Creationism piece no way to honor Darwin's birthday (Letter to the editor of the Boston Globe)

Boston Globe ^ | 7/20/2009 | Steven Pinker

[SeekAndFind]

SHAME ON you for publishing two creationist op-eds in two years from the Discovery Institute, a well-funded propaganda factory that aims to sow confusion about evolution. Virtually no scientist takes “intelligent design’’ seriously, and in the famous Dover, Pa., trial in 2005, a federal court ruled that it is religion in disguise.

The judge referred to the theory’s “breathtaking inanity,’’ which is a fine description of Stephen Meyer’s July 15 op-ed “Jefferson’s support for intelligent design.’’ Well, yes, Thomas Jefferson died 33 years before Darwin published “The Origin of Species.’’ And Meyer’s idea that the DNA code implies a code maker is just a rehash of the ancient “argument from design’’ - that an eye implies an eye maker, a heart implies a heart maker, and so on. Darwin demolished this argument 150 years ago.

In a year in which other serious publications are celebrating the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentennial of “Origin,’’ the Globe sees fit to resurrect his long-buried opposition.

The advantage that traditional newspapers have over the Internet competition is quality control. If the Globe repeatedly gives its imprimatur to the latest nonsense from an anti-science lobbying organization, what’s the point of going to it for reliable, intelligent commentary?

Steven Pinker

Cambridge

The writer is a professor of psychology at Harvard.

[Beamreach]

can nothing plus time equal something???

[Migraine]

Can clay be turned into people, or not?

Yes, because subtly and metaphorically, you've adduced the hand of God.

[SeekAndFind]

Isn’t Pinker the one who advocated post-birth abortions?

Apparently so.

Read this page

It says :

"According to Steven Pinker's articles in today's New York Times Magazine, the tendency for some young women to kill one-day-old infants (neonaticide) may be built into "the biological design of our parental emotions."

Neolithic women might have decided to cut their losses early on and let sickly infants, or those not promising to make it to adulthood, die rather than waste their time raising it. Such women mentally dealt with the decision as an unavoidable tragedy, but one necessary at the time.

After a lengthy discussion of the topic the author concludes with the inference that society will become more merciful to those teenagers who dump their kids in garbage cans once society understands why "the anguished girls" felt they had no choice but to do what they did.

[Oztrich Boy]

So... can rocks turn into people, or not?

I think it has to be dust.