Pharyngula

(PZ, Hope you don't mind me reposting this comment on this more relevant thread.)

The sad thing is that millions of people are being preached every week by messages like those given by Ken Ham. And preachers don't have Q&A sessions after their sermons where they can be challenged on what they said. Not that it would matter, since the more fundamentalist the congregation, the less critical they are of their church leaders.

What's even sadder is that the fundamentalist preachers simply ignore the science. They don't even attempt to refute the evidence. They don't need to, since no one is going to challenge them. The vast majority of these churches still teach the same YEC nonsense being taught 30, 50, 100 years ago.

For all the efforts being put in by PZ, Panda's Thumb and Talk Origins to lay out the scientific evidence in meticulous detail, nothing will change until the fundamentalist doctrine of Biblical literalism is overcome.

And that's not going to be easy since, to these people, if you prove that Genesis didn't happen, then nothing in the Bible is true and you have just destroyed their faith. That's what they've been told every Sunday since they were kids.

Posted by: tacitus | February 11, 2006 1:47 PM

How do these kids know what God wants, or that the Bible is true? Were they THERE?

Seriously, kids are often, at heart, pretty good skeptical thinkers who thirst for information (which leads them to be good targets for disinformation spreaders). Asking one the above can work to open a crack in the wall of ignorance.

Posted by: QrazyQat | February 11, 2006 2:05 PM

Ken Ham is just sickening and evil.

You know, how the hell does he know that God "was there?" Was he there? But I know from experience that you just can't talk to these people. I tried talking to members of my family during the whole "creation science" crap in the late 1970s. Even today I have a sister who proclaims "I didn't!" whenever the evolution of man is mentioned. It is so painful.

Posted by: Kristine | February 11, 2006 2:11 PM

It could be worse - at least we know what the YECs' tactics are and how to fight them. If a student really does challenge a teacher with, "Were you there?", that would be the perfect cue to launch into an explanation of how science draws conclusions about things we can't directly observe (atoms, continental plates, criminal acts) by studying the evidence these events leave behind and drawing testable hypotheses. That's how science works and that's the message we need to get across.

Posted by: Ebonmuse | February 11, 2006 2:16 PM

It seems to me that one of the most dangerous attitudes in religion is a willingness to blur the distinction between human uncertainty and divine infallibility when it comes to how sure you can be when it comes to knowing about God. Those other people build a God in their own image: YOU simply agree with God. Those other people interpret texts: YOU meekly accept the truth. Those other people think God is on their side: YOU, however, know you're on God's side.

Thus, when Ken Ham tells children they can trust God, what he really means is they can trust Ken Ham. They can trust themselves, and they can trust fundamentalist evangelicals, because they're the ones who get God right. Doubting that is just like doubting God.

I find it ironic that atheists get accused of "turning themselves into God." To me it often looks like the other way around.

Posted by: Sastra | February 11, 2006 2:16 PM

""God." Once again, I'm going to give good, liberal progressive Christians the vapors and point out that there is the destroyer, the idea that ruins young minds and corrupts education: god. Ham has god on the brain, and he exploits other people who have god on the brain to give him millions of dollars so he can run around the country and put god on the brain of the next generation."

Ham exploits Christians--an accurate assessment, I agree. However, the issue is not with God, it is with extremists like Ken Ham who actively promote their unbending dogma. The fact that "Darwin Sunday" is going to be celebrated in many churches across the country should alert you to the fact that not all Christians buy that pile. It should alert you to the fact that not all Christians can be grouped with the "many people (who) don't even try to sequester their superstitions and cultivate their rational side." I guess it is just easier to stereotype than it is to take the effort to focus in on the fundamentalists who are the real enemies of science. Ken Miller and S. J. Gould wrote nice books, but the results weren't instantaneous, unfortunately. That doesn't justify giving up on the theists who support science and who don't buy into fundamentalist views of our origins.

Tacitus is right: "And that's not going to be easy since, to these people, if you prove that Genesis didn't happen, then nothing in the Bible is true and you have just destroyed their faith. That's what they've been told every Sunday since they were kids."

But, there are also many Christians who do not believe that Genesis and evolution are in contradiction. Many scientists who are Christians and who have studied Genesis thoroughly have found this to be true. Many scientists who are Christians actually see our scientific discoveries as illuminations of the scriptural text. We recognize the Hebrew language was very limited in its discriptive ability at that time, as were the scientific experience of those who lived when the book was written. We warrant that a word-for-word interpretation of the text is but a superficial reading of the text. Why should we be grouped among the "many people (who) don't even try to sequester their superstitions and cultivate their rational side"? I certainly don't appreciate being stereotyped with that group, and the entire mentality is emphatically counter productive.

And what of my devout Muslim colleague who is a chemistry researcher and professor, and who sees no contradiction between his beliefs in God and in evolution or an old earth? Is he also among the "many people (who) don't even try to sequester their superstitions and cultivate their rational side"?

Know thy "enemy". But also know thy "friends".

Posted by: Squeaky | February 11, 2006 2:22 PM

But...why? Muslims are theists, too, afterall...

Posted by: squeaky | February 11, 2006 2:35 PM

Why is home schooling legal?

Well, partly because we're not a totalitarian state that insists that everyone undergo conditioning. And partly because one size does not fit all.

Please don't make the mistake of believing that everyone who homeschools is a religious nut. We have two terrific boys who are homeschooled because, frankly, we think they'd be bored stiff in public school. The seven year old his teaching himself Greek (at his insistence), and I'm teaching the ten-year-old how transistors work. And they're both getting a serious grounding in real science that they would be hard-pressed to get in public schools.

Posted by: Mike Jones | February 11, 2006 2:48 PM

"Yeah, religion can be bad, but it looks good on me...it's such a pretty lie!"
I have never said that, never will, and I don't think it is fair for you to put words in my mouth and stereotype me. Why do you think you know me? Why do you think you have any opinion about my history?

Posted by: squeaky | February 11, 2006 2:59 PM

Squeaky: You are ignoring the main point that PZ is making. He fully acknowledges that *some* people do sequester their superstitions and cultivate reason. But we do a disservice to our human potential when we use reason for most matters and then wall off a section of our lives for rampant irrational supersitious nonsense - i.e. faith beliefs. Just because some people can manage to live and function quite well while embracing some limited forms of religious dogma - and some can even be successful scientists, such as Ken Miller - doesn't really make the dogma a good thing. It is the willingness to decide what to believe as a matter of faith - choosing beliefs by will alone, regardless of reason and evidence - that is the core problem. Faith may not be the root of all evil, but we are fooling ourselves if we don't acknowledge that it's the root of much, much evil.

And ignore 'steve s' being snarky about Muslims. As he explains clearly here, PZ does NOT cut them any slack with regard to their religion. Some people (steve s apparently among them) just don't like the fact that PZ and some other liberals are willing to acknowledge that Muslims in Europe are an oppressed minority relegated to second-class citizen status, and that maybe those cartoons published by a right-wing newspaper in Denmark were more about denigrating Muslims than defending free speech principles.

Posted by: G | February 11, 2006 3:06 PM

Cutting someone a little slack based on socioeconomic factors isn't the same as on religious factors, although they can covary. That religion !isomorphic-to skin-color !isomorphic-to culture doesn't mean they can't covary in ways that disproportionately affect each other.

About religion, though--I actually have a case study where I think someone made the right choice turning their back on science to plunge into religion. One young man I mentored had his face blown off all the way up to his eyes in an accident, and after more than 30 surgeries, is still horribly disfigured, although his condition is now stable.

He has a talent for math and physics, and I was trying to encourage him to become a scientist. He fell in with the fundamentalists, though, and--to my everlasting annoyance--is now an enthusiastic cheerleader for eschatology and creationism. Naturally, I can't in good faith write him a reco for any serious bio program, but that worked out all right in the end, as he has no intention of studying biology anyway, even though I had been encouraging him in that direction before his conversion.

But the reason I think that religion was the right choice for him in his case is that I think it's his best chance of meeting a life partner. If he stayed in science, I can't give him any guarantees that he would meet someone who could look past his face and be willing to be with him. In the church he has joined, on the other hand, I fully expect someone to find common cause with him in "God's will" about what happened to him, and who will feel she gets extra points on her "Christian duty" by partnering with him. In other words, I think it's his best shot at not going through life alone, which is very important to him. I couldn't promise him that if he stayed in science, he'd meet someone who would be willing to do that, as we don't have the same overarching metanarrative of "everything is for a purpose".

Naturally, I wouldn't extrapolate to everyone from an n of 1, and it certainly wouldn't be my own solution--I'd prefer harsh reality, freedom of choice, and being alone to having a relationship on those terms. But given his particular constellation of personality and life events, I actually do think he made the right choice (for himself) of religion over science for himself in this case.

Posted by: RavenT | February 11, 2006 3:08 PM

That will be the day when it is socially acceptable to say to children: "Who do you trust, your imaginary friend or the scientists?" "Scientists!" "What describes reality, religion or science?" "Science!" When you teacher brings up creationism or god, just ask them 'were you there when they discovered the answer in the lab?' Can you remember just that?

Posted by: Inoculated Mind | February 11, 2006 3:13 PM

"PZ does NOT cut them any slack with regard to their religion. Some people (steve s apparently among them) just don't like the fact that PZ and some other liberals are willing to acknowledge that Muslims in Europe are an oppressed minority relegated to second-class citizen status, and that maybe those cartoons published by a right-wing newspaper in Denmark were more about denigrating Muslims than defending free speech principles."

Where do you get this idea from? I myself acknowledge that muslims in Europe are an oppressed minority. Don't know what you're talking about.

Posted by: steve s | February 11, 2006 3:19 PM

Don't worry PZ - any science teacher will set these kids straight right out of the box. All they have to do is ask them where daylight comes from.

"The Sun."

When did God make the daylight?

"On the first day."

When did God make the sun?

"Um, uh, on the fourth day..."

Gee, that doesn't make sense, does it. Maybe there's another point to that particular story...thekeez

Posted by: Jeff Keezel | February 11, 2006 3:21 PM

I am hoping that facial and other behaviour are a reflection of one's (students) thoughts. The kind of behaviour and in some cases responses I get when I present the argument below makes me optimistic. To be honest, I do get responses and folded hands, but their responses are not in the majority.

It's a old and classic argument. But, when presented for the first time and within the context of the authority of logic, it can sometimes do wonders. The argument is an example of begging the question.

P1. If (Insert favoured scripture here) is the word of god, then god exists.
P2. (Insert favoured scripture here) is the word of god.
C. Therefore, god exists.

My question then to my students is, how can one say that P2 is true? And almost everytime, they agree that we must already accept the conclusion to affirm P2. Some can bite the bullet and say that their belief that god exists is true (revealing their own insanity) but more often than not, most agree that it is a bad argument.

Posted by: Virendra | February 11, 2006 3:24 PM

No, I count the objectivists as religious lunatics, too. I'm talking about genuine secular humanists when I say "freethinkers".

Posted by: RavenT | February 11, 2006 3:29 PM

While I think the objectivists are nuts, I'll take them any day over the religious lunatics. I think 'freethinkers' applies to anyone who doesn't submit to a religious authority, including both secular humanists such as myself, or objectivist nuts like my friend.

Posted by: steve s | February 11, 2006 3:34 PM

"I think 'freethinkers' applies to anyone who doesn't submit to a religious authority, including both secular humanists such as myself, or objectivist nuts like my friend."

I dunno, a lot of the Ayn Rand worship and the insistence that "the market can do no wrong" in the face of evidence to the contrary, doesn't strike me as any different than submission to any other religious authority.

Posted by: RavenT | February 11, 2006 3:43 PM

The ones I know solidly adhere to a few axioms about what man is, what life is, that kind of stuff. I see how you'd call that a religion, but I don't.

Posted by: steve s | February 11, 2006 3:47 PM

Max, you might be interested to know that Ken Ham understands Dinopower, and is trying to coopt it. Check out the banner on his webpage:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

Posted by: steve s | February 11, 2006 3:49 PM

In my above comment, the second paragraph should also be italicized. My own word don't begin until the third paragraph.

Posted by: Alon Levy | February 11, 2006 3:54 PM

I would probably home or private school kids if I had kids, and the means. Public schools give terrible educations, I think.

Posted by: steve s | February 11, 2006 3:56 PM

If this country was secular, home schooling would be secular, too. So your beef is not with homeschooling, it's with religion. Surely you can't be objecting to the right of parents to teach children if they feel they can be more concerned about and effective at seeing that their children's needs are met than the public school can.

Posted by: speedwell | February 11, 2006 4:10 PM

Now we understand, what the jews have always known: Ham isn't kosher!

Posted by: Daniel O. | February 11, 2006 4:12 PM

The homeschooling/public school debate comes up at work on occasion.

Not having children, I'm not too familiar with the materials available for homeschooling. I know there are some good materials available because I worked for a couple years in the warehouse for Aristoplay, a creator of children's educational games largely used by homeschoolers. There was little religious content in them aside from some historical facts.

However, what disturbs me a little about my co-worker's interest in homeschooling is that you can get different reactions from them by asking them different questions.

First, if you ask them why they think they should be homeschooling their children, the answer is often along the line of, "Because when talking to my child, I don't think s/he knows what I think they should know." In other words, they have real doubts about the quality of the education provided by public schools.

Yet, when you ask them, "What makes you think you are better qualified to teach, and can do a better job of teaching, than those people who are certified by our society through teaching certificates and degrees?" They usually stop and think a bit.

This is not to say that there aren't situtations where homeschooling is appropriate. There are likely also teachers who do not deserve the credentials they have been given.

I am satisfied with the education I received in a public school. I suspect, if I had children, that when they reached the teen years I would expect them to have learned more than they probably would have. I can't explain it, but I tend to feel that when I see a person nearing physical adulthood, I expect them to have much of the knowledge that I have. It's a silly perception, and I often find that my interests in literature are not even translated to adults, but I have that feeling regardless.

Now I better get back to my homework myself. I have a mid-term on Monday in operations management.

Cheers,

-Flex

Posted by: Flex | February 11, 2006 4:36 PM

Hey folks! (I'm an microbiologist and have read this blog for about a year or so, yet this is my first time commenting....I'm usually just an observer)
Once just for kicks I attended an AIG conference which was being held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and at the local "Bible Baptist Church". It was the craziest spectacle of nonsense that I had ever seen! After one of the church talks which featured some misinformation about the impossibility of evolving a single-celled organism, I asked Mr. Ham whether he had ever heard of endosymbiosis or the fact that chloroplasts and mitochondria have genetic remnants of their former free-living days as green algae and purple bacteria. He told me that he had never heard of such "ideas".
Later, after one of the talks at the university, several of the students and professors and I talked back and forth with Ham, Menton, and that freako maniac "scriptural geologist" whose name I have repressed. After discussing accretion rates of marine foraminifera, brain size in ancient hominids, stratigraphy, lateral genetic transfer, quote-mining, and many other things, some of the home-schooled youngsters from the back-country started to become quite troubled at the obvious lack of answers possessed by AIG. I remember a couple of 11-13 year olds who were crying. Luckily, a few of them stayed on and talked with us challengers in the audience and seemed to leave with a sense of how AIG's dishonesty did not mean that they had to give up their faith in Jesus. Exactly how we got this point across to them I don't remember. It's a bit mind-numbing to try to formulate an argument of that sort.
Anyway, this whole business is so sad and sickening to me when it comes to the indoctrination of the young. My two-and-a-half year old daughter just loves the organisms and rocks that we seek out in our pursuits of curiosities. The natural world seems to already be her foundation and peace. It takes really tough conditions to get her spirits down when we're in the wild. The worst thing I can think of is to misrepresent the only thing in many children's lives that doesn't urge them to do something meaningless and stupid.
That Alaska conference really ended badly for AIG and the local creationist goofballs. Aren't there enough reasonable people in this country to point out the fallacies spewed out at these affairs? Or is it just too true that it only takes a second to vomit all over a nice sweater but hours to clean it off properly?

Posted by: Pattanowski | February 11, 2006 4:57 PM

PZ--On a completly unrelated topic: I hope you were able to get tickets to Garrison Keillor--I'm listening to the live broadcast from UMM right now!

Posted by: Squeaky | February 11, 2006 5:03 PM

Does anybody know historical statistics on the popularity of evolution versus the Biblical account? Has it been changing?

My point certainly isn't that fundamentalists like this Ham guy shouldn't be challenged when the opportunity arises (as in the way Pattanowski describes), but we can't do anything about churches inviting these guys to speak to children. They have the right to do that, and we can't stop them. I'm only suggesting we take solace in knowing these guys and the churches that feed them aren't going to have as profound an impact as they think they're having. I guess my point was that the article isn't as depressing as it appears at first blush, unless we give these guys more credit than they're due, and children less credit than they're due.

Posted by: Max Udargo | February 11, 2006 5:37 PM

"Boys and girls," Ham said, "If a preacher so much as mentions Jesus, or the Garden of Eden, or an era when people lived for hundreds of years, you put your hand up and you say, 'Excuse me, were you there?' Can you remember that?"

Posted by: God | February 11, 2006 5:41 PM

Squeaky: Why are you taking my position as a personal attack?

I am not talking about your faith in any personal way, or still less C.S. Lewis' faith. (Aside: Why did you bring Lewis up at all? Am I supposed to find him too intellectually respectable to disagree with him? Please. I disagree quite vehemently with intellectually respectable people all the time, and I bet you do too.)

I don't know what particular things you believe as a matter of faith, nor do I care. My position is simply that faith beliefs, no matter what they are or who has them, are a bad thing. Beliefs which are based on the desire to believe or will to believe rather than being based on evidence and reason are disconnected from the whole process of justification, and justification is the only access to truth we have.

I am also saying that to the extent a person believes in the existence of God - or divinity of Christ, or the perfection of the Koran as the word of Allah, or any other religious dogma - that person is suspending reason: No matter how rigorously one may apply reason elsewhere, one has to suspend reason with regard to core religious beliefs because there simply is no legitimate evidence supporting those beliefs. Religious belief is not about evidence, and never has been. All of the traditional arguments for the existence of God are laughably bad, and only those who are already inclined to believe them in advance find them plausible.

That is my position. There's more to it than that (some of which you can read about in more detail if you're interested), but what I'm really interested in is your reaction to my position. Why do you take my statement of my opinions and arguments as an assault on and insult to you, personally? So you disagree with me, maybe even vehemently. I don't take our disagreement as a personal insult. Why do you? And since you clearly do disagree and this is an open forum, you are free to tell me why you think I'm wrong. But instead, you have chosen to take offense at the very idea that I think faith is bad. Rather than argue with my position that all faith beliefs are irrational and superstitious nonsense, you have gotten angry at me just for expressing the opinion forthrightly and without qualification. Why?

Your taking offense does not constitute an argument against my positions. But it does indicate to me that, at the very least, you are somewhat discomfited by the idea that someone thinks you're irrational. Well get used to it. Pretty much every freethinker thinks religious believers are irrational to the extent that they are religious: "Faith" is belief in the absence of justification, and the profound conviction that it's important to justify one's beliefs about the world is one of the biggest factors that leads us to be freethinkers in the first place.

Posted by: G | February 11, 2006 5:45 PM

Excellent post. I find the audacity of liberal Christians simply appalling. Wake up, Christians, the pressing urge you feel to incessantly bludgeon society with what is at best a minor and highly suspicious epistemic point (i.e., "you can't absolutely, positively prove I'm wrong, so I'm going to go right on believing what little remnant of my tradition I still can, nyah nyah!") is causing a great deal of harm. Yes, yes - you're not fundamentalists (I heard the first time) - but surely it's not difficult to see that the intellectual bullying you engage in at every instant, the sheer weight of incredulity society must burden itself with in order for you to retain your little beliefs, is in some way, you know, responsible for some of the problems in the world, just maybe? Surely you noticed that in none of the other arguments you get into on a daily basis you can get away with appealing to non-causal spiritual realm