Vox Day on canceling Darwin

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June 14, 2020

Culture, Darwinism

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Vox Day has noticed the same story about the possible cancellation of Darwin that we did:

It will be ironic if Charles Darwin is not ejected from his lofty status as a secular scientific saint by scientific and mathematical criticsm, but by the ignorant baying of the savage mob:
Vox Day, “Canceling Darwin” at Vox Popoli

One got the impression years ago that the Darwinians never really thought there was any chance it could happen to them. However, Darwin may not have been doing for others as much as he was doing for them and they never stopped to think about it.

Hat tip: Ken Francis, co-author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd

See also: Darwinian wonders: Will Darwin survive the purge? Carl admits that “Up until now, Darwin has been considered something of a hero on the political left… In short, all that dynamite (Darwin’s racism) was lying around, just waiting for someone to find it and make an issue of it—but the Darwinians didn’t want to deal with it themselves in case doing so complicated their culture war? Oh my.

Comments

Ed George: ID explains the origin of the universe, the Big Bang or whatever else may have happened, the laws of physics, the existence of math, origin of life and various species. You are on the side of magic. The universe magically created itself out of nothing and magically put the laws of physics into place. You are on the side that does not believe something should be witnessed and the results replicated to be considered science.BobRyan_{June 17, 2020
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Sev
Could it be that it’s not so much the science itself as the threat that science is felt to pose to the core religious beliefs of some?
How could you come to that conclusion? Creationism ===> Scientific Creationism ===> Intelligent Design. It’s not like there is any draft of an ID text book that shows a clear cut-and-paste of Creationism to Intelligent Design. Is there? :)Ed George_{June 16, 2020
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seversky:
The other question is why are ID/creationists so obsessed with Darwin?
We aren't. It's just that he is still the only one to propose a mechanism that alleges design without a designer. Yes, science has moved on and nothing has supported Darwin's ideas. Yet his main concept, ie design without a designer, remains. And it remains untested and untestable. It also remains that there isn't any scientific theory of evolution. Why is that?ET_{June 16, 2020
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John_a_designer @ 10
The question is, why does Darwin’s theory continue to dominate the biological sciences? It should have been ruled obsolete, except when it comes to explaining minor evolutionary change, decades ago. It persists for philosophical or worldview reasons not scientific ones. Nothing provides a hand and glove fit with atheistic naturalism and materialism like Darwin’s theory. That is because Darwin himself was deeply influenced by 19th century materialism.
The other question is why are ID/creationists so obsessed with Darwin? Yes, his seminal work was a breakthrough in biology but the science has moved on considerably since his day. We don't see the same amount of effort devoted to discrediting "Newtonism" for example. Could it be that it's not so much the science itself as the threat that science is felt to pose to the core religious beliefs of some? Darwin's achievements are acknowledged and greatly respected but he is not worshipped. Worship is for the faithful not atheistic naturalists. Unfortunately, I suspect human beings are going to be wedded to their religious beliefs - there are a lot more than one, you know - for the foreseeable future, although they may evolve over time. Is the Christianity of the 21st century exactly the same as that of the first century or the tenth century? Perhaps it is not the theory of evolution you should fear so much as the natural process itself.Seversky_{June 16, 2020
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RP:
Have you considered the possibility that you’re wrong and a million scientists simply know better than you do?
Nice bluff. No one uses evolution by means of blind and mindless processes for anything. Why is Darwin celebrated? His ideas have yet to bear any fruit. Natural selection has been a total bust as a designer mimic. "On the Origins of Species..." isn't even scientific. He had no idea how to test his claims. That problem remains to this day. Obviously RP is a KoolAid drinkerET_{June 16, 2020
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Retired Physicist, perhaps instead of off-handedly comparing Darwin's theory to Relativity, you should actually produce some evidence? I would think someone who refers to himself as "Retired Physicist" would have enough integrity to produce actual evidence instead of rhetoric. As to the oft repeated claim from Darwinists that “evolution is as certain as gravity”. Granville Sewell traced the origin of that particular claim to Joseph Le Conte in 1897. In fact Le Conte not only claimed that evolution was as certain as gravity but that evolution was “far more” certain than gravity.
“The law of evolution is as certain as the law of gravitation. Nay, it is far more certain. The nexus between successive events in time (causation) is far more certain than the nexus between coexistent objects in space (gravitation). The former is a necessary truth, the latter is usually classed as a contingent truth.” – Le Conte https://spectator.org/evolution-more-certain-than-gravity/
Dr. Sewell even quotes Le Conte again, in a fuller context, at the beginning of his newly updated video which he just uploaded on YouTube a few days ago
Why Evolution is Different https://youtu.be/aJua-0FpmnI?t=10
As to the claim that evolution is as certain, or even “far more certain”, than gravity, Dr. Berlinski rightly regarded that claim as preposterous,
“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003)
Darwinism simply has nothing to offer in comparison. In fact, Winston Ewert recently found the dependency graph (Intelligent Design) model to be “far more certain” than the common descent (Darwinian) model. Dr. Hunter termed the Darwinian model to be “incredibly inferior” to the Design model.
New Paper by Winston Ewert Demonstrates Superiority of Design Model – Cornelius Hunter – July 20, 2018 Excerpt: Ewert amassed a total of nine massive genetic databases. In every single one, without exception, the dependency graph model surpassed common descent. Darwin could never have even dreamt of a test on such a massive scale. Darwin also could never have dreamt of the sheer magnitude of the failure of his theory. Because you see, Ewert’s results do not reveal two competitive models with one model edging out the other. We are not talking about a few decimal points difference.,,, The problem is that the common descent model is so incredibly inferior to the dependency graph model that the Bayes factor cannot be typed out. In other words, the probability of the data set, given the dependency graph model, is so much greater than the probability of the data set given the common descent model, that we cannot type the quotient of their division. Instead, Ewert reports the logarithm of the number. Remember logarithms? Remember how 2 really means 100, 3 means 1,000, and so forth? Unbelievably, the 10,064 value is the logarithm (base value of 2) of the quotient! In other words, the probability of the data on the dependency graph model is so much greater than that given the common descent model, we need logarithms even to type it out. If you tried to type out the plain number, you would have to type a 1 followed by more than 3,000 zeros. That’s the ratio of how probable the data are on these two models! By using a base value of 2 in the logarithm we express the Bayes factor in bits. So the conditional probability for the dependency graph model has a 10,064 advantage over that of common descent. 10,064 bits is far, far from the range in which one might actually consider the lesser model. See, for example, the Bayes factor Wikipedia page, which explains that a Bayes factor of 3.3 bits provides “substantial” evidence for a model, 5.0 bits provides “strong” evidence, and 6.6 bits provides “decisive” evidence. This is ridiculous. 6.6 bits is considered to provide “decisive” evidence, and when the dependency graph model case is compared to comment descent case, we get 10,064 bits. But It Gets Worse The problem with all of this is that the Bayes factor of 10,064 bits for the HomoloGene data set is the very best case for common descent. For the other eight data sets, the Bayes factors range from 40,967 to 515,450. In other words, while 6.6 bits would be considered to provide “decisive” evidence for the dependency graph model, the actual, real, biological data provide Bayes factors of 10,064 on up to 515,450. We have known for a long time that common descent has failed hard. In Ewert’s new paper, we now have detailed, quantitative results demonstrating this. And Ewert provides a new model, with a far superior fit to the data. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/new-paper-by-winston-ewert-demonstrates-superiority-of-design-model/
For any other theory in science, this level of falsification would simply be completely devastating to the theory. Indeed, with such a decisive level of falsification, the theory would be rightly relegated to such erroneous beliefs as the moon is made of green cheese. But alas, Darwinian evolution gets a free pass when it comes to falsifying evidence no matter how badly the evidence falsifies the theory. To repeat what I’ve stated many times before, Darwinian evolution is not a testable science, but a unfalsifiable pseudoscience, even a religion, for atheists.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.
bornagain77_{June 16, 2020
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By the way, you should get a copy of on the origin of species and read it. It’s amazing to watch a person 150 years ago sort out often contradictory evidence and find the glimmer of truth of what was happening. Reading that book will really impress upon you how hard it is to do cutting edge science, and how half the evidence seems to contradict the other half. Wallace, too, deserves some credit. He had the same basic realization, at approximately the same time, which is almost always how it goes in science.Retired Physicist_{June 16, 2020
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The question is, why does Darwin’s theory continue to dominate the biological sciences?
Have you considered the possibility that you’re wrong and a million scientists simply know better than you do? There’s no end to cranks who will insist that Einstein is wrong about Relativity, and their arguments are garbage, but they can’t understand that. Back in my teens I was a naïve fool and thought that Einstein was obviously wrong. After spending several years studying physics I realized there’s a reason Einstein is celebrated and I was not. Well it’s the same with Darwin. There’s a reason he’s celebrated, and Behe is not.Retired Physicist_{June 16, 2020
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The question is, why does Darwin’s theory continue to dominate the biological sciences? It should have been ruled obsolete, except when it comes to explaining minor evolutionary change, decades ago. It persists for philosophical or worldview reasons not scientific ones. Nothing provides a hand and glove fit with atheistic naturalism and materialism like Darwin’s theory. That is because Darwin himself was deeply influenced by 19th century materialism. Unfortunately as long as people are wedded to a naturalistic world view you’re going to have some version of Darwinian evolution. It’s the one thing that’s not going to evolve.john_a_designer_{June 16, 2020
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used to sport a Mohawk
I always thought that was his pet mink …daveS_{June 15, 2020
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F/N: Vox Day is an iconoclast who delights in making the most outrageous assertions. It is hard to know where satire shades into trollishness then into gasoline on the rhetorical fire. He is of part Mexican revolutionary and Amerindian ancestry, identifies with the latter. . . used to sport a Mohawk . . . and beyond that seems to defy categorisation. Apart from having his own views on just about any topic under the sun. So, to cite him as spotting a problem with the current past erasure panic is not at all to endorse his views in general. KFkairosfocus_{June 15, 2020
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BA77, Once we see critical theory of X we are dealing with cultural form marxism. That albatross around the neck tells us all we need to know. KFkairosfocus_{June 15, 2020
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It is interesting that the unforgivable sin for the woke left is racism. In fact, in Critical Race Theory it is held that any progress in race relations that has been achieved thus far "is largely a myth" and that "the founding of the United States (was) a project in maintaining and exploiting slavery".
Critical Race Theory Derrick Bell’s Interest-Convergence Thesis, in which he argues that advances have only been made for black people when it has been in white people’s interests to allow them. This causes Bell to argue that progress of race relations is largely a myth.,,, One consequence of this view is that critical race Theory explicitly endorses historical revisionism, as it proceeds from the assumption that history was written by dominant (white) people who have, as a result of their privilege and its influences, not represented it accurately. A contemporary example of this effort is the 1619 Project, which was promoted by the New York Times starting in August 2019, with the explicit agenda of reframing the founding of the United States as a project in maintaining and exploiting slavery (see also, post-traumatic slavery syndrome). https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-race-theory/
Thus, for the woke left, America has not made any gigantic strides in race relations, (i.e. the Civil War and Martin Luther King), but America itself is irredeemably racist since it was founded "as a project in maintaining and exploiting slavery". More interesting still, Critical Race Theory is at war with liberalism itself. In short, the woke left is actually at war with the traditional liberal left.
Another central tenet of critical race theory is the critique of liberalism. This comes as a shock to most American readers who mistakenly identify critical race Theory as something associated with liberals and liberalism, but CRT is openly an anti-liberal theoretical and political project. The liberal approach to anti-racism is to divest race categories of social significance and treat everyone equally. That is, race is to become largely irrelevant and we, as a society, come to see skin color as having no more significance to a person’s worth or abilities than their hair color. This is referred to by critical race Theorists as “color-blindness” and is deemed highly problematic (see also, racism-blindness). A liberal society aims to make sure that everybody is treated equally by ensuring that race, gender, or sexuality and does not prevent anyone from accessing any opportunity and then evaluating each individual on their abilities. This is known as “meritocracy,” which is viewed as a highly problematic ideology white people use to maintain their cultural dominance and justify their own white supremacy. https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-race-theory/
This can't end well for the left.
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
bornagain77_{June 15, 2020
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The quote that Vox Day highlights in his article is from a recent article by Noah Carl who was a sociologist at Cambridge who got fired from his research position. An editorial in The Times stated that his "main offence seems to have been to challenge the “woke” left-wing orthodoxy",,,
Noah Carl: I’m a sociologist who got canceled – and I fear CHARLES DARWIN might not survive this purge of science & history - 13 Jun, 2020 Excerpt: Up until now, Darwin has been considered something of a hero on the political left, due to the religious right’s opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools (or at least, their insistence that one should“teach the controversy” that supposedly surrounds evolution and creationism). However, it is quite possible there will soon be a reckoning. For Darwin’s writings contain ample statements that would put him far beyond the pale of what is now considered acceptable. First, differences between the sexes. In The Descent of Man, Darwin states that “the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman.” And in an 1882 letter, he states that “women though generally superior to men to moral qualities are inferior intellectually,” and that “there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance… in their becoming the intellectual equals of man.” He also observes in The Descent of Man that “the male sex is more variable in structure than the female.” This observation has since become known as the greater male variability hypothesis, and has been applied to a variety of human traits including, mostcontroversially, intelligence. Second, differences between the races. Referring to some natives he encountered in South America during the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin observes, “one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow creatures.” He dedicates a whole chapter of The Descent of Man, to his study of “the races of man.” In that chapter he states, “There is, however, no doubt that the various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other… Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties.” And in an earlier chapter of the book, he contrasts the “civilised races of man” with “the savage races,” noting that the former will “almost certainly exterminate, and replace” the latter. Third, eugenics. In The Descent of Man, Darwin states, “We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination… Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind.” He then observes, “It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” However, he also notes, “Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature… We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind.” https://www.rt.com/op-ed/491673-sociologist-got-canceled-darwin-purge/ Noah Carl Excerpt: An editorial in The Times was critical of the decision to terminate Carl's post, arguing that his "main offence seems to have been to challenge the “woke” left-wing orthodoxy".[3] Opinion columnists in The Telegraph, Bloomberg Opinion, and The Spectator also criticised the decision.[4][21][22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Carl#Appointment_controversy
bornagain77_{June 15, 2020
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If schools, colleges and universities were based around education, we would not see the continual downward trend in areas such as critical thinking. They have been used as indoctrination for communism via socialism. Producing good minds has taken a back seat to producing good socialists who believe whatever lies they have been fed. It has been an attack on western culture and just a matter of time before Darwin is burned at the altar in place of someone else.BobRyan_{June 14, 2020
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Witch hunts always end up burning the people with lighters.polistra_{June 14, 2020
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His sexist remarks were as positive, man being in a “higher eminence than woman in deep thought, reason, or imagination “ ... “and has ultimately become superior to women..”Belfast_{June 14, 2020
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I still don’t get the feeling it will just because I haven’t seen anything on the news about an angry mob attacking anything Darwinian Except for when it involves sex if it involves male and female stuff, that’s when the crap hits the fan, It’ll really hit the fan if they start reading all the stuff about how racist much of its recent past was. But we will seeAaronS1978_{June 14, 2020
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