Saturday, December 24, 2011

Talking Evolution With Evolutionists

One day while walking to the life science library I was stopped by a cultist who wanted me to join. Having spoken with cultists before, I was able to explain his problems to him. The cult’s beliefs entailed several obvious contradictions, its leaders had well-documented ulterior motives, and so forth. But the fellow was undeterred. He was certain that his cult held the truth, in spite of the obvious problems.

Later I thought about some of the things he said. They revealed even more problems and I wished I had pointed them out. A few weeks later I saw him again and so I engaged him in conversation. Not only were there the problems I pointed out the first time we had spoken, but now I added several more. But again, the fellow was undeterred.

People have a remarkable capacity to hold bizarre beliefs. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not referring to beliefs that are not provable or don’t adhere to some logical formula. I’m referring to beliefs that are downright false. The cultist I spoke with was sure and it is this unjustified certainty that revealed the problem, not the beliefs themselves. Who knows, maybe his cult did hold the truth, but his reasons provided little confidence. Between his assurance and his facts there was a wide chasm.

It is the same with evolution. Evolution is not about gradual change accumulating to form all the species. This, as well as mutations, punctuated equilibrium, natural selection, common descent, and so forth, are sub hypotheses of evolution. Evolutionists are free to disagree on these sub hypotheses and accept or reject them where they see fit. What evolutionists agree on, indeed insist on, is that evolution is a fact. Somehow, some way, all life and all of biology must have arisen naturalistically. We may not know how but this must be a fact, evolutionists are certain of it.

Evolution’s Lakatosian core is certainty—certainty that all of biology arose on its own. You will see evolutionists disagree about many things, but you won’t see them disagree over this core belief. From Richard Dawkins to Ken Miller, and everywhere in between, evolutionists do not question the fact of evolution.

Evolutionists may wax eloquent on their degree of certainty. Is evolution as certain as heliocentrism or the roundness of the earth? Nay, it is as certain as gravity. Indeed it is more certain than gravity. To doubt it would be perverse.

The evolution genre is loaded with such profundities. Measured assessments of the reality of how the science bears on the theory are nowhere to be found. There literally are no evolution texts that admit to the uncertainty. They will admit to ignorance of the details of how evolution occurred, but not that it occurred.

Like the cultist I spoke with, evolutionists are certain even though the facts do not support such certainty. As with the cultist’s beliefs, evolution may or may not be true. It is difficult to know exactly what happened in the distant past. But it is not difficult to know the current state of our knowledge.

We may not know the truth of a matter, but we do know what we know of the matter. These are two entirely different things, and evolution deals with the latter. Evolution is not merely a collection of disparate, sometimes conflicting sub hypotheses of how life arose. Evolution is the claim that the over arching story is compelling. An indisputable idea that must be accepted by all rational thinkers.

But as with the cultist, the chasm between evolution’s confidence and certainty and reality is immense. The problem here with evolution is not minor. We’re not dealing with a few missing blanks. It is not the difference between a fact and a truth, or however else evolutionists want to describe their certainty.

The problem here is that it is not even close. It is not even controversial that the scientific facts of the matter do not support evolution’s claim of certainty. Any objective analysis of the science, unsullied by evolution’s religious mandates, would conclude not only that evolution is not a scientific fact, but that there are non trivial scientific problems with evolution. Evolution is nowhere close to being a fact.

Perhaps evolution is true, and perhaps we will understand this better in the future. But there simply is no getting around the fact of the matter which is that the current state of our knowledge is in complete disagreement with the insistence of evolutionists that evolution is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a scientific fact.

Evolution skeptics such as myself are often criticized as undermining and attacking science. It is just the opposite. A key tenet of science is the objective evaluation of data and findings and avoiding the influence of dogma. We are simply calling for science to adhere to this. Those evolutionists who point the finger and accuse evolution skeptics of undermining science are, in fact, themselves undermining science.

It is a hypocrisy that has played out over and over, probably throughout all of history. The king, the priest or the magician manipulates the system and then accuses those who point it out of the very crime of which he is guilty.

And so what is the point of all this? The point is that reasoning with an evolutionist is much like reasoning with that cultist. You can present the facts, you can walk through the logic, you can review the experiments, and you can tally up the findings. It doesn’t matter. It never did matter because, ultimately, evolution never was about the science.

Every discussion I have had with evolutionists always ends up the same. It may be fast or it may take awhile, it may be courteous or it may be rude, and it may be subtle or it may be obvious. But at some point the evolutionist must deny the facts of the matter and blame you.

Of course one hopes that seeds of truth are being sown. I’m not saying people cannot escape their irrationality. But do not expect evolutionists to give up their tightly held beliefs easily. You cannot simply present the facts to an evolutionist and expect them to make a rational conclusion. Upon learning of the science an evolutionist does not then respond “Oh, I see, so evolution is not a fact after all.” Don’t expect a rational discourse.

It doesn’t work that way because evolutionists hold to a web of beliefs and forfeiting their certainty of evolution would conflict with too many other religious beliefs they hold dear.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

13 comments:

  1. Merry Christmas CH!

    I sure hope Santa brings you a new argument. Your old standby one of equivocating between the observed fact of evolution, and the theory of evolution that explains the observed fact grew decrepit and threadbare years ago.

    Still, just like a no-longer-funny-or-original comedian, I guess the IDC audience expects you to perform the old favorite jokes.

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  2. Hunter, if you know they are cultists, why do you give them a free pass to spew their nonsense on your blog? Take Thorton, for example. Why do you allow this jackass to continue to comment here. Methinks you're afraid, Hunter. Methinks you need the cultists. They are your raison d'etre.

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  3. People have a remarkable capacity to hold bizarre beliefs.

    Merry Saturnalia, Professor Hunter!

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  4. Louis Savain said...

    Hunter, if you know they are cultists, why do you give them a free pass to spew their nonsense on your blog?


    Cool! Are you the same Louis Savain Creationist nutjob that was trolling Stranger Fruit and Pharyngula as detailed here?

    "PZ: I'd be surprised if any of you knew who Louis Savain is — he's a weird little crackpot that I stomped on hard all of 3½ years ago. He claims that the Bible is actually a complete and accurate technical description of the neurological workings of the human brain. It was one of the more memorably loony ideas I've seen come out of religious derangement."

    The IDC movement attracts all types of loonies and goobers, that's for sure!

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  5. Religion drives science, and it matters.

    I think that is largely true, at least in the field of evolution. I'm guessing that there is a process (like DABDA for death) that charts the process of movement from religious belief A to religious belief B. In this example, I mean to suggest that 'A' is the religious belief of chance worship at the heart of evolutionary thinking, and 'B' is the religious belief of rationality and the existence of mind - which lie at the heart of ID thinking.

    Do you know of such a process? For example, imagine a grief counselor who was focusing his efforts to help a client work through stage B (of DABDA) - when the client was really, internally, still processing stage D. In that case, the counselor might just be spinning his wheels - and he might actually be aggravating things for the client.

    I am very interested in this question both for the ID issue, and for my personal interest which is: helping people who are willing to admit that laziness is part of the reason for their failure to be self-supporting. My theory is that the belief system (which underlies and supports the internal thinking of a lazy person) is akin to a religious framework. For example, someone who "believes" that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" will be unmotivated to work to bring himself out of poverty. So, in this example, the challenge that I face is: How can I convince the client to change this deeply rooted (perhaps even religious) belief?

    In the case of my example about laziness, and in the case of ID, the similarity is that there is a religious world-view that needs to be updated. If we knew of a process to follow for changing religious beliefs which has already been shown to be successful, then, perhaps, we could tweak it to work in these two new cases, as well?

    A lot of the problem revolves around "undoing brainwashing." Perhaps that would be a better model to follow in looking for a general solution?

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  6. For example, after a certain point I think it is counterproductive to point out cases of inconsistencies in a brainwashed person's thinking. Internally, their response may simply revert to something like this:

    "Okay - I realize that this guy just made a good point which *seems* to show that my beliefs are wrong ... but that is just because he is smarter than me, so he knows how to manipulate the truth. I wish that {super-smart-advocate-of-my-position} where here, right now, because he (SSAOMP) would be able to clarify things. But since SSAOMP is not here now, it makes the most sense for me to just dig-in my heels and hold fast to the truth of chance worship."

    So, the point is that, before a person gets to that stage of digging in their heels, you need to stop what you are doing and re-assess the utility of the strategy-to-convince which you are using. So you can see the similarity between the grief-counselor who is working on helping the client with stage B, when, internally, the client is still processing the first stage D in DABDA.

    (BTW, I just realized that there are two D's in DABDA) :-D

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  7. I don't mean to criticize the way that you are going about trying to convince people of the validity of ID. I am just thinking that there might be a higher-level dynamic at work in the process of attempting to change religious beliefs. If we could map out how that dynamic is working out in the case of the transition from religious belief A to B, then we might be a step ahead.

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  8. Mr Hunter,

    Other than that you ought to have used the term 'evolutionism' in many cases where you used the term 'evolution', the essay is spot on.

    And, of course, it compels the DarwinDefenders who hang out at your blog, and who seem compelled to dispute *anything* a DarwinDenier says, merely because he says it, to illustrate your point.

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  9. PAL:

    I mean to suggest that 'A' is the religious belief of chance worship at the heart of evolutionary thinking,

    I can imagine that this is what it appears to be from the outside, and perhaps for certain practical purposes it essentially boils down to this, but in fact the theological foundation of evolution is not chance worship. Rather, it is a set of theological traditions that, in modern times (ie, 17th c and after) were expressed and promoted by Christians. There’s no simple way to describe it as it does not involve a particular school, denomination, tradition, etc, but is more of a web of interrelated beliefs. The best one-word labels would be deism or Gnosticism, but those don’t do justice to the movement of evolutionary thought.

    Do you know of such a process? For example, imagine a grief counselor who was focusing his efforts to help a client work through stage B (of DABDA) - when the client was really, internally, still processing stage D. In that case, the counselor might just be spinning his wheels - and he might actually be aggravating things for the client.

    Great question and I’m glad you commented on the post. But no, I don’t know of such a process, which was why the post is somewhat pessimistic. More thoughts below though.

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  10. PAL:

    I am very interested in this question both for the ID issue, and for my personal interest which is: helping people who are willing to admit that laziness is part of the reason for their failure to be self-supporting. My theory is that the belief system (which underlies and supports the internal thinking of a lazy person) is akin to a religious framework. For example, someone who "believes" that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" will be unmotivated to work to bring himself out of poverty. So, in this example, the challenge that I face is: How can I convince the client to change this deeply rooted (perhaps even religious) belief?

    I do see some important differences between evolution and laziness. With evolution, one has very few incentives / tools to work with. If a life scientist questions evolution he basically loses everything. Whatever the next career goal, he can kiss it good-bye. Whether it is a good grade in a class, a diploma, acceptance into grad school, post-doc appointment, faculty job, tenure, prestigious committees or appointments, it isn’t going to happen. Question evolution and you will lose reputation, social stature, funding, job. And you will be blackballed. But there’s one thing you don’t lose: truth.

    So evolutionists have practically every incentive to remain in denial of the obvious. In fact, they have a strong incentive to attack skepticism. Because for all their foibles, evolutionists do have scientific training. They want to follow the rules and do a good job. So when the absurdity of evolution is pointed out, it can cause a conflict which must be extinguished.

    With laziness, at least you can appeal to some pretty practical, real-world incentives, such as getting a job, getting a better job, and so forth. But perhaps many of these lazy people have their laziness underwritten by external support (money from parents?), so there would be less motivation to better oneself.

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  11. PAL:

    In the case of my example about laziness, and in the case of ID, the similarity is that there is a religious world-view that needs to be updated. If we knew of a process to follow for changing religious beliefs which has already been shown to be successful, then, perhaps, we could tweak it to work in these two new cases, as well?

    A lot of the problem revolves around "undoing brainwashing." Perhaps that would be a better model to follow in looking for a general solution?


    I think it is important to establish common ground. As I mentioned above, evolutionists are scientists and they want to do a good job. So when they make a claim (eg, “evolution is an undeniable fact”) they will defend that claim and address criticism. So the one way to discourse with an evolutionist is via science. Unfortunately, in most cases the religion is stronger (theology is still queen of the sciences). So yes, I agree with you that it is a difficult deprogramming job.

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  12. Cornelius Hunter said...

    I do see some important differences between evolution and laziness. With evolution, one has very few incentives / tools to work with. If a life scientist questions evolution he basically loses everything. Whatever the next career goal, he can kiss it good-bye. Whether it is a good grade in a class, a diploma, acceptance into grad school, post-doc appointment, faculty job, tenure, prestigious committees or appointments, it isn’t going to happen. Question evolution and you will lose reputation, social stature, funding, job. And you will be blackballed. But there’s one thing you don’t lose: truth


    Which is complete and utter twaddle, but it makes a good story. There are many YECs who lead productive careers in the biological sciences. The bottom line in academia is you can personally believe whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect the quality of your work or your relationship with your co-workers. David Coppedge wasn't fired from NASA for his IDC beliefs. He was fired for constantly proselytizing to and antagonizing his co-workers to the point none of them could stand to work with him.

    I'm curious CH. What is your take on what happened to William Dembski at Southwest Baptist Seminary where he teaches? In 2009 Dembski published The End of Christianity, trying to reconcile his scientific understanding with his religious beliefs. One of the things he wrote was that Noah's Flood was probably just a local deluge in the Middle East, and that the local historical story was incorporated into the Bible.

    When Southwestern President Paige Patterson found out about it he called Dembski on the carpet. Dembski had to recant, say the Flood was global was real as described in Genesis, and had to grovel to save his job.

    As reported by the Florida Baptist Witness

    "Patterson said that when Dembski’s questionable statements came to light, he convened a meeting with Dembski and several high-ranking administrators at the seminary. At that meeting, Dembski was quick to admit that he was wrong about the flood, Patterson said.

    “Had I had any inkling that Dr. Dembski was actually denying the absolute trustworthiness of the Bible, then that would have, of course, ended his relationship with the school,” he said.


    link

    It was deliciously ironic to see Dembski almost EXPELLED by his own school, the exact thing he accuses pro-science academia of doing. Don't you agree CH?

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  13. Cornelius,

    What evolutionists agree on, indeed insist on, is that evolution is a fact.

    Speaking of bizarre beliefs...

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