Dawkins Lashes Out
by MikeGeneRichard Dawkins, the world's most famous Bright, wrote an article where he complains about creationists misusing the writings of evolutionary scientists. He uses three examples (Darwin, Lewontin, and himself) of a writer expressing "temporary doubt, as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel," only to have troublesome creationists quoting this rhetorical doubt out of context, making it look as if the writer is doubting evolution. Of course, many in cyberspace recognize this as quote mining.
Dawkins frustration with this tactic is understandable, as I certainly do not defend such a practice. But Dawkins goes over the top with his complaint, turning an annoying practice into something that threatens the very practice of science itself:
Admissions of ignorance and mystification are vital to good science. It is therefore galling, to say the least, when enemies of science turn those constructive admissions around and abuse them for political advantage. It is worse than galling. It threatens the enterprise of science itself. This is exactly the effect creationism or "˜intelligent design theory' (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.
We'll overlook the clumsy attempt to equate ID with creationism and instead simply focus on the enterprise of science being threatened.
Dawkins' complaint lacks two important ingredients "“ context and evidence.
First, the context. The notion that the enterprise of science itself is being threatened by quote mining in creationist pamphlets is ludicrous. The scientific enterprise is a global endeavor that involves hundreds of thousands of scientists and technicians supported by hundreds of billions of dollars. It involves thousands of universities, private research institutions, and businesses along with hundreds of scientific organizations. In the 1960s, it was popular to speak of the "military-industrial complex." Well, science has evolved to the state where we now have a scientific-industrial complex. That such a massive nexus of activity is threatened by a handful of quote mining creationists is laughable.
And that takes us to the evidence. Where is the evidence that this quote mining threatens the enterprise of science? Dawkins cites three examples, yet fails to show how they have resulted in any detectable harm to science. Is there an experiment that was not done because of quote mining? Is there a lab that was shut down because of quote mining? Is there a scientist who lost his job because of quote mining?
If Dawkins is to write about threats to the scientific enterprise, why doesn't he condemn the animal rights movement in his own country? For example, recently this movement has thwarted the attempt to construct new research facilities at both Cambridge and Oxford. Yet Professor Dawkins has been asleep at the wheel regarding this threat.
May 26th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Mike Gene:
If Dawkins is to write about threats to the scientific enterprise, why doesn't he condemn the animal rights movement in his own country? For example, recently this movement has thwarted the attempt to construct new research facilities at both Cambridge and Oxford. Yet Professor Dawkins has been asleep at the wheel regarding this threat.
So, can you tell us exactly what percentage of his time Professor Dawkins has to allocate to other threats to science before he is permitted to criticize the ID/creationist movement?
Comment by Aagcobb — May 26, 2005 @ 12:09 pm
May 26th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
Aagcobb:
Dawkins is clearly permitted to criticize the "ID/creationist movement." Just as I am just permitted to criticize him for a) relying on hyperbole to attack the "ID/creationist movement" while b) ignoring real-world threats to science in his own back yard.
Comment by MikeGene — May 26, 2005 @ 1:17 pm
May 26th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
"So, can you tell us exactly what percentage of his time Professor Dawkins has to allocate to other threats to science before he is permitted to criticize the ID/creationist movement?"
I just learned that this fallacy is called "plurium interrogationum," otherwise known as a "loaded question." The question assumes that
a) by criticizing and commenting on Dawkins's criticism of ID, Mr. Gene is somehow not "permitting" Dawkins to criticize ID (as if Mr. Gene held the keys to that particular enterprise, when it is in fact as commonplace, in some circles, to bash ID/creationism as it is in others to pray or drink water);
b) in order to gain permission (see a)) to criticize ID Dawkins must criticize other movements in some relative proportion (when in fact Mr. Gene did not say anything of the sort, but rather mused about movements that seemed more reasonable to label threats to science);
c) ID/creationist movement is some kind of "threat" to science (when it may be in fact a philosophical critique of but one overworked scientific theory, a threat not to science but an oppressive ideological barrier to real science, or even a valid scientific research program working from its own priniciples), and, oh yeah,
d) ID is intrinsically linked to creationism in some "/" manner (when in fact there are obvious differences between the two approaches).
Comment by ariel — May 26, 2005 @ 3:09 pm
May 27th, 2005 at 11:07 pm
Edarrell,
I'm going to take MikeGene's lead and ask for context, evidence. More unjustified claims don't count.
Comment by ariel — May 27, 2005 @ 11:07 pm
May 28th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Ariel, I don't see one of my comments here — but if you need an example, go to the library and look up Trofim Lysenko, and "Lysenkoism." In the 1920s, Soviet scientists led the world in genetics research. Stalin found Darwin too bourgeois, and encharged his henchman, pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko, with stamping out all evolution-based science. He was successful — Darwinists were muted, censored, fired, exiled, murdered or executed. By the 1950s Soviet science was so bad that it forced the failure of the wheat crops, and several millions of people starved to death. USSR was forced to purchase wheat — from the U.S., ironically — and their international economic balance never recovered. Nor did their science.
There are several accounts of this anti-science, anti-Darwin tragedy. Ashley Montagu wrote a readable account in his 1959 book, Human Genetics. There is another account in a 1995 edition of American Scientist. You could probably look it up at Talkorigins, if you don't have all their stuff filtered.
Comment by edarrell — May 28, 2005 @ 12:24 pm
May 29th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
"You could probably look it up at Talkorigins, if you don't have all their stuff filtered."
Oh, you've got us pegged.
So, from your perspective, if we're are not with Darwin, for whatever reason, we're are against science and scientific freedom? I am just trying to get this straight, and also why you would consider your–well written!–account of Lysenkoism to be considered as evidence for your previous claims (which involved economic and intellectual demise here on the order of the USSR due to dissent from Darwinism and the success of ID, as opposed to a mutated Lamarkianism in the USSR). Perhaps you meant this "example" as part of trying to build a context, as to why any protracted dissent from Darwinian narrative will lead, naturally, to the demise of science. Wow.
Perhaps Sen. Santorum deleted your other comment.
Comment by ariel — May 29, 2005 @ 11:16 pm