Further to April 2014 (and to Barry’s suggestion that readers kindly remember Uncommon Descent in their year end giving – via the Donate button (our Christmas stocking – tax receipt) on the main page):
My sense is that we are making some headway against what Leon Wieseltier has referred to as Darwinist dittoheads, and I’d like to point to some more stories, this time from May 2014, that explain why:
As it happens, so much has begun to happen, that we can only point to various peaks now. In May, we began to talk about Nicholas Wade’s Troublesome Inheritance book, about how Darwinism emphasizes racial differences:
Wade, a prominent science writer, insists Darwinian evolution is ongoing, and wants to revive the “conversation” about race.
Geneticists use code words for race, he says. (Here’s an excerpt from the book.)
Well, it gets better. Did you know that creationists are liberals? Or something?
Real Clear Science surprised us by weighing in with the idea that race is real but racism is wrong. Some of us wondered: Does it mean that as long as you front Darwin, you can be a racist while saying racism is wrong?
Anyway, Britain’s Spectator called the whole thing “Darwin’s unexploded bomb.”.
Rod Dreher weighed in, expressing unease about even reading the book, as if some big truth we couldn’t accept were to be found therein. Never heard what it was.
BUT then things took a really odd turn: It turned out that everyone who doubts Wade’s race theories is a creationist. Or a mind-body dualist. And a cultural Marxist, even. Look, we honestly didn’t know … We ended up wondering if racism is the new cool?
The News desk still gets unsolicited e-mails from the proponents of human biodiversity, which sounds like racism with a trust fund, and that pretty much sums up their relationship with us.
Scientific American, it turned out, didn’t like the Kleagle much. (We would have bet against their hitting it off, if asked, and cleaned up – but more on that later.)
Maybe we should have anticipated this uproar because Columbia mathematician Peter Woit had to take to the ‘Net months earlier to advertise the fact that he is NOT a creationist just because he doubts crackpot cosmology. But we admittedly didn’t guess it would go any further than him.
Yet Wade ended up getting compared to a creationist himself.
Hey, is “creationist” the new “think for yourself and let others do the same”? In that case, definitely, have some creationists in your portfolio, including Stephen Jay Gould.
Here’s Tom Bethell’s view, and here is Slate’s (neither agreed with the book’s view). Also, more from Slate. Here’s a roundup of reviews, another here And then there was the Descent of Mann. Here’s PZ Myers on the subject (customary profanity warning). Here’s New Statesman. And Fred Reed.
Wow. Darwinism is really showing its wrinkles, isn’t it? Everyone is a creationist or might as well be one now.
Meanwhile, a kids’ book was hailed as an antidote to creationism., presumably therefore to liberalism (?). If not …
See also:
January 2014: Events that made a difference to ID (My sense is that we are making some headway against what Leon Wieseltier has referred to as Darwinist dittoheads.)
February 2014: Events that made a difference to ID We are definitely past having to care what Christians for Darwin think.
March 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Old, taken-for-granted “truths” are collapsing; an information theory approach may help us forward.
April 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Despite these developments, naturalists would prefer chaos and nonsense to signals that point away from naturalism.
June 2014: Events that made a difference to ID In June we began to think seriously about William Dembski’s then upcoming Being as Communion, a more philosophical look at design in nature
July 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Among many other events, a UD Post where a famous chemist says no scientist understands “macroevolution” passed 200,000 views.
August 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Famous Darwin follower, Jerry “Why evolution is true” Coyne, was really mad that information theorist William Dembski is allowed to speak at his fort, Fort Chicago University
September 2014: Events that made a difference to ID It was becoming obvious that no one who knows the facts need be defensive about doubting the naturalist spin.
October 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Even establishment science media are now moving to recognize the problems with Darwinian evolution theory.
November 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Not only has the kill-ID bomb not exploded, but lots of people besides us are beginning to notice that fact.
December 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Fake Facebook pages started in an attempt to discredit ID theorists. (People fake Rolexes, not Timexes.)
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