Recently, a hoo-haw among some Darwinists vastly spiked traffic to one of my blogs, The Post-Darwinist, out of all proportion to usual interest levels. It had to do with some predictions I had made.
People who can force the taxpayer to fund their activities are generally mega rotten at understanding the point of view of people who make a living offering goods and services to a public that actually has a choice in the matter. But that is a story for another day.
Anyway, predictions, predictions. What does Darwinian evolution predict?
Strictly speaking, nothing. By definition, it is the one form of evolution that banished purpose (teleology) from nature. That was supposed to be its big advantage, right? So by definition, it makes no predictions. Not that you’d know, from Darwinist huffing.
That doesn’t mean no one can predict anything. Here are some more of of my predictions:
If Darwinian evolution predicts anything at all, other than grants for its promoters and persecution for its doubters, it should predict that such an event as the beefalo does not happen, yet it does.
And lots of other similar events happen too, some of which we will unfold in due course at The Design of Life blog.
However, at this point, I think Darwinian evolution mainly predicts:
Lo, I saw a great grant machine, and behold, it was funded by the taxpayer, and – what marvel yet again! – it is administered by a small class of people who are ideological atheists and have learned how to turn that into an excellent financial proposition.
And a couple of further predictions (since I am here anyway),
Doubters who dare to offer facts in support of their views are hounded in a thoroughly unprofessional way.
Allegedly Christian institutions abet the persecution because they need to suck up to elite atheists in order to think well of themselves (I confess I do not know why. It is inconceivable to me how anyone could take those people’s opinions seriously, given that the entire twentieth century has been a vast disconfirmation of same.)
The idea that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design is treated as a threat to human rights.
Oops, all this has already HAPPENED! A day late and a dollar short.
Okay, so let me make three predictions that – to the best of my knowledge – haven’t already happened:
1. Academic institutions will force students to sign statements saying that they renounce the idea that the universe could be intelligently designed. So students from most normal human traditions will be forced to sign a statement saying that their tradition is actually lies, garbage, and drivel. Even though the evidence of the fine tuning of the universe actually supports their traditions’ most basic elements. And if they appeal to the judiciary, the judgebots will demand that they sign, if they want an education.
2. Many religion profs, divinity profs, chaplains, alleged Christians in science, etc., will urge the students to sign the statement, because – whether they know it or not – they are totally in the materialist camp. They hope that they can get a salary while they sell out their tradition. It is unclear why these profbots and revbots should not be booted, given that the evidence from science actually supports rather than undermines traditional beliefs about the basic nature of the universe. But lots of people get a salary to pretend otherwise, and they will go on doing so.
3. Social workers will come out from under the floorboards from every direction to urge the young people to be “nice” and sign.
Some of these young people will face a very difficult challenge. They will begin slowly to realize that some of their elders are a disgrace. All the worse for them, as they are traditionalists and think that they should be polite to elders. It is best to deal with family disgrace discreetly, so I assume they will. After all, the sellout of the “theistic evolutionists” is a disgrace in the eyes of the whole world and of history, so we need our best resources to address it decently and minimize the damage it has caused.
Please write to me if these predictions have already happened. Sure, I’d like to be a prophet, but I am really just a journalist. I don’t need to be ahead of the news, just not too far behind it.
New at The Design of Life and The Mindful Hack
Why did you say goodbye just like that? What do we know about extinction?
How do unconscious people know when to wake up? They shouldn’t, but they do, and so …
To make sense, any theory of mind needs to address the data from physics. Notice, I said data from physics, not from Materialism 101.
This reviewer of The Spiritual Brain thinks that the God Helmet is as funny as I did. (Look, why don’t atheists get out more? They could try going to church, for example, if they want to attack religion effectively. You can learn way more about the down side of religion at church than in some atheist think tank.)
Is human consciousness a trick to ensure survival? Well, let’s start with the question of whether it even helps much to ensure survival. Do animals commit suicide? Start wars over ideology? Consciousness creates numerous risks to life that would not otherwise exist.