Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (31 page)

Science Defended

One of the appellees' witnesses in the trial, Stephen Jay Gould, in a letter to Jack Novik of the ACLU dated December 15, 1986, noted that Topkis was "nailed, absolutely nailed, by both Scalia and Rehnquist (the last two men in America I thought I'd ever be praising, but they were spot on in this)." Gould continued, "I entered with the conviction that we had four votes for sure (Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens), they had two (Rehnquist and Scalia), and that we probably had our key fifth vote in Powell, and probably a sixth and maybe even a seventh in O'Connor and White. I am no longer so sure that I know where the fifth vote will come from. Am I unduly pessimistic?" At the time, possibly not. After all, Topkis and the ACLU were using the very strategy preferred by creationists whenever they debate evolutionists: go on the offensive and say nothing about your own position so that you do not need to be defensive. Gould expressed his extreme frustration when he wrote to Novik: "It would have been sad enough if we had only argued badly. But I feel especially downhearted because I think that we also argued indecently as well. We did the very thing that we have always accused the creationists of promoting— argument by innuendo rather than content. I never thought it could happen. We were not honorable. I feel like the little boy tugging on Shoeless Joe Jackson's sleeve—'say it ain't so, Jack.' Am I wrong?" If the key fifth vote could not be swung, the Louisiana appeal would be successful, negating Judge Overton's decision in the Arkansas trial and setting a precedent for other states to pass their own equal-time laws.

Since the argument attacking the religious motivations of the creationists was not valid in the view of the Court, another tack was needed. Denying the scientific content of creation-science seemed to be the only hope for the appellees. What was needed was a clear-cut and succinct definition of science so that the Court could see that the scientific content of creation-science failed to meet criteria that would legitimize its claim to "scientific" standing.

In spite of centuries of attention by scientists and philosophers of science, no concise definition of science has ever been accepted by the community of scientists and scholars. This situation changed temporarily with the
amicus curiae
brief submitted on August 18, 1986, to the Supreme Court. For this brief, the
amid
managed to define and agree upon the nature and scope of science. The brief was instigated by Murray Gell-Mann, Paul MacCready, and other members of the Southern California Skeptics Society after they read in the
Los Angeles Times
that the U.S.

Supreme Court had agreed to hear the Louisiana case. Worried, they contacted attorney Jeffrey Lehman, who had recently clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens. Lehman told them that "an
amicus
brief is the proper way for independent outsiders to present their views to the Supreme Court" (Lehman 1989).

The idea was born in March 1986. The brief would have to be submitted in five months. Time was of the essence. Lehman enlisted the help of Beth Kaufman, a colleague with expertise on the Establishment Clause. William Bennetta, a historian of the creationist movement, flew to Washington, D.C., to brief Lehman and Kaufman. Gell-Mann sent letters to state academies of science and to Nobel laureates in science and medicine in which he outlined the goals of the brief—which included showing that the language of the statute "displays and propagates misconceptions about the processes and vocabulary of science, that enforcement of the statute would promote the confusion of science with religion, and that such enforcement would subvert and distort efforts to teach well-established scientific conclusions about cosmic, planetary, and organic evolution." As a result, Gell-Mann noted, the statute "can be explained only as an attempt to misrepresent science for the sake of promoting fundamentalist religion" (letter to Nobel laureates, June 25, 1986).

The scientific community responded thoroughly and positively. For example, the Iowa Academy of Science joined the
amid
and sent Gell-Mann a copy of their position statement on "creationism as a scientific explanation of natural phenomena." Nobel laureate Leon N. Cooper accepted the invitation and sent Gell-Mann a copy of a lecture he had given on creation-science. The president of the Institute of Medicine, Samuel O. Thier, offered Gell-Mann his best wishes but declined to join only because the institute was filing its own
amicus
brief.

As it turned out, because the oral arguments went so badly, the briefs were significantly more important than anyone had anticipated. In a letter sent the same day as the one to Novik, Gould expressed his disappointment and concern to Gell-Mann (and revealed the level of his emotional commitment to the defense of science against the creationists): "God, I never thought those bozos could ever possibly come off better than our side in a high-level argument where it really mattered. But there is another side to all this. Our oral argument was so bad that our only hope now resides in the briefs. This makes what you did in securing the Nobelist brief all the more important, indeed probably crucial. And so I write, on behalf of the entire company of evolutionary biologists, to thank you for taking so much time for such important service in the truly common defense." Gell-Mann recalled that "we were very upset about the oral presentation. It wasn't that creationists are religious. Lots of scientists are religious. It's that they are claiming to be presenting science when it is really just total nonsense. It would be like the Flat Earth Society insisting their theory be taught in the public schools" (1990).

Science Defined

The
amicus curiae
brief was written primarily by Jeffrey Lehman, with input from Kaufman, Gell-Mann, Bennetta, and others. Lehman said that the "difficulty in writing this brief from a lawyer's point of view was to clarify what makes science different from religion, and why creationism isn't scientific. When I talked with scientists they weren't at all clear in trying to briefly define what they do" (1989). The brief is concise (twenty-seven pages), well-documented (thirty-two lengthy footnotes), and argues that creation-science, on the one hand, is just a new label for the old religious doctrines of decades past and, on the other, does not meet the criteria of "science" as defined in the brief by the
amici.

The first argument is stated directly: "The term 'creation-science' in the act embodies religious dogma, not the sterilized 'abrupt-appearance' construct propounded by appellants in this litigation"
(Amicus curiae
brief 1986 [hereafter
AC],
p. 5). In the repackaging of their position, the creationists removed God from their arguments by "sterilizing" the creation act as "origin through abrupt appearance in complex form of biological life, life itself, and the physical universe" (p. 6). Kaufman explained, "We argued that the 'abrupt-appearance' construct is not a sufficiently well defined alternative to orthodox 'creation-science.' It fails to define a concrete alternative to evolution; accordingly, it is implausible that the Louisiana legislature intended the Act to embody it... . Therefore, the sterilized 'abrupt-appearance' construct can only be understood as a post hoc explanation, erected for the purpose of defending this unconstitutional Act" (1986, p. 5). A review of the creationist literature reveals that the creationists have merely substituted words, not belief. For example, members of the Creation Research Society must subscribe to the following "statement of belief (in AC, p. 10):

(1) The Bible is the written Word of God ... all of its assertions are historically and scientifically true in all of the original autographs.. . . This means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

(2) All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during Creation Week as described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

(3) The great Flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Deluge, was an historical event, worldwide in its extent and effect.

(4) Finally, we are an organization of Christian men of science, who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman, and their subsequent Fall into sin, is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only thru accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Similar statements issued by the Institute for Creation Research and other creationists make it clear that creationists prefer the authority of the Bible over any possibly contradictory empirical evidence. This lack of interest in empirical data is outlined in the brief to demonstrate that creation-science is not "scientific," as the
amici
would insist in the second section, in which a definition of science would have to be established and agreed upon. This second section begins by offering a very general definition: "Science is devoted to formulating and testing naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. It is a process for systematically collecting and recording data about the physical world, then categorizing and studying the collected data in an effort to infer the principles of nature that best explain the observed phenomena." Next, the scientific method is discussed, beginning with the collection of "facts," the data of the world. "The grist for the mill of scientific inquiry is an ever increasing body of observations that give information about underlying 'facts.' Facts are the properties of natural phenomena. The scientific method involves the rigorous, methodical testing of principles that might present a naturalistic explanation for those facts" (p. 23).

Based on well-established facts, testable hypotheses are formed. The process of testing "leads scientists to accord a special dignity to those hypotheses that accumulate substantial observational or experimental support." This "special dignity" is called a "theory." When a theory "explains a large and diverse body of facts," it is considered "robust"; if it "consistently predicts new phenomena that are subsequently observed," then it is considered "reliable." Facts and theories are not to be used interchangeably. Facts are the world's data; theories are explanatory ideas about those facts. "An explanatory principle is not to be confused with the data it seeks to explain." Constructs and other nontestable statements are not a part of science. "An explanatory principle that by its nature cannot be tested is outside the realm of science." Thus, science seeks only naturalistic explanations for phenomena. "Science is not equipped to evaluate supernatural explanations for our observations; without passing judgment on the truth or falsity of supernatural explanations, science leaves their consideration to the domain of religious faith" (pp. 23-24).

It follows from the nature of the scientific method that no explanatory principles in science are final. "Even the most robust and reliable theory ... is tentative. A scientific theory is forever subject to reexamination and—as in the case of Ptolemaic astronomy—may ultimately be rejected after centuries of viability." The creationists'
certainty
stands in sharp contrast with the
uncertainty
scientists encounter as a regular and natural part of their work. "In an ideal world, every science course would include repeated reminders that each theory presented to explain our observations of the universe carries this qualification: 'as far as we know now, from examining the evidence available to us today'" (p. 24). But, as Gell-Mann remarked, the creationists have an obsession "with the inerrancy of the Bible. It doesn't matter what the evidence is, they will continue to believe their doctrines to the end." Thus, Gell-Mann noted, the creationists "aren't doing science. They just insert the word":

It reminds me of a Monty Python routine where a guy goes into a pet store to get his fish a license. He is told they don't make fish licenses. He replies that he has a cat license, so why can't he get a fish license? but is told they don't make cat licenses either. So he shows the pet store owner his cat license. "That's not a cat license," the owner responds. "That's a dog license. You just scratched out the word 'dog' and wrote in 'cat.'" That's all the creationists are doing. They've just scratched out "religion" and in its place put "science." (1990)

According to the
amici,
any body of knowledge accumulated within the guidelines they described is considered "scientific" and suitable for public school education; and any body of knowledge not accumulated within these guidelines is not considered scientific. "Because the scope of scientific inquiry is consciously limited to the search for naturalistic principles, science remains free of religious dogma and is thus an appropriate subject for public-school instruction"
{AC,
p. 23). By this line of reasoning, in singling out evolutionary theory as "speculative and baseless" compared to other "proven scientific facts" the Louisiana law is not consistent. Rather, even though the theory of evolution is considered by virtually all biologists to be as robust and reliable as any in science, it has attracted the attention of the creationists because they perceive it as directly opposing their static and inflexible religious beliefs. The
amici
thus conclude, "The Act, however construed, is structured to 'convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred,'" and is thus unconstitutional (p. 26).

Creationists Respond

Calling the scientific community "scared," and the brief "the last hurrah on behalf of the dominance the teaching of evolutionism has had in our public schools," the Creation Research Legal Defense Fund immediately took up a collection to support its stand against the
amicus
brief. Noting that the brief had struck a "significant blow," a fund-raising letter requested creationists to "please pray about sending us the best possible gift you can." It told readers that this was a "David vs. Goliath battle" and reminded them that in the original confrontation "Goliath died and David became King of Israel." Finally, the letter noted the Nobelists' "atheistic orientation" and stated that the Nobelists "realize this is the most important court case they have ever faced—even more important than the original Scopes Trial" because their own "religion of secular humanism" was at stake.