VOTING AND TRUTH

Nato and I have been engaged in a dispute about the teaching of evolution in schools, which he argues should be imposed by the state regardless of the popular will because "we don't get to vote on what truth is." In reaction to an earlier post of mine, he writes:

the truth or falsity of evolution is apparently not at issue. Nathan says that to override the popular will on an issue of scientific fact is 'not worth it'. Could we apply this to geography? If we vote that, say, the continent of Asia is imaginary, should it be taught in schools? How about if only one school district votes to teach that, in an area where a sect predominates whose holy text says there is no continent but North America?

What's interesting, and typical, about this counter-argument is that his hypothetical situations are completely implausible, and Nato, like others who take this line, does not seem to care. Does any sect deny the existence of other continents? How likely is it that some sect would gain a democratic majority in some district and impose this curriculum on the schools? My answer is, yes, if people vote that way, that's what should be taught; moreover, if we somehow get majorities of people believing in such ridiculous and factually disprovable things, we will be in pretty bad shape, and screwy school curriculums will be the least of our worries. Fortunately, though, I'm quite confident that no such fantastic scenarios will actually come to pass. The alternative is to hand power to an elite of "experts," who are just as likely to be misguided as the public is, I think.

But I also introduced an argument about evolution:

When I said I thought evolution is "full of holes," the phrase was a stand-in for a much bigger argument that I didn't want to get into just then. My evolution-skepticism derives from the book Darwin on Trial and other work by Philip Johnson. I am NOT a Biblical literalist, seven-day creationist, let it be emphasized. I would sooner cut off my hand than believe a thing just because the Bible said so. It is on scientific grounds that I think evolution falls short.

A brief summary will not do justice to Johnson's comprehensive challenge to the evidence for evolution, but I should say a word, just because people are brainwashed enough on this issue that people will probably dismiss me as crazy otherwise. (I know from experience that it's an uphill battle to get people even remotely to consider alternatives on this issue, but you've got to try.)

Think of the theory of evolution as two theses: 1) a process of natural selection yields higher survival rates for specimens with advantageous traits for a particular environment, allowing them to reproduce more, and causing those traits to become more common, potentially leading to gradual change in a species (though equilibrium is also possible), 2) natural selection explains how life on earth in all its complexity came into being from a pre-historic chemical sludge. I am not doubting the process of natural selection. To prove that natural selection must take place does not even require observation or experiment, it can be achieved through simple logic, starting with the propositions that a) organisms pass traits on to their offspring, b) some organisms survive and some do not, c) the organisms' traits affect the likelihood of survival. But from thesis (1) to thesis (2) is a huge gulf, which I do not think evolution science comes even close to bridging.

Now think about an eye. No one doubts that organisms with eyes are better off with those without, and natural selection would favor them. But how would a creature get an eye in the first place. An eye is an extremely complex organ, and to imagine that an eye would appear all at once by a mutation is risibly improbable. But it's hard to imagine how an eye could have evolved gradually, because part of an eye is no use, since you're blind anyway. A race of probabilities starts to come in here: that an eye, or parts or functions of an eye with any value, could appear by mutation is extremely improbable, but then we are talking about billions of years over which all this took place, and maybe the very improbable could still happen a few times in all that time. It's hard to quantify such things and give them an up or down. My own judgment is that the gulf is too wide to be bridged, but anyway that evolutionists are far from having bridged it, and yet they insist with fundamentalist zeal that evolution is "FACT!!!" Don't take my word for it. Read Philip Johnson.

Bear in mind, too, that the nature of evidence and knowledge in evolution is in no way comparable to other sciences. Neither experiment nor direct observation is available. The analogy to geography is bogus. Actually I think a more skeptical attitude towards geography might be useful-- veteran traveling journalist Robert Kaplan asserts of Africa that "maps lie"-- but at the end of the day, if you don't believe that New Delhi or Kilimanjaro or Cape Horn exists, you can go there and see them. If you don't believe that gravity accelerates objects at 9.8 meters per second squared, we can drop something off a building, pull out a stop watch, do the calculations. If you don't believe that planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, the telescopes are there to prove you wrong. We can't go back to the Jurassic Age.

If I'm doubting evolution, what's my alternative? That's the trick: I don't have one. I think that we just don't know how the world and all life in it came into being. The triumph of evolution is aesthetic and psychological. Aesthetic, because the emergence of such wonderful and beautiful complexity from chemical sludge through such a simple and intelligible process is enchantingly pleasurable to contemplate, and it also flattered the Victorian view of history, in which civilization had evolved from primitive society, through ancient Rome and Greece, through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment to culminate in... Victorian England. Psychological, because people, and especially scientists, hate not knowing. If we haven't sailed to the corners of the map, we draw dragons and sea monsters in the far-away oceans rather than leaving them blank. Furthermore, evolution plays a key role in legitimizing the materialist worldview.

Despite my skepticism, I would want my children to learn evolution in schools. If there were a referendum, "Should the schools in [town I lived in] teach evolution?" I would vote yes, not just because my children need to know what other people think, but also because understanding evolution requires analytical sharpness and would build their skills, and because evolution theory is so beautiful, and would help them to appreciate a lot of great artwork, from sci-fi books and movies to natural history museums. But there should be a referendum.

It turns out that Nato has read Philip Johnson and some others and still thinks that "evolution can actually be confirmed today (in the broad sense)
by anyone who wants to follow the trail of evidence." Maybe, but let's let the people decide.