In “What Is the Best Way to Deal With Supernaturalists in Science and Evolution?”(Huffington Post , April 16, 2012), University of Chicago microbiologist James Shapiro, suggests,
Thirty years ago, I was at a conference in Cambridge, England, to celebrate the centennial of Darwin’s death. There, Richard Dawkins began his lecture by saying, “I will not only explain that Darwin had the right answer, but I will show that he had the only possible right answer.”
[For a tenure bore, yes. He can go on spouting Darwin until he is carried out feet first, and to heck with facts.]
Hearing this (and knowing that alternative explanations inevitably arise in science), I said to myself that the Creationists have a point. They are dealing with a form of religious belief on the “evolution” side. Dawkins’ transformation into an aggressive proselytizer for his undoubting and absolutist version of atheism confirms this conclusion.
One of the Creationists’ main tools is the argument that evolutionists are simply militant atheists in drag, who care more about dissing religion than about understanding evolution. Dawkins’ ill-considered crusade just bolsters their position.
[Actually, it shows that the Creationists’ view of the situation is correct. And civil liberties may well be at stake. Unopposed fanatics can use laws promoting Darwinism (or multiculturalism or global warming) to undermine the civil liberties of opponents.]
Rather than accept that evolution science is always a tentative work in progress, conventional evolutionists make absolutist statements like “all the facts are on my side.” Making obviously inflated and unrealistic assertions is hardly likely to convince anyone who has serious questions.
[But in a compliant environment, it is a good way to shut them down – unless they are, say, Mark Steyn.]
What is the alternative? Let me suggest that we can take a more modern, more realistic and more truly scientific approach. More.
Shapiro, author of Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, has been involved in a long running discussion with the ID theorists.
See, for example,
Darwinist attack on self-org theorist James Shapiro: Payback for talking to ID guys ?
Reviewing James Shapiro’s book, Darwinist admits: Growing number of gene scientists unconvinced by Darwinism
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