Brian Wrote:
> I think anyone responsible for teaching or advising young people owes
> it to them to put aside their own personal preferences and give as many
> options as possible
Wouldn't it be great if the Darwinists would do this? Suggest this to
Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett and see what kind of reply you would
get. Suggest to the professors and directors of research institutes that
they 'put aside their personal preferences' and allow research which
could falsify Darwinism or research (like Sheldrake's or Lawrence
Edwards') which might suggest that there are forces at work in the living
world which cannot be explained by current orthodoxy. Would this not be
reasonable in the interests of giving young people as many options as
possible? The dogmatism which prevents open enquiry comes mainly from the
side of establishment science.
However, young people or people in general are not necessarily always
best served by a bland, uncommitted 'consumer choice' model - which is
presumably why organisations like Which? in the UK are so successful,
because people want to know what are the reasons for preferring one
option to another. There is no need to patronise young people: if they
have been taught to think and question authority of any kind at an early
age, they are perfectly able to weigh one argument against another. What
they need to see are people who are not afraid to state their views and
beliefs with conviction. What undermines their confidence and leads to
apathy and alienation is to be told as fact that the earth is just a
speck of dust floating in a cold, inhospitable, meaningless universe and
that they should think of themselves as "survival machines, robot
vehicles, blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as
genes".
What they do need to be told is that there are conflicting philosophies
out there competing for their minds. Then they need to be presented with
the objective evidence: the facts of mutation and heredity; the fossil
record with all its gaps and mysteries; the basis for the calculations
about the age of the universe and the earth (including all the
assumptions); comparative embryology etc. They also need to be taught
some history of science, so that they can understand the background to
the struggle for power between the competing philosophies; perhaps some
basic ideas from Popper and Kuhn and others; certainly a mention of the
work of David Bohm and Rupert Sheldrake. They should also be made
familiar with creation myths from around the world and with the history
of human consciousness reflected in the changing beliefs about mankind's
relationship to both the natural and the spiritual worlds. Only then
might they have a chance to make up their own minds in freedom.
Phillip Johnson is right in suggesting that our culture most often
presents the options simplistically as a choice between fundamentalism
and materialism, because a genuine third option (which is not merely the
accomodation to evolution science which most Christian churches have
adopted) has not been presented with sufficient force. People of all ages
have been signally failed by their spiritual leaders, who have been
forced to admit that 'they don't know any better' (than the scientists)
about the creation and evolution of the world. Christianity lost touch
with its esoteric roots a long time ago and had nothing to present as an
alternative to evolution science. It accomodated itself by agreeing to
accept the science whilst claiming that God could still be slipped into
the picture somehow. The stance has been somewhat less than convincing!
If the position of evolution science were based on hard evidence, one
might have to accept that this is the best they could do. What Phillip
Johnson and others are trying to point out is that evolution science is
conceptually and evidentially flawed and doesn't actually have much of a
leg to stand on. The other day I heard Steven Jones, a highly respected
British biologist who certainly has no brief for creationism, describe
the way Dawkins and others talk about the gene and DNA as simply 'bad
science'. We are literally bedevilled by bad science and lots of very
sloppy thinking of the 'selfish gene' kind.
I seem to remember that when Dawkins first presented the idea of the
'selfish' gene, he was at pains to assure his readers that this was
purely a flight of fancy, even a silly idea (which of course it is!). Ten
years or so later the 'silly idea' has become common currency and its
author is feted an an outstanding scientist. Now there's a need for the
baloney detector!
Is Dawkins' idea of 'cumulative selection' another of these flights of
fancy which will be trumpeted as solid fact in a few years' time? It is
after all only an idea with no evidential basis, an attempt to paper over
one of the many glaring holes in a decrepit theory.
This is not the time for appeasement. Evolution science must be called to
account wherever and whenever it makes unsupported claims. It must be
challenged repeatedly to prove its case. It has been allowed to get away
with murder - the murder of objectivity, logical thinking and an honest
appraisal of the evidence - for far too long.
As someone who is highly critical of the equally simplistic picture
traditional Christianity paints of creation, I can still say: more power
to Phil Johnson's elbow!
Paul Carline