It appears that with the advent of Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled, the “debate” over science and religion is reaching a fever-pitch. But the one thing that is missing is a clear definition of what the debate is really about.
The creationists have done their best to portray the disagreement as a black and white issue; one where there is one question, and only two possible answers. By doing so, they create the impression that any reasoned and fair debate should assign equal consideration to the opposing sides, and choose which of the two alternatives is more acceptable. Creationists conveniently ignore the real fact that disputing one claim does not inherently prove that your own is the only alternative. Nor does it prove that your own claims have equal validity.
Let’s consider an alternative. Suppose that I said that the evidence supporting scientists’ claims that the outer comets are made mostly of ice was suspect. Now, consider that I further put forth that these comets were, in fact, constructed of ice cream, and were a frosty treat sent from a distant alien race.
I could argue all day that nobody has ever seen these outer comets, let alone touched one, and been able to extract a sample for examination. I could even go so far as to raise questions about mass spectrometry, or dredge up some old assumptions about comets to prove that scientists keep changing their minds on the issue of comet construction. I might even suggest that the idea of great balls of ice getting into orbit is so unlikely as to be impossible, and suggest an intelligent force must be behind their astronomic positioning.
All these points, while varyingly valid (although specious), do nothing to further my own claim that the comets are frozen dairy treats. But by couching the debate in questions of either/or, I have created the false assumption that anything which takes away from one side must add weight to the other.
Our largest problem arises in the fact that this black/white, either/or format of debate lends itself perfectly to media coverage. With 24 hour new media saturating the market, journalists realize that they do not have the time to express complicated questions, nor does the average viewer have to stomach for nuanced choices. Much better is the solid, right/left format. Then viewers can absorb the news, and turn to their favorite pundit for their opinion.
Under such circumstances one only needs to appeal to the most tenuous of religiosity to make a scientific explanation of biological life untenable for most people.
Let’s consider for a moment what the creationist argument consists of.
- The world is far too complex to have happened accidentally; therefore natural selection is an inadequate explanation.
- People all over the world believe in God in one form of another; therefore to dismiss God as fiction would be to discredit the opinions of most living humans.
- Scientists have yet to close all of the gaps in the proposed evolutionary ladder, and still disagree on many of its finer points; therefore evolution is a failed theory, and must be discarded.
- If we have evolved from lower life forms, then we have no reason to act as anything other than animals.
- It is impossible to live a fulfilled life without some sense of accountability and reward from a greater power.
There are plenty of other points, and innumerable variations on the preceding arguments, but this is succinct collection of some of the more common ones.
The fact is that being incapable of grasping how natural select creates such complexity does not point to its impossibility, only your own limitations in understanding. This argument unvaryingly comes from people who have made a conscious decision not to understand the processes at hand. I will not even begin to present the scientific explanation behind natural selection; far too many people with a greater understanding than myself already done so. If you are interested in a detailed explanation, I suggest RichardDawkins.net. Furthermore, creationists reject the vast statistical challenges of natural selection, and replace it with one much greater. They choose to claim that natural life is so unlikely that it surely must be the result of an infinitely complex entity, living outside of time and causality.
An argument from numbers does nothing to validate their claims. For many centuries, virtually everyone believed that the Sun circled the Earth, and many people believe so to this day. This does not make it so, and no reasoning person would even give such claims consideration.
Science is a process. If we were to abandon that process every time a single experiment failed to explain a phenomenon in its entirety, there would be no science at all. To suggest that since science does not explain all of evolution, evolution should be dismissed is no different than saying that we should stop using computers because we do not fully understand the behavior and constructions of electrons at the quantum scale.
The argument that we need to be somehow separate from the rest of the animal kingdom in order to behave as humans is perhaps one of the most self deprecating arguments I have ever heard. I won’t even honor it with a response.
The need for a great purpose in one’s life is well known and understood. We all experience it; although some people believe the need justifies the fabrication.
Notice how none of these arguments do anything to strengthen their own claims. They aspire to cast doubt on evolution. The majority of them are specious, misrepresented, or arguments for an emotional response. To a one, they are dependent on a binary decision matrix. They only help to support the claimant’s position when that position is accepted as the only alternative.
Consider for a moment, French philosopher Blaise Pascal’s famous Pascal’s Gambit. Pascal argued that although God’s existence could not be proven, he could prove that belief in God was the logical wager. His argument went as so:
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is….
…”God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. “No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.”
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
“That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much.” Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.
The problem with Pascal’s wager, is that he assumes only two possibilities; either the god he accepts exists, or there is none. If you consider his argument from the accurate assumption that there are hundreds of variations of God to believe in, and several dozen different gods to choose from, it becomes quickly apparent that if all but one of these gods must be false, the logical conclusion is that they all are false.
Creating a false dichotomy is no way to prove your point. When you consider the arguments of creationists within the context of multiple alternatives, it falls apart of its own accord. If the creation argument were in any way valid, it could stand on its own. Clearly, science does not advance itself by casting doubt on religion. Were religion a fraction as well founded as the scientific principal, they would not need to tilt at the windmills of modern learning.
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