Our betters need to believe that we are gullible. Not so, says Hugo Mercier, whose recent book, Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe (2020), takes a different position from that of the campus fatheads.
Culture
John West on Darwin’s corrosive idea
Intro: In the case of Darwin’s idea of unguided evolution and of a planet of life formed from blind material processes alone, John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science & Culture, notes a range of consequences and impacts, on how we see the sanctity of human life, how we understand morality and spirituality, and much more.
The eugenicists were mostly the Woke people of their day
Terry Scambray: Opponents were mostly the unWoke—Catholics, anti-Darwinists, and such. (A review of The Guarded Gate.)
Michael Egnor: How NOT to debate materialists
Egnor: Although ape brains do differ somewhat from human brains in cortical anatomy, it is the similarity between the brains of apes and men, rather than the differences, that provides striking evidence of human exceptionalism.
Stuck at home? Illustra is offering ID vids free
As Adam Nieri, the Mind Matters News sci-fi reviewer would say, Binge:
When the Woke meet up with Darwin…
Eventually, the Woke had to discover that Darwin is not a co-belligerent. Will Darwinians become as unpopular as they made ID types?
The Darwinians show their lovely faces in Brazil
It really doesn’t matter all that much what the accusations are. Right now, Darwinism is a fat living for people who don’t like challenges or thinking too hard. They will do their best to undermine Aguiar Neto, no matter what he does for the average Brazilian science student.
And no wonder there is a growing number of populist revolutions in the world.
The College Board Exams (Darwin-only evolution) meets COVID-19
Independent journalist Suzan Mazur followed up with the College Board testing on evolution knowledge among U.S. students, which seems to test mainly for familiarity with the Darwin sect’s interpretation.
Well, we can spare you the suspense, dear readers, by revealing that they weren’t thrilled to hear a critical question.
No, more Darwinism won’t stop COVID-19
But, says Michael Egnor, spare a thought for the people who really do make a difference.
Jerry Coyne: Darwinians do SO bash eugenics!
We accept that Coyne and his friends didn’t find Nicholas Wade’s views congenial. But wasn’t he one of the pop science gang? Could some Darwinians possibly shed some light on his retirement book party and then sudden submergence?
Darwin skeptic Robert Shedinger calls out Paul Davies
Shedinger, author of The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms: Darwinian Biology’s Grand Narrative of Triumph and the Subversion of Religion (Cascade, 2019), offers some thoughts on origin-of-life theorist Paul Davies’ decades-long dance around design in nature.
Serious panpsychists are harder to ridicule now
For a long while, Darwinians have been able to get away with claiming that human consciousness evolved to increase our chances of survival. The trouble is, that’s unlikely. The relationship between intelligence and survival is unclear. Or that it is some kind of a “spandrel,” an accidental byproduct of useful qualities. But that’s merely a statement of faith in Darwinism as the total explainer. It’s evening and the chickens are coming home.
Wikipedia erases list of climate skeptics
Even if everything is all pristine and honest with climate science today, the settled habit of simply censoring opposing views inevitably corrupts. Over time it corrupts absolutely. Darwinism is paying the price even now for that kind of thing, if we go by the defensive Darwinblather around the current, sublime embarrassment of de novo genes.
Why does Darwinism remind one of the propaganda of unfree countries?
Never mind that the de novo genes have no apparent ancestors. Universal common ancestry, the supposed bedrock of the system, is not as important as simple, unquestioning obedience to the current pronouncements of the ideologues.
Nature tut tuts on eugenics, forgets Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin
In our current cultural climate, it is very difficult to have a useful discussion of the contribution Darwinism made to modern racism, as evidenced by racist yammer today featuring “natural selection.” To recap, Darwinism made racism “scientific.” That was much easier to sell to the educated classes in the nineteenth century than the idea that some people’s papa was a god and the rest of us were just bricks. And many committed and devoted Darwinists believed in and co-operated with the new, “scientific” racism. Until all that can be fully and freely acknowledged, the matter can never be laid to rest.