In “Why humans are unique” (Washington Times, February 28, 2012), Tom Bethell reflects,
… denigration of the human race has become fashionable, constant and, in the academy, almost obligatory. Sagan derided “our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe.” Evolution theorist Stephen Jay Gould made similar comments.
It’s as though we go around sounding like Mohammed Ali: “We’re the greatest!” But who say such things? Sagan and Gould never identified them. In most cases, I think, the real target is not human boasting but faith in God. Often, the complaints are made by those who have lost their own faith. What really upsets the Darwinians is not that we think we are so great, but that we still think God is greater.
You wonder why all these academics do not seek their salaries from bonobos instead, out of pure principle.
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