The gaps in the evidence

Sigo leyendo The Greatest Show on Earth y ¡me está encantando! La discusión científica sobre la evidencia que tenemos sobre la teoría de la evolución es increíble y fascinante, pero eso será algo que me esperaré para comentar en el otro blog una ves que termine de leer el libro.

Pero Dawkins, Dawkins, tu promesa de que este no es un libro anti-religión ¡la vas rompiendo en cada capítulo! :P Y tampoco es que me queje, me encanta que lo haga, sobre todo cuando es en base a argumentos sólidos y bien fundamentados. Y pues también se lo tengo que reconocer, el libro más que anti-religión es anti-creacionista; y supongo que debe de ser difícil escribir un libro sobre evolución sin criticar al mismo tiempo los argumentos creacionistas.

Pero al punto, este post es para compartirles otro pequeño extracto del libro que me encantó, y la verdad que me dió mucha pero mucha risa. Para ponerlos en contexto, a lo largo del libro Dawkins explica el trabajo que hacen los biólogos en materia de evolución con la analogía de un crimen sin testigos, que por lo tanto nadie estuvo ahí para ‘verlo’, y un detective que trata de reconstruir los detalles de lo ocurrido basando en las pistas y evidencias dejadas en la escena del crimen.

Let's again make use of our analogy of the detective coming to the scene of a crime to which there were no eye witnesses. The baronet has been shot. Fingerprints, footprints, DNA from a sweat stain on the pistol, and a strong motive all points toward the butler. It's pretty much an open and shut case, and the jury and everybody in the court is convinced that the butler did it. But last-minute pice of evidence is discovered, in the nick of time before the jury retires to consider what had seemed to be their inevitable verdict of guilty: somebody remembers that the baronet had installed spy cameras against burglars. With bated breath, the court watches the films. One of them shows the butler in the act of opening the drawer in his pantry, taking out a pistol, loading it, and creeping stealthily out of the room with a malevolent gleam in his eye. You might think that this solidifies the case against the butler even further. Mark the sequel, however. The butler's defence lawyer astutely points out that there was no spy camera in the corridor leading from the butler's pantry. He wags his finger, in that compelling way that lawyers have made their own. ‘There's a gap in the video record! We don't know what happened after the butler left the pantry. There is clearly insufficient evidence to convict my client.’

In vain the prosecution lawyer points out that there was a second camera in the billiard room, and this shows, through the open door, the butler, gun at the ready, creeping on tiptoe along the passage towards the library. Surely this plugs the gap in the vide record? Surely the case against the butler is now unassailable? But no. Triumphantly the defence lawyer plays his ace. ‘We don't know what happened before or after the butler passed the door of the billiard room. There are now two gaps in the video record. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my case rests. There is now even less evidence against my client than there was before.‘

Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth.