UPDATE: Apologies all, but I just have to shut down the comments on this on because of the f**king spammers. Thanks all for the comments. I do want to respond to some and will do so in a separate post. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to comment further, please email me and I will put the comment in the post. Again, apologies but I don't have enough time to deal with the maggot-felchers.
Oh please. Here we go again. I'll grant that it's a rather more creative than the usual anti-Darwin rot, but it's still rot and I'm disappointed to see it linked (seemingly approvingly) by Ed Driscoll and Orrin Judd.
This is between bites of lunch, so apologies if it's a bit disjointed. [Quick update: Jill Fallon, at least, looks at it a little more closely and while I still disagree with her religious outlook on the moral questions, at least she's not libeling Darwin - and thanks to her first commenter Andy Alford for a tip to look at Project Gutenberg for some answers; I shall do so, time permitting (he agrees that Darwin did not write the more appalling things) MORE: See update at end of post]
Driscoll I don't know about, but I'm pretty sure the Brothers Judd are adherents to Intelligent Design. Fine, I consider it wrong and unscientific but otherwise I have no particular beef with its fans. But this is just too far off the deep end:
The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racismGiven what follows, I'd have guessed counselor to Huckleberry.Tony Campolo is professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University and served as pastoral counselor to former President Clinton
Many who support the separation of church and state say that the intelligent design theory of creation ought not to be taught in public schools because it contains a religious bias. They dislike its suggestion that the evolutionary development of life was not the result of natural selection, as Charles Darwin suggested, but was somehow given purposeful direction and, by implication, was guided by God.That's a little too simplistic but it's essentially right. The Darwinian model is the basic unifying model for biology, and as such, is the model to teach even if it is not "correct" in some absolute sense (and I don't believe Darwin's original formulation is "correct" in an absolute sense). It is the starting point, just as we still teach Newtonian ("wrong") physics before moving on to relativity.Arguing for what they believe is a nonprejudicial science, they contend that children in public schools should be taught Darwin's explanation of how the human race evolved, which they claim is value-free and depends solely on scientific evidence.
In terms of science, Darwin's account may be solid indeed. But value free? Nothing could be further from the truth - and that's where the problem lies.Hold on, kids, it's going to be a loopy ride.
Some creationists fear Darwin because his theories contradict their literal biblical belief that creation occurred in six 24-hour days.Of course, there are also the theories of geology, chemistry, and physics. Can't lay everything at Darwin's feet.
But they do not get at the real dangers of Darwinism. They do not realize that an explanation of the development of biological organisms over eons of time really does not pose the great threat to the dignity of our humanity that they suppose. Instead, they, along with the rest of us, should really fear the ethical implications of Darwin's original writings.What "ethical" implications? The theory of how we got where we are says NOTHING about how we treat each other.
In reality, those writings express the prevalent racism of the 19th century ...Racism practiced by both proponents and opponents of Darwin's theories
...and endorse an extreme laissez-faire political ideology that legitimizes the neglect of the suffering poor by the ruling elite.It endorses NOTHING political. Darwin was, IIRC, a political Whig, i.e., a liberal. That's not to say he wasn't racist. He almost certainly was, just like pretty much every white person in the 19th century.
But hold on, it's about to get really stupid:
Those who argue at school board meetings that Darwin should be taught in public schools seldom have taken the time to read him. If they knew the full title of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, they might have gained some inkling of the racism propagated by this controversial theorist.Those "races" in the subtitle have nothing to do with the concept of "race" as used for humans. It refers (rather obviously, I might add) to genetic variants that fit their local environment better than others.
Had they actually read Origin, they likely would be shocked to learn that among Darwin's scientifically based proposals was the elimination of "the negro and Australian peoples," which he considered savage races whose continued survival was hindering the progress of civilization.Okay, I'll 'fess up right here and note that I have not read all of the book. It's a ponderous and dense tome, even by Victorian standards. But knowing that Darwin did not dare suggest similar origins for man until his later book, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is utter crap. A number of 19th century scientists (and non-scientists) did try to pervert Darwin's theories in this way, but I have never seen it alleged that Darwin himself proposed elimination of anyone simply because they were of a "lower" race. In fact, Darwin reminded himself in his notebooks to never say "higher" or "lower" because "favored" or "more fit" has only to do with fitness for the local environment.
In his next book, The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin ranked races in terms of what he believed was their nearness and likeness to gorillas. Then he went on to propose the extermination of races he "scientifically" defined as inferior. If this were not done, he claimed, those races, with much higher birthrates than "superior" races, would exhaust the resources needed for the survival of better people, eventually dragging down all civilization.Once again, I can't directly answer the specifics. Possibly he did write this though I still doubt that he would have written something quite so silly, given that his theory was so adamantly mechanistic that such human intervention in the natural course of things would be entirely unnecessary.Darwin even argued that advanced societies should not waste time and money on caring for the mentally ill, or those with birth defects. To him, these unfit members of our species ought not to survive.
But that's still not as bad as this descent into a Biological Godwin's Law:
In case you think Darwin sounds like a Nazi, there is a connection.Jeebus wept.
Darwin's ideas were complicit in the rise of Nazi ideas.That statement is about as meaningful as claiming that Richard Wagner was complicit in the rise of Nazi ideas.
Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson, in her insightful essay on Darwin, points out that the German nationalist and anti-Semitic writer Heinrich von Treitschke and the biologist Ernst Haeckel also drew on Darwin's writings to justify racism, nationalism and harsh policies toward the poor and less privileged.A lot of non-Germans did the same. And a lot of proponents of German Nationalism, informed by the perverted concept of "Social Darwinism" also opposed the Nazis.
Oh, and you left out Nietzsche, dude.
Although these men's lives much predated Hitler's rise to power, their ideas were very influential as he developed the racist ideas that led to the Holocaust.Developed racist ideas? As if there were no anti-Semitism in Germany and all the rest of Europe for nearly two thousand years before Hitler.
Konrad Lorenz, a biologist who belonged to the Nazi Office for Race Policy and whose work supported Nazi theories of "racial hygiene," made Darwin's theories the basis for his reasoning.Because, of course, until Darwin came along nobody ever tried "racial hygiene", and only a committed Darwinian could justify racism.
On the other hand, I seem to recall a group that specifically rejected all Darwinism in its approach to biology. How did that turn out?
I hope our schoolchildren will be taught that it is up to science to study the processes that gave birth to the human race.Which you just said you didn't want to do.
But, as postmodern as it may be, I also want them to learn that whatever science discovers about our biological origins, there is, nevertheless, a mystical quality in human beings that makes each of us sacred and of infinite worth.Jeebus. Maybe Huckleberry's been counseling him.
Regardless of how we got here, we should recognize that there is an infinite qualitative difference between the most highly developed ape and each and every human being. Darwin never recognized this disjuncture.This dolt probably doesn't even realize how this part of his argument contradicts his earlier claims about Darwin's racism. If there is no such qualitative difference, it makes little sense to claim some "races" are closer to apes.
And once again, I'm reminded of another group, one which also claims there is no qualitative difference between people and apes, one for whom "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."
And that is why his theories are dangerous.And Lord knows we must always crush "dangerous" ideas, just like the Nazis did, because we are good, freedom-loving people.
Look, folks, if you want to argue the merits of Darwinian theory, please do. Just don't try to drag Hitler into it, 'k? Because everyone knows he was Wagner's fault
And now, I need to go bleach my brain.
LAST UPDATE: Confirmed that Darwin did not write those things, at least I can't find them in the Gutenberg downloads (possible my searches were not exhaustive, of course). I highlighted (bold italic) three passages above which are confirmed as flat out wrong or lies.
1. "elimination of the negro and Australian peoples" - This is a flat out lie. No such statement appears in Origin.
2. "he went on to propose the extermination of races he 'scientifically' defined as inferior" - Another flat out lie. In Descent, Darwin does make a statement that "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world", but this is merely an expectation, not a proposal. Check the entire context of the passage, if you doubt me. As for the rest of the highlighted passage, I can find no such statement whatsoever that Darwin made such a claim about birthrates and exhausting resources. Such claims, however, were made later by the progressive eugenicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
3. "advanced societies should not waste time and money on caring for the mentally ill, or those with birth defects" - As stated, this is a flat-out lie. Darwin did state that our concern with weaker members of society might be deleterious on society, in an evolutionary sense, but that "Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature ...We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind". Entire passage reproduced below, so that there is no question that Darwin ever suggested such a thing as abandoning the weak:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.
"Many who support the separation of church and state say that the intelligent design theory of creation ought not to be taught in public schools because it contains a religious bias. They dislike its suggestion that the evolutionary development of life was not the result of natural selection, as Charles Darwin suggested, but was somehow given purposeful direction and, by implication, was guided by God."
I think this is wrong too. As far as I know, ID does not deny natural selection. It says it's not the whole story. Which, as you point out, it's not. Darwin didn't know about endosymbiosis. I predict that in future generations (if mankind is alive, if woman has survived) our E. coli symbionts that provide Vitamin K for us will have become one with their hosts and will no more be able to be cultured separately than our mitochondria are.
Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) at February 12, 2008 04:11 PMi understand how people can believe in ID and the theory of creation but you always have to come back to the the scientific fact . you can not teach children to believe in something that is simply not true. you can only teach children about facts. you can teach children about religions and their beliefs and teach them not to be ignorant to it but to ignore the facts you are simply teaching children counterknowledge and a world that works by this will lose track of reality.
Posted by: monkey at February 12, 2008 06:30 PMMonkey, some nights, I wonder if the world (or at least a statistically significant portion of it) has lost track of reality. It's not that ID is wrong, it's that it can not be proven or disproven scientifically. You want to teach it in a philosophy class? Fine. But keep it the fuck out of biology. That is not where it belongs.
Fuck. Is it Friday yet?
Posted by: KG at February 12, 2008 07:25 PMI wish
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at February 12, 2008 08:04 PMI think there's one aspect of ID that can and possibly should be taught in science class because it actually has the potential of advancing science.
When IDer's point out what they believe to be an irreducibly complex feature, such as the way an eyeball works or the clotting of blood, that forces irritated evolutionary biologists to flesh out their ideas in order to explain those things. You remember that cartoon where the one guy has the symbols and equations all over the chalkboard, right in the middle it says "And then a miracle occurs", and the other guy is saying, "I think you need to be more explicit about step 2." ID may be forcing these people to be more explicit, which is a good thing because it increases the body of knowledge. Science can't be afraid of being challenged and having questions asked.
Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) at February 13, 2008 05:23 AMBut ID is not necessary to ask those questions, any good biology student should ask those questions. A big part of science is a scientist saying, "I don't know, let's go find out." And then spending a career trying to figure out the answer.
What, I think, annoys so many biologists (or just people like me who aren't biologists) is that the IDers ask a question and when a scientist says, "I don't know", the IDers jump in with an answer that, again, can not be proven or disproven scientifically.
Posted by: KG at February 13, 2008 08:48 AM"That which does not kill my theory only makes it stronger"
Interesting parallel: Most of what is known about the internal workings of stars came from the Steady-State believers trying to disprove the Big Bang theory.
Another interesting parallel: At least some of the Steady-State adherents were driven by a determinined atheism; Big Bang smacked a little too much of "creation" for their tastes.
I've always found that amusing.
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at February 13, 2008 09:03 AMAnd interestingly enough, one of the local Baptist churches here once had on their billboard what was basically a ridiculing of the Big Bang theory, because they felt it was too atheistic.
Posted by: ricki at February 13, 2008 10:00 AMI have some issues with ID, in the most part because of that "Then a miracle occured" bit that Laura mentions from the cartoon. The ID folks seem to hang their entire argument on that peg - but it's a peg that whittles a little more each year. Soon that whole blank space shall be filled in and then what? To my thinking, evolution itself is a miracle, and understanding it a bit more each passing year doesn't change who's behind it.
We of the religious persuasion ultimately do nobody a favor by pretending that God is only about mysteries and scientifically impossible things. It's actually insulting to all concerned. As an example, it's miraculous that anyone can survive terrible injuries thanks to medical discoveries - so how much more miraculous that such things were invented and then just left lying around for millenia for one species to eventually discover and apply?
God is the God of miracles, but they don't stop being miraculous just because we can learn how they work, and learn to duplicate the results. That rather tells me that God (who is, after all, called Father in many traditions) is trusting his children with more and more as they mature. (Whether we use those gifts to destroy ourselves in our adolescence or eventually settle down is another question.)
Posted by: nightfly at February 13, 2008 11:22 AMPlus, if you believe God could make a full-grown man, i.e., Adam, then it isn't such a big stretch to think he could make a full-grown earth (with all that that entails) too.
Posted by: Lisa at February 13, 2008 02:23 PM"But ID is not necessary to ask those questions, any good biology student should ask those questions. A big part of science is a scientist saying, 'I don't know, let's go find out.' And then spending a career trying to figure out the answer."
KG, you're right, of course. ID isn't necessary to ask those questions but it is asking them, when apparently no one else has yet. And the questions deserve a thoughtful answer, not "you're a stupid young-earth creationist poopyhead" which is all IDers frequently get.
Also, a lot of the controversy isn't about what's taught to biology student, it's about what's taught to high school students, most of whom aren't going to go on to study biology, and almost all of whom are looking out the window and thinking about the weekend anyway. I suspect the kids would be more interested in listening to the nuances of what they get of evolutionary theory if the teachers were allowed to touch on the controversy. Isn't controversy more interesting than being told that everything was figured out by people smarter than you before you were even born, and all that's left for you to do is memorize it? As to "science is about asking questions", the ID debate is a very clear example of that.
Nightfly, you've pointed out the reason why a lot of people who believe in a creator God reject ID: it puts God in the box of those irreducibly complex features, so that when those mechanisms are figured out, the boxes inevitably get smaller and smaller.
Finally, I'd like to point out something about this statement "It's not that ID is wrong, it's that it can not be proven or disproven scientifically." I've seen this expressed a lot. When I was in school, we were taught, as people are taught now, that sickle cell is prevalent among populations that arose in certain areas of Africa and around the Mediterranean because sickle cell trait confers immunity against malaria. After the mutation occurred randomly in somebody, that person's DNA was able to pass along preferentially because more of their children didn't die. Eventually, of course, the gene had such high frequency in the population that people with the trait started having children together and that wasn't so nice. Anyway, that's the story and it makes a lot of sense. I sign onto it myself. But it is just an idea and it cannot be proven.
Then we all heard about how giraffes started out with regular necks, only the ones whose necks were a bit longer got to eat more leaves; in periods of decreased plant growth that was important, so the long-neck attribute was favored and over countless generations we got what you see today at the zoo. Of course I am oversimplifying. The point is, you don't find fossils of ever-increasing age and ever-shortening necks. There's no reason why you should, of course, and the fact that the fossils aren't there doesn't mean giraffe necks didn't come about exactly that way. They probably did. But you can't prove it. There's absolutely no evidence to back it up. You can't duplicate it in the laboratory. It's purest speculation.
Ditto, primordial soup. There are no puddles of that soup left anywhere on the planet that can be tested. It's put forth that the soup somehow had just the right amounts of exactly the right atoms and molecules floating around, and then lightning struck - a miracle occurred! - and then amino acids, etc. How do we know what was in this soup? Well, it had to be like this and that for life to occur, so that was undoubtedly how it was. My daughter tells me she learned about primordial soup in her high school biology class. I don't really have a problem with speculation about giraffes, malaria, and the primordial soup being shared with high schoolers, but then I don't have a problem with them being exposed to the idea of intelligent design either.
If science teachers had to confine themselves to PROVEN FACTS then textbooks would be a lot shorter.
Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) at February 13, 2008 04:59 PMFirst of all, I'm not myself an ID'er. When I first encountered the term almost a decade ago, I was intrigued by it, because at the time it had a much simpler, broader definition than the one that has... evolved. But I do not subscribe to the agenda set forth by those who now rally to that particular banner.
On the OTHER hand, I do understand and share the concern they have which prompts them to act as they do, much as I disagree with where they go with that.
The problem with ID that many have, and which I share, is that they blur the line between science and religion. All science can do is describe the physical processes and reactions that take the matter and energy in the universe from one state to another -- it cannot prove or disprove that a supernatural, outside force is at work in causing those processes to occur. ID'ers try to penetrate that barrier, and they cannot.
However, the same criticism can be made of many atheists in how they present evolution. To state unequivocally that evolution "Just Happened", that everything from the Big Bang until now is the result of a series of random events with no outside cause, is to attempt, on behalf of atheism, to do exactly what ID'er's are attempting to do -- to make science support your religion, to use the natural to prove your views on the supernatural.
Science can't, the natural can't. It can say "This happens/happened". It can't tell us why. And if that is the way evolution was taught, I'd be ok with it.
The problem is, it ISN'T. I've been around atheistic evolutionists, I've read them in discussions like this, I've listened to them lecture in class, I've heard them narrate and talk in documentaries, and they almost always -- if not always -- insist on tying evolution to atheism.
I know that there are those here who are not as religious as I, and are far more fair-minded, so please don't take what I've said as a personal attack. But the sad fact is, you're not the ones, for the most part, being given a voice or say in what we're taught, what our children are taught. And until I hear you as vociferously demanding that the evolution that is taught in public schools be as devoid of atheism as it is of ID'ism and theism, I have to conclude that your attack on ID'ers is less about defending pure science, and more about making sure it's not your ox that gets gored.
Posted by: Boy Named sous at February 13, 2008 05:50 PMLaura and Brian: Well said. I have some responses but they will have to wait until later this evening or early tomorrow.
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at February 13, 2008 05:58 PMJury's still out for me on the whole theory, but getting back to the main point, it really annoyed me to see "the other 'N' word" trotted out so quickly.
Posted by: Kate P at February 13, 2008 08:21 PM"the other 'N' word" - excellent!
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at February 14, 2008 05:36 AMWell, spammers are definitely an argument AGAINST intelligent design...
Posted by: nightfly at February 14, 2008 06:49 AMYeah, been fighting of those maggot-felching bastards since last night
Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at February 14, 2008 06:57 AM