…and this is a 
Gordy Slack replies
Category: Creationism
Posted on: June 24, 2008 10:30 AM, by PZ Myers
Yesterday, I ripped into Gordy Slack and the NY Times for bad articles on creationism. Now Slack has responded, and in the interest of fairness, I urge you to look at that comment and browse down to several others he has also made.
He's still wrong, and I still find his article incredibly bad.
Slack's article is titled "What neo-creationists get right: an evolutionist shares lessons he's learned from the Intelligent Design camp". I chewed him out because nothing in his list is anything that creationists got right — it's a litany of common scientific arguments and complaints — and all he's doing is falsely pandering to their self-esteem. He says he didn't try to claim that the creationists came up with these common questions first; OK, he didn't. He says he wasn't trying to give creationists credit for being right; OK, I think he's on shaky ground with that one, but I'll concede the point to him. Now we're left with a problem: what the heck was his article about, then? It's reduced to a shallow attempt at finding coincidental similarities, with no thought put into them.
For instance, his first point of similarity is that creationists say that we haven't answered the big questions of abiogenesis, and scientists say the same thing. Gosh, we're in agreement! But no, we're actually not. Creationists like to point to places where we don't have all the answers, because they see that as a flaw, as a way to discredit evolution — they like to pretend that they have absolute, perfect knowledge in their holy book, even if all they do is fill the gaps with an unsatisfying and pathetic "god did it." Scientists are comfortable with uncertainty and change, and they see those gaps as research opportunities — places where information is admittedly deficient, but where new work can be done. What Slack treats as a similarity is actually a fundamental philosophical difference.
And this is precisely where Slack is most unsatisfying. He claims to be trying to understand the creationist mindset, yet all he offers is credulous tripe in which he demonstrates that he hasn't thought things through. Here, for example:
It surprises me that PZ is so pissed off by my efforts to understand why so many Americans reject evolution. If you ask them, and I have bothered to ask hundreds or thousands over the past two years, many will tell you that more than anything else, it's the arrogant zealotry of cocksure ideologues that turns them off to evolution. They see people calling their intuitions and worldviews retarded and corrupt, and they march the other way. That's one reason why we evolutionists have done such an abysmal promotions job even though we're armed with the most delightful and seductive and potent theory ever. If we can't sell evolution, we must be doing something wrong. Right? I'm just saying that we might start by resisting the urge to spit bile in the face of potential buyers.
Slack has chewed out most supporters of evolution as doing so without much depth of understanding — they don't know about genetic drift, for instance. Yet here he is discussing a group who believe the earth is less than ten thousand years old, who are abysmally ignorant of all of evolutionary theory, including drift, who believe with the utmost certainty that Darwin is burning in hell and that all scientists will be following him, and he accuses the scientists of arrogance, on the word of the creationists.
Here's a clue: Slack got it backwards. It is simply absurd to claim that they are turned off by "the arrogant zealotry of cocksure ideologues", since that is a more apt description of their own than of scientists. Creationists love arrogance. Their whole schtick is about obedience to the precepts of meddling, pushy busybodies, either the phantasmal kind of their imaginary deity or the sadly real kind of the ranting big-haired zealots who lead their churches. You have to learn fundie-speak to understand what these informants are actually saying.
To them, "arrogant" means "competing authority with an intimidating amount of real-world evidence".
And of course they resent that. They believe in irrelevant nonsense that requires them to constantly descend deeper and deeper into lunatic rationalizations to maintain that willful suspension of disbelief. And we come along with that "delightful and seductive and potent theory" that they have to close their eyes to, and which merely demands that they reject the temporal authority of their leaders, who threaten them with hellfire and the loss of their children's love and morality if they accept the evidence. That really is a serious problem, and I know how difficult many people find it to abandon those beliefs, but to call our side "arrogant" while treating their side as humble is not helping. It is reinforcing falsehoods. It is also not going to resolve the problem, because it is a simple fact of the matter that scientists are a competing authority, and they do have an overwhelming amount of evidence that the creationists are wrong, wrong, wrong. Those are not points that we will surrender.
Slack is also unhappy that he has been vigorously criticized and insulted and shredded up one side and disemboweled down the other, all without regard for his genuine appreciation of good science. That's all true. Comment threads here are not for the temperamentally delicate, that's for sure, and everyone gets the rhetorical knife all the time (and that includes me: if Slack is appalled that he is being insulted, he ought to spend some time in my shoes. At least no one has threatened to shoot him over this argument yet.) Complaining about that is pointless. It's like whining that the crucible is hot; of course it is, that's what they're for.
As for the complaint that we're an angry, hostile bunch here: in a country where the enterprise of science and education are seriously threatened by the activist religiosity of ignorant creationists, where politicians defer to religious lunacy, where the craven media has abandoned the concepts of adversarial and investigative journalism, we're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore*. I propose that there is something wrong with you if you aren't angry.
*That's a quote. Look it up, it seems rather appropriate here.
Politics
Comments
Well, hell. I'll just link to the long comment I just left at the earlier post:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/what_is_wrong_with_journalists.php#comment-947009
Posted by: SC | June 24, 2008 10:39 AM
Well said PZ!
Posted by: Colin J | June 24, 2008 10:40 AM
Nice response, PZ. I get where the quote is from as that phrase runs through my head frequently.
Posted by: AllanW | June 24, 2008 10:41 AM
Shorter Grody Slacker: "I'm going to piss on scientists and tell them it's raining."
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | June 24, 2008 10:48 AM
Slack doesn't get it. Why give those ID'er and inch? Because you know they will take a mile instead.
Very good PZ.
Posted by: Paulos | June 24, 2008 10:50 AM
Apart from being a bit of a dick, Gordy missed the point altogether.
The point was not that he's wrong, it's that he didn't say anything new or, for that matter, interesting.
Posted by: JStein | June 24, 2008 10:51 AM
I feel pity for Slack, he has the hearth in the right place, but selling science like a product, its not going to work, the creacionist are uprooted strongly.
The fact its like PZ said, they are going to chew in the credit, and spit everything else.
I know we can`t defeat faith with reason, and Slack its triying to come down to their level, to speak in their same lenguaje, but that its not going to work... come on, we are talking about real, material, phisical evidence, nor some imaginary deity, evolution its not a theory for god`s sake!
its just as real as gravity, just as real and tasty as cake...
Posted by: Lord Zero | June 24, 2008 10:55 AM
So, we scientists are going to get our dander up because the Creationists got their dander up because we scientists got our dander up . . . . anyone see a chicken and and egg here?
Look, it's been said many other places, but this isn't a scientific, evidence based, statistically defensible problem - its an EMOTIONAL issue. Creationists react they way they do because they feel their way of life is threatened, their religion is threatened - at the most basic level their right to exist is threatened. Are they reading the Bible too literally - yes they are, and I say that as both an oceanographer and a Protestant Christian. You can't overcome emotion with cold hard facts - you have to deal with it in a way that, frankly doesn't work in most scientific arenas. And "selling science as a product" - what's wrong with that?
Posted by: Philip H. | June 24, 2008 11:03 AM
Gordy says in reference to this blog, "We're not really learning very much here, are we?"
Gordy, you can't possibly be so daft that you've missed the huge collection of archives here (try the molecular biology category), and you can't possibly be so knowledgeable that you've learned nothing from them. So your question must simply be ignorant, arrogant rhetoric. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess...
Posted by: Steven N. Severinghaus | June 24, 2008 11:03 AM
Heh. This post is already the first result when you search on that quote.
Posted by: Tewhy | June 24, 2008 11:05 AM
Astrologers and astronomers both agree there are stars in the sky, but I would hardly call that 'common ground'.
Posted by: Giffy | June 24, 2008 11:05 AM
Arrogance (as others have noted, a code word for "having the truth on our side") is not the problem. Fundamentalist creationists aren't in a mindset to hear the evidence for anything other than their narrow worldview, regardless of how softly and sweetly it's couched.
I've been there -- as a fundie teenager, I dropped Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan in contempt, as far as I can recall because it said something about the universe being billions of years old and human beings not being the metaphorical center of it. A year or so later, I was happily reading Dawkins, despite his much-trumpeted "abrasiveness". My willingness to think for myself and accept evolution had nothing to do with scientists and their positions and everything to do with dating someone from a different background and subsequently questioning my religious upbringing.
I think that the most important thing is to plant the seed and get creationists to think for themselves.
Posted by: molliebatmit | June 24, 2008 11:06 AM
You hit the nail right on the head, PZ. By virtue of the fantasy world they have created for themselves, fundamentalists are the most arrogant and self-absorbed people on the planet ("God loves me! He listens to me, and he talks to me! Me, me, me!") Religion promotes unbridled egotism, and tries to dress it up as humility.
And boy, do they hate it when someone points this out to them...
Posted by: Fergy | June 24, 2008 11:09 AM
I think that the last sentence of your post is a little more telling than you'd like it to be:
I propose that there is something wrong with you if you aren't angry.
I believe that it's the other way around. Anger is for insecure people. I have no insecurities on this matter: I am absolutely, positively certain that evolutionary theory is the right track to follow, and that creationism is absolutely the wrong track to follow. I know that time is on my side -- I am certain to win in the end. If creationists take over America and banish the teaching of evolution, then America will fade as a civilization and will ultimately be replaced by a civilization that does not engage in self-delusion. Ultimately, the reason why truth always prevails is that denial of the truth always has negative consequences, and competition insures that the weak are eventually superseded by the strong.
If you're angry, I suggest it's because your understanding of history is less certain than your grasp of biology.
Posted by: Chris Crawford | June 24, 2008 11:09 AM
That vaguely reminds me of this poem by William Blake.
Posted by: iwdw | June 24, 2008 11:10 AM
Perhaps some on this list will understand that Gordon is a purveyor of FALSE SLACK!!!
Typical pinkBoy
-PraBoB
Posted by: scooter | June 24, 2008 11:12 AM
When is the last time you saw an ad for Coca-Cola on the side of a Pepsi bottle? Do you start to see why Slack's article is coming under fire?
Posted by: Citizen Z | June 24, 2008 11:13 AM
Wow, don't you guys know that people aren't buying into the scientific explanations of gravity because those damn scientists are so arrogant when they explain it?
Posted by: Dutch Delight | June 24, 2008 11:15 AM
Agreed, leaving them sinking in their pit of dogmatic
arrogancy, its awful.
And "selling science as a product" - what's wrong with that?
I know we scientist have to sell out our stuff in order
to get funding, more in the industry themed issues. But
that friendly aproach with creacionists doesnt look as
your current vendor in a store triying desperately to
sell you a new coat ? They arent buying, but im sure they are
going to use that article in their benefit.
Posted by: Lord Zero | June 24, 2008 11:16 AM
It is painfully obvious what the problem is, and it isn't arrogant zealotry. The problem is the source of their worldviews. They turn away from evolution because they already disagree with it. Slack's article supports the unique view that we should advocate for evolution by not advocating evolution.
Posted by: Citizen Z | June 24, 2008 11:19 AM
I was late to the dog-fight, but I at least came in on his whine at Post 125 which was basically: Wah-Wah-Wah I'm going to take my ball and go home you meanies.
He really needs to get a clue about the whole thing. There really isn't any significant cadre of "arrogant" evolutionists "spoiling" the creotard belief in evolution.
What really exists is a marketing campaign that makes that assertion and Slack foolishly bought into the premise with little, if any, skeptical thinking on his part.
Richard Dawkins? He's a marshmallow. PZ Myers? Sorry, he went to UO with my wife and she's says he's a nerd. A smart, nice and polite nerd, but still a nerd and hardly the spawn of Satan or the Anti-Christ. The "worst" of those I've seen in the media might be Christopher Hitchens and even he's polite when he's tearing people up.
Yet I look on the other side and we've got the detestable Ken Ham, Ken Hovind, Pat Robertson, Patrick Terry, John Hagee, to some extent Billy Graham, that ass clown at Coral Gables, Creflo Dollar, the Gay-Meth guy, and a host of intolerant second-fiddle shit-stain preachers that routinely decry evolution and number in the tens-of-thousands. And they're not even polite about it. They're very clear that "evolutionists" are evil fuck-tards who've destroyed the fabric of western society.
Church of Christ, an association of autonomous, non-denominational churches, for example. While "independent," they're really peas in a pod. Big on literalism. Old and new testament guys. Hate gays (though they put a nice face on it), anti-divorce, anti-abortion, anti-dancing, anti-music, very repressed an strict - 10,000 congragations and 1.3 million members. Of which I suspect only the tinies fraction accept the theory of evolution.
Posted by: Moses | June 24, 2008 11:20 AM
Wow, Chris, and you don't care how many people are hurt in the meantime? You don't care that creationism is part and parcel of a worldview that denies women the right to be fully realized and autonomous human beings, that forces everyone into following one narrow set of rules, that gleefully tromps to war against people of the 'wrong' religion because they deserve it and God told them to do it? I know that we're going to win in the end if you take the long view, but I'm angry that lives are being fucked up because of it right now. I'll throw in another well-known quote: If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.
Posted by: Carlie | June 24, 2008 11:22 AM
Slack's article supports the unique view that we should advocate for evolution by not advocating evolution.
Not quite unique; see Nisbet and Mooney for prime examples of this mindset.
Posted by: Carlie | June 24, 2008 11:24 AM
We call the intuitions of psychics retarded and corrupt, too.
Anyway, I don't call either their intuitions or their worldviews retarded or corrupt, until they reveal their pig-headed rejection of evidence and of the proper inferences made of them. Unfortunately, their "worldviews" demand that they call us liars for being open-minded and honest, and most of them do so without any concern about others or for proper means for deciding small-t truth.
More to the point, the latest eruption of creationism wasn't in the slightest provoked by us, rather by people who can't stand having their theocratic desires thwarted by the courts. We're reacting against bigotry, they're not. Slack's completely wrong about the reaction, other than that the creos reacted immediately against new knowledge.
Perhaps Slack has never heard of Expelled, which is a Godwin's law-evoking film that primarily makes false accusations against us, and false claims about science, history, sociology, politics, government, and education.
Of course Slack is trying to be politic in finding common ground with the IDiots. The problem is that to do so is a fool's errand, since they'll gladly take any (no matter how false) admission on our part, quotemine it, propagandize bits and pieces of it, while never admitting anything that Slack or anyone else says about their abominable practices.
There are people with whom we should be politic, including (in individual treatment) many rank and file creos. What is completely wrong, and stupid as can be, is to suggest that there is anything honest or just in the movement, or that it has any legitimate complaints against science as a whole. Expelled should have taught even the dullest that, so I have to suspect that Slack isn't just dull, there's something wrong beside that.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 24, 2008 11:25 AM
Yeah, Scooter, Slack got no Yetis in his family tree.
I used to read "The Paper of Record" with great relish on Sundays... brew a pot of java, do the crossword puzzle, devour about half of it on a Sunday morning. Hell, even read it in a favorite bar, switched from coffee to Guinness at noon- it was a genteel way to spend a Sunday morning outside of biking season. Now, it's crap. I haven't read the damn paper since they hired Kristol.
Basically, the paper's become the NY Post with less entertaining headlines.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | June 24, 2008 11:27 AM
If you ask them, and I have bothered to ask hundreds or thousands over the past two years, many will tell you that more than anything else, it's the arrogant zealotry of cocksure ideologues that turns them off to evolution.
--------------------------
Sometimes being in the majority simple means you have more fools for friends.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Tim Fuller | June 24, 2008 11:27 AM
Phillip H. (#8):
If beef stew is your product, and customers say they don't like the chocolate chips in your beef stew, you can easily change the recipe.
However, if all experimental results say co2 emitted by cars, coal power plants, burning oil, etc, is changing the ph of the ocean, making life for shelly creatures more difficult, and killing corals, and your 'customers' dislike what you have to say about co2, you can't simply change the recipe and deliver the product they want. You're welcome to re-run the experiments, make new obs, and so forth ... but the results won't necessarily change.
Posted by: llewelly | June 24, 2008 11:29 AM
The problem is that while there are many ill-informed people who believe that evolution is true, there is no honest creationist who is well-informed. The former set of people just happen to trust the well-informed and honest people who do believe and understand evolution.
Posted by: Yoo | June 24, 2008 11:30 AM
ugh.
Posted by: ERV | June 24, 2008 11:30 AM
Well, he's got a certain point, though. If you've got someone who's religious but still uncomfortable with his pastor's rants about creationism being true and evolution being the work of the devil, for example, you won't get far by telling him that what he believes in is a load of bull, even though that's actually true.
Put another way, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar - you gotta speak their language, and you gotta make sure that you're not preaching to the choire. (Unless, of course, you really are trying to address the choire, like in this blog: that's a different issue.)
I think I recall you (PZ) saying this yourself recently, too; I can't find the post again right away, but you mentioned that you were attending a conference or so and that people were surprised that you didn't breathe fire and eat creationists for breakfast, and you also said that this is intentional - that you're trying to not turn people away by being overly abrasive or brusque.
It's difficult for me to say whether Slack's really on the right path here, though: his attempts to reach out to those I've mentioned above (such as religious people still tending towards evolution rather than creationism) may well actually be harmful insofar as that they lend further undeserved credibility to the hardcore creationists (well, not that there's really any other kind).
Posted by: Muffin | June 24, 2008 11:31 AM
It's too bad that "The Scientist" gets any mention anywhere much less on PZ's place. The Scientist nothing but a registration required spam generating pile of smelly.
Posted by: Aero | June 24, 2008 11:32 AM
Network. What a cheerful movie.
Posted by: Spook | June 24, 2008 11:33 AM
#18 got it right. The "arrogant zealotry" of science doesn't originate in scientists, it originates in airplanes flying through the sky. Electrical power generators. Vaccines. Sattelite communications systems. Transistors, plastics, and superconductors. Celestial mechanics that *dare* to put the sun at the center of the solar system, and then have the temerity, the gall to make acurate calendar predictions. Sheer, unmitigated arrogance! How dare we claim that a more accurate, useful theory is both more accurate and more useful!
Our theories work for a living. They earn their keep. How about yours?
Posted by: Eric | June 24, 2008 11:41 AM
Assuming that is a fact, it seems to me a good reporter would then ask himself, are they telling the truth? Can they really tell the difference between the confidence that comes from long thought and examination of the evidence and cocksure arrogance? Shouldn't they have to examine the evidence themselves a bit before jumping to that conclusion?
It seems to me that the test for cocksuredness vs. justified conviction is a willingness to examine the evidence on both sides.
Posted by: JimV | June 24, 2008 11:43 AM
Here's the problem with that statement: they have to believe that we are arrogant zealots because they have no other excuse to say that we're purveyors of lies. That is to say, thanks to ressentiment, and because of lies gushing from the pulpit, they decided that we were arrogant ideologues before considering anything we have to say.
Slack just believes their highly dishonest excuse to malign science and scientists, because he's lacking balls and brains. That biologists can be arrogant and/or zealots I don't doubt, but does anyone in the world think that biologists are especially bad at that? Other sciences are at least believed to be worse (physics, especially in the past) on those scores, and no one claims not to accept the general theory of relativity because Hawking and Einstein think (thought) that they're very bright scientists.
Biology is one of the less arrogant and zealous branches of science, at least by reputation, and is faulted for being one of the most. Why? Simply because the IDiots have to spit on biology and biologists in order to sell their garbage.
Why isn't Slack faulting the IDiots for misrepresenting biologists? They have nothing to do other than to sell their product, and to pee into the real science. Obviously it works to some extent. Slack's just a big enough ass to complain about the scientists who point out that the IDiots are doing nothing but trying to sell pseudoscience, and pissing into whatever they can of real science.
His real complaint is that we don't offer up our necks to the would-be executioners' axe. Cause you know, if we were sure of ourselves, we'd offer up science to be slashed, hacked, and destroyed by the barbarians.
And anyone who thinks that anger is only for the insecure (and they mean psychologically almost every time), they really don't know the first thing about psychology. One should be angered at lies aimed at harming science (in the sense that science is at stake, yes, we're not fully secure).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 24, 2008 11:43 AM
i don't think creationists are suspicious of the theory of evolution (or science) because it is supposedly forced upon them by arrogant scientists. (even though they try hard to put the blame there.) it is because of the message of the theory itself.
but just as with cults that see the world didn't end when they predicted it, there is no 'nice' way to get the message across.
Posted by: michel | June 24, 2008 11:44 AM
i don't think creationists are suspicious of the theory of evolution (or science) because it is supposedly forced upon them by arrogant scientists. (even though they try hard to put the blame there.) it is because of the message of the theory itself, and the implications it has for their beliefs.
but just as with cults that see the world didn't end when they predicted, there is no 'nice' way to get the message across.
Posted by: michel | June 24, 2008 11:45 AM
Well what do expect from the press. The same brilliant incisive analysis they brought to the build up to the Iraq war? The clear elegant way they have pointed out to the current administration in clear terms that torture is wrong, that illegal wire tapping is illegal, that firing people for political reasons is illegal. Why do they think so many of us turn now to the internet for information? They have been failing us for years.
Posted by: sailor | June 24, 2008 11:57 AM
No slack for Slack. Onward evo-devo.
Posted by: Danley | June 24, 2008 12:02 PM
"It surprises me that PZ is so pissed off by my efforts to understand why so many Americans reject evolution."
There's nothing complicated about it.
They're a bunch of poorly-educated idiots who can't find mosts countries on a map because they prefer to spend their lives permanently glued to the tube and harnessed to a little biblical fantasy world that makes them feel special.
It's called human nature (the unproductive, lazy, dark side).
No need to write a tome about it.
There's understanding (sympathy) and then there's understanding (your malicious stupidity and mental laziness will drive this country and its system of education into the ground, you fucking ignoramuses).
More of the latter, put-your-foot-down kind is needed.
Posted by: CalGeorge | June 24, 2008 12:12 PM
If you're angry, I suggest it's because your understanding of history is less certain than your grasp of biology. - Chris Crawford
Aside from the points already made in response, exactly the same anti-scientific, anti-rational attitude is being exploited by those denying the reality of anthropogenic climate change from mercenary or political motives - it is no accident that both forms of denialism are particularly prevalent in the USA, and indeed there is considerable overlap between the two denialist flocks. Denial of the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and the need to take urgent action to mitigate it, threatens our lives and our civilisation, possibly even our species. Irrationality, and foolish attempts to appease it, have thus become a threat of frightening proportions. "Oh, it'll all come out right in the end" is, in the face of this threat, crass stupidity.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 24, 2008 12:12 PM
"Ultimately, the reason why truth always prevails is that denial of the truth always has negative consequences, and competition insures that the weak are eventually superseded by the strong.
If you're angry, I suggest it's because your understanding of history is less certain than your grasp of biology."
Oh, I think we understand history just fine. I'm guessing that you missed this post. The problem with your theory that you will win in the end is that it pretentiously ignores history. Ignorance only needs a small chance to wipe out everything. Knowledge is a fragile thread, ignorance is a raging bull.
Posted by: SkeptiCoder | June 24, 2008 12:13 PM
A more accurate title would have been: "What neo-creationists at least don't get wrong."
Posted by: "Q" the Enchanter | June 24, 2008 12:15 PM
"...it's the arrogant zealotry of cocksure ideologues that turns them off to evolution."
Say - isn't it the creationists who declare that their bible is 100% true and accurate form cover to cover? That whatever the bible says is true no matter what?
Seems to me that the arrogant zealotry is the purview of the fundy, not the evolutionist.
Creationists are very good at projecting their own shortcomings onto others. Too bad Gordy doesn't see that.
Posted by: slpage | June 24, 2008 12:23 PM
But I thought that was the creationist mindset.
Posted by: Chayanov | June 24, 2008 12:25 PM
It is incredibly tedious and irksome to try to argue calmly and rationally with people who are so stubbornly and willfully ignorant, with people who are so emotionally wound up and desperate to hang on to their comforting illusions that they have to attack you on a personal level.
"The processes of Nature" all the things we have learned about nature science as true is true whether we know it or not and in nor does it depend on us. I do no longer seek out arguments and aggressively push "the truth" but I do not shrink away either.
I can not let bullshit just stay there unchallenged.
How do you engage people in discussion who are primarily some what emotionally disturbed and for various reasons almost completely ignorant of the reality of the facts as objectively demonstrated by observation? How do you engage without getting emotionally wound up yourself.
Posted by: uncle frogy | June 24, 2008 12:33 PM
Thankyou PZ!
(That was a three tissue post)
Posted by: Patricia | June 24, 2008 12:45 PM
I'll try to say it as plainly as possible for the slow Gordy Slack. To creationists/IDists, it is arrogant zealotry to question the "Word of God." That is why they decided that scientists were arrogant and zealous ideologues before they ever encountered either the scientists or the science.
Talking with the creationists isn't the point. Understanding them is. For them (most, not all) it is blasphemous/arrogant/atheistic/ideological to say anything that disagrees with their worldview.
When Slack believes that it is the scientists who are "arrogant" and "zealous ideologues", during a confrontation with people who denounce any questioning of their a priori beliefs, we know that he is not speaking from actual knowledge. Apparently his take comes from his inability to distinguish between lies and truth, at least in this matter.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 24, 2008 12:49 PM
I think that Chris is correct in that 100 years from now, average Joe Blow will view creationism to be as wacky and implausible as we view geocentricity and flat-earthism today.
That is, of course, assuming that in the meantime we don't blow humanity from the face of the earth, or that humanity is not similarly obliterated by some other world-wide calamity such as radical climate change or unthinkable acts of terrorism.
But how can we speed up the process?
Trends indicate that religion, while fading, will never go away.
Non-belief is increasing, so how do we "crash that poll", as it were?
Yes - knowledge does need to be "sold". Are we materialists, or not? It needs to have value, and benefits promoted. Given the practice that Amerca has had at selling and marketing worthless shit through advertising, what can we do to sell Knowledge?
What can be science's "wedge strategy"?
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | June 24, 2008 12:50 PM
"...arrogant zealotry of cocksure ideologues"???
Scientists are arrogant zealots? Cocksure ideologues? Maybe they need to be more generous and understanding of the facts and opinions of the anti-science crowd?
Dayyum.
Posted by: Hank Fox | June 24, 2008 12:55 PM
I am so glad that someone else watched that movie that you quoted. More people need to see it, esp. with how relevant it is today.
Posted by: Chris Granade | June 24, 2008 12:56 PM
Well said PZ. I don't think I could have stated that better, even with a million years of drafts and revisions. The truth is, their only weapon against us is semantics. Just words such as arrogant, and self assured. So what? What's arrogant is that they're fucking stupid belief in some mystical whimsical invisible asshole in the sky choses to anoint some people as chosen, while destroying other people, loves human beings, but doesn't mind sending them to eternal damnation if they don't beat their children, or believe in even more stupid shit. Honestly, just because a billion people buy into this garbage, with billions of others in equally diverse garbage, does not necessarily make it reality. Sure, they may wish the whole world acted so self-righteously to believe this tripe, but we are here to fight this crap. Anger is fuel, anger is fire, it's what drives us to tear these credulous assholes apart. If you come tell me you believe in closet gnomes, well good luck, show me the evidence. For all their talk, banter, claims of our arrogance, where the fuck is your proof. Show it assholes.
Posted by: Helioprogenus | June 24, 2008 1:03 PM
Bravo, PZ!
It's so gratifying to have someone in the fight who has both the chutzpah and a firm grasp of the science. Usually we see one [eg, Hitchens] or the other [eg, most science writers] but not both.
How about that Lenski though? His latest reply wasn't so much rude or insulting to ASchlafly, as reproving, as if to an ignorant child, which, sadly, Schlafly kind of is. The real benefit of Lenski's communication with Schlafly is that the followers of Schlafly, many of whom are earnest and truly seeking answers, may slowly start to grasp who the honest and good actors are.
Posted by: James Randi | June 24, 2008 1:04 PM
I think you have to give Gordy Slack a lot of credit for slugging it out in the comments. It really sucks to get gang raped by anybody for any reason.
I have a challenge for PZ: write an article intended to actually convince theists that ID is false and evolution true without insulting anybody. Write an article that could go in a church bulletin. C'mon, PZ, show us how to do it.
Posted by: lolife | June 24, 2008 1:07 PM
Isn't the job of reporting to place events in context and to provide validation? Reporting the testimony of both sides is not helpful when one side can't open its mouth without telling a lie (and who insists on continuing to repeat its lies even after exposure, following the Goebbels theory of media communication), particularly when you are unwilling to provide any caveats indicating that, for example, Mr. Ham, might not be entirely honest and forthright in his assertions of science. Isn't part of the reporter's job to judge the validity of sources, and to explain why some sources might be better (more reliable or accurate) than others?
Maybe that explains why newspapers are dying - if you provide nothing that can't be obtained from other sources, in particular are unwilling to validate or contextualize the events occurring, then you have no point. If I want bias, I can go to Fox. If I want crayon, I can go to USA Today. If you aren't willing to do anything other than quote politicians and crackpots, well, I can get that anywhere. I'm pretty sure AbMab can give me that.
P.S. I sort of thought that the "win at all costs" rhetoric that Mr. Slack is selling is what got us most of the last thirty years of politics. The only thing certain about the "win at all costs" ethic is winning is all you can get. Usually it ends up sort of empty - the king of nothing still has...nothing.
Posted by: Hap | June 24, 2008 1:11 PM
lolife, writing in a church bulletin about evolution is more the job for a guy like Ken Miller. PZ isn't the be all and end all of communication. He does a very good job at what he does, but telling a church to accept evolution means showing them how to reconcile it with their faith. PZ and people such as myself and others here don't care, because we don't give any respect to faith.
Posted by: Dennis N | June 24, 2008 1:13 PM
It really sucks to get gang raped by anybody for any reason. - lolife
It certainly does. Which is why it's disgustingly tasteless to use this metaphor for being called names on a blog.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 24, 2008 1:17 PM
lolife (aptly nicknamed, @54):
I'm not usually hypersensitive about this sort of stuff, but this...
...is deeply offensive. Equating intellectual disputes -- no matter how brutally the ideas are worded -- with rape (and especially to do so in such cavalier terms) denigrates both the commenters here and victims of actual rape. You should be ashamed of yourself.Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 24, 2008 1:18 PM
Slack writes:
This guy is completely nuts !
Intuition ?
So the creation myth is just an intuition, the child in his young age just dreams about it, it's all very intuitive isn't it, you know, god created the world in 7 days, the 6000 yold earth, adam and eva, the sin, the flood, noah's ark,...
No, the parents and some religious fuckers are implanting those things in the child's brain at a very young age and they force the child to repeatedly maintain this belief, by fear, every day, every week, that's the reason why teachers have such a difficult time to sell evolution to those children who have been subjected to such malvolent practices.
And now, it's the evolutionists fault because they are arogant ?
PZ, pleaaaaaase don't stop, just keep saying this : "we're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore".
Posted by: negentropyeater | June 24, 2008 1:18 PM
I wish I could take the day off and keep going. And you're right, there is a lot to be learned here. And I had a blast last night. And though I agree with PZ that the original piece in The Scientist was less than profound, this experience has been profound. For those who are sure I'm so wrong, but haven't read the piece itself, go check it out.
http://www.the-scientist.com/templates/trackable/display/news.jsp?type=news&id=54759&o_url=news/display/54759
For those who are still interested in what I think about these things, even if just to rake me over the coals, get my book: The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA. It's just out in paperback. Eugenie Scott says it is "entirely readable and engaging. I enjoyed it
thoroughly."
For those of you who are mostly interested in making fun of my name: carry on. My middle name is William; that should help.
Now I've got to go to work. See you next time. Gordy
Posted by: Gordy Slack | June 24, 2008 1:20 PM
Given the practice that Amerca has had at selling and marketing worthless shit through advertising, what can we do to sell Knowledge? - Benjamin Franklin
Trouble is, worthless shit is what the advertising industry is good at selling - there's just very little expertise to draw on if you want to use advertising to "sell knowledge".
Posted by: Nick Gotts | June 24, 2008 1:25 PM
Thanks for responding anyway Mr. Slack.
Posted by: Hap | June 24, 2008 1:34 PM
Really lolife, maybe try reading
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/opinion/15kristof.html
Before you start using words like that for some guy getting insulted over the internet. To you apparently gangrape is a joke, but there are countries where somewhere around 3/4 of women are raped, and it's not quite that funny at that point.
And as for Chris Crawford's comment, while it seems that what you say ought to be right, the facts appear to be against you. Certainly it seems impossible that even if the US fails catastrophically, turns completely away from science and goes back to the middle ages, that nobody else will pick up the slack. However, unfortunately it's pretty clear to me that here in the US we've been degrading our science and education for a while now, and nobody seems to be stepping in and picking up the slack. As such your confidence in the ultimate results is unwarranted. Civilizations have certainly turned away from the right path before, check islamic history for one.
Posted by: Coriolis | June 24, 2008 1:36 PM
Mr Slack, when you come back, please take a look at the next thread about the Conservapedia reaction to evolutionary research. Can you honestly claim that the "arrogant zealotry of cocksure ideologues" that has turned all these people off evolution is to be found on our side?
Posted by: windy | June 24, 2008 1:36 PM
Posted by: amk | June 24, 2008 1:42 PM
So, despite their aspirations, creationists actually fail to lie every single time they open their mouths. Purely by chance, they manage to utter true statements, and we're supposed to give them credit for this? It's preposterous.
In a debate, you do not concede a point merely because your interlocutor has correctly stated a fact. You assess the context to determine whether said fact was marshalled in good faith to actually make a point in the debate or support a valid line of reasoning. It's not so much that creationists did not actually originate any of the claims we're supposed to be praising them for, it's that they don't employ them in an intellectually honest fashion. Shallitt concludes his rebuttal about the same way: creationists lie. And it's well known that effective lies often contain small kernels of truth. I utterly reject the idea that there's anything admirable or praiseworthy in the fact that some creationist lies are founded on assertions that are not wholly untrue.
Posted by: CJO | June 24, 2008 2:04 PM
Yes, Slack got plenty of things backwards.
[Disclaimer: I'm going to paraphrase articles and comments on statistics which I haven't had time to scrutinize myself. So sue me.]
Slack writes:
There is no evidence that there exist such a group of dogmatists. But there is plenty of evidence that the reverse situation holds; people moves away from dogmatism under the influence of science.
Specifically on religious dogmatism, AFAIU there are statistics that shows that scientists moves from religious dogmatic positions towards more empirical; religious literalists becomes fableists, fableists become agnostics, and agnostics becomes atheists.
Note the correlation here; it is increasing general knowledge that correlates with moving away from dogmatism, it isn't moving away from dogmatism that leads to general knowledge. Of course it isn't quite that simple even if causality can be proven, since one can suspect social effects. But those aren't really apparent compared to the main contributor in a science environment: increased knowledge.
Another point is when Slack writes:
There is again to my knowledge no evidence that this actually happens. But there is evidence to the effect that when scientists attacks ideological positions peoples trust in scientists goes up.
The newspaper Dagens Nyheter writes on Gothenburg university SOM poll on the public view of science [swedish] that the public trust for scientists has increased from 46 percent 2005 to 62 percent last year. The increase is coupled to the climate debate, that now 87 percent of swedes deems important, as the increase in trust correlates to this group.
So when scientists have managed to call fundamentalist positions of the AGW deniers for retarded, people not only sat up and took notice, they were turned on to science.
Now I hear that Slack recently has written a book on the cultural war against science that is ID. Apparently statistics doesn't vindicate his current positions on this battle. It would be far from me to call Slack a cocksure ideologist, but it seems a radically changed 2nd ed would be called for.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | June 24, 2008 2:26 PM
Hm. I think Gordy Slack has Ken Ham for brains.
Posted by: Vic | June 24, 2008 2:31 PM
Done. You're wrong.
I do think you've been dogpiled a bit much here, and I do appreciate your willingness to respond in the comments, but I think P.Z. is basically right. You give way too much away.
Whoever wrote the subtitle ("An evolutionist shares lessons he's learned from the Intelligent Design camp") got the tone of the article right---whether you meant to or not, it sounds like you're giving the IDists too much credit, and letting their talking points stand.
For example:
Faith? You really need to be more careful with words like that, when weighing in on the ID controversy.
Sure, abiogenesis is important and we're "in the dark" in some sense.
But more importantly, we have plenty of plausible hypotheses about abiogenesis. (I'm guessing you've read Hazen's book Genesis, Kauffman's At Home in the Universe and similar things, but your article doesn't sound like it.) At the level relevant to the ID controversy, the problem is not that want don't have a good theory; it's that we have too many good theories and currently no way to decide between them.
We have good reason to think that life started with an autocatalytic cycle much simpler than modern "life." We don't know whether it happened in pores in clay, in a lipid vesicle foam, etc., but it's not the kind of scary hole in our knowledge IDers make it out to be. It's a puzzle, not a mystery in their sense, and there's a huge asymmetry in the relevant senses of "faith."
Even if we never solve the puzzle of abiogenesis in the sense of having a satisfyingly "full," detailed picture, it's pretty clear already that this is not a problem for the validity of evolutionary theory in general.
However the initial bootstrapping happened, that's mostly a "don't care theory"---it would be nice to know which story is right, but it's clear that we don't need to invoke an intelligent designer, and it's obvious that evolution did happen in an evidently unguided way from there.
Yes, abiogenesis is an important part of the big evolutionary picture, but not in the way IDists make it out to be, to serve their purposes. This is not a 747-in-a-junkyard deal-breaking kind of scientific problem, so it is not "disingenuous" to say that the origin of life is irrelevant to evolution.
Yes, it's an oversimplification to say that abiogensis is "irrelevant" to evolution. Of course it's not, in terms of piecing together the detailed story. But for this controversy, it's basically right---we might have lost the establishing shots at the beginning of the film, but the overall plot is plenty clear.
What you say is at least as oversimplified, and if I didn't believe you were an "evolutionist," I might even say disingenuous. In the context of the ID controvers