Math is Pretty

Richard Dawkins is quite cranky when it comes to the subject of creationists, the most famous of which have a long history of misrepresenting his life’s work. In his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, he begins with the goal of graciously persuading creationists of the truths of evolution. He then devotes the rest of the book to insulting his intended audience.

As a review in New Scientist put it:

It’s really kind of comical. If “spot the condescensions” is a new drinking game, then bottoms up! There’s one in just about every chapter. Though Dawkins says from the outset, “This is not an anti-religious book”, he can’t help but knock religion throughout, For instance, he writes: “God, to repeat this point, which ought to be obvious, but isn’t, never made a tiny wing in his eternal life.” Young Earth creationists are, he writes, “deluded to the point of perversity”. You get the sense that Dawkins just can’t control it. It’s as if he suffers from an anti-religious form of Tourette’s syndrome.

Although I am a long-time fan of Dawkin’s work, there is little to disagree with here. Insulting a person is seldom an effective means of persuading them of your position. More grace in Dawkins’ work would increase its persuadiability for Creationists.

The focus of this post is not on whether Dawkins is tactful — not even he would defend such a position. Instead, I want to focus on a common refrain heard every time an apology on evolution is published. This refrain is found in the same New Scientist review:

But in the end, you have to wonder why Dawkins wastes so much time trying to argue with creationists. We all know that creationists are not rational thinkers. They are driven by beliefs, not by logic.

This is an understandable criticism — it accurately describes the only Creationists most scientists ever encounter. It’s also completely wrong.

Well-known Creationists are fanatical and intellectually dishonest, but they are not representative of most Creationists. The overwhelming majority of Creationists have not studied evolution, they do not participate in Creationist debates, and they have no understanding of “Creation Science” or “Intelligent Design.” They are Christians, true, but they are Christians who have an unexamined belief in Creationism. They only believe in Creationism because they learned it in Sunday school and none of them has ever heard the theory of evolution honestly presented.

Some of these Creationists are fanatics. Some are rationalists who can be persuaded by evidence and are only one well-written book from believing in evolution.

My book was The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins. I was raised a Creationist and grew up reading the weekly newsletter from the Institute of Creation Research. Even with this pedigree, Dawkin’s algorithmic description of evolution in the Blind Watchmaker was undeniable to my rationalist mind. I struggled with my belief system for a few years after reading his book until finally deciding to settle the issue through experiment.

On the summer of my nineteenth birthday, I spent several months writing a simple simulation of evolution on my computer. I created computer organisms with pseudo-DNA structures that determined their feeding strategies. I bred them generation after generation, letting the environment select which organisms had more offsprings based on their survival rate.

The result of the experiment was simple. Before I ran it, I was a Creationist. Afterwards, I was an evolutionist.

There are large numbers of other Creationists ready to make the same journey. They are just waiting for their one book. They would be lucky to read an author as gifted as Dawkins because in the end he pays them the highest respect possible. He devotes an entire chapter to examining what we would find if Biblical creationism were true. No rationalist Creationist will remain so after reading it.