From: philjohn@garnet.berkeley.edu (Phillip Johnson)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Evolutionism as Cultural Imperialism
Date: 13 Jan 1993 01:22:07 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu

  A professor of science and philosophy -- who shall here remain
nameless -- sent me the following report on his visit to New
Zealand:  

     "I had gone to NZ (as guest of * * *) to give talks on (* *
*), a line of research I've been following for the past two years
or so.  Nothing could be further from my mind when I arrived than
the controversy over creationism/evolution -- my one paper on
that was old now, and surely of no interest in the south pacific.
Imagine then my surprise to discover, right in the first graduate
seminar I was asked to guest-teach, that the issue is (in some
respects) more alive there than here.  A man doing his Ph.D. on
this at * * *  (and the head of science in a high school there)
knows more about the details of the California controversies than
I do; a younger man from the Island of  * * *  (Auckland is a
kind of European "capitol" for Polynesia), in charge of science
education in his own society, questions me earnestly on what
teachers' policies should be when dealing with evolution, etc. 
What's going on?
     "Well, in short, both the Maori people of NZ, and the
Polynesians (at home and in NZ) have problems with evolution for
more or less the same reasons as some Americans do, but it has
its own twists there.  It's not just that many Polynesians (Maori
incl.) are fairly orthodox in their relations to Christianity, it
goes further back historically:  As one older Maori man said to a
high school boy perplexed by what he was learning, "You can't
believe that man came from the apes.  If you believe that you are
not a Maori."  Now the current attitude toward the Maori, in
academic circles, is hard to picture -- it's something like our
drive toward "multiculturalism" only more so:  Everyone is
bending over backwards to acknowledge, respect, and even adopt
the Maori culture as part of the national culture (the specifics
on this, as seen on TV, in national museums, etc., are too much
for me to describe here).  The worst crime imaginable, in this
regard, is for the schools to do anything that might harm the
"self-esteem" and self-conception of a Maori.  But now, what to
do if a Maori's self-conception includes the vague but firm
belief that he is some sort of spirit that could not possibly be
related to an ape?  And what if on top of this (oh cruel
circumstance!) that self-conception happens to be anchored deep
in the pre-Christian heritage, and cannot be attacked as a White
man's Western construction?  For everywhere in the schools, in
cultural centers, in public squares, and on the screen, Maoris
are proudly displaying their spirituality -- their ceremonies and
rites -- and many whites (at least the culturally advanced) feel
obligated not merely to look on, but to adopt.  You see the
beauty of the situation."[end of quote]


The story from New Zealand makes interesting reading alongside
the review of Ronald Numbers' book "The Creationists," which
appeared in the New York Times book review section on January 10,
1993.  The review is by Stephen R. L. Clark, professor of
philosophy at Liverpool University, England.  Here are the
opening and closing paragraphs of the review:


    "ACCORDING to a 1991 Gallup Poll, 47 percent of Americans
(and a quarter of all college graduates) believe that "God
created man pretty much in his present form at one time within
the last 10,000 years." Apparently most Americans deeply distrust
their experts: most, for if 47 percent admit to being
creationists there are undoubtedly many others who reject
evolutionary theory for other, and equally eccentric, reasons --
or what would be eccentric if so many didn't believe them.
Conversely, most of the intelligentsia apparently despise their
countrymen.    
   "As Ronald L. Numbers remarks in "The Creationists,"
"Academics who would have no trouble empathetically studying
15th-century astrology, 17th-century alchemy or 19th-century
phrenology seem to lose their nerve when they approach 20th-
century creationism and its fundamentalist proponents. The
prevailing attitude . . . is that 'we've got to stop the
bastards.' " An Arkansas law passed in 1981 required that
evolution and creation be given balanced treatment in public
schools. That law, and similar Louisiana legislation, were
eventually struck down in court on the ground that it was
unconstitutional to promote religion in state schools, and that
creation science could have no other purpose. An outsider, or a
creationist, might reasonably complain that a law [i.e., the
First Amendment] composed so as to deny any one contentious
judgment a monopoly of power was here employed to do the
opposite, with the help of educators who pretended that there
were easy distinctions to be made between science and
pseudoscience; evolution became the official doctrine of the
state, despite being disbelieved by those who voted for, and
paid, the state's officials. * * * "

     * * * "It does not follow that creationists are wrong, or
that they deserve the label "pseudoscientist" merely because
their theories are not ones that those outside their churches
would find plausible. Someone who believes that Genesis is, in
effect, an eyewitness account is bound to seek other explanations
of biological and geological data than other theorists do.
Outsiders like myself may prefer to doubt the premise, but that
too is not a scientific decision. It is not unscientific even to
maintain one's trust in the eyewitness when we cannot resolve the
apparent contradictions between that testimony and the rocks'.
Plenty of now-fashionable theories were maintained in the teeth
of evidence and unresolved paradox because the theorists had
faith. In earlier centuries the common origin of humankind was
chiefly maintained by scientists loyal to the Hebrew Scriptures.
Similar loyalists may yet prove all others wrong, even if we
could not have guessed, without the help of Scripture, that they
were."  [end of quote]


     Comment: Scientific naturalists who ascribe all dissent from
their views to ignorance or prejudice should practice seeing
themselves as others see them.  Important voices in the academic
now see this scientific triumphalism as cultural imperialism, and
historians of the next century may compare our aggressive science
educators to the most dogmatic missionaries of the 19th century. 
The missionaries had their infallible source of knowledge (the
Bible), and the science educators have their own counterpart --
the scientific way of thinking, which incorporates naturalism as
an assumption not to be questioned.  Both groups tended to be
blind to the subjective or culturally conditioned elements in
their own thinking, and both shared a tendency to get very angry
when faced with recalcitrant unbelievers.  Finally, I think that
both would be equally offended at an outsider's suggestion that
they have more in common with each other than they think.

     Further comment: If one wants to persuade people, as opposed
to merely browbeating them, one has to start by achieving a
sympathetic understanding of their point of view.
-- 
Phillip E. Johnson
  School of Law, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720

Newsgroups: talk.origins