Following the Will O’ Wisp into the bog

November 8, 2007

Tristero has noticed a significant problem about the evolution-vs.-creationism debate — at a certain point, the argument becomes incomprehensible to laypeople. Even laypeople who are well educated in the subject:

Until very recently, I could follow, sometimes with difficulty, most of the actual arguments being made, and the rebuttals by scientists. Things like the notorious bacterial flagellum, the peppered moths, and so on - the discussion got tricky but it wasn’t impossible. The mistakes in reasoning by id creationists are so egregious that a scientifically inclined 10 year old could easily see them, as could any layperson who spent a little bit of effort. But reading Smith’s post on HIV evolution, I have to confess I can’t for the life of me understand it.

By drawing arguments ever further into minutiae and specialist territory, people lose sight of the core of the argument — that scientific proof of the existence of deity can be found in nature. By engaging with these detail arguments as though they had serious merit, you help give the impression that this larger argument is far stronger than it actually is. More to the point, you waste your time arguing with a fool when you could be explaining the difference between you and the fool to the less knowledgeable but nosy onlookers.

The result, as Tristero notes, is people deciding who to “believe” based not upon actual understanding of the issues but tribe loyalty and gut feeling.

This method of arguing, where even if you lose on the facts you win by looking smart, is not restricted to arguments about evolution. It’s done all the time in politics. It was used in arguments against global warming, where the weight of the evidence has been clear for a long time but trumped-up detail arguments based on deliberate dishonesty and given equal weight in the news media made people think there was serious debate about the issue. It’s what turned serious arguments about Bush’s questionable National Guard service into a discussion about the history of typewriters. And so on.

The problem is that if you just let foolish arguments go unchecked, then other people will be convinced by them because they don’t know any better. So you have to address some of the arguments. But I don’t think that the solution is, necessarily, more clarity in the argument. This is where I differ with Tristero:

Ultimately, I think scientists must somehow find a way to push Behe to the side, not in the Mooney/Nisbet framing sense, but by making the modern case for evolution so crystal clear, and by restating that case over and over again, so that Behe sounds as much like a Flat-Earther to laypeople as he does to Smith (and me). The basic science isn’t that hard to grasp, people. And, y’know, it really is incredibly exciting stuff, what’s going on, what’s been discovered.

It is exciting and interesting — to me and to Tristero. But it is not exciting or interesting to some. They have other things they are excited about and they would rather leave sciencey stuff to the scientists and get on with something else in much the same way I, for example, am happy to leave automobile maintenance to my mechanic, dentistry to my dentist, and database administration to database administrators. All I want to know is who I can trust to do that kind of thinking for me because I don’t have the time to do all of my thinking myself.

So when you try to engage people by making a mo’ better argument for evolution (for example), you’re going to start talking above their interest level (if not above their heads). You need to make just enough of an argument to demonstrate that the intelligent design crowd are not only full of it but actually intentionally full of it. And when the IDers try to Will O’ Wisp you further into the bog, all you need to do is say “now, don’t you remember when we demonstrated this jerk-face was full of it?” Don’t honor the jerk-face with an argument, it’s too much like mud-wrestling a pig.

The disadvantage is that you don’t get the joy of sharing your specialized knowledge with a bunch of people who know less than you. But the advantage is this strategy actually works. People might not be interested enough to follow your crystal-clear argument pro-evolution, but they are generally interested when you tell them someone is trying to play them for a sap.

Posted in Politics, Science