On 16 Apr 96 12:36:10 EDT you wrote:
JB>I am sympathetic to Denis L's concerncs about non-specialists
>entering into debates with specialists in the latters' respective
>fields. Often, a fumbling non-specialist (NS) can drive a specialist
>(S) nuts by being flat wrong about something and not equipped to see
>that error.
Agreed. But the debate here is rarely in the
"specialists...respective fields". We are not debating science itself
here but philosphical views *about* science. I am a "non-specialist",
and I am happy to be shown where I am "flat wrong" on any particular
fact of science. In such cases, I will modify (or even abandon) my
position. But usually, what is presented here as fact is really just
a specialists' *opinion* heavily influenced by his/her philosophical
worldview.
Besides, if Denis' criteria were applied impartially, and not just
selectively against some laymen he doesn't appear to like, the
Reflector would have to close down, because most of its members are
not specialists in evolutionary theory.
[...]
JB>That being said, there is an equal error the S can make, one Denis
>seems to lapse into from time to time. It is what I call the
>Priesthood Fallacy. Here, the S uses his hard earned knowledge to
>wrap himself in the raiments of episcopacy and pronounce all the
>unordained as rabble or, worse, pagans. They chain their Scriptures
>(read: primary literature) to the pulpit and say, "The rabble cannot
>understand. Listen only to us."
Spot on! :-) I do not deny Denis' "hard earned knowledge" its just
that people with equal amounts of "hard earned knowledge" disagree
with him, and even "non-specialist" can see that.
I am suspicious of those experts who claim that what they say is not
understandable by laymen and therefore the latter must just take it on
their authority. The existence of scientific journals intended for a
wider audience (eg. New Scientist, Scientific American, Discover,
etc) and the writing of books by leading evolutionists (eg. Dawkins,
Gould, Goodwin, etc), are confirmation that specialist scientific
issues can be understood by laymen. In any event, as Johnson points
out, there is much more at stake than simply scientific questions:
"These questions cannot be left to the sole determination of a class
of experts, because important questions of religion, philosophy, and
cultural power are at stake. Naturalistic evolution is not merely a
scientific theory; it is the official creation story of modern
culture. The scientific priesthood that has authority to interpret
the official creation story gains immense cultural influence thereby,
which it might lose if the story were called into question. The
experts therefore have a vested interest in protecting the story, and
in imposing rules of reasoning that make it invulnerable." (Johnson
P.E., "Darwin on Trial", InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove
Ill., Second Edition, 1993, p159)
JB>Well, that's not an argument; that's pontification. Now it's
>understandable, because when you spend time and money getting an
>advanced degree, you want to be able to throw a little weight around.
>You don't like to have your judgments called into question. But it
>happens. And every now and then the criticisms are on the money.
Yes. In one of Yockey's posts, kindly supplied by Brian (Yockey #1)
there is a nice quote:
"Notice that Haken did not challenge my Chapter 10 on
self-organization directly but appealed to emotional charges of heresy
and lese majesty. When distinguished scientists are wrong they are
just as wrong as the rest of us. The principle that the king can do
no wrong does not apply in science. Idols have feet of clay."
JB>Want to know who knows more about the Fourth Amendment than most
>lawyers? That's right, prisoners. They've never been to law school,
>but they are interested (man, are they interested) in the subject.
>And so they read--primary, secondary, tertiary literature. And they
>figure out what's going on.
Good point. Maybe one could argue by analogy "who knows more about"
evolution that evolutionists? It is (arguably) *creationists*.
They've mostly never studied Biology at university level "but they are
interested (man, are they interested) in the subject. And so they
read--primary, secondary, tertiary literature. And they figure out
what's going on"! :-)
JB>In the evolution debate, the same thing occurs. Phillip Johnson,
>for example, cannot be dismissed because he is a NS. His arguments
>are sound. They should be dealt with on their merits, not by the
>Priesthood Fallacy. Interested laymen are perfectly capable of
>assessing evidence, argumentation and calling "experts" to account
>for lapses in same.
Agreed. The approach of some evolutionists is to apply demarcation
criteria to rule out of court the arguments of those who would try to
challenge them. "You are not a scientist, so you cannot discuss
science", is but one example. Meyer points out that such demarcation
arguments are a way to preserve "undeserved dominance" by
eliminating competing hypotheses before they are evaluated:
"The deployment of flawed or metaphysically tendentious demarcation
arguments against legitimate theoretical contenders has produced an
unjustified confidence in the epistemic standing of much evolutionary
dogma, including "the fact of evolution" defined as common descent.
If competing hypotheses are eliminated before they are evaluated,
remaining theories may acquire an undeserved dominance." (Meyer S.C.,
"The Methodological Equivalence of Design & Descent: Can There be a
Scientific `Theory of Creation'?" in Moreland J.P. ed., "The
Creation Hypothesis", InterVarsity Press: Illinois, 1994, p100)
This in fact was precisely the approach of Gould in dealing with
Johnson's "Darwin on Trial":
"Gould's review of Darwin on Trial took up four pages in the July 1992
issue of Scientific American, appearing more than a year after the
book was published. The review was an undisguised hatchet job, aimed
at giving the impression that my skepticism about Darwinism must be
due to an ignorance of basic facts of biology. To that end Gould
listed a string of objections about matters that had nothing to do
with the main line of argument, and even invoked his own third-grade
teacher as an authority on how to write chapter transitions."
(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove
Ill., Second Edition, 1993, p160).
This is "shooting the messenger" and if the evolutionist will not
answer the argument, the critic of evolution is entitled to draw the
inference that the evolutionist cannot answer it. This in fact was
Johnson's conclusion:
"Far from being discouraged by this treatment, I was elated. Most
books are no longer news a year after publication; mine was apparently
still enough of a menace to merit an all-out attack by America's most
prominent Darwinist. Moreover, Gould on paper turned out to be much
less formidable than the Gould many of my colleagues anticipated.
Everyone who was following the controversy assumed that Gould was the
most formidable adversary I would encounter and many were waiting to
see if he would come up with a devastating response. That he could do
no better than a hit-and-run attack was an implicit admission that he
had no answer on the merits." (Johnson, 1993, p161).
JB>Nor are secondary sources an evil thing. They are like expert
>testimony in a court of law. You don't hear a judge throw out the
>expert's views because the lawyer didn't think of them. Similarly,
>when an expert (even one with a PhD!) writes on a subject, and his
>view happens to correlate with your own, it is perfectly permissible
>to quote him.
Thanks! :-) The real issue is not "secondary sources" but whether
Denis agrees with them. Proof of this is that he is inconsistent,
TE's use secondary sources on this Reflector without attracting
criticism from Denis'. In any event, if I quote a secondary source
and Denis knows a primary source that contradicts it, he can quote
that and maybe he will win that part of the argument. The real
question is whether those sources are primary, secondary or
tertiary), but what they say.
JB>The Priesthood Fallacy would say, "You can't quote anybody unless
y>ou've read the primary literature, like me." Nonsense. The priest
>CAN point out where the quotation is in error, or out of context or
>some such. But he can't fall back into his vestments and ignore it.
Agreed. But here the "priest" has a dilemma. If he descends down
from his pulpit and debates the facts with the laity, there is a real
danger he will lose and he will have no more authority. OTOH, if he
refuses to debate the facts, but relies on priestly mumbo-jumbo about
"primary sources" and the laity not being specialists and so incapable
of understanding the issues (much less debating them) then the laity
will increasingly just dismiss him as irrelevant. The *only* answer
for such a "priest" is to earn the respect of the laity by showing he
actually can answer their arguments fair and square, solely because he
knows the facts better than they. This should not be such a hard task
if the "priest" really does have a better grasp of reality due to his
superior learning.
JB>I received the following via another avenue, but it is so highly
>relevant I have to pass it along. It's from a 1931 book, but it's
>argument is timely and sound.
>
>From: THE BASIS OF EVOLUTIONARY FAITH, Floyd E. Hamilton, James
>Clarke & Company, Limited, London, 1931
>
>"At this point in our discussion we are faced with a serious difficulty.
>Scientists in general claim only scientists have a right to criticize
>scientists. They implicitly or explicitly assume that no one can criticize
>either their evidence or arguments unless he is a scientist of recognized
>standing. They refuse to reply to the arguments or criticisms of a layman,
>or, as was the case when the late William Jennings Bryan attacked evolution,
>they make an ad hominem argument and descend to abuse of the person who
>attacks their position.
Surely not? :-)
JB>If the man who attacks evolution happens to be a
>clergymen he is called a religious bigot, or an ignoramus. If he holds a
>position as a teacher of science, he is called a scientific charlatan and
>impostor. Few are the scientists who would so lower their professional
>dignity as to reply publicly to the arguments in an article or book written by
>a person who was not a professional scientist. They rightly feel that only a
>person who has examined the evidence for evolution has a right to speak on the
>subject, but they at the same time assume that a person who does not believe
>in evolution has never examined the evidence, or at least that he has not
>examined enough of the evidence to make his opinion worth considering. The
>very fact that a person does not believe in evolution is to them proof
>positive that such a man is prejudiced or that he has never examined the
>evidence...But if an otherwise uneducated layman were to study the literature
>on evolution in the standard books and articles on the subject...why should
>not those arguments and proofs be treated seriously ...Of course scientific
>men do not treat them that way, but why should they not? The minds of
>scientific men are of the same kind as the minds of the laity.
Good point. Many academics seem to think that their grey matter is
somehow different from those of lesser mortals. Those with PhD's have
no monopoly on logic and an intelligent generalist, due to his wider
scope may be able to spot fallacies that the more narrow focused
specialist is prone to.
JB>THE MERE DIPLOMA FROM A TECHNICAL SCHOOL OR DOCTORS DEGREE
>FROM SOME UNIVERSITY DOES NOT BESTOW A DIFFERENT KIND OF
>WISDOM UPON THE RECIPIENT, NOR DOES PROFICIENCY IN THE LABORATORY
>IN THE USE OF THE MICROSCOPE PLACE THE BIOLOGIST ABOUT THE LAWS
>OF LOGIC. Evidence or arguments based on facts can be weighed just
>as carefully by the layman as by the scientist, provided the layman
>has the same knowledge of the facts as the scientist. At least the
>layman can weigh arguments and evidence as carefully as a scientist
>who is not a specialist in that particular line...
Agreed. The laymen can gain "the same knowledge of the facts as the
scientist" by reading the same scientific literature as the
specialist. In the case of evolution, this is no major difficulty:
"Access to the relevant scientific information presents no great
difficulty. Charles Darwin and T. H. Huxley wrote for the general
reader, and the same is true of the giants of the neo-Darwinist
synthesis such as Theodosius Dobzhansky, George Gaylord Simpson, and
Julian Huxley. Current authors who address the general public and who
are eminent among scientists include Stephen Jay Gould, Richard
Dawkins, Douglas Futuyma, and a host of other experts.... Most of the
professional scientific literature is available in the premier
scientific journals Nature and Science, the most prestigious
scientific organs in Britain and America respectively, and at a
somewhat more popular level in the British New Scientist and the
Scientific American. Philosophers and historians have also produced
well- informed books. In short the available literature is
voluminous, and the leading scientific figures have always assumed
that nonscientistreaders can understand the essential evidence...."
(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", InterVarsity Press: Illinois,
Second Edition, 1993, p13)
JB>The average scientist has usually had very little training in the
>science of logic, or in the science of evidence. The layman who has had a
>training in logic and the laws of evidence is thus in a far better position to
>criticize accurately the theories and reasoning of the scientist, than is the
>fellow scientist himself. When one reads some of the books on scientific
>subjects that have been published by scientists, one is led to believe that
>courses in logic and evidence should be required in every scientific school!
Agreed. It is a fallacy that those who *do* science are automatically
the only (or even the best) people to talk *about* science. Doing
science is science. Talking *about* science is *philosophy*. And
when that area of science concerns *origins* it also touches on
*theology*.
JB>In conclusion one more fact must be noted. It is not always the
>man who is the closest to the facts who can perceive the inner
>meaning of the facts. Prejudice, professional pride, and zeal for a
>particular theory may lead a scientist innocently into an erroneous
>interpretation of the discoveries he has made. It is as true to-day
>as it was in the time of Caesar, that people are always ready to
>believe what they want to believe, and oftentimes even scientists
>are led into error in this way.
Indeed. Scientists like other people, are quick to see the "speck of
sawdust" in therr brother's eye while paying no attention to the
"plank" in their own eye (Mt 7:3).
JB>A layman who approaches the subject from another point of view, may
>sometimes be able to discover errors in the deductions of the
>scientist that have escaped his notice. The scientist who is
>investigating lines connected with evolution is prejudiced in favour
>of it, so that his eyes may be easily blinded to the facts. The mere
>fact that a layman may be prejudiced against evolution, will make him
>all the more quick to detect errors of reasoning or deficiencies of
>evidence in the evolutionists arguments. The mere fact of prejudice
>against evolution does not necessarily disqualify him as a critic.
>His very prejudice itself may enable him to see facts the others have
>missed." (pp. 37-47)
A great quote Jim. Hamilton's argument is timeless. The problem is
that to those who have convinced themselves that evolution is a "fact
of nature, as well established as the fact that the earth revolves
around the sun" (Gould S.J., Discover, January 1987, in Johnson 1993,
p11), there can be no valid "prejudice against evolution" any more
than there can be against the earth revolving around the sun.
JB>Let us eschew the Priesthood Fallacy and deal with the merits.
Amen. But I fear that the influence of Sir Max Busby may now be too
great:
"We wished to establish ourselves as the new priests of a secular
religion. You see, it is all about power....What I began, however,
continues to gather momentum. Evolutionary thinking is taking over
the collective mind of the culture. This is as I'd planned" (Sir Max
Busby, in Bell J.S., "The Darwin Conspiracy", Vision House, 1995,
p258). :-)
God bless.
Steve
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