The creationists target Indiana

Well, here we go again.

Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, has once again put rationalist Americans on high alert that a state legislator is planning to give a go to at undermining public schools' teaching of biology.

Dennis Kruse (R-Indiana) has announced plans to introduce a bill into legislation drafted by none other than our friends in the Discovery Institute, who have listed amongst their stated goals:

Scientific research and experimentation have produced staggering advances in our knowledge about the natural world, but they have also led to increasing abuse of science as the so-called “new atheists” have enlisted science to promote a materialistic worldview, to deny human freedom and dignity and to smother free inquiry. Our Center for Science and Culture works to defend free inquiry. It also seeks to counter the materialistic interpretation of science by demonstrating that life and the universe are the products of intelligent design and by challenging the materialistic conception of a self-existent, self-organizing universe and the Darwinian view that life developed through a blind and purposeless process.

Lest my more optimistic (and scientific) readers think this won't have a chance, such efforts have already been successful in Louisiana (2008) and Tennessee (2012).  Inevitably it takes the form of some sort of "teach the controversy" argument -- as if instructing students in the findings of valid, peer-reviewed, evidence-supported science represents some kind of satanic indoctrination.  Interesting, too, that no one ever suggests "teaching the controversy" in, for example, chemistry, inducing chemistry teachers to spend a few weeks discussing alchemy -- despite the fact that the findings of evolutionary biologists are no more controversial in scientific circles than those of the chemists.  Oh, and isn't it odd that it seems to be only people who are poorly educated in biological science who think there's a controversy?  (Wait, that's probably just because we biologists were "indoctrinated" ourselves.  Never mind.)

Kruse, for his part, is serious about this.  He pledged when elected to remove evolution from state science standards, and publicly stated, "I'd guess that 80% of Indiana would be oriented with the bible and creation."  No equivocation there, is there?  No mealy-mouthed "teach the controversy" nonsense.  Nope,  just good, old-fashioned young-earth literalism, designed to further hack away at the state of science education in the United States.  It's no wonder there are so many international students in US college science programs, given our determination as a nation to destroy the underpinnings of science teaching in American high schools.

It's to be hoped that the legislators will handle this sensibly (well, in my opinion, "sensibly" would include laughing directly in Kruse's face, but I'm not optimistic enough to hope for that).  Kruse has attempted this sort of thing before, and failed, the last time because the legislature refused to vote and the bill died when they adjourned -- a remarkably spineless way to handle things, and one which doesn't bode well for the future.

The whole thing makes me despair a little.  Of course, that's what Kruse et al. want; to wear down the opposition, to make them give up out of sheer exhaustion.  I don't think they reckon with the likes of Dr. Scott, however, who doesn't strike me as the capitulating sort.  I think her attitude can much better be summed up in the immortal words of Captain Mathazar from Galaxy Quest:  "Never give up, never surrender."

An evening with Dr. Eugenie C. Scott

Last night I had the privilege of attending a lecture by one of my heroes, and getting to meet her and chat with her afterwards.  Her name is Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, the director of the National Center for Science Education.

The subject of the talk was the relationship between science and religion, a topic that is of great interest both to Dr. Scott and myself.  Dr. Scott has been a passionate exponent of keeping religion out of the science classroom, and her efforts have been instrumental in the overturning of state mandates that high school biology teachers "teach the controversy" regarding evolution (amongst scientists, there is none) or include "alternate explanations" (most often intelligent design, which is a fundamentally non-scientific stance).

Dr. Scott's talk last night revolved around what she called "three ways of knowing" -- authority, personal experience/insight, and science.  Each of them, she said, has its limitations, and is useful in different situations.  Science's limitations in particular include the fact that it only addresses natural processes and natural explanations -- it is silent on issues of the supernatural, and even in the realm of the natural world stops short of giving meaning to what is out there.  In particular, she took exception with statements such as the following by Richard Dawkins (from River Out of Eden): "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference."  Her objection was not that she didn't agree with it -- she is, she said, a philosophical materialist -- but that it is not a scientific statement.

I thought it was an interesting argument, but after letting it bubble about in my brain for twelve hours, I'm not sure I actually agree with it.  Science does attach meaning to things; rightly or wrongly, scientists do more than what she claims, which is to draw inferences from data about relationships between variables.  When a scientist in my favorite discipline, which is evolutionary biology, states that stripes in zebras serve the function of breaking up the animals' profile when the herd is in flight, making it harder for predators to single out one particular individual, (s)he has crossed the line into an unprovable assertion -- albeit a logical, and fairly benign, one.  That stripes are selected for is obvious; zebras have stripes.  What the ultimate purpose of stripes is, is another matter entirely.  And science does often have a lot to say on such matters, although careful scientists are rightly cautious about granting such statements too much weight.

And as far as the difference between natural and supernatural, I wonder very much if that is not itself an artificial distinction.  If things we consider supernatural (gods, spirits, ghosts, demons, and so on) actually exist, it points to some pretty fundamental truths about the universe, and says a lot about how the world around us is put together.  The existence of such entities should leave traces -- evidence -- and that evidence should be accessible to evaluation by scientists.  Dr. Scott's claim that the supernatural (should it exist) is the sole provenance of non-scientific ways of study is, I think, drawing a false dichotomy.  We cannot (as she said) detect god in a test tube; "we have no theometer."  But evidence of a spiritual world's existence would, I think, be detectable in other ways than the notoriously unreliable appeals to authority and mystical insight.  The lack of such evidence drives us to the most parsimonious explanation, namely, that such entities do not exist.

In any case, it was a brilliant lecture, and it was an honor to meet finally someone whose work I have admired for years.  And personally, Dr. Scott is a gracious, funny, and highly articulate woman.  After the lecture, when I went up to shake her hand and thank her for coming to Ithaca, I told her that I had a t-shirt captioned "Skeptical Squares," with wonderful caricatures of nine prominent skeptics.  (If you want one, go here -- you can choose from amongst dozens of scientists and philosophers.)  And one of my nine favorite skeptics was her.

"My goodness," she said, laughing.  "I am overwhelmed by my own fame.  I barely know what to say."  If so, it was the first time that evening that she was at a loss for words.