Why We Are Still Arguing About Darwin

TCS Daily ^ | 10 Jan 2008 | Lee Harris

[neverdem]

Today, almost one hundred and fifty years after the publication of The Origin of Species, we are still arguing about Darwin. How is this possible? If Darwin's theory of natural selection is a scientific theory, as its defenders claim, then why hasn't it been able to establish itself securely in the public mind? Why, in short, is Darwin still the subject of continuing controversy and acrimonious debate?

Contrast this on-going battle over Darwin with the fate of the other great scientific revolutions. The same Christian fundamentalists who argue that public school should teach creationism have no quarrel with the Copernican revolution. No one argues that public schools should be forced to teach the Ptolemaic system because it permits Joshua to make the sun stand still. Yet polls in the USA show that a large segment of American society continues to reject Darwin's scientific revolution.

Modern proponents of Darwin, like Richard Dawkins, have an elegant explanation for this puzzling phenomenon. Those who reject Darwin are ignorant boobs who take the Bible literally. The Bible says God created man in his own image, and so that is what they believe, despite the evidence that shows that human beings share more than 98% of their genes with chimpanzees. Therefore, in order to get people to accept Darwin, you must first destroy their adherence to Biblical fundamentalism. Once people see that the story of Adam and Eve is simply a fairy tale, they will be in a position to embrace the idea that we all descended from lower primates. But is this interpretation really psychologically plausible? Is it only the second chapter of Genesis that stands in the way of a universal acceptance of Darwin's theory that we descended from creatures far more monkey-like than us-like?

The stumbling block to an acceptance of Darwin, I would like to submit, has little to do with Christian fundamentalism, but a whole lot to do with our intense visceral revulsion at monkeys and apes. This revulsion, while certainly not universal, is widely shared, and it is a psychological phenomenon that is completely independent of our ideas about the literal truth of the Bible.

Our visceral revulsion at the mere sight of lower primates has been noted by the Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal. Observing the visitors to the chimpanzee colony at the Arnhem Zoo, de Waal noticed a frequent pattern among them. Many people would stare at the chimps for a few minutes, then, after saying, "Oh I could watch them all day," they would swiftly make their way to the nearest exit. They had had enough monkey business. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, another great naturalist, was equally aware of this deep-seated revulsion against monkeys. In his novel Elective Affinities, a character declares her feelings about monkeys in no uncertain terms: "How can anyone bring himself to expend such care on depicting horrid monkeys! It is debasing simply to regard them as animal [!], but it is really more malicious to succumb to the temptation of seeking in them the likeness of people you know."

This visceral revulsion against monkeys explains why so many people prefer to hold on to the far more flattering mythology of man's creation as it was presented in Genesis. It is not Genesis that turns them against Darwin; it is Darwin that makes them turn to Genesis.

Now the proponents of Darwin will argue that a visceral revulsion is not a logical argument, and the proponents of Darwin will of course be right. From the fact that most people are horrified to think of themselves as descending from the lower primates, it does not follow that they must have arisen from a more respectable ancestry.

At the same time, those who accept Darwin (as I do) need to understand the true origin of the revulsion so many people feel against his theory. For the basis of this revulsion is none other than "the civilizing process" that has been instilled into us from infancy. The civilizing process has taught us never to throw our feces at other people, not even in jest. It has taught us not to snatch food from other people, not even when they are much weaker than we. It has taught us not to play with our genitals in front of other people, not even when we are very bored. It has taught us not to mount the posterior of other people, not even when they have cute butts.

Those who are horrified by our resemblance to the lower primates are not wrong, because it is by means of this very horror of the primate-within that men have been able to transcend our original primate state of nature. It is by refusing to accept our embarrassing kinship with primates that men have been able to create societies that prohibit precisely the kind of monkey business that civilized men and women invariably find so revolting and disgusting. Thou shalt not act like a monkey - this is the essence of all the higher religions, and the summation of all ethical systems.

Those who continue to resist Darwin are not standing up for science, but they may well be standing up for something even more important - a Dawkinsian meme, if you will, that has been instrumental in permitting mankind to transcend the brutal level of our primate origins. Our lofty humanitarian ethical standards have been derived not by observing our primate kin, but by imagining that we were made in the image of God. It was only by assuming that we were expected to come up to heavenly standards that we did not lower our standards to those of our biological next of kin. The meme that asserts that we are the children of God, and not merely a bunch of wild monkeys may be an illusion; but it is the illusion upon which all humane civilizations have been constructed. Those who wish to eliminate this illusionary meme from our general meme pool may be acting in the name of science; but it is by no means obvious that they are acting in the name of civilization and humanity.

[allmendream]

Nothing in that was new. Want to point me to the supposed NEW evidence that supports your silly conjecture of the centrality of our small planet within our universe?

Can you do that GGG? Point me to that supposed NEW evidence? Or just another link with nothing new?

[editor-surveyor]

"See post #78"

Your cognitive limitation shows. Humphreys' mathematically perfect cosmos is actually an expanded Helio-centric view.

In it, he uses all the available scientific observations to prove that our sun is truly at the center of the cosmos. I'm sure that that fact is disturbing to you, but it has yet to be refuted, although much effort has been expended toward that goal, fruitlessly.

[GodGunsGuts]

And they hate it even more that his starting assumptions come from the Bible. And they hate him still more for discovering that if you plug said biblical assumptions into General Relativity, a universe with both a center and an edge literally “fall out” of the equations. That’a almost too much for a Big Bang Darwinist to bear!

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

They don't argue with sun-centered systems now. They've given up on that one. Now.

But for a thousand years or so they most definitely argued against sun-centered astronomical theories. Most definitely did.

Well put. Thanks. You saved me a 30 seconds of typing!!

[Revolting cat!]

Oh, boy not this S. again! This debate will go on until the Muzzies take over, as it’s bound to happen at this rate of their expansion, and then it’ll be settled for once and for all.

And by the way, I don’t have Piltman Man in this dogfight.

[GodGunsGuts]

==Nothing in that was new. Want to point me to the supposed NEW evidence that supports your silly conjecture of the centrality of our small planet within our universe?
Can you do that GGG? Point me to that supposed NEW evidence? Or just another link with nothing new?

Actually, that’s all pretty new stuff. Except of course the quote from Copernicus. Did you know that Copernicus believed in a heliocentric universe? It would seem the the Copernican Principle has been badly misnamed! LOL

As for something newer, how about this:

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5181

...and in case you miss the tiny link to the PDF document in that aticle, try this:

http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/journal_of_creation/vol21/5181creationist.pdf

[jeddavis]

For starters, the fruit fly experiments conducted over the early decades of the last century amounted to an absolute laboratory disproof of evolution. Several highly qualified scientists publicly renounced evolution as a consequence including the famous case of Richard Goldschmidt. No normal science theory survives something like that; only religions and ideological doctrines go on as if nothing had happened after being utterly disproved in such a manner.

[MichiganMan]

But please don’t pretend that you have until you actually do.

Please don't pretend that you actually desire to continue a conversation with someone you thoroughly taunted for a single use of the word "Dude"

Correct or incorrect, his statement was reasonably presented, your position was lost in the noise of your overreaction.

[bert]

the article misdirects the problem. The argument is not about Darwin and science, but about Genesis and myth.

[metmom]

The meme that asserts that we are the children of God, and not merely a bunch of wild monkeys may be an illusion; but it is the illusion upon which all humane civilizations have been constructed.

It's not an illusion but otherwise, he's right.

Those who wish to eliminate this illusionary meme from our general meme pool may be acting in the name of science; but it is by no means obvious that they are acting in the name of civilization and humanity.

Ouch!

[allmendream]

Please keep them coming.

The more that you conflate Creationism with Geocentricism the better as far as I am concerned. Let everyone know the caliber of Science that you and other Creationists find convincing. Advertise to the world that Creationists not only believe things sillier than most people imagine; they believe things sillier than most people are CAPABLE of imagining.

Ahhhhh. GGG. You are truly a Prince among Creationists. I wish they were all as forthcoming as you about their intractable and antiquated views. I wish I could wish you as much good luck with your campaign to discount the H.I.V./A.I.D.S. connection as well; but some nutters might actually take you serious on that, and THAT would have consequences; while believing the earth is the center of the universe is harmless and amuses me to no end.

[js1138]

I'm just saying, I AGREE WITH COPERNICUS...and Darwinist Big Bangers, such as Coyoteman and yourself, don't:

I am learning that is is best to stand aside when you are lecturing on science.

Nothing I could say would surpass your self-inflicted wounds.

[SlapHappyPappy]

I like monkeys.

Not a fan of what they do with their crap though.

And I never leave the zoo right after watching the monkeys.

[fish hawk]

BINGO!!!

[metmom]

It’s not natural selection that so many creationists have problems with, it’s what’s referred to as speciation; that is that natural selection can provide for enough differences to cause a significant enough change in species to make them incapable of breeding with each other and give rise to completely new species.

[js1138]

Archaeopter or archaeopteryx (depending how people are naming it).

One should never let little things like names, centuries or continents get in the way a of a zinger.

[editor-surveyor]

"Thus the Pioneer effect supports the essentials of several creationist cosmologies: a centre of mass, expansion of space and recent time dilation. Big bang theorists, whose cosmology does not have a centre of mass, cannot use this explanation. As yet, they have no alternative theory upon which they agree."

And that just about says it all, across the scientific spectrum.

[metmom]

It was later than that. It was the mid 1800’s.

Here are some links on Simmelweis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi622.htm

[MichiganMan]

For starters, the fruit fly experiments conducted over the early decades of the last century amounted to an absolute laboratory disproof of evolution.

Now wait a sec, not being directly familiar with the experiments to which you're referring, I'm assuming they used fruit flies due to the abbreviated life spans in relation to our own, days to our decades. That being the case, the theories of evolution I've known (and I am a subscriber to evolution as a overall theory) posit that evolution takes thousands of years for even a small alteration in the species to set in (as opposed to individual mutations) None of the theories I've read posit that the changes are brought about by a number of generations passing. So fruit flies within the theory, wouldn't necessarily evolve any faster than other species just because they die quicker.

Am I misinterpreting the point of your example?

[editor-surveyor]

You should have read before responding. If and when you do read the articles, you will be embarrassed at your own stupidity (if you are intelligent and honest enough).