Michael Shermer, a popular religion critic, was recently on the Colbert Report and against my better judgment, I watched it. I’ve seen debates by him before and his arguments are so flawed they make me angry, I should have known that would happen this time. His contradictions were too glaring for me to pass up. Normally, I try to cite my sources and be a little more rigorous when talking such things, but it’s late and I have to get this out.

He recently wrote a book called “The Believing Brain” describing and explaining the propensity for people to believe in things: deities, conspiracy theories, etc. I haven’t read the book, so I’ll stick to what he said in the interview.

First he talked about how all belief systems are flawed because they are shifting and are independent of evidence, but are based on faith. Fine, I understand that. However, Colbert pointed out the problem that science itself is a belief system - a point oft forgotten. Shermer ceded that science is a belief system, but it is the cure to the rest of them because science is self-correcting. It is self-correcting via the role of academia and the investigation of scientists by other scientists and the adjustment of theory based on observed phenomena, etc. I’ll accept that idealization and in fact I will apply it very shortly.

Later, he went on to give the evolutionary explanation for the existence of faith. There seems to be a lot of agreement on this explanation - all the atheistic spokespeople cite it; heck, even Gil Grissom used it in an interrogation.

It goes something like this: Two hominids (precursors to humans) are out gathering food. There is a rustling in the bushes. Hominid A runs away because it might be a leopard. Hominid B doesn’t jump to that conclusion - it could be anything. Turns out that it was a leopard and Hominid B dies and his skeptical genes along with it. Hominid A goes back home and passes on its capacity to act on small amounts of evidence to its children. Thus, faith is wired into us because in our genetic past, it was advantages at one point. Folks like Dawkins and Shermer believe that since that time is in our distant past, we should drop faith and move on with science as our rudder.

It makes sense. I have seen several accept this as a worthy explanation.

However, it is an explanation only in that it is a description of a possible scenario. It is not a scientific explanation because it includes no data, only supposition. It is an atheistic parable, nothing more. A parable from a scientist doesn’t hold any more water.

In the spirit of the self-correcting beauty of science, let me tell you a story that the skeptics won’t tell you: the evolutionary explanation for skepticism.

Two hominids (precursors to humans) are out gathering food. There is a rustling in the bushes. Hominid A runs away because it might be a leopard. Hominid B doesn’t jump to that conclusion - it could be anything. Turns out that it was a harmless bunny rabbit and Hominid B gathers its arms full of food to take back to its family. Hominid A’s however returns empty handed and starves its superstition to death. Hominid B breeds descendants more and more steadfast against whim and patient for evidence. Thus, skepticism is a part of our psyche because it kept our ancestors alive.

This story has exactly the same amount of evidence as the other and is just as likely. The first has been repeated again and again to explain away faith, meanwhile the very basis for the assault on faith dies by the same hand. Thus, arguing from the ground is neutral because it in the void out of reach of knowledge. The science terms and connection to evolutionary theory is a scam.

Don’t believe everything you hear from a scientist.

Ches