“Left” Versus “Right” Science

_{Donald McLaughlin

May 7, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews goes after Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) on Science.

PENCE: Do I believe in evolution? I embrace the view that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that’s in them, and —
MATTHEWS: (interrupting) Right, but you believe in evolution from the beginning.
PENCE: The means, Chris, that He used to do that, I can’t say, but I do believe —
MATTHEWS: (interrupting) You can’t what?
PENCE: — in that fundamental truth.
MATTHEWS: Well — well did you take biology? (screaming) Did you take biology in school? Did you take science, which is all based on evolutionary belief and assumption?
PENCE: Well, I’ve always wanted to —
MATTHEWS: (screaming) If your party is to be credible on science, you’ve gotta accept science. Do you?
PENCE: Yeah, I want to —
MATTHEWS: Accept science?

[youtube KsMGvvUyNDE]

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but Science, at least according to Chris Matthews, is a Democrat thing. Personally, I was unaware that there was a “deomcrat” way to do science and a “republican” way to do science. Someone might explain to me how that works. Is there a “left” scientific method and a “right” scientific method? Matthews certainly seems to think so! How ignorant and disingenous of him! (But, we’re talking about Chris Matthews here, the most misinformed commentator on the networks as far as I’m concerned)

Its worth noting how Matthews tries to build a straw man about YEC and then claim that there a “many” in the Republican party who hold that view and who are “anti-science”. Matthews demonstrates admirably the left’s derision of anyone who would dare question evolution, stem cell research, global warming and who knows what else. Matthews appears clueless about the real debates in science about all these things, and ignores completely any of the moral questions involved, pretending, I guess, that they don’t even exist!

I’ll grant that Mike Pence is not exactly the best spokesperson for Science and scientific issues, but trying to tie him to YEC and Fundamentalism only shows how shallow guys like Matthew and those on the left really are. Matthews did a great job of making a fool of himself…but then, he does that almost every night. That’s why MSNBC has the lowest rating of all the news networks.

Edited to add this:
Some additional thoughts on this from Cornelius G. Hunter from his Darwin’s God blogspot.

Comments

"Follow the evidence wherever it leads" is such a ambiguous statement. When someone on the 'right' says it, they mean prove the bible and gods are real, and when someone on the 'left' says it, it means 'follow the evidence wherever it leads'. lol :P Scientists have been following the evidence for hundreds of years, but APPARENTLY the 'right' thinks everyone with their fancy technology and advanced medical knowledge have been on the wrong path all this time, hence avoiding the question. very amusing. :)Nnoel_{May 8, 2009
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SP: Re, # 1: Mike Pence and other members of government are really going to have to start engaging the Chris Matthews’ and Colbert’s of the media much better than they are currently You are right. I think some first steps in such an answer are: 0] Before we begin, challenge the looseness of the term itself: "evolution" means many things from minor population variations to a grand metaphysical story on the origin of all life. But, given the context, the likeliest meaning is towards the latter, far more controversial and questionable end of the spectrum of meanings. (Not to mention the gross and ill-founded assumption or implication that it is such materialists who have cornered the market on scientific rationality!) 1] To then identify what science is supposed to be, at its best: an unfettered (but ethically and intellectually responsible) pursuit of the truth about our world based on evidence and reasoned discussion 2] Contrast the ideological censorship being imposed by many in positions of institutional scientific power on science through a priori materialism, e.g. through NAS member Richard Lewontin's remarks in his infamous 1997 review of Sagan's last book; including the underlying ill-informed anti-God sentiment:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.
--> in short so-called methodological naturalism is in effect a stalking horse for the ideology of evolutionary materialist "scientific" atheism. --> And, for commonly associated ideological agendas; many of which are neither intellectually responsible nor ethically defensible. 3] Expose the ignorance or distortion of the views of the founders of modern science (who were "thinking God's thoughts after him"), and the linked distortion of a view that accepts the possibility of miracles [i.e. for miracles to be recognisable, they must stand out against an orderly world -- one in which science is a reasonable venture]. 4] Highlight how censorship, ignorance and distortion are being pushed into education and other important spheres of concern to all citizens, e.g. this from NAS's 2008 pamphlet on Science and Creationism:
In science, explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena. Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations. . . . Unless a proposed explanation is framed in a way that some observational evidence could potentially count against it, that explanation cannot be subjected to scientific testing.
--> This distorts that there is another very relevant contrast to "natural": ARTificial, i.e we have spontaneous causes tracing to chance and/or necessity, and intelligent ones tracing to agents. --> And, as we know from abundant experience such designs often leaves empirical traces that are reliable signs. --> Traces that are not only amenable to scientific testing, but which are routinely studied in many fields of science [occasionally appearing in the courtroom!]. --> So, the NAS is indulging in censorship in service to concealed materialism, suppressing that intelligent causes just might have had something to do with say origins, and that we have means that are capable of seeing if that was credibly true. 5] Further highlight how such materialistic evolutionism can very easily promote destructive amorality and oppression, e.g. from H G Wells' opening words to his War of the Worlds, which predicted all too accurately what would happen in the following C20:
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water . . . No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us . . . . looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas. And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them . . .
--> So, what rights can jumped up pond slime reasonably raise to challenge the more powerful? --> What a contrast do we see when we read that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . . _____________ GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 8, 2009
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If your party is to be credible on science, you’ve gotta accept science. Do you? So if one is to be scientifically credible, you have to accept anything and everything that scientists believe? Hmm, this doesn't really match with the rest of scientific history, but okay Dr. Matthews! Thanks for clarifying that the rest of scientific history that didn't completely agree with the norms of the science community were actually wrong! Einstein was a quack for doubting the completeness of Newton's theory. What an out-of-date fundy he was I agree with Ludwig at #4
Neither of these guys knows what they’re talking about. What a waste of time.
We might as well watch Axl Rose and Shaq debate this subject. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by conversations like this. One person is wrong (Matthews) by saying that if you don't accept neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, then you aren't scientifically credible (what does believing an unfalsifiable theory of historical science have to do with supporting analytical science, which is over 99% of all "important" scientific research?) and the other is just giving a purely political answer, because he has to. He might be an atheist, or he might be a YEC. But either stance will probably cost him the next election, so he has to tightrope on a line of vagueness, leading his answers to be meaninglessuoflcard_{May 8, 2009
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According to #6, the question is whether or not to accept the theory of evolution. Matthews asks do you believe in evolution or not. Matthews changes a debatable point of scientific inquiry into a article of faith--either you are one of us or not. Pence had the opportunity to assert that the religion of science does not belong in the classroom, researchers (and students) should follow the evidence where it leads. Matthews choice of language is significant. "Do you believe in the virgin birth" should be contrasted with "do you accept atomic theory."dgw_{May 8, 2009
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MATTHEWS is like a child. He seems to be totally unaware of the arguments of creationists or ID-ers. Also he gets a lot totally backwards. He seems to like his own voice. Here are some things that make my blood boil: -science or creationism in school(evolution==science, creationism!=science)(straw-man, because nobody wants creationism in school) -don't believe in stem cell research(embryonic or adult stem cells?) -accept the scientific method? -bones planted in the ground!?! -against science(founding fathers of science where mostly creationists BTW) -believe in belief itself! -don't believe in progress -don't believe in climate change(straw-man^2) - PENCE is apparently avoiding a direct confrontation of the question of yes or no evolution. And for a good reason in this case. Without proper definitions and proper scientific background of MATTHEWS , a clear and dogmatic answer is not possible.critiacrof_{May 8, 2009
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Is that seriously your definition of screaming??BGOG_{May 8, 2009
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I like the (interrupting) and (screaming) parts you objectively injected in your transcript. Nice touch! It doesn't matter what Matthews thinks about science, he asked direct questions that Pence had every opportunity to directly answer. But he didn't! He reflected, and started saying vague things about God creating the seas. That's not an answer. Either you accept the scientific theory of evolution, or you don't. Maybe you even know enough to offer opinions on the theory, but refusing to answer at all shows insincerity in no other person than Pence himself. It's also a statistical fact that there are a lot of people in the States that reject evolution and believe the earth is a mere thousands of years old. That isn't really up for debate, unless you have ulterior motives. Another fact is that the Republican party appeals to these people in a way that the Democratic party doesn't. Since it's all politics, this means that R has to maintain an image that keeps the YEC anti-evolution believers among them Pence couldn't admit that he accepted the theory of evolution, because that would have cost him votes and followers. He couldn't admit that he didn't accept the theory of evolution either, because then he'd be ridiculed by those who actually understand science. His only option, and the one he chose, is to ignore any direct questions or give vague enough answers as to not really give an answer at all.Nathaniel_{May 8, 2009
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Good points. My favorite retort to the claims that we are supposedly anti-science is to see if they are pro-life (they are usually not) then point out to them the scientific fact that a new human life is created at conception (Hey, at least that's what all those pesky embryology textbooks say!). They either have to deny the science or shift to philosophical arguments about viability, personhood, etc. I just keep pointing out that those aren't scientific arguments. You get to make a case for life and dismantle the "Christians are anti-science" canard at the same time. It drive's 'em crazy ;-) . The arguments are so powerful I have to remember to be gentle with them.4Simpsons_{May 7, 2009
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Chris Matthews is "the true believer," a partisan simpleton. In spite of his sophomoric questions, how is what he says relevant, other than the fact that the popular media considers him important? Perhaps we should ignore this distraction and move along.toc_{May 7, 2009
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Neither of these guys knows what they're talking about. What a waste of time.Ludwig_{May 7, 2009
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It remind me people who believe that being good at managing the economy is a "right" thing...Kyrilluk_{May 7, 2009
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As posed, "do you believe..." is a question of faith not science.dgw_{May 7, 2009
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Mike Pence and other members of government are really going to have to start engaging the Chris Matthews' and Colbert's of the media much better than they are currently. Pence might have really taken advantage of this by yelling back "heck yeah! I believe in evolution!" and then forcing Matthews to then begin defining what he means. The "right" needs some good coaching on this. A similar exchange happened back when Huckaby was in a debate. He could have really nailed the questioner with the right one-two combo. The false choice of "do you believe in evolution?" is an obnoxious and childish ploy that needs to be squished coming out of the gate, and it is rather easy to do with some practice. I had the same type of encounter at a Christian based site: ConversantLife.com where I was told that I needed to read books and attend a museum to answer my rhetorical question. Sometimes those on the "right" can be just as bad or worse.selectedpete_{May 7, 2009
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