Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site uwmacc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Response to the Frontline Message-ID: <1095@uwmacc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-May-85 13:56:34 EDT Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1095 Posted: Fri May 17 13:56:34 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 19-May-85 08:26:16 EDT Distribution: net Organization: UW-Madision Primate Center Lines: 497 I would like to thank Duncan Buell for posting an extremely clearly stated and well-written article on the nature of creation and evolution theory. Naturally I have some disagreement with him, but his thoughtful and thought-provoking posting certainly deserves a response. He begins: > I have been forwarded 600K bytes of net.origins, and have > read it through fairly carefully. (I am not on the > appropriate network, so I get things forwarded.) And I have > some comments for all of you, comments which I hope you will > all take seriously. I promise. > Practically everyone on this list > spends most of his time in picking nits of one sort or > other. You would be amazed to see the list in the large > chunks that I see, with double and triple and quadruple quo- > tations and responses, going on for a number of lines, all > leading up to a one line comment which is the new material. > Only very rarely is there any real discussion or coherent > presentation of ideas. Unfortunately true. (I am as guilty of this as anyone.) Just an aside here: if anyone has access to it, try to get hold of "Is Evolution Proved?", edited by Arnold Lunn. (Hollis and Carter, London, 1947) It is in the form of a debate via correspondence, between Douglas Dewar and H S Shelton. This book is particularly interesting in that it has a number of characteristics found in this newsgroup. For example, the struggle to understand what the other side is saying, the stuggle to keep from misrepresenting the other point of view, the allegations that such-and-such is evidence for/against creation/evolution, the counter-allegations that it isn't...on and on. The similarities are quite striking. > With that introduction, what I will now present better be > coherent, I guess. You succeeded. I hope to do half as well below. > In the recent past, the creationists were asked to state > their position. As examples, the CRS doctrinal statement > was posted, and at least three people said that they would > sign it. More recently, someone suggested that the evolu- > tionists haven't presented their position, so why should the > creationists have to do so. The suggestion was not that. Rather, it was that creationists have in fact presented their position, and that the evolutionists should do the same. I agree with this, conditionally. For instance, Ray and Dan in particular have been pretty clear about their position. Lief too. Ron seems to be presenting his position by virtue of posting the "Evidences" series. Evolutionists do not *accept* their position, but it is untrue to say that they have not *given* it. The reason that my agreement is only conditional is that since I have not formulated any specifics, it is of course quite valid to say that at least one creationist (i.e., myself) has not presented a clear position. Still, it remains true that most evolutionists in this newsgroup are much more like myself in this respect than they might like to admit. We know that they believe in evolution, but very little beyond that. I know that this statement arouses anger or disbelief, but when one examines evolutionist articles, very few of them say anything of substance beyond the basic belief that evolution occurred. (That is, very little besides speculative or extremely debatable interpretive comment is offered.) This observation does not apply universally to every evolutionist in the group, but it does apply to a fair number. > Evolution and its > correctness or incorrectness, either or both in its general > explanation of the nature of history and its specific > description of what caused the turns of events to take > place, is independent of the assumption of the existence of > God/a god/supernatural power. It is, or should be, like all > science, a description of what happens/happened, answering > the questions of "what" and not "why." The best > demonstration of its independence from theology is the fact > that it can be accepted by members and nonmembers of all but > the very narrowest of religious organizations. One obtains, then, at best, a catalog of phenomena. I disagree with this entirely. I submit that no one actually practices science without asking the question "why", and if this is true, your formulation cannot be accepted *except* by very narrowly focussed individuals. I also thing the dichotomy between "why" and "what" questions is false to some extent. "Why does the apple fall to the ground" and "what accounts for the fact that the apple falls to the ground" are essentially the same question, even though one is a "what" and the other is a "why". However, accepting the proposition for the moment, let us see what can be done with it... > Evolution, > like all good science, is supposed to make the following > basic assumptions about the rules of the game: > 1. There is to be no appeal to supernatural power; all > forces acting are assumed to be natural forces, and all > deductions are assumed to be the best deductions possi- > ble given the observed facts and our current technology > for observation. > 2. We assume a basic consistency of the rules of the game; > the rules remain constant over time, so that reproduci- > bility of experiments is required. Taking the question of "what" happened, then, look at it this way: (i) All forms of life (except the first one(s)) developed from previously existing forms over a period of time. (ii) All forms of life appeared suddenly on the face of the earth (perhaps not all at once). Neither of these hypotheses invokes a supernatural creator. Granted, if (ii) were accepted, then perhaps many, even most, people would attribute the sudden appearance to such a creator. But that has nothing to do with the investigation of "what" happened, and cannot be helped. What makes (ii) less "scientific" as a hypothesis? It can be investigated, it can be evaluated in light of the evidence, predictions can be made from it, etc. (One may not believe that it is supported by the facts. But that is a different question.) Now, a legitimate objection that may be raised at this point is that (ii) is not creationism at all, or it if is, it is of a rather gutted character, since no supernatural creator is involved. Perhaps so, but on the other hand, it does seem that the most logical inference from the conclusion that life forms appeared suddenly on this planet (could such a conclusion be established) would be that something put them there. Little green men, for instance. For consideration of the origins of life *on earth only*, this is creation. And it does not involve the supernatural. (I must confess that I am not entirely happy with this, however. Who could keep from wondering about the origin of the little green men?) Note that some evolutionists here have claimed that evolution is in fact a theory which is restricted to the origin of life on earth. This claim has usually been made in response to being asked the question of how the universe arose (or some similar question) by creationists. But if one really wishes to take refuge in this response, one must then (by the reasoning in the last couple of paragraphs) admit to the logical possibility of an investigation that may lead to the conclusion of non-supernatural creation. By backing into that particular corner, the evolutionist loses what many evolutionists apparently consider to be their strongest philosophical weapon against the creationist: the accusation of supernaturalism. > Creationism, on the other hand, cannot be so separated. > (Whether it is correct or incorrect is quite another > matter.) It has a quite different basic assumption. Paul > Dubois signs his postings, I suspect, to indicate his reli- > gious beliefs. I do indeed. That shows nothing, however, since my .signatures often bear less of an association to the content of my postings than even my titles! (One might just as well suppose that these sometimes tenuous relationships are instances of the bizarre associations symptomatic of the schizophrenic mind. Ditto the excessive literalness of interpretation of which I have sometimes been accused (concreteness also being a characteristic of schizophrenia). Support for this hypothesis comes from the observations (i) that I used to take a lot of LSD and (ii) that such activity often produces clinical symptoms very similar to certain sorts of mental disorders, such as schizophrenia.) > Dave Brown (I think I got that right) admits > that he accepts creationism on faith. Lief Sorenson has > written a similar statement. That is to say, a NECESSARY > condition for the validity of creationism is the existence > of the aforementioned God/god/supernatural power. One can- > not accept the validity of creationism without believing in > the existence of that God/god/supernatural power as a "crea- > tor." Without a supernatural power, supernatural action can- > not take place. If that is so, then a logical consequence of this in regard to the origin of life in general is that evolution, by virtue of faith in the nonexistence of a supernatural power (or, alternatively, faith in the sufficiency of naturalistic explanation), simply *must* have occurred. Abstract supernaturalism does not (that is, cannot) rule out evolution a priori. Naturalism, however, leaves no choice. It must conclude for evolution. The conclusion is inherent in the premises. So evolution turns out not to be a scientific question at all, because it is not *any* kind of question. It is an inescapable conclusion of a logical proposition. "Laboratories need not apply for this position." Ome may still wish to do research into particulars, but there is no need to pretend that the conclusion has not already been drawn. > This, then is the heart of the matter. All the evolution- > ists have to do to totally disprove creationism is to prove > the nonexistence of God/god/supernatural power. And the > FIRST thing that the creationists MUST do is prove the > existence. This is a good point, and one worth serious reflection. At the risk of sounding obtuse, however, I will disagree with it. One can, for instance, work within a framework in which that assumption is made, without any particular commitment one way or the other as to whether the assumption is true. One may also simply begin with the evidence and be led to the inference that certain aspects of it are most plausibly attributed to supernatural agency. Another alternative, if one is willing to limit oneself to consideration of the origin of life on earth only (as discussed above), is that life was created by an external, non-supernatural agency. > This, after all, is the way that a mathematician > (which I am, some of the time), would work. When confronted > with a particularly knotty problem, one of the first things > to do, before attempting a long and difficult proof, is to > convince oneself that there is some hope. If the necessary > conditions cannot be met, there's no point in going further. > If, on the other hand, the necessary conditions are met, > nothing is proved except the noninconsistency of the > evidence--but we all feel a little more assured that a proof > might be possible. > Now, why aren't the evolutionists going after the disproof? > On the one hand, I have talked myself into a corner, since > it would appear that there is a way to settle this matter > once and for all. On the other hand, this would be a tall > order. How, by the observation of natural forces, making > deductions based on the assumption of the nonexistence of > supernatural power, does one prove the nonexistence? One > cannot. This is an old argument, going back to Descartes. > Scientific methods can neither prove nor disprove the > existence of supernatural power. This is why scientific arguments can make no statement (that is, no absolute statement) that things are not due to supernatural causes. Or due to them. And that is why the question must be left open and the possibility not ruled out. Otherwise one has decided that something cannot be true because it simply cannot be true, according to premises that rule out the possibility. Which premises, all agree, cannot be proved. > Any action of supernatural > power, whether past or present, must only be interpreted as > aberrations in the reproducibility of experiments (or falsi- > fiability of hypotheses, which is the other side of the same > coin) and indicate that one's formulated explanation is not > sufficiently complete, that some relevant variable has not > yet been accounted for. In other words, by explicitly ruling out the possibility of the supernatural, one commits oneself to a view that will inevitably build in error if the supernatural is encountered (an eventuality which cannot (scientifically) be ruled out), a view that will not ever consider whether it might be more prudent in some cases to accept this possibility. I find this profoundly disturbing, even in my occasional rational moments. I do not advocate wholesale import of supernatural agencies into our explanations, but it seems to me that to consciously and deliberately introduce what is known will be a source of error in the event of such occurrences is suicidal. This might just be my creationist knee jerking, but I'm inclined to doubt it. I think that this is a serious intellectual problem with the naturalistic viewpoint. > And why don't the creationists go after the proof of the > existence of this power? The problem I see with the direc- > tion of this discussion is that the creationists are being > allowed to discuss small points and minor side effects, > instead of being forced to prove that they have any hope of > holding dear a valid explanation for the observed facts. > Henry Morris specifically cops out on the scientific proof > of the existence of the Creator in his *Scientific Creation- > ism.* As you yourself observed above, no scientific proof or disproof of this proposition is possible. If you cannot prove the creator to nonexist, then it does no good to observe, as though it puts your own argument at an advantage, that Morris cannot prove his assumption either. This would be exactly analogous to my claiming to have scored a point by observing that evolutionists do not specify their position very clearly. (It is true that they do not, for the most part, but then neither have I, so while it is worthwhile to point this out, I would certainly be in error to suppose that by doing so I gain anything for my own arguments. I have never been under this particular illusion.) > As has been pointed out by numerous anti-creationists, > Morris has started his celebrated document by stating that > his fundamental assumption cannot be scientifically proved. In other words, he has agreed with what you have said. > That is to say, all of science can be brought to bear on all > questions except the one on which all else depends. That's > a neat trick, but it shouldn't hold water. Again using > mathematical analogies, it is common practice when one is > faced with a knotty problem that one cannot solve to change > the problem slightly into one that can be solved. To some > extent this "works" professionally, allowing papers to be > published, tenure to be achieved, and so forth, but it > doesn't solve the original problem. Unfortunately the naturalistic viewpoint starts with the equally unprovable assumption that naturalistic processes and principles are sufficient to explain all phenomena. But how can that be known? I understand what you are saying. Can the evolutionist think the converse thought with the mind of the creationist for a moment and see how the criticism applies in both directions? > The fundamental intellectual and scientific problem with > creationism is that its basic assumption lies outside the > bounds of science, so that scientists don't bother with it, > and that creationists (and the dichotomy is entirely > intended) attempt to define the problem out of existence by > insisting that one must "take it on faith." > Faith, I must re-emphasize, is religious. Naturalism has faith as well, as indicated above: The faith that the supernatural may be ignored and that naturalistic explanations are or will be sufficient. This is unprovable. It too must be taken on faith. If the supernatural does not exist, then of course the inference is valid. If it does, the inference is invalid. The inference in no way helps us to decide on the existence or non-existence. Neither does the opposite inference. > It doesn't matter at all how many nits you pick nor how many > Archaeopteryx can dance on the DNA of a Drosophila. If the > basic creationist postulate about the existence of a Creator > is false, then all that can be done is show that there are > flaws in the current theories. No creationist argument > about holes in evolutionary theory can prove anything about > the validity of creationism unless the Creator can be shown > to exist. As a mathematician you should know that X can be proved by showing that not-X must be false. If life did not evolve (life in general) what else is there? > So, to go back to the issue of what is held to be "creation- > ism" and what is held to be "evolution," I'd be willing to > bet that all the evolution side would agree to some version > of my two rules above (suitably modified by committee to > take into account some points I may have overlooked). Will > the creation side admit that their basic necessary condition > is the existence of a Creator, and that, absent belief in > that Creator, it is impossible to be a creationist? It is impossible to actually *be* a (certain sort of) creationist without that belief, I suppose. But it is not impossible to adopt creationism as an investigative hypothesis without the belief, just as it is possible to adopt evolution as an investigative hypothesis even if one doesn't believe in it. I do it regularly. All creationists should. If evolutionists cannot do the reverse, then I can understand why they find it difficult to conceive of creationism as a valid starting point. But that is their lack of imagination, not mine. It is definitely possible to consider creationism as an abstract proposition with no personal belief implied - EVEN if one personally DOES believe it. This is the heart of it, isn't it? No law is saying that children are to be forced to *be* creationists - only that they are to be given the opportunity to see how the evidence looks from a creationist viewpoint. Just as no law is forcing children to *be* evolutionists, only giving them an opportunity to view the evidence from that point of view. But that is the only point of view they will see, currently. The ACLU said during the days of the Scopes trial that it is sheer bigotry to teach only one view of origins. I guess it's different when the shoe is on the other foot. It seems to me that most evolutionists are simply unable to separate the concepts of personal belief and scientific investigation, when it comes to creationism. Being unable to think in "creationist mode" because they do not personally believe it, they cannot see how it can possibly be worthy of consideration. Even if creationism is *not* taught, it is very *bad* science to teach evolution without presenting the evidence that doesn't fit it very well. This evidence certainly is not presented. Our children are given this nice fairy tale about the horse, and about the peppered moth, and other such examples. They are not told about the gaps, the dismal failures and fakes, the massive difficulties in establishing ancestral relationships, and other blemishes. They get a finished (and hence false in many ways) product...is *that* what is called good science education? Not in my book. It bears little resemblance to the excitement and challenge of science, or to the real status of evolutionary theory. > And > then, is it not clear that we really DO have a religious > discussion going on? Brown and Sorenson admit as much; they > are at least quite honest about it. As Judge Duplantier > wrote, "As it is ordinarily understood, the term "creation" > means the bringing into existence of mankind and of the > universe and implies a divine creator. While all religions > may not teach the existence of a supreme being, a belief in > a supreme being (a creator) is generally considered to be a > religious tenet." Can the creationists on this list separate > their arguments from their religion? I suggest that they > cannot. I can, and do. Regularly. Not all creationists can, unfortunately. This inability of proponents of one side to think from within the framework of the other is where the real political conflict arises, I think. I personally will be more interested in the statements in the last quoted paragraph when it is demonstrated that any of my arguments are religious. I am the falsification of those statements -- Ugh! That sounds pretentious, doesn't it? > Now, a final pair of comments. Judge Duplantier, in his > ruling, said that he was interpreting the Louisiana "bal- > anced treatment" law as mandating the teaching of creation- > ism, since it mandated the teaching of creationism if a sub- > ject (evolution) were taught which could not be forbidden to > be taught (Epperson case). The ACLU in New Orleans tells me > that it is possible to interpret Judge Duplantier's judge- > ment as saying, not only that the mandating of the teaching > of creationism violates the First Amendment, but that the > voluntary teaching of creationism violates the First Amend- > ment, since the Judge quite clearly says that creationism is > a religious belief which is part of the religious doctrine > of specific sects. Well, assuming for the sake of argument that the Constitution says that you can't teach religion in school (although it didn't say that until the twentieth century...(By the way, I'm not advocating such teaching, only saying that I'm not at all convinced the Constitution forbids it)), I would make the following remarks: This statement that "creationism is a religious belief which is part of the religious doctrine of specific sects" is not the issue, and such a formulation of the issue is manifestly false. The issue is not whether a particular viewpoint can be found to be congruent with the beliefs of some religion. If it were, evolution could not be taught, since it is an *explicit* tenet of secular humanism which, according to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, is a religion. (The ACLU does not often mention this.) The issue is whether a viewpoint must necessarily be religious. Evolution does not satisfy this, we are told, and so can be taught in our anesthetic (religiously-cleansed) school systems. Creationism also does not satisfy this. One can adopt a creator as a hypothesis. One can even personally believe *that there is* a creator, without being religious. When one personally *believes in* a creator, one becomes religious. But even then, one does not *have* to approach scientific questions in that frame of mind. Just as one does not *have* to say, at the merest hint of a difficult in a theory, "God must have done it that way and we'll never understand." [Take from earlier in article, but fits in my response better here] > In the recent case in Louisiana, in which the appeal is > scheduled for about July, the creationist side presented > over a thousand pages of argument about the nature of "sci- > ence." I submit that that indeed is the ENTIRE question at > hand here. However, unlike the creationist side, I have to > agree with Judge Duplantier and his summary judgement. In > granting summary judgement, the judge in effect stated that > there were no questions of fact left to be determined and > hence no reason for a trial. All the relevant facts needed > for a decision (as to religious nature of creationism and > its mandated teaching) were at hand. ...it should be clear that I believe there are good reasons for disagreeing with Judge Duplantier. (Even if he *does* have a french name!) ---- I will point out some things that this article does not do, and does not try to do. 1) It does not establish that creationism is in fact scientific. Only that it is not impossible for it to be. 2) It does not establish that creationism is not religious. Only that it is not impossible for it not to be. 3) It does not establish that there is in fact any evidence for creationism. This is a separate question from the nature of creationism. Self-criticism: I found Mr. Buell's article very helpful in crystallizing my own thoughts, for which I thank him very much. I am not completely happy with what I have said, however. The major reason is that I have not succeeded, either in my own mind or in this article, in resolving the issue of the limit of where the "origin" question stops - i.e., is it specific to this planet only, or is the question more general? This can be seen most evidently in the plethora of parenthetical qualifying remarks scattered throughout. I did this to try and delimit the scope of particular remarks, but I fear that this was at the cost of a loss of cohesiveness. "You lose some and you lose some." -- | Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois --+-- | "_Zaphrentis_ fossils are often found in deep water because when | they died they toppled over and rolled off the continental shelf."