The most interesting session I went to at the AAAS meeting was one yesterday afternoon about communicating with a religious America. The theme: scientists do a better job of alienating and antagonizing religious people than they do in explaining how evolution works and how it is real. Who better to speak on this topic then Ken Miller, Brown biology professor and one of the expert witnesses in the Dover, PA trial? If you remember, in that trial, the judge ruled that intelligent design has no place in the science classroom.
To a very crowded room (I had to sit on the floor), Miller gave an energetic speech about the ways scientists should combat the intelligent design movement. First, they need to understand why so many Americans reject evolution. Miller said it’s because evolution to them means that humans came about by accident, randomly, and that idea is just not very acceptable.
So, Miller says, rather than deny the existence of design in nature (because ‘design’ has theological connotations), scientists need to embrace the word and concept and reclaim it as their own (without the religious overtones). Scientists should be saying that evolution isn’t an accident; it is part of nature. It happens as a result of the laws of the natural world. That, he says, should make evolution seem less random and will make it easier for scientists to communicate with religious people without alienating them right away.
Miller went on to argue how the genome, proteins and the human body have design to them. He spoke quickly and I, being on the floor, couldn’t see his slides very well, so I didn’t fully get all of those arguments. Which worried me. If Miller, who has had a lot of practice already communicating science to a general audience, couldn’t explain clearly to me how there’s design in biology, then how can we expect anyone else to make that argument convincing to the most skeptical of people? I think it would be easy to explain how evolution unfolds as a result of natural forces, but trying to show evidence of design in nature might be a tad difficult. Some might argue that this would be pandering to people who like the idea of a grand designer.
All of them sound a bit risky and ineffective, in my opinion. They all could be misconstrued and turned around on the presenter as evidence in FAVOR of intelligent design, or the like.
This is clearly a debate in which the education system has simply got to be improved to the point where the scientific ideas presented in class are compelling enough to counter the charismatic preachings of those with more literal, religious-based beliefs of human origins (likely heard by the student in church or “Sunday School”, etc…)
How can a poorly-paid teacher, just trying to make ends meet, with old text books and little budget to enhance the learning atmosphere compete with better-funded, and probably better-motivated, evangelical preachers looking to educate their youth?
If you want to see a little creationism vs. science debate in action, read through the comments on this post at Action Potential.
Yes, Noah, I think I would agree. During the talks, my first thoughts were that these arguments were pretty nuanced and subtle. Scientists are used to nuance, but I’m not sure how many nonscientists are.
Yes, the education system needs to be improved. But education doesn’t end at high school or college. Once people leave school, education needs to continue and so I think scientists need to come halfway to try to communicate clearly and at a layman’s level how evolution is real and relevant.
Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have it right. Real talk, no pandering or nuance.
This isn’t just about increasing awareness of evolution / science, which, although desirable, is not likely to solve the problem. Instead, particularly when countering creationism and Intelligent Design, we need to question and highlight the strategy of such movements.
There is religious marketing at work here. As the marketing industry well knows, science sells; but it also exploits the fact that the lay public is largely ignorant of how science actually works, so it can get away with pseudoscientific ruses, because the laity cannot distinguish these from ‘real’ science, with which it is largely unfamiliar. However, everybody is familiar with religion; moreover many people are pre-biased towards it; and, as the ID movement has twigged, selling us something we think we need is easy. So it disingenuously and hypocritically resorts to the authority of science whilst conveniently misrepresenting it.
In the media age, the trick is to inculcate doubt in the public domain. ID lacks an actual scientific research program and peer-reviewed scientific literature, but acquires undue credibility through the generation of publicity, establishing a supposed ‘scientific’ controversy. But it’s a deception. Don’t assume the religious don’t play these games.
Nature Methods has a forum going on this.
Which is why education would help people understand the differences…
When you state that people are pre-biased towards religion, I take that to mean that since they are exposed to it, likely from birth, they tend towards it. I agree. Therefore, better education at the same time as children are acquiring religious views would be useful to provide some balance to what is being taught and absorbed during these critical years.
As many recruiting movements have found (Nazi skinheads, al-Qaeda, etc…) strong messages are better absorbed and accepted by young people, before they are trained to judge the facts for themselves. These are extreme examples, of course, but all that I am saying is that constant exposure to the religious bias of science without a strong counterpoint likely makes many people skeptical of science for life, because of engrained beliefs.
Using another example, racism is dying down in the US, partially because generations of people who lived and breathed racism are aging and dying off, while the younger generations receive a more-balanced message.
This is of course, a big topic extending far beyond the subject of evolution. My own vantage point is from within embryonic stem cell research where some opposing the research hold a very strong reglious belief that a fertilized egg (and everything downstream from it in development) is a person. I have discussed the issues surrounding human embryo research a great deal over the past few years including in quite a variety of religous forums (including Jewish temples, before evangelicals, and once in a Pontifical university in Rome among others).
If there is anything that I have learned in such settings, it’s to never enter a room with the intent of changing anyone’s mind. Religion deals (of course) with things sacred. How better to insult anyone than to suggest that what they hold sacred is wrong? Instead, I state at the very beginning, that I am not there to convince them of anything. Rather, I will simply do my best to explain why I myself am convinced and to hope that we can discuss our differences. Where I find I have some impact is among those who know less about the science than they think they do. In making my case by presenting science respectfully to a crowd of doubters, I have seen some wonderful things happen. I have come to believe quite strongly that being more forceful cannot work. If people choose to not listen, then no amount of pushing will help. If however, they are willing to give you a moment or two, and one makes a case with diplomacy and patience, it may do a great deal even if only with one or two listeners.
Beyond this, I do not have a great deal of confidence that religion and science can reconcile their differences. Their aim is at different targets. Some religious folk feel threatened by science chipping away at the mysteries of life. Much of what we take for granted now scientifically, was for eons firmly in the realm of metaphysics. Reproduction, sickness, weather, so many things. One by these pillars of mystery have fallen to science. I find them to be no less wonderful given a scientific explanation, but then again I have a limited point of view having not lived 1,000 years ago. Now, we find science doing its very best to explain things like consciousness. Some day, perhaps no mysteries will remain. Though I am firmly a person of science, I cannot help but wonder what our world will look like then. Bach did not compose his music out of a fascination with physics. He did so out of devotion to his Creator. My own world would be very small indeed without Bach. It’s an interesting thing for me to think about.
I am completely sympathetic to most of this commentary, except the idea that bonobo displays as early evolutionary roots of religion… First of all, bonobos are every bit as evolved as we are. Secondly, I cannot imagine what the mutational, environmental and interactional components of ritualized sorrow (which is what I am presuming Dr. King refers to) are that “select” for religion. I want to keep just about all hints of sociobiology out of my evolution. Heck, doesn’t King’s argument suggest that “our” religions are “naturally” evolved, then? And doesn’t that place most of us in a pretty untenable situation relative to ED?
While I also hope for continued improvement in science education and recognize it is a contributory factor, I don’t think that is the main problem. If a magical improvement in the quality of teachers and the resources available to them occurred today, or next year, the problem would not go away. The anti-science forces would barely notice I suspect.
It seems to me the real problem is the strength and techniques of the opposition, not a lack of strength from scientists or teachers. The problem is that there are churches and religio-political leaders that actively encourage anti-science agendas for a variety of religio-political reasons. Those are the people that either need to be discredited (part of the New Atheist approach) or partnered with (the Framing Science approach). I think both approaches are valid and useful in differing circumstances. The former have more integrity, but will turn off large portions of their audience, the latter reach a wider audience, but have to spin the science to be non-offensive in order to maintain relationships.
And to Alan Rudy, re: bonobo mourning behavior. Yes of course that suggests that our religions are naturally evolved. I agree, probably not a useful piece of info to employ when trying to reduce the religious objection to evolution. And a good example of the sort of pandering that Framing Science would require.
Thanks Joe, your post reminded me that I’d thought – while reading the original article – that the sociological and science studies literatures on (what Ulrich Beck calls) Risk Society and the condition of Reflexive Modernization see religious anti-scientific fundamentalism as the romantic side of not always unreasonable skepticism or uncertainty about the claims of scientists (and those claiming to generate “science-based policy”.
it has always seemed to me that a good bit of public skepticism/uncertainty emerges from popularizers over-selling science, on the one hand, and from scientists insisting that their science ought to linearly determine public policy, on the other.
Mostly, however, it seems that many folks find the advance of science raising more normative questions than science can answer and that there is no viable public arena for exploring, even contesting, the many normative issues science and technology raise.
If we’re going to Frame Science, it think it is more important to generate a safe public space to discuss these things than it is to try and assuage religious anti-scientists’ misunderstandings.
At the same time, however, I don’t see how evolution is one of the sciences raising the kinds of daily/immediate issues that nuclear weapons, human cloning, ag biotech, internet porn, toxic pollution, etc. raise… even if, or perhaps because, Biblical literalism is definitely a 20th century response to the social and ethical dislocations of modern life. Maybe sharing with folks the short history of their own “religious” practices might be a better strategy…