
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Bron,
You say: “…DNA isnt impacted by an animal swimming in water or eating a particular fruit.”
Perhaps not ,although Stalin the great scientist favored a scientist who claimed so.
But there is something called EPIGENETICS. I will not essay saying more about that. But check Wikipedia. A fairly good source, produced by fallible people and nerdy types. Ie, folks who know more than I do.
“Earlier on April 1st, 2012 David Drumm (Nal) did a guest blog titled “The Evolutionary Gorilla in the Room” http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/01/the-evolutionary-gorilla-in-the-room/ and received almost 240 comments. Now in truth this was an excellent guest blog and certainly drew a lot of discussion. But as I perused the comments, all 238 of them, I noticed something that I think is worth discussing. More than half of the comments were between Gene Howington and Dredd as a continuance of their ongoing argument about Dredd’s microbial theories. I must admit that when it comes to the scientific aspects of biology, I tune out as quickly as Lawrence Rafferty does when Calculus is raised. Another long time regular Bron did have more than a few comments as he tried to insinuate Ayn Rand into the discussion as usual.”
I am responsible I’m afraid for a “self fulfilling prophecy”, which is the problem of being a legend in your own mind. Where I was wrong though was that Bron never once mentioned Ayn Rand………….yet.
Bron,
Have gotten through the pile to you.
I must include you with the anti-gen faction here! I trust that you note the difference in spelling and meanings.
You have your ideas, take kickings from GeneH and others. Don’t sulk, comes back with your own ideas undeterred by bullying.
AND you have an open mind. Which few of GeneH’s followers are willing to show that they have.
Am I picking on GeneH. Not at all. He is just such a large……!
Civility before all. Even truth must be reined in.
Hope some here will note the spelling. REIN as in reining a horse. Not reigning as in being a king. Often mispelled here.
Wandering of an unreined mind? Perhaps.
Öne bite left.
idealist707 1, February 24, 2013 at 1:39 pm
…
Don’t do as Dredd does, his quotation technique is terrible.
…
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I follow the rules of HTML.
blockquote is a term of that art.
My quotes begin with and end with the HTML tags for blockquote.
That was intended to allow block quotes such as:
If you don’t like those, then write the HTML gods and tell them.
If they fix it I will use the fixed version Schweedie (Humphrey Bogart).
And then we will get a room. 😉
Indigo Jones 1, February 24, 2013 at 1:44 pm
@dredd
>And the distinction is procedural: first comes a hypothesis, second comes a theory, and finally comes a law
The difference is not procedural, it’s epistemological.
A law serves a different purpose than a theory, it is not an improvement on a theory. A theory will never become a law.
A theory is actually more broadly encompassing than a law. It is a categorical error to place scientific law “on top.”
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The surge of absolutism is inapposite:
(Scientific Hypothesis, Theory, Law Definitions, emphasis added). If science does not have crisp meanings, and it doesn’t, then the religious people who say “it is only a theory” are within bounds.
Run that by me using Dollo’s Law:
(Dollo’s Law). This was a hypothesis advanced by a historian, then evidently picked up on by an evolutionist, and still accepted not as a hypothesis or theory any longer, but now is considered to be a law of nature.
IndigoJones and GeneH´and Dredd and MikeS and all,
I must interrupt my meal again.
Although IndigoJones profiles himself with an ode to biology(?), he is obviously not a scientist, Nor is GeneH. Nor is Dredd for that matter.
Gentlemen,
The first you should learn as a scientist, and I was a lowly engineering student once. is that there are NO LAWS in science. There are theories that exist until proven wrong. And as long as we progress then the likelihood of that is high An open mind rests not on laws, but on a willingness to accept change.
An aside. The discussion here often can be likened to those which the followers of Constantine’s wife used on the Greek academies scattered over the Hellenic world. Don’t kill their arguments. Kill them.
Now this is one of GeneH’s specialty, ie Constantine and the happenings then, I am sure he will respond.
I notice the followers of GeneH, if we can call them that, are sticking their heads up now. Do they sense blood. Or is it the sh*t that attracts them..
Anyone who does not feel umbrage rising. I will get to you later.
PS to MikeS. We are all familiar with Dredd’s method of latching on to a subject and using it for self-promotion. Many have commented before.
But to use this now as a cudgel is unsound. He is on the subject.
It just happens to be subject you had not envisioned when you named and wrote your blog. Foul play, sir.
That was a long aside, but none here are perfect. Except GeneH.
He is my idol, or is it ideal, or idle. Yes, OS, I hear your mumblings.
I have three bites left to eat. And no, I won’t choke on them, but a bon appetit would be appreciated.
Oro,
That’s why I find cosmology inherently interesting. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson once said about cosmology, “I feel grand. I do not because I feel smaller, I feel bigger, because it’s the collective minds of all of us, the human species, that figured this stuff out, and that’s extraordinary. For me, the unheralded discovery of the twentieth century, which I carry with me every waking moment, is the recognition that the very chemistry of our bodies were formed in the hearts of supernovae, stars that exploded, gave their lives to the enrichment of the galaxy, out of which formed new stars and planets and people. So, it’s not so much we are in the universe, the universe is in us.” Or to put it in the simple elegance of Einstein, “My sense of God is my sense of wonder at the universe.” While I understand psychologically why some people rebel at the sheer enormity of the universe and their consequently small place in it, I don’t understand it intellectually. Then again, I’ve always had a proclivity for mystery and unsolved questions. To be otherwise to me seems to be opting to sit on the porch instead of going out into the backyard to play and discover. It’s not as easy or safe as saying “Invisible Guy X is responsible and we don’t need to think about it” but it does have its advantages.
Also, I can’t suggest strongly enough the value of looking at Tegmark’s work on MUH. Although I think a theory of everything is probably precluded by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, he goes a long way to addressing that point. I think you’d find it interesting.
You don’t have to be a scientist to embrace the scientific method or quote scientific facts and their sources. It’s called ability and intellect. A person who thinks outside their profession is not someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about necessarily. People benefit from having greater interests and often these outside interestes benefit their professions.
One of the dictionary definitions of “natural” is:
(Dictionary). Is “nature” and “the universe” synonymous, such that, natural selection describes The Big Bang and the following 9.21 billion years of evolution preceding the advent of biotic life on Earth some 3.45 billion years ago?
Or does “natural selection” only apply to biotic evolution?
Up-thread a science writer of Discover was quoted:
What is wrong with saying “I don’t know?”
The only other choice seems to be gnosticism on steroids, except perhaps no-one seems to know what a gnostic is anymore:
(What Is Gnosticism). When all you got is muddy water you might as well work that mojo …
Id707,
Plato? Oh, noes. That’s not a better word than “polyglot”. Sorry, but you won’t be moving on to Final Jeopardy. I’m more of an Aristotelian.
The rest of your ad hominem drivel is just that: ad hominem drivel.
Rolling up I see a correction from GeneH.
You are correct sir, I meant to say polymath powers was your claim.
Or am I mistaken again.
Just corrections deserve answering. Others not.
I will roll futher back and continue my reading from where I left off, several lightyears ago. Even light get tired, or so say some.
“Mike Spindell1, February 24, 2013 at 12:54 pm
“Since Mike had other plans for this thread, I’ll shut up, now.”
Bob,
As my father used to say to me time and again in a bad ……”
MikeS.
Read it again and tell me that you did not enjoy putting that horn into Dredd’s side. Even saints have haloes which go as awry as they did prior to becoming saints. And you?
I won’t say it is uncivil, but it smells to me, and it is not because that I am partial to him. The best with him is that he tries to open closed minds which have shut after a day at the lawbooks and an hour or so in court.
I am not picking on you. I am commenting as I come down the pile. A long way to go. But I am admittedly saving some things for later.
If my strength is enough (always a good excuse for a sick man) I will address Dredd’s failings. I register them meanwhile.
GeneH? Not worth the effort. He knows all the dirty tricks. And he prefers to believe Plato instead of modern science. How does that work? Plato as a scientist whose logic overrules all since then. In his mind, yes.
And GeneH knows how to make a closing argument in court forgetting all rules of evidence, casting shit at the opponent. suggesting he beats his wife, etc. Proof? What is that? But science in spite of his claims are not his forté. Ever see a science link from him.
Yo, he has kicked my ass, but what is that for me to get upset over, he cows most folks here. But not me or Dredd. Maybe others too, but haven’t reflected on that point.
Back to my food. It is getting cold now.
Gene: “Is the problem an excess of fanaticism or a lack of reason in the individual? I submit it could be both.”
My fishing buddy says its the difference between Christians who “Hold Fast” and those who “Push On;” those who know just enough of the faith to be satisfied with a God fashioned in their own image, and those who’d rather have a God worthy of the awesomeness of the universe.
I want to talk about stars.
Regardless of the role of prions, viruses, microbial forms, nucleic acids, RNA, DNA, and chromosomes, I stand amazed that with the exception of hydrogen (and maybe some helium), the elemental, constituent parts of the foregoing were birthed in the heart of an exploding star. As is true of every single atom of which I and you are made, and all the other stuff that lives around, on, and in us.
I remember summer evenings so long ago as a child lying on my back in an alfalfa patch staring at the Milky Way on lazy summer nights — pure contentment, and then everyone would agree on how insignificant the expanse of the cosmos made them feel.
I never said anything. I never felt insignificant when I was outdoors in a spot where I could see stars. I felt big. And I felt a part of, and not apart from, something even bigger. And that by itself, not God, gives me the desire and strength to reach out to others and say we are all the same and we are in this together. And if it helps, I use the language of faith to make that plea.
And I always thank God for giving me and my friends such a grand backyard — the entire universe — to play in.
id707,
I’m not a polyglot. I only speak English, a bit of German, enough French and Japanese to get slapped or find a restroom, and read a smattering of Latin. That hardly qualifies me as a polyglot.
Here’s to hoping your other word is better than “polyglot”.
Bron,
What Darwin said does not preclude those mechanisms but you are precluding environment as a driver of evolution. Mutations can and do come about from environmental considerations favoring or disfavoring a given organism. In the wolf/whale example, what drives an animal to seek a new food source? The need to eat. What happens when their prey animals or plant foods die out or otherwise vanish from their niche? They either starve to extinction or they find a new food source and adapt. If being able to swim better helps catch more fish, it’s going to select in. However, simply introducing a new food source can drive change alone if adapting to the new food source is somehow beneficial. The relationship between environment and ecology is a two-way street too. Organisms transform their environments while environments shape what changes are beneficial versus detrimental. Natural selection is a matrix of probability populated by various combinations of genetics (shaped by differential reproduction, random mutation, symbiosis and environmental forces) and environment (shaped by geology, meteorology, cosmology, etc. in addition to the organisms living within the biome). Evolution and natural selection are a far more subtle and interactive processes than a cursory understanding of the topic can reveal.
Dredd,
Between bites of food, I must say: “What can you expect from a blog public composed of lawyers, former LEOs, and psychologists.
Science is not their metier.
Only GeneH claims to be polyglot. I have another word but will save it until later.
Gene H:
If Charlie accepts that those changes were caused by genetic mutations as a result of DNA changes due to a chemical, virus or spontaneous mutation, I am all for it. But if he says it is because of eating fish, I dont believe it.
DNA isnt impacted by an animal swimming in water or eating a particular fruit.
@dredd
>And the distinction is procedural: first comes a hypothesis, second comes a theory, and finally comes a law
The difference is not procedural, it’s epistemological.
A law serves a different purpose than a theory, it is not an improvement on a theory. A theory will never become a law.
A theory is actually more broadly encompassing than a law. It is a categorical error to place scientific law “on top.”
Bron,
In Dredd’s defense, he changed that story midstream when called out on religion and science being social constructs.
“A wolf doesnt become a whale because it swims in the water for 10 million years and changes its diet from rats to fish.”
But it can. I don’t think you understand, Bron. That’s precisely how environment influences evolution. The wolf with the adaptations beneficial to adopting the new diet in the environment is going to naturally selected in and those adaptations are going to be passed to the next generation. As these adaptations compound, you eventually reach speciation when the adapted organism becomes so different from its origin/predecessor species that is has to be recognized practically and taxonomically as distinct by science. Wolf becomes whale. That’s just how adaptive evolution works. The inputs of genetics and symbiosis work in the same manner – if they provide an active or passive benefit to survival, those changes select in, if not, they select out. We are not homo habilis in the same way a wolf is not a whale. Speciation is at the core of evolution and primarily what Darwin’s work explains – “On the Origin of Species“.