Book Review: Creationism and the Conflict over Evolution, by Tatha Wiley, Cascade Books 2009.

Barry Boulton, February 1, 2011

This book was reviewed for the Sept – Oct 2010 issue of “Reports of the National Center for Science Education”, see http://ncse.com/rncse/30/5/review-creationism-conflict-over-evolution and we might well wonder why it was reviewed by a fellow Christian (fellow-Christian to Tatha Wiley, not to me I hasten to add!) who notes and supports the old canard that science and religion occupy non-overlapping realms, and that “Questions of an ultimate source of the universe (God) belong to metaphysics and outside the bounds of science”.  This notion of non-overlapping magisterial (NOMA) was infamously, wrongly and foolishly specified by Stephen Jay Gould in his book “Rock of Ages”.  In this notion, science is restricted to the natural world, while only religion has authority over morality.  The reviewer here goes on to say “Science, by its very nature, must limit itself to physical questions. Just as we wish to keep ID out of our classrooms, we must also keep out metaphysical claims that science proves a dysteleological or atheistic cosmos”. Dysteleological, a word invented by the scientist philosopher Haeckel, means that the universe has no cause from purposeful design i.e. no god – and indeed, you have to twist and turn intellectually to disagree with that perspective.

But, religionists of all shapes, sizes and intellectual backgrounds do just that – so, do they have a point?  Well, quite simply – no, they do not.  And why might that be?  Well the first thing is that “science” is not a thing but, rather, it is simply and solely a process of rational reasoning. It is a process of hypothesis (theory or tentative belief if you like) backed up by data and interpretation, followed by experiments to replicate (where possible) and to confirm, or to falsify.   That is, science does not make statements and then hold on to them for millennia simply because they were agreed at, for instance, the Council of Trent (which, between 1545 – 1563 defined and mandated several Catholic dogmas including “original sin”) and have become part of a group’s unchallengeable folk lore.  Thus, science propagates beliefs as theories that explain and predict, knowing that always new data will either overturn or improve them.  So, no less than for religious people, scientists hold beliefs, but the fundamental difference is that a scientist expects and appreciates challenges because that leads to advancement in knowledge.  Religious belief systems are just the opposite in that dogma must never be challenged – because it was introduced always by males who must maintain their dominance.

Yes, but can the scientific process usefully analyze and comment on morality, purpose, or the source of the universe?   Yes, of course, and it does.  We can readily analyze morality, altruism and related so-called meta-physical themes.  "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" is a famous quote by the Russian evolutionary biologist (and Christian as it happens) Theodosius Dobzhansky that we can see appropriate to moral behavior by humans in particular, but also by many other creatures.  Humans evolved with neither speed nor strength characteristics for survival because we had two other characteristics – intelligence AND cooperative behavior. Cooperative behavior requires a feature that underlies morality – trust.  You don’t cooperate to kill for food when you can’t trust your partner(s) to share with you.  That characteristic of trust, and that reason, is shared by legions of other cooperative creatures and so we are not alone in what we term morality.  The only, although fundamental, difference between humans and other moral creatures (think elephant for one) is that we have the intellect to perceive it, to define and articulate it, and to go beyond it as simply for survival of ourselves and ultimately our species (albeit, species survival is not our motivation).  Understanding that we can comprehend what we, as a species, need to do to maintain our survival chances along with all of the good things in life.  Indeed, if we don’t understand human behavior in reality (as distinct from belief), then with almost 7 billion humans fast headed for 10 billion destroying the planet, our survival at least as a social animal are in jeopardy.   

Belief won’t perform that gargantuan task because it is by necessity stagnant; it accepts no challenge, no modification, and treats challenges as mortal threats because to the governing hierarchy it potentially means loss of power – a very human, evolutionary reaction!  So, here’s the problem that religion faces – it really is a case of “The God of the Gaps”, which is to say that when we don’t yet understand something, they can use God as the reason.  But, their gaps are continually narrowing as, for example, the ability of the scientific method to fully understand morality.  Similarly, once upon a time it was believed that lightning and thunderbolts were caused by Zeus and that the Fates predetermined our destiny, but now we know better than those commonly held beliefs in classical Roman times.  So it is with the beginning of the universe that succors us; one day we will perceive a theory that enables us to look backward and forward in time to understand the “why” and “how” of the early universe.  Similarly, and probably much sooner, we will find evidence of life on other planets and then the game will be over for religionists; their gaps will have collapsed in on them.  

If religion, dominated by its frozen dogma, can truly tell us something real about the purpose of humans on this planet, how is it that devout Christians and Moslems have for a millennium and a half enthusiastically killed each other, their own and Jews, all supposedly in the service of the same Abrahamic god?  Science based on sociobiology (the science of understanding human nature and behavior through the lens of evolutionary drives) can easily explain these monstrous genocidal adventures, but religion cannot.  Given that historical perspective on religion, can we expect religious people to comprehend the world’s over-population and over-use of resources in rational ways that might help humans and most creatures on earth to survive?  Given that solutions must be based on some kind of morality, can we really leave that to the religious?  Given that it’s the so-called “Christian Right” that heavily backs the Republican Fascists who are happy to let 50 million Americans live without medical coverage, can we really expect them to comprehend rational morality and humanism? 

 

We see religious people with legions of beliefs; for instance, Harold Camping a Christian radio broadcaster is predicting the Judgment Day on May 21 of this year – despite the fact that Christ is supposed to have warned believers that they would not (i.e. could not) know the day that he would come again.  Meanwhile the Vatican, in a lukewarm nod to science, grudgingly accepts evolution as being compatible with divine purpose, but that “science should never engage in metaphysical claims that the cosmos has no purpose, humans have no ordained role to play, or God has no function in an evolving universe”. Moreover, that we all have some form of “created soul”, even though they cannot define or find a soul in anybody.  Only humans are believed to have souls while animals have no soul, even though many species have as much personality as most people,.  So with these strange and competing beliefs, the question is this: if you want to belief, which set of beliefs do you adopt?   None of them can be analyzed apparently for that would be “scientific” and, in any case, there is no rational way to challenge a belief because by definition it is not understandable in a rational manner.  That makes beliefs arbitrary or random which seems to be a curious way to understand the world and any purpose we might have.  Where might one go for a set of beliefs then?  Do we go to the Vatican that monstrously killed innocents during the Inquisition but couldn’t bear to excommunicate even one Nazi during WWII – does that qualify it?  Or does its pathetic hatred and persecution of gay people lend credibility in the “love thy neighbors” stakes?  How about Islam with its common willingness to brutally barter civilian lives for power?   Probably only groups such as the Quakers and Unitarians would qualify as custodians of human existence – but for the mainstream religious groups, they probably don’t qualify to be called religious!

So, to turn full circle, it is very clear that not only does science belong in the world of morality and purpose, but that religion cannot be trusted in those arenas.  The stark truth is that religion has no authority, no enlightenment to be trusted, and so much for “non-overlapping magisteria” because religion has proved its own dereliction and immorality.  There is only one intellectually honest authority – rationality based on the scientific approach.  Thus, what on earth is NCSE doing letting a Christian professor write this sort of nonsense referenced above.  He should simply put not be on the NCSE’s list of reviewers, even though he and the author reviewed do slam the “intelligent design” (it doesn’t merit the dignity if capital letters) approach.