The strange case of the disappearing (usurped) Creator

Language is, of course, a tricky business. Words carry with them levels of meaning that are piled on to them by history, context and culture. So care has to be taken. This even extends to words used in science. Science relies on communication (it is supposed to be open and transparent) and communication relies on words. And words carry baggage. So I have no way of knowing what was really in the minds of Lui et al (PLOS One 11(3):e0151685) when they credited the Creator (with indeed a capital “C”) with the effective design of the human hand. And I have no notion what was in the minds of the reviewers and the editor when they let this pass unchallenged (if they did). I am giving them the benefit of the doubt in believing that they actually read the manuscript when it was submitted.

A storm of criticism immediately followed the publication of the paper on the PLOS One website, leading to its retraction. The interested reader can catch up with the detail on the web (see for example RetractionWatch). At least one response has appeared, purporting to come from one of the authors (and quoted by Retraction Watch), which contains the following comment:

“What we would like to express is that the biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is a proper design by the NATURE (result of evolution) to perform a multitude of daily grasping tasks.”

The authors claimed that their problem was that they were not writing in their native language (presumably Mandarin as they are Chinese) and had just used the wrong word (Creator rather than Nature). We haven’t heard much from the editor concerned (an academic in the US), who is apparently no longer an editor for PLOS One.

There’s lots about this tale that is intriguing. Selfishly I suppose I am disappointed that the credibility of PLOS One as a scientific journal has probably been undermined, at least among some sections of the scientific community. That’s because I have published there, as a cost effective way of getting out data published in an “open access” journal. My experience of the reviews I’ve received is that they have been no more or less rigorous than those received by other mid-ranking journals. They’ve tended to be the usual mix of reasonable critique from fellow scientists who have read the manuscript and spotted dodgy language and issues needing clarification, and trivial comments about stuff that a reviewer just hasn’t read properly. The editors I’ve dealt with have been fair minded, and eventually the papers have appeared, probably better for the scrutiny. I’m pretty sure if I had given the Creator the credit He is surely due for the bits of the Universe I happen to investigate, it would have been spotted and criticized. Whether it would have led to challenge and rejection, I can’t say. That I don’t give the Creator credit in this way is entirely appropriate. And here’s why.

Science deals with things which can be observed and measured, or the predictions of provisional theories that can be observed and measured. We tend not to worry too much about ultimate causes, well beyond those we can see, measure and manipulate. But the knowledge generated by science is not the only knowledge we have about stuff. That’s because there are plenty of things that matter to us all that can’t be measured, prodded and poked. Analogies abound in books about science and faith, from the complementary explanations required to understand what appears on a TV screen when you’re watching “Trooping the Colour”, to the levels of explanation required to understand the enigmatic smile on the face of Mona Lisa. There are other sources of information.

The other important source of data I have to consider is found in God’s self-revelation of Himself in Scripture. From this it’s clear to me that all that there is came into being because of the exercise of His power, and that it has continued in existence because of the continual exercise of His power. But why won’t you find such statements in my papers in PLOS One (or Experimental Brain Research, or the British Journal of Visual Impairment etc, etc)? Because it’s not relevant to the issues that we discus in such places, where we are concerned with the latency of eye movements, patients’ views on treatment and such like. I understand this, and Liu et al should have understood it too.

The response of Liu et al (as reported), which suggests a willingness to swap the word “Creator” with the word “Nature”, doesn’t really help the situation. It suggests further confusion, perhaps linguistic, certainly philosophical. All it does is take the credit for design from the person to whom it should go (although I recognize this is a statement of faith and not science), and direct is to a series of processes that don’t “design” anything. They even qualify design by calling it “proper”. What would improper design look like? If they're serious about this use of words, then they are suggesting that we go back to a state of affairs in which “Nature” is deified. This is an ancient and for many an acceptable view. However it turns out that it is inimical to the development and practice of the scientific method. It is a Biblically shaped world-view, one that believes that what is around us is understandable, and that it should be questioned, investigated and understood, that leads to science. It was no accident that science as we now have it, only fully developed where and when it did. I don't suppose many of my colleagues would agree with this. It turns out that it's not just in the words of Liu et al that the Creator has been usurped.

Enjoy your sofa Dan…..

There was a little flurry of disquiet in certain quarters this week that almost certainly will have escaped the notice of most. The only reason that I noticed was that it concerned two things close to my heart – science and Christianity. The BBC announced that a mild-mannered, clear speaking and equally clean shaven young man called Dan Walker, was to take over one end of their breakfast show sofa from a mild-mannered older chap called Bill. So far, so dull. However, young Dan is a Christian from the theologically conservative end of the spectrum. It’s widely reported that he has negotiated with his bosses so that it is not necessary for him to work on Sundays. And this week the Times reported that he is “a creationist” and quoted a “senior BBC figure” labelling this a “nutty” belief. A columnist in the Telegraph (who himself claimed to be a Christian), concluded a piece headed “Dan Walker’s creationism is an affront to reason, science and logic” in the following terms:

“Creationists cannot be trusted to report objectively or to interact reasonably with their interviewees and with the public” (Myers,Telegraph 11/2/16)

While hoping for continued tolerance for Christian belief in general, he argued that “creationism” in particular was so intellectually deficient and offensive (on a level with holocaust denial), that it is not to be tolerated in the public sphere (or at least on the BBC’s breakfast sofa).

Many of the comments on the Telegraph’s website pointed out that this is a bit much. And many who hold views very different to those reported to be Dan Walker’s, sprang to his defence (including the National Secular Society). After all, essentially Dan is being employed by the BBC to read an autocue while most of us are still asleep. His views on how the Universe came into being have no bearing to his ability to carry out this task.  And the notion that he is somehow so shifty that he won’t be able to “report objectively or interact reasonably”, is the nutty one. I’m left to conclude that the point of the piece was primarily about stirring up interest in the freelance commentator who produced it, rather than deal with substantive issues.

But there are interesting issues here. There’s a narrowness in the way in which the debate between science and religious, specifically Christian, views is framed in the origins debate. The terms “Creationism” and “creationist” without qualification, are almost meaningless. I’m a creationist. I believe in God the creator of the heavens and the earth. I believe that ever since He created them, He has sustained them at each instant in time, and at each point in space. I don’t believe this because I can observe His power at work through a microscope or telescope, but because this is what He reveals about Himself in the Bible. And for a whole complex set of reasons, I believe these various statements. So I’m a creationist. Although not the particular kind of creationist being objected to.

The thrust of the complaint is “young earth” creationism. I have another set of complex reason why personally I do not feel compelled to interpret the Bible as teaching that God created everything in 6 x 24 hour periods. But this is one legitimate way to interpret the relevant bits of the Bible, and indeed was probably the majority view among most Christians throughout most of Christianity’s history (although even from the earliest centuries it was not the only view). So I’m not going to criticise Dan for having this view. Nor do I see the connection between this and his new job. It is a view that is held to be “nutty” on the basis of science. Thus it is claimed that there is a necessary conflict between a particular interpretation of the Bible, and science.

So what is being claimed about science? Usually, science is treated in these debates as a single, certain and sure method for establishing the absolute truth of explanations, including explanations for remote past events that were unique. Great claims are made for the intellectual rigour involved, frequently (as in the case in point) by those without either relevant expertise or appropriate qualifications. Mathematicians, engineers, medics all get stuck in, and indeed even lawyers (the culprit in this case). Now I admit the first three could be seen as sort of applied scientists. But they often appear to be unfamiliar with the fickle, halting, subjective and conflicted experience of most practicing scientists.  

Here I find myself in a tricky situation. I am as it happens, a practicing, professional scientist. So I don’t particularly want to knock science. I do science in a bid to understand certain types of processes. I’m committed to this way of finding out about certain kinds of stuff. I think that the scientific method, broadly construed, is a really good way to getting a grip on what’s going on. But science is not practiced by super beings, who hand down immutable and absolute truth. Its practitioners are ordinary men and women (and the occasional intellectual giant). Sometimes they/we/I make mistakes. Sometimes we are conflicted in our motives. Sometimes, as a whole string of recent articles in Nature has reported, we cheat. A bit of humility is required about what we can and cannot achieve through science, and about the status of the information generated by the scientific exercise.

And science is successful because it carves off particular types of stuff to study, and produces a particular kind of explanation, that is then tested. By and large an explanation is only scientific if it is both in principle testable with tests that it might fail, and that it is in practice tested. And even as evidence accumulates from past and passed tests that a particular explanation is a good one, scientific explanations should not be treated as dogma. We never reach a position of certainty. Again, a degree of humility is required.

So to find Dan Walker somehow critically deficient because he, a non-scientist, may hold a view of how the Universe came into being that might be at odds with current scientific hypotheses and theories is just confused. There’s no reason here to deny him his place on the sofa. Incidentally, we don’t actually know what his views are. He has never used his position in the media to press them on any of us – unlike the chap writing in the Telegraph.