Coffee!! Neo-Darwinians blamed for low birth rate

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 18, 2010

Darwinism}

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The leader of Britain’s Jewish community claimed the continent’s population is in decline because people care more about shopping than the sacrifice involved in parenthood.

He blamed atheist “neo-Darwinians” for Europe’s low birth rate and said religious people of all denominations are more likely to have large families. (Telegraph 05 November 2009)

Go here for more.

All I know is this:

1. He’s right about the demographics. Religious people do have more kids. To the point where some think it a big problem.

2. Most of the people I have ever met who have lots of kids have never heard of Darwinism, or have and don’t believe it.

3. Most of the people I have ever met who are passionate about Darwinism have few kids.

4. This means that Darwinism would not likely survive under natural circumstances, hence it must be compulsorily propagated through school systems. Hence all the school board court cases.

Comments

osteonectin. My point was just that marxists - who were often rabid atheists at he beginning, but in later periods some of them attended church secretly - were aware that biological structures need their own natural laws. Actually they attacked mechanistic approach to biology and evolution and even openly claimed that biological structures violate the law of enthropy. Putting it shortly - physics and chemistry are unable to deal with life according marxists. Even founding father Engels thought that it is coded and inherent in inanimate matter to evolve toward man and his brain. Something like a law of matter without supranatural force. So or so this clearly contradicts neodarwinian randomness. In this point are their opinions of some interest to me. It doesn't mean that marxists anyhow solved the mystery of life. On the contrary, they are as lost as darwinists but on an "updated level". Nothing common with ID.VMartin_{February 19, 2010
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Yes, great post! Glad for this reference. Mark Steyn, who writes with pizzaz, chronicles this same dull Euroreality—though he doesn’t give Darwin enough credit. I remember the hysteria over population back there in The Sixties and Seventies—William Paddock, Barry Commoner, and all the rest. My sister spurned it all and went on to bring nine wonderful people into this world, not without a lot of nasty comments and dirty looks. But if she taps into Social Security you can bet that her progeny will more than cover the bill, and she will never die a forlorn widow.Rude_{February 19, 2010
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Are you arguing that natural selection will cause the average opinion to evolve away from Darwinism? So why have levels of belief in evolution remained more or less stable in the last 50 years?Chet_{February 18, 2010
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VMartin
On the other hand I am still perplexed by the convergence of marxists and great anti-darwinian scholars like Richard Goldschmidt. Marxists insisted on special biological laws that couldnot be reduced to darwinian mechanics. They strongly criticised “morganism-mendelism” during Stalin. I am afraid – despite the horrors they commited – criminal Lysenkoists were more far-seeing in this point than Dawkins. Goldschmidt dismissed corpuscular notion of genes and insisted on action of chromosomes as wholes. New species can arise by chromosomal rearrangements. Something John Davison proposed as well.
Do you intend to say that ID is more compatible with socialism than evolution theory? Surprisingly, Denyse O'Leary and other UD regulars seem to accept this statement.osteonectin_{February 18, 2010
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Well, this establishes that there is such a thing as Canadian English. "Niner" is, in fact, a term used locally. Based on experience, I had always thought so, and there is an Oxford Canadian Dictionary - written, in part, from the Canadian Tire catalogue. Always ask, if you do not know what I mean.O'Leary_{February 18, 2010
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The niner thing would only work in Canada, where you would say "grade nine." Down in the states it's "9th grade." So it would most likely be more like a "ninther?" Not sure what it is elsewhere. :)CannuckianYankee_{February 18, 2010
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VMartin, my apologies! A niner is a Grade Nine student in a typical North American school system. A "cute niner" will typically be a girl if you are a guy. Or vice versa. Somewhere around 14 years old. It is not unknown for a promising Grade Ten quarterback (virtually always a guy) to co-opt a cute female niner to stay up late and do his homework for him while he practises for touchdown passes under the floodlights - and she admires him from the window, while writing his English essay. Hey, let me know any time I am not clear. :) :) Phillip Longman is quite clear - in contrast to me - and I recommend you read him if you want to understand the demographic issue that Britain's chief rabbi is raising.O'Leary_{February 18, 2010
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O'Leary: As a foreigner studying Goldschmidt's work I was able to find out meaning of such English calcs as "phenocopy", "allelomorph" or "norm of reaction". Unfortunately I was not so succesful with your "cute niner".VMartin_{February 18, 2010
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VMartin at 3, "Unless backed up by any statistics such claims are not very persuasive." Read Phillip Longman, sourced above, under item 1. I am just so NOT the cute niner who is going to do your homework for you. :)O'Leary_{February 18, 2010
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Unless backed up by any statistics such claims are not very persuasive. In former Czecho-Slovakia there was a baby boom after Soviet invasion in 1968. Of course it was not due to the fact that Soviets dismissed Darwin. After break down of communism and establishing of religious freedom birth rate went sharply down. But maybe grip of darwinism on human subconsciousness is greater than we are willing to accept. It is everywhere, in every magazine one may read how this or that behavior "evolved". On the other hand I am still perplexed by the convergence of marxists and great anti-darwinian scholars like Richard Goldschmidt. Marxists insisted on special biological laws that couldnot be reduced to darwinian mechanics. They strongly criticised "morganism-mendelism" during Stalin. I am afraid - despite the horrors they commited - criminal Lysenkoists were more far-seeing in this point than Dawkins. Goldschmidt dismissed corpuscular notion of genes and insisted on action of chromosomes as wholes. New species can arise by chromosomal rearrangements. Something John Davison proposed as well. Considering the fact that chimpanzees and man share almost the same genes only two solution is available in my opinion - either the difference is caused by chromosomal rearrangements or by different interpretation of existing genes (hermeneutics as proposed by some scholars at Uni Prague recently). In both cases play basic neodarwinian mantra of genes duplication - mutation - selection no role. http://cadra.wordpress.com/VMartin_{February 18, 2010
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An excellent example of how atheism does not drive every individual into a libertine frenzy in an attempt to pass on their genes. We might have expected the opposite behaviors to hold. The materialist focuses on reproduction, while the person sure that what happens to their body is irrelevant to eternity focuses on spreading their ideas, not their genes. But there is hope for Dawkins yet! Celibacy among the most religious may outweigh higher birth rates. An interesting problem in population genetics to find the balancing point.Nakashima_{February 18, 2010
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Now that's some elegant logic. Gödel would also appreciate it... If Darwinism actually exists, it will necessarily select itself out of existence, so it will no longer exist.polistra_{February 18, 2010
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I think Darwin might have agreed. Here's what he had to say about it: "A most important obstacle in civilized countries to an increase in the number of men of a superior class has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Greg and Mr. Galton, namely, the fact that the very poor and reckless, who are often degraded by vice, almost invariably marry early, whilst the careful and frugal, who are generally otherwise virtuous, marry late in life, so that they may be able to support themselves and their children in comfort. . .Those who marry early produce within a given period not only a greater number of generations, but, as shown by Dr. Duncan they produce many more children. Thus the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. Or as Mr. Greg puts the case: 'The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, sagacious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts- and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of the power, of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal 'struggle for existence,' it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed- and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults.' Descent of Man, chpt. V. Although apparently nowadays many of the traits given to the scottish folk here would be considered faults.Leslie_{February 18, 2010
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Great post. As Mike Gene was keen to point out: Evolution is Cruel to Dawkins and Dennett He says it better than I could:
Dennett and Dawkins ....possess a certain desperation to rid the world of religion. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this blog, let us imagine that their thesis is completely valid "“ there is no God and natural selection simply shaped our brains such that we are predisposed to accept the God delusion. Such a reality is a sad place for Dennett and Dawkins. According to Dennett and Dawkins, millions of years of evolution have shaped human beings to be religious. If an alien species were to study humans, religious expression and belief would, in essence, be part of the human phenotype. And thus we see the first dimension of Evolution's cruelty to Dennett and Dawkins. In their quest to rid the world of religion, they have chosen to do battle with human nature. But not only do they struggle against something that evolution has produced, they appear doomed because they are still struggling against evolution. .... And thus we see Evolution's Final Act of Cruelty imposed on Dawkins and Dennett. Rather than get distracted by arguing whether they are correct, consider, at least for this moment, what it means if they are correct. Evolution has given Dennett and Dawkins a reality where they do not "fit" – the majority of their fellow species believe in some form a religion. Evolution has shaped the human brain to be religious and evangelistic efforts of Dawkins and Dennett are not going to undo the blind watchmaker's handiwork – religious circuitry that exists within in our brains. Then comes the ultimate insult. Even if it is possible to "secularize" a population, this appears to be a fleeting, transient transitional phase. The fecundity of a population full of Dennetts and Dawkins plummets and this population finds itself with an inferior fitness compared to a population of Falwells and Robertsons. Evolution itself ensures that the religious mindset will persist. It's been doing so for millennia. And therein may lie the most cruel irony of evolution. While it may make it possible for Richard Dawkins to be intellectually fulfilled, it also means that Dawkins, from an evolutionary perspective, embraces a world view that is maladapted to his biological essence and thus is nothing more than another evolutionary oddity whose lineage is a dead-end.
scordova_{February 18, 2010
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