Books of interest

… and served with cold mashed potatoes, lumpy gravy, and wan, limp lettuce.

Here, University of Alabama science historian Michael Flannery, laments that Darwin’s co-theorist Wallace has been “Darwinized”, referencing the many efforts by Darwinists to downplay his involvement in evolutinary theory, principally because he was not a materialist atheist. For example,

Quammen writes, “he was a man of crotchety independence and lurching enthusiasms, a restless soul never quite satisfied with the place in which he lived, a believer in spiritualism and séances, a devotee of phrenology, a dabbler in mesmerism, a later apostate from Darwinian theory when it came to the development of the human brain, an opponent of smallpox vaccination, and an advocate of nationalizing large private landholdings, who by these and other eccentricities gave his detractors some grounds for dismissing him as a crank. Which they did. The question that no scholar or biographer has adequately answered is: How to reconcile such brilliant achievements, radical convictions, and incautious zealotries within one human character–the character of a consummate empiricist and field naturalist?”

Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life does precisely that. These disparate features CAN be reconciled if you quit casting Wallace’s spiritualism, socialism, belief in mesmerism, and his opposition to vaccination dismissively as “eccentricities.” Recast properly, Wallace becomes a prescient figure who called for much-needed land reform, women’s rights, a broadened view of science expanded beyond the strictures of a dogmatically held methodological naturalism, a man who refused to yield on issues of individual freedoms and public health when serious questions remained, a precursor to intelligent design, and a vocal opponent of the ethical and moral dangers of the rising tide of eugenics. Viewed in this way Wallace’s convictions seem less “radical,” his “zealotries” less “incautious,” his “lurching enthusiasms” more understandable — the very epitome of a “consummate empiricist and field naturalist” truly willing to go where the evidence would lead him.

For more, go here.

One thing I learned from reading Flannery’s biography of Wallace is that he developed his passion for land reform as a result of his experiences as a land surveyor, surveying in areas where traditional common lands had been enclosed and country folk were left without resources. Opinions differ as to whether the move was necessary, but the suffering wasn’t.

Here I learned that Darwin’s inner circle was very much pro-enclosure: Read More ›

Norbert Smith, a.k.a. “Doc Gator”, author of Passive Fear and many children’s books has edited a collection of essays called Sacred Cows in Science, mostly on controversial issues in science: Science was at one time defined by its method. Carefully controlled experiments, provisional conclusions, and considered debate once defined the field. But those days have passed. Today, science is defined by public policy statements, consensus, and a set of metaphysical assumptions that cannot be directly tested. Students are told that science is in conflict with “faith” or, worse yet, that faith operates in a different “magisterial” with no real application to the world we inhabit. I have an article in the collection on neuroscience, sense, and nonsense.

I am currently reading New Zealand journalist Suzan Mazur’s excellent Altenberg 16, which, among other things, gives you a good look at the underbelly of the Darwin racket. For example, at the Rockefeller University Evolution Symposium (May 2009), Mazur, who has interviewed a number of prominent scientists who think that self-organization is one form of evolution, asked Eugenie Scott of NCSE (the Darwin lobby) why self-organization was not represented in the books that NCSE was promoting. She responded that people confuse self-organization with intelligent design and that is why NCSE has not been supportive. (P. 101) But later, NCSE responded “NCSE does not recommend specific textbook publishers to ensure that their treatment evolution is extensive, pervasive, and up-to-date, and we oppose Read More ›

Here’s astronomer Hugh Ross on the Dennis Prager show, on Why the Universe Is the Way It Is (his book).

Ernan McMullin, contributor to Nature of Nature, died at approximately 12:30 pm (5:30 pm Irish time), in hospital at Letterkenny General Hospital near his home in Donegal. Here’s a lecture he gave at Pitt University.

    In my new book, Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life, I take the reader on a journey from 19-century England, to the wilds of the Amazon River Basin, to the Malay Archipelago, and back to the highly charged scientific climate of Victorian London. Wallace’s story is one of discovery, from shocking Charles Darwin with his own theory of natural selection to his realization that the very principle he used to explain the diversity of biological life itself had limits, limits with profound implications about humankind and nature itself. After years of research across the globe, Wallace came to believe that some intelligence was required to explain the natural world. This intelligent evolution would be explained by Wallace as directed, detectably designed, Read More ›

This question started out as “science and religion” but the religion part got lost somehow, not because I am unreligious but because I wasn’t sure how much religion, as such, you can learn from a serious exposition of the reasons for thinking that design is a feature of our universe.

All you can really learn from books about design is that materialist atheism is nuts. And, not surprisingly, all the materialist atheist mooches and tax burdens do everything they can to try to sink design friendly books in the ratings. Don’t usually succeed, of course, but can’t blame ’em for trying.

Anyway, here are my five top picks (exempting any book for which – so far as I know – I had anything to do with the text): Read More ›

In response to Thomas Cudworth’s request, these are the five science-religion books that I would recommend, or at least has influenced me the most — and help to explain my distinctive take on ID. You’ll see that some of these are available free on-line. Since my explanations are long-ish. They are located below the fold. 

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In the last year and a bit I’ve done a lot of work in trying to understand and then critique the approach of Dr. Denis Alexander of the Faraday Institute in Cambridge (UK). I know that many readers of UD are familiar with Alexander’s big-selling work, “Creation or Evolution – Do We Have To Choose?”. This book is probably (alongside Francis Collins) the work with the most traction by Darwinists seeking to argue from a Biblical Christian viewpoint. I’ve previously drawn attention to IVP’s “Should Christians Embrace Evolution”. In this post I want instead to draw attention to my own response, “Creation or Evolution – Why We Must Choose”. If you don’t want to read the blurb and just want Read More ›

I had a chapter in the recently published (IVP UK) “Should Christians Embrace Evolution?”, a negative response to those – in particular Dr. Denis Alexander – who say that we must. Well, Dr. Alexander has now read that response. The question going forward  is whether he wants to interact with it. My own personal opinion is that his books and writings show more interest in a propaganda effort to win a PR battle amongst the masses than they do in serious and responsible interaction with “the other side”. Dr. Alexander and I both whole-heartedly profess our own love to Jesus Christ and belief that an evangelical position is the only one that does justice to reality. That shared basis gives Read More ›

Since writing Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, Gertrude Himmelfarb has moved on to treat a wide range of topics. Nevertheless, her influence as an especially cogent historian of the man and his theory continues. A few have taken notice. Margaret A. Fay, for example, mentions her “insightful and lucid analysis.”¹Philosopher/theologian Edward T. Oakes, S.J., PhD, wrote: “I awoke from my own Darwinian dogmatic slumbers only late in life, when I first read Gertrude Himmelfarb’s tour de force of a biography . . . .”² M. D. Aeschliman’s Angels, apes, and men praised her “devastating” critique for exposing “the internal inconsistencies and willful obfuscations that have characterized Darwinism from the beginning,” yet noted the conspicuous neglect of her work by those suspiciously interested in promoting the Darwin brand.

Neglected perhaps but not without opportunites for exposition. Four years ago the publication of edited compilations of Darwin’s works, E. O. Wilson’s From So Simple a Beginning: The Four Great Books of Charles Darwin and James D. Watson’s The Indelible Stamp: The Evolution of an Idea, offered treatments by two of this “tormented” evolutionist’s most adoring fans and the occasion for a reply by Ms. Himmelfarb.

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In this the third installment on Himmelfarb’s analysis of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, its rise to an ideological ism, its social application, and the nature of the so-called “Darwinian revolution” are discussed. Those interested in the earlier posts should refer to 12/14 for part 1 and 12/15 for part 2.

Himmelfarb’s chapter on Darwinism opens by observing that when applied to a variety of social contexts it could have a “free and loose” translation which provided the added advantage of giving it “license to a variety of social gospels” (p. 412). Applied to many social issues, Darwinism was ambiguous. Darwinism, for example, could argue against slavery, the greatest endorsement of which came from Darwin himself who was an outspoken critic of this “peculiar institution.” Recently Adrian Desmond and James Moore elevated this to a motivating factor for Darwin’s theory in their Darwin’s Sacred Cause. The thesis is plausible, after all, Darwin’s Origin was written and published when the slavery controversy (which the British Empire had abolished earlier in 1833) raged in America.  But as Himmelfarb points out the implications of Darwin’s evolutionary theory could be taken in other ways:

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In part 1 it was demonstrated that Gertrude Himmelfarb’s Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution is the book Darwinists love to hate. In order to understand why a rather detailed examination is required. Of course, this is a big biography and an exhaustive account cannot be given here, but a summary investigation will make the source of the Darwinist’s discomfort obvious.

Darwin is divided into six “books”: 1) “Pre-history of the Hero;” 2) “Emergence of the Hero;” 3) “Emergence of the Theory;” 4) “Reception of the Origin;” 5) “Analysis of the Theory;” and 6) “Darwinism.” The first four books are an interesting read and provide a valuable backdrop to the treatment that follows, but Himmelfarb is weakest on Darwin’s early years. She completely passes over Darwin’s Edinburgh period where he joined the Plinian Society in November of 1826 and attended all but one of the ensuing 19 meetings until April of 1827. According to Adrian Desmond and James Moore’s Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, this was young Charles’ introduction to “seditious science.” While this is crucial in understanding the development of Darwin’s theory, it will not be gleaned from this book.

Also, Himmelfarb believes that Darwin was uninterested in and ill-equipped to appreciate the philosophical implications of his theory. Probably a better suggestion is that Darwin wasn’t so much disinterested in philosophy as he was just a bad philosopher, or at least a very superficial one. She as much as admits Darwin’s anemic reading in the field: “What little reading he did in philosophy was parochial in the extreme. . . . It is difficult to take seriously a discussion that had, as its most frequently cited moralist and philosopher, the historian William Lecky” (p. 375).¹ When Darwin appended a list of moral philosophers he had relied upon in preparing his Descent, philosophers he “assured” his readers that they would be familiar with, Himmelfarb notes that 26 were British “and that [they] are today, quite as assuredly, entirely unknown.”

Nevertheless, what Himmelfarb misses in the early years she more than makes up for in the last two books devoted to an analysis of the theory and the ideological ism that it would turn into. Here in these two sections more than anywhere else reside the sources of anger, revilement, and consternation for the Darwinists.

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Steven Meyer’s Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009) seems to be waking people up to the basic stupidity of modern Darwinism. Here: Most of Turek’s column riffs, quite rightly, off “climategate”: “You mean science is not objective?” No, unless the scientists are, and too often they are not. I don’t want to impugn all scientists, but it is true that some of them are less than honest. Sometimes they lie to get or keep their jobs. Sometimes they lie to get grant money. Sometimes they lie to further their political beliefs. Sometimes they don’t intentionally lie, but they draw bad scientific conclusions because they only look for what they hope to find. Misbehavior by scientists is more prevalent than Read More ›