Fighting Creationism

Great anti-creationist articles from Nathan Lents and Richard Dawkins, but both are preaching to their choirs (Lents, “Behe, Bias, and Bears, Oh My!”; Dawkins, “Science: The Gold Standard for Truth,” both March/April 2021). Time is of the essence. This is spiritual warfare. Offense is needed, not defense. Fight on their turf. Jesus was a creationist because his death was to fix what Adam and Eve broke. Adam and Eve were real humans, created, not born, from whom all humans descend.

If this is not factually true, their religion is just another myth-based false way. For your information, this means all liberal non-creationist versions of Christianity are heretical, period! Creationism is a required tenet of this faith. This explains America’s great divide.

The creationists saw Trump as telling the truth, and they hate liberal Christian hypocrites. Expose the absurdities inside both of their belief sets, the right and left. Here’s a useful verse: Proverbs 12:17, “He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.” Somebody should have quoted that to Trump. Also, Psalms 119:128, “I hate every false way.”

[Name and address withheld by request]

 

Clearly Richard Dawkins has great ability to find truth and communicate science. As eminent a skeptic and scientist as he is, this article highlights how smart people might be clueless about fields unrelated to their expertise.

It is puzzling to me that in an article about truth Dawkins gets into politics. To equate the Trump White House to Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” is ridiculous! It is a fact that the FBI lied to spy on Trump. It is a fact that the Russian collusion narrative was invented to cover up the Hilary Clinton email scandal.

If Dawkins wants to get into political commentary, he would do better, considering his influence, to look at the big picture. The cancel culture, media bias, and big tech censorship are important issues regarding truth that should concern everyone. Reread Orwell and think about what is going on today.

Steven Van Jepmond
Menlo Park, California

 

Arguing for Evolution

In his essay “Facts, Theories, and Best Explanations” (March/April 2021), Peter Marston does his best to side-step the problems evolutionists have when confronting people with other, usually theologically grounded, points of view. His main point is that when creationists reject standard biological models by claiming that evolution is “merely a theory” biologists are ill-advised to retort with “No, evolution is a fact.” His preferred avenue for further discussion (when such is possible) is to argue that evolution is “the best explanation” for the diversity of life on the planet.

I’m not sure I can agree with him, for two reasons. First, creationists already think they have the “best explanation,” so asserting that they don’t is unlikely to be effective. Second, evolution is a fact—but making that simple claim, as he noted, is typically not productive. What is needed is an addendum: “And, as with many facts in science, there are different theories of it.”

If the dialogue continues, point out that Darwinism is one; saltationist models another; then there are Lamarckism and epigenesis. Combinations of these theoretical frameworks make up the modern but still evolving consensus in biology about the fact of evolution.

Arthur S. Reber, PhD
Point Roberts, Washington

 

Peter Marston’s advice to interpret evolution in terms of “best fit” is an invitation to disaster for purposes of communicating with persons steeped in a creationist worldview. People are not going to skew their whole framework of reference to fit a bunch of physical facts. Evolution is clearly not the best fit with what people perceive as their spiritual development, their emotional relationships, and their belief in the purpose of their own lives. 

As a firm adherent to an evolutionary view of life on earth, I realize the painful sacrifices in other aspects of our personal lives this view demands. Look at the obituary columns in any urban newspaper to see that the deceased has “returned to our Father’s home,” is “in the arms of the Beloved Creator,” has “reunited with his wife of 55 years.” Is evolution the “best fit“ with that worldview? If not, forget trying to impress it upon that mindset. “Return to our chemical elements” is a bleak thing to offer in the face of death. Evolution does not inspire faith in the kind of human prospects that inspire noble deeds.

We require perhaps a century of interpretation by poets such as Loren Eiseley, by musicians who invent new forms of celebration, by artists who envision a new panoply of time. It isn’t a matter of “best fit” with the known facts but best fit with our sense of ourselves, our hopes for human life, and the destiny of our souls.

Sharon Scholl
Atlantic Beach, Florida

 

Why don’t we start calling evolution a law, as we call Newton’s law of gravity? Technically, it may not be strictly accurate, but our audience, who can’t tell the difference between the common and scientific usage of the word theory, won’t notice.

Richard Uschold
Port Orange, Florida

 

Disagreeing about QAnon

In the article “Life, the Quniverse, and Everything, Part I” (March/April 2021), Stephanie Kemmerer states, “A careful reading of LaVey’s The Satanic Bible shows it is nothing more than a misinterpretation of the made-up text Enochian Aethyrs, with certain ‘angelic’ words changed to ‘demonic’ ones.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. First, the Enochian Calls are only a small part of The Satanic Bible and probably the least important part. Ritual magic is something individual Satanists may choose to either explore or ignore at their discretion. Satanism is about the individual, after all. Second, the official Church of Satan website documents LaVey’s process writing The Satanic Bible and his justification for including the Enochian Calls. LaVey was quite familiar with John Dee and the Liber Loagaeth; he did not “misinterpret” the made-up language of Enochian. LaVey purposefully altered the Keys for his own purposes. This information is all easily and publicly available.

J.D. Sword
via email

 

QAnon is no more to blame for damaging people’s lives than guns are responsible for murder. In both cases, it is the person who, as even author Stephanie Kemmerer acknowledges, “already [has] a mental or emotional instability.” QAnon is a salve for the pain, just like alcohol or drugs, and it is just as misleading and almost as damaging.

Moreover, although I am not a woke, Red pill ingester, I believe in the reality of the Deep State. Among its many members is the collection of bureaucrats who endure no matter which party controls the White House or Congress and who, like all human beings, resent being pushed in a direction different from the one they have been facing for as long as they have been in service. An iconoclast such as former President Trump, who tried to make them “face in a different direction” was bound to meet “resistance.”

And if Kemmerer wants to assert that Trump is chiefly responsible for the divisiveness over the past four years, I urge her to subject her conclusion to the kind of scrutiny that one should be able to expect from a contributor to  Skeptical Inquirer. I contend that he was only responding to the avalanche of vitriol directed at him from all sides. Their motivation? See above, but add thwarted, moneyed interests to the rigid bureaucracy mentioned.

David Seltzer
Long Beach, New York 

 

Stephanie Kemmerer lost me in her QAnon article when she made the absurd statement that Trump used “neofascist politics.” Obviously, she has no idea what the term fascist means and uses it as a common pejorative instead.

Trump was anything but a fascist, especially as he cut regulations on the economy. After that statement, I had to question the veracity of the rest of her information … not that I would believe anything I have seen about QAnon elsewhere either.

No, I am not a rally-attending, red-hat-wearing Trump apostle. In 2020, I did vote for him because he proved himself on the economy and foreign affairs, his tweets and claims on other topics aside.

If I want politics, I will read political magazines. In the case of SI, I am expecting science and science alone.

David Kveragas
Newton Township, Pennsylvania

 

Havana Syndrome

In his article “NAS Report on Havana Syndrome Mired in Controversy” (March/April 2021), Robert Bartholomew lays bare some of the ridiculous theories regarding the so-called Havana Syndrome, which is best explained as an example of mass hysteria. Unfortunately, much time and media space—as well as big medical dollars—are wasted investigating other vague syndromes with inconsistent symptoms and medical findings. The most recent such syndrome representing probable mass hysteria is “long Covid” in adults and children. Billions are being spent on this “syndrome.” Results will predictably be noninformative. Another recent syndrome that appears to have disappeared from view but in its day spawned millions of cases was “chronic fatigue syndrome,” also best explained as an example of mass hysteria. To quote the philosopher Santayana, “Those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Alan Lubin, MD
Gates Mills, Ohio

 

Batteries and ‘Hauntings’

Benjamin Radford’s “Do Blinky Batteries Prove Ghosts” (January/February 2021) was interesting, but I can’t help but wonder if the experiment could have been done differently. Instead of placing batteries in “haunted” and “not haunted” locations and checking their drainage, perhaps he could have put new batteries in devices (cameras/flashlights) and then actively used these devices in “haunted” and “not haunted” locations before measuring their drainage. I suggest this because in every account of batteries dying during ghost investigations that I’ve read, the batteries were in devices being used, not batteries sitting on a shelf. I’m not questioning; I’m just curious.

Jennifer Osborne
Lester, Pennsylvania

 

Benjamin Radford replies:

 Osborne is right, and I appreciate the comment. Had this been a full-fledged scientific experiment, I’d likely have done that. As I noted in the column, “Had there been an effect, I’d have had reason to replicate the experiment with a much larger sample, stronger controls, monitoring to prevent fraud, etc.” This would include having the batteries in use, though presumably ghosts can drain energy from batteries whether they’re actively in use or not. This was a small informal experiment conducted in the context of a television show, and the producers were less interested in doing valid science than in creating dramatic TV. In fact, my investigations at that location were edited out of the final broadcast! I welcome anyone replicating the experiment with batteries in devices being used and would be happy to help with research design.

Troubles with Science and Theology

In his letter (January/February 2021) referencing Brian Bolton’s “The Continuing Assault on Science by Creationist Group Reasons to Believe” (September/October 2020), Robert A. Saunders says, “Because it is provable that a proposition can contain no information unless there exists a means of refuting it, it is provable that no information can exist about any god. Thus, every reference to a god in the Bible … is unverifiable.” All good, except that he uses this to buttress his position that “The Bible is fiction.” This is affirming the consequent (non sequitur): the mere fact that something is unverifiable does not necessarily make it “fiction.”

One will always get into trouble when attempting to apply the processes of science (e.g., the scientific method) to subjects such as theology and philosophy, which are ipso facto outside the realm of science. I would add here the additional intellectual dishonesty of scientists who dismiss Darwin’s own history and words to paint him as some sort of atheist. Darwin was a parson-naturalist who never earned a degree; he was mentored by both scientists and religious men and studied to be both scientist and priest. He saw adaptation as “god working through the laws of nature.” He was an Anglican who, despite occasional crises in faith, never abandoned his belief in God. Indeed, upon his death, he became a deacon of his local church. His only goal after his voyage on the Beagle was to disprove the specific theory of “special creation,” and he did so.

Ian Alterman
New York, New York

 

Asteroid Names: A Correction

In our May/June 2021 issue, a sentence on page 10 said the great experimental physicist C.S. Wu “was the first living scientist to have an asteroid named after her (in 1990).” Although that statement appeared in the extensive Wikipedia entry about Wu, citing a 2007 biography, it is incorrect. Starting in the 1970s, many living scientists (most but not all of them associated with planetary studies, such as astronomer Tom Gehrels of the University of Arizona) have had asteroids named after them. Among those so honored before 1990, ironically, are at least three SI contributors, Alan Harris, David Morrison, and Clark Chapman. All are, happily, alive and still contributing to our understanding of the world. (We also arranged to have Susan Gerbic’s GSoW team fix the erroneous Wikipedia mention.)