« Pressure Mounts on DeLay | Main | Behind Enemy Lines »

March 14, 2005
Again: Religion is Not Science

I've made my position on this crap clear before, but whenever I come across an article like this one, I can't help but reiterate, once again, that religion is not science.

It literally makes me a little sick to my stomach to think that people are making progress at getting the idea that evolution is unproven out there and into the science classes of our children.

Let's be perfectly clear about this: Evolution is a fact. It is only a theory in the sense that everything known to science is strictly speaking, "only" a theory. There is no absolute truth in science, but there are many scientific truths. That is, there are many "facts" about the natural world that it would simply be absurd to deny.

When you drop a brick on Earth, it will fall to the ground. You can rely on that. It's possible, however, that one day you'll drop a brick and it will just hover there. The chances are incredibly slim, but it is possible. This, of course, does not call the fact of the existence of gravity into question is any relevant way.

The same is true of evolution. While there is plenty to debate about the mechanism by which evolution takes place, there is no debate over whether or not organisms evolve. They do. That's it. They do. We've seen it.

Evolution is a fact and a theory. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.

Stephen J. Gould

Or this...

The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ...

So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.

H. J. Muller (quoted on talkorigins.org)

Compare these reasoned arguments with the argument of Southern Baptist minister Terry Fox of Kansas...

"... most people in Kansas don't think we came from monkeys."

Washington Post

So here's the choice we face right now: Do we want our children to be taught the basic natural science that has been tested and proven by generations of natural scientists using rigorous scientific methods, or do we want them to learn ideas that have met the truth standard of "what most people in Kansas think"?

seal of approval

Posted by ahecht at March 14, 2005 11:33 AM
Comments

Previous Comments

I rarelyagree with you. But on some level I do here. I have a running argument with my sister, who one might say is a hardcore atheist, on the topic of religion and the public. People of her ilk remind of those who have been oppressed so long that they forget that to oppress others is wrong and that we should not punish those in the mainstream who hold these beleifs becuase of the vocal minority. Just like I don't punish the mainstream liberals when their lunatic fringe screams their babble.

Posted by: Mike at March 14, 2005 1:11 PM

Playing devils advocate here... What if the parents don't want something taught to their children, or do. How Do we weigh the parents rights against each other?

Posted by: Mike at March 14, 2005 4:44 PM

It depends on what it is that they don't want taught. If they object to established scientific principles being taught, tough shit. If their arguments or disagreements with the curriculum are more nuanced, they can bring it up with the school boards, which have processes for dealing with the finer points of the lesson plans.

The point is that their objections should be evaluated on their MERITS, not on the vehemence of their objection or on their religious fervor. The issue at the center of this particular debate is a matter of scientific fact, and that's that. If the parents don't want their children to learn science, they can send them to religious school.

It is not the right of a minority of loud parents to dictate what is taught in the public schools. The public naturally has a say, but at certain places lines must be drawn. Majority rule is not the essence of democracy, reasoned debate is.

My major problem with this issue is simply that it's all a lie. Heavily funded and well-organized groups on the right are manipulating and encouraging mistaken ideas about the nature of scientific investigation to serve their own purposes. Religious doctrine has no place in the public schools, and that's all that this stuff is, no matter how they try to dress it up.

Posted by: Anthony at March 14, 2005 8:31 PM