In that silly debate, Bill Nye made a wise tactical decision: to focus exclusively on the specific topic of the debate, whether creationism was a viable scientific model, and to avoid getting bogged down in the question of whether there is a god or not. I think that was a smart move, simply because a “good” debate (it’s debatable whether there is such a thing) addresses a single clear point with rhetoric and logic. Outside of the arena, though, the question of the relevance to evolution is fair game, and unfortunately, some people give the wrong answer.

Phil Plait, for example.

So evolution is not anti-religion in general. But is it atheistic? No. Evolution takes no stand on the existence or lack thereof of a god or gods. Whether you think life originated out of ever-more complex chemical reactions occurring on an ancient Earth, or was breathed into existence by God, evolution would take over after that moment. It’s a bit like the Big Bang; we don’t know how the Universe came into existence at that moment, but starting a tiny fraction of a second after that event our science does a pretty fair job of explanation.

I can’t stress this enough. The conflict over the teaching of evolution is based on the false assumption that evolution is antagonistic to religion. This is why, I think, evolution is so vehemently opposed by so many in the United States. The attacks on the specifics of evolution—the claims about irreducibility of the eye, for example, or other such incorrect statements—are a symptom, not a cause. I can talk about how we know the Universe is old until the Universe is substantially older and not convince someone whose heels are dug in. But if we can show them that the idea of evolution is not contrary to their faith, then we will make far, far more progress.

Are orbital mechanics atheistic? Can we say, well, the orbit of a satellite is entirely compatible with the idea that a god is keeping it aloft — that we could imagine that this god is actually doing all the heavy lifting and flinging of the equipment about, but because he is so lawful, he’s doing it in a way that precisely mimics the movements that it would follow if it were obeying the laws of Newton and Einstein? In a trivial way, sure, you could pretend everything is being directly manipulated by a sentient and anthropomorphic (but invisible and intangible) god, but that’s mere philosophical wanking. We certainly aren’t launching satellites with prayer, and it’s anti-scientific to propose theological excuses for processes that are accurately and entirely explained by math and physics.

Conversely, if you believe that satellites are held aloft by god-power and Newton and Einstein are superfluous, then some astronomer or engineer asserting that the laws of physics describe and explain the motion of orbiting masses is making an anti-religious argument. We understand the forces; we have good descriptions of how they work; we have repeated, independently verified, empirical observations of the mechanisms at work; we make predictions and test them using our godless explanations, and adding a god factor to the equations does not help or explain anything.

Similarly, we understand the forces that drive evolution. We have our equations and measurements and collected observations, too, and nowhere in them do we have a god fudge-factor. Yet somehow, some engineers and physicists (and it’s almost always engineers and physicists; did you notice the background of the ‘experts’ Ken Ham flaunted in little video segments during the debate?) are perfectly happy to wave away the knowledge of biologists and declare, well say there, evolution takes no stand on the existence of gods, and is perfectly compatible with religious explanations … despite the fact that virtually every religion on the planet makes clear claims about the origin of biological organisms, and that virtually every religious person squawks in complaint when a biologist explains the actual processes and mechanisms that drive evolutionary change. Which never seem to involve a super-man nudging nucleotides or making organs out of mud. And also are so chance-driven that you can’t even argue that it was a process begun in a Big Bang that ineluctably led to us.

We have been living under a system in the US for decades, in which scientists have been bending over backwards to avoid bringing up the profound conflict between religious and scientific claims, in which public school classrooms have been stripped of solid scientific discussions of evolution by social and political pressures. And then every time this goddamn apologia for creationists comes up, someone has to lay the blame for why “evolution is so vehemently opposed” on people who point out the true and obvious statement that yes, evolution contradicts religious just-so story, despite the fact that with few exceptions, scientists, like Phil Plait, insist on making these invalid excuses for the compatibility of science and religion. Scientists have largely been intellectual cowards (with exceptions!) on the God issue for decades, and you can’t now blame the publication of The Genesis Flood on our aggressive forthrightness.

The excuses don’t help. The creationists are angry at us because they’re not stupid, and they recognize what is obvious that the accommodating scientists try to deny: that accepting the mechanical and unaware nature of the forces that have brought us into existence directly contradicts their paternalistic idea of a benevolent universe that loves them and created them with conscious intent. I can see through that bullshit, and so can they.

Stop treating everyone like five year olds who see the logical and physical contradictions in the Santa Claus story. We’re all grown ups here, I hope, so why do we have people who are aware of how science works trying to insist that maybe it doesn’t, all to appease people clinging to a cherished lie?

Evolution does take a stand on the origin of life and of human beings, and it is not god-driven, god-dependent, or even god-compatible. So if you’re one of those non-biologists who insists that biologists should just throw out their knowledge of how evolution works to make happy nice with people who are actively opposing science, I give you two choices: either learn some biology so you can actually make an informed contribution to the discussion about what the science says, or shut the fuck up.

If you can’t do either, I could start yelling at you that space travel is impossible because Jebus evolved us to live in a universe made of water, and I’ll sound just as ignorant as you do.

As I mentioned, I’ll be heading off to the Creation Science Fair early tomorrow morning. I’m aiming to get there around tenish, but I do have a 3 hour drive, and there are hints of snow tomorrow, so I may be a little late. Feel free to start without me.

Afterwards, let’s do lunch before I turn around and head home!

I’ve been collecting responses to the notorious debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye, and intend to write a couple of summaries of various aspects of the debate: Bill Nye won it hands down, but that does not remove him from criticism, and there have been some weird arguments presented both to defend and criticize him.

Right now, I want to focus on William Saletan, corporate tool and professional contrarian, who also seems to have some kind of weird Malcolm Gladwell envy. Don’t feel jealous, Will, to me you’re both glib and superficial apologists for capitalism. here’s the gist of Saletan’s bizarre interpretation of the creationism offered by the profitable folks at Answers in Genesis.

Creationism, as presented by Ham and his colleagues, is a compartmentalized myth. It doesn’t prevent its adherents from functioning as ordinary people or as scientists.

I would like to see evidence of this “compartmentalized” aspect of the myth. It looks to me like it’s spilling out all over. Saletan might want to look at the people Republicans appoint to oversee environmental concerns. John Shimkus, who believes global climate change is no threat, because the story of Noah’s Flood is literally true, and God promised he wouldn’t do it again; Paul Broun, who called evolution “lies from the pit of hell”. Is James Inhofe safely “compartmentalized”?

And then I look at what’s being done to public education. Louisiana is using state funds to promote creationism; are we building a wall around the whole state to compartmentalize it? About a third of Minnesota teachers are talking up young earth creationism in their classes — it seems to be an awfully porous compartment. The Texas Board of Education is packed with young earth creationists who do their damnedest to keep science out of the textbooks. Are these not doing harm?

Further, I’d argue that it does interfere with your ability as a scientist. Ken Ham trotted out a series of people who basically executed significant engineering projects, and called them scientists; Saletan, totally clueless as ever about what science actually entails, accepts that without question and thinks Ham was effective in portraying creationism as compatible with science.

Science is a process for generating new knowledge, and for creating a deeper understanding of how the universe works. Important as it is, it is not engineering. It is not about building gadgets for satellites. You can do science with satellite gadgets. It is an important distinction. And we’re dealing with people who reject science, who claim the universe is less than ten thousand years old, in defiance of all the science that says otherwise — you don’t get to claim that they are functioning as scientists.

But I also have to criticize Nye, who has been repeating this same kind of line over and over, and it really misses the point. Here’s Saletan again:

Nye portrayed creationism as a cancer. Each time he spoke, he closed with the same warning: Creationism threatens technology, innovation, and prosperity. He insisted that you can’t do good science or run a successful society while maintaining a distinction between real, experimental science and mythical “historical science.” At one point, he showed a satellite image of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. “That capability,” he said of the satellite, “comes from our fundamental understanding of gravity, of material science, of physics and life science.”

Actually, no. It doesn’t. You can be a perfectly good satellite engineer while believing total nonsense about the origins of life. That doesn’t mean we should teach creationism in schools or pretend it’s a scientific theory. But it does mean we can live with it as a compartmentalized fetish. Believe whatever you want to about monkeys, Noah, and the Garden of Eden. Just don’t let it mess with your day job.

Impractical as this sounds, science isn’t about jobs. Nye is making a huge mistake tying understanding science to strictly utilitarian and immediate ends, and that may be a consequence of his background as an engineer.

Let me rephrase it to make the flaw in this argument obvious. What if we were talking about art?

Art is clearly important for a healthy society — it’s how we see and think about ourselves, it’s how we express human values, it’s fundamentally part of being human. It’s also an effective and powerful way to challenge preconceptions and make our culture better. But it doesn’t pay. And corporate art tends to be bland pablum that does nothing to fulfill the essential functions of art.

(If anyone here dares to make that stupid joke of smug philistines everywhere, you know the one that ends Want fries with that?, you deserve to be lobotomized and shackled to an assembly line for the rest of your life, OK? You don’t understand anything. You have drunk the kool-aid and think the purpose of your life is serving your bosses, you don’t understand art or science, and you can just fuck off.)

So here’s Nye asserting that the measure of the importance of science is how well it trains you to do a job, and here’s Saletan basically agreeing with him on the purpose of learning about science, and disagreeing with Nye by claiming that learning bad science isn’t going to have any impact on your work prospects, because he thinks The McJob is what science is all about. Not only is he building a fallacious case for science, he’s essentially throwing art under the bus along with it.

A pox on both of them. Nye is good at communicating a passion for science, but fails to note the conflict when he pretends that science is about being a better, more employable widget maker for Big Widget, Inc. Saletan is just a cynical contrarian twit who isn’t even aware that his cocky excuses for the corporate status quo are the opposite of contrarian or challenging or provocative. They’re simply sad.

I’m going to have to ask that all you confident utilitarians please sit it out when you’re asked to discuss the validity of science, because you’re prone to reducing it to the wrong foundation. I’m also going to ask what the hell is wrong with Nye for making an argument based on personal profit when he ignored Nick Matzke’s commandments for wanna-be debaters, which are all about locking down where the money will go.

It’s just inconsistencies all over the map.

The Twin Cities Creation Science Association is hosting their annual science fair again this weekend, at the University of Northwestern St Paul, 3003 North Snelling, Roseville, Minnesota, in Maranatha Hall. At least it’s being done at an appropriately Christian college.

Every year I note this thing, and every year I fail to attend. It’s just too depressing to see the sad little displays and the cheerful kids who are being detoured into failure. I always feel like I should go, though, just to witness it.

So I was thinking, maybe if I had a little more incentive…is there anyone else in that part of Minnesota who’d like to meet up, take a tour through the tackiness, and then get together to restore our faith in humanity with a beer or lunch? Let me know in the comments. I’d probably aim to get there around 10am, when it’s all set up and judging is going on, and be off by early afternoon. If anyone can recommend a good pub or something in that area, even if you can’t make it, it would be appreciated.

Let me add: if you look at the photos of last year’s fair, you’ll see that these are fairly typical of even secular science fairs — the only weird bit is the required inclusion of a Bible verse, and every once in a great while someone trots out some nonsense about a young earth or whatever. If you think this is an opportunity to get together and poke fun at some kids, stay home, OK?