Irrelevance Glorified

(note : originally written in 2000)

There is a great bit of tension in the air between science and religion in the subject of evolution. The sad thing is that there doesn’t need to be. The Pope and a number of other religious leaders agree that evolution is compatible with religion. And yet around the United States, school boards are opting for equal time between creationism and evolution. And I think this is horrid.

Generic creationism is the belief that a supernatural being initiated life on Earth, and continues to shape and control its development with eye to some goal or purpose. That in itself is not a problem. It is a theism just like many others, and nothing to which science can prove or disprove. Scientific creationism, however, claims that there is scientific evidence for creationism. In this way, proponents of scientific creationism seek to place their views on par with science, thus allowing it to be placed into a science curriculum. Creationism has taken many forms throughout the years, the descriptions of some of which follows.

New Earth creationists believe in the literal translation of the Bible, usually the King James version. This means that the world was created in six twenty-four days, that there was a great Noachian flood, and that the world is approximately 6000 years old. To many people with even a rudimentary grasp of scientific concepts, this conclusion is absurd. There is so much evidence for the contrary, although firm believers in this form of creationists can manage to dismiss this evidence. I think this version of creationism is pretty much dismissed. One of the main arguments NE creationists have against all the geological and cosmological data that we have – which undermines the basic premise that the Earth is less than 10000 years old – is that God created it to look that way. This could be true, but the hypothesis is completely unscientific in that it is not falsifiable. It also puts across the idea that God is deceptive, which some theologists have problems with.

Old Earth creationists still believe that the Bible is the revelation of God, but they feel that some aspects are figurative. For instance, the six days in which God created the universe are not human days, but rather days in the eyes of the omnipotent creator. In this way the “days” are ages, so to speak, each of which lasted for an indefinite period. This reconciles the accepted age of the universe (although the exact date is a matter of debate among cosmologists and astronomers, it is generally accepted that the correct time scale is billions of years) with the Biblical. However, they find many objections to evolution, and feel that these objections to evolution necessarily mean that their brand of creationism is correct. Although this is in itself is not true (denying evolution does not automatically mean that creationism is correct), their arguments are also false. One is that evolution is against the second law of thermodynamics, which they claim says that things tend to disorder, not the gradual increase in complexity that has marked evolution. First of all, that is a bastardized, simplified form of the law; it is only a generic outcome of the rigorous definition under certain conditions. Secondly, even if their definition was completely correct, it only applies to closed systems, which the Earth is definitely not. The sun bathes us in energy, much more than we use, and entropy still increases no matter how much ordering there is on the Earth’s surface. Also, it is only on the grand scale that evolution gives us complexity; often, evolutionary changes are simplifying. Creationists also say that there is no way that evolution could happen by chance; their statistics show that it is extremely improbable. Genetics has shown that there is an element of chance in this whole evolution business, but there is more than random chance at work here. Through the machinations of natural selection certain genes and traits are selected for, and it is this unrandom process that really guides the path of evolution. Chaos theory has also shown us that there can be order in seemingly random processes. There are other arguments, but there are other rebuttals. Time and time again, in fact, scientists have explained why these arguments are wrong, but creationists still voice them. There is a newer form of creationism that has rapidly risen through the ranks, however, and it seems more insiduous. This is intelligent design creationism.

Intelligent design theorists often concede that there is much about evolution is probably correct, or that it at least makes sense and explains things fairly well. But they say that natural selection is not random, and that rather that there is a supernatural being creating this. Their proof is the complexity of genes and specialized organs such as the eye. They claim that it is much more plausible to think these were designed by some “guiding hand” rather than blind evolution. In fact, they claim that the only thing that keeps this theory from being the accepted one is the dogma of science, which is so “close-minded” that they refuse to consider supernatural causes. This new attack troubles me the most because it does not attack evolution on scientific grounds, but attacks science on philosophical grounds.

Science does not exclude supernatural causes because of dogma, but because that the only way to do science! Once one lets supernatural explanations into the picture, the strength of scientific methodology goes out the window. Intelligent Design Creationists threaten to throw the entire scientific book out of the window, and the only thing it can do is hurt this country. During the witch hunts of medieval times, the proof required to find someone guilty was absurd. If someone’s cattle got strangely sick or a well went dry, fingers could be pointed. If the accused refused to confess, they could be tortured. If they confessed under torture, well that proved it. If they did not confess, it was also proof they were witches; only a supernatural being could withstand such pain. St. Gregory once wrote of a witch, and said that she apparently ate some lettuce that she thought was lettuce, but was in fact a demon, or perhaps a devil invisible inside the lettuce. And it was accepted on authority. No facts needed, because we are dealing with supernatural beings. The other problem is that intelligent design creationists effectively want to squash our curiosity and stop further understanding of the natural world around us. When the initial rumblings of quantum mechanics threatened to pull classical mechanics off of its high horse, Albert Einstein said “God does not play dice.” This reflected his distaste with the theories which began to surface which stated that probability played a key role in quantum mechanics. Today it is well documented and supported by experimental evidence that elements of probability theory are needed to predict and understand quantum mechanics. As it is, when a Nobel Prize winner such as Albert Einstein disagreed with quantum mechanics, scientists did not just believe him and drop the matter, as they would if science really was dogma. They forged ahead, and that’s why we have so much of what we do have today.

What would have happened if people such as Galileo didn’t investigate the sky critically, and just dismissed without a thought the evidence against the Earth-centric view of the Universe? What would happen if physicists decided that when classical mechanics broke down at small distances and small energies, it was just the vagaries of God, and something which they should not pursue further? What material is it that allows us to pass down the traits of one generation into the next? Well, we shouldn’t probe too deep into it, it is some mystery of a higher being. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to give up the notion that we can explain things with reference to natural laws until we have hit a wall that we know we cannot get across.

The thing that really gets me is this notion that the scientific creationists are the fair ones and the scientists the stubborn closed-minded ones. I hate the quotes in the paper about how people say “After all, evolution is just a theory, and creation science is another, and both theories are just as good, so its fair to teach them both and let the children decide.” First of all, to say something is a full-fledged theory is a big thing in science; I wish I could have a theory. That means I’ve developed a natural law that is backed by enough empirical evidence that we can be reasonably sure of it. Creation science is not science. It is thinly veiled religious fundamentalism. All theories are not created equally. Creationists have never amassed real, solid proof in favor of creationism. All they can do is poke at evolution, often using the same arguments that scientists use when arguing with each other. This is not to say that scientists disagree about evolution itself. They often argue about certain aspects of evolution, though, which is not the same thing. Certainly, its not as bad as some of canyons which divide creationists. As far as telling both sides of the creation/evolution story and letting students decide, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a creationist backed text that ever presented a fair representation of evolution; letting the children decide after teaching them that scientists are evil and Godless is hardly fair. Creationists have never proved that there is a true dichotomy, either; they claim that it’s either their form of creationism or evolution, since it’s necessary to their strategy of solely attacking evolution. But if creationists were truly believers in their ways, they would not only back the teaching of biblical creationism in the schools, but also the creation “theories” of various Native American tribes, of the Vikings, of Australian Aborigines and African tribes, of Shintoism and at least some of the various religions of the Indian subcontinent. To name a few. While we’re at it, we should teach the Raelian Theory – that exterrestrials created life on Earth and are our “fathers”. These advanced beings started out simple and went to more and more complex animals as their skill grew. This is a form of the intelligent design argument, except instead of the designer being God, they are suitably advanced aliens. The fact that Creationists don’t promote these other creationist theories shows their intentions to force their religious views upon the rest of the country.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this page, many religious leaders state that there is nothing contradictory about faith and evolution in the first place. In fact, creationists are almost committing blasphemy when they push forth their creationist agenda. Is it up to them to decide what an omnipotent being can and cannot do? Are they saying there are limits to how God can affect the creatures on Earth? The only people they help are the atheists of the world, who would support the notion of evolution and creation being exclusive. They would feel (and probably rightly so) that the vast majority of the evidence is in their favor.

In the name of the separation of church and state and freedom from religious indoctrination, I am whole-heartedly against scientific creationism. It is not only a threat to modern biology, but a threat to all of science.