Posted on 05/27/2006 3:14:09 PM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner
How long will Darwin continue to repose on his high but perilous pedestal? I am beginning to wonder.
Few people doubt the principles of evolution. The question at issue is: are all evolutionary advances achieved exclusively by the process of natural selection? That is the position of the Darwinian fundamentalists, and they cling to their absolutist position with all the unyielding certitude with which Southern Baptists assert the literal truth of the Book of Genesis, or Wahabi Muslims proclaim the need for a universal jihad against ‘the Great Satan’. At a revivalist meeting of Darwinians two or three years ago, I heard the chairman, the fiction-writer Ian McEwan, call out, ‘Yes, we do think God is an old man in the sky with a beard, and his name is Charles Darwin.’ I doubt if there is a historical precedent for this investment of so much intellectual and emotional capital, by so many well-educated and apparently rational people, in the work of a single scientist. And to anyone who has studied the history of science and noted the chances of any substantial body of teaching — based upon a particular hypothesis or set of observations — surviving the erosion of time and new research intact, it is inevitable that Darwinism, at least in its fundamentalist form, will come crashing down. The only question is: when?
The likelihood that Darwin’s eventual debacle will be sensational and brutal is increased by the arrogance of his acolytes, by their insistence on the unchallengeable truth of the theory of natural selection —which to them is not a hypothesis but a demonstrated fact, and its critics mere flat-earthers — and by their success in occupying the commanding heights in the university science departments and the scientific journals, denying a hearing to anyone who disagrees with them. I detect a ground-swell of discontent at this intellectual totalitarianism, so unscientific by its very nature. It is wrong that any debate, especially one on so momentous a subject as the origin of species, and the human race above all, should be arbitrarily declared to be closed, and the current orthodoxy set in granite for all time. Such a position is not tenable, and the evidence that it is crumbling is growing.
It is wrong that any debate, especially one on so momentous a subject as the origin of species, and the human race above all, should be arbitrarily declared to be closed, and the current orthodoxy set in granite for all time. Such a position is not tenable, and the evidence that it is crumbling is growing.
Much of the blame lies with Richard Dawkins, head of the Darwinian fundamentalists in this country, who has (it seems) indissolubly linked Darwin to the more extreme forms of atheism, and projected on to our senses a dismal world in which life has no purpose or meaning and a human being has no more significance than a piece of rock, being subject to the same blind processes of pitiless, unfeeling, unthinking nature. The sheer moral, emotional and intellectual emptiness of the universe as seen by the Darwinian bigots is enough to make mere humans (as opposed to scientific high priests), and especially young ones, despair, and wonder what is the point of going on with existence in a world which is hard enough to endure even without the Darwinian nightmare. I was intrigued to note, earlier this summer, in the pages of the Guardian, an indignant protest by one of Dawkins’s fellow atheists that he was bringing atheism into disrepute by his extremism, by the tendentious emotionalism of his language and by his abuse of religious belief. But he has his passionate defenders too, and occupies an overwhelmingly strong position in Oxford, not a university famous for its contribution to science to be sure, but one where personalities notorious for extreme opinions of a quasi-theological kind are much applauded, even canonised, as witness Pusey, Keble, Newman and Jowett. To ferocious undergraduate iconoclasts he is the ayatollah of atheism, and in consequence much wined and dined in smart London society. Recently he was chosen by the readers of Prospect, a monthly journal with some pretensions, as Britain’s leading ‘public intellectual’. It is true that such write-ins carry no authority and often strike a ludicrous note. A similar poll conducted by the BBC produced Karl Marx as ‘the greatest philosopher of all time’. All the same, there is no denying Dawkins’s celebrity: he is up there among the football managers and pop singers, alongside Posh and ‘Bob’ and the Swedish Casanova.
Meanwhile, however, opponents are busy. The Times Literary Supplement, in its issue of 29 July, carried a seven-column article by the equally celebrated philosopher Jerry Fodor of Rutgers University, which relentlessly demolished the concept of Evolutionary Psychology, one of the pillars of the imposing mansion of orthodoxy occupied by the Darwinians. Fodor is particularly scathing about Dawkins and his leading American lieutenant, Professor Steven Pinker, and the theory that, in the process of natural selection, genes selfishly spread themselves. Fodor’s discourse on motivation (or lack of it) in the evolutionary process is well worth reading, being a sensible and sensitive argument as opposed to the dogmatic assertions of the Darwinian cultists. It is, I think, a sign of the times that they are now being attacked from within the establishment.
At the same time, opponents of the dogma that natural selection is the sole force in evolution, who cannot get a hearing within that establishment, are not remaining silent. It is characteristic of the new debate that heterodoxy is finding other outlets. I recommend, for instance, a book by the learned anatomist Dr Antony Latham, The Naked Emperor: Darwinism Exposed, just out from Janus Publishing (105-107 Gloucester Place, London W1U 6BY). Much of the book is devoted to a chapter-by-chapter exposure of the errors and illogicalities of Dawkins’s best-known book, The Blind Watchmaker, and its highly emotional presentation of the case against design (and God). The indictment of Dawkins’s scientific scholarship is powerful, masterly and (I would say) unanswerable.
Another book which has come my way this summer, though it was published by Columbia in New York in 2003, is by Richard Bird of Northumbria University. It is called Chaos and Life: Complexity and Order in Evolution and Thought. This is a formidable piece of work, showing that the way in which living things appear and evolve is altogether more complex and sophisticated than the reliance on natural selection presupposes. One of the points he raises, which to me as a historian is crucial, is the impossibility of fitting natural selection as the normative form of evolution into the time frame of the earth as an environment for life. Bird shows that Dawkins’s attempts to answer this objection are disingenuous and futile. One of the virtues of this book (as, indeed, of Dr Latham’s) is that it has told me a lot about evolution and design that I did not know, and which orthodox dogma conceals. So there is a virtue in the origins debate — the spread of knowledge — and I hope it continues until the altars of Dagon come crashing down.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Paul Johnson. "The ayatollah of atheism and Darwin’s altars." The Spectator (August 27, 2005).
This article is from Paul Johnson's "And another thing" column for The Spectator and is reprinted with permission of the author.
THE AUTHOR
Paul Johnson, celebrated journalist and historian, is the author most recently of George Washington: The Founding Father. Among his other widely acclaimed books are A History of the American People, Modern Times, A History of the Jews, Intellectuals, Art: A New History, and The Quest for God: Personal Pilgrimage. He also produces brief surveys that slip into the pocket, such as his popular The Renaissance and Napoleon. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Spectator, and the Daily Telegraph. He lectures all over the world and lives in Notting Hill (London) and Somerset.
Time will tell if he is right.
Darwinian fundamentalists, and they cling to their absolutist position with all the unyielding certitude with which Southern Baptists assert the literal truth of the Book of Genesis, or Wahabi Muslims proclaim the need for a universal jihad against ‘the Great Satan’. At a revivalist meeting of Darwinians two or three years ago...
Tripe alert! Don't need to read any farther.
The irony is astounding to say the least.
Fossil: Sts 5 Site: Sterkfontein Cave, South Africa (1)Discovered By: R. Broom & J. Robinson 1947 (1)
Estimated Age of Fossil: 2.5 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, floral & faunal data (1, 4)
Species Name: Australopithecus africanus (1, 2)
Gender: Male (based on CAT scan of wisdom teeth roots) (1, 30) Female (original interpretation) (4)
Cranial Capacity: 485 cc (2, 4)
Information: No tools found in same layer (4)
Interpretation: Erect posture (based on forward facing foramen magnum) (8)
Nickname: Mrs. Ples (1)
See original source for notes:
http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=24
"Aytollah, fundamentalist, Wahabi muslims"
Go ahead, label them terrorists. I know you want to.
The article is infering that everyone who accepts that natural selection alone drives the evolutionary process is a "Darwinian fundamentalist" which is clearly not the case.
For someone who thinks evolution proves atheism, then perhaps that label would be appropriate.
bttt
I don't understand how a person can refute the DNA evidence in the OJ case, but apparently it's the same kind of reasoning.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! That's not reasoning!
That's trigonometry!
Site: Koobi Fora (Upper KBS tuff, area 104), Lake Turkana, Kenya (4, 1)
Discovered By: B. Ngeneo, 1975 (1)
Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.75 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal, paleomagnetic & radiometric data (1, 4)
Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7), Homo erectus ergaster (25)
Gender: Female (species presumed to be sexually dimorphic) (1, 8)
Cranial Capacity: 850 cc (1, 3, 4)
Information: Tools found in same layer (8, 9). Found with KNM-ER 406 A. boisei (effectively eliminating single species hypothesis) (1)
Interpretation: Adult (based on cranial sutures, molar eruption and dental wear) (1)
See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=33
Science thrives on research.
I suggest you identify an alternative. With a little thought, we can come up with an experiment, and publish the results.
WRT our lives, the universe is a blank canvas, waiting for us to "paint" our lives and world onto it. Johnson, like many creationists, seems to be driven by a feeling of terror that the universe's "canvas" doesn't come printed with a paint-by-numbers outline to tell us what to paint & how.
(Well, the universe does come with a comprehensible, unchanging set of basic laws of physics, & chemistry, etc. that we can use as a framework upon which to build our lives & societies. Maybe that's like the canvas not jumping around spontaneously or changing shape or color or flinging off our brushstrokes at random. Eh, all analogies have their limits. :-)
Indeed it does. It rare to find anything from the Noah's Flood, creationist, 'intelligent design' crowd to any report of an original research finding. The ID group loves to be Monday-morning quarterbacks and offer critiques, but I think not a one of them from the Discovery Institute actually has ever got his/her hands dirty in a lab or in a field exploration.
The DI gets $4.5 million every year from their believers to promote mouthings of their directors, but has not yet made a single contribution to scientific knowlege.
DI has a terrible record in supporting science, and a pretty poor record in promoting ID. They have lost in churches, lost with evangelical Christians, and lost in science research.
ID has a major internal inconsistency. If an aspect of 'design' is produced by a "miracle", by an intervention by a supernatural entity, then by definition is not a scientific process which can be studied by natural methods.
If, on the other hand, the 'grand designer' works by tweaking a bit of DNA here, giving a slight reproductive advantage there, then it is indistinguishable from a natural process and makes the designer part of the natural world and not supernatural at all.
ID has hooked its horse and to mules that are lame in 3 legs. The IDists cannot even explain how horses and donkeys survived Noah's Flood.
And why this species didn't:
So now defending reason against fundamentalism is to be called "fundamentalism" by the fundamentalists.
Something tells me Dawkins would not be surprised by such a silly attack.
WHAT? Are you denying astral projections, horoscopes, psychics, magnetic bracelets, bible-codes, leprachauns and pixies, throwing salt over your shoulder when you break a mirror?
The evidence of the supernatural is apparent to anyone--just listen to the psychics, the priests, the pastors, the shamans. If you are unable to believe, just read one of the 8 or so "Holy Books" and this will be revealed to you.
I think you might be a skeptic. I will pray for your eternal soul. I doubt this will do any good. Don't worry, lack of faith in abstinence often interferes with my prayer.
The problem is that his description or analogy is apt in so many cases.
This widesread use of Darwin in the culture wars has nothing to do with science and is unfair to Darwin himself, as well as science and scientists.
We don't need your civil war. Don't believe in God, so what. Don't try to say science somehow shows this. The politicization of science by liberals (with iconization of Darwin as the most widespread example) is not science nor has it anything to do with science. And it is very harmful to science on many levels.
We don't need your civil war. Don't believe in God, so what. Don't try to say science somehow shows this. The politicization of science by liberals (with iconization of Darwin as the most widespread example) is not science nor has it anything to do with science. And it is very harmful to science on many levels.
Hear! Hear!
Amen! It does not thrive on diatribes against religion or against people who want to not believe in current ideas relating to anthropology.
These threads are not about science but about the culture war.
We don't need your civil war. Don't believe in God, so what. Don't try to say science somehow shows this. The politicization of science by liberals (with iconization of Darwin as the most widespread example) is not science nor has it anything to do with science. And it is very harmful to science on many levels.
Actually I did six years of grad school, half in evolution and related fields (mostly bones), and never once heard the word "Darwinism." With few exceptions, Darwin wasn't even mentioned!
He formulated his theory before almost all of the hominid fossils were found (I think a Neanderthal was found just a couple of years before he published, but that's about it.)
But you know, his theory fit the fossils when they came along. And his theory fit the genetics a century later when DNA became so critical.
I don't know what "iconization of Darwin" and "politicization of science by liberals" has to do with me, so I'll just ignore those comments for the time being.
As for a civil war? What motivates me to participate in these threads is (1) the attempt to force religion into science classes, and (2) the deliberate misrepresentation of, and attacks on, science by those attempting to do (1).
You want to see what I mean by deliberate misrepresentation, all you have to do is check out the creationism websites. They are full of half truths and outright lies, all promulgated in an attempt to twist science to fit particular religious beliefs.
Just check out what they say about radiocarbon dating, for starters. That is one of my fields, so I can recognize BS when I see it. You could fertilize all of Kansas, with some prime material left over for Missouri, with what you get from a dozen creationist sites.
So, its not a civil war to me, but a defense of science. I don't attack, but generally respond to attacks. I choose to defend science with fact, well-reasoned theory, and rational debate. (But I might toss in a pun or a little gentle sarcasm as needed.)
Site: Nariokotome, West Turkana, Kenya (1)
Discovered By: K. Kimeu, 1984 (1)
Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.6 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal & radiometric data (1, 4)
Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7, 10), Homo erectus ergaster (25)
Gender: Male (based on pelvis, browridge) (1, 8, 9)
Cranial Capacity: 880 (909 as adult) cc (1)
Information: Most complete early hominid skeleton (80 bones and skull) (1, 8)
Interpretation: Hairless and dark pigmented body (based on environment, limb proportions) (7, 8, 9). Juvenile (9-12 based on 2nd molar eruption and unfused growth plates) (1, 3, 4, 7, 8). Juvenile (8 years old based on recent studies on tooth development) (27). Incapable of speech (based on narrowing of spinal canal in thoracic region) (1)
Nickname: Turkana Boy (1), Nariokotome Boy
See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=38
Exactly.
What motivates me to participate in these threads is (1) the attempt to force religion into science classes,
Which started largely in response to attempts to politicize science in class rooms.
You could fertilize all of Kansas, with some prime material left over for Missouri, with what you get from a dozen creationist sites.
Or from the other side -- which is not science. This is not a science issue. To the extent that you Coyoteman are part of the civil war it is in not recognizing this.
What happens is that the veneer of science and its associated authority is used by people for socio-political ends. Global warming is the most blatant example. Darwinianism, which as you and me both know from first hand experience isn't even an issue in real life science programs, is used to beat up on "fundies" and the like in the context of the culture war.
Darwin has become a religious symbol of sorts to those who oppose traditional religious ideas.
By that definition, there's no such thing as a "Darwinian fundamentalist." I don't know of a single evolutionary biologist who denies that sexual selection and genetic drift play important roles.
I've been saying that Atheism is a religion for YEARS. About time someone read my blogs.
Poor analogy. Christians believe in the Torah, even if there is no mention of Christ in them.
Actually global warming is real. It started some 15,000 years ago, finished off the glaciers, and caused sea levels to rise an estimated 400-460 feet. Most of this was finished by about 5,000 years ago; sea levels have risen maybe 30 feet since that time.
That's where a lot of our prime 10,000 year old sites are, under water offshore where they are really hard to get at.
I'll bet that was when humankind started to use fire! See! Global warming is the fault of humans!
You seem to be knowledgeable about this evolution stuff. Perhaps you can help me with two things that have always seemed a little "off" about evolution to me.
A. If evolution is a slow process occuring over millions of years where are all the transitionary species in the fossil record?
You can make a good case for evolution within major grouping such as 'fish, 'bird', 'reptile', etc., but where are all of the 'fish in the process of becoming amphibians'and 'reptiles in the process of becoming birds', fossils?
Since evolution is a process, it would seem logical to deduce that 'pure' fish, birds, etc. ought to be mere tiny waypoints on the evolutionary spectrum, and that the fossil record ought to consist almost entirely of transitionary species.
B. Why aren't we seeing a lot of evolution going on right now? There doesn't seem to be any particular scientific reason why this should not be happening.
The only example that I have heard of is the 'walking catfish'. Shouldn't we be up to our eyeballs in 'evolving' creatures? Shouldn't we be seeing all sort of creatures in various states of evolving? Yet all we see are the same old 'insects', 'fish', 'birds', 'reptiles'.
Perhaps evolution is waiting for its Einstein to come along to advance it beyond Darwin's Newton.
I'll bet that was when humankind started to use fire! See! Global warming is the fault of humans!
There is some evidence of fire use going back at least 500,000 years (Peking Man).
My guess on the periodic glacial/warming episodes is they are related to natural phenomena, such as cyclical output of the sun, fluctuations in the earths angles, etc.
Humans may be contributing a bit now, but that may just hold off the next ice age. At this point we don't have enough information to start tossing trillions of dollars around at possible solutions. Perhaps we should instead be tossing billions at getting some hard data so we know which way to jump.
There are a few others I can think of. The platypus -- lays eggs, but nurses its young -- come to mind.
In any case, we see the present-day snap-shot of life, not the continuous process -- certainly not the future. Also, we have an innate tendency to classify things into discrete categories.
Perhaps 50 million years from now there may be one class of animals, distinct from birds, that evolved from flightless birds. In such a case, paleontologists (of whatever intelligent species) would see penguins or ostriches as transitional species.
In other words, the world might be filled with transitional species, if only we knew what course evolution was going to take.
Humans may be contributing a bit now, but that may just hold off the next ice age.
And if we did have that ice age, the usual suspects would be blaming that on human activity.
Maybe you should actually read the Bible and what Jesus says. Y'know, like in Matthew 6, "Be ye not like the hypocrites who believe their constant repetitions will be heard."
Atheists have no alter boys, no prayers, no church establishments, no tax-exemption, no record of sex scandals, no pastors, preachers, or priests, no coming-of-age rituals like Bar Mitzvah or confirmation, no holidays, no banned books or statements about heresy and blasphemy, no record of burning witches or heretics, no public displays of prayer or piety, no holy book supposed to contain "All Truth', no recited creed, no mythological 'transubstantions', no edifices with crosses.
These are attributes of organized religion, priests and preachers with an agenda to keep being supported despite doing little productive.
Maybe you are ignorant of the reason cult doctrines are not succeeding is because cults are not actually accepting the Gospel.
As for the rest, well, it depends on the denomination of atheism. Certainly communism fit many of the descriptions of an atheist faith and had many of the attributes you list.
A. If evolution is a slow process occuring over millions of years where are all the transitionary species in the fossil record?
You can make a good case for evolution within major grouping such as 'fish, 'bird', 'reptile', etc., but where are all of the 'fish in the process of becoming amphibians'and 'reptiles in the process of becoming birds', fossils?
First, evolution is a slow process, but it is not a uniform process. The human/ape split is a good example. Something like six+ million years ago the forests of Africa were shrinking and the grasslands were expanding. Apes were getting squeezed by the reduced habitat. One group of apes gradually adapted to the forest edges, then the grasslands. We are descended from that group.
They changed considerably in the ensuing six million years, as they had to adapt to new and different conditions and environments, while the groups that remained in the forests changed but little--they were already adapted to their environment.
Since evolution is a process, it would seem logical to deduce that 'pure' fish, birds, etc. ought to be mere tiny waypoints on the evolutionary spectrum, and that the fossil record ought to consist almost entirely of transitionary species.
You are entirely correct. All species are transitionals, and I don't know what a "pure" species would be. Even within a species there is considerable variation. Skin color is an example; within our species there is a large range, with most folks pretty well adapted to the area in which they live. But within each group there is a range as well. If the climate changes, some within each population are better suited than others, and tend to do better.
But because the process of evolution is generally slow, we don't really see it in most large critters. Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics in a few decades, as they have a much shorted generation span. For the larger mammals, most look quite a bit like their parents. Where you can see some real evolution is in what are called ring species, where, as an example, a species living around a high mountain changes gradually from area to area, until the two endpoints which meet on the other side are no longer interfertile, although going in the other direction each group is interfertile with the adjacent group (google "ring species" for some fascinating reading).
B. Why aren't we seeing a lot of evolution going on right now? There doesn't seem to be any particular scientific reason why this should not be happening.
Again, you are correct. Evolution is ongoing all around us. But its real slow, and we just have too short an attention span! We look at change over decades as slow, while evolution looks at millenia and beyond for most changes.
But, we may be in the process of losing our third molars! As we have shifted from tough natural plant products to softer agricultural and processed foods, the chewing muscles have become smaller, the face and jaw have become smaller, and the teeth get less interproximal wear (wear between adjacent teeth). So, when the third molars erupt, sometimes there is not enough room and some people get serious dental problems. This is enough natural selection that those without third molars may have a tiny advantage over those with third molars worldwide. Give it 50,000 years or so and you might just see the third molars become rare.
Shouldn't we be up to our eyeballs in 'evolving' creatures? Shouldn't we be seeing all sort of creatures in various states of evolving? Yet all we see are the same old 'insects', 'fish', 'birds', 'reptiles'.
But each of these is halfway from its ancestors to its descendants! We can see many of the ancestor, but we can't tell what the descendants may look like. That's half the fun!
Aye, sure and it hath so done! For the article is dated "5/27/08 | PAUL JOHNSON". I see you figured out how to unwarp higher dimensionalia membranes. Care to share the trick?
"Tripe alert! Don't need to read any farther."
Excellent example of one of Johnson's points:"...denying a hearing to anyone who disagrees with them. " Thank you.
To repeat my point:
In the first main paragraph: Darwinian fundamentalists, and they cling to their absolutist position with all the unyielding certitude with which Southern Baptists assert the literal truth of the Book of Genesis, or Wahabi Muslims proclaim the need for a universal jihad against ‘the Great Satan’. At a revivalist meeting of Darwinians two or three years ago...Anyone who starts out using loaded language such as that can expect to lose a lot of their readers very quickly. That is not balanced writing, and it quickly exposes the authors' biases.
Those who use logic and reason, rather than invective and hyperbole, do better at convincing their adversaries.
That could be, yes. I notice he didn't even mention any of the standard ID books either. I'm thinking more of that standard anti-atheist argument that a universe that's neutral & dispassionate with respect to our fate is necessarily bleak & horrifying.
And those who fully read material that offers viewpoints opposite their own often learn something; assuming, of course, they are open to learning and not close minded.
No...it's just showing what hypocrites and phoneys they really are.
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