Posted on 09/06/2005 5:53:18 PM PDT by Heartlander
The Ayatollah of Atheism and Darwin’s Altars
By: Paul Johnson
The Spectator (UK)
August 31, 2005
How long will Darwin continue to repose on his high but perilous pedestal? I am beginning to wonder. Few people doubt the principle of evolution. The question at issue is: are all evolutionary advances achieved exclusively by the process of natural selection? That is the position of the Darwinian fundamentalists, and they cling to their absolutist position with all the unyielding certitude with which Southern Baptists assert the literal truth of the Book of Genesis, or Wahabi Muslims proclaim the need for a universal jihad against ‘the Great Satan’. At a revivalist meeting of Darwinians two or three years ago, I heard the chairman, the fiction-writer Ian McEwan, call out, ‘Yes, we do think God is an old man in the sky with a beard, and his name is Charles Darwin.’ I doubt if there is a historical precedent for this investment of so much intellectual and emotional capital, by so many well-educated and apparently rational people, in the work of a single scientist. And to anyone who has studied the history of science and noted the chances of any substantial body of teaching – based upon a particular hypothesis or set of observations – surviving the erosion of time and new research intact, it is inevitable that Darwinism, at least in its fundamentalist form, will come crashing down. The only question is: when?
The likelihood that Darwin’s eventual debacle will be sensational and brutal is increased by the arrogance of his acolytes, by their insistence on the unchallengeable truth or the theory of natural selection – which to them is not a hypothesis but a demonstrated fact, and its critics mere flat-earthers – and by their success in occupying the commanding heights in the university science departments and the scientific journals, denying a hearing to anyone who disagrees with them. I detect a groundswell of discontent at this intellectual totalitarianism, so unscientific by its very nature. It is wrong that any debate, especially one on so momentous a subject as the origin of species, and the human race above all, should be arbitrarily declared to be closed, and the current orthodoxy set in granite for all time. Such a position is not tenable, and the evidence that it is crumbling is growing.
Much of the blame lies with Richard Dawkins, head of the Darwinisn fundamentalists in the country, who has (it seems) indissolubly linked Darwin to the more extreme forms of atheism, and projected on to our senses a dismal world in which life has no purpose or meaning and a human being has no more significance than a piece of rock, being subject to the same blind processes of pitiless, unfeeling unthinking nature. The sheer moral, emotional and intellectual emptiness of the universe as seen by the Darwinian bigots is enough to make mere humans (as opposed to scientific high priests), and especially young ones, despair, and wonder what is the point of going on with existence in a world which is hard enough to endure even without the Darwinian nightmare. I was intrigued to note, earlier this summer, in the pages of the Guardian, an indignant protest by one of Dawkin’s fellow atheists that he was bringing atheism into disrepute by his extremism, by the tendentious emotionalism of his language and by his abuse of religious belief. But he has his passionate defenders too, and occupies an overwhelmingly strong position in Oxford, not a university famous for its contribution to science to be sure, but one where personalities notorious for extreme opinions of a quasi-theological kind are much applauded, even canonized, as witness Pusey, Keble, Newman and Jowett. To ferocious undergraduate iconoclasts he is the ayatollah of atheism, and in consequence much wined and dined in smart London society. Recently he was chosen by the readers of Prospect, a monthly journal with some pretensions, as Britain’s leading ‘public intellectual’. It is true that such write-ins carry no authority and often strike a ludicrous note. A similar poll conducted by the BBC produced Karl Marx as ‘the greatest philosopher of all time’. All the same, there is no denying Dawkins’s celebrity: he is up there among the football managers and pop singers, alongside Posh and ‘Bob’ and the Swedish Casanova.
Meanwhile, however, opponents are busy. The Times Literary Supplement, in its issue of 29 July, carried a seven-column article by the equally celebrated philosopher Jerry Fodor of Rutgers University, which relentlessly demolished the concept of Evolutionary Psychology, one of the pillars of the imposing mansion of orthodoxy occupied by the Darwinians. Fodor is particularly scathing about Dawkins and his leading American lieutenant, Professor Steven Pinker, and the theory that, in the process of natural selection, genes selfishly spread themselves. Fodor’s discourse on motivation (or lack of it) in the evolutionary process is well worth reading, being a sensible and sensitive argument as opposed to the dogmatic assertions of the Darwinian cultists. It is, I think, a sign of the times that they are now being attacked from within the establishment.
At the same time, opponents of the dogma that natural selection is the sole force in evolution, who cannot get a hearing within that establishment, are not remaining silent. It is characteristic of the new debate that heterodoxy is finding other outlets. I recommend, for instance, a book by the learned anatomist Dr. Antony Latham, The Naked Emperor: Darwinism Exposed, just out from Janus Publishing (105-107 Gloucester Place, London W1U 6BY). Much of the book is devoted to a chapter-by-chapter exposure of the errors and illogicalities of Dawkins’s best-known book, The Blind Watchmaker, and its highly emotional presentation of the case against design (and God). The indictment of Dawkins’s scientific scholarship is powerful, masterly and (I would say) unanswerable.
Another book which has come my way this summer, though it was published by Columbia in New York in 2003 is by Richard Bird of Northumbria University. It is called Chaos and Life: Complexity and Order in Evolution and Thought. This is a formidable piece of work, showing that the way in which living things appear and evolve is altogether more complex and sophisticated than the reliance on natural selection presupposes. One of the points he raises, which to me as a historian is crucial, is the impossibility of fitting natural selection as the normative form of evolution into the time frame of the earth as an environment for life. Bird shows that Dawkins’s attempts to answer this objection are disingenuous and futile. One of the virtues of this book (as, indeed, of Dr. Latham’s) is that it has told me a lot about evolution and design that I did not know, and which orthodox dogma conceals. So there is a virtue in the origins debate – the spread of knowledge – and I hope it continues until the altars of Dagon come crashing down.
Taliban of Atheism
They will be naturally selected against.
(((Ping)))
Why do you waste our time posting garbage like this?
How long will Darwin continue to repose on his high but perilous pedestal? I am beginning to wonder. Few people doubt the principle of evolution. The question at issue is: are all evolutionary advances achieved exclusively by the process of natural selection? That is the position of the Darwinian fundamentalists, and they cling to their absolutist position with all the unyielding certitude with which Southern Baptists assert the literal truth of the Book of Genesis, or Wahabi Muslims proclaim the need for a universal jihad against ‘the Great Satan’. At a revivalist meeting of Darwinians two or three years ago, I heard the chairman, the fiction-writer Ian McEwan, call out, ‘Yes, we do think God is an old man in the sky with a beard, and his name is Charles Darwin.’ I doubt if there is a historical precedent for this investment of so much intellectual and emotional capital, by so many well-educated and apparently rational people, in the work of a single scientist. And to anyone who has studied the history of science and noted the chances of any substantial body of teaching – based upon a particular hypothesis or set of observations – surviving the erosion of time and new research intact, it is inevitable that Darwinism, at least in its fundamentalist form, will come crashing down. The only question is: when?And the drivel goes on and on...
What you are seeing is Evolution in Action!
(to paraphrase)"A name what is in a name, would a Rose by any other name not smell as sweet". Why a rose at all? If I ponder on a rose, I see eternity. When I see eternity, I see God.
Its good to know you spent some of your time reading it.
Yes, but with evolution, a Michael Ruse is a ruse by any other name.
( P ) Pronunciation Key (m
t
-fôr
, -fr)How ironic…
DAWKINS: (snip)"…But yet we have this gathering together of genes into individual organisms. And that reminds me of the illusion of one mind, when actually there are lots of little mindlets in there, and the illusion of the soul of the white ant in the termite mound, where you have lots of little entities all pulling together to create an illusion of one. Am I right to think that the feeling that I have that I'm a single entity, who makes decisions, and loves and hates and has political views and things, that this is a kind of illusion that has come about because Darwinian selection found it expedient to create that illusion of unitariness rather than let us be a kind of society of mind?"PINKER: "It's a very interesting question. Yes, there is a sense in which the whole brain has interests in common in the way that say a whole body composed of genes with their own selfish motives has a single agenda. In the case of the genes the fact that their fates all depend on the survival of the body forces them to cooperate. In the case of the different parts of the brain, the fact that the brain ultimately controls a body that has to be in one place at one time may impose the need for some kind of circuit, presumably in the frontal lobes, that coordinates the different agendas of the different parts of the brain to ensure that the whole body goes in one direction. In How the Mind Works I alluded to a scene in the comedy movie All of Me in which Lily Tomlin's soul inhabits the left half of Steve Martin's body and he takes a few steps in one direction under his own control and then lurches in another direction with his pinkie extended while under the control of Lily Tomlin's spirit. That is what would happen if you had nothing but completely autonomous modules of the brain, each with its own goal. Since the body has to be in one place at one time, there might be a circuit that suppresses the conflicting motives…"(end snip)
Sigh. There are critics everywhere...
I don’t know… Is the President a creationist? He has advocated teaching ID in schools (something even the Discovery Institute is against)
Well if natural selection is the process, I personally have exceeded all statistical bounds in the realm of eight or nine sigma past the mean. There is a 99.99999999% probability I should be dead.
Gee, yet another guy out there smelling the blood in the air.. who'd a thunk it lol. Death of Darwinism nonsense ping!
I'm sorry but use of the word made it impossible, for me, to figure out the context of the post.
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
"Are we on the way from or to the first principles?"
-Aristotle
I was once, in a previous incarnation, an English major. The paragraph I quoted would have earned me a [now politically incorrect] grade!
Maybe "metaphor" was not the correct word, but (sorry) that writing style stinks!
Johnson appears to accept deep geological time and descent with modification -- he only asserts that Dawkin's atheistic philosophy is wrong. However, Johnson's certitude in opposing what is actually the establishment position in biology (i.e., no evidence for design) is tremendously arrogant, given that he is an outsider (an historian not a natural scientist).
Yet, I might look for the two books that Johnson recommends. I would like to learn more about evolution; I've read assertions that Darwinism (the neo-Darwinian synthesis) does not withstand critical mathematical scrutiny, but I've also read that these objections have long since been answered by the evolutionists. The evidence for contingency in the development of life is overwhelming ("the Panda's Thumb") but deep down inside, I find it difficult to believe that there is no purpose in creation ...
Your homework assignment tonight, is to find the correct word or words to replace "metaphor" and submit. The result will be put in your "permanent record" :>)
Another course correction for the ID crowd.
Interesting.
Science is self-correcting ; )
You're right. Paul Johnson is a trememndous intellect and historian. He has written perhaps the best comprehensive history book of the USA, as well as many other books, and he often writes for Forbes Magazine. I remember him being interviewed in the Dennis Prager radio show for an hour. That was a real treat.
He's our kind of guy.
I wonder, have you ever really been down and out, with nothing and no prospects, say like the high plains, with no food or water? Who would you call upon - Darwin?
Give it another 50 years. No telling where we'll be. ;)
Silly. Darwin has been dead for almost 150 years.
Biology is just science. It's not a spiritual aid.
He said his original view, published in his book "Practical Ethics," that the parents should have 28 days to determine whether the infant should live has been modified somewhat since the book's release."So in that book, we suggested that 28 days is not a bad period of time to use because on the one hand, it gives you time to examine the infant to [see] what the nature of the disability is; gives time for the couple to recover from the shock of the birth to get well advised and informed from all sorts of groups, medical opinion and disability and to reach a decision.
"And also I think that it is clearly before the point at which the infant has those sorts of forward-looking preferences, that kind of self-awareness, that I talked about. But I now think, after a lot more discussion, that you can't really propose any particular cut-off date."
…Singer defended his previous writings that humans and nonhumans can have "mutually satisfying" sexual relationships as long as they are consensual. When asked by CNSNews.com how an animal can consent to sexual contact with a human, he replied, "Your dog can show you when he or she wants to go for a walk and equally for nonviolent sexual contact, your dog or whatever else it is can show you whether he or she wants to engage in a certain kind of contact."
- Peter Singer
It is for some…
"I was intrigued to note, earlier this summer, in the pages of the Guardian, an indignant protest by one of Dawkin’s fellow atheists that he was bringing atheism into disrepute by his extremism, by the tendentious emotionalism of his language and by his abuse of religious belief."
I wish he'd provided a link!
Only for the people who call themselves atheists, as they struggle with their relationship with God.
(I don't believe in atheists.)
YEC SPOTREP
Darn. I guess that's my cue to disappear in a puff of smoke.
Any year now, just you wait!
How long willI would start, if I were you, trying to deny genetics, trying to deny cell division and denying the existence of DNA.
I would also eradicate any the thought of the possibility of recessive or dominant 'genes', inherited factors from your parents, or the possibility that only the 'strong' survived at one point.
In short, do a whole lot of re-writing science.
You might even have to burn a book or two to get there ...
Let's see now. In the Last ten years, Behe, Dembski and Denton have been forced to admit that evolution happened, and happened pretty much in the time frame proposed by mainstream biology and geology.
This leaves ID with two cards, attempting to draw to an inside straignt flush.
One card is the assertion of fine tuning, or the anthropic principle. Denton has gone this route, asserting that the dice were loaded from the moment of creation. Everything that has happened was foreseen.
The other card is the assertion of micromiracles, miniature interventions at various intervals to produce new species.
This is it. This is what's left of the once proud fortress of creationism.
Actually it's not. Science is an iterative process of obervation, hypothesis and more observations.
Science laws are an outmoded, 19th century way of looking at the world. You're sounding like a Darwinist. ;)
Just give it time and it'll all come together. ;)
lol
The big question is, does this mean the Creationist/ID crowd have accepted (dare I say it?), macro-evolution!?!
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