Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (26 page)

• To fear the theory of evolution is an indication of a shortcoming in one's faith, as is looking to scientific proof for justification of one's religious beliefs. If creationists have true faith in their religion, it should not matter what scientists think or say and scientific proof of God or biblical stories should be of no interest.

I concluded my meta-debate analysis with a show of goodwill by offering Gish an honorary membership in the Skeptics Society. I was later forced to retract the offer, however, when Gish refused to retract his characterization of me as an atheist. As Darwin said, "An Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind." I knew Gish had a lengthy section in his presentation on the evils of atheism as a technique to destroy his opponents (who typically are atheists), so I made a point of stating in my introduction, loud and clear, that I am not an atheist. I even called the audience's attention to the man passing out anti-Christian literature, who was now sitting in the front row, and I told him that I thought he was doing more harm than good. Nonetheless, in his opening statement Gish called me an atheist and then proceeded with his automated diatribe against atheism.

The rest of Gish's presentation was his stock litany of jokes and jabs against evolution. He demanded one transitional fossil (I provided several), argued that the bombardier beetle could not have evolved its noxious spray (it could), claimed that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics (it doesn't because the Earth is in an open system with the Sun as a continuing source of energy), stated that neither evolution-science nor creation-science is scientific (odd for someone calling himself a creation-scientist), and so on. I rebutted all of his points, and in the next chapter I summarize them one by one and provide evolutionists' answers to them.

Who won the debate? Who knows? A more important question to address is whether skeptics and scientists should participate in such debates. Deciding how to respond to fringe groups and extraordinary claims is always a tough call. It is our job at
Skeptic
to investigate claims to discover if they are bogus, but we do not want to dignify them in the process. The principle we use at
Skeptic
is this: when a fringe group or extraordinary claim has gained widespread public exposure, a proper rebuttal deserves equal public exposure. Whether my meta-debate tactic worked with Gish, I have no way of knowing, although a number of people who had come to root for Gish thanked me afterward for at least trying to understand them. It is for these folks, and for those in the middle who are uncertain as to which direction to lean, that I think debates such as this can make a difference. If we can offer a natural explanation for apparently supernatural phenomena and make three or four simple points about science and critical thinking so that listeners can learn
how
to think instead of
what
to think, then I believe it is well worth the effort.

10

Confronting Creationists

Twenty-five Creationist Arguments, Twenty-five Evolutionist Answers

Late in his life, Charles Darwin received many letters asking for his views on God and religion. On October 13, 1880, for example, he answered a letter from the editor of a book on evolution and free thought who was hoping to dedicate it to him. Knowing that the book had an antireligious slant, Darwin dissembled: "Moreover though I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follow from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science" (in Desmond and Moore 1991, p. 645).

In classifying the relationship of science and religion, I would like to suggest a three-tiered taxonomy:

The
same-worlds model:
Science and religion deal with the same subjects and not only is there overlap and conciliation but someday science may subsume religion completely. Frank Tipler's cosmology (1994), based on the anthropic principle and the eventual resurrection of all humans through a supercomputer's virtual reality in the far future of the universe, is one example. Many humanists and evolutionary psychologists foresee a time when science not only can explain the purpose of religion, it will replace it with a viable secular morality and ethics.

The
separate-worlds model:
Science and religion deal with different subjects, do not conflict or overlap, and the two should coexist peacefully with one another. Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, and many other scientists hold this model.

The
conflicting-worlds model:
One is right and the other is wrong, and there can be no reconciliation between the two viewpoints. This model is predominantly held by atheists and creationists, who are often at odds with one another.

This taxonomy allows us to see that Darwin's advice is as applicable today as it was a century ago. Thus, let us be clear that refuting creationists' arguments is not an attack on religion. Let us also be clear that creationism is an attack on science—all of science, not just evolutionary biology—so the counterarguments presented in this chapter are a response to the antiscience of creationism and have nothing whatsoever to do with antireligion. If creationists are right, then there are serious problems with physics, astronomy, cosmology, geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, and all the life sciences. Can all these sciences be wrong in the same direction? Of course not, but creationists think they are, and, worse, they want their antiscience taught in public schools.

Creationists and religious fundamentalists will go to absurd lengths to protect their beliefs from science. The Summer 1996 issue of the National Center for Science Education's
Reports
notes that in Marshall County, Kentucky, elementary school superintendent Kenneth Shadowen found a rather unique solution to a vexing problem with his fifth- and sixth-graders' science textbooks. It seems that the heretical textbook
Discovery Works
claimed that the universe began with the Big Bang but did not present any "alternatives" to this theory. Since the Big Bang was explained on a two-page spread, Shadowen recalled all the textbooks and glued together the offending pages. Shadowen told the
Louisville Courier-Journal,
"We're not going to teach one theory and not teach another theory" and that the textbook's recall "had nothing to do with censorship or anything like that" (August 23, 1996, Al, p. 1). It seems doubtful that Shadowen was lobbying for equal time for the Steady State theory or Inflationary Cosmology. Perhaps Shadowen found his solution by consulting librarian Ray Martin's "Reviewing and Correcting Encyclopedias," a guide for Christians on how to doctor books:

Encyclopedias are a vital part of many school libraries.. . . [They] represent the philosophies of present day humanists. This is obvious by the bold display of pictures that are used to illustrate painting, art, and sculpture. . . . One of the areas that needs correction is immodesty due to nakedness and posture. This can be corrected by drawing clothes on the figures or blotting out entire pictures with a magic marker. This needs to be done with care or the magic marker can be erased from the glossy paper used in printing encyclopedias. You can overcome this by taking a razor blade and lightly scraping the surface until it loses its glaze. . . . [Regarding evolution] cutting out the sections is practical if the portions removed are not thick enough to cause damage to the spine of the book as it is opened and closed in normal use. When the sections needing correction are too thick, paste the pages together being careful not to smear portions of the book not intended for correction.
(Christian School Builder,
April 1983, pp. 205-207)

Fortunately, creationists have failed in their top-down strategy of passing antievolution, pro-creationism laws (Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia recently rejected creationist legislation), but their bottom-up grassroots campaign bent on injecting Genesis into the public school curriculum has met with success. In March 1996, for example, Governor Fob James used a discretionary fund of taxpayers' money to purchase and send a copy of Phillip Johnson's antievolution book,
Darwin on Trial,
to every high school biology teacher in Alabama. Their success should not be surprising. Politically, the United States has taken a sharp turn to the right, and the political strength of the religious right has grown. What can we do? We can counter with our own literature. For example, the National Center for Science Education, Eugenie Scott's Berkeley-based group specializing in tracking creationist activities, countered Governor James's mailing with a mailing that included a critical review of Johnson's book. We can also try to understand the issue thoroughly so that we are prepared to counter pro-creationist arguments wherever we meet them.

The following is a list of arguments put forth by creationists and answers put forth by evolutionists. The arguments are primarily attacks on evolutionary theory and secondarily (in a minor way) positive statements of creationists' own beliefs. The arguments and answers are simplified due to space constraints; nonetheless, they provide an overview of the principal points of the debate. This list is not meant to substitute for critical reading, however. While these answers might be adequate for casual conversation, they would not be adequate for a formal debate with a well-prepared creationist. Numerous books offer fuller discussions (e.g., Berra 1990; Bowler 1989; Eve and Harrold 1991; Futuyma 1983; Gilkey 1985; Godfrey 1983; Gould 1983 a, 1991; Lindberg and Numbers 1986; Numbers 1992; Ruse 1982; and, especially, Strahler 1987).

What Is Evolution?

Before reviewing creationists' arguments against evolution, a brief summary of the theory itself might be useful. Darwin's theory, outlined in his 1859
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
can be summarized as follows (Gould 1987a; Mayr 1982, 1988):

Evolution:
Organisms change through time. Both the fossil record and nature today make this obvious.

Descent with modification:
Evolution proceeds via branching through common descent. Offspring are similar to but not exact replicas of their parents. This produces the necessary variation to allow for adaptation to an ever-changing environment.
Gradualism:
Change is slow, steady, stately.
Natura nonfacit saltum
—Nature does not make leaps. Given enough time, evolution accounts for species change.

Multiplication of speciation:
Evolution does not just produce new species; it produces an increasing number of new species.
Natural selection:
The mechanism of evolutionary change, co-discovered by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, operates as follows:

A. Populations tend to increase indefinitely in a geometric ratio: 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,25 6,512,....

B. In a natural environment, however, population numbers stabilize at a certain level.

C. Therefore, there must be a "struggle for existence" because not all of the organisms produced can survive.

D. There is variation in every species.

E. In the struggle for existence, those individuals with variations that are better adapted to the environment leave behind more offspring than individuals that are less well adapted. This is known in the jargon of the trade as
differential reproductive success.

Point E is crucial. Natural selection, and thus evolutionary change, operate primarily at the local level. It is just a game of who can leave behind the most offspring, that is, who can most successfully propagate their genes into the next generation. Natural selection has nothing to say about evolutionary direction, species progress, or any of the other teleological goals, such as human inevitability or the necessary evolution of intelligence, which are commonly attributed to it. There is no ladder of evolutionary progress with humans at the top, only a richly branching bush with humans as one tiny twig among millions. There is nothing special about humans; we just happen to be extremely good at differential reproductive success—we leave behind lots of offspring and are good at getting them into adulthood—a trait that could eventually cause our demise.

Of the five points of Darwin's theory, the most controversial today are gradualism, with Niles Eldredge (1971, 1985; Eldredge and Gould 1972) and Stephen Jay Gould (1985, 1989, 1991) and their supporters pushing for a theory called
punctuated equilibrium,
which involves rapid change and stasis, to replace gradualism; and the exclusivity of natural selection, with Eldredge, Gould, and others arguing for change at the level of genes, groups, and populations in addition to individual natural selection (Somit and Peterson 1992). Ranged against Eldredge, Gould, and their supporters are Daniel Dennett (1995), Richard Dawkins (1995), and those who opt for a strict Darwinian model of gradualism and natural selection. The debate rages, while creationists sit on the sidelines hoping for a double knockout. They will not get it. These scientists are not arguing about
whether
evolution happened; they are debating the
rate
and
mechanism
of evolutionary change. When it all shakes down, the theory of evolution will be stronger than ever. It is sad that while science moves ahead in exciting new areas of research, fine-tuning our knowledge of how life originated and evolved, creationists remain mired in medieval debates about angels on the head of a pin and animals in the belly of an Ark.

Philosophically Based Arguments and Answers