Tom Bethell; Regnery Publishing Inc., Washington, D.C. 2005.
Review by Carl Grant
Tom Bethell has some criticisms of the way science is currently done. The dominant points of view in various disciplines have become almost immune from criticism. This is disturbing because, of all disciplines, science should be most open to new evidence and subject to revision. A number of factors can be cited as contributing to bureaucratic tendencies in science. First, science has increasingly become dependent on government funding, and those who control the purse-strings determine what projects are pursued and what results are acceptable. Second, increasing specialization means that within each specialization there are fewer “experts.” Scientists tend to be reluctant to make criticisms outside their own areas of expertise and may not be taken seriously if they do. Third, there is an increased emphasis on consensus within the scientific community. The phrase, “most reputable scientist agree ....” is heard often enough. For political reasons those who control the funding are more interested in results than research, so they seek the consensus view. But in the historical view it is easy to find innumerable scientific consensuses that have been overturned.
Science depends on the unfettered search for knowledge, and if Bethell is right, consensus is the enemy of science. The bulk of his book is devoted to criticizing a number of consensus views, most of which have a left-ward bias. Some of the more prominent scientific myths are, according to Bethell: global warming is caused by humans; human cloning and embryonic stem cell research are the keys to health and happiness; Darwinian evolution is supported by overwhelming evidence; religion is the enemy of science; and AIDS is an equal opportunity epidemic on which we need to spend a great deal more money. My own views tend to be in agreement with Bethell's. I think science has become a sacred cow and that scientists are often treated as if they are the final authority on nearly everything. Scientists, like other groups, have biases, conflicts of interest, hidden agendas, and are not always completely truthful. Their credentials in no way guarantee their expertise or even their competence. As among other specialists, some of the practitioners are incompetent, and most of the rest fall on a continuum between semi-competent and reasonably good at what they do. At most about ten percent are really top-not, but, even the scientific superstars should be evaluated by their work and their arguments not by their status. This is doubly important when they are opining about matters outside their field.
So I find myself agreeing with Bethell’s views regarding the problems of how science is conducted, and I am mostly in agreement with his thinking about the interface between religion and science. For example, I think he is correct that the evidence for naturalistic evolution is under-whelming. Much of what passes for evolutionary theory is only a series of ad-hoc explanations to cover the poor fit between the facts and Darwin’s theory. In spite of my general agreement, I am troubled by Bethell’s methods. His use of references is unsatisfactory. While using references in some places, in others he fails to provide them even where context requires them. For instance, while arguing that AIDS is not a heterosexual epidemic, he says, “careful U.S. studies have already shown that at least a thousand sexual contacts are needed to achieve heterosexual transmission of the virus.” [p.113] No reference are given for these, presumably, important studies, or any discussion of the quality of the studies or their conclusions. In attempting to establish that the Catholic church was open to the possibility of the Copernican view, he quotes Galileo as follows, “He soon found that his Jesuit friends in Rome had already verified the actual existence of the new planets, meaning the moons of Jupiter, and had constantly been observing them for two months: we compared notes, and I found they agreed exactly with my own.” No reference. He might have let us in on the source of this information. A letter? Book? A reported conversation? It would be impossible to prove or disprove that Galileo ever said this, or for that matter anything else, from the information Bethell provides. When he goes on record without any reference to his sources, he impairs his credibility.
Another problem with Bethell's style is his tendency to overstate his case. On page 212, where he attacks evolution, he says “molecular biologists don't have any idea how the mechanisms they study came into existence.” This is clearly an overstatement. Talking with molecular biologists, I've learned that they have many ideas on how the mechanisms they study came into existence. Their ideas may be right or wrong, but they certainly have them. Overstatements like this, found throughout the book, dilute its credibility. At other times Bethell concedes too much. On page 202 he introduces the following argument against intelligent design: “If the advocates of intelligent design can invoke an invisible designer, or God, who can prevail over all difficulties any time He wants, then we are more in the realm of magic than science.” He counters this by saying that a comparable criticism can also be leveled at Darwinism. The criticism itself, he lets stand. Why? A strength of intelligent design is that the designer is not identified. That’s a player-to-be-named-later approach that only tries to show the improbability that organisms evolve by chance. Richard Dawkins comments that “invoking God as a designer just pushes the problem back and we still have to explain God's existence.” But, acknowledging the evidence of design in nature does not have to enter into the separate theological questions about the designer. A person who knows nothing about airplanes and has never seen one, who then sees an airplane land, and examines it, will probably conclude that it was designed. The fact that he doesn't know how it works, who designed it, or anything about the designer, is of little importance to his conclusion that it is not the product of chance. Working on one problem at a time is perfectly legitimate in science.
Bethell is also too glib in his dismissal theistic evolution. Here he simply quotes approvingly a number of people from both sides who say that theistic evolution is inherently atheistic and has little to commend it. So a whole continuum of views is not admitted for discussion; we are told that all views along this line are inconsistent theism. Why? G. K. Chesterton says that an atheist must embrace A to Z evolution, while the theist is free to follow the evidence and believe in any amount of evolution or none. This is too similar to the people who arrogantly claim to know precisely how God operates and condemn anyone who doesn't go along with their explanations. Young earth creationists sometimes insist that anyone who disagrees with them is not a Christian. The atheists have got to love these guys. They are such an easy target; their version of the argument and is the end of any intellectual engagement with the evidence that the earth is millions of years old. People who have been instructed in on-all-or-nothing doctrines, at some point, often find they no longer believe doctrines C, F, and Q, and drift into reluctant agnosticism. To summarize, Bethell has written a moderately useful book. If one ignores its frequent shrillness, it provides an introduction to a number of important issues from a conservative point of view.
This piece was originally published in The New Oxford Review.
No comments:
Post a Comment