Scientists Expelling Science

There is a lot of hoopla right now in the evolution and creation camps over the movie, Expelled. This is a case where Hollywood could make a comparatively low-budget movie and potentially capitalize on the volatile Creation-Evolution controversy. Wikipedia says that the movie had a budget of $3.5 million and Yahoo! movies shows that it has grossed $5.3 million so far. Wikipedia and expelledexposed.com both cite the many scientific inaccuracies and deceitful nature of the interviews presented in the movie, which are the subject of most of the blog postings. This post is a bit different.

I am an advocate of ID in schools, not as science, but as a religion or philosophy course. Now, as Dr. Francisco Ayala notes, "We don't teach alchemy along with chemistry. We don't teach witchcraft along with medicine. We don't teach astrology with astronomy." Why do I say that ID should be discussed (notice I did not say "taught") in schools? Because it is the culture of most students. (See also Where there's smoke).

To ignore that culture is irresponsible and disrespectful. It makes scientific teaching pompous and preachy. Scientists frequently say that this has nothing to do with religion and that all they are doing is presenting the data. This "just the facts, ma'am" teaching of science is where we are failing to teach students what science is really about.

Science should be presented as what we know and how we know it, and even more crucially, how can we build a hypothesis, test it, and analyze the results accurately. I'm sure this is the objective of every science teacher. But what drives this hypothesis building? Curiosity. How can that be fostered?

In every scientific journal article, there is a Discussion section that repeats the objectives of the study with a summarization of the results. These new conclusions are placed in historical context and offer perspectives, interpretations, implications, and areas for more inquiry. It is in the Discussion section where active readers can agree or disagree with the report, but either way, more questions can be asked. In this way, Science perpetuates Science. Get rid of the Discussion section and you lose the relevance of the study and kill inquiry.

When science becomes just about presenting the facts, it becomes taxonomic. (This type of presentation, ironically, is the science that I was taught in a Christian, young earth creationism classroom where I was presented biology without evolution).

Science should be taught with that Discussion section -- that it has the ability to cure disease, elucidate behavior, explain the stars, and challenge philosophies. Maintaining a fear that ID in a philosophy course will be a toehold for it to creep into the science classroom loses the forest for the trees.

Beyond the Firmament - Book Review

My first essay to read in College English was How to Read a Book similar to this one. The essay implored readers to really be active about the books they read --- writing comments and questions directly on the pages, making notes in agreement or disagreement, and re-read. I’ve never done that...until I read Gordon J. Glover’s Beyond the Firmament. The reason I scribbled so much is because I was able to treat the book like a conversation as if I knew the author and could go point by point and say where I agreed and disagreed. Perhaps not having the ear of the author kept me from doodling in books before. However, in this case I do have the ear of the author as he frequently comments on this blog and I can also converse with him on his blog.

As demonstrated on this blog and in his book, Gordon has a passion for science and God. He and I have a similar history of belief in creationism and Christian upbringing. In many instances through the book, I found myself nodding at the similar experiences and thoughts we’ve shared in our journeys. For example, Gordon asks, “No matter what “side” you find yourself on at the end of the day, there will be consequences. The question you need to ask yourself is this: what are the consequences of your beliefs and can you live with them?” Compare this to my Faith in... and Flight of the bumblebee posts.

When I accepted evolution, I turned atheist. When Gordon accepted evolution, he did not. What was the difference? Like all of us, we have a model of how the world (with or without God) works. With this model, we interact with the world and receive more information. Then we repeat, modifying our model, then getting more information, etc. When Gordon realized that evolution, as far as anybody can tell, is true, he dug deep. Instead of trying to dispute the evidence like many Christians do (well, okay, he tried for a bit and realized that was a dead end), he looked at how Christianity keeps screwing up with science --- how they keep losing the forest for the trees as our egocentricities get pummeled by science.

I appreciated Gordon’s efforts to keep the scientific and religious view separate. The term "Theistic Evolution" is an oxymoron. Supernatural beliefs should not guide evolutionary science. A person can simply be a theist and an evolutionist.

While I’m certainly not Gordon’s target audience, reading the book helped me clarify my own stance and begin to understand people who believe in both evolution and theism. It solidified my self perception that I am a materialist. I therefore took several issues with his casting of materialism as empty, meaningless, having no place in philosophy, and that the universe requires God’s sustenance. It also made me realize us materialists can have our cake and eat it too. Meaning must have a physical basis so philosophy and the religion-of-materialism can coexist with material science. Yes, that may corrupt material science or promote strange, detrimental philosophies, but they are not incompatible with natural sciences like philosophies that incorporate a supernatural. And why not merrily choose to have material science and materialist philosophies coexist? All we have to work with is what we know about the material world! (Other posts to follow on these issues).

So what are we to make of the Genesis account? Gordon argues that the creation story presented in Genesis was for the Hebrews who understood nature in terms of the creation myths of their near eastern contemporaries, not so much saying that God spoke this, that, and the other into existence and performed the first surgery to get a rib from Adam to create Eve, but that the simple message of creation was that God was behind it all --- not several gods, but just the one singular God to be worshipped. In this way, the Bible was culturally relevant at the time, but the timeless message remains intact keeping the Bible inerrant. Convenient.

Gordon provides the fundamentals of logic, cosmology, physics, geology, and evolution through accessible language, humor, and metaphor. He gently, clearly, and empathetically implores Christians to face the music with the facts presented in the natural sciences. This is a tall order. It’s not easy to get somebody to up-end their model of their world and the way their God operates. The reader is left with the realization that they have tough decisions to make, an understanding of what doesn’t work in responding to scientific knowledge, and a sympathetic author, but that’s it. In the end, the reader is not given any positive options other than to avoid evil materialism. There is no inkling of why God uses evolution and what that could possibly mean in terms of "God’s image", salvation, and God’s relationship to man. Gordon simply acknowledges that evolution raises extremely difficult questions for the theist, but if we can accept the three-in-one God, a virgin birth, and resurrection, then we should be able to simply accept evolution as God’s mode of creation, leaving his sovereignty intact.

I guess the difference between Gordon and me is that my faith and model of the world were not so independent. I could never (and still can’t) build a God that makes sense when evolution is part of the mix, but materialism gives it to me. Christians’ accepting of evolution should cause a lot of discussion to be dealt with immediately and without reverting to the "all will be revealed someday" excuse for not getting to the meat of tough issues. Hopefully that’s coming in the next book!