Skeptico

Egnor Attributes Scientific Progress to Religion

OK, so I’m a little late to this one.  But I still  think I have something to add.  Well I would.

PZ wrote a piece extolling the virtues of science over religion in curing diseases such as cancer, and bemoaning the shortage of funds to support research.  (And also bemoaning the money wasted on useless woo projects such as homeopathy and creationism.)  The Discovery Institute’s pet brain surgeon, Michael Egnor, then penned what he probably imagined was a decent rebuttal - Cancer Research, Prayer, and St. Jude.  A snippet:

I take exception to his claim that prayer and religious faith had nothing to do with the improvements in the treatment of cancer.

The remarkable progress in the treatment of cancer in the past several decades had a lot to do with faith and prayer. Myers misunderstands the origins of modern medical science and the history and nature of cancer treatment.

[…]

Advances in science and cancer treatment emerged, not from science in isolation, but from a culture that made science possible and that directed the fruits of scientific work toward good and compassionate goals. The culture from which science has emerged is Judeo-Christian culture, and modern science has arisen only in Judeo-Christian culture.

PZ responded, as did Orac and Steven Novella, so I don’t need to repeat all their points in detail.  Obviously scientific discoveries took place in other cultures apart from Judeo-Christian ones, and even more obviously, the main contribution of religion to scientific discovery has been to suppress it and deny reality, rather than to encourage any new discoveries.  Opposition to stem cell research on religious grounds is an obvious example.  As is Egnor’s support of the Discovery Institute, a body that wants to deny evolution and instead promote the pseudoscientific idea of Intelligent Design.  Egnor even denies that knowledge of evolution has any bearing on medical research – a view that if accepted by researchers, would without doubt hinder new discoveries.  Egnor’s views are decidedly anti-science.

Steven Novella also noted that Egnor’s argument was a diversionary tactic.  PZ had argued that science, not woo or prayer, has resulted in improvements in treatments for cancer; Egnor shifted the argument to claim that only faith and religion motivated those scientific discoveries.  Well OK, he can think that if he wants, but hasn’t he just admitted that it is only through science that these discoveries can actually be made?  If you examine Egnor’s almost 2,000 words, you won’t find anything that suggests science is not the best (or only) method for making new discoveries in medicine.  And yet this is the man who would bypass the scientific method to teach pseudoscience in schools, and have researchers ignore the implications of evolution in their work.  His best argument is that, well, er, science was motivated by religion.  Really?  That’s the best you got?

OK then.  So my question to Michael Egnor is this: now that you have apparently conceded that only science will result in progress, will you publicly admit that we should consider only scientific ideas about how we got here, and disavow quasi religious ideas such as ID?  No?  I don’t think he will either.

I want to comment on one additional point he made:

The application of science to care for the sick presupposes the view that we have an ethical obligation to help the weakest among us. The atheist view of metaphysics — that the universe has no purpose and no designer and no transcendent ethical code — provides no impetus to scientific inquiry or to the compassionate application of scientific knowledge.

An example he uses is the claimed higher rates for survival of epidemics in early Christian communities, compared with those in pagan communities.  This, he claims, was due to the care that Christians provided for the sick, and their refusal to flee when an epidemic struck.  (In pagan communities, healthy people fled.)  Assuming this is true, all this shows is that early Christians were better than early pagans.  Or, if you like, Christian irrationality was better than pagan irrationality.  Of course, preferable to both is rationality.  By now we should have progressed beyond the world view of second century pagans, with or without religion. 

Of course, Egnor’s argument is just the old “no morality without Jesus” drivel we have all heard and debunked many times before.  Good people do good things and bad people do bad things, religion notwithstanding.  But as someone once said, only religion can make good people do bad things.  Egnor shows here that his opposition to evolution is not based on rationality, but on his religious beliefs.  Which is great for him, I guess.  But not something anyone else need take seriously.

Poor Babies

The Expelled nitwits apparently set up a MySpace page to promote their silly mocumentary. On it they had an online poll to ask readers if they thought Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. It seems no one was moderating the page over the weekend because up until this morning, 98% of those voting (over 400,000 people) voted “NO”.

Sometime today one of the Expelled twits finally woke up to this embarrassment and… (you know what’s coming) deleted the poll.

Aaah – the poor babies. Boo hoo. Couldn’t stand any dissent so they took their bat and ball and they’re going home so there. Wankers.

I took a screenshot of it Saturday when the “no” vote was only 273,000. I wish I’d taken another one Sunday now, but as PZ reports, the poll is still available here. And you can still vote.

Typical creationist liars and cowards. They make a film about how dissent is not allowed, and yet they’re the first ones to censor anything that dissents from their little fairy story world view. Expelled is right.

What’s Ben Stein Smoking?

I just watched Expelled presenter Ben Stein’s Thursday night appearance on the Craig Ferguson late night talk show. And I must say, it was strange. I was expecting him to talk about how “Darwinism” led to Hitler, and similar nonsense, but what he actually said was just weird:

[Expelled is] about the fact that people think that Darwinism explains everything and we want to say that Darwinism doesn’t explain the laws of gravity, Darwinism doesn’t explain the laws of thermodynamics..

and

We love [Darwinism], but it just doesn’t explain everything, and we don’t want people to be fired if they say the planets stay in their orbits maybe because of something other than Darwinism. And we don’t think Darwinism explains how the planets stay in their orbits..

and

[Darwin’s] followers claim it explains everything including astronomy…

He didn’t really give any other arguments. As I said – just weird. Which scientist thinks Darwinism explains astronomy? Which scientist would be fired for suggesting Darwinism doesn’t explain the planets’ orbits? Obviously none, but it was such an obvious straw man that I actually wondered if Stein realizes what a stupid film he’s made and is trying to distance himself from it – making out the whole thing was a big joke. It’s hard to believe even he thinks scientists are losing their jobs for suggesting Darwinism doesn’t explain astronomy (whatever “explain astronomy” means). Although admittedly with creationists it’s hard at times to tell their real claims from parody.

At one point he even said:

It is probably best to watch [Expelled] while high…

Maybe. Although I think it more likely they were high while making the film. Come to think of it, that would explain Stein’s performance on Thursday night.

Expelled – No Stork Theory Allowed

Ben Stein’s next project following his success with Expelled. It’s just a short clip. But funny. And it features Richard Dawkins!  Although who knew he was such a sex maniac?

Expelled Exposed

I thought I would add my name to the list of people linking to Expelled Exposed:

…a detailed look at the Ben Stein movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. We'll show you why this movie is not a documentary at all, but anti-science propaganda aimed at creating the appearance of controversy where there is none.

The site contains a list of links to reviews of Expelled from those who have seen it, as well as the truth behind Expelled’s claims, including the real explanations for those academics supposedly discriminated against for supporting creationism.

All in all, a great resource on the reality of Expelled.

Official – Complexity Does Not Prove ID

From Neurologica today I read this quote from creationist Michael Egnor writing in the creationist Discovery Institute’s website:

Complexity can arise without intelligent design, but complexity is not the same thing as design.

Huu-whaaaaa? He clearly didn’t run that by Michael Behe. Because, according to Behe, and virtually all other ID proponents, complexity is the one thing you can use to determine design. That has been their entire argument – life is “too complex” to have arisen without a designer. Now Egnor, writing in the Discovery Institute’s own paper, states clearly that this is not true. And I didn’t take it out of context – read the whole thing. Finally, Egnor says something sensible. Although one wonders how such a blunder was allowed to slip in.

I’m bookmarking that page for the next time some creationist insists life is “too complex” to have arisen without a designer.  “Complexity can arise without intelligent design” – official, The Discovery Institute.

Evolution Not Responsible for Hitler

This won’t be news to any rational people, but it may be news to creationists. And I know the subject has already been dealt with by numerous others, but this creationist post (also here – highlight the text after “spoiler” at the bottom), describing PZ’s recent expulsion from the creationist movie “Expelled”, describes some “specific content” of the film that I think needs a reply. It’s this:

Many scenes are centered around the Berlin Wall, and Ben Stein being Jewish actually visits many death camps and death showers. In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

Really creationists? That’s what you’re going with? Really? Well OK, if that’s the approach the religious creationists want to take, I’m happy to debate that point. There are (at least) three reasons why this isn’t a valid argument against evolution. Each one by itself is enough to sink this ridiculous creationist canard. They are:

1. So what?
2. Hitler wasn’t inspired by evolution
3. Hitler was religiously inspired

So what?

Really – so what? Even if it were true that wouldn’t mean evolution was wrong. The argument is just a fallacious appeal to consequences: the truth of something does not depend on the consequences of it being true; the truth of something depends on whether it is actually true or not. Nuclear weapons are terrible things, but that doesn’t mean that E does not equal M C squared. Even if Hitler was inspired by evolution, that wouldn’t mean evolution was wrong.

Even so, if it Hitler was actually inspired by evolution, that would be a bit of a black mark for evolution. But:

Hitler wasn’t inspired by evolution

Evolution is a process where favorable mutations are selected by nature – that is, mutations that make it more likely the organism will reproduce, will be passed to offspring. Although the phrase “survival of the fittest” has become popular, the idea that this means “only the strongest survive” or that living beings fight each other for survival (and so only the strongest survive), is false. “Fittest” actually means “most able to reproduce”. That sometimes means “the strongest”, but in social groups (such as primates), “fittest” can also mean “well regarded by the group”. For example, a rogue early hominid, who murdered his peers, might well have been excluded by the group and (therefore) would not have been able to reproduce.

Hitler’s solution was the opposite of allowing nature to select. Hitler’s approach was to artificially remove groups of people he didn’t like, from the gene pool, in what was undeniably a sickening version of selective breeding, as practiced by farmers for around 10,000 years before Darwin. If Hitler learned of the opportunities of such selective breeding from anywhere, it was from farmers’ knowledge and experience that predated Darwin. Which means that Hitler’s final solution was, if anything, an example of intelligent design.

So Hitler wasn’t inspired by Darwin. If Hitler was inspired by anything:

Hitler was religiously inspired

If you want to know what Hitler really believed, a good place to look would be what he actually wrote in his plan for the revival of Germany - Mein Kampf. Get a load of this:

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-and this against their own nation.

Not convinced? Try this:

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: 'by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

There’s a lot more of the same in Mein Kampf, and in other speeches Hitler gave, if you can stomach reading any more. It doesn’t sound to me as though Charles Darwin was much of an influence. In fact, I haven’t been able to find even one mention of Darwin or the theory of evolution in Mein Kampf. Not one. Now, isn’t that strange? Don’t you think that if Hitler had been influenced by Darwin that he would have mentioned it somewhere in his book? Why wouldn’t he? But not even once.

No. Hitler’s ideas of the superior Aryan race were quasi religious mythology based Christian and/or occult beliefs. This is what inspired the extermination of the Jews – not evolution.

Christians will say that Hitler wasn’t inspired by “true” Christianity (or even by a “True Scotsman”). Well, maybe not. But so what? They try to blame evolution for the Holocaust on much flimsier evidence. Actually no evidence – no link to Hitler at all apart from their own flawed understanding of evolution. But Hitler can be directly quoted using Christianity as a justification for his treatment of the Jews. It was clearly Hitler’s religious or quasi religious beliefs – not an over reliance on critical thinking and science – that inspired him. And these flawed beliefs were combined with an authoritarian streak that demanded respect and unquestioning obedience. Hum… religious or quasi religious, not backed by evidence, demanding respect and obedience it hadn’t earned…

… Remind you of anything? 

Christian creationists may live to regret opening up this particular can of worms. In future, every time they trot out this tired piece of propaganda they should have Hitler’s real Christian influence, rationally for the Holocaust and his exact words thrust back down their throats. Evolution wasn’t responsible for the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the result of the exact same kind of unquestioning groupthink that characterizes religion. Or, to paraphrase the creationist twit I quoted at the top: Religion leads to unquestioning belief in what you’re told by authorities, leads to acceptance of an authoritarian state, leads to eugenics, leads to Holocaust, leads to Nazi Germany.

I’m not necessarily saying that Christianity alone was responsible for the Holocaust. Without Christianity, Hitler would probably have found another excuse. But I am saying religious thinking was responsible. And Hitler’s own words lay the blame with Christianity, not evolution. Hey, I didn’t start this.

Other Reading

The Panda’s Thumb From Darwin to Hitler, or not? (spoiler – it’s “not”), and From Darwin to Hitler, or not? Part II

Talk Reason’s Creationists, Hitler and Evolution.

Orac’s Random dispatch from the road: More on Darwin & Hitler

A page of links about Hitler's Christianity

Red state Rabble writes Richard Weikart: Workin’ in a Quote Mine

Pharyngula’s List of Hitler quotes — he was quite the vocal Catholic

Orac’s amusing take on Hitler Zombie massacre over evolution!

Depleted Cranium today with more on Atheists, Nazis and Genocide, oh my!

Expelled from Expelled

Read PZ’s description about how he was not allowed in to see the new dumb creationist film “Expelled” – the one about how poor old Intelligent Design is being discriminated against in favor of Evolution because it (ID, not evolution), has not passed scientific muster. They wouldn’t let in PZ but did let in Richard Dawkins.  What morons.

Also read this account from a pro-ID person who supposedly witnessed the whole thing. Apparently he thinks that “anyone walking away from this film will be convinced that the merits of Intelligent Design should be on the same level playing field as Evolutionary Theory”. The comments to that post so far are critical (to be polite) of this guy, his account and his view of the film. Worth a read if only to marvel at the IDists' stupidity.

Vox Keeps His Readers In The Dark

Via the Bad Astronomer I read this absurd post from a blogger called Vox who seems to think that dark matter and dark energy are outside the scope of science which means that secular societies are “arguably insane”.  Of course, Vox’s argument is unarguably retarded.  He’s saying that because we don’t know exactly what dark matter and dark energy are, they’re outside the realm of science. But that’s obviously false: it’s only through science that we even know that dark matter and dark energy exist. There is nothing in the bible about the universe being 72.1% dark energy and 23.3% dark matter. Nor does it say on which day God created them.  They don’t exist, according to the nomadic goat herders who wrote the bibble.  Furthermore, if we are ever to understand dark matter and dark energy, that will only happen through the process of science, not by assuming it’s too complex and so Goddidit.  Vox's silly argument is just another lame Science Doesn't Know Everything appeal.

I did post a comment on Saturday, asking the assembled loons who support the blog’s author, what other method they would use to try to understand dark matter and dark energy. Unsurprisingly they had no reply.

Judgment Day – Tonight on PBS TV

Tonight, 8.00pm on PBS (US TV) is Nova’s Judgment Day - a two hour montage of interviews and reconstructions of the Kitzmiller vs Dover case from 2005. (Wow – was that really two years ago? Time flies.) The documentary apparently features all the main players except (inexplicably) Michael Behe. Or perhaps not so inexplicably. Remember, the Dover case was where Behe got to admit that Intelligent Design was a science just like astrology. I would want to forget that too if I were Behe.

Looks like an interesting program, anyway.