Darwinism

Here’s a podcast with the father of 22-year-old Jesse Kilgore, who killed himself after reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Too bad young Jesse did not give himself a chance to read Alister McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion. My thoughts and prayers are with all who knew him. No doubt there was more going on than we know.

It’s a very sober reminder that, in a world where many believe that young people care only about text messaging aimless gossip, some take the critical questions deadly seriously.

In a very different chain of events a lttile over a year ago, a young Finnish social Darwinist killed himself and eight others , in an event reminiscent of Eric Harris at Columbine.

Significantly, when I reported on the Finnish school shooting, I received a storm of complaints from Darwinists who wanted me to know that their belief system was in no way implicated. I responded, Read More ›

Nature News Nov. 19, 2008 The 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin falls on 12 February 2009. Darwin was arguably the most influential scientist of modern times. No single researcher has since matched his collective impact on the natural and social sciences; on politics, religions, and philosophy; on art and cultural relations, and in ways that the man himself would never have imagined. This Nature news special will provide continuously updated news, research and analysis on Darwin’s life, his science and his legacy, as well as news from the Darwin200 consortium of organizations celebrating this landmark event. http://www.nature.com/news/specials/darwin/index.html I wonder if they will also celebrate Alfred Russel Wallace and his Sarawak Law.

The Vatican apparently seeks to understand biological evolution, as long as speakers do not address the issue of origins whether advocates of Intelligent Design, Creationists, or Evolutionists. That appears to a priori exclude the foundational issue of causation. It also appears to assume that papers on “biological evolution” do not have any unstated assumptions on mechanisms or causes. It will be interesting to see the papers and results from this conference. See following articles and Dembski’s previous post: The Pope Circling Around ID:
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“Intelligent design” not science: Vatican evolution congress to exclude creationism, intelligent design

Speakers invited to attend a Vatican-sponsored congress on the evolution debate will not include proponents of creationism and intelligent design, organizers said.

The Pontifical Council for Culture, Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are organizing an international conference in Rome March 3-7 2009 as one of a series of events marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” Read More ›

It’s out! To order go here. Book Description: Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, writes Richard Dawkins, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This little book shows that atheism must seek intellectual fulfillment elsewhere decisively demonstrating the need for intelligence in explaining life’s origin. This is the best overview of why traditional origin-of-life research has crashed and burned and why intelligent design is necessary to explain the high-tech engineering inside the cell. Author William A. Dembski worked closely as an advisor with the producers of the Spring 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed starring Ben Stein. How to Be an Intellectually Fulfilled Atheist (Or Not) is the intellectual argument that helped inform significant Read More ›

Little did I realize that in a few years I would encounter an idea — Darwin’s idea — bearing an unmistakable likeness to universal acid: it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways. Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995), pg. 63 Unfortunately, Darwin’s idea, the Greatest Idea Anyone Ever Had — which is a totally naive and preposterously simplistic notion concerning macroevolution and the complexity of the cell, and which is based upon 19th-century ignorance about how biological stuff works — is more like Sodium Hydroxide (a universal Lye) than a universal acid. Dennett got Read More ›

What Makes Science ‘Science’? Trainee teachers don’t have a clue, and most scientists probably don’t either. That’s bad news.

So says James Williams, kvetching in The Scientist, 22(10) October 2008, Page 29:

As a science educator, I train science graduates to become science teachers. Over the past two years I’ve surveyed their understanding of key terminology and my findings reveal a serious problem. Graduates, from a range of science disciplines and from a variety of universities in Britain and around the world, have a poor grasp of the meaning of simple terms and are unable to provide appropriate definitions of key scientific terminology. So how can these hopeful young trainees possibly teach science to children so that they become scientifically literate? How will school-kids learn to distinguish the questions and problems that science can answer from those that science cannot and, more importantly, the difference between science and pseudoscience?

And, in “Why the Philosophy of Science Matters” (The Scientist, October 2008), Richard Gallagher follows up, grousing:

You might expect that newly minted science graduates – who presumably think of themselves as scientists, and who I’d thought of as scientists – would have a well-developed sense of what science is. So it’s pretty shocking to discover that a large proportion of them don’t have a clue. At least that’s the case in the UK, going on the evidence of our Opinion author James Williams (“What Makes Science ‘Science’?”). He found that a sizeable proportion of science graduates entering teacher training couldn’t define what is a scientific fact, law or hypothesis.

No, but why should that matter? Gallagher goes on to announce that the reason this ignorance is a problem is that the grads won’t be able to properly diss “climate change deniers, GM modification scaremongers, or creationists.” Read More ›

Blue: Intelligent Design; Red: Darwinian Evolution; Orange: Scientific Creationism; Green: Theological Evolution Any questions? Source: Google Trends Update: Due to whiny protesters who say Darwinian evolution isn’t fair, I shortened it to evolution. And just to be fair I shortened intelligent design to design.

Simon Conway Morris and Steve Fuller start this debate (more). < ![endif]-->

Dear gentle reader, As someone who has had an ongoing struggle with the Anglican Communion his entire adult life, and to whom the current, obvious, and slow-motion destruction of the entire historical Anglican Church brings no joy, I have a few comments on the anticipated apology of the Church of England, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to Charles Darwin.  Despite indications to the contrary, this clearly has had some thought put into it, as evidenced by the Darwin section of the Church of England and website:  “Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. “ Read More ›

In the post below, where U Warwick sociologist Steve Fuller replies to the attempted hatchet job by third-rate Darwin hack Sahotra Sarkar, I think this point made by Fuller is especially critical:

The overarching sense of scientific progress and its concomitant faith in greater explanatory unity and increased predictive control of nature over time: All of these trade on an ID-based view of the world, in which human beings enjoy a special relationship to reality that enables us to acquire a deep knowledge, most of which affords no particular reproductive advantage and more likely puts our continued survival at risk. Armed only with a Darwinian view of the world – and without the implicit ID backstory – it becomes difficult to justify the continuation of the scientific enterprise in this full-bodied sense.

The idea that we can understand nature is daily retailed to science students in publicly funded schools. We want them to know that we can somehow acquire the ability to understand reality – but that requires explanation.

And the explanation cannot be Darwinian. The Darwinian view is, as I have noted before, that our minds are illusions created by our neurons – which are in turn under the control of our selfish genes. These systems did not originate in order to discover truth but to enable us to leave offspring.

So Sarkar’s theories cannot be true to nature. They can only be meaningless (but for those who take them seriously, they may possibly result in a need for infant shoes).

That is okay with me, to be sure. But producing the infants to wear the shoes is not Read More ›

In the Face of an Aspiring Baboon: A Response to Sahotra Sarkar’s Review of Science vs. Religion?

Introduction

Some will wonder why I expend such great effort in responding to Sahotra Sarkar’s negative review of my Science vs. Religion? I offer four reasons: (1) The review was published in the leading on-line philosophy reviews journal (which offers no right of response). (2) Word of the review has spread very fast across the internet, especially amongst those inclined to believe it. Indeed, part of the black humour of this episode is the ease with which soi disant critical minds are willing to pronounce the review ‘excellent’ without having compared the book and the review for themselves. (3) The review quotes the book sufficiently to leave the false impression that it has come to grips with its content. (4) Most importantly, there is a vast world-view difference that may hold its own lessons. Sarkar and I were both trained in ‘history and philosophy of science’ (HPS), yet our orientations to this common subject could not be more opposed. Sarkar’s homepage sports this quote from Charles Darwin: ‘He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke’. I take this to be wishful thinking on Sarkar’s part.

My response is divided into 4 parts:
1. The Terms of Reference: Start with the Title
2. What to Make of the Philosophical Critique of ID?
3. Sarkar’s Particular Criticisms I: The More Editorial Ones
4. Sarkar’s Particular Criticisms II: The More Substantive Ones

Read More ›

My op-ed piece published in The Calgary Herald, Saturday, August 16, 2008, responding to radio host and commentator Rob Breakenridge, with links to sources:

In rebuttal – Theory needs a paramedic, not more cheerleaders

Denyse O’Leary

Re “What is it about evolution theory that Albertans don’t get?” (August 12, 2008), Rob Breakenridge has cobbled together key talking points of the American Darwin lobby. The resulting column is an excellent illustration of why one should not write about big topics without basic research.

The 2005 Judge Jones decision in Pennsylvania, to which Breakenridge devotes much of his column, has not crimped the worldwide growth of interest in intelligent design. That is no surprise. A judge is not a scientist, and Jones cannot plug gaping holes in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolution is—contrary to its (largely) publicly funded zealots— in deep trouble, for a number of reasons.

The history of life has not been the long, slow “survival of the fittest” transition that classical evolution theory requires. Life got started on Earth soon after the planet cooled. All the basic divisions of animal life took shape rather suddenly in the Cambrian seas, about 550 million years ago. Later, there was, for example, the “Big Bang” of flowers and the Big Bang of birds, where many life forms appear quite suddenly.

Modern human consciousness is one of these leaps, judging from the superb cave paintings from recent millenniums. The creationists whom Breakenridge derides may be wrong on their dates, but not on much else.

Breakenridge hopes that we can enlighten backward Albertans by teaching more “evolution” in Alberta schools. But that won’t help. Textbook examples of evolution often evaporate when researchers actually study them (instead of just assuming they are true). Read More ›

I would like to introduce  retired Australian political science prof Hiram Caton’s new Web site on the pious Darwin legends that currently infest popular media. 

Caton, a friend and associate of the late David Stove, author of Darwinian Fairy Tales, has done extensive research on the real story behind Darwin and his Origin of Species – and no, it is not the pious legends you will be hearing on public television. Bet you guessed that.

Both Caton and Stove are recognized as agnostic philosophers with limited use for pious legends in science, as in religion (must be something in the air Down Under?)

Anyway, here is Caton’s beginning stab at hauling away the trash (and his deceased colleague would be proud):

^Belief that the Origin was a ‘revolutionary’ scientific breakthrough conflicts with the fact that public opinion was at the time saturated with the evolution idea. It was so widespread that in 1860 the showman P T Barnum put on display a freak, styled Zip the Pinhead, alleged to be the ‘missing link’ between apes and humans. Read More ›

I’m currently rereading Bill Dembski’s No Free Lunch. On page 180 we read:

In The Fifth Miracle [Paul] Davies goes so far as to suggest that any laws capable of explaining the origin of life must be radically different from any scientific laws known to date. The problem, as he sees it, with currently known scientific laws, like the laws of chemistry and physics, is that they cannot explain the key feature of life that needs to be explained. That feature is specified complexity. As Davies puts it: “Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity.”

But then Davies puts blind faith in the notion that once a self-replicator appears, specified complexity (i.e., complex specified information) can mysteriously be had on the cheap, as though there are known laws that can account for this. Of course, there are no known such laws, and, in fact, such a notion is just as much a get-something-for-nothing scam as the origin of the first cell through chance and necessity is.
Read More ›