O’Reilly and Dawkins, Part Two

After Richard Dawkins’s appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, I watched the next episode to see what emails he would read regarding to the interview.  The very first one pointed out the fundamental problem with people like O’Reilly’s position.  The email read that Dawkins was correct since evolution, being a scientific theory, deals in evidence, whereas religion deals in faith.  O’Reilly’s response was that because evolution has gaps, it also deals in faith.

Why is it that O’Reilly and his ilk can never, ever provide any positive evidence for their viewpoint?  Isn’t it telling that the entirety of their position is to attack evolution in some childish attempt to win by default?  They make no attempt to elevate their argument more than an opinion; instead they try to lower science to the level of an opinion.

Yes, O’Reilly, the theory of evolution has gaps and unanswered questions.  Guess what?  So does atomic theory, and the theory of relativity, and quantum theory, and the theory of gravitation, and even the germ theory of disease.  Are all of these a matter of faith, as well?  Einstein could never reconcile quantum theory with relativity – does this mean trusting e=mc² is faith?

Science isn’t like a neat episode of CSI – there are always unanswered questions.  This is true for every single field of study.  But it is logical fallacy to claim that this reduces science to purely a matter of faith.  It sure is strange that we can’t combine gravity with the other three fundamental forces in physics, or figure out why it’s so weak compared to the other three, or even discover the first bit of evidence of the graviton.  My my; such huge, gaping holes in the theory of gravitation.  According to O’Reilly’s reasoning, anyone who believes in the theory of gravitation is using faith – and perhaps we should teach the “alternatives” to gravity in science class.

Kurt Cobain was found dead in 1994 with a shotgun in his hands and a suicide note nearby.  But strange, unanswered questions remain.  An unidentified person was using his credit card as he was lying dead.  His fingerprints were on that gun but not on the shells.  The signature on the suicide note was in different handwriting than the body of the note.  Conspiracy theories proclaiming that he was murdered abound.

Yet despite all the unanswered questions, he almost certainly voluntarily shot himself.  Because there’s a mountain of positive evidence saying that he did it.  If conspiracy theorists want to fortify their case, they need their own positive evidence.  Ditto for the opponents of evolution.

O’Reilly and Dawkins

Watching Richard Dawkins go on The O’Reilly Factor is always entertaining.  O’Reilly kept saying that “alternatives” to evolution should be taught in public classrooms because evolution can’t answer every question.  Of course, O’Reilly even said that teaching only evolution is “fascism.”

Personally, I think Richard Dawkins dropped the ball during this interview.  Sure, he correctly pointed out the illogic of automatically leaping to a Christian creation story by default, but I think he should have brought up the pure idiocy of O’Reilly’s claim, the stunning and manifest contradiction: “Teaching only science in science class is fascism.”

Honestly, let’s look at this.  O’Reilly and all like-minded Americans are saying that we should teach an alternative to science in a science class!  This would be like teaching alchemy in chemistry class, or better yet, like teaching geography in history class.  Does O’Reilly seriously think that telling kids that “billions of people believe that a god designed everything” is science?  Call it whatever you want, remind your kids of it every day at the breakfast table, but please don’t insult the very foundation of human reason by calling your feelings science.

That’s what this comes downs to: people’s feelings.  O’Reilly didn’t even mention that bad science of intelligent design theory.  He reminded  ”>Dawkinds that there are “many more believers than nonbelievers,” as if this is supposed to add any weight to his argument.  Like so many of his peers, O’Reilly seems to think that the question of evolution’s veracity should be decided by polling, by the subjective opinions of a majority of Americans.

What’s also amazing to me is that O’Reilly continues to say that his religious beliefs “explain everything” whereas the theory of evolution has unanswered questions (such as how it all began).  This is the problem.  Unless you can provide some evidence, your religious belief matters about as much to objective reality as your political opinion does.  Evolution is either true or it is not.  People’s opinions, feelings, faith, or beliefs are not going to change this, and they certainly aren’t going to discover the truth of it.

Food for thought for the faithful out there: The theory of evolution (indeed all science) has unanswered questions because scientists are not so audacious and arrogant to claim that they know things unless there’s a great deal of evidence to back these things up.  This is more than humility – this is rationality.

Why Ann Coulter Thinks Evolution is False, Part Eight

“Evolution is just a belief that atheists have.”

Many creationists suffer from a certain error in reasoning that I heard articulated best by Ann Coulter in her book Godless: She made the point that atheists need evolution correct, or else their entire worldview comes crashing down.  On the other hand, she stated, evolution being true wouldn’t hurt the Christian faith at all.

The latter part is correct.  The theory of evolution doesn’t disprove the existence of God, nor does it make any attempt to.  The theory of evolution need have nothing to do with atheism.  It’s simply an explanation of observable events in the natural world.  Plenty of Christians accept the evidence for evolution.  For a sterling example, I suggest Kenneth Miller’s absolutely essential book Finding Darwin’s God.

It is the first part of this creationist misconception that’s fatuous, the idea that atheists need evolution.  This is clearly subscribing to the either-or fallacy.  Why do creationists like Ms. Coulter assume that if evolution were proven false, we must automatically conclude that an intelligent designer is real?  Even the utter annihilation of the theory of evolution would not provide the first shred of evidence for intelligent design or a creator.  I’m sorry to break this to the creationists, but your “theory” must stand or fall on the evidence – the same standard you rightfully request from scientists.  One can still be an intellectually honest atheist without evolution.  Indeed, one can continue being an intellectually honest atheist until you creationists out there provide some evidence for your position.  Compelling evidence would be preferred, but any evidence whatsoever would be a good first step.

Ms. Coulter and those of her ilk make it sound as if atheists cling to the theory of evolution as a complete vindication of some belief they have.  Consider that the subtitle of Ms. Coulter’s book is The Church of Liberalism.  I think her use of the word “church” underscores the manner in which she views the issue.  If so, she’s missing the point: A sound scientific theory like evolution is an explanatory tool.  Those who accept it can do what they want with it; it doesn’t change the nature of the evidence that supports it.  Whatever anyone’s personal beliefs, whatever they conclude about the meaning of life, whatever ethical laws they subscribe to, whatever political views they have, they’re saying nothing about the theory.

Evolution is not a belief.  It’s not an ideology that is at odds with someone else’s ideology, and it’s certainly not a tenet of some “church” from Ann Coulter’s imagination.  Evolution is compelling because it has a plethora of evidence to support it, not because it has a plethora of followers who have faith in it.  Creationists would do well to consider the difference.

Darwin’s Transparent Box

I just finished reading Darwin’s Black Box, the Intelligent Design manifesto by Michael Behe.  Along with Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial, this is the must-read book for anyone who rejects the evidence for evolution and wants to put on a shroud of pseudo-legitimacy.  (If you’ve also read Ann Coulter’s book Godless, it’s clear where she gets her nonsense.)

Behe’s the biochemist who came up with the term “irreducibly complex” to describe biological systems.  His claim is a slightly updated version of the old creationist canard of personal incredulity:  “This [insert whatever structure you want] is just too complex and/or beautiful to have arisen by natural causes, so an intelligent being must have designed it.”  You could also say it like this:  “Since I personally can’t think of a way this might have developed through Darwinian selection, I”m going to claim that it isn’t possible.”

The problem here is that Behe’s examples (bacterial flagella, cilia, the immune system, the blood clotting cascade) have been shown to be wrong.  Simpler (that’s “reduced in complexity,” for Mr. Behe) versions are found elsewhere.  For anyone interested in the science behind these examples, I would suggest Kenneth Miller’s book Finding Darwin’s God.  Miller is the biologist who testified, along with Behe, at the Dover, Pennsylvania trial over creationism in public schools.

Of course, it’s not just that Behe’s examples are wrong, it’s the fundamental idea behind trying to hold up such examples.  He has a good point that evolutionary scientists should be actively formulating theories for how these biological systems originated (and they are), and science welcomes all challenges (in fact it thrives on being challenged).  But Behe has concluded that nature screams out “intelligent design” while ignoring the fact that it simply doesn’t exist.

One of the most common arguments against intelligent design is the imperfection, waste, and vestigial structures in living organisms (junk DNA, pelvic bones on snakes, backwards wiring in the vertebrate eye, etc.).  Behe’s answer to things like this is twofold.  First, he says that maybe these inefficient structures really have a purpose we haven’t figured out yet.  Yeah, maybe.  Maybe there’s a designed purpose for wisdom teeth, hemorrhoids, and DNA that doesn’t code for any protein. Maybe there are also microscopic fairies that live in our mitochondria.  This is the courtroom equivalent of trying to introduce reasonable doubt by saying an invisible alien committed the crime.  Without any evidence backing it up, without a theory, without even a guess, it’s inconsequential.

Second, Behe accuses scientists who bring up this argument (like Miller and Richard Dawkins) of making assumptions about the mind of a designer.  A designer isn’t under any obligation to make us perfect, Behe argues, and we can’t know why he made us this way or that way.  Not only is this argument non-scientific (it can’t be tested), but it smacks of the same old religious hocus pocus: You just have to trust what God did even if you’ll never understand He did it.

Behe makes perfectly clear his delusion by using the following analogy.  He says that if a photocopier that has made ten perfect copies suddenly makes one copy that has smudges on it, that’s not a reason to assume the photocopier was developed by gradual Darwinian steps.

Nice try.  But a more appropriate analogy would be if the photocopier had a completely useless circuit or gear inside it.  A circuit or gear that does nothing, and indeed looks like a usable part from an earlier, less sophisticated model of photocopier.  Machines designed by intelligence never have things like that; living machines designed by natural selection do.

Typical Creationist Pseudoscience, Part Five

I’ve heard a lot of foolishness from creationists who try their usual tactic of either misrepresenting science or demoting to their level of faith-based opinion.  Recently, however, I heard a great one:  Science is based on direct observation, and since no one was around to witness evolution, it can only be speculation.  (What a shock that this person would be a Christian who rejects evolution.)

First of all, the assertion that science is always based on direct observation is utterly absurd.  Because of chaff on TV like CSI, Americans know much more about forensic science than they did a decade ago.  There’s not always direct observation (i.e., a witness) of a crime, but using the evidence found at the scene, timelines, data crunching, and so forth, the events of the crime can be pieced together.  That’s science, and no direct observation is required.  Similarly, no one’s ever actually witnessed a neutron star, or a black hole, or, for that matter, an individual proton in the nucleus of an atom.  By this creationist rationale, I suppose the atomic theory of matter should be only speculation.

Secondly, the hypocrisy in a stance like this is stunning.  No one was around to witness the supposed dialogue between Eve and a talking snake, or a magic flood, or even God creating everything ex nihilo.  But not only are the Christians willing to accept these things as factual, they can’t even present any supporting evidence!  The historical evidence that evolution happened includes vestigial limbs and organs, transitional fossils, genetic similarities, the sequential nature of the fossil record, and structures in modern organisms that are clear improvements upon those of previous organisms.

Where’s the historical evidence fo rthe Great Flood?  Do Christians realize that there’s not enough water on the planet to cover earth’s higher elevations?  That a wooden ship of the Ark’s size is impossible?  That if the world was covered with water, the water vapor content of the air would be so high that Noah, his family, and the animlas woul dhave literally drowned by breathing?  Where’s the historical evidence for man being created?  Why haven’t geneticists found a bottleneck that would indicate every living human on earth today is descended from a single pair in the Garden of Eden?

Of course, at this point some creationists would say that it is only science that has to prove itself with evidence.  Faith, religion, magic, astrology – whatever – all get a special pass. Scientific matters have to be backed up with solid evidence, but questions about the most important issues of mankind can be discussed with what can only be described as opinion.  It’s amazing.  The creationists get to turn off the rules of logic, but they demand that their opponents stick to them.  That seems like a very convenient way to make sure that your idea can never be proven wrong or even challenged.

And yet, these are the same people who think creationism is the equal of a scientific idea like evolution, the same people who want “equal time” for a creation story in science classrooms.  What’s wrong with presenting another side, they ask?  Isn’t that fair?  Shouldn’t we treat every viewpoint as equal and let people make up their minds?

Those who want every viewpoint to be equal are those who have no evidence for their viewpoint.  Present whatever ideas you want, inculcate your kids with fairy tales, preach your hypocritical nonsense to the uninformed, but don’t try to pawn it off as science.  Retain at least an iota of intellectual legitimacy and call it what it is: blind faith.

Typical Creationist Pseudoscience, Part Four

It’s amusing when Christians use their very ordinary and cliched tactic of trying to debunk science.  Rather than provide any evidence for their belief, rather than try to elevate it to some sort of rational legitimacy, their tactic is to attempt to lower a scientific theory to their level (which is to say, faith and opinion).  You see it all the time:  They say evolution is “only” a theory and that creationism should be taught alongside it as an equally viable theory.

This position is born of pure ignorance in what a scientific theory is.  The next time a creationist tells you evolution is “only” a theory, ask them if the germ theory of disease is “only” a theory, or the atomic theory for matter, or the theory of relativity.

Lately I’ve heard that quantum theory – even though it has produced lasers and television – requires faith or “belief” in it because it is incomplete and has unanswered questions.  Here’s what one of these typical Christians says: “It’s as incomplete as you say Christianity is, and yet you have faith in [it].”

First of all, I’ve never claimed that Christianity is incomplete.  It’s not a scientific theory.  It’s a belief based on knowledge gained from authority and revelation.  I’m not saying Christianity is automatically wrong; what I’m saying is that to place it on the same level as a testable science like quantum theory is absurd.

Secondly, I don’t have faith in quantum theory.  It’s not necessary; lasers work whether you believe in them or not.  Here’s a Mirriam-Webster definition of the word “faith” that is appropriate to the context we’re talking about: “Firm belief for something for which there is no proof.”  We have proof that quantum theory works.  We experience that proof every day.  The fact that it has unanswered questions does not invalidate the proof that television is real.  Similarly, there are plenty of unanswered questions in astrophysics and cosmology (black holes, quasars, dark matter, etc.) but that doesn’t mean we should demote the standard model of the universe to “faith.”

Thirdly – and this is the most important part – a scientific theory is provisional.  If aspects of quantum theory turn out to be wrong, even if we have to throw the whole thing out and start over from scratch, then that’s what we’ll do.  Scientists follow the evidence.  Scientists know that they may be wrong, that gaining knowledge is a tentative process filled with mistakes and false starts.  That’s how it works.  In contrast, no only are most Christians completely closed off to the idea that they may be wrong, they have no method for even testing whether they’re right or wrong!  And they call scientists arrogant?  It sounds to me like Christians are the ones “professing themselves to be wise.”

Christianity is not incomplete; that would imply that some part of it has been shown to be factual.  It’s nothing but a personal belief.  An opinion.  Claiming that it’s incomplete like quantum theory would be a gross insult to quantum theory, which has actual evidence to back it up.  Where’s the evidence for Christianity?  I ask this of Christians all the time, and the only thing I ever hear is some variation of this: “Millions of people have personally felt it.”  Somehow, in the creationist mind, this is regarded as evidence.  Suppose Richard Dawkins wrote a book claiming that evolution is real because millions of people believe in it, that millions of people have felt some mystical connection to all living things on earth?  How hard would all of you Christians laugh at something like that?  How frustrated would you be, trying to talk sense into him?  Welcome to our world.

Evolution IQ

In a continuing quest to point out that most people who reject evolution (an even some who accept it) have no idea what they’re rejecting (or accepting), I’ve compiled a few points that should sound familiar.

1. Evolution is a random process.
2. Humans evolved from chimpanzees.
3. A giraffe evolved a long neck because its ancestors stretched to reach food.
4. A transitional species like Archaeopteryx was a creature in the process of evolving from one species to another.
5. Natural selection creates individual components of an eye and saves them up until the whole eye can be assembled.

Those five statements are extremely common and well-understood notions about evolution.  They are in the minds and on the tongues of many, many people, whether they reject or accept the evidence for the theory.  Each one of those statements is also utterly false.

1. Evolution is not a random process.  The tiny genetic mutations it uses are random, but the process that saves them and weeds out others (natural selection) is the exact opposite of random.  Note the word “selection.”  Advantageous genes are selected simply because the animals with them survive and pass them on.  Natural selection is mindless and lacks a goal, but that’s not the same as saying it’s random.
2. It’s safe to say that no modern species evolved from any other modern species.  Humans and chimps share a common ape-like ancestor from several million years ago that was neither human nor ape.
3. Genes cannot know or care what a creature does in its life, such as stretching its neck repeatedly.  That’s called Lamarckism, and it’s impossible.  A giraffe has a long neck because longer-necked giraffes survived and mated while shorter-necked ones did not.
4. No species is ever “in the process” of changing into another species.  That would require foresight and a plan, which natural selection – by definition – lacks.  Transitional species existed because they survived in their environments. 
5. Again, this myth would require foresight and planning.  Natural selection constructs slightly more complex versions of things like eyes.  Those versions are all useful in the creature in some way.

These aren’t my opinions, and they’re not my interpretation of how evolution works.  They’re certainly not original ideas that I came up with; they’re simply facts rehashed from my study of the subject.  All of them are quite clear and quite well-established in the scientific community, and they can be read in a thousand places from dozens of different experts in the field.  There should be absolutely no reason why these misconceptions should ever be voiced by any educated person.  I’m definitely not holding my breath, though.

Where’s the Evidence for Evolution?

With all the hoopla over evolution in America today, I think many people have lost sight of the foundation.  Evolution is a powerful theory because it has powerful evidence to support it.  Let’s go down a laundry list.

1. Natural selection.  We know it works.  We’ve watched it happen.  Even the creationists admit that it works (they just don’t think it can make big changes like transform one species into another).  Genetic variation exists among offspring, and since only some of those offspring can survive, certain genetic traits will be favored over others.
2. Speciation.  We’ve watched the goatsbeardplant evolve into two separate species.  We can see the different species along with their intermediates in a “ring species” like the herring gull and black-billed gull.  We’ve watched reproduction isolation arrive in fruit flies.  We see reproductive isolation in donkeys and horses and lions and tigers.
3. Transitional fossils.  The fossil record is chock full of them.  Ambulocetus natans, Archaeopteryx, Tiktaalik, Acanthostega and Pikaia are a few.  The earliest land creatures in the fossil record still had tail fins like fish.  The earliest limbs look like modified fins.  The earliest amphibians look much more like fish than later amphibians.  Take your pick, go down the line; the evidence is everywhere.
4. Appropriate fossil distribution.  No anachronistic fossil has yet been found.  No horses in the time of the trilobites or humans in the time of dinosaurs.  The fossil record is laid out in order, detailing a history of evolution.
5. Vestigial evidence.  Humans have an appendix and wisdom teeth.  Human embryos have an empty and useless yolk sac.  Human infants have the grasp reflex (that chimpanzee babies have to hold onto their mothers’ fur).  Some whales have tiny femurs and hipbones.  Snakes have nonfunctional limbs with hip girdles.  DNA is full of useless junk, enzymes that don’t code for any protein.
6. Genetic similarities.  Chimpanzees have twenty-four chromosomes.  Humans have twenty-three, and one of them happens to be a “folded” version of two chromosomes (meaning we once had twenty-four like our closest relatives).  The hemoglobin gene-split that occurred about half a billion years ago in jawless fish means that every descendant of that line (including nearly all modern animals) should have that same gene split.  Those that are not the descendants (like modern hagfish and lampreys) should not have it.  This is precisely what has been found so far.
7. Enough time.  If you have doubts about carbon dating, forget it.  It only measures a few thousand years anyways.  The rubidium-strontium, uranium-lead, and potassium-argon methods of radiometric dating all measure millions or billions of years.  Considering the geological record, plate tectonics, erosion, the age of the universe, the age of the solar system, the distance of stars from us, the fact that all the shorter-lived radioactive elements are missing from our solar system – the earth is not ten thousand years old.  Natural selection had about four and a half billion years to play with.
8. Last but not least:  promising beginnings.  Organic compounds form with ease out of inorganic materials.  Even protein molecules can perform rudimentary “trial and error” processes.  Even the inorganic things like clay crystals can manage a primitive form of “heredity.”