Darwinian biologist Jerry Coyne contemplates the idea that Darwin might be Canceled

6 Replies to “Darwinian biologist Jerry Coyne contemplates the idea that Darwin might be Canceled”

1. 1
   Truthfreedom says:

   September 20, 2020 at 12:07 am

   “Darwin’s great contribution to biology—indeed, to all humanity”—. Lol.

   Darwin’s racism:

   Thankfully, most British people today are embarrassed by the racist rhetoric that undergirded the late-Victorian British Empire. What’s astonishing is how little they understand that Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution provided the doctrine behind its white supremacism. Whereas the British Empire of the early 19th century had been dominated by Christian reformers such as William Wilberforce, who sold slave badges that proclaimed, “Am I not a man and a brother?”, Darwin’s writings converted an empire with a conscience into an empire with a scientific philosophy. Four years after Darwin published The Origin of Species, James Hunt turned it into a justification for slavery. In his 1863 paper, “On the Negro’s Place in Nature,” he asserted: “Our Bristol and Liverpool merchants, perhaps, helped to benefit the race when they transported some of them to America.”

   Christian reformers had spent decades in the early 19th century teaching Britain to view non-European races as their equals before God. In a matter of years, Darwin swept not only God off the table, but also the value of people of every race with him. What Your Biology Teacher Didn’t Tell You about Charles Darwin
2. 2
   Truthfreedom says:

   September 20, 2020 at 12:33 am

   “Ninimal conventional bigotry”. Lol

   Darwin’s white supremacism:

   Athough best known for On the Origin of Species, Darwin does not address human evolution and race until his 1871 book, The Descent of Man, in which Darwin applies his theories of natural selection to humans and introduces the idea of sexual selection. Here his white supremacism is revealed. Over the course of the book, Darwin describes Australians, Mongolians, Africans, Indians, South Americans, Polynesians, and even Eskimos as “savages:” It becomes clear that he considers every population that is not white and European to be savage. The word savage is disdainful, and Darwin constantly elevates white Europeans above the savages.

   Darwin explains that the “highest races and the lowest savages” differ in “moral disposition … and in intellect” (36). The idea that white people are more intelligent and moral persists throughout. At one point, Darwin says that savages have “low morality,” “insufficient powers of reasoning,” and “weak power of self-command” (97). Darwin’s specific consideration of intellectual capacities is especially alarming. The Dark Side of Darwinism
   
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   bornagain77 says:

   September 20, 2020 at 5:14 am

   Coyne states,

   I’m optimistic enough to think that Darwin’s great contribution to biology—indeed, to all humanity—must outweigh any of the minimal conventional bigotry he espoused during his lifetime.

   So, according to Coyne, Darwin’s theory was not only a “great” contribution to biology but was also a “great” contribution to humanity???

   First off, someone forgot to tell biology itself what a ‘great’ contribution Darwin’s theory supposedly was to biology.

   As Marc Kirschner stated,

   “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.”
   – Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005

   And as Adam Wilkins stated “most (biologists) can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. ”

   “While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.”
   – Adam S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to “Evolutionary Processes” – (2000).
   – An Evaluation of the Myth That “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” – Jerry Bergman – 2012
   https://answersingenesis.org/theory-of-evolution/nothing-in-biology-makes-sense-except-in-the-light-of-evolution-myth-evalutation/

   That is simply an astonishing statement. To put that in context to just how damning it is to the claim that evolution is indispensable to biology, imagine if Wilkins had instead stated that ‘most physicists can conduct their work quite happily without reference to Quantum Mechanical or Relativistic ideas.”

   Moreover, it is not as if Coyne is unaware of this fact. Coyne admits much the same thing when he states, “Truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say.”,,,

   “Truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.”
   – Jerry Coyne, “Selling Darwin: Does it matter whether evolution has any commercial applications?,” reviewing The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life by David P. Mindell, in Nature, 442:983-984 (August 31, 2006).

   Biologists simply don’t need Darwinian explanations, (i.e ‘just-so stories), to do their research. As the late Philip Skell noted, “Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology.”

   “Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.”,,,
   This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.,,,
   Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology.”
   Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. – Why Do We Invoke Darwin? – 2005

   In fact, you can strip all the Darwinian language from research papers and the science becomes “healthier and more useful.”

   No Harm, No Foul — What If Darwinism Were Excised from Biology? – December 4, 2019
   If Darwinism is as essential to biology as Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne argues, then removing evolutionary words and concepts, (“Darwin-ectomy”), should make research incomprehensible. If, on the other hand, Darwinism is more of a “narrative gloss” applied to the conclusions after the scientific work is done, as the late Philip Skell observed, then biology would survive the operation just fine. It might even be healthier, slimmed down after disposing of unnecessary philosophical baggage.,,,
   So, here are three papers in America’s premier science journal that appear at first glance to need Darwinism, use Darwinism, support Darwinism, and thereby impart useful scientific knowledge. After subjecting them to Darwin-ectomies, though, the science not only survived, but proved healthier and more useful.
   https://evolutionnews.org/2019/12/no-harm-no-foul-what-if-darwinism-were-excised-from-biology/

   Whereas, on the other hand, the type of language that cannot be stripped from biological research papers, without severely compromising the integrity of the papers, is teleological, and/or design, based language.

   Teleology in biology
   Excerpt: Teleology in biology is the use of the language of goal-directedness in accounts of evolutionary adaptation, which some biologists and philosophers of science find problematic.,,,
   Teleology, from Greek ?????, telos “end, purpose”[3] and -?????, logia, “a branch of learning”, was coined by the philosopher Christian von Wolff in 1728.[4] The concept derives from the ancient Greek philosophy of Aristotle, where the final cause (the purpose) of a thing is its function.[5]
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology_in_biology#Reasons_for_discomfort

   As J. B. S. Haldane once observed

   “Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.”
   – J. B. S. Haldane

   Again although teleological, and/or or goal directed, explanations are suppose to be forbidden in Darwinian explanations, it is simply impossible for biologists to do biological research without using words that directly imply teleology. Or, more specifically, without using words that directly imply intelligent design.

   Stephen Talbott challenges biologists to “pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness,,,”

   The ‘Mental Cell’: Let’s Loosen Up Biological Thinking! – Stephen L. Talbott – September 9, 2014
   Excerpt: Many biologists are content to dismiss the problem with hand-waving: “When we wield the language of agency, we are speaking metaphorically, and we could just as well, if less conveniently, abandon the metaphors”.
   Yet no scientist or philosopher has shown how this shift of language could be effected. And the fact of the matter is just obvious: the biologist who is not investigating how the organism achieves something in a well-directed way is not yet doing biology, as opposed to physics or chemistry. Is this in turn just hand-waving? Let the reader inclined to think so take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness 1.
   One reason this cannot be done is clear enough: molecular biology — the discipline that was finally going to reduce life unreservedly to mindless mechanism — is now posing its own severe challenges. In this era of Big Data, the message from every side concerns previously unimagined complexity, incessant cross-talk and intertwining pathways, wildly unexpected genomic performances, dynamic conformational changes involving proteins and their cooperative or antagonistic binding partners, pervasive multifunctionality, intricately directed behavior somehow arising from the interaction of countless players in interpenetrating networks, and opposite effects by the same molecules in slightly different contexts. The picture at the molecular level begins to look as lively and organic — and thoughtful — as life itself.
   http://natureinstitute.org/txt.....ell_23.htm

   Denis Noble also notes that “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language”.

   “the most striking thing about living things, in comparison with non-living systems, is their teleological organization—meaning the way in which all of the local physical and chemical interactions cohere in such a way as to maintain the overall system in existence.
   Moreover, it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language—words like “goal,” “purpose,” “meaning,” “correct/incorrect,” “success/failure,” etc.”
   – Denis Noble – Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics of the Medical Sciences Division of the University of Oxford.
   http://www.thebestschools.org/.....interview/

   This working biologist agrees with Talbott and Noble’s assessment and states, “in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.”

   Life, Purpose, Mind: Where the Machine Metaphor Fails – Ann Gauger – June 2011
   Excerpt: “I’m a working biologist, on bacterial regulation (transcription and translation and protein stability) through signalling molecules, ,,, I can confirm the following points as realities: we lack adequate conceptual categories for what we are seeing in the biological world; with many additional genomes sequenced annually, we have much more data than we know what to do with (and making sense of it has become the current challenge); cells are staggeringly chock full of sophisticated technologies, which are exquisitely integrated; life is not dominated by a single technology, but rather a composite of many; and yet life is more than the sum of its parts; in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.
   Furthermore, I suggest that to maintain that all of biology is solely a product of selection and genetic decay and time requires a metaphysical conviction that isn’t troubled by the evidence. Alternatively, it could be the view of someone who is unfamiliar with the evidence, for one reason or another. But for those who will consider the evidence that is so obvious throughout biology, I suggest it’s high time we moved on.”
   – Matthew
   http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....nt-8858161

   In short, the very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their biological research falsifies Darwinian evolution as an explanation for biology.
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   bornagain77 says:

   September 20, 2020 at 5:15 am

   And although Darwinian explanations have useless to Biologists as they have done their research, Coyne’s claim that Darwin’s theory was also a ‘great’ contribution to humanity itself is an even more laughable claim than his claim that Darwin’s theory was a great contribution to biology.

   Darwin’s theory lay at the foundation of the most murderous ideologies in the history of man

   Darwin on Marx – by Richard William Nelson | Apr 18, 2010
   Excerpt: Marx and Engels immediately recognized the significance of Darwin’s theory. Within weeks of the publication of The Origin of Species in November 1859, Engels wrote to Marx –
   “Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done…. One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.”
   Marx wrote back to Engels on December 19, 1860 –
   “This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.”
   The Origin of Species became the natural cause basis for Marx’s emerging class struggle movement. In a letter to comrade Ferdinand Lassalle, on January 16, 1861, Marx wrote –
   “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.”
   Marx inscribed “sincere admirer” in Darwin’s copy of Marx’s first volume of Das Kapital in 1867. The importance of the theory of evolution for Communism was critical. In Das Kapital, Marx wrote –
   “Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention?”
   To acknowledge Darwin’s influence, Marx asked to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin.
   https://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2010/04/darwin-on-marx/

   “A stronger race will oust that which has grown weak; for the vital urge, in its ultimate form, will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so-called humane consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity of Nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong.”
   – Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf – pg 248

   Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao – quotes – Foundational Darwinian influence in their ideology
   July 2020
   https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/michael-egnor-on-the-relationship-between-darwinism-and-totalitarianism/#comment-707831

   Despite whatever rose colored glasses Coyne may be wearing when he looks at his beloved Darwinian theory, the consequences for societies at large, from ‘Darwinian speculations’, have been horrendously and catastrophically bad,

   A Dehumanizing Ideology Unsurprisingly Catalyzes Violence – Michael Egnor – August 7, 2016
   Excerpt: And it is precisely the metaphysical commitments Coyne has championed that have catalyzed atheist violence — the denial of an objective moral law, the denial of eternal accountability for transgressions, the reduction of human beings to animals or even to meat robots, deprived of free will or of any claim to human exceptionalism. These are all tenets of atheist belief, and Coyne himself is one of the loudest salesman for the dehumanizing ideology inherent to atheism.
   Just how violent and repressive can atheism be?,,,
   In the past century, a number of nations have been governed by explicitly atheist governments. Atheist governments murdered more than 100 million people during the 20th century.,,,
   Looking at modern history, we see: Christian culture creates reasonable and tolerant democracies. Islamic regimes create repressive theocracies. Atheist regimes create totalitarian hellholes.
   The denial of free will and the other anti-human inferences inherent to atheism are not merely theoretical affronts to humanity.
   The fact is that atheism is the most violent ideology in the 20th century, and given its short run and unprecedented rate of state-sanctioned murder, it is also the most violent and repressive ideology in human history.
   http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....03055.html

   Verse:

   Matthew 7:17-19
   Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
5. 5
   polistra says:

   September 20, 2020 at 4:10 pm

   Coyne still believes that information is relevant. It’s not. Powerful people do what they want to do. Period.
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   mike1962 says:

   September 20, 2020 at 7:58 pm

   The Blind Watchmaker is dead