Right to remain ignorant

I've been very busy of late and have neglected this 'blog -- hopefully to the benefit of more important matters but a note I received today from an"offended" student demanded a response which I include below. The student's letter was heart-felt and sincere, quite well-written and reasonable in tone, and it was even signed! In a side comment on "intelligent design"(ID), my Powerpoint slide playfully included the word-play "ID-iots" in reference advocates of this so-called "theory." The student was "greatly offended" and ended his half-page letter with this gentle ultimatum: " ...I humbly ask you to fix your Powerpoint presentation, so that it is no longer offensive. If you fail to do this I will be filing a formal complaint with the college. [...] I hope to hear from you soon, if I do not hear from you or see a change by Friday, April 1st, I will deliver the formal complaint." If you are not familiar with the pending legislation masquerading as "The Student Bill of Rights," you may want to read it and weep before continuing. Anyway, here is my response:

Hello ------:

First of all, thank you for expressing your concerns in writing. Students too seldom take the time to do so. I am sorry you are offended by my characterization ID creationism. Nonetheless, the word play on ID-iots is too appropriate in this context not to use. Intelligent Design creationism is based entirely on an argument from personal incredulity as my slide indicates — "I can't believe it (and haven't taken the time to understand it) so therefore it can't be true." I have yet to meet personally one ID creationist who has even the most rudimentary understanding of evolutionary biology. Because basic evolutionary information is readily available I can only conclude "willful ignorance" which is one common connotation of the term 'idiot' — calling someone an idiot (or labelling an idea as idiotic) is not name-calling when the term is appropriate. There are a few writers (whom I have not personally met) such as Behe and Dembski who ought to know better and in their cases I am left to suspect malicious intent — I would thus be more inclined to call them liars rather than idiots.

With respect to your second point, you are correct that science does not prove anything True — however, you seem to have missed that point that science does falsify conjectures with conclusive certainty. As a trivial example, suppose I make a conjecture that, based on its appearance, the moon is made of cheese. Alas, we visit the moon and find it is not. My conjecture has been refuted. A similar argument holds for numerous other conjectures — a young earth, a geocentric universe, independent origins of species, a global flood and a preserving Ark... Consequently, I do not believe in something the same way you do. All of my beliefs are necessarily provisional and subject to revision in light of counter-evidence; indeed, I look for counter-evidence as a guard against self-delusion. ID creationists advocate starting with a certain unquestionable conclusion (e.g., "irreducible complexity") and then selectively search for only confirmatory evidence (which, by the way is easy to find but not especially interesting since the same evidence can appear consistent with diverse beliefs).

You note that you do not wish to debate the issues — that is most unfortunate since open dialogue is the essence of liberal education. It is not my intent to offend but quite frankly I don't especially care whether students are offended or not since that is outside my control — offense is a mere perception when no offense is intended. I have had students offended at the idea of continental drift, at the evolution of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, at biological analyses of human behavior, at heliocentricity...it just goes with the territory. Somehow students have the deeply mistaken notion (See Horowitz's 'Student Bill of Rights' linked in my presentation) that they have a (divinely granted?) right not be offended — this strikes me as equivalent to a right to remain ignorant. Learning anything involves modifying and perhaps even abandoning some prior convictions in the face of new information.

With respect to my example of Biblical contradiction, I suspect that as a former seminary student I know the Bible at least as well as you do (though perhaps not — we could go fishing sometime and talk parallel gospels, selection of the canon, Pauline revisionism, church history, Christ's 'missing years'...). Your point that the Bible is literature is perfectly valid which is why Christians need not fear an evolutionary account of human origins. Just as Galileo noted that the Bible is not an astronomy text, so neither should we expect the Bible to provide an accurate account of natural history. The Bible is compelling literature, rich in meaning and metaphor — those who trivialize it by pretending it is something Else do it grave injustice. Again, as I noted in my talk, you can take the Bible literally or seriously, you can't do both.

Finally, you will need to follow your conscience regarding filing a formal complaint. My Powerpoint notes will stand as is for now; should I have occasion to present a version of that lecture again at some point in the future, I will keep your concerns in mind and perhaps soften ID-iots with quotes to make the word-play more transparent. By the way, I am quite sure I have never expressed my own views on religion or politics in class so I find your comments in that regard a bit puzzling. For what it is worth, not that it is any of your concern, I am a ticket-splitting multi-party independent voter and past president of my current church (where I will talking April 10th about resurrection, salvation, and meaning). Does any of that sound familiar from class?

Should you want to enter into an open dialogue about the issues, feel free to contact me (H: 218-759-9534, W: 755-4372).

Without offense taken or intended,

Dann