Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-june Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon From: gordon@uw-june (Gordon Davisson) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Response to the Frontline Message-ID: <104@uw-june> Date: Thu, 23-May-85 02:05:05 EDT Article-I.D.: uw-june.104 Posted: Thu May 23 02:05:05 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 25-May-85 12:07:55 EDT References: <1095@uwmacc.UUCP> Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 487 > > [Duncan Buell] > > 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. > [Paul DuBois] > 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. Since it has become obvious that at least some people (Ken Arndt and Dan, in particular) don't know very much about the various theories that (at least on this net) get lumped together as "evolutionism", I'm planning to post a description of some of the most important. If and when I actually do this, you should have a better idea just what it is you're attacking. In the meantime, I'll settle for saying that I disagree with Ernest Hua's "natural flow of things" definition because it's too fuzzy to be useful, and also just plain wrong. (well, sort of. But I don't want to go into it here) > > 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. I have some reservations about #1, mainly because I'm not sure what definition of natural/supernatural you're using. Also it's a good idea to recognize that these rules are results of the need for falsifiability, which is in turn a result of two of the purposes of scientific theories: to make useful predictions (unfalsifiable theories can't make predictions, because if they did, the predictions could be tested and the theory disproven), and to *be* falsified in favor of new and better theories. > 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). One small quibble here: what does "suddenly" mean? What if, for instance, species tend to appear in the fossil record at times when there are other, very similar species around (i.e. in the fossil record)? Given a reasonably strict definition of sudden, I don't see any problem with either of these as scientific theories. > 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? Nothing. It's when you tack a creator on and use him/her/it to explain the observed evidence that the problem arises. > 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. Exactly. > 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. I'll agree with this, though this depends on a reasonable definition of suddenly. > For consideration of the origins of > life *on earth only*, this is creation. But it's not what is being proposed by scientific creationists. All of the creationists on this net seem to immediately jump from the assumption that life was put on earth to the assumption that it was put there by God, and not just any God at that, but the Jewish/Christian God. > 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?) That would certainly be an inviting area for research, once we had convinced ourselves of their existence. But it is not necessary to know of their origins to investigate their role in ours. > Note that some evolutionists here have claimed that evolution is in > fact a theory which is restricted to the origin of life on earth. Actually, it's restricted to the origin of species on earth, but since closely related theories (abiogenesis) address the origin of life, this is roughly correct. > This > claim has usually been made in response to being asked the question of > how the universe arose (or some similar question) by creationists. Random poke at creationists: If evolutionists have to explain the origin of the universe, surely creationists must have to explain the origin of god? Actually, neither has to do either, it is sufficient to observe the universe/God's existence, and worry about origins later. By the way, when was the last time someone (besides Jeff Seargent) observed God? > 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. Talk about fallacies of possible proofs! Actually, this is a good time to go into the reasons that God tends not to show up in scientific theories (aside from the fact that the proposer would probably get laughed at. Unfortunate, but true). As I observed above, scientific theories need to make predictions, and theories involving God tend not to because Gods tend to be inherently unpredictable. There are exceptions to this rule, and at the moment, I can think of 3: 1: God could be non-omnipotent. Since this places limits on God's behavior, we can predict him. Unfortunately, if he is very powerful (like powerful enough to create the universe), these predictions will be very weak, and the theory won't be very satisfactory. 2: We could try to predict God's behavior using some sort of psychological model. If the model works well, this sort of thing could lead to useful theories about God. On the other hand, evidence about god tends to be rather sparse, and the creationists keep insisting that God is unknowable by such as us (a reasonable claim, given that he's bright enough to create the universe). 3: We could assume that God doesn't really concern himself with the day-to-day operation of his creation, and only intervenes on very sparse occasions. Sparse enough, if fact, that his influence on the thing being studied can be safely ignored, or treated as a statistical deviation. Note that this doesn't mean that his influence on *all* things can be ignored, just this one area. For instance, meteorologists don't assume God doesn't exist, just that most storms form without his help. As far as I know, *all* sciences (including biology, geology, astronomy, and other "evolutionist" sciences, but excluding creation science) assume that, if God exists, case 3 applies. The assumption may or may not be correct, but if it isn't, no great harm has been done (except for wasted resources, of course). > > 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. Wrong. Abiogenesis/evolution is only one possible naturalistic theory about the origin of life. Spontaneous generation (certain conditions create certain lifeforms, for instance, maggots arising from rotten meat) and stasis (life always existed in roughly its current state) come to mind, and I'm sure we could come up with more if we put our minds to it. (note: neither of these theories is consistent with the evidence, but that's not what we're discussing here) > 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. Demonstrate this, in light of my comments above. > > 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. Have we encountered such a case? How would we know if we were to encounter such a case? (My suspicion is that scientific methods would simply not produce any useful results in areas where supernatural (i.e. intrinsically unpredictable) influences were strong) And finally, what should we do if we ever run across such a case? Run screaming home to our mommies? Ignore it and hope it'll go away? Employ that old religious trick of believing whatever we want to without any way of knowing whether it's even close to true? > 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. But to allow untestable theories is even worse, since we (being mere humans) are liable to get it completely wrong, and we'll never know it. If we stick to science, we'll at least have some hope of figuring out that we're on the wrong track. To abandon science on the off chance that it's assumptions might not lead to answers in some cases is just plain stupid, especially considering how well it's worked, and how much we've learned using it in the past. I thought that, as a scientific creationist, you thought science was useful for the investigation of origins. Do you or don't you? > > 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. Perhaps for some definition of naturalism, but not for science. Science operates on the *hope* that explanations can be found. Actually, that's not quite as true as I've made it out to be, but it's still a pretty accurate statement. For instance, when Godel came up with his famous proof that not all true things are provable, he upset a lot of people's beliefs about the power of mathematical proof systems. But people *did* change their beliefs to fit reality, which is not something I associate with faith. > > 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? See above suggestions for alternative explanations. Also, consider that neither evolution nor creation is an answer to the ultimate question of origins, since each explains whatever it explains in terms of something else (evolution (abiogenesis, actually) explains the origin of life as coming from nonlife, but doesn't explain the origin of the nonlife; creation explains the existence of the natural world as being created by God, but doesn't explain the origin of God). I can see only 2 general theories about the origin of everything: either things came into existence sometime in the past (with nothing coming before, no creator), or things have always existed in some form or another. I notice that these theories are orthogonal to this creation/evolution question you seem to think exists. > > 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. It is essential in science to be able to investigate theories without either believing or disbelieving them. Personally, I think I'm able to consider the possibility of creationist theories without believing or disbelieving them, but I find it hard to do anything useful with them. They tend to be so full of inconsistencies, both internal and external, and the associated patches that it's hard to develop a coherent point of view and do interesting things with it. Given a choice, I'd rather invent my own creation theories and play around with them. (and what's your theory got that mine don't got?) > 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, as far as I know, there is no law forcing children to be presented with the theory of evolution, and if there were, I (and hopefully the ACLU) would not support it. Having the directions of research decided by the government through their control of funding is bad enough -- having them control the *results* of research by direct legislation would be intolerable. > 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 thought the term bigotry applied only to *unbased* discrimination. Is drinking Coke rather than Pepsi because you like the taste better bigotry? I suppose you want them to also teach the Buddist, Hindu, Greek, Norse, Indian, etc. theories, as well as every theory some backseat philosopher (like for instance me) comes up with when he's had too much to drink? In science class, yet? (well, maybe abnormal psych... :-) > 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. Funny, I get the distinct impression it's the other way around. > 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. My impression is that children are taught a very simplified version of evolution, with many of the more important principles left out. And you expect them to include all the nit-picky things that don't quite fit? I've been taking some anthropology in college here, and this is a completely different story. We get a reasonably detailed description of current evolutionary theories and the specific example of the primates, *including* problems, glitches, and open questions. We don't get all the problems Ron Kukuk seems to think exist, but that's because most of those don't really exist. > 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. Strangely enough, I'll agree with you here. I *like* open questions waiting to be answered, problems to be solved, etc. The lure of the chase, and all that. I get the impression that schools are just feeding kids enough pap to keep them busy, and maybe even give them some useful skills and/or knowlege. Certainly that's not the way it should work. However, this really doesn't belong in net.origins (maybe net.kids), and I really don't know much about the subject (except that I got pretty screwed up in the first grade, and it took me years to get interested in learning again). > > 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. Then why do you support the Genesis version of creation, when there are so many other options around? Or do you? (support only Genesis, that is) > > 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. I'll agree with you here; theories are not responsible for the excesses (:-) of those who espouse them. > 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. But there is no reason to, unless one's religion tells one to. > One can even personally believe *that there is* a creator, without > being religious. Let me amend my last statement: There is no scientific reason to... I keep wondering what would have happened if someone had used the clause about nondiscrimination against creationists to defend the practice of espousing (and teaching) the theory that the universe was created 5 years ago, as a practical joke, the idea being to see how long it takes a significant proportion of us to catch on. > 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." I agree, and I wish people would stop saying that. > 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? There are really infinitely many origins question, and they are all intertwined to some degree: the origins of the life, the earth, the universe, that piece of paper on the floor over there, and many others. Trying to answer them all at once is likely to lead to headaches. -- Human: Gordon Davisson ARPA: gordon@uw-june.ARPA UUCP: {ihnp4,decvax,tektronix}!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon ATT: (206) 527-0832 USnail: 5008 12th NE, Seattle, WA, 98105 Earth: 47 39' 55" N, 122 18' 46" W