Out of Context: Hitching and the Creationists

 

by Lenny Flank

 

(c) 1996

 

The creationists are very fond of quoting statements from prominent evolutionary scientists, as well as science writers, in an attempt to protray them as having doubts about the validity of evolutionary theory. In every instance, these quotes are taken out of context and distort the writer's meaning (prominent scientist Stephen Jay Gould is but one scientist who has publicly complained about the creationist mis-use of his writings).

One of the favorite sources of the creationist quote-miners is writer Francis Hitching, the author of the book "The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong". Even the very TITLE of Hitching's book must warm the cockles of any creationist heart. It is no wonder that they fall all over themselves trying to quote portions of Hitching's book as "proof" that evolution is wrong and creationism is right.

Those of us who have actually READ Hitching's book, however, know that his opinion of creationists and their "science" is not as flattering as Morris et al would have us believe. Here are just some of the things that Hitching has to say about creationists and evolution:

 

"Evolution and Darwinism are often taken to mean the same thing. But they don't. Evolution of life over a very long period of time is a fact, if we are to believe evidence gathered during the last two centuries from geology, paleontology (the study of fossils), molecular biology and many other scietnific disciplines. Despite the many believers in Divine creation who dispute this (including about half the adult population in the United States, according to some opinion polls), the probability that evolution has occured approaches certainty in scientific terms." (p. 12)

 

Indeed, Hitching presents an entire chapter of his book (Chapter Five) which trashes the creationists and ridicules their "science". Some passages:

 

"Why is the creationist argument, evidently plausible, open to suspicion? First, because it is quite wrong to present creation v. evolution as if they were the only two ways of looking at the problem--as if they were two sides of the same coin. The current _explanations_ of evolution may be scientifically puzzling or unsatisfactory, but this is not to say that evolution ahs not occurred. The evidence from every scientific discipline that has touched on the subject shows consistently that the earth is old, is part of an even older universe, and that evolution explains why we have so many kinds of organisms and why they look so different. Radiometric dating methods confirm Earth's antiquity. Geology shows how rock formations were laid down. Paleontology shows how there were different epochs with different life forms that ran their span and became extinct. Genetics shows how living things are related to one another, and have the potential for change. These patient researchers do not "prove" evolution (strictly speaking, proof can be obtained only in logic and mathematics). But taken together, coming as they do from so many different viewpoints, they make an overwhelming case." (pp 117-120)

 

"Scientists may get stubborn about their theories, hold on to them long after their writ is run, and even conspire to present their theories as if there was nothing to be said on the other side. But history shows that in the end, as facts accumulate, a change of thinking is inevitable. Not so with creationism. If you once become committed to an unalterable explanation (the Biblical one), and you are forced to fit all facts within this framework, allowing no other possibility, you have by definition become unscientific. However much sympathy we may have for a belief in a Divine first cause shaping the forces that created the universe, and however well-meaning the scientific creationists may be, the straitjacket of Genesis 1-11 is so restricting that to make _all_ evolutionary facts fit within it inevitably ends in a perversion of science." (pp 120-121)

 

Specifically talking about Morris's book "The Genesis Flood", Hitching says:

 

"There is the selective quoting of cautious scientific doubts--a confession of ignorance about a particular geological difficulty is cited in order to throw doubt on geological knowledge as a whole. This is a widely used technique in books and a rticles stemming from ICR and elsewhere. Reading creationists on the subject of ancient man, for instance, you would never gather that fossils available for study now come from a wide variety of places, and however fallible, dubious and self-seeking individual fossil finds may be (see chapter eight), they fit into a general pattern of man having evolved from an apelike ancestor at some point during the last six million years. Instead, the evidence offered by creationists invariably consists of the most obvious frauds and fossil fallacies." (p. 124)

 

"If there is no evidence at all in the creationist's favour, guesswork takes its place . . . Elsewhere the abacadabra technique, which I complained of among neo-Darwinists, is used openly." (pp 124-125)

 

Talking about the Ark story, Hitching humorously points out, "Discussion of the problem of excreta disposal is notably absent from creationist literature." (p. 131)

 

Hitching concludes by saying:

 

"The flight from reason, the nuisance and expense of court cases, and the dogma returning to the classrooms may all be counted on the debit side of creationism's growing influence. . . . If school authorities intend genuinely to present students, in a neutral manner, with the opposing claims of special creation and biological evolution, students ought to be told about creation myths from other sources, some of which are helpful to the Biblical account, and some of which are not." (pp 135-136)

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