Lawson on evolution and religion

[sawyl]

I'm in the mood to grouch about things so, for no good reason, I'm going to tear into Mark Lawson's dreadful article on science and religion in today's Guardian. The piece starts out with a simple description of an experiment to investigate out-of-body experiences, but soon it progresses into madness and misunderstanding. For example, it asserts:

But an objection to the project is that it suffers from the scientific tendency to believe that anything can be proved one way or another.

There are so many things wrong with this, it's hard to know where to start. But it makes it very clear that Lawson has next to no understanding of the scientific method, the role of evidence, what it means to prove something, even the sorts of things that can be proved. It also appears to imply there is no difference legitimate scientific scepticism with complete relativism, where any theory is held to be just as good as any other.

With this bizarre view of science firmly established, the piece goes on to criticise biology and physics for not coming up with answers to the first cause problem and goes on to claim that ID has grown in popularity because scientists have coopted religions language:

Both the theories of evolution and quantum physics stumble over the question of first cause: the process by which nothingness became something. It's this zone of unknowability that leads to physicists using such loaded language as "the God particle" and has made evolutionists, especially in the US, vulnerable to the counter-dogma of "intelligent design".

But this argument does not convince. Intelligent design has not gained because evolution has stumbled. Evolution seeks to explain how existing lifeforms have changed over time in response to their environment, with questions about the emergency of life falling outside its purview. Similarly, physicists appear to have chosen to dub the Higgs boson "the God particle" because of its elusiveness, rather than its religious connotations. The real reasons underpinning the growth of ID seem to be those upheld by Lawson as virtues: a failure to grasp basic epistemology; a brand of sloppy relativism that considers any explanation to be as good as any other; and a stance of radical scepticism that denies the validity of empirical evidence.

After meditating on the concept of mysteries and their necessity for faith, the pieces ends with bizarre treatment of arguments from authority. It first subjects Dawkins to a ad hominem kicking, claiming that because he has no aesthetic sense, his pronouncements cannot be trusted. It then praises Terry Pratchett as a sinner that repenteth, after his claim to have become slightly less sceptical after hearing a voice in his head. This is a very strange way to end — making a false claim about a scientist who has been critical about religion in order to discredit his perceived authority, then claiming authority for a man suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's disease who has dared to reduced his level of scepticism about the supernatural — but it goes to the heart of Lawson's misunderstanding.

People believe what Dawkins says, not because of who he is or how he says it, but because he argues for it. Conversely, even if Pratchett has hear a voice that makes him more likely to believe in something else, the revelation depends entirely on his say so; it does not provide rational reason why I, as a non-Terry Pratchett, should believe. So it is with science: the truth of a theory doesn't depend on the authority of its sponsor, but rather on the logical chain that links the most incredible of its conclusions to the most mundane of everyday observations.