Righting America Reviewed in Free Inquiry
We were very pleased to recieve the review of our book that is included in the October/November, 2016 issue of Free Inquiry, a magazine published by the Council for Secular Humanism. Psychologist Wayne Trotta writes of Righting America:
As the Trollingers observe, one is tempted to dismiss the Creation Museum as a surreal oddity, as something freakish, preposterous, irrelevant, and even wacky. As a political force, however, the Creation Museum matters, because it “seeks to shape, prepare, and arm millions of American Christians as uncompromising and fearless warriors for what it understand to be the ongoing culture war in America….and all Americans ought to understand what is going on there…The combination of fear, ignorance, large numbers, and high stakes, as the Trollingers itimate, is too explosive to be dismissed.
More than a tour, Righting America is about as thorough and detailed a text-based analysis of the Creation Museum as anyone could want. The book is a perceptive critical analysis of the museum’s purpose, methods, and potential impact.
Thanks to Free Inquiry for the thoughtful review, and we hope that you, our readers, let us know your thoughts on Righting America as well!
Donald, Ken, and Mercy Now (Please!)
by William Trollinger
If we had given Righting America an epitaph it would probably have been this stanza from Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now”:
My church and my country could use a little mercy now.
As they sink into a poisoned pit it’s going to take forever to climb out,
They carry the weight of the faithful who follow them down.
I love my church and country; they could use some mercy now.
As we began research for our book it did not take us long to realize that the Creation Museum and Answers in Genesis (AiG) are not simply or even primarily about making the case for reading the first few chapters of Genesis as a literally accurate historical account. Instead, the museum and AiG are, first and foremost, Christian Right sites that are most interested in “preparing and arming crusaders for the ongoing culture war that polarizes and poisons U. S. religion and politics” (Righting, 15).
Righting America came out this spring. In July AiG opened its newest and largest Christian Right site, Ark Encounter. Ken Ham’s massive edifice is unsubtle in driving home the gruesome and genocidal argument that a righteous and angry God was justified in drowning almost 20 billion (!) human beings in Noah’s Flood (not to mention billions of animals). More than this, this watery global slaughter prefigures the fiery destruction of our wicked culture, and the eternal conscious torment of all those atheists and liberals and secularists who are busy about making American culture so dreadfully wicked.
In a fitting (and depressing) coincidence, a few days after the Ark opened its door Donald Trump was crowned the Republican nominee for president. Despite the blatantly racist and misogynistic nature of Trump’s campaign; despite his willingness to demean individuals for their disabilities and their less than model-like physiques; despite the fact that there does not seem to be anything remotely Christian about this candidate – despite all this, white evangelicals are supporting Trump over Clinton by a 71% to 22% margin.
This underscores, once and for all, that the Christian Right is much more Right than it is Christian. Ken Ham has praised Donald Trump as a leader who is “prepared to lead with authority,” who deals “with the media as he sees fit,” and who is not bogged down by political correctness; in the last few days Ham has called on Christians to keep in mind the “catastrophic” effects – specifically, the ramping up of anti-Christian persecution – if America were to elect a president who would appoint liberal judges. Such remarks seem almost coy compared to the prominent fundamentalist pastor who has enthusiastically asserted that he would vote for Trump over Jesus because the Son of God would be weak on terrorism.
Ham and his fellow Christian Right gurus are indeed responsible for carrying the faithful down into the pit of a poisonous culture war. What we wrote at the end of our final chapter says it all:
What is sad – to use one of Ken Ham’s favorite words when he is talking about “compromising” academics and church leaders – is that millions of Americans who are seeking to be good Bible-believing Christians have bought the message that AiG is selling. Such a message may satisfy some deep desire for the comfort of certainty, may offer a way to respond to what can feel like the unrelieved elitism of the academic and scientific powers-that-be, may provide a place to stand in what seems like an increasingly decadent culture, may reinforce the conviction that America really was and could again be God’s nation. But in the end, the ideological and politicized young Earth creationism of the Creation Museum and AiG has little to do with the Jesus of the Gospels. It has little to do with the Hebrew prophets. It has little to do with Christianity’s rich intellectual and social justice tradition, little to do with Augustine and Aquinas, Barth and Bonhoeffer, Day and King. It has little to do with faith and hope and love.
Sad indeed. For all of us. (Righting, 226-227)
The Creationist Wisdom of Boudreaux
by Rodney Kennedy
This post features Dr. Rod Kennedy’s cousin Boudreaux. As Rod says,
“Boudreaux is my imaginary interlocutor. His is from the bayou of Louisiana and possesses an earthy wisdom but also a brutal certainty about everything. He always says what he thinks and is never conscious of contradictions. He judges me and makes me think, but he is the perfect foil for my own arguments.”
In a debate about evolution, my cousin Boudreaux, when pushed in a corner, will smile and say, “If God wanted to create the world in six, 24-hour-days he could have.”
He has amazing confidence in this remark, and it has stayed with me ever since I first heard it. It has challenged me, provoked me to doubt my own faith, and even scared me at times.
There are millions of Boudreaux-like believers all across the country. These believers are passionate and sincere. They reject out-of-hand and with no discernible evidence the idea at the heart of mainstream biology – evolution. They make up a veritable army of creation warriors determined to fight for the idea of a six, 24-hour day creation. And fight they do.
Boudreaux and believers like him make up a battalion of sometimes-gentle souls who want to dismiss science and evolution with a statement of what God could have done. On the surface, this claim sounds powerful and true. Boudreaux is determined to live in the safety of a community of believers content that species leaped suddenly into time and space at the word of God’s command. Even after all these years Darwin—who claimed that we descended, with modification, from an endless chain of ancestors—is just too startling for believers like my cousin. And these believers are equally unhappy with the idea that the earth is old enough to have made time for evolution and its remarkable adaptations that matched species so perfectly and beautifully to their environment.
But the ideas of an old earth and evolution have never stood on firmer ground. While creationists revel in claiming that evolution is only a theory – without defining what “theory” means for scientists – Boudreaux and company are stuck with proposing a hypothetical situation of what God could have done, and not evidence (or at least, meaningful evidence) that God created the world in six, 24-hour days.
But Boudreaux does not much care that he cannot substantiate his claim. He and his battalion of believers are much more interested in suggesting that those who defend science and believe in evolution are godless atheists who want to destroy our public schools, poison the minds of our children, and undermine and destroy not only faith in God but American values. Gleefully mixing faith and patriotism, Boudreaux is trying to hold on to an age of innocence, a veritable return to a pristine Garden of Eden.
But Boudreaux is inviting us into a trap. Rather than looking for knowledge and truth within our emotions, or in simple slogans, or in a mythical garden, we should be joining science and scientists in the everyday scrupulous, difficult search for the best explanations.
Boudreaux is afraid of science because it is revolutionary, because it has and will upend traditional ideas about our world and – most frightening – our faith. Out of fear, Boudreaux and his fellow believers take the fallback position of suggesting what God “could have” done.
This argument is so lame. Even worse, perhaps, it is boring.
Scientific Commentary: A Reflection and An Invitation
by Patrick Thomas
Patrick Thomas reflects upon the contributions of our colleagues from the natural sciences from our recent series, Putting Observational Science to the Test.
In his book The Lie, Ken Ham delineates the differences between “observational” and “historical” science, explaining that
…observational science involves, of course, observation, using one or more of our five senses (taste, sight, smell, hearing, touch) to gain knowledge about the world and to be able to repeat observations. Naturally, one can only observe what exists in the present. It is an easy task to understand that no scientist was present over the suggested millions of years to witness the supposed evolutionary progression of life from the simple to the complex. No living scientist was there to observe the first life forming in some primeval sea. No living scientist was there to observe the big bang that is supposed to have occurred 15 billion years ago, nor the supposed formation of the earth 4.57 billion years ago—or even 10,000 years ago! No scientist was there; no human witness was there to see these events occurring. They certainly cannot be repeated today. (47)
For the past three weeks we have featured guest posts from scientists working in the fields of geology, physics, and chemistry who have reflected upon observational science, the particular kind of science endorsed by AiG and legitimated at the Creation Museum. As this series of guest posts concludes, we look back at the contributions our colleagues in the sciences make to our understanding of observational science and the ways observational science impacts contemporary scientific inquiry.
So, what do we learn when we consider our scientists’ contributions to the conversation about observational science?
One thing that stands out for us is how quickly Ham’s supposedly simple and obvious definition of observational science becomes murky in the context of actual scientific practice. A key question our contributors ask is what, precisely, delineates “the present” and “the past”? If the scientist herself does not observe with her own senses, but rather trusts the observations of others who conducted their observations before her, why are those observations questionable or irrelevant? Are yesterday’s observations allowable, or the observations of 10 minutes ago? The present is always receding, so what, exactly, constitutes an observation “in the present”?
In addition to his unclear notion of “the present,” Ham’s definition of observational science highlights scientists’ use of the human senses (taste, sight, smell, hearing, touch). If that is the expectation—that observational science is limited to direct human perception, then what of the use of scientific instrumentation? As Bob Brecha asks, are telescopes or microscopes allowed? Or do they necessarily distort human observation?
In short, when we look closely at Ham’s definition of observational science in the context of actual scientific practice, his definition is not so simple or obvious.
As it is with observational science, so it is with Ham’s distinction between observational science and historical science. For Ham, sustaining the difference between observational science (straight forward observation and experimentation) and historical science (which offers up theories to explain observations) is easy. A good scientist ought to be able to suspend historical science in the lab and just focus on doing observational science. She can engage her “starting points” to make meaning of what has been observed. Within the work of historical science, so the reasoning goes, each scientist can decide whether to apply a creationist or evolutionist agenda to their data.
If only the differences were so simple! But there’s more going on in the context of scientific practice, as our colleagues make clear. For one thing, distinguishing between creation science and evolutionary science as merely a difference in starting presuppositions not only skirts the implication that creation science upholds biblical inerrancy (or the so-called “eyewitness account” of creation through Genesis) as superior to evolutionary science, but also ignores the fact that both scientific inquiry and biblical literalism are deeply human enterprises. They are both conjectural. As the Trollingers note in the introduction to Righting America, literalist readings of the Bible have developed over time. Similarly, the practice of science
What’s troubling about the Creation Museum’s representation of observational and historical science as merely a difference in “starting points” is that this representation presumes creationists understand the nature and function of scientific inquiry in the first place. Our scientist colleagues provide numerous examples that suggest this is not so. Whereas Ham claims that “observational science confirms the Bible’s historical science,” (The Lie, 59 – emphasis mine), our colleagues remind us that “Few scientists…claim to be investigating “the Truth” in their studies” and that “conclusion[s]…based on the concordance of data – [are] not ultimately definitive.”
Further, whereas Ham claims that “Evolutionists…say the way to understand the past is to observe the present,” (The Lie, 186), Bob Brecha reminds us that a crucial aspect of the scientific method is to “make predictions about what we would expect to happen with the system under certain conditions, and then use that prediction to check our theory against more observations” (emphasis in original).
Clearly, Ham’s characterization of scientific inquiry misconstrues the goals of scientific practice. While this characterization may have little impact on the work of some scientists, it renders other scientists’ work virtually impossible. Still, one cannot help but ask: Does it make sense to rely on Ham to tell us what science is and does? Is he a scientist? Is he actively engaged in scientific research? Indeed, what qualifies him to serve as the arbiter of acceptable and unacceptable scientific study?
Ham’s mischaracterization of the goals of scientific inquiry also leads to further problems in his claims about science. If scientific inquiry is aimed at confirming biblical creation, we are left, as our colleagues point out, in the unusual position of “surrender[ing] before the game has begun…if we start from the assumption that our observations are unreliable, then how can we rely on them?” Here, the differences between observational science and actual scientific inquiry come into greatest contrast.
To say, as Ham does, that the goal of scientific inquiry is to confirm biblical creation does take the guesswork out of scientific practice. If the goal of all scientific inquiry were to confirm biblical creation, science would be a much easier enterprise, as it is always easier to support a foregone conclusion than to wrestle with evidence that counters one’s claims. We appreciate how tempting it may be to reduce science to a matter of confirming this foregone conclusion. That is especially the case when we consider the very complex questions and problems scientists attempt to answer. But then we’re reminded by Mark Masthay of what is at stake in embracing rather than eliding the complexity of our natural world:
What do we lose by contorting science as an enterprise aimed at confirming biblical creation? We lose the joy of discovery, the fulfillment of contributing to human knowledge of creation, and the celebration of that discovery. For Ken Ham, the self-identified “science teacher” who “loves science” and “wants to see kids taught science,” scientific inquiry can be anything but joyful – if anything, it is quite passé, confirming what he already knows. While our scientists attest that much of their work reveals the importance of faith (in God and in human inquiry), for Ham, there is no such faith, and no such joy. Scientific knowledge is a pursuit primarily carried out for the sake of self-righteousness.
Indeed, we have learned much from our colleagues’ contributions about scientific inquiry and the limits of observational science. We are very interested in knowing what blog readers think of our science series. For this reason, we’ve updated our comments policy to allow readers to respond to posts without registering on the site. We hope that this update will encourage more readers share their thoughts on topics we blog about, suggest topics they would like us to address, and ask questions about our work.
So, if you have some thoughts to share, we would very much like to hear from you!
Ambivalence About Evolution and its Implications for an Academic Chemist
by Mark Masthay
Dr. Mark Masthay brings our series on observational science to a close with a personal reflection on the significance of wonder and speculation in both his scientific work and his faith.
Much of the content in this blog entry is from a talk by a similar title which I presented at the “Thelma Fordham Pruett Conference on the Academy and Religious Faith: Science and Theology as Partners” conference at the University of Dayton in April of 2013. It is based on my many years explaining to my colleagues at work and church why I can be both a professional scientist believe in the both foundational principles of science and in the Bible.
The Central—But Uncontroversial—Science
Chemistry is sometimes called the “central science.” In fact, there is a freshman chemistry text that goes by the title Chemistry: The Central Science. (I confess to taking pleasure in joking about this with my colleagues from physics, geology, and biology; I particularly enjoy referring to their disciplines as the “peripheral sciences.”)
Kidding aside, the designation “central” is accurate, because chemistry intersects with all of the other natural sciences. Even so, it tends to be less controversial than these other disciplines. Ask a non–scientist what she thinks about the Periodic Table of the Elements and you will likely encounter a yawn. Ask her what she thinks about the Big Bang Theory, the age of the earth, or the theory of evolution and you will likely receive an earful.
This does not mean that chemists are uninterested in the mysteries surroundings human origins: as both a chemist and a person of faith, these issues are interesting and important to me from both the scientific and religious sides of the aisle. It does mean, however, that chemists are seldom consulted about origins. We are able—in the research laboratory, in the classroom, and on the street—to comfortably straddle what can be an uncomfortable fence for our colleagues from the other natural sciences. When chemists do confront these issues, it is from the standpoint of the unvested: our personal views about origins do not impact our professional or spiritual lives to the same extent as they do those of our colleagues in physics, geology, and biology. Allow me to illustrate with some of my own personal experiences.
A “Natural” Epiphany
Although I attended church as a child, my early experiences with Christianity did not impact me significantly. I was more interested in science than spirituality, reading science books long before the Bible. I came at a young age to share the views of scientific authors, who tended to be skeptical toward religion—sometimes to the point of scorn.
My perspective began to change years later, when I reached adolescence and my interests widened beyond the natural sciences. I remember well an experience I had while watching television one evening when I was in eighth grade. Upon glancing down at my feet, I was struck by their remarkable architecture, which pointed, in my mind, to the existence of a designer. This didn’t make me question evolution; I recognized that my feet were similar to those of other primates with whom I could share a common ancestor. Even so, it seemed that the feet of other primates were—like mine—too remarkable to have arisen by chance.
Although my “foot epiphany” may have been more aesthetic than it was scientific, it was both memorable and persuasive. I have had a number of similar experiences in the years since. The underlying circumstances have differed, but in every case the order and complexity of nature have whispered to me about the existence of a designer. The poet Walt Whitman describes, more beautifully than I, the impact of my experiences: He wrote in his epic “Song of Myself”:
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
In deference to Whitman, leaves of grass, pismires, tree-toads, running blackberries, finger joints, munching cows, and mice are all remarkable in their own way—but it was the wondrous design of a human foot which staggered me out of my former affinity with his sextillions.
“Non–Chemical” Equilibrium: Faith and Skepticism in Balance
My foot epiphany told me nothing about how the designer engineered feet, or how long he took to do so; its sole impact was to convince me that a designer exists. Four years later, I became a serious Christian—in part because of that epiphany. And my views about life’s origins have not changed in any significant way in the four decades that have intervened. It has always seemed to me that the fundamental issue is whether or not a designer exists—not the details of how he did the designing. Thomas Aquinas notwithstanding, I don’t believe it is possible to confirm or deny the existence of God with absolute certainty.
It surprises me, then, that my evangelical brothers and sisters work so hard to prove that the earth is young and that life did not evolve—especially because they, of all people, should be familiar with the Biblical passage which states: “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3 KJV). Such a faith carries with it a kind of certainty—not one that is blind to empirical evidence or existential inference—but faith nonetheless. At times I wish they would stop trying to pinch hit for nature and let it speak for itself, for the Psalmist tells us that “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament declares his handiwork” (19:1 KJV).
Evangelical Christians don’t have a corner on the faith market; scientists operate on a kind of faith as well. My scientific colleagues like to think of themselves as raw empiricists with a “just the facts, ma’am” approach, but I’m not always so sure. People of science and people of faith arrive at their convictions more by drinking in their environment than by reflection and analysis. The certainty of evolutionists who regard creationists as primitive and naïve strikes me as no more informed than the certainty of creationists who regard evolutionists as ungodly and deceived. Both trust their respective authorities unquestioningly—probably because of social pressures unique to their respective camps. Ask either to delineate the reasons for their positions and they cannot do it: at the bottom line they both “just believe.”
I cannot deny the significant body of evidence supporting the antiquity of the universe and the earth—nor do I want to. But I do think that Ken Ham has it partially right—that there is enough uncertainty about the geological and biological past to raise uncertainties about the fine details. (I am reminded of the rapid paradigm shift in the explanation for the origin of mountain ranges; the geosynclinal theory was replaced by the plate tectonics model in little more than a decade during the mid–20th Century. I am also reminded of Lord Kelvin’s assumption that life on earth must be, on geologic time scales, of relatively recent origin. Kelvin arrived at this conclusion because he mistakenly believed that the sun could radiate for at most 40 million years; he was not aware that stars are fueled by nuclear reactions.)
When it comes to the distant past, intellectual honesty demands epistemic humility, which seems at times to be in short supply with my evolutionist colleagues. Excessive confidence and oversimplification may give them sway with the scientifically naïve; strong but simple assertions are frequently more persuasive than detailed explanations of nuanced truths. Although I would like to think that my scientific colleagues would choose not to frame their arguments with manipulative and entertaining overstatements, they appear to be as susceptible to this temptation as creation scientists who make their living scoring points on the creation—evolution debate circuit.
This does not mean that we should give up the quests for theological and scientific certainty. Rather, it reveals the character–straining needs for honesty and humility required of theologians and scientists. My own experience suggests that that the recovery of a sense of wonder can elicit such character from both camps.
The Recovery of Wonder
The American preacher A.W. Tozer once stated:
“The modern scientist is in danger of losing God amidst the wonders of his world; the modern Christian is in danger of losing God amidst the wonders of his Word” (The Pursuit of God, 9)
Tozer’s intended target was the Christian enamored with the intricacies of Biblical exegesis to the point of forgetting the reason for her interpretational efforts: to better understand and experience God. As a professional academic chemist I find his rebuke to the scientist to be on-target. As a younger, non-professional scientist, I was captivated by wonder at everything natural; as an older, professional scientist preoccupied with getting the next paper accepted and the next grant funded, it is easy to lose the wonder. Occasionally I step back from the details of my work and see the remarkable nature of the molecules I study, and the wonder returns. When I do, my professional self–preoccupation and defensiveness are immediately replaced by contentment and humility.
An Envy and a Contentment
I admit to having an occasional twinge of envy toward my evolutionist and creationist colleagues who profess near-absolute certainties about human origins and the geological past. I know that because I see truth on both sides, some might accuse me of wanting to have it both ways. But I am content. My apparent waffling is not indecision—it is informed ambivalence: I am decidedly on the fence because of what I believe to be the limits of human epistemology. I am both a professional scientist and a person of faith. It’s not my job to convince people about the fine details of human origins—only that a designer played a central role in the process.
Ark Encounter Attendance: The Controversy Continues
by William Trollinger
Is Ken Ham’s Ark sinking? The controversy continues, despite the efforts of Ham and Answers in Genesis (AiG) to put the matter to rest.
In an August 11 post we noted that Ark Encounter – “located in the middle of nowhere“ – is much indebted to Williamstown, Kentucky, the sleepy town of 3952 residents located a few miles from the Ark:
“In the hopes that Ark Encounter would bring great economic benefits to the town . . . Williamstown granted Ark Encounter $62 million in Tax Incremental Funding. Over the next thirty years, 75% of the Ark’s property taxes will go toward repaying these bonds, and not to Williamstown.”
While Ham is silent on the topic, this is a sweet deal for the Ark, made even sweeter by the fact that – if the Ark fails to meet its projections – it is the investors and taxpayers, and not Ark Encounter, who are left holding the debt bag. And what were those projections? According to the feasibility study produced by Ham’s friend, Britt Beemer, the Ark will attract 1.2 million to 2.0 million visitors in the first year, with attendance going up annually after that.
Here’s how the attendance numbers break down:
1.2m/year = 100,000/month, 23,077/week, 3315/day
1.4m/year = 116,667/month, 26,923/week, 3867/day
1.6m/year = 133,333/month, 30,769/week, 4420/day
1.8m/year = 150,000/month, 34,615/week, 4972/day
2.0m/year = 166,667/month, 38,462/week, 5525/day
2.2m/year = 183,333/month, 42,308/week, 6077/day
Of course, this is a crude metric, given that these numbers do not take into account that – as with other tourist sites – it is very likely that Ark attendance will spike in the summer. It makes sense to assume that the weekly numbers between Memorial Day and Labor Day will be 1.5/2 times the weekly numbers the rest of the year.
We visited the Ark twice in July. The first was on opening day, and we were stunned to see no one standing in line to buy tickets when we left a little after noon as well as mostly vacant parking lots. The second was on Saturday, July 23; as we reported, we guessed attendance for the day to be 5000, which seemed very good until we took into account that this was a Saturday in America’s prime vacation month. And again, the two main parking lots were far from filled.
Of course, other folks have raised similar questions about Ark Encounter attendance. So how has AiG responded?
In the first few weeks Ken Ham made efforts to explain why observers might have underestimated Ark attendance. As regards what appears to be nearly empty parking lots, only half the space is devoted to cars, as the other half is available for “tourist coaches, larger vehicles, and so on,” – and anyway, the “parking lot was built with the ongoing expansion of added attractions to the Ark Encounter in mind.” Moreover, the Ark itself is “so huge that it doesn’t feel overwhelming or crowded inside,” even if “there are thousands touring the Ark.”
But by mid-August Ham had decided to go after the naysayers. In his August 15 post, “Ark Encounter’s Impact – Responding to Misinformation,” Ham blasted those who suggest the Ark is “in the middle of nowhere,” pointing out that the “Ark is located . . . right at exit 154 on Interstate 75 – the second busiest north/south interstate in the United States.” While he claimed that “if we did release daily attendance figures” they would be “twisted and misquoted by secularists,” he went on to claim that “indications are that attendance will be well over the minimum of 1.4 million per year predicted . . . and closer to the higher figure [of 2.2 million]” (emphases ours). As regards complaints about the lack of development in the area – a point we had discussed four days earlier – the apparently exasperated Ham asserted that “developers and businesses [need to] listen to us and not listen to the continual stream of negative, false information from the secular media and atheist bloggers.” The fact is that “AiG has done what we promised to do with the Ark Encounter . . . It’s not the Ark Encounter that should be held accountable for what happens locally!”
Much of the controversy over Ark attendance is due to the fact that AiG has not released specific, verifiable attendance numbers. But now Ham and company have seemingly reversed their policy. In a September 15 newscast on Cincinnati’s WLWT a local reporter quoted AiG’s Mike Zovath as saying that “since July 7 [opening day] the number of people who have visited the Ark is around 300,000. And they are projecting 1.4 million for the year.”
Hmmmm. So for over two months AiG withheld attendance numbers, and then it gives them to a local reporter who spends his time gushing over the Ark? Given the controversy, why did AiG release these numbers in a local newscast, and not (as of yet) on their website? What kind of numbers are these?
But there’s more. What exactly is the math that gets you from the supposed 300,000 visitors between July 7 and mid-September to 1.4 million visitors in the first year? Is AiG really projecting there will be minimal drop-off in attendance between October and March?
Perhaps most important, what happened to Ken Ham’s claim – made just one month ago – that attendance in the first year will be closer to 2.2 million than to 1.4 million?
Will straight answers from Ken Ham and AiG ever be forthcoming?
Incorrect Theory and Scientific Progress: Phlogiston and a Case for Ecumenism of Evolutionists and Creationists
by Mark Masthay
For his third post, Dr. Mark Masthay uses the historical example of the “Phlogiston Hypothesis” to discuss how scientists negotiate the meaning of scientific discoveries. In doing so, he provides a very generous proposition for unifying Evolutionist and Creationist Scientists.
A (Very) Brief History of the Phlogiston Hypothesis
Those who have never studied the history of chemistry will be unfamiliar with the phlogiston hypothesis. In brief, phlogiston (Greek for “inflammable”) was a mysterious substance bound to combustible material and was released—along with heat and light—during combustion. Phlogiston was first proposed by the German scientist Georg Stahl in the early 1700’s; the phlogiston theory of combustion held sway throughout most of the 18th Century and was supported by many of the great scientists of the period, including Scheele, Priestly and Cavendish. Antoine Lavosier’s 1779 negation of this hypothesis was one of the major triumphs of modern science. By combining results obtained by these other scientists with experiments of his own, Lavoisier was able to show that combustion occurred when combustible substances combined with oxygen. Hence, though it was consistent with a great number of physical observations, and though it was believed in by the greatest scientists of the day, the phlogiston hypothesis of combustion was incorrect: phlogiston does not exist.
Incorrect as it was, the phlogiston hypothesis nevertheless contributed greatly to the advancement of chemistry. Still, many of the greatest scientists—including those who contributed to Lavoisier’s discovery of oxygen—remained convinced phlogistonists even after Lavoisier’s discovery. This raises an important question: can an incorrect theory and the scientists who hold to it genuinely contribute to scientific advancement? Historian of science A.R. Hall answers this question in the affirmative, writing in his book The Scientific Revolution 1500-1800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude (1960):
… Such were the strategic few, among a great number of other major discoveries made by chemists who thought without reservations in the framework of which phlogiston was an essential part. Two of the pioneers of gas chemistry, Priestly and Cavendish, were never reconciled to Lavoisier’s doctrines. Their refusal was no doubt due to rigidity of mind, but it points also to the fact that the phlogistic theory had imposed no barrier upon the activities of these skillful experimenters. It also emphasizes Lavoisier’s own originality in devising new interpretations of their experiments. While the adherents of phlogiston were by no means agreed in the details of their exposition – Priestly, for example, thinking of oxygen as dephlogisticated air, and Cavendish preferring to treat the gas as dephlogisticated water – a situation by no means unusual on the frontier of research, these hesitations did not inhibit inquiry; on the contrary, it is quite clear that Scheele, Priestly and Cavendish were each at times induced to make certain fertile experiments by reasoning in the phlogistic manner.
The situation in which the further progress of a branch of science is directly dependent upon an adequate matching of theoretical concepts and experimental facts is by no means uncommon. This was certainly the case when Galileo and Newton, respectively, revised the concepts of mechanics, and again with physics in the nineteenth century. But though such a matching of fact and theory is always useful it is far from being invariably essential. Did such a situation exist in chemistry at the end of the eighteenth century? The evidence would seem to suggest that it did not. The empirical attitude of the great experimenters was in reality far more important than their theorization: it is therefore the less likely that any plausible modification of the doctrines prevailing through the first three-quarters of the eighteenth century would have had much influence on the course of events. No one would deny that Lavoisier was the first chemical theorist of genius. No one would deny that his interpretation of the phenomena was far superior to that of the phlogiston theory: it was one upon which the ultimate advancement of chemical knowledge depended. Yet it is also perfectly clear that the inventive empiricism of his contemporaries was just as necessary for this as his own logical, interpretative intellect, … (332-334 – emphasis mine)
“Phlogistonists” such as Priestly and Cavendish contributed to the advancement of chemistry by addressing—from their phlogistonist framework—questions which ultimately led to the discovery of oxygen by “oxygenists” like Lavioisier. Is it not possible then, that creationists might contribute science in a unique way by addressing—from a creationist framework—questions which would not so readily occur to evolutionists? Is there no way for—to use Solomon’s phrase—creationist iron to sharpen evolutionist iron today, and vice versa? The following story shows that cooperation between these two camps is indeed both possible and productive.
Evolutionists and a Creationists Together: A True Story
I know a professor (let’s call him Chuck) who, many years ago, expressed his concern to me about conferring a Ph.D. upon John, graduate student working in his laboratory. Chuck’s principal concern had nothing to do with John’s work ethic, innate intelligence, or ability to collaborate with other researchers; rather, Chuck was afraid that granting John a Ph.D. would damage his own research reputation as well as the reputation of his department and institution. Why? Because John believed in Young Earth Creationism.
Around this same time, I became interested in the history of chemistry, and had begun reading A.R. Hall’s book. To alleviate Chuck’s fears and encourage him to continue his reluctant–but–productive collaboration with John, I sent him an email encouraging him to allow John to continue working in his laboratory, attaching the extended quote from A.R. Hall above. Chuck never responded to my email, nor did he raise the issue in any subsequent conversations with me. Even so, Chuck did retain John as a graduate student, and John eventually received his Ph.D. under Chuck’s direction. In addition, the anticipated negative effects on the reputations of Chuck, his department and his institution never materialized; John continued to work in Chuck’s laboratory after obtaining his Ph.D., and eventually became a professor himself.
I am not privy to the inside workings of the research collaboration between Chuck and John; I only know that it worked. I don’t know, for example, if John avoided references to evolution in his thesis or if he wrote from an evolutionary viewpoint to satisfy Chuck; I am nearly certain that he did not incorporate his creationist convictions into his data analysis. Even so, Chuck and John’s working relationship—which I observed firsthand—gives me hope that the opportunities for similarly productive collaborations between other seemingly mismatched researchers may be almost ubiquitous. It is my hope that such collaborations may increase in number and effectiveness, in spite of the seemingly insurmountable disagreements between evolutionists and creationists.
Ecumenism Between Evolutionists and Creationists: A Wishful Proposition
The story of Chuck and John above is a small–scale example of cooperation between evolutionists and creationists. However, I would be remiss—and even naively optimistic about the possibilities of such collaborations on a larger scale—if I failed to note that Chuck is not an evangelist for evolution, and considers himself a theist. He is not cut from the same mold as a Richard Dawkins or a Christopher Hitchens. Likewise, John never struck me as an evangelist for creationism, but more of a theologically conservative Christian with a strong interest in science who wants to work in his chosen profession in relative peace and quiet; he is not cut from the same mold as Ken Ham.
A collaboration like Chuck and John’s would likely not arise between a Richard Dawkins and a Ken Ham, because Dawkins and Ham are persuaded evangelists for their atheistic reductionist evolutionary and theistic creationist schools of thought, respectively. But Dawkins, Ham and their ilk appear to agree on one thing: nature as a whole, and living systems in particular, manifest remarkable complexity, structure, and functionality. These schools of thought could not differ more strongly regarding the origin of these properties, as they ascribe them to different “teleological guiding principles” (which the theistic evolutionists call “the Laws of Physics” and the Young Earth Creationists call “God”). Even so, I wonder if these two highly disparate groups might be able to find some Chuck- and John-like forms of productive collaboration.
Admittedly, all movements directed toward ecumenism and unity are challenging, and occur in fits and starts. But progress has been and continues to be made in overcoming the disagreements between other similarly disparate groups. Fifty years ago, Catholics regarded Protestants as uniquely unenlightened, and vice versa; today, fifty years post–Vatican II, theological differences remain, but the communities are closer and the language of difference less heated. And Muslim–Christian dialogue moves forward today in spite of (perhaps in part because of) the threat of ISIS. In the case of evolutionist–creationist ecumenism, the truth need not be sacrificed; as the example of the phlogistonists and the oxygenists given above demonstrates, members of both schools moved the science forward, even though only one group (the oxygenists) was correct.
As with other ecumenical efforts, evolutionist–creationist ecumenism will demand compromise, humility, and the sacrifice of ego by leaders of the two camps. Given that most creationists are Christians, this should come almost automatically to them. Their ethic—which flows from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—entails meekness, peacemaking, and (should conflicts arise) forgiveness. Such cooperation may come with more difficulty to atheistic evolutionists cut from Dawkins’ mold; but, given the way sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists juxtapose cooperation with genetic adapation and survival advantage, even atheistic evolutionists should perceive such a collaboration to be in their best interest.
“Observational Science” and the Limits of Certainty: The Case of Chemical Mechanisms
by Mark Masthay
Continuing from his earlier post examining observational science and certitude, this week Dr. Mark Masthay clarifies the epistemic differences between observational science and his own chemistry lab for achieving scientific certainty.
Because I do not study the past, Ken Ham’s bifurcation of science into “observational” and “historical” categories places no constraints upon my research enterprise; according to Ham’s criteria, my research is pure “observational science.” Much of my research focuses on the elucidation of chemical reaction mechanisms, which—though they are characterized by experimentation—can nevertheless be known only with reasonable certainty, as explained below.
When writing research articles and reports, my research group uses the mantra:
The description of both research methods and experimental observations must be unassailable, but the underlying molecular-level details responsible for the observations are open to interpretation.
The reason for this is simple: research is performed in the present, and the methods used and observations made are both repeatable and visible. A chemist is in control of the methods she uses in the laboratory, and she sees—either with her eyes or with chemical instruments—the outcomes of her experiments. Hence, she is certain of her research methods in the same way she is certain of her method of washing the dishes in her kitchen sink; and she is certain of her experimental observations in the same way she is certain that her dishes have become clean. In fact, repeatability of both methods and results is the principle reason for the “Experimental Methods” and “Results” sections of research articles; they provide other scientists the opportunity to duplicate reported methods and to verify or contradict reported findings.
Hence, both experimental methods and experimental observations satisfy Ham’s definition of “observational science.” To illustrate more fully, I take an example from my own research.
When my colleagues and I report that
Upon exposure to intense green laser pulses, orange solutions of beta–carotene rapidly become colorless,
we are detailing the results of “observational science” performed in our laboratory. Our results are obtained in the present, visible to the naked eye, and repeatable. Equipped with a narrow definition of Ham’s “observational science,” this is all we would be able to report even though we would like to answer the more interesting and important question:
What happens to beta–carotene at the molecular level which causes it to lose its orange color?
Because molecules are so small that they are invisible under even the most powerful of microscopes, this process is not amenable to direct observation at the molecular level. Our interpretations of our experimental results are thus somewhat ambiguous. When we attempt to explain what occurs during a chemical reaction at the molecular level, we are engaging in educated speculation.
Continuing with the illustration above, when my colleagues and I report that
Our data are consistent with a two–step mechanism in which (1) the laser causes an electron to leave a beta–carotene molecule and adhere to a solvent molecule, resulting in highly reactive free radicals which (2) subsequently destroy the parent beta–carotene, thus giving rise to the observed loss of color,
we do not mean that we know this proposed mechanism to be true with absolute certainty. We mean rather that we have performed a variety of experiments which preclude all possible mechanisms except for the one proposed.
Ultimately, a chemist characterizes chemical mechanisms via a process of elimination. Most mechanisms prove inconsistent with the data; usually only a very small number (hopefully one) is completely consistent with all of the experimental observations. The chemist is then free to conclude with reasonable certainty that this one mechanism is correct. In this respect, the laboratory operates much like a courtroom: just as a prosecuting attorney attempts to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, so a chemist attempts to prove the correctness of a chemical mechanism beyond reasonable doubt. In the absence of a confession from the accused, establishing guilt beyond all conceivable doubt exceeds the capabilities of the prosecutor; similarly, establishing the correctness of a chemical mechanism beyond all conceivable doubt exceeds the capabilities of the chemist.
This is not an attempt to create skepticism about the possibility of any certainty in physical science; I am merely exposing the limitations of scientific epistemology. In practice, I act as though a chemical mechanism about which I am only reasonably certain is absolutely true. This is because I know the mechanism to be accurate beyond a reasonable doubt, so I use it with a qualified operational certainty when designing new experiments. And just as a courtroom verdict can be overturned with the admission of new evidence, so a chemical mechanism previously believed to be true can be exposed as false when these new experiments are performed.
Hence, the conclusions regarding the invisible details underlying the results of “observational science” and the unrepeatable details of “historical science” are analogous. In neither case are the underlying phenomena understood with absolute certainty. In this regard I suspect Ham and I are in agreement. But he and I would part ways with regard to the historical—to which he confers no certainty whatsoever, and to which I confer the same limited certainty I grant to the invisible mechanisms underlying the results of “observational science.”
On the Relative Certitudes of “Observational” and “Historical” Science : A Chemist’s View
by Mark Masthay
Rounding out our Putting Observational Science to the Test series, Dr. Mark Masthay, Associate Professor and former Chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Dayton, presents a series of posts in which he provides a case for how observational science might limit scientific progress.
As a physical chemist who performs both experimental and theoretical research, I find Ken Ham’s bifurcation of science into “observational” and “historical” categories plausible—at least partially—because I agree with the supposition that knowledge of the ancient is less certain than knowledge of the modern. That knowledge of the past is less definitive than knowledge of the present strikes me as simple common sense—for the two reasons Ham identifies: the past is neither (1) repeatable nor (2) directly observable. My supposition applies to both human history and natural history.
I am thus inclined to view Ham’s “historical science” with some favor. Even so, I do not regard the “historical science”–based conclusions of scientists regarding the origins of the universe, the age of the earth, and the emergence of life on earth with same degree of skepticism as Ham. (This is true even though he and I share a common spiritual heritage.)
For example, I believe that the earth is more than 6,000 years old because of multiple lines of physical evidence, including but not limited to isotopic dating of geological strata using a variety of isotopes, each of which points to the antiquity of the earth. That is, I believe the earth is old because of concordance of data—the lining up of multiple lines of evidence, none conclusive in its own right—into a self–consistent picture leading to a single, definitive conclusion. But that conclusion—being an inference based on the concordance of data—is not ultimately definitive. When dealing with the past, honesty demands that confidence be qualified with phrases such as “our best models suggest that…” or “the most plausible explanation of the data appears to be…”. Such qualifiers are particularly important when addressing popular audiences. Though specialists presume these qualifiers even when they are not explicitly stated, non–specialists do not.
The natural sciences are humbling disciplines which push the limits of human epistemology—not only when they deal with what is ancient, unrepeatable and unobservable (“historical science”), but also when they deal with what is current and repeatable, yet sub–microscopic and invisible (ostensibly “observational science”). As I will communicate in my next post, I believe Ham is overly confident about the truths provided by “observational science” and overly skeptical about the truths provided by “historical science.”
Scientific Goals: Truth vs. Description
by Robert Brecha
Dr. Bob Brecha continues his discussion of Ken Ham’s definition of observational science, considering the ways this definition impacts the everyday work of scientific inquiry.
Few scientists would, if pressed hard, claim to be investigating “the Truth” in their studies. The scientific method, mentioned and approved of by Ham, is a never-ending process. Although often described as a simple linear progression from theorizing to observation and comparison, a better picture is that of a circular or spiraling process. We begin with an observation of nature, create a model or theory or idea about how to explain that observation, and compare the theory to further observations.
Most crucially, we must also make predictions about what we would expect to happen with the system under certain conditions, and then use that prediction to check our theory against more observations. Usually – if not always – the agreement is not perfect, so modifications to the theory are made if more precision is desired, or we accept the results as being adequate for our purposes.
There is no “Truth” in this process, simply because that would be an impossible standard to meet. How would a scientist ever know if she had a theory good enough to be a “True” answer? To do so she would have to know ahead of time what her final answer is. Rather, the best that scientists can hope for is a description of nature that becomes better and better over time.
Because science is a continual process, scientific knowledge is cumulative. All science necessarily involves learning from the past, including descriptive observations made centuries ago that can be repeated and improved now as needed. Those past observations – whether ancient ones from Ptolemy or Euclid, or the modern ones of Copernicus, Brahe and Newton – are well-characterized and form the backbone of current scientific theories. Through studies of the past we can recognize that the physical properties under discussion have not changed over time. Newton’s Law of Gravity is still the Law of Gravity of the 21st century, except that Einstein’s General Relativity has improved upon Newton.
This is why, as I stated previously, re-defining science so that only observations in the present might count as acceptable evidence radically misses the point of scientific inquiry. We cannot search for evidence in the present to confirm “the Truth” that we want; rather, we must continue to build on well-recognized observations of the past to describe nature as accurately as we can, regardless of whether these observations confirm our own beliefs.
