Just to keep the record complete, and at the risk of being self-aggrandizing, here’s an interview I did some time ago with writer and publisher Scott Jacobsen, an interview coming out in two parts. You can read it for free by clicking on the screenshot below, which goes to the Substack site A Further Inquiry. I haven’t yet read it, as I hate both hearing and reading my own interviews, but I’ll try to pick out a few quotes at lunch now.
Oh hell, here’s one exchange:
Jacobsen: Do you ever get pushback—not on the facts, evidence, or the validity of your arguments—but on your tone? People who position themselves as the “tone police,” saying that you come across too aggressively? H. L. Mencken might have faced this if he were writing today, perhaps to an even greater extent. People might say, “We appreciate the sophistication and flair of your language, but it’s too sharp, and you’re turning people off.” Do you get that kind of response?
Coyne: All the time, man. It’s because you cannot criticize religion, however indirectly, without it being perceived as an attack on religion itself. About 60 to 70 percent of Americans believe that God played a role in evolution, so if you make any statement about evolution, you inevitably have to touch on creationism. When I wrote my book Why Evolution Is True, I aimed for a mild tone; I didn’t want to offend religious people. But you can’t discuss the evidence for evolution without discussing the evidence against creationism.
It’s all interconnected. In the “one long argument” in On the Origin of Species, Darwin repeatedly addresses creationist ideas, acknowledging creationism as the alternative hypothesis to evolution. So, if you’re defending evolution, at some point, you have to critique creationism. When you do that, you’re challenging religious belief, and no matter how mild the critique, people will accuse you of using the wrong tone.
What they’re essentially saying is that you should shut up. One example is when I point out the existence of dead genes—we have, for example, three genes for making egg-yolk proteins in the human genome that are nonfunctional because we don’t make egg yolk anymore—so they’re remnants from our reptilian ancestors. Suppose you mention this to convince people that evolution is true. In that case, you must also ask why a creator would put nonfunctional genes in our genomes. Making this argument is thus a quasi-scientific discussion.
When arguing for evolution, you have to present your case while addressing the alternative, which means critiquing creation. That gets people defensive and makes them criticize the tone of the argument. Sometimes, for fun, I try to write like H. L. Mencken because creationism is fundamentally as baseless as flat-earth ideas. There’s so much evidence against creationism that it’s laughable to espouse it. Usually, I am not Mencken-esque when I give evidence for evolution. I choose to either wear my atheist, anti-religious hat or my scientific hat when lecturing, but not both at the same time.
I’ve always been convinced that when teaching the mandatory evolution segment required for biology majors, it was imperative for me to begin with a segment on “why scientists accept evolution”: several lectures on the evidence. I did that because I wanted the students to leave at least knowing that there’s copious and diverse evidence supporting evolution and natural selection. After graduation, they’ll enter a society in which 71% of Americans see the hand of God in human evolution, and I wanted them to know that the truth of evolution dispels the need for supernatural intervention.
I’ll post on part 2 when it appears.
As if anyone needs another religion to evince – whose tentacles are shoulder-deep into “evolution” – consider the “Evolutionary Leaders”, summoning “conscious evolution”. Deepak is in there! And with an assist from Oprah!
Orthodox/plain-old-religion-with-Jesus-in-it religions perceive the creepy threat of the “Evolutionary Leaders” and their “SDG Thought Circle” – and for reasons I agree with – but typically that minority get obscured/equivocated by the put-my-Bible-in-schools loudmouths.
Those SDG people really have it all worked out, don’t they? Heaven on earth, by George. “Thought Circles”, huh? Strikes me as being rather cult like.
Tech note for those of false consciousness :
SDG stands for :
Sustainable Development Goals
… Have a Sustainable day!
Why would Jack Nicholson say that? I thought it was a reference to Chinatown in which Nicholson plays Jake Gittes and his partner says “Forget it Jake it’s Chinatown”. Maybe I’ve completely confused the Jake references with Chinatown when they refer to something else, something outside my ken. Speaking of Ken, if only he were here. Anyway, my theory is in trouble. Maybe Nicholson would say it when talking to himself 🙂
No, you are right; it was Nicholsons partner that said it. But I do love the phrase.
Thank you for posting this link Jerry. I do like reading your interviews. 😉
I’ll read it. Thank you for the link.
Yes, when teaching evolution you have to provide evidence, which inevitably means mentioning the alternative. I did so in a way that I thought would not be jarring to students, many of whom had only a rudimentary understanding of evolution and very little understanding of the evidence. Almost none knew anything about how natural selection works, except in caricature as “survival of the fittest.” There’s no way around discussing creationism, and some people will be disturbed enough to criticize your delivery even if they can’t criticize your facts.
When was this interview conducted? You (Jerry) spoke about going to Poland in “a couple weeks”. Is that the trip you made before or are you heading there again?
No, that was when I went a while back to visit Malgozata and Andrzej and also give a talk at the Silesian Science Festival.
Why did the creator god put nipples on men? Why did he put no less than 8 nipples on male dogs? That always stumps them.
That is funny: I once had a student visit me after 15 years or so and he told me that he had forgotten a lot of the course material but remembered the male nipples, which I do mention as a nonadaptive byproduct of evolution in women.
…and these days taken as evidence that sex is is spectrum or we’re all trans or something. (evidence? nay, proof! see also Facebook memes…). The interview segment was fine.
I understand the need to teach students exactly how science and evolution work. I don’t understand why a teacher needs to bring religious beliefs into the equation except in answer to a student’s questions or comments. Science lives in the land of objective proofs. Religious beliefs live in the land of imagination and narrative understandings. Objective data driven proofs versus narrative emotional truths. Almost different universes and perhaps one reason that the indigenous ways of knowing movements that classify themselves as a type of or equal to science are so jarring for scientists.
It is important because Darwins (excuse absence of apostrophe; key is broken) huge advance was to replace religious explanations for the fit of organisms to their environment with materialistic ones. So you must mention this if you want to put Darwins greatness in true historical perspective. Also, remember that 71% of Americans still hold to at least a partial creationist perspective, and one must explain why evolution is a better explanation for the data we have. It is like deciding between any two hypotheses that purport to explain the data, it is just that one of the hypotheses in evolution is the alternative of divine adaptive creation. To many religious people still, adaptation is best explained by God, so I do not agree with you that religous beliefs do not live in the land of data and hypotheses (think of the fine-tuning explanations in physics).
Thank you Dr. Coyne. I need to sit with your explanation for a bit. I’ve been wondering how to explain evolution to junior high age students without insulting any religious belief they might hold. Obviously I haven’t mastered that challenge yet.
Maybe everyone could at least agree that the “Evolutionary Leaders” like Deepak are New Age religious goofballs who think you control “evolution” with your thoughts!
I mean, if any religions can be laughed at ’round the horn, fruity New Age would be it IMHO, even to their faces.