…and this is a 
Brunswick school board may be OK…for now
Category: Creationism
Posted on: September 30, 2008 10:34 AM, by PZ Myers
The Brunswick school district in North Carolina was hurtling towards a lot of pain…and it's all thanks to the intransigent arrogance of the ignorant. There are some signs that they're going to see the light of reason, but there are holdouts, and as is usual in these cases, it's a few uninformed individuals possessing only a furious conviction and the certitude of religion who are causing the problems. Joel Fanti seems to be one of the instigators of this stupidity, and he's surprised that so many have been opposing him.
"It just amazes me some of those responses, how venomous they have been," said Fanti, who sparked the debate by proposing at the board's Sept. 16 meeting that the teaching of creationism share classroom time with evolution. "I don't even know what their definition of religion is. I can argue their views on evolution are a religion, too, because it can't be proven."
The Rev. Brad Ferguson, Fanti's pastor at New Beginnings Community Church in Shallotte, said he supports Fanti's views.
"There is some scientific evidence supporting creationism," the Southern Baptist minister said. "Kids should be presented both sides. … You can't isolate disciplines. Science and faith - they go together."
Fanti is clueless. Then everything is a religion: I can't prove right this instant that my cats are at my house, but because I saw them there this morning and closed the door so they can't get out, they almost certainly are…and if I saw one prowling around outside my office window, I'd quickly revise my opinion. But to Fanti's mind, my expert, empirical, well-supported ideas about my cats ought to be considered a religion, obviously. Similarly, I've got some expert, empirical, well-supported ideas about evolution that I can back up with evidence — it is not a view held in the same way as a religion.
Ferguson is equally inane. There is no scientific evidence for creationism — go ahead, show me some. If he really believed that kids should see "both" sides of an issue, no matter how weak or fringy or patently absurd they are, then I hope his Baptist church sunday school is being taught by a cadre of Muslims, Scientologists, and Wiccans.
Science and faith are in opposition. Somehow, his faith is supporting the idea that the earth is 6000 years old, against all the scientific evidence that it is 4.5 billion years old — I think that renders his claim inoperative.
But here's the good news. These two nitwits seem to be losing, and the school board is backing down, despite the sympathies of a few. And of course, the new strategem is to throw around the Discovery Institute's favorite empty slogan, "strengths and weaknesses". What weaknesses? Let's hear specifics. If they're willing to teach the strengths, how come they don't seem to understand them?
After reading e-mails by people disgruntled about the idea of teaching creationism, hearing about the state's point of view and consulting with attorney Kathleen Tanner, Babson said she thinks the board will not try to go against the law to teach creationism, although she would like to see it in the classroom one day.
Fanti said he learned about the court cases after addressing the board and now thinks the idea of teaching creationism as part of the curriculum will be crushed. But he plans to ask the school board to encourage "evolutionists" in the schools to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of their theory.
"Instead of making it a religious issue, let's make it a scientific issue," said Fanti, who identifies himself as a chemical engineer.
A religious engineer…somehow, I am not surprised at all.
Politics
Comments
Posted by: Jacques | September 30, 2008 10:39 AM
I suppose we should all be applying for tax free status for our day to day religious activities.
Posted by: The Petey | September 30, 2008 10:48 AM
A religious engineer...somehow, I am not surprised at all.
hey, not ALL us chemical engineers are whack jobs.
Posted by: And-U-Say | September 30, 2008 10:50 AM
Hey! I am a Chemical Engineer, don't lump that moron in with me. Behe is a biologist and I don't see you accounting his idiocy in with the field of biology.
Engineers can very much BE scientists. We make our hypotheses, run our experiments, base conclusions on data, search for and reveal error, the whole thing. These stupid people are creationists in spite of being engineers, not because they are.
Posted by: JoshS | September 30, 2008 10:56 AM
There really does seem to be some odd correlation between people calling themselves engineers (of various stripes) and believing in creationism. I can't for the life of me figure out why that would be - if anything, I'd think such an ordered mental approach would make them less likely to believe in this kind of irrationality.
To the rational, scientific engineers here - can you speculate on what accounts for this correlation?
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | September 30, 2008 10:57 AM
You know, I'm starting to change my mind and think that creationism should be taught in science class after all. Personally, I have learned an awful lot about evolution reading rebuttals to the common creationist talking points. So, I say tell schoolchildren about creationist objections to evolution... and then show them why they're wrong. I think it could be useful to expand concepts and cement them in their heads.
Posted by: Donnie B. | September 30, 2008 10:58 AM
Another outraged engineer here, PZ. Well, slightly outraged. Not as outraged as I am by, say, Fanti or Palin or... ghaaa, no time to list them all.
Please knock off the snide remarks about engineers, though. Most of us are highly reality based people who understand the science behind our professions. Many of us also have a vivid interest in the sciences beyond our own specialties.
And just in case that bulge in your cheek is indicative of a tongue, okay, I get it. I quit, but I get it.
Posted by: Richard Harris | September 30, 2008 10:59 AM
Yeah, don't diss us engineers. I've met a few religious engineers, & I don't know how they function, but they seem to be able to apply rational decision-making processes in engineering matters just as well as anyone. Why they believe in a magic god spirit man beats me.
Posted by: chancelikely | September 30, 2008 10:59 AM
There seems to be a disproportionate number of creationists from fields in engineering. Why? Is it that engineers tend to think in terms of design?
Posted by: EB | September 30, 2008 11:02 AM
Hey -- I'm an atheist engineer. We do exist. (Great post otherwise)
Posted by: Glenn | September 30, 2008 11:03 AM
Science and faith are in opposition.
I see it just slightly differently. I'm sure most of the readers here know of Harry Frankfurt's great essay, On Bullshit. Frankfurt makes the point that, unlike a liar, who seeks to tell the opposite of the truth (and thus, like the truth-teller, at least is concerned with what the truth actually is), a bullshitter is completely unconcerned with whether his bullshit lines up with the truth or not. Bullshit is thus not really the "opposite" of the truth, it has a different character altogether.
I see faith as the same thing: Whereas Science seeks to reach conclusions in accord with the available evidence, faith purports to reach conclusions without regard to the evidence.
In other words, faith is bullshit.
Posted by: Donnie B. | September 30, 2008 11:05 AM
I would be very surprised to learn that the percentage of creationist engineers is higher than, or even as high as, that of the general population. How often have we heard of creationist teachers or pharmacists, for example?
Having been brought up in an irrational mindset doesn't necessarily make it impossible to partition that off when studying or practicing engineering, any more than it prevents one from flying an airplane or herding sheep.
Posted by: S.Scott | September 30, 2008 11:05 AM
I feel like I should be saying "I told you so"...
It's the Southern Baptists, the Bible churches, and the non-denominational churches that are THE most ignorant and intrusive. The real enemies of science.
We need to give the catholics's a break. As a rule - the sins of the upper management do not trickle down into the "masses".;-)
Bill Donohue's 'Catholic League' is the exception to the rule of course.
I am so absolutely frustrated with these people. Our kids in FL recently just dodged this bullet but I am convinced it will come around again in a couple of months.
Posted by: IasonOuabache | September 30, 2008 11:06 AM
I have this theory that (some but not all) engineers have a problem with thinking in terms of emergent systems. Too much vertical thinking, not enough lateral thinking.
I'm probably wrong though.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | September 30, 2008 11:11 AM
It's only a relatively few engineers, but they make a disproportionate amount of the noise. That can't be ignored, really.
My own opinion is that there is less difference between religion and science than a lot of scientists believe, simply because human thought processes are of a rather limited variety.
Yet, while religion and science may have considerable similarities from the philosophical standpoint, the differences result in outcomes that are about as opposite as human outcomes can be. Hence opposition seems inevitable.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Richard Harris | September 30, 2008 11:11 AM
Science and faith are in opposition.
Of course they are. Science depends upon evidence; religion doesn't need evidence, so it ignores, evades, distorts, & subverts evidence.
Posted by: BobC | September 30, 2008 11:11 AM
"It just amazes me some of those responses, how venomous they have been," said Fanti
The responses have not venomous enough. Fanti should be put in prison. His stupidity is not against the law, but his attacks against science education is treason.
Posted by: chancelikely | September 30, 2008 11:13 AM
IasonOuabache #13:
Interesting. How would you test that?
Posted by: BobC | September 30, 2008 11:16 AM
"There is some scientific evidence supporting creationism," the Southern Baptist minister said.
Scientific evidence for magic? The word 'Baptist' means insane stupid asshole.
Posted by: Lightnin | September 30, 2008 11:19 AM
Nonsense, all you do is get drunk and shout obscenities at the head of college.
I am assuming that nothing changes once you leave university...
Posted by: pjb | September 30, 2008 11:19 AM
Engineers have a degree (possibly an advanced one) with the word "science" in it, but most often with absolutely no education in biology, and a cursory one in other scientific fields. I almost have an M.S. in mechanical engineering and haven't taken a biology class since high school. Mix in some religious belief and you'll have a guy who can wield an advanced degree in a technical field but who is actually as ignorant on the subject of evolution as your average creationist. The creationist engineer's degree comes up as an appeal to their own authority.
Posted by: Nick | September 30, 2008 11:21 AM
I really don't get these people. I'm not a history expert, so I wouldn't think of challenging the school board on what they ought to be teaching in history class. Do these yokels really feel their amateur opinions on biology give them the right to tell actual biology teachers what they ought to be teaching? Or is the religious arrogance really that blinding?
Posted by: SteveM | September 30, 2008 11:22 AM
yet another engineer here who is quite perplexed by the seeming preponderance of creationists in our profession. What I have to hope is that there is some kind of selection bias going on here, we only hear about the engineers who are creationists and so a small minority ends up being identified as the norm. The other possibility is that engineering is "as far as one can go" in the sciences while maintaining a creationist belief. If you concentrate on just the math and technical aspects one may be able to ignore the wider implications.
I comfort myself that these people aren't true engineers™ , they just have a job as an engineer. A true engineer™ thinks about everything as an engineering problem and not just his particular field of engineering. And as for engineers having a tendency to look for design in everything, maybe so, but any good engineer would see just how lousy the designs found in nature are. Yes, there are amazing "machines" in nature but really, no one would have designed them that way, they must have evolved by a long "random" process. :-)
Posted by: And-U-Say | September 30, 2008 11:25 AM
"To the rational, scientific engineers here - can you speculate on what accounts for this correlation? "
I would guess it has a lot to do with the process emplyed in their education. I will use Chemists vs Chemical Engineers, but I would guess it applies across the board.
Initially, engineers get the same education as other science majors. Physics, math, chemistry... But as the student gets into their junior year, things change. The pure science student typically gets to continue on the course of evidence based learning. They get to keep running experiments, making observations, etc.
But the engineer takes a subtly different path. Engineers tend to work on large problems. Large meaning not only difficult, but also large in physical scale. How do you teach an enginering student about distillation columns over 100 feet tall? Few, if any, schools have the money for that scale of "lab equipment", so the engineering student does not get much of an opportunity to learn based on self generated data.
NOTE: Some large universities do have some large scale equipment, but still, only one of each. This means that the student has only very limitted access to the equipment, reducing their exposure to self generated data.
So, what to do? The university must fall on the technique of teaching, almost exclusively, theory. This means the student must learn from an athority figure, the professor. And there is no questioning the professor. And, the theory is correct.
Secondly, the amount of information thrown at an engineer is profound. Engineering to the BS degree level is more difficult than any of the pure science disciplines. Yes... you biologists and chemists will whine to me that you had it hard, too. That's true. But the engineer has it the toughest. I knew many students while in school who were in the other science disciplines, and the amount of school work we (as engineers) had to do was far greater. An engineer graduates with a BS when they should have a MS or even a PhD.
Why is that important? It means that the engineer student is so busy trying to learn all that theory, that they don't have the time to reflect on what they are actually learning, how it relates to the real world. They end up relying too much on the equations and not enough on what is really going on.
As a veteran engineer, I see this all the time. 90% of engineers do not have a good grasp on the relationship between the theory they learn and the real world. And before long, it seems like they can't learn it. This over reliance on theory makes them vulnerable to crack-pot theories from authority figures.
And unfortunately, because they are so intelligent and well educated, they are brought forth by the creationist community to espouse the validity of their pet "theory". And most engineers are not good enough (or, have the right mind set from their education) to see that the "theory" and the reality simply don't match up.
Posted by: True Bob | September 30, 2008 11:26 AM
That's it, Fanti is now out of The Engineer's Club. Bastard idiot. There's not enough venom in the world to spew at those who would degrade even the reputation of engineering.
Posted by: wÒÓ† | September 30, 2008 11:27 AM
(.)(.)
Posted by: Nyx | September 30, 2008 11:27 AM
I'm an electrical engineer, and I haven't noticed a a disproportionate number of creationist engineers (the evidence is anecdotal, or course). There are a few that I work with.
I will say that the majority of my coworkers are religious, however. I'm particularly loud about my atheism at work, so I've had a number of conversations about religion. I've always assumed that the religiosity of engineers was fairly proportional with the general population.
Posted by: tim Rowledge | September 30, 2008 11:27 AM
Oh for goodness sake, enough with the IDiotic crap about "those dumb engineers". Yes, I'm sure there are people with a variety of engineering qualifications that are stupid. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty that think of themselves as religious. Guess what - there are probably a similar ratio in the medical field, the management pit, the acting world, the ... etc etc. There appears to be an alarming number of people with apparently real science qualifications that hold to religion.
There is *nothing* in any part of engineering teaching that would reasonably support any religious belief (except for the reality of Murphy and his heavenly host of Gremlins, of course) in ay way whatsoever. You're just going to have to accept that there are a proportion of humans that will take *any* facts and find a way to make religidiocy out of them.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT | September 30, 2008 11:29 AM
Queue Randy Stimpson.
Posted by: qbsmd | September 30, 2008 11:30 AM
Engineers seem to be more conservative than people in other professional fields. That is probably the correlation with religious fanaticism. The question is why more engineers are conservative.
It would be interesting to see whether atheist engineers are still politically more conservative than atheist biologists or physicists.
Posted by: Glenn | September 30, 2008 11:32 AM
With all due respect to the "pure scientists" in the crowd here who are trying to come up with explanations for why creationism is more prevalent among engineers, perhaps I could suggest you first investigate whether there's actually any data to support that premise? Remembering, of course, that data is not the plural of anecdote? The spectacle of all these folks attempting to discern the "cause" of a phenomenon that may or may not exist is highly amusing.
And in the interest of full disclosure, my background is chemical engineering (although I ditched it for the law years ago).
Posted by: G.D. | September 30, 2008 11:33 AM
Seems like I'm among those having all the fun here. Teaching Intro to Critical Thinking enables me to talk a lot about creationism - to illustrate how some people manage to cram all formal and informal fallacies of reasoning into one single "theory" (and in particular to illustrate why non-falsifiable theories are worthless because they are impotent to explain anything whatsoever (since they are consistent with anything)). You simply won't find better examples of poor critical thinking skills than among creationists, woo-mongers and global warming deniers. Such a rich source of hilarious examples.
Posted by: pjb | September 30, 2008 11:35 AM
I wonder about the difference between engineering and science. My current line of thought is that the best engineering is science, or rather that engineering should follow scientific processes, but doesn't necessarily need to in order to be effective or successful in many cases. Perhaps it is the absence of an "engineering process" as there is a scientific process. Logical thinking is not really stressed in engineering education (at least not in mine), is it any different in scientific fields?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT | September 30, 2008 11:36 AM
Glenn
I think most are poking fun at engineers because we see so many creationist engineers who show up in these threads and other places.
Yes anecdotes, but frequent ones and they make good targets.
Posted by: SteveM | September 30, 2008 11:37 AM
This is a perfect example of what I meant by not a "true engineer". To me engineering is the application of theory to reality. Engineers start from theory, but then have to "make it work" in the "real world". Any engineer that is not checking his work against implementation is not an engineer.
And I disagree with your use of "most" in that characterization. It is not that most engineers aren't good enough to avoid creationism, it is that the engineers that accept creationism aren't good enough engineers.
Posted by: Glenn | September 30, 2008 11:39 AM
Rev. Chimp:
Oh sure, it's all in good fun until someone gets their eye put out!
OK, yeah, I understand. Hey, I've got no issue with going after the creationists, engineers or not. They deserve all of the ridicule one can muster.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | September 30, 2008 11:42 AM
Re Creationist Engineers: Look up "Salem Hypothesis". The cause (indeed, whether it is even a real phenomenom -- hard data seems to be lacking) has been sporadically debated on talk.origins since the early 90's. FWIW, #23 above looks like a good guess to me.
Posted by: True Bob | September 30, 2008 11:42 AM
Engineering is the application of learned science. Thank an engineer for your AC, your PC, your clothes, your shoes, your medicines (that's right - how ARE they produced?), your car(s), your crackberry, your food, your cell phone, your friggin #2 pencil, your stress ball...
Posted by: ShadowWalkyr | September 30, 2008 11:43 AM
And atheists. Don't forget the atheists.
Posted by: Brad D | September 30, 2008 11:48 AM
If you want to make any generalizations, make this one: Breadth of education is inversely proportional to the probability of being a fundamentalist nutjob.
Depth of education: depends on the field.
Personally, I have a BS in Chemistry, and took a bit of bio along the way, which led me to being the happy heretic I am today.
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | September 30, 2008 11:50 AM
Speaking only for myself, I have no desire to enter a southern baptist church, even if I were to undermine the teachings of the church. Plenty of chances to do that away from that place.
Posted by: Ompompanoosuc | September 30, 2008 11:50 AM
Religious engineers! I'm an engineer, include me out.
When asked to speculate on the reason for the (odd) correlation between engineering and religiosity, I say "show me the correlation".
That said, it might be true. One can know quite a bit about electronics without it conflicting with the other compartment of the psyche where the sky daddy resides. Not so with biology, am I right?
Anti-Theist Electrical Engineer (ATEE)
pompy
Posted by: qbsmd | September 30, 2008 11:53 AM
There might be some truth to that. I had trouble with the idea of natural selection producing more complex results for a while. Eventually, I wrote a genetic algorithm to try to simulate evolutionary type processes and prove that it could make a complex designed-looking result. I started posting the code and results on my blog, mostly for the benefit of creationist engineers.
Posted by: Me | September 30, 2008 11:53 AM
@ #5, and to the post in general:
I've made this point in the past. What creationists actually mean when they say "teach both sides" or "show strengths and weaknesses", is that when you point out a weakness in evolution, or what appears to be one, you quickly insert something like "of course, creationism answers this easily with..." That's the danger of having it even mentioned in a classroom.
And also like I've said before, any halfway decent teacher *will* point out any seeming criticisms of any subject they teach. It's a basic part of teaching. As a simple example, a good teacher wouldn't say "the eye evolved", they'd say "at first glance, it appears that the eye is too complex to have evolved, but when you take into account..."
So the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution, the ones that actually exist rather than the ones creationists just come up with randomly to attack it with, are *already* taught. It's basic teaching. What the creationists want is for the teacher to also add "...but god could've done it easily, which makes more sense" into the class.
Posted by: Nyx | September 30, 2008 11:55 AM
@29
For your data collection purposes, I'm a liberal atheist engineer.
I've always associated conservatism with engineering because of the large number of engineering jobs in the defense contracting business. Since conservative leaders tend to dump untold amounts of money into defense, it's almost a job security thing.
I avoided the defense industry like the plague, personally.
Posted by: Nanahuatzin | September 30, 2008 11:55 AM
Here.. i am another disgrunted enginner...
To be religious or to be an engineer has nothing to do with being ignorant.
A good engineer should have to had a very good background in sciences. I have math, chemistry, physics, thermodinamics, and a bit of biology.
And today catholics, have no problems acepting evolution and big bang... somehow, it seem to be just a problem of certain christian sects.
So even a religious engineer can acept evolution.
Maybe the problem is not really a religuous one, but a real lack of adequate education.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | September 30, 2008 11:57 AM
What weaknesses? Let's hear specifics.
Exactly. It's a buzzword, nothing more. They got nothin', but a lot of them are so ignorant that they don't even know they got nothin'.
Posted by: True Bob | September 30, 2008 11:57 AM
I was sans religion long before becoming an engineer (elementary school, I saw no need for gods, it's so friggin' obvious).
Early Anti-Theology Mechanical Engineer - EATME
I'm sure it's only a confirmation bias. The cretinists parade the most "qualified" of the deluded. I wish they'd use more lawyers, though.
Posted by: Rick T | September 30, 2008 11:58 AM
"What I have to hope is that there is some kind of selection bias going on here..."
I would guess that the closer one gets to studying biology the less the belief in creationism. Kind of obvious. However, the reverse is also true. Since engineers are educated, but not in biology, then they would probably have a certain percentage who would believe in creationism but probably not as many as the general public. But if, as a creationist group, you wanted a spokesperson to present your case you would try to choose the most educated person to give weight to your point of view. They do not ask the plumber, electrician or arborist to speak for their cause because why would their views matter? But engineers are smart and educated so people assume that they would know what they are talking about.
Posted by: vespera | September 30, 2008 11:59 AM
Everyone is missing the most important part of this post -- PZ is a cat person. I knew it! All the best people are.
Posted by: Mold | September 30, 2008 12:00 PM
An engineer of my acquaintance used to deride my union activities while we both toiled for the Commonwealth. They felt above the common herd that so deeply needed union representation. My problem was a KKKristianist supervisor. I did need a union rep..on a regular basis. Goodling and her ilk are not a surprise. The engineer told me to find Jesus. I introduced them to our security guard..:) Anywho, the Commonwealth mad engineers salaried, instead of hourly. This saved the budget millions of dollars as engineers tended to work long hours. Oh, one of the family was a 'special needs' child. Abortion was unthinkable so now the family needs 24/7 nursing care. Overtime used to cover it.
I didn't take any skill or training to figure out that at least once during your Commonwealth career that you would need a union rep. The Leg once refused to pay wages...until their lawyers found that each Leg member was personally liable for wages due.
Posted by: Cranapple | September 30, 2008 12:01 PM
I'm a mechanical engineer, and IMO "pjb" and "And-U-Say" pretty much caught the crux of it.
For two years engineers take the same classes and labs as science majors. Those are unfortunately the labs where you spend pretty much 100% of your time trying to just learn how to use the equipment so you can "get the right answer". The problem solving techniques that engineers learn after those first few years are no substitute for education in critical thinking and the scientific method. In fact, at a recent NH skeptics meeting, I was speaking to another engineer who had the "2nd Law of Thermodynamics" argument spouted at her by a MECHANICAL ENGINEER (you know, the ones who most commonly deal with applied thermodynamics).
As to the question of why (anecdotally) engineers seem to pop up so often in creationist circles, it may have something to do with the fact that it is possible to get a PhD relating to science without having to ever learn the scientific method. Or it may just be that engineers are typically the non-scientists who are most interested in science and "proving" their beliefs.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT | September 30, 2008 12:01 PM
Blasphemy
Posted by: J Myers | September 30, 2008 12:03 PM
Certainly: confirmation bias.
Posted by: And-U-Say | September 30, 2008 12:05 PM
[quote]This is a perfect example of what I meant by not a "true engineer". To me engineering is the application of theory to reality. Engineers start from theory, but then have to "make it work" in the "real world". Any engineer that is not checking his work against implementation is not an engineer. [/quote]
It may be that you misapprehend the point I was trying to make. In school, most engineers do not get taught nor see for themselves the complete relationship between the clean theory and the dirtier reality.
When they get a job, there is almost certainly a set of design criteria and equations they are given to work on their first project. "Here, use these equations and tools to design one of these." And they take the equations and they design it. And it works. And it works well. And they see that it works well. But that doesn't mean that they understand the relationship between what they did and the real world.
And as you imagine, its a sliding scale as well, its not a matter of either/or. Perhaps I was too harch on my fellow engineers. Let's just say I am not happy with where on the sliding scale I find most of my engineering co-workers.
[quote]And I disagree with your use of "most" in that characterization. It is not that most engineers aren't good enough to avoid creationism, it is that the engineers that accept creationism aren't good enough engineers.[/quote]
I didn't word my case that well. I like your wording a whole lot better.
Posted by: Benjamin Geiger | September 30, 2008 12:05 PM
Atheist computer "engineer" here. (I have a degree in Computer Engineering, from the USF College of Engineering, but I don't consider Comp Eng an engineering discipline. That's why I declined the invitation to join the Order of the Engineer.)
Posted by: S.Scott | September 30, 2008 12:06 PM
" Everyone is missing the most important part of this post -- PZ is a cat person. I knew it! All the best people are."
:-) Soooo True !!!!! :-)
Posted by: JBlilie | September 30, 2008 12:08 PM
I am pained to hear of another religulous engineer. They do seem all too common, in spite of our training to be data-driven and problem-solving. (Invoking magic is incapable of solving a real problem.) But we aren't all religious!
Posted by: mercator | September 30, 2008 12:12 PM
Another atheist engineer checking in. Sure, there are a lot of religious engineers, but I don't think there are many of them that could be described as creationist nutjobs.
On the other hand, I have noted a significant number of MDs that seem to lean this way.
Posted by: Cranapple | September 30, 2008 12:12 PM
For the recording purposes, I am also a liberal atheist as well as being a mechanical engineer.
It was just a few short years ago (all through engineering training I might add) that I was a conservative Fundagelical YEC. My engineering training gave me no tools to undermine my batshit crazy ideas. In fact, it was the modern physics course that I took my senior year that made the first chink in the chains of idiocy that I had wrapped my head in. The professor gave us a homework assignment to calculate the age of a rock sample based on given pre-recorded Rb-Sr abundancies. It was pretty much a choice between becoming a nutjob who believed that all scientists have a conspiracy to fudge the data, or the earth was older than 6000 years.
Posted by: Nanahuatzin | September 30, 2008 12:13 PM
JoshS @29
The question is why more engineers are conservative.
A.C clarke, once commented that enginners need to look more conservative, since they are ussually in administrative positions, so they need to look more like "common" people..
But in think a good engineer should be a nerd. Even if he need not to look like one.
On the other hand, a bad enginner (who ignores anyhting not related to his own field) may be as ignorant as any common people.
Posted by: SteadyEddy | September 30, 2008 12:14 PM
I think we engineers get too much of a bad rap. I'm an atheist environmental engineer with an earth science teaching degree. My co-operating teacher was a former working biologist. He "mentored" me during my student teaching episode and also taught biology and evolution. He was a very religious person (reminded me of the Flanders family on the Simpsons)- I often wanted to ask him how he settled science and religion in his mind. But that was before Pharyngula and my solidified disbelief in all things religious. If I run into him again, I'll pose it to him. Don't lump all engineers as creationists.
Posted by: tim Rowledge | September 30, 2008 12:17 PM
That may the the murrican way but it was a touch different at Imperial. We got almost as much maths as the people on a maths degree. Plus almost as much economics and business stuff as people on an MBA. Plus physics for stress analysis and mechanics, plus thermodynamics, plus at least one language, plus philosophy of science, plus various environmental science stuff plus, plus, plus. Oh yes, plus a good helping of practical learning about the scientific method since it comes in pretty handy when you're involved in inventing new technologies or debugging problems with existing ones. Anyone that can get through an engineering course without a good understanding of the scientific method really wasn't paying much attention.Posted by: uncle frogy | September 30, 2008 12:19 PM
I second the suggestion that if we really want to know why engineers are "more irrational" than some other group, study of the facts should be done to see what percent of all professions and or disciplines are pro or anti evolution vs creationism, states of religious belief.
I would guess that what we are seeing is the result of the noted ability to mentally compartmentalize thinking and the selective use of creationist engineers as spokesmen as a political strategy instead of loony undereducated preachers!
Posted by: Holbach | September 30, 2008 12:21 PM
Did everyone read Fanti's statement closely? "I don't even know what their definition of religion is. I can argue their views on evolution are a religion, too, because it can't be proven."
This clown is living in a world removed from reality, and is prone to making up crap that his religion infested mind twists around to suit his dementia. Religion has to be defined in a manner of ways, and he considers evolution a religion because it has a sane following? This moron should seek a new position at the Deranged Institute in Seattle. His kind is going to slowly strangle rational teaching and thought if he reamins in a critical area.
Posted by: Jared | September 30, 2008 12:22 PM
The winner of funniest statement of the day goes to:
"There is some scientific evidence supporting creationism,"
Upon reading said quotation, I fell from my chair, hitting my head on my desk on the way down, still laughing uncontrollably. It frightens me how ignorant and arrogant some individuals are...
Posted by: Evolving Squid | September 30, 2008 12:23 PM
Ah, the Myers's Cat paradox.
Technically, the cats are in an undefined state, neither in nor out of your house until you look at your house - the wave function collapses leaving the cats in a defined state. Of course it may be difficult to know either the velocity or position of your cats exactly.
In theory, your cats could tunnel out of your sealed house, although the probability is very low. Feline tunneling has not been subject to a lot of research due to the larger availability of research dollars for itty-bitty particles.
Posted by: AlanWCan | September 30, 2008 12:26 PM
So, they'll be open to devoting time on Sundays for explorations of geology, biology, and physics in their churches then? We can organise courses in evolutionary biology from the pulpit can we? Hmmmmm....thought not.Posted by: Cranapple | September 30, 2008 12:27 PM
Quoting Tim Rowledge: "That may the the murrican way but it was a touch different at Imperial. We got almost as much..."
You seem to have missed the point. The math/physics/economics/ad nauseum education that all engineers recieve is sadly lacking in teaching about skepticism and the scientific method. I am heartened to hear that your education was not lacking in these areas, but in America that seems to be the case much more often.
This is not to say that someone from this educational background (including myself) would be unable to see through fraudulent technical claims, but to tell the difference between science and psuedoscience in totally unrelated fields (medicine for example) takes more purposeful education in the scientific method. Being able to apply that same skepticism to one's own brainwashing is another level more difficult entirely.
Thanks for the insinuation that I wasn't paying much attention, that was a nice finishing touch.
Posted by: Farren | September 30, 2008 12:28 PM
Americans call some professions "engineer" that we South Africans would call "technician" so I'm not sure I have all of the connotations right, but...
I don't think creationists predominate in engineering, just that, as stated, academically credentialed creationists are more likely to have engineering qualifications than other scientific qualifications.
Most of the engineers I've known are more willing to proceed with a rough-and-ready understanding of why things work the way they do, based on experience, rather than a technically correct understanding and more willing to treat colloquial, trade and scientific meanings of words as equally valid, depending on the context, than other people with other academic credentials.
By way of an example, I had an engineer with a keen interest in cars tell me the other day that you can't get shocked by holding both contacts of a car battery because its DC. This sounded wrong so I checked with another more theoretically-minded friend with a background in electronics and he said you can get shocked by DC current (and in fact its potentially more dangerous), but a car battery isn't powerful enough. When I went back to the first engineer, I articulated this to him and he simply latched onto the admission that a car battery wouldn't really shock you, while giving every appearance of missing the point that his _reason_ for that being so was in fact wrong. No matter how many times I tried to separate the two issues he simply didn't get it. In fact he simply clouded the issue by launching off into a long debate about what "shocked" meant, where he compounded the wrong with lots more wrong. I got the impression that he would absorb the fact that DC can, in fact shock you as soon as it was of practical importance to him, but not until then.
I've had similar experiences with engineers (many of my friends are engineers) frequently. And I can easily see how that rough-and-ready, practical attitude to descriptions and problems makes engineers uniquely susceptible to creationist claims when contrasted with, say, biologists or theoretical physicists. For many of the people I know with an engineering mindset, the modern synthesis will remain largely uninteresting speculation about our past not worthy of too much mental energy until such time as they have an application which requires the use of genetic algorithms or neural network logic.
Disclaimer: I say this as a non-academic, since I work as an analyst and programmer (and am entirely self-taught).
Posted by: Nyx | September 30, 2008 12:28 PM
@36 Wow! I pretty much dismissed this whole thread until I read your post. The Salem Hypothesis is pretty interesting. Maybe there is something to this whole argument.
To the other offended engineers: The hypothesis states that educated creationists are disproportionately engineers, but it's important to note that it says nothing about the likelihood of engineers being creationists.
Posted by: Flex | September 30, 2008 12:28 PM
I imagine that if you compare the graduation rates of all types of engineers with all types of science majors (physics, biology, etc.) you would find there are 4-5 times more engineers graduating than science majors.
So I suspect it's a population issue. There are a lot of engineers out there, so even if engineers are less likely than the rest of the population to hold creationist beliefs it's still relatively easy to find one who does as a spokesman.
In our office of about 50 engineers there are about 6 atheists and only 1 creationist.
My $0.02 as an atheist electrical engineer.
Posted by: penn | September 30, 2008 12:29 PM
I think you hear about more creationist engineers because they are arrogant and think their engineering credentials will get them intellectual credit with the general public. Creationist pastors or bus drivers or secretaries don't use their occupation to back up their claims. I also think there is some "science envy" in some of us engineers that shows up as arguments like "I could do science, but I wanted to do something practical."
Posted by: H.H. | September 30, 2008 12:29 PM
$100 that if asked what this "scientific evidence supporting creationism" might be, Ferguson brings up fossilized human footprints and dino tracks in the same stone. Anyone want to take that bet? Anyone?
Posted by: charley | September 30, 2008 12:31 PM
"To the rational, scientific engineers here - can you speculate on what accounts for this correlation?"
Yea! An invitation to speculate! I am an engineer and I agree with PJB #20 that these engineers are emboldened by their scientific-sounding degree, so they spew more. Their education is weak, however, not only in biology, but other faith-breakers like geology and astronomy. They learn that science works, but not that it governs everything. As a result, compartmentalizing science to non-religious areas like technology and medicine is easy.
Between the weak natural science training and lack of culturally broadening courses like history, literature and philosophy, it's possible to graduate without having your childhood religion challenged.
Posted by: LaTomate | September 30, 2008 12:32 PM
Ooh, hitting on us engineers... well, at least you didn't take one of us, pierce him/her through the heart and dump him/her in the trash with coffee ground, a page from the quran and a page from the god delusion...
:)
Posted by: E.V. | September 30, 2008 12:32 PM
The posts above reveal one very important fact:
Engineer ≠ humor, sense of.
Posted by: Nicole TWN | September 30, 2008 12:33 PM
O Ghod, not ANOTHER creationist engineer. Brethren and sistren, let us drum him out of the fellowship of engineers! Let us take his slide rule and snap it in half!
As to why: my guess is that we are so used to designing and building things that we are more easily seduced by the idea that design is required.
Most of my study buddies were rational; only one or two were overtly religious, and even they were, y'know, SANE.
Posted by: SplendidMonkey | September 30, 2008 12:35 PM
+1 atheist engineer. The other kind scare me, I don't want them praying over any bridge design I might drive over.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | September 30, 2008 12:36 PM