Darwinism: intelligent design

Showing posts with label intelligent design. Show all posts

Michael Denton, is now an Evolutionist

Source: Nature's Destiny. From the impossibility of evolution to the inevitability of evolution: Anti-Evolutionst Michael Denton turns into an 'Evolutionist'. A review by Gert Korthof version 3.1b 23 May 2000

Quote from the book :
"It is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science - that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school". According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies." (page xvii-xviii).

In Nature's Destiny Denton refers to Kaufmann(1) and deDuve(2), to show that, given the right initial conditions, the origin of life and evolution is inevitable.

Can we find crucial evidence in his book which converted him to evolution ? The key passage, I think, occurs in the paragraph "The Closeness of All Life in DNA Sequence Space" of CH 12 (p276). It must have been the key insight for Denton.
It reads:

"One of the most surprising discoveries which has arisen from DNA sequencing has been the remarkable finding that the genomes of all organisms are clustered very close together in a tiny region of DNA sequence space forming a tree of related sequences that can all be interconverted via a series of tiny incremental natural steps."

"So the sharp discontinuities, referred to above, between different organs and adaptations and different types of organisms, which have been the bedrock of antievolutionary arguments for the past century (3), have now greatly diminished at the DNA level. Organisms which seem very different at a morphological level can be very close together at the DNA level." [emphasis & note are mine]

Notes:

1. Stuart Kaufmann: At Home in the Universe (1995). It is instructive to compare what Phillip Johnson wrote about Stuart Kaufmann : "....and some plausible rescuers will invite the officers to take refuge in electronic lifeboats equipped with high-tech gear like autocatalytic sets and computer models of self-organizing systems." (p170, Darwin on Trial, 1993). It is clear that there is now a gap between Johnson and Denton(1998). The most important reason however is that Denton accepts the naturalistic assumption of science, which Johnson rejects. Michael Behe wrote a few 'words of praise' at the back cover of Nature's Destiny, Johnson is absent.

2. de Duve: Vital Dust(1995).

3. Including Denton(1986) himself ! He forgets to mention himself !

Even at the ARN website you can read about Denton and Paul Nelson (of the Discovery Institute) going at it on their way to a "Mere Creation" conference: First stop, who gets in but Paul Nelson. Paul and I have known each other. Then Thane Ury (Bethel College) gets in. We start talking and then son-of-a-gun Paul says, "There is Michael Denton"--I couldn't believe it. Lean 50-ish guy with a shock of white, close-cropped hair wearing a shirt that looks like the top for a pair of long underwear. I spent two weeks one summer vacation in Montana outlining various chapters from Evolution: A Theory in Crisis just to drive out the Darwinian poisons I imbibed from my mother's milk. The biggest shock was finding he is so engaging and approachable! He and Nelson started dukeing it out right away. It was fantastic. Here I was with a bad cold, barely holding on to my name tag, fortunate to have taken all the right turns thus far—and bango, the conference starts en route. Paul says "common ancestry is an assumption." Denton says, "the such-and-such goes down and around the something else and why doesn't it just go straight across?" And Paul says, "But how do you know that the down and around isn't optimal?" I remember that point. Then Denton says, "Yeah but when you have delivered as many babies as I have you notice things." He gestures downward with both hands cupped as though he is about to deliver one. He says "Right after they are born they go like this"--he then does a grasping motion with both hands raised. In my semi-fevered state I saw a new born hominid grasping its mothers' fur--right there in the van. He gave a name for the reflex [primate grasp] but even without it I could see that he knew a thing or two about how our kind and kin are born. The conversation in the van was not really a conversation. Denton started talking and gesturing in a very distinctive fashion. He makes his points by jabbing the air with his middle finger—quite unselfconsciously. Possibly this too is a primordial rhetorical reflex with an interesting aeteology. Denton proceeded to develop an evolutionary cosmology, the point of which is that there is abundant evidence for common descent and it is equally clear that evolution is directed and programmed. Indeed Denton affirmed two things—and this is apparently the thesis of his book now under contract at Simon & Schuster--that humankind literally is the point of creation and he is the end product of a divine design. Paul seemed to just let him go, but I sensed Paul was saving up for another time.

Aldous Huxley - An Anti-Darwinist Criticism

Letting the Air Out of George Neumayr's Latest Anti-Darwinism Rant
by Edward T. Babinski

Mr. George Neumayr (Editor of the American Spectator), is not a fan of Darwinism. In a recent article, titled, "Individuals Against Divine Intellect," Mr. Neumayr wrote:

"Aldous Huxley once let the cat out of the bag when he said, in response to a question about the origins of modernism, that it began not in the minds of intellectuals but in their wills: they needed to come up with an intellectual system that would give them permission to behave licentiously. Darwinism serves a similar function: it gives intellectuals permission to think atheistically, as Richard Dawkins noted in his much-cited comment that evolution 'made it possible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist.'"

But continuing to trot out Aldous Huxley (who by the way was NOT an atheist), and Dawkins as though they proved the rule, ignores the genuine spectrum of opinion out there concerning Darwinism, I.D. and creationism. For instance there are creationists who fulminate AGAINST the "Intelligent Design" hypothesis such as Prudom at the recent Creation Mega-Conference, just as there are pro-evolution Christians who do not identify Darwinism with atheism as Dawkins attempts to do. I am speaking of folks like the Vatican's Astronomer who came out in favor of neither fearing nor dissing Darwinism after one American Cardinal recently did so. I might also mention a leader in the Human Genome Project who is both pro-evolution and Christian, who was interviewed in Christianity Today. Thus your article overlooks a full spectrum of questions. (For a list of prominent pro-evolution Christian men and women of science. See also Rev. Robert Farrar Capon's recent book, Genesis: The Movie. ) Lastly you ought to consider what ELSE Aldous Huxley said besides the bit that you alluded to being "let out of the bag," above. I believe you were alluding to this statement by Aldous:

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning--the Christian meaning, they insisted--of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever."
[Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means, 1937]

HOWEVER, Huxley did not simply discuss "philosophies of meaningless," he also discussed "philosophies of meaning." To quote Aldous:

"The desire to justify a particular form of political organization and, in some cases, of a personal will to power has played an EQUALLY large part in the formulation of philosophies postulating the existence of MEANING in the world. Christian philosophers have found no difficulty in justifying imperialism, war, the capitalistic system, the use of torture, the censorship of the press, and ecclesiastical tyrannies of every sort from the tyranny of Rome to the tyrannies of [Calvin's] Geneva and [Puritan] New England. In all cases they have shown that the meaning of the world was such as to be compatible with, or actually most completely expressed by, the iniquities I have mentioned above--iniquities which happened, of course, to serve the personal or sectarian interests of the philosophers concerned. In due course, there arose philosophers who denied not only the right of Christian special pleaders to justify iniquity by an appeal to the meaning of the world, but even their right to find any such meaning whatsoever. In the circumstances, the fact was not surprising. One unscrupulous distortion of the truth tends to beget other and opposite distortions. Passions may be satisfied in the process; but the disinterested love of knowledge suffers eclipse."
[Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for Their Realization (Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1937, fifth edition, p. 316]

PUTTING HUXLEY'S DISCUSSION OF "PHILOSOPHIES OF MEANINGLESSNESS" IN THEIR ORIGINAL POST-WORLD WAR 1 CONTEXT
In 1966 a conservative editor printed a paragraph from Aldous Huxley on "the philosophy of meaninglessness" and "sexual mores," and added a title above the paragraph that read, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist." But what the editor failed to reveal to his readers was that Aldous was not an "atheist" when he wrote that paragraph, but was arguing against "atheism." The paragraph itself was taken from Aldous Huxley's book, Ends and Means, written in 1937 (chapter 14, the chapter on "Beliefs"), and he was speaking about the rise of the "philosophy of meaninglessness" and materialism among the "masses" after the First World War, the generation of the 1920s. That generation had just seen solders from overtly Christian nations of Europe using the latest deadly inventions like the machine gun and poison gas to kill each other's Christian soldiers, then all sides stopped fighting on Christmas Eve, then went back to massacring each other the next day.

Speaking of Aldous's generation, John Derbyshire wrote:
"The 1920's and 1930's were notoriously an age of failed gods and shattered conventions, to which many thoughtful people responded in obvious ways, retreating into nihilism, hedonism, and experimentalism. Literature became subjective, art became abstract, poetry abandoned its traditional forms. In the 'low, dishonest decade' that then followed, much of this negativism curdled into power-worship and escapism of various kinds. Aldous Huxley stood aside from these large general trends. Though no Victorian in habits or beliefs, he never entered whole-heartedly into the spirit of modernism. The evidence is all over the early volumes of these essays. James Joyce's ground breaking novel, Ulysses, he declares in 1925, is 'one of the dullest books ever written, and one of the least significant.' Jazz, he remarks two years later, is 'drearily barbaric.' Writing of Sir Christopher Wren in 1923, he quotes with approval Carlyle's remark that Chelsea Hospital, one of Wren's creations, was 'obviously the work of a gentleman.' Wren, Huxley goes on to say, was indeed a great gentleman, 'one who valued dignity and restraint and who, respecting himself, respected also humanity.' In his thirties, in fact, Huxley comes across as something of a Young Fogey." [John Derbyshire, "What Happened to Aldous Huxley," The New Criterion Vol. 21, No. 6 (February 2003)]

In another chapter of Ends and Means (chapter 15, "Ethics") Aldous, abhorred "sexual addictions," or using sex as a means to achieving base ends. And Aldous' chapters on "Religious Practices," "Beliefs," and "Ethics" argued in favor of a meaningful cosmos and a universal spirituality that Aldous said was reflected in the works of certain Eastern mystics as well in the works of some famous Christian mystics.

ALDOUS HUXLEY ON FAITH AND ETHICS
"There are some... who believe that no desirable 'change of heart' can be brought about without supernatural aid. There must be, they say, a return to religion. (Unhappily, they cannot agree on the religion to which the return should be made.)" [p. 2]

"In practice, Christianity, like Hinduism or Buddhism, is not one religion, but several religions, adapted to the needs of different types of human beings. A Christian church in Southern Spain, or Mexico, or Sicily is singularly like a Hindu temple. The eye is delighted by the same gaudy colors, the same tripe-like decorations, the same gesticulating statues; the nose inhales the same intoxicating smells; the ear and, along with it, the understanding, are lulled by the drone of the same incomprehensible incantations [in the old Catholic Latin mass tradition], roused by the same loud, impressive music. "At the other end of the scale, consider the chapel of a Cistercian monastery and the meditation hall of a community of Zen Buddhists. They are equally bare; aids to devotion (in other words fetters holding back the soul from enlightenment) are conspicuously absent from either building. Here are two distinct religions for two distinct kinds of human beings." [p. 262-263]

"In Christianity bhakti [or, loving devotion] towards a personal being has always been the most popular form of religious practice. Up to the time of the [Catholic] Counter-Reformation, however, the way of knowledge ("mystical knowledge" as it is called in Chrstian language) was accorded an honorable place beside the way of devotion. From the middle of the sixteenth century onwards the way of knowledge came to be neglected and even condemned. We are told by Dom John Chapman that "Mercurian, who was general of the society (of Jesus) from 1573 to 1580, forbade the use of the works of Tauler, Ruysbroek, Suso, Harphius, St. Gertrude, and St. Mechtilde." Every effort was made by the [Catholic] Counter-Reformers to heighten the worshipper's devotion to a personal divinity. The literary content of Baroque art is hysterical, almost epileptic, in the violence of its emotionality. It even becomes necessary to call in physiology as an aid to feeling. The ecstasies of the saints are represented by seventeenth-century artists as being frankly sexual. Seventeenth-century drapery writhes like so much tripe. In the equivocal personage of Margaret Mary Alacocque, seventeenth-century piety pours over a bleeding and palpitating heart. From this orgy of emotionalism and sensationalism Catholic Christianity seems never completely to have recovered." [p. 281-282]

"First Shakespeare sonnets seem meaningless; first Bach fugues, a bore; first differential equations, sheer torture. But training changes the nature of our spiritual experiences. In due course, contact with an obscurely beautiful poem, an elaborate piece of [musical] counterpoint or of mathematical reasoning, causes us to feel direct intuitions of beauty and significance. It is the same in the moral world. A man who has trained himself in goodness come to have certain direct intuitions about character, about the relations between human beings, about his own position in the world -- intuitions that are quite different from the intuitions of the average sensual man... [p. 333]

"The ideal of non-attachment has been formulated and systematically preached again and again in the course of the last three thousand years. We find it (along with everything else) in Hinduism. It is at the very heart of the teachings of the Buddha. For Chinese readers the doctrine is formulated by Lao Tsu. A little later, in Greece, the ideal of non-attachment is proclaimed, albeit with a certain, pharisaic priggishness, by the Stoics. The Gospel of Jesus is essentially a gospel of non-attachment to "the things of this world," and of attachment to God. Whatever may have been the aberrations of organized Christianity -- and they range from extravagant asceticism to the most brutally cynical forms of realpolitik -- there has been no lack of Christian philosophers to reaffirm the ideal of non-attachment. Here is John Tauler, for example, telling us that 'freedom is complete purity and detachment which seeketh the Eternal...' Here is the author of "The Imitation of Christ," who bids us 'pass through many cares as though without care; not after the manner of a sluggard, but by a certain prerogative of a free mind, which does not cleave with inordinate affection to any creature.'" [p. 5, 6]

"...as knowledge, sensibility and non-attachment increase, the contents of the judgments of value passed even by men belonging to dissimilar cultures, tend to approximate. The ethical doctrines taught in the Tao Te Ching, by Buddha and his followers, in the Sermon on the Mount, and by the best of the Christian saints, are not dissimilar." [p. 327]

ALDOUS HUXLEY ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE WORST ASPECTS OF THE BIBLE ON THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
"Examples of reversion to barbarism through mere ignorance are unhappily abundant in the history of Christianity. The early Christians made the enormous mistake of burdening themselves with the Old Testament, which contains, along with much fine poetry and sound morality the history of the cruelties and treacheries of a Bronze-Age people, fighting for a place in the sun under the protection of its anthropomorphic tribal deity... Those whom it suited to be ignorant and, along with them, the innocent and uneducated could find in this treasure-house of barbarous stupidity justifications for every crime and folly. Texts to justify such abominations as religious wars, the persecution of heretics... could be found in the sacred books and were in fact used again and again throughout the whole history of the Christian Church. [p. 328]

"In this remarkable compendium of Bronze-Age literature, God is personal to the point of being almost sub-human. Too often the believer has felt justified in giving way to his worst passions by the reflection that, in doing so, he is basing his conduct on that of a God who feels jealousy and hatred... and behaves in general like a particularly ferocious oriental tyrant. The frequency with which men have identified the prompting of their own passions with the voice of an all too personal God is really appalling." [p. 276-277]

"According to his very inadequate biographers, Jesus of Nazareth was never preoccupied with philosophy, art, music, or science and ignored almost completely the problems of politics, economics and sexual relations. It is also recorded of him that he blasted a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, that he scourged the shopkeepers in the temple precincts and caused a herd of swine to drown. Scrupulous devotion to and imitation of the person of Jesus have resulted only too frequently in a fatal tendency, on the part of earnest Christians, to despise artistic creation and philosophic thought; to disparage the inquiring intellect, to evade all long-range, large-scale problems of politics and economics, and to believe themsevles justified in displaying anger, or as they would doubtless prefer to call it, 'righteous indignation.'" [p. 275-276]

Lastly, I suggest Mr. Neumayr, that you read this little piece as well:
Do You Fear What Might Happen If The World Believed In Evolution?

Darwin to Hitler: Weikart, the Discovery Institute, and History

Weikart, the Discovery Institute, and History

A Review of the Book, From Darwin to Hitler : Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany by Richard Weikart

Reviewer: Edward T. Babinski

Dr. Weikart is a senior fellow of The Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Designer think tank funded by a millionaire Evangelical Christian. Dr. Weikart's writings reflect the Discovery Institute's agenda to get "design" and a "Designer" mentioned in school whenever theories of origins are discussed. Since Weikart is a historian rather than a biologist, his contribution to the I.D. movement is a bit beside the point. Because even if his work does succeed in getting more people to think of Hitler whenever Darwin or Darwinism are mentioned, his book does not address the truth or falsity of the scientific theory of evolution (not any more than a book about atrocities committed by Christians addresses the historicity of the Gospels).

Perhaps Dr. Wiekart could have emphasized in his book that the threads of history point in many directions, and that although there are connections between Darwin and Hitler, there are also connections between Martin Luther and Hitler (as pointed out in the online book, Martin Luther: Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor). There are also threads in history connecting Christianity with anti-Semitism-racism-slavery-torture-murder-wars-irrational fanaticism. There are also the views of those who are not members of the Discovery Institute, and who accept both God and Darwin's theory of evolution. I am speaking of Christian Darwinists and/or fine-tuners (who believe God set the laws of the universe in motion in the beginning and nature worked things out thereafter). Books by such folks include: Finding Darwin's God; Darwinian Natural Right; Darwinism Defeated? (debate between an I.D.ist and a Christian Darwinistic biologist); Random Designer; Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (a collection of essays by Christian evolutionists); The Tree of Life (forthcoming from Michael Denton, a former Discovery Institute associate who asked his name be removed from their website); and, God and Evolution (the last book being written by Christian population biologist, David L. Wilcox). There is also the journal, Zygon, that has been publishing articles on the connection between religion, ethics and Darwinism, including many articles by Christian theologians, scientists and philosophers.

Points for readers of Weikart's book to ponder:

POINT #1) Weikart makes much of a statement Darwin made in The Descent of Man: "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races." Weikart says, "Based on this--and, of course, much, much [sic] more--evidence, I conclude that Darwin contributed to the development of theories of racial extermination that were prominent among leading German biologists and eugenicists in the early twentieth century."
"Darwin contributed to?" A rather vague assertion. You can find a lot of things "contribute" to other things in history. In context however, Darwin was not urging anyone to exterminate anyone else. Darwin was parroting a view that can be traced back 60 years before his Origin of Species was ever published, a view held in common by BOTH creationists and evolutionists from 1800 to the 1930's. Patrick Brantlinger in his book, Dark Vanishings: Discourse on the Extinction of Primitive Races, 1800-1930, examines this commonly held view, namely, that all "primitive" or "savage" races around the world were doomed sooner or later to extinction. Humanitarians, according to Brantlinger, saw the problem in the same terms of inevitability (or doom) as did scientists such as Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley as well as propagandists for empire such as Charles Wentworth Dilke and James Anthony Froude. Brantlinger shows that by the 1890s, especially through the influence of the eugenics movement, extinction discourse was even applied to "the great white race" in various apocalyptic formulations. With the rise of fascism and Nazism, and with the gradual renewal of aboriginal populations in some parts of the world, by the 1930s the stereotypic idea of "fatal impact" began to unravel, as did also various more general forms of race-based thinking and of social Darwinism.

"One of the most impressive aspects of Brantlinger's book is its ability to trace the uniformity of extinction discourse across a number of ideological and political contexts. [Not just 'Social Darwinist' ones.]"
-John Kucich, University of Michigan

To give just one example, within two generations of the British colonisation of Tasmania in 1803, the entire full-blood Tasmanian
aboriginal population was dead, and a tribal society that had existed for tens of thousands of years had been destroyed in wars against the colonists and via diseases carried by them. (Some people of mixed Tasmania-Caucasian pedigree survived.) Edward Curr (1798-1850), director of the Van Diemen's Land Company, stated that the conflict between the colonists and the Tasmanians would end "as all such matters have ended in other parts of the world, by the extermination of the weaker race." (Henry Reynolds, An Indelible Stain? pp. 52-53) Curr's statement is an example of the kind of thinking prevalent before Darwin's Origin was ever published. Also, a book titled, Types of Mankind, appeared in 1854 (a mere five years before Darwin's Origin) containing essays by a number of creationist scientists, including Louis Agassiz (who soon would become a vocal critic of Darwin's theory), which argued stenuously in favor of the inferior position of the African race.

POINT #2) Weikart begins the first chapter of his book with these words: Darwin sums up his view of ethics and morality in his Autobiography, stating that one who does not believe in God or an afterlife--as he did not--"can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones."

Unfortunately, Weikart's snippet doesn't do Darwin's view of "instincts" justice. Darwin continued:

"A dog acts in this manner, but he does so blindly. A man, on the other hand, looks forwards and backwards, and compares his various feelings, desires and recollections. He then finds, in accordance with the verdict of all the wisest men that the highest satisfaction is derived from following certain impulses, namely the social instincts. If he acts for the good of others, he will receive the approbation of his fellow men and gain the love of those with whom he lives ; and this latter gain undoubtedly is the highest pleasure on this earth. By degrees it will become intolerable to him to obey his sensuous passions rather than his higher impulses, which when rendered habitual may be almost called instincts. His reason may occasionally tell him to act in opposition to the opinion of others, whose approbation he will then not receive; but he will still have the solid satisfaction of knowing that he has followed his innermost guide or conscience. [Extracts from Nora Barlow ed. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: With Original Omissions (by Darwin's family) Restored. New York, W.W. Norton, 1969. pp. 85-96. Available on the web for free.]

Another Darwin quotation that Weikart did not address in his book is this one:

"Man, from the activity of his mental faculties, cannot avoid reflection...Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well-developed, or anything like as well-developed as in man."(Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man) (One must of course keep in mind that Darwin was not discussing all that could happen to a social animal to make it grow anti-social. Nor was he discussing the many psychological factors that drive fanatical mass movements--be they fascist, communist, or even Christian--see Eric Hoffer's book, The True Believer, for information on that topic. Darwin was addressing the much larger fact, often unnoticed, that among social creatures, positive gregariousness, a liking for each other's company, is the steady, unnoticed background for the conflicts.)

POINT #3) Weikart's low opinion of any morality not based on "supernatural revelation" is evident in his book. But, invoking "supernatural revelation" to explain "morality" is merely to invoke one mystery to "explain" another. Such a method of reasoning does not prove anything to philosophers with different views. (There are also Christian philosophers who find room for both God and Darwinism in their explanations of morality, see above.) The Bible, an alleged "supernatural revelation," exhibits its own cases of "moral relativity," because it never calls polygamy, slavery, or even genocide, "sins." Some "divine" commands in the Bible also appear barbaric by today's moral standards. And though the New Testament emphasizes that the individual believer ought to practice self-sacrificial love even toward enemies, it does not say what laws society as a whole ought to make and exactly how they ought to be enforced. Only the Old Testament contains laws for society as a whole--and as already pointed out, some of those are barbaric by today's standards. The letters of Paul instructed some believers to cast out other types of believers from their midst and label those other believers, "anathema." While a story in the book of Acts involving Peter says that two believers were struck dead by God for not telling the truth about giving "everything" they owned to the church, a supernatural punishment that even C. S. Lewis found a bit extreme (he doubted the historicity of that particular story). Also, the New Testament ends with a picture in the book of Revelation of people being "cast/thrown into a lake of fire," "whose smoke rises up forever in the sight of heaven's inhabitants." Is such an image less hideous or more hideous than herding people into box cars and sending them to concentration camps? Also, the idea of "eternal hell" has often made Christians fear the "heretical" beliefs of other Christians, rather than serve as a goad to making crime in society disappear.

POINT #4) Contra Weikart, notice what the British philosopher, Mary Midgley; the biologist, Frans De Waal, and the physicist/philosopher, Albert Einstein, had to say about Darwinism and/or morality.

First, Dr. Mary Midgley: "Darwin proposed that creatures like us who, by their nature, are riven by strong emotional conflicts, and who have also the intelligence to be aware of those conflicts, absolutely need to develop a morality because they need a priority system by which to resolve them. The need for morality is a corollary of conflicts plus intellect":

'Man, from the activity of his mental faculties, cannot avoid reflection...Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well-developed, or anything like as well-developed as in man.'(Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man)

"That, Darwin said, is why we have within us the rudiments of such a priority system and why we have also an intense need to develop those rudiments. We try to shape our moralities in accordance with our deepest wishes so that we can in some degree harmonize our muddled and conflict-ridden emotional constitution, thus finding ourselves a way of life that suits it so far as is possible. These systems are, therefore, something far deeper than mere social contracts made for convenience. They are not optional. They are a profound attempt--though of course usually an unsuccessful one--to shape our conflict-ridden life in a way that gives priority to the things that we care about most. If this is right, then we are creatures whose evolved nature absolutely requires that we develop a morality. We need it in order to find our way in the world. The idea that we could live without any distinction between right and wrong is as strange as the idea that we--being creatures subject to gravitation--could live without any idea of up and down. That at least is Darwin's idea and it seems to me to be one that deserves attention." (Mary Midgley, "Wickedness: An Open Debate," The Philosopher's Magazine, No. 14, Spring 2001)

Second, Dr. Frans De Waal: "Forgiveness is not, as some people seem to believe, a mysterious and sublime idea that we owe to a few millennia of Judeo-Christianity. It did not originate in the minds of people and cannot therefore be appropriated by an ideology or a religion. The fact that monkeys, apes, and humans all engage in reconciliation behavior (stretching out a hand, smiling, kissing, embracing, and so on) means that it is probably over thirty million years old, preceding the evolutionary divergence of these primates... Reconciliation behavior [is] a shared heritage of the primate order... When social animals are involved... antagonists do more than estimate their chances of winning before they engage in a fight; they also take into account how much they need their opponent. The contested resource often is simply not worth putting a valuable relationship at risk. And if aggression does occur, both parties may hurry to repair the damage. Victory is rarely absolute among interdependent competitors, whether animal or human." (Frans De Waal, Peacemaking Among Primates)

Lastly, Albert Einstein: "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
I should add that Einstein's theories of relativity evoked savage attacks in the 1920s by the anti-Semitic physicists Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard, men who after 1932 tried to create a so-called Aryan physics in Germany. So the Germans were not only "Aryanizing Darwin" but also "Aryanizing physics" and anything else they could "Aryanize." With the rise of fascism in Germany, Einstein moved to the U.S. (a month before Hitler took power) and abandoned his pacifism. He reluctantly agreed that the new fanatical menace of German fascism had to be put down through force of arms. Evolutionists, creationists, and others in U.S., agreed.

Bovine Evolution and Bat Evolution

"... Why do cows wear bells? Their horns don't work!" Some cows have horns."

Seriously, are horns on a cow a vestigial appendage?

Black and white rhinoceros ... Usually the front horn is longer than the rear. ... black rhinos seem to like twigs and they will use the pointed ...

Then the cow will attack the bull and butt him in ...

Black and white rhinoceros

I can't really find any information on Google if cows (moo moo) use their horns for anything real, the cows I grew up around didn't that I know of -- and there's nothing there saying horns are vestigial on cows.

I looked up cow evolution and remembered that cows were bovines, and looked further and found out that the scientific latin name for bovines is "bovidae," which gives me access to all the scientific stuff on the web, so I googled: bovidae evolution fossil*

I also did a google image search just under bovidae.

Here are pics of the earliest known bovine skull and skeleton, apparently on display at two museums:

http://www.in.gr/ath/images/big/bovidae.jpg

http://musee.vacheres.free.fr/photo/bachiteriumgrd.jpg

Other ancient bovine fossils consist of the usual assorted teeth and jawbones, the above apparently being some of the best preserved fossils of more than just teeth and jawbones.

Short wikipedia encyclopedic entry with a few paragraphs on bovine evolution:

Wikipedia Bovidae

More extensive and footnoted article on the same topic, including some DNA comparison testing among bovine species!

"The conservative nuclear DNA data were remarkably effective in resolving associations among bovid subfamilies, which had a rapid radiation dating back to approximately 23 MYA. All analyses supported the monophyly of the Bovinae (cow, nilgai, and kudu clade) as a sister lineage to the remaining bovid subfamilies, and the data convincingly suggest that the subfamilies Alcelaphinae (hartebeest, tsessebe, and wildebeest group) and Hippotraginae (roan, sable, and gemsbok clade) share a close evolutionary relationship and together form a sister clade to the more primitive Caprinae (represented by sheep, goat, and muskox). The problematic Reduncinae (waterbuck, reedbuck) seem to be the earliest-diverging group of the Caprinae/Alcelaphinae/Hippotraginae clade, whereas the Antilopinae (gazelle and dwarf antelope clade) were always polyphyletic. The sequence data suggest that the initial diversification of the Bovidae took place in Eurasia and that lineages such as the Cephalophinae and other enigmatic taxa (impala, suni, and klipspringer) most likely originated, more or less contemporaneously, in Africa.

"Evolution within the family Bovidae (cow, sheep, and antelope) is characterized by global immigrations, adaptive radiations, and mass extinctions which, in concert, gave rise to the 49 extant genera and more than 140 species known today. The majority of these species are endemic to the African continent, and the complex evolution of the group was molded by a wide variety of mechanisms and natural events, including temperature adaptation, feeding ecology, vegetation physiognomy, rifting, and climatic fluctuations (Kingdon 1989 ). The oldest bovid fossils are attributable to the subfamily Bovinae and are known from France and sub-Saharan Africa, where the group evidently first appeared approximately 23 MYA (Vrba 1985 ; Kingdon 1989). "
--Molecular Insights into the Evolution of the Family Bovidae: A Nuclear DNA Perspective By Conrad A. Matthee and Scott K. Davis Department of Zoology, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa Department of Animal Science, Texas A and M University [Molecular Biology and Evolution 18:1220-1230 (2001) © 2001 Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution]

I also discovered that the entire cow genome was recently sequenced:

genome.gov

And while cruising the web I also ran across a new study (Jan. 2005!) that compared segements of bat DNA taken from different species around the world. Bats are interesting because creationists used to make "the impossibility of cetacean evolution" their centerpiece "problem" for evolution, but now they are making "the impossibility of bat evolution" their centerpiece problem because too many cetacean intermediates fossils are now known, and because the fossil record of bat evolution remains sparser than that of cetacean evolution. Bats of course are tiny and thin-boned and generally live in places with plenty of insects to feed on, since they eat a lot of insects per their weight (and hence when bats die there are also plenty of insects and other organisms around where they live to make sure their own bones are eaten or break down quickly), so bats didn't leave a great fossil record. (While the fossil record of sea-animals remains better preserved, for many reasons.) Only after bat evolution had already taken off (pardon the pun) and bats began reproducing in large numbers and flying around, did their odds increase of some of them being fossilized and also later found. For instance there's a well preserved bat fossil found in the Greenriver fossil lake formations in the U.S. Anyway, the new study compared segments of the DNA of different bat species round the world, and "played back" the DNA similarities and differences, like tracing back old chain letters to their most common and most likely shared source. The DNA study showed that all bats (including the large fruit-eating bats of the tropics) evolved from tiny insect-eating bats in North America.

I guess Noah's ark kept moving around, letting the first bats disembark in North America, and the first bovidae disembark in Eurasia, and the Noah and his sons disembark in Africa, and the first perching birds disembark in Australia/New Zealand. (Comparing segments of DNA from perching bird species round the world lead recently to the conclusion that Australia/New Zealand was most likely where all perching birds first evolved.)

Speaking again of bat evolution, I read recently about a developmental gene being discovered that rats and bats share, that has to do with prolonged finger growth in the womb and how the skin remains between the longer fingers in the rats they experimented on. I also read about the discovery, a few years ago, of the fossil of a rat-like creature whose ankle bone could flex like a bat's for upside-down hanging.

I guess the creationists are batting zero (pardon the pun) on trying to disprove evolution.

Newton and Darwin and Wallace and "false analogies"

I do claim that Darwin's lies and dishonest in order to get his theory accepted, is part of the "evidence against`the theory of evolution'".

ED: It would be more to the point to discuss a wide variety of lines of evidence concerning Natural Selection, both pro and con (from Darwin's day to our own). But if you really think you can bring down "Darwinism" simply by citing old "cases in which _Darwin_ was dishonest," go right ahead. (Of course why focus on Darwin alone when "natural selection" had two authors, not just one. There was Wallace too. And by the way, Darwin was not an atheist but an agnostic, and Wallace was a theist. If I recall correctly, Wallace believed that the evolution of man's mind involved a designing influence rather than a purely naturally selective one. But for most evolutionary processes in nature, Wallace remained pro-natural selection.)

And if you want to discuss cases in which Darwin was dishonest, why not also discuss the cases in which Darwin was honest? One thing's for sure, Darwin held his temper to a relatively greater extent than many who slandered him in the press of his day.

Besides, if you want to debate a hypothesis on the basis of the "honesty or dishonesty" of its leaders then let's discuss two thousand years of Christian history with its slanderings of Christian against Christian, and of dishonest tactics like burning opponents books and even burning opponents -- including fellow Christians. You can even compare young-earth "Flood geology" Christians and their "honesty" and "honest" portrayals of old-earth and theistic evolutionary arguments, and vice versa. Or better yet, study the way that the Gospel of Matthew cites verses from the Old Testament and applies them to Jesus, to see how "honestly" the original contexts of each of those verses is represented. [A good place to begin such a study is with a book titled, THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY.]

Apart from the word "science" there is no meaningful comparison between "Darwin's ... theory of evolution" and "Newton's ... theory of gravity". Newton had to invent a whole new branch of mathematics, calculus, in order to develop his "theory of gravity", which is expressed with mathematical objectivity and precision.

ED: Gravity is indeed mathematically precise. Though I have read that even today the calculation of how THREE objects in three-dimensional space interact gravitationally on one another remains an extraordinarily difficult problem. And there are plenty of advanced physics problems and astronomical questions today for which science has no definitve answers, but some of which are being fleshed out in hypotheses and semi-verified theories. Though as of yet, I haven't seen any physicists resorting to simply invoking "I.D." as an "answer." No, I'm afraid they are going to continue to seek mathematical ways to model the regularities of nature, including the evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, and the development of all the other elements from simple hydrogen atoms.

Speaking of Darwinism, there is observation and mathematics involved in determining mutation ratios, and genetics is opening further observational doors to inner genetic changes, and making it possible to read the differences between genomes like geologists read the fossil evidence in the stratigraphic record. And biological science like physical science, will probably continue to seek mathematical ways to model changes in natures, and will continue to do so, rather than resort to the explanation that "God did it that way." By the way, even some young-earth creationists agree that "micro-evolutionary" changes occur, which I suppose means that they also agree that mutations and natural selection also may play a part, at least in cases of "microevolution."

So if you want to discuss Natural Selection, then just continue to read about experiments related to it, and continue to discuss it. And visit the website, "Was Darwin Wrong?" that contains some in-depth reviews of anti-Darwinian books by a university biologist.

Darwin himself admitted in his Origin of Species, that his "theory of evolution", was not a "fair" and "balanced" presentation of the "facts and arguments": "For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this is here impossible." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.18)

ED: I sent an email to the group regarding a few quotations from Darwin including the one you have cited above. That email contains my reaction to your citation above. (But please continue reading my further replies below.)

So your argument is an example of "the fallacy of false analogy": "THE FALLACY OF FALSE ANALOGY. Few techniques of reasoning are so potentially useful-or so potentially dangerous-as analogy. When we reason by analogy we attempt to advance our position by likening an obscure or difficult set of facts to one that is already known and understood and to which it bears a significant resemblance. The fallacy of false analogy arises when the comparison is an erroneous one that distorts the facts in the case being argued. Drawing attention to likenesses can be extremely useful so long as the two things being compared resemble each other in important respects and differ only in trifling ways. If, on the contrary, they are alike in unimportant ways and different in important ways, then there is no valid analogy between them and a fallacy of false analogy results. Merely to seize upon some slight similarity as a basis for concluding that what is true of one is also true of the other will usually lead one astray. ... To expose a false analogy-or an imperfect analogy, as it is sometimes called-it is necessary to establish that the two things being compared resemble each other in insignificant ways, while they differ in significant ways." (Engel S.M., "With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies," St. Martin's Press: New York NY, Fourth Edition, 1990, Pp.150-151)

ED: Before you _quid pro quo_ me, please read what I wrote above in response to your attempts to defend your own fallacious argument, viz., citing Darwin's "dishonesty" as being equal in all ways to "evidence against the theory of evolution."

"According to anthropologist Loren Eiseley, Darwin appropriated the work of Edward Blyth, a little-known British zoologist who wrote on natural selection and evolution in two papers published in 1835 and 1837. Eiseley points to similarities in phrasing, the use of rare words, and the choice of examples. While Darwin in his opus quotes Blyth on a few points, notes Eiseley, he does not cite the papers that deal directly with natural selection, even though it is clear he read them. The thesis has been disputed by paleontologist Stephen J. Gould."

ED: I'm familiar with that. But even if Gould's dispute of it is incorrect, and Darwin did employ words and ideas and examples from Blyth, plagiarism is hardly reason to doubt anyone's hypothesis, only the name of its originator. So if we called it "Blythinism" instead of "Darwinism" would that suit you?

(This also reminds me of how both the Hebrew account of creation and the Flood story do not list any of the original sources which inspired them or from which they were plagiarized to various degrees. The proverbs of Solomon have even turned up in ancient Near Eastern literature that pre-dates the days of Solomon. Many ancient Near Eastern sayings had earlier origins in various collections of wise sayings amongst the Egyptians and Babylonians. Solomon, or later editors of Solomon's wise sayings, probably had a lot to choose from, again, without listing the proper references as to each saying's prior origin.)

But Eiseley is not the only critic of Darwin's acknowledgment practices. He was accused by a contemporary, the acerbic man of letters Samuel Butler, of passing over in silence those who had developed similar ideas. Indeed, when Darwin's On the Origin of Species first appeared in 1859, he made little mention of predecessors. Later, in an 1861 `historical sketch' added to the third edition of the Origin, he delineated some of the previous work, but still gave few details. Under continued attack, he added to the historical sketch in three subsequent editions. It was still not enough to satisfy all his critics. In 1879, Butler published a book entitled Evolution Old and New in which he accused Darwin of slighting the evolutionary speculations of Buffon, Lamarck, and Darwin's own grandfather Erasmus." (Broad, William J. & Wade, Nicholas [science writers, The New York Times], "Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science," Simon and Schuster: New York NY, 1982, pp.30-31). [...]

ED: Today we have historians of evolution that have helped fill in the gap, i.e., and who have written far more than mere "historical sketches" as to the many influences that engaged Darwin's mind prior to writing "The Origin of Species." Probably more influences than Darwin himself can recall.

As can be seen, this is actually one of my Darwin's dishonesty items, and was in fact one of the quotes that got me started on this Darwin's dishonesty issue.