Fwd: Creationism, pluralism and the compromising of science

Posted by Ian Pitchford on his evopsych list

--- In evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com, Ian Pitchford
<ian.pitchford@s...> wrote:

Essay

1 March 2005

Creationism, pluralism and the compromising of science
The trouble with 'teaching the controversy'.
 
by Joe Kaplinsky

The rise of creationism in the USA is taken as evidence that
fundamentalist Christianity has become a powerful force in
society. But scepticism towards science does not just come from
traditional Christianity. Liberal relativism has been important
in creating a climate in which creationism is tolerated.
 
Many Americans, not just scientists, now worry that the teaching
of biology will be replaced by religious indoctrination. The
spread of fundamentalist Christianity is seen by many to be a
force for a renewed far right political agenda, and in
particular to be responsible for the election victory of George
W Bush.
 
There is reason to be concerned. There have been a series of
challenges to evolution in schools. The most recent have been in
Dover, Pennsylvania, where a school board has ruled that
children should be made 'aware of gaps/problems' in evolutionary
theory; and Cobb County, Georgia, where a school board has
decided to appeal a ruling by a judge that disclaimers stating
that evolution is a 'theory, not a fact' must be removed from
textbooks. These challenges have pushed the teaching of
evolution into mainstream debate, with critics of evolution
appearing everywhere from the conservative Fox News to the
liberal New York Times op-ed page.
 
The recent round of controversy has been building for some time.
It started in Kansas in 1999, when the board of education voted
to drop evolution from state test standards. This was followed
by high-profile challenges to evolution in Ohio in 2002 and
again in 2004. In both Kansas and Ohio, after temporary advances
the creationists lost. Despite that, there are ongoing
challenges, and others including in Wisconsin, South Carolina,
Missouri, Montana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Disclaimers similar
to those under dispute in Cobb County have been required in
Alabama since 1996.
 
According to a CBS poll on 22 November 2004, just 13 per cent of
Americans believe that humans evolved without divine
intervention, and 35 per cent favour replacing evolution with
creationism in schools. But the even more worrying figure is the
65 per cent of Americans who favour teaching creationism
alongside evolution (1). Unlike old-fashioned biblical
literalism, this position has majority support. While it is a
small group of old-fashioned Christians who have been most
active in promoting creationism, it is likely to be a more
post-modern liberal pluralism, which refuses to elevate any one
viewpoint to 'truth', that ultimately poses the greater threat
to science. This is a scepticism towards our ability to know the
world, which has become influential in both secular and
religious circles on what were the old right and the old left.
 
It is important to understand what is behind the recent attacks
on evolution, and to keep the supposed rise of the Christian
right in perspective. The recent attacks on evolution have been
coordinated by a small group of well-organised and moderately
well-funded Christians, whose 'wedge' strategy sees questioning
of evolution as the first step on the road to a theocratic
society.
 
But in historical terms creationism is weaker than ever before.
Christianity has long been a powerful force in US culture. It is
hard to make the case that it exists today in a more
fundamentalist, or a more right-wing, politically influential,
form. The intelligent design activists play off widespread
Christian faith, but they also play off a wider culture that is
sceptical of the claims of science.
 
It is here that the broader political discussion among liberals
is profoundly misguided. Unlike many scientists who have engaged
in a defence of evolution, many liberals have adopted a
contemptuous caricature of the Christian 'Bush voter'. The
Village Voice demonstrated its superior understanding of human
evolution in a cartoon captioned 'Gap-toothed, missing link
Troglodytes delighted by presidential election outcome' (2).
Less crudely, the idea of a division between religious 'Red' and
rational 'Blue' states has become fixed as an excuse for failing
to develop convincing political arguments.
 
But even on a seemingly clear-cut issue such as creationism, the
division is not so sharp. Liberals have often been at the
forefront of questioning the authority of science. It is
liberals who have argued that science education should respect
cultural differences and that the curriculum should be
immediately relevant to everyday life of students. Creationists
have leapt at the opportunity presented by educational theories
to put the knowledge of pupils on the same level as that as
scientists, by putting forward the demand to 'teach the
controversy'.
 
Christian fundamentalism is a small part of the problem. It is
far weaker than many fear. Bush himself, for example, is a
flip-flopper on evolution. The New York Times reported in 2000
that he 'doesn't care much about that kind of thing'. His
official policy is that while educational policy should be made
locally, his preference is that 'children ought to be exposed to
different theories about how the world started'. This contrasts
to Ronald Reagan's 1980 statement that he had 'a great many
questions about evolution', not least that 'recent discoveries
down through the years pointed out great flaws in it'.
 
Reagan's statement is at least as sympathetic to creationism as
Bush's, but it is also less relativistic. Reagan's statement is
motivated by a concern to teach the one truth about the world,
and even to look at the evidence. Bush, on the other hand, seems
happy to accommodate all points of view (3).
 
The intellectual vapidity of intelligent design
 
One obvious place to look to explain the new popularity of
creationism is the propaganda of its proponents. But on
examining these ideas, it quickly becomes apparent that in
intellectual terms, creationism is on the defensive.
 
The newest manifestation of creationism is a theory called
'intelligent design'. According to intelligent design theory the
complexity of the living world is evidence that it was
deliberately designed by a Creator. The novelty lies in the
false claim that the evidence of design is scientific evidence
and that it can be studied scientifically.
 
Intelligent design contains no new ideas about our origins. The
'argument from design' in its most basic form goes back at least
to Aristotle. It was taken up by Christian philosophers and
eventually disposed of by the Enlightenment thinkers Immanuel
Kant and David Hume, who pointed out that there was no necessary
link between puzzling complexity in the world and supernatural
origins, let alone Christian theology.
 
On examination intelligent design's only novelty turns out to be
not a grounding in science, but a promotional strategy. Its
supposed scientific legitimacy rests on the work of biochemist
Michael Behe and mathematician William Dembski. However, neither
Behe nor Dembski (nor anyone else) have published on intelligent
design in peer reviewed journals. This is unsurprising, since
their work is nothing but rehashes of old creationist arguments.
 
Behe's work is just an updating of the old creationist complaint
about biological structures like the eye: they cannot imagine
how evolution could have progressed through a sequence of
intermediates to produce a final working eye. 'What use is half
an eye?', creationists used to challenge. In an eye the various
parts - the lens, cornea, retina, and so on - all need to work
together. Creationists thought that meant the various parts had
to appear at the same moment, which is impossible for evolution.
 
It turns out that creationists had not thought carefully enough
about the ways in which complex interdependent structures can be
built using small steps. Nowadays biologists have discovered the
steps involved in the evolution of many different sorts of eye,
so Behe likes to sound modern by asking 'what use is half a
biochemical pathway?'. Picking on the most recent biological
discoveries also has the advantage that biologists have not yet
traced the evolutionary pathways in such detail. But even in the
decade that Behe has been promoting his ideas, scientists have
made a wealth of advances showing the details of how such
pathways may have, and in certain cases actually have, evolved.
 
Dembski's contribution is a reworking of another creationist
hobby horse, the second law of thermodynamics. Creationists have
long, and wrongly, claimed that the second law of thermodynamics
rules out evolution by forbidding an increase in order, or
complexity. Their confusion is an elementary one of ignoring a
crucial input to living systems, namely low entropy sunlight. If
they were correct then we would never see an organism develop
from embryo to adult as this, too, is process that increases
order.
 
Dembski has updated the idea by rewording it in terms of
information. He claims to have developed a mathematical formula
to detect the presence of complexity that could only have arisen
through design. But his work has been described by David
Wolpert, on whose theorems Dembski claims to have based his own,
as 'written in jello'. Coming from a mathematician, this is no
small criticism. Dembski's mathematical symbols are arranged on
the page to bamboozle non-scientists, not to express a chain of
logical reasoning.
 
The interested reader can find the 'arguments' of intelligent
design demolished in great detail elsewhere (4). For now, it is
worth emphasising their defensiveness when compared to Christian
apologetics of the past. Intelligent design is a 'God of the
gaps' argument. It gives us no positive reason to believe in God
- only a gesture at complexity of the world and a shrug of the
shoulders. More broadly, the innovations made by intelligent
design are all concessions to science. It accepts an ancient age
for the earth. It even accepts the process of 'microevolution',
or small evolutionary changes, trying to hold out only against
what it calls 'macroevolution'.
 
So why have the creationists adopted such a weak argument? And
if their ideas are so flimsy, why do they still get a hearing?
To understand this it helps to look at how we arrived at this
point.
 
The evolution of creationism
 
Writing in the New York Times, Susan Jacoby warns that: 'Many
liberals mistakenly believe that these controversies are largely
a product of the post-1980 politicisation of the Christian
right. In fact, the elected anti-evolutionists on local and
state school boards today are the heirs of eight decades of
fundamentalist campaigning against Darwinism through back-door
pressure on textbook publishers and school officials.' (5) While
this is a point worth noting, it is important to understand that
today's controversy over creationism takes place in very
different circumstances to those of 1925.
 
Until the twentieth century, discussion of Darwinism in America
was restricted to relatively narrow circles. In the 1920s,
however, the struggle between creationism and evolution first
became a topic of wide public debate. The impact of world war
and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia had seriously shaken
traditional theories of progress and morality. At the same time,
the participation of wider sections of society in politics
ensured that questions such as the role of religion in national
life were subject to intense discussion. Social conflict over
class and race could often become violent. This gave the
struggle over religion, which had the potential to moderate or
exacerbate these conflicts, an edge that it lacks today.
 
The expansion of high school education ensured that the teaching
of evolution would become a flashpoint. Resulting anti-evolution
laws resulted in the famous 'Monkey Trial' at which John Scopes
was convicted of teaching evolution under a 1925 Tennessee law.
The Scopes trial was the high point of public discussion over
evolution. While creationists celebrated Scopes' conviction as a
victory and states continued to pass anti-evolution laws, it was
already possible to detect some embarrassment amongst the
establishment at this rejection of science.
 
Through the 1930s the anti-evolution laws stayed on the books.
Evolution was little discussed as a public issue, but also
little taught in American schools. But in the wake of the Second
World War the pragmatic compromise shifted. Science and
technology were elevated to national priorities. The space (and
arms) race prompted both a strong emphasis on science education
and a strong cultivation of patriotic feeling. Christianity was
central to 1950s anti-communism, and this allowed a co-existence
with the scientism more associated with business interests.
 
It was as the 1960s set in that the consensus began to
disintegrate. The expansion of science education created tension
with the old anti-evolution laws. By the time a challenge to
Arkansas' 1924 law reached the Supreme Court in 1968, the
principle of separation of church and state in public education
was already becoming established. The Court's ruling in Epperson
vs. Arkansas, striking down the ban on evolution, was a blow
from which creationism has never recovered.
 
The response of the creationists to the setbacks of the 1960s
was the invention of 'creation science'. This was designed to
get around the constitutional separation of Church and state by
making a scientific critique of Darwinism instead of a religious
one. However, the Creation 'science' of the 1970s and 80s was
transparently religious in motivation. It argued for a literal
interpretation of the Bible and a 'young earth', aged less than
10,000 years (6). Laws mandating the teaching of creation
science alongside evolution were subject to protracted dispute
before being struck down as unconstitutional in 1987.
 
It was in the wake of these repeated defeats that the new
'intelligent design' creationism emerged. It developed not out
of new thinking in either science or theology, but primarily as
a legal strategy to evade the constitutional bar on teaching of
religion. It was launched by a book entitled 'Darwin on Trial',
written by a law professor, Philip Johnson (7).
 
This legal strategy was part of a broader strategy to
re-establish Christianity in American culture. But its excessive
reliance on the courts was itself a symptom of a weak base in
society. No doubt its promoters are sincere Christians. But
emerging as it did from defeat, the intelligent design movement
was prey to wider social forces.
 
Intelligent design was shaped not by the social polarisation of
the 1920s, but by multiculturalism. It no longer explicitly
argued for the truth of the Christian world view but rather for
intelligent design to be taught alongside evolution and for
State neutrality between Christianity and evolution. Whatever
their private beliefs, the public arguments of intelligent
design advocates are based firmly on pluralism, not Christian
revelation. This is illustrated by looking at the broader
framework in which creationism now struggles to make its case.
 
The defensive strategy of intelligent design
 
In her book The Language Police, Diane Ravitch details the
censorship of school materials, in particular textbooks by 'bias
and sensitivity' panels (8). Her detailed study was inspired by
her experience on the national assessment governing board, which
was responsible for national school tests introduced by
President Clinton in 1997. It reveals an interesting picture. It
is true that Christian fundamentalism has had a big impact on
the use of language and, for example, acceptable depictions of
family life. But more important is the framework that has been
developed to justify the censorship system. This system is a
product, if not exactly of the left, of the
multicultural-feminist mainstream that is not often associated
with the Christian right.
 
References to dinosaurs are eliminated from school texts not
because they offend against the truth of the Bible, but rather
in the same way that owls are eliminated on the basis that they
may upset Navajo children in whose culture owls are taboo.
According to bias guidelines collected by Ravitch, all religions
are to be treated equally: 'no religious practice or belief is
characterised as strange or peculiar, or sophisticated or
primitive.' Other guidelines ban the use of words 'heathen' and
'pagan', while reserving the use of the term 'myth' to refer to
ancient Greek or Roman stories. The Educational Testing Service,
meanwhile, treats as 'ethnocentric' any test that focuses
exclusively on 'Judeo-Christian' contributions to literature of
art.
 
This relativistic approach to knowledge and truth is the outcome
the culture wars that began in the 1960s and 1970s. It is
sensitive to the risks associated with experimentation. It is
fragmented, allowing everyone their own interpretation of truth.
It labels people as members of groups, but on the basis of
shared history rather than collective endeavour. The individual
for whom it demands respect is intensely vulnerable, so that
respect becomes interpreted as protection from offence or
harassment.
 
So while Christian fundamentalism can have a censorious impact
on education, this does not reflect the strength of
fundamentalism as such. It reflects the weakness of the secular,
scientific belief system in our present culture.
 
The changing framework within which Christians are forced to
make their argument is well illustrated by Amy Binder in her
study Contentious Curricula. Binder made a study of challenges
to school curricula between 1980 and 2000, through a comparison
of Afro-centrists and creationists. Her work showed that while
ultimately neither group was able to win lasting changes, there
was far more sympathy from within the school system for the
Afro-centrists. While the Afro-centrists argued for separatism
and cultural superiority of Africa, it was still the case that
their arguments were far closer to the multicultural consensus
than were those of the creationists. The charge of racism also
proved more effective than appeals to discrimination against
religion, let alone a shared belief in Christianity. According
to Binder:
 
'When confronted by creationists, educators came out with their
fists swinging. There was no initial accommodation, which was
then blunted by a watering down process. Professional
educational leaders were simply unwilling to accommodate their
creationist critics. Despite the fact that the Christian
conservative reformers, too, were making claims of bias and
discrimination, in all four of the creationist cases studied in
this book, the education establishment - by which I mean
professional educators in positions of authority - lined up far
more forcefully against their creationist challengers than their
counterparts did against their Afrocentric challengers.' (9)
 
In addition, Binder shows just how far the creationists have not
just compromised their truth claims, which now exist in the
watered down form of intelligent design, but also their claims
to social recognition. 'Creationism has changed significantly
from the 1920s to the 1980s. But the degree of change that has
occurred in its rhetoric over the past two decades is equally
astonishing,' she notes. 'By removing the obviously religious
from the challenging rhetoric, while also adopting the language
of pluralism (even multiculturalism), creationists in Kansas [in
1999-2000] made it more difficult for school systems to fight
back against the challenge with the might that they once had.'
(10)
  
The marginality of creationism in American society can be seen
in the strategy they have adopted to promote intelligent design.
This strategy is known as the 'wedge', and in March 1999 a
Discovery Institute document detailing the strategy was leaked
on to the internet. The wedge strategy is subject of a detailed
study in Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent
Design, by Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross. The Discovery
Institute explained its strategy as follows: 'If we view the
predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy
is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively
small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points.'
(11)
 
Forrest and Gross' study goes on to document exhaustively the
network of individuals, institutions and funding behind the
promotion of intelligent design. But while the backers of
intelligent design have scored some PR successes, their weakness
is more striking.
 
William Dembski, better known for conveying the impression that,
unlike old-fashioned creationists, he is a mathematical
scientist engaged in a disinterested study of nature, has
written:
 
'Within late twentieth-century North American Christianity,
heresy has become an unpopular word. Can't we all just get along
and live together in peace? Unfortunately, no. ... There is an
inviolable core to the Christian faith. ... This is the essence
of heresy, and heresy remains a valid category for today. ...
The Christian apologist is a contender for the faith, not merely
a seeker after truth. Seeking after truth certainly seems a less
combative and more humble way of cashing out apologetics.
Unfortunately, it is also an inadequate way of cashing out
apologetics.' (12)
 
Forrest and Gross present such uncompromising Christianity as
evidence that the threat of intelligent design is more alarming
than it appears. But though they have established that the
individuals associated with the intelligent design network are
motivated by sincere Christian faith, they don't engage with why
it is that the creationists cannot publicly argue on that basis.

 
The obvious barrier presented by the Constitutional separation
between church and state is not sufficient explanation. After
all, it needs to be explained why it is that the constitutional
rule has only made itself felt since the late 1960s, and why the
legal setbacks of the creationists have become steadily worse.
 
The formulation of the intelligent design strategy as the thin
end of a wedge itself recognises the creationists' current
weakness. They recognise that they cannot openly admit their
full Christian programme. Such an attempt could not make headway
in contemporary American culture. The wedgers may dream of a
theocratic United States, but there is no chance of this coming
about.
 
Dembski is not wrong when he claims that heresy has gone out of
fashion amongst many Christians. Similarly, writing with Jay
Wesley Richards, Dembski complains that 'feel-good pop
psychologies' are corrupting Christianity with their implication
that we will all be saved. Their error lies in placing blame for
these developments, along with all else from abortion to rock
and roll, on Darwinism. But their observation that the cutting
edge of Christianity is a therapeutic ethos incompatible with
damnation and hell is sound (13).
 
Indeed, intelligent design feels the need to wedge itself even
in to seminaries, where one might have thought that creationism
could show its face more openly. It is this wider weakness of
traditional Christianity that is key to understanding the
evasiveness of intelligent designers about their Christian
faith.
 
The failure of intelligent design can be seen in recent disputes
over school standards. After the Kansas Board of Education
dropped evolution from state standards creationists were voted
out and a newly elected Board reinstated it at the first
opportunity in 2001. Subsequent creationist ventures in Kansas
have failed. More recently, in Ohio the creationists have been
forced to back off even from using the term 'intelligent
design'. The new demand is simply for the study of 'objective
origins'. That 'objective origins' is a euphemism for
creationism is clear only from the detailed arguments
surrounding it, and the preoccupation of its advocates with the
supposed weakness of evolution. There is not even a residue of
the idea of a designer left in the public debate.
 
Why creationism still matters
 
So, if creationism appears to be on the retreat, should we still
be concerned? Yes, and for several reasons. Creationism is on
the retreat in large part because of the dedicated vigilance of
those like Forrest and Gross, as well as many science teachers
and other concerned citizens who have been fighting it.
 
Forrest and Gross are right when they warn against complacency
about books like Jonathan Wells' Icons of Evolution, that
exposes supposed errors in school text books on evolution:
 
'We encounter this blindness to political reality among our
scientific peers every day. It is a grave mistake. To people who
know little or nothing about the subject of evolution - that is,
almost everybody - the Wells arguments can seem both convincing
and exciting; and they have the momentum of religious fervour.
Icons touches a raw nerve in the current war over the
effectiveness of public education. "Here", it says, "is what
your children are being taught in the public schools as proofs
of evolution". "But", it insists, "they are not proofs at all,
and some of them are outright fakery. Others are simply wrong.
Demand a stop to the callous indoctrination of your children in
this materialistic mythology!"' (14).
 
No doubt taking up intelligent design is a dispiriting business.
The slightest attention from scientists, no matter how critical,
is trumpeted as proof that intelligent design is being taken
seriously and that it is making a contribution to science. The
more vigorously intelligent design is refuted, the more this is
claimed as evidence that there really is an important 'debate'
that needs to be taught in classrooms. Detailed refutations are
met with the response that the real argument to be met is
contained within a forthcoming publication.
 
All this is bluster and noise. It is designed to convince the
creationists' base that Darwinism is on the point of collapse
(although strangely it never quite falls), and to convey an
impression to the wider public that there is some substance to
their criticisms. There is nothing else to it. It must be
tempting to spend one's time more productively than sorting
through this junk. Fortunately there are enough teachers and
scientists prepared to take up the work.
 
But in addition to the need to keep creationism on the
defensive, there is a more important reason for concern.
Creationism may not prove to be the wedge that transforms the
USA into a theocratic state, but it can still do tremendous
harm. It is useful to understand that the most active promoters
of creationism are Christian fundamentalists. But that should
not blind us to the wider social conditions that are susceptible
to sympathising with them. If the threat of fundamentalism is
overestimated, the threat of labelling science as 'a theory, not
a fact' may be underestimated.
 
In Cobb County, Georgia, the school board demanded that biology
textbooks carry a disclaimer stating, in part: 'This textbook
contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a
fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material
should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and
critically considered.'
 
The criticism that evolution is 'just a theory' is an old
creationist canard. But today it has acquired a new resonance.
The criticism that evolution is just a theory is meant to key
into the everyday association of 'theory' with speculation. But
when science is dismissed today it is likely to be replaced by
an eccentric personal prejudice. Whether that happens to be an
old-style religion or a new-style diet fad is less important
than today's unprecedented elevation of conspiracy theory and
rumour-mongering over expert knowledge.
 
Liberals who bemoan influence of Christian fundamentalism often
point to the popularity of the Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye
and Jerry Jenkins. But at least as indicative of today's climate
is the runaway success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, whose
plot is premised on a 2000-year cover up by the Catholic Church
of Christ's true message, designed to repress women and the free
expression of sexuality. The force of the sentiments expressed
in Brown's novel is confirmed by the recent collapse of respect
for the Church amidst an all-too-real child abuse scandal.
 
It is suspicion of all groups who claim authority rather than
excessive respect for religion that drives hostility to science.
As Thomas Frank perceptively points out in his book What's the
Matter with America?, 'The real subject of the conservative
anti-evolution literature is the "experts" on the other side of
the battlefield and, more important, their expertise. "Should we
'leave it to the experts?'' asks the Kansas Tornado. Obviously
we should not.' (15)
 
Frank goes on to describe his experience at a creationist talk
on the supposedly faked evidence for evolution:
 
'To everyone's relief the speaker finally yielded the stage to
the Mutations, "three fine Christian ladies" ... to sing
"Overwhelming Evidence", a ditty set to the pulsing beat of
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough". Comically assuming the voice of
the arrogant science establishment, the women pretend-derided
the audience, singing "the truth is what we say" and that, as
professional scientists, "we don't have to listen to you!" The
audience had plainly been bored by the preceding recitation of
science's errors, but this light hearted persocuto-tainment hit
exactly the right note'. (16)
 
The connection here to the culture surrounding alternative
medicine, or those parts of the environmental movement whose
distrust of big business and government becomes focused around
the idea of a scientific establishment that is covering up the
evidence, is clearer than a connection to old-fashioned
Christianity.
 
Frank draws attention to the way that the Republicans have
associated themselves with the politics of anti-elitism. But he
misses the way that the theme of anti-intellectualism on the
American right has drawn vigour from the critique of expertise
developed since the 1960s by their opponents in the culture
wars. It was radicals who pioneered the idea that children
should educate the teachers, that doctors were no more expert
than their patients, and that claims to expertise generally were
little more than an excuse to assert power by marginalising the
voice of the victim. In this picture scientists are not
disinterested investigators of the truth so much as spin doctors
for their paymasters in business or government. It is the coming
together of these two strands from left and right that
represents the real danger for science.
 
The fact that the creationism controversy has bubbled up again
is a symptom of a more general problem. What legitimacy
creationism does seem to enjoy today comes from pluralism, not
Christian fundamentalism. There are plenty of well-directed
responses from professional scientists against Christian
creationism. Yet when the Thomas Sweeney, spokesman for the new
Museum of the American Indian, told the Washington Post's Joel
Achenbach that the scientific hypothesis that the Indians
entered North America via the Bering Strait had been excluded in
favour of Indian myth, and Gerald McMaster, a deputy assistant
director, explained that 'Anthropology as a science is not
practiced here', who dared challenge them?
 
Achenbach, goes on to note that: 'This is not a typical
government museum full of artifacts. It's not a scientific,
secular enterprise that speaks in an anonymous institutional
voice. It has many voices, and they are native voices. It feels
more like a cathedral than a museum.' (17)
 
The Smithsonian, of which the Museum of the American Indian is a
branch, is (or perhaps was) at the heart of the scientific
establishment. But here it is welcoming a new cultural role
subordinate to politically correct creation myths and
effectively accepting the idea that science is particularist,
oppressive, and even genocidal. From the professional
associations that have opposed Christian creationism there was
not a peep.
 
It is hard to imagine the National Academy of Sciences raising
the question of why there is no anthropology department at the
Museum. So it was left to the online magazine Slate's Tim Noah
to describe the museum as 'like visiting Salem's Witch Museum
and being told that Bridget Bishop, hanged in June 1692, had it
coming.' (18)
 
The influence of such a prestigious institution as the
Smithsonian lending its authority to project such as the Museum
of the American Indian should not be underestimated. As
constitutional lawyer Timothy Sandefur noted: 'If Achenbach's
description of the Museum [as a Cathedral] is accurate, it could
serve as a pretext for other religious groups to establish
"museums" like the Answers in Genesis Creationism Museum to
receive official government support. That is a disturbing
prospect, indeed.' (19)
 
It is in the mainstream where there are hard arguments to be
had. Now that intelligent design has been widely exposed as a
front for the creationists, what guise will their arguments take
next? The Wisconsin School Board recently approved a
creationist-influenced lesson plan as an exercise in 'critical
thinking skills'. The idea that creationism develops critical
thinking skills is now widely promoted on creationist websites.
 
One creationist, writing to the Columbus Dispatch during the
2004 controversy in Ohio, showed that he had mastered the jargon
of contemporary dumbing down: 'if Ohio's economy is going to be
the thinking economy of the future, it is imperative that
critical thinking skills are a fundamental part of the overall
skills that must be taught to our children.' (20)
 
Opponents of creationism are likely to reply that to accept
intelligent design means to be very uncritical indeed. But that
is to miss the point. 'Critical thinking skills' are part of the
emptying-out of education that makes room for creationism.
'Critical thinking skills' are now an accepted part of the
curriculum, yet in practice the term is used to dignify rather
ordinary exercises. Critical thinking may be the outcome of a
good education. But because critical thinking requires the
thinker to be become independent, it is not something that can
be taught as part of a curriculum. It certainly cannot be
reduced to a 'skill'.
 
In fact, critical thinking is rarely achieved. The popularity of
the term shows a desire to flatter ourselves rather than an
upsurge in independent thought. The actual content of the
thinking then becomes pretty much irrelevant. Science or
creationism, whatever. We still get to congratulate ourselves on
our skills. It is this sort of emptying-out of the curriculum
with its disregard for subject knowledge that can make space for
creationism, and the creationists have clearly spotted the
opportunity.
 
Bad educational theory can cripple the fight against
creationism. One of the strongest pro-science arguments against
intelligent design is that the creationists want to
short-circuit the process of scientific debate that is used to
settle on the most accurate scientific theories. When
intelligent design advocates argue for 'teaching the
controversy' the correct answer is that even if intelligent
design raised substantial questions (which it does not), school
science classes are not the appropriate forum for settling
scientific disputes.
 
Scientific theories have to prove their worth by surviving the
scrutiny of professional scientists. It is only then that they
can be taught as science. Intelligent design doesn't deserve
special treatment.
 
Yet the theory that science students should learn by
rediscovering for themselves is far more mainstream that
intelligent design. When it comes to genetic engineering or
nuclear power the idea of 'teaching the controversy' is actively
promoted. It is celebrated as making science relevant and
empowering pupils not to bow down to the dogmas of the
scientists. When it comes to these more fashionable causes
students are told that their own judgments about risk or
uncertainty are just as valid as those of the professionals.
Perhaps liberals should begin with the beam in their own eye.
 
Christian creationism is a specific problem for some biology
teachers, students and parents. Anybody who cares about
elevating reason over dogma should also be concerned. But when
creationism can come dressed up as 'critical thinking' it should
be clear that it isn't just Christian fundamentalists we need to
worry about - it's a whole dumbed down education system.

Joe Kaplinsky is a science writer, and author of a forthcoming
book on energy.
 
Read on:

spiked-issue: Education

(1) Creationism Trumps Evolution, Nov. 22, 2004

(2) Gap-Toothed, Missing Link Troglodytes Delighted by
Presidential Election Outcome, Ward Sutton, Village Voice, 19
November 2004

(3) Quoted in George W. Bush, The Last Relativist, Timothy Noah,
Slate, 31 October 2000

(4) For example, Niall Shanks, God, the Devil and Darwin: A
Critique of Intelligent Design Theory, 2004; Matt Young and
Taner Edis, Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique
of the New Creationism, 2004; The Talk.Origins Archive contains
useful refutations of the whole spectrum of creationist
arguments

(5) Susan Jacoby, Caught Between Church and State, New York
Times, 19 January 2005

(6) The arguments of this movement were largely derived from
John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, The Genesis Flood, 1961

(7) Philip Johnson, Darwin on Trial, 1991. The writings of the
intelligent design movement can be found at the website of the
Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

(8) Diane Ravitch, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups
Restrict What Students Learn, 2003

(9) Amy Binder, Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and
Creationism in American Public Schools, 2002, p5-6

(10) Binder, p136, 137

(11) The Wedge Strategy, archived by Jack Krebs

(12) Quoted in Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross, Creationism's
Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, 2004, p263

(13) Dembski and Richards quoted in Forrest and Gross, p261-2.
On how feel good pop-psychologies have indeed become mainstream
in Christian America see Alan Wolfe, One Nation After All, 1998

(14) Forrest and Gross, p99

(15) Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with America?, 2004
(Originally published in America as What's the Matter with
Kansas?) p209

(16) Frank, p214

(17) Joel Achenbach, Within These Walls, Science Yields to
Stories, Washington Post, 19 September 2004

(18) Timothy Noah , The National Museum of Ben Nighthorse
Campbell: The Smithsonian's new travesty. 29 September 2004

(19) Timothy Sandefur, A Smithsonian Anti-Science Museum?,
October 2, 2004

(20) Letter to the Editor of the Columbus Dispatch, Published
February 15, 2004
 
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA910.htm

=====
Ian Pitchford PhD CBiol MIBiol
http://human-nature.com/ep/
--- End forwarded message ---
Received on Tue Mar 1 12:34:16 2005