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?
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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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