Steven Novella recently wrote about the new battleground for the never-ending Creationists versus Science war: Neuroscience. This is a field still in its infancy when compared to Evolutionary Biology for example, and thus Creationists (not famous for their cleverness) are finding it easier to attack. And since their efforts to overthrow Evolutionary Theory have been so hugely successful (oh, the sarcasm) they decided they needed something more frail.

But why do Creationists see Neuroscience as a threat?

Neuroscience consistently pushes back the idea of dualism and doesn’t leave much space for supernatural claims of any kind. Obviously creationists do not like these “arrogant materialistic ideas” since they are in favor of the big bearded guy in the sky and other such supernatural fairy tales. Therefore, they feel obliged yet again to go against reason, logic, evidence, and, ultimately, science in general.

The Society for Neuroscience, during the heated debates of whether Intelligent Design (or else Creationism 2.0) should be taught in science classes, issued a statement to condemn ID and further support the teaching of, well… science in science classes!

Intelligent design is the most recent attempt by creationists to undermine the theory of evolution in the science classroom. Thwarted by past legal decisions upholding the separation of church and state, proponents of intelligent design have resorted to masking their religious beliefs with the pseudo-scientific language of this theory. By invoking “intelligent forces” to account for biological diversity, however, intelligent design presents a theory that is as supernatural and unscientific as the traditional creationist one. In fact, intelligent design theory runs counter to the established principles of science in that it is not based on evidence or testable through the scientific method. Intelligent design is not science, and has no place in the science classroom.

A very straightforward dismissal of Creationism 2.0… There is one paragraph in this statement I don’t agree with though:

Creationists often argue that religious and scientific worldviews are incompatible, asserting that it is impossible to be both actively religious and accept the theory of evolution. However, many people, including prominent scientists, embrace both evolution and a belief in God. SfN strongly disputes the claims made by advocates of intelligent design that subscribing to a scientific view of the world is incompatible with religious experience.

Personally, I do not see how religion and science can coexist peacefully in one’s mind. Science regularly shreds to pieces religious ideas about our cosmos: from the creation of the world to the emergence of life, and from geocentric systems to flat earth ideas^*, biblical (and other religious) accounts of cosmology, creation of life, astronomy, and basic biology come in direct contrast with scientific evidence. If one accepts such evidence (as one should) then faith in the holy scriptures (and therefore the relevant omnipotent, omniscient God-writer) must be shaken -if not abandoned altogether. Otherwise, schizophrenic mechanisms have to be employed in order to accommodate both reason and supernatural irrationality in the same mind! There are of course many people accepting the scientific explanation for the emergence of life and at the same time preserving some hints of faith as a matter of tradition, culture, or something socially relevant. But to accept both Evolution and Creationism at face value sounds a bit too weird…

---
Footnotes:

1. * Granted, such ideas are based on very liberal interpretations of the holy scriptures, but then again, who is to say which interpretation is correct? A literal interpretation would leave us with a “misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully,” as Dawkins famously wrote in his “God Delusion“. Perhaps modern theology scholars would like us to think that their easy-on-the-violence-and-discrimination interpretation is the “correct” one because, well, they are experts in reading and interpreting fairy tales (!) but this is unconvincing to say the least… The fact of the matter remains that the scriptures remain open to various interpretations, none of which is more valid than the others. And this alone, leaves plenty of space for malpractices and lots of excuses for violence and discrimination. [↩]