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Oklahoma Academy of Science
http://oas.uco.edu/ SPRING 2005
FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT……
In the previous Newsletter I tried to incite some constructive dialog by raising the issue of creation through evolution. I even wrote that we science Ph.D.’s (Doctors of Philosophy) know way too little philosophy. Only two of you responded and you agreed with me that science can only deal with the tangible aspects of our universe’s beginning. Because this is such a hot issue right now, it may warrant a few more inches of paper and ink. School boards and electorates in several states are alternately pushing for more, or for less evolution to be taught in public high schools. Equal time for "creation science" or text book paste-in’s saying that evolution is "only a theory" is being debated in courts right now. Victor Hutchison at OU posts news of this sort on an e-mail list that you can join by e-mailing him at vhutchison@ou.edu.
The community of science has our own philosophy — assumptions that we rarely think about, much less articulate. "They largely consist of silent assumptions that are taken so completely for granted that they are never mentioned … anyone who attempts to question these ‘eternal truths’ encounters formidable resistance" (Earnst Mayr, 1982). We assume that in addition to matter, energy, space, and time there exists a set of non-contradictory laws that operate consistently. Scientists assume that the tangible world works reliably and that we can write predictions of how it will function in the future, based on data and observations from the past. We assume repeatability. Science relies on logic and creative human ideas as well as sensory data, but data from the tangible world can refute even the most firmly entrenched paradigm. Science is self-correcting. Eventually new or more parsimonious hypotheses and/or new data will refute wrongly held interpretations of the tangible world. Science is the only trustworthy domain from which to find truth about tangible things. From our mentors, we have learned methods to design critical experiments, avoid bias, exclude other variables, replicate, quantify, and analyze with statistics. We also have values of truthfulness, honesty, integrity and fairness. Scientists who violate these shared norms are isolated from the community.
When non-scientists make claims about the tangible world that have no empirical basis or that run counter to established scientific theories, we rightly take offence. We scorn such impostors. We may wish to restrict their freedom of speech in order to protect the public. We see our own domain so clearly, yet it is difficult to explain this to people outside science. Only science can provide answers to questions about tangible things. This includes answers to HOW and WHEN the universe, earth, life, speciation, and the human brain had their beginnings and development.
Conversely, science has no way to access the questions of WHY? — questions about purpose and meaning or the lack thereof. When a child (or a principle investigator) asks "why" and again "but why," he or she usually means: explain how at one more level of reduction — physiological, cellular, molecular, atomic, or particulate. The "Why?" that science can not approach is the teleological "Why." (not theological, but teleological). When dealing with intangibles science is out of its domain. George Gaylord Simpson another famous Harvard biologist said that science can not study the "First Cause". Intangibles can not be weighed, measured, perceived by any instrument. A scientist, speaking as a scientist, has no authority to speak about justice, for example. He or she may certainly state personal opinions, but scholars who have dedicated their life’s work to that topic might consider us naive.
During the last decade or so, we have had two excellent scientists (now deceased) who were also excellent communicators and very influential on television and in writing. Unfortunately they both stepped across the line out of their areas of expertise to proclaim that if science can not apprehend something it does not exist. The tangible world is all that exists — matter, energy, time and space (and the orderly laws of Nature that govern them.). All other fields of study — art, philosophy, literature, humanities, theology are only human delusions. Beauty, meaning, purpose, love, mercy, and justice are subjective responses wired into our primitive brains — remnants of cooperative social adaptation. What hubris for some scientists to proclaim "if we can not perceive it, then it does not exist."
Scientists of whatever religious or philosophical belief practice "methodological naturalism." They do not expect anything supernatural or miraculous to intervene in their experiments or observations. They want to know how the world usually works so that they can generalize their findings to other situations and places. This does not mean that scientists must reject any reality outside the tangible realm. Science has tools that can ever more precisely estimate the time that has elapsed since various events such as the Big Bang, freezing of the oldest rocks, earliest unicellular fossils, and successions of geologic events and fossils. Genetics clocks — both chromosomal and mitochondrial have given quantitative data to support the qualitative observations from comparative anatomy and embryology. Science is the best source to provide the answers for questions about HOW and WHEN. Some physicists have mathematical equations suggesting that time may not exist or that several other dimensions beyond our detection might exist. However, Science has no "handle" on whether claims of intangible entities could be true.
I am unhappy with the words "intelligent design" when used as a scientific hypothesis in the creation/evolution issue. The position of the diverse group of people who identify themselves with "Intelligent Design," is that present scientific explanations are inadequate to explain all the steps in a chain of events necessary to account for all the complexity that exists. They are correct to this point, but those who insert an intelligent designer only at the points where we are ignorant, come against the age-old "god of the gaps" problem. As science progresses, their designer regresses. To try to prove scientifically that there is a deity is always futile, and it is particularly offensive here. As humans make positive progress in understanding the tangible world, their designer is pushed farther out of the overall design.
In the meantime, what should we teach students in public schools? My answer: The best science based on empirical data and the conclusions of the community of science, especially regarding how and when the universe came to be. These mechanisms are essential for understanding the process and the content of science. We should also point out that science can not say anything (pro or con) about whether there is a deity with purpose behind the tangible world.
There are many character issues important to most world religions that should be taught in public schools and could be taught without controversy. Kindness, respect for other persons, generosity, helpfulness, honesty, truthfulness, discipline, self control, and humility can be "taught" in schools without offending anyone. My niece’s public school records "character points" for students’ good behaviors; and deducts points immediately when a child needs to learn which behaviors are destructive to self and others. What if all the energy expended by all positions of the evolution/creation issue was diverted into the best common ideals of science and all religions? What if respect for the best of each others’ contributions could lead to a cooperative search for truth?
Mayr, E. 1982. The growth of biological thought. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
Sharon Young, OAS President
(syoung@snu.edu)
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