Last Friday’s “Talk of the Nation, Science Friday”:http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2005/Apr/hour1_042905.html focused, in part, on the upcoming “debate” in Kansas on the theory of evolution and the beliefs of creationism and intelligent design. Many distinguished scientific socieities have refused to participate in this debate, arguing rightly that they do not get involved in “matters of faith” [1].
Give it a listen. It’s still scary to me that there is this push by advocates of so-called “intelligent design” to say that the theory of evolution should be taught in the context of its flaws, rather than its successes. Again, one would then logically have to argue that the theory of gravity, the theory of relativity, the theory of electroweak and QCD dynamics, should all be taught from the perspective of their flaws rather than their successes.
I’d also recommend a recent article in the magazine “Skeptical Inquirer” [2]. This article makes several points that I’ve recently started to think about myself. First, that mystical beliefs are instill early in life by well-meaning parents and an antiquated religious structure “loath to amend … doctrine in the face of emerging scientific facts.” The article begins by pointing out that while the skill of processing and concluding, without rigorous investigation, probably assisted our ancestors, it is a dated process that should have withered in the face of scientific inquiry. However, the system of forming beliefs without evidence is still a widespread and powerful phenomenon.
The article goes on to frame the misconceptions that allow faiths like creationsism and intelligent design to flourish. First, science is not about gathering data to serve a hypothesis, but rather to eliminate hypotheses in the face of data. You test ideas against facts, not the other way around. “Creationists turned amateur scientists almost always fail to grasp this essential scientific precept and so unwittingly launch from false premises of all kinds of pseudoscientifc arguments in support of special creation.”
Second, a popular tactic among creationists is to assert that nothing can be known *absolutely* in science until every last detail is described with complete certainty. They point to “gaps in the fossil record, poorly understood aspects of gene function, and the mystery of life’s origins” to cast doubt on evolution. The point they have missed is that **theories are based solely on the evidence available for study and so cannot be refuted by speculation regarding those clues that remain hidden**. A theory is sound so long as it remains consistent with observations.
A good example of the latter is the Standard Model of particle physics. We particle physicists always say thay the Standard Model is “incomplete” and “cannot be a final theory of nature”. However, based on the data we have in hand, this is not true. The fact is that the Standard Model accomodates every observation made in physics for the last 300 years. It explains the structure of the atom, the spin of the electron, the burning of the sun, the observation that matter dominates over antimatter. It does, however, have glaring omissions. It doesn’t accomodate gravity and it doesn’t explain Nature above a certain energy. However, we cannot right now probe the regions of the universe needed to collect data to show *how* the Standard Model fails. That’s what the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is prepared to do when it begins operation in 2007.
Finally, the article indicates the fatal flaws in the reasoning used by creationsist and intelligent design adherants to justify their beliefs. They use what is called the “watchmaker argument” wherein Nature is “assumed to act randomly and possess no organizational tendencies.” However, this analogy fails in the chemical and atomic realms, where the laws of nature and their manifestation (chemical potentials, electric charges, energy barriers, etc.) quite naturally force order on the consituents of matter. Nature is self-organizing, and no observation has ever contradicted that.
The other favorite of creationists is to invoke the laws of thermodynamics – in particular the second law, which proclaims that entropy (disorder, as they say it) must always increase – to dismiss self-organization in Nature. If Nature always tends to disorder, only an intelligent designer could have created the Earth and its delights. However, here again we see a fatal misuse of real science to justify a hypothesis. The second law says that closed, isolated systems tend to disorder. The Earth is far from isolated, and is in fact bathed in energy from the Sun at all times. Energy and entropy can oppose one another, the former allowing organization to occur despite the latter. Here, again, the walls of Creationist Jericho are seen to be built upon poor foundations, held up by the wind of belief which blows in all directions.
I encourage you to check out this article. It’s quite a nice, focused read that will help explain why scientists don’t see a debate at all, but rather an issue of faith trying to impose on matters of fact.
.. [1] http://steve.cooleysekula.net/blog/?p=904.. [2] “One Longsome Argument”. *Skeptical Inquirer*. Vol 29, No. 2. pp 18-22
