Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor gets mail:
Andrew Berry, the Harvard biologist who conducts a Darwin pilgrimage each year for undergraduates to Darwin-related sites in England, responds to my recent post about the cult-like reverence in which many Darwinists hold all things Darwin.
Berry:
I agree with [Egnor] it is indeed fetishization of All Things Darwin/Wallace (And More) that those of us interested in the history of science indulge in (and my program promotes). This is the reason first editions of The Origin sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. We admire Darwin and his colleagues, and enjoy the opportunity to feel in some way closer to the events and the people that we’re interested in by visiting sites etc associated with them, just as, presumably, Mr Egnor feels closer to Jesus when he travels to Jerusalem or a Muslim feels more at-one (or whatever) with the prophet on a visit to Mecca.
He’s right. Worshippers enjoy visiting the sites associated with their faith. I merely pointed out that Darwinists don’t differ much, in that regard, from people of other faiths. Michael Egnor, “Darwinian Faith and Fetish” at Evolution News and Science Today
Berry may not realize the significance of his admission. When a science field is so dominated by members of a like faith, that faith is bound to be a source of myopia, as we are seeing today:
Defence of Darwinism becomes a key purpose for many, to which finding out more about the history of life is secondary.
See also: Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor: The brain is not a “meat computer”
and
Carl Woese on the “conceptual failings of the modern evolutionary synthesis”