The root of all evil?

That "money is the root of all evil" is one of our most misquoted sayings, and I am often quick to remind people that the original line from the New Testament (Timothy 6:10) is actually "For the love of money is the root of all evil." The complete quote more accurately places blame for ills done in the name of the almighty dollar on the ill-doer who covets that dollar, rather than on the dollar itself. Indeed, a slip of paper or chip of metal has little potential to do harm on its own and requires a living, breathing person to put it to negative use. Moreover, money can do enormous good in the right hands, as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Richard Branson all demonstrate.

There is, however, something to be said for the misquote given the many instances of people committing nefarious deeds not out of a love of money, but rather using money to achieve power, advance a counterproductive agenda, or otherwise act against the public good. As a recent example, Islamic author Harun Yahya (a.k.a. Adnan Oktar) has produced a new book entitled Atlas of Creation and has distributed a large but unknown number of free copies to institutions across the U.S. and elsewhere. Production and widespread distribution of the book could not have taken place without considerable financial resources, and the giveaways suggest that profit (i.e., "love of money") is not the motive. Instead, the motive is to effect a shift in public opinion. Money made the effort possible.

Now, I am not implying that Mr. Yahya has a sinister motive in producing and distributing the book. However, the simple fact of the matter is that he is dead wrong. That in and of itself is not a problem, except that by perpetrating the argument that biological evolution is a fallacy, he is contributing to the regressive trend in science education that sadly is too common across the U.S., and to a lesser extent other nations. Furthermore, evolution is not merely a theory to be studied and refined within the ivory tower as a primarily esoteric and academic exercise. Rather, as the unifying concept in all of the life sciences, understanding evolution is critical in advancing fields from the micro-level like epidemiology to the macro-level like ecology and conservation biology, fields with enormous and important practical applications.

As a staunch believer in the First Amendment (regardless of whether it is enacted in the U.S. or elsewhere), I would never advocate restricting the right of Mr. Yahya or anyone else to express his or her views. Of course, money allows some, like Mr. Yahya, to do more with their free speech than others. The internet has offset this imbalance to a degree, as discussed by Vice President Gore in his new book The Assault on Reason (and evidenced by yours truly and others who have caught the blog-bug), but the fact remains that with less cash in the bank we will never reach an audience the size of those who can pay for greater advertising and distribution. This is an imbalance we can and must live with.

My biggest problem, however, with the approach taken by Mr. Yahya is that he is addressing a scientific issue but skirting the scientific process. Science necessarily restricts free speech to a degree by requiring that any analysis or interpretation to be published, and therefore made part of the permanent scientific record, meets a high level of scrutiny. As scientists, our collective assumption is that what appears in the literature represents a rigorous analysis of data collected with a sound experimental design and interpreted as objectively as possible, free from bias and prejudice. This does not mean that everything published is definitively "true". "Truth" is a tricky concept in science. From microbiologists to astrophysicists, we are trying to understand complex, interacting systems that are often not able to be directly perceived with our five senses. We rely on indirect impressions of a piece of the system of interest, quantified, analyzed and interpreted as best we can. Because the data often provide an imperfect picture, subjectivity inevitably creeps in, and differing perspectives arise. But we all trust that those perspectives have been adequately critiqued to ensure that, though we all might not agree, the conclusions have been reached in a scientifically valid manner.

Mr. Yahya has avoided the scrutiny of peer review and the scientific process, but is trying to inject his work into the scientific community nonetheless. That, to me, is a huge problem. He knows, undoubtedly, that his interpretations would not hold up, so going through the process was probably never a consideration. They would not hold up because his perspective is rooted not in science but rather in religion, albeit dressed up to look like science. And religion, while capable of promoting solid morals and doing tremendous good, is also capable of tremendous harm. The prominent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has gone so far as to suggest that it is religion that is actually "the root of all evil". The actions of Mr. Yahya and others that work against reason and scientific progress (and all of the benefits it brings) suggest that he might be right.