The Sound of One Hand Clapping
A lot of controversy, anger, and intolerance has been generated through the Creationist/Evolutionist debate. But, as the old Buffalo Springfields' song, 'For What It's Worth', states: "Nobody's right, if everybody's wrong", and in this debate, there is a great deal of 'wrong' which is being committed on both sides of the argument.
What follows isn't about whether one side, or the other, in this two-tiered monologue is correct. Much more space than is occupied by the present essay would be necessary to try to arrive at a judicious judgement concerning the tenability of any given position - a problem made more difficult since there is more than one position being given expression through each side of the debate.
Instead, this essay is a comment on the apparent inability, or unwillingness, of all too many, supposedly, rational people to be interested, seemingly, in searching for the truth, as opposed to merely advancing a philosophical or theological perspective which they champion. My point of departure is a series of e-mails which I sent to representatives from both sides of the debate.
More specifically, several years ago, I wrote a book entitled: Evolution On Trial which used the venue of a mock trial as a vehicle for exploring various ideas within modern, scientific accounts concerning the origins-of-life issue. Although self-contained, the book was a fairly technical examination of a body of data drawn from such areas as: prebiotic chemistry, earth sciences, molecular biology, thermodynamics, cytology, and membrane functioning - data which tends to be used to lend support to an evolutionary account for the appearance of life on earth.
After finishing the above work, I began to contact a number of people who were interested in the subject in an attempt to generate discussion along certain lines which I felt, up until now, had been receiving insufficient attention. The people contacted were those who espoused either Creationist or Evolutionist inclinations.
While I cannot argue that the sample on which this article is based is representative of the respective Creationist or Evolutionist populations as a whole, nevertheless, there were some disturbing findings - informal and statistically questionable though these may be. And, oddly enough, what was most disturbing was an attitude which appeared to be held in common by both sides.
Perhaps, the best way to describe what I mean is to say that the attitude in question seemed somewhat reminiscent of the orientation of the clergy at the time of Galileo when they refused to look through the telescope in order to verify whether there was any factual substance to Galileo's claims about certain aspects of the physical universe. Or, stated in another way, both Creationists and Evolutionists seemed to be saying: don't bother me with facts, it only confuses the matter.
Over the years, I have tried to enter into discussion with people from both of the foregoing camps. With certain exceptions, I have found each of the camps (yes, so-called scientists as well) to be fairly arrogant, intolerant, closed-minded, and surprisingly ill-informed about a variety of issues.
I'll describe two, relatively brief examples to try to illustrate what I have in mind. One of these comes from the Creationist side of things, and the other example is derived from the Evolutionist perspective - and let me reiterate that neither side can be distilled down to a single, monolithic position, so one has to consider what is being elaborated upon here with a certain soupcon of intellectual caution.
In any event, when I e-mailed a variety of people from the Creationist camp and informed them about my book, I suggested their position might be enhanced if they were to refrain from trying to base their reasoning on an 'argument from design' approach because this had the effect of deflecting focus away from the actual factual issues and, in the process, permit the Evolutionist camp to alter the framework of discussion by avoiding having to deal with problematic scientific data and/or conclusions and, instead, they could spend all their time on critiquing a vulnerable philosophical position (i.e., arguments from design), rather than having to defend the weak underbelly of their own scientific theories concerning the origins of life on Earth.
Almost invariably, the response which I received to the foregoing suggestion was a variation on the following: there was no need to remove the 'argument from design' issue from the table because they wanted to show not only that Evolution was incorrect but that the evidence served to 'prove' their theological perspective, as well. In other words, it was theological desire which was most important, not evidential considerations - even though, if they had stuck with just critically examining the evidence, their ultimate goal might have been better served.
At the very best, an argument from design, cannot possibly demonstrate that one theological perspective is more correct than some other such perspective. All such an argument can show - even if correct - is that somehow, design is present in the universe, and one can only speculate as to why and how such design came to be.
In fact, as some proponents of complexity theory argue, there are physical laws in the universe which operate in such a way that emergent structures arise out of the interaction of purely random systems when one goes from one level of scale to the next. So, the existence of determinant structure does not necessarily point in the direction of a theological answer - or, so the argument goes.
By insisting on a modus operandi which is, at heart, theological in nature, the Creationist camp opens itself up to a whole series of issues that takes attention away from what should be the sole topic of debate - namely, whether available evidence actually 'demonstrates' that an evolutionary account of the origins of life is tenable. By letting their theological agenda get in the way, they tend to undermine their own interests and complicate the discussion unnecessarily.
By contrast, people from the Evolutionist camp often tend to argue that modern evolution constitutes the only theory which is accepted by scientists as being reflective of the available evidence. This may be true, but it is neither here nor there as far as trying to establish whether modern evolution embraces a correct understanding of how life began on Earth.
Across history, the majority of scientists, eventually, have been shown to be wrong about many, if not most, of the things which they held to be true. Although every generation of scientists tends to believe that it possesses insights into, the 'truth' about nature, succeeding generations of scientists always have disclosed the flaws in, and problems with, previous scientific theories and understandings.
Consequently, to say that the majority of scientists today hold the theory of evolution to be true or consider that theory to be the only, available candidate worthy of being advanced, probably says more about the sociology of science than it does about the state of the universe. Furthermore, even if one were to agree that modern evolutionary theory is the only, available, scientific account of the origins-of-life on Earth, this is like saying that because the police have only one suspect who they are seriously considering, then, therefore, the police's theory about how things occurred must be correct.
To begin with, there is general confusion between macro-evolution and micro-evolution. Essentially, the former is pre-occupied with population genetics, whereas the latter is about how genetic systems come into being in the first place.
Population genetics is entirely irrelevant to the origin-of-life question. Population genetics only becomes relevant when one has populations of biological or quasi-biological systems that are capable of passing on information about how to perpetuate, or generate new, viable forms and functions to subsequent generations.
Micro-evolution attempts to explain how biological or quasi-biological systems arise from conditions which are devoid of such systems. In other words, how does one make the transition from the realm of non-living chemical systems to the world of living entities?
My aforementioned book, Evolution On Trial, was a critique of modern scientific accounts concerning the origins of life on Earth. The book was not pushing a theological agenda, nor was it trying to prove some theological position.
Rather, in effect, the book put forth a variety of scientific evidence and arguments indicating that micro-evolution was not even remotely close to providing an adequate, plausible, tenable theory concerning how life came into being on Earth. There were just too many, unanswered questions and too many lacunae in the theory, or set of theories, which constitutes the modern evolutionary account of the origins of life.
Often times, the response I get from Evolutionists is a variation on the following - 'well, if the theory of evolution is not true, then, what are you going to put in its place?' In truth, when we don't know something, we should admit our ignorance rather than try to force-fit facts into a theory which is, at best, fundamentally incomplete, and, consequently, tends to raise more questions than it answers.
However, rather than engage me in a purely factual or evidential discussion concerning the adequacy of evolutionary theory vis-a-vis the origins of life enigma, the response I got back from Evolutionists was either complete silence, or some sort of critical musing about how could someone, in this day and age, who has a graduate degree (i.e., me), be so scientifically unsophisticated as to not accept evolutionary accounts concerning the origins of life on Earth.
Like Galileo, I have looked at the available evidence and come to certain conclusions which, in time, may prove to be correct or incorrect. Unfortunately, the response of all too many Evolutionists whom I have contacted seems to be one of being like the clerics of Galileo's time and refusing to really look at the evidence because they are afraid, apparently, of what they might 'see'.
From an educational perspective, I am uncomfortable with either Creationists or Evolutionists being in charge of shaping curriculum with respect to origin of life issues. My discomfort arises from the fact that, despite certain exceptions on both sides, I have found them both to be resistant to the idea that the fundamental commitment we have to children is to help the latter search for the truth rather than be force-fed preconceived, problematic doctrines which may prove to be obstacles and stumbling blocks on the way to finding truth, understanding and wisdom.
Am I saying that all of spirituality or all of science is doctrinaire and problematic? Not at all, but just because something calls itself scientific or spiritual or claims to be in the best interests of children, this does not, in and of itself, automatically make it so.
| Return to Education Menu |
|
