Philip Kitcher Quotes

Do the doctrine’s problem-solving strategies encounter recurrent difficulties in a significant range of cases? Are the problem-solving strategies an opportunistic collection of unmotivated and unrelated methods? Does the doctrine have too cozy a relationship with auxiliary hypotheses, applying its strategies with claims that can be “tested” only in their applications? Does the doctrine refuse to follow up on unresolved problems, airily dismissing them as “exceptional cases”? Does the doctrine restrict the domain of its methods, forswearing excursions into new areas of investigation where embarrassing questions might arise? If all, or many, of these tests are positive, then the doctrine is not a poor scientific theory. It is not a scientific theory at all.

The road to Creationism is paved with bad philosophy.

This response gets high marks for low cunning.

In almost any natural population of organisms, more offspring will be produced than are able to survive. The offspring will vary—in particular, they will vary with respect to characteristics that affect their abilities to survive and reproduce. Some organisms will survive longer and reproduce more frequently. If the advantageous characteristics are inheritable, then they will be transferred to descendants. As a result, they will become more prevalent in later generations. Over a large number of generations the common features of the population may be radically changed.

To provide scientific explanations, a creationist would have to identify the plan implemented in the creation. The trouble is that there are countless examples of properties of organisms that are hard to integrate into a coherent theory of design. There are two main types of difficulty, stemming from the frequent tinkerings of evolution in the equally common nastiness of nature. Let us begin with evolutionary tinkering. Structures already present or modified to answer to the organisms current needs. The result may be clumsy and inefficient, but it gets the job done.… (examples of the panda’s thumb, orchid self-fertilization, and the ruminant digestive system elided)
The second class of cases cover those in which, to put it bluntly, nature’s ways are rather repulsive. There is nothing intrinsically beautiful about the scavenging of vultures, the copulatory behavior of the female praying mantis (who tries to bite off the head of the “lucky” male), or the ways in which some insects paralyze their prey.… (example of coprophagy elided)

So we encounter the strategy exemplified by Morris: Talk generally about design, pattern, purpose, and beauty in nature. There are many examples of adaptations that can be used—the wings of bats or “the amazing circulatory system,” for example. But what happens if we press some more difficult cases? Well, if there seems to be no design or purpose to a feature (and if its presence cannot be understood as a modification of ancestral characters), one can always point out that some parts of the Creator’s plan may be too vast for human understanding. We do not see what the design is, but there is design, nonetheless.
Since no plan of design has been specified, Creationists have available another all-purpose escape clause. But it is precisely this feature of Creation “science” that impugns its scientific credentials. To mumble that “the ways of the creator are many and mysterious” may excuse one from identifying design in unlikely places. It is not to do science.

Creationists are actually criticizing methods that are used throughout science. As I shall argue extensively, there is no basis for separating the procedures and practices of evolutionary biology from those that are fundamental to all sciences. If we let the creationists have their way, we may as well go whole hog. Let us reintroduce the flat-earth theory, the chemistry of the four elements, and mediaeval astrology. For these outworn doctrines have just as much claim to rival current scientific views as Creationism does to challenge evolutionary biology.

Creationism does not merit scientific discussion. As we found in the last chapter, Creation “science” is not a promising rival to evolutionary theory. It is not integrated with the rest of science, but is a hodgepodge of doctrines, lacking independent support. It offers no startling predictions, no advances in knowledge. We cannot commend it for any ability to shed light on questions that orthodox theories are unable to answer. Nor can we praise it for offering a definite alternative that might help scientists in their quest for an improved biological or geological theory. “Scientific” Creationism has no evidence that speaks in its favor, partly because Creationists are so meticulous in leaving their doctrines blurred.

Creationist strategy is often to run entirely different issues together, to concoct a muddy paste out of distinct allegations about the evils of evolution and the glories of Creationism.

Because Creationists would like to identify themselves as members of the scientific community, scientists engaged in an internal debate with other scientists, they pounce on any remarks by eminent biologists or geologists that can be made to suggest their point of view. These remarks are wrenched out of context—whether creationists simply do not realize the importance of the context or whether they are willfully distorting the authors intentions, I do not know. In any case, for the creationists, misleading quotation has become a way of life.

Creation “science” is spurious science. To treat it as science we would have to overlook its intolerable vagueness. We would have to abandon large parts of well-established sciences (physics, chemistry, and geology, as well as evolutionary biology, are all candidates for revision). We would have to trade careful technical procedures for blind guesses, unified theories for motley collections of special techniques. Exceptional cases, whose careful pursuit has so often led to important turnings in the history of science, would be dismissed with a wave of the hand. Nor would there be any gains. There is not a single scientific question to which Creationism provides its own detailed problem solution. In short, Creationism could take a place among the sciences only if the substance and methods of contemporary science were mutilated to make room for a scientifically worthless doctrine. What price Creationism?

Ironically, philosophers of science owe the Creationists a debt. For the “scientific” Creationists have constructed a glorious fake, which we can use to illustrate the differences between science and pseudoscience. By examining their scientific pretensions, I have tried to convey a sense of the nature and methods of science.

Even if Creationists continue to lose in the courts, they may still succeed in wreaking havoc upon science education (and, ultimately, upon American science). By lobbying local school administrators, the Creationist minions can affect the books that are chosen and the curriculum that is designed. Because textbooks are published to make a profit, the special-interest pressure will change the character of the books that are produced. While Creationist laws fail, the cause may triumph, as science education relapses into its post-Scopes, pre-Sputnik condition.

The formulation that I have given accords with those found in textbooks on physics. But it does not coincide with the statements of the second law offered by some Creationists.
Creationists like to present the second law either by omitting any mention of its restriction to closed systems or by choosing a statement that does not make this restriction clear.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story. Although they do not refer to closed systems in stating the second law, Creationists have heard that the law only applies to such systems. So they are ready for the response I have just given. Morris even calls it “an exceedingly naive argument.” There are two popular Creationist rejoinders. The first is to pooh-pooh the concept of a closed system. The second is to change the subject.