Darwin, Alone, Is Not Enough
Ben Stein’s movie Expelled has generated lots of commentary, most of it negative. Many have claimed that it is obscurantist and hostile to science, a veritable first shot in a wider war against knowledge. Despite employing the same type of techniques that garnered Michael Moore an Oscar (and much critical acclaim), it has a 9% positive rating at rottentomatoes.com, the sort of rating generally earned only by slasher films and the like. Curious about a movie that has generated such hostility, I went and saw it, and discovered an effective polemic that, while propagandistic and one-sided, also provided food for thought. In fact, the movie focused far more on the problem posed to science by the rise of obstreperous atheists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers than on critiques of evolution.
The notion that Stein’s movie poses a threat to science is vastly overblown. Although Stein and his confreres do not accept one result of scientific thinking, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, there is no suggestion in the movie--notwithstanding some of the outlandish comments Stein has made in interviews--that there is anything wrong with science per se. And the claim that Darwin is central to the modern scientific enterprise is far-fetched. A friend who is a research scientist with a Ph.D. in Fluid and Thermal Science wrote me after we discussed the movie that whatever might be true for biologists and paleontologists, “Even a dim knowledge of the theory of evolution is completely unnecessary to the study of most of the other physical sciences (not to mention most of all other fields).” Darwin is quite superfluous to physics, chemistry, astronomy, medicine, and engineering, not to mention economics and politics. In fact, the best president of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan, was critical of Darwinism, as was the best presidential candidate since Reagan, Pat Buchanan. Concluding that people who reject Darwin because of their reading of Christianity are stupid, as Stein’s detractors tend to do, is itself rather dumb.
It is equally misguided to conclude that skepticism of Darwin means skepticism of science in general. One can be both skeptical of Darwin and grateful to Pasteur. Indeed, no one is making movies critical of Avogadro’s number, Planck’s constant, the Krebs cycle, the first law of thermodynamics, or any other scientific concept one can think of. Americans think highly of scientists and science, on which they lavish billions of their tax dollars each year without demurral.
What worries many Americans about Darwin is not a generalized worry about science, but a concern that Darwinism entails atheism and worries over its social and political implications. Of course, this first concern is being exacerbated by the likes of Dawkins and Myers, who show up in Stein’s movie denouncing religion as a “primitve superstition” and saying that religion should occupy a position comparable to knitting, as a hobby enjoyed by a few but having no impact on society or culture. So much for Bach and Michelangelo. In the movie, both men also advocate using science to combat religion, a subject that regularly excites them to paroxysms of hatred, as with Dawkins’ claim that religious education of children is a form of “child abuse” and Myers’ recent denunciation of Benedict XVI as a “sanctimonious monster.” Quite a contrast to the agnostic Charles Murray, who concluded after his exhaustive study of human accomplishment that “it was the transmutation of [the classical] intellectual foundation by Christianity that gave modern Europe its impetus and that pushed European accomplishment so far ahead of all other cultures around the world” and who told Reason magazine in an interview about his book that “the most foolish of all religious beliefs is confident atheism.”
And there is no doubt that what Dawkins and Myers are peddling is an alternative religion. In the movie, Dawkins says he does not know what caused life to first come forth (though he speculates that aliens may have seeded life throughout the cosmos), but he is certain God had nothing to do with it. Myers has attacked Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, who has defended Darwinism in court but has also explained why Darwin is consistent with his Catholicism, as a ”creationist." This isn’t science, it’s a dogmatic insistence that no scientist may ever state that he sees evidence of God in nature. And a foolish dogmatism, if the goal of Dawkins and Myers is to advance Darwinism. As Steve Sailer observed in his seminal article ”Darwin’s Enemies on the Right,” “Darwin seems to lose out with the public primarily when his supporters force him into a mano-a-mano Thunderdome death match against the Almighty. Most people seem willing to accept Darwinism so long as they don’t have to believe in nothing but Darwinism.” Those eager to defend Darwin from Stein would be well advised to save some of their ammunition for Dawkins and Myers and the like, who are doing more damage to Darwin than Stein ever could.
Public reluctance to believe in “nothing but Darwinism” is also understandable. One of the academics featured in Expelled is a Cornell university professor who tells Stein that when he came to believe in Darwin, he lost his belief in God, morality, and free will, and that he intended to blow his brains out if his brain tumor (which was in remission) came back. It is very easy to see how people who embrace nihilism end up advocating violence, and there probably is no more controversial section of Stein’s movie than the portion focusing on Nazism. Unfortunately for Stein’s critics, it was Rudolf Hess, not Ben Stein, who declared that “National Socialism is nothing but applied biology.” The book upon which Stein based this section of the movie, historian Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler, was well-reviewed by historians at such fundamentalist hotbeds as Cambridge and Yale. Indeed, as Edward T. Oakes S. J. argued in his review of Wiekart’s book, it is not hard to see a similarity between Darwin’s pronouncement in Descent of Man that “At some future period...the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races” and Hitler’s pronouncement in Mein Kampf that “A stronger race will supplant the weaker, since the drive for life in its final form will decimate every ridiculous fetter of the so-called ‘humaneness’ of individuals, in order to make place for the true ‘humaneness of nature,’ which destroys the weak to make place for the strong.” Even Richard Dawkins has expressed skepticism of the social implications of Darwinism, telling Austria’s Die Presse on July 30, 2005 that “No decent person wants to live in a society that works according to Darwinian laws....A Darwinian society would be a fascist state.”
Of course, none of this makes Darwinism false. And the notion that a belief in Darwin necessarily leads to Nazism is absurd. But it does help explain the public’s reluctance to believe in “nothing but Darwinism.” Many distinguished conservatives have argued that the atrocities of the 20th century show the need for religion. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn concluded that the horror that befell Russia came about because “men have forgotten God.” Walker Percy, whose last novel The Thanatos Syndrome explored the connection between the Nazi eugenics program and the euthanasia and abortion of today, stated that “I tried to show how, while truth should prevail, it is a disaster when only one kind of truth prevails at the expense of another. If only one kind of truth prevails--the abstract and technical truth of science--then nothing stands in the way of a demeaning of and a destruction of human life for what appears to be reasonable short term goals.”
Stein’s movie falls far short of the wisdom of Solzhenitsyn and Percy. Aside from a brief interview with Anglican priest and scientist John Polkinghorne, there is little in the movie dealing with how science and religion complement each other. I am persuaded of the wisdom of scientists such as Kenneth Miller, who see no contradiction between Christianity and Darwin. (Indeed, a survery of scientists in my native Ohio showed that 84% saw no contradiction between God and Darwin). In fact, I agree with Steve Sailer that Darwinism can buttress conservatism by showing that there is a human nature, and that utopian programs which don’t take human nature into account are doomed to failure. But Darwin alone is not enough. The American public is not willing to believe in Darwin alone, and Darwin alone can lead to a dangerous nihilism. What is needed is a recognition that both science and religion have been indispensable to the rise of the West, and the West cannot survive without one or the other. As the Polish cosmologist and priest Michael Heller declared after winning this year’s Templeton Prize, “Science gives us Knowledge, and religion gives us Meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence.” To which I can only add, “Amen.”
Comments
When I read thru scriptures I find that Jesus was trained by the magi and was well aware of sacred geometry and the movement of the stars and earth. He was even aware of precession.
I also am not aware that Darwin ever discarded GOD. Einstein didnt either. But there is some falsity in the Expelled movie that must be addressed.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know
1) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust.
When the film is building its case that Darwin and the theory of evolution bear some responsibility for the Holocaust, Ben Stein’s narration quotes from Darwin’s The Descent of Man thusly:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized 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. Thus the weak members of civilized 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. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
This is how the original passage in The Descent of Man reads (unquoted sections emphasized in italics):
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized 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 civilized 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 anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The producers of the film did not mention the very next sentences in the book (emphasis added in italics):
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.
Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the “weak” as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled’s argument. The filmmakers had to be aware of the full Darwin passage, but they chose to quote only the sections that suited their purposes.
See the link for the other 5 things that the movie did not tell.
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So why did GOD give man a mind that would be able to invent things..to harness electricity, to create computers, which Piatak is using, to create aircraft that people of all races and religion flys upon, to create weapons that would destroy mankind itself?
As for Darwin, the Ape to man theory was debunked some time ago and why people still engage, and apply this theorum, broad brush syle, to others is beyond me.
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“When I read thru scriptures I find that Jesus was trained by the magi and was well aware of sacred geometry and the movement of the stars and earth. He was even aware of precession. “
Cite the book, the chapter, and the verse of the Bible where you read any of that.
The Magi show up *once,* in Christ’s infancy. They do no “training.” Where does
He refer to precession?
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Cite the book, the chapter, and the verse of the Bible where you read any of that.
The Magi show up *once,* in Christ’s infancy. They do no “training.” Where does
He refer to precession?
Where he speaks of the next ‘house’ after his. There are many references to geometry such as with 153 fish. Vesica Piscis. And I was not referring solely to the bible, as you suppose.
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In the Book of Matthew, The Bible says God spoke to the magi in a dream. The magi did obey God’s will, and saved the life of Jesus by not telling King Herod where they had found him through the use of Astrology. If Jesus knew GOD he surely knew of the heavens.
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In the course of Precession, about 255 B.C. , the vernal birthplace passed into the sign [house] of the Fishes, and the Messiah who had been represented for 2155 years by the Ram or Lamb, and previously for other 2155 years by the Apis Bull [the golden bull smashed by moses], was now imaged as the Fish, or the “Fish-man,” called Ichthys in Greek.
Ever notice the fishmouth headgear [Dagon] worn by the pope?
In the Gospel of Matthew, 13:47-50, Jesus compares God’s decision on who will go to heaven or to hell ("the fiery furnace") at the end of this world to fishers sorting out their catch, keeping the good fish and throwing the bad fish away.
In the Gospel of John, 21:11, it is related that the disciples fished all night but caught nothing. Jesus instructed them to cast the nets on the other side of the boat, and they drew in 153 fish. It has been observed that, like many other numbers given in the Bible, this number is associated with a mystic property, in this case the vertical ratio of the vesica piscis.[citation needed]
A less commonly cited use of fish in Christ’s life may be found in the words of Matthew 17:24-27, in which, upon being asked if his Teacher does not pay the temple (two-drachma) tax, Simon Peter answers, “Yes.” Christ tells Peter to go to the water and cast a line. He says that a coin sufficient for the tax will be found in the fish’s mouth. Peter does as told, and does find the coin.-wikipedia
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Jet. I don’t know whose eisegesis you are relying upon but I think this excerpt from Catena Aurea is far closer to an accurate exegesis.
++++++++++ begin quotes +++++++++
THEOPHYL. To show that it was no vision, He bade them take of the fish they had caught. Jesus says to them, Bring of the fish which you have now caught.
Another miracle follows of viz. that the net was not broken by the number of fish: Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.
AUG. Mystically, in the draught of fishes He signified the mystery of the Church, a such as it will be at the final resurrection of the dead. And to make this clearer, it is put near the end of the book. The number seven, which is the number of the disciples who were fishing, signifies the end of time; for time is counted by periods of seven days.
THEOPHYL. In the night time before the presence of the sun, Christ, the Prophets took nothing; for though they endeavored to correct the people, yet these often fell into idolatry.
GREG. It may be asked, why after His resurrection He stood on the shore to receive the disciples, whereas before He walked on the sea? The sea signifies the world, which is tossed about with various causes of tumults, and the waves of this corruptible life; the shore by its solidity figures the rest eternal. The disciples then, inasmuch as they were still upon the waves of this mortal life, were laboring on the sea; but the Redeemer having by His resurrection thrown off the corruption of the flesh, stood upon the shore.
AUG. The shore is the end of the sea, and therefore signifies the end of the world. The Church is here typified as she will be at the end of the world, just as other draughts of fishes typified her as she is now. Jesus before did not stand on the shore, but went into a ship which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land.
In a former draught the nets are not thrown to the right, or to the left, so that the good or the bad should be typified alone, but indifferently: Let down your nets for a draught, meaning that the good and bad were mixed together. But here it is, Cast the net on the right side of the ship; to signify those who should stand on the right hand, the good. The one our Lord did at the beginning of His ministry, the other after His resurrection, strewing therein that the former draught of fishes signified the mixture of bad and good, which composes the Church at present; the latter the good alone, which it will contain in eternity, when the world is ended, and the resurrection of the dead completed.
But they who belong to the resurrection of life, i.e. to the right hand, and are caught within the net of the Christian name, shall only appear on the shore, i.e. at the end of the world, after the resurrection: wherefore they were not able to draw the net into the ship, and unload the fishes, as they were before. The Church keeps these of the right hand, after death, in the sleep of peace, as it were in the deep, till the net come to shore. That the first draught was taken in two little ships, the last two hundred cubits from land, a hundred and a hundred, typifies, I think, the two classes of elect, circumcised and uncircumcised.
++++++++ end quotes +++++++++
Back in the day I was learnt the #153 referred to all the known countries of the world signifying the Catholicity, Unity, and Integrity (net won’t break)of the Divinely-Constituted Catholic Church.
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When I read thru scriptures
When you reference scripture, most people will assume you mean the Bible, as the terms are used interchangeably.
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Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the “weak” as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled’s argument.
Good for Darwin. But that does not necessarily mean there is no connection between Darwin’s ideas and Hitler’s ideas. IIRC, Einstein was very much against nuclear weapons, but his work was relied upon to develop them.
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Too bad this isn’t being blogged about more.
http://www.gopcatholics.blogspot.com
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The manifest hostility of those who bristle at the suggestion that the infinite complexity of our existence is the result of an intelligence higher than their own is all about accountalbility. For to acknowledge something other than blind chance as an explanation for our existence necessarily means that we are accountable. Ergo the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, speaking of which. The Infinite God by whom all things were created is not constrained by my finite understanding. I take comfort in the fact that he knew me before I was, and that he numbers the very hairs of my head.
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I think the main challenge that evolution raises to religious belief is the doubts it raises about the concept of ensoulment.
At what point did we truly become human, meaning at what point did we gain the souls that separate us from animals? Who were Adam and Eve? Were they homo sapiens, or homo erectus, or something along the gradually evolving line between?
How can we reconcile the apparent intelligence and humanity of Neanderthals with the idea that they were essentially nothing more than animals, destined for short, cruel lives and then oblivion?
I still believe, but I find this one of the hardest questions to answer.
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My impression is that Creationists do not dispute natural selection (an observable phenomenon) bu do dispute that it could produce new species (natural selection is a conservative process which tends to preserve species rather than generate new ones). To explain this, Darwinists cite random mutation, which combined with natural selection, explains speciation. Creationists deny that any random process could produce complex organisms with multiple interdependent biological systems. They claim that almost all mutations in fact lead to the death or debility of organisms, not to greater survival.
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Yes, Jet, Jesus as God knows about the night sky. But there is nothing there about
the Magi “training” Christ. Yes, “Scripture” usually refers to the canonical Bible.
The canonical Bible does not specify anything about the Star of Bethlehem other than
that it was a star—nothing about the sign of Pisces. Nor does traditional
exegesis link 153 fish with the vesica piscis.
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This is a little too nice to everybody, and goes along with the general program of today, which is an unwillingness to make any real sacrifices, take any real stands, or make the prolonged effort (more than 20 years, and that on top of an excellent liberal education) it takes to spiritualize the intelligence and gain a comprehensive understanding of why things are the way they are.
Darwinism – pace Barfield – might be true if it were read as the evolution of consciousness (and NOT the “evolution of phenomena”) but how many people have even heard of Barfield? (Saving the Appearances, 1965 – termed by John Lukacs “one of the most important books published in the 20th century)
Whatever original scientific interest Darwin’s insights may have had, they have long been swallowed up in the program for human degeneration promoted by his followers. Consequent upon this degeneration are all the perks, prestige and entitlements of the self-described Intellectuals, along with the implicit commandment to complacency and stupefaction. After all, we are just animals, so what would be the purpose of insisting on Quality in life, art, politics, relationships, or culture? It’s all a joke and delusion. Why strive for excellence, truth, or wisdom? Why struggle to maintain laws and constraints against this same class of entitled know-it-alls? In fact, why even bother with civilization, since “evolution” has become the new determinist program, far eclipsing even astrology.
Thus has Darwinism has become the new program for the enslavement of humanity, promoted implicitly and explicitly by the New World Order and its acolytes. The idea that reaffirms “human nature” is a bitter joke. From an alienated modernism (alienated against Nature, those who believe that human beings are infinitely malleable) the opposite extreme is to flee to Darwinism. But here the price demanded is alienation from spirit, understanding, Quality, excellence, etc.
The fact ism this writer has done no serious thinking on the subject. Americans are so educationally and spiritually impoverished that the same issues come up like an endless wheel – eternal Return, eternal Darwinism, eternal mediocrity.
Wake up and smell the coffee, folks! At least start reading people who really gave this issue some substantive thought (Owen Barfield, Robert Pirsig, etc.) instead of people who just repeat the same old things.
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As one of the bitter people in Ohio, I would agree with the other 84% in my state that see no contradiction between God and Darwin. I see people (the remaining 16%) on both sides of the argument who see a contradiction. The one side (pro-Darwinism) has decided the way to win the argument is to vilify the opposition and suppress any contrary views. This same method of winning the argument has now spread to other areas such as global warming. If those on the coasts want to know why we are bitter in Ohio, it is not that we necessary agree that Darwin was wrong, but we do not like being told by the liberal elite what to think and that the debate is over.
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The Greek word “Ixthys” was used as a short-hand for Christ because its letters are the initial letters of the Greek words “Iesous Xristos Theou Yion Soteros”—“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”
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Excellent article. Some atheists are really better called antitheists: a term which at least suggests their real agenda. Perhaps they are rabidly hostile because that is the only way they can cope. Though they would never admit it, science has become their religion. And what a dismal religion it is that suggests that we are all random fluctuations without any purpose or meaning. Deep down they sense the profound limitations of science, and they are intensely annoyed that seemingly rational people can find peace through religion. At the same time, they know that they are in the minority. So they go off in their own direction hurling insults at the rest of us to try to get us to follow them, claiming to have answers which even simple-minded people rightly perceive to be no answers at all. Might not be the best persuasion tactic. They don’t grasp that people have needs which science can never address. Faith and science are mutually exclusive, and so their logical attacks against faith and religion must fail. Apparently, they will only be “happy” when we all become as cold, empty, and heartless as they are.
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Excellent review of the movie. You make an a very good point in that biological evolution is not, by definition, contrary to Judeo-Christian beliefs. The Christian Faith has never been intimidated by scientific discovery. There is no secret lying hidden under a proverbial rock that will debunk faith in God.
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Lovely article. Leave it to Mr. Piatak to add to the Darwin argument with great humor and quick whit. I am a mother of five and I know from personal experience that school children today are being taught that Darwin’s theories are truths, and as thus they are not to be brought into question. The teachers tell the students that we all came about through evolution, and any mention of God, by student or by parent, is quickly silenced and met with a petulant tone one reserves for a spoiled child. The arrogance shown by the hard-core Darwinist is almost dull and hackneyed. Its time for a new fresh discussion...Thank you Mr.Piatak and thank you Ben Stein.
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I am suspicious of the motives behind Ben Steins’s latest book.
Stein (like his well known father before him)is an extremely hardcore Zionist. I believe that this book was written specifically to reinforce the bond between the Likudniks like Stein and the fundies.
The fundies reading a book like this are bound to think that “Ben Stein thinks like we do, so we should support Israel with the same fervor as old Stein.”
And yes, I believe that Stein is actually cynical enough to believe that his book will have that desired effect. I don’t believe for a minute that he actually believes what he has written. Rather it is a tome specifically written for the unwashed, a group someone like Stein openly ridicules when he is among his fellow Likudniks.
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John Davis,
I hope I misunderstood your comments. Are you insinuating that anyone who enjoyed this film is a “fundie” and/or an “unwashed”?
Ben Stein may be Jewish, and a right-winged one at that, but it is a gross stereotype to reduce this man to being a simple minded, insular propagandist.
People who enjoy his commentary on life issues tend to be antithetic to your characterization of his target audience.
The issue at the root of the movie is Free Speech, not the Zionist Movement. If Ben Stein wants to promote Zionism, then he is more than welcome to do so. The problem with some of the Darwin Pundits interviewed in this film is that they refuse to allow Free Speech in their institutions and will shout down anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
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The conflict between religion and Darwin’s theory is the result of a misunderstanding of the word “theory” as it applies to science. Calling something a “scientific theory” is not the same as saying it’s the truth, nor does it give basis for challenging it’s veracity. A scientific theory is a mechanistic or empirical model of a phenomenon that is supported by results. Theories are valid even if they are fundamentally clueless about what they are describing. Take Newtonian physics, it’s a model that is satisfactory to explain probably 99% of phenomena that engineers have to deal with, and yet it makes absolutely no assertion about what the underlying mechanism is. Are angels moving planets around in orbits predictable by Newtonian formulae and are legions of imps stealthily managing the chaos of automobile collisions? Who cares, we know that stuff behaves in ways predictable by a set of formulae, which are approximations by the way, which we use quite effectively for everything from gravity assist maneuvers for spacecraft to specifying door latch springs.
So why is it different for Darwin’s theory of evolution? It serves as a functional model to explain biological outcomes. One’s religious sensibilities need not be offended. After all, no one proclaims cars to be evil because the engineers did not mention God once in the thousands of pages of documents that specify a car and it’s constituent parts. At the same time, using evolution to justify atheism is like using a hammer to turn a screw. Certainly evolution can be used to paint a picture without God, (although it’s unclear as to how it all got started, why it works at all at a fundamental level, etc...). However, that’s not why we have God. When someone thinks what course of action they should take as a Christian, do they think ‘I will do this because man was created by God whole’ or do they think “what would Jesus do?”. Do any of Jesus’s proverbs depend on creation for their point? Do the Ten Commandments apply any less to us if we evolved from apes or are the (necessarily inbred) descendants of Adam and Eve, and Noah?
The creationism vs. evolution argument is infantile because it misses the significance of the two views from both the religious and scientific angles. To science, evolution theory is a tool with application in biology (although genetic algorithms have also become an interesting tool for engineers). To use it as the underpinning of an atheist philosophy is to apply it to the spiritual sphere where it does not belong. To attack the theory of evolution because it offends one’s religious sensibility is likewise misguided. It’s a scientific formula, not absolute truth. Who’s to say God isn’t managing the process invisibly? It wouldn’t undermine it’s usefulness to biologists, there’s no way to prove or disprove it, it’s a moot issue.
So in conclusion, both sides are essentially exploiting the issue for publicity rather than doing anything useful, because it is an irresolvable argument about a moot and artificial point.
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Mr. Piatek, you’ve incorporated many tropes here about atheism and “Darwinism” and it appears you are not fully versed in atheists’ views, including Myers’ and Dawkins’ views. For starters, it would help if you knew how they came about being interviewed in the film.
And there is no doubt that what Dawkins and Myers are peddling is an alternative religion.
Do you expect to be taken seriously by saying they are peddling an alternative religion? There’s no religion in their views. It’s a lazy comment, don’t you think? The mistake is in thinking that anyone, including atheists, are just about science or “believe” in science. This just isn’t the way it is. Science is a process and a tool; it may inform one’s views, but it’s hardly necessary in rejecting religion.
Public reluctance to believe in “nothing but Darwinism” is also understandable.
Biologists don’t look at the theory of evolution as “Darwinism” as if Darwin is all there is about evolution. The public isn’t asked to believe in “nothing but Darwinism”; at this point Darwin isn’t needed to understand evolution. Please replace “Darwinism” with the theory of evolution. Since the Scopes Trial, especially, people associate Darwin with our sharing a common ancestor with apes. (Contrary to the poster above who falsely says that theory has been debunked while offering no evidence of that.) People don’t like this common ancestor business. They benefit from all the research of evolution in their daily lives yet want to discount how WE evolved. People tend to have this misinformed view of Darwin and the most significant aspect of his theories: natural selection.
Dawkins’ and Myers (as well as most atheists I know), do not discount religion’s past role in culture a la Bach, et al, both for good and ill.
It is very easy to see how people who embrace nihilism end up advocating violence, and there probably is no more controversial section of Stein’s movie than the portion focusing on Nazism.
Religion played a significant role in Hitler’s rise to power, no less supported by the Catholic church and Germans’ pre-Hitler dislike of Jews. Does it need to be pointed out how religion has promoted violence throughout the ages (and still today)? In the Bible no less? Does it need to be pointed out that Stalin, Mao, et al. had ideological and economic goals as well as Hitler? It is very easy to see how people who embrace religion end up advocating violence...geesh.
The American public is not willing to believe in Darwin alone, and Darwin alone can lead to a dangerous nihilism.
Again, “Darwin alone” is not what biologists or atheists promote or think. And atheism isn’t nihilism. There is no “Darwin alone” with me. It’s a bit of a silly statement. If you’re equating Darwin with science that would be incorrect too. What the public needs to understand is what is and what is not science. Intelligent Design Creationism is not science, therefore it doesn’t belong in biology classes.
Too, you may want to consider and ask why atheists seem angry. There’s no indication that you understand why. Also, the problem with Stein’s propaganda piece is that it’s chock full of lies. Bad history, bad science, including eliciting Myers’ and Dawkin’s interviews under false pretenses.
You also credit Pat Buchanan who is a known racist!
Eddie T said:
The one side (pro-Darwinism) has decided the way to win the argument is to vilify the opposition and suppress any contrary views.
* Scientists do science. Contrary views have to fall under the rigors and demands of science and the scientific method. When contrary views, such as Intelligent Design, do not even meet that criteria, they are rightly vilified. Their views haven’t been suppressed, they’ve been argued against and views such as Intelligent Design are not science. If someone comes up with a better theory than evolution - great - but it has to pass the rigors of science. Hasn’t happened yet.
This same method of winning the argument has now spread to other areas such as global warming. If those on the coasts want to know why we are bitter in Ohio, it is not that we necessary agree that Darwin was wrong, but we do not like being told by the liberal elite what to think and that the debate is over.
* So, what do you say about conservatives who agree that global warming is a problem? The “liberal elite”? Isn’t that becoming a tired phrase? Now we shall have the “conservative elite” of which many are, and as in the case with Ben Stein, many are not scientists.
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Thought about science and religion deserves better nourishment than a “one sided and propagandistic” film ‘ Unfortunately , that characterization is far too kind:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
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The scientific method has four steps
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature (more on the concepts of hypothesis, model, theory and law below). If the experiments do not bear out the hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified.
Darwin’s theory (macro-evolution) cannot be subjected to the Scientific Method because it is not repeatable. It is a philosophical argument to explain what might have occurred in the past.
Intelligent Design is far more plausible.
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Do you expect to be taken seriously by saying they are peddling an alternative religion? There’s no religion in their views. It’s a lazy comment, don’t you think? The mistake is in thinking that anyone, including atheists, are just about science or “believe” in science. This just isn’t the way it is. Science is a process and a tool; it may inform one’s views, but it’s hardly necessary in rejecting religion.
For some, this process and tool includes fundamental premises which are not self-evident, but require a leap of faith--this is the case for ‘scientists’ who are also materialists or naturalists. These premises may have no role to play in their particular research, but come to bear when they attempt to write a narrative about the bigger picture.
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You also credit Pat Buchanan who is a known racist!
“Prove it.”
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RE:
Darwin’s theory (macro-evolution) cannot be subjected to the Scientific Method because it is not repeatable. It is a philosophical argument to explain what might have occurred in the past.
Intelligent Design is far more plausible.
Why is intelligent design more plausible? I find that it’s actually somewhat trivial as a model for explaining things because it cannot be used to predict. Evolution on the other hand describes an iterative method of finding solutions which can be systematically understood and applied. In fact is applied now towards optimizing designs via genetic algorithms in engineering and breeding practices in animal husbandry.
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In fact I challenge anyone to tell me the scientific value of a theory that essentially states “Because God wills it so”. How do we apply that practically?
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Thus far,the evolutionary emergence of over 30 new species- their existence and differentiation reproducibly demonstrated by molecular biology ,leads to the falsifiable hypothesis that LarryS does not know what he is talking about, and could care less.
It is falsifiable because he is at liberty to inform himself and change his mind as the facts dictate. I look forward to the spectacle of his applying his four principles to his own teleological committment.
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Jet,
Darwin based his theory on applied Malthus: in each species far more individuals were born than available resources could support. In the ensuing struggle for existence the fittest individuals survived, and their variations were passed on to the next generation. This improved the species’ fitnes. For this evolution to happen, the unfit variations absolutely must not be passed to the species, i.e., individuals with these traits must not produce offspring. Preferably, the unfit variations should be killed, so they do not waste the resources needed for the fit to perpretuate their variations. Darwin was remarkably explicit about the brutality of this mechanism: “ . . . Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, . . . “
The quoted sentence comes from the summary of “The Evolution of Species” and it leaves no doubt about war, starvation, suffering and death being the core mechanism of evolution. In applying his theory to humans, Darwin differentiated between “primitive tribes” that evolved by killing each other and “civilized societies” that used less brutal methods of competition. However, his letters to Haeckel, whose early writings became one of the cornerstones of German eliminationist racism, strongly suggest that late in his life Darwin abandoned this distinction.
The Darwinian view of war, starvation and dying as essential for the evolution of the species collides starkly with just about all central ideas of Christian morality: 1) the core Christian virtues of humility, meekness and contentment prevent the competition necessary for Darwinian evolution to operate. Worse yet, Christianity sees the desire to compete and dominate as pride, the sin of the devil; 2) the command “Thou shalt not kill” together with the ideas of loving your enemies and not revenging wrongs prevent the fighting needed to eliminate unfit variations; 3) the emphasis on monogamous marriage as a religious duty means that just about all individuals will produce offspring. The commandment “Thou shall not commit adultery” further hinders the ability of superior individuals to produce large quantities of offspring to increase the proportion of their traits in the species; 4) the religious demand to help those in need means that most of the offspring of the “unfit variations” survive and their variations will be passed to the species.
From Darwinian perspective, it looks like Christian morality was designed to do everything wrong. This fact was noted by many people, including Hitler, who summed it nicely: “Pushed to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of human failure.” (Quoted from memory.) The “wrongness” of Christian morality naturally produced the idea that Christianity and its moral rules were an intentional plot by Jews designed to weaken the West. The earliest example of this idea I have seen is in Nietzsche. The idea became very influential, because Hitler in his later writings embraced it wholeheartedly. In his “Table Talk” Hitler repeated five diffent times the idea that Jews invented Christianity to weaken West. He also noted that this is the reason why Jews have to be eliminated.
From long-term historical perspective, there is a stunning flaw in the above reasoning: the most intensely Christian area of Europe was arguably 17th-century Puritan England. Yet, early modern England was also the same time and place that produced the most “Darwinistically successful” part of modern Western Civilization, the British Empire. Instead of weaknening the West, the strictest possible application of “Darwinistically wrong,” Judaism-originating Christian morals thus has been very closely associated with its success. Somehow social Darwinists, including Hitler, managed to overlook this historical fact. (Weber’s argument about the monastization of Western Civilization should have been widely discussed at the time. I do not know how social Darwinists dealt with Weber’s evidence. Did they just ignore it? Does any of the readers know of research done on this point?)
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Those are definitely some interesting points about the conflict between Christianity and social Darwinism, but I have to take exception with your identification of Puritan England as the most Christian nation using the definition of Christian social values you’ve outlined above.
While Catholics had a tremendous emphasis on saving the poor and performing good works as part of the path to salvation, Puritans believed that not only was it faith alone that would lead you to heaven, but that faith would also manifest itself in the form of good fortune here on earth. Therefore, if you were a prosperous and pious Puritan merchant, you were clearly on the path to salvation and could focus on your business interests rather than good deeds like helping those poor, ignorant Catholics and Anglicans begging for alms.
And the Puritans certainly weren’t too big on turning the other cheek if it involved anyone other than another Puritan (of course the same good be said for every religion of the time).
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Thus far,the evolutionary emergence of over 30 new species
Citation and definition of species, please.
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David,
The “justifying faith” of Protestantism was not a belief. After all, if believing in the existence of God and truth of the Bible were enough to make one religious, then there would be nothing wrong with the devil. The touch of grace and its associated justifying faith consisted of a through mortification of sins such as pride, envy, hatred and greed, and their replacement by virtues such as humility, contentment and love. This change in personality was so large as to be easy to notice, and only people who could point it out in their past had the justifying faith and were saved. (Note that the focus of morality was not on the social virtues of doing good to others, but on repairing flaws in one’s own personality.)
The observable personality change was well known to late medieval Catholicism. The “scales of perfection” described it as the highest level of piety a human can achieve on earth. English Protestants thus required from everybody the same piety that in the late middle ages had been limited to a small group of mostly regular clergy. This is why it seemed justified to regard 17th-century England as arguably the most intensely Christian country in Europe.
As to practical effects of these “Darwinistically wrong” morals, the English civil war was the first war where rape and pillage were not part of normal military operations. The atrocities that took place were few and far between, particularly when they are compared to 30 years war on the continent. Similarly, the English revolution never had a period of terror, when the revolutionaries would have taken revenge of their enemies. The King and a few of his close advisers were executed, but that was about it. The same forgiveness continued with the Restoration: not even all the people who had signed the King’s death-warrant were executed. In the Glorious Revolution the King was allowed to escape, and his supporters were forgiven. From that time on, mortality in domestic political violence in England is so small as to be demographically insignificant. The 300+ years of peace is historically very unusual indeed, and its beginning is undoubtedly in the Puritan period.
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“The King and a few of his close advisers were executed, but that was about it.”
Mr. Konkola, have you ever heard of a place called Ireland? They don’t remember
Cromwell the way you describe him. http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Barbados-Ethnic-Cleansing-Irelan/dp/0863222870
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“. . . the English civil war was the first war where rape and pillage were not part of normal military operations. The atrocities that took place were few and far between . . . “ This statement stemmed from a comparison between England and the 30 years’ war, the Spanish operations in the Netherlands and the Huguenot wars in France. If we go further back in history, the contrast becomes even starker: in late medieval period taking prisoners was uncommon, unless there was a possibility for ransom. The standard reward for an army for taking a city was three days of free looting: take whatever you want, and do anything you want to whomever you want.
The English civil war was a clear beginning (step forward?) in a trend, and you should not expect cultural chances of this magnitude to appear full-blown. They take time to develop. An example of forgiveness and magnamity as fully developed cultural norms of Western Civilization can be seen in Napoleonic wars: Napoleon was not hung as a war criminal, surrender was accepted and honored and prisoners were generally treated well. The same norms still applied in WW I. WW II saw revenge returning as a cultural norm, and the Bush administration’s treatment of enemies marks a large step back to medieval practises.
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The change in conduct and technological capabilities of a civilization does not invalidate the argument that unfit genes are being passed on, it’s just that since civilized humans have much more efficient means of of storing and acessing information than genes (books, oral tradition, etc...) The growth in their technological ability outpaces the change in their biological attributes due to selective breeding (or lack thereof). So it’s not that social darwinism is wrong, it’s just not nearly as important as the evolution of human knowledge. We learned how to build planes long before we could possibly breed an ability to fly naturally. So Kari Konolka’s argument doesn’t stand.
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FF,
Couldn’t agree more with your observation that civilization and its associated learning are a superior—and much faster—method to “become fit” than a change in biological attributes produced by natural selection. The problem is that the competitive, brutal morals required by evolutionary theory seem to be almost diametrically the opposite from morals that have prevailed in societies which have built successful civilizations. Over the long term, social Darwinism and cultural evolution thus may be mutually exclusive. In this sense, social Darwinism may be very wrong indeed.
You might want to look at Donald Campbell’s presidential address to the American Psychological Association in 1978 (if memory serves me right). Campbell offered an extremely intriguing way to overcome the seemingly insurmountable conflict between religion and evolutionary theory.
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