Darwin As Monkey: historical, and rife with metaphorical implications, tooJewcy’s own Peter Bebergal has a nice long article over at Nextbook about the religious ramifications of Creationism, and anything that limits the Bible to literalism. His point, basically, is that besides the dangerous negative effect that creationism has on science and people’s understanding of the world, it also limits the Bible to a historical account of the world, instead of a story with limitless metaphorical possibilities and implications. Creationism disallows some of the deeper and more transcendent understandings of the Bible.

I have two problems with Bebergal’s critique. The first is that historical events can have metaphorical implications. If the Bible is a literal account of the world’s history, that doesn’t make any of its metaphors any less potent.  It might even lend them some credibility to them. If the world really was overrun by a huge flood, with only one family and a boatload of animals surviving, that would certainly serve to teach us a lesson or two about behavior, reward and punishment, and what it means to be a human entrusted with restarting a frightening venture. Having a generally literal understanding of the Bible doesn’t preclude us from adding commentary, or another level of meaning that can be relevant to our lives.

Second, the Bible is not all stories.  Much of it is a presentation of a legal system, which does certainly have metaphorical implications, but which is also clearly presented as a literal guidebook for life. Here are things we can and cannot eat. People we can and cannot marry. Here are rules for warfare, for farming, and domestic life. These things can be understood metaphorically, but for millennia Jews have understood them to be commandments, not just metaphors designed to get us thinking about the world around us and our place in it.

Understanding the story of creation as a metaphor concerning responsibility, partnership, and ecology is all well and good. But if you understand the commandment ‘Do not murder’ as anything other than what it seems to mean on its face, you’re being intentionally obtuse.

I don’t go in for Creationism or Intelligent Design. I love Judaism and Torah, and I believe in God but I’m embarrassed by the conduct of many religious people in the face of hard science. Like Bebergal I’m looking for something that can jive my religious convictions with Jewish text, but for me it needs to be more than a metaphor.

Reductio creep, "the process by which an insane extension of some principle, offered as a reductio ad absurdum of that principle, is soon afterwards realized," is one of the defining characteristics of social and public policy over the last twenty years. When tobacco companies were sued for allegedly marketing their products to children, some of us worried that the door would be open for any manner of frivolous lawsuits and prosecutions. "Ha ha," you reply. "Is the government going to prosecute Hostess for selling Twinkies?" Yeah, maybe.

Likewise, who could ever imagine a world in which political correctness has run so far amok that a man can lose his job for using the word 'niggardly'? What lunatic could envision a world gone so crazy that a DA could arraign middle-schoolers on sex crimes charges for slapping their classmates' butts? A world where, in order to protect the integrity of drug investigations, federal agents would shield murderers from justice? A world where, to end the scourge that is consensual adult gambling, SWAT teams will be deployed to shut down charity poker games? Sensible centrist paternalism could never yield crazy consequences like these (could it?).

When Georg Cantor discovered that some infinities are bigger than others, he realized he would need a new nomenclature for the hierarchies of infinite sets. What applies to infinity, in this case, applies to insanity as well. Reductio creep is what happens when the insane extension of an ostensibly sane idea becomes reality. What do we call an insane extension of an already insane idea? I ask not out of academic curiosity, but because the aleph-one of reductio creep --- that is, to extend my metaphor, an uncountably infinite insanity or idiocy --- has arrived:

The Origin of Speeches [subtitle: Intelligent Design in Language] begins by recapping the history of our views about the source of language. It then debunks the errors that infuse your dictionary, like those about how words in "unrelated" languages could only have identical sound and sense by "coincidence." It does so with both quality and quantity of data. The next chapters give anyone the skills to sleuth out the Edenic origin of any human word. One learns about letters that shift in sound and location, and letters that drop in and drop out. We discover how Edenics works much like other natural sciences, such as chemistry and physics. Like-sounding opposite words were certainly programmed, not pragmatically evolved.

"Edenics," in case you were wondering, is the view that " ALL human words contain forms of the Edenic roots within them. These proto-Semitic or early Biblical Hebrew words were programmed into our common ancestors, Adam and Eve, before the language dispersion, or babble at the Tower of Babel -- which kickstarted multi-national human history."

I always suspected that the entire field of historical linguistics has been nothing more than a centuries-long plot to undermine belief in the inerrant word of God, and now I know for sure. (Fun fact: Did you know that Adam and Eve spoke Jacobean English?)

But linguistics and social science generally, let alone evolutionary biology (that is, biology), are just side-shows to the most insidious, sinister scheme ever devised to weaken our faith and corrupt our morals. I refer, of course, to quantum mechanics:

The backbone of obstructionism is electronic interpretation, the tenet that all physical, chemical, and biological processes result from a change in the electronic structure of the atom which, in turn, can be deciphered through the orderly application of mathematics as outlined in quantum mechanics. The philosophy rejects any divine intervention. Scientific obstructionism is judged on these specifics: electronic interpretation and quantum mechanics. Conversely, the view of separatists that God is both responsible for and rules all the phenomena of the universe will stand or fall when the facts are applied. The view, however, is not tested by the definition of science, as determined by the court, but by the weightier principle of verifiable truths.

In other words, it's not unlike electromagnetic charges that attract bodies, and like charges that repel them. Tosh. God does it all by Himself, and doesn't need electrons to help him, thanks very much.

Bonkers though it is, the view that modern physics must be rejected because it shrinks the role of God in the universe, and therefore undermines belief in God, is really kind of refreshing. It's a tacit recognition that neither the compatibilism of Steven Jay Gould --- religion and science as non-overlapping magisteria and all that --- nor the incompatibilism of Richard Dawkins --- belief in the validity of science implies atheism --- have it quite right. On the one hand, belief in God is very much logically compatible with belief in science; on the other hand, once you have an adequate natural explanation of a phenomenon, positing God just adds needless theoretical complexity without contributing any explanatory power. Why not believe that the energy of a photon is proportional to its frequency and to God? Because, as Laplace said to Napoleon, je n’ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse --- I have no need of that hypothesis. Quantum mechanics + God doesn't explain any more than quantum mechanics alone.

On the other hand, what's the principle behind proposing that children be taught religious alternatives just to evolutionary theory, but not to every single other consensus of modern science? Every confirmed natural explanation of an observed phenomenon yields another question to which science replaces God as the answer.

Incidentally, if you're curious to figure out today what tomorrow's reductio creep will be, The Onion is your oracle:

Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

So for now, it's only some fringe kooks who want to replace science as a whole (and not just biology) with scripture. That batty idea will never become as mainstream as, say, intelligent design. I mean, it's unthinkable, right?

(Hat tip to PZ Meyers for both the linguistics and the quantum mechanics links.)

Via Perry de Havilland via Instapundit, here is video of Ron Paul responding to a question about the questions on evolution that have come up in the Republican primary debates.

Paul avers that evolution is "a theory," and "as a theory," he doesn't accept it. I've stood up for Paul before --- I thought the charge that he's a friend to neo-Nazis was scurrilous --- but this is indefensible.

As a backdrop, let's recall that Paul is a medical doctor, and therefore ought to have more than a passing acquaintance with biology, and also ought to know something about the scientific understanding of concepts like theory and proof. Yet here he stands, trading in the most deceitful of all creationist canards, namely that evolution is just "a theory," a theory he doesn't accept, and a theory for which "no one has proof on either side."

Quickly: "Theory" in science refers to an extensive model for predicting data that either is or is not confirmed by evidence, and which is "proven" by meeting a certain threshhold of confirmation. The theory of evolution has been confirmed by mountains of evidence, hence it is a proven, and inductively valid fact.

But there is, of course, the colloquial usage of "theory," on which the term is roughly equivalent to "conjecture," and the colloquial understanding of "proof," which is restricted to deductive proofs. Try saying "general relativity is just a theory" out loud. It doesn't quite go down like honey, does it? Furthermore, think what it would mean for theory of evolution --- or general relativity, or the germ theory of disease --- to be proven or even provable in such a way that it could never admit of disconfirmation. In that case, it wouldn't be a scientific theory.

Either Ron Paul really believes this stuff, or he's bullshitting to win votes. Paul is fairly strenuously sincere --- which, in this case, as in others, isn't always an admirable trait --- so he's probably not being deliberately dishonest. But either way, he doesn't have the judgment to be president. Oh well, scratch another off the list. (Okay, okay, the gold standard insanity and the inconsistencies on free trade and immigration aren't encouraging either.)

Yesterday Jewcy published an exchange on the topic of evolution between author Neal Pollak and Discovery Institute senior fellow David Klinghoffer. Jason Rosenhouse, a professor at James Madison University and host of Seed Magazine's Evolution Blog, sends us this response.

I do not know what you do for a living, but I suspect you are pretty good at it. You probably trained for years to learn the basic elements of your craft, and then honed those skills through more years of on-the-job experience. Now imagine that someone without that training and experience presumes to discourse on your profession. Worse, they make assertions and arguments that are obvious nonsense to anyone versed in the subject. Not an altogether uncommon experience for you, I suspect, but one that is no less annoying for that.

Now suppose that after ignoring your best attempts to explain things, your interlocutor goes running off to the press. It is alleged that your entire profession is corrupt and shot through with religious and political agendas. Then he goes running to the local school board to pressure them into teaching his view of things despite its complete lack of acceptance among knowledgeable people. Then he gives public presentations, announcing he is going to blow the lid off the scandal in your profession.

Are you there? Are you really picturing it? That, you see, is what scientists contend with in confronting proponents of intelligent design (ID). For more than a century every branch of the life sciences has reported that all of the considerable available evidence points to the conclusions that modern species are related through common descent, and that natural selection is an especially important mechanism guiding that descent. Scientists applying evolutionary thinking to their work have been met with a nearly unbroken string of successes in solving the practical problems they face in the field and the lab. Pretenders like ID, on the other hand, have led to precisely nothing.

That is why ID folks spend very little time arguing with scientists, preferring instead to take their case directly to a public unlikely to be familiar with the minutiae of genetics or biochemistry. Tell a roomful of mathematicians that some back of the envelope probability calculations are enough to refute evolution, and they will rightly laugh in your face. But I know from sad experience that such arguments are rhetorically effective. Tell a physicist or an engineer that Darwin runs afoul of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and watch how quickly you are sent to a remedial course. Tell a gathering of paleontologists that there are no transitional forms, and the most polite among them will simply refer you to an elementary textbook. Yet ID folks routinely parrot these bogus arguments, and many others besides.

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There is at least one thing I like about the creationist worldview.

Before I get to that, let me back up. In my year of exploring the Bible and biblical literalism, I made a pilgrimage to the just-opened Creation Museum in Kentucky. For those who missed the recent spate of news stories, the Creation Museum is the $25 million museum founded by the evangelical Christian group Answers in Genesis, and devoted to proving the earth is 6,000 years young.

It’s a fascinating place. You can see a scale model of Noah’s Ark. You can watch animatronic dinosaurs playing next to animatronic cave people (they lived at the same time, in the creationist scenario). There’s a screening room with sprinklers to simulate the Flood.

There’s also a bookstore that includes such titles as Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, which spends 300 pages outlining the brilliant engineering that made the famous boat possible. There are chapters on the ventilation system, on-board exercise for the animals and the myth of explosive manure gases.

The book is beautifully argued – and I don’t believe a syllable of it. Which I know is counter to my quest. I went down to the museum with an open mind, but while down there, I realized my mind wouldn’t open that far. I could understand being open to the existence of God and the beauty of rituals and the benefits of prayer. But the existence of a brontosaurus on the ark? And an earth that’s barely older than Gene Hackman? I have to go with 99 percent of scientists on this one.

That said, I did spend some time trying to imagine what it would be like to be a creationist. I tried a little method acting and put myself in the mind of someone who believes the earth was formed 6000 years ago. I couldn’t 100 percent believe, but for a few minutes, I almost believed it.

And it was an amazing experience. Most notably, I felt more connected. Consider this: If everyone on earth is descended from two identifiable people – Adam and Eve – then the “family of man” isn’t just a vague cliche. It’s true. The guy who sells me bananas at the deli on 81st street – he’s my cousin. Sure, you can have the same notion if you accept the reality that humans have evolved over several millennia. But it’s not nearly as concrete. The creationist mindset made me feel closer to my fellow humans. It made me want to invite strangers over to dinner.

I’ll never convert to creationism, but I have tried to keep that palpable sense of ‘we’re-all-related’ that came with it.

PZ Myers, blogger and science writer for Seed, is being sued 15 million dollars by Dr. Stuart Pivar for panning Pivar's book (okay, twice). The Panda's Thumb reports:

The plaintiff of the case is none else than Dr. Stuart Pivar, NYC businessman and art collector, who burst on the evolution/creationism scene a couple years back claiming that, based on conversations he had with the late Stephen J Gould, he could assert for a fact that Gould really opposed the basic tenets of modern evolutionary theory, and the role of natural selection in particular. According to Pivar, Gould only endorsed evolutionary theory (in dozens of books and hundreds of articles, not to mention sworn court testimony!) under some sort of duress from the iron fist of the enforcers of “Darwinian orthodoxy”.

The obvious nonsense was discussed in various articles here at PT and elsewhere, but of course the absurdity of that canard was not enough to deter the usual peanut gallery of gullible Creationists, Denyse O’Leary foremost among them, from getting all excited about the matter.

Anyway, besides liberally reinterpreting Gould’s entire scientific opus, Pivar’s other personal involvement with evolutionary matters at the time was that he had published a well-illustrated tome called Lifecode, in which he apparently proposed some sort of structuralist/developmental interpretation of evolution. In a rather incautious move, Pivar decided to send his book to a real developmental biologist for review: PZ Myers. PZ read it, soundly criticized it at Pharyngula, and apparently never thought of it again until earlier this year, when Pivar sent out some grandiose-sounding press release together with an updated version of the book, both of which PZ once again trashed.

Thus did Pivar proceed to sue Myers for the “emotional and mental distress”, among other things, caused him by Myers’ reviews. From the complaint:

16. On July 12, 2007, Defendant Myers maliciously, and without cause, defamed Plaintiff by referring to him as "a classic crackpot."

17. Upon information and belief, Defendant Myers' references to Plaintiff as "a classic crackpot" were necessarily intended to disparage Plaintiff's abilities as a scientific enquirer and were intended to hold Plaintiff up to ridicule and embarrassment in this specific area of Plaintiff's professional endeavors.

You know that pesky theory of evolution? Remember Darwin? Turns out, the Pharisees came up with the whole evolution ‘people-descended-from-monkeys’ thing, and also the Big Bang theory. This came from their “holy book” the Kabbala. I know you’re surprised, but I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Pharisees: They Knew All About String Theory
But seriously, folks. If you clicked on the last link and checked out the site, it’s pretty clear we’re not dealing with a really high level of scholarship or technical savvy here. This is not the kind of thing I usually give much thought to, since it’s obviously such whack-o crap. But it’s worth considering today because it’s caught the attention of a couple of lawmakers and state representatives who are trying to get legislation into state houses banning evolution education on the apparent grounds that it was all thought up by a bunch of Jews living in caves. (Never mind that Jesus was likely a Pharisee who hung out in caves). A state rep. from Georgia, Ben Bridges, forwarded a memo to Texas House Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, who delivered it to his house. The Dallas Morning News covered the story, noting that Bridges writes, “Indisputable evidence – long hidden but now available to everyone – demonstrates conclusively that so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate 'creation scenario' of the Pharisee Religion.” Let’s pretend for a minute that that’s even a functional sentence and go right along to what Rep. Chisum intends to do with this newfound “indisputable evidence.” Actually, he has no plans to actually propose any legislation, and according to the Dallas Morning News he wouldn’t even say that the views reflected in Bridges’s memo are his own, just that he believes in Creationism. And what about teaching this crap in school? "You ought to teach creation as well as the fact of evolution," Mr. Chisum said, though he said "all of those kinds of sciences have holes in them. ... But I'm not about teaching religion in schools." So wait. Evolution is a fact, but we shouldn’t teach it in schools? I need to lie down.

On the one hand, it’s a relief to see that nothing’s really going to come of this. Looks like Chisum was just trying to be nice to his crazy buddy Bridges. But to be honest, I’m not okay with this crap even being humored on the level of state government. I think someone who says he’s “not about teaching religion in schools” shouldn’t be reading anti-Semitic crazy bullshit in any kind of governmental setting.

I don’t know if there’s much to do about this situation at this point except maybe be generally depressed and irritated about the state of our government, as per usual.