Jesuit Review: Creationism Isn't About Science, it’s about theology (and it’s really bad theology).

Eric Sundrup has an editorial in the Jesuit Review about what is wrong with young earth creationism.  He has some very good observations: He begins:

The Creation Museum is a $27 million example of how Christians can lose their way fighting the culture wars. After spending time there this Christmas, I left convinced that as wrong as the museum’s science is, the most frightening driver of its “logic” is an impoverished theology, which is coupled with a desire to win moral arguments. This toxic combination propels devout people into strange and unnecessary battles with modern science.

This is a point that I and many different researchers have made over the years: young earth creationism misses the broader picture. It reduces the majesty, glory and awe of the Bible and the message that God is telling us in favor of a flat, sterile, superficial understanding of the passages in Genesis. He continues:

Mr. Ham’s motivations for founding the museum and its parent organization clearly grew out of the culture wars. Answers in Genesis argues for the inerrancy of the Bible and specifically for a literal interpretation of Genesis because they think this provides them a strong footing in public discussions. And that, I think, is exactly how this group of Christians got lost. They are trying to win moral and theological debates with what look like scientific arguments.

Strangely, in their attempt to provide definitive empirical answers to moral and theological questions, creationists like Mr. Ham have more in common with some of their most strident scientific opponents than with the broader Christian tradition. They are proponents of the strictest form of biblical inerrancy and literalism. And in this mode they are actually advancing a mirror-image of scientism, in which God’s revelation, both in Scripture and in creation, is meant to convey a list of facts.

I think that this is one of the reasons that young people are leaving the church. Not only do they discover that they have been fed bogus science that doesn't stand up to even the barest scrutiny, when they have issues that require them to reach deeply into their faith, there is nothing there, just cold, impersonal facts. 

Mr. Sundrup's analysis is also not so unlike Joel Edmund Anderson's, in that, in his book The Heresy of Ham, Anderson notes that by focusing on science (or their understanding of science, anyway), Ham and other young earth creationists have, like their atheist counterparts, held up science as the ultimate arbiter of faith.  Modern science HAS to conform to the biblical passages.  If it does not, we are all lost.  This is nonsense for one simple reason: if biblical scripture in Genesis conforms to our understanding of 21st century science, then they are necessarily out of step with 20th century science, 19th century science, 18th century science and so on.  Since young earth creationist arguments don't change (except to move the goalposts), every new scientific discovery has to be shoehorned, manipulated, mangled and adjusted to fit the prevailing narrative. Scientific integrity be damned.  It never occurs to them that the narrative, itself might be wrong.

PJ Media Takes on NPR on Science and Completely Misses the Point

Science is not a democratic exercise.  There is either scientific support for a theory or there is not.  If there are competing views about how some kind of observable phenomena should be explained, one of those views is usually shown to be incorrect.  That is how science proceeds.  Consequently, the idea of “teaching the full range of views” on a subject should be viewed with some skepticism. It is certainly valid to do so in an historical context to get a picture of how scientific understanding of a given phenomenon has progressed, but not as far as teaching prevailing scientific understanding of it. Yet, that is exactly what is being suggested by PJ Media writer John Ellis.

Ellis is responding to an NPR post, which is supportive of evolutionary theory, and he is critical of the post writer, Barbara King, for her position that evolutionary theory should be taught uniformly throughout primary and secondary institutions.

First, the NPR post.  King writes:

Watching the NBC Nightly News broadcast on a Friday earlier this month, I gaped as the last segment aired.

Kevin Tibbles was reporting from the site of Kentucky's Ark Encounter, constructed by Christian fundamentalist, young-Earth creationist and Answers in Genesis president Ken Ham. At the time, Ark Encounter was set to open to the public the following week.

Tibbles described Ark Encounter as telling "the Old Testament story of Noah, the animals and, of course, the flood." He interviewed Ham and closed out the 2-minute piece by noting Ham's hope that people will come in droves "to study the story of Noah for generations to come."

Astounded that the Ark Encounter showed humans and dinosaurs coexisting, despite the fact that dinosaurs had been extinct for some 60 million years before our ancestors arrived on the scene, she wondered how to best respond to this misinformation. 

*Speak out and speak up to school boards. Parents can insist that biology teachers in public schools be well-qualified to teach evolution; currently, many are not. In a related vein, check in with the "Take Action" page of the NCSE.

*Let the media know when they do a poor job of covering evolution-related issues or, conversely, a good one. The week after the NBC Nightly News segment, CBS News aired a report from Ark Encounter. Correspondent Mark Strassmann talked to Ham — and to a visitor who confirmed her belief that dinosaurs and people "walked hand-in-hand" a few thousand years ago on Earth. But he went on also to interview Jim Helton from Tri-State Freethinkers and science communicator Bill Nye "The Science Guy" as well, who stood up for evolutionary science.

*Read science- and evolution-based books to, and with, your children. Even young kids may enjoy and learn from age-appropriate writing that gets across concepts of evolution. Last year, I wrote here about Grandmother Fish by Jonathan Tweet and illustrator Karen Lewis. Another example is Evolutionary Tales by Matt Cubberly and illustrator May Villani, a short book that invites children to think about adaptive features of animals like the sugar glider, tarsier and pileated woodpecker.

*Ask evolution-related questions of political candidates and their staff. Science is, of course, a big issue in presidential campaigns. It's clear that the Hillary Clinton campaign accepts anthropogenic climate change as a serious risk to the world that requires science-based policy initiatives, whereas the Donald Trump campaign does not. But on evolution, it's much harder to find evidence of questions asked and answered. (An attempt to reach Trump senior communications adviser Jason Miller this week did not produce a reply; even asking evolution-related questions may be valuable, though, because they let staffers know what voters care about.)

It should be pointed out that this column came out before Trump named Mike Pence as his running mate, a man who has not shown support for evolutionary theory in the past.

So....what did John Ellis of PJ Media have to say about Barbara King's suggestions?  Well, one can get a pretty clear idea from the title of the column, which is “NPR Writer Having a Meltdown Because YOUR Children Might Learn About Noah's Ark.”  Actually, King only mentions the Ark Encounter as a lead-in to promote the teaching of evolution.  As noted above, she correctly points out that there are 65 million years in between modern humans and dinosaurs, a geological point firmly established by many lines of evidence.  Beyond that, though, her point, and it is a very good one, is that the general public is woefully uneducated about basic evolutionary theory, a theory that underpins all of modern biology.  That is her target.

Ellis goes on:

Last week, NPR treated us to a condescending and science-worshipping article written by Barbara King, an anthropology professor whose latest book is titled How Animals Grieve. If King had stopped at the usual scientism slurping, that would have been bad enough. King, however, took the extra step and demanded an obeisance from parents and the complete sacrifice of their children to the god of contemporary science.

Taking aim at young earth creationism as manifest by Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, Barbara King scolds reporters who give any positive attention to, in King's words, "anti-science creationist discourse." She goes on to explain how society has failed our children by allowing them to be exposed to anything but evolution. After a series of proposed remedies, King concludes her condescending rant by declaring that, "Our children must be taught about evolutionary science in order to be science-literate."

First off, this column kind of surprised me coming out of PJ Media. This is the kind of thing I would expect to read from the Discovery Institute, the intelligent design think tank out in Washington state.  Who is John Ellis?  If you click on his name, you are greeted with this:

Having spent the majority of his adult life as a theatre artist throughout the Southeast, John now lives in the DC area with his wife and two kids. Besides writing, he works on the staff at his church. Prior to writing for PJ Media, he was a columnist for No Depression and regular contributor to Bearded Gentleman Music.

In other words, he has no scientific training whatsoever.  He is a musician and writer (and not of science).  Here is what he writes next:

Since scientism is a faith-based religion, and a faith-based religion that has the entire trajectory of science history undermining it, scientism's adherents have to forcefully clear the worldview deck in order for their religion to flourish. In the marketplace of ideas, the weaker ideas are going to need some handicapping, so to speak.

The thing is, next to no one is attempting to keep children from learning about evolution. Creationists that have any sway over policy want children to learn options. There is a concerted effort, however, to frame worldview discussions in a manner that eliminates any worldview that doesn't bow down to the current, most-privileged group-think. In other words, Barbara King isn't really concerned that your children be science-literate; she wants to make sure that your children aren't exposed to ideas that threaten her larger worldview. She wants control.

Controlling the education of children is one of the front lines in the battle of worldviews. Barbara King realizes that for her religion of scientism to flourish, children's education has to be devoid of competing ideas.

There are numerous problems with this column. Ellis uses phrases like "the usual scientism slurping" as if such were a common thing in scientific discourse, yet does not define or explain in any satisfactory way what "scientism" is or why Dr. King's writing should be characterized as such.  Further, his use of the phrase "god of contemporary science," suggests that he holds the scientific enterprise in very low regard.  Given his background, one wonders what qualifications he has to write this column and who green lighted it in the first place.

He mentions "taking aim" at young earth creationism.  This is, perhaps, because young earth creationism is an easy target at which to take aim.  There is no defensible science that supports the young earth position.  We have known for almost a hundred years that the earth is not 6,000 years old and the evidence for the young earth position gets weaker every day.  Consequently, defense of young earth creationism, by people like Ken Ham and others, has begun to focus on how acceptance of an old earth and evolution amounts to "compromising the biblical message," that, as Christians, we should know better than to accept evolution, or how evolutionary thought leads to the gross evils of mankind (despite the fact that evil has been around considerably longer than evolutionary theory).  This is a blatant move to appeal to the emotions of supporters and to their religious perspectives.  After all, if the Bible clearly says that the earth was created in six literal days (and that is really big IF), then modern science MUST be wrong.

He speaks derisively of Dr. King's statements that we must teach evolutionary biology to kids to keep them science-literate and that the difference between creationists and evolutionists is that creationists don't worship science.  It is hard to combat an argument like this because it is so lazy.  How do "evolutionists" worship science?  He doesn't say.  Evolutionary biologists don't worship science, they practice it.  He says that the strength of creationists is that they are not "threatened by competing views."

Would he make the same argument that we should teach our kids alchemy, instead of modern chemistry?  What about teaching the various theories of gravitation prior to our modern understanding?  There are, after all, people that still subscribe to those.  What about geocentrism?  How about the Flat Earth Society?

Anyone that tried to seriously teach these would be laughed at, and rightly so.  Why, given that modern young earth creationism has no scientific support, should we treat it differently?  Why, if evolution has more support than most scientific theories, does teaching it constitute sacrificing school kids to "the god of contemporary science?"  If competing views have been shown to be false, why should we teach them?

He writes that scientism (once again, undefined) is faith-based and that it has the entire history of science undermining it, therefore, promoters of scientism need to "handicap" the weaker ideas.  News flash: that is what science does.  It weeds out the weaker ideas.  Back to my initial point: science is not democratic.  Ideas that have no empirical support get put in the dustbin of history.  Science does and must proceed this way or we have no way of understanding the world and universe in which we live.

He writes that no one is trying to keep people from learning evolution.  This simply isn't so.  One of the principle findings of the Dover trial in 2005 is that the defense witnesses lied repeatedly about why they wanted an alternative to evolution taught.  Most of the defense witnesses could not even identify what Intelligent Design was.  When pressed, it became clear that they wanted creationism taught. 

Recent reports from other places in the country indicate that, almost uniformly, attempts to "teach the controversy" or "teach the full range of ideas" are smokescreens for getting young earth creationism (and hence, anti-evolution) into the classroom (For example, see here, here, here, and here).  Most of these bill supporters would like nothing better than to have evolution stripped from the curriculum of public education.  That they have not been very successful so far is not for lack of trying.

This is a very poorly-written article.  While blasting what he calls "scientism," Ellis makes no effort to explain why we should teach creationism in its place.  Further, he makes no effort to explain why the teaching of evolution should not happen, simply that he thinks it consists of a "world view."  If teaching evolutionary theory constitutes teaching a "world view" then guess what?  Most of what we teach as science entails a "world view."

Heliocentrism is a "world view" and we teach that. When Galileo confirmed Copernicus' finding that the earth was not in the center of the universe, it sent shockwaves throughout the church, such that the work of Copernicus was banned. Much like the modern struggle against evolution, it literally changed their "world view" in such a way that they couldn't incorporate it into their understanding of scripture.  Does any educated person today doubt that the earth is not in the center of the universe?   

Gravitational theory changed our understanding of the universe and introduced us to black holes, quantum mechanics and string theory.  Plate tectonic theory changed our understanding of how our earth works, why earthquakes and volcanoes happen where and when they do and why most natural disasters happen.  Science News has a great little article on the Top 10 Revolutionary Scientific Theories, every one of which changed our "world view."  Ellis is just upset because King's world view differs from his.  The catch is that there is empirical support for her world view and there is none for his.  As such, his argument that her promotion of evolutionary theory constitutes "scientism" fails. 

Nearly Half of Americans Accept Astrology As Science

How bad is the science education in this country?  UPI is running a story about the acceptance of astrology in the United States.  It is depressing:

According to a new survey by the National Science Foundation, nearly half of all Americans say astrology, the study of celestial bodies' purported influence on human behavior and worldly events, is either "very scientific" or "sort of scientific."

By contrast, 92 percent of the Chinese public think horoscopes are a bunch of baloney.

What's more alarming, researchers show in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, is that American attitudes about science are moving in the wrong direction. Skepticism of astrology hit an all-time high in 2004, when 66 percent of Americans said astrology was total nonsense. But each year, fewer and fewer respondents have dismissed the connections between star alignment and personality as bunk.

This, once again, calls into sharp focus why we have to have good, grounded science education. While it is quite true that many people will accept something because they simply want to, despite the evidence, a good many people simply don't know better. They also don't have a good grasp on what science is and how it operates. One of the principle sections of my Anthropology 110 class opening lecture is how science is practiced and how to distinguish between hypothesis and theory. I am continually amazed at how many people get those questions wrong.

On the other hand, as far as the Discovery Institute is concerned, astrology really is science.

Injecting A New Idea Into the Debate

Ow. Still hurts to type. Charles Haynes suggests a new tactic in the effort to educate students about the vacuity of ID and creationism in the classroom. Working off the passage of the new “monkey bill” in Tennessee, he writes:

Under the new law, Tennessee teachers apparently get to decide what counts as science (and what counts as "weakness" in scientific theories) -- even if most scientists disagree. Critics of the law see this as a green light for teaching creationism or other religiously based ideas as science.They may be right. What Tennessee lawmakers tout as academic freedom (a freedom, by the way, denied to teachers in every other subject), is very likely to be used as a Trojan horse for inserting religious convictions into the science curriculum.

A far better approach would be to address the religion-science debate up front by preparing teachers to teach students something about the history and philosophy of science, including the interaction between religion and science over time. Helping students understand the context for the culture-war fight over evolution may help them accept what modern science has to say.

I think this is a good idea. When I teach my Introduction to Human Origins class, I include a section on the history of science and where some of the young earth creationist ideas came from. One of the best books I have recently read is Davis Young's The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence which he excerpted here. It is a great case study in the struggles of geologists and their attempts to understand the new evidence that the earth was revealing and why flood geology was abandoned 150 years ago. That it is still accepted by young earth creationists after all this time is a sad testament to their lack of scientific credibility. There is more evidence that the earth is flat.

I wonder if my idea that simply teaching creationism in science class would expose the stinkweediness of it is a good idea. It would only work if every teacher to a man or woman were honest about the scientific evidence but, as we have seen from recent polls, one in nine high school science teachers accepts creationism. Somewhere, an entry-level quiz is systematically being omitted. I would expect that if you want to teach science in a science class, you would have to have a basic understanding of what is science and what is not. I guess not.

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John Evans — “Science and Religion: A False Divide?”

I missed this when it came out. John Evans of the L.A. Times (not normally a newspaper I pick up) wrote an interesting column about the controversy between science and religion and his contention that the whole thing is overhyped. He writes:

On most issues, there is actually very little conflict between religion and science. Religion makes no claims about the speed of hummingbird wings, and there are no university departments of anti-resurrection studies — scientists generally are unconcerned with the vast majority of religious claims and vice versa.

There are, of course, a few fact claims in which conservative Protestant theology and science differ, such as the origins of humans and the universe. Here we find that typical conservative Protestants are likely to believe the teaching of their religion on the issue and not the scientific claim.

We could complain that they are being inconsistent in believing the scientific method some of the time but not always. Yet social science research has long shown that people typically are not very consistent. The people who are more consistent are those who are punished for inconsistency: philosophers, media pundits, political activists and politicians.

I have often marveled at how much emphasis this topic has taken up in the media and religious world. As I pointed out in my post on the Miss America pageant, that the contestants were asked whether or not evolution should be taught in public schools had very little relevance to them. All it did was single out the religious conservatives and also point out that science education had all but failed them in this area. For your average person, the creation-evolution controversy has little traction and most view it as a curiosity of modern society. Consequently, when my church friends ask me about it, I always ask them why it is important to them to learn the science behind the old earth model since such knowledge will needlessly complicate their lives. That doesn't seem to stop them, though.

Evans has one other nugget:

The greatest conflict between fundamentalists, evangelicals and science is not over facts but over values. While scientists like to say that their work is value-free, that is not how the public views it, and conservative Protestants especially have homed in on the moral message of science.

This is a slow realization for most scientists. I tend to view evolution in much the way that I view nuclear energy: regardless of what values we attach to it, it exists—independent of those values. David Klinghoffer, over at the Discovery Institute, argues that “Darwinism” has ruined society and caused evils of all sorts, as if somehow if we brand it as evil, it will just go away.

It is also not just that the vast majority of scientists tend to view science amorally, they view attempts to infuse scientific discourse with morality with repugnance. It is the few here and there that seek to venture beyond the bounds of science to argue for or against the existence of God and even if they are highly regarded in their fields (for example Richard Dawkins), their efforts to do this are not.

The problem is these few are very highly visible and, unfortunately, set the tone for the discourse and the understanding of the scientific enterprise. After all, if Richard Dawkins is an eminent evolutionary biologist and he claims, vociferously, that God doesn't exist, why shouldn't evangelicals attach morality to his science?

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Zombie: The Problem of Conservatism and the Anti-Science Movement

Zombie over at Pajamas Media has a long post on "What is Wrong with Texas?" The post deals with the influence of the Texas State Board of Education. It is part two of a five part series, which deals with the problem of liberal influence in textbooks. In part two, along with quite a few other topics, he addresses the areas that I find near and dear: science in general and evolution in specific.

Although painted in rather broad brush strokes (all the resolution of a "blunt stick" as William Howells once wrote), Zombie argues that the TSBE is trying to push patriotism rather than conservatism I find a good deal to disagree with there. In most instances in which "patriotic" viewpoints are promoted, they are invariably conservative. And they have reason. It takes very little to show that the public school system from the top down leans heavily to the left. From the fact that the NEA is the single largest voting block at the Democratic National Convention to examples such as that from Amherst High School in Massachusetts—which eschewed a performance of "West Side Story" on the grounds that it was racist but had little trouble green-lighting "The Vagina Monologues"—the left's agenda is in open display.

Consequently, it is not surprising that some local school boards are rising up in indignation at this. In many ways you can't blame them. They feel penned in and that their values are being dismissed and mocked. It is no secret that we homeschool our kids in part for these very reasons. The public school curricula in the high schools has some serious problems. How serious? He continues:

For example, it was recently revealed that famed historian Howard Zinn was a communist — and not just a casual half-hearted communist, but a lifelong fierce and unapologetic advocate for Marxist-Leninist revolution, and a leading member of the Communist Party. Why should you care? Because Zinn was the author of the bestselling A People’s History of the United States, which is now considered a basic textbook in many school districts.

In my opinion, these are people that need to be supported for many reasons. The problem is that, in trying to promote a patriotic and conservative viewpoint, there is a distinctly "less-educated" veneer about their positions. This is nowhere more apparent than their attempts to remove "Darwinism" from the school curricula across the country. As Zombie writes, in a decided break with his conservative brethren:

• The debate about the reality of evolution is over. Evolution happens, and it happens through natural selection. The evidence is beyond overwhelming and is conclusive.
• If you quibble about the meaning of the word “theory” without knowing its definition in a scientific context, then you unintentionally have disqualified yourself from the conversation.
• Intelligent design, creationism, or any other euphemism you care to use to describe “directed evolution,” are not scientific theories; they are religious beliefs, and as such have no place in a science class.
• Denial of evolution is not a necessary adjunct of being Christian or having religious sentiments; it is entirely possible to be religious and to accept scientific realities like evolution, and many evolutionary scientists are also Christians.
• “Darwinism” is not some sort of faith-based religion in its own right nor is it competing with Christianity, and anyone who claims so is either seriously misinformed or is purposely deceiving you.
• The scientific community takes an extremely dim view of any official in a position of power who tries to undermine the teaching of evolution; this is a make-or-break “litmus test” issue for most scientists.
• Therefore, the insistence by officials such as the Texas State Board of Education on tampering with evolution curriculum unnecessarily creates enemies out of many clear-thinking science educators who might otherwise applaud the TSBE’s pro-America and pro-factuality stance on other issues.

Zombie is absolutely correct about his last point. At present, I cannot support the anti-science bandwagon that the conservative movement has embraced like grim death. All of the great ideas that they have are almost at the expense of any sort of intellectually honest view of science and the universe. This is quite a debate within me because, sociologically, I agree with most of what the school board in Texas and organizations in other places are trying to do. I just wish they would leave evolution alone. That is a losing battle and not one that they should be fighting in any event. Whether or not this is a "litmus test" for my willingness to politically support these people, I am not sure. It is scary to see yourself standing on the other side of the fence.

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Cornelius Hunter and the Nature of Science

Cornelius Hunter has an interesting piece on his blog "Darwin's God." He waxes about the nature of science and how theory is constructed. Then he, inexplicably fails to apply these insights to the one theory he apparently hates so much: evolution. I once heard a comedian talk about someone that was so narrow-minded he could "look through a keyhole with both eyes." Here, the myopia is extreme. He writes:

A friend of mine likes to invest in stocks. He understands computer companies so he trades only those stocks. This limitation makes for a simple and straightforward investing strategy. Evolutionists also limit themselves. They investigate only those phenomena that are the result of strictly natural causes. This limitation makes for a simple and straightforward research strategy, though it does create a blind spot.

An investor who buys only computer company stocks can easily identify those companies. He can find companies that build computers, computer components, computer software, and so forth. But how can evolutionists know whether the causes of a past event are strictly natural? How can evolutionists decide which phenomena fall into their research program?

The answer is they can't. Evolutionists have no test for naturalism. They have no way of knowing whether a phenomenon is the result of strictly natural causes.

First, the analogy doesn't hold. His friend only invests in tech stocks. But he could invest in other stocks if he wanted to. Why? Because other stocks behave the same way that tech stocks do. They are all part of the sector of the economy known as the stock market, which follows known patterns. Evolution doesn't limit itself to naturalistic explanations any more than any other scientific discipline.

It soon becomes clear that, when using the term 'evolutionist,' Hunter means modern science in general, since he imputes this problem to all scientific disciplines. What seems lost on him is that this applies to his own area of research, biochemistry. Hunter's argument is that, because we have no test for naturalism, we have no way of testing whether an unsolved problem is simply that: an unsolved problem, or whether it is an unsolvable problem requiring a paradigm shift. He continues:

How can we decide when a scientific problem is not a research problem, but a paradigm problem? Naturalism has no criteria, no set of rules by which to make such a judgment. And no one wants to turn science's attention away from the future discoveries. In fact, phenomena that are more daunting for naturalism are also more tantalizing, for their explanations will be more surprising and dramatic. Not only does science have a blind spot, not knowing if it has stumbled upon an unsolvable problem, but there is a certain allure of such problems. No one knows what will be science's next "Neptune."

This helps to explain the hesitancy of scientists to admit that non natural phenomena might exist. In science we follow Descartes' prescription and approach everything using naturalistic explanations. It also helps to explain the tolerance for improbable theories. Historical theories, no matter how erroneous they may seem, could be just a "Neptune" away from falling into place.

All of this helps to explain how such an implausible theory as evolution persists. It is underwritten not only by theological conviction that natural causes must suffice, but by a philosophy of science that cannot abide any other possibility, no matter how implausible evolution becomes.

Notice the segue from "this is how science operates" to "in doing science we put up with some junk" to "evolution is junk." He provides no evidence for this, merely a blanket statement that evolution is not science. We are supposed to take it on face value that he is correct. In his musings on paradigm shifts, though, he has forgotten something: paradigm shifts only happen when a truly intractable problem affects central tenets of a theory. Such a paradigm shift occurred when Alfred Wegener proposed a solution to many unanswered questions in the form of continental drift. It was a radical change in the understanding of how land masses behaved. Unfortunately, evidence for this did not come to light until the 1950s, when plate tectonics was discovered.

The only major paradigm shift in evolution occurred in the early part of the twentieth century with the discovery of genes and how they functioned. Up until that time, Darwin and others knew that evolution was taking place, but had no understanding of exactly how. Since that time, evolutionary theory has only become more robust. To be sure, there have been changes in understanding regarding tempo and mode and the recent emphasis on evolutionary development, but there are extremely few naturalists or palaeontologists who are not convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that evolution is and has happened throughout the history of this planet. If Hunter wishes to relegate evolution to junk science, he will have to do better than this.

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Growing Up Science-Literate in Japan

My guest column over at Steve Martin's blog is up, titled Growing up Science-Literate in Japan.
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Slightly Off-Topic: Top 25 Science TV Shows of All Time

Blogger Carolyn Friedman has a post on her blog call the "Top 25 Science TV Shows of All Time." Much to her credit, she has Babylon 5 on there and doesn't have Lost in Space. I would personally put Bab5 as being one of the best shows in any genre that I have ever seen. About LIS, writer David Gerrold once wrote that it "reached trash into millions of homes for five achingly long years."

Let her know what you think.


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Science Teacher Grants

The Valdosta State University News is reporting that six Georgia local science teachers are being sent to professional development training at the Annual Conference of the Georgia Science Teachers Association. According to the story:

The Georgia Teacher Quality Grant: Strengthening the Teaching of Evolution in South Georgia School has provided more than $80,000 during the last two years to fund workshops and field trips that address ways to present biological evolution effectively in the classroom. Jones said she hopes these professional development opportunities minimize the evolution/creationism controversy among teachers as well as students and parents.

"The point of our project is to emphasize the nature of science as a systematic study of the natural world. Science should not be seen as challenging God or scripture because it does not address anything in the spiritual world,” said Jones, who teaches science education. “We have seen teachers overcome deep personal reticence about evolution and develop the confidence to present this important biological theory to their students.”

If this grant can be expanded to other regions, it would be a boon for science teachers all across the country. It would also force those teachers who are sympathetic to or teach creationism to put their hands on the table before another parent files a lawsuit.

Eugenie Scott Receives NAS Public Welfare Medal

Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, received the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. The press release has this to say:

"Eugenie Scott has worked tirelessly and very effectively to improve public understanding of both the nature of science and the science of evolution," said Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences. "She makes the case for science again and again."

"We honor Genie Scott for her many years of service organizing coalitions of scientists, parents, teachers, business people, clergy, and others to raise their voices to defend the teaching of evolution in public school," said John Brauman, home secretary of the National Academy of Sciences and chair of the Public Welfare Medal selection committee.

A physical anthropologist by training, Scott received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. She holds six honorary degrees and has received numerous awards from scientific and civil liberties organizations. Scott has served on the board of directors of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study and on the advisory councils of several organizations defending the separation of church and state. Scott, a fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has also held elected offices in the American Anthropological Association and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

She has always been at least sympathetic to belief in God and the ability to practice science and yet hold religious beliefs. That was especially evident when she came and debated William Provine at the University of Tennessee. He was very spiteful and she was very gracious. She had not expected to discuss religion at the debate and he blindsided her. At the time (a decade back, at least) he said that he had a brain tumor and not much time to live. He has since had surgery and appears to have made a modest recovery, despite some speaking issues. Scott's performance led many people that I came into contact with to have a more open understanding of religion.

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The Trouble With Communicating Science

Chris Mooney of the Washington Post has an article on why science is such a hard sell. Using "climategate" as a backdrop, he writes:

The central lesson of Climategate is not that climate science is corrupt. The leaked e-mails do nothing to disprove the scientific consensus on global warming. Instead, the controversy highlights that in a world of blogs, cable news and talk radio, scientists are poorly equipped to communicate their knowledge and, especially, to respond when science comes under attack.

The problem here is two-fold. First, while there may, in fact, be a general consensus on global warming, these scientists behaved badly. There has been way too much documentation to suggest otherwise. That is what tarnished their reputation. Second, even if they hadn't behaved badly, the general public does have a dismal understanding of science, be it global warming, gravity or evolution. Mooney is correct about this.

According to Mooney, scientists have simply gotten to the point where they don't talk to the media or publicly debate their ideas because of this lack of understanding. This is certainly true within the creation/evolution debate, where creationists will often bring in buses of supporters to a debate, often overwhelming the scientist involved. The media is usually oblivious to this tilt. He continues:

They [scientists] no longer have that luxury. After all, global-warming skeptics suffer no such compunctions. What's more, amid the current upheaval in the media industry, the traditional science journalists who have long sought to bridge the gap between scientists and the public are losing their jobs en masse. As New York Times science writer Natalie Angier recently observed, her profession is "basically going out of existence." If scientists don't take a central communications role, nobody else with the same expertise and credibility will do it for them.

Daily, the Discovery Institute puts out editorials and bulletins attacking "Darwinists" despite the fact that no evolutionary biologists refers to themselves that way. To the DI, this is unimportant. The message is more important than the details. Kirk Cameron, under the auspices of Living Waters, has no formal training in biology yet feels qualified and compelled to shout from the rooftops that evolution is wrong.

Mooney states, correctly, that part of the problem could be solved if scientists who were also believers stood up and said something:

"Many Christians, including fundamentalists, can accept evolution as long as it is not attached to the view that life has no purpose," Karl Giberson, a Christian physicist and the author of "Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution," told me recently. "Human life has value, and any scientific theory that even appears to deny this central religious affirmation will alienate people of faith and create opportunity for those who would rally believers against evolution."

In other words, what's needed is less "pure science" on its own -- although of course scientists must continue to speak in scientifically accurate terms -- and more engagement with the concerns of nonscientific audiences. In response to that argument, many researchers will say: "Why target us? We're the good guys. And if we become more media savvy, we'll risk our credibility."

As long as the evolution debate is seen in moral and religious terms, the science will always be of secondary importance and scientists will succeed in getting the message across to no one. The other problem is that in any given conversation about the debate, how does the average scientist get someone up to speed on the concepts of allopatric speciation, homology, systematics, adaptive radiation and evolutionary development, just to name a few? Such concepts are central to evolutionary theory and most evolutionary biologists use them daily. John Q. Public has no idea what they mean and is somewhat disinclined to learn.

There is also the vociferous anti-evolution camp that either try to tear down the science in any way they can (sometimes dishonestly) or claim that believing in such things will lead to every imaginable sin and Hell. Creationist Todd Wood writes:

As a point of application, I think modern creationists would be much better served if we stopped coddling their every doubt and fear with new "evidence for creation" and instead helped to wean them off evidence altogether. A truly close Christian walk with Jesus should render evidence irrelevant. This is where we really want to be, not buffeted about by the wind and waves but confidently walking through the storm with our eyes fixed unwaveringly on Christ.

SLAM!! The mind of every scientist (including me) just slammed shut. Such a perspective is absolutely antithetical to scientists who view their task as studying and identifying the wonders of creation. Indeed, such a perspective is, even for Christians who are scientists, absurd. The universe IS God's creation. If it tells us something we don't like, are we simply to ignore it? That isn't science, it is pure religion, and your average scientist will accept the science and throw out the religion as being not worthy of his or her time. We cannot hope to reach people out there if we cannot portray science correctly and in such a way that it does not attack people's religious or moral values.

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Slightly Off-Topic: "Paging Harrison Bergeron!"

Only in Berkeley. The East Bay Express has a story on the redesign of the Berkeley High School, in which the school's science budget, including labs will be cut by 30% so that the money can be funneled to programs for underprivileged students. Eric Klein writes:

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

So, lets see. The solution is not to interest underprivileged students in science and science-related disciplines but, rather, to reduce science education to the lowest common denominator in an effort to equalize education. How did the science teachers react?

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. "The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing," said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department, at last week's school board meeting.

At a time when science education is becoming increasingly important and the United States is falling further behind in science worldwide, this is absolutely bassackwards. The comments below the article are scathing. Patterico also picked up the story. He writes:

It seems to me struggling students of every race would be better served by more science labs, not fewer ones, but this will be especially hard on any minority student currently benefiting from a science lab. I guess they and their white counterparts must sacrifice so more Berkeley High students score the same.

What is peculiar about the article is the complete lack of information about what kinds of programs will be instituted to help these students instead of science programs. That information will probably not be forthcoming. As one of Patterico's reader's wrote:

Frankly, I’d pull the accreditation of a high school district that did this.

Sadly, there is little chance of that happening. Another thing, though: if there are fewer science students around, who is going to pray at The Atheon? Someone once said "If your mind gets too open, your brains will fall out." They seem to be lying all over the ground in Berzerkeley, California.

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The Most Important Scientific Breaththrough of the Last Decade

The Irish Times has a story on the most important scientific discoveries of the last ten years. Among the big winners: the Toumai skull, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, MicroRNAs, the discovery of the speech gene FoxP2, and the human genome. The ambiguity of the Toumai skull is correctly described. It was squashed flat and it is not clear even quite what it is. About FoxP2, they write:

Two mutations in a single gene may have provided the evolutionary push that opened the way to human conversation. It all comes down to a master switch for language, the Foxp2 gene, which was first identified in 2001. It was found because of its associations, when switched off, in speech and language problems in humans. The following year German and British researchers compared our Foxp2 gene with matching ones in chimps, gorillas, orang-utans and rhesus macaque monkeys. They found two alterations seen only in humans, and surmised that these mutations had opened the way to language. Extensive research since has shown how the altered Foxp2 also triggered physiological changes that delivered the capacity to talk, something that gave humans a huge evolutionary advantage. Researchers are now studying how Foxp2 interacts with a large collection of genes associated with language.

As you read the discoveries, remember that most of them would have never come about without a modern, scientifically valid understanding of the universe—something that young earth creationism cannot provide.

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Hadrosaur Species Drop by a Third

Worse than a meteor impact is a scientists' correction. According to Science Daily, a reexamination of the diversity of hadrosaurs has revealed that much of the diversity thought to be species variability, is, in fact, nothing more than different growth stages of some hadrosaurs. The author writes:

These dinosaurs were not separate species, as some paleontologists claim, but different growth stages of previously named dinosaurs, according to a new study. The confusion is traced to their bizarre head ornaments, ranging from shields and domes to horns and spikes, which changed dramatically with age and sexual maturity, making the heads of youngsters look very different from those of adults.

There have been other discoveries as well:

Many paleontologists now realize that the elaborate head ornaments of dinosaurs, from the huge bony shield and three horns of Triceratops to the coxcomb-like head gear of some hadrosaurs, were not for combat, but served the same purpose as feathers in birds: to distinguish between species and indicate sexual maturity.

"Dinosaurs, like birds and many mammals, retain neoteny, that is, they retain their juvenile characteristics for a long period of growth," Horner said, "which is a strong indicator that they were very social animals, grouping in flocks or herds with long periods of parental care."

This is science at its best: self-correcting and constantly analyzing. As more information comes out of the fossil record, these sorts of changes will appear in the literature. This is not a problem for science but I am sure the creationists will pick up on it.

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The Dividing Line?

Peter Lindsay has written an op-ed for the Atlanta Constitution-Journal in which he tackles the confluence of evolution and religion. He writes:

That people do not accept widely held scientific conclusions is troubling. More troubling still, however, is that so many seem so unclear on what science even is. With this thought in mind — and in the spirit of the month — perhaps it’s time for supporters of Darwin to take the offensive with a different sort of public policy, one inspired by the Cobb County school district.

What if the state mandated that stickers with the following disclaimer be affixed to Bibles distributed by any tax-exempt Christian organization? “The existence of God is just one theory among many about the origin and purpose of the universe.” Or better yet: “There is no scientific evidence for the existence of God.” Both statements are, after all, accurate. There are many theories about the origin of the universe, and there is absolutely no scientific evidence for the existence of any deity, Christian or otherwise.

So what do we think? Good idea? Well, perhaps not. These stickers ignore boundaries that exist between two quite distinct ways of knowing the world, the religious and the scientific.

This is another take on the bumper sticker "Keep your stickers out of my science books. I don't paste crap in your Bibles!" that I have seen. Kind of makes me wonder what the Charles Darwin Bible has to say about that (No, i still haven't picked up my copy!). He continues:

To know something in a scientific sense is not to have faith in it. It’s to look at what we think we know and do our level best to disprove it. In a sense, the security of scientific knowledge rests, somewhat paradoxically, on the ultimate insecurity of its claims.

While this means there can be no complete certainty, it certainly does not rule out high degrees of it. The more a claim conforms to the way we understand the world, and the more that our repeated and persistent attempts to refute it fail, the greater our certainty about it. Such is the case with scientific conclusions about the shape of our planet, the laws of thermodynamics and, gulp, evolution.

On this last claim we need to be quite clear: It is simply not the case that evolution is disputed in the scientific community. There is debate within evolutionary theory — about the rate at which species arise, about the precise mechanisms of natural selection, about the validity of evolutionary psychology, about the role of contingent events — but on the general claim that species evolve through natural selection there is no scientific disagreement.

It doesn't help that there are some people who argue vociferously that evolution is all fact. Some is, to be sure, but some is conjecture and some is probably fact. As we fail to refute a theory like evolution, the probability that it is correct increases. That is as far as science can go.

The last bit is quite correct. The only folks who dispute the theory of evolution are creationists, some ID proponents (not Michael Behe, though) and scientists who are very far removed from either biology or geology (the Dissent from Darwin list). This is often over-exaggerated by these individuals and organizations to the point where evolution is thought of as a "theory in crisis." Read the whole thing.

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Resources: Evolution at the National Academies

The National Academies has a web site devoted to evolution resources. The site has been redesigned to take into account the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and 150th of the printing of On the Origins of Species. The site is split into a number of different areas including those for educators, for business, legal issues, science and religion and so on. The site is well-organized and focuses on the National Academies Press offerings, one of which is free with registration, Science, Evolution and Creationism. This is a must-read, as it explains in clear language why evolution is supported by the evidence and why it need not conflict with religion. Have a look!

More on the Differences Between Scientists and Non-Scientists

Dan Vergano of USA Today has a story on how the public perceives science and how scientists perceive themselves. For example:

•Evolution. 32% of the public and 87% of scientists agree that people have evolved.

•Animal research. 52% of the public and 93% of scientists support drug testing or other experiments on animals.

•Nuclear power. 51% of the public and 70% of scientists support nuclear power development.

As the story notes, this is not surprising. I think this largely reflects science's understanding of the hows and whys and the limits of these topics, as opposed to the general public's understanding. I have been told that, here at the lab, support for nuclear power is much higher than it is out in either the cities of Oak Ridge or Knoxville. What I also find interesting is the huge drop-off with regard to evolution. This is probably due to the efforts of YEC and ID groups to promote the anti-elvislutionary, er anti-evolutionary message.

Creation, Evolution and Closed Minds

According to a story in the Australian, a new article called Science communication reconsidered, in the journal Nature Biotechnology suggests that people reject science and scientific findings for a variety of reasons. Of people who encounter a scientific topic, the article notes:

"If they lack a motivation to pay close attention to science debates, they will rely heavily on mental shortcuts, values and emotions to make sense of an issue, often in the absence of knowledge." The paper, wisdom of a Washington, DC, workshop bringing together a score of experts, including Melbourne psychologist Christine Critchley, suggests there is more to science communication than knowledge.

Scientists, it seems, are kidding themselves if they imagine mere ignorance explains public resistance to their projects. "Knowledge is only one factor among many influences that are likely to guide how individuals reach judgments, with ideology, social identity and trust often having strong impacts," the paper says.

This is frustrating to me, since I tend to be left-brained about the way that I view the world. "How can you ignore the evidence," I say. "Just look into the blinkin' telescope!"

New Edited Volume by Ronald Numbers

The Globe and Mail has an article on a new book edited by Ronald Numbers, who wrote the exceptional book The Creationists. The new book, called Galileo Goes to Jail, addresses 25 myths of science and debunks everything from, well, Galileo's so called imprisonment to Descarte's mind-body distinction. Worth picking up.