lmc@denelvx.UUCP (Lyle McElhaney) (05/06/85)
I have recently obtained a copy of _Science and Creationism_, a collection of essays generally contra-creationism, edited by the anthropologist Ashley Montagu (Oxford Press, softback, $12(?), 1984, ISBN 0-19-503253-5). This is a review/summary of the contents. The impetus for the book was the Arkansas decision, and therefore most of the articles touch on that. The text of the decision is included. (Let me warn, a long review/summary. With quotes. In 2 parts.) Montagu, of course, provides the Introduction, a brief recap of the sense and history of the creationist agruments. Nothing terribly new there. Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University writes "Scientific Creationism versus Evolution: The Mislabeled Debate". He introduces the primary creationist proponents, then concentrates on the major creationist points. First, the age of the earth, with a good straight-forward presentation of the unanimity of the radioactive dating methods, and touching on the creationist arguments concerning magnetic field decay and meteoric material influx. "Confronted with a well-established scientific theory with very strong experimantal support extending over many decades, they will not attempt to establish anything that can be recognized as an alternative, testable, theoretical system. Instead, they will blow off a shotgun full of mutually contradictory arguments, as in this instance: the age is 10,000 years...the radiometric methods are inaccurate...the radiometric methods do indicate great age, but we expected that...we cannot determine the age of the earth by any scientific evidence, but we have evidence that its young!...the age of the earth doesn't matter because there's still not time enough for evolution...and so it goes. It is designed to confuse and mislead, and even to misinform." The second main argument is the fossil record, including the "explosive" appearance of living phyla during the Cambrian, the missing transitional forms, and flood geology. Finally Miller talks about the debates going on within the scientific evolution arena currently, and how these have been used, including Arkansas' attempt to use the testimony of the anti-evolutionary scientist Chandra Wickramasinghe to support creationism, and its disatrous consequences. "On Defining a Scientific Theory: Creationism Considered" by Robert Root- Bernstein of the Salk Institute establishes 4 classes of criteria for a science: 1. Logical A. a simple unifying idea postulating nothing unnecessarily B. internally logically consistent C. logically falsifiable D. clearly limited to explicitly stated boundary conditions 2. Empirical A. empirically self-testable or lead to pre/retrodictions that are testable B. actually make verified pre/retrodictions C. concern reproducible results D. provide criteria for interpretation of data as facts, artifacts, anomalies, or irrelevancies. 3. Sociological A. Must resolve recognized problems, paradoxes and/or anomalies unresolved by previous theories B. Pose a new set of problems for further work C. Posit a paradigm by which new problems may be expected to be resolved D. provide definitions of concepts or operations beneficial to other sciences 4. Historical A. meet or surpass all criteria set by its predecessors or demonstrate that any abandoned criteria are artifactual B. accrue the epistemological status acquired by previous theories through a history of testing C. Be consistent with all preexisting ancillary theories that have established scientific validity (whew) In summary, special creation passes criteria 1A and possibly 1B, and fails *all* other criteria. George M. Marsden of Calvin College provides "Understanding Fundamentalist Views of Science", presenting an very non-critical historical perspective upon fundamentalist-dispensationalist views. "Two groups, each regarding themselves as preemiently scientific, view their subject through the lenses of conflicting orthodox paradigms. Neither has a monopoly on intelligence or clear thinking. Rather, because of their basic divergence in starting presuppositions, they differ on what counts as the 'facts'. What is called the facts on one side is viewed as wildly speculative theory to the other. Communication is virtually impossible and each party thinks that the members of the other are virtually crazy or irremiably perverse. Neither thinks the other is 'doing science' at all." He suggests that the fundamentalist hermeneutical principle (that the Bible is to be interpreted as "literal where possible") is not derived from the Bible itself but rather from Baconian philosophy. It may be possible to change this part of fundamentalism without destroying the remainder of the fundamentalist doctrine. (Considering the real bitterness with which fundamentalists hold other 'liberal' religion, though, I personally doubt it.) Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard writes "Evolution as Fact and Theory", reprinted from Discover magazine. It is a quick, general refutation of common creationist arguments. His "Creationism: Genesis vs. Geology" from the Atlantic Monthly is also included; it is a somewhat deeper treatment of the fossil arguments. "The very invariance of the universal fossil sequence is the strongest argument against its production in a single gulp. Surely, somewhere, at least one courageous trilobite would have paddled on valiantly (as its collegues succumbed [to the flood]) and won a place in the upper strata. Surely, on some primordial beach, a man would have suffered a heart attack and been washed into a lower strata before intelligence had plotted a temporary escape." Gunther S. Stent writes "Scientific Creationism: Nemesis of Sociobiology". The new science of sociobiology attempts to use evolutionary theory to support its claim for an "evolution of behavior". Ethically, Stent sees sciobiology and creationism as diametricaaly opposed to one another. Kenneth E. Boulding of Colorado University provides "Toward an Evolutionary Theology", in which he examines the religious nature of science, such as it is. It involves four principles, namely, a high value placed on curiosity, an equivalent value on veracity, a need to qualify internal models against the outside world, and abstention from threat. He proposes a fifth - the business of science is to diminish error, not find truth. Garrett Hardin of UC Santa Barbara writes "Scientific Creationism: Marketing Deception as Truth", a an historical perspective upon creationism. He sees creationism comparable to astrology in that both are "watertight" hypotheses; that is, they both have methods of explaining away all problems in their way; creationism can always say "God just made it that way" and it explains everything. That's all for now; I'll review the rest later this week.