February 11, 2008

• Series: Philosophy, Faith, and the twisted mind of a Software Engineer

  Religion in schools

  One of my most favorite (and least favorite) debates is evolution vs. creationism. It is my favorite because it really is an interesting debate, but it is my least favorite because people on both sides of the argument take themselves waaay too seriously and don’t really think about it. Unfortunately, the Darwinians are as dogmatic as Creationists. There, I said it and I mean it. Too many people come up with the solution they like first, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to find ways to justify their opinions. >_< I've put a lot of thought into this however, and I believe I've found a fairly simple thought exercise that I think flushes out most of the debate. We'll see if you agree.

  Ask yourself the following question: Where does electricity come from?

  Answer 1) According to Faraday’s law, movement of a magnetic field over a coil of wire induces an electrical current.
  Answer 2) Electricity comes from God.

  Now ask yourself – which one is going to help you build a light bulb? OK, now replace Farady’s law with Darwin’s Theories and electricity with mankind. Before everyone jumps down my throat I want to emphasize that the point of this exercise is NOT to state that answer #2 is necessarily wrong. Rather it just isn’t that useful. I’ve often felt people on both sides of the evolution vs. creationism debate have missed the point. The argument should NOT be about whether creationism is wrong, rather the debate should be, where is science useful and where is faith useful? I honestly believe there is a place for faith – especially in a world that is increasing volatile, in no small part thanks to science. I also believe trying to substitute one for the other is a recipe for all kinds of disaster.

  Of course then there are some of you who say, “what about intelligent design?” its a competing theory and should be given equal time. Well, we can run the same thought experiment again, using intelligent design as the basis.

  Answer 3) Movement of a magnetic field over a coil of wire induces an electrical current. This would be impossible without the intervention of a powerful unnamed entity that causes it to be so in a way that is too complex for it to be natural.

  Some might, at this point say, this answer also helps you to build a lightbulb. It has all the same information and so is just as useful as the first answer. It should be given equal time. This area is a bit fuzzier, but lets introduce another answer.

  Answer 4) Movement of a magnetic field over a coil of wire induces an electrical current. Cortez was a conquistador that invaded South America.

  In science we have a rule of thumb called Occam’s razor. In latin it is:

  entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

  which loosely translates to:

  don’t make things harder than you have to

  Answers 1,3, and 4 all provide the same critical information about generating electricity. However, knowing that a powerful unnamed entity (a.k.a God, Q, Allah, Shiva, Wayne Brady) with power that transcends natural laws caused this to be so still does NOT help us to understand and utilize those natural laws any more effectively, and in fact actually distracts us from the critical facts. If answer 3 at least NAMED the entity and a way we could communicate reliably with it or convince it to make electricity or change the laws of physics for us, then it might be useful. Otherwise the bit about the entity is relegated to the same level of importance as Cortez, and in a science curriculum where we are packing more and more information in just to keep up with the Jones’ – lets try and stick to the critical information.

  ….

  Alright I have been pretty harsh on religion so lets end with a thought experiment where faith wins. Here is a question science can’t answer and never will. Why? ^_^

  • 10:09 pm
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