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 No
judge should be required to define science. The definition of science
cannot be decided in civil court now any better than in an
ecclesiastical court in Galileo’s day, where surely the angels feared to
tread.
But the unfortunate Kitzmiller vs. Dover
judge fearlessly rushed in and stuck his thumb into the mincemeat pie
and pulled out his plumb of a bumper-sticker verdict, the DoVerDict, in
gist, in jest, to wit: Intelligent Design isn’t science. Evolution is
science. Only Evo. There can be no other. If it isn’t Evo it isn’t
science. So Intelligent Design isn’t science. Evo is science.
The judge probably thought his 139-page
verdict was a historic validation of science. In reality, it was a
redefinition of science.
If the Dover verdict validated anything it
validated the Great American Bumper Sticker, sure reads like one. From
the bench and bar, not the lab, for bumpers from sea to shining sea,
comes the new science-defining slogan, no, redefining, and where
better to re-define science than a sticker?
Epiphany on a bumper sticker. So now, like
the Beatles who all lived in a Yellow Submarine, we all live in
Bumper-Stickerland.
Fine with us!
Bumper-Stickerland is the Creationist
Curmudgeon’s turf. If the playing field must be leveled to the two
dimensions of a bumper sticker, merrily bumper-stickering we shall go,
at a line or page or two, all a bumper sticker really deserves.
• Dover verdict science is the science of
redefining science to fit Evo so that only Evo is science.
• The classic old functional definition of
science that we knew and loved, that says formulating a theory is
scientific but insisting it’s more than theory isn’t, sounds quaint
nowadays, and sort of sad, nostalgic, rather Currier & Ives, like those
ten aphorisms inscribed upon the diptych of stone no longer allowed in
court.
• Now all of a sudden it’s a lot simpler.
Evo is science and that’s that. Such beatification in the spiritual
domain would take a miracle, and the ACLU wouldn’t like it.
• Everything else in science may need proof
or suffer question, but not Evo. About Evo no question is allowed, by
law. Against Evo all else is to be measured and rejected, and made
illegal to teach or even mention, Galileoean heresy without ado. Thus
says the Dover verdict bumper sticker.
• Darwin himself, a mere naturalist, called
Evo a scientific theory, only that, but a judge overrides Darwin and
declares it’s so much more than a theory – it’s science itself.
• Being science itself, Evo, not secondary
sciences like geology, molecular genetics, and particle physics, becomes
the prime measure of American science education, even our science
standing among nations. Time 13 Feb 06: "Some critics have tried
to put the blame for the U.S.'s scientific decline on President George
W. Bush, citing ... his statements in support of intelligent design as
an alternative to evolution..." Now that’s an award-winner sticker if
we ever saw one. If our theoretical physicists could be half as
creative as those theoretical Evoeans, U.S. science would be the marvel
of the planet, no contest.
• To happen at all, Evo requires mutation,
random mutation. To redefine science Evo mutates science, by design.
Evo is mutant science.
• First, way back in antiquity, there was
philosophy, and from philosophy came science. Then came the Renaissance
and the Enlightenment when science, which actually looks at what’s
happening, broke from religion, all just revelation, and distanced
itself from philosophy, all just thought. But now NeoEvo science needs
philosophy back, calling the mix “philosophy of science,” to design a
way for science to be redefined and re-philosophized so that only Evo
can be scientific. And what a humdinger NeoEvoPhilo came up with!
Materialism.
• Evo isn’t rooted and grounded on evidence
like rocks and fossils any more. That’s old Evo. PaleoEvo. Fossilized
Evo. Outmoded Evo. Darwin’s Evo. NeoEvo’s bedrock is Materialism,
another theory, actually philosophy, that operates more like a
revelation.
• Materialism announces and commands that
there’s absolutely nothing out there, or here, but molecules and
abstract life, which is just another molecular aberration. How about
nothing but abstract bumper stickers? Materialism is the theory of
Nihilism, Nothingism, Abstractionism-driven-to-Distractionism.
• Darwin, that mere naturalist, fathered a
lovely little scientific theory based on data, which NeoEvo didn’t think
was fit enough to survive in court, and so she ran off with Materialism,
much sexier, and sued Charles for child support.
• NeoEvo’s icon and idol and image is
Materialism. And NeoEvo said, let us make science in our own image,
and the judge saw that it was good.
• But can you prove nothingness? Can you
prove other than nothingness? If proving God or that there is no
God was hard, proving nothing must be hell. We keep forgetting: Evo has
evolved beyond the need of proof. Anyway, to prove that sort of thing
takes a philosopher, not a scientist; better yet, a judge, and throw in
a litter of columnists.
• How can NeoEvo be so complicated? Evo is
offended by the idea that the complexity of the cosmos and DNA molecules
suggests design, but itself designs logic and philosophy of such
irreducible complexity as to make the DNA or even the IRS code duck
soup.
• How does denying that Intelligent
Design is scientific prove that NeoEvo is scientific? The theory
of Intelligent Design devolves on the scientific use of the process of
induction; NeoEvo has transcended induction and now is simply
pontification. Darwin’s Evo was as scientific as ID. NeoEvo, if
anything, is less scientific.
• How does accusing Intelligent Design of
being nothing but religion in disguise prove Evo isn’t atheism in
disguise? Religion is holier than thou. Evo is less holy than thou.
On a roll, Evo is more scientific than thou.
• We can only guess, but what might most
rankle Evo about Intelligent Design is the intelligent part. Evo
is stuck with random. Which sounds more scientific? Intelligent
or random?
• When Evoeans aren’t creating new
definitions and philosophies to paste on bumpers, they run around in
panic screeching, “They’re trying to Kill Darwin! They’re trying to
kill science!” Surprising behavior from scientists. All the lab
scientists we’ve known were role models of stolid equanimatas. We
thought mad scientists were found only in old movies.
• Evo claims ID wants to kill science. Why
not put it out of its misery, after what Evo has done to it?
• Or is it Evo doing the science killing?
Just who is killing whom and what? We’re running out of bumper
stickers.
So how do you like perambulating in Bumper-Stickerland?
Saw a lot of bumper stickers but didn’t get anywhere? Tell it to the
judge.
*
Dr. Wesley Kime, distinguished physician, retired in Ohio, paints with
oils, creates line drawings, and writes literary prose brimming with
subtle humor. His “Creationist Curmudgeon” one liners have become a
staple of Creation Digest.
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