…and this is a 
If we're choosing teams now, I want to be with the shamelessly godless
Category: Creationism • Godlessness
Posted on: November 23, 2006 1:05 PM, by PZ Myers
That guy, Larry Moran…he seems to have been the final straw to tip a whole lot of people into twitterpated consternation. In particular, Ed Brayton, that sad panjandrum of the self-satisfied mean, medium, middle, moderate, and mediocre, has declared Moran (and all those who dare to profess their atheism without compromise) to be anathema, and John Lynch, Pat Hayes, and Nick Matzke have drawn up sides to put themselves clearly against wicked "evangelical atheists" like Dawkins and Moran and even PZ Maiieghrs.
What could have prompted such vociferous contempt? What awful thing could Moran have said, on top of the usual pile of criminal sins of overt atheists so numerous they don't need explanation, that would justify calling us "disturbing and dangerous" and "appalling and vile"? You will be shocked. UCSD is requiring their biology majors to take a course in evolution to remediate the failings of their freshmen, and is making all of their incoming freshmen attend an anti-ID lecture. This infuriated the usual gang of IDists. Larry took it a step further.
I agree with the Dembski sycophants that UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place. Having made that mistake, it's hopeless to expect that a single lecture—even one by a distinguished scholar like Robert Pennock—will have any effect. The University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education.
This led to charges of "authoritarian dogmatism" and the hysterical responses from the evolutionist side that this was the work of those evil atheists who are dooming our chances of improving science education. To which I can only say, "Are you nuts?"
Almost all universities have these little things called "admission requirements" and "standards". For instance, we expect you to have graduated from high school before we let you in, or to have demonstrated equivalent competence. We look at your grades, and we may reject you if you don't have a record of discipline and competence. We evaluate standardized test scores, which is a far crueler and more arbitrary mechanism for filtering our admissions. We have application essays, and at the more prestigious universities, admission interviews. I am not surprised that a clueless non-academic would be unaware that we already have many intellectual barriers (often, barriers that are too low) in place, but what is wrong with those academics who are aghast at Moran's proposal?
I think it is entirely reasonable for a university to say, for instance, that you need to be able to read with a certain level of competency, or know the basics of algebra, before you will be admitted to the university. In fact, I think we should enforce higher standards across the board, because what happens all the time is that unqualified students come in, fork over tuition money for a year or two, and slowly discover that they are paying a lot of money to be handed a lot of work that they are incapable of doing, and they fail. Expecting incoming students to have some minimal understanding, of the kind that is mandated by most state high school science standards, is not onerous. Expecting biology majors at UCSD to know the basics of evolution, or flunking them out, is no more dogmatic or vile than expecting math majors to know what the binomial theorem is, and kicking them out of the program if they can't do algebra.
In response to this demand for rigor, we get Ed Brayton dividing the world of the anti-creationists into two camps, one of which is "fighting to prevent ID creationism from weakening science education"…and after expressing horror at the idea of requiring better education in biology for incoming college students, places himself in that camp!
Are we on Bizarro Earth or something?
The other camp, the one he opposes, is fighting "to eliminate all religious belief of any kind" and believes that "religion itself, in any form, is to be attacked and destroyed by any means necessary." This is Brayton's rationalization for placing Moran in opposition to improving science education: because Brayton has erected this astonishingly black-and-white fantasy where there is this totalitarian group of atheists seeking world domination, and anyone he imagines being in this group is corrupting his attempts to improve science education by encouraging greater tolerance for stupid ideas.
Please note: Moran did not say that all Baptists should be flunked or refused admission. This was not a comment about religion, directly. It was a statement that the ignorant "40% of the freshman class [who] reject Darwinism" did not deserve admission. I suspect, though, that even Ed Brayton realized that the reason these 40% oppose basic evolutionary biology was almost certainly and entirely due to their religious upbringing, and that a policy like that would be a de facto barrier to practitioners of certain extremist religious sects. This religion, however, has to be treated delicately, with respect and love, so his side that wants to improve science education is going to do so by pandering to those who most devoutly oppose science education.
Don't ask me to explain that logic. I'm not on "their team".
Yes, the conflict has gotten that stark: according to Pat Hayes, We're on Ed's Team or we're not.
Those, like Moran, who want to divide the movement to defend science education—and in the process hand ultra-right fundamentalists an undeserved victory—"simply are not on the same team and are not working [toward, RSR] the same goal," says Brayton.
Parse that carefully, if you will. It's not hard. He's saying that those "who want to divide the movement" are handing victory to the fundamentalists in a post where he and Ed are explicitly dividing the movement into two opposing "teams". It's a single sentence, Pat, and you are plainly committing the sin you damn Moran for! And "damn" is a mild term for the scorn Ed and Pat pour onto those who are less sanguine about the destructive influence of religion on our culture.
I pointed out the hypocrisy of his statement in a comment, and now Pat has replied with a longer post compounding his error, and accusing us of being "Darwinian fundamentalists", a term I've only heard from creationists before. As I've come to expect, we get to hear a lot of false motives assigned to us, more dogma and damnation, much of it coming straight from the weird brain of Ed Brayton.
If you are honest PZ—and I will not accuse you of being a hypocrite as you have accused me—you will admit that you too are willing to sacrifice the battle over teaching evolution in order to win your larger war against religion.
Uh-oh, I must be dishonest then, because I must honestly express my opinion that that is not true (is this like those logic puzzles with Cretans?). There are two problems with Pat's claim. First, I want better science teaching in the schools, and that is the mechanism I propose to defeat religion. Educated people tend to shed religious beliefs more readily, or adopt religious beliefs that do not conflict with reality. I really do not understand how someone can suggest that I would advocate letting people become more ignorant about the real world as part of my strategy for winning my "war on religion".
Second, I'd really like to know how I'm supposed to be fighting this "war on religion". Are there guns involved? Because I don't like violence. Am I supposed to be pushing to legislate what people are allowed to believe? Because I don't think that's possible, and if it were, I'd oppose it even more strongly than violence. As near as I can tell, the way I've been fighting this "war" is to express my opinions as loudly and clearly as possible, and encourage other like-minded people to openly state their positions as well. I also insist that beliefs about religion should not be a litmus test used to discriminate against people (there is, of course, a great deal of self-interest there, since non-Christian beliefs are the ones discriminated against most). When people declare that they oppose my strategy in the "war against religion", that's what I hear them opposing.
Seriously. Tattoos and concentration camps and guillotines are not part of the plan. Quit acting like they are.
The difference between us is not what we think about God, miracles, or the after life. On all those issues we are in complete agreement. Our difference is this: I don't believe theistic evolutionists -- however much I might disagree with their religious beliefs -- are eroding science education.
Yes, I agree that this is a difference between us, in part. One other difference: I'm right, you're wrong.
One case in point, a familiar one to all of us now: Ken Miller. I agree entirely that he has been a net gain to the fight against creationism, he's effective, he's rhetorically powerful. Read his book, and it sails along strongly, making a solid case and building beautifully…and then wham, he introduces his religion, and it sails off the cliff into insipidity and chaos. Does religion erode science education? You bet it does, and that book demonstrates it vividly.
However, that doesn't mean I make the blanket assumption that theistic evolutionists are bad for science education. Theistic evolution, yes, is a ghastly piece of work, little better than outright creationism, but the theistic evolutionists keep that out of the classroom, so it's OK; however, you still need us shrill, strident atheistical evolutionists to point and make our alien scream if some well-meaning theistic evolutionist starts assuming that silence and the tacit support of Ed's Team means he gets to start babbling about god lurking in quantum indeterminacy to his class.
(Oh, and in case you're worried: that doesn't mean we start preaching atheism in the classroom, either. I don't, and would also point and scream at someone trying to do so.)
Defeating the religious right requires a winning strategy. PZ, as much as I admire your writing and your other important contributions to the movement to defend science, I believe the strategy you advocate will lead us to certain defeat.
Yes! We need a winning strategy! Now, what is this winning strategy that Ed's Team is pushing? It seems to be more of the same, the stuff that we've been doing for 80 years, accommodating the watering down of science teaching to avoid conflict with religious superstition…the strategy that has led to a United States where a slim majority opposes the idea of evolution, and we're left with nothing but a struggle in the courts to maintain the status quo.
I don't know why this is so hard to understand. We are not winning. We are clinging to tactics that rely on legal fiat to keep nonsense out of the science classroom, while a rising tide of uninformed, idiotic anti-science opinion, tugged upwards by fundamentalist religious fervor, cripples science education. Treading water is not a winning strategy. I'm glad we're not sinking, and I applaud the deserving legal efforts that have kept us afloat, but come on, people, this isn't winning.
Since Pat is convinced my strategy is one that will lead to certain defeat, he must have a pretty good idea of what that strategy is. Nick Matzke thinks our goal is "to convert other academics to be evangelical atheists, so that eventually everyone in the U.S. will become evangelical atheists." Really? I mean, it would certainly be nice if we were all atheists, I suppose, but wouldn't the "evangelical" part be unnecessary then? I think we can safely say that Nick is Not On Our Team, and his knowledge of our goals dismissed.
Pat doesn't seem to have any better understanding.
Your strategy is a loser because it isolates nonbelievers like ourselves. When you say that our religious allies in the fight to defend science education and preserve the separation of church and state are no different than the fundamentalists, you hand the religious right the very weapon they most desire to use against us.
So I take it that the Ed's Team strategy is to simply blend in with the believers? I think we've found another difference.
My strategy is to stand up unashamed for rational ideas, to be proud to be an atheist, and to encourage others to join me. That doesn't isolate us in the least. What does isolate us is religious bigotry and the need by even some infidels to wall off those who speak their mind, putting them on another "team" at which they can safely throw mud. That ignorant condemnation of other atheists and the false accusations (theistic evolutionists are no different than fundamentalists? Where have I said that? It does seem that some are ready to say that atheists are no different than religious fundamentalists though…another item for the irony file) are no doubt helpful camouflage in their attempts to blend in.
Oh, and it shouldn't need saying, but apparently it does: being a proud atheist is not synonymous with planning to line church-going grandmas up against the wall to be shot. That's just part of the unthinking prejudices of Ed's Team.
I'm glad I'm not on it.
Comments
As Dawkins said during the Beyond Belief conference... we're not interested in finding stories in the bible that support science and evolution... what's the point? Teach the science, if they can't accept that, fuck em. Pass the class and they have nothing to worry about. These students have to start learning that there's reasons why the truth doesn't fit into their belief system.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 23, 2006 1:31 PM
Posted by: SEF | November 23, 2006 1:32 PM
There also seems to be this scream (having also read Moran's post) about "Darwinists". Erm, Darwin founded evolutionary biology, but it isn't "Darwinism" it is evo & evo-devo. In the same way that physics isn't "Newtonianism" ...
I agree PZ, what's with these people?
I suspect they are scared of the believrs
Posted by: G. Tingey | November 23, 2006 1:33 PM
Bravo, PZ. I've been following this myself, and commenting on Dispatches and RSR where I just couldn't take it any more. It appears that the Neville Chamberlain School of Evolutionists have gone all reactionary, and adopted the creationist party line that any criticism of creationist beliefs and their bad science is tantamout to an all-out war on religion that we can't win, so the best way to "preserve" science education is not to hurt anybody's feelings. Okay, so Ken Miller has done good science and been an excellent ally in the war on creationism in the schools...fine. But I still want to hear his scientific arguments justifying his theism, and if he hasn't any, then excuse the hell out of me for taking him less seriously overall as a scientist than Dawkins, who, while he may be "strident" and "rude," at least is arguing a consistent position.
I've been kind of sickened by all this, and when someone who supports the accomodationist way of thinking can post a comment this dippy (from RSR)...
...I just want to retch.
Posted by: Martin Wagner | November 23, 2006 1:36 PM
PZ's cute when he's angry.
Posted by: Stephen Erickson | November 23, 2006 1:40 PM
According to Ed "Failed Comedian" Brayton, Larry's suggestion that one's understanding of biology be relevant to determining admissibility to college is "dangerous" "disturbing" "appalling" and (my favorite) "vile."
Poor Ed. It looks like Karl Rove got to him good. So when is the Christian "backlash" against us atheists going to occur Ed? In 2008?
Watch closely in the future when any and all political victories of fundies are attributed by Ed Brayton and Co. to atheists and their big mouths. That's the script.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | November 23, 2006 1:40 PM
PZ
"First, I want better science teaching in the schools, and that is the mechanism I propose to defeat religion."
Do you honestly believe that this is realistic?
Posted by: SteveF | November 23, 2006 1:48 PM
Do you honestly believe that this is realistic?
compared to which other approach(es)?
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 23, 2006 1:51 PM
Does it seem to anyone else that Brayton and his ilk are fairly sophisticated concern trolls? "We support science, but any attempt to assert science against religious nonsense is horrible, horrible, and we have to avoid conflict with the believers at all costs!"
Posted by: Caledonian | November 23, 2006 1:53 PM
Practical (in view of the continuing assault on science education) might be a better word than realistic.
Posted by: SteveF | November 23, 2006 1:53 PM
Yes. Teach people to think, and let 'em make up their own minds. I'm confident that more, if we strip away the lies and propaganda of religion, will make a sensible decision. And if they don't, well, there isn't anything more I can do. We'll just have to chalk it up to people's inherent irrationality.
Unfortunately, some people think we can let religious indoctrination continue to go on unchecked by any representation by the freethinkers in our culture, and think we shouldn't ever, in any venue, criticize theists. It's getting ridiculous.
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 1:56 PM
actually, it was Matzke's response to all this that surprised me the most.
does anybody here think that Matzke's nomination of Tyson as "the next Sagan" was a bit odd?
did anybody watch the Tyson clip?
this whole thing seems to be totally reactionary, imo.
while some seem fond of saying PZ is the hotheaded one, it's these reactionaries that aren't thinking things through at this point.
Posted by: Ichthyic | November 23, 2006 1:57 PM
In defence of Ed:
Frankly, using whether a student believes in evolution or not as a criteria for their admission into university is a bad idea. If they've got the grades to get in in everything but biology to keep their average high enough, they can get in. Being discriminatory over one subject is wrong. Then you have to start asking questions about whether the student believes in the holocaust, UFOs, immaculate conception, etc...
I personally have little sympathy for creationists and I am not a theistic evolutionist but a die-hard atheist. But universities are about education, not about combating ignorance, as odd as that sounds, because somebody freely chooses to attend university yet can remain ignorant if they want. Take them and fail them if they take a biology course, but, if they enter theology, then that's their little bonus.
And alot of us don't want to be using science as a tool to attack religion not because we think it's wrong, but because it's short sighted. We need to use science to teach kids how to think, then down the road they will be more likely to question and reject the arguments of their religious mentors. Absolutely linking science to atheism right now is likely to drive religious moderates away, people we need to help drive science policy like greenhouse-gas emissions and science education, but will also lessen the impact of scientists as authority figures.
Posted by: Miguelito | November 23, 2006 2:00 PM
Oh, practical. Yes, it's practical. Fight to keep creationism out of the classroom, like NCSE does, fight to support good biology teaching, like KCFS and MnCSE do, get more activists working to get citizens aware of good science, and for dog's sake, quit treating the most reliable proponents of science, the atheists and agnostics, like pariahs. The way to get people to stop using the rebuke that evolution is godless science, as if that were a strike against it, is to end this idea that godlessness is evil...an idea that Brayton seems determined to perpetuate, keeping that handy canard armed and live in the hands of the creationists.
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 2:02 PM
What I find amazing is the amount of free education that people expect for our students who are not willing to do the hard work of getting the basics taken care of before they enter college. Each year, the papers carry stories about how expensive college is, how many new applicants there are, and the way that the increase in admissions is driving up tuition costs. It also shrinks the amount of financial aid available to the students who have the capacity to gain from college in a real way; the students who have earned their way to college by doing the work in high school.
I am all in favor of Moran's idea. If we send the kids back when they can't demonstrate that they were learning in high school biology instead of text-messaging the details of Friday night's party, then there will be more room for the ones that have shown they deserve it.
There are plenty of "universities" that cater to creationists; places like Patrick Henry University (give me death) where instead of learning about real science they learn the finer points of debating.
I see no reason for atheists to concede an inch when it comes to science. Religion and spirituality are interesting, but their testability has not grown past the argument over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and to concede that we should demand strict application of reason in science would be a step backwards.
I fear for a country in which even our atheists are afraid of religion.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | November 23, 2006 2:05 PM
That is not a defense of Ed, since it is parroting a mistruth spread by Ed. Moran did not say we should reject students who don't believe in evolution—in fact, one thing I tell my students is that I don't care whether they "believe" in evolution or not, I just want to see scientific evidence—but that we should fail students who actively reject evolution.
We don't filter out students for being ignorant (our enrollments would be at 0 if we did that), but we can filter out students for being perniciously and sanctimoniously stupid.
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 2:07 PM
There is something unsettling about this massive overkill in response to Larry's comment. I've taught a second-year, introductory course on the history and philosophy of geology and biology for nearly 20 years now. I tell the students that they're entitled to their own opinions on the issues (age of the earth, the history of life, etc.), but they will be graded on their awareness of the evidence and the arguments. I've had to mark many down for spouting simple creationist arguments that had been thoroughly eviscerated in class without recognizing or responding to the points made against them. I've had very few complaints, and I've even persuaded a few who began as young-earth creationists that they needed to adopt more sophisticated theological views. Of course, some have failed and some have withdrawn from the class. But I don't see why there's anything wrong (or 'evangelical') about this, and I don't see why what Larry proposed was any different: If you want to get a degree in biology, you are going to have to learn about biology. This will require giving up the grotesque posturing and propaganda of the creationist-ID crowd; if you can't do this, biology is and will remain beyond you. Evolutionary theism, on the other hand, is not so disabling, since it doesn't require that you ignore important evidence or waste your time playing pointless, selectively skeptical games.
As to the general over-reaction against atheists, I'm struck by its asymmetry- proselytizing for religion is seen as just fine, but open and clear advocacy for atheism is seen as offensive. I can't see any good reason for this, but it's a pretty widespread pattern. Last week a CBC religion show highlighted a letter complaining about the weakness of faith shown by a scholar who had become an agnostic after studying the bible & its textual history. The letter was absolutely contemptuous about the scholar's response. This juxtaposed nicely with several other letters complaining about the 'offensive' comments of Sam Harris on the previous week. The attitude seems to be that contempt for the non-religious is fine, but any criticism of the religious is offensive. I say, tough noogies.
Posted by: Bryson Brown | November 23, 2006 2:09 PM
I'm not in favour of treating atheists as pariahs. I'm an atheist myself. Listing the various activities of the NCSE and the MnCSE is not overly relevant. The question is whether or not the overt atheism practiced by you and Larry is practical in the fight for science education (in view of the overwhelmingly theistic flavour of US society). I'd suggest not. I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
As an aside, I think its interesting that you mention the NCSE and the MnCSE. Last time I checked the sites of these organisations, they contained evidence of the more concliatory approach favoured by Ed:
http://www.mnscience.org/index.php?id=120
Should this be removed from the site?
Posted by: SteveF | November 23, 2006 2:16 PM
Weirdness abounds. Must I pick sides? This seems like a no-brainer. We stick to high academic standards. Kids who don't know the stuff they are required to know, are not passed to the next level -- that is the philosophy of the Bush Administration.
I'm sure that the Bushies thought they'd catch only differently-skinned or differently-languaged people, but if we stick to tough academics, we're going to catch people who carry religious nuttiness past acceptable bounds.
If a kid can't explain evolution and why it's important, he's no better suited to being a citizen than one who can't distinguish why a republican democracy is considered usually superior to despotic totalitarian regimes.
If they can't do the work, flunk 'em. If they refuse to do the work, flunk 'em.
Moran makes the case a bit more caustically than I might like -- but he's got the right views. If kids don't study the stuff, if they don't learn it and can't pass the tests, write the essays and otherwise demonstrate mental facility on the topic, don't give them the merit badge, don't give them a passing grade, let some other kid have the opportunity. It's not like we have a shortage of kids who need to go to college and learn . . .
I do wish there would be some emphasis on the common ground here. PZ and Brayton don't disagree on whether kids need to know evolution. The disagreement is on how much remediation we are willing to allow, especially on government money.
The bottom line is good academics. ID advocates are opposed to high academic standards.
Moran has pointed out that another poobah is wearing no clothes. He's not a pervert for pointing out that nudity.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | November 23, 2006 2:18 PM
While I may agree with PZ's basic argument that promoting "theistic evolution" as itself a legitimate scientific viewpoint (as opposed to a legitimate religious viewpoint) is mistaken, I disagree on this particular issue. The creationist students who come into college science classes disagreeing with evolution are not "ignorant" and unqualified in exactly the same way freshmen without basic backgrounds in algebra are ignorant, and thus unqualified to enter college level math programs.
The lack of belief may or may not indicate a total lack of knowledge. They may have a reasonable understanding of evolutionary theory -- or at least no worse than incoming freshmen in general. When it comes to undergraduate programs, it doesn't really matter whether students believe or agree with a subject, as long as they are capable of learning and doing the work. There are also important social factors to consider regarding WHY there is this ignorance of basic theory. There is a large cultural subgroup (perhaps even a majority) which promotes and sanctions rejecting evolution. We can't ignore this and hope it goes away.
If black kids routinely grew up in communities which taught them that doing algebra was "a White Man's thing" and somehow a "betrayal of your race" -- and yet many wanted to take math and even become mathematicians -- then I would expect colleges to recognize the special problem here, provide remedial algebra classes, and assume that such students would then go on to either figure out that algebra fits into everything else and is not inherently anti-African-American OR learn the information and be able to do algebra problems correctly, whatever they secretly believed. Or drop out or flunk out.
Keeping information from the ignorant as a kind of "self-corrective punishment" to the establishment that deliberately made them ignorant seems not only unlikely to work, but wrong. These are kids who need to be exposed to new ideas the right way. College challenges old prejudices. "Sink or swim" shouldn't come before that, not in this particular matter.
Posted by: Sastra | November 23, 2006 2:23 PM
Speaking of asymmetry, you don't see the anti-Ed Team saying theistic evolutionists are not allowed to state their opinions because it hurts the cause. You do see the Ed Team damning the eyes of the atheists because they're going to make the creationists angry, and because they dare to criticize their theistic evolutionist heroes.
So no, they shouldn't remove it. Especially not since they've also linked to an essay by a member of the Evil Atheist Team.
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 2:23 PM
PZ wrote:
This is not true. He recently posted a very long argument that we need to end the idea that godlessness equals immorality. You are being unfair here.
I love you both. Stop fighting or Santa will see you.
Posted by: Sastra | November 23, 2006 2:27 PM
Oh, yeah -- and let's be clear that what the wags at DI and UD want is to make it safe to be perniciously and sanctimoniously stupid, at the expense of innocent children and other citizens everywhere. That's the where the line ought to be drawn.
The difference between crank science and good science is that in good science the advocate can explain why it is that honest people might have different views, without resort to imagined conspiracies and calumny. Moran is taking the position that favors thought and knowledge; his opponents are manning the ramparts in defense of stupidity.
One may be excused for avoiding the crossfire, but there should be no question about which side one favors.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | November 23, 2006 2:30 PM
Given that almost 30% of the freshmen entering UCLA for the past ten years have "significant" deficiencies in reading and writing (I don't know the figures for UCSD, but I suspect that they'll be a bit better), it seems a little unfair to flunk the ones who don't accept evolution.
Since it's very hard to even get evolutionary biology taught in schools in many parts of the US, Larry's suggestion might be a bit more realistic (and less of a rhetorical pose) if the US first got its pre-college educational house in order. How many of the UCSD freshmen who "reject" evolution have actually taken classes it it in school, as opposed to being told how bad it is by authority figures in their lives.
I've said my piece on PZ's priorities (evolution versus atheism) before and nothing I say on that subejct is going to make the slightest difference.
Posted by: Andy Groves | November 23, 2006 2:33 PM
The idea of rejecting IDists or creationists seems rather dumb. On issues like evolution/ID/creationism, a high school graduate believes what he believes mainly because people around him told him what to believe. I'm sure if you took a poll, you'd find that a lot of people went into college as creationists, realized how wrong they were, and came to accept evolution. Heck, a lot of high schools don't even teach evolution because they're afraid of offending the parents. That means that the only source of information they get about evolution is from their parents, youth ministers, and pastors. A lot of them know next to nothing about evolution except the charicatured versions versions told to them. The best thing to do to undermine creationism is education in college. Rejecting them because they accept creationism or ID means missing out on a huge opportunity.
Posted by: BC | November 23, 2006 2:35 PM
But then...
So Moran really needs to become explicitely clear in who should be rejected and to what (University, entry into bio major, satisfaction of degree standards). Otherwise, it looks like a million people railing against straw men all week.
Posted by: argystokes | November 23, 2006 2:38 PM
I first read "shameless goddess" and was wondering who she is... I'd choose her too ^^
Posted by: Sho | November 23, 2006 2:40 PM
PZ Myers wrote:
A practice which originated, if I am not grossly mistaken, to keep Jews out of the Ivy League. There was a day when admission forms included questions like, "Has your father's last name changed?" to sniff out the Markowitzes who had become Markowes.
For the size of the furor it has provoked, Moran's remark is a remarkably trivial thing. Little more than a bitter jest, to my eye (untutored as I am in the art of playing shrill notes on the Blogotubes). I think Moran is mistaken in claiming that most incoming college students who profess creationism do so out of an active choice, rather than being misinformed by a rotten school system. Furthermore, I don't think prejudicing the admissions process against people who are simply ill-informed is a good idea, and we can't expect high-school seniors to be well-informed until we get much better science education than we have today.
To paraphrase a well-known maxim, I'm much more likely to assume incompetence instead of malice when it comes to college freshmen.
However, to test the limits of this reasoning, let's try a thought experiment. Imagine you're a college professor who has input on hiring or tenure-track decisions. Would you object to excluding an applicant whose CV is full of papers on specified complexity, claiming "the flagellum couldn't evolve" and published in non-peer-reviewed journals?
Now, imagine you're on a committee reviewing prospective graduate students. One applicant writes an essay about wanting to explore and understand the natural world, a second applicant admits to feeling a Saganesque wonder when contemplating old fossils or distant quasars, and a third discusses nothing but "gaps in the Darwinian theory" and quotes Answers in Genesis talking points. Which of these three prospective students would you not admit to your graduate biology program?
What, even if the middle one might be a (hush) theistic evolutionist, at least at Christmastime?
When we hire a faculty member or give a faculty member a position of higher standing, we do so on merit, which largely translates to asking how well they have done real science. To an extent, the same is true of admissions into the uppermost levels of education. Graduate school, postdoctorate work and faculty positions are all about competence and getting real work done. By contrast, getting into college has much more to do with potential and finding opportunities for personal growth. (The more enlightened college admissions folks take this into account. At least if you trust their protestations, they don't prejudice themselves against high-schoolers who didn't take advanced calculus, for example, if their school didn't offer the class.) I agree with Ed Brayton that applying an "ideological litmus test" to deny such opportunities to honest young'uns is not a morally defensible position — but it's pretty damn clear that's not really the issue here!
I feel like I wandered into the middle of a shouting match among astronomers and amateur telescope enthusiasts. One lot is saying they all need to compromise with the astrologers in order to keep astrophysics in the curriculum, and the others have all lost patience. (Replace religion with astrology or God with Osiris, and you might get an interesting perspective on this sound-and-fury.)
Back on the grade-school recess yard, I was always picked last for teams. If you ever get around to me this time, sign me to PZ's side. At the very least, it requires erecting fewer walls in my consciousness to quarantine my reason and integrity.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 23, 2006 2:43 PM
Yes, Andy, and you also know that is an ongoing debate in the higher ed community: how much remedial instruction should a university give? Can we afford to turn away marginally unqualified students? What is the obligation of state-sponsored universities to educate anyone?
These are fairly ordinary arguments with people standing all over the spectrum on them -- we don't usually call the ones who demand higher standards than we've got now "appalling" and "vile".
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 2:44 PM
Personally the initial post came through to me as saying exactly that, and it did seem ridiculous to think we shouldn't even allow people to be in college where they can be exposed to better education. Later comments have been more nuanced and closer to what PZ is saying now, but that was after a lot of this flaming seemed to have started.
As for the general ideas being expressed, I think there are seperate groups involved in the pro-evolution side of this debate, where some people just really don't care about the atheism issue. However stuff like this is just distracting from the fact that even if our longterm views are different, the shortterm goal of defeating creationism is the same, and it will probably need tactics from both sides of the atheism issues.
Posted by: mcmillan | November 23, 2006 2:50 PM
I left highschool in the top ten of my graduating class. I received my bachelor's degree, with honours, in biology. I took courses in Evolutionary Biology (one of my favourite topics, by the way), and have gone on to study yeast genetics and DNA repair systems. I have three publications under my belt, and a fourth on the way. I am currently working towards my PhD and am getting straight A's in all courses required.
But in High School, my biology teacher (in a public school) took part of a class to state he doesn't believe in evolution, and that macroevolution was unsupported. I was 16 at the time, and here was a teacher, a professional in the public education system whom I trusted, telling us evolution was wrong. And to my shame, I believed him at the time.
Since then, I've learned a lot. I check panda's thumb every day, and I've read at least half the Talk-Origins index. I've challenged creationists when they set up a gathering not far from campus, I've checked with every single religious club on campus to determine who was creationism-supporters, and have challenged each and every one on the science of evolution. I've read books on evolution, attended classes, even gave a seminar on DNA methylation and its evolutionary history and roles for a graduate course.
But if we adopt the position that Moran suggested, and that you, PZ, support, I would have been flunked out. I would not have been admitted to university in the first place.
So tell me, PZ, that my education was a waste. Tell me directly that the seven years I've spent learning about evolution was wasted on a dumb kid, when one of the smart kids should have gotten the spot instead.
Tell me, that since I was lied to at the age of 16, that I don't deserve this education, or that my degree and publications are meaningless. Because that is what you are supporting.
Tell me that the fact I trusted a teacher means I should have been kicked out of university years ago, and should never have had the slightest chance of growing to the level where I could challenge these liars whenever they show up.
I respect you a great deal, Mr Myers. You oppose creationist dishonesty and dogmatism, and I admire that. But in this case, the policy you are advocating would have denied me any hope of becoming the person I am now, would have made me one of the creationists, forever a dupe of their, if you'll excuse the profanity, bullshit. Please don't ask me to accept that my education should never have been allowed in teh first place.
At the end of the day, our enemy is ignorance. University is a place people go to learn. Don't hold teenage children accountable for not being able to see through every lie they're told, that's why they go to university in the first place.
We can look at a person's potential without banishing everyone who's been lied to on an issue like this.
Posted by: mgjsslt | November 23, 2006 2:51 PM
I enjoy reading Ed and Pat and the others. Ed supports positions that resonate deeply with me and I appreciate his voice. I disagree with him on this point though, but at the same time I'm sad to see some personal attacks in the above comments.
I see PZ's position, and I see what people regard as PZ's position but is actually a straw man version of it. The problem with this whole line of argument is this religion thing. The straw man version is "ban religion" and "ban ID" and such. PZ doesn't want them banned completely, but they need to stay out of science. ID contributes nothing to science.
Evolution is a keystone of modern biology. Arguably, people that can ignore 150 years of good evidence and at the same time believe something that is empty of evidence are not going to be good scientists. Obviously there are people that can straddle the line and be great scientists, but conclusions without evidence go against everything science actually is.
Addressing Moran's point more directly, we wouldn't be surprised if students that support positions that lack evidence and are contrary to their field get flunked in their university classes. I say this generally - every field has an accepted base students must know. If a computer science student insisted that there's no such thing as a CPU, they'd be ridiculed and flunked in their computer architecture course. Why should biology be viewed any different, just because a particular anti-science viewpoint is so tightly wrapped up with religion?
I can see how it is easy to see PZ's and Moran's point of view as extreme, which we all have a knee jerk reaction against, but the more I read, the more I think, the more I realize PZ has it right. Take out the emotional aspect of "must always respect religion, no matter what" and realize that it is science we're concerned about here.
Posted by: Jeff | November 23, 2006 2:55 PM
In Salon, Steve Paulson asked Richard Dawkins this question: They say this [allowing people like him to make the equation between Darwinism and atheism] hurts the cause of teaching evolution. It just gives fire to the creationists.
Dawkins: Exactly right. And they could be right, in a political sense. It depends on whether you think the real war is over the teaching of evolution, as they do, or whether, as I do, think the real war is between supernaturalism and naturalism, between science and religion. If you think the war is between supernaturalism and naturalism, then the war over the teaching of evolution is just one skirmish, just one battle, in the war. So what the scientists you've been talking to are asking me to do is to shut my mouth. Because for the sake of what I see as the war, I'm in danger of losing this particular battle. And that's a worthwhile political point for them to make.
Dawkins said much the same thing when he spoke at the Lied Center in Kansas. The difference between myself and Dawkins -- and I believe PZ, Larry Moran and others -- is that he/you are perfectly willing to sacrifice victory in the very real war over evolution in order to fight some quixotic battle against religious belief.
I am not.
Salon link: http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/10/13/dawkins/index2.html
Posted by: Pat Hayes | November 23, 2006 2:56 PM
Speaking now as a language-lover, I have to note Larry Moran's choice of words:
Flunk is a verb I expect to be used with regard to students currently enrolled in classes, not those waiting for admission. And really, it's easy to sympathize with a professor who gives a bad mark to a student whose exam booklet contains only the words, "GOD DID IT! How else do you explain PYGMIES + DWARFS!!" Deciding what to do with these students is a matter of policy, not ideology. It's not the sort of thing one could easily sustain a passionate fuss over. Confusing this statement with "the University should never have admitted them in the first place" muddles the issue incredibly.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 23, 2006 2:58 PM
Did you even bother to read what I wrote, Pat? Your complaint is addressed directly, and you are wrong.
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 3:01 PM
Nothing new.
I graduated from UCSD a couple of decades ago and nothing was different at the time. I often got invited to prayer groups by guys from various xian sects. I thought at the time, where are these nutcases coming from?
For me it was, how in the hell could you be in a university like UCSD and come up with this crap?
These evangelists assholes made a particular effort to contact foreign students. For some reason they thought they would be susceptible.
I am sure the douchebags are doing the same thing.
Posted by: bernarda | November 23, 2006 3:12 PM
Well, I'd prefer to be on the team of people who are active evolutionary researchers, godless or no, because it is defending my research against the creationists that brought me to this fight in the first place, not some quixotic quest to fight for universal atheism, which seems to me to be as naive and unlikely to be convincing beyond a tiny audience as are quests for world peace.
Perhaps in the end the "shamelessly godless" team will also be the researcher team, but right now, the only active evolutionary researcher in the debate seems to be John Lynch, and he's on the other side.
Posted by: Jonathan Badger | November 23, 2006 3:13 PM
I've been reading blogs for a couple of years now, and Red State Rabble was one of the ones that has been a daily stop for me (as well as Pharyngula, of course) and during that time I have watched Pat slide into woo-woo fringe issues with dismay. When I read his post yesterday, I deleted my bookmark for Red State Rabble. Anyone that thinks doing what is "fair" is better than doing what is "right" does not deserve blog patrons. Good luck, Pat, you've lost one dedicated reader.
Posted by: Milo Johnson | November 23, 2006 3:15 PM
PZ,
"Especially not since they've also linked to an essay by a member of the Evil Atheist Team"
Yes they have. However, it is a link to your due reverance essay (which I love BTW). This essay is clearly from an atheistic position and is anti-religious. However, it isn't a link to one of your more aggressively anti-religious essays; these are the ones that I would argue are less helpful (from a practical POV).
Of course, the vast majority of theists will recognise that atheists accept the evolutionary explanation of life on earth. They will also recognise that as an atheist you do not agree with their theology. Fine. It is the aggresively anti-religious posts that I think are the 'problem' (from the standpoint of promoting science education).
So, I'd argue that the MnSCE site isn't promoting the firebrand flavour of atheism that you prefer. It is taking a more concilatory, Ed-style, approach. Yet you still support it.
Posted by: SteveF | November 23, 2006 3:19 PM
Errm, I think you missed the first word: "if". It's not me that is arguing we have to distinguish two "teams" on the side of evolution, that's Brayton's game. It seems to me that I've been working with theistic evolutionists all this time, but now certain people want to declare me and others to be an enemy.
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 3:19 PM
Flunk is a verb I expect to be used with regard to students currently enrolled in classes, not those waiting for admission.
It's about students already enrolled who are attending a remedial lecture. "Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place. Having made that mistake," yada yada yada...
Posted by: dorkafork | November 23, 2006 3:20 PM
What is the matter with you people? Stop listening to the lies of people like Ed Brayton. I have not ever so much as suggested that the theistic evolutionists must be silenced. I have my opinions about religion, and I have consistently and cheerfully worked with those religious people -- and I've also felt free to criticize them as I will. You are not understanding the point.
I'm not the one who has decided that there are two teams, and condemned one of them. If you want to complain about someone who is incapable of cooperating with one of these two "teams", you're at the wrong place.
Or are you confusing argument and dissent with an inability to work together? Are you looking for ideological purity?
Posted by: PZ Myers | November 23, 2006 3:27 PM
I think belief in creationism or ID should be a reason for fast track university access if anything... The only way to defeat this ignorant, ill educated, superstitious lot is to educate the hell out of 'm. Pun intended.
Education is the key weapon in keeping this rubbish out of our schools and institutions. Yes, it's practical and yes it's much needed. Just sitting back and picking our nails ain't gonna do the job.
Posted by: Mark UK | November 23, 2006 3:33 PM
PZ,
I must not be making myself clear. Earlier you mentioned the good work of NCSE and MnCSE; I suggested that their approach more closely approximates Eds and not yours. Yet you still support them. This is the point I have been making.
I absolutely recognise that you have not argued for the silencing of theistic evolutionists. I have never made this argument. I also fully support your right to criticise religion, I frequently do so myself. My opinion is simply that overt attacks on religion do not aid the fight for science education. Thats it.
Posted by: SteveF | November 23, 2006 3:36 PM
There's nothing wrong with ideological purity... as long as you first work to ensure that the ideology is correct.
Brayton is not only demanding ideological purity among those who group with him, he wants to silence and effectively destroy any other group, particularly those groups somewhat similar to his own but differing on an important particular.
That kind of thinking leads to goosestepping knee boots and invading the Sudetenland.
Posted by: Caledonian | November 23, 2006 3:37 PM
"My opinion is simply that overt attacks on religion do not aid the fight for science education."
That's quite an assertion. Now support it, please.
Posted by: Milo Johnson | November 23, 2006 3:38 PM
I posted this a few threads ago at Dispatches, but except for one approving reply Sastra, it didn't get any attention.
CITOKATE: criticism is the only known antidote to error.
Forgive me if I am incapable of seeing this quarrel over attitudes and tactics as a "front" in a "two-front war", something comparable to invading Russia in wintertime while simultaneously driving tanks into France. Perhaps one is right to indulge the puerile fantasies of the reptile brain by applying the congratulatory word warfare to the quest for good science education; maybe this is the moral equivalent of war we need to tell ourselves we're fighting until our civilization needs war no longer.
But this schism — to use a theological turn of phrase — between Dawkinsites and Millerians — let's make it sound really like dogmatism! — is not a war. It's keeping each other honest. We are in the business of being our brothers' keepers.
When anybody claims that the existence of morality in humans, say, is evidence for Almighty Jove, PZ Myers is there to call them out. If Myers or Dawkins ever sounds callous or forgetful of the human frailties which lead our fellow humans to seek solace in belief, well, Brayton will lead a host of bloggers to point out the sin and let it stand in the historical record.
"If men were angels," said James Madison, "no government would be necessary." We have learned at some cost that no single human should be trusted to rule (an Enlightenment discovery summarized perfectly by Douglas Adams, bless his memory). Instead of asking "Who should rule the state?", as they did in the ages of kings, we ask what combination of agencies can minimize the evil of those seeking power — what groupings of individuals can allow for reasonably efficient action while still preventing the rise of factions? Democratic government is an exercise in emergent properties: we seek to create a corpus more honest than its component cells can be.
The same holds true for science. Frauds, hoaxes and ordinary human sloppiness are weeded out through perpetual cross-criticism. Drives of ego and vanity — "What will you do to win the Nobel Prize?", asks the admissions interviewer — are harnessed to benefit the scientific community and the species at large. The body has more wisdom and integrity than its component cells can display.
If science behaves in this way, it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise about science education. Don't tell me that this is a war. It's error correction. We are witnessing the price of vitality. These are not battles among men; they are the growing pains of a community. Think about it: if we scientists and humanists and skeptics were in truly dire straits, if the creationist cannons were outside our walls and all were almost lost, could we even take the time to argue? Nobel laureates who might quarrel volubly at scientific conferences formed a legion of Roman solidarity when Edwards v. Aguillard reached the Supreme Court.
Skepticism is a new thing! Thinkers have voiced ideas like ours all the way back to Democritus of Abdera and before, but how old is the notion of skepticism as a movement, with its own conferences, heroes and history? It is an interesting age when defenders of science, even those who are professional scientists themselves, are more famous for their educational work than any science they have done! (We know Einstein as a physicist but Sagan as a popularizer, with Dawkins and Gould perhaps somewhere in the middle.) Because we haven't done this for very long, we are still figuring out how. We are learning from mistakes like the astronomers' response to Velikovsky, and thanks to the Internet, we are slowly teaching ourselves the art of "flexible response", replying to threats without making pseudoscience seem more credible by dignifying it with excessive attention.
We are learning! This process takes integrity and a willingness to swallow bitter medicine, neither of which are ever in copious supply, but nor are they completely absent. The Enlightenment is not a nation of clones. We're all going to take our lumps ere we shuffle off this mortal coil, but at least we can take them like members of a civilization.
If scientists were angels, we would have no need for peer review, and if bloggers were angels, we would have no need for comments.
If we were angels, we would have no need for each other.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 23, 2006 3:39 PM
Here is a documentary on politics at UCSD in the long ago past. Too bad today more students don't have some political sense.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5311625903124176509&hl=en
Posted by: bernardam | November 23, 2006 3:45 PM
Moran a 'Darwinian fundamentalist'?
Heh. Dat dere, that's a good one. That's right up there in terms of double-take inducing with "the Ba'ath party 'n the Islamists are in bed together..."
I really like Moran. He drinks bad takeout coffee, knows his biochemistry, and slags creationist frauds with gleeful abandon. Nothing wrong with any of that. I've been reading his FAQs for years, his blog since it was pointed out, here...
But I creep about that blog carefully, cautious not to say anything that might sound too 'adaptationist'. That, I'd imagine, could get ugly.
So tell dear Rabble if he's gonna call people names, he needs a much better term. That one, it doesn't quite work so good, here.
I'll take 'empiricist', methinks, if it's going.
Yes, I know, that doesn't really sound like an insult. But then, by my lights, it's all the folk getting so bashed here have really earned.
Posted by: AJ Milne | November 23, 2006 3:51 PM
Mr. Stacey, you are awesome. PZ should be sampling those posts of yours for Pharyngula's random quote window.
Posted by: Caledonian | November 23, 2006 4:10 PM
Thanks, Caledonian. :-)
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 23, 2006 4:15 PM
I don't see that there is much of a problem. If a high-schooler (barely more than a kid) has a desire to enrol on a biology degree programme, let them (as long as they are literate and numerate). They may well have some strange beliefs, but it's up to the lecturers to show *why* they are wrong. If they are resistant to reason, they don't deserve to graduate, and they probably wont, science being a test of reason. If they realise that their beliefs were wrong, and that they were lied to, they will probably become very strong advocates of reason.
I realise that explaining why creationism is wrong can be frustrating, but we must try. If the student has a seed of interest in biology, it is up to us (educators) to ensure that it germinates.
Posted by: mark | November 23, 2006 4:16 PM
No offense to Agnostics as a whole, but this isn't new to me. I've heard Agnostics go on about how Agnosticism is open minded to the existance of God, while Atheism is, naturally, not. Thus they regarded Atheism as "evil" as Evangelicalism. Offensive if you ask me.
Posted by: Phil | November 23, 2006 4:21 PM
Sorry, Mark, but that is utterly backwards. It is not "up to the lecturers to show *why* they are wrong." This is college we are talking about, not remedial education. The students should already have the necessary primer background to take the classes they wish to take. It is not my business to spend valuable class time explaining why astrology is unscientific to my astronomy students. It is not incumbent on the university system to overcome ignorance, the purpose of universities is to enhance and to expound on the already-learned basics. If a student has that great of a "seed of interest" in a topic, it is their business to be properly prepared for that deeper educational experience and that means they should probably have paid more attention in their earlier scholastic lives.
Posted by: Milo Johnson | November 23, 2006 4:29 PM
Jeeze, this reminds me of something, what could it be:
Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People's Front?
Reg: Fuck off!
Brian: Excuse me?
Reg: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.
Francis: Wankers.
Brian: Can I... join your group?
Reg: No, piss off.
Brian: I don't want to sell this stuff, it's only a job. I