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Media Mum about Deranged Darwinist Gunman

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John West of the Discovery Institute Reports:

But when a gunman inspired by Darwinism takes hostages at the offices of the Discovery Channel, reporters seem curiously uninterested in fully disclosing the criminal’s own self-described motivations. Most of yesterday’s media reports about hostage-taker James Lee dutifully reported Lee’s eco-extremism and his pathological hatred for humanity. But they also suppressed any mention of Lee’s explicit appeals to Darwin and Malthus as the intellectual foundations for his views. At least, I could find no references to Lee’s Darwinian motivations in the accounts I read by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC.

Major Media Spike Discovery

Comments
Those of you in this thread continuing to use the words "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" as if they had any more meaning than "Einsteinist" or "Mendeleevism" are so eager to smear evolutionary biologists by association with the mentally ill individual who took the hostages that you fail to recognize that nothing in his ranting manifesto is supported at all by modern evolutionary theory (or, indeed, even Darwin's original hypotheses). Is this really the level of discourse that you wish UD to be known for?MathGrrl
September 2, 2010
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scordova,
Evolutionary theory is not objective and verifiable. It is speculative and frequently refuted and without scientific merit.
It is simply not possible to make a statement like that without ignoring a truly phenomenal amount of scientific research over the past century and a half. If you reject science a priori because of your religious beliefs, you should at least be up front about it.MathGrrl
September 2, 2010
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Also, Lee rants against immigrants and the "anchor baby filth" that they bring. But I only noticed a passing mention of immigration at one of the articles cited (the one at CNN), and none gave the "anchor baby" quote. Besides that, even Fox News didn't seem to think Lee's affinity for Darwin was worth mentioning.AMW
September 2, 2010
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Maybe they don't talk about it because the word "Darwin" shows up twice (and "evolution" once) in an 1,100+ word rant. And in no instance does he bother to explain why Darwin or evolution would imply that humanity needs to be wiped out.AMW
September 2, 2010
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MathGrrl - I think you misunderstand the point of John West's post. It isn't that Darwinism makes you do X or Y, it's that the media skewers all right wingers on behalf of any single person who misbehaves, but is completely silent when it comes to even discussing this guy's motivations. That creates an unbalanced picture, because, if you get your information from the news, you see crazy right-wingers, and crazy people whose leanings are unreported, but no crazy left-wingers. Isn't that funny? If a fundamentalist Christian had done this, what would the media reporting be about? In addition, they would be blaming Bush, Beck, Hannity, and others. But since it is a Darwinist who is doing it, the fact that he did it on the basis of Darwinism isn't even worth reporting, much less the media circus that would ensue had he been of the opposite persuasion.johnnyb
September 2, 2010
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An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. The evidence for modern evolutionary theory (which is no more “Darwinism” than modern physics is “Einsteinism”) is objective and verifiable.
Evolutionary theory is not objective and verifiable. It is speculative and frequently refuted and without scientific merit. See: Third Member Of National Aacademy of Sciences to Criticize Darwinism Also Trashes Dawkins So the questions are: 1. Is Darwinism true 2. Is it beneficial to society The answer to 1 is No. The answer to 2 is a matter of opinion, but I see little benefit to humanity for this speculative (and erroneous) idea. So I say, no to 2. Darwinism is not beneficial to society. Consider what one evolutionist had to say about natural selection:
murder is the product of evolutionary forces and that the homicidal act, in evolutionary terms, conveys advantages to the killer. David Buss
scordova
September 2, 2010
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Mathgirl I also notice you stated "a successful scientific theory" Maybe you are the one who can point me to the evidence of material processes generating functional information,,,, notes from this morning: The fact is that there is not one single instance of the purely material processes creating any functional information whatsoever!!! (and what is Darwinian evolution save for material processes with replication thrown in!?!) Would you like to be the first Darwinist in the entire world to demonstrate that purely material processes can produce any functional information whatsoever. If you do so, there is a million dollar prize waiting for you,,, “The Origin-of-Life Prize” ® (hereafter called “the Prize”) will be awarded for proposing a highly plausible mechanism for the spontaneous rise of genetic instructions in nature sufficient to give rise to life. http://www.us.net/life/index.htm Perhaps you think that the origin of life is too much to ask of a Darwinist,, so I will settle for you showing me just one example of enough ‘trivial’ functional information being generated to pass the fitness test,,, Is Antibiotic Resistance evidence for evolution? – ‘The Fitness Test’ – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3995248 Testing the Biological Fitness of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria – 2008 http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/darwin-at-drugstore Mathematically Defining Functional Information In Molecular Biology – Kirk Durston – short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3995236 and this paper: Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins – Kirk K Durston, David KY Chiu, David L Abel and Jack T Trevors – 2007 Excerpt: We have extended Shannon uncertainty by incorporating the data variable with a functionality variable. The resulting measured unit, which we call Functional bit (Fit), is calculated from the sequence data jointly with the defined functionality variable. To demonstrate the relevance to functional bioinformatics, a method to measure functional sequence complexity was developed and applied to 35 protein families.,,, http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/47 Thus zeroseven Mathgirl, despite you saying this statement,,,
”’the only thing we know of that is capable of producing the complexity we see in the eye is an evolutionary process.”’ 'a successful scientific theory'
with absolutely no evidence to back your claim up, the truth of the matter is that the only thing we know that is capable of producing functional information is intelligence,,, Stephen C. Meyer – The Scientific Basis For Intelligent Design – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4104651 etc… etc… etc… potpourri,,, Ideas do indeed have consequences, far more consequences than many people realize right now,,,, Flyleaf- Cassie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5X0cWsC8rYbornagain77
September 2, 2010
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Mathgirl, ideas have consequences and if you deny that God gives you your transcendent rights of worth, then you by default grant the state you are living under the sole right to determine what you are worth ,,,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles,,,
So Mathgirl do you think it befitting that a state that deemed you a 'worthless eater' as NAZISM deemed 'sub-races' should have the right to kill you or would you be morally indignant that a state would choose to do as such? If you were morally indignant that they would seek to kill you what right would you have to say that your morals for worth are any more valid than the states morals for worth saying you are worthless, since you have denied the worth that God places on your life? notes: How Darwin's Theory Changed the World: Excerpt: "Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life, especially infanticide, euthanasia, abortion, and suicide. It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining in influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people's conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death" Richard Weikart http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn85/darwin-theory-changed-world.htm From Darwin To Hitler - Richard Weikart - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5EwYpLD6A Hitler's Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress - Richard Weikart http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Ethic-Pursuit-Evolutionary-Progress/dp/0230618073 The Dark Legacy Of Charles Darwin - 150 Years Later - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4060594bornagain77
September 2, 2010
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MathGrrl, The media does report that it was a Christian that did so and so motivated by his/her belief, they don't report that it was a Darwinist that did so and so motivated by his/her belief. Nothing intellectually dishonest here.Clive Hayden
September 2, 2010
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An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. The evidence for modern evolutionary theory (which is no more "Darwinism" than modern physics is "Einsteinism") is objective and verifiable. Do you blame Christianity for the atrocities committed by a small subset of Christians? Attempting to blame the actions of a mentally disturbed individual on a successful scientific theory is not just ridiculous and insensitive to the real issues and real person, but grossly intellectually dishonest.MathGrrl
September 2, 2010
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