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Weird story: Darwin prof targets Discovery Institute

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[Update: A reader kindly writes to say re the post below: “Professor Dave is now claiming that this post represents some kind of official response from Discovery Institute. In fact, Discovery Institute has no affiliation with Uncommon Descent, and had no input or connection to this post. Just another one of the many things that Professor Dave is getting wrong right now!”

For the record, no. Uncommon Descent is not affiliated with the Discovery Institute. And never claimed to be.

While we are on the subject, with what institution of higher learning is “Professor Dave” associated? That would take far more research than discovering that Uncommon Descent is not associated with the Discovery Institute. Over to you [ courtesy here] “Professor” Dave.]

See, most Darwin profs aren’t very smart. They emit crap that they heard fifty years ago to students and if we are lucky, they remember to feed worms to the garter snakes in the class terrarium. But this guy has bigger ambitions.

“Professor Dave” (Dave Farina with 1.92 million YouTube subscribers) — has started a campaign against the Discovery Institute. His first video, attacking Casey Luskin, went up yesterday.

He plans more videos. He allowed the world to know his idea for this campaign on January 31, 2022, in an interview with another anti-ID YouTuber, the biology student Jackson Wheat:

A friend observes that “Professor Dave” presents himself as a science educator, but his hatred of Discovery (or anyone supporting design) is so great that, wildly swinging the broadsword of “science,” he chops off heads and limbs of would-be allies.

Take the term “Darwinism,” for instance. Dave claims “Darwinism” is “outdated” and “dishonest”:

Dave should let the leading origin-of-life researcher Steven Benner know. In his prestigious Mendel Lecture in Brno, Czech Republic, Benner uses, without hesitation, the very term Dave said was DI propaganda:

Isn’t Darwinism the Darwinist’s proudest boast? Didn’t even Lynn Margulis have to go along with it?

Comments
Jerry
I bet if you ask anyone what they think of those who trash Darwin you will get an image of a kook
Not "anyone". It depends who you ask. There are many people who think all religious believers are kooks. I'm not going to stop believing because they don't like me. I know a lot of people who bash Darwin, It's like bashing Karl Marx or Richard Dawkins. Those guys have their fan clubs also.Silver Asiatic
April 18, 2022
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I don’t think bashing Darwin-bashers is accomplishing anything, either
I disagree. I bet if you ask anyone what they think of those who trash Darwin you will get an image of a kook. Bashing kooks is a common sport these days. Actually it always was. And they would be right. Natural Selection is a powerful and valid idea. Anyone who denies this is a kook. The truth is however, that while valid and powerful, natural selection has nothing to do with Evolution.jerry
April 18, 2022
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Jerry, I don't think bashing Darwin-bashers is accomplishing anything, either. Andrewasauber
April 18, 2022
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Everyone is missing the point. I am not trying to lionize Darwin. I am trying to limit his achievements. I know exactly what he has contributed but nearly everyone here believes the way to diminish him is by trashing him. When 99% of the world associates an obvious truth with him, a truth they believe is profound. That is “natural selection.” Want to come off as a looney, argue against “natural selection.” Anyone doing so will just reinforce the image of ID as fringe creationist science and will get nowhere. Take Darwin off the table as a negative person and his ideas can then be evaluated. Just as an example, someone wrote a book about 10 years ago on the ranking of most influential people in history. Darwin ranked 12th. Also someone published another list 3 years ago and he was 9th most influential person in history. So whatever is being done is definitely not working. As I said, trashing Darwin is counterproductive.jerry
April 18, 2022
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"Even with all his mistakes..." Jerry, You mean all of the "mistakes" the mass of unwashed get edumacated about in all the updated textbooks? Andrewasauber
April 18, 2022
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Darwin needs to be taken down from the pedestal. What he contributed to science is minimal and, in fact, if he never existed his good ideas were already in circulation and would have continued without him. The damage he did to science and the world is not entirely his fault, but it is the fault of those who used him as an icon of materialist-atheism. Darwin is a mythological figure. It's "counterproductive" to criticize Darwin because that's how the narrative has been constructed. Creationists are bad, ignorant and laughable. Darwin is smart, good and progressive.Silver Asiatic
April 18, 2022
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The ideas you mention are true
Everything I said is absolutely true. So who cares if others had some of the same ideas before him. And most of his ideas were wrong. Even with all his mistakes, it would be hard to argue that his ideas did not lead to many scientific discoveries. They just had nothing to do with Evolution. Also true, is the fixation on trashing Darwin. It’s counterproductive. Let me give you an analogy. Plato’s ideas led to the justification of slavery/serfdom for 2000 years. Yet Plato is held in high regard even though he was egregiously wrong on a very major idea. The Truth will set you free. Aside: what did all these scientific discoveries lead to. Certainly not to a greater understanding of Evolution. They led to modern day genetics. Along with the contributions of othersjerry
April 18, 2022
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Jerry - The ideas you mention are true, but they aren't *unique* to Darwin. Many others before Darwin said so. If you are just saying, "Darwin included true things" that's trivially true. We could probably say the same thing about flat-earthers. I'm sure they include trivially true, well-known statements as well. If that's all that's required to get your name in history books, we should prop up every third grader to Nobel status. What was unique to Darwin is that natural selection is capable of *producing* the intricacy we see in life. And that is precisely what we now know to be false. That's why the term "Darwinism" is still worthwhile - it still precisely describes the intellectual program that is problematic.johnnyb
April 18, 2022
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There’s many new modes of evolution we have discovered since Darwin.
Obviously true. These are all part one of his ideas listed above. This is still Darwinian change. His basic ideas of 1859 are still very relevant even with all these new discoveries of how the genome changes. I’m sure we will find more. Why not acknowledge this? They definitely lead to change. They just don’t have anything to do with Evolution. Take the smart road with truth. It’s like the truth is a fate worse than death. A good analogy is Linus in the Charlie Brown cartoons. Trashing Darwin is like his blanket for most UD posters/commenters. Can’t live without it. But it may be preventing them from growing up.jerry
April 18, 2022
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The problem is obvious - they are Darwinists, but can't admit to it. See, since the Discovery Institute is against Darwinism, the simple (and obvious) answer would be to simply say, "we agree with Discovery Institute that Darwinism is problematic, and will work with them to get rid of any remaining vestiges." But, the response is always to attack *Discovery*. The reason is obvious - they may say they have gone "beyond" Darwinism, but, having had many, many conversations with such people, 95% of the time, even though they complain bitterly about the label, Darwinism is lurking beneath the surface. "There's many new modes of evolution we have discovered since Darwin." Okay. So, are these informationally-based modes or not? How did they come to exist in the first place? If they are complex modes of evolution, how did it work in the early days of evolution? As you dig beyond the first layer, you will quickly find Darwinism coming up again.johnnyb
April 18, 2022
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From memory (I may be wrong), wasn't the term "Darwinism" coined by Darwin's co-disvoverer, Wallace?T2
April 18, 2022
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What weak argument am I making? I think I'm on your side here.hnorman42
April 18, 2022
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See weak arguments in the Resources tabkairosfocus
April 18, 2022
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I first became acquainted with the term "Darwinism" through Michael Behe's books in the early part of the century. At the time it seemed an appropriate way to distinguish between common descent and the blind watchmaker type of evolution. There may be many mechanisms of change but only natural selection was ever even represented as a mechanism that could answer Paley's problem. I don't think it's important to keep the term "Darwinism" but it is very important to keep the debate free of equivocation. Actually, accusations of equivocation on this point have come from both sides.hnorman42
April 17, 2022
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Take the term “Darwinism,” for instance. Dave claims “Darwinism” is “outdated” and “dishonest”:
He's trying to defend the good name of mindless-evolution against those who would smear it as having something to do with Darwin. Yes, that's insulting. Plus, the DI is a bully, pushing its weight around. Thankfully, evolution has a science communicator with a BA in chemistry to try to defend it and enable it, hopefully, possibly, to survive.Silver Asiatic
April 17, 2022
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Isn’t it about time that DI pushed the truth on Darwin and hopefully change the narrative? Darwin had a lot of ideas and some are fantastic science. They are the basics for genetics. 1) variations happen to every species’ genome. 100% proven. Darwin did not know how these variations happened but he was right about them happening. 2) these variations are inherited. 100% proven. He was unaware of the means of inheritance but right on that inheritance did happen. 3) some of these variations get selected and become preponderant. 100% proven. He was unaware of all the factors affecting preservation of changes but natural selection is one of the outcomes of genetic changes and adaptation to the environment. As said, this is a major part of modern genetics. Many other ideas Darwin had have proven useless. That’s to be expected in any scientific venture. One of the ideas he had that proved useless was that these variations would accumulate and produce new systems or the basis for new species. That prediction failed utterly. So the DI should become positive on Darwin’s contributions even if they were very limited. Darwin’s idea turned out to only be relevant to DNA and DNA has nothing to do with Evolution. But it has everything to do with genetics. If such were the official position of DI, then people such as Weird Dave would have to defend the indefensible. Right now the DI is forced to defend that Darwin’s idea are irrelevant when they are definitely valid science.jerry
April 17, 2022
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Exceptionally i have to agree with ‘professor’ Dave. Darwinism is an outdated and DISHONEST term ... so let’s be honest, from now out let’s call it Moronism... From wikipedia: Noun. moronism (uncountable) (medicine, dated) The condition of being a moron (person of borderline intelligence).martin_r
April 17, 2022
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I think "Professor Dave" is right in that the term "Darwinism" implies - and is clearly intended to imply - that the theory of evolution is no more than some sort of mid-Victorian ideology that hasn't moved on since 1859. I think he's wasting his time in the sense that the word is now too well-established in the lexicon of ID/Creationism. Probably better to return the favor and refer to ID/C as neo-Paleyism.Seversky
April 17, 2022
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It seems that "Professor Dave" did not learn from the drubbing he received from James Tour about the origin of life.Fasteddious
April 17, 2022
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A wild unhinged enemy is the best kind of enemy. (Unless the wild enemy has control of a real army or real guns, but that's not the case here.)polistra
April 17, 2022
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