Creationism: God's Gift to the Ignorant
I have no problem with people that believe in God. I understand that it's a matter of faith and as such you do not need to have proof. My problem is with people that use intellectual dishonesty to justify their belief. Especially, Intelligent Design believers. That dishonesty is distinctly non-Christian. An example from Dawkins' article:
It isn’t even safe for a scientist to express temporary doubt as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel it.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” You will find this sentence of Charles Darwin quoted again and again by creationists. They never quote what follows. Darwin immediately went on to confound his initial incredulity. Others have built on his foundation, and the eye is today a showpiece of the gradual, cumulative evolution of an almost perfect illusion of design. The relevant chapter of my Climbing Mount Improbable is called “The fortyfold Path to Enlightenment” in honour of the fact that, far from being difficult to evolve, the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom.
Most scientists will readily admit what they do not know. That "ignorance" is what feeds science. They are always seeking new answers. Creationists are the opposite. Wherever there is a so-called "gap", they will insinuate God into it's place.
Intelligent Designers would have you believe that that by teaching it in school, children are being given more choices. But what they are getting is the exact opposite. Where once there was the thirst for knowledge, there is now encouragement to stop looking if you don't find the answer. Where once there was awe of the wonder of nature, there is now a blind acceptance of the unknown. Again, from Dawkins:
The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.
4 comments:
I recognized the title of your post when i read it, then i read it and the article that you referred to and it looked awfully familiar. So i did a little searching (at first i thought it was something you had posted about previously) and found where Jewish Atheist had written a post called Creationism: God's Gift to the Ignorant referencing exactly the same article and even used one of the two quotes you did in his post.
I still think that the article is absurd, and that the author is drastically oversimplifying a complex theory and bashing Creationsim for the sake of bashing alone. He is still criticizing Christians for using research tactics that you can find in any research journal. They may not be the best tactics, but they are the basis of what is taught in basic research classes.
I never did go through my research to find an article for this as i got swept up in other debates and arguments at the time, but for the basic principle all you have to do is look at the research for something in which the researcher is arguing that a problem is genetic based versus environmental based. Often the researcher will provide research showing that there is a genetic componant to something, thus the problem is not environmental, but rather that the problem is entirely genetic (A is not true, [and B shows some support] thus B must be true). This is especially prominant when you look at research referring to highly explosive topics in which there are very dichotomous views.
Color my face red. I should have known that JA would have been on top of this before me. I have no idea why I missed his post.
In any event, that discussion sounds like it really never got off the ground.
I don't think that the author is criticizing Christians for using research tactics. I believe he is criticizing them for using them selectively. It sounds way too arbitrary to say that one aspect of nature is defined by science while any that we can't explain at this point are governed by God.
And I'd definitely be interested if you could cite an example of your environmental vs. genetic problem. It's not that I don't believe you, but rather I can't visualize quite what you're talking about without one.
Actually, i have one that i can use (the one i was planning on using in the comments on JA's post before i got distracted by other debates), but it will bring in the topic of homosexuality and all that that involves.
We'll save that for later then. I'm a little embarrassed that I'm beating a dead horse with this thread anyway. You have your views and I have mine and we've both posted extensively here, on JA's and your blog. We'll revisit it someday when one of us has something new to say. :-)
Post a Comment