Reiss resigns – the boldness of the enlightenment dimmed

Reiss has resigned, having been misrepresented that creationism should be taught in the classroom when he suggested that it should be challenged when brought up by students. He was the director of education at the Royal Society, and having initially stood by him, they decided that the damage to their international reputation over this meant he had no option but to resign. The Royal Society in a statement said:

Some of Professor Michael Reiss’s recent comments, on the issue of creationism in schools, while speaking as the Royal Society’s Director of Education, were open to misinterpretation. While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the Society’s reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the Society, he will step down immediately as Director of Education a part time post he held on secondment. He is to return, full time, to his position as Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education.

The Royal Society’s position is that creationism has no scientific basis and should not be part of the science curriculum. However, if a young person raises creationism in a science class, teachers should be in a position to explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism is not, in any way, scientific.

The Royal Society greatly appreciates Professor Reiss’s efforts in furthering the Society’s work in the important field of science education over the past two years. The Society wishes him well for the future.

It seems that what did for him was the suggestion by some that creationism should not even have science used to discredit it; it should be dismissed. That if a student believed that science was wrong about the age of the world or evolution, that a science teacher should not respond. It is almost like creationism should be treated as the elephant in the science classroom. Science teachers do not deal with a misleading world view, and students go out the classroom thinking that the science of man is wrong compared to the glory of god, and continue to ride the elephant that has no substance. The hope it seems is that the excrement of the elephant will not be shown to the class to infect them with a delusion.

The argument boils down to quarantine creationism (no mention even by students) or inoculation (which risks that it is mentioned, but controlled by the teacher). The problem is that we do not trust that science teachers will teach the science – rather that they will consider creationism an acceptable alternative view, or by talking about it somehow make the criticism scientifically relevant. As if scientific ignorance born of religion is a genie that needs to be kept in the bottle for fear that it will make creationist’s wishes come true.

Outside the scientific community creationism is considered a world view that is acceptable. Whether good or bad science is less important then it being considered a religious belief, shielding the ignorance and by not wanting science teachers to correct the bad science giving further cover. The science classroom seems to be the best place to dispel such ignorance of the world we live in.

What I am calling for is a Bill Bryson teacher of biology class. Reiss is right that this is a tall order for teachers; someone that can make science interesting and explain how we know things, as much as what we know. When a student challenges science (on whatever) they can go into the science. The teacher has to stick to the science, not their personal views.

Why some think this amounts to teaching creationism is absurd. Atheist blogger makes the point:

So, I agree with Mr Reiss on the principle that if the subject is brought up, it should be commented on and dismissed. What I do not agree with is his opinion that “they should also take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis“. Creationism shouldn’t be given more than 10 seconds in a science classroom. If it is mentioned for more than that amount of time, students might get the impression that it is actually a worthwhile subject to talk about, instead of learning how evolution works, and all the evidence for that.

The student already thinks it is a worthwhile subject to talk about. Are we really concerned that a creationist student having their belief system mentioned and corrected with science will have unleashed a meme to infect their other classmates? This is not about saying teach the controversy (there is not one in science) or give it equal time (like we would not with alchemy or astrology).

The issue is one I relate to as a student of the Jehovah’s Witnesses when at school. Education is important in the instruction – that of god’s word and the teachings as explained by the Watchtower and Bible Tract Society. Evolution was wrong and creationism right. I even learned how to argue with Darwinists with scripture and bad science – cushioned with faith that the world was in the hands of the evil one and that science teachers and peers were pawns in the end game of Armageddon.

So it would have been great if my science teachers could have shown me just how wrong the bad science was. Yes I wanted to bring it up, because I felt it was misleading. I would have liked nothing better then to talk to my teacher after class. Their is an arrogance in ministry work that as an instrument of god you can change people’s lives and save them. As you can imagine, teachers would not discuss these things with me because that was not the domain of science to correct religious views.

Lord Winston made the comment:

“I fear that the Royal Society may have only diminished itself. This individual was arguing that we should engage with and address public misconceptions about science — something that the Royal Society should applaud.”

That is my fear too. Yet if we are prepared to allow misconceptions about what Reiss was arguing for then maybe for the sake of creationism not being challenged we will allow children to have their misconceptions about the world go unchallenged in the education system. Which will mean that evolution is not taught in a way that steps on sensibilities too much. That the scientific method and how that validates such things as evolution and the age of the world will not have time on the curriculum.

The enlightenment was about stressing the use of reason as the best way to find the truth about ourselves and the world around us. Kant’s buss word for this was ‘Sapere aude’ (‘dare to know’). Roy Porter observed on those intellectual bandits that were part of the movement:

They shared a general commitment to criticizing the injustices and exposing inefficiencies of the ancien régime; to emancipating mankind, through knowledge, education and science, from the chains of ignorance and error, superstition, theological dogma, and the dead hand of the clergy.

Perhaps a fear of religion in the science classroom is making us forget that education is the primary reason why students go to school. We can continue to allow teachers to teach things, the students to believe something different – and because of our fear not allow the student’s belief given to them by their parents to go uncriticized and their ignorance by which they reject what they are taught unchallenged.

Reiss, suggesting after 20 years this approach has not worked in making evolution understood by a generation of religious students, wanted an engaged approach with them – one that the followers of the enlightenment would have understood only too well. Yet rather than listen to whether such a different way may improve the science education and reduce the ignorance of school leavers, we have effectively said business as normal.

That though is the problem with science education in this country. Dawkins in his latest programme was critical of the science teachers of a school for thinking that creationist world views were acceptable and out of bounds for being challenged in the science classroom. Yet while Dawkins’ intentions are well known (his letter on Reiss can be found here), Reiss was already under suspicion that he wanted to promote religious views on science as an alternative. He was misrepresented in what he said, and people’s fears about him were realized based on the media reports rather than his actual article (which is covered in the first link of this blog but can be found here as well). If he was not ordained maybe he could have survived this.

I hope this incident will not cause religious secularists to duck and cover in the debate. Instead we are by the looks of things heading for a polarization of views. This may well be the best way – science should win over crack pot views of science. The problem though is that we may end up with an education that fails to enlighten students and give them the means to work things out for themselves, because their assumptions are not challenged. Reiss’ contribution was ignored based on the assumptions about his motives and the spin on what he was claimed to have said – in this we on the secular side seem guilty of hearing what we wanted to hear, and to think that a religious man being against creationism in the science classroom was not possible.

That though is exactly want the fundies want. By all means they would like creationism taught alongside evolution. But the next best thing is for the one in ten children of fundamentalist parents not to have their belief challenged. We seem to be promoting a stalemate, a situation that does not improve education, and creates a cold war of ideas. At the ice caps of the polarized views, people assume that the religious cannot take science seriously, and the other that evolution leads to wickedness and damnation. If we cannot challenge ignorance over science in the classroom then be prepared for new adults to be ignorant about the world in which we live.

The looser will be the children we fail to educate.

The Royal Society, a clergyman, and education

Click the photo where Reiss talks about animal ethics using theology and science (scroll down)

A debate rages in the Royal Society over the continual appointment of Michael Reiss, who in an article mentioned that creationist views of students should be discussed in the classroom. Nobel Laureates Sir Harry Kroto and Sir Richard Roberts have written to the President of the Society to dismiss him.

Reiss in an article wrote:

Just because something lacks scientific support doesn’t seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from a science lesson. When I was taught physics at school, and taught it extremely well in my view, what I remember finding so exciting was that we could discuss almost anything providing we were prepared to defend our thinking in a way that admitted objective evidence and logical argument.

So when teaching evolution, there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have (hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching) and doing one’s best to have a genuine discussion. The word ‘genuine’ doesn’t mean that creationism or intelligent design deserve equal time.

The question is was he suggesting that in the Science classroom teachers challenge student doubts about how old the world is and the validity of evolution (which he claims) or that creationism should be taught as an alternative so that the scientific viewpoint could be considered as a different world view (which the Nobel Laureates rightly oppose). The problem is saying another world view makes it sound like an equal alternative.

If Reiss was suggesting that the discussion should be student led, with the teacher showing the validity of the scientific method then this would be a good thing. One that I would have benefited from at school seeing as I was brought up to believe that evolution was wrong on a scientific basis – if we could have discussed the science behind evolution and why we know the world is billions rather than thousands of years old would have been brilliant.

Reiss clarified his remarks this way at the Royal Society website saying:

“Some of my comments about the teaching of creationism have been misinterpreted as suggesting that creationism should be taught in science classes. Creationism has no scientific basis. However, when young people ask questions about creationism in science classes, teachers need to be able to explain to them why evolution and the Big Bang are scientific theories but they should also take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis. I have referred to science teachers discussing creationism as a worldview’; this is not the same as lending it any scientific credibility.”

I have just posted that clarification on the Dawkins website. It seems too many people were making judgments about him being sacked based on second hand comments of what he said, rather than reading his original article.

Spore – Intelligent Design or Evolution?

Spore - it's just a game

As I predicted in an earlier blog, the analysis over the game Spore has begun in earnest with a thread on the official Richard Dawkins site here.

It has shocked some posters that Wright (the game designer) is a Republican supporter. As if accepting evolution as a scientific theory influences your political philosophy. It may shock them to know that there are people who voted for George W Bush involved with the Dawkins website. The point is that atheism, and science do not mean that you have a predestined political outlook on life. Hence the fact that though atheists have the numbers, the political organization of them has been like herding cats.

I may well have said about Wright’s game SimCity that it dismissed the invisible hand idea of economics in the game play suggesting a central planner was needed for a successful economy. Naturally to make a game interesting the player is involved in key decisions, interactions in the game having consequences which effect gameplay and results. If Spore was really about evolution and natural selection you would start a game and just watch – the only question then would be when you start a new game from the beginning would the evolution happen in the same way? A question Dawkins himself ponders the answer to.

I am tempted to say that it is all just a game, and what matters is whether the game is fun or not. From the makers perspective what matters is will enough units be shifted to cover costs, and if there are future revenue streams to be made with added extras, and internet downloads/access to main site content.

Yet people are trying to spin the game so that it favours intelligent design – with the argument that you need a designer (the player) for the creatures to survive and develop. We should not worry too much. This is the finding a watch on a walk argument which Dawkins dealt with in The Blind Watchmaker.

I am more with the opinion that it may make some kids take an interest in evolutionary biology. But the fact is that it will be more or less neutral on that score. For most it will just be a game they played.

The case for evolution in under 30 seconds

Ever wondered how to sum up evolution as being a valid scientific theory? PZ Myers suggests:

Yes, I believe evolution is true.
I consider it the best explanation of the origin and diversity of life on earth,
and it is backed by an immense body of evidence. Strictly speaking,
it is not a matter of belief, but a recognition of the knowledge
of qualified experts and a familiarity with the research
that has been done in the field; I would also
add that science does not deal in absolute
truth, but strives for approximations,
and is always willing to discard old
ideas if better explanations
with better evidence
come along.
Do you have evidence for an alternative theory?

 

The Onion: Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain

I first read The Onion in when staying in Washington DC for the Atheist Alliance International Conference last year. A satirical publication, I remember their story on Pokemon being banned from a school because it promoted evolution caused outrage on the Dawkins site because in the UK people did not realise it was not true.

Enjoy this latest article from The Onion – note latest stories are available in the side bar of this blog:

Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain

Darwinic pilgrims claim the image fills them with an overwhelming feeling of logic.

DAYTON, TN—A steady stream of devoted evolutionists continued to gather in this small Tennessee town today to witness what many believe is an image of Charles Darwin—author of The Origin Of Species and founder of the modern evolutionary movement—made manifest on a concrete wall in downtown Dayton.

“I brought my baby to touch the wall, so that the power of Darwin can purify her genetic makeup of undesirable inherited traits,” said Darlene Freiberg, one among a growing crowd assembled here to see the mysterious stain, which appeared last Monday on one side of the Rhea County Courthouse. The building was also the location of the famed “Scopes Monkey Trial” and is widely considered one of Darwinism’s holiest sites. “Forgive me, O Charles, for ever doubting your Divine Evolution. After seeing this miracle of limestone pigmentation with my own eyes, my faith in empirical reasoning will never again be tested.”

Added Freiberg, “Behold the power and glory of the scientific method!”

Since witnesses first reported the unexplained marking—which appears to resemble a 19th-century male figure with a high forehead and large beard—this normally quiet town has become a hotbed of biological zealotry. Thousands of pilgrims from as far away as Berkeley’s paleoanthropology department have flocked to the site to lay wreaths of flowers, light devotional candles, read aloud from Darwin’s works, and otherwise pay homage to the mysterious blue-green stain.

Capitalizing on the influx of empirical believers, street vendors have sprung up across Dayton, selling evolutionary relics and artwork to the thousands of pilgrims waiting to catch a glimpse of the image. Available for sale are everything from small wooden shards alleged to be fragments of the “One True Beagle”—the research vessel on which Darwin made his legendary voyage to the Galapagos Islands—to lecture notes purportedly touched by English evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace.

“I have never felt closer to Darwin’s ideas,” said zoologist Fred Granger, who waited in line for 16 hours to view the stain. “May his name be praised and his theories on natural selection echo in all the halls of naturalistic observation forever.”

Despite the enthusiasm the so-called “Darwin Smudge” has generated among the evolutionary faithful, disagreement remains as to its origin. Some believe the image is actually closer to the visage of Stephen Jay Gould, longtime columnist for Natural History magazine and originator of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, and is therefore proof of rapid cladogenesis. A smaller minority contend it is the face of Carl Sagan, and should be viewed as a warning to those nonbelievers who have not yet seen his hit PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.

Still others have attempted to discredit the miracle entirely, claiming that there are several alternate explanations for the appearance of the unexplained discoloration.

“It’s a stain on a wall, and nothing more,” said the Rev. Clement McCoy, a professor at Oral Roberts University and prominent opponent of evolutionary theory. “Anything else is the delusional fantasy of a fanatical evolutionist mindset that sees only what it wishes to see in the hopes of validating a baseless, illogical belief system. I only hope these heretics see the error of their ways before our Most Powerful God smites them all in His vengeance.”

But those who have made the long journey to Dayton remain steadfast in their belief that natural selection—a process by which certain genes are favored over others less conducive to survival—is the one and only creator of life as we know it. This stain, they claim, is the proof they have been waiting for.

“To those who would deny that genetic drift is responsible for a branching evolutionary tree of increasing biodiversity amid changing ecosystems, we say, ‘Look upon the face of Darwin!’” said Jeanette Cosgrove, who, along with members of her microbiology class, has maintained a candlelight vigil at the site for the past 72 hours.

“Over millions of successive generations, a specific subvariant of one species of slime mold adapted to this particular concrete wall, in order to one day form this stain, and thus make manifest this vision of Darwin’s glorious countenance,” Cosgrove said, overcome with emotion.

“It’s a miracle,” she added.

Once Humans and Chimpanzees had sex

As often happens when I stay with my mother we discussed evolution. Initially we were discussing dogs (due to a program I recorded for her) being descended from wolves, with jackals and coyotes being separate but having in their past a common ancestor. But I explained that they can interbreed.

When discussing humans, and our common ancestor with Chimpanzees I tried to explain that there would be no sudden dramatic difference from the previous generation and the immediate one. That in theory it was literally conceivable that at this departure humans and chimpanzees would still be sexually attracted enough to each other to mate. Over time, with gradual steps, natural selection would occur and today we can clearly see a difference and a genetic inability to interbreed. As well as hopefully less of an impulse to do so than our early human ancestors.

I have no problem with saying that we are descended from Apes [we are technically human apes] – but maybe discussing the sex of our early ancestors is not something you think about. A bit like thinking about your parents having sex – you just do not picture it.

So a little bit of internet searching to see if my theory had any supporting evidence I came across this article from The Washington Post:

Human Ancestors May Have Interbred With Chimpanzees

By David Brown

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 18, 2006; Page A01

When the ancestors of human beings and the ancestors of chimpanzees parted ways 6.3 million years ago, it was probably a very long goodbye. Some of their descendants may even have gone back for a final tryst.

That is the conclusion a group of scientists has reached, using a comparison of the genes of humans and their closest animal relatives to sketch a picture of human origins far more detailed than what fossil bones have revealed.

According to the new theory, chimps and humans shared a common apelike ancestor much more recently than was thought. Furthermore, when the two emerging species split from each other, it was not a clean break. Some members of the two groups seem to have interbred about 1.2 million years after they first diverged — before going their separate ways for good.

If this theory proves correct, it will mean modern people are descended from something akin to

The 7 million-year-old Toumai skull unearthed in Chad in 2001 may have belonged to a line of non-hybrids that were not human ancestors.

chimp-human hybrids. That is a new idea, and it challenges the prevailing view that hybrids tend to die out.

It also strongly suggests that some of the oldest bones of “proto-humans” — including the 7 million-year-old Toumai skull unearthed in Chad in 2001 — may have belonged to a line of non-hybrids that died out, and were not human ancestors at all.

This narrative, by a team of geneticists and biostatisticians from the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, not only casts new light on the origin of humans, but also raises questions about how all new species arise.

“This is contributing to the idea that species are kind of fuzzy. They become real over time, but it takes millions of years,” said James Mallet, a geneticist at University College London who was not involved in the new research. “We probably had a bit of a messy origin.”

The research is the latest fruit of the Human Genome Initiative, the effort to transcribe and read out the entire genetic message of human chromosomes, which was completed in 2003.

The evidence of ancestral chimp and human interbreeding emerged from comparing parts of their genomes to each other and to those of gorillas, orangutans and macaques. The scientists now want to know whether similar “hybridization events” happened between other emerging species.

The separation into two species “left a footprint on our genome that we can go back and read,” said Eric S. Lander of MIT. “We were never able to look at things like this before. What we need to do now is to collect more data and look for other smoking guns.”

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes that contain about 30,000 genes. Each gene is made of strands of DNA “letters” in a specific order, and the letters can change, by mutation, over time. The rate at which changes occur is fairly constant — and very slow.

As a result, genetic mutations can be used as a kind of evolutionary clock. The number of DNA differences between two species’ versions of the same gene is an indication of how long the species have been separate — how long since individuals were last interbreeding and sharing genes.

When Nick Patterson of MIT and his colleagues at the Broad Institute compared the genes of humans and chimps, they found that one of the chromosomes — the female sex chromosome X — was 1.2 million years younger than the others. It appeared the two species shared a common ancestor who gave them both their X chromosomes, and did so more recently than the ancestors who gave them all the other chromosomes.

The best explanation, the scientists think, is that ancient humans and chimps broke away from each other not once, but twice. The first time was more than 6.3 million years ago. The second time was at least a million years later.

When Nick Patterson of MIT and his colleagues at the Broad Institute compared the genes of humans and chimps, they found that one of the chromosomes — the female sex chromosome X — was 1.2 million years younger than the others. It appeared the two species shared a common ancestor who gave them both their X chromosomes, and did so more recently than the ancestors who gave them all the other chromosomes.

The best explanation, the scientists think, is that ancient humans and chimps broke away from each other not once, but twice. The first time was more than 6.3 million years ago. The second time was at least a million years later.

What probably happened was that some of the evolving human ancestors bred with the evolving chimps. This was perhaps not as strange as it seems, for although there were some physical differences between the two groups, “the early humans must have looked pretty much like chimpanzees,” said Mallet, the London geneticist.

Males have only one X chromosome, which is necessary for reproduction. As is often the case with hybrids, the male offspring from these unions would probably have been infertile.

But the females, which have two X chromosomes, would have been fertile. If some of those hybrid females then bred with proto-chimp males, some of their male offspring would have received a working X from the chimp side of the family. They would have been fertile — and with them the hybrid line would have been off and reproducing on its own.

The evolutionary clock indicates this happened no more than 6.3 million years ago, and perhaps as recently as 5.4 million years ago. In that case, the fossils of older species — such as Toumai, or Sahelanthropus tchadensis, a proto-man from Chad that had a humanlike brow and probably walked on two feet — must have belonged to descendants of the first human-chimp divergence.

That line must have died out. If it had not, modern man’s X chromosome would look as old (or nearly as old) as the other chromosomes.

“I think the most interesting thing [is] this idea that long, extended gene flow seems to have occurred and that this might be a creative mode of evolution,” said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School. He is one of the authors of the study, which appears in today’s issue of the journal Nature.

The idea that new species emerge in a slow and stuttering fashion was favored by Charles Darwin, Mallet said. But in the early part of the 20th century, biologists came to favor the idea of clean breaks, with the “pure” lines of emerging species being stronger and fitter than hybrids.

In fact, Mallet said, about 10 percent of animal species are capable of interbreeding with related species, even though the number that do so in any population is very small.

Tom Willis – Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?

The Creation Science Association for Mid America

If you look hard enough you will find someone that demonises any group, and will suggest all manner of horrors that should be invested on them. Displaying willful ignorance, to a point where you wonder if it is downright stupidity or evil that this cold hearted dispersion on humanity originates.

Enter Tom Willis and his article as titled above of the Creation Science for Mid America. He mentions a previous article he wrote which stated:

“Hard-line evolutionists spend their entire life declaring Christians to be ignorant, crazy and, probably dangerous. But evolutionism is totally contrary to the empirical facts of science. Anyone truly believing evolution is either totally deluded or ignorant. Regarding who is really the dangerous group, in their unmitigated, and totally unjustified arrogance, evolutionists have caused more misery, and killed and tortured more people, in the last 90 years than all the wars of the last 2000 years.
“Thus, Evolutionist rhetoric, juxtaposed against the facts of science and history demonstrates that they are totally incompetent, in addition to being angry and dangerous. In a truly sane society, e.g., the one to be run by God, evolutionists, at a minimum, would not be allowed to vote.”

For the absurdity of this argument I may as well blame Hitler being a Roman Catholic as the cause for the holocaust, and that Stalin’s original training for religious orders caused him to be a paranoid psychopath. We may as well blame the theory of gravity for people committing suicide by jumping from high rise buildings.

Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was banned by the Nazis. Even if we grant the premise that it was not a history of pogroms against the Jews, or the ideology of Marxism against dissenters, or paranoia of dictators with absolute power, and making use of people’s prejudices to attempt genocide. Even if inspired by how natural selection works was how they justified their evil deeds, it no more legitimizes it than a rapist pointing to nature and saying what they are doing is inherent in nature. How nature works is not how society has to work.

Willis goes on to claim that it will, as a sign of end of days, be Muslims killing Christians and Evolutionists:

Nevertheless, I find it instructive and entertaining to analyze what should be done with evolutionists before their end comes. After all, they are manifestly the most dangerous and destructive people on the planet (Well OK, Muslims are strong competitors). Using their religion to dominate education, they have, as previously pointed out, killed more people than anybody in history.

Going on to claim that evolutionists are socialists and acquainting Democrats as the modern day Nazis he suggests this line of treatment for those that agree that evolution explains life on earth:

Clearly then, “evolutionists should not be allowed to roam free in the land.” All that remains for us to discuss is “What should be done with evolutionists?” For the purposes of this essay, I will ignore the minor issue of Western-style jurisprudenceand merely mention possible solutions to the
“evolutionism problem,” leaving the legal details to others:

• Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these. But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can support themselves in the camps.

• Require them to wear placards around their neck, or perhaps large medallions which prominently announce “Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent – Potentially Dangerous.” I consider this option too dangerous.

• Since evolutionists are liars and most do not really believe evolution we could employ truth serum or water-boarding to obtain confessions of evolution rejection. But, this should, at most, result in parole, because, like Muslims, evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.

• An Evolutionist Colony in Antarctica could be a promising option. Of course inspections would be required to prevent too much progress. They might invent gunpowder.

• A colony on Mars would prevent gunpowder from harming anyone but their own kind, in the unlikely event they turned out to be intelligent enough to invent it.

• All options should include 24-hour sound system playing Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris reading Darwin’s Origin of Species, or the preservation of Favored Races by Means of Natural Selection. Of course some will consider this cruel & unusual, especially since they will undoubtedly have that treatment for eternity.

This is an incitement to a hate crime. Thankfully most people do not agree that a debate on ideas or review of evidence should resort to such inhumanity. Tom Willis is nothing less short of a wolf dressed in a shabby argument. As a fundamentalist he demonstrates that too much religion really can poison you. I would recommend others avoid his acquaintance less their reputations become contaminated due to association.

Libby Purves on Dawkins

Libby Purves reviewed for “The Times” Dawkins’ first episode on “The Genius of Darwin”. That, and Dawkins’ reply follows. The issue it raises though is whether science ultimately leads to atheism as the only rational choice in the face of the evidence we can assimilate and know anything about.

There are many more pressing issues to contend with; war, disease, hunger. Yet the idea of whether there is a god responsible for everything, if so what plans does this being have, and whether such a being is worth bothering about seems to have a hold on people despite the era of magic and superstition giving way to empirical observation and the scientific method.

Dawkins admits that evolution convinced him that there was no need for a god. His honesty that this personal realisation based on facts of the origin of species has for those that wish to build bridges or at least well codified areas of separation between faith and science roll their eyes. That some people believe that the earth has to be a few thousand years old (Answers in Genesis) and that a species could not over time evolve into a recognisable different one seize, not so much on the facts and what they do reveal, but on that evolution leads to a lack of belief in god. Also, that secularism too leads to a lack of belief in god and so both hand in hand lead to a slide into deprivation and immorality.

When it comes to education children need the tools to analyze the facts, what people are saying, and differentiate between the subjective and the objective. These reasoning skills are essential for children to come to their own realizations about life, the universe and everything. Dawkins was careful not to tell the children not to believe in god. However, what he did do was to explain evolution and what fossils are.

There really are people that literally think there was a talking snake in the Garden of Eden. That god can order genocide as in 1 Samuel 15 against the Amalek (including babies) and get pissed off when the best animals are kept alive but that is alright because by the New Testament god is all loving although the idea of eternal hell as a burning torture gets it’s first airing there. The Church of England allows Christians not to believe in hell – not on pragmatic or theological grounds but by Act of Parliament. The law recognises that just disavowing hell does not stop you being a Christian.

So in the face of these things we may argue that religious indoctrination should be left out of the classroom, and that people should be given the tools to discover the world for themselves. But as those children revealed they were already prejudiced against something they had not yet learned. The reason why we should care about faith and its battle with science? Quite simply because whether overtly or by undertone how war, disease and famine are tackled is effected by those that claim that faith has an impact on issues from overpopulation to sex to just war. We must recognise that people differ in how their religious belief impacts on their politics, philosophy and understanding of the natural world.

For example when I introduced my friend to Dawkins and she mentioned that she read Theology at our university I jokingly mentioned she should have said that she knows the earth is billions of years old. Faith is not a barrier to science and understanding the world. The issue is that some people try to make it a barrier saying that evolution is not compatible with a belief in god – people are using their own dogma to close people to finding out what and how we know things, often resulting to slight of hands which at best are misleading implications of observed events as I discovered at a talk by Ken Ham.

Watching the episode it was clear that Dawkins was opening the kids up to evolution as a scientific fact, only criticising that allowing the faith you happen to be born in stop you investigating what science reveals – not to fear other ideas despite the faith you happen to be born in. That is not about saying it is either god or science. That is about being open to what gets us closer to the truth of how things are.

From The Times

August 7, 2008

Richard Dawkins, the naive professor

It’s not a simple choice between God and evolution: none of us can know that there is nothing out there

Libby Purves

Firmly I believe and truly that Professor Richard Dawkins is an honest scientist and great communicator. He’s magic on telly: his programmes sending up New Agers were fun, especially when he let a lady “replace his Atlantean cells” by blowing on him. As for his reverence for Darwin and evolutionary theory, I share it. Have done ever since school.

My convent school, to be exact. The chief science-nun, despite her wimple and veil, was dead keen on Darwin. Most educated Christians are. Which is why the first episode of the professor’s Channel 4 series, The Genius of Charles Darwin, had me alternately cheering and cursing. Talking about evolution, he is terrific. But every few minutes he spoils it by announcing that natural selection means there is, categorically, no God. Not needed as wildlife designer – ergo, non-existent.

Professor Dawkins met a class of children, some of them indoctrinated by that crazily literal minority who think the world began 6,000 years ago on a divine drawing board. Instead of explaining natural selection and letting them work out that maybe the Creator works in more mysterious ways than the Genesis myth, he offered them a choice as stark as any bonkers tin-hut preacher from the Quivering Brethren shouting: “Repent or burn!”

Evolution or God – take your choice, kid! The moment one of them found an ammonite on the beach, Professor Dawkins demanded instant atheism. OK, he is provoked, as we all are, by nutters. But most believers are not creationists. Some are scientists. They reckon that an omnipotent being capable of giving humans free will is equally capable of setting a cosmic ball rolling – Big Bang, abiogenesis, all that – and letting it proceed through eons of evolution, selection and struggle. One of the oddest aspects of Dawkins’s TV programme, rich in antelope-mauling and gobbly snakes, was his emotional implication that, gee, Nature is too cruel to have been invented by God! A wet, mawkish, bunny-hugging argument.

Darwin shines; evolution is as marvellous as Dawkins says. But it is not fair to use Darwin’s beautifully evolved brain to bang the drum for your private conviction that there is nothing out there. Nobody knows. Not really. Teaching children real science is one thing, making them choose God or evolution is another.

Stupid, too, in a Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. If you offer a choice between science on one hand and faith and tradition on the other, too many people will reject science. A subtle and well-evolved species like us can accept both ammonites and Alleluias. Live with it, Prof.

From Times Online

August 9, 2008

Richard Dawkins replies to Libby Purves

Professor Richard Dawkins on his television programme about Charles Darwin, evolution and atheism

Yesterday, Libby Purves wrote about Professor Richard Dawkins’ television series about Charles Darwin. Richard Dawkins writes in reply:

Sir, In her article about episode 1 of my television documentary, The Genius of Charles Darwin, Libby Purves says that I offered the children a choice “as stark as any bonkers tin-hut preacher from the Quivering Brethren shouting: ‘Repent or burn!’ Evolution or God — take your choice, kid! The moment one of them found an ammonite on the beach, Professor Dawkins demanded instant atheism” (Opinion, August 7).

That is unjust, to the point of outright mendacity, and an insult to any professional educator. It was the creation-indoctrinated children themselves who made the leap: “Evolution = atheism”. I was scrupulously careful not to make that connection in the presence of the children, although I have made it elsewhere, spelling out the nuanced argument in The God Delusion.

She goes on to say, “OK, he is provoked, as we all are, by nutters. But most believers are not creationists.” I expect it’s true that the few believers Libby Purves meets over canapés are not creationists. But “most believers”? Most believers in Bradford? The Scottish Highlands? Pakistan? Indonesia? The Arab world? South America? Indeed, North America? Polls suggest that more than 40 per cent of the British population are creationists. For the subset who call themselves believers, the figure must be considerably more than 50 per cent. Please don’t say “most people”, when what you really mean is Islington and Hampstead Garden Suburb.

Poem on Intelligence Design

From North Texas Sceptics

There are some guest bloggers covering on PZ’s Blog http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ and one of them mentions this poem which I thought I would share with you:

I think that I shall never see
A theory dumber than ID:
It says that God can make a tree,
A beaver or a honeybee-
That God can simply get a whim
To make the small E. coli swim.
He waves His hand through Heaven’s air
And lo! Flagella everywhere!
But sometimes even God falls down
And makes a poor, pathetic clown:
Yes, poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make Behe.

The Genius of Charles Darwin: Presented by Richard Dawkins

Episode 1:

On Channel 4 (UK), a three part series, starting Monday August 4th – sneak previews available at the below link:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2925,On-TV-The-Genius-of-Charles-Darwin-Presented-by-Richard-Dawkins,Richard-Dawkins-Channel-4

Preview discussion of the series (below re posted from here) below:

Charlie Brooker’s screen burn
Science is like a good friend: sometimes it tells you things you don’t want to hear
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/02/television.televisionDawkins explains biggest idea ever on The Genius of Charles Darwin
Richard Dawkins’s new series tackles a burning issue for us all – but it doesn’t involve Lisa Scott-Lee of Steps
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article4423896.ece

The Genius of Charles Darwin
Richard Dawkins tells Andrew Pettie how Charles Darwin went from a man bound for the clergy to the writer of one of the world’s most controversial books – On the Origin of Species
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/08/02/nosplit/bvtvsunfeat02.xml