I'm not talking about people who sincerely question current scientific theory or who choose to believe in creation as a matter of faith. I'm talking about those individuals and organizations who knowingly spread disinformation to the unsuspecting (gullible?) masses.
The comparison of scientists' frauds and Creationists' frauds is important, but needs to be exhibited in the context of who they are trying to fool. Scientists' audience is other scientists. I can say this with reasonable authority, since I am a scientist. Of the many frauds I have seen over the years, none were intended to trick the public. All were intended to trick other scientists into thinking the perp had made an important discovery. The motivation has been obtaining or retaining grant support, gaining momentary fame, or in at least one case, pathological lying (according to the perp's dad).
There are different levels of fraud, as well. Outright faking of data is rather rare. Not even Haeckel did this. The more common thing is "editing" the images to make the conclusion appear to be more strongly supported than it really is. Sometimes, the conclusion is right, and the "editing" isn't detected for a long time. Other times, the "editing" is major, and is detected readily. In Haeckel's case, we pretty much knew in the 60's that his model of "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" was wrong. But it remained extremely clear that vertebrate embryos have remarkable similarities, and that most of the basic embryonic parts develop into the same basic animal structures.
What is the intent and the context of the creationist frauds? Their intent is very clearly to get their particular religion into the public schools, and to prevent the teaching of one of the most firmly-supported theories in all of science. They continue to use the same frauds over and over if no one in the audience calls them on it. The written material (cf Well's Icons) is flat-out wrong scientifically, and quite deceitful. Their audience is the general public. Their effect has been to decrease the overall effectiveness with which science--all science, not just evolution--is taught to and understood by Americans.
Science frauds are not intended to sway public opinion, or to create laws that affect public education. Creationist frauds are designed to do both.
Why, then, are the science frauds perpetuated in textbooks? Generally, because the textbook publishers hire professional writers, not scientists, to write the books. Even when professional scientists write texts, they cannot know all of biology. Therefore, textbooks tend to be patterened after earlier textbooks. Furthermore, the publilc seems to expect science teaching to be about memorizing facts, not about skeptical thinking (which is what it really is). Therefore, the books that are adopted in school systems tend to be the ones that present everything as previously-learned facts rather than as current explanations of available data. Eventually, though, frauds or mistakes are discovered and removed. It takes longer in textbooks because of the replication of prior works, but eventually the errors are fixed.
Creationists, however, still use Haeckel's embryos as if it is an on-going fraud by scientists trying to push an erroneous theory. They still use Paley's watch argument, even if they rephrase it around bacterial flagella. They still use the "no one was there to see it" argument, and the "second law of thermodynamics" argument. They still use the Paluxy footprints and the dinosaur footprint with the sheepshead-fish tooth in it. They still use the probability calculations that are relevant only to a fake model of evolution. These things are not corrected. Instead, they are expanded, and new books are published containing them. What they never, ever do is say "go out into the world and look at what you see." If you do that, you find it harder and harder to accept the creationist explanation.
I had to go for the chicks and the money. Remember Baker, Swaggert et al? Good christians the lot !
It is easy for Creationists to attack the ToE due to its complexity, but their attacks are in the majority, dishonest.
"I'd rather know than believe" Carl Sagan.
"The worst Government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when the fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression." H.L. Mencken
The chicks and money are pretty compelling, all right.
The bigger question is why so many people are willing to accept what they say as Truth, when there is no evidence to back up what they say. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that contradicts what they say. Why do so many people deny the evidence, and blindly follow the charlatans?
The chicks and money are pretty compelling, all right.
The bigger question is why so many people are willing to accept what they say as Truth, when there is no evidence to back up what they say. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that contradicts what they say. Why do so many people deny the evidence, and blindly follow the charlatans?
Emotions. It's the one thing that can get people going. Compare say a bible bashing fundamentalist V's a "dispastionate" scientist. It's not the content people hear, it's the passion.
The preacher can come out with the most vitriolic, hateful pronouncements and people will listen but put a scientist up there and the outcome is different- because when the subject matter is something that is considered difficult, most people will switch off.
While this is an oversimlification of situation, it is how the YECs work the people- "Scientists can't explain this and that, but I can show you the way to heaven etc, etc"
Scientists generally seek to explain while YECs seek to control. And unfortunately, in this respect YECs have an upperhand due to their influence in high places.
"I'd rather know than believe" Carl Sagan.
"The worst Government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when the fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression." H.L. Mencken
Chem wrote:Emotions. It's the one thing that can get people going. Compare say a bible bashing fundamentalist V's a "dispastionate" scientist. It's not the content people hear, it's the passion.
An excellent point. That's how the last election was won. The data were overwhelmingly in favor of the Dems, but the Reps played on emotions. It didn't matter whether their "information" was wrong, because so many people don't pay attention to the content.
This seems to me to be terribly dangerous in the current world, where we need logic and attention to data if we are to avoid destroying the ecological systems that sustain us. I guess that, despite its maladaptiveness at present, it is an evolutionary holdover from a time when we could not communicate so well, and when we had far less information to assimilate.
The wonder is that the big guys here think it is more appropriate to push these silly religious agendas while wholly ignoring the critical issues that threaten us. You'd think we could set aside the evolution/creation business and the gay marriage goofiness, and work together to save ourselves from destruction in the near future. But nah, that requires paying attention to content, not emotion.
I'm not sure I would agree that emotion is the biggest ingredient here. In my view, it is simply belief. The fundamentalists have certain underlying assumptions that are deeply embedded in their world view. The emotion stems from the passion with which they hold these views, and as you say, in the way they express and defend them.
I use "emotion" as it is used in psychology, with reference to the preferred mechanism by which the brain automatically processes information and reaches judgements. In an over-generalized sense, we can think of information processing along a linear scale from a more-emotional, gut-level feeling to a dispassionate, nerdy, analysis. Scientists tend to come from the nerdy side of the scale; the general population shows a slight majority on the emotional side.
Of course, even to consider this kind of analysis of how people respond to information requires a pretty nerdy outlook to begin with. Many people don't think that this kind of dichotomy feels right. This may also underlie some of the "math phobia" that is common among people--if your brain is wired to process information emotionally, it's pretty hard to manipulate non-emotional numbers. It also underlies the typical stereotype of scientists as anti-social geeks who aren't much fun at parties--they tend to think about stuff and analyze it, and don't always respond to the emotional cues that others present in their speech and body language.
So, if one processes information based on how it feels, then one is likely to buy into the creationists' arguments, and ignore the scientists' information.
As one of the geeky types, I can offer a number of examples of complete miscommunication between myself and others, or among others who have sought my advice when I was Associate Chair of our department. If you put a geeky type with a gut-level feeling type, they can say exactly the same thing, but end up arguing fiercely because they are saying it differently, and don't realize that they actually agree. It's quite weird.
By this logic, creationists who present known-to-be-false information are either really despicable, purposeful liars (which should be impossible for a True Christian), or their brains are wired so that they focus on the emotional, gut-level feeling aspect of the information, and not on the facts themselves. The details are not the important things, but are merely the packaging for the "real" message.
Scientists (and, I suspect, John Kerry) are more likely to have no idea that there is emotional content, and have no idea about body language, and believe that it is completely irrelevant how they say what they say because the content is the entirety of the message.
In the sense that you use "belief," I'd say that this is part of the emotional, gut-level processing of information, because it cannot be founded on empirical information. It becomes the world view without question, and without geeky analysis of the assumptions that underlie it. For some of us, it may not even be possible to do a geeky analysis based on data, because of how our brains are wired.
Hence, the geeky types often fall back on calling the others "ignorant," because they can't imagine anyone not looking at the available information just the way they do themselves. They think the emotional types don't know the information, rather than that they process it differently. The emotional types often fight back by calling the geeky ones atheistic baby-killing liberals who are bent on destroying the moral fabric of our society, because they can't imagine anyone not having their own gut-level feeling about where we're going and why.
I'm not sure I would agree that emotion is the biggest ingredient here. In my view, it is simply belief. The fundamentalists have certain underlying assumptions that are deeply embedded in their world view. The emotion stems from the passion with which they hold these views, and as you say, in the way they express and defend them.
We all react to our environment.
If you follow sport you can get upset if your team losses- some people where I work are very quite on a Monday following their teams defeat the previous weekend (I'm talking about football) and this wouldn't be in the same leauge as talking about belief systems.
We have all seen Hitler gesticulating on the podium, do you think most of the people there actually agreed with his politics? Transfer this same effect to a preacher spouting fire and brimstone, the context may be different but the effect is the same- working on peoples emotions/ reptilian part of our brain and they will all come out ready to do the preacher's bidding.
Of course their original belief will be one of the factors affecting how they react to what they hear (or don't as the case may be) but many of the skilled talkers know how to create an effect without offering any substance.
I've experienced something similar at a Martial Arts meeting some years back where one of the founders of Tae Kwon Do(ITF version) was speaking. If he had asked the audience to get up and bash their heads off the wall I don't think there would have been a dissenting voice in the place (myself included). It's how people react- emotionally.
On a lighter note, has anyone considered the similarities between martial arts and religion- they both have many "denominations" claiming to be the one and only!
"I'd rather know than believe" Carl Sagan.
"The worst Government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when the fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression." H.L. Mencken
Jose wrote:The bigger question is why so many people are willing to accept what they say as Truth, when there is no evidence to back up what they say.
As my pastor once said "You might be descended from a monkey, but I'm not!"
I've heard similar sentiments over the years from others who were not so religious, or educated. I think it's just anthropocentric prejudice.
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto His people. Exodus 32:14
Corvus wrote:Perhaps the ends justifies the means to some people and certain groups feel they have more to gain and not much to loose if they manipulate the truth.
I believe this occurs because Creationists are not just defending creationism, they are defending their entire belief system. Their belief is based on faith, if it is shown that any part of that belief is incorrect then it logically follows that their entire belief system is under threat.
It is amazing what peoples minds will allow them to get away with when their backs are against the wall, you have to realise that you are not dealing with people who are particularly logical, they are somehow able to justify all kinds of hypocritical behaviour without becoming concious of any inconsistencies, if they are concious of it then it comes down to the fact that the ends justify the means.
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