"Why doesn't America believe in evolution?" - NewScientist.com

[angus]

When I read such tripe I don't know whether the author is a fool or deliberately misleading the audience in an effort to fuel an unnecessary debate, but it's a false premise.  This must be incredibly frustrating to your science teachers who undoubtedly take great efforts to teach you the scientific method.  When you start to say you "believe in" things like evolution or the Standard Hot Big Bang model of the origin of the elements, you show them that you have entirely missed the point.  There is no reason ever to couch science in the language of faith, and it is an insult to both reason and religion to do so.

I have a colleague who fumes shrilly at times, arguing with students over these points.  I cannot for the life of me see how he has convinced himself that this is ever appropriate.  I have explained to him, in painstaking detail, that science and religion need never be in conflict.  (While I recognize that it is possible that I have missed the point of religion since I practice no religion or any other form of spirituality, I have to think that my own informal study of the religions of the world have informed me that they need not ever compete with science, and vice versa.  this conclusion is supported by the fact that I have met many faithful catholics, jews, hindus, etc., who are good scientists and who do not doubt the evidence for modern scientific theory.  but who similarly understand that current interpretations are tentative, at best.)  And this colleage invariably will admit to me that he realizes that he is in great philosophical and professional error when he stoops to that level, he still cannot help himself.  The need for him is not unlike a drug to which he is addicted, I suppose.  I drink too much myself, and formerly used too much weed and cocaine, so I should be more sympathetic to his rantings, which is his own form of self-abuse.  Except that it's not just self abuse!  He makes all scientists look bad when he does that, and that does affect me, dammit!  So it's not just himself that he's harming so I do care.  It's society.  And the fact that you are all so confused about this further convinces me that scientists like him have abdicated their duties in favor of arguing with biblical literalists.

Science doesn't ever ever ask you to "believe"  For to believe is to maintain a faith.  And if you have faith in evolution, or the big bang, or any of that, then you are as guilty of the blindness which you ascribe to the religionists.  This makes you a hypocrit, in addition to being a fool.  Science merely asks that you rationally sort data, and if a preponderance of data convinces you that life forms evolve, then you accept that.  I certainly accept that the data shows that life forms evolve, and that dating suggests an approximate age, and that Penzias and Wilson's cosmic background radiation points toward an expanding universe which is about 10^13 years old, but I also know that I understand all this within the limits of my mathematical abilities.  I never claim to believe such things.  I imagine that my species may one day evolve the ability to communicate non-verbally, with thoughts, and look forward to that time, but I certainly do not "believe" that this will happen.  Nor do I disbelieve that it will happen, for to disbelieve is as certainly faithful as to believe.

The point of my rant, and I have made it often, is not that there's anything wrong with faith or religion, and at times, for example when my mother lay in her bed dying a slow and painful death a long time ago, I envy those spiritual types.  I certainly bear them no grudge, but I will not make a pretense of being among them.  But what really bothers me isn't so much the abject bigotry showed the spiritual types by those who claim to understand science but use language which makes it clear to me that they do not.  No that's not the real source of my frustration.  The source is the fact that those who do are hypocrites. And it ought to frustrate you as well.  Once you cross that line by saying you "believe in" things, then you cannot impugn those who claim to "believe in" anything else.  Fortunately, science never asks you to "believe in" phenomena such as evolution.

So, if you support the premise of the article you are either a fool or a vandal.  Take your pick.  Maybe it's not your fault.  Maybe your science teachers were too busy competing with religion to teach you science, but anyone who claims to understand science should immediately recognize your premise is false, and your language is misleading, and your conclusions are not supported logically.  I'll leave it to those who claim to understand religion to make their own rants, but I'll assume that they're just as compelling. 

Alrdlkk, 099 

oKAY, THE BOY'S JUMPING UP AND DOWN ON THE KEYBOARD, SO i'LL HAVE TO CONTINUE THIS RANT AT ANOTHER TIME, BUT YOU CAN BE GODDAMNED SURE THAT i WILL.

[angus]

good call ilikeverin.  and thanks.  it seems that I had a point, and that it was very important to me at the time, but I have have since played with my son and now feel that trying to save the world is so inconsequential compared to trying to nurture one man.  well, one ignorant and beautiful man child.  innocent and happy.  in innocence is bliss.  and the ignorant know no bigotry or hate or sorrow.  I have forgotten what discovery felt like.  I am old.  and I have no particular memories of my own ignorance of the world, but I had a moment when I was lost in his eyes, the thoughts of the sad state of education in America completely gone.  I'm not even sure I'd post herein again even if I could remember what I was going to say.  and it doesn't seem to matter as much just now anyway.

stay sweet ilikeverin.  read everything you can get your hands on, but don't take it too seriously.  Don't let my rantings get to you.  and don't let these other posters get to you either.

[angus]

Actually I have to disagree with angus somewhat.  Science is a faith, it just is that it is one that does not have to conflict with religion.  It is a faith that assumes that the universe is an orderly place that functions using predictable laws.  It assumes that for those portions of the universe that one can apply repeatable experiments to, the results of those experiments can yield insights into how the universe functions.  The difficulty that some people have with long-term evolution, global warming, etc. comes from the fact that to date we have conducted but a single non-repeated experiment of which we have collected only partial data.  They rely upon experimental models that work on the limited scale we have experienced and have been able to subject to the gold standard of repeated experimentation, but the history of science is replete with examples of theories that function well on one set of data but fail to predict accurately once one extrapolates past the conditions under which the data were obtained.

1.  the miller-urey experiment is easily verified.  a scientist must be a fundamentalist and before any of them make sense we must understand how oligopeptides come about in an early atmosphere.  once you can see that the rest can follow.  later experiments have also been verified.

2.  examples of microevolution exist today, for example in the lungs of Andean populations

3.  science isn't religion.  ever since thales of miletus first asked nearly 3000 years ago whether there might be a rational explanation for the behavior of things, as opposed to say volcanoes exploding becausing something is mad at us, science has been evolving.  Of course, until a couple of hundred years ago there was no real distinction between philisophy and science and you could call it faith-based till then.

4.  science does not use the word "proof" the way mathematicians and philosophers do, but rather the way lawyers do.  Both are fine, as long as we understand what we're talking about.  But in that since a scientist does not ask you to have any more faith than an attorney does when he presents data in order to convince you of a particular explanation.

5.  I do not necessarily blame you or Joe or the author of this article for your misconceptions.  You have been mislead.  It's a systemic problem.  Who are our teachers?  Every day in this country a well-studied person with credentials who may have dedicated his lifetime to understanding a problem gets up to speak, but we do not hear him.  We only hear the talking heads and their minions.  Often clueless movie stars.  Movie stars, mind you, not even real actors, since many of these people got by not on thespian talents but rather on looks.  When the secretary general of the united nations speaks to us of hunger, aids, and war, not only do we not hear him we usually do not even know he's speaking.  it goes unreported and unnoticed.  But when Brad Pitt makes the same observations we act as if it's Gospel writ large and indelible.  This is a worldwide phenomenon, but I suspect it's far worse in our own society than in most places.

okay, I said my rant was over, or that it wasn't important to me anymore.  actually, I'd like to buy the world a coke and furnish it with love and all that.  But I accept that paper filled with ink markings often leave no room for accurate writings.  I'll work with blank pages whenever possible, and try to do just that every day.  believe what you will, but your description is not quite accurate.  you are quite right about one thing:  science need not ever be in conflict with religion and vice-versa.  one deals with the corporeal; the other with the ethereal.  ethics and morality may find their way legitimately into philosophy, religion, and politics, but in science they're best avoided.  we cannot blame oppenheimer on the deaths of innocent japanese any more than we can expect the great religions of the world to come up with descriptions of the forces that hold subatomic particles together. 

[angus]

modu, I accept that you can find 2.7 kelvin background radiation, and I can think of no better explanation than the one offered by Penzias, wilson, and others.  let's be perfectly clear on that.  I do not "believe in the big bang"  In fact, even after years of study I just barely understand the mathematics behind it.  Moreover, that is a particularly interesting example because the initial event that created the neutrons required infinitessimally small volume and infinitely large temperature.  this makes the whole standard hot big bang model particularly controversial in the community.  this needs to be understood as well.  The only people whom I've ever met who have used the language "I believe in the big bang" are not scientists.  I have actually heard a priest make this claim, and some children, and some posters here on the forum, but I have yet to hear a proper physicist make such a claim.  nevertheless, a decent physicist should understand the math behind it and if he's going to argue with it, rationally offer an alternative.  this alternative

ah it's 9:30.  more later!

[angus]

stop voting.

Those who don't share your conclusions should stop voting.  Nice.