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February 07, 2007

Shutting Down Debate

Jonathan Swift wrote, "It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into." I think that most of us realize that overcoming belief is a hard thing to do, and it is one of the reasons it is so difficult for people to think critically. This is never more painfully obvious than when discussing religion, regardless of which side one is arguing for; I have argued with atheists and religious devotees alike, and the only difference I have seen in many of their arguments is the end state. But then, that may be due to my own agnosticism. What I do find particularly frustrating, however, are the attempts by zealots to bury or suppress evidence that might be damaging to their cause, like the current attempts by Kenyan Christians to block the display of various fossils that help to illustrate the evolution of various species, including our own.

As should be obvious by now, it's pretty easy for people to believe what they want about complex science like evolution. I know many highly intelligent people who dispute the theory of evolution (and don't get me started on the whole 'it's only a theory' debate), claiming gaps in the fossil record and other such arguments that allow them to retain their faith by denying evolution. And I don't bother to get too worked up about it; not being a scientist, I tend to accept evolution on faith of a sort as well. As do most people, I suspect; few of us have the spare time to confirm even a fraction of the theories that scientists put forth, so for the most part we just accept that they're doing their job to the best of their ability. This is why consensus matters (sometimes more than it should) in science: when one scientist argues that X leads to Y, that doesn't mean much. When many scientists argue that X leads to Y, we tend to assume that they're on to something. This helps to explain both why I think anthropogenic warming is occurring and why I tend to hope that it is.

But when it comes to putting the evidence out there, I have no sympathy for those who would suppress what they don't like. I may think Bill Arkin's a leftist anti-military jerk, but I wouldn't approve of anyone preventing him from demonstrating that as many times as he seems to think are necessary, nor would I countenance any attempts to prevent those who disagree with me from explaining why Arkin really loves the troops. And so I have no sympathy whatsoever for Kenyan Christians who seem to be afraid that their faith is built on such a fragile house of cards that the display of a few fossils will cause it to come tumbling down. If that's really the case, they have bigger things to worry about than what's being shown in the local museums.