Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
“Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further in the pursuit of the truth.”
–Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Hymn of the Universe,” (Harper and Row, 1961).
It took the jury fewer than fifteen minutes to convict substitute teacher John Scopes of the crime of teaching evolution to Tennessee public school students in 1925. It was the last victory of Christian fundamentalists in their war against the disciples of Darwin, and a hollow one at that. Although the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law, it reversed the verdict because the trial judge had imposed a $100.00 fine on Mr. Scopes, contrary to a provision in the Tennessee constitution requiring a jury to assess fines exceeding $50.00. In sending the case back, however, the court made the unusual suggestion that further prosecution not be pursued. Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 SW 363 (1927). It was not.
Fundamentalists were emboldened by the Scopes verdict. In 1928 Mississippi and Arkansas adopted similar laws and in the ensuing years, the subject of evolution was effectively dropped as a topic in many high school science courses, a trend that was not reversed until the Sputnik scare in 1958 led to a revamping of science curricula. It was not until 1968 that the Supreme Court decreed that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution in public schools violated the Establishment Clause. Epperson v. Arkansas, 397 U.S. 97 (1968).
With direct bans no longer available, fundamentalists pursued a new strategy, the adoption of “balanced treatment” legislation requiring that teachers provide time for the exploration of the Genesis story of creation as an alternative explanation of biological origins. In 1983 a federal district judge threw out Arkansas’ balanced treatment statute, concluding that creationism is “not science because it depends upon a supernatural intervention which is not guided by natural law. It is not explanatory by reference to natural law, is not testable and is not falsifiable.” McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1267 (E.D. Ark. 1982). Several years later, Louisiana’s balanced treatment statute was also found to violate the Establishment Clause under the Lemon test. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987).
Efforts to recast creationism as science under the name “intelligent design” were rebuffed in the now famous case of Fitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 400 F. Supp.2d 707 (E.D. Pa. 2005), in which the court succinctly stated that “[intelligent design] cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.” 400 F. Supp.2d at 765.
But the war is far from over. Creationists are once again in court, and this time they are urging that the teaching of evolution in the public schools is itself a violation of, inter alia, the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses because evolution theory incorporates the “core tenets of Religious (‘secular’) Humanism.”
Cope (a/k/a Citizens for Objective Public Education, Inc.), et al., v. Kansas State Board of Education was filed on September 26th in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The case seeks to enjoin implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by the Kansas Board of Education in June of this year. Those standards are objectionable under the First and Fourteenth Amendment, according to the plaintiffs, because they endorse the “orthodoxy” of scientific materialism, which “holds that explanations of the cause and nature of natural phenomena may only use natural, material or mechanistic causes, and must assume that, supernatural and teleological or design conceptions of nature are invalid.” (Complaint, para. 8) Plaintiffs contend that teleological and materialistic explanations of the natural world create “competing religious beliefs.” (Complaint, para. 75).
The allegations are absurd on a number of levels. First, Plaintiffs have adopted a definition of religion which eliminates any requirement for belief in a supernatural entity. Second, Plaintiffs’ reasoning, if pursued to its logical conclusion, would virtually preclude the teaching of science in the public schools because their objections go to the basis of what we understand as the scientific method. Third, Plaintiffs rely upon the same flawed dualism that taints most fundamentalist arguments, the false assumption that acceptance of the findings of evolutionary biology are incompatible with religious belief in general and Christian belief in particular. The great paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin, for example, who is quoted above, regarded evolution itself as part of the process of divine creation.
This latest assault on science is not the first time that creationists have relied on the Secular Humanism argument In Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution, 636 F.2d 738 (D.C. Cir. 1980), the court rejected the claim that a museum exhibit of evolutionary processes constituted a governmental endorsement of Secular Humanism. The court held that the Establishment Clause does not prohibit a science display which may happen to be in agreement with a tenet of a particular religion. And in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, supra, the court observed, “Yet it is clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense, that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause.” 529 F.Supp. at 1274.
Fundamentalists have failed in their attempts to create science out of religion. There is no doubt that they will also fail in their attempts to create religion out of science. The only serious remaining question is why we must continue to have the discussion.
“What I find most surprising in the debate over evolution is why no one appears willing to discuss the possibility that the conflict between science and fundamentalist theology is not a consequence of bad science but of bad theology.”
Mike A. is correct the problem is bad theology. I would define that bad theology as religious Fundamentalism of every stripe.Let me take a stab at how that works as I see it.
The basic conflict that this all stems from is the fundamentalist interpretation of “Genesis” as written in the Torah. Be those fundamentalists Christians, or Jews, there insistence that the creation events of Genesis are historical fact is what is the catalyst for this war on science as I see it.
Whether God, or inspired humans wrote Genesis, if we are to accept it as historical then we must also accept that the Author/authors were too stupid to provide a consistent narrative. Does anyone really want to imply that God, or other authors was too stupid to provide a consistent narrative? Where did the wives of Adam’s children come from for instance? Genesis was composed as metaphor by a sophisticated source who understood that those who would behold it would understand it as metaphor. The ancient people may have been primitive by our standards when it came to technology, but in fact they were far more sophisticated than we are today when it came to communication. Metaphor was the accepted method of trying to communicate important ideas, Plato’s Cave for instance. That someone would accept Genesis as history comes really close to blaspheming God as being too incompetent to tie up the loose ends in Genesis, not to mention the rest of the Torah.
This metaphorical interpretation is not unique to me but in fact The Roman Catholic Church, many Protestant denominations and the majority of Jewish authorities accept the scriptures as metaphor. At the same time they accept science’s interpretation of the age of the Earth, which if Genesis is believed history they could not, they understand that within the facts developed by science that God could still well be the Creator. For Fundamentalists who believe that “every jot and tittle” of their scriptures must be fact.
What is happening here is the same arguments faced by Copernicus and Galileo. Prior to Columbus and others, Christian Theology taught as a matter of fact the world was flat. That belief became unsustainable, so the fall back position became that the Earth was the center of the Universe. One must understand that from the theologian’s point of view Earth’s uniqueness was a necessity of religious doctrine in order to emphasize “mankind’s” dominion over it. Unfortunately for that point of view, then came Copernicus and Galileo. How many of you today arguing against evolutionary theory and geological evidence, would argue that the Universe and the Sun revolve around the Earth?
Now before any of you science deniers would label me an atheist, it is well-known and oft repeated here by me that I am a Deist. Certain of my own personal experiences have led me to the “feeling” that there is a “higher power”, or some creative force that informs the Universe. To my thinking though, at this point in humanity’s evolution, it is not only impossible to know what that higher power wants of us, but it is also impossible for mere humans to interpret the nature of the higher power. The theological explanations do not satisfy me as making sense for the most part and the history of theology has been one of constant struggles to impose its beliefs on everyone. This is what is being discussed here. Those fighting the anti-evolution battle are trying to impose their beliefs on the rest of us and at the same time trying to destroy science that conflicts with their teaching. Those proponents five hundred years ago would have attacked Galileo and Copernicus and the sum of their argument would be that the Universe revolves around the Earth.
The real question is why. They can teach their children whatever beliefs they want to teach them and they have far more influence over their children than does any other institution. The inevitable answer must be that they must deny any doubts about their faith that they have and the stretch of that denial must enfold their children. Since that alone wouldn’t protect them from seeing things that shake their faith, they must impose it everywhere, to hold onto it themselves.
Mike Spindell wrote: “That someone would accept Genesis as history comes really close to blaspheming God as being too incompetent to tie up the loose ends in Genesis, not to mention the rest of the Torah.”
I have great respect for the Torah. I don’t think we can say none of it is history. The unique thing about this work is that it records a careful genealogy of people. Whose other history does this? If the Torah is not history, what are we going to then argue, that Abraham did not exist, that Isaac did not exist, and Jacob (Israel) never existed? Next we will say that Jewish people do not exist? Surely not! That seems laughable to me. No other people on earth recorded their history so well, and you want to say that it is blasphemy to call it history? Why should we think that God would provide a complete history anymore than we would think he would provide a complete theology? If it is incomplete, so be it. That is no reason to think it is not historical. There is no history on earth that is complete.
In regards to origins, there are two different accounts in Genesis. One appears chronological and scientific. The other appears to be written from the perspective of an architect designing something before it has been built. So we might say one is perhaps historical and the other is not. Why would we have two different allegorical versions? That would not make sense, so it seems prudent to think that the first account is perhaps indeed historical and scientific. It certainly points toward an empirical clock in repeated fashion. Why?
Mike Spindell wrote: “At the same time they accept science’s interpretation of the age of the Earth…”
But science must have by necessity an old age for the earth. There is no other way that currently observable natural laws could be used to explain our origins by natural means, and even with an old age for the earth, there are a plethora of obstacles.
Mike Spindell wrote: “Christian Theology taught as a matter of fact the world was flat.”
This for the most part is pure myth. Some establishment religionists taught this based upon passages talking about the four corners of the earth, but other theologians claimed the earth was a globe, because Isaiah called the earth a circle (Isaiah 40:22) as well as passages in Proverbs and Job. The truth is that no educated person after the third century B.C. and onward believed the earth was flat. The story about Columbus facing people who thought he would sail off the edge of the earth is pure fiction.
Mike Spindell wrote: “Those fighting the anti-evolution battle are trying to impose their beliefs on the rest of us and at the same time trying to destroy science that conflicts with their teaching. Those proponents five hundred years ago would have attacked Galileo and Copernicus and the sum of their argument would be that the Universe revolves around the Earth.”
Interesting. If this analogy is to be used at all, it would be used in reverse. Copernicus and Galileo were in the minority. The angst directed against them was from the establishment people who wanted to force their views through the use of government. Today, the establishment people favor evolution and use government powers to force out the views of the minority scientists who think Intelligent Design is a more reasonable view. None of the creationists have any power at all to force their views upon anyone. All they have are their ideas. Granted, this legal complaint is an effort of using government, but it is an effort allowed under our rules of democracy to allow education to share information from both views… to stop the government restriction of allowing only the anti-Creator views.
“I have great respect for the Torah. I don’t think we can say none of it is history. The unique thing about this work is that it records a careful genealogy of people.”
DavidM,
Like to misquote much. I didn’t say that none of it was historical but the Seven Days of Creation and the Garden of Eden were metaphors. As for the genology there is perhaps some history but the ages lived to within it is ridiculous. Or do you believe Methuselah lived 900 years?
As for your claim:
‘Mike Spindell wrote: “Christian Theology taught as a matter of fact the world was flat.”
This for the most part is pure myth.”
Tell that to Galileo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
Mike Spindell wrote: “I didn’t say that none of it was historical but the Seven Days of Creation and the Garden of Eden were metaphors. As for the genology there is perhaps some history but the ages lived to within it is ridiculous. Or do you believe Methuselah lived 900 years?”
It is not so much a matter of belief, but that is what it says. As someone interested in truth, I would like to investigate that further. I do not dismiss it just because my personal experience has not allowed me to observe people living hundreds of years. The interesting aspect to the Torah analysis is that it seems to indicate a water canopy type atmosphere different than what we have now, and it was after the first rain and deluge with the continental division that followed is when ages began to decline. Such a scenario would be in line with our understanding of natural laws, cosmic radiation, etc. We don’t really have a real clear grasp of the aging process anyway, so without that knowledge about what causes aging, we really can’t be authoritative in claiming the long ages are impossible.
The fascinating thing to me is that this history from the Jewish people is the only history from any civilization that records their genealogy all the way back to Adam, which according to the Torah was the first man, created from the ground. There are so many remarkable things involved with the history of Israel, that I simply cannot discount it just because it seems too remarkable to believe. I would like to have good reason to reject it. So far, science has not given that to me.
Mike Spindell wrote:
—-
As for your claim:
‘Mike Spindell wrote: “Christian Theology taught as a matter of fact the world was flat.”
This for the most part is pure myth.”
Tell that to Galileo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
—-
Mike, maybe you should read your own link? As far as I could see, nothing is in there about Galileo having a problem with Christian Theology supposedly teaching a flat earth.
Clearly the Church had other issues with him, and the church was wrong… no doubt about it, but Christian Theology teaching a flat earth and causing Galileo problems? That’s a myth.
“Mike, maybe you should read your own link? As far as I could see, nothing is in there about Galileo having a problem with Christian Theology supposedly teaching a flat earth.”
DavidM,
You’re right I ignorantly conflated flat earth with heliocentrism. My bad.
Interesting info and analyses Dredd, Hubert C., David, and parts of Gene’s comments (about science and religion not attempting to replace or undermine each other?).
Mike Appleton wrote: “This view has dominated fundamentalist opposition to evolution theory and, in my opinion, has done a disservice to both science and to all believers who do not subscribe to biblical literalism.”
The fundamentalist faction of Christianity embraces the concept of Biblical literalism. They accept the idea that much of the Bible is allegorical, but they follow a principle of interpretation that teaches them that wherever possible, the Bible should be interpreted literally.
Contrary to the allegations of many scientists, they do not ignore science. Rather, they are looking for actual proof that their literal interpretation of the Bible is false, and lacking that, they do not relent. They address virtually every evidence put forward. Some of them have created journals for publishing science that is not antagonistic toward the idea of an intelligent designer because the scientific establishment has demonstrated that they will not publish anything that does not support the evolution paradigm of origins. I do not view these fundamentalists as a disservice because it encourages science and study of origins rather than just blindly following the popular theory.
You claim that they don’t attempt to modify their theology, but they do. Some have attempted to shift interpretations in a variety of ways. For example, some postulate an entire world existed before Adam and Eve. They insert this world between Gen. 1:1 and Gen. 1:2. They do so based upon theology, upon certain descriptions by prophets coupled with the observation that Genesis 1 seems to describe a recreation rather than a new creation event. They place the dinosaurs in that world, as well as many in the fossil record. Some fundamentalists are not convinced on theological grounds, and some of them favor a young earth model.
I think scientists on both sides of the aisle, the ones who favor an intelligent design model as well as the ones who do not, should be flexible in considering evidence either for or against the ideas they hold. Those scientists in the minority whose views more closely correspond with a literal reading of Genesis are not obligated to relent just because they are not considered pure scientists by the majority. The real question is what does the empirical evidence actually show. We should not be afraid of empirical data and interpretations of that data just because they might lead someone to think there actually was a Creator. Right now the science establishment acts with prejudice against the idea of a Creator. There is no other way to describe it.
A lawyer by the name of Philip Johnson seems to have grasped that. He somewhat has amazed me in his ability to see this. I have seen this same thing working from within the world of biologists, but he has seen it from the outside as a lawyer looking in. I have a lot of respect for him.
Vatican Science Panel Told By Pope: Galileo Was Right
11/1/92
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/01/world/vatican-science-panel-told-by-pope-galileo-was-right.html
Moving formally to rectify a wrong, Pope John Paul II acknowledged in a speech today that the Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning Galileo 359 years ago for asserting that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
The address by the Pope before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences closed a 13-year investigation into the Church’s condemnation of Galileo in 1633, one of history’s most notorious conflicts between faith and science. Galileo was forced to recant his scientific findings to avoid being burned at the stake and spent the remaining eight years of his life under house arrest.
John Paul said the theologians who condemned Galileo did not recognize the formal distinction between the Bible and its interpretation.
“This led them unduly to transpose into the realm of the doctrine of the faith, a question which in fact pertained to scientific investigation.
Though the Pope acknowledged that the Church had done Galileo a wrong, he said the 17th-century theologians were working with the knowledge available to them at the time.
One more thing about Halley’s comet. It’s period used to be about 75 years, but gravitational influences of other celestial bodies, including the planets and sun, have caused variances that range from 76 years to slightly more than 79 years.
davidm wrote:
“No wonder you reject the concept of Intelligent Design and contradict yourself in saying on the one hand that religion is based upon unprovable concepts, but then on the other hand point out that Mendel was a monk involved in doing actual science.”
I read what OS wrote. He didn’t contradict himself. Maybe you could explain why you felt he contradicted himself.
Elaine M wrote: “Maybe you could explain why you felt he contradicted himself.”
I am a little uncomfortable being put into the position of defending religion, but for the sake of truthfulness, I will try to explain.
The epistemology of religion is different from science in that it claims that knowledge can come through the spirit or soul. This is why they have sacred Scriptures, such as the Bible. They believe in revelation from the Creator through men or women who have been inspired with that knowledge.
In contrast, science believes that all knowledge comes through the physical senses, and that unless it can be quantified mathematically, it is not a path to knowledge.
Keep in mind that religion does not reject science per se. Not true science. Religion believes knowledge comes through both the empirical world (our physical senses) as well as through the spirit or soul. So science represents a subset of the path of knowledge that religion accepts.
If science is right in their assumption that there is no such thing as revealed knowledge, then they will advance knowledge more quickly because they will ignore all the debates and wranglings about the meaning of sacred texts. They will spend more time doing science rather than on their knees in prayer, which according to their epistemology, would be a complete waste of time. However, if they are wrong, then they might at times be led into blind alleys on issues for which they have a paucity of empirical data.
So with that background, maybe you can see my objection. When OS says religion is based upon unprovable concepts, I see that in error, because religion actually believes that empirical proof will support every revelation. That is exactly what a prophecy is purported to do… make a revelatory prediction of a future empirical event. The implication of the idea that religion is based upon unprovable concepts makes it sound like religion rejects science, because science is about empirical proof. So when he then goes on to mention Mendel, a devout monk who conducted great experiments that provided a foundation to our understanding of genetics, it seems very contradictory to the notion that religion is based upon unprovable concepts.
The truth is that the dogma, “religion is based upon unprovable concepts” is an often repeated myth just like the Pope excommunicating Halley’s comet is an often repeated myth.
David,
Way to miss the point. Back in the middle ages, there were lots of beliefs later proven to be so wrong they are laughable from our 20th Century perspective. I used a couple of them. What will be said about things like the so called creation museum five hundred years from now, assuming we don’t blow ourselves up in the meantime? As for the comet, in 1456 Halley’s comet was excommunicated as an agent of the devil by Pope Calixtus III. Obviously, the excommunication didn’t take because the comet has continued to return every 75 years.
OS wrote: “As for the comet, in 1456 Halley’s comet was excommunicated as an agent of the devil by Pope Calixtus III.”
Not according to Wikipedia, and the following article gives more background about this anti-religious myth.
THE MYTH OF THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF COMET HALLEY
http://www.geocities.com/lauferworld.geo/HCexcomunication.htm
Intelligent Design Creationism:
Fraudulent Science, Bad Philosophy.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/creation.htm
Excerpt:
Intelligent design strips away even more of the religious context, concentrating on the notion of an “intelligent designer” who supposedly created the universe, and perhaps intervenes in natural processes from time to time to create new species of plants and animals. ID claims that the evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer is found in the universe itself, and specifically in instances where natural laws “could not possibly” have brought about certain biological modifications through natural processes alone. Unlike creationism, intelligent design does not insist on an absurdly short age of the earth.
Scientists recognize that the so-called ID “theory” is not a scientific theory at all, and that its claims of supportive evidence from nature are contrived and easily shown to be invalid. But scientists now also realize they must not ignore this threat to scientific integrity, for it is part of an organized campaign with social and political goals and widespread grass roots support.
More details can be found in the bibliography below. With so many good books and websites refuting creationism and ID, you may wonder why I take the time to write these web documents. I felt there was a need to reduce the intelligent design argument to its bare bones, to strip away irrelevant issues, and show that the whole idea is not science, but is a counterfeit of science—a pseudoscience. Too many critics of ID have fallen into the trap of addressing each and all of the claims that ID advocates use to support their arguments. Someone should do this, of course, but the downside is that it suggests to the general public that the ID claims are a serious challenge to science. They are not. Most of the “scientific” claims of ID are simply irrelevant, for the fatal flaws of ID are much more fundamental. The elaborate arguments of ID only serve to hide the fact that the intelligent design hypothesis is completely devoid of scientific content. Intelligent design is a philosophical assertion without the slightest logical or scientific support.
So my primary purpose here is to show that the intelligent design idea is empty both philosophically and scientifically. That task would require but a few chapters. But I also felt another obligation. One reason that the intelligent design idea appeals to so many non-scientists is that they have little or no understanding of what science is all about, how scientific investigation is done, and how scientific results are tested. Even science students receive little or no exposure to systematic instruction in science methodology. They learn science “by osmosis”—by doing science side by side with experienced scientists and exposing their work to peer criticism…
*****
Intelligent Design: The Glass is Empty
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/empty.htm
Excerpt:
A frustrating basic pitfall:
The philosophers’ final downfall.
They try and they try
But they can’t reason why
The real world should make sense at all.
The latest ploy of “evolution deniers” is the notion of “Intelligent Design”, being promoted as a “scientific theory” worthy of (a) replacing the theory of evolution, and (b) sitting alongside Newton’s mechanics as one of the great ideas of science.
It has a few problems.
The Intelligent Design (ID) argument doesn’t qualify as a proper scientific theory.
The ID argument has the trappings of a logical argument, but it is full of logical gaps and holes. It is “pseudo-logic”.
No scientific evidence specifically supports the assumptions of the theory. Any evidence seemingly supportive of it could equally support countless other fantastic theories, even contradictory ones.
The argument uses words in deceptive ways, without carefully defining them.
As an argument purportedly about “intelligence”, ID is pretty “dumb”. Upon careful examination it is revealed as a “con”, so cleverly constructed that it’s hard to see it as anything but a deliberate fraud. It is something like the magician’s illusion, distracting and misdirecting the attention of the audience, while hiding the nature of the deception and the hanky-panky skillfully executed where the audience doesn’t notice. And the result is—a miracle! Like all magicians’ tricks, the result is, as perceived by the audience, an apparently impossible event. That’s the definition of a miracle.
The intelligent design hypothesis, stripped to its essential core, is this: Physical and biological systems observed in the universe result from purposeful design by an intelligent creator.
If this is to be taken seriously as anything more than an unfounded assertion, it must be supported by evidence that specifically supports this hypothesis (excluding all other alternatives), supporting logical arguments, and it must make predictions that lead to testable experiments that could confirm or deny it conclusively.
So what exactly are the arguments put forth in favor of “Intelligent Design” (ID)? That depends on whose book you read, for they present the arguments with subtle, but important, differences. That’s curious. If you want to know about any established theory in a real science, like physics, you will find it in textbooks stated consistently and clearly, though sometimes at book length. Among scientists, there’s usually universal agreement on exactly what a theory says and what it predicts. Not so with ID. In fact, as you read the different books promoting ID, it sounds more like a speculative hypothesis, without support in experiment or in established scientific laws.
davidm:
You misstated me earlier. I did not categorically state that the conflict between religion and evolution was a product of bad theology. What I did say was that no one wishes to consider the possibility that certain theological notions might require re-examination.
One of my issues with fundamentalism is its insistence that a believer wishing to understand the origins of life must choose between Genesis and atheistic materialism. For example, Henry M. Morris, one of the founders of the Institute for Creation Research, wrote the following in 1977 in an article entitled “The Religion of Evolutionary Humanism and the Public Schools”: “The ‘god’ of evolution (in the rationale of de Chardin and the other leaders of theistic evolutionary thought) is certainly not the God of the Bible, the omnipotent and omniscient God of orthodox Judaism and biblical Christianity. Evolutionary humanism in our schools is not only a religion, but a religion which opposes Judaism, Christianity and the Bible in no uncertain terms.” This view has dominated fundamentalist opposition to evolution theory and, in my opinion, has done a disservice to both science and to all believers who do not subscribe to biblical literalism.
I had to hit the ground running this morning, so have not had time to read all the comments. If I repeat what has already been said, just chalk it up to time constraints, and consider it added for reinforcement purposes.
As Gene and others pointed out last night, there is really no conflict between religion and science. At least not unless somebody tries to create a conflict where none existed. Religion is based on unprovable concepts and faith. Where religion and science come into conflict is when a scientific discovery does not fit the preconceived notions of theologians. When scientific discoveries conflict with existing theological theories, it is the latter which has to adjust, not the former.
The Pope excommunicated Halley’s Comet, for example. Representatives of the church refused to look through Galileo’s telescope, and he ended up under arrest.
It is interesting to me that one comparatively small segment of religious believers are prone to reject science, creationism being one of them. It is only a segment of religion that believes the earth is only a few thousand years old, while the vast majority of religious people accept the proof offered by astronomers, geologists and other biophysical scientists. I recall reading the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church is that they accept the scientific explanation of the age and origin of the universe, and that it is not at odds with Christian beliefs or the Bible. That includes their position on evolution as well. After all, Gregor Johann Mendel was a monk, as were many other scientists.
My whole family are members of the Episcopal Church, and there is no contradiction with those beliefs either. In fact, if you want to get a classic eye-roll ask the average Episcopalian (or Lutheran) about the pronouncements of creationists and “intelligent” design advocates.
Seems to me the simplest solution for theologians who are presented with scientific facts should simply say, “Oops,” and try to figure out how they misinterpreted the scriptures. Not the other way around. That is what the Roman Catholic Church and most other mainstream churches have done. If a modern Pope tried to excommunicate a comet, he would find himself a laughingstock with no credibility whatsoever.
OS wrote: “The Pope excommunicated Halley’s Comet, for example.”
ROTFLOL! No wonder you reject the concept of Intelligent Design and contradict yourself in saying on the one hand that religion is based upon unprovable concepts, but then on the other hand point out that Mendel was a monk involved in doing actual science.
I’m not religious, so I have no dog in this fight to protect religion, but I do want truthful and honest dialogue, and claiming that a pope excommunicated Halley’s Comet is just too much. You clearly have no problem embracing myths without the need to investigate them scientifically or otherwise. I guess we are suppose to just take your word for it that creation theories are all false.
Ken Ham on Creationism. This link is to a speech available on U-tube.
I find the numerous other links on the page fascinating also.
What is “Intelligent Design” Creationism?
October 17th, 2008
http://ncse.com/creationism/general/what-is-intelligent-design-creationism
“Intelligent Design” creationism (IDC) is a successor to the “creation science” movement, which dates back to the 1960s. The IDC movement began in the middle 1980s as an antievolution movement which could include young earth, old earth, and progressive creationists; theistic evolutionists, however, were not welcome. The movement increased in popularity in the 1990s with the publication of books by law professor Phillip Johnson and the founding in 1996 of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (now the Center for Science and Culture.) The term “intelligent design” was adopted as a replacement for “creation science,” which was ruled to represent a particular religious belief in the Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987.
IDC proponents usually avoid explicit references to God, attempting to present a veneer of secular scientific inquiry. IDC proponents introduced some new phrases into anti-evolution rhetoric, such as “irreducible complexity” (Michael Behe: Darwin’s Black Box, 1996) and “specified complexity” (William Dembski: The Design Inference, 1998), but the basic principles behind these phrases have long histories in creationist attacks on evolution. Underlying both of these concepts, and foundational to IDC itself, is an early 19th century British theological view, the “argument from design.”
The essence of the argument from design is that highly complex phenomena (such as the structure of the vertebrate eye) demonstrate the direct action of the hand of God. Modern ID proponents typically substitute cellular or sub-cellular structures (such as the rotor motor of a bacterium’s whip-like flagellum) for anatomical complexity, but make the same argument: the appearance of complexity in nature categorically cannot be explained through natural causes; it requires the guidance of an “intelligent agent.”
Following Phillip Johnson’s lead, IDC promoters focus less on “proving” creationism and more on rejecting evolution and redefining science to make it more compatible with their version of Christianity. IDC advocates attack evolution as a way of attacking science itself because they believe it is the foundation of materialist philosophy. This strategy is explicitly laid out in The Wedge, a fund raising document from the Center for Science and Culture that set forth the group’s “Governing Goals”:
* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.
Although in the 1990s IDC advocates had encouraged the teaching of ID in public school science classes as an alternative to evolution, in the early 2000s they shifted their strategy. IDCs currently concentrate their efforts on attacking evolution. Under innocuous-sounding guises such as “academic freedom,” “critical analysis of evolution,” or “teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution,” IDCs attempt to encourage teachers to teach students wrongly that there is a “controversy” among scientists over whether evolution has occurred. So-called “evidence against evolution” or “weaknesses of evolution” consist of the same sorts of long-discredited arguments against evolution which have been a staple of creationism since the 1920s and earlier.
Elaine M quoted someone: ““Intelligent Design” creationism (IDC)…”
LOL. IDC. Right. You know you are reading an extremely biased article when they invent the acronym IDC to talk about intelligent design. It is like reading an article about the pro-life movement that identifies them as Anti-Woman-Abortionists (AWA) and then proceeds to talk about the AWA people.
What about the Intelligent Design Evolutionist (IDE) theories? Intelligent Design does not eliminate evolution from its models. Evolution as a process is part of every good Intelligent Design model of origins. The author should have just called them Anti-Scientists (AS) and be done with it, but I guess that would have been too obvious.
“Don’t lose faith,” world religion will always be the topic of human search for existence. When I think of all the battles fought in the name of, and in spite of, this singular quest, I’m not sure we’ve learned how not to end in a “political” movement. Why?
You have to admit the discussion is always a great one here! Thanks from a hinterlandian to the ivory towers.
One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read about the Scopes Trial is, SUMMER FOR THE GODS, by Larsen.
I’ve lost track of Liberation Theology and wonder about the fit with the new Pope?
And thinking of the new Pope, I’m stunned by his tenacity. Got to be a potential shake-up. How could it play out?
By the very definition of religion, there is no room to consider superdupernatural explanations.
DNA functions like a software program. We know from experience that software comes from programmers. We know generally that information-whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book or encoded in a radio signal-always arises from an intelligent source. So, the discovery of information in the DNA molecule provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a role in the origin of DNA, even if we weren’t there to observe the system coming into existence. Thus, contrary to media reports, the theory of intelligent design is not based upon ignorance or religion, but instead upon recent scientific discoveries and upon standard methods of scientific reasoning in which our uniform experience of cause and effect guides our inferences about what happened in the past.
Of course, many will still dismiss intelligent design as nothing but”religion masquerading as science”. Design is an inference from biological data, not a deduction from religious authority. Stephen C. Meyer PHD
“It was not until 1968 that the Supreme Court decreed that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution in public schools violated the Establishment Clause. Epperson v. Arkansas, 397 U.S. 97 (1968).”
Therefore ESTABLISHING the teaching of evolutionism, thereby giving it a politically protected status. What irony. Basically you can teach about one belief, but not another.
What has happened is evolutionism has found exclusive rights in the classroom. Never mind, when you really boil it down, there simply isn’t any evidence that supports evolutionism as happening in life. If you pay careful attention to the wording of school textbooks, you can pick up clues that evolutionism is a house of cards. Almost every text concerning evolution will have phrases like “scientists BELIEVE…” or “it is BELIEVED that…”. No real scientific statements like scientists KNOW, or scientists HAVE DISCOVERED THAT…
The question would be, why is the teaching of evolutionism exclusive? Even though one can dismantle the whole theory of evolutionism without even cracking open a Bible, those who go after evolutionism are automatically labeled and stereotyped, and carefully ignored. Why is this? The answer is that if the students are allowed to carefully examine what evolutionism is, and also are exposed to all the contradictions and evidence to the contrary of evolutionism, the students would see evolutionism for what it is: a bankrupt theory held together by a clique that holds similar beliefs, devoid of hard data to prove evolutionism, a dead theory that has been kept on life support by the political clap trap through the years.
If evolutionists were confident in their beliefs, they would be willing to expose the theory to skepticism and careful examination. But the fact that evolutionism is sheltered from any kind of scrutiny is a glaring example of evidence that the theory itself is held together by non-science. It’s simply a belief. Now the peddlers of evolutionism will be the first to scream that it is “supported by mountains of evidence.” But the problem is, we never see the mountains of evidence. That is simply a strawman argument. Then we might be told that almost all scientists believe it, therefore it is true. Nope, try again – that’s an appeal to numbers logical fallacy. Just because a number of people believe it to be true doesn’t mean it is true. At one point in time a large number of people believed that Adolf Hitler had the right idea, and a large number of people believed what he was saying to be true. But did that mean it was true?
Then we of course hear about fossils. The fossil record for Pete’s sake. Ok, what about the fossils? Even Darwin himself noted the marked absence of transitional fossils is the biggest problem for evolutionism. To this day we still do not find transitional fossils. According to evolutionism, there should be thousands – or millions of them. But we don’t see such. Instead we see contradictory evidence, such as fossils found in lower levels of strata being further advanced than fossils found in higher level strata. Even some school textbooks have circular reasoning. One place it will read that fossils date the strata. Then another it says the strata dates the fossils? Well, which is it? Which leads me to the next point.
A lot of states have passed laws requiring textbooks to be accurate. If people would wise up and use these laws, a lot of the textbooks that push evolutionism as true can be thrown out, simply because they are not factually correct.
An evolutionist might tell you that bacteria becoming resistant is proof of evolutionism. Oh? Ok, what does the bacteria evolve into? Let me guess. More bacteria? Sorry, you’ll have to try harder than that. Some textbooks today even have examples of “horse evolution”, even though the whole thing has been refuted. Take the following excerpt from Darwinismrefuted.com:
“One important subject in the origin of mammals is the myth of the “evolution of the horse,” also a topic to which evolutionist publications have devoted a considerable amount of space for a long time. This is a myth, because it is based on imagination rather than scientific findings.
Until recently, an imaginary sequence supposedly showing the evolution of the horse was advanced as the principal fossil evidence for the theory of evolution. Today, however, many evolutionists themselves frankly admit that the scenario of horse evolution is bankrupt. In 1980, a four-day symposium was held at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, with 150 evolutionists in attendance, to discuss the problems with the gradualistic evolutionary theory. In addressing this meeting, evolutionist Boyce Rensberger noted that the scenario of the evolution of the horse has no foundation in the fossil record, and that no evolutionary process has been observed that would account for the gradual evolution of horses:
‘The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today’s much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.’
While discussing this important dilemma in the scenario of the evolution of the horse in a particularly honest way, Rensberger brought the transitional form difficulty onto the agenda as the greatest difficulty of all.”
The evidence of Intelligent Design is immediately dismissed and ignored because it has connotations of a Creator. The evidence of Intelligent Design is the elephant in the living room. It takes up lots of space, eats tons of hay, knocks over the furniture, but you swear it isn’t there. Take DNA for example, even today after strenuous mapping, we still don’t know everything about DNA. For a while, scientists thought DNA contained junk information, but now we have discovered that “junk” isn’t junk. We have discovered that DNA has self-correcting mechanisms. DNA is basically a code, similar to computer programming, to create new cells, and therefore new animals, plants, etc… Seriously, does an evolutionist think that something like DNA just happened out of nothing, over x-billion years. Really?
Upon examining living things, and even the universe, we see design aspects. A design that would require intelligence – far more than we can even comprehend. We do not see things randomly happening or things spontaneously generating out of nothing. We do not see evidence of one thing changing into something else over x-billion years. Such is nothing more than a belief. An exclusive belief that is jealous of any other theories. Logically a building requires a builder. Logically, a painting requires a painter. Similarly, a design has a designer. The computer I’m typing this on didn’t evolve, it has a design. A design that took intelligence. I would be considered insane to believe that this computer just happened to form over some time frame. Of course it contains several designs and has technology that has gotten better over the years, but even so, still started out with – a design. So why are we requiring the students to ignore design and ignore evidence for design?
The belief of spontaneous generation predates the theory of evolutionism but yet the belief in spontaneous generation is interwoven in the evolutionism theory. Scientists at one time thought that stagnant water “created” mosquitoes. Pebbles in the bottom of a stream transformed into tadpoles. It is shameful that spontaneous generation is still a valid belief in the field of evolutionism.
One can deduce the emperor has no clothes when we pay attention to how the teaching of evolutionism is handled and how evidence refuting evolutionism, contradictory information, and problems with the theory are carefully and conveniently concealed from the students. If the students were allowed to examine the contradictory information on evolutionism, and use the tried and true scientific process, evolutionism can be eliminated altogether. All without even cracking open a Bible. It’s been said, people will believe anything as long as it isn’t in the Bible.
Hubert Cumberdale wrote: “Now the peddlers of evolutionism will be the first to scream that it is “supported by mountains of evidence.” But the problem is, we never see the mountains of evidence.”
Hubert, you are exactly right. I studied evolutionary biology for nine years full time, publishing as a scientist and naively expecting to one day be shown the mountains of evidence. Never saw it no matter how much I dug for it because it really is just a naturalistic philosophy which is never tested. Data is interpreted and arranged in a way to make the story look good. Anybody who suggests another perspective is ostracized.
Ben Stein hosted a movie called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed
Although the movie comes across a little goofy and comedic, there is truth behind the theme of the movie. Obviously it has its critics and in the end, people just believe what they want to believe.
Roger Lambert 1, October 28, 2013 at 9:30 am
Science does not usually consider supernatural effects, because none have ever been observed under controlled conditions. And we have looked and looked and looked.
…
Science has rightly concluded that effects for which there is no evidence, that can not be measured, that are based upon incoherent theory, and which are not needed to explain other questions, do not exist.
Which pretty much invalidates the rest of your conclusions.
========================
Look deeper:
(If Cosmology Is “Off,” How Can Biology Be “On?”). One kids themselves with either “holy science” or “holy religion” Batman.
Lots of work must be done to purge both science and religion of in-artful incursions.
david,
WordPress has been temperamental. Sometimes it posts longer comments with a link or two–and sometimes it sends them into the spam filter.
My post to Roger got lost in WordPress, and I tried to trim less of the quote from the post, but it got blocked too. Can a moderator free one of them please?
See… that’s where you went off the rails. Science has plenty of “room” to consider supernatural explanations. Supernatural effects need only be observable.
Science does not usually consider supernatural effects, because none have ever been observed under controlled conditions. And we have looked and looked and looked.
Science has also quite successfully examined testable claims of supernaturalism and religion. Miracles do not occur. Intercessory prayer does not work. The “soul” or “spirit” is not made of any matter or energy that is measurable. The entire concept is scientifically incoherent.
Science has rightly concluded that effects for which there is no evidence, that can not be measured, that are based upon incoherent theory, and which are not needed to explain other questions, do not exist.
Which pretty much invalidates the rest of your conclusions.
Roger Lambert wrote: “Supernatural effects need only be observable.”
Actually, they need to be observable and REPEATABLE so that science can have the opportunity to mathematically quantify it and analyze it. In some cases they need not be repeatable if they leave sufficient evidence of the event that can be studied.
Consider the following hypothetical supernatural event. Let’s say God came and visited President Obama in the White House, spoke with him for 15 minutes in the oval office, and then left. How could science possibly address this event? It can’t because it is not repeatable. Even if a bunch of people say they saw a bright light emanating from the office, or even that they heard a voice from the sky, science is left powerless to address the matter. It is a singularity for which we only have witnesses who observed it, and it is easy to say that they might be lying or delusional or deceived themselves.
Such types of things happen in medicine often. Many people have been healed of cancer or other ailments, and science has no explanation. Scientists invented the term spontaneous remission or spontaneous regression for such events. The person involved might claim it was prayer or some faith healer or whatever, but science has no ability to investigate it at all because it does not appear to follow natural laws that they study. All they can say is the person had the ailment before and now does not have it. Their philosophy of knowledge would never allow them to call such an event a miracle, nor to claim any supernatural explanation for it. Virtually all the healing miracles of Jesus recorded in the Bible would just be treated by science as a spontaneous remission and not as a miracle.
In regards to the study of origins, none of us were there to observe what happened. So scientists develop theories based upon an understanding of natural laws and they hypothesize how things may have come to be based upon empirical evidence. Introduce the idea that maybe there was an intelligent designer involved, and it is immediately rejected by most scientists, not because the empirical data argues otherwise, but because such an idea is not allowed in science by definition. I’m just telling you the way it works. The common public is led to believe that scientists are purely objective and follow the empirical evidence wherever it leads, but that is not true. They follow a philosophy of knowledge that by definition excludes anything supernatural.
As a scientist in evolutionary biology, I can tell you that Theistic Evolution, as suggested by Teilhard de Chardin, is constantly criticized as being unscientific. The reason is because there is no test to distinguish his theory of evolution from a purely naturalistic one. So they say his theory is not testable. They have no problem with others in religion choosing to believe that God guided religion if they so choose, but scientists say that the introduction of God into the theory makes the theory unscientific. By the way, Teilhard de Chardin is suspected by many to have been involved with the hoax of Piltdown man. That certainly does not endear him to scientists, especially when most of them consider everyone involved in religion to be frauds or deceived by frauds.