Why Creationism is Wrong: Definitions

One of the side effects of the great expansion of printed materials which had occurred in the 15th and 16th centuries was the standardization of language used by those involved in technical fields. Engineers, naturalists and mathematicians, over the course of many generations, began to communicate in terms which only they could understand. So, it didn't matter if, say, two astronomers were as separated by distance or parlance as far as Paris and Pisa, the technical aspects of their correspondence could be understood. The characteristically ubiquitous language of scientific disciplines has now been carried to its logical conclusion. Today, all biologists, for instance, use the generic and specific binomial to describe any organism (e.g. Felis sylvestris, rather than, the housecat). 

The commonality of language helps to prevent a confusion of terms, which would be the inevitable consequence of using colloquial terms for objects or phenomena. Imagine the confusion! A panther could refer to a leopard, but it is also the common name for the North American puma and the South American jaguar. The difficulty would become even more acute if we attempted to describe the amazing molecular machines within our own bodies. What if the enzymes conducting the numerous functions on our DNA had only non-descriptive names, like the DNA Un-Zipping Molecule. Biochemistry wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

Kidding aside, there exists a group of individuals who like to believe they're involved in science, but have difficulty speaking the language of science. Creationists can be frequently identified by their inability to use terms in the proper context, or even give a proper definition. Take the word evolution, which has been so reviled by the Biblical literalists for over a 150 years. Ask almost any creationist, and you're likely to receive many answers, from the beginning of the universe, to the origin of life, to the even less thoughtful "people coming from monkeys". Evolution has even been described as the religion of atheism. For a biologist, evolution means none of those things. It merely means the change in populations of organisms over time. By extension, the theory of evolution is a framework to explain the emergence of new populations, also known biodiversity.

There is also a reason for this inability to use terms properly. Once a creationist is forced to define a term, then the meaning must be defended. Nebulous terms are much more easily guarded, and this allows these dishonest hucksters to shift the goalposts so they can pretend to always be correct. This is especially useful in a "debate" which has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with applying social and political pressure.

Here's another fun example of an undefined definition. The frequently used word "kind" to describe an organism or group of organisms. However, if a creationist is asked to define a "kind", he'll usually be elusive. If, perhaps, one was describing my cat, could she be of the "cat kind"? But given the diversity of felids, how meaningful is this term?  If a sand cat or ocelot are "cat kinds", are lions as well? Or are lions of the "panther kind"? The problem with this definition is that cats alone can be grouped into steadily broader and more inclusive groups until all life on Earth could be included. Watch what happens to the classification of my cat into a "kind", and try to find a position in which she could not be included.

1. The house cat kind.

2. The feline kind, which are generally smaller cats and include the cheetahs and cougars.

3. The felid kind, which would also include panthers.

4. The feliform kind, which would also include hyenas and meerkats.

5. The carnivore kind, which add caniforms such as bears, dogs and sea lions..

6. The mammal kind, characterized by specialized glands for producing milk, which include wallabies and whales.

7. The tetrapod kind, which are all land dwelling vertebrates, from geckos to geese.

8. The vertebrate kind, animals with a bony spinal column, such as halibut and hagfish.

9. The deuterostome kind, which are animals in which the embryo forms the gut from the anus first. Starfish and sea squirts are also deuterostomes.

10. The bilaterate kind, which are all animals which are symmetrically divided from stem to stern, like earthworms and earwigs.

11. The eumetazoan kind, animals made of tissues, such as man o' war and myxozoans.

12. The metazoan kind, all animals, which are any multicellular organisms which must ingest other organisms to gain energy. This kind would include porifera and placazoans.

13. The opisthokont kind, organisms which produce sperm propelling themselves with a posterior flagellum. This group includes mushrooms and molds.

14. The eukaryote kind, which are organisms with a membrane protecting their genetic material, called the nucleus. The kind which adds magnolia and malaria.

15. The biotic kind, life on Earth, from bacteria to bactrian camels.

There are many other characteristics that could be mentioned which would add more exquisite detail, but a few thoughts emerge even from this cursory glance. First, that in trying to define "kind", the creationist must expand into an ever increasing hierarchy which eventually includes anything alive. Second, by demonstrating this hierarchy of "kinds", common ancestry is also demonstrated. 

Finally, the taxonomic levels listed here would have been meaningless unless, of course, biologists had not defined them first.

Why Creationism is Wrong: It's Not About Science

I love science. I am consistently amazed at the intricacy, beauty, and strangeness of the universe as discovered by thousands of our fellow humans. As a hopeful future science educator, I want to share this wonder, as well as the benefits of understanding how nature works and also how science works. By extension, I would also like to demonstrate what is NOT science.

Pseudo-scientific ideas can range from the ridiculous to the dangerous. Flat Earthers and Geo-centrists are mocked because their beliefs are demonstrably false. UFOlogy and ghost hunting require a level of gullibility which is anathema to objective thinking. The anti-vaccination movement based upon fallacious results by a less than credible doctor has caused great damage to public health. All of these endeavors have one characteristic in common, that is they all strive to support a predetermined conclusion.

Science, however, is about pleasure of finding things out (borrowing from Richard Feynman) and “not knowing” can be the catalyst to discovery. This means that one must allow the evidence to lead to a conclusion, and even disprove a beloved hypothesis if it cannot be supported. This is the path to discovery. Creationism is not on the path to discovery, and falls into the same category as crypto-zoology and phlogiston theory.

Anyone who knows me at least understands that creationism is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The truth is actually a bit more complicated. I hate creationism, not just because it is a lie presented as absolute truth to the gullible, but also because it is but one tool in a much broader and dangerous socio-political movement which has manifested in the United States. This ideology is Dominionism, which advocates a society and government based on Biblical principles, and utilizes divisive politics, demonization of opposition, and fear in order to achieve this goal. Creationist literature is full of such villainization, wherein evolution is linked to genocide, abortion, racism, and slavery. (Ironically, all these things existed millenia before Darwin was born, and all were not only mentioned, but advocated in the Bible.) 

Some may object to this characterization, but before you protest, please understand that my high school education was an indoctrination, that is to say that I was removed from public school and placed into a sort of spiritual boot camp. It was a cult-like experience in which dissent from a literal interpretation of the Bible was discouraged, and Biblical literalism is the heart of the movement. This is why the collective discoveries humanity has made in the last 400 years are the focus of so much ire.

In the mind of a fundamentalist, like I was two decades ago, if the accuracy of any part of the Bible can be called into question, then all Bible is suspect. It must be either be all true, or all a lie. If God did not create the universe in six literal days, as stated in Genesis 1, then all is called into doubt, including the central salvation story. This is, of course, ludicrous. Most people believe in a god, and have no trouble with that faith and their acceptance of science. Many scientists do this as well, including well known Christians such as Kenneth Miller, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and Robert Bakker. 

But science is seen as a threat to faith by the fundamentalist. Galileo and Kepler removed the Earth from its location in the center of the universe and discovered that the movements in the heavens follow natural laws. Darwin demonstrated that all life on Earth, including ourselves, is descended from a common ancestor. Hubble helped to give our universe an age, now known to be over 13 billion years. These discoveries are the threat because they directly contradict the Bible. Unlike Kepler, Darwin and Hubble, the creationists have already determined their conclusions and will attempt to shoehorn data to conform to their preferred beliefs. Any facts or ideas which do not conform to Biblical literacy must be discarded, and most professional creationists will proudly proclaim this fact. They have determined from the start their intellectual dishonesty and will continue to be dishonest in support of their apologetics.

Therefore, creationism is two things. First, it is pseudo-scientific endeavor which abuses science to deceive the scientifically illiterate. Secondly, and more importantly, creationism is a weapon of fear, falsely pitting people against each other.

Uncertainty

              Living life actively is living with change. It is a life of accepting mistakes and loss, but the rewards are the lessons learned. A stagnate life is death, but a slow death. Living in the past is a resignation, a declaration that the chaos can be ignored and one can slip into a dreamlike state of never growing up. Having my own life redefined repeatedly in the last couple of years, I have taken my lessons to heart. I refuse to stay behind. I prefer the hard lessons.

              Wait! This was supposed to an introduction.

              I am an atheist, though I prefer the term non-believer. The term "atheist" is culturally loaded, though it is an accurate definition. Simply said, I do not accept the claims of the supernatural because those claims have not met their burden of proof. There are no creeds or political movements associated with the lack of belief, only the insistence on evidence to support belief in the existence of God.

              I am a Christian. While I had long ago rejected most of the Bible, I was raised a Christian, by Christian parents in a predominantly Christian nation. My sensibilities are shaped largely by this experience. I cannot claim that I believe in the Christ-as-savior myth, so much like hundreds of similar myths told throughout the ancient Mediterranean, Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent, many predating the Jesus stories by millennia. Nor can I say that I accept all of Christ's teachings, some of which I think are just dead wrong. I do believe in being Christ-like, that is, embodying the the universal idea of forgiveness, kindness, and social justice. There have been many figures in history and mythology who have served to remind us of our evolved morality and common humanity. In the Western experience, Jesus has been one of the primary foci.

              I expect I'll catch hell from some for my conflicting beliefs. I have had convictions of absolute certainty at least twice in my life. When I was a teenager and a young man, I was about as far right a fundamentalist as anyone could be. As far as I was concerned, anyone who was a liberal, atheist, Communist, Catholic, Muslim, homosexual, or anything else which did not fit my ridiculously narrow view of Christianity was beneath me spiritually. It was a bigoted and disgusting view in which I had been heavily indoctrinated in my early years. Sometimes I look back on my life then and shudder at the willingness I was ready to dismiss the lives of my fellow primates, and even condemn them to eternal death. The propaganda war of the fundamentalism accelerated in my childhood. I now see the fruits of those bitter seeds in the applause for the deaths of hypothetical patients and very real death row inmates during the recent Republican primary debates. It chills me to think that I could have so easily become one of them.

               My second bout of certainty came when I had lost my faith. As far as I was concerned, anyone who was a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, animist, astrologer, UFOlogist, or anyone else who did not fit my ridiculously narrow view of rationality was just deluded or unwilling to think. I feel fortunate that I did not hold to this for terribly long, as I did get the sense that I might have been falling into an old trap. Having seen the ugly side of Christianity, I began to get a sense of the ugly side of atheism. Invective and vitriol have no place in debate, and much of what is passed as commentary was so vile, that I had lost my stomach for it. I love to debate ideas, but I distance myself from those fellow non-believers who believe that the best retort is a personal insult.

               This is my introduction... for now. I can't say for certain where my beliefs will lie a year or a decade from now. I hope that my introduction will be continually changing until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil.

                Here is my current introduction:

I am a student. I am a wholesale delivery driver. I am aspiring to be a teacher. I am an atheist. I am a regular churchgoer. I am human. I prefer my contradictions and uncertainty because my knowledge grows, of the universe and myself. May my life continue to be fluid.

               When a friend of mine and I were talking about our church, I remarked at how much I appreciated and loved that group. No judgement has been placed on my lack of faith. We all have the same goals,and not just the church's commitment to acceptance and social justice. What we also seem to have in common is that none of us has absolute certainty. We are all simultaneously lost and found, and accept that fact. We enjoy our uncertainty because our knowledge grows. May our lives continue to be fluid.