Why creationism must be fought
January 17th 2008 09:43
Creationism - whether it goes by that name, or creation "science", or its most modern incarnation, "intelligent design" - is religion, not science. It has no place in the science classroom. Many people think that it's simply a matter of "fairness", that "students should hear both sides of the story", and therefore that evolution should be taught alongside creationism. The problem is that creationism doesn't qualify as another side to the story, because it's complete bunk. We don't hear calls for witchcraft to be taught alongside the germ theory of disease, or for the flat earth hypothesis to be taught alongside astronomy. Evolution is one of the most well corroborated theories in all of science; it draws upon thousands of independent pieces of evidence that together lead us to think that evolution it is the most satisfactory account for biological complexity and natural history that we have. It matters not one bit whether people find it uncomfortable or contrary to their religious beliefs; it's still true. Despite virtually all scientists accepting this basic tenet, many non-scientists still think that there is a controversy worth speaking of. But there simply isn't; the "controversy" between evolutionary biology and creationism is a purely cultural phenomenon, born of ignorance and misunderstanding (both of which are eagerly sized upon by the creationist propaganda mill to stoke the flames of anti-intellectualism, but neither of which are in and of themselves anything to be ashamed of, for everyone is ignorant about a whole range of things. It does, however, become a problem when it is exploited). Here are just three of the most common misunderstandings of evolution out there, as well as the scientific responses to them:
"Evolution is just a theory, not a fact"
-- "Theory" doesn't mean the same thing in a scientific context as it does in everyday parlance. It doesn't mean some wishy-washy guess or piece of idle speculation. It is an edifice that binds together many disparate observations about the world and unites them into a coherent whole. The theory of evolution can be distinguished from the fact of evolution. THAT evolution has happened and continues to happen is quite certain; the types of things we find in nature are the types of things we would expect to find if evolution is true. HOW it occurs is subject to a bit of controversy, but even here, few scientists doubt that natural selection, sexual selection and genetic drift have all played a role. It is the relevant significance of each that is subject to dispute, largely because the evidence in particular cases isn't yet strong enough to be definitive (and no, this doesn't provide a reason to suppose that "therefore" creationism can fill the gaps).
"If we came from apes, why are there still apes?"
-- Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor (which no longer lives); humans didn't evolve from chimps. There is in fact no reason why there shouldn't still be apes (indeed, we are apes). This misunderstanding reflects another confusion that many people have: that evolution is supposed to be a ladder of progress, from the "primitive" bacteria all the way "up" to human beings. Actually, evolution is a branching process. Some lineages do undergo increases in complexity, but there are still plenty of organisms making a living via their relatively simple constitutions. We are not evolution's "goal", for evolution lacks foresight. It can only work with what it has. Being more complex isn't necessarily better.
"Why isn't anything evolving now?"
-- Lineages continue to evolve, and we can even quantify this through direct observation and comparison over a period of time. For example, the cane toad (Bufo marinus) has evolved longer legs on the western front of its expansion in Queensland, Australia . There is even evidence that the human lineage has continued to evolve (some scientists reckon it is happening at an accelerating rate, as population growth continues and more mutations are presented to natural selection, though this is controversial. Again, this is because the evidence isn't yet definitive to say either way). It can scarcely be doubted that viruses and bacteria evolve, since antibiotics and antiviral drugs regularly become obsolete. Insecticides and other anti-pest agents often become useless as the pest species acquires resistance as mutations that confer that resistance rapidly spread through the population. Finally, the results of breeding experiments show how a lineage can spawn new varieties (like the many types of dogs) from a wild ancestor (in the case of dogs, wolves). In nature, of course, the selecting agent is the environment instead of human fancy.
In the United States (and to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom and Australia) there is a propaganda campaign at work trying to pervert the education of children by smuggling in superstitious nonsense into the science curricula. If successful, such a program would have dire consequences for science education and science generally, as it would cause many people to confuse how science differs from religion. The creationist movement is not only thoroughly dishonest - regularly distorting the findings of science, providing false caricatures of evolution and other fields, and even producing outright lies in the furtherance of fundamentalist faith - it is disquietingly influential in some quarters. People who care about the integrity of science (emphatically not the creationist movement, who are as indifferent to honesty as they are to learning) must fight this insidious threat. What's at stake isn't only the right for children and students to be exposed to the myriad and wonderful facts of nature and the elegant mechanisms that bind them together, but the future of science itself. I really do hope that I'm being unduly alarmist and that the threat will eventually pass, but fundamentalists are only too eager to undermine secular institutions in the furtherance of their bankrupt beliefs.
For a fairly comprehensive list of creationist myths (coupled with their scientific responses), see this page, which has also been compiled into a book called "The Counter-Creationism Handbook". I'm sorry that this post has been mainly negative in tone - hopefully though, you did learn a bit about how evolution is seen by the men and women who study it - but it really does matter that we are aware of the interludes of archaic superstition. This invariably draws time and energy away from scientific investigation (it is sad that, despite all we've achieved through science, we still find ourselves in the unenviable task of having to cut off the many heads of the chimera of irrationality), but it must be done, not only through the refutation of creationism's lies, but by educating people in the art of thinking clearly to more easily spot nonsense (and there’s a lot of that around – not just creationism – so there’s a lot of debunking to do. The alternative is that we allow ourselves to be taken in by charlatans who respect neither our intelligence nor our future, but only the affirmation of their world view in the teeth of mountains of countervailing evidence).
"Evolution is just a theory, not a fact"
-- "Theory" doesn't mean the same thing in a scientific context as it does in everyday parlance. It doesn't mean some wishy-washy guess or piece of idle speculation. It is an edifice that binds together many disparate observations about the world and unites them into a coherent whole. The theory of evolution can be distinguished from the fact of evolution. THAT evolution has happened and continues to happen is quite certain; the types of things we find in nature are the types of things we would expect to find if evolution is true. HOW it occurs is subject to a bit of controversy, but even here, few scientists doubt that natural selection, sexual selection and genetic drift have all played a role. It is the relevant significance of each that is subject to dispute, largely because the evidence in particular cases isn't yet strong enough to be definitive (and no, this doesn't provide a reason to suppose that "therefore" creationism can fill the gaps).
"If we came from apes, why are there still apes?"
-- Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor (which no longer lives); humans didn't evolve from chimps. There is in fact no reason why there shouldn't still be apes (indeed, we are apes). This misunderstanding reflects another confusion that many people have: that evolution is supposed to be a ladder of progress, from the "primitive" bacteria all the way "up" to human beings. Actually, evolution is a branching process. Some lineages do undergo increases in complexity, but there are still plenty of organisms making a living via their relatively simple constitutions. We are not evolution's "goal", for evolution lacks foresight. It can only work with what it has. Being more complex isn't necessarily better.
"Why isn't anything evolving now?"
-- Lineages continue to evolve, and we can even quantify this through direct observation and comparison over a period of time. For example, the cane toad (Bufo marinus) has evolved longer legs on the western front of its expansion in Queensland, Australia . There is even evidence that the human lineage has continued to evolve (some scientists reckon it is happening at an accelerating rate, as population growth continues and more mutations are presented to natural selection, though this is controversial. Again, this is because the evidence isn't yet definitive to say either way). It can scarcely be doubted that viruses and bacteria evolve, since antibiotics and antiviral drugs regularly become obsolete. Insecticides and other anti-pest agents often become useless as the pest species acquires resistance as mutations that confer that resistance rapidly spread through the population. Finally, the results of breeding experiments show how a lineage can spawn new varieties (like the many types of dogs) from a wild ancestor (in the case of dogs, wolves). In nature, of course, the selecting agent is the environment instead of human fancy.
In the United States (and to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom and Australia) there is a propaganda campaign at work trying to pervert the education of children by smuggling in superstitious nonsense into the science curricula. If successful, such a program would have dire consequences for science education and science generally, as it would cause many people to confuse how science differs from religion. The creationist movement is not only thoroughly dishonest - regularly distorting the findings of science, providing false caricatures of evolution and other fields, and even producing outright lies in the furtherance of fundamentalist faith - it is disquietingly influential in some quarters. People who care about the integrity of science (emphatically not the creationist movement, who are as indifferent to honesty as they are to learning) must fight this insidious threat. What's at stake isn't only the right for children and students to be exposed to the myriad and wonderful facts of nature and the elegant mechanisms that bind them together, but the future of science itself. I really do hope that I'm being unduly alarmist and that the threat will eventually pass, but fundamentalists are only too eager to undermine secular institutions in the furtherance of their bankrupt beliefs.
For a fairly comprehensive list of creationist myths (coupled with their scientific responses), see this page, which has also been compiled into a book called "The Counter-Creationism Handbook". I'm sorry that this post has been mainly negative in tone - hopefully though, you did learn a bit about how evolution is seen by the men and women who study it - but it really does matter that we are aware of the interludes of archaic superstition. This invariably draws time and energy away from scientific investigation (it is sad that, despite all we've achieved through science, we still find ourselves in the unenviable task of having to cut off the many heads of the chimera of irrationality), but it must be done, not only through the refutation of creationism's lies, but by educating people in the art of thinking clearly to more easily spot nonsense (and there’s a lot of that around – not just creationism – so there’s a lot of debunking to do. The alternative is that we allow ourselves to be taken in by charlatans who respect neither our intelligence nor our future, but only the affirmation of their world view in the teeth of mountains of countervailing evidence).
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