Biologist Dan Stern Cardinale, at Rutgers University, really stepped in it by challenging biochemist Michael Behe and calling him a liar. Professor Behe responded today with a post on “Comparative Biology, Invincible Ignorance.” Stern Cardinale has kept digging himself in deeper. He contacted our colleague Cornelius Hunter, challenging Dr. Hunter to defend the “three biggest lies” that Stern Cardinale claims to find in an article by Behe at Evolution News. Hunter answers effectively and amusingly in a new video, the third in a series.
Tribe Against Tribe
But what is all this about “lying”? On that point, Hunter provides some context at the end of his video that I thought was insightful. He refers to the role of the ridiculous 1960 film Inherit the Wind in promoting the myth of permanent warfare between science and religion. With the myth, says Hunter, goes a mental habit of “tribalism.” Darwin partisans raised in their own mythic landscape imbibe ideas that cast Darwin skeptics in a highly negative light, as “dishonest slanderers,” among other stereotypes. The accusation of lying is what you would expect from a tribal thinker. Rather than just explaining where someone you disagree with goes wrong in his reasoning, you reach for the darkest allegation that’s handy: in this case, calling a scientist and educator a liar.
According to the warfare myth, the science tribe is at war with anyone of faith — the faith tribe — and vice versa. In war, a lot that would not be permitted in other contexts is permitted or even required. Michael Behe is not a liar, of course, but frankly I don’t think that Dan Stern Cardinale, while saying things that are demonstrably false, is consciously “lying” either.
What is he doing, then? I believe he’s thinking as a tribalist. The habit where you assume people in a debate like the one about evolution are capable of outright lying, rather than of being mistaken, is misleading and not true to my experience of reality. It’s the mentality of the tribe, and it warps the way you think. On this score, think of wartime propaganda with its demonizing depictions of enemy soldiers.
Covid and Tribalism
You’ll find the dynamic in many of areas in public life: smart people who hold fast, sincerely, to falsehoods, insisting on them, while accusing opponents of the grossest offenses. Because that’s what it means to be part of the tribe. Tribalism animated a great deal of position-taking during, for example, the Covid years. Even today, some people (at least in places like Seattle) wear surgical masks outside in order to advertise their tribal affiliation. Once you start looking for this, you’ll see a lot of it.
A story, by the way, that I’ve shared about biologist Richard Sternberg (which didn’t make it into the book I wrote about his ideas, Plato’s Revenge) is relevant here. He was advised to lie — by a priest, of all people — and thus distance himself from intelligent design. The priest saw this as a matter of self-preservation, and also of not embarrassing the church community — the tribe. Sternberg rejected the suggestion in horror. People lying about ideas is really not so common, and it is horrifying.