June 29, 2004
ONLY DOUBTING DARWIN IS BLASPHEMOUS:
Faith and reason (Christopher Shea, June 20, 2004, Boston Globe)
IF YOU HAD TO LIST the problems afflicting America, lack of vigor in the culture wars would probably not be very high on the list. (Can any of us bear another red-state/blue-state story?) Yet two very different writers – from opposite sides of the secular/ religious divide – recently declared that there are two groups of people who ought to throw themselves into the fray with fresh energy: atheistic scientists and intellectual Christians.In the spring issue of The American Scholar, the literary journal of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa, the science writer Natalie Angier tries to rally the skeptics – by definition a hard thing to do – in a piece called “My God Problem – and Theirs.” The inspiration for the essay, she writes, was her visits with top scientists in the course of researching a forthcoming book about “the essential vitamins and minerals” of scientific literacy.
The scientists were uniformly appalled by polls that found that 82 percent of Americans think there’s a heaven and 51 percent believe in ghosts while only 28 percent believe the theory of evolution. Please, the scientists implored, help us bump up that last figure by getting across that evidence for Darwinism is “overwhelming” and that “an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet.”
But Angier detects a whiff of hypocrisy here. Sure, she writes, scientists sharpen the skewers when quizzed about “creationist ‘science’ . . . astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending.” But when asked about a different kind of supernaturalism, “they are tolerant, respectful, big of tent.” When it comes to discussing the virgin birth – “an act of parthenogenesis,” as Angier wryly puts it, “that defies everything we know about mammalian genetics and reproduction” – or the resurrection, or the parting of the Red Sea, scientists “don the calming cardigan of a kiddie-show host on public TV.”
The virgin birth doesn't conflict with their holy text. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 29, 2004 8:47 AM
As someone who falls on the spectrum somewhere between atheistic scientists and Christian intellectuals, I don't find the the idea of heaven less believable than string theory.
Posted by: Rick T. at June 29, 2004 9:33 AMThis is disturbing for anyone who is religious...and it should be disturbing for anyone who isn't. What happens when the "athiestic scientists and intellectual Christians" are done with those among us who believe in heaven? Will they turn their attention to those among us who are just generically "ignorant?" Where are the "slippery slope" arguments when you need 'em? When does Ms. Angier's campaign cross the line from "throwing themselves into the fray" and smartening up all the "holy rollers" over to actively persecuting them? Astrology bugs the hell out of me, but, as long as there's no harm, I have no quarrel with folks believing in it.
There are two odd things about this argument. First, virgin births are common in some species, as Angier should know.
Second, Angier is both a fine science writer and a devout (and I choose that adjective carefully) feminist. In her very interesting book, Woman, she more than once encounters conflicts between science and feminism. For Angier, feminism almost always wins over science.
Posted by: Jim Miller at June 29, 2004 11:12 AMWhen it comes to persecution, B., the scientists are babes in the wood compared with the religionists. I think your concern is misplaced.
As for astrology, the 'as for no harm' part is the problem. There is plenty of harm.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at June 29, 2004 2:38 PMHarry conveniently omits the civilized world's experience with the "soft" sciences and their application of "hard" science technology to destroy their percieved enemies. His so-called religionists look like real softies in comparison.
I know, the jacobins, marxists and fascists were not really materialists, rationailists. They only thought they were.
Posted by: at June 29, 2004 4:07 PMActually, not.
Even with the help of technology, Hitler didn't manage to kill even two-thirds of the Jews.
The Catholics did a lot better, several times, with no more elaborate technology than dogs.
England was Judenrein for centuries, wasn't it? Before any soft or hard sciences came on the scene.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at June 29, 2004 9:19 PMDidn't kill them though. Only Darwinism and germ theory require their extermination.
Posted by: oj at June 29, 2004 9:25 PMThere are millions of murdered Jews over the centuries who would argue otherwise.
Had they the chance.
Hands up out there for those of you who think the Holocaust would have happened even if Darwin and his theory would have been complete strangers to this earth until 1950.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at June 29, 2004 9:32 PMNo there aren't.
Posted by: oj at June 29, 2004 10:00 PMSorry, the above was my comment.
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at June 30, 2004 10:50 AM