While so far I've found the readings from "Best Science Writing" to be quite good, I have to admit I read through most of "God or Gorilla" feeling annoyed. Between high school and today I have read dozens of articles ultimately saying the same thing. Yes, evolution is more than a theory and yes, the religious argument against it is at best misinterpretation and at worst absurd, but how many times is this worth saying? The fact has been clear for decades that the evolution argument is futile simply because the two sides operate on two fully incompatible wavelengths: evolution supporters rely on observations, opponents rely on faith. From either side, the other's way of thinking is absurd, and so is their argument.
Throughout the article Mathew Chapman plodded along the common path, providing a blow-by-blow of the ideas behind evolution overwhelming those of creationism, often resorting to showing off hypocrisies such as creationists lying under oath or blindly ignoring facts. Put simply, the argument his paper seemed to make was a redundant one: evolution is right, creationism is wrong, and people who say otherwise are uninformed.
Then along came 48 year old party-goer Scott Mehring from Mechanicsville PA, 27 pages in. A man having "...something to do with performance cars," Mehring is ill-informed to make any statement on the topic, and for this reason he is Chapman's most convincing argument. A pushing-50 car salesman can manufacture an entire theory combining evolution and creationism using nothing more than scientific tidbits and pot-smoke paradoxes, "Who created the God who created God?"
At this point I realized Chapman's whole cookie-cutter evolution/creationism article was a lure leading up to a slap in the face. Chapman's opinion of the argument is that it is irrelevant, and at this point his entire article almost transforms. All of his caricatures of trial members and highlighted absurdities of "creationist" logic are just examples of "intelligent design bashing," an activity born of a 50 year old argument between a biologist and a bible-thumper that has become almost a religion of its own. Little hints to this show up during the bulk of the article, as with Chapman's claim that "faith even in nothing [is] too much faith," and when he responds to the Judge's ruling with "Amen." Perhaps even more convincing is the fact that the article has been identified as some of the "best science writing of 2007." All things considered, its pretty hard to convince anyone remotely well-read that another evolution/creationism piece is even worth reading (hence my initial annoyance). But it's Chapman's concluding quote, that by "[thinking] about it too much, you can go insane," that drives home this point. For all of his rantings, a car salesman at least understood what may in fact be the most important part of the entire debate: its absurdity.
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4 comments:
I think it's really interesting that we posted around the same time, and we found the same part of the article to be the most intriguing. Yet we came to opposite conclusions. You think (or think that Chapman thinks) that the whole argument is absurd or irrelevant, and I think that it is extremely relevant. Maybe I just have more "faith" in the ability to influence people through education.
Also I wanted to point out that evolution is no more than a theory (You said: "Yes, evolution is more than a theory"). Detractors of evolution like to give a negative connotation to the word "theory", as if theories have no basis in reality. However, "theory" as defined by science is, as I'm sure everyone already knows, an explanation of natural phenomena for which there is overwhelming evidence, and for which a counterexample has never been found. In addition, if a counterexample is ever found, the theory could be proven wrong.
I think of creationism as a kind of "theory" too, but not a scientific one. A religious theory might be defined as an explanation of natural phenomena that is derived from holy texts. This kind of theory is, in a sense, forever true--it could never be proven wrong. I think that religious people are used to this definition of the word "theory", so they sometimes have a hard time understanding how scientific theories can change over time.
Andy and pixelfishfood both made interesting points. I agree with pixelfishfood, that the article is more about the state of education in the US and the absurdity of having people who value intellectual ignorance making decisions about education.
Though Andy is right about the 'redundancy' of this article. It should not be necessary for it to be published. Serious debate was over long ago, now we have both sides just rehashing the same tired old arguments. The fact that creationism has been gaining support while still using these arguments over the last few years is absolutely mind-blowing, and ties back into the original problem of lack of critical thought.
Pixelfishfood's theory on religious theories is well meaning, but doesn't quite capture the views being expressed by religion. Most religious people describe their beliefs as beliefs or as facts, and never as theory. Theory in general usage has a subjective taint to its meaning that is not present in its scientific sense. Theories in general usage express uncertainty, and reflect the opinions held by it's creator. Which is why I think creationists focus on attacking Darwin, they see evolution as being an expression of his own opinions and therefore debatable, plus, it's easy to win a debate against a dead man.
I mostly agree with what Aquila said, but I also wanted to add that different religions view their religious beliefs differently. I think most mainstream Christians are more likely to think of their beliefs as "beliefs", while fundamentalist Christians are more likely to think of them as "facts." In Judaism (my religion), we would think of them as "theories" or "interpretations." In Buddhism, they are more "philosophies."
In Judaism, we are actually discouraged from taking any interpretation of the Bible on blind faith. Rather, we are supposed to analyze and debate interpretations that different scholars have put forth, along with our own readings. You can't "prove" any of these readings with science, but you can support them with textual evidence. The interpretations might change as new ideas come along, but no new evidence is ever added. I guess this is where my understanding of religious belief comes from--Aquila has a different perspective, likely coming from a non-Jewish background, so this was interesting to hear.
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