If the evidence on evolution is so strong, why not teach the controversy?
As 2016 drew to a close, it seemed like humanity had reached peak weirdness. A reality TV star had been elected President of the United States. People were seriously talking about whether there was a child sex ring being run out of a Washington DC pizza shop. And America’s most expensive colleges decided that more than zero seconds needed to be devoted to the idea that we should have up to seventy gender pronouns. And someone at CNN decided that “Are Jews People?” was a question that humanity needed to ask more than once.
And on and on. The internet has become an all-you-can-eat buffet of insanity. You’ve paid for your internet access and now you can come back for as many servings of crazy as you like. If you just can’t handle another serving of crazy, then stop here.
Okay. You asked for it. And so, on we go. Here it is! One more serving of crazy. Richard Dawkins is now the biggest obstacle to the widespread public acceptance of evolution.
Whaaaaat?!? How is that even possible? Richard Dawkins loves evolution. He promotes it non-stop.
And he does. Richard Dawkins has written lots of books about genetic evolution. However, Richard Dawkins has built much of his reputation on the idea that evolutionary thinking and religions like Christianity and Islam are incompatible. In the 1970s, when Richard Dawkins was last in the lab, it seemed that way. And yet, nearly half a century later, science has moved on considerably. 2017 may not see peace in the Middle East but there is one long-running feud we can end: the war of words between science and religion. If humanity can end even one major dispute in 2017, then maybe we can find the courage, patience and confidence to figure out the rest.
Before we go any further, it’s worth realizing something: all scientists are limited by the quality and quantity of their data. While Newton was the first to coherently lay out a Universal Theory of Gravitation, he failed to spot The Theory of Evolution. Why is that? Was Newton dumb? Should we judge him a failure? No. Of course not. Newton lacked Darwin’s experience. Newton spent his life looking at things like this:
The English countryside is lovely. It’s charming. It’s also freaking monotonous.
Green fields. Church. Pub. Sheep.
Green fields. Church. Pub. Sheep.
Green fields. Church. Pub. Sheep.
By contrast, Darwin saw things like this:
And this:
Darwin travelled all the way to the Galapagos off the coast of South America. And besides iguanas and those blue-footed birds, he also saw lots and lots of types of finches.
And, when you see lots and lots of types of finches, you try and make sense of them. Why are these finches so similar and yet with important variations?
For the general public, scientists like Darwin can seem magical. They saw things that no one else did. And yet, of course, someone else saw exactly what Darwin saw. His name was Alfred Russel Wallace.
Within science, you hear repeatedly this idea that science is a collective effort. Science isn’t about individuals. It’s a collective effort. It relies on the wisdom of crowds. And yet, while that’s what’s said within science and is sometimes what is practiced, that is not the public face of science at all. Instead, a small number of individuals are selected out as superheroes.
And probably no human has ever been selected as a superhero of science more than Einstein. And Einstein hated it!
“It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few individuals for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular assessment of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque.” — Albert Einstein
Einstein was part of an exciting and dynamic group of scientists including people like Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and on and on. And yet, Einstein got picked out of this group for having “superhuman powers of mind and character.” And the bigger the contrast between his public persona and the reality of who he was got the more he found it “simply grotesque.” Science isn’t supposed to be about worshipping human beings. It’s supposed to be about changing your mind in light of evidence. As Dawkins himself has said, “Science…is about knowing when you’re wrong and even being pleased to be disproved.”
And yet, as Dawkins says, that’s the “ideal.” In reality, scientists are humans. They’re fallible. And, often, their egos get wrapped up in their theories. It becomes too emotionally painful for them to admit that they were wrong for decades, especially when they have been so public in proclaiming a particular view of the world. If Richard Dawkins were to admit he was wrong, I would clap until my hands are red. However, until that happens, we must accept a simple truth: Dawkins is not promoting evolution; he’s holding it back.
Having majored in biochemistry at Harvard, I picked up the basic cultural prejudice that anyone who rejected the theory of evolution was in Dawkins’ words “ignorant, stupid or insane.”
In the long tradition of human prejudices, I assumed that anyone who disagreed with me and my tribe was idiotic or crazy. Science has now studied this psychological phenomenon and refers to this tendency to confuse our prejudices for reality as naive realism:
“If I could nominate one candidate for “biggest obstacle to world peace and social harmony,” it would be naive realism because it is so easily ratcheted up from the individual to the group level: My group is right because we see things as they are. Those who disagree are obviously biased by their religion, their ideology, or their self-interest.” — Jon Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis
Of course, given the overwhelming evidence for evolution, it’s incredibly easy to dismiss the intelligence of anyone who doesn’t accept it. Just as it would be easy to dismiss the intelligence of a Papua New Guinean tribesman whose counting system only goes as high as 74. Those Papua New Guinean bozos!!! They count on their head, shoulders, knees and toes…and they only get as high as 74. Ha ha ha.
And yet, there’s an important lesson in Dawkins’ observation about people believing in gravity.
Believing in gravity has real practical value. It stops you from getting killed. In the same way, when Papua New Guinean tribesmen are exposed to the counting system used by most of the world, they quickly ditch their own counting system and adopt the more powerful tools that the hive mind of Eurasia evolved over thousands of years. Yoink! Thanks for doing thousands of years of work, Eurasia, we’ll take that! Humans quickly adopt anything that’s practically useful.
And this it turns out has been one of the fatal flaws in trying to teach evolution to the public. It’s not obvious that it has any practical benefit. As one of my students put it, “Who the heck cares where fish come from?”
That student was at a school called Oaks Christian that was, in large part, set up to “Teach The Controversy” around evolution. For a guy who came from Harvard’s biochemistry department, Oaks Christian had the dangerous thrill of being in enemy territory. I was among Creationists. The head of the science department literally wrote a book called Dinosaurs on the Ark.
Since I had no option but to Teach the Controversy, I decided to teach it for real. Let’s really explore all the facts and the evidence and let’s let the evidence speak for itself. In practice, this required teaching evolution in a much more tangible and practical way than it usually is taught. Gravity is all around us and so is evolution. Why can your brain read your dog’s facial expressions?
’Cause your brain comes from the same evolutionary lineage. Why do herding environments produce honor cultures?
Well, that’s because the same environment produces the same types of solution. In science, that’s known as convergent evolution.
And, in practice, you help them see that, actually, everyone already believes in evolution.
Evolution is genetic capitalism. Think about it. There’s a lot of competition between genes in the marketplace. Over time, the most successful genetic enterprises spread and acquire market share. However, small, plucky genetic startups can displace well-established players. How is that possible?
Well, a lot of it is comes down to data. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, the founding text of capitalism in 1776. Charles Darwin published on The Origin of Species in 1859. Like Newton and the Papua New Guinean tribesmen, Adam Smith hadn’t been exposed to all the data that Charles Darwin saw. And Dawkins hasn’t been exposed to all the things I’ve seen. Dawkins doesn’t know that if you really Teach the Controversy around evolution that evolution wins out in the end. And the question is why? Why would a scientist lack faith in the ability of the facts to speak for themselves? I’ve spent a long time thinking about this and I think Dawkins’ own words tell us.
He looks at people who don’t believe in genetic evolution yet and regards them with utter contempt. And you can’t have an exchange of ideas with people you don’t respect because teaching requires empathy. It requires understanding where the other person is coming from, what they already know and figuring out how to connect what you’re trying to teach them with what they already have in their head. And, as I did this, I came to realize that those crazy, wacky Christian Fundamentalists had found a flaw in evolution as Richard Dawkins’ presents it.
He presents evolution as being about selfishness which is unpalatable to decent Christians.
He insists that God is a delusion.
And yet, when explaining evolution, he must explain it through a character he calls The Blind Watchmaker:
Just as Adam Smith in imagining market forces used the metaphor of The Invisible Hand:
And so you wonder…does it matter which metaphor we use? Aren’t The Invisible Hand and The Blind Watchmaker the same thing? And does it matter if instead of using those words you choose to think of The Blind Watchmaker as an Intelligent Designer or to call it God or Allah? And you come to realize that “No. It doesn’t.” Jesus and Mohammed and the Buddha didn’t have microscopes or telescopes. But they did have eyes and they could reflect on their own thinking. And so, they may not have understood genetics (nor did Darwin incidentally) but they saw the pattern and shape of human interaction pretty clearly. And much of that science can only elucidate.
Not all of religion makes sense anymore. The Arabian peninsula in the 6th Century was a much more violent place and time. The Bronze Age of the Old Testament was also much more violent. However, the pattern of human conflict remains the same. Science has not escaped the traps of false prophets, arrogance and foolishness and of men who preach principles that they do not practice.
The foundation of Mixed Mental Arts rests on the idea that evolution happens at every level. It happens at the level of genes, capitalism and cultures. That is not possible without multi-level selection which Richard Dawkins denies. Science has created a celebrity it can’t hold accountable. And, at some point, unaccountable celebrities just lose hold on reality.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker said it best. Even if you agree with some of what Dawkins and Harris say about God, the tone is just so bitchy.
And that gets to the heart of the issue. Dawkins and Harris aren’t really trying to solve the problems. They’re not taking science and packaging it in a way that complements religion like Jon Haidt is. They’re not extending evolution to culture like David Sloan Wilson, Joe Henrich and Richard Nisbett are. They’re not figuring out how emotions and mindsets can be used to improve people’s lives regardless of their beliefs in God like Seligman, Dweck and Jacquet. And they’re not out there teaching the controversy to kids who happen to have been born into a Christian Fundamentalist community. They’re just whining and bitching about God. For a group of people who don’t believe in God, the New Atheists sure are obsessed with the concept. And they’re welcome to be. That’s their choice. However, science is concerned with only one thing: changing your beliefs in light of evidence. That’s something Richard Dawkins’ buddy Sam Harris preaches but doesn’t practice.
In my own encounters with the New Atheists, it has been staggering how utterly disinterested in evidence they are. I’ve referred them to the books of prominent scientists like Jon Haidt, David Sloan Wilson, Joe Henrich and Richard Nisbett and all they want is to talk about what authority I have to say these things.
I’m not claiming any authority. I have none. I’m inviting you to examine the evidence and form your own conclusion. That’s what science is about.
In the end, narrow-minded bigots who are merely interested in rationalizing their prejudices come in many flavors. The #NewAtheists may be new…but their thinking is part of a very old pattern.
“You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” — Matthew 7:5
Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are hypocrites. They preach a good scientific game but they sure don’t practice it and nor do their followers. And in order to defend the integrity of its brand, it’s time science started calling out its false prophets. Dawkins, like Bill Cosby, has done great work. I loved both as a kid. And I can both appreciate that work and have a problem with how they’ve used the power they’ve acquired.
I’m frankly agnostic on whether Dawkins and Harris remain famous. I think it would be great if they changed their minds in light of evidence. It would send a tremendously powerful social signal to their followers and the wider world. Or they could move aside and make way for people like Haidt, Henrich, David Sloan Wilson and Jennifer Jacquet. I honestly don’t care who the Heroes of Science are.
I do care that they practice what they preach. That’s what real heroes do.
Science is a demanding way of living…but it is an incredibly rewarding one. It requires constantly evolving your own beliefs in light of evidence. And that will take you to places you never expected to go. I never would have imagined that in order to teach evolution I would need to call out Richard Dawkins or that I would need to protect the reputation of science from the damaging effects of atheism. And yet, here we are.
In the end, the world is a very confused and confusing place right now. And, as anyone who has read The Straight-A Conspiracy knows, confusion is a sign that it’s time for critical thinking. It’s high time we separated out the practical benefits of evolutionary thinking from what you personally believe about God. And if Richard Dawkins cares more about his beliefs on God than promoting evolutionary thinking, well, then it will just show that he and the Christian Fundamentalists have much more in common than they realize.
