lpetrich

URL: <a href="http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mayesgr/Lewontin1.htm" target="_blank">http://www.csus.edu/indiv/m/mayesgr/Lewontin1.htm</a> (also appeared in the New York Review of Books, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com" target="_blank">http://www.nybooks.com</a> ).

I read that and gagged; RL seemed to be giving Xtian-fundie religion a pass that he would not give to science.

He tells of taking part in an evolution-creationism debate in Arkansas along with Carl Sagan back in 1964, and he claimed to see class conflict in the creationism question -- a class conflict between rural Southerners and urban Northerners. Is he implying that there is no such thing as objective truth and that all viewpoints are equal???

Even if poor Southerners had taken up creationism, snake-handling, and stuff like that in order to spite those filthy rich know-it-all city slickers, that does not make their beliefs any more true. Also, why creationism, and not geocentrism or flat-earthism? Or rejection of the electricity theory of lightning and lightning rods?

He also notes that scientists have failed to produce many very desirable things, like a cure for cancer. But how successful has any religion ever been? Have faith healers and exorcists ever succeeded in putting hospitals out of business?

In fact, the opposite has happened. It used to be thought that ringing church bells could repel lightning. But all it did was get bell-ringers killed by -- guess what -- lightning. And the theologians would agonize over why God's favorite buildings would get struck by lightning.

But along came Ben Franklin, who showed that lightning is a giant electric spark, and who invented a way to protect buildings against lightning -- lightning rods. Churchmen were reluctant at first to put these godless, materialistic objects on God's favorite buildings, but their superior track record in protecting against lightning slowly changed their minds.

He notes that many of present-day science claims seem very far-out, such as solid and nice-smelling cheese being composed of very tiny particles with little solidity and no color or smell. But I don't see how this is much more absurd than a beach being composed of billions of grains of sand. Grouped together, the grains get properties that individual grains do not have.

He notes the case of a West Texas woman who claimed that the Moon landings are fake because she could not receive Dallas stations -- how could NASA receive broadcasts from the Moon? However, that is a rather elementary misunderstanding: NASA had a clear line of sight to the Moon, while this poor lady did not have one to Dallas.

He also asks why accept wave-particle duality while rejecting the Christian Trinity. However, there is plenty of observational evidence for wave-particle duality, while there are strong disagreements about the exact nature of the Christian Trinity, and even whether that theory is correct.

Many religions teach things that are common to common sense, and RL seems too willing to give them a pass on it. Does RL take seriously stories of talking snakes and donkeys? That it is possible to walk on water? That the Ruler of the Universe is a shameless lecher and deadbeat dad? That the Universe was created from the body of a killed giant? That the first woman was created from the first man? That the founder of Rome was raised by a wolf?

In summary, I think that his "review" went on a tangent that I think is dubious at best.

tronvillain

Lewontin? I don't think I've ever enjoyed anything he's written.

Kent Stevens

Lewontin seems to be a traitor to the cause of science and the pursuit of truth. If every science writer was like Lewontin the creationists and ufologists would have even more support. Not every theory about reality is somehow a social construction demonstrating the domination of the working classes.

If people like Carl Sagan can appear evangelical in their enthusasm for science is that really such a bad thing if science gives the better viewpoint of reality. Like everything science needs it's promoters. You will find that someone like Carl Sagan is slightly restricted in that he has to give a fairly reasoned argument being a scientist. However, the religious conterparts to Carl Sagan need only give dogma, some sophistry, and a small amount of reasoning to reassure their religious people.

Vorkosigan

Lewontin is right. You can't have it both ways, claiming that Creationists are largely uneducated (true) and then arguing that no class issues are involved in the Creationist-Evolution argument. Something may be objectively right or wrong, yet still have implications for class, gender, and other social constructs. I doubt very much Lewontin would argue that Creationism is true because working class authoritarians embrace it.

Michael

Valentine Pontifex

Lewontin is from the extreme left wing and is a Marxist for those who don't know it. While there are no doubt "cultural" influence in science, people like Lewontin tend to overemphasize them to the extreme.

owlafaye

A side of humor: There is more evidence for the existence of UFO's than there is for God.

Oolon Colluphid

Define 'evidence'

Oolon

pseudobug

Having just waded through Lewontian's essay I'm unimpressed in general. WHile he makes some pretty good arguments, particularly with the unfullfilled promises of science, I think he misses the boat.

Science's "extravegant claims" for the future are, in part, a perpetuation of the patronage system of centuries past. That patronage system is still alive and well today but is funded by the taxpayers and the "largesses" is dolled out by the taxpayers representatives. True, scientists do have final approval, in general, on funding grants, but anyone that has prepared a grant application knows that there is an expectation of providing some form of ultimate "usefullness" to humanity and that just adding to our knowlege base in general isn't typical a sufficient rationale for a project. It least that is true in the field I work in--microbiology--as it is damned difficult to procur funding if it isn't somehow connected to human health, the environment, agriculture or an industrial process.

The failing, to me, is in the area of the popular press. There is a tenedency, particularly in television and magazines, to sensationalize findings. Writers have to get a soundbite to capture an inattentive audience's interest for a few moments or their column or television commentary will not be read or watched. In doing so, I think the caution with which most scientist present the future implications of their findings is glossed over or ignored altogether.

Secondly, some of his "claims" are just outright horsecrap. This one just floored me:

"In fact, if I know the DNA sequence of a gene I have no hint about the function of a protein specified by that gene, or how it enters into an organism's biology."

The first part of Lewontin's statement is absolute crap and indicates to me that he is showing his age and ignorance of bioinformatics. I suppose I could cut him a little slack as the essay is five yours old, but still there was some predictive value top be gleaned from from comparisoins of sequence data in '97.

What he did get right is that knowing the sequence is not knowing the biology of a particular genes function. It does, as he said, give us reasonable starting points.

Another thing that he said that I do agree with is that pounding the "truth" of science into the heads of the ignorant and superstitous is not the point. The point is giving them the tools to discover the truth themselves.