[jocon307]

I found this interesting, so I'm just putting it up here in case others might also find it so.

[Izzy Dunne]

he's the only man on earth who can imagine life without television.

Am I supposed to read past this point?

What a presumptuous statement.

[the invisib1e hand]

darwinism is bad for everyone. just look around.

sorry, I didn't get past the title.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Gilder is routinely and correctly called a visionary, partly because he's the only man on earth who can imagine life without television.

I don't have a telie, does that make me a visionary?

[HangnJudge]

This is an interesting and complex article

A few quotes
...”Conservatives need Darwin,” he said. Without the scientific evidence Darwinian theory offers, conservative views would be swamped by liberal sentimentality. The left-wing view of human nature as unfixed and endlessly manipulable has led to countless disastrous Utopian schemes. Hard-headed Darwinians, on the other hand, see human nature as settled and enduring and stubbornly unchangeable, and conservatives can wield the findings of Darwin to rebut the scheming, ambitious busybodies of the left and their subversion of custom and tradition...

Thus Gilder offered a concession by way of a compromise: “Darwinism may be true,” he said, “but it’s ultimately trivial.” It is not a “fundamental explanation for creation or the universe.” Evolution and natural selection may explain why organic life presents to us its marvelous exfoliation. Yet Darwinism leaves untouched the crucial mysteries—who we are, why we are here, how we are to behave toward one another, and how we should fix the alternative minimum tax. And these are questions, except the last one, that lie beyond the expertise of any panel at any think tank

I find the usefulness of Darwinism to be a separate question as to whether it was “True” the same way that Newtonian Physics is undeniably useful, and answers many questions, but turned out to be severely flawed and simplistic, as Einstein expanded the understanding. I have no difficulty accepting that Darwinism may be useful but wrong

A similar dichotomy occurs if you study the mental symbols one uses if you view the Universe as the "Only Thing" or those symbols used if the Universe is a subset of a "Greater Thing"

A few quotes from C.S. Lewis

Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
Unless thought is valid we have no reason to believe in the real universe.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

[M203M4]

Progressivism is bad whether couched in evolutionary terms or in religious terms. And conservatism is good whether couched in evolutionary terms or in religious terms. Just as the devil can quote scripture with the best of them, so too can the forces of degeneracy, immorality, and authoritarianism twist science to fit their ends.

IMO, in the context of socioeconomics and culture, "Darwinism" (one of the lamest terms ever - like calling general relativity 'Einsteinism") is like a gun in the sense that what matters is the person wielding it. Science (like religion) has countless times been shown to be less a guide for society than a way to conceal and/or obfuscate the intrinsically irrational (ex ante) terms of the debate.

There is nothing INTRINSIC about evolution via natural selection that goes against conservatism, or even theism writ large for that matter (specific interpretations of certain holy texts sure, but even that is true of quantum mechanics and general relativity - by extension, is quantum mechanics damaging to conservatism or Christianity? Of course not! How completely silly, pons asinorum all).

[Coyoteman]

Thus Gilder offered a concession by way of a compromise: "Darwinism may be true," he said, "but it's ultimately trivial." It is not a "fundamental explanation for creation or the universe." Evolution and natural selection may explain why organic life presents to us its marvelous exfoliation. Yet Darwinism leaves untouched the crucial mysteries--who we are, why we are here, how we are to behave toward one another, and how we should fix the alternative minimum tax.

What a dope. Of course the theory of evolution is not a "fundamental explanation for creation or the universe." It is not supposed to be, except in the fevered minds of anti-evolutionists seeking their next strawman.

Neither is germ theory, the theory of gravity, or any other single theory in science "a fundamental explanation for creation or the universe," but I don't see them being trashed as the theory of evolution is.

[be4everfree]

For those that are interested, you can watch the entire panel discussion here.

http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1482,filter.all/event_detail.asp#