Reaping the whirlwind

Tiny stops to smell the hostas even as creationists get all hot and bothered about philosophical threats to their claim to occupation of the center of the universe.

By the time actor Tony Randall produced a 1996 Broadway revival of Inherit the Wind -- the 1955 hit that had given him his first break -- a lot of water had gone over the dam.  The play was based upon the Dayton, Tennessee Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925, and Tony was perplexed at the fiery debate that was raging in the nation -- in this day and age! -- over whether or not it was morally acceptable to expose young minds to Darwin's theory of evolution. The debate rages on today as the latest generation of creationists, clothing themselves in junk-science robes [New Yorker article via Milt's File] and calling their "theory" intelligent design, try to pull a fast one on our scientifically illiterate fellow citizens.  Lamented Tony Randall re his revival (can't you just hear the classic falsetto whine he made famous in all those Rock Hudson/Doris Day comedies?):

It wasn't meant to be political. It's an act of fortuity the way Pat Buchanan has come along, and the Christian Coalition has become more powerful. At the time we did the play [originally], I thought the matter [of evolution vs. creationism] was settled. I thought the only people who believed the Bible literally were kooks . . . Now they're going to control the next Republican convention.

There were grains of truth there, and Tony -- may his effervescent soul rest in peace -- can be forgiven for not realizing what he was stepping into. We, too -- way back in the biology lab at Exeter High School in the sixties -- had naively "thought the matter was settled." The University of Virginia's Inherit the Wind web pages helpfully fill in some of the missing pieces:

The vehemence of Buchanan's speech reveals that behind this creationism-evolution debate, in addition to the idea of who will control [the education of the young], is the belief that the other side of the conflict is not only socially wrong but morally wrong. This applies precisely to the orthodox-progressive conflict which Hunter discusses. For characterizing the orthodox position is the fervent faith in the rightness of their beliefs. To them, there is only one truth, but to the progressives, there may be many -- thus, the vast world of difference between the two groups.

How ironic that today's moral relativists -- Daniel J. Flynn's "intellectual morons" of academia and the elite media -- are at least as set in their ways as the Christian fundamentalists. The Inherit the Wind playwrights had written back in the mid fifties that they "used the teaching of evolution as a parable, a metaphor for any kind of thought control. It's not about science versus religion. It's about the right to think."

Ah.  The right to think. Carol Brown -- a dissenting member of the Dover, Pennsylvania school board that voted last fall to mandate the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in biology classes -- worries that "We have a vocal group within the community who feel very strongly in an evangelical Christian way that there is no separation of church and state." Can you say the Taliban? We agree with Ms. Brown totally but observe that it's hard to tell the difference between the fundamentalists' no-prisoners approach and that of the P.C. thought police on the other side of the cultural divide. They, too, are "a vocal group within the community who feel strongly" in an international progressivist way that there is no separation of politically-correct thought and state.

Update:  One thing evolutionists and those who promulgate intelligent design can agree on is the wondrous variety of animals now boarding Modulator's Friday Ark.

Comments

[goomp]

Let's face it. Whether many believe in something or believe in anything, they believe and are adamant that their belief is the right belief. People are too frightened to say "I don't know."

[Mr.Kurtz]

The true scientist never closes a line of enquiry or shuns a source that may appear reasonable.

The true scientific mind will work just as hard to prove his own theories wrong (falsification).

The true scientist doesn't reach for a law, or a gun, to promulgate ideas.

The true scientist uses "I don't know" more than any other expression.

Alas, we are but human. Hallelujah, we are human.

[TigerHawk]

Without in any way defending impolite and rigid people on either side of this debate, I might make the following observation. The evangelicals in the United States seem obsessed with integrating the discipline of science with their religious faith. This is bizarre, because Christianity as a religion (as embodied in the Roman Church, for example) has for many centuries managed to reconcile science and faith without demanding that they be integrated into the same system. Indeed, there is an argument that Islam's failure to do this accounts for much of its decline vs. Christiandom since the 16th century. Christians post Inquisition learned that science and faith could operate in different spheres. The evangelicals seem bent on re-opening this old question, and I do not think it is to the advantage of their religion or our society.

We believe in God because of our faith. We do not have to torture scientific inquiry to reconcile the results of science to our faith. The theory of evolution does not make it impossible for believers in intelligent design to believe in it, just as the Big Bang theory does not make it impossible for religious people to believe the story of Genesis. The flip side is that we may not entirely understand evolution, but there is no scientific evidence for "intelligent design" other than gaps in the theory of evolution. Intelligent design is religion akin to the story of Genesis, and it is not science. The fact that it is not science does not make it any less true, but it does mean that it should not be taught in public schools.

[Bill Ramey]

The problem with the "two-spheres" model is that it leads to a double-standard: critics of theism are allowed to make scientific arguments (see e.g. Gould, Dawkins, and Hawking) whereas theists who make scientific arguments are immediately charged with abusing science. The upshot is that the scientific evidence can count against theism but never for it.

A much better model--the one tacitly implied by Darwin--is that the theory of evolution and the theory of creation (Darwin's term for creationism) are competitors. The main advantage of this is that they indeed *are* competitors: one says that God is the efficient (read: direct) cause of all life forms; the other says that all life forms descended by modification. So while the theory of evolution may be compatible with deism, it is not compatible with the view that God directly created the various taxons. Another advantage, at least for critics of creationism, is that this model allows them to make the most powerful argument possible against creationism: the theory of evolution explains certain facts better than the theory of creation. This is indeed Darwin's overall argument in the _Origin of Species_.

The problem with the "Inherit the Wind" approach to the issue, which amounts merely to making fun of creationism, is that it is out of touch with the history of modern biology. Biology as a scientific discipline existed before Darwin and was no less scientific for being under a creationist paradigm. When Darwin almost single-handedly changed the paradigm, the old one didn't turn into pseudo-science; rather, a good theory was replaced by a putatively better theory. So again, the best argument one can make against the theory of creation is that it had its day, but its day is done.

One more point. Darwin himself opened up the possibility for intelligent design theory by specifying the various ways in which the theory of evolution is falsifiable. For example, although he didn't use the term "irreducible complexity," he's the one who raised the possibility that irreducible complexity is a defeater for the theory of evolution.

[Michael]

One more time......

For Mr. Randall'S sake (since when did you start quoting hollywoodians to make your case--lets be consistent Sissy)...the issue of evolution is settled. Evolution can be shown, modeled, exhibited and re-created. It accounts for change within species over time. But that is all it accounts for.

Creation is not settled. It is still open to investigation, evidence, and interpretation of that evidence. Remember, lots of "scientists" warn us of man-made global warming citing all kinds of evidence. Lots of others say thats a crock, interpreting that same evidence.

BOTTOMLINE: we just don't know, and probably never will. Therefore, truly open minded people will keep their minds open until some truly irrefutable evidence appears to disprove a hypothesis.