“Certainly many of the arguments are deeply held, unshakable beliefs by everyday people, your own clergy, dedicated fathers and mothers, teachers, police officers, librarians, computer experts, perhaps members of your families.”
This brought some nods.
“They’re also propagandized and exploited for political and financial reasons by those in government and media personalities who preach through their own commercial pulpits. The views become valuable political capital for lobbyists and corporations. So, we must work hard to patiently separate argument from beliefs.”
“That’s impossible,” Jaffe complained.
“Your impossibility is someone else’s faith.”
“And their faith negates the possible. X is the age of the earth and they claim that A is evidence of it.”
“Basically.”
“Then conversely, not A is evidence against their X. But they won’t consider that,” he added.
“No they don’t because they don’t believe it,” McCauley offered. “Belief is different from consideration. They hold intelligent design near and dear. So while you may chalk up Young Earthers’ arguments to pseudo-science, absurd ‘uniformitarianism,’ unsupported assumptions, false dilemmas, affirming a consequence or invoking miraculous violations of physics, you cannot sway basic religious belief. We can refute them and challenge data mining, but when it comes down to fundamental convictions, we’ll have no more luck turning them around than they will us.”
“So what’s the point of what we do, Dr. McCauley?” Leslie Cohen seemed to speak for her colleagues. “What’s the chance of making a significant new find? Who’s to say there is anything new to discover, that there’s nothing remarkable right here?”
Quinn McCauley smiled. Leslie Cohen had just stepped into what he liked to describe as intellectual quicksand.
McCauley paced, which made it look like he was thinking. But he knew exactly what to say. He didn’t want to embarrass her. That could humiliate the young woman and destroy the team building that was so important for the full summer experience.
“All fair questions, Leslie,” he finally said. “But how about if I flip it around. What if we’re all standing atop something remarkable? Groundbreaking? Astounding? Right here. This very spot.” He pointed straight down. “But we’re exploring over there a thousand feet away.”
“Bad luck,” Leslie replied, taking McCauley’s bait.
“There’s an expression.”
“I’m sure there is,” Jaffe called out.
“Really. It’s been used and misused by a wide variety of people — for laying down scientific theories and for strictly political reasons. You can find examples from astronomer Carl Sagan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and a slew of others. Anyone?” He waited a few seconds before picking up the point. “That’s okay. I’m happy to share it. It’s simple. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
McCauley saw recognition on some of the faces. Others were working through the circular phrasing.
“I know. It’s hard on the ear. Let me give it to you again. The absence of evidence,” he paused, “is not evidence of absence.”
Now it registered across the board.
“Someone want to take a stab at it?”
Carlos Rodriguez raised his hand. “Mathematically, if you look for X, but don’t find it, it doesn’t mean X doesn’t exist.”
“Excellent. Now practical examples.”
Chohany spoke up next. “Rumsfeld was making the case that just because the U.N. didn’t find WMD in Iraq it didn’t rule out the possibility that they had them.”
McCauley nodded approvingly and saw that Rich Tamburro had another idea.
“Take life like us on other planets. We haven’t found any yet, but that can’t suggest that we won’t ever. I suppose that was Sagan’s argument.”
It was going well. Now to see if the young woman who proposed the question was following the line of thinking. “Ms. Cohen?” he asked.
“Dinosaurs,” she admitted. “New species, new genus. We won’t know until we find them.”
“Very good,” McCauley said. “There is an actual probability theory in support of the proposition. If I had the whiteboard up, it would be easier. So, consider yourself spared from classroom pedagogy.”
McCauley heard an “amen” and “thank goodness.”
“Just trust me,” he continued, “it weighs probability against events in the favor of evidence. In our realm, Young Earthers and creationists might assert that the lack of some fossils disprove evolution. But specific proof may be missing because fossilization is not a democratic process. It has not occurred with every specimen or species.”
McCauley stopped again and let the thought truly sink in.
“Remember,” he continued, “there’s still so much to learn about our planet. Just a few years ago, the world’s longest canyon was discovered below two miles of ice in Greenland. It’s been there for some four million years but invisible until ice-penetrating radar hit it during airplane flyovers. It’s still buried under two miles of ice, but we now know it’s twice as long and twice as wide as the Grand Canyon even though it can’t be explored.”
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” Cohen said.
“Absolutely,” McCauley proclaimed. His lesson had penetrated. “And since we’re here to dig for evidence, I think it’s time to call it a night. We start tomorrow.”
McCauley was looking over the last embers of the campfire when he heard footsteps and someone call his name.
“Dr. McCauley?”
“That’s me.”
“Hi, I’m Jim Kaplan. I look over this place.”
“Mr. Kaplan, great to meet you. I’ve heard all about you. Thanks for coming by.”
“We’re going to get along famously if you call me by the name my golfing buddies do. It’s Kappy.”
This made the Yale professor very happy. “Kappy it is. And I’m Quinn.”
“Like ‘The Mighty Quinn?’”
“Not so mighty, and certainly not an Eskimo, but you know your music.”
“Manfred Mann. 1968.” Kappy laughed. “It comes from years listening to Cousin Brucie on SiriusXM.”
“We’re definitely going to get along, Kappy. How about saying hello to my team, then we can knock down a scotch in my tent.”
That night they talked dinosaurs and music. Kappy gave McCauley a primer on the park. The teacher had read much of it, but hearing about the geological history from someone filled with such passion reinforced McCauley’s decision to come to Makoshika.
“We’re the largest state park in Montana. More than 11,500 acres. I challenge you to find a better ancient burial ground. They call it badlands. I think we should be promoting the park as the world’s great lands.”
“I like the ring of that,” McCauley said. He offered up his half-filled plastic cup with a wonderful twelve-year-old Glenlivet Scotch. Kappy met his toast. They laughed at the dull thud the cups made.
“Did you know there are a number of stories about the origin of the toast?” McCauley asked.
“Oh?”
“Yes. The first is owed to the Greek gods. As they drank their wine or other fermented delights they could appreciate the brilliant color by holding it up to a candle or the sun, which they controlled. They could take in the most pleasing of aromas. The could touch the velvety liquid and they could savor the flavors as they drank to their hearts’ content. But there was nothing for the ear, so….”