Creating Excuses

I’ve been reading a lot of other blogs and postings lately regarding the theory of evolution vs. creationism/intelligent design. Anyone who’s read my archives knows my feelings on the matter. However, I’ve finally found a way to articulate the difference between the THEORY of evolution, and the NOTION of creationism.

To develop the theory of evolution, scientists looked at the facts available, and tried to imagine an explanation that would cover them.

To develop the notion of intelligent design, theists determined that a Creator was responsible for the world around them, and then identified specific facts and arguments that supported it.

That’s it. And to me, it explains so much. For instance, a lot of the IDer arguments against evolution hinge on holes in the research – gaps in the fossil record, lack of a detailed chain of alterations for a complicated survival mechanism, and so forth. The concept that a hole in the research might later be filled by new research is lost on them – to a creationist, a failure to completely explain every detail is a failure of the theory as a whole. From their viewpoint, and with their base assumptions, this might even be reasonable. After all, their theory DOES explain every detail – God did it. (For IDers, an unnamed Creator did it.)

Of course, that attitude causes the other major disconnect that leads to long useless arguments between the two sides. Creationists can ignore or minimize the importance of any contrary evidence by again turning to God. This leads me to another conclusion:

A valid test of the intellectual honesty of a person or position is to ask what it would take to prove them wrong.

For a scientist, the answer is easy – provide convincing data that contradicts the established theory. Such events have occurred in the past – the terra-centric view of the Solar System gave way to the helio-centric. The theory of a solid Earth was supplanted by plate tectonics. Newtonian physics has been replaced by Einsteinian physics, and further refined by even more esoteric theories. I note that in many cases, individual scientists failed to adapt their beliefs to new theories, but as they retired or died, the newer theories have become generally accepted as experimental or other evidence provided support. This is true of evolution, as well. The basic concepts from Darwin’s The Origin of Species have been refined over time as scientists have gained a better understanding of the mechanics of evolution.

But what would it take to prove a creationist wrong? I have yet to find any evidence, no matter how overwhelming, that can shake the faith of a committed theist. For example, the Creation Museum and its parent organization, Answers in Genesis, make the claim that hundreds of feet of rock in multiple layers were all deposited during the Great Flood. (Examples: chalk cliffs and rock and fossils.) The fact that some of those layers are igneous or metamorphic, surrounded by multiple layers of sedimentary, is conveniently ignored in favor of the idea that it all came about as a result of the Flood.

The evidence of species changing as a result of selection is fairly obvious in domesticated animals – for example, the Chihuahua and the St. Bernard. But, creationists reply, that’s merely MICRO-evolution. They haven’t completely differentiated into new species yet, because they can still interbreed! (Mind you, those puppies are unlikely to be born alive, but mere fertilization qualifies them as the same species.) Of course, the idea that such micro-evolution could eventually lead to actual species differentiation is considered absurd – there is apparently a barrier between species that cannot be broken, no matter how different the breeds become.

Other creationists cry out, “If life can form independently, then why can’t that be replicated in the lab? You can’t take a beaker of chemicals, swirl them around, and have a microbe or a virus appear…so it couldn’t have happened!” In this, they ignore the wonders of small odds vs. large numbers. We’ve been trying such things for a few years – maybe even a few decades – in some small number of labs, in some relatively small number of beakers. The universe provided a large, possibly infinite number of planets, and several billion years for a result to occur – and so far, we only have evidence that it happened once. That’s even worse than lottery odds…and yet, sooner or later, SOMEONE always ends up taking home the jackpot. But let’s take their side for a moment – does that mean that if we do at some point manage to create life in the lab, they’ll shut up?

It turns out that scientists at the University of New York at Stony Brook did just that. In July 2002. That’s five years ago. Any signs of the creationists shutting up? Well, that Creation Museum just opened this year – I’d take that as a “no.”

So…what will it take to get a creationist to admit he’s wrong?

Survival of the Nicest

I read an Atlas Society interview with Michael Shermer, the author of The Science of Good and Evil. Dr. Shermer made some comments that really clarified for me my own beliefs in rational ethics. I believe that ethics and morality can be explained through the basic mechanics of evolution.

For example, let’s postulate a lone hunter-gatherer – a caveman. (Creationists, you can play along, too – I don’t see a lot of difference between the lifestyle of my lone caveman and that of Adam’s son Abel. Or assume a less-famous person from 100 years after Abel’s death, if you prefer.) This one person is solely responsible for feeding himself. He has no one else to take care of, and is free to consider anyone else he meets as a victim to be robbed, or even as prey to kill. Survival of the fittest, right?

Wrong. Let’s further assume that his two nearest neighbors have banded together. If they’re hunting, they can watch one another’s back, or one can flush game while the other lies in wait. They can guard each other while sleeping. Most especially, they can come at our lone hunter from two directions if combat becomes necessary. A pair of partners is “more fit” for that environment, and is more likely to survive.

The same logic applies to larger groups – a small band can hunt larger animals, more easily defend against other individuals or groups, and may even be able to produce enough excess food to support a non-productive person. That person may be the old chief, too old to hunt, but still able to pass on his years of experience. Or a dreamer – who, in his spare time, comes up with fire, or the wheel, or the bow. The band can even continue to support the children of a hunter who dies…which means that his DNA lives on. Again, this more cooperative hunter is more fit to survive and reproduce.

And so on up to villages, cities, nations. A person who can function in and provide benefit to a society is more fit to survive and to pass his genes on to the next generation. Functioning within a society requires the ability to get along with people, and to obey the laws of that society – and in general, those laws are rooted in ethical and moral behavior.

This sort of reasoning applies to more than just grouping people, of course. A society that is rooted in ethical behavior provides more benefits to itself and to the individuals within it – making it superior in any competition between societies. A slave society cannot compete with a free society, because slaves are not as productive as freemen – and yet they still have to be fed and cared for. Admittedly, the slaves don’t cost as much to feed or maintain as their masters, but the extra cost of guarding them, chasing down or killing runaways or rebellious slaves, and so on, eats up extra resources – enough extra to make a free society more productive on a per capita basis. In other words, behavior that benefits a subgroup, but hurts the society as a whole, is NOT as competitive.

Communism would seem to be the endpoint of such societal evolution – after all, “to each according to need, from each according to ability” would be the ultimate in cooperative society. However, unlike the other advances I mentioned, Communism provides benefits to the society ONLY – it does not directly provide benefits to the individuals that comprise it. That “need and ability” equation means the individual gets the same reward for working hard or slacking off, for inventiveness and creativity or for mindless drudgery – and of course, working hard or creatively is tougher. To generalize again, behavior that benefits society, but hurts the individual, is also not as competitive. This is why the Soviet Union fell apart, and why China is still second in the world for Gross Domestic Product, despite having four and a half times the population of the U.S.

So once again, ethics and morality in general make just as much sense to a rational atheist as they do to a theist – albeit with some disagreement on what issues should be included. It isn’t much…but for the good of our society and ourselves, maybe that could provide some common ground.

The Cosmic Cue Ball

I was pretty rough on the "Intelligent Design" movement last time - and I stand by that. To me, the ID concept is a thinly veiled attempt to get Creationism back in the schools as a wedge to eventually get back to teaching Christianity as part of the curriculum. What bothers me is not so much the lack of science involved - I don't expect modern scientific rigor from a "theory" based on a 3000-year old book. It bothers me more to think that the people behind ID really believe we're that stupid. Unfortunately, they're probably correct, on average, but I'll leave that for another entry...

However, I've often heard a concept that could be termed Intelligent Design that intrigues me. I don't know the source of it, but I suspect I first heard it from my dad, and we discussed it again in a late night philosophical discussion (is there any other kind of philosophical discussion?) during my recent visit. I like to call the idea "The Cosmic Cue Ball."

In short, let's assume that mainstream scientific theory is all true - the Big Bang, expanding out to make the universe, matter cooling, forming galaxies, stars, planets, and so on. Add in Evolution here on Earth to get life and eventually intelligent life. No matter how you look at it, there are some pretty unlikely chances occurring in that series of events. That can be explained by random chance - after all, in an infinite universe, it had to happen somewhere. But of course, there's really no good explanation for how the Big Bang got started in the first place. So, let's postulate an external source for the Big Bang - and since we've done so, let's explain some of those unlikely chances, too, by further assuming that it was intentional. Not only did this source cause the Monobloc to explode, it did so it just such a way as to cause the formation of everything we know today - including ourselves. Imagine a billiards shot on a table the size of the universe - if I hit it just there, with exactly this english on the ball, then this particle will hit there, and that one there, and so on, to the billionth upon billionth power...eventually leading, not as chance, but as a result of skillful intent, to a universe bearing life.

While I don't necessarily accept this concept, it does explain one thing that Big Bang and Evolution do not cover sufficiently for me - there doesn't seem to be anybody else out there. In the standard theory, we have to accept that either all other intelligent races are too far away to contact, or that by chance, we really are the first, or even ONLY race to develop. In the Cosmic Cue Ball theory, we can assume that Intelligent Life (or a side effect of our existence yet to be determined) was the goal...and the Ultimate Pool Shark didn't necessarily need two races to make the shot.

As long as I'm on about Intelligent Design again, check out today's Non Sequitur.