Imagining Metaphysical-Epistemological Frameworks: Three Types of Responses to the Fossil Record

A fossil of Tiktaalik, one of the most famous examples of the transition between lobe-finned fish and four-legged animals, was found in the Canadian arctic in 2004. Photograph by Eduard Solà. Used unde the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The fossil evidence appears to support evolutionary theory. Different species appear in the record in exactly the order one would expect if descent with modification were true.

But what if that seemingly obvious evidence was, in fact, a clever ruse? This is one argument put forth by certain creationists, who believe the Earth was brought into being by a god who made life appear via some supernatural means alluded to in the Bible (or one of several other sacred religious texts). For these people, the fossil record evidence is merely another test of faith.

This proposal, often dismissed out of hand by scientists and rarely brought to its logical conclusion by those who espouse it, nevertheless is consistent with a particular metaphysically-derived epistemological argument that has been advocated by serious philosophers, including none other than Rene Descartes.

To understand the Cartesian metaphysical-epistemological framework, it is useful first to understand two other such frameworks from which different conclusions about the meaning of the fossil record can be drawn. Bertrand Russell and Galileo Galilei are illustrious representatives of these alternative camps.

Russell is a metaphysical naturalist (sometimes also called ontological naturalism). That is, he believes that both the means of discovering knowledge (epistemology) and the nature of the universe (metaphysics) are built on a material foundation. This is the de facto position of science, which does does not permit supernatural explanations.

Russell, in chapter V of his “Problems in Philosophy,” posits that all knowledge is derived from sensory-mediated perception of the physical world – what he calls “acquaintance.” This acquaintance accounts not only for all we can call truth; it is the very substrate on which all statements of any kind depend. We cannot even have language without this direct experience known as acquaintance: “Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted [Emphasis in original].”

Russell’s epistemology comes from a metaphysical position in which there is no room for faith, for faith is that in which one believes without being able to experience it. To him, the only reason a creationist could even propose the fossil record ruse is because of experience of the actual fossil record accompanied by past experiences of lies he had encountered. The notion of a god, far from being some transcendental true being, is merely a composite of experienced human attributes transferred to an imagined deity.

Galileo would likely agree with Russell that the fossil evidence supports evolution, for Galileo is a methodological naturalist. But their agreement would end where metaphysics begins. Although Galileo believes that the proper way of gaining knowledge about the world around us is by looking at material reality, he also maintains that the nature of the universe comprises more than the material; specifically, he believes the soul, the Catholic God, and other such Biblical notions are equally - if not in a superior sense - true.

Galileo draws this distinction between the realm of science and the realm of the soul in his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany.” In the letter, Galileo attempts to show that one cannot take all passages in the Bible literally. He does not go as far as to say that the Bible is discordant with nature. Indeed, he thinks the Bible justifies the natural order of the world. However, he argues that new discoveries may lead to new interpretations of some verses, and that others which do not directly bear on matters of salvation may in fact be purposefully skewed so as to be understandable to the masses, even if the information is not, strictly speaking, accurate.

The distinction Galileo makes between nature and the heavenly is key to his conciliatory position. “I should judge,” he writes, “that the authority of the Bible was designed to persuade men of those articles and propositions which, surpassing all human reasoning could not be made credible by science, or by any other means than through the very mouth of the Holy Spirit.”

Here Galileo diverges from Russell, whose metaphysics do not admit of a means for obtaining knowledge outside that which is accessible to science and reasoning.

Galileo's methodological naturalism is perhaps the most popular of the three frameworks today. Most people accept the authority of the understanding that the scientific endeavor produces about the physical world, while continuing to believe in a realm of life after death that is separate and inscrutable from this side of the mortal veil. His argument, in fact, reflects the current official position of the Roman Catholic Church that once persecuted him.

Methodological naturalism is the de jure position of science, because while science does not permit the supernatural, it also does not refute the supernatural.

Methodological naturalism does, however, face some significant challenges. The instability it introduces into interpretations of sacred texts can (despite Galileo's assertions to the contrary) lead to questions about the soul, the nature of gods, and salvation. More importantly, though, as science has expanded into territories previously in the purview of scripture, the unknowable space open to the spiritual has shrunken. Increasingly this framework takes on a “god of the gaps” quality.

Descartes, in contrast with the other frameworks, rejects naturalism altogether. As a devout Christian, he cannot accept the metaphysical version, and as a sophisticated thinker he recognizes the incompleteness of the methodological version.

Descartes' method is quite ingenious. Rather than asserting belief based on evidence of any sort, he instead embraces an extreme form of doubt of which even the ancient Greek Skeptics would be envious. For Descartes, this extreme doubt allows him to withdraw from the natural world; he does not plan to seek confirmation of the supernatural there.

By avoiding material objects, Descartes can assert only that which he finds in his own mind, which he takes to be the starting point of “true” reality, making him an idealist in the Platonic sense. A few ideas, he decides after establishing that his mind must exist, have more certainty than empirical observations. One of these ideas is perfection, which he declares is the essence of God. Thus he writes in the synopsis of his "Meditations” that “the idea of being perfect, which is found in our minds, possesses so much objective reality...that it must be held to arise from a cause absolutely perfect.”

Descartes' doubtful idealism offers powerful support for the creationist argument of false evidence. His method cannot be waved away on account of the evidence precisely because the evidence is not considered a reliable source for knowledge claims. It admits no assault from the empirical world.

There are, of course, weaknesses to Descartes' approach. One is that he must arrive at the concept of self prior to establishing the concept of God. He also chooses the categories on which he will focus in an explicit effort to arrive at God: for instance, he assumes definitional relations in making doubt synonymous with imperfection and imperfection antonymous with perfection. Perfection is neither objective nor specific, nor is it necessarily the same as “good.” One can be perfectly evil. Russell would likely counter Descartes by pointing out that these definitions and relations are formed in the first place on the knowledge of acquaintance, thus undermining the very effort Descartes had made in escaping sensory information.

A second concern for Descartes' method is that it tells us nothing in particular about God, beyond it being a form of absolute perfection. It certainly does not give credence to any particular scripture or deity, as Galileo's framework does.

Once accepted, though, the Cartesian God works in creationists' favor in that it offers assurance that a God does exist, and that that God is more “real” than any physical object, including fossil evidence. Assured of the prevailing truth of God, one is free to adopt any faith tradition one prefers and to reject any countervailing evidence as merely a test of that more well-established faith.

The differences between the metaphysical-epistemological frameworks epitomized by Descartes, Russell, and Galileo are today playing out in the heated debates about the veracity of evolutionary theory. Each has subtle, but practical, consequences for major societal issues, from religious adherence to education policy. Understanding them is crucial to understanding the textures of these defining public and personal debates.

Stone Marks Mystic's Prehistory

This boulder in Mystic, Conn. was dropped by ice sheets that covered the state during the last glacial period.

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

We just happened to be heading in the direction of the erratic.

My wife, Valeria, and I were driving to Mystic, Conn. for the weekend to celebrate our third anniversary. I had suggested the destination because I knew that Mystic was one of the few spots in the state that understood how to create a successful tourism industry while retaining its New England charm.

As we traced the coastline eastward in the waning June afternoon, we listened to Friday's episode of WhereWe Live, a radio talk show about Connecticut based out of WNPR in Hartford. Host John Dankosky was talking with experts about the area's geology.

He brought photographer Frtiz Hoffmann on. Hoffmann had traveled the country taking pictures of big rocks for a story that appeared in the March issue of National Geographic.

These weren't just any big rocks, though – they had been plopped down by the last group of glaciers to cover much of the United States during the most recent Ice Age, which ended around 13,000 years ago.

Hoffmann's pictures were of erratics – huge boulders that looked like they had dropped into their environment from the sky. The most famous of these are probably the rocks in Central Park.

When the ice sheets slid southward to cover the continent, they scooped up tremendous masses of earth. As the ice receded, it left that material behind.

“You have a beautiful picture of one (erratic) at the edge of a parking lot in Mystic, Connecticut,” we heard Dankosky say.

From that point, I was determined to track the boulder down.

That evening, we arrived at the Steamboat Inn on Water Street. The inn hugs the dock that lines the Mystic River and leads to the town's drawbridge. As we checked in, I asked about the rock in the parking lot.

“Oh, I think I read something about that,” the woman said. “I don't know where the rock is, but I remember the picture showed the rock next to a Salvation Army bin.”

Once we were settled in our room, I cracked open the laptop and searched for the National Geographic article. Sure enough, the rock was on the periphery of a parking lot. The Salvation Army bin was there, too. So was an employee of the mystery store, who was pushing a caravan of shopping carts across the foreground of the shot.

I decided to search for Salvation Army donation locations. No luck. The website only listed donation centers.

I did a Google search for “boulder erratic mystic, ct,” and found an article on the local Patch.com website about the National Geographic feature. Another photo of the rock. The caption said it could be found at the Big Y. I found the Big Y on a map of Mystic.

The following afternoon, Valeria and I took a detour from the traditional tourist destinations to visit the boulder.

It was truly gigantic. The National Geographic article had called it a leaverite, as in “leav 'er right there,” a nickname given for boulders deemed by construction workers as too cumbersome to bother moving. Indeed, a gap had been left in the chain-link fence surrounding the property to accommodate the erratic.

It was perhaps the most rewarding moment of the trip. Tourist destinations like Olde Mistick Village and Mystic Seaport capitalize on our desire to connect with the past that has shaped our present. Yet contained within this random rock largely ignored by passersby was a deeper history than any of the tourists who flock to Mystic ever get to see.

Every stone has a story. You just have to know where to look.

Me standing in front of the erratic.

Photograph by Valeria Garrido-Bisceglia.

The "Hidden" Wellington Wang Collection

Many of the interesting stones donated over the past few years by collector Wellington Wang to UNH are packed away on shelves in a storage room in the library.

Photographs by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

If you've ever walked into the MarvinK. Peterson Library at the University of New Haven, you've probably noticed a set of glass display cases with shelves of strange-looking rocks prominently displayed along one wall. If you've taken the time to look inside those cases, you probably know that the rocks are part of a collection donated to UNH by the famous Chinese collector Wellington Tu Wang.

What you may not have realized, though, is that UNH's Wellington Wang collection comprises many, many more pieces than the ones on display.

Some of the pieces are scattered throughout campus, on the desks of administrators and staff members. But the vast majority are tucked away in a locked storage room on the upper floor of the library. A number of them are still in boxes or bubble-wrap.

UNH actually has two collections from Wang, explains Director of University Special Events Jill Zamparo. The first, donated in 2009 when Wang was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from UNH, is called the “Scholar's Rocks” collection, and contains 115 stones that were originally from China, but were scattered around Europe and North America after Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

The other collection is made up of soapstone carvings ranging from the sixth century to the twentieth century. Soapstone, also known as steatite, is a metamorphic rock composed mainly of talc, making it easy to carve. Soapstone carvings from China's Fujian Province have been prized for well over a thousand years. That collection was donated to UNH in 2011.

Zamparo has become the de facto curator of the collections since the recent departure of former Seton Gallery director Kerry O'Grady. She keeps records of the collections, including a listing of where the various pieces are located.

After Wang gave the collections to UNH, Zamparo says she could not find places to put them all.

“I chose the ones to display in the library based on whether they would fit on the shelves,” she says, laughing. Many of the Scholar's Rocks were much too large. Indeed, one piece sitting in its box in the storage room is listed as being 66 centimeters - more than two feet - tall

Some administrators offered to keep pieces they liked from the collections in their own quarters. A portion ended up in President Steven H. Kaplan's office, where they line the shelves or sit on stands on the floor. A few, including a gigantic bloodstone, are located in Associate Vice President of the Institute of Forensic Science Henry C. Lee's office.

A few of the stones are in Zamparo's own office, arranged on a plate lined with faux lettuce to resemble a meal of meat and potatoes.

Zamparo says that she and Kaplan would like to eventually display the collections in multiple locations on campus, but they worry about the stones being mishandled, broken or stolen. They would have to install glass cases with locks first.

In the meantime, the pieces remain in the darkened storage room, waiting for the day when a new generation of people can once again enjoy their ancient and intricate beauty.

See selections from the "hidden" collection below!

Greenhouse Gases Reach All-Time High

This NASA image shows the nearly ice-free McClure Straight in northern route of the Northwest Passage in August 2010. The famed passage was almost completely clear, with the exception of a band of ice in the straight (far left).
Image: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team. Some rights reserved.

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide reached an all-time high of 389 parts per million in 2010 and rose at a faster pace than in previous years, according to a report issued Nov. 21 by the World Meteorological Organization, the U.N.’s weather agency.

The WMO's Greenhouse Gas Bulletin says that global CO2 levels are now 39 percent higher than they were at the start of the industrial revolution in 1750, when levels were at approximately 280 ppm. Those concentrations had remained relatively stable for 10 thousand years previously, according to climate researchers.

Carbon dioxide levels rose at a rate of 2.3 ppm between 2009 and 2010. That was faster than the average rate during the previous decade of about 2.0 ppm per year, and a significant acceleration compared to the average during the 1990s, when concentrations rose about 1.5 ppm per year.

The annual WMO report assessed the burdens and rates of several other greenhouse gases that are released by human activity, including methane and nitrous oxide. Methane is considered the second-most potent contributor to global warming. It increased 158 percent since 1750, from 700 parts per billion to 1808 ppb in 2010. Nitrous oxide increased 20 percent over the same period, from 270 ppb to 323.2 ppb.

“The three primary greenhouse gases are not only closely linked to anthropogenic activities, but they also have strong interactions with the biosphere and the oceans,” the report said.

WMO Deputy Secretary-General Jeremiah Lengoasa said in an interview with the Associated Press that although human emissions of greenhouse gases are directly related to increasing temperatures, there is a time lag between the two.

“With this picture in mind, even if emissions were stopped overnight globally, the atmospheric concentrations would continue for decades because of the long lifetime of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," he said.

At least a small amount of that carbon will not be locked back into the earth for hundreds of thousands of years.

The WMO report comes on the heels of a summary report on risk assessment issued Nov. 18 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned that, under the groups “high emissions scenario,” the frequency of hot days will increase by a factor of 10 in most regions of the world.

“Likewise, heavy precipitation will occur more often, and the wind speed of tropical cyclones will increase while their number will likely remain constant or decrease,” said Thomas Stocker, Co-chair of Working Group I in the summary.

Another study released in the Nov. 24 issue of the journal Nature provided the first evidence that the duration and magnitude of the current decline in Arcitic sea ice seem to be unprecedented for the past 1,450 years. Previously, the extent of ice loss was only known for last four to five decades, and questions remained about how much loss was due to natural variability. The researchers used land-based core samples to develop climate proxies so they could estimate the extent of the ice over a much longer period. The results suggest that Arctic ice loss is indeed being driven by manmade warming.

It remains to be seen whether the slew of new studies will make a difference in the stalled international negotiations to develop a comprehensive strategy to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires next year. Governments begin meeting for the seventeenth meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on Tuesday in Durban, South Africa.

Countries met in Copenhagen in 2009 and again in 2010 in Cancún, Mexico to hammer out a new agreement, but made little progress toward a comprehensive treaty anything like Kyoto. The U.S., by far the highest per-capita emitter in the world, was the only nation out of 192 members never to ratify the treaty.

Important Books: The Voyage of the Beagle

Darwin was extremely interested in geology. He produced this drawing of a “volcanic bomb” from the island of St. Helena in The Voyage of the Beagle. “Not only their external form, but, in several cases, their internal structure shows in a very curious manner that they have revolved in their aerial course,” he writes.

In the conclusion to his book, The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin writes, “it appears to me that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries.”

He couldn’t have known at the time just how true those words were - for himself. The observations he made while sailing with the English ship H.M.S. Beagle would provide an underpinning for Darwin when he later formulated his theory of evolution.

The five-year expedition, under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy, had two official purposes: to conduct a charting survey of the South American continent, and to run chronometric readings around the planet. Darwin acted as the crew’s naturalist, collecting specimens of plants and animals everywhere the ship traveled. He took copious notes concerning the geology of the places he visited.

During the trip he explored the shores of Brazil, the high plains of Patagonia, the fjords of Tierra del Fuego, the Chilean Andes, the deserts of Peru, as well as Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia.

The Voyage of the Beagle is arranged in roughly the same chronology as that of the survey itself. There were some places, such as Montevideo, that Darwin journeyed to more than once; he often consolidates these portions of the trip into a single chapter, which can make the order of some events confusing.

The book reveals that Darwin was thinking deeply about the origins of the world’s species long before he formalized his most important theory. Most famously, he was confounded by the wealth of rare creatures to be found in the Galapagos Archipelago. With palpable astonishment, he writes:

“Why, on these small points of land, which within a late geological period must have been covered by the ocean, which are formed by basaltic lava, and therefore differ in geological character from the American continent, and which are placed under a peculiar climate, why were their aboriginal inhabitants, associated, I may add, in different proportions both in kind and in number from those on the continent, and therefore acting on each other in a different manner – why were they created on American types of organization?”

Darwin would answer his own question two decades later.

In addition to his meticulous descriptions of creatures and their habitats, Darwin recorded numerous observations of the cultural practices in each region where he went ashore. Many of these are personal anecdotes, told through the lens of an educated Englishman brought up at the height of the empire’s success. He comments approvingly of the productive potential of Brazil’s untouched landscape, and lauds the Chileans for their industrious mining efforts.

Still, Darwin bucked many of the commonly held beliefs of his own time. He continually laments the injustice of slavery throughout the narrative, and points out how, in some regions, the European settlers enjoyed a high standard of living by conscripting natives as low-wage laborers. Although he typically views “civilized” men as superior to “savages,” he seems to prefer the effort by many in his time to bring modernity to indigenous populations, rather than simply taking them over.

Although the book is primarily a scientific endeavor, the enthusiasm that Darwin felt towards the natural world comes across strongly through his storytelling. For instance, when crossing the Pacific, he was fascinated by the role of corals in building atolls and barrier reefs. He writes of these structures:

“We feel surprise when travelers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals! This is a wonder which does not at first strike the eye of the body, but, after reflection, the eye of reason.”

Both that wonder and that ability to reason are on full display in The Voyage of the Beagle.

Mineralogy at Sterling Hill

This is the first of three pieces about the Sterling Hill Mining Museum. This article focuses on the mineral collection. The next post will explore the history of the mine, and the final installment will explain what visitors can expect to find at the museum today.

I am fortunate to be married to someone who shares my enthusiasm for science. This year, my wife and I spent a weekend at the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, NJ for our two-year anniversary.

The museum is located on the grounds of what was formerly one of the most productive zinc mines in the state. It is also the “world capital” of fluorescent minerals – the area has produced over 80 varieties, and others may still be buried, undiscovered, in sections of the hillsides.

When operation costs drove the mine out of business in the 1980's, it was converted into a center for education about history and science. The primary focus is on geology and mineralogy, but there are displays to teach visitors about such things as chemistry, and the Ellis Astronomical Observatory also makes its home on the property.

In addition to minerals from the local mines, Sterling Hill hosts a huge collection of rare and interesting minerals from all over the world, many of them fluorescent.

On Friday night, we were treated to a tour of the mines by longtime museum volunteer Bill Kroth, followed by a session at the telescope he runs. On Saturday, we again visited the museum.

Willemite (Zn2SiO4) is the most common fluorescent mineral found in the Sterling Hill mine. Indeed, the predominance of this form of zinc silicate ore makes the Franklin and Sterling Hill mines unique.

A large sheet of willemite (green) with fluorescent calcite (red) from the mine.

A slab of sphalerite (ZnS), garnet and hornblende found 900 feet below ground in the Sterling Hill mine. Sphalerite is one of the main precursors of willemite. It is transformed through one of two means: by oxidation in a siliceous (silicon-rich) environment, or by alteration from hydrothermal veins. New Jersey's willemite was made via the latter process.

Willemite lining the walls of the mine.

Scheelite (CaWO4) from Trumbull, CT. The fluorescence is due to tungstate ions.

Meionite (Ca4Al6Si6O24(CO3)) from Grenville, Quebec. It fluoresces yellow in short-wave ultraviolet (UV) light, and red in long-wave UV light.

One of several unusual malachite (Cu2(CO3)(OH)2) samples. This piece originated from Lubumbashi in the Haut-Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The area is known for its copper, in which malachite typically forms.

Fluorite (CaF2) embedded in calcite (CaCO3) from the Nikolaeskiy mine in Dal'negorsk, Primorskiy Kray, Russia.

This calcite specimen comes from the Romanian mining town of Cavnic.