Is There Always a "Middle Ground?"

I frequently hear statements to the effect that "extremists" or their views are dangerous and harmful regardless of the source. We've come to the point where to sit toward any pole is seen as a fault, that the "middle ground" (however artificial it may be) is the path to take.


But are some extremes actually manufactured? Is there in fact any value in embracing the "middle road" of the "moderate" view when a particular extreme position is in fact not representative of reality? If I'm a savvy PR spinmeister looking to steer an issue, couldn't I just craft a position which is such an extreme that it moves the middle ground toward the side of the issue I want--or in so doing create a "debate" where none really exists?

Suppose, for example, we take the "view" that the sky is blue and construct an opposing view that it is in fact "red," and that everyone who insists otherwise is wrong, and furthermore either is in on or has been duped by a vast conspiracy. There is no real middle ground here; those who dogmatically insist the sky is indeed blue and that anyone thinking otherwise is delusional are correct, no matter how "extreme" their view lies on the spectrum (no pun intended!) of the sky hue "debate."


While my example above is a bit silly and simplistic, it directly parallels the masterfully-successful efforts of those with a vested interest in doing nothing about global warming.

Conservatives have, to a largely successful degree, continued (if not outright manufactured) the "debate" about mankind's role global climate change--at least amongst policymakers and the general public. While one or two dissenting scientists are paraded out by the scions of James Watt (incidentally, has Wyoming ever contributed a good politician to the national scene?) as "proof" of a controversy, the vast majority of professionals who study climate change for a living agree that there is really no debate to be had. Yet those "tree-hugging, granola-eating, America-hating leftist environmentalists" somehow "need to compromise" based on this non-existent, manufactured middle ground. The PR men in the employ of the carbon industry have successfully crafted a "controversy" and "debate" by simply staking out the opposite (and often extreme) position--without a lick of real climate science on their side!

Likewise, creationists (and their monkeys-in-tuxedos cousins the (un)intelligent designers) have tried for years to cast the scientists and "believers" of evolutionary theory as extremists in opposition to their own lunatic fringe position. If you categorically rule out creationism and stick dogmatically to the well-supported (and all-but-proven) "theory" of evolution, you're an "extremist"; as such, they've created a false-moderate position of "teaching the controversy" or "including all the alternatives." Yet this middle ground is anything but; conceding ground from science to accept that there is even a serious debate at all is to play right into the creationists' hands.

Then there's the notion of the "extremes" of science and religion--which although neither science nor religion are "artificial" are not truly endpoints of a linear spectrum, but perhaps rather nearly orthogonal lines in a plane. Based on the incorrect assumption of setting the two on a single line, we're treated to another false middle ground.

I'm generally a fan of Chris Mooney's work, but in his collaborative effort Unscientific America, he makes a case that scientists need to do more to embrace that middle ground (particularly in the area of the science/religion debate), condemning as hurtful to the cause of science the so-called "new atheists" (folks like biologist Richard Dawkins, philosopher and social scientist Daniel Dennett, etc.). In addition to the fact that science and religion are not diametrical, exclusionary extremes on a single linear scale, I think that here Mooney and his coauthor Sheril Kirshenbaum are erring in letting PR and the "spin" of a publicly controversial issue redefine the legitimately moderate position.


The notion that there must be some middle ground between theists and atheists--not so much on the notion of theism itself, mind you, but on how the two frame their debate--is not really compatible with either side of the debate at hand, nor, I would argue, does it significantly play a role in issues of science, like global warming and evolutionary theory. I suppose these issues are "atheistic" in that neither invokes nor requires a notion of the divine--but that's science. that god (or God, if you wish) is left out of the equation is not creating an extreme position at all, nor is there a need for some middle ground which incorporates theism in science simply for the sake of appeasement.

However, the converse is not necessarily true, as the Mooney-lamented Dan Dennett points out very well in Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon: there are indeed aspects of religion which are quite suitable for scientific inquiry--this largely contradicts the "separate magisteria" overture of palms by the late Stephen Jay Gould to theists, where the much-derided-by-creationists biologist claimed science has nothing to say about religion and vice-versa. (I agree with him on the latter, but that's a point for a different blog post and certainly violates the spirit of his gesture.) I suppose this is one case where there is indeed a real middle ground, in that science can certainly make scientific claims about aspects of religion, which Gould held out as untouchable in a failed attempt at (and inspiration for) Mooney's suggestion that scientists come across as not threatening religion.

Creationists and IDers: If We're God's "Perfect Creations," What's Up With Tooth Decay?

One thing you hear a lot of from Creationists and "Intelligent Designers" is that humans are God's "perfect creation," created in "His" image.  This statement conveniently neglects such obvious imperfections as the vestigial vermiform appendix and tooth decay--and I can personally attest to the latter, if not (hopefully ever) the former.  If humans are so perfect, what's the deal with tooth decay?

Two years ago, I developed an abscessed wisdom tooth; my prior dentist had actually assured me the small missing chip from the tooth was "fine" (it was a sign of decay, duh!).  The pain peaked around the time I was in my cousin Michael's wedding; I could hardly bite down without feeling like I was eating glass or had a mouthful of needles.  I made it through the ceremony with the assistance of massive painkiller doses, and somehow the abscess itself cleared up and gave me several more months without a problem--I ended up keeping the appointment I'd originally made to have them removed vs. going in for an emergency.

Wisdom teeth in and of themselves are of debatable value when examined under the "design" and "perfection" lenses.  They add little to modern humans' mastication; complications range from the dreaded but common teenage pronouncement of impaction to biting surfaces partially covered by the gums or skin, leading to inevitable decay--leaving one to wonder what sort of perverse deity would design such teeth and inflict them upon their beloved creations.

Creationists believe the Earth and humankind were created by their God, not by natural processes like the Big Bang and evolution; likewise, IDers state with no small degree of smugness that the universe and life are too complex to have arisen naturally and thus require "design" by their God--i.e. creationism in a tuxedo, or perhaps a liptsticked pig of creationism (though thoughts of lipstick in conjunction with the strongly patriarchal and often overtly-misogynistic culture typically associated with ID brings to light disturbing images of Ted Haggard in drag).

Friday evening, one of my two remaining wisdom teeth--a tooth I'd had problems with and knew needed to come out eventually--started hurting a bit.  As I'd an empty stomach and was headed to dinner, I figured I'd take an Advil once I had something on my stomach.  Although the tooth had hurt off and on for some time, unlike my prior wisdom tooth, I'd always been able to control the pain with one or at most two Advil--and of late, hadn't needed a dose for at least several weeks.

Over the next five minutes, the tooth went from a bit of pain to an exploding hammer drill in the side of my head.  Given we were headed to our favorite Indian restaurant, perhaps the Christian God felt a bit of petty jealousy for the Hindu pantheon.  But during that short drive--the restaurant is about a mile from our house--I realized something was seriously wrong with my tooth.  This was the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my life, inescapable and nearly unbearable in intensity; it shot from my jaw around my entire mouth and up along the side of my head in waves of pounding agony.  I did manage to eat--by then, the pain and low blood sugar from hunger were making me sick, and I had to ingest something.

Through luck my creationist and IDer brethren would ascribe to providence, my wife reached my doctor's office even on a Friday night, and in short order I had prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers.  Even taking the maximum dose of painkillers, my tooth throbbed; the antibiotics took about three doses to kick in, after which the pain began to at least be controllable.

One might ask of the Creationists and IDers: even if we allow for the fact of tooth decay itself under your "creation" and "design" schemes (or the Christian notion of the Fall, which seems to explain everything from pain in childbirth to aging and disease), then wouldn't humans be more perfect if they regrew adult teeth, as do some animals including sharks?  Wouldn't an even more impressive feat of perfection be the body's shedding of decayed teeth and their subsequent natural replacement by God's "perfect" creation?

Or will I get the answer and argument that it's all part of an inscrutable "plan," that my tooth pain is punishment for my scoffing skepticism yet the luck of reaching my doctor and getting a Monday morning appointment for extraction signs of that same vengeful god's mercy and grace?  Sometimes I feel like I'm arguing with the Ouroboros, the mythological snake devouring its own tail, in the level of circular reasoning thrown up by my opponents.  Sigh.

Blame Creationism! (Or: How a Nutjob at a Debate Made Me Into an Atheist)

People often talk about experiences that strengthened their faith, or which brought them to discover religion or otherwise have an epiphanous revelation about God. Recently, Greta Christinia asked in her blog a similar question for non-believers: what caused us to move away from theism? (Thank you to the Freethinkers at Virginia Tech for pointing me to Ms. Christiania's blog!)

Like most Americans, I grew up in a Christian household, and like most children, I never questioned the things I was taught in church--much like I'd never questioned the existence of Santa Claus, either. Adults tell you something is true, and you tend to believe it, particularly when everyone tells you the same story. All those authority figures can't be wrong, can they?

To make a long story short, by the time I'd reached my own adult years, I'd already begun to question the tenets of a belief system I'd been told was true all my life. What about other religions? Who decides which is "right," and why? What about people who never are exposed to the "right" religion--are they damned for their innocently-ignorant beliefs?

But what really pushed me off the edge of the cliff of theism and into that wild, scary realm of disbelief was my own strong foundation in science and reason. The whole flood mythology of the Bible's Old Testament simply cannot be reconciled with any notion of science, history, or reason; likewise, the biblical creation account contradicts science when taken as anything but allegory. Oh, I'd gone through the phase of creating my own epicycles, rationalizing six-day special creation and biblical chronology of a "young earth" which somehow meshed with the billions-of-years of age the Earth and broader universe clearly possessed, but dismissed those rationalizations before my teenage years had even passed.

To answer Ms. Christiana's question, I can even identify the exact moment I took that big, bold step over the theism cliff: February 24, 2002 (ironically, a Sunday), at the "Evolution vs. Creationism Debate" hosted by the Campus Bible Fellowship and Freethinkers at Virginia Tech. By then, I'd become an agnostic, but the exposure to the sheer intellectual dishonesty and self-deceit of the creationist speaker--and, in turn, the broader creationist movement--make up the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

The creationist speaker, Dr. Randy Guliuzza from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), based his entire side of the debate around erecting a strawman of "evolution" which he then attacked, coupled with the false dichotomy of saying, "If you are wrong, then I am right." He didn't produce a single piece of evidence for his position (creationism), and when I called him on that during the question & answer phase, asking him point-blank to produce some evidence to support his argument, he simply responded that all he had to do was debunk evolution to prove creation (if you don't see the false dichotomy of that notion, I'm not sure I can help you).

Though Dr. Guliuzza couldn't replicate "Dr. Dino" Kent Hovind's infamous 300 creationist lies, his arguments did suffer from nearly 50 major problems in such a short debate, which I took down during the debate. He only had a couple of hours, so I guess he does deserve some credit for making that many mistakes, deceptions, misrepresentations, and outright lies during the debate (the numbers below come from the order he presented them in, as I listed them during the debate).

Some of his real laughers included defending creationism's validity by presenting public opinion polls (#1); claiming scientists have no "data" or "details" to support evolution (#2) because articles published in Discover and Popular Science lack them, as do books in the popular press (#3); that scientists condenscendingly think "you" are stupid (#5); appeals to authority ("Some scientists believe in creationism, so it must be true!" and "I have an M.D., so what I say about biology is true!") (#13 & #15); that evolution isn't "useful" (#12); and so on.

His strawman of evolution--a common tactic of creationists--included such ridiculous notions that evolution is "too broad" (#6) whilst simultaneously demanding it explain cosmogenesis (#23) and other aspects of physics, not biology, as well as areas of biology not remotely related to evolution, like abiogenesis (#22); and the insulting notion that "scientists say humans come from worms," (#27) and that "scientists have to use computer animations showing one animal turning into another" (#4 & #26). This is the same tactic Dr. Dino (who currently resides in federal prison, I might add...) uses in his "$200,000 challenge" whereby he claims he'll give anyone who can "prove" evolution a big sum of cash--yet they have to "prove" something not even remotely identifiable as evolutionary theory. Of course the audience (and even scientists) would agree his strawman "evolution" is no good... the problem is, it simply isn't evolution.

The whole notion of debates as "proof" of one's theory also irks me; creationists are good at winning debates with laypeople audiences, who quite honestly aren't capable of making a proper evaluation of the science behind evolution, and who may be easily swayed by the strawmen and ad hominem attacks of creationist arguments. "Show us the data!" the creationists cry; despite the fact mountains of such data exist in the academic literature or even a decent biology textbook, they claim victory when the scientist at the debate doesn't display table after table of mind-numbing data, even when refusing to produce any evidence in support of creationism itself (remember that false dichotomy I mentioned?)

Dr. Guliuzza went on to make several demonstrably false scientific statements as well; ever wonder why creationists spend so much time picking at evolution instead of layout out evidence for their own theory? It's because they can't do science, and what science they try to do is quite poor. For example, he claimed an evolutionary change resulting in a loss of functionality or information contradicts evolutionary theory (#28)--another straw in that big man-shaped bale of hay. He made the oft-repeated claim that "all mutations are bad" (#40); that bacterial antibiotic resistance doesn't exist (#35), that HIV has not and is not changing as a virus (#41), and several other real whoppers which simply are wrong in all factual regards.

Finally, creationists often accuse evolutionary theory of failings which in any sense actually apply more to creationism than evolution, and if to be taken as points against a theory, must condemn their own position! If evolution is "too broad" to be an acceptable theory (#6, an accusation demonstrably incorrect to begin with), what of the notion that "Goddidit" to explain everything, from cosmogenesis to abiogenesis to evolution and beyond? If evolution has "no predictive value" (#14, and again, demonstrably incorrect), what of the Bible and creationism?

Creationists claim scientists "force" data into "unnatural" configurations to support evolution (again, provably wrong, and #10 on Dr. Guliuzza's list of lies)--what, then, of all the epicycles invented by creationists to try to fit observable science to a "theory" broadly and wholly contradicted and disproven by said science? I suggest the interested reader check out the topics of "flood geology," "hydrological sorting," and the "vapor canopy," and get back to me on who exactly is forcing data into unnatural configurations--and afterwards, take a look at the ridiculous notions of variable speed-of-light ("tired" light is responsible for redshift, so says that "theory"), incredibly variable rates of radioactive decay only stable in the past few years (to explain away radioisotope dating, among other things), and mutation and speciation rates far in excess of anything evolution demands to account for all the biological diversity we see today having arisen a few thousand years ago from Noah and his rinky-dink Ark.

Looking back on my notes from that 2002 debate, I found this gem:

Finally, as I have indicated before and likely will again, isn’t it hypocritical for creationists to accuse someone else of using “just-so” stories (like, maybe, “God did it!”) to explain their position? Forgive me if I am wrong, but my exposure to creationism has left me with the feeling that the whole platform is based on one great big just-so story called the Bible.

Using that as segue back to my original topic of how that particular debate drove me away from theism one and for all, that day's events are what really opened my eyes to the particular sort of dishonesty (intentional or through ignorance; it doesn't matter) and refusal to partake in any meaningful discussion or rational argumentation about either science or religion that makes up not just creationism (and its "lipstick on a pig / monkey in a tuxedo" cousin, (un)intelligent design), but on a broader level religion as a whole. Religious beliefs are just that: beliefs. They cannot be supported factually, yet many of the claims of religion run counter to observable, factual science. When you scrape away all the fluff, all that's left is a warm fuzzy notion of "god," and to me, that's simply not enough to justify a belief in the face of all other rationality.