A clear sign that people are losing an argument (at least as they themselves have framed it) is when they do what Darwinist Pigliucci and others are doing, as per Bill’s recent post.
Here are a few moves that guarantee a loss of public support, and the Darwinists seem to be doing them all:
– attribute enormous power and influence to those who doubt. (Speaking for myself, I was a completely obscure trade mag hack and textbook editor (though a reliable and accurate one) until I began to wonder whether the whole of the history of life can be explained by natural selection acting on random mutations and whether that Brit toff Darwin was really the greatest man in history. Now, all sorts of people have an opinion about me who aren’t even sure of my age, sex, or nationality.
Nice going, eh? Except, in all honesty, I didn’t really do anything except start asking of Darwinism the type of questions I used to ask about automotive airbags or social service programs.
– squawk that it is all a big conspiracy (oh, you know, the Wedge and Wedge II and – my favourite – Wedge the Edge!, after which, I guess, the sky falls, or something – I’d have to go look up which part of the Apocalypse happens after that).
As any journalist knows, most people can’t keep a secret for five minutes if they can gain temporary social importance by communicating it. We j’s depend on that. It’s called gossip, right? Gossip has the same effect on conspiracies as soap has on bacteria.
So any time someone tries to tell me that a broad social change or pattern is the result of a conspiracy, I know I am dealing with either a desperately naive individual or a less than firmly rational one. Or else a person who manipulates these types for his or her own ends.
What is happening to Darwinism today is the same thing that happens to failing enterprises throughout history.  People start demanding real evidence of solvency and are not satisfied with bluster, implied threats, pious declarations, resorts to legal protection from bankruptcy, or expostulations about how awful and dreadful all those unbelievers are and what a threat they represent.
– Oh yes, and the third thing is to form all kinds of committees and other squawk boxes to carry on about the problem – guaranteeing that many people who had tried to avoid hearing about Darwinism before will discover new reasons to doubt it.
(Most people who don’t particularly believe it don’t care about it either. But if you force us to, well … )
Let’s face it: The North American public has had about 125 years to adopt Darwinism, and just hasn’t done so. That’s not called conspiracy. It’s called systematic rejection. No means no.
By the way, here are two interesting analyses of the mistakes the Darwinists make in flogging up their failing theory.
Case in point: Years ago, I couldn’t have sold a story on problems with Darwinism. Two years ago, I sold a book on it. Now I can’t keep up. Actually, I guess I should be nicer to the Darwinoids, given that they have paid my bills for several years and gotten me good contracts … I should have given them a commission, maybe … but … aw, they might have trouble explaining that particular source of income to their usual bankrollers …