When you listen to people like Ken Ham the ill informed could be forgiven for accepting his creationist hypothesis. This belief in his utterly rediculous proposition is rendered all the more understandable if we consider how those of us who value the enlightenment talk about scientific fact.
Often in debate or in the media we refer to scientific fact as a subject which one can either believe in or not. By stating that we ‘believe’ in evolution or that we believe that the earth is 4.54 billion years old we are actually offering up scientific fact as a matter of faith and therefore conjecture. In doing so we provide an opportunity for people like Ham to engage in a pseudo debate with the scientific community. Ostensibly these debates focus upon why your belief is any more credible than my belief. As belief is entirely subjective it is easy to see why so many become confused.
So for all of us who want to share enlightenment with those who are shrouded in superstition and idolisation I believe it is time to reevaluate the language we use. I suggest that we should abandon any reference to belief and rather be clear about what we understand to be fully evidenced facts.
Immediately this will invite accusations of a sense of superiority and arrogance for those of us who adopt this tack. However if we are clear about the difference between hypothesis and theory, and if we also understand the power of language to effect thought, we should be able to both explain ourselves and get our message across more effectively.
We need to be able to explain to people that a hypothesis, such as creationism, is merely a proposal to explain an observation or account for known facts. On the other hand a theory emerges following experimentation and observation to test the validity of a hypothesis. Therefore the theory of evolution has been evidenced following countless independent, peer reviews of the available evidence. Conversely creationism has no known corroborative evidence, has not been peer reviewed, lacks experimental data sets and is simply an unsubstantiated hypothesis.
Furthermore, once a theory is established, further peer review and experiment can lead to a point where the theory is proven to be true. The theory becomes an established fact no longer a matter for debate. Those of us who are familiar with the scientific method, should be confident in saying so.
For example a long standing theory that explains the possible origin of the universe is the big bang theory of inflation. This has been tested through experimentation over the last 35 years and has become a cornerstone of cosmology. Not because cosmologists “believe” in it (although they may say themselves that they do) but because the available experimental, peer reviewed, evidence seems to support the theory.
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As a result of the findings of the BICEP2 team the theory of inflation could well be moving towards established fact. However, in order for that to be true, the available evidence will be independently verified, tested through prolific experimentation, modeled and remodeled with every scientific mind doing their very best to disprove the theory. However, once this process is complete, should BICEP2 findings be corroborated, then we should not shy away from stating that we do understand how the universe came into being. Big bang inflation will be a fact, not a belief.
So why is changing our language such an issue? Firstly I have no doubt that when the scientific community presents inflation as an explanation for the origins of the universe there will be many who dismiss it. No one is ever going to convince the likes of Ken Ham that he is wrong.
His anti scientific rhetoric, whilst making him wealthy, does present a danger to all our futures. If successive generations grow up believing such drivel we will have numerous associated problems for years to come. Many of these lost individuals will permeate their silly superstition throughout society. Politicians will have to pander to it for votes and scientific endeavour will be undermined whilst valuable resources are lost trying to justify something which is patently absurd.
However, if we strive to change the language we use it will change future generations understanding. Quite simply language is the tool we use to describe our perception both to others and to ourselves. If we change the frame of reference within the language we use that will inevitably lead to a change in thought, perception and understanding.
For example many people in the UK bemoan what they see as political correctness. We no longer say wife or husband but rather partner, we don’t use derogatory names such as poof or nigger but rather say homosexual (gay) or black person etc.
The point is that whilst these adjustments in language can seem difficult for the generation that changes its use, subsequent generations will simply adopt that language as a their means of describing their world. These derogatory terms, and the pernicious ideas they stem from, will simply disappear from common parlance and, subsequently, thought.
Similarly if we start now talking about scientific fact rather than belief we will introduce into the lexicon the idea that some things have already been proven to be true. They are not matters for further debate but are, instead, the foundations upon which we can further our understanding.
Whilst Ken Ham will never accept such statements of fact his grandchildren may do so without hesitation.
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This peculiar notion of ‘life coming from mud’ arose in the 1920’s, and is a modern construct that has resulted in a false ‘dispute’ – that of ‘creationists’ versus ‘evolutionists’. Both are flat wrong, and there is no dispute, at all.
I am reminded of the Law of Thermodynamics, specifically, that concerning entropy. Stated simply, it means that in time, all order must eventually descend to uniformity, or ‘chaos’ to use the old term. A bottle of perfume is a ‘closed’ system, for example. If the bottle top is removed, the system becomes ‘open’. The heat in the room then evaporates the perfume and the molecules diffuse randomly through the atmosphere, in chaotic fashion. No known process will make them return.
In other words, it is not possible, by any of our known physical laws of science, for the opposite to happen, ie: order to spontaneously appear from chaos. I would no more expect inanimate elements to magically clump themselves together ( a ‘miracle’ if ever there was one) to form life, than a pile of electronic components to spontaneously form a working computer. The very people, calling themselves ‘scientists’ who say ‘miracles do not happen’, then propose the foregoing ‘miracle’ of their own defying the laws of physics of course, to press the point. People who take this view have no concept of real science.
This is the danger in ‘rewinding’ evolutionary theory to an imaginary ‘time zero’ when life, supposedly, just ‘occurred’. Not even Charles Darwin himself agreed with this ridiculous notion. In fact he very specifically warned against it: “the entire reason revolts at such a conclusion.” he wrote.
And also from Darwin, in the very last paragraph of the very last page of ‘The Origin of Species’ he wrote what are probably the most beautiful and sublime words, from any scientist from any time and from anywhere:
“It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
The point of Darwin’s research into the range of volcanic islands known a The Galapagos, was to show that life comes from outside to seed the barren planet, and does not just arise spontaneously. Then, over millennia, adapts to perfectly establish it’s own eco-system.
The writer and poet Alfred Noyes in his book ‘The Edge of the Abyss’ (pub. 1942) put it this way (paraphrased from memory):
“Imagine yourself to be an immortal agnostic. You sit yourself down on a deserted shore on the lifeless planet known as Earth. After many billions of years, you see an ocean liner sailing past the horizon and aeroplanes flying in the sky…”
There’s more to this ‘reality’ as we mortals call it, but I don’t know how to explain it. Quantum Physics seems to be showing us the way. I would recommend reading ‘The Philosophy of Physics’ by Max Planck, one of the most distinguished of physicists. He writes on the problem of causality as it applies to physics. Quote: “The chaos of individual masses cannot be wrought into a cosmos without some harmonizing force.”
So there it is. Two of the world’s greatest true scientists. One misquoted and mis-represented, the other, well, just ignored by populist conceptions.
Thanks for a wonderful comment that was much better than the article it commented on. Fantastic. I wrote this post 5 years ago. In that time, my view on “da science” has changed considerably. Something I need to return to at some point.
When I was at secondary school in the mid 1980s my science textbook told me the earth was around 2.4 billion years old.
How old does science say it is now?
So much for scientific “facts”.