Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
You may remember that a short while back Caspar Melville, editor of New Humanist, went after Gnu Atheism, confessing his boredom while accusing us all of being theological morons (yawn). Well, perhaps good Caspar has had a change of heart, for he’s allowed Ophelia Benson to defend the Gnus at his site. One thing that bugs Ophelia, as it bugs me, is the maddening reluctance of Gnu critics to name the supposed miscreants.
Angry reaction doesn’t have much use for accurate and careful – angry reaction is trying to shut down the opposition, not make it better. If you don’t believe me, just Google a name or two along with “New Atheism” – try Michael Ruse, Andrew Brown, Madeleine Bunting, Mark Vernon, Barney Zwartz, Chris Hedges, Karen Armstrong, Chris Mooney, to name just a few.
Much of this situation – this dispute – is an artefact of the internet. Anything written can be instantly discussed; factions form, then groupthink and othering come into play. Blogs are notoriously liable to this. I’ve seen (and sometimes been part of) many blog arguments about the putative evils of New Atheism in which, when pressed to give actual examples of militant strident aggressive new atheism, the critic will cite comments on a blog.
At least we know where we are when that happens. Blog comments, especially on popular sites, can very quickly generate an atmosphere of mobbing, simply because most regular readers share a point of view. But that is a feature of blog comments and the internet more generally, not of new atheism as such. The picture is further confused because New Atheism can mean the big four (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens), or the big four plus some others, or all of them plus all avowed explicit outspoken atheists. Worst of all, it can mean the big four plus all drive-by shouters on the internet. It is seldom made explicit which is meant, and the result is that critics often oscillate between various meanings without notice.
So come on, ye critics like Phil Plait and Caspar Melville—put up or shut up. Atheism thrives on evidence, not innuendo. These criticisms without attached names remind me of Joe McCarthy’s never-revealed lists of Communists in the State Department.
To complement Greg’s post below, I’ll soon put up my own post about the Smithsonian’s new human evolution exhibit. Like Greg’s, that one will also highlight the science (and deficiencies thereof), but I just wanted to add a note about how religion was involved in the exhibit.
Now it’s true that exhibits like this have the potential to unsettle those of the faithful who are creationists or are on the fence. The facts in the Smithsonian exhibit are presented pretty uncompromisingly, and that’s good. What isn’t so good is that exhibits like this one often try to defuse religious objections by presenting a particular theological view, to wit: human evolution is compatible with religion. And of course I object to that because it’s theology and not science. Why not just give folks the science and let them draw their own conclusions? If they are disturbed, they can go to their own pastor or any number of sources that deal with science and faith. I take the Jack Webb approach to evolution exhibits: “All we want is the science, ma’am.”
In the vibrant scientific field of human evolution, new discoveries and research findings are regularly reported as lead stories in newspapers and other media. Despite strong public interest, however, many people find the idea of human evolution troubling when viewed from a religious perspective. While polarized public opinion on the matter is the usual focus, the diversity of contemporary religious responses to evolution is less recognized. These responses point to opportunities for a productive relationship between science and religion without assuming a conflict between the scientific evidence of human evolution and religious beliefs. . . The role of the BSIC is to offer support and advice regarding the public presentation of the science of human origins in light of potential responses by diverse faith communities to the subject of human evolution.
Well, I’m not keen on this because it’s publicly-funded theology (the Smithsonian is run by the government): government endorsement of a no-conflict model. That would seem to violate the first amendment, since it favors one form of religion (those faiths that accept evolution) over others (those that are creationist).
The Smithsonian committee comprised 13 people, eleven of whom are identified by their religion: “Muslim,” “Judaism,” “Mennonite Brethren,” and so on. There’s also a humanist—Fred Edwords—and a Dr. Joe Watkins, who seems to represent only himself.
Fortunately, I didn’t detect excessive pandering to religion in the exhibit, but it was there nonetheless. Here are some slides in an interactive computer display at the beginning of the exhibit:
My answer to the question below: get rid of religion.
And this, which refers to different “stories” without noting that all save one are wrong:
But in this respect the Smithsonian exhibit is still far ahead of its rival: the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), whose Hall of Human Origins does even more distasteful pandering,
Over at No Right to Believe, Ezra Reznick publishes an open letter to the AMNH, detailing the accommodationism that infects the AMNH exhibit (which he otherwise liked):
One of the scientists on display (I have forgotten his name) asserts that “science cannot tell us what is right or wrong, what is good or evil, what is the meaning or purpose of existence. That’s what philosophy is for; that’s what religion is for; that’s what moral and ethical frameworks are for.” I found this statement to be incoherent and misleading (at best). First of all, note that nearby displays in the exhibit deal with the evolution of human art, tools, music and language — and their analogs in other species — and we can likewise recognize precursors of what we would call moral behavior, like cooperation and compassion, in other social animals. Science certainly does have much to say on the subject of morality — for instance, the theory of evolution itself has had profound implications for how we treat nonhuman animals (our cousins in the tree of life) and humans of different races. In general, science can potentially tell us whether and how much a given creature might suffer in a given situation — surely the primary concern of morality. As for meaning and purpose, the theory of evolution reinforces the understanding that there is no “cosmic purpose” behind our existence; that the universe doesn’t care about us and wasn’t created with humans in mind.
And, wouldn’t you know it, Francis Collins also appears:
I was further disappointed to see a video of Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, proclaiming that while science is the way to explore the natural world, he also believes in a personal God, and finds science and faith to be complementary. To realize how nonsensical and unscientific this statement is, replace the word “God” with the name of a specific deity — Allah, Shiva, Zeus, etc. After all, it’s not as if Collins is a deist or a generic theist (whatever that might be) — he is an evangelical Christian, and claims to believe many specific truth-claims of his doctrine: the resurrection of Jesus, the divinity of the Bible, and so on. A Muslim or Hindu scientist would hold different (often contradictory) beliefs. And yet none of these religious dogmas are supported by any good evidence, as is true for the belief that a personal God exists at all — indeed, 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject the belief in such a God (according to a 1998 survey).
It seems as if the curators were worried that people would emerge from the exhibit thinking, “Well, if we evolved naturally from nonhuman animals, then our lives are meaningless and there’s no reason to behave morally.” This is nonsense, but instead of highlighting how a scientific understanding of the world (and the theory of evolution in particular) can and should strengthen our appreciation of life’s value and our commitment to treating each other ethically, the exhibit chooses to reinforce the tiresome tripe about how science can’t address the big questions of life (while presumably religion can), and how we need to rely on a supernatural deity to give our lives meaning and tell us how we ought to behave.
Collins, along with other accommodationisms, also appeared on video at our Field Museum’s Darwin exhibit a while back, assuring distressed viewers that evolution and faith are perfectly compatible.
To top this all off, Alan Leshner, executive publisher of Science and CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, published a piece in last Saturday’s HuffPo: “How science museums are promoting civil religion-science dialogue.” He explains how the Smithsonian’s outreach committee affected the exhibit. There was some sensitivity training for volunteers, which is great—we don’t want docents insulting people who come to learn about human evolution. But there were two warning flags. Leshner notes:
It is possible to counter the dangerous polarization within our society related to science-religion issues, as demonstrated by the Smithsonian’s David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins. A key to the exhibit’s success, Potts says, was the decision to center the exhibit around a question rather than an answer: “What does it mean to be human?” (Similarly, The Exploratorium in San Francisco presents information about human origins by asking, “How do we know what we know?”)
Yes, they counter the “dangerous polarization” by pretending that the exhibit is not about answers (which, of course, it is), and by allowing viewers to construct their own answers. This is something Greg worried about in his post below, but I didn’t realize it was part of a deliberate strategy to defuse religious conflict.) And the impact committee had another effect:
All of these and other tactics have allowed the museum to move “beyond the stereotype that scientists only believe one thing and people with strong religious views can only believe another,” Potts says.
In fact, they do this by pretending that there are no scientists who reject religion, and that science and faith are always friends. That’s intellectual dishonesty, and even if it’s in the service of promoting evolution, I reject it. Far better to leave out all mention of faith. Let the faithful see the facts, and ponder their discomfort on their own time. It’s not the job of public exhibits, particularly government sponsored ones, to take a specific position on theology.
The Hall of Human Origins, a new permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian‘s National Museum of Natural History (aka the USNM) opened last March (at which time I got only a peek), and over the summer I finally got a chance to take in the whole exhibit. Like Edward Rothstein of the New York Times, whose review I noted in an earlier post, I have somewhat mixed feelings. There are many excellent displays in the hall, and it does bear “repeated, close viewing” (which is to my mind the highest praise for a museum exhibit), but there are also lost opportunities, slack use of space and objects, and, frankly, abdication of curatorial responsibility.
As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m a fan of the “cabinet” style in natural history museums. This style emphasizes well-labeled displays rich in the number and diversity of specimens and objects on display. An alternative style, which I’ve taken to calling “interactive”, is characterized by sparse specimens, large fonts, blank space, and interactive displays. Along with the late Steve Gould, I’m less fond of this style. First, some of the good stuff. The hall opens with a number of reproductions of well-known hominid skulls, such as this Paranthropus boisei (one could quibble with some of the taxonomy adopted in the exhibit, but it’s not a major concern of most visitors, and I’ll use what’s in the labels). For complex three-dimensional structures, such as skulls, the ability to walk around, look under, and touch the object greatly enhances the visitor’s grasp of the object, and I applaud taking some of the skulls out of the display cases, and putting them into the hall and the visitor’s hands.
Paranthropus boisei, KNM-ER 406
The following two skeletons, nearly complete, of Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, are well-labeled, and, placed side-by side, allow the visitor to compare and contrast their form, while the signage guides the eye to particularly interesting parts, and their interpretation.
Homo erectus (left) and Homo neanderthalensis
The exhibit includes a number of life reconstructions of hominid heads by John Gurche. Any life reconstruction must be a work of art as well as science, and is, of necessity, in part speculative. Gurche is well-known for making his art as informed as possible by science, and the fact that corresponding skulls for most or all of the life reconstructions are in the exhibit allows the visitor to compare the art with the inspiration.
Paranthropus boisei (skull pictured in first photo in post)
I also liked some large bronzes scattered about, which, like Gurche’s life reconstructions, are both art and science, and, like the skull casts, walk-aroundable. They reminded me of Carl Akeley’s famous bronzes, found at museum such as the Field in Chicago, and the AmericanMusuem in New York.
Mother and child
Paleoanthropological materials (bones, tools, art) are sufficiently rare that even great museums like the USNM must rely on reproductions for most of the display materials. This is a disappointment, but understandable.
Ancient art works– note that they are all casts
But some aspects of the hall, generally those in the more “interactive” style were less successful to my mind. Here is the theme of the hall– “What does it mean to be human?”– which to me seems an ill-formed question, not subject to any clearly comprehensible response. I was tempted to say, “Fortytwo.” Note that the exhibit designers quickly translate the theme to a different, and more answerable, question.
The hall’s theme.
Some early parts of the hall don’t seem to make good use of the space available.
A really lost opportunity is presented by a “cave wall” with fine reproductions of cave art, but little or nothing to guide or inform the visitor as to the import of what is displayed. There is some interpretive signage, but it’s in another case, not closely adjacent. As Edward Tufte has urged, we should integrate our images, words, numbers, and –for museums– objects; keeping all within an eyespan. These are thrilling achievements by among the earliest of human artists, but we are given little to go on in interpreting them, and our appreciation stays at a purely aesthetic level.
Horse and handsLion (?) heads
The part of the exhibit I found most wanting is the reproduction of a famous cave painting known as “The Sorcerer”, an anthropomorphic figure that combines deer and man. The reproduction is fine.
The Sorcerer
But the signage (enalrged below) is not fine. The question “What do you see?” reflects a trend in pedagogy and museum display that is thought to be ‘active’, and ‘inquiry’ based. But you can’t make intelligent inquiries into something about which you know nothing. Are those the antlers of a caribou or a red deer? Are the dark markings in the leg similar to the bones or the muscles? And do they look like parts of a deer or of a man? What other paintings, if any, are on this wall? Have any artifacts or bones been found in the cave? What animals lived in the area at the time? Without addressing these and many other questions, your inquiry goes nowhere. You may have an opinion, and it may feel good to have your opinion asked for, but your opinion is worthless– it is an uninformed speculation at best. The curators have abdicated their responsibility to provide the necessary context, and to share with us their informed opinion. They may of course be wrong, and further discoveries or reflection might lead us and them to another interpretation, but this does not excuse them for not letting us know what they think. I do not want to know what the visitor next to me sees, or even what I see; what I want to know is what is seen by the men and women who have studied this painting and its context most thoroughly, and reflected on it most deeply.
What do you see?
There are of course the now requisite interactive displays. (Note the question on the right!) Jerry has been to the exhibit on his current east coast tour, and he will likely have more to say about this aspect when he posts about it.
Can the concept of evolution co-exist with religious faith?
Overall, I’d give the exhibit a B- ; it does, as Edward Rothstein said, repay close and repeated viewing, but it could have been more.
An odd item I’ll close on are the curious politics of David Koch, chief funder of the exhibit (it’s actually called the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins). As I noted before, he’s a global warming denialist, and, as Frank Rich of the New York Times recently detailed, along with his brother, he’s a major funder of the tea party movement. Since tea partiers tend to be creationists, this is a real head scratcher– what is Koch thinking? The people he’s funding would probably want the USNM shut down. (I did keep an eye out for anything about climate in the exhibit, but noticed nothing untoward.)
Here’s a 7-minute clip of Sam Harris discussing The Moral Landscape on last night’s Daily Show. Not a lot of laughs, but Sam is his usual eloquent self.
Over at Big Think, NIH director Francis Collins is interviewed about the science-religion divide. Most of what he says in his interview, called “Why it’s so hard for scientists to believe in God,” is pretty standard accommodationism. It’s rife with NOMA-ism, for instance, and with the idea that the two magisteria address different questions. But it’s intriguing how Collins describes the questions that he sees as the unique bailiwick of faith. I’ve put some sections in bold below:
But faith in its perspective is really asking a different set of questions. And that’s why I don’t think there needs to be a conflict here. The kinds of questions that faith can help one address are more in the philosophical realm. Why are we all here? Why is there something instead of nothing? Is there a God? Isn’t it clear that those aren’t scientific questions and that science doesn’t have much to say about them? But you either have to say, well those are inappropriate questions and we can’t discuss them or you have to say, we need something besides science to pursue some of the things that humans are curious about. For me, that makes perfect sense. But I think for many scientists, particularly for those who have seen the shrill pronouncements from extreme views that threaten what they’re doing scientifically and feel therefore they can’t really include those thoughts into their own worldview, faith can be seen as an enemy.
Notice that he doesn’t say that religion can answer questions: it can “address” them and help us “discuss” them and “pursue” them. I’m not sure whether this is deliberate evasion (I believe Karl Giberson takes the same tactic), but of course claiming that religion provides answers lays you open to queries about the different “answers” of other faiths.
The strangest part of the interview is where Collins describes how he thinks God affects the universe. It verges on deism. Again, I’ve put one part in bold:
Other aspects of our universe I think also for me as for Einstein raised questions about the possibility of intelligence behind all of this. Why is it that, for instance, that the constance that determines the behavior of matter and energy, like the gravitational constant, for instance, have precisely the value that they have to in order for there to be any complexity at all in the Universe. That is fairly breathtaking in its lack of probability of ever having happened. And it does make you think that a mind might have been involved in setting the stage. At the same time that does not imply necessarily that that mind is controlling the specific manipulations of things that are going on in the natural world. In fact, I would very much resist that idea. I think the laws of nature potentially could be the product of a mind. I think that’s a defensible perspective. But once those laws are in place, then I think nature goes on and science has the chance to be able to perceive how that works and what its consequences are.
In fact, this doesn’t verge on deism: it is deism. God set up the laws of physics and let things roll. But the curious thing is that if Collins really believes this, and “strongly resists” the idea that God manipulates what’s going on in the world by suspending natural laws, then he surely can’t believe in miracles. And yet, as an evangelical Christian, his faith rests squarely on miracles. The virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracle stories of the New Testament—all of those would have to go out the window.
I doubt that Collins has undergone a profound shift of faith, but I’d love to ask him how this apparent deism comports with his evangelical Christianity. I’m sure these sentiments aren’t welcomed at BioLogos, the organization he founded.
We should have expected this: the loons in the Vatican are decrying the Nobel Prize awarded to Robert Edwards for developing in vitro fertilization for humans. According to the BBC,
Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the award ignored the ethical questions raised by the fertility treatment.
He said IVF had led to the destruction of large numbers of human embryos.
Nearly four million babies have been born using IVF fertility treatment since 1978.
Mr Carrasco, the Vatican’s spokesman on bio-ethics, said in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) had been “a new and important chapter in the field of human reproduction”.
But he said the Nobel prize committee’s choice of Prof Edwards had been “completely out of order” as without his treatment, there would be no market for human eggs “and there would not be a large number of freezers filled with embryos in the world”, he told Italy’s Ansa news agency.
“In the best of cases they are transferred into a uterus but most probably they will end up abandoned or dead, which is a problem for which the new Nobel prize winner is responsible.”
IVF always requires a surplus of eggs, and frequently a surplus of fertilized ones. Absent religions like Catholicism, which insists on seeing a small ball of cells as an ensouled human, there would be no moral outcry over a procedure like this.
It’s ludicrous pronouncements like this, against a procedure that has helped so many people, that will spell the end of the Catholic church.
One of the friends I’m visiting in Boston is Andrew Berry, who teaches evolutionary biology at Harvard. You may recall that Berry, whose other passion is mountaineering, placed a copy of WEIT atop Mount Darwin in California.
Berry has recently posted an account of his mountaineering homage to Charles Darwin: a combined climbing/backpacking expedition with another evolutionist. The team ascended Mounts Darwin, Wallace, and Lamarck in the Sierra Nevada. His account includes interesting information on how these mountains got their names (others in the range include Mounts Huxley, Spencer, and Mendel). Berry is unenthusiastic about the suggestion (seriously) that another peak in the range be named Mount (Stephen Jay) Gould; he favors Mount [R. A.] Fisher instead.
