Professor Einstein, I've got a bone to pick with you
Intelligent design, the latest incarnation of "creation science", makes for bad science, and - if you'll permit a non-theist to say so - bad religion as well. Bad science, because it doesn't seek to discover new truth, but rather to justify an article of faith. Bad religion, because it implies a faith so rigid that it can't co-exist with a realistic understanding of the world.
So, Professor Einstein, why did you say "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"? More precisely, why did you utter the first clause of that catchy little one-liner?
Is the answer here? or maybe here?
So, Professor Einstein, why did you say "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"? More precisely, why did you utter the first clause of that catchy little one-liner?
Is the answer here? or maybe here?
posted by Marcus at 10:36 PM Permalink
8 Comments:
Einstein was right.
Scientists are supposed to be open-minded. But science has become the cloak for self-imposed ignorance and anti-religious bigotry. The scientific community of today is no more enlightened than the Catholic Church of the Dark Ages -- or Islam for the last 1,396 years.
Do you know how the Declaration of Independence was written? It seems that Thomas Jefferson's youngest son spilled a box of letter blocks out on the floor and there it was -- perfectly spelled and punctuated -- without a single block out of alignment.
Of course, rational people would never believe that story. But those same rational people DO believe that something as infinitely complex as the universe could randomly fall together after a Big Bang, perfect down to the tiniest subatomic particle, without any intelligent intervention. Forget the universe. Just look into the eyes of a child. That's random?
If we are going to teach theories in our classrooms and discuss theories that make sense, it seems to me that intelligent design makes a lot more sense and takes far less faith than what's already out there. Science and intelligent design are not mutually exclusive. And there are more and more people -- scientists included -- with OPEN minds, who are coming to realize that the universe makes a lot more sense if you include God in the equation.
If there are any athiests reading this, here is your mission. Dump a box of Lincoln Logs out on the floor so they randomly come together to form a two-story hunting lodge. With outhouse -- with a quarter moon carved in the door. You can dump them out only once, because according the theory, there was only one Big Bang. You can't touch them -- that would be intelligent design. If it doesn't happen when they hit the floor, just let them lay there. Maybe it will take a few billion years for them to drift together. Don't take your eyes off them. Just sit there.....Wait for it.....Wait.....Waaaaait.....
Thanks for your comment, Lone Ranger, but I don't agree with you, and I don't think Einstein would either. See my next post. Intelligent Design advocates propose God - oops, I mean an anonymous "designer" - as the best explanation for the origin and evolution of life. But Einstein was clear in his view that religion, properly conceived, has nothing to say about such questions:
"Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts."
Many other scientists with religious tendencies, like Stephen Jay Gould, agree. Despite your comments above, there are only a tiny handful of scientists who give Intelligent Design any credence whatsoever. And the number of prominent scientists who do so is 0.
An open mind is a good thing, but it shouldn't be so open that it's a sieve.
Lone Ranger's comment would be an absolutely devastating rebuttal of evlution.
If it had anything at all to do with evolution.
What creationists don't want you to know, or even think about, is the fact that evolution doesn't posit that an organism just popped into being fully-formed from nothing. No, in fact, there's a name for the belief that things were "poofed" into existence, and it's "creationism."
Evolution deals with the gradual stepwise process, of putting one lincoln log on the ground, and dropping logs on and around it, until another hits at any sort of useful inclination. Then, dropping another log, until it lands in a useful arrangement.
There's no target in evolution, nor need for one. Offspring are different (just a little bit) from their parents, and the ones that happen to make more babies become overly-represented in a population. That's all there is to it.
Yes, creationists would love to distract you with strawmen about Declarations, log houses, and organisms popping fresh out of the air, but never forget, that's their hypotheis, that's creationism, NOT evolution.
Along the lines of Marcus' closing, any time a creationist tries to convince you there's some sort of controversy over evolution in the scientific community, rememeber that it took scientists virtually no time at all to compile a list of only scientists opposed to intelligent design, favoring evolution, longer than any pro-intelligent design creationist list, and the scientists only let people sign whose first name was "Steve".
According to census statistics, less than 1% of people are named Steve, and that doesn't even take into account non-western countries where the name Steve is even less likely (not as many Chinese, Japanese, Pakistani, Indian, or Nigerian Steves out there, really).
It's a bit disingenious of creationists to pretend there's some sort of controversy amongst scientists when 99.9% agree that evolution and descent with modification from a common ancestor are the best explanation for biological diversity.
I agree, Aleksander. Another common tactic of creationists is to take a quote from a famous scientist out of context, and claim that it supports their position. They did it with Stephen Jay Gould, and I'm sure they've done it with the Einstein quote. That's why I went to the source in my post for today, and let Einstein speak for himself.
Regarding Aleksander's comment about scientists in other countries, it's also interesting to note that creationism and I.D. is primarily an American phenomenon. That may be changing, of course, with the Pope's recent comments on evolution, but the heart of the creationist movement is still here. As such, it says something interesting, and troubling, about American culture in the 21st century.
The Lone Ranger has a horse; selected at random. He also has a sidekick; again selected at random. Earlier today he ate a sandwich that he selected at random. Everything he selects, he selects at random. Is that the way it works?
Here's a mission that isn't so far removed from reality:
Get 100 million lincoln logs. Toss 'em into a random pile. Then select the ones that are at right angles with each other and the rest. Remember, at first right angles only. Pick up all the rest and throw 'em down again. Once more, keep the right-angle ones and re-toss the rest. Keep doing that a million times. Will the resulting structure look random? Perhaps.
But now, let's pretend that the environment has changed; we'll mix up the rules a bit. Now you can keep more than just right angles. You can also keep 45-degree angles. Do this a million more times.
Once more a rule change. Now you should favour structures that don't unbalance the structure as a whole. Do this a million times.
Another rules change! (What's with this shifting environment, anyways? You'd think that there was a climate change or something, wouldn't you?) Now you should not only favour balancing structures, you should also favour arches if they're near the bottom.
Stuff doesn't just happen at random; there are rules. When two different elements meet, their interaction isn't random. When two molecules meet, their interaction isn't random. When a body moves through a liquid, the forces acting on it aren't random. When it moves through a void near other objects, the forces acting on it aren't random. (Imagine if gravity were random!) When one creature has an easier time getting to the food than another, its life and the other's death is not random. When structures change and their environments change, they get new rules; that's not random. When they reach stasis, their rules remain the same; that's not random.
It's selection.
I agree, Pough. Lone Ranger's post is essentially a re-hash of Fred Hoyle's argument that evolution by natural selection is about as likely as getting a 747 out of a tornado going through a junkyard. He might want to explore the TalkOrigins archive, starting with this page.
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