I have come to Mark Riddle's third "power question" for evolutionists (for the first two see here and here). The third question is the fossil record. Unfortunately, this one is not stated as an actual direct question, other than something like "Where is the fossil evidence?". Answering that question isn't a problem at all, of course, but the question is so vague and the whole presentation so lacking in content that it is not at all clear what evidence is sought.
Riddle's approach here is the standard creationists arguments and uncreative. Mostly he says we should find millions of transitional fossils but we find none. To do this he has to first misrepresent what we should see, and then misrepresent what we do see.
He uses the standard argument that we should see every single transition, completely ignoring all studies on the completeness of the fossil record (the incompleteleness is not an assumption, by the way, but a conclusion from observation). No place is this better seen than when he says that we should see everything from a 1 celled creature to two celled to three celled and 10 cell and a hundred cell, etc. Anyone with basic knowledge of fossilization knows that individual cells rarely fossilize. Furthermore, there is no reason to think that multicellular life arose by adding one cell at a time. Single celled creatures have evolved into clumps of a dozen or so cells by simply growing them in culture for a few months. Why do we even need fossils when we can show it can happen in real time?
Riddle claims that the fossil record does not show a pattern of increased complexity, by showing that the Cambrian has a high level of complexity. He completely ignores the pattern of increasing complexity shown in precambrian times, from prokaryotes through simple algae through the Ediacara fauna , the small shelly fauna, trace fossils of increasingly complex burrows, and only then the blossoming of life in the mid Cambrian.
Riddle repeatedly declares there are no transitions but doesn't address a single claimed transition. The one and only time he deals with specifics is the following: "What about a whale with hind legs? These are four inch growths on a 70 foot whale. That's not a leg, that's a pimple." He believes that is an argument. No Mark, it is a leg, with a femur and radius and ulna. And there are transitions with longer legs that have the ankle characteristic of ungulates, and with intermediate blowholes and almost every stage. There are dozens of transitions just in the whale lineage alone.
Basically Riddle claims there should be millions of transitions by expecting a perfect fossil record. In fact, we have tens of thousands at least. He simply ignores them. There is absolutely no content to his presentation, no attempt to explain the transitions we have. He doesn't even do the usual creationist misrepresentation of what a transition should look like. He just says there are none. This is one of those common creationists refrains that is simply repeated over and over, hoping that repition will make it true. Donald Prothero's new book, Evolution, what the fossils say and why it matters, is a beautiful refutation of this claim.
Eventually he says that evolutionists claim maybe a half a dozen transitions (even these he doesn't explain). He says not to let them go off on Archeopterix, but stick to the foundation. The foundation apparently is the lack of transitions. So what he is saying is don't let them distract you with discussions of specific transitional fossils, ask where are the transitional fossils.
Needless to say, Riddle offers no positive explanation for the fossil record and patterns within it at all.
This section is by far the worst in the video so far. The other two questions at least identified topics of relative scientific ignorance. This question is amazingly lacking in content. It is argument by bald assertion. If a creationists were to approach an evolutionist with this question, he or she would be buried if the evolutionist has even a basic knowledge of the fossil record.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Power question 2: where did life come from
In a recent post, I addressed a video from AIG on "the four power questions to ask an evolutionist". I discussed the first one, "where did the matter of the big bang come from?", in that post. Today I will address the second power question: Where did life come from?
The basic answer I gave to the previous question applies here as well. I think the best answer is: we are not sure. I have seen some people object to this because it implies a greater level of ignorance than we have. It is true, we know a lot more about the origin of life now than 50 years ago. Maybe some people would think I am saying we don't have any idea. But it is also true that there is no consensus theory for the origin of life.
I like to imagine a student coming up, all ready to be combative and asking "where did the matter for the big bang come from?", the professor says "we aren't sure", and the student realizes that his question doesn't matter. The advantage of saying we don't know the answer to questions like this is that it makes clear that the student is making an argument from ignorance, and it also makes clear that they are simply replacing the phrase "we don't know" with God. It is important that people realize science doesn't explain everything. There are things we don't know. A theory isn't rejected because it can't explain every last point. Evolution explain what happened to life once it formed, not how it formed. Even if we were 100% ignorant of the origin of life (which we aren't), that is not an argument against the stuff we do know. Even if we don't know where the matter came from, it doesn't mean the big bang didn't happen. It is a thought that probably hasn't occured to many creationists.
Even though that is the easiest answer, I will discuss other points brought up in the video. Several times the speaker (Mike Riddle) makes the inevitable confusion about chance. He says that the scientific theory for the origin of life is: time + chance = life, which is of course completely absurd. He brings out the usual calculations of the chances of getting a protein by chance and shows it is impossible and includes a quote mine from a scientist saying "the simplest cell couldn't have arisen by chance". The fact that we don't think it happened by chance, and that is the scientists point, is ignored. After he says that time + chance = life, he asks sarcastically "doesn't that make you feel good? Doesn't it make you feel special?" He is using how special a theory makes you feel as a criterion to evaluate it.
Riddle makes a basic mistake in chemistry. He says that matter is made up of atoms, atoms combine to make molecules, molecules combine to make amino acids, and amino acids combine to make proteins. Funny, I thought an amino acid is a molecule. What molecules combine to make an amino acid?
He then discusses the Urey-Miller experiment, as creationists always do, with the usual problems. First, he suggests that Miller left oxygen out of his mixture because he knew oxygen harms life. Miller left oxygen out because the best evidence at the time suggested it wasn't present, not to get a predetermined result. Riddle points out that there is now evidence there might have been more oxygen, and says that the evidence is ignored by scientists. Anyone who would make that claim simply doesn't know how science or scientists works. Riddle acts as if Miller's was the only experiment or only atmosphere that was tried, when in fact many other atmospheres have been shown to work.
There is no indication that there are other possible ways for the building blocks to arise, including in space. There is no indication that even if the atmosphere was oxidizing, there could be microenvironments that were reducing, such as deep sea vents. In the video, Riddle is trying to argue that there is no possible natural explanation for the origin of life. Even if he completely disproved everything about the Miller experiment, he would not have shown that all explanations fail.
He then lies. That's the only way to describe this misrepresentation. He says that oxygen is harmful for the origin of life. But oxygen is needed to make ozone, and without ozone we would be "fried", so not having oxygen is bad for life too. Since both having and not having oxygen is bad for life, it must have been created. I wonder if he has any idea what the real effect of not having ozone is. Life wouldnt' be "fried". Rather, we would have more UV radiation and more mutations for organisms exposed to the UV. What he seems to fail to understand is that water also filters out UV radiation. Ozone protects organisms on land from UV light. For organisms in the ocean, it is irrelevant.
Finally he points out that all life has left handed amino acids, but the Miller experiment produces a mixture of right and left handed amino acids. He considers this an insurmountable problem. It's simple. Living things used one kind of amino acid from the primordial soup but not the other (we don't know why). The right handed amino acids formed, but just weren't used by the first cells. Is it necessary that every organic molecule in the primitive ocean be utilized by life? Cyanide was made in the Miller experiment, but it isn't used by living things. Does that disprove the validity of the experiment.
The strangest part of this discussion was when Riddle pointed out that when we die, our amino acids revert to a mixture of right handed and left handed amino acids. He seemed to find this very significant, but I am not sure why. To me, what that means is that even now we are surrounded by right and left handed amino acids in the environment, just as the first cells were. If we can have right handed amino acids in our environment now but maintain all left handed in cells, why couldn't they? I got the impression that he thinks it requires an act of God or miracle to maintain living amino acids in the left handed form even today, not just at some creation point in the past. In other words, he is invoking God not just for creation, but for the every day miracle of having left handed amino acids. Maybe he had another point to make, but I cannot see it.
The first two power questions are simply arguments from ignorance. The boil down to: evolution, or the big bang, can't explain absolutely everything, therefore it's wrong. If we don't know, then God must have done it. Since God started those things, he did everything else too.
When we argue with creationists, we should agree beforehand to just discuss the evolution of vertebrates, or some other narrow, well documented topic. In the end, that's all they care about. In fact, we could just look at human evolution. If I were to say the universe was created by God, life was created by God, God did the Cambrian explosion, but evolution produced humans, they would object. So why are we arguing over these other things? I suggested this to Pastor Eckstein. We will restrict our discussion to the evolution of vertebrates. If one of us can convince the other about that topic, then we can worry about the Cambrian explosion or the origin of life. This prevents the constant moving of the goalposts and arguments from ignorance that creationists love.
The basic answer I gave to the previous question applies here as well. I think the best answer is: we are not sure. I have seen some people object to this because it implies a greater level of ignorance than we have. It is true, we know a lot more about the origin of life now than 50 years ago. Maybe some people would think I am saying we don't have any idea. But it is also true that there is no consensus theory for the origin of life.
I like to imagine a student coming up, all ready to be combative and asking "where did the matter for the big bang come from?", the professor says "we aren't sure", and the student realizes that his question doesn't matter. The advantage of saying we don't know the answer to questions like this is that it makes clear that the student is making an argument from ignorance, and it also makes clear that they are simply replacing the phrase "we don't know" with God. It is important that people realize science doesn't explain everything. There are things we don't know. A theory isn't rejected because it can't explain every last point. Evolution explain what happened to life once it formed, not how it formed. Even if we were 100% ignorant of the origin of life (which we aren't), that is not an argument against the stuff we do know. Even if we don't know where the matter came from, it doesn't mean the big bang didn't happen. It is a thought that probably hasn't occured to many creationists.
Even though that is the easiest answer, I will discuss other points brought up in the video. Several times the speaker (Mike Riddle) makes the inevitable confusion about chance. He says that the scientific theory for the origin of life is: time + chance = life, which is of course completely absurd. He brings out the usual calculations of the chances of getting a protein by chance and shows it is impossible and includes a quote mine from a scientist saying "the simplest cell couldn't have arisen by chance". The fact that we don't think it happened by chance, and that is the scientists point, is ignored. After he says that time + chance = life, he asks sarcastically "doesn't that make you feel good? Doesn't it make you feel special?" He is using how special a theory makes you feel as a criterion to evaluate it.
Riddle makes a basic mistake in chemistry. He says that matter is made up of atoms, atoms combine to make molecules, molecules combine to make amino acids, and amino acids combine to make proteins. Funny, I thought an amino acid is a molecule. What molecules combine to make an amino acid?
He then discusses the Urey-Miller experiment, as creationists always do, with the usual problems. First, he suggests that Miller left oxygen out of his mixture because he knew oxygen harms life. Miller left oxygen out because the best evidence at the time suggested it wasn't present, not to get a predetermined result. Riddle points out that there is now evidence there might have been more oxygen, and says that the evidence is ignored by scientists. Anyone who would make that claim simply doesn't know how science or scientists works. Riddle acts as if Miller's was the only experiment or only atmosphere that was tried, when in fact many other atmospheres have been shown to work.
There is no indication that there are other possible ways for the building blocks to arise, including in space. There is no indication that even if the atmosphere was oxidizing, there could be microenvironments that were reducing, such as deep sea vents. In the video, Riddle is trying to argue that there is no possible natural explanation for the origin of life. Even if he completely disproved everything about the Miller experiment, he would not have shown that all explanations fail.
He then lies. That's the only way to describe this misrepresentation. He says that oxygen is harmful for the origin of life. But oxygen is needed to make ozone, and without ozone we would be "fried", so not having oxygen is bad for life too. Since both having and not having oxygen is bad for life, it must have been created. I wonder if he has any idea what the real effect of not having ozone is. Life wouldnt' be "fried". Rather, we would have more UV radiation and more mutations for organisms exposed to the UV. What he seems to fail to understand is that water also filters out UV radiation. Ozone protects organisms on land from UV light. For organisms in the ocean, it is irrelevant.
Finally he points out that all life has left handed amino acids, but the Miller experiment produces a mixture of right and left handed amino acids. He considers this an insurmountable problem. It's simple. Living things used one kind of amino acid from the primordial soup but not the other (we don't know why). The right handed amino acids formed, but just weren't used by the first cells. Is it necessary that every organic molecule in the primitive ocean be utilized by life? Cyanide was made in the Miller experiment, but it isn't used by living things. Does that disprove the validity of the experiment.
The strangest part of this discussion was when Riddle pointed out that when we die, our amino acids revert to a mixture of right handed and left handed amino acids. He seemed to find this very significant, but I am not sure why. To me, what that means is that even now we are surrounded by right and left handed amino acids in the environment, just as the first cells were. If we can have right handed amino acids in our environment now but maintain all left handed in cells, why couldn't they? I got the impression that he thinks it requires an act of God or miracle to maintain living amino acids in the left handed form even today, not just at some creation point in the past. In other words, he is invoking God not just for creation, but for the every day miracle of having left handed amino acids. Maybe he had another point to make, but I cannot see it.
The first two power questions are simply arguments from ignorance. The boil down to: evolution, or the big bang, can't explain absolutely everything, therefore it's wrong. If we don't know, then God must have done it. Since God started those things, he did everything else too.
When we argue with creationists, we should agree beforehand to just discuss the evolution of vertebrates, or some other narrow, well documented topic. In the end, that's all they care about. In fact, we could just look at human evolution. If I were to say the universe was created by God, life was created by God, God did the Cambrian explosion, but evolution produced humans, they would object. So why are we arguing over these other things? I suggested this to Pastor Eckstein. We will restrict our discussion to the evolution of vertebrates. If one of us can convince the other about that topic, then we can worry about the Cambrian explosion or the origin of life. This prevents the constant moving of the goalposts and arguments from ignorance that creationists love.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Attack of the killer storks
I think I just read the coolest science news of the year. In random samples in this week's Science they describe the discovery of killer storks on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Flores is the island on which the "hobbit" was found--three foot tall dwarf hominids, possibly related to Homo erectus, that went extinct just 13,000 years ago. Now they have discovered 6 foot tall carnivorous storks on the same island. We don't know if the storks ate the humans.
What could be more cool than giant flesh eating storks? Once you have that discovery on your resume, how can you top it? The only thing I can think of comparable is a town being terrorized by giant killer bunny rabbits in the 1972 movie Night of the Lepus. (I remember seeing that movie on the CBS late movie as a kid. The CBS late movie was great--every night, in what is now the David Letterman time slot, they would show low budget movies, typical drive-in fair. I saw more great cheesy movies that way than any time since).
What could be more cool than giant flesh eating storks? Once you have that discovery on your resume, how can you top it? The only thing I can think of comparable is a town being terrorized by giant killer bunny rabbits in the 1972 movie Night of the Lepus. (I remember seeing that movie on the CBS late movie as a kid. The CBS late movie was great--every night, in what is now the David Letterman time slot, they would show low budget movies, typical drive-in fair. I saw more great cheesy movies that way than any time since).
Which scares a creationist more, evolution or theism?
I have been looking over the material an angry parent sent me from AIG, and I have realized something that I haven't always emphasized or seen before. I realized that AIG and YECs in general are much more interested in attacking theistic evolution than attacking evolution. I always knew they didn't like theistic evolution, but I failed to see how that is more important than evolution itself.
One of the pamphlets I have is titled "6 days or millions of years?". Being a scientist, I assumed it would contain the various creationists attacks on the evidence for an old earth. At no place in the 48 page booklet does it address any evidence for an old earth at all. In fact, the only place where evidence is even brought up is the following sentence on page 16: "The age of the earths, as determined by man's fallible methods, is based on unproven assumptions so it is not proven that the earth is billions of years old." That is the only place science is even mentioned in an indirect way.
So what is the rest of the pamphlet? It is a diatribite against a non literal reading of the Bible. It discusses whether the days are literal days or metaphorical days, whethere there are two creation stories or one, whether an old earth and the fall of man can be reconciled, etc. The enemy is clearly not the evidence for an old earth, it is those Christians that read the Bible differently than them.
I think they know that is the real danger to their viewpoint. Most creationists aren't going to be easily swayed to evolution if they must reject God first. But many will happily embrace evolution if they dont' think their immortal souls are on the line. One of the main purposes of an organization like AIG is to convince Christians that any interpretation that includes evolution will damn them to hell. Theycan ignore actual evidence, because if the can convince people that the Bible can't be read any other way, most of their followers will not even look at the evidence.
The other pamphlets are similarly lacking in science, heavy on damning liberal Christians. Pastor Eckstein's recent article in the Jamestown Sun, which I discussed this past summer, was two thirds Biblical exegesis and why other interpretations of the Bible are wrong. I found that part insulting, because he was basically using a newspaper editorial to argue a theological point and condemn many religions. That clearly is the most important point for him and most creationists. The evidence is simply the result of "fallible man" and is mostly irrelevant.
One of the pamphlets I have is titled "6 days or millions of years?". Being a scientist, I assumed it would contain the various creationists attacks on the evidence for an old earth. At no place in the 48 page booklet does it address any evidence for an old earth at all. In fact, the only place where evidence is even brought up is the following sentence on page 16: "The age of the earths, as determined by man's fallible methods, is based on unproven assumptions so it is not proven that the earth is billions of years old." That is the only place science is even mentioned in an indirect way.
So what is the rest of the pamphlet? It is a diatribite against a non literal reading of the Bible. It discusses whether the days are literal days or metaphorical days, whethere there are two creation stories or one, whether an old earth and the fall of man can be reconciled, etc. The enemy is clearly not the evidence for an old earth, it is those Christians that read the Bible differently than them.
I think they know that is the real danger to their viewpoint. Most creationists aren't going to be easily swayed to evolution if they must reject God first. But many will happily embrace evolution if they dont' think their immortal souls are on the line. One of the main purposes of an organization like AIG is to convince Christians that any interpretation that includes evolution will damn them to hell. Theycan ignore actual evidence, because if the can convince people that the Bible can't be read any other way, most of their followers will not even look at the evidence.
The other pamphlets are similarly lacking in science, heavy on damning liberal Christians. Pastor Eckstein's recent article in the Jamestown Sun, which I discussed this past summer, was two thirds Biblical exegesis and why other interpretations of the Bible are wrong. I found that part insulting, because he was basically using a newspaper editorial to argue a theological point and condemn many religions. That clearly is the most important point for him and most creationists. The evidence is simply the result of "fallible man" and is mostly irrelevant.
Answering the AIG power questions, part 1.
Hopefully I will soon get to review another chapter of Hunter's Darwin's Proof, but I've been bogged down with classes starting and trying to trace down his references. It can be hard to find references at a small college, especially if the references are 25 years old. When you are dealing with creationist literature, you want to look up all of their references to see exactly how they butcher things.
In the mean time, I can critique some of the material that the angry parent sent me from AIG. One of the items is a DVD, 4 power questions to ask an evolutionist. I will give my answer to these questions here, one at a time.
The first question is where did the matter come from in the big bang? The first thing to do is to clarify two things. First, the big bang is not evolution. It is completely independent of evolution. Evolution could be true and the big bang false, the big bang true and evolution false, both true, or both false. There is absolutely no overlap in the evidence used to support the two theorie. To a creationist this doesn't matter, because everyone who says the world is old is an evolutionist. So one answer to this is that it is irrelevant if we want to discuss evolution. This doesn't mean the big bang isn't very well supported, nor does it mean we can't answer the question.
The second thing to realize is that the big bang describes the history of the universe from about 10 e -35 seconds after the big bang until today. Right now the theory does not extend to before that time. The question of where the universe came from is separate from the question of its history. Even if creationists were to somehow prove that we needed God to make the matter (technically, matter/energy) of the big bang, that wouldn't disprove the big bang. All of the evidence for the expanding universe and the microwave background, etc., would still be true. So even if there is no answer and even if we needed to invoke God, it doesn't disprove the big bang.
Again, creationists have a hard time understanding this. They do the same thing with the origin of life. Even if we have no clue how life arose, it doesn't disprove evolution. Even if we had no idea how the earth first formed, it wouldn't disprove plate tectonics or other geological theories. There is overwhelming evidence the continents have moved. Let's say we didn't have any idea how the first continents formed. Would that mean that we can't conclude that they move and trace how they have moved over time? It would not. In fact, we do know approximately how continents form, but the point is that the science doesn't depend on it. We know how atoms combine without needing to know how atoms formed, etc.
One other thing before I answer. The video characterizes evolution as saying that matter and energy are all that exists. This is the definition of materialism, not evolution. This is the same problem as extending evolution to the big bang. In this case, they extend evolution to mean materialism. Many evolutionists are materialists, but not all, and the ideas again are independent. Yet again, we see that what they mean by evolutionists is anyone who disagrees with their world view for any reason. They define evolution as atheism, and then explain how evolution leads to atheism. They then believe that if they make an argument against materialism, they have made an argument against evolution. Evolution could be true whether or not God or the immaterial exists.
I think the best way to answer the question is, we don't know. There are speculations and ideas. Perhaps our universe is only one universe on a larger "brane". Perhaps there was a big crunch before the big bang. Perhaps it arose by quantum fluctuation. These are possibilities, but so far they have not been tested (I'm not sure how well they can be tested. My inexpert understanding is that some of these ideas are testable in principle, but the tests are not easy to do or likely in the immediate future).
The video brings up one of these and dismisses it. It mentions quantum fluctuation. It says that quantum fluctuation is something coming from nothing, which is impossible, so we can dismiss it. However, we do know that quantum fluctuation happens. Something does in fact come from nothing and we can measure it, regardless of how counter intuitive that is. It is not clear whether this fluctuation could create the whole universe, but we can't dismiss it out of hand.
Creationists just can't handle the answer "we don't know yet". They think this is admitting defeat, and proves their point. The speaker in the DVD quotes one scientist as saying we don't know, commends him for the honesty, and thinks he has a victory. If we didn't know where that first continent came from, it wouldn't mean plate tectonics is wrong. Creationists always fill in "we don't know" with "God did it". Therefore, their God is just another name for ignorance. I haven't seen the whole video yet, just an overview, but I can already tell that the God supported by the video is interchangeable with the phrase "we don't know". How does that help us understand anything? DO they really want to worship ignorance? Why is it so hard to just leave some things unanswered, but deal with the parts we can answer?
The other problem is that saying God did it doesn't solve his problem anyway. We then have the same question: Where did God come from? They have only pushed it back one step. The speaker does try to answer this, by saying either the universe created itself, always existed, or was created. He claims to disprove the first two, and leave us with the third. But then we must ask of God, did he create himself, did he always exist, or was he created? You havne't solved the problem at all. If God can be the uncaused cause, the one thing that doesn't need something else causing it, why can't the universe itself be an uncaused cause? Something has to be, and there is no reason to think that the first cause is something immaterial.
In the mean time, I can critique some of the material that the angry parent sent me from AIG. One of the items is a DVD, 4 power questions to ask an evolutionist. I will give my answer to these questions here, one at a time.
The first question is where did the matter come from in the big bang? The first thing to do is to clarify two things. First, the big bang is not evolution. It is completely independent of evolution. Evolution could be true and the big bang false, the big bang true and evolution false, both true, or both false. There is absolutely no overlap in the evidence used to support the two theorie. To a creationist this doesn't matter, because everyone who says the world is old is an evolutionist. So one answer to this is that it is irrelevant if we want to discuss evolution. This doesn't mean the big bang isn't very well supported, nor does it mean we can't answer the question.
The second thing to realize is that the big bang describes the history of the universe from about 10 e -35 seconds after the big bang until today. Right now the theory does not extend to before that time. The question of where the universe came from is separate from the question of its history. Even if creationists were to somehow prove that we needed God to make the matter (technically, matter/energy) of the big bang, that wouldn't disprove the big bang. All of the evidence for the expanding universe and the microwave background, etc., would still be true. So even if there is no answer and even if we needed to invoke God, it doesn't disprove the big bang.
Again, creationists have a hard time understanding this. They do the same thing with the origin of life. Even if we have no clue how life arose, it doesn't disprove evolution. Even if we had no idea how the earth first formed, it wouldn't disprove plate tectonics or other geological theories. There is overwhelming evidence the continents have moved. Let's say we didn't have any idea how the first continents formed. Would that mean that we can't conclude that they move and trace how they have moved over time? It would not. In fact, we do know approximately how continents form, but the point is that the science doesn't depend on it. We know how atoms combine without needing to know how atoms formed, etc.
One other thing before I answer. The video characterizes evolution as saying that matter and energy are all that exists. This is the definition of materialism, not evolution. This is the same problem as extending evolution to the big bang. In this case, they extend evolution to mean materialism. Many evolutionists are materialists, but not all, and the ideas again are independent. Yet again, we see that what they mean by evolutionists is anyone who disagrees with their world view for any reason. They define evolution as atheism, and then explain how evolution leads to atheism. They then believe that if they make an argument against materialism, they have made an argument against evolution. Evolution could be true whether or not God or the immaterial exists.
I think the best way to answer the question is, we don't know. There are speculations and ideas. Perhaps our universe is only one universe on a larger "brane". Perhaps there was a big crunch before the big bang. Perhaps it arose by quantum fluctuation. These are possibilities, but so far they have not been tested (I'm not sure how well they can be tested. My inexpert understanding is that some of these ideas are testable in principle, but the tests are not easy to do or likely in the immediate future).
The video brings up one of these and dismisses it. It mentions quantum fluctuation. It says that quantum fluctuation is something coming from nothing, which is impossible, so we can dismiss it. However, we do know that quantum fluctuation happens. Something does in fact come from nothing and we can measure it, regardless of how counter intuitive that is. It is not clear whether this fluctuation could create the whole universe, but we can't dismiss it out of hand.
Creationists just can't handle the answer "we don't know yet". They think this is admitting defeat, and proves their point. The speaker in the DVD quotes one scientist as saying we don't know, commends him for the honesty, and thinks he has a victory. If we didn't know where that first continent came from, it wouldn't mean plate tectonics is wrong. Creationists always fill in "we don't know" with "God did it". Therefore, their God is just another name for ignorance. I haven't seen the whole video yet, just an overview, but I can already tell that the God supported by the video is interchangeable with the phrase "we don't know". How does that help us understand anything? DO they really want to worship ignorance? Why is it so hard to just leave some things unanswered, but deal with the parts we can answer?
The other problem is that saying God did it doesn't solve his problem anyway. We then have the same question: Where did God come from? They have only pushed it back one step. The speaker does try to answer this, by saying either the universe created itself, always existed, or was created. He claims to disprove the first two, and leave us with the third. But then we must ask of God, did he create himself, did he always exist, or was he created? You havne't solved the problem at all. If God can be the uncaused cause, the one thing that doesn't need something else causing it, why can't the universe itself be an uncaused cause? Something has to be, and there is no reason to think that the first cause is something immaterial.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The reply I would like to send
I don't know if or what I will respond to the disgruntled parent I mentioned last time, but I thought I would be fun to write the things I'd really like to say here, without worrying about politics or politeness, so here goes.
You say that the terms Christian and evolutionists are mutually exclusive. That's interesting, because there are about 100 million Christian evolutionists in the US, according to most polls. The portion is much greater outside of the US. Mostly I am amazed at the rudeness of openly telling people you don't think they are Christians or approve of their beliefs. Imagine if someone said to you that they think anyone who takes the Bible literally isn't a real Christian. You would probably take offense, yet you have no problem telling 100 million people that they aren't real Christians.
Other than Bible colleges and a few Muslim colleges, every university in the world teaches evolution as a fact. As I told your son, I do not require that you believe in evolution. But if you are to be educated, you should at least understand one of the most important theories in science. If you take a philosophy class, you will learn the views of Plato and Locke and Hume and Kant and many others. You are not required to think they are all right (they can't all be right), but in order to be educated, you should understand their views.
You said that some of the question content in my class was a departure from the truths you have learned. That is because you have learned lies. You are systematically lied to by creationists and science is misrepresented. As I told your son, it's fine not to believe in evolution, but you should at least know what the theory says and what the facts really are, rather than misrepresentations of it.
You sent me material from Answers in Genesis, apparently thinking I wasn't aware of their arguments. I am sure that I am much more familiar with every argument AIG makes than you are and have looked at their web page in much greater detail than most people you know. I have seen how they misrepresent the science, misquote, and almost always omit very important information from their readers. They know that their readers won't bother checking up on things. All that they want is someone to tell them that someone smart has an answer out there, so they can be comforted that they need not confront the actual science. All I do in class is make sure that students are exposed to the actual science.
You are alarmed that I am teaching young people these views. I am upset and discouraged that I must constantly deal with the ignorance and lies that have been instilled in students by well meaning but uninformed people such as yourself. Evolution is a well supported fascinating science. I can't spend as much time doing my job of teaching the science because I am forced to do remedial work.
If you have any specific complaints about any of the material I used, or any specific argument you would like me to address, I will gladly do so. I know the creationists view point very well and do not believe I have misrepresented it. However, if there is any thing that I have wrong, I will gladly correct it.
You sent me material, which I did look through, and I have read massive amounts of material from creationists. I assume that you would consider it fair that you should also read material directly from evolutionists. I would send you some material, but I suspect it would not get read.
You say that the terms Christian and evolutionists are mutually exclusive. That's interesting, because there are about 100 million Christian evolutionists in the US, according to most polls. The portion is much greater outside of the US. Mostly I am amazed at the rudeness of openly telling people you don't think they are Christians or approve of their beliefs. Imagine if someone said to you that they think anyone who takes the Bible literally isn't a real Christian. You would probably take offense, yet you have no problem telling 100 million people that they aren't real Christians.
Other than Bible colleges and a few Muslim colleges, every university in the world teaches evolution as a fact. As I told your son, I do not require that you believe in evolution. But if you are to be educated, you should at least understand one of the most important theories in science. If you take a philosophy class, you will learn the views of Plato and Locke and Hume and Kant and many others. You are not required to think they are all right (they can't all be right), but in order to be educated, you should understand their views.
You said that some of the question content in my class was a departure from the truths you have learned. That is because you have learned lies. You are systematically lied to by creationists and science is misrepresented. As I told your son, it's fine not to believe in evolution, but you should at least know what the theory says and what the facts really are, rather than misrepresentations of it.
You sent me material from Answers in Genesis, apparently thinking I wasn't aware of their arguments. I am sure that I am much more familiar with every argument AIG makes than you are and have looked at their web page in much greater detail than most people you know. I have seen how they misrepresent the science, misquote, and almost always omit very important information from their readers. They know that their readers won't bother checking up on things. All that they want is someone to tell them that someone smart has an answer out there, so they can be comforted that they need not confront the actual science. All I do in class is make sure that students are exposed to the actual science.
You are alarmed that I am teaching young people these views. I am upset and discouraged that I must constantly deal with the ignorance and lies that have been instilled in students by well meaning but uninformed people such as yourself. Evolution is a well supported fascinating science. I can't spend as much time doing my job of teaching the science because I am forced to do remedial work.
If you have any specific complaints about any of the material I used, or any specific argument you would like me to address, I will gladly do so. I know the creationists view point very well and do not believe I have misrepresented it. However, if there is any thing that I have wrong, I will gladly correct it.
You sent me material, which I did look through, and I have read massive amounts of material from creationists. I assume that you would consider it fair that you should also read material directly from evolutionists. I would send you some material, but I suspect it would not get read.
Monday, August 25, 2008
A letter from a parent.
Classes have begun here and I am busy. I haven't been posting much and I will probably not be able to do this frequently, but I will try to write something at least every now and then.
I had a first today. I've been contacted by the parent of a student about teaching evolution. That is something that I'm sure is frequent in secondary schools, but is rare at the college level. The parent thought the questions I asked in my Cosmos discussions were rigged and were a departure from the truths she has learned (I do not doubt the second part). So she kindly sent me some pamphlets from Answers in Genesis to set me straight. She said she is sad that these views have become part of my belief system and she is alarmed that I am teaching young people these things.
The end was kind of odd. She gave me her email address if I want to contact her, but said she was busy and would rather I contact Answers in Genesis. Exactly what does she expect me to say to AIG? It sounds like she would rather not deal with it directly and maybe acknowledges her ignorance.
I suppose I will look through the material and maybe send her a reply, although such a reply would obviously be pointless. If there is anything interesting, I will post it here. I wonder if she thinks I really am not aware of everything AIG has to offer, much better than her? I wonder if she also knows that evolution is taught as a fact at every college in the country, other than some Bible colleges.
I had a first today. I've been contacted by the parent of a student about teaching evolution. That is something that I'm sure is frequent in secondary schools, but is rare at the college level. The parent thought the questions I asked in my Cosmos discussions were rigged and were a departure from the truths she has learned (I do not doubt the second part). So she kindly sent me some pamphlets from Answers in Genesis to set me straight. She said she is sad that these views have become part of my belief system and she is alarmed that I am teaching young people these things.
The end was kind of odd. She gave me her email address if I want to contact her, but said she was busy and would rather I contact Answers in Genesis. Exactly what does she expect me to say to AIG? It sounds like she would rather not deal with it directly and maybe acknowledges her ignorance.
I suppose I will look through the material and maybe send her a reply, although such a reply would obviously be pointless. If there is anything interesting, I will post it here. I wonder if she thinks I really am not aware of everything AIG has to offer, much better than her? I wonder if she also knows that evolution is taught as a fact at every college in the country, other than some Bible colleges.
Monday, August 18, 2008
On gas prices
I haven't touched on politics here yet, but occasionally there is something I like to talk about. Recently, I was called for an opinion poll. I had to agree or disagree with various positions of McCain or Obama. One of them was about gas prices and I was supposed to say whose position on controlling gas prices I found better. I think I said they are both idiotic and I disagree with both.
In the primaries, I was impressed with Obama. Clinton had suggested we cut back on gas taxes to relieve prices. It was an idiotic idea, pandering for votes, and it wouldn't have worked anyway. Obama didn't suggest such simple fixes. But now he is suggesting we tap into the strategic oil reserve to relieve gas prices, which is just as stupid. McCain panders as well.
The problem is that they aren't honest enough to admit that first, gas prices are mostly beyond our control, and second and more importantly, that the desire to limit gas prices directly conflicts with the desire to be less dependent on foreign oil.
Gas prices have started to come down recently. Why? Because prices finally got high enough to force people to conserve and use less gas. Demand went down, and so did prices. If we want to become less dependent on foreign oil, we need to use less oil. Demand has to go down. There is no other way around it. We have been saying we should use less gas, buy fuel efficient cars, drive less, etc., for years. None of those things decreased demand and Americans fed their appetite for SUVs. If we had changed our habits, then we could get lower prices and also be free of foreign oil. But the only thing that has decreased demand is higher fuel prices. It is also the only thing that has made alternative energy viable and economical.
I would love it if one of the politicians was straight with us. If he told us that we don't want to decrease gas prices too much, or we will be feeding our oil habit. Or at least said that whatever measures we take to decrease gas prices are going to cost us in the long run. I suppose there could be some role for government in gas prices. If they increase too fast, it is very hard on the economy, and we should try to buffer the economy against drastic changes in oil prices. But ultimately, we have to take the medicine. Obama was at least right that filling our tires will help us. I wish we would all do that without high gas prices as an incentive. It's simple. If you want lower gas prices, use less gas.
In the primaries, I was impressed with Obama. Clinton had suggested we cut back on gas taxes to relieve prices. It was an idiotic idea, pandering for votes, and it wouldn't have worked anyway. Obama didn't suggest such simple fixes. But now he is suggesting we tap into the strategic oil reserve to relieve gas prices, which is just as stupid. McCain panders as well.
The problem is that they aren't honest enough to admit that first, gas prices are mostly beyond our control, and second and more importantly, that the desire to limit gas prices directly conflicts with the desire to be less dependent on foreign oil.
Gas prices have started to come down recently. Why? Because prices finally got high enough to force people to conserve and use less gas. Demand went down, and so did prices. If we want to become less dependent on foreign oil, we need to use less oil. Demand has to go down. There is no other way around it. We have been saying we should use less gas, buy fuel efficient cars, drive less, etc., for years. None of those things decreased demand and Americans fed their appetite for SUVs. If we had changed our habits, then we could get lower prices and also be free of foreign oil. But the only thing that has decreased demand is higher fuel prices. It is also the only thing that has made alternative energy viable and economical.
I would love it if one of the politicians was straight with us. If he told us that we don't want to decrease gas prices too much, or we will be feeding our oil habit. Or at least said that whatever measures we take to decrease gas prices are going to cost us in the long run. I suppose there could be some role for government in gas prices. If they increase too fast, it is very hard on the economy, and we should try to buffer the economy against drastic changes in oil prices. But ultimately, we have to take the medicine. Obama was at least right that filling our tires will help us. I wish we would all do that without high gas prices as an incentive. It's simple. If you want lower gas prices, use less gas.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Darwin's proof, chapter 4: explaining too little
I've been reviewing Darwin's Proof by Cornelius G. Hunter, chapter by chapter (see here, here, here). Today I will review chapter 4, which is the first of two chapters in which he tries to dismiss the evidence for evolution.
Hunter first deals with the fossil evidence. He misrepresents disagreements about the rate of evolution. He seems to think that those who have argued for faster evolution, from Huxley to Gould, have argued for evolution taking genuine jumps. That is not the case. Instead, they have simply argued that there may be rapid bursts, which nevertheless go through intermediate stages. Some have argued for slightly larger steps, but still nothing more than the difference between two similar species. Hunter tries to firmly put Darwin in an extreme gradualists camp and seems to think that because of this, that's what evolution must believe. A note to all evolution deniers: Darwin got a lot wrong. That's fine with us. If an extreme gradualism of Darwin is 100% wrong, who cares? That's scientific progress. It isn't evidence against common descent. Hunter seems to think that arguments about the rate of evolution call into question common descent itself.
Hunter suggests that uniformitarianists such as Lyell "called for" natural history to be caused by natural laws, rather than that natural laws can explain natural history. It wasn't an a priori requirement. The catastrophists also believed natural forces accounted for the geological record, they simply believed forces not seen every day were required.
Hunter claims that there are out of sequence fossils without identifying them, so I assume he is referring to the same long discredited examples that go back to George McReady Price in the 1920s. In the same paragraph, he misquotes Niles Eldridge, confusing lack of transitions at the species level with a lack of transitions above the species level.
Hunter quotes extensively from Robert Carroll, in Patterns and Processes in Vertebrate Evolution. I looked up the original source, and of course Carroll is misrepresented. Carroll is discussing various ways that patterns at the macroevolutionary level are not simple extrapolations from microevolution. In no way does he suggest the fossil record is a problem for evolution, just that different patterns emerge at different levels. Hunter implies that these are problems for evolution itself. Carroll makes five points, and Hunter misrepresents each one of them.
Hunter does say indirectly that Carroll has answers to these problems, but then says they are not compelling. He does not tell us what they are to let us decide if they are compelling. We are to take his word, and clearly nothing would be compelling to Hunter. The question of course isn't whether the seem compelling, but if they can be tested and what evidence supports it. Our imaginations are not a data point.
Hunter misrepresents punctuated equilibrium, in the usual ways. Creationists need to understand that PE is a theory of microevolution. The lack of fossil transitions are only between two very similar species (although we do have numerous good examples even at that level). There is no claim at all that there is a problem above the species level. Since all creationists accept microevolution and the emergence of new, similar species, their embrace of PE as a problem for evolution is contradictory. Hunter claims that PE lacks details of how the change would occur rapidly, but that was the whole point of PE and it is grounded in several already existing theories of speciation.
Hunter also follows standard creationists tactics in dismissing vestigial organs. He points out we can't be sure if things lack a function and that some still have a function. He does all of that, then admits that vestigial can mean a reduced function, not lack of function. If a salamander has something that clearly looks like an eye, but is blind, it has a vestigial eye. If the eye still serves a few small functions other than vision, it still is vestigial. Creationists use the complexity of the eye as proof of design for vision, so if the salamander can't see, it has the design without the function. Hunter quotes a few biologists who refer to exapted organs as vestigial, such a a penguin using its wings for swimming. I didn't check these quotes. That is not the usual way the term vestigial is used. Exapted organs are great evidence for evolution, but not vestigial. A penguin wing is exapted from the original function, but not vestigial.
Hunter then tries to use examples of convergent evolution against evolution. This is his argument: similarities (homologies) are evidence for evolution, but there are many similar organisms that aren't related. Then evolutionists explain them away as convergent evolution. So if organisms are similar or different, both are evidence for evolution. Biologists try to have it both ways. He uses the example of the convergent evolution of marsupials and placentals: there are moles, wolves, flying squirrels, etc., in both groups. (He also refers to the eyes of two species of frogs, but doesn't even mention the species or how they are similar, leave alone give a reference, so I cannot address that).
This is a basic, biology 101, mistake. Hunter seems completely unaware of the idea of analogous traits or how they are determined. Although at first a Tasmanian wolf and a gray wolf might seem similar, in fact they are very different. Kevin Padian nicely summarized this in his testimony in Kitzmiller versus Dover. He showed how these animals differ in the number of each kind of teeth, in the nasal passages, in the secondary palate, the lower jaw, and many other ways. He then showed how all of these traits are the same between a placental dog and wolf, and between an opossum and a Tasmanian Wolf. Hunter showed a complete lack of understanding on this point. In fact, the pattern of similarities, beyond the superficial, fit well with evolution and don't make any sense without it. Why should a Tasmanian wolf and an opossum be so similar, and a Tasmanian wolf and gray wolf so different?
So far Hunter has had a tendency to save his most glaring mistakes until the end of the chapter, and he doesn't disappoint here. His biggest argument seems to be that evolution explains too much. It explains both when organisms are similar and when they are different. Two replies easily come to mind with this. The first is that obviously any correct theory will do that. Would we accept any theory that explains why organisms are different but fails utterly to explain the similarities? No matter what theory we have, any theory that has been or will be proposed about life, it will try to explain why organisms are similar and why they are different. Any theory that fails in either of these will immediately be rejected.
The second, biggest irony of all, is that ID suffers from the same problem, but much more so. ID also explains all similarities and all differences between organisms (as all theories must). If that is a reason to reject evolution, then it must be a reason to reject ID. The difference is that there are many patterns of similarity that we can imagine that would disprove evolution--for example if similarities didn't fit into a nested pattern. However, there is no imaginable pattern of similarities and differences that could not be explained by ID. Which theory explains too much?
What amazes me in much of this chapter is the utter lack of detail. Hunter makes no attempt to even refer to a single fossil specimen or to any specific traits. It is much easier to dismiss evidence with a sweep of the hand rather than to get into the nitty gritty details. Any scientists knows that all of science is done with the details, so this chapter comes across as almost completely empty. The other thing missing is any attempt to come up with a positive explanation in response to the negative arguments against evolution.
Hunter first deals with the fossil evidence. He misrepresents disagreements about the rate of evolution. He seems to think that those who have argued for faster evolution, from Huxley to Gould, have argued for evolution taking genuine jumps. That is not the case. Instead, they have simply argued that there may be rapid bursts, which nevertheless go through intermediate stages. Some have argued for slightly larger steps, but still nothing more than the difference between two similar species. Hunter tries to firmly put Darwin in an extreme gradualists camp and seems to think that because of this, that's what evolution must believe. A note to all evolution deniers: Darwin got a lot wrong. That's fine with us. If an extreme gradualism of Darwin is 100% wrong, who cares? That's scientific progress. It isn't evidence against common descent. Hunter seems to think that arguments about the rate of evolution call into question common descent itself.
Hunter suggests that uniformitarianists such as Lyell "called for" natural history to be caused by natural laws, rather than that natural laws can explain natural history. It wasn't an a priori requirement. The catastrophists also believed natural forces accounted for the geological record, they simply believed forces not seen every day were required.
Hunter claims that there are out of sequence fossils without identifying them, so I assume he is referring to the same long discredited examples that go back to George McReady Price in the 1920s. In the same paragraph, he misquotes Niles Eldridge, confusing lack of transitions at the species level with a lack of transitions above the species level.
Hunter quotes extensively from Robert Carroll, in Patterns and Processes in Vertebrate Evolution. I looked up the original source, and of course Carroll is misrepresented. Carroll is discussing various ways that patterns at the macroevolutionary level are not simple extrapolations from microevolution. In no way does he suggest the fossil record is a problem for evolution, just that different patterns emerge at different levels. Hunter implies that these are problems for evolution itself. Carroll makes five points, and Hunter misrepresents each one of them.
Hunter does say indirectly that Carroll has answers to these problems, but then says they are not compelling. He does not tell us what they are to let us decide if they are compelling. We are to take his word, and clearly nothing would be compelling to Hunter. The question of course isn't whether the seem compelling, but if they can be tested and what evidence supports it. Our imaginations are not a data point.
Hunter misrepresents punctuated equilibrium, in the usual ways. Creationists need to understand that PE is a theory of microevolution. The lack of fossil transitions are only between two very similar species (although we do have numerous good examples even at that level). There is no claim at all that there is a problem above the species level. Since all creationists accept microevolution and the emergence of new, similar species, their embrace of PE as a problem for evolution is contradictory. Hunter claims that PE lacks details of how the change would occur rapidly, but that was the whole point of PE and it is grounded in several already existing theories of speciation.
Hunter also follows standard creationists tactics in dismissing vestigial organs. He points out we can't be sure if things lack a function and that some still have a function. He does all of that, then admits that vestigial can mean a reduced function, not lack of function. If a salamander has something that clearly looks like an eye, but is blind, it has a vestigial eye. If the eye still serves a few small functions other than vision, it still is vestigial. Creationists use the complexity of the eye as proof of design for vision, so if the salamander can't see, it has the design without the function. Hunter quotes a few biologists who refer to exapted organs as vestigial, such a a penguin using its wings for swimming. I didn't check these quotes. That is not the usual way the term vestigial is used. Exapted organs are great evidence for evolution, but not vestigial. A penguin wing is exapted from the original function, but not vestigial.
Hunter then tries to use examples of convergent evolution against evolution. This is his argument: similarities (homologies) are evidence for evolution, but there are many similar organisms that aren't related. Then evolutionists explain them away as convergent evolution. So if organisms are similar or different, both are evidence for evolution. Biologists try to have it both ways. He uses the example of the convergent evolution of marsupials and placentals: there are moles, wolves, flying squirrels, etc., in both groups. (He also refers to the eyes of two species of frogs, but doesn't even mention the species or how they are similar, leave alone give a reference, so I cannot address that).
This is a basic, biology 101, mistake. Hunter seems completely unaware of the idea of analogous traits or how they are determined. Although at first a Tasmanian wolf and a gray wolf might seem similar, in fact they are very different. Kevin Padian nicely summarized this in his testimony in Kitzmiller versus Dover. He showed how these animals differ in the number of each kind of teeth, in the nasal passages, in the secondary palate, the lower jaw, and many other ways. He then showed how all of these traits are the same between a placental dog and wolf, and between an opossum and a Tasmanian Wolf. Hunter showed a complete lack of understanding on this point. In fact, the pattern of similarities, beyond the superficial, fit well with evolution and don't make any sense without it. Why should a Tasmanian wolf and an opossum be so similar, and a Tasmanian wolf and gray wolf so different?
So far Hunter has had a tendency to save his most glaring mistakes until the end of the chapter, and he doesn't disappoint here. His biggest argument seems to be that evolution explains too much. It explains both when organisms are similar and when they are different. Two replies easily come to mind with this. The first is that obviously any correct theory will do that. Would we accept any theory that explains why organisms are different but fails utterly to explain the similarities? No matter what theory we have, any theory that has been or will be proposed about life, it will try to explain why organisms are similar and why they are different. Any theory that fails in either of these will immediately be rejected.
The second, biggest irony of all, is that ID suffers from the same problem, but much more so. ID also explains all similarities and all differences between organisms (as all theories must). If that is a reason to reject evolution, then it must be a reason to reject ID. The difference is that there are many patterns of similarity that we can imagine that would disprove evolution--for example if similarities didn't fit into a nested pattern. However, there is no imaginable pattern of similarities and differences that could not be explained by ID. Which theory explains too much?
What amazes me in much of this chapter is the utter lack of detail. Hunter makes no attempt to even refer to a single fossil specimen or to any specific traits. It is much easier to dismiss evidence with a sweep of the hand rather than to get into the nitty gritty details. Any scientists knows that all of science is done with the details, so this chapter comes across as almost completely empty. The other thing missing is any attempt to come up with a positive explanation in response to the negative arguments against evolution.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
On eletism and the super bowl
There is a tendency amongst skeptics and perhaps intellectuals everywhere to brag about how they don't indulge in popular past times. In one popular science blog the commenters were climbing over themselves to declare how contemptuous they are of the super bowl. The same blog demonized McDonalds and Walmart and various other aspects of popular culture, crowing about their particular esoteric tastes.
I know that popular culture can sometimes be based on the lowest common denominator and I don't think that everyone should be obsessed with the life of Paris Hilton. Some pop songs are just empty. But at least sometimes popular things are disparaged simply because they are popular or to feel superior, and sometimes immersing yourself in a common celebration is an essential part of being human. It is also necessary if we are to make science understood beyond a select group.
On the other side, Neil deGrasse Tyson described in a recent interview how he watches the super bowl even though he isn't all that into football, just because it is part of our culture and he might get something from that that will allow him to make a connection with others.
In The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht summarizes the things that have been an essential part of happiness over the centuries. In addition to knowing yourself, sex, friends, and drugs, she lists celebrations and festivals. In ancient times, bacchanalian multi day festivals were a major part of life. Probably the closest we have today is Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnival in Buenss Aires. The whole community would come together in a communal release and bonding. That has always been one component of human happiness.
At first it would seem we don't seem to have such festivals today, but Hecht points out that things like the super bowl, or the nation on its toes over a boy trapped in a well fill that niche today. It is a bit of common culture that we all indulge ourselves in. This summer I went to a parade in Jamestown. I'm not that big on parades, especially in small towns where a truck with a sign on the side might pass for a float. But thousands in the community came together and celebrated in public and I went and enjoyed it as part of that communal celebration.
If skeptics or intellectuals or scientists insist they are above popular culture, they will never reach or understand most people, and they are also missing out on one of the essentials of a good life. It's OK to let your hair down now and then and get excited about what every one else does. It's OK to watch the super bowl not because you care about the teams, but just because everyone else is. It's OK to dance the Macarena when everyone else is. It's even OK to comment on the latest celebrity gossip or trivial news story that everyone is talking about.
As a teacher, if I can make a reference to a popular movie or other aspect of popular culture, I am much more likely to make a connection and to be remembered that if I ignore the rest of culture. If we want people to care about science, the best way is to show them how it is part of the communal celebration. I wish we had more celebrations based around science or at least nature. In Austin, Texas, people gather near a bridge to watch thousands of bats emerge from under the bridge and fly about. That's cool.
Politicians today are not supposed to be seen as elite. I find that absurd. I want the best possible leader running the country, so he or she should be the best at everything they do. I want an elite running the country, not average Joe. I was repulsed when some politicians played on eletism for political points recently. But being the best doesn't mean you can't enjoy or even immerse yourself occasionally in mass culture. If that is what people mean by being elite, then I might agree. Sometimes scientists are also called an elite. Hopefully they are the elite experts in their fields. But hopefully they do not think that means they cannot eat a McDonald's hamburger while watching the super bowl.
I know that popular culture can sometimes be based on the lowest common denominator and I don't think that everyone should be obsessed with the life of Paris Hilton. Some pop songs are just empty. But at least sometimes popular things are disparaged simply because they are popular or to feel superior, and sometimes immersing yourself in a common celebration is an essential part of being human. It is also necessary if we are to make science understood beyond a select group.
On the other side, Neil deGrasse Tyson described in a recent interview how he watches the super bowl even though he isn't all that into football, just because it is part of our culture and he might get something from that that will allow him to make a connection with others.
In The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong, Jennifer Michael Hecht summarizes the things that have been an essential part of happiness over the centuries. In addition to knowing yourself, sex, friends, and drugs, she lists celebrations and festivals. In ancient times, bacchanalian multi day festivals were a major part of life. Probably the closest we have today is Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnival in Buenss Aires. The whole community would come together in a communal release and bonding. That has always been one component of human happiness.
At first it would seem we don't seem to have such festivals today, but Hecht points out that things like the super bowl, or the nation on its toes over a boy trapped in a well fill that niche today. It is a bit of common culture that we all indulge ourselves in. This summer I went to a parade in Jamestown. I'm not that big on parades, especially in small towns where a truck with a sign on the side might pass for a float. But thousands in the community came together and celebrated in public and I went and enjoyed it as part of that communal celebration.
If skeptics or intellectuals or scientists insist they are above popular culture, they will never reach or understand most people, and they are also missing out on one of the essentials of a good life. It's OK to let your hair down now and then and get excited about what every one else does. It's OK to watch the super bowl not because you care about the teams, but just because everyone else is. It's OK to dance the Macarena when everyone else is. It's even OK to comment on the latest celebrity gossip or trivial news story that everyone is talking about.
As a teacher, if I can make a reference to a popular movie or other aspect of popular culture, I am much more likely to make a connection and to be remembered that if I ignore the rest of culture. If we want people to care about science, the best way is to show them how it is part of the communal celebration. I wish we had more celebrations based around science or at least nature. In Austin, Texas, people gather near a bridge to watch thousands of bats emerge from under the bridge and fly about. That's cool.
Politicians today are not supposed to be seen as elite. I find that absurd. I want the best possible leader running the country, so he or she should be the best at everything they do. I want an elite running the country, not average Joe. I was repulsed when some politicians played on eletism for political points recently. But being the best doesn't mean you can't enjoy or even immerse yourself occasionally in mass culture. If that is what people mean by being elite, then I might agree. Sometimes scientists are also called an elite. Hopefully they are the elite experts in their fields. But hopefully they do not think that means they cannot eat a McDonald's hamburger while watching the super bowl.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
