Shibboleth

The next president will deal with issues arising in such areas as agriculture, energy, medical research, education, the environment that cannot be understood outside of the context provided by science. To formulate policy in these areas without attention to the consensus of expert opinion is to deliberately limit one’s understanding in a way that must inevitably distort both one’s grasp of the essential problems, and their solutions. Deliberately cultivated ignorance is disturbing, but even more disturbing is the disdain this displays for the proposition that, as rational beings, we ought to shape our views about the physical world in conformation with the discernible facts.

The current occupant, and several leading candidates for President of the United States, have expressed doubts about, or outright rejection of, the fact of human evolution. In the case of evolution, the discernible facts support the reality of human evolution to such an extent that to chose an inconsistent view one must abandon the pretense of regard for science and its core tenet that beliefs about the physical world must be shaped by facts, not the facts by beliefs.

Carefully cultivated ignorance is on full display in Mike Huckabee’s views on evolution:

"If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, I'll accept that....I believe there was a creative process."

Ron Paul simply rejects evolution, and doesn’t see what the big deal is:

". . . I think it's a theory, a theory of evolution, and I don't accept it, you know, as a theory, but I think it probably doesn't bother me. It's not the most important issue for me to make the difference in my life to understand the exact origin. I think the Creator that I know created us, every one of us, and created the universe, and the precise time and manner, I just don't think we're at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side.”

Mitt Romney has expressed a qualified acceptance of “theistic” evolution: he accepts that human evolution occurred, but with God’s as it’s guide.

"I believe that God designed the Universe and created the Universe. I believe he used the process of evolution to create the human body." (Super-natural selection?)

McCain is murkier, he may or may not embrace a variety of ‘theistic’ evolution:

“When I stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I know that it was the hand of God...only God could have created that magnificence. But at the same time, I think that Darwin's theories are valid, and I think that natural selection and survival of the fittest are clearly scientifically based. But I also believe that in time before time, that there was a divine hand in creation.
. . .

I think that evolution should be taught. I think it's absolutely the most valid and scientifically based and proven conclusion that we can draw. But I respect the fact that some people believe in intelligent design and they should have their views vented also. But in my own personal opinion, I don't think they're contradictory.

Q: So do you believe in both?

Well, if you're saying that intelligent design is the earth created in seven days, then no. But I do believe that time before time there was a divine hand that brought this magnificent world and human beings into it.” (Emphasis mine. The theory of evolution is ‘valid,’ but 'a divine hand' brought human beings into the world, so humans did/did not evolve?)

Unlike other issues that divide the candidates, and ordinary Americans, that evolution occurred, and still occurs, is not something about which reasonable people may disagree. It’s not like the social security ‘crisis’ or the threat posed by Iran. On the question of whether or not humans evolved there is one answer overwhelmingly supported by observation and evidence.

Let’s be clear, the answer to the question “Did human beings evolve?” is unequivocally “yes.” Not so the answers to questions about how they did so. Reasonable people can and do disagree about the mechanics of evolution.

When confronted with overwhelming evidence that evolution occurs, these candidates blithely turn their back on the testimony of observation and evidence and instead embrace a belief about physical matters of fact inconsistent with both.

“I'm not sure what in the world that has to do with being president of the United States."
Says Mike Huckabee

What it has to do with being president, of course, is that it provides insight into the intellectual honesty of candidates, their grasp of critical reasoning, their basic understanding of science, and, specifically, how they may reason when required to make decisions informed by a consensus of scientific opinion.

If these men can overlook the overwhelming prevailing scientific consensus about evolution, what does this say about their grasp of and respect for scientific reasoning? If biology, anthropology, paleontology astrophysics, geology, genetics all say “evolution happened,” and you turn a deaf ear, it's not simply a matter of personal taste or individual conviction. To accept as true beliefs about the physical world inconsistent with overwhelming factual evidence is irrationality, not healthy self-expression.

Presidents, and the rest of us non-experts, have to make determinations about scientific matters based on the consensus of experts. We trust that consensus because of our understanding of how science self-regulates. We know that scientists routinely submit their claims to the scrutiny of fellow scientists and must adapt or abandon views this process reveals to be unsupported by the evidence.

What Huckabee and Paul in particular have shown us is a basic disregard for this process and its result: scientific consensus. When, as non-experts, they are required to make a determination informed by the consensus of scientific opinion they are perfectly willing to simply ignore it.

This suggests a capacity for self-deception, or mendacity or willful ignorance (“if you want to believe your family came from apes…”) or all three, that is disturbing in any individual, not only a president.

We know what it's like to have a President with these qualities. We may never recover from having one, we surely cannot survive two.

Richard Dawkins in a conversation with Bill Moyers:

MOYERS: What do you think happens to a society that tolerates the belief that the universe was created in six days?

DAWKINS: Well, I'm all for tolerance, but I'm worried about a society where a sufficiently large number of the electorate can actually swing the vote, not of course that the age of the earth actually affects current politics directly. But it shows such a divorce from reality. Such an inability to apprehend the real world in which people live.

… I really worry about the judgments that people will make in other fields, … When you think about how young the world is supposed to be, according to this view, it's 6,000... it's less than 10,000 years old. This means the entire universe began sometime after the middle stone age. I mean, what kind of a grasp on reality does that suggest?

Willingness to turn one’s back on scientific evidence and the consensus of scientific experts is a shibboleth, a test or criterion for determining membership in a group. In this case, the group is The Rational. By this test our current president and a disturbingly large chunk of the field of presidential candidates have shown a willingness not just to tolerate, but to actively embrace, irrationality.