Science is not philosophy
John Moore, National Post Published: Monday, June 23, 2008
You have to admire the integrity of conspiracy theories. They're great Mobius strips of self-contained false reasoning and evidence able to contort to meet any external challenge to the perfection of their closed loops. Sept. 11 deniers will insist a lack of plane wreckage on the apron of the Pentagon is proof the building was struck by a missile. Show them a photograph of an engine lying on the lawn and they'll exclaim "Aha! That was planted!"
And so it is with the conspiracy laid out in the new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed hosted by the droll economist/actor/game show host/Republican Ben Stein. Expelled posits that the entire scientific establishment is enslaved to the theory of evolution, and in order to protect the Darwinian temple it engages in an ongoing campaign to crush all challenges to its "religion." The principal victim of this rearguard action is the would-be challenging theory called Intelligent Design (ID).
ID is often referred to as Creationism light. In fact it's more Creationism in drag. Though its proponents claim scientific neutrality, they are usually overtly religious people affiliated with overtly religious institutions. They have written essays and books about why ID is science. And yet when all the sophistry is boiled down, the theory amounts to "living things are complicated. Some-one must have made them."
It may be a sublime idea worthy of religious and philosophical contemplation, but it fails to meet the definition of science. It can't be proven and it can't be tested. Complaining that science won't take ID seriously is like grieving the fact that mathematicians won't consider a flower pot to be a number.
The denial of the imprimatur of science on ID is the source of its proponents' assumed victimhood and the wellspring from which most of Ben Stein's movie draws its inspiration. We're introduced to a half-dozen individuals whom he contends were "destroyed" for promoting ID. A deeper probe into their cases reveals that far from wide-eyed innocents most of them set out to stir up trouble.
Professor Richard Sternberg is famous for having ensured the first ever publication of an Intelligent Design paper in a scientific journal. He claims he was fired and defamed in retaliation. The evidence reveals Sternberg is an active promoter of ID, the paper had no business being in the journal and he was never fired. He and other proponents of ID did get a lot of nasty e-mail. Welcome to the modern world. Mother Theresa got hate mail.
Journalist Pamela Winnick tells Stein, "If you give any credence to Intelligent Design, you are finished as a journalist." Winnick says she was sacked from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette over a news item that gave favourable treatment to ID in 2000. In fact she continued to publish in the Gazette and is found in the pages of respected newspapers to this day. She also wrote and had published a book titled, A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion.
The natural reaction of any reasonable person to these persecutions (were they true) is "this is terrible. Why doesn't anyone do anything to help these people?" Which brings us to the closing of the conspiracy loop. Expelled maintains the containment of ID is the concerted action of scientists, academic journals, the courts and the media. Yes, this column is further proof of the conspiracy.
Expelled is at its most risible when it tries to establish a direct line from Darwin to eugenics and genocide. Stein quotes from a passage in Darwin's writing that appears to endorse the notion that for a species to thrive the infirm must be culled. He omits the part where Darwin insists this would be "evil" and that man's care for the weak is "the noblest part of our nature." When I asked Stein about this on my radio show he deadpanned, "If any Darwin fans are listening and we have misquoted him we are sorry we don't mean to diss Darwin."
The core of the religious complaint against evolution rests on a false syllogism: Darwin leads automatically to atheism which leads to a world without moral order; therefore science is the enemy of God.
It's a maddening false supposition because while scientists are free to believe in God (and an estimated 40% do) science itself remains neutral. Expelled cribs from the Michael Moore school of documentary film making, masking advocacy journalism as neutral storytelling deviously transforming science's neutrality into hostility.
It is often observed that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you. It is equally true that when everyone insists you are wrong about something it doesn't necessarily mean they're engaged in an elaborate conspiracy. You could just be wrong. - John Moore is the drive home host on Toronto's Newstalk 1010 CFRB. Outside of Southern Ontario he can be heard at Home Page | CFRB.
John Moore, National Post Published: Monday, June 23, 2008
You have to admire the integrity of conspiracy theories. They're great Mobius strips of self-contained false reasoning and evidence able to contort to meet any external challenge to the perfection of their closed loops. Sept. 11 deniers will insist a lack of plane wreckage on the apron of the Pentagon is proof the building was struck by a missile. Show them a photograph of an engine lying on the lawn and they'll exclaim "Aha! That was planted!"
And so it is with the conspiracy laid out in the new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed hosted by the droll economist/actor/game show host/Republican Ben Stein. Expelled posits that the entire scientific establishment is enslaved to the theory of evolution, and in order to protect the Darwinian temple it engages in an ongoing campaign to crush all challenges to its "religion." The principal victim of this rearguard action is the would-be challenging theory called Intelligent Design (ID).
ID is often referred to as Creationism light. In fact it's more Creationism in drag. Though its proponents claim scientific neutrality, they are usually overtly religious people affiliated with overtly religious institutions. They have written essays and books about why ID is science. And yet when all the sophistry is boiled down, the theory amounts to "living things are complicated. Some-one must have made them."
It may be a sublime idea worthy of religious and philosophical contemplation, but it fails to meet the definition of science. It can't be proven and it can't be tested. Complaining that science won't take ID seriously is like grieving the fact that mathematicians won't consider a flower pot to be a number.
The denial of the imprimatur of science on ID is the source of its proponents' assumed victimhood and the wellspring from which most of Ben Stein's movie draws its inspiration. We're introduced to a half-dozen individuals whom he contends were "destroyed" for promoting ID. A deeper probe into their cases reveals that far from wide-eyed innocents most of them set out to stir up trouble.
Professor Richard Sternberg is famous for having ensured the first ever publication of an Intelligent Design paper in a scientific journal. He claims he was fired and defamed in retaliation. The evidence reveals Sternberg is an active promoter of ID, the paper had no business being in the journal and he was never fired. He and other proponents of ID did get a lot of nasty e-mail. Welcome to the modern world. Mother Theresa got hate mail.
Journalist Pamela Winnick tells Stein, "If you give any credence to Intelligent Design, you are finished as a journalist." Winnick says she was sacked from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette over a news item that gave favourable treatment to ID in 2000. In fact she continued to publish in the Gazette and is found in the pages of respected newspapers to this day. She also wrote and had published a book titled, A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion.
The natural reaction of any reasonable person to these persecutions (were they true) is "this is terrible. Why doesn't anyone do anything to help these people?" Which brings us to the closing of the conspiracy loop. Expelled maintains the containment of ID is the concerted action of scientists, academic journals, the courts and the media. Yes, this column is further proof of the conspiracy.
Expelled is at its most risible when it tries to establish a direct line from Darwin to eugenics and genocide. Stein quotes from a passage in Darwin's writing that appears to endorse the notion that for a species to thrive the infirm must be culled. He omits the part where Darwin insists this would be "evil" and that man's care for the weak is "the noblest part of our nature." When I asked Stein about this on my radio show he deadpanned, "If any Darwin fans are listening and we have misquoted him we are sorry we don't mean to diss Darwin."
The core of the religious complaint against evolution rests on a false syllogism: Darwin leads automatically to atheism which leads to a world without moral order; therefore science is the enemy of God.
It's a maddening false supposition because while scientists are free to believe in God (and an estimated 40% do) science itself remains neutral. Expelled cribs from the Michael Moore school of documentary film making, masking advocacy journalism as neutral storytelling deviously transforming science's neutrality into hostility.
It is often observed that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you. It is equally true that when everyone insists you are wrong about something it doesn't necessarily mean they're engaged in an elaborate conspiracy. You could just be wrong. - John Moore is the drive home host on Toronto's Newstalk 1010 CFRB. Outside of Southern Ontario he can be heard at Home Page | CFRB.
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