Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [100]
An additional comparative test is seen in the fact that modern Australian Aborigines can learn, in less than a generation, to fly planes, operate computers, and do anything that any European inhabitant of Australia can do. Comparatively, when European farmers were transplanted to Greenland they went extinct when their environment changed, not because their genes prevented success.
Figure 10.4. What if there had been no agricultural revolution? This counterfactual hinges on a specific question: What if the domesticable plants and animals around the world had not evolved? Paleolithic hunters and gatherers would not have been able to shift to farming, and thus they would not have been able to support large populations, without which there can be no division of labor, no cities, no developed science and technologies, and no civilization as we know it.
In discussing my counterfactual examples with Diamond, he agreed with me about the nonprogressive fate of the Neanderthals, but demurred for agricultural contingency.
Here I would argue for inevitability. The proof that it was inevitable was that it happened nine different times independently. If it hadn’t happened in the Fertile Crescent 10,500 years ago, it would have happened elsewhere, as, in fact, it did happen in China 9,500 years ago. Even in North America, where there were far fewer domesticable species, they did not just stay hunter-gatherers. They made the transition to agriculture and civilization, but they did so more slowly. They developed towns and villages, writing, metallurgy, and even mass production of tools, but they did so about 5,000 years later.36
Yet even agricultural inevitability is contingent upon the number, availability, and timing of domesticates. And, of course, if there were no domesticates thirteen thousand years ago, humans would likely still be living in small bands of hunter-gatherers, with beautiful cave art, interesting musical instruments, functional clothing, and a modest culture, but in a world radically different from today. There but for the contingency of domesticable species go I . . . and you . . . and all of humanity.
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The New New Creationism
Intelligent Design Theory and Its Discontents
IN MARCH 2001 the Gallup News Service reported the results of their survey that found that 45 percent of Americans agree with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so,” while 37 percent preferred a blended belief that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process,” and a paltry 12 percent accepted the standard scientific theory that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.”
In a forced choice between the “theory of creationism” and the “theory of evolution,” 57 percent chose creationism against only 33 percent for evolution (10 percent said they were “unsure”). Only 33 percent of Americans think that the theory of evolution is “well supported by evidence,” while slightly more (39 percent) believe that it is not well supported and that it is “just one of many theories.” One reason for these disturbing results can be seen in the additional finding that only 34 percent of Americans consider themselves to be “very informed” about evolution. Clearly the 66 percent who do not consider themselves very informed about evolution have not withheld their judgment on the theory’s veracity.
In any case, truth in science is not determined vox populi. It does not matter whether 99 percent or only 1 percent of the public