WHERE ARE ALL THE ENLIGHTENED MUSLIMS?

This poll result from a recent Science article should make any reasonable, rational person shudder


Copyright: Science, 2008

Neglecting the rather pleasantly heartening observation that the 'backward' Kazakhs are more enlightened than their fellow Muslims, the fact delineated in the article that there apparently are virtually no Young-Earth creationists is hardly soothing in light of these results. After taking a look at this, is it surprising that the 'moderate' Muslims are not stepping forward in large throngs to condemn their fellow Muslims' killing of innocents? The problem is not of moderates versus extremists. The problem is of mindsets that fan irrational behaviour based on rejection of world-views which are bolstered by mountains of evidence. The question we have to ask, not just of Muslims but also Christians, Jews and other deeply religious people, is whether they will truly be able to condemn their fellow religious travelers' acts of terrorism based on a reasoned and rational response? They may possibly do it for reasons of pragmatism, perhaps reasons related to political expediency or perhaps related to survival itself. But that is still a quite different stance from condemning such acts because they are as far from reason as we can imagine. Believing in evolution is not necessary for deploring these acts. But I think that a world-view as firmly grounded in reason and evidence as evolution can be a convenient yardstick to map out the general mentality of a population. Of course such surveys turn up disconcerting results in the most advanced country in the world too, namely the United States. Christians are no less ignorant than Muslims. But even in secular countries like Turkey, the Muslims seem to beat the Christians in terms of sheer numbers.

The concept of the moderate Muslim is dealt another blow by polls taken in the Muslim world regarding suicide terrorism. As Sam Harris documents in his book The End of Faith, polls regularly show that 20% of people even in Turkey answer "Yes" when asked "Is suicide bombing in defence of Islam ever justified". Given the population of Turkey, this is a huge number in terms of absolutes. Are we to believe that 14 million Turkish Muslims are Jihadi fundamentalists? That would stretch the imagination of even the most paranoid person. Indeed, probably 13.8 million out of these 14 million call themselves 'moderate' Muslims and live peaceful and pious lives. And yet they readily agree that suicide terrorism in the service of Islam can be justified at least under some circumstances. The proportion of such people in other Muslim countries is unspeakably high. There is a genuine problem here that transcends political, educational and socio-economic disparities.

Now it's also true that there is a substantial proportion of the population cited as "not having thought about evolution". To me it seems that members of this population would be of two kinds; those who basically just don't think about the topic and think it's irrelevant to their lives, and those who have given it some thought and are genuinely undecided about it. One may then think that the latter group stands a good chance of emerging as the next faction of progressive, moderate Muslims who would institute reform. But how can this happen? This latter group is going to be a weak-voiced minority in a majority that won't allow them to get an influential platform for their views. Much has been said about how Islam can only be reformed "from the inside". While this statement will always ring true, what exactly would be the source of this inside reform? It's not that there is suddenly an influential springboard which will serve as a political or social vehicle for transformation. For example, a moderate Muslim who believes in evolution and stresses its acceptance is probably not going to be elected to high public office, just like in the United States. Even if he wants to spread his message, how will he do it? The schools are mostly religious ones, with few secular ones that are going to take on the task of solidly educating their students about evolution. Even if the schools wanted to do it, there would be a pronounced backlash from many parents. Thus society itself would be largely hostile or passive to such a moderate Muslim's views.

As Harris says, the progressive position is also perceived as being theologically bankrupt; after all they are trying to argue against Muslims who are more devoutly following the Holy Book and therefore have already assumed the high ground. We have seen what has happened to progressive and secular Muslims like Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Such enlightened Muslims are simply not in a position to stay in their respective Muslim countries and bring about reform from inside; in fact they have already been condemned by many of their fellow Muslims. Their stories would clearly discourage any potential progressive recruit from treading the same kind of path. So to me it seems that the safest strategy for a so-called progressive and moderate Muslim would be to either silently suffer and tacitly accept the trappings of his culture and society, or to completely break out and defect to more secular countries, in which case his role in own country becomes meaningless. It's a catch 22 situation in which moderates have to either accept the opinion of the majority, or become pariahs. In this light, I don't see a large-scale revival, let alone revolution, spearheaded by moderate and progressive Muslims anytime soon.

The point again is simple; as long as people have more or less blind and unquestionable faith in their Holy Book, as long as they more or less worship their favourite Invisible Man in the Sky, the distinction between moderate and extremist is bound to turn cosmetic. Moderates who may despise the details of the execution of the fundamentalists' actions may nevertheless at least tacitly agree with their stated goals. Even moderate Muslims (or Christians and Jews for that matter) would think that the world would be a better place if everyone in it was Muslim. And as long as this attitude persists, we cannot rid the world of religious fundamentalists.

DEMBSKI'S BOOK REVIEWED BY SENSIBLE PEOPLE

Discovery Institute IDiot William Dembski's new book has been reviewed by sensible people at Amazon. The most shameless thing is that Dembski seems to have persuaded Amazon to remove a negative review of his book. Of course we sympathize with you Bill. That's what all authors wanting to promote their book do, don't they?

AS BAD AS IT GETS: A DEBATE WITH TWO SURPRISINGLY CREATIONIST GENTLEMEN

How a debate with two friends about creationism turned into a defense of science itself...

Read the rest of the entry on Desipundit...

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE SCIENCE

A pretty amazing debate has been going on in the webpages of Amazon.com. But first, a little about what it is about. The webpage is the one displaying Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box", a book that has stirred up unnecessary muck, although not unpredictably. Behe is a biochemist with some credible credentials, but incredible assertions. He is the infamous guy who popularised the concept of "irreducible complexity" in the late 1990s. Behe's contention simply put was (and is) that the biological world is so complex, that only a designer could have made it. That's because if we considered any one of the tiny, fundamental units of life, such as an eye, it is quite clear that taking away any one of the myriad parts that comprise the eye would render it completely non-functional. Thus, it is inconceivable (to Behe) that the eye could have actually evolved gradually, and that all the parts should have been put together, already formed, by some intelligent designer. Enter ID, creationism in a dapper although embarrassingly ostentatious outfit.

There are holes as big as empty space in Behe's whole framework. In one fell swoop, he pushes so many issues under the rug that the rug can no longer bear the presence of all of them, and splits wide open. Behe makes a general philosophical argument, gives it a fancy name, and simply proclaims that it is true by default, the classic demonstration of the "argument from ignorance". He does not look at any contradictory evidence, and even when it is overwhleming, deems it insufficient without any justification. Most importantly, Behe offers not one iota of positive evidence for his own assertions, including the stupendous lack of explanation for the complexity of his intelligent designer who designed such a complex world. Science only partially progresses by elimination of alternatives. It needs solid positive proof to be useful and real. Also, a scientific theory does not collapse only because some detail in it is simply challenged. There are many details in evolution that are debated by scientists. But that does not mean that they don't believe in evolution itself, because there's monumental evidence from a stunning variety of scientific disciplines in support of the truth of evolution. In fact, it is staggering how many different questions in different fields seem to come under the purview of evolution as their answers are revealed everyday. In this context, I have to say that the efforts of Behe and his cronies to discredit evolution are an abomination upon science, and display at most a juvenile understanding of the scientific method.

But needless to say, Behe has been the poster boy for creationists in the last decade, who want to furtively bring creationism to the schools under the guise of scientific jargon. Behe deliberately has chosen the field of biochemistry for his crusade (and crusade is the right word, because his spiels are all based on faith), because he wants to enter creationism through the backdoors of hard science. Most of his creationist patrons probably don't even understand what he says, but no doubt dance with glee when they hear him citing scholarly notions and hijacking them to support his purpose.

Behe was also an apologist for the creationists in the infamous Dover creationist trial of two years ago, where twelve parents of school children had brought a suit against the teaching of creationism in science class. Behe was a defendent for the creationists, and among others, Kenneth Miller the Brown University Professor was an expert witness for the plaintiffs. One of Behe's arguments in Darwin's Black Box is that the immune system is too complex to have evolved by natural selection, ergo, it must have been, by default, designed. During the Dover trial, Behe was shown more than fifty peer reviewed journal publications that dealt with the evolution of the immune system. Not only could he not refute them, but he confessed that he had not read any of them. In the end, the attorney for the plaintiffs as well as the judge roundly scolded Behe and his ilk, and cited their "breathtaking inanity" for simply touting that complex structures arose by the work of an intelligent designer, and for implying that there surely could not be any need to actually study where they came from. In an embarrassing moment for Behe, the plaintiffs' attorney said that while serious scientists were engaged in studying the evolution of the immune system and finding new therapies for diseases, Behe and his sympathizers were not only misleading the public, but were doing absolutely nothing to advance the future of science and medicine. In fact, I feel more pity than anger for Behe, who is clearly an intelligent and educated person, and yet wants to waste his time advancing crackpot causes and not actually making a difference by doing scientific research.

The most vocal opponent of Behe has been Brown University professor Kenneth Miller, and I would strongly recommend his book "Finding Darwin's God" for anyone who wants a good understanding of evolution (including a clear refutation of the belief that evolution is a product of chance), as well a very spirited and convincing reply to Behe's assertions of irreducible complexity. The bacterial flagellum, probably the only example of a true motor in nature, is an astounding factoid of life's complexity. Without doing any research, Behe had again simply proclaimed that it was irreducibly complex. However, Miller showed that there are several examples of other flagella in nature, which show some of the components of the bacterial flagellum and yet work, even if not as well; what is most bothersome that Behe has frequently either not just been aware of the literature, or more believably has shown deliberate ignorance of it. This principle extends to all those other systems which Behe claims are irreducibly complex. The bottom line is, yes, many complex structures in nature can be shown to be made up of independently functioning partial components, and we can follow an evolutionary history for the presence of all these components. For those which are not, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that they were designed by any Yahweh or Zeus.
The humble and yet stunning eye was always one of the favourite targets of creationists, and they used to cite Darwin's own quip about his incredulity at the eye's functioning:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

They also conveniently ignore what he said next:

"Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

There it is; The Reluctant Mr. Darwin demolished irreducible complexity a hundred and fifty years ago.

So, if Darwin himself laid to rest all such troubling questions about irreducible complexity more than a century ago (it is truly remarkable to discover how prescient- and right- the man was), why is there a 85 comment debate on the Amazon.com webpage showcasing Behe's book? The debate is in the comments section of a certain J.M. Ridlon, who seems to know evolution inside out. Incidentally, and again it should not be surprising, the book has received four stars and 575 reviews, which means that most of the reviews have been favourable. This can mean several things; firstly, that sensible people simply did not comment. But what I am more certain about is that most of the reviews were probably written by intelligent folks, probably and unnecessarily fence-sitters, who got impressed with Behe's scientific exposition and felt convinced that at the least, there were serious flaws with evolution. It's very sad if such a thing happened. To these of course we can gently say only one thing; read a good book. Start with Climbing Mount Improbable, that alone will suffice and help you understand evolution a little better.

On the other side of the debate is a cabal of dissenters who keep asking Ridlon to prove with complete certainty all the assertions that he makes. What surprises me is that even these dissenters seem to be intelligent and well-read, and yet they show a deliberately woeful ignorance of the scientific method. However, after trudging through the 83 comments and being highly impressed with Ridlon's knowledge of evolution, it becomes clear; these dissenters don't really want to prove evolution wrong and creationism right. In fact, the comments clearly show that they steer clear from trying to affirmatively expound upon creationism; not surprising since they don't have a shred of evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer. All they do is take potshots,some quite learned sounding ones, at evolution. And then it becomes clear; they want to create "reasonable doubt" about evolution to then allow creationism to be also taught as an "alternative theory" in classes. As it is with many other creationists, they want educators to "teach the debate" where there is none, and they are mustering every effort they can to try to actually convert their arguments into a true debate. After every comment, J.M. Ridlon has given a detailed response, showing how their arguments are wrong.

But now, I have a suggestion for him; J. M. Ridlon, don't bother. These folks are just out to make a political point, not a scientific one. This is not science, it is the manifestation of the dredges of human nature. So no matter how much you convince them about the known certainty of evolution, all they will do is ask, "But, are you one hundred percent certain?". When you, as a good scientist will say that of course not, but that does not tarnish evolution, they will simply turn Bill O'Reillyesque and shout "That's it! That means the whole theory is wrong. We are right, you are wrong!" Now, do we watch Bill O'Reilly except when we want some 'white noise' in the background to help us sometimes fall asleep? Then, J. D., I suggest that you do the same about this comment-fest. It's not about science.