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A Split Emerges as Conservatives Discuss Darwin
New York Times ^ | 5 May 2007 | Patricia Cohen

Posted on 05/05/2007 6:10:09 AM PDT by shrinkermd

...On one level the debate can be seen as a polite discussion of political theory among the members of a small group of intellectuals. But the argument also exposes tensions within the Republicans’ “big tent,” as could be seen Thursday night when the party’s 10 candidates for president were asked during their first debate whether they believed in evolution. Three — Senator Sam Brownback; Mike Huckabee; and Tom Tancredo of Colorado — indicated they did not.

...The reference to stem cells suggests just how wide the split is. “The current debate is not primarily about religious fundamentalism,” Mr. West, the author of “Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest” (2006), said at Thursday’s conference. “Nor is it simply an irrelevant rehashing...Darwinian reductionism has become culturally pervasive and inextricably intertwined with contemporary conflicts over traditional morality, personal responsibility, sex and family, and bioethics.”

The technocrats, he charged, wanted to grab control from “ordinary citizens ...so that they alone could make decisions over “controversial issues such as sex education, partial-birth abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and global warming.”

For some conservatives, accepting Darwin undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral, materialistic worldview that easily embraces abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices they abhor. As an alternative to Darwin, many advocate intelligent design...

Some of these thinkers have gone one step further, arguing that Darwin’s scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today’s patterns of human behavior, and that natural selection can provide support for many bedrock conservative ideas, like traditional social roles for men and women, free-market capitalism and governmental checks and balances.

...“The intellectual vitality of conservatism in the 21st century will depend on the success of conservatives in appealing to advances in the biology of human nature as confirming conservative thought.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: darwin; elections; evolution; fsmdidit; gop; nyslimes; republican; split; wedge
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Those that are "logical positivists" reject creationism in any form. Their essential beiefs are as follows:

...a general philosophical position, also called logical empiricism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle on the basis of traditional empirical thought and the development of modern logic. Logical positivism confined knowledge to science and used verificationism to reject metaphysics not as false but as meaningless. The importance of science led leading logical positivists to study scientific method and to explore the logic of confirmation theory. www.filosofia.net/materiales/rec/glosaen.htm

Positivism was a school of thought which originated in the 1920s and 1930s which essentially held that all propositions, whether metaphysical or physical, are meaningless unless they can be empirically verified (the verification principle ). However, the idea was a self-refuting proposition since it could not be empirically verified itself - ie logical positivism , like other propositions, could not pass the test of empirical verification. www.apologetics.org/glossary.html

The philosophy of the Vienna Circle, according to which any purported statement of fact, if not a verbal truism, is meaningless unless certain conceivable observations would serve to confirm or deny it. highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/076742011x/student_view0/chapter13/glossary.html

positivism: the form of empiricism that bases all knowledge on perceptual experience (not on intuition or revelation) wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Logical positivism (later referred to as logical empiricism) holds that philosophy should aspire to the same sort of rigor as science. Philosophy should provide strict criteria for judging sentences true, false and meaningless. en.wikipedia

1 posted on 05/05/2007 6:10:11 AM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd
Three — Senator Sam Brownback; Mike Huckabee; and Tom Tancredo of Colorado — indicated they did not.

Man, where are all the "DUNCAN HUNTER IS A RINO!!!!" threads then?

2 posted on 05/05/2007 6:13:46 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: shrinkermd
Positivism... taken to the extreme, embraces atheism. And I reject it.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

3 posted on 05/05/2007 6:13:46 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

I don’t want to get into flame wars again, but evolution is scientifically unsound (macroevolution, not microevolution), there are many legitimate scientists that reject it, and its fruit has produced nothing but evil in our society.


4 posted on 05/05/2007 6:16:58 AM PDT by Mom MD (The scorn of fools is music to the ears of the wise)
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To: DaveLoneRanger; metmom; Knitting A Conundrum

you might be interested in this. I don’t know if you still have the pinglist or not


5 posted on 05/05/2007 6:17:56 AM PDT by Mom MD (The scorn of fools is music to the ears of the wise)
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To: shrinkermd

Evolution has no bearing on Constitutional governance. This is all meant cast conservative candidates under the wheels of PC denigration.


6 posted on 05/05/2007 6:19:44 AM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (ought)
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To: Mom MD

That apparently only three of the candidates apparently claimed to be creationists, and all were marginal and irrelevant figures, gives me hope for the Republican Party, actually.


7 posted on 05/05/2007 6:20:36 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: shrinkermd

For Presidential candidates, the emphasis should be that it is not the Federal government’s place to be involved in medical research of any kind. If the candidates are conservative, that is ...


8 posted on 05/05/2007 6:24:56 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("And he had turned the Prime Minister's teacup into a gerbil.")
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To: Strategerist

And what might that hope be? that they’re looking more and more like Democraps ???


9 posted on 05/05/2007 6:25:27 AM PDT by Obie Wan
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To: shrinkermd
At least the Republican Party tolerates intellectual diversity of opinion unlike the Lockstep Liberal Socialist America hating Dems who can only hold one belief or be excluded from their society ala Lieberman.
10 posted on 05/05/2007 6:26:01 AM PDT by Don Corleone (Leave the gun..take the cannoli)
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To: Strategerist

it makes me quite sad. We can agree to disagree, but evolutionism only validates our culture of death and amorality.
If we were not created, then owe nothing to a creator, and have no rules to follow. Anyone’s morals or lack thereof are equally valid, as they all evolved from the same system. Hence abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research and the like are not morally depraved choices, but just continuing evolution. This leads to moral decline and eventually the death of our society.


11 posted on 05/05/2007 6:26:32 AM PDT by Mom MD (The scorn of fools is music to the ears of the wise)
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To: Coyoteman; RadioAstronomer
"Split Emerges as Conservatives Discuss Darwin" Like, only 8 or 9 months after the fact, right? :-(

NO cheers, unfortunately...

12 posted on 05/05/2007 6:28:55 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: shrinkermd
I find it interesting that the question was "do you believe in evolution?"

Would the question ever be, "do you believe in gravity?"
13 posted on 05/05/2007 6:29:36 AM PDT by chickadee
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To: Coyoteman

Popcorn thread


14 posted on 05/05/2007 6:32:23 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Pray for the deliberately ignorant.)
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To: chickadee

Oh I can prove gravity to you real quick,my question is can you prove evolution to me !!!


15 posted on 05/05/2007 6:32:45 AM PDT by Obie Wan
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To: chickadee
Yes, that is a very good point—”believe in evolution” structurally is not that different than “believe in God.”

It points to the dilemma all face—so much of our thoughts and actions are based on the unknowable. Nietzsche had it right when he pointed out their were two basic types of thought--things that we can verify and things that are abstractions. He also was an atheist, but when he said "God is dead" he meant God was dead in the hearts of the elites and the consequences would be a series of dictatorships and ruinous wars. He proved prescient in this respect.

Darwinism and Creationism are abstractions.

16 posted on 05/05/2007 6:35:34 AM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: Mom MD
“evolution is scientifically unsound “

This is true. I guess enough people will think you are a kook if you believe in ID. I’m quite shocked that Romney has not rejected darwinism. Mormons are firm in the belief that life was created/designed. Also the more I read about the Universe as a whole (e.g. “Privileged Planet” by Gonzalez and Richards) the more convinced I am that the whole thing was designed.

17 posted on 05/05/2007 6:37:27 AM PDT by razzle
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To: Obie Wan

Exactly my point.

The Theory of Evolution has many flaws, but the scientific community is unwilling to allow the consideration of other ideas. And I am not including creationism in this criticism, just alternative scientific theory.


18 posted on 05/05/2007 6:37:35 AM PDT by chickadee
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To: Obie Wan
“can you prove evolution to me”

Of course they can not. darwinism is a feeling and has nothing to do with any scientific fact.

19 posted on 05/05/2007 6:40:18 AM PDT by razzle
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To: chickadee
Would the question ever be, "do you believe in gravity?"

Not a good comparison except among fanatical Darwinists. There are too many "yes-buts" in the theory of evolution. I would have said "yes, but...etc".

20 posted on 05/05/2007 6:44:59 AM PDT by bkepley
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