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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GeneH,
RE: Your defense against me and Dredd and for all I know against others, in that what we think about you is of no importance to you.
Kinda self-centered aren’t you. We attack your ideas, not the messenger.
But you won’t admit that. Closing the door to well-founded argument is just your style/technique. It does not amount to the proverbial rats***.
We do not see the messenger. We only hear the wind blowing. (you can read my real thoughts can’t you. you are too intelligent, as one said previously today.
Oro Lee and Gene,
Two of the most memorable moments in my were spent camping and so away from City Lights. In both instance I had arrived too late to set up a tent and spent the evening in a sleeping bag looking up at the night sky I had never seen as a child. The first was by a river, in a river valley in the Grand Tetons National Forest. The huge horizon and absence of background light let me first see the sky as I imagined our ancestor saw it. It took my breath away and I just lay quietly for hours late into the night looking up at the Universe. The secon was years later in the White Mountains of Vermont. However one processes it the emotion is a gut wrenching awe at the magnificence of creation.
And now for my more mundane side, kitschy if you will. I am leaving commenting for today to prepare to watch the Academy Awards, which I’ve done regularly for the last 60 years. I love them, even with their often sappy comedy and sometimes they even make me cry. I’ve seen all the contenders for Best Picture, except for Zero Dark Thirty (hiss) and my money is on “Les Miserables”, but as I said about it in my guest blog at the time, the movie had me when the first chord played.
Dredd,
“You would have been a lot better off if you had.”
So I could what? Misinterpret and misrepresent materials to spread nonsense theories like you? I’ll pass. Thanks.
But it’s nice to know you think highly of willful ignorance.
It certainly explains a lot.
No, Dredd. Not at all. I’m saying if you (in the generic sense) expect absolutes you are going to be disappointed. Reality isn’t composed of absolutes at the sub-atomic level. Feel free to argue against physics all you like. The uncertainty that comes with recognizing the universe is a probabilistic place instead of a deterministic place based on scientific evidence presented by quantum mechanics is only crippling if you let it, but it is the way of things. Denial is a psychological mechanism, but no amount of denial changes the laws of physics. What is and was is the collapse of the wave function, what will be is the probability of those collapsing waves, but there is always the random to interfere with expectations.
Gene H. 1, February 24, 2013 at 3:39 pm
id707,
No wiki needed. Unlike you and your buddy, I didn’t sleep through my biology classes.
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You would have been a lot better off if you had.
(Bron up-thread).
Upon re-reading GeneH’s comment to me:
“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”.”
Jeez, was that to me.
Japanese, in spite of over time having spent many weeks there, I can not or will not speak it. Porridge in the mouth mixed with monotonality, and paucity of word sounds makes it not to my liking.
My French may exceed yours, but as a non-speaker on his first visit, I got picked up on the bus to town by a German girl who had a French boyfriend. This was in the days of Le Bourget, and departing down a ladder and strolling across the tarmac. Have studied French since then, to no great avail.
I gladly concede Latin to you, and Greek as well. Now if we can get the doctors with us, and lawyers too, and who knows who else……then!!!!
“one more comment about your “self fullfilling prophecy”. I never made it to Calculus!”
Raff,
Neither did I.
“Then write some more good blogs on something else.
Like why your people’s book was right about the Hittites and the scientists were wrong.”
Dredd,
“My people”, as you so quaintly put it, were right about the Hittites. It is often lost on many that the biblical story of the “Exodus” may well be tied to the Hittites having conquered Egypt at one point for around two centuries. The Pharoah Joseph worked for may have been a Hittite, which would explain the later maltreatment of the Hebrews. Since my avocation is the intertwining of mythology with ancient history, there are many stories I could write, because I believe there is more “fact” in some mythology than is given credit for by Archaeologists, who I think in some ways are the least scientific of scientists,
In the end though, I write about what tickles my fancy and arouses my passion, that makes the process easier and more fun.
Gene H. 1, February 24, 2013 at 3:26 pm
Still operating under the delusion that your opinion of me matters, id707?
And really Dredd. “It’s only a theory” in the context of absolutism is nonsense. Semantic argument and ignoring the nature of reality. Probability is the nature of the universe. This is a fact of quantum mechanics. There is no such thing as absolute certainty, only differing level of probability that are rendered fact by the collapse of the wave function and the movement on the arrow of time representing entropy. But when evaluating a proposition one who takes simple belief over demonstrable evidence? They are engaging in willful ignorance. Probability backed by experimental data and observations indicate that both natural selection and (at least some variant on) Big Bang cosmology are true descriptions which again goes to what is a scientific law: a statement of fact, deduced from observation, to the effect that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions are present. Absolute certainty is not required for judging veracity.
And that is the core problem with the subset of religiosity that Tegmark identifies – their inability to cope with reality and binary thinking keeps a vocal minority in opposition to scientific consensus based upon evidence.
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So, you are only expressing a theory?
Nothing solid?
I guess the only way to get around “not knows” is to buy scientific textbooks from used book stores and castigate anyone who deigns to differ with them:
(from quote up-thread). Hey, I think I will sing to orolee’s choir and to the favorite Rabbi of Mike S:
id707,
No wiki needed. Unlike you and your buddy, I didn’t sleep through my biology classes.
Interjection:
Mountains can be eroded by simple drops of water, and caressing winds.
Mount Everest, here I come. Give me a million years, and I will humble you.
Did you know that the Appalachian chain once was as high as Mount Everest, and was conjoined with Asia Minor? There is proof. but you can take my word for it. Continents do shift and time does make great changes
with a little help.
“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?”
ID707,
Sainthood? I haven’t even been beatified, nor would I wish to be. I’m just down here in the muck with the rest of us animals making my way through the rat race of life, looking for the turn that will get me to the cheese.
“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.”
ID707,
Not foul play at all. Responding to something that bothered me with honesty and my own viewpoint is not foul play. I even stated that I would in no way try to deter, which as you put it so well: “We are all familiar with Dredd’s method of latching on to a subject and using it for self-promotion.” As I previously stated anyone, even as you so frequently do, is entitled here to go off topic with no penalty other than a possible, though infrequent rebuke. 🙂 AND PLEASE don’t give me your “guest bloggers as privileged characters rant yet again”, since you know very well that Professor Turley singled you out as our most prolific commenter.
Mike Spindell 1, February 24, 2013 at 3:19 pm
“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.
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Then write some more good blogs on something else.
Like why your people’s book was right about the Hittites and the scientists were wrong.
Mike S.,
one more comment about your “self fullfilling prophecy”. I never made it to Calculus!
@idealist
>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.
***
DNA is impacted by environmental factors, but genes are not.
Genes are only about 3-5% of the DNA in a typical organism. Genes code for specific proteins. Most DNA is non-coding, though it performs regulatory functions and … well, we’re still learning what all that DNA is for.
Epigentics provides a model for the inheritance of certain types of acquired traits. Epigenetic tags can switch particular genes on or off, and the markings attached to particular genes can be inherited.
“Gene H.1, February 24, 2013 at 2:05 pm …….”
Excellent, did you copy this from Wikipedia? No cheating allowed. It does not breathe the true GeneH.
This began as an honest compliment, but with my lightning-quick (?) mind
it changed, after writing the first word, to as expression of suspicion. I am very sensitive to styles of writing. And I compliment myself often. Also a good trait.
raff,
Although a cosmetologist might disagree, I think you can make an argument that when you work to beautify the universe you are taking a hands on approach to cosmology albeit from an aesthetic perspective rather than an interrogatory perspective. 😉
orolee 1, February 24, 2013 at 2:10 pm
…
I want to talk about stars.
….
And I always thank God for giving me and my friends such a grand backyard — the entire universe — to play in.
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That is way cool.
So, what was God thinking when s/he made stars “backstabbers?”
I mean this:
(Did Abiotic Intelligence Precede Biotic Intelligence?). All stars will destroy life on planets near them.
This is following eons and eons of supporting life on those planets near them … those at the right distances that is.
What does that mean to you as a believer in God?
Still operating under the delusion that your opinion of me matters, id707?
And really Dredd. “It’s only a theory” in the context of absolutism is nonsense. Semantic argument and ignoring the nature of reality. Probability is the nature of the universe. This is a fact of quantum mechanics. There is no such thing as absolute certainty, only differing level of probability that are rendered fact by the collapse of the wave function and the movement on the arrow of time representing entropy. But when evaluating a proposition one who takes simple belief over demonstrable evidence? They are engaging in willful ignorance. Probability backed by experimental data and observations indicate that both natural selection and (at least some variant on) Big Bang cosmology are true descriptions which again goes to what is a scientific law: a statement of fact, deduced from observation, to the effect that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions are present. Absolute certainty is not required for judging veracity.
And that is the core problem with the subset of religiosity that Tegmark identifies – their inability to cope with reality and binary thinking keeps a vocal minority in opposition to scientific consensus based upon evidence.
Gene,
Would a cosmologist work with makeup or the cosmos? 🙂