Jerry Coyne & Manyuan Long on the origin of new genes in Drosophila

AS I said on Coyne's post on this research, somewhere Michael Behe should be scrooching in a corner with his hands protecting his groin region.

Pah! No, what you'll get is: "Tis but a scratch! A mere flesh wound! Come back here you cowards, I'll bite your knees off!"

Synthese (2011) 178:219–235 DOI 10.1007/s11229-009-9545-5 Foiling the Black Knight Kelly C. Smith Received: 23 March 2009 / Accepted: 25 March 2009 / Published online: 21 April 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Why is the academy in general, and philosophy in particular, not more involved in the fight against the creationist threat? And why, when a response is offered, is it so curiously ineffective? I argue, by using an analogy with the battle against the Black Knight from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that the difficulty lies largely in a failure to see the nature of the problem clearly. By modifying the analogy, it is possible to see both why large sections of the academy have remained unmoved and also why many of the reactions to the threat have been so unsuccessful. Finally, I offer some very broad suggestions as to how to modify our approach in light of this new perspective. Keywords Evolution - Creationism - Education - Monty Python

I found Smith's article frustrating. The question presented is, how do you get through to someone who doesn't care, doesn't listen, doesn't have the slightest understanding of or respect for evidence or logic, and is simply impervious to all known mechanisms by which humans have been observed to learn?

And Smith's solution is, well, since everything we can dream of has struck out at the college level, the problem must lie in the public schools before college. THEY should fix this problem! But the public schools have found that by the time the pupil enters his very first biology class at about age 14, it's already too late. Creationism has taken root in (Smith cites) 54% of the American people and rising, even before entering the public school system at all.

Creationism really isn't an intellectual matter at all, and can't be addressed on that level. Creationism is an emotional need trained into children early on. The sorts of discussions Smith (and us here at PT) have with creationists are about juggling various justifications and rationalizations which creationists don't really need because they're basically window dressing.

As Smith has noticed, the creationist can regurgitate in full detail the utter absurdity of his belief, complete with recognition of blatant logical errors and known false statements of fact, but ends by saying "but I believe it anyway".

So Smith spends all this time pointing out that the Black Knight simply will not and cannot every admit defeat, pointing out that all attempts to get him to admit defeat have failed, and ends up suggesting that getting him to admit defeat is someone else's job. Uh huh, great. It might be worth asking WHY mainstream Christian denominations are dwindling while evangelical denominations are growing and thriving. It might be worth asking WHY Americans far moreso than anyone else in the Western World demand Absolute Truth, even if it's stupid and wrong. WHY do more and more parents FEAR that if Johnny thinks too hard about certain things, he'll jeopardize his chances of going to heaven?

I don't have these answers, but I can still see that the problem lies in the overall social and family support system starting at birth, and public school is only a small part of this. And I can see that what people know and what they believe are two different things, seated in two different parts of the brain, and that beliefs rule with an iron fist.

Flint said: I don't have these answers, but I can still see that the problem lies in the overall social and family support system starting at birth, and public school is only a small part of this. And I can see that what people know and what they believe are two different things, seated in two different parts of the brain, and that beliefs rule with an iron fist.

Over the course of time, talk radio shows have featured commentators appealing to the audience's intelligence and knowledge, rather than to their fears and other emotions. These efforts have been roundly ignored and short-lived. The national psyche seems to have turned away from the former appeal to a sense of adventure and discovering the unknown, and toward circling the wagons in defense against imaginary enemies. We're no longer playing to win, we're playing to lose as slowly as we can.

It's a very tough problem. It has to be thought of as a long-term, multi-generational, multi-century effort, where the influence of any one person or even any one institution is pretty tiny. Remember that the scale we are talking about is how to persuade hundreds of millions of people in a complex, democratic society with billions of things going on besides creationism vs. evolution.

Obviously it's rock-bottom requirement that we need to make sure that higher education and the public schools are doing their jobs and teaching strong science. But beyond that? In a democratic society, evolution is going to have to compete with everything else for public attention. It's important to win the big fights when they come up, and to have scientists engaged with the public and the press, for science journalists and university press officers to do high-quality work, and (IMHO) for scientists and science popularizers to make an effort to make things better rather than worse in terms of science/public relations (and yes, this means exercising some degree of democratic civility, tolerance, and fairness towards religion and the religious -- a good model is how the Founding Fathers, even the most secular ones, treated religion and the religious).

But these are basically effects on the order of 1% of the solution, even if they were to work perfectly.

The only real solution will occur when/if the evangelical churches chill out about evolution. This includes the evangelical thought leaders, the seminaries and the pastors. This is why I think BioLogos is basically a good thing, despite various disagreements. It is evangelicals talking evolution to evangelicals.

What can one do if one is not an evangelical? I'm not sure. It would be nice, very nice, if there were a way to engage evangelicals on friendly terms over the evolution issue. Ways which didn't involve the usual catfights with creationists. But that is a tough thing to pull off, e.g. getting invites to speak to congregations. If anyone has any ideas, let me know...

I enjoyed the Doonesbury cartoon a while back, where the doctor asked the patient if he accepted the theory of evolution. The patient said no, so the doctor said "OK, we give you the straight penicillin. It won't work against your problem, but all the stuff that WILL work couldn't have been discovered without applying the theory of evolution, and using that would be against your religion."

Maybe we need a couple hundred thousand more of those doctors...

Flint said: I found Smith's article frustrating. The question presented is, how do you get through to someone who doesn't care, doesn't listen, doesn't have the slightest understanding of or respect for evidence or logic, and is simply impervious to all known mechanisms by which humans have been observed to learn? And Smith's solution is, well, since everything we can dream of has struck out at the college level, the problem must lie in the public schools before college. THEY should fix this problem! ...

Ah yes, the distinction between hard-core creationists, and those whose life experience might make creationistic ideas the default, but who aren't committed to it and haven't been exposed to the alternatives.

I do wonder how many of those 54% who said people were poofed in their present form within the last 10,000 years, would change their mind if they were immediately informed that the evidence refuting this belief were vast beyond imagining, filling huge libraries and new libraries all the time. And that there is absolutely ZERO evidence for any recent creation, only evidence against it. How many would say "Oh, I never knew that. I guess evolution must be correct after all..."?

What depressed me was the poll that showed that of all creationists who entered a biology degree program and graduated, over 80% were STILL creationists. Clearly, there is an age beyond which education does not cure creationism. I think Smith is correct in implying that age is younger than college freshman. I suspect it's younger than high school biology student also.

I do applaud any attempts to train teachers to produce canned responses to canned objections drilled into school kids. I think this sort of thing has to be handled carefully, because I think the child loses the ability to reason about creationism before he reaches the age where he CAN reason at all. For a child at the critical age, it's a straight swearing contest between the teacher on the one side, and the child's parents, church, friends, daily practices, etc. on the other. For the teacher to be right, every other knowledgeable trusted authority in his life must be dead wrong. Not an easy current for the teacher to swim against.

And as Smith wrote, the students can appear to fully understand why his common creationist debating points are misleading, dishonest, or wrong, and explain this understanding in detail. But his belief in those points isn't even dented.

In the long run, I think we need to find the root of the problem, the concerns that are driving Americans toward comfortable Absolute Truths, however preposterous. What's causing all the fear and insecurity that creationism immunizes them against? I wish I knew.

Flint said: In the long run, I think we need to find the root of the problem, the concerns that are driving Americans toward comfortable Absolute Truths, however preposterous. What's causing all the fear and insecurity that creationism immunizes them against? I wish I knew.

It is bad, but it isn't that bad.

Copernicus published 450 years ago and still 20% of the US population are Geocentrists and can't diagram the solar system.

That fact says that no matter how good the evidence is, 20% of the population won't accept it or understand it.

And how much does this 20% matter anyway? Given that the median US IQ is 100, there are going to be a lot of 70's and 80's in there and a lot of uneducated people.

Probably not much.

Among people who matter and keep our civilization going, it is likely to be far higher.

And retention rates for kids in fundie religions is very low. The Southern Baptists consistently find it is around 30%. This is true of the Seventh Day Adventists as well. US xianity is on the skids right now and losing about 1 million members a year.

With the time frame for Heliocentrism to be accepted by the general population of 450 years, evolution is just getting started. The world moves faster these days, give it another 50 or 100 years.

Flint said: I found Smith's article frustrating. The question presented is, how do you get through to someone who doesn't care, doesn't listen, doesn't have the slightest understanding of or respect for evidence or logic, and is simply impervious to all known mechanisms by which humans have been observed to learn? And Smith's solution is, well, since everything we can dream of has struck out at the college level, the problem must lie in the public schools before college. THEY should fix this problem! But the public schools have found that by the time the pupil enters his very first biology class at about age 14, it's already too late. Creationism has taken root in (Smith cites) 54% of the American people and rising, even before entering the public school system at all. Creationism really isn't an intellectual matter at all, and can't be addressed on that level. Creationism is an emotional need trained into children early on. The sorts of discussions Smith (and us here at PT) have with creationists are about juggling various justifications and rationalizations which creationists don't really need because they're basically window dressing. As Smith has noticed, the creationist can regurgitate in full detail the utter absurdity of his belief, complete with recognition of blatant logical errors and known false statements of fact, but ends by saying "but I believe it anyway". So Smith spends all this time pointing out that the Black Knight simply will not and cannot every admit defeat, pointing out that all attempts to get him to admit defeat have failed, and ends up suggesting that getting him to admit defeat is someone else's job. Uh huh, great. It might be worth asking WHY mainstream Christian denominations are dwindling while evangelical denominations are growing and thriving. It might be worth asking WHY Americans far moreso than anyone else in the Western World demand Absolute Truth, even if it's stupid and wrong. WHY do more and more parents FEAR that if Johnny thinks too hard about certain things, he'll jeopardize his chances of going to heaven? I don't have these answers, but I can still see that the problem lies in the overall social and family support system starting at birth, and public school is only a small part of this. And I can see that what people know and what they believe are two different things, seated in two different parts of the brain, and that beliefs rule with an iron fist.

Mike Elzinga said: I suspect that a lot of the answer to those kinds of conundrums can be found at AiG of all places. Ken Ham and his army of “PhDs” devote most of their efforts to indoctrinating kids. They aim at the home school market, they hold large “academies,” and harangue the kids with all sorts of bullshit. ...

If one is looking for a tactic to fight demographic trends, why not find a creative way to target the largest growing segments of the populace? The growth in minority populations is potentially a big area to improve understanding, and one that does not involve the dreaded knight.

JGB said: If one is looking for a tactic to fight demographic trends, why not find a creative way to target the largest growing segments of the populace? The growth in minority populations is potentially a big area to improve understanding, and one that does not involve the dreaded knight.

OgreMkv -

There is a great deal of social pathology in the US. It is especially obvious in historically discriminated-against populations. Perhaps when you spend centuries telling people that they will not be permitted equal participation in society for an irrelevant and superficial reason, suspicion of mainstream society may develop. It could take time for major, long term characteristics of a society to reverse themselves, even if "official" reversal has already occurred.

Having said that, my overwhelming concern is political creationism and science denial. Most humans will have supernatural and "spiritual" beliefs for the foreseeable future. I lived in NM for two years, and nothing to do with crystals, pyramids, aliens, or anything else ever had any negative impact on me.

The vast, overwhelming majority of political efforts to jam creationism into schools, to elect or appoint science deniers to powerful positions, and to attack public education in general or on specifics, clearly come from a political party, the Republican party, that does not get much support from any definable minority population. A sole exception may be Cuban-Americans if looked at separately, and that trend is changing. Another old "ethnic" Republican block used to be, ironically, Arab-Americans. That changed in recent elections.

These are just facts. As I have stated many times, I understand that some science supporters are conservative on some other issues. I understand that a few people are left in the Republican party who don't pander full time to religious extremism. On the other hand, the recent DADT vote gives a good estimate of how many do.

That's the way it is, and the minute that a Democrat, or someone claiming to be "progressive" or "liberal", proposes specific rights-violating religious indoctrination at taxpayer expense in public schools, I will condemn that person equally. Right now that isn't that case.

There are a huge number (in certain areas) of students to cannot read, but are allowed to continue on because of social promotion rather than any actual knowledge or skill. One of the schools I taught at had less than a 10% pass rate on the 10th grade achievement test.

I agree.

I had a student, who after taking notes and asking some good questions about phospors and fluorescence, then said, "The ghosts light up the TV in my room, even when it's not on."

It's a difficult circle to break.

raven said:

There are a huge number (in certain areas) of students to cannot read, but are allowed to continue on because of social promotion rather than any actual knowledge or skill. One of the schools I taught at had less than a 10% pass rate on the 10th grade achievement test.

That is horrible and it shouldn't happen. The rural (white fundie) area near where my former home is has 80% of the kids qualifying for free meals at school and some illiterate parents don't even send their kids to school. It isn't that way everywhere. My area has 70% of the adults with degrees, 30% post bac degrees. But getting back to my point above, how much are near illiterates going to matter in running our civilization? And not accepting evolution is one of the least of their non-contributions to our society.

The rural (white fundie) area near where my former home is has 80% of the kids qualifying for free meals at school

I do agree that in many minority communities there is a strong undercurrent of not doing good in school for the sake of whatever. That does make it a slightly different problem than religious indoctrination. I was particularly thinking of Hispanic population with the strong history of Catholicism.
I believe at the root of it that the Black Night article identified the central problem. It's not purely anti-scientific, it's a straightforward inability to reason. They need to be taught logical reasoning across all of the disciplines, so that they are equipped to sort out the noise from the good stuff. All to often students come to adopt a weird quasi-relativistic thinking. Basically I have the right to believe whatever nonsense I wish, and since I have the right it's therefore OK to believe whatever nonsense without any notion of the idea that we can look deeper for answers, and that looking for answers across all subject matter has produced human advance. It's a very sloppy lazy attitude, which is what makes it so hard to dislodge.

How much do you want to bet that a majority of those kids’ parents routinely vote for politicians who would eliminate funding for school lunches if they thought they could get away with it?

I was particularly thinking of Hispanic population with the strong history of Catholicism.

I had questions about the black night article also, how to start teaching scientific fundamentals in elementary school? But I think the answer is in teaching kids to reason, how to evaluate what they read, see or hear. This would not only help in science but also in financial literacy, nutrition etc.

Kids have the inherent ability to start separating fantasy from reality, as in when they quit believing in santa claus. But many people never get past that point and they believe things like Madoff's perfect record or the risk free investment that pays 20%.

I was laughing yesterday at an ad for a "healthy" green tea drink. Green tea is the 5th listed ingredient after 3 kinds of sugar and water. Too many people can't read and understand that label. They need to learn reasoning skills.

Good Science article. I think its interesting that 'essentiality' was independent of age; this would imply that the rate at which new genes are produced is much slower than the rate at which they evolve in terms of function once they are produced. (Or to put it a different way, evolution of function is relatively rapid once a new gene appears.)

There were also a couple of paragraphs in there that seem to support the 'hourglass' studies in earlier PT posts, because (my albeit layman's reading) seems to indicate that the new genes primarily impact late development. If true, that would have the effect of making the young end of the hourglass wider. However, I'm not really familiar with the names of all the stages so I could be wrong about that.

Nick (Matzke) said: What can one do if one is not an evangelical? I'm not sure. It would be nice, very nice, if there were a way to engage evangelicals on friendly terms over the evolution issue. Ways which didn't involve the usual catfights with creationists. But that is a tough thing to pull off, e.g. getting invites to speak to congregations. If anyone has any ideas, let me know...

JGB said: I believe at the root of it that the Black Night article identified ...

nmgirl said: I had questions about the black night article also,

RBH said: Getting invitations is tough from evangelical and fundamentalists. I've given colloquia on evolution in 'liberal' churches (e.g.,. UCC), but my volunteering to spend time in a fundamentalist church just talking about the issue with no agenda except understanding each other has been studiously ignored. And that last offer was to people with whom I'd spend 38 days in a hearing room. The response (literally) was, "That's very magnanimous (sic). You're in the phone book, right?" And nothing since.

Incidentally, the latest in the "evolution is mathematically impossible" series is out, this time from Doug Axe. It is a critique of Michael Lynch's latest work (though not his most recent paper), that eventually turns into evolution is basically useless.

http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.4

SteveF said: Incidentally, the latest in the "evolution is mathematically impossible" series is out ...

Joe Felsenstein -

I keep trying not to write this depressing message.

I was more or less raised going to a fairly honest, decent, non-traumatizing old fashioned Baptist church - literally a simple old wooden church with a congregation who were very tolerant and welcoming, but tended on an individual level to never drink, gamble, dance, swear, to always observe the Sabbath and say grace before every meal, and so on. Creationism had nothing to do with it; it just didn't come up one way or the other. So I know traditional old time Protestantism, and post-modern creationism is not it.

Basically, the reason no-one wants to hear about science in a Christine O'Donnell church is because they're a bunch of post-modern right wing narcissists who "shopped" for a church that told them what they already wanted to hear. If a church challenged them to develop in any way, they'd be out of their seats screaming in the minister's face.

They're not listening to evolution denial because their grandfather's grandfathers observed that ritual and it gives meaning to some community. They're listening to it because it's part of a package that they already wanted. They want Fox News reality. The creationism is just there as a means of dismissing any conventional ethical criticism. Stupid pope or professor says we should be concerned about the disadvantaged? They're going to Hell for not accepting certain very limited passages of the King James Bible, typically taken out of context, as "literally" true. They can be ignored.

Science in general is also disliked by this crowd, as I mentioned on the BW, because it doesn't tell you what you "should" do, but it does kind of remind you of what might happen if you do certain things, and that alone is unacceptable.

harold said: Joe Felsenstein - I keep trying not to write this depressing message. ... Basically, the reason no-one wants to hear about science in a Christine O'Donnell church is because they're a bunch of post-modern right wing narcissists who "shopped" for a church that told them what they already wanted to hear. If a church challenged them to develop in any way, they'd be out of their seats screaming in the minister's face. They're not listening to evolution denial because their grandfather's grandfathers observed that ritual and it gives meaning to some community. They're listening to it because it's part of a package that they already wanted. They want Fox News reality. The creationism is just there as a means of dismissing any conventional ethical criticism. ...

Sounds like a good idea for a website: "Is Creationism True?"

I'll write an article or two, and I promise to be nice.

OgreMkV said: Sounds like a good idea for a website: "Is Creationism True?" I'll write an article or two, and I promise to be nice.

RBH said:

OgreMkV said: Sounds like a good idea for a website: "Is Creationism True?" I'll write an article or two, and I promise to be nice.

Care to elaborate on what you see as composing such a site?

Flint said: I enjoyed the Doonesbury cartoon a while back, where the doctor asked the patient if he accepted the theory of evolution. The patient said no, so the doctor said "OK, we give you the straight penicillin. It won't work against your problem, but all the stuff that WILL work couldn't have been discovered without applying the theory of evolution, and using that would be against your religion." Maybe we need a couple hundred thousand more of those doctors...

RBH said:

OgreMkV said: Sounds like a good idea for a website: "Is Creationism True?" I'll write an article or two, and I promise to be nice.

Care to elaborate on what you see as composing such a site?

Apologies for continuing the tangent onto Smith's article, and apologies if this has been covered in a previous comment. But Smith wrote what I think is essential, if not sufficient, to winning over the millions who are not so invested in their fairy tales that they are beyond hope.

When someone parrots a line that implies a conspiracy, Smith recommends answering:

"So let me get this straight - for completely mysterious reasons, the entire international biological community has perpetuated a cover-up of historical proportions for the last 150 years?"

Or when they parrot a line that implies that scientists just don't understand their subject, Smith recommends answering:

"So the idea is that this flaw is so obvious that anyone who spends a few minutes
reading material online can perceive it clearly, but sincere and thoughtful people who
spend decades of their lives studying evolution all somehow miss it?"

The scam artists will Gish-gallop their way out of it, of course, and many evolution-deniers will effectively "cover their ears and say '"la la la'." But many others, especially the ones who claim to be "open-minded," will think twice before making such baseless implications again.

Well, I know there’s a lot of material at Talk Origins, but that hasn’t been updated in a long time.

— OgreMkV

I do wonder how many of those 54% who said people were poofed in their present form within the last 10,000 years, would change their mind if they were immediately informed that the evidence refuting this belief were vast beyond imagining, filling huge libraries and new libraries all the time. And that there is absolutely ZERO evidence for any recent creation, only evidence against it. How many would say “Oh, I never knew that. I guess evolution must be correct after all…”? I just had that conversation this week with a teenager. He'd been brought up creationist, brought out his Answers book (with essays by Ham and others), and he asked me all sorts of questions for 90 minutes. His response was, "wow. I just didn't know that", "I feel so confused now", "I have a lot to think about". My approach was simply to point out how those chapters he showed me had misquoted, misapplied, misunderstood basic biology and evolutionary concepts. I didn't critique his beliefs or his religion, but just showed that what he'd been taught was demonstratively wrong. I also explained there were many independent lines of evidence coming to the same conclusions. I walked him through some logical fallacies ("if you believe in evolution, then you agree with Hitler's policies..."). He won't change his mind yet, but he's definitely open now. It also helps greatly that he has a lot of respect for me, I'm a friend of the family, and that I understand the Bible and the Christian mindset (former creationist myself--I know, sorry, but there wasn't any internet at the time so at least I didn't spread my ignorance too far). There are people who can follow the evidence when it is presented to them in a non-threatening way, and in recent years I'm starting to think the situation isn't as hopeless as I once thought among young folks. I can foresee a point where belief in a literal 6 day creation several thousand years ago is viewed in the same light as belief in a geocentric model--outside of a few fringe believers/cranks, the scientific model is accepted. Might take another century, but it seems it is easier to reach young people providing we don't put them immediately on the defensive--now my bro-in-law on the other hand....sigghhh...I'll stick to 'corrupting' his kids. :)

Sorry--blockquote fail. That first paragraph is a quote from Mike's post.

Daniel J. Andrews said: There are people who can follow the evidence when it is presented to them in a non-threatening way, and in recent years I'm starting to think the situation isn't as hopeless as I once thought among young folks.

Joe Felsenstein said:

harold said: Joe Felsenstein - I keep trying not to write this depressing message. ... Basically, the reason no-one wants to hear about science in a Christine O'Donnell church is because they're a bunch of post-modern right wing narcissists who "shopped" for a church that told them what they already wanted to hear. If a church challenged them to develop in any way, they'd be out of their seats screaming in the minister's face. They're not listening to evolution denial because their grandfather's grandfathers observed that ritual and it gives meaning to some community. They're listening to it because it's part of a package that they already wanted. They want Fox News reality. The creationism is just there as a means of dismissing any conventional ethical criticism. ...

Yes, these folks are trying to be hard-to-reach. The question I raised was different: what possibilities are there for getting through to less hard-core people who are listening to the Christine O'Donnell types. For every convinced creationist there are others who wonder if creationism is true. Where are they to be found? Can they be reached? That is why I was focusing in my comment not on the convinced creationists but on denominations that are on the fence, or just one side of it. Are they reachable?

Joe Felsenstein said:

harold said: Joe Felsenstein - I keep trying not to write this depressing message. ... Basically, the reason no-one wants to hear about science in a Christine O'Donnell church is because they're a bunch of post-modern right wing narcissists who "shopped" for a church that told them what they already wanted to hear. If a church challenged them to develop in any way, they'd be out of their seats screaming in the minister's face. They're not listening to evolution denial because their grandfather's grandfathers observed that ritual and it gives meaning to some community. They're listening to it because it's part of a package that they already wanted. They want Fox News reality. The creationism is just there as a means of dismissing any conventional ethical criticism. ...

Yes, these folks are trying to be hard-to-reach. The question I raised was different: what possibilities are there for getting through to less hard-core people who are listening to the Christine O'Donnell types. For every convinced creationist there are others who wonder if creationism is true. Where are they to be found? Can they be reached? That is why I was focusing in my comment not on the convinced creationists but on denominations that are on the fence, or just one side of it. Are they reachable?

Flint said: I found Smith's article frustrating. The question presented is, how do you get through to someone who doesn't care, doesn't listen, doesn't have the slightest understanding of or respect for evidence or logic, and is simply impervious to all known mechanisms by which humans have been observed to learn? And Smith's solution is, well, since everything we can dream of has struck out at the college level, the problem must lie in the public schools before college. THEY should fix this problem! But the public schools have found that by the time the pupil enters his very first biology class at about age 14, it's already too late. Creationism has taken root in (Smith cites) 54% of the American people and rising, even before entering the public school system at all. Creationism really isn't an intellectual matter at all, and can't be addressed on that level. Creationism is an emotional need trained into children early on. The sorts of discussions Smith (and us here at PT) have with creationists are about juggling various justifications and rationalizations which creationists don't really need because they're basically window dressing. As Smith has noticed, the creationist can regurgitate in full detail the utter absurdity of his belief, complete with recognition of blatant logical errors and known false statements of fact, but ends by saying "but I believe it anyway". So Smith spends all this time pointing out that the Black Knight simply will not and cannot every admit defeat, pointing out that all attempts to get him to admit defeat have failed, and ends up suggesting that getting him to admit defeat is someone else's job. Uh huh, great. It might be worth asking WHY mainstream Christian denominations are dwindling while evangelical denominations are growing and thriving. It might be worth asking WHY Americans far moreso than anyone else in the Western World demand Absolute Truth, even if it's stupid and wrong. WHY do more and more parents FEAR that if Johnny thinks too hard about certain things, he'll jeopardize his chances of going to heaven? I don't have these answers, but I can still see that the problem lies in the overall social and family support system starting at birth, and public school is only a small part of this. And I can see that what people know and what they believe are two different things, seated in two different parts of the brain, and that beliefs rule with an iron fist.

Frank J said:

Well, I know there’s a lot of material at Talk Origins, but that hasn’t been updated in a long time.

— OgreMkV

While the TO archive needs to update it's 90s' format, and add more material relevant to today's anti-evolution scams, it's article "Index to Creationist Claims" is up-to-the-minute with concise rebuttals (& references to detailed answers) to virtually every claim any "kind" of evolution-denier makes. The only thing dated about "Index" is that it includes claims that most of today's anti-evolution activists have quietly abandoned. What I find most fascinating is how the various "kinds" of evolution-denier increasingly find it hard to agree among themselves on anything except "something's wrong with 'Darwinism'," and "some designer did something at some unspecified time instead." The constant backpedaling from details of their "theories," and cover-up of their irreconcilable differences is a strong indication that the chief perpetrators know that "creationism" will never be more than a scam to mislead. But one that's necessary to "save the world."

Malchus said: Some of them are. The more fundamental problem may be that most people don't want to be informed about science.

mrg said:

Malchus said: Some of them are. The more fundamental problem may be that most people don't want to be informed about science.

I tend to think there are many perfectly sensible and intelligent people who have no interest in or particular use for science -- my father, for instance. They've got other things to do. The sciences, well, that's for us science geeks. Now it would be nice if they did know science, but I can live with that. The real problem is hostility to science because it contradicts an ideological or emotional position -- not just creationists but such creatures as antivaxers or, Bob help us, HIV denialists. The bizarre part is that these various denialist groups, despite their obvious contempt for science, still somewhat in awe of it because they try to cloak their objections in the trappings of science and very often claim they admire science -- at least in brief pauses for breath between sessions in denouncing it. The Charles Fort "science is bunk" position would at least be logically consistent -- contemptible, but at least consistent. I think the denialist groups just find that too contemptible to touch.

Malchus said: I'm not sure it's that bizarre: right or wrong, science alone confers genuine authority on a concept.

mrg said:

Malchus said: I'm not sure it's that bizarre: right or wrong, science alone confers genuine authority on a concept.

This is true, but maybe I should say it leads to bizarre behavior: blatantly badmouthing science and then, when challenged, doing an instant flipflop to say they respect science. That done, they go back to badmouthing it. The part that's hard to understand is that they believe the contradiction themselves and don't see for an instant how obvious it is to anyone else.

Malchus wrote:

"But what they “badmouth” are specific scientific conclusions, not science itself as a process."

That's like saying that you respect the law, at least the good laws. The bad ones you are free to reject and then they just don't apply to you. It just makes a mockery of the entire process. If you really do respect the law, you try to work within the system in order to make the laws asa just as possible. You can't just ignore the laws you don't like and expect that anyone will view you as anything more than a common criminal.

That's like saying that you only trust the doctor when he tells you that there is nothing wrong with you. If he tells you otherwise, you are free to ignore him because he is obviously a quack.

That's like saying that you only agree with the tax man when he says you don't owe the government any money. If he says otherwise he is obviously mistaken and should just be ignored.

Likewise with science, You can't just pick and choose which conclusions you are willing to accept and which you reject for no good reason other than you don't like them. If you think that a paper is in error, you are free to publish a rebuttal. If you think than more data is needed, you are free to collect and publish that data. Denying evidence because of religious presuppositions makes a mockery of the entire process of science. That is not a logical or tenable position for anyone to take. That is not respect for science, that is just the opposite.

DS said: Malchus wrote: "But what they “badmouth” are specific scientific conclusions, not science itself as a process." That's like saying that you respect the law, at least the good laws. The bad ones you are free to reject and then they just don't apply to you. It just makes a mockery of the entire process. If you really do respect the law, you try to work within the system in order to make the laws asa just as possible. You can't just ignore the laws you don't like and expect that anyone will view you as anything more than a common criminal. That's like saying that you only trust the doctor when he tells you that there is nothing wrong with you. If he tells you otherwise, you are free to ignore him because he is obviously a quack. That's like saying that you only agree with the tax man when he says you don't owe the government any money. If he says otherwise he is obviously mistaken and should just be ignored. Likewise with science, You can't just pick and choose which conclusions you are willing to accept and which you reject for no good reason other than you don't like them. If you think that a paper is in error, you are free to publish a rebuttal. If you think than more data is needed, you are free to collect and publish that data. Denying evidence because of religious presuppositions makes a mockery of the entire process of science. That is not a logical or tenable position for anyone to take. That is not respect for science, that is just the opposite.

DS said: Likewise with science, You can't just pick and choose which conclusions you are willing to accept and which you reject for no good reason other than you don't like them.

Malchus said: I'm not sure it's that bizarre: right or wrong, science alone confers genuine authority on a concept. Even the most virulently unscientific trolls like Kris, IBIG, or FL recognize that they aren't being taken seriously without the scientific halo. Five hundred years of unbridled success in solving problems, explaining the universe, and improving the human condition have established the unspoken but unshakeable principle: science alone establishes intellectual respectability. The fact that science requires genuine effort to understand only reinforces this paradigm.

mrg said:

Malchus said: Some of them are. The more fundamental problem may be that most people don't want to be informed about science.

I tend to think there are many perfectly sensible and intelligent people who have no interest in or particular use for science -- my father, for instance. They've got other things to do. The sciences, well, that's for us science geeks. Now it would be nice if they did know science, but I can live with that. The real problem is hostility to science because it contradicts an ideological or emotional position -- not just creationists but such creatures as antivaxers or, Bob help us, HIV denialists. The bizarre part is that these various denialist groups, despite their obvious contempt for science, still somewhat in awe of it because they try to cloak their objections in the trappings of science and very often claim they admire science -- at least in brief pauses for breath between sessions in denouncing it. The Charles Fort "science is bunk" position would at least be logically consistent -- contemptible, but at least consistent. I think the denialist groups just find that too contemptible to touch.

Malchus said: I quite agree. It is what interests me most about creationists, or even simple science deniers like Kris: they are so desperate to have the veneer of respectability that science alone provides that they fail to see that science hangs together as a single system. If evolution is wrong, biology falls; if radiometric dating doesn't work, then physics fails. Unlike religious doctrine, science stands or falls ad a whole.

I notice more people here are declaring that they Will Not Feed The Trolls. I would like to float an idea that it would be a good idea to get into the habit of simply commenting on troll postings:

DNFTT

-- and nothing else. Everybody has an inclination to FTT and some people insist on it, but if DNFTT were posted to every troll posting it would be a reminder to the first folks and a suggestion to the second.

Kris said: Wow, I didn't realize that science is the one and only, all knowing, all powerful, all authoritative, indisputable GOD.

Kris said: Does that mean that if I or anyone else can point out just one flaw, mistake, fraud, disagreement, or debate in science, that all of science falls?

Mike Elzinga said:

DS said: Likewise with science, You can't just pick and choose which conclusions you are willing to accept and which you reject for no good reason other than you don't like them.

A really good example of this type of thinking can be found over at AiG where they don’t like the way textbooks discuss the origin of the solar system. If you can tolerate the nausea as you read through it, you will note that it is the usual “just making up pseudo-science crap” in order to give the appearance that they are making valid objections to real science. This has been going on since the 1960s when Henry Morris thought he found the most devastating argument against evolution, namely the second law of thermodynamics. It’s been downhill ever since. But they don’t seem to care how incredibly stupid they look. One could simply laugh at this stuff if it weren’t for the fact that the followers of this pseudo-science are still interfering with the educations of other people’s children.

Malchus said:

Mike Elzinga said:

DS said: Likewise with science, You can't just pick and choose which conclusions you are willing to accept and which you reject for no good reason other than you don't like them.

A really good example of this type of thinking can be found over at AiG where they don’t like the way textbooks discuss the origin of the solar system. If you can tolerate the nausea as you read through it, you will note that it is the usual “just making up pseudo-science crap” in order to give the appearance that they are making valid objections to real science. This has been going on since the 1960s when Henry Morris thought he found the most devastating argument against evolution, namely the second law of thermodynamics. It’s been downhill ever since. But they don’t seem to care how incredibly stupid they look. One could simply laugh at this stuff if it weren’t for the fact that the followers of this pseudo-science are still interfering with the educations of other people’s children.

And it is that sole fact that moves the discussion beyond merely feeling pity for the scientifically illiterate, such as Kris and IBIG, and takes it to the realm of actively opposing the anti-science crowd. We must oppose attempts to neuter or destroy science curriculum in American schools; if only for the sake of the children themselves.

Kris said: *SNIP*

mrg said:

Kris said: *SNIP*

DNFTT

Very nice summary, score one evolutionists.