Nothing to do with the state of the evidence. Still, Ridley’s new evolution book maddens the reviewer:
From a New Scientist review of science writer Matt Ridley’s new book, The Evolution of Everything:
How a creationist instinct stops us seeing evolution everywhere
FOR most of history, humans were instinctive creationists. Faced with the intricate perfection of an eye or a wing, they jumped to the conclusion that it was designed by an intelligent creator, aka God. Then along came Darwin and proved the obvious wrong. The appearance of design is an illusion; biological order arises by slow, undirected trial-and-error coupled with natural selection, aka evolution.
Bu the evidence simply isn’t showing that Darwin’s mechanism Darwinism (natural selection acting on random mutation) produces the level of change his followers place their faith in. On the other hand, why should that matter? Ideas that big …
More.
The reason the New Scientist’s reviewer finds Ridley’s book “maddening” is certainly not because he doubts Darwin:
The Darwinian revolution is unfinished, says Ridley; like relativity, the theory of evolution should be considered a “special theory”, applicable only in the limited sphere of biological change. It needs to be extended to a “general theory”, which also applies to the human world.
The problem is that Ridley takes his Darwinism seriously; he is not a progressive. He does not think that the human race would evolve better if everyone had the imprint of the government’s boot permanently stamped on their faces.
But far worse, he says so.
The New Scientist crowd likes Darwinism only insofar as it enables that kind of thing while establishing their pop Darwinism as the only permitted view.
More rich stuff from the reviewer re Ridley:
Ridley’s is a fundamentalist world view that brooks no dissent; everything can be twisted or elided to support the argument. This seems lost on him, even as he gleefully skewers Freudianism and other pseudoscientific theories of the human condition
At least he wouldn’t make other views illegal. Maybe that too is one of his flaws?
If anyone is interested, here are evidence-based reasons not to believe Darwin’s followers, especially the skinny.
Note: Another sign that Darwinism is being shaken is these types of quarrels erupting between the Darwinists who take the logic seriously (Ridley) and those who just want the power of a progressive government to enforce their Darwin street theatre (New Scientist).
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