Responding to David Gelernter at Claremont Review of Books, George Weigel writes,
Gelernter is intrigued by “intelligent design” approaches to these evolutionary conundra but also suggests that, “as a theory,” intelligent design “would seem to have a long way to go.” But to dismiss intelligent design out of hand—to brand it piety masquerading as science—is, well, unscientific. The fossil record and molecular biology now suggest that Darwinian answers to the Big Questions constitute the real fundamentalism: a materialistic fideism that, however shaky in dealing with the facts, is nonetheless deeply entrenched in 21st-century imaginations. Thus, Gelernter asks whether today’s scientists will display Darwin’s own courage in risking cultural disdain by upsetting intellectual apple carts.
George Weigel, “Getting Beyond Darwin” at First Things
First, the Hoover Institution. Then Powerline. Now First Things.
Here’s what’s different: In the past, all these think tanks seemed to bow to the idea that Darwinism was in some sense right even though it grossly mishandled the human story.
Maybe Darwinism got the world as a whole right. (Cosmic Darwinism?)
Or maybe it got the termites right, for example. But then, come to think of it, termite expert J. Scott Turner doesn’t think they got the termites right, to judge from his 2017 Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It.
Over the years, many of us found these many of these think tanks’ behavior frustrating—especially, their unwillingness to engage with the evidence, as opposed to conceding Darwinian talking points. But they seem to be getting past that phase now.
At some point, the question should become: Apart from their unquestioned capacity to generate pop science drivel and wreck the careers of serious science doubters, what exactly did the Darwinists get right that no one else did?
What, exactly, is the Darwinists’ unique contribution?
—
Further reading along these lines: Another Think Tank Now Openly Questions Darwinism So Power Line is interviewing J. Scott Turner, author of Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It. He’s not an “ID guy” but that doesn’t matter. His book’s title tells you what you need to know. He understands that something is wrong. And his insights into insects’ hive mind are a piece in the puzzle.
Hoover Institution interview with David Berlinski
Mathematicians challenge Darwinian Evolution
The College Fix LISTENS TO David Gelernter on Darwin! It’s almost as though people are “getting it” that Darwinism now functions as an intolerant secular religion. Evolution rolls on oblivious but here and there heads are getting cracked, so to speak, over the differences between what really happens and what Darwinians insist must happen.
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Wow. Who wooda thunk it? FT was an early and vigorous champion of ID in the 90s under Richard John Neuhaus. After RJN’s untimely death his body was hardly cold before FT’s new leadership jettisoned ID and started pushing Stephen Barr’s standard theistic evolution line. Now this. One article does not a turn in direction make, but it is encouraging.
“Over the years, many of us found these many of these think tanks’ behavior frustrating—especially, their unwillingness to engage with the evidence, as opposed to conceding Darwinian talking points.”
News,
I am totally with you on this. It just leaves you wondering, what in the h*ll were they selling out for and what are the remaining dinosaurs selling out for today? I don’t see what it is or why. I’d love for an insider to explain it to me.
Andrew
Andrew
No mystery there. They wanted to be respected by the cultural elite. It is no different from any high school student longing to sit at the cool kids’ table at lunch.
“No mystery there. They wanted to be respected by the cultural elite. It is no different from any high school student longing to sit at the cool kids’ table at lunch.”
BA,
That’s so pathetic that I guess I just don’t want to believe it.
Andrew
Maybe a key question here isn’t what some people may have been selling out for before but why so many are sobering up now?
Let me suggest that it is a steady dripdripdrip that makes and widens a hole:
– The Altenberg 16 (some copies of Suzan Mazur’s book on the subject, The Altenberg 16: An exposé of the evolution industry (2010), may still be available)
– The Royal Society meeting in 2016 (again, Mazur provided a useful summary Royal Society: Public Evolution Summit)
– The Third Way (scientists like Jim Shapiro – and many others – who just got fed up with having to pretend that a system is working lock-step, tickety-boo, when it doesn’t even make sense anymore.)
– Genome mapping did not by any means demonstrate Darwinism. Didn’t a story whistle through here just recently showing that lots of genes appear to have no antecedents?
Oh gosh, so many other incidents! Someone could write a long essay about this at Inference Review, or some other place where they won’t have a stroke or reach for a cudgel if you even try to discuss it openly. Someone whose job isn’t at risk*, come to think of it.
*There’s not so much Darwinism any more but there are still plenty of Darwinists out there. Be cautious.
Thanks for the info, News.
I wish the Altenberg 16 was available in audiobook form. I have to budget my reading time these days.
I remain hopeful that some Evolutionist will write an honest confessional type book someday. 😉
Andrew
Since we’re talking about it, I thought I’d do a self-promo for my review of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis from an ID perspective:
Evolutionary Teleonomy as a Unifying Principle for the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
.
Let’s be honest. It was my constant harping about the gene system over the past 10 years that caused it all.
yes, yes, that was it.
🙂
Tee hee. Or maybe it was was my insistence that only ridicule could get through their defences. They clearly regard logic as quackery ; shameless quackery at that.
‘Bring on the multiverse ; something we can really get our teeth into…..’
By the way, right or wrong, the impression I have is that Big Chas was not so much ‘pushing on an open door’ as reaching for an automatic door the opening of which an immense throng of delirious atheists were cheering with great gusto.
Not a courageous revolutionary, but someone who, like most of us loved to be loved, and found himself being sucked into the atheist vortex,eventually most willingly – although finally returning to his Christian senses.
There seems no reason why Lady Hope’s testimony should be viewed a mendacious. What would se have had to gain ?
UB @ 8 – You b**t**d.
We’ll be sending the black helicopters round some time next week.
I have to sit for my portrait on Tuesday, but I’ll be free after that.
I’m sorry this is off-topic but I am glad for the change at first things. I always kind of felt that theistic evolution, even though I don’t entirely disagree with it, was kind of a way of giving up and submitting to Darwinian correctness
But here’s my off-topic thing I don’t know how to submit this to the site for investigation so I’m gonna post it here
http://m.nautil.us/blog/can-ne.....-free-will
Again I apologize there are a couple of studies in here that this guy is claiming or showing that free wills at minimum physical and damageable also for anybody that is interested there is a movement currently a philosophers and scientists that I’ve already raise $7 million to figure out whether we have free will or not
Anyways if anybody can give this a look and some feedback that be great I have to keep my eye out for stuff like this and I apologize for posting here I don’t know how to send it in
AaronS1978 –
The biggest problem with Theistic Evolution is its ambiguity. It winds up being a term that people can hide behind in order to avoid confrontation, or avoid having to actually state one’s actual thoughts. It is true that most of the people who use the label TE are Darwinian, and the “theistic” part is mostly just a paper-thin veneer. Most of the TEs who are non-Darwinian identify with the ID movement (which I think really is the proper identification). Some TEs have gone to “third way” evolution, which, at least to me, seems like “ID but I don’t want to say ID out loud” with some “ID includes people I don’t want to hang out with” thrown in.
If you are a TE who thinks that God did something at some time, but that something is undetectable, then I have never seen a proposal that puts any real distance between this opinion and “Darwin + pietistic storytelling”. If you think that this prior action of God is detectable, then I have not seen a proposal that would distinguish this stance from ID (though it could include *additional* elements – ID is pretty minimalistic).
@johnnyb
Agreed one of the things that I was offering asked of me by a lot of my friends who had questions about both boys what was the difference between TE and ID
And to be honest with you ID had more of a difference One being it doesn’t necessarily have to be god that design things, But that was my main problem with TE, There really is no difference it just seems to be a submission and a way to not say ID
By the way I don’t think aliens designed us I was just using that as an example but you can be a committed ID and that is a legitimate reason why
@johnnyb
Agreed one of the things that I was offering asked of me by a lot of my friends who had questions about both boys what was the difference between TE and ID
And to be honest with you ID had more of a difference One being it doesn’t necessarily have to be god that design things, But that was my main problem with TE, There really is no difference it just seems to be a submission and a way to not say ID
By the way I don’t think aliens designed us I was just using that as an example but you can be a committed ID and that is a legitimate reason why
And if anybody picks up what I dropped on free will and investigate said feel free to shoot me an email and let me know what you think about it ajayman30@yahoo.com
I have never understood why the ID crowd is so upset with TE. TE, after all, is ID. Where it differs from the rest of ID is that it actually attempts to propose where and when ID comes/came into play. I think it is wrong but at least it is making an attempt.
“I have never understood why the ID crowd is so upset with TE”
BB,
Don’t take it too hard, but there are a lot of things you don’t understand.
Andrew
Showing up on the Daily Wire today as well.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/50912/watch-renowned-yale-prof-leaves-darwinism-says-amanda-prestigiacomo
Brother Brain:
That is because you are ignorant of both ID and TE.
And yet they deny that.
No, they don’t.
Look at Joshua Swamidass- a TE who denies ID. He is unaware that mainstream biology promotes evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. He is also unaware that ID is not anti-evolution.
Theistic evolutionists deny that design can be empirically detected. And yet they don’t have a mechanism capable of producing what we observe. But yet they call that science!
TE is a political position. People who claim it think it makes them appear to be the reasonable balance between two opposing forces, when in fact it makes them look like they don’t know what’s going on at all.
Andrew
Andrew
I fully admit that.
Andrew
I see it more as a philosophical position rather than a political one, but that is just semantics. But that still doesn’t answer the question of why ID supporters are so opposed to TE. TE still requires the input of an intelligent agent. Since ID doesn’t take a stance on when or how intelligent interaction takes place, why is this so antithetical to ID?
BB,
ID is concerned with science. TE is not. There’s nothing else for you to grasp if you cant understand that.
Andrew
When personhood is understood, AAronS, then the human, even the mammalian will, will be undestood, even our pets being somehwat more than machines, robots, etc.
For the Christian, free will, somewhat paradoxicaly, depends on God’s grace, otherwise it will become the sport of the demonic realm and its denizens. The divine, thoough partial witholding of such supernatural grace need not reflect adversely on the victim, its being a means of spiritual trial and subsequent growth.
Indeed, it is interesting that the Gospel story of the possessed man and the Gadarene swine, rather than signifying Jesus’ condemnation of the possessed man, indicates the contrary. Perhaps, had he not been tormented by the devils, but found them useful and congenial company, he would have appeared a very suave and successful citizen.
Andrew
I accept that you may believe this, but I don’t see the same animosity by ID proponents against Young Earth Creationists. If there is one view for which the science is soundly against, YEC is it. Yet, they are still welcome under the ID umbrella. Why is that? If it is just accommodation for the mentally challenged, I can respect it.
“I don’t see the same animosity by ID proponents against Young Earth Creationists”
BB,
Maybe because YEC’s are nicer? 😉
But seriously, I don’t know many YEC’s nor have I had much interaction with anyone I knew was a YEC. I guess they don’t make themselves apparent enough (at least in my circle of awareness), to compel me to address what they claim.
OTOH, in my Catholic circles there are plenty of TE’s obtuse enough and loud enough to provoke responses.
Andrew
Andrew
ET is a YEC. But I can forgive you for not knowing this because nobody takes him seriously.
Not being a Catholic, I will have to defer to you on this.
“I will have to defer to you on this.”
BB,
Thank you. I have found that only a small part of the people I encounter would even care to engage on topics like Evolution, ID or Creationism. Only a few people I know even care.
Andrew
YEC has more going for it than blind watchmaker evolution. That alone should tell you something. So if there is anything that has sound science against it, it is blind watchmaker evolution.
Brother Brian is a pathological liar. I have never accepted a 6,000 year old earth. I have never accepted a 6,000-12,000 year old earth.
Brother Brian is a willfully ignorant troll and a pathological liar. Two of the many reasons no one takes it seriously. 😛
The question for BB is why Christians (or Atheists?) make him so muddleheaded and hostile to ID?
Andrew
Andrew
I care. I have a huge amount of respect for religion and the good that they do. I may not believe that their deity exists but that is secondary. The only thing I take exception to is when people think that their religious beliefs (specifically in how they treat others) is beyond questioning. If you feel that your religious beliefs can’t be questioned, then you are not engaging in honest discussion. And I am talking about the generic “you”, not you in particular.
Andrew
Can you provide specific examples where I have been hostile to ID? Questioning it and being hostile towards it are not the same thing.
BB,
I’m not going to (at the moment) comb through the comments for an example. For the moment I’ll just say that not responding or responding obtusely is hostility in my book. I think this is what you do sometimes. Anyway, everyone have a good weekend. I usually dont hang out around here on weekends. 😉
Andrew
Andrew, not responding may simply mean that I am not around. And, like many, I only review the list of recent comments to see if I want to comment.
But have a good weekend. I spent last weekend marrying off our last kid. This weekend will be spent recovering.
Your willful ignorance is such an example…
Brother Brian @ 27 writes:
I appreciate you calling me “mentally challenged”.
DF
My apologies. It was a poor choice of words. I should have said “intellectually challenged”.
Atheistic materialists are the most intellectually and integrity challenged people who have ever lived.