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Bill Nye, Institute on Religion and Democracy, IRD Blog, Nathaniel Torrey, Young Earth Creationism
(Photo credit: Wikimedia)
By Nathaniel Torrey
Bill Nye, oft remembered as Bill Nye the Science Guy on his educational television series, has stirred up some controversy in recent comments about evolution denial and education on a video for BigThink. The video was posted in March but has recently gone viral on Youtube. He tells us grownups that if we want to deny evolution, “That’s fine but don’t make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and tax papers for the future.”
In a later interview on CNN, Nye clarified his point by saying that, “I emphasize again in that video I was talking the use of tax dollars for science education. This is a very important thing if we want to have jobs, if we want the United States to be the world leader, to the innovator, to come up with new inventions.”
Nye’s clarification makes his original point almost redundant. Do I want to pay for an expert in systematic theology to teach me quantum mechanics or a particle physicist to instruct me in Christology? Of course not and, leaving aside any ethical qualms with public education, I especially wouldn’t want tax payer dollars funding any less than excellent instruction.Leaving that aside, there are some troubling underlying assumptions in the BigThink video.
First is Nye’s opinion that if we don’t keep the specter of religion out of the classroom we’ll fall behind in the sciences, and lose in the race of invention. As a result we will decline and become less prosperous as a result. This appears to be a very narrow definition of prosperity and greatness, and I assume he means one of material wealth and comfort that is the result of technology. For a country to be truly great and prosperous in any ultimately meaningful sense, we need more than just “scientifically literate voters and tax payers.” A knowledge of empirical science does not necessarily translate to the prudence needed to pick good leaders. That requires a moral vision in education, something that a book like the Bible most certainly provides. If Nye and others suggest that we should so sanitize the education of our youth such that not only young earth creationism but all religion is unwelcome in education so that the next generation has no source for any compelling moral vision (leaving aside that this is one particular interpretation of Genesis and there have been many Christians even as early as the 4th century A.D. such as St. Augustine of Hippo who have less strictly literal or allegorical readings of that book of the Bible which in no way contradict the findings of empirical science). Quite the contrary—any material prosperity afforded to us by empirical science is worthless without religious insight and meaning.
One might suggest this problem be resolved by saying that evolution should be taught in public schools while religion is taught at home. However, this is precisely what Bill Nye is telling us not to do as well. If parents include any mention of a divine source or deity in regards to the creation of the universe, they stand accused for holding our country back from progress to America’s bright future as an innovator and job producer. It sounds a lot like sacrificing a moral education to science to bring us unparalleled material prosperity the likes of which would make Francis Bacon salivate. If teaching children at home about Faith is the only thing holding us back from some nightmare on the scale of the Tower of Babel, I’m not sure I mind.
Wow – all that flow of words, and all I said was that Nye is a nerdy has-been who got attention by blasting religion.
Fortunately, you guys picked up on the “blasting religion” part as more important than “nerdy has-been.”
To his credit, Torrey acknowledges that some Christians, including Augustine, “have less strictly literal or allegorical readings of that book of the Bible which in no way contradict the findings of empirical science”. But he then quickly and conveniently omits any discussion of the differences between what Augustine suggested or as others have mentioned, Humane Genome Project Director Francis Collins believes, as if there are no differences between them and creationism and all religious thought is equal and valid. It seems that Torrey contends that Christians should not be faulted or criticized for their various views on science including creationism, because some of them are not in conflict, like an innocence by association for the rest of them. Is there no responsibility on the church to actually evaluate their various positions on science to determine which ones are correct and which ones are not, or is his intention that it be a free for all in the classroom where all religious opinions are equal?
Further, it appears Torrey feels that the benefits of religion redeem its other shortcomings, even if you consider its creationism to be faulty science. This is as if to say that Utopian political policies should be evaluated by the proponents intentions, regardless of how these policies work out in the real world.
This argument distills down to whether there actually exists absolute truth about science and origins that we can know for certain. The church believed for centuries that angels spirited the planets through the heavens until Newton and Kepler gave us the natural explanation of gravity. A natural explanation for what was previously considered a supernatural intervention does not discredit God or His involvement in our world or lives, only our faulty assumptions about God’s involvement. In that scenario, He was revealed as being an indirect cause through the laws of gravity, instead of directly furnishing angels to propel the planets through the night sky.
I did not detect that Nye necessarily has any issue with faith per se or the harmonious science/faith view that Collins believes for instance, just the creationism that can be easily falsified. If Torrey wants to redeem the church from what he perceives as the unjust attacks on religion and faith, then he should challenge the church to get the beam out of its own eye, and divorce itself from the strains of creationism that are prompting these types of sentiments from Nye and others that are therefore justified.
Apologies for my duplicate entries. Despite the wording differences, they say pretty much the same thing. My computer and the intertubes were acting wonky last night.
The same process causing the closed-mindedness of Bill Nye causes the closed-mindedness of young earth creationists.
Christians have nothing to fear from genuine science. Some of the most brilliant scientists of yesteryear (Pascal, Newton, etc.) were Christians who saw science as a way of serving God and revealing God’s glory.
Human DNA decoder Francis Collins is a believer who suggests an evolutionary process for human origins, largely because of DNA evidence (which is his expertise). It is likely that the full theory of evolution will never be proven short of the invention of a time machine. Therefore, people on all sides should approach this topic with a little more humility.
I have a strong issue with Nye saying that science should be totally divorced from religion. This shows real prejudice. Religion is the major source of our moral conscience, and without a fully functioning moral conscience science can be used to do all sorts of hideous things.
We should never forget that science does not do itself, it is done by humans, and those humans are subject to the same imperfections that plague the rest of humanity.
While I understand your point, YEC and Evolution deniers commit the same logical fallacy, God of the Gaps, which are not committed by many Christians. The head of the Human Genome Project is a Christian who believes in naturalistic Creation as explained by Evolution. They are not the subject of argument here.
Conflating deniers and scientists is another fallacy, that of false equivalency. Scientists have hard-earned ideas, facts, tests, refutations, peer-review, and tangible results to back them up. Deniers have bronze-age mythology. The two are not equal.
My point was that the same mental process (making firm conclusions in the midst of incomplete data) is at work in those who view Genesis as literalistic and in those (like Nye) who deny that religion can make any contribution to such discussions. I perceive that Nye’s ideas about God (or lack thereof) are based more on prejudice than on scientific fact.
You have a false equivalency there. Nye’s point is that religion and science are different things by nature. I think the misunderstanding lies in thinking the two have an overlap. Religion has asserted many things about the natural world (literal reading of Genesis) that are simply false on the facts, and after being falsified should be rejected by science as a rational pursuit. That is how science works – a hypothesis makes predictions, and if those are not correct the hypothesis is wrong. A literal reading of genesis is simply wrong from a scientific standpoint, and should be put in the garbage bin along with the Geocentric Universe and flat Earth.
Where religion does have a say is in the ethics of what we do with the knowledge, but that is not science. If religion says that, ethically, we should reject Evolution for moral reasons and not factual, than you and I are going to have problems – the answer is never more ignorance. If a religion claims that inquiry should stop when it contradicts religious dogma, then that religion deserves to be resisted and sidelined for being so unethical as to advocate ignorance and stifle curiousity. Creationists want to pretend that 150 years of scientific inquiry never happened. The time is actually longer (the flood model in geology was rejected in the 1700s as being unworkable), but that would suffice for Darwin. Also, Einstein, Hubble, and a few others worked on the age of the universe, but that was physics and more recent. Einstein believed in an eternal, steady-state universe for instance, because he worked 50 years before Big Bang Theory came about. A Catholic priest came up with Big Bang, so at least Catholicism isn’t contributing to YEC.
Evolution.
How many people know there are four major theories? Mutation has been disgarded mostly for the cause of evolution. The main popular theory, the ones scientists get money for, is called ‘leaps’ now. Not just leaps, large radical leaps. Why?
The fossil record does not show gradual evolution. That theory of a slow mutation of natural selection has been disproven. These leaps in evolution were thought to be associated with environmental changes. This has also been disproven.
Now I do not agree that the world was created in six literal days. I do believe that day can mean time period.
However my belief should not allow all points of view to be disgarded as Bill Nye suggests all othee theories.
Bill Nye as a scientist seems to forget that science is the challenge of assumptions. What if I am wrong and so is he and the word is really only a few thousand years old? What is the proof it is not? There is evidence from the stars, plants and rock formations. Not the fossil record alone.
That is my evidence, but there are ways to explain that away scientifically.
The point is closing off another’s point of view, backed by scientific data, should not be closed off. That is not science, that is politics. Bill Nye is prompting politics, not science by telling people and parents to be silent.
If his position is so secure and correct what is wrong with a differing opinion or point of view? Nothing.
All I have got to say to Bill Nye is “If evolution education is so great where is that fusion reactor? Or the personal rocket pack or flying car? WHY THE HECK DON’T WE HAVE A COLONY ON THE MOON AFTER NEARLY 50 YEARS?
My point is if the education of evolution is so great why is scientific education going backwards not forwards with innovation and invention stalled?
You are sadly misinformed … or a liar.
You need to re-educate yourself on Evolution. Your understanding is incomplete which has led to gross misunderstandings.
Mutation leading to speciation – evolution – has been observed. That is a fact, not a hypothesis or speculation.
Darwin proposed inheritance of minor changes/mutations through sexual selection as the prime mover. That also encompasses survivability, since you must be alive to mate. This is very much still with us and the prime tool of animal breeders. Observed fact of Evolution.
Leaps are a current idea and at least plausible, but if accepted this idea will not replace other methods, only make the possible speciation routes more diverse. The others are still there.
As far as fossils go, they do show gradual change over time as we understand the fossilization process, which will be an incomplete record almost by definition. Soft-tissue animals do not fossilize well, for instance, and anything that lives and dies over rocky terrain will probably not leave a fossil. This is not the sole support of Evolution, though. Geneticists say that the genetic record is the most powerful evidence for Evolution we have and would prove the theory on its own without further evidence. Though questions about inheritance and sexual selection (Darwin) directly led us to our modern understanding of genetics.
But even if Evolution is entirely wrong, the answer is not mythology and magical thinking, which is Creationism. Neither of those are testable or refutable. If Evolution is wrong, you need an equally powerful hypothesis that explains the facts in the world around us. Evolution does. Nothing else yet proposed can. If you have something, put it through the wringer and claim your well-earned Nobel.
Nye is saying that science is independent of religion or it is is no good to us.
A fundamental and thorough understanding of biology is important to us because our lives literally depend on it. Our ability to learn new things depends on it. Our ability to keep the world secure and safe depends on it. Flu vaccine, most effective ways to learn, how to keep pilots awake and aware in high performance airplanes, or soldiers healthy over long deployments. If you ever want a stark example, the flu pandemic of 1918 killed more people in six months than WWI did in four years. Now we have a flu shot because we understand the facts and Theory of Evolution that guide us in dealing with disease. Evolution is vital to our very survival.
Even worse is Young Earth Creationism. Belief in YEC requires denial of all of modern physics, chemistry, and geology, as well as biology. All of modern science refutes a literal reading of Genesis. While the laws Newton observed can get us to the Moon, Mars, and the outer planets, only Relativity allowed the missions to Mercury. Relativity demands an old universe. Quantum Theory led to digital computers and the internet, which allows this debate to occur. Quantum Theory demands an old universe. This last one is really telling, because whenever I see anyone using a computer who is also a YEC, they are are a living example of cognitive dissonance at best, jaw-dropping ignorance at worst. To raise a generation of children with either fundamentally broken ideas of reason or the deepest ignorance of science would be devastating to a modern society. We might as well go back to medieval life where religion dictated science, and a Ptolemaic model of the universe ruled. A good way to increase our infant mortality by orders of magnitude and lower our life expectancy by decades.
This is the disaster that Nye is talking about.
Two well-articulated posts, mike – thanx.
Nye is saying that accurate science is independent of religion. Accurate science today must include evolution to understand many problems, from the yearly flu shot to the most effective learning methods to lowering infant mortality to keeping a pilot awake inside high performance jets…. All rely on as accurate and complete understanding of biology as possible, which means a thorough understanding of both the fact and theory of evolution.
But young earth creationism is far more toxic than evolution denial. YEC must also deny most of physics, geology, and chemistry. YEC is a denial of all the best science we’ve come up with, and all the concrete results they give us. Quantum theory and relativity led to digital computers that we are having this debate on. Both describe an ancient universe. In effect, a YEC believer using the Internet is the poster child for cognitive dissonance at best, truly jaw dropping ignorance at worst. Raising a generation of kids this ignorant would be devastating to a modern society.
That is what Nye is saying.
To believe in the amazing scientific hypothesis of Genesis chapter 1 (yes, you read that right) and to believe in evolution is not at all incompatible. Indeed, Darwin, who began his education as a divinity student, almost certainly formulated his theory of evolution from the sequence of the created order described in Genesis 1. Certainly, Francis Collins, the head scientist for the human genome mapping project, does not deny divine creation because he also affirms evolution. Please examine the chart found at this link:http://www.jonruthven.org/THE%20CORRELATION%20OF%20THE%20CREATION%20SEQUENCE%20–FINAL%204-3-12.pdf to see if you can agree.
No one has ever said that abiogenesis and diversification of existing lifeforms via natural selection address the same question. This is another straw man intended to deceive.
If you accept Evolution as the only viable theory behind biology, you are not the subject of disagreement. What you believe about anything supernatural or moral or otherwise is a different argument. Interesting, but off-topic.
I’d also point out that new, paradigm-shattering discoveries are very welcome in the scientific community. The discoveries that led to what we call dark energy and dark matter (euphemisms for what we have little or no understanding of) turned physics on its ear because what we thought we knew was either incomplete or incorrect. They won a Nobel. If you have something similar for biology, please research and present.
It is interesting how un-scientific some of the science worshipers are. If Bill sees material prosperity as the highest good, and he thinks that teaching pure materialism worldview is the means to acheive it, then recent history has provided plenty of examples to test his hypothesis. Who was better off materially: the anti-religious Soviets or the God-clinging Americans? The Maoist Chinese or the religious resurgent Chinese?
Unfortunately, the Bill Nye’s are having their way with our education system and our culture as a whole is becoming more secular. I fear that all too soon our own nation’s decline, both materially and in the less tangible factors, will be additional proof that Bill is wrong.
You’re putting words in Nye’s mouth – straw man arguments are deceitful.
You might win a record for most fallacies in one post.
We can argue the “goodness” of any particular ideology on the merits and even propose some sort of concrete metric to measure “goodness”. However, this does not approach questioning the fact of Evolution, or the Theory constructed on those facts. It is a red herring, combined with straw-man. It is ad-hominem to conflate Western science with Soviets or Maoists. At least you restrained yourself from reductio ad Nazi. False dichotomy is also there, where you present a choice between Fundamentalist Christianity and Soviet/Maoisth thuggery. Hominid already pointed out the straw-man.
But please read your history, and I don’t mean David Barton. The USA was the world’s first secular nation, with a mandate to promote science and education and a prohibition against promoting religion. Thomas Paine writings were banned by the Vatican, as a metric of where European religions stood on our founding ideals. This means Evolution earns NSF dollars and gets taught in public schools or any other school that receives government money. The only thing that can change that is a Constitutional amendment.
Here in TN, they have taken steps though new legislation to allow creationism back into the classroom. This law turns the clock back nearly 100 years here in the seemingly unprogressive South and is simply embarrassing. There is no argument against the Theory of Evolution other than that of religious doctrine. The Monkey Law only opens the door for fanatic Christianity to creep its way back into our classrooms. You can see my visual response as a Tennessean to this absurd law on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pulpit-in-classroom-biblical-agenda-in.html with some evolutionary art and a little bit of simple logic.
Correction: There are many who do not hold to “religious doctrine” who believe there are major holes in the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.
Here is just a sampling from a non-religious group: http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/
Of course there are holes, as there are in all scientific theories. What’s your point? Are you suggesting there are no holes in the dogmatic religious notions? Actually, you’d be right if you were – religious notions can’t have holes in them since they are nothjing but big holes themselves.
Asking science to not have holes is asking science to be something that it is not. Science embraces the concept of “I don’t know” as a starting point for further study, not as an excuse to insert magical thinking or mythology. Every scientific Theory has holes, which are the basis for further study. Science has the virtue of making predictions about what we can expect to find in these holes, and the Theory’s ability to be correct on those predictions is one measure of its strength. For instance, finding a fossil rabbit in a Cambrian geologic layer is not a prediction of Evolution – it would be a fact leading to disproof. Relativity and Cosmic Inflation/Big Bang predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation, which we found and have launched numerous satellites using government funds to measure more precisely to further our knowledge of an ancient universe, further disproving a literal reading of Genesis.
Holes are not only in scientific theories, they are part of how finding new knowledge works. They are a method for testing existing Theories and either confirming them or disproving them.
This is also why the God of the Gaps is a fallacy – every gap we fill further disproves this sort of weak-minded theology. Experienced Creationists recommend you avoid this trap.
My first thought is: how about free and open scientific inquiry, as opposed to slavish (religious?) allegiance to the Evolutionary Theory? Nye appears to fear God, but not in the good way.
My next is: how does one’s position on origins affect one’s ability to advance technology? Do you have to be a Darwinist in order to develop the next personal communication device or fuel cell or vaccine?
Bill might consider entering into dialog with some world-class scientists and thinkers who also believe the Bible. He also might want to chat with some home-schooled Christian kids whose, knowledge, GPA and work ethic often far excel their public school peers. Such interactions might assuage his fears.
You have it backwards, and incorrectly framed. Allegiance to ancient mythology is the problem that science is trying to combat. Science is open to free inquiry, but it has to be testable and falsifiable. Religion is neither, which is why it should not be taught in science class. Religion claims absolute truth and absolute knowledge, actively stifles dissent from dogma, and resists new ways of looking at the world. It is most definitely not science, and science is most definitely not religion. Note the phrasing: I recommend a world religions class as part of history, adjunct to anthropology, social studies, and current events. This includes a study of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, as well as Christianity. But religion is not science by definition.
Your belief in the supernatural will only affect your scientific or technological ability if you let it. If you refuse to study Evolution for religious reasons, then we have a problem. If you study Evolution and accept it as the established, solid science that it is and then go on to use its ideas to create next year’s flu vaccine, or better understand how to deal with infections and superbugs like MRSA (example of observed Evolution), then I will applaud you without regard to your beliefs about religion. But you have to study and teach science without regard or deference to any religion. Science follows facts where they lead. If that disagrees with or destroys a religious notion like a 6000 year old Earth, that is not a consideration that should be applied to the teaching or study or research of science.
Nye is well regarded and well connected in the scientific community, to the point of hero for his work towards education. Scientists applaud his work and very much agree that the push for Creationism/Intelligent Design is a danger to our modern world.
Without belief in God there is no wonder at His creation, and the order within it. Without wonder there is no curiosity to seek answers to questions. Without curiosity there is no desire or personal diligence to pursue Science. Real Scientists are Christians. Other Scientists are Grant Writers.
Bad argument. Why doesn’t the non-existence of God make the universe even MORE mysterious? I understand you don’t see it that way, but it does make some sense.
That’s just arrogant blather. Many atheists scientists have unquenchable curiosity. Speak for yourself.
This is a failure of imagination, an example of an argument from ignorance. Just because you cannot conceive of these things without religion does not mean that they don’t happen. This is an example of how religion stifles debate, because this particular post is based on the notion that the wonder and awe of Evolution is somehow false and only Creationism can provide that.
It would be tempting to say something catty, like:
How sad that this nerdy has-been who was, at best, a semi-celebrity, feels the need to get his face in the news by blasting religion.
So I won’t say it.
It’s good that you won’t say it because it’s not what he did. Nye simply made the indisputable case that doctrine, religious or otherwise, has no place in the science lab or classroom.
The author of this critique, however, suggests that religious fantasy (young Earth, indeed!) is essential to morality and morality is essential to science – to which I say ‘hogwash’!
“indisputable” as in “illegal to dispute.”
He isn’t blasting religion. He is blasting an attack on established science and rational thought.