Submitted to a Candid World

Creationism has so much to teach us, if only we’ll listen! At least, that’s the title of an article that appeared in US News & World Report this week, by Henry Morris III, head of the Institute of Creation Research. Oddly, though, it’s not the argument he makes. In the course of a two-page piece arguing for teaching creationism in public schools, not once does Morris argue that creationism is either scientific, or capable of generating scientific insights. Nor could he. Although the disparity between title & text is enough to make the article rebut itself, let’s take a closer look at Mr. Morris’ arguments – just for fun – line by line, paragraph by paragraph.

Because it’s a long piece, the complete text & reply sections are below the line, but I’ll put this concluding note first: if creationism did have “so much to teach us,” it’d be news, and Morris’ article would merit a second thought. As it stands, though, creationism can teach nothing but a narrow-minded view of man’s relationship with God, which is emphatically not the province of the science teacher. In its entire existence, the Institute for Creation Research, of which Morris is a representative, has never done any research on creationism that isn’t reducible to an argument from awe or Biblical exegesis. And that, simply put, is the best argument against teaching creationism.

During this last campaign, the topic of science—specifically, creationism and evolution—was pushed out onto the stage of the presidential debates. So much so that USA Today/Gallup released the results of a poll in which 66 percent of Americans stated that they believe in creationism. Not some hybrid theory mixing creationism and evolution. Not intelligent design. But specifically that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” Which is pretty much how the book of Genesis explains creation.

Last year, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times conducted its own poll on teaching creationism in the public schools. Not surprisingly, nearly two thirds of registered voters were not convinced of evolution’s merits.

However, despite public opinion on the issue, creationism, in any form, is not allowed in our classrooms.

Science is not democratic: as John Adams said, “facts are deaf – deaf as adders! – to the clamor of the populace.” If 60% of the population expressed its desire for its children to learn that “2+2=5,” it would be just as wrong. The history of science is the history of bucking popularly believed lies: from heliocentrism to the “humor” theory of disease. If creationism is popular, all it means is that modern evolutionary discourse, sadly, fits into the same paradigm.

This is one of the prime problems with a democracy. While republican democracy is undisputedly the preeminent system for resolving policy disputes, it inculcates in the weak-minded a belief that facts are similarly susceptible to “voting away,” a problem indicated as much by this creationist’s arguments as by the populace’s persistent desire to “vote away” global warming. An educated citizenry is the best answer – but directly opposite, obviously, to Morris’ goals.

Should it be? Americans seem to prefer it, or at a minimum favor a critical discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Even the National Science Teachers Association—hardly a right-wing fundamentalist group—insists that “teachers must be free to examine controversial issues openly in the classroom . . . to maintain a spirit of free inquiry, open-mindedness and impartiality in the classroom.”

Receptiveness to controversy in this instance connotes receptiveness to legitimate controversy. If students would like to debate the causes for the civil war – was it states’ rights first, or slavery first? – more power to them, and the NSTA is right to commend teachers for encouraging intelligent debate. But education requires that teachers similarly guide students away from the embrace of falsehoods. Creationism falls into the latter category.

So, what kind of science is being taught to our children today? A philosophy of science, actually, rooted in a worldview that deliberately disbelieves in anything supernatural. No God. No angels. No Intelligent Designer. Everything happened quite by accident.

Evolution is the opposite of “accident” – it is the selection by natural pressures of which (admittedly) accidental mutation ought to be perpetuated. Accident only comes in at step one; natural selection, step two, is quite strongly guided, but by nature, not by god. God does not play dice with the universe, and neither do the forces of nature.

This blurb is prime example of creationists trying to draw moral inferences from science: if they can characterize evolution as an “accident,” the theory starts to sound like an affront to human dignity. The implication is wrong on two counts, first because evolution is not an “accidental” process, and second because regardless of what offense you take at a scientific fact, science makes no value judgments. As Einstein said, “[S]cience can only ascertain what is but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts.”

The idea of origins by accident (evolution), which Charles Darwin popularized 150 years ago, is now characterized as a bona fide scientific theory. Embarrassingly, this “theory” cannot be scientifically observed in action today, nor can it be forensically observed in nature’s record of the past. But it is, nonetheless, believed. And so ardent are its followers that many scientists refuse to admit the weaknesses of this doctrine, let alone “allow a divine foot in the door,” as Harvard’s Richard Lewontin warns.

It’s no embarassment that a theory cannot be observed. The scientific method and reasoning by inference was developed for just such an occasion, and tossing theories which cannot be observed would result in the obliteration of a great deal of human knowledge. Morris would do well to remember, too, that God can’t be observed either: is that equally embarassing?

In Texas, state school board officials are debating the language of science education standards for our public schools and whether teachers should even be allowed to discuss evolution’s weaknesses. The idea of teaching creation science in the classroom isn’t even under consideration.

And yet, the opponents of creationism would have the public believe that Bible-believing teachers constitute some sort of threat to education.

For instance, when scientists from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute arrived on the campus of Southern Methodist University in 2007 to present evidence for intelligent design, the SMU science faculty refused to sit down, even behind closed doors, and discuss, peer-to-peer, the scientific data. Perhaps they were afraid a “divine foot” would somehow gain a toehold in this bastion of Methodist education.

I’m sure they were afraid of just that! Because creationists are eminently unqualified to speak on matters of [biological - ed.] science, there’s no surprise and no offense in the idea that a science faculty would refuse to treat with them. Would President Obama take economic advice from a witch doctor?

Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins spends more time lecturing about God (and Dawkins’s disbelief in him) than he does actually doing science. Dawkins’s strange admission in the Expelled documentary that highly intelligent aliens may have seeded life on Earth only compounds the problem that evolutionists continue to have in demonstrating reasonable scientific data for their monkey-to-man theory.

What Dawkins does with his time is neither here nor there. But it’s no “strange admission” for Dawkins to acknowledge that panspermia (seeding of life by an external physical force) is possible, if not probable. Is Morris arguing that God’s an observable alien whose existence is falsifiable?

The question of whether creationism should be part of the educational experience in American schools can best be answered by the father of the modern creation science movement, the late Henry Morris.

Morris detailed three basic forms of creationism: scientific creationism—the study of scientific evidence alone; biblical creationism—the study of the Bible alone; and scientific-biblical creationism—the study of both science and the Bible.

Which should be taught in public schools? Quite clearly, Morris stated that “creationists should not advocate that biblical creationism be taught in public schools, both because of judicial restrictions against religion in such schools and also (more importantly) because teachers who do not believe the Bible should not be asked to teach the Bible.”

Teach science in the public schools, but don’t conveniently leave out valid scientific evidence or theories that might contradict evolution. But are students genuinely allowed a “spirit of free inquiry” in the classroom? Like in higher education? Think again.

No theocracy: how open-minded of them!

Anyways, I encourage creationists to come up with a theory of scientific creationism that doesn’t rely upon altering either the speed of light or the rate of carbon decay, or otherwise doing away with basic scientific principles like falsifiability and the exclusion of non-natural causes. The problem is that young-earth creationism relies upon forgiving each and every one of those major mistakes.

By spurning any reliance on the bloodied corpse of young-earth cosmology, intelligent design was a step in the right direction, but displayed the equally common creationist trait of posing a non-existent problem and jubilantly proclaiming that God is the answer. Were creationists capable of legitimately reasoning within the scientific paradigm, I would happily drop my objections to their inclusion in school curricula. A big promise, I know – but not one I expect to have to fulfill.

Ben Stein’s Expelled documentary revealed that highly qualified scientists in academia have become victims of viewpoint discrimination for openly acknowledging evidence for design that contradicts evolution.

When your job description requires you to produce scientific research, and you’re fired because you won’t do it, that’s not viewpoint discrimination. That’s termination for cause. A biology professor who won’t think scientifically about evolution is as useless as a microwave that’ll do anything but cook food, and the answer is the same for both: get a new one. Oh, and in Guillermo Gonzales’ case, sometimes you’re just not good enough.

The more alarming problem that has arisen in this controversy, however, is the persecution of private schools that choose to teach any form of origins science other than evolution. One case in point is the University of California’s refusal to nondiscriminatorily admit students from private Christian schools that included openly creationist viewpoints in their courses.

California is within its rights to deny students admision to colleges when their foundational education evinces a complete lack of proper instruction in science. On a science test, “God did it” is not a scientific viewpoint, it’s the wrong answer. Similarly, California would be within its rights to refuse to credit history coursework done at a school for Holocaust deniers. Belief doesn’t become fact just because you emphatically wish it to be so, and academic achievement requires some sort of acknowledgement of the difference between objectively knowable fact and dream.

Another case is our own Institute for Creation Research Graduate School, which has offered master’s degrees in the sciences for 27 years. State officials refused to approve the move of the school’s program to Texas because of its institutional viewpoint. Ironically, this is the same Texas agency the Texas Supreme Court ruled against for unconstitutionally violating the First Amendment rights of three other private schools in 2007. Remember, these are private schools that merely wanted to teach curricula reflecting their institutional beliefs. Where’s the ACLU when you need it?

…Probably sticking to its beliefs and defending the church/state line by not helping a creationist school get public funds. This blurb misstates the legal problems involved in accreditation. If you want the truth, read Tim Sandefur’s account of how ICR got accredited in California in the first place.

While state legislatures haggle over the words science, theory, and weaknesses, American schoolchildren continue to rank poorly in science education among the nations of the world. Pouring more money into the status quo of evolution-based science education isn’t the answer. Teaching the truth is.

The answer to bad science education is good science education. Biblically-groudned notions of “truth,” no matter how important they are to you, are not science. It’s really that simple.

“creationists are eminently unqualified to speak on matters of science”

There are some fine creationist scientists (not creation scientists). They just aren’t evolutionary biologists or paleontologists, or anthropologists et al.

Comment by EternalCritic February 5, 2009 @ 9:49 am

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The sentence

“Embarrassingly, this “theory” cannot be scientifically observed in action today, nor can it be forensically observed in nature’s record of the past.”

is so ridiculous that I could hardly believe my eyes. While you are right to point out that there are many theories that we cannot observe directly, evolution quite definitely is one that we can, as biologists on a daily basis. And “forensically observed in nature’s record of the past” sounds very much like the definition of “fossils”.

Comment by mintman February 5, 2009 @ 10:00 am

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With respect to our contemporaneous observation of evolution, ID/Creation proponents resort to macro/microevolution division. They acknowledge the biological changes that random mutation and natural selection produces in organisms, but deny that over time such changes may result in a new/different specie. This is a result of either intentional or inadvertent failure to recognize the obvious logical step (also supported by other evidence).

Of course, as Ames pointed out, their inability to observe a creator in action is not in any way a weakness to their “theory” as said creator exists outside time or space. They want to have their angel food cake and eat it too.

Comment by Igor February 5, 2009 @ 10:28 am

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Igor, yup. Evolution very much can be observed. If it couldn’t, the flu shot I took five years ago would still be protecting me.

I love it when creationists bring up Dawkins’ mention of Panspermia in Expelled, because they consistently miss the point he was making.

Even if panspermia had occurred, we would still need to explain where the genetic seed material that arrived on Earth came from in the first place. Panspermia, even if real, is not an answer. It’s just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

But creationists seem prone to think that something that is not a “first cause” actually is. Which is why no one can ever explain where God came from.

Comment by Donovan February 5, 2009 @ 11:21 am

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Great rebuttal, Ames!

Comment by Ian February 5, 2009 @ 5:25 pm

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I can only quote Lewis Black regarding Mr. Morris’s institute:

“There are people who believe that dinosaurs and men lived together. That they roamed the Earth at the same time. There are museums that children go to, in which they build dioramas to show them this. And what this is, purely and simply, is a clinical psychotic reaction. They are crazy. They are stone…cold…f***…nuts. I can’t be kind about this, because these people are watching The Flintstones as if it were a documentary.”

Comment by James F February 5, 2009 @ 5:36 pm

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“popularly believed lies: from heliocentrism to the “humor” theory of disease” – erm, I believe you mean “geocentrism”; heliocentrism was the theory that Galileo was persecuted for espousing.

Comment by Gypsum Fantastic February 14, 2009 @ 8:47 am

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