Provocations

Michael LaBossiere

Number Eight: A New Dogma

In his February 2002 Skeptic column in Scientific American Michael Shermer launched an attack on Intelligent Design theory in favor of the theory of evolution. In its crudest form, ID is old-fashioned creationism. In a more sophisticated form, ID is the view that there is a guiding intelligence behind the universe. In contrast, evolutionary theory denies the presence of such an intelligent designer and instead appeals to mindless physical processes in its explanations. There are still some people who deny the truth of evolution and Shermer, in a wonderful ad hominem, asserted that such denial is "the doppelganger of Holocaust denial…" Some people are not content to merely deny evolution. In the United States (of course) there have been recent attempts to have ID taught in public schools. In response, Shermer says "To counter the nefarious influence of the ID creationists…it is not enough to argue that creationism is wrong; we must also show that evolution is right."

When I read Shermer's column I wrote a letter critical of his approach. First, I pointed out that comparing those who deny evolution to those who deny the Holocaust is an ad hominem or, at least, an unpleasant innuendo-namely that denying evolution is parallel to denying the horrible murder of millions. Second, I pointed out that the attitude that we must prove one view wrong and another right runs contrary to the proper way of engaging in critical and scientific thinking-namely, having no agenda but the truth. Unfortunately, I could not resist a bit of sarcasm and wrote "In his zeal to defend his faith in evolutionary theory, Shermer violates those standards." While I was referring to the standards of critical thinking, Shermer elected to claim in his July 2002 column that I was asserting the view that "evolution requires faith to believe."

While I suspect that Shermer was merely careless when he made a straw man out of my argument, his attitude does show signs of dogmatism. Ironically, his methods are similar to those used by religious dogmatists-ad hominem attacks on disbelievers, a very devoted commitment to a particular dogma rather than truth and, of course, the misrepresentation of the views of those who dare to dissent.

Unfortunately, Shermer does not seem to be alone in his dogmatism. The July 2002 issue of Scientific American featured an article entitled "15 Ways to Expose Creationist Nonsense." While this article by John Rennie made many lucid and reasonable points, there are two things about it that concern me greatly.

First is the title. Asserting that an opposing view is nonsense, even when it is nonsense, is not very professional. More importantly, it violates the standards of good reasoning-opposing views are not to be defeated by mockery or name-calling, but solely by arguments. Finally, while many creationist arguments are rather flawed there are arguments for intelligent design that are well reasoned and provide challenges worthy of respect-hardly nonsense at all. Ironically, religious dogmatists also employed this erroneous method against their scientific opponents in the past.

The second is Rennie's view that "'Creation science' is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism-it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms." While this might be an apt description of modern science it is also a question begging principle. This is because it dismisses, by mere fiat, anything that is not a natural mechanism from the realm of science. While the world might be fully explainable in terms of natural mechanisms, this principle must be proven and not merely assumed. Not surprisingly religious dogmatists assumed that almost all things must have a divine explanation and that other types of explanation could and should be dismissed. Both views are equally dogmatic and equally unacceptable.

This dogmatism is not limited to Scientific American. Even a cursory examination of relevant journals and popular scientific magazines will show a more or less unquestioning commitment to evolution. The strength of this commitment is such that when it comes to explaining phenomena such as psychology, morality and social institutions the question is not "can evolution explain this?" but "how does evolution explain this?"

By now most readers probably suspect I am a creationist who is eager to smuggle God back into science. This is far from the truth. My goal is not to attack evolution or defend ID. My goal is to attack dogmatism. It just so happens that the newest dogmatists wear lab coats instead of priestly garb. Regardless of its guise, dogmatism is the enemy of both science and philosophy. Our goal is and must be the truth and not pushing a view we happen to favor or regard as fashionable.

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Provocations will next be updated early April 2003

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Previous Provocations

1. Evolution, Analogy and Complexity
2. Biomimicry
3. Lies - the best medicine?
4. The Unbreakable Skeptic
5. The Case for Nanoweapons
6. Fraud, Science and Ethics
7. Ownership and wayward genes