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.

[Coyoteman]

Piltdown Man Hoax.

Still defended by the most ardent Evolutionist Zealots

Not correct. Many researchers recognized early on that Piltdown didn't fit. The geology was picked on by about 1915. Friedrichs and Weidenreich had both, by about 1932, published their research suggesting the lower jaws and molars were that of an orang (they were correct). By then most scholars were ignoring Piltdown entirely because it didn't fit with the newer South African finds. Only a few British anthropologists (likely for reasons of national pride) still bought into Piltdown at that time.

But if you have evidence that some "ardent Evolutionist Zealots" are still defending Piltdown, I am sure you would be willing to post it for us.

[allmendream]

Do you have any idea how wrong you are? Piltdown Man was not widely accepted even before it was revealed to be a hoax. How many modern proponents of Biological evolution say that man’s evolution from earlier primates happened in ENGLAND? If Piltdown wasn’t a hoax it would speak against the evidence of hominid evolution in Africa.

But i guess facts don’t matter when you’ve created your own reality.

[neverdem]

If Darwin was correct, how do we explain gays?

Unfortunate mutations that don't reproduce, at least not normally.

[ml/nj]

Why don't you share with us, then, your definition of science and/or scientific method.

ML/NJ

[Joe Boucher]

Gee, I thought this was about the Darwin awards, the person doing the most absolutely lame and dumb thing to get themselves killed last year
Mines a better subject to argue over.
:-)

[GodGunsGuts]

The argument is over, Darwinism has been falsified. Now it’s just a matter of dismantling the Darwin machine, which seems to have developed a momentum that is quite independent of the fact that it has been thoroughly discredited.

[MichiganMan]

you could argue God did create man in His image, using evolution as his tool.

Dittos on that line of thinking. Its indisputable that God uses natural processes throughout the entirety of the universe. From the forces that hold atoms together, to the chemical interchange that occurs as sperm fertilizes eggs to make new life, to gravity holding galaxies together, they all are non-mystical processes that if you believe in God, you thereby believe he saw fit to use them to run this world he created.

Following that reasoning, that He would use a process arising from inside the physical rules of this universe He created seems more likely to me than not.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Because people still argue that natural selection “proves” that God doesn’t exist.

[neverdem]

This educrat's obsession with claiming that modern science has all the answers robs young people of the aspiration that they too could make important contributions. That deprives science of future talent. We should never say that what we have is anything more than a model with specific limits. It's time for science to come clean about the necessity to admit ignorance where appropriate.

Not Your Father's Genome

Check the second link in comment# 1 for an update on genetics/genomics. It's pretty good.

[allmendream]

Agreed Agreed Agreed!

The Bible says that God created the sun. We look out into the universe and we see that stars are being created by natural processes. To me this means that God created OUR sun through natural processes. Why would God need to ‘poof’ our sun into existence, and why would God, when there was already a mechanism in place to do so.

The Bible says that God created man. We look out into nature and we see that living things are shaped by natural processes and the programming that runs their biology is subject to change. To me this means that God didn’t ‘poof’ man into existence, he created us ‘from dust’ i.e. particles too small to see, using the natural grandeur of the universe that HE made.

The small minded see all this and conclude that it holds no place for God. It is like saying that because the creator of the game of football and the designer of the stadium didn’t show up on game day that they were somehow not needed at all.

[GodGunsGuts]

==Actually we have some on this website arguing for a geocentric view (i.e., denying the Copernican heliocentric view).

Actually, there is no contradiction between embracing Copernicus and the new evidence that suggests that the earth is at or near the center of the universe.

[allmendream]

What new evidence that the earth is the center of the universe? The earth isn’t the center of our solar system, it isn’t the center of our galaxy; but somehow the entire universe revolves around it?

Yes, Virginia, there are Creationist FReepers who hold with Geocentricism; how they don’t think this discredits themselves or their compatriots I cannot fathom; but scratch a Creationist and you will often find that they have equally preposterous and absolutely unsupported beliefs.

Evidence GGG? Or are you going to post another ‘data chart’ without any data and the lines drawn in?

[bvw]

"Evolution in action"

Somethings is in action, at action, for action, something produces the results! That's for sure. But what is it? Design evolution or designer-free evolution. Occam's razor suggests that because we clearly see design and design evolution -- we easily infer a designer!

Just as we see two lines parallel at one point and also parallel at all other observable points -- we easily infer that space is Euclidian, or "flat", and not hyperbolic, not elliptic or spherical.

Yet observation is not just about appearances. Appearances are just one side of the coin -- the other side of the coin is intellectual perceptions. What is in our mind?

Zealot hyperbolians claim space is hyperbolic, and that we can observe only a infintesimally small part of it, that all our ideations of "flatness" are false. And what argument can be made with them? Nothing about the obvious flatness of space (yet subject we now know to local gravity pinches and warpings) can convince them!

[Claud]

Everytime I see one of these arguments, and they bring up Copernicus and Galileo as examples of fundamentalists being open minded or accepting of science, I have to really laugh, because they clearly haven't read up on their history. I would be shocked if the fundamentalists accepted Darwin or anything like it within the next 50 years.

Fundamentalism, as such, did not exist in the time of Copernicus and Galileo...as it was a theological movement originating in late 19th century Protestantism. Copernicus and Galileo lived in the milieu of a very different theology within the largest Christian body at the time and now--the Catholic Church.

Unlike Fundamentalism, the Catholic Church believes that it and it alone is the last word on Scriptural interpretation--and despite placing some books on the Index of Forbidden Books, it never really dogmatically pronounced on heliocentrism one way or the other. People held different positions, and in the 1500s when Copernicus's theory first came out there was debate about it within even the halls of the Church. Later on, as the REformation heated up, positions hardened. Nonetheless, Cardinal Bellarmine famously said as follows during the Galileo affair:

I say that if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not revolve round the earth, but the earth round the sun, then it will be necessary, very carefully, to proceed to the explanation of the passages of Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we should rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce that to be false which is demonstrated.

That's not really fundamentalism as you can see. And I would also point out that most Christian bodies haven't officially come down either way on evolution, save to say let's see where the evidence goes and avoid hasty conclusions. Folks tend to hold up the Fundamentalist viewpoint as *the* Christian one, and it really isn't.

I'm an old bio major, and a devout Catholic, so I'm sensitive to such things. :)

[bvw]

The "dead clockmaker" theory claims there is a G-d, Creator, yet he is dead to all effect in the world, having had already long ago created the clockwork, wound it and set it in motion.

Yet that is not so! Our G-d is continuous, and continously acting. How delicate the very existence of physics -- of the equations and constants as we know them. Even they are balanced, continuously balanced all the time, or -- so it seems to me -- chaos of unimaginable order.

Here -- what happens in a black hole? Here -- what happens in the pico-pico micro dimensions of the quantum flux? Where is the edge of universe, where it's center? Perhaps we can learn them, perhaps not. We may strive to, and good for that effort. Yet what have we seen throughout human existence should we be honest? Is it not that every advancement in knowledge brings on yet more unknowables, and each deeper?

Where is comfort? And why is there something called comfort, which we all seek, all the time?

[pgyanke]

Dude, do you even know who Copernicus was? He was a Catholic cleric.

I suspect you are referring to the age-old canard about Galileo. Galileo was in trouble with the Church for taking the heliocentric theory one step too far... to saying that the Bible is wrong. The Bible is fully compatible with heliocentrism or it would have gone away centuries ago having been proved false.

[samtheman]

Hey, dude. Wow, dude. Like wow, man. Let’s hey, you know, rap about, hey dude, the history of science.

Wow. Cool. Groovy. Dude.

Hey, Dude, like some really cool stuff, ya know. Copernicus was the FIRST non-Greek astronomer to formulate a scientifically based heliocentric cosmology that displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.

Wow. Hey. I’m rappin to THAT beat! How bout you, dude?

[GodGunsGuts]

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

Copernicus, N., De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium, Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg, Book I, Chapter 10, 1543. ‘We therefore assert that the center of the Earth, carrying the Moon’s path, passes in a great circuit among the other planets in an annual revolution around the Sun; that near the Sun is the center of the Universe; and that whereas the Sun is at rest, any apparent motion of the Sun can be better explained by motion of the Earth.’

According to Copernicus, our universe should look something like this.

For modern evidence that supports the same, you might want to start HERE

[Claud]

I’ll go even further...it doesn’t say that God “created” (Lat. creavit) the sun ex nihilo...it says God “made” (Lat. fecit) the sun and the moon. Biblical scholars going back 2000 years have always seen in these two distinct processes...one from the Hebrew “bara” meaning to create from nothing, and one meaning to fashion from pre-existing matter.

And of course you are right about Adam being made from the dust, and there’s also the fact that God said “let the waters produce” reptiles and birds...definitely indicating a secondary natural cause. It does talk about God “creating” man also, but perhaps this could be understood as the soul, which being immaterial, could not arise through evolutionary process and needs to be created immediately from nothing.

[Secret Agent Man]

And I am sure it will stand the test of time just as Nebraska man, Piltdown man, and the Archaeoptrix finds did (they didn’t). People will write papers for dozens of years and stake their whole scientific careers on it, only to down the road be proven to have based their whole careers on a fraud.

Just chalk coyoteman up there with Nebraska man as far as I’m concerned.