Reason, Logic and the Concept of Necessity

In the last little while, the world has been presented with the spectacle of various "fundamentalist Christian" sects attempting to impose their will upon others. This has taken a particularly nasty direction when it has come to a couple of topics - gay rights, and perplexingly, evolution theory.

Recently, we have been subjected to the spectacle of the Dover "Intelligent Design Trial", Kansas adding "ID" to their school curriculum, President Bush (hardly one of the world's leading intellectual lights) comes out in favour of "ID" theory and numerous other indications of a particularly obstinant resolve to impose unvalidated (and unvalidatable) theory upon students (who, at the level of high school do not have the intellectual framework established to reasonably, and completely analyze the problems and data of multiple and conflicting interpretations of data, much less the differences between rational analysis of data and theology.

Then I ran into this little irrational analysis comparing ID proponents to Galileo. According to the author, "The people Galileo challenged in his writings were not ignorant men defending ignorance. They were educated, intelligent men defending the scientific status quo. ".

While I won't argue that Galileo's accusers were ignorant men, or stupid, they were not scientists. They were, I believe, men of the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo's works didn't challenge "scientific status quo", they challenged Church Dogma of the day - no more, no less. That is to say, they challenged an article of faith, derived from scripture and theology. While Terra-centric models of the universe could be made to work to a point, they eventually posed intractable intellectual problems.

The author then goes on to argue "The people in our age who truly bear the closest resemblance to Galileo's opponents are those who defend Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian evolution in spite of the growing accumulation of evidence that suggests that evolution is, biochemically speaking, impossible.". To which, I would ask but one very easy, rational question - "what evidence?". As near as I can tell, Behe, and the rest of the Discovery Institute's mouthpieces basically argue against Evolution Theory on the basis that it defies their credulity. They cannot - or will not - accept the probability of an enormous number of seemingly random biological events coming together to form the current life we know today from past life forms. Credulity is not evidence.

While I would accept the argument that Evolution is not necessarily true, I would not accept the notion that Intelligent Design is a reasonable counter hypothesis. Why? Because an argument that is based on someone's credulity - or lack of it does not add anything new to the discussion. If Behe and The Discovery Institute want to convince me that ID is in fact grounded in science, they are going to have to show actual evidence for what they are postulating.

However, people backing things like ID are looking for black-and-white answers. They are uncomfortable with the concept of theoretical completeness - arguing that a single exception is enough to discount a theoretical model. They fail to understand that Evolution theory in particular has proven time and again to be remarkably adaptable to "exceptions", and the exceptions gradually assimilated into the theory as new information and evidence comes to light. When a problem emerges that renders evolution intractable, then you will see a new theory emerge to replace it - such is the elegance of rational thought and what is commonly called the "scientific method".

Science is the first domain to recognize its own failings. Read any reasonable study of a topic, and the authors will freely admit to areas that they haven't fully explored or explained, issues that their research brings to bear (even when it does call into question the commonly held working models). This is true for any domain where rational thought is brought to bear. As soon as you assume that you have "all the answers", you wind up with black-and-white thinking. People who will assert unreasonably that X is TRUE (or FALSE, depending on their position), and will not accept the prospect that their assertion is neither necessarily true or false.

Research scientists are generally very unwilling to speak in terms of absolutes when they are exploring new areas. Just as Einstein's Relativity solved a number of problems that Newtonian Mechanics could not solve, and more recently String Theory has emerged to bridge the gaps between Relativity and Quantum Physics, no model is guaranteed to stand for all time. The difference is that well done science stands on its own merits. It will be criticized relentlessly - as Big Bang Theory, but its proponents didn't go running around claiming that the opposing theory is wrong - instead, they carefully and rationally addressed each objection in turn - refining their model until it works and is reasonably complete given the known evidence. Michael Behe and his cohorts might be "serious scientists", but instead of addressing their critics objections rationally and in turn, they fall back repeatedly on credulity arguments.

The extreme right-wing of the "Religious Conservative" world wants absolute answers. They want their world spelled out in the nice elegant black-and-white of the printer's ink upon the page. Sadly, in doing so, their arguments fail to grasp the subtle concept of "necessarily true". Observational evidence is just that - observation. What we observe is the basis for interpretation of the world around us. The fact that I cannot see the constellations of the night sky during the day does mean that the stars vanish at sunrise - it only means that I cannot observe them in full daylight. It may escape my credulity entirely that the stars themselves are the same as the Sun, only at vast distances from Earth. But that doesn't make a theory that the blue cloak that surrounds the rising sun covers the stars believable or correct. In the absence of other data, it may be as good a theory as the first, but that doesn't make either theory "necessarily" correct until there is evidence either way.

Rational thought has a way of making people uncomfortable - it requires you to look at your assumptions from time to time and throw them away. Worse, it forces you to accept that there aren't always absolute answers for questions.