Because I'm Tired of Explaining This!

[xenologer]

I keep joining these message boards that are full of people who, despite all their blustering about thinking for themselves, are not actually very good at it. Their political affiliation is such an ingrained part of their identity that there are many things they simply do not need to consider, many facts that cannot possibly be relevant.

And I get tired of hunting these posts down and reposting them. Hopefully putting it up here will make it easier for me to copy-paste this every damn time. The latest discussion was about why electing Creationists to public office is a bad idea, so you'll see some hints of that topic in here.

There is no debate among scientists about whether natural selection or a supernatural force is directing biological change.

There is only debate among people who do not understand evolution, or who believe evolution cannot be true because it conflicts with the theological tome they are attempting to use as a biology/geology/physics text.

I don't trust public officials who don't trust scientists, because it means they don't value education, research, or the general process of proving things before you believe them. That's a very dangerous attitude for people who are directing policy that affects the lives of thousands, sometimes millions, of people. If he is not willing to defer to research and evidence, there is no reason to believe any of his choices are founded in either one.

And that's why he's scary.

Then people started slinging non-scientific proofs of Creationism, much to the vexation of those of us with an education. I replied with the following:

I think it was Jonathan Swift who said that you cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.

Evolution is about science, about experiments based on falsifiable criteria. It can be proven or disproven.

Creationism is about faith, about theology and retaining beliefs for the sake of orthodoxy and cultural solidarity.

People who require scientific experimentation in order to believe something is true will not accept orthodoxy as a valid reason to believe something. This is why scientific theories change. Just because something is "orthodox" among scientists isn't enough reason to believe it (which neatly shoots down the silly premise that "evolutionism is about faith, too."), but by the same token... just because something is scientifically proven is not enough reason for certain kinds of people of faith to believe it. They don't care what scientists say, because to them truth comes from divine revelation and not experiments done by man.

As Mink said. Teach science in science classes, but things which have not been scientifically proven (such as the notion that a supernatural force roughly approximating YHWH is actually directing all life on Earth) should be taught in classes that are not about spreading scientific knowledge. We call those "comparative religion courses." Science classes teach what the scientific community has learned, and religious classes teach what religious people across the world believe.

I believe these are separate topics. As my midrash professor said (who is a Rabbi, btw), "There is a difference between taking the Bible literally and taking the Bible seriously." You don't have to do the former to do the latter, and the fact that the Bible is not and cannot justifiably be used as a physics or molecular biology text does not mean suddenly a whole religion has been invalidated (contrary to the fears of many believers).

I think it does religion a serious injustice to reduce it merely to a way humans can explain things they don't understand. This is the kind of belittling thing we do when we're talking about the Greek story of Persephone and Hades. "They were just explaining the seasons the only way they knew how, but we know better now." When we reduce a religion to the functions that science is--rightfully--doing for us now, we lose many of the things that make religion valuable. Religion is about morality, about spirituality, about emotions and community and personal growth. The fact that religion is not science and cannot do the things that science does doesn't mean that religion is suddenly invalid.

It just means that, once again, religious narratives cannot stand in for scientific texts in the natural sciences. At least not for people who want to understand the natural sciences. If we want our children to understand natural sciences, they need to be taught science in their science classes, and not religious creation narratives. We are beyond the need to say, "a deity did it," and that's okay. Saying "a deity didn't do this like we used to think," does not invalidate religion. As a result, evolution is not a threat to religion.

And if evolution is not a threat to religion, creationists have lost their only reason to hate and fear the consequences of their children learning it.

This totally blew at least one guy's mind, who had evidently never heard anybody make a case for not taking the Bible literally that was not founded in how terrible and useless Christianity is. Once I put it in those terms, he dropped out of the argument and agreed that religiously-founded beliefs about the origins of the world belong in religion classes, whereas science belongs in science classes.

However, someone inevitably challenged the scientific basis of evolution. They gave the "I just don't see how this could happen" argument that you hear from people who're evidently comfortable denying the existence of anything they don't totally grok. The fact that they can understand "microevolution" because they've had germ theory and the notion of antibiotic resistence beaten into them against their will, but not "macroevolution" because it's somehow different... well, that's silly. And here's why.

Species change depending on external pressures, and for those of you who believe "microevolution" but not "macroevolution..." let me explain this with a metaphor (since I have neither the time nor inclination to actually host a biology or ecology class in a Hidden Realms thread).

To say, "I understand that a species can change in small ways over time based on environmental pressures" is necessary, because if you believe that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics or that you can breed domestic animals for certain characteristics, you have accepted this. However, to refuse to take the next step and to say instead, "I don't understand how one species can change enough by non-supernatural means that it becomes a new species," is to do three things.

One, it commits a logical fallacy by stating essentially, "I don't understand it, therefore it cannot be true." Argument from ignorance--which is what that fallacy is called--is not actually a valid research method.

Two, it's like saying, "I believe that this infant will be different in small ways tomorrow from its state today, but I don't believe it will ever become an elderly person. They're too different."

Third, it ignores research. For example, there are species of bacteria who have as a defining characteristic the inability to process citrate. E. coli is the one that was tested. It may not seem like enough to differentiate one species from another, but it completely changes the way a bacterium interacts with its environment (including where it can survive and what kills it) depending on whether it can or cannot. There are so many diverse species of bacteria whose life cycles are so simple that something which seems small is actually a huge component of deciding which species is which.

A good explanation of the experiment that was done is here. Basically what happened was that scientists started out with a batch of E. coli. They let it breed and let it breed and periodically froze samples of it so that they could keep a physical record of its progression. Over time (33,000 generations or so), the bacteria developed the ability to use citrate as a carbon source. Among such simple organisms who have a very short list of things they're capable of in the first place... this is a huge deal. And it means these bacteria are essentially not E. coli anymore.

This didn't just happen once. In case it was a fluke or a lab error or whatever, they backtracked and started again with an "older" population of bacteria to see if the mutation that caused this could happen again. It was repeatable. It happened again. They changed again in this relatively major way.

So now that we've all got a common example under our belt, here's something to chew on. One: this experiment was repeatable, and could be repeated again by any scientist who doubted the results. Two: An important part of the validity of a scientific theory is its ability to be predictive. If we assume that X or Y theory is true for the sake of making predictions, and our predictions turn out to be correct, that's a serious point in favor of that theory.

Creationism offers no repeatable experiments. Creationism also is not predictive. You can use evolution as an assumption in other experiments and have predictions based in evolution turn out to be true (such as predicting that breeding a population of E. coli for several thousand generations will create species change--which did happen).

Creationism offers no falsifiable criteria, and thus there can be no experiments. Science works by saying, "If X happens, we know Y is not true. If Y happens, we know Z is not true." There is no "If X happens, we know creationism is not true," because creationism is based on faith. Faith does not lend itself to experiments. Nor does faith offer repeatable conclusions that can be tested by others to verify their validity. Nor is faith predictive.

Creationism is based on faith. Evolution is based on science. Proof that evolution is wrong would not be suppressed by the egomaniacal scientific community. It would win you a Nobel Prize. No one has won that Nobel Prize because no one has disproven it yet. Meanwhile science chugs on quite nicely and with plenty of success using the working assumption that evolution (both micro and macro for those of you who distinguish) is how life works.

The reason this matters when you're talking about government is that you're talking about the difference between teaching children science and teaching them religious narratives. Would you teach a child in a geology class that the world sits on the back of a turtle? Would you teach a child in a nursing program that Vodou can cure cancer? Would you teach a child in a biology class that every species was set on Earth by a supernatural being? The answer to all of these questions should be no. These things all belong in a comparative religion course. Teaching them in science courses does several disservices:

I already mentioned that reducing religion to "the way we explain natural forces we don't understand" does it a disservice because it devalues religion's other purposes. It essentially says, "the most important thing is the scientific accuracy of my text, and if we let science disprove the accuracy of a text, all morality and cultural lessons are suddenly irrelevant." The alternative to this is to let religion do its job, which is primarily to instill certain moral, spiritual, and community values even if it cannot replace scientific exploration.

It does a disservice to the children in the classroom as well. They will be learning religious dogma as though it had been researched and proven by scientists.

It does a disservice to people of other faiths by telling them, "my beliefs belong in science courses and yours do not."

It does a disservice to America's science and technological advancement as well. If children are not receiving science classes with the same rigorous standard of accuracy that is given in more secular countries (most European nations, for example), they will have a lot of catching up to do before they can compete with those countries. America already has a lot of catching up to do, science-wise (which is why fifty years ago the Large Hadron Collider would have been built in America and now was built in Europe instead). If we do not demand excellence and accuracy in science courses, we will fall further behind as a country.

This is why having creationists affecting public policy is scary. They are doing a disservice to religion by essentializing an entire complex cultural system down to one (relatively minor and now obsolete) function. They are doing a disservice to children in their region by teaching them non-science and calling it science. They are doing a disservice to the diverse communities they help govern by elevating the beliefs of some over others. And they are doing the country a disservice by holding back scientific and technological advancement.

So there is your lesson in the science of evolution, why creationism is not science, and why science classes should only include theories that have scientific findings behind them. The fact that creationism is something people believe doesn't make it any more true, because scientific discovery is not settled on by a vote. The fact that some parents want their kids taught creationism in schools does not make it more true, and thus more worthy of inclusion. Unfortunately many school districts capitulate on this issue to shut the parents up, even though it means offering a subpar education to those children just because their parents would rather have children be orthodox in their religious beliefs than scientifically-informed.

Edit: And by the way. Anyone who sees this post, thinks, "too long, didn't read," and replies to the thread as if they know what I'm talking about... I will beat you with a shoe. I will come to your house and hit you with footwear for wasting the time I spent explaining myself to you.

And trying to bring things back onto topic after some other discussion, I added this:

Creationism doesn't fit the known facts, and the only way to argue it seriously is to throw facts and research out the window. This is fine to do with theology in some cases, but it's never acceptable with science. A scientific theory (and once again, germ theory is also "just a theory") must fit the facts to be accepted. Evolution is the only explanation that both fits the facts and can be used to predict new discoveries (such as the wacky citrate-eating hijinks that the E. coli got up to). Those two things are big reasons why scientists use evolution as part of their biology, geology, and physics research and not creationism. They use it because it helps, and it only helps because it's accurate enough to have been validated by decades upon decades of rigorous experimentation.

Policy-makers who are willing to ignore facts, ignore reality, scare me. It forces me to question their decision-making methods. I wouldn't want someone deciding any kind of policy who didn't believe that the things they assume should be proven before believing them, who didn't believe that they should ground their decisions in facts and the advice of experts who know more than they do. Policy-makers who decide purely based on ideology and philosophy without consulting what actually occurs around them are likely to make very dangerous decisions with very serious consequences.

One genius we'll refer to as E BanjoWarrior commented, to whom I replied:

E Banjowarrior Quote However, a big problem for the evolutionary theory, is that they still have yet to produce a single observed mutation that actually benefited the organism that was mutated. Even if they did happen to find one, it is still remotely insignificant, as any serious change due to mutations would require billions, if not trillions of like mutations that all benefited their host organism.

You didn't read my post. Being able to process citrate was advantageous, and required three mutations. What you really mean is "even if they did happen to find one, it still isn't remotely significant because I cannot be convinced by any evidence you offer."

It was Jonathan Swift who said, "You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place." By the same token, you cannot convince someone of the validity of evolution who does not put evidence and research first. If you didn't look at evidence to form your opinion (and let's face it, you didn't even really look at what I posted), I don't expect you to find even the most appropriate and conclusive evidence convincing.

E Banjowarrior Quote My only problem with how they teach evolution in schools today, is they make it out to be a done deal - as if all the questions are answered and it's completely stupid to argue it. This is not the case, yes it is a scientific theory, which means a lot, but it is not conclusive in the least, and even long standing advocates of Evolution have admitted as much.

They used to say that about "germ theory." It is also "just a theory," and scientists also treat people as though they are stupid for arguing the old hypothesis: which was that diseases spontaneously generated within people's bodies without being transmitted there by any vector.

Germ theory is "just a theory." But it's presented as a "done deal" because scientists have finally managed to convince people that they should believe scientists. Evolution is taking longer because laypersons are still clinging to the hope that Genesis might still be literally correct after all. I guarantee you if people were not taught as children that God created all the plants and animals as-is without them needing to change, no one would have trouble accepting the science of evolution.

End of thread. He had nothing to say to that. We will see if I need anything beyond this in future discussions.