Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 14:28:12 -0600 (CST)
From: Dr. Robert Sheldon 
To: Peter Folger 
Subject: Re: AGU session EP41
                                    
Dear Peter,

Thank you for your prompt response. It certainly has been the
longest I have received from AGU on the subject. I realize you are
making a concerted effort to be fair and objective. I applaud your
effort.

Nonetheless, you have gravely underestimated your purported
opponents, and your analyses reveal the same misperception. A lot of
that is due to Immanuel Kant, who felt that science and faith could
be safely compartmentalized into their own spheres, and therefore
promoted separately without infringing on the other. This belief is
propagated by both sides today, such that "fundamentalists" of all
flavors insist that faith is opposed to reason, while scientists
argue that reason occurs without the slightest tinge of faith. This
Kantian wall has been crumbling in recent decades, despite the best
efforts of both sides to shore it up. In my mind, quantum mechanics
began the destruction 70 years ago. Einstein's objections to QM
could be construed as his great fear of losing that wall. Einstein
was a complex person, who could simultaneously tell the Princeton
grad students that he did not believe in God, yet say "God doesn't
play dice." I read into these stories a man who desperately needed
that wall to exist, and saw more clearly than any of his
contemporaries the revolution embedded in the Copenhagen
interpretation.

But I need not go to Einstein to trace the crumbling of the wall
today. Nor do I even have to bring up the E-word, for cosmology, QM,
string theory, even the moon Europa, have evoked quasi-religious
sentiments about reality, man's existence and the evidences of God.
We in space physics are routinely told that the "martian meteorite"
with its purported life, was single-handedly responsible for the
increase in OSS funds. Doesn't that seem rather odd? A bit of rock
with controversial bubbles brought in $100M to NASA's OSS? What NASA
and many others are doing, is appealing to those religious
sentiments in our culture, and arguing for a scientific answer, a
scientific religion. I mean it. When NASA has in its "Origins"
roadmap the question "What is the destiny of man?", who was the last
group to answer that question? (I read into these recent efforts, the
same desperation that drove Iran toward fundamentalism, that is, the
erosion of the power base.  The end of the cold war left NASA
without a power base, and it is desperately scrambling to remake
itself into something still necessary for the US taxpayer to fund.)

Lest you think I am making any of this up, I read yesterday in
MIT's "Technology Review"  (Jan-Feb 2000 issue) an op ed piece
entitled "The Enlightenment Bug". If you don't mind these long
e-mails, let me quote extensively from this article.

     "While the world is eagerly anticipating the Y2K apocalypse, a far
   more serious "bug," created 300 years ago, gets very little
   attention--a situation we need to recognize and rectify. I am
   talking about the Enlightenment, when people decided to split
   reason from faith and from the literature of the ancients. This
   dissociation freed science and technology from the shackles of
   religion and fueled the Industrial Revolution. The success of
   industrialization confirmed the wisdom of this division and
   reinforced the three-way separation among "techies" (who put their
   faith in technology) and the "humies" (humanists) and the religious
   believers. But with success came problems. Techies began
   questioning their purpose. Humies became disaffected with gadgets
   and materialism dominating ideas. Youth, sensing something was
   missing, turned to drugs. And people focused increasingly on
   themselves, celebrating possessions and lamenting
   depressions. Governments separated faith from reason in the school
   curricula. A politically correct population became increasingly
   reluctant to say "God". And universities isolated techies from
   humies in neat cubbyholes. By now, the split has become so
   ingrained that we're not even aware of it."  
     "Might it heal by itself? The last millenium was dominated by
   faith. In the new millenium, this dominance is shifting toward
   technology--people stand awestruck by the miracles of information
   technology, biotechnology and materials science, which promise to
   transform our behavior, our being and our surround. But since
   technology thrives on knowledge and reason, the new era, left
   unchecked, will aggravate the split, not heal it. Today, the split
   serves no purpose and we must make an effort to heal it ourselves.
   Here are the reasons:"

Then he goes on to list his reasons. But already his drift is
clear. You will notice that he divides the world into 3 groups and
then describes only 2. He really has no idea what to do with religion,
though he shows his hand in the second paragraph where he says
"technology...promise to transform our behavior, our being and our
surround". Since these are the goals of religion, one can see
immediately that he believes technology must appropriate more of
these goals to provide happiness as well as affluence. Later in the
article he says,

   "Will learning in this millenium stay chained to reason? What of
   birth, friendship, love, marriage, illness, divorce, conflict,
   death, origin, purpose?  We don't know enough to answer these
   questions. But we should know enough not to be so smug in a
   one-sided adulation of reason, technology, humanism or
   spirituality. Let's take a cue from the long history of our species
   and begin integrating our divided selves toward becoming, once
   again, whole."

It's a noble goal, and though he claims ignorance, he has already
chosen his favorite implements to attain it. Unfortunately, the ends
do not justify the means, and without proper attention to *how* we
approach the problem, he presents a solution really no different than
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, just a bit more refined and
up-to-date. I quote this in length because I want you to be very aware
 (a) That Rational vs. Supernatural is a very old, stale and outdated 
argument; 
 (b) That "techies" have expressed a great desire to appropriate 
turf traditionally allocated to religion;
 (c) Our society is rapidly legislating this approach in the biggest
land grab since Oklahoma became a state.

Therefore when stodgy scientists stand up and say they are not
supernaturalists, they might as well have been talking to my
grandparents.  They certainly aren't addressing my generation, and
especially not the generation I am teaching in classes now. Perhaps
the most eloquent defense of religion against such Rationalism, was
penned by C.S. Lewis in 1947, entitled "Miracles". That's 50 years
ago. And he addresses every one of the arguments presented at AGU two
weeks ago. It's old, it's hackneyed, it's dated, and essentially
irrelevant. If you don't believe me, read back issues of OMNI, read
WIRED, read MIT's TECHNOLOGY REVIEW. In fact, ask your 20-something
programmer what's cool and hip, and read that. You will find that very
few "Rationalists" write for these magazines.

That leads me to ask some probing questions.  Why are scientists,
then, so square? How did they get this way? Do you have to be a
rationalist to do science? The answers are scary. Perhaps because you
don't survive as a scientist (e.g., get proposals funded, get papers
published) if you act otherwise. And society reinforces this trend
(witness Hollywood's portrayal of scientists), because it makes bright
and dangerous people malleable. It defangs them. Whenever they get too
interested in politics, you get the Academy of Science to make a
statement about objectivity, and scientific ethics, etc.  Put them all
back in their ivory towers where they won't hurt anyone.  Then let
them out only when there's a nasty bit of religious nuts that need to
be silenced. Once they've done their job, pen them up again, before
they notice any similarities in their handlers.

I can tolerate it, I'm enough of an academic, that I almost prefer my
ivory tower. But now put yourself in the shoes of religious fanatic (a
fanatic, by definition, is someone more religious than you are.) How
will they respond to the cultural land grab? Wouldn't you agree that
it would make every religious fanatic nervous? Brent's history was
very illuminating. Twenty years ago (1979, 1981) the fanatics tried to
shore up Kant's wall by declaring Evolution a religion, which in many
respects, it is. Alas, that didn't stop Evolution, or many other
techie religions from tearing down the Wall and taking their
territory.  Realizing that the Wall was just not what it used to be,
and that identifying the religion in techie statements was not
stopping them or the legislatures, the religious fanatics decided to
fight fire with fire. They declared Creationism to be science.

The reasoning is very sound. And you and most of the panel fell for
this approach. You made creationism into a straw man and pummelled it
ferociously. Yet the very statements made about "what makes a theory
into science", can be used against every theory you put in its
place. Remember, rationalism doesn't dominate in popular culture, or
in the Executive Office, or in the House and the Senate. Therefore any
statement you make about "metascience" in defense of rationalism, will
be recorded and used against you. Not just by religious fanatics, but
by your handlers. And if you don't believe me, see how the House
Appropriations Committee handles NSF, NASA, DOE when they come into
conflict with Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.  We are not, I
repeat, not mainstream.

Brent, and the others, took the bait. Despite his well meaning
attempts to restrict his discussion to creationists (which itself is a
total misnomer, and should more accurately be the Creation Research
Institute), he could no more aim his machine gun than the cartoonists
who lampooned the whole state of Kansas. Ridicule, by its very nature,
is broad brush, be it tar or paint. Calling it non-pejorative, is
erudite obfuscatory hyperbole, pejorative is too weak a word to
describe what went on.  When is the last time you were shown a picture
of a man with his head up his ass? Don't pontificate on me, Peter, I
was there. And come to think of it, that was a very unrational even
irrational statement you made about the session, which is precisely
what CRI wanted from you.

And though I have found the CRI to be despicable and unchristian in
its attempts to win converts and political power, nonetheless I too
felt the sting of Brent's ricocheting bullets in that session. Not
only I, but several of my Christian colleagues who are in no sense CRI
followers, felt insulted and denigrated.  Brent also made both
inaccurate statements and blatant falsehoods in his presentation, both
because his sources were wrong, and because no debate was encouraged
to correct any misperceptions.  I emphasize "no debate", not because I
approve of John Baumgardner, but because you believed you were being
totally fair, when you weren't. Without counterpoint, without debate,
you will leave the room feeling completely justified, like the
Communist party, or an orchestrated Nazi political rally.

Nor did the "broader political" analysis help too much. Have you
noticed that in this presentation the gamut of Republicans range from
"moderate to right-wing"? What does it mean when a person labels
himself "moderate"? Is Clinton really a "centrist"? The whole
terminology used in the analysis of Kansas was dominated from a
certain perspective that I did not find particularly fair or
illuminating. Surely you must recognize that blaming the Kansas school
boards decision on Republican power struggles is a trifle
biased. Calling yourself Republican neither exonerates the analysis
nor makes the presentation balanced. Governor Weld of Massachussetts
called himself Republican, that is, before he petitioned Clinton for
an ambassador job. No, the presentation was very slanted toward what I
call liberal, atheist, Democrat politics. When a man stood up and
asked the speaker who was dispensing advice on how to talk to
religious fanatics, "What if I am a liberal atheist Democrat, what do
I say?" The speaker hemmed and hawed, "A good question", he was able
to reply. It's on your tape, I'm not making this up. And you want me to
believe that this was a politically neutral discussion?

The mere fact that you felt obliged to defend these blatantly
subjective presentations speaks volumes to me. Do yourself a favor,
Peter, don't defend yours or AGU's objectivity. You will only
discredit yourself. It's okay to be biased, everyone is. Just
acknowlege your bias up front. Tell people where you are coming
from. The more you duck and dodge the "subjectivity" issue, the deeper
you will sink, and the less credible AGU will appear before the
public. Which is again, precisely CRI's objective.

Far more important to me personally than AGU's disgrace, is the
discreditation of science. That is the stated goal and purpose of
revisionists and post-modernists. I watch it happening before my
eyes at AGU. I read it in MIT's magazine, in WIRED, I hear it in the
news reports. I feel it in the NASA budgets. What you and AGU should
be doing, is affirming what "good science is", not how "creation
science isn't". The more you follow that negative track, the more
you expose yourself to attacks in kind. Evolution will stand or fall
on its own merits, it needs no position paper from AGU, *if it is
truly science*. Only religions need position papers. But the crying
need today is to define "what makes good science". We've had our
"cold fusion" fiascos, our "nano-technology" hype, our "life on
Mars" papers, and we still don't know how to tell good from bad
science. Evolution is a catch-all theory, with religion and the
kitchen sink thrown in for good measure. A working criteria for the
last 50 years within the philosophy of science community is that a
good theory is falsifiable. Aspects of Evolution are unfalsifiable.
Therefore, by definition, it is not a good theory. You keep invoking
"supernatural" as a drawback to creationism, I would urge you to
abandon this terminology and use the terminology used by
philosophers of science, e.g., falsifiability.  (After all, if
"supernatural" is repeatable, does that make it natural? And just
because I attribute lightning to Baal, doesn't negate the
repeatability of lightning.)  Creationism is not good science
because it is unfalsifiable. And equally so, Evolution is a flawed
theory because it too has unfalsifiable statements.  Let's
concentrate on good science. Let's not swallow the kitchen sink just
because some biologist put it in there. Let AGU set itself apart
from its handlers in the House and Senate and make a position
statement that won't be outdated by 1950.

 yours Truly, 
 Rob Sheldon