Tuesday, March 02, 2010

 

Evolution of a Simpler Sort: Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True


Given all the carping I’ve encountered on the Dembski/O’Leary webpage Uncommon Descent concerning Jerry Coyne, I decided it was high time for me to stop reading about Coyne and to start reading Coyne himself, so when a friend offered to loan me a copy of Coyne’s Why Evolution is True, I accepted. After all, secondary sources are fine and dandy, but the only true way to examine a man’s ideas is to hear from the man himself. To get it straight from the horse’s mouth, as the saying goes. Or, if not horse, then from some other form of braying pack-animal.

My takeaway: the carping is well justified. If you already believe in evolution and your object is simply to reinforce your preexisting world view, if you’re already a member of the choir to which Coyne is preaching, then by all means, have a read. If, on the other hand, you simply wonder whether evolution is true and are curious if there might be a rational means of answering in the affirmative, supported by keen observation and empirical evidence—to wit, supported by science—keep looking. I’m highly doubtful that such a thing even exists, but if it does, I’m positive Coyne hasn’t written it.

Why Evolution is True is about as misnamed a tome as one might expect, given that with such a title one might expect Jerry to get around to a discussion as to why evolution is an objective fact rather than an allegedly scientific opinion. This, of course, is something he never does. He offers little more than an object lesson in, to paraphrase Jerry Fodor, the problems inherent in attributing to adaptationism all the creative power of an intentionalist system such as a mind. In Coyne’s case, the creator-god is our well-known friend natural selection, who can do absolutely anything if given sufficient time, opportunity, and resources. Evolutionary Mythmaking for Fun and Annoyance would have been a far better title, provided that by “fun” we mean Jerry’s and by “annoyance” we mean mine.

Albert Einstein once stated that any viable theory should be one that is as simple as possible, but not simpler. By that he meant that the best theories were those that explained a system without being overcomplicated or oversimplified. State the bare minimum of what is required to formulate the theory—but make sure not to leave out anything that’s required, either.

Coyne’s view of the theory of evolution, however, is clearly of the oversimplified sort; it is the simpler variety of evolutionary theory. In his mindset, there are two and only two camps: those who believe in evolution, and creationists. Those who believe in evolution have logic and reason on their side; those who are creationists have only fear and superstition on theirs. And every one of us, from rich to poor, old to young, mighty and weak, falls into one camp or the other—and never into both. That someone might believe in evolution and creation is not even within the realm of possibility, and is never discussed in any of his book’s 300 pages. Nor is there any discussion of the very real possibility that our current formulation of evolutionary theory, aka the neo-Darwinian synthesis, is in real need of some serious re-thinking. No, Coyne’s position is that evolution is settled science, being “as solidly established as any scientific fact,” and that “scientists need no more convincing” (p. xvi).

This, for instance, fully explains that little debacle in Kansas you may have read about, and concerning which Coyne opines: “Some religious members of the [Dover] school board, unhappy with the current text’s adherence to Darwinian evolution, suggested alternative books that included the biblical theory of creationism” (p. ix). He sums up the matter with: “For those who oppose Darwinism purely as a matter of faith, no amount of evidence will do—theirs is a belief not based on reason” (p. xii).

The statement readily encapsulates Coyne’s oversimplified rationale:

Simple. Or, rather, simpler. Mind you, this nonsense is to be found in the book’s preface. Coyne begins his book with these thoughts in mind. I have to wonder—if his premises are so bad, what good are his conclusions?

More to the point, he couldn’t possibly be more wrong:

Incidentally, Coyne devotes considerable space to Dover v. Kitzmiller, in rapt glee at Judge Jones’s decision to bar the Dover school board from allowing intelligent design to be discussed in its classrooms, under the patently mistaken assumption that the courts never, EVER err in their adjudications (as President Obama will surely confirm), and then broadsides himself with this glaring contradiction: “But scientific truth is decided by scientists, not by judges” (p. xi).

Apart from the obvious objection—if judges don’t decide these things, why involve a judge at all, or, for that matter, devote pages and pages of text praising him for making the right call?—there’s a more basic observation. Truth isn’t “decided” by anyone, let alone scientists. A thing is either true or it’s not. Scientists routinely identify this notion as scientific realism—that truth is objective, that all truths are universal, and that a scientist’s job is to identify whatever truths he can. That’s “identify,” not “decide.” If gravity holds, it’s not because a bunch of scientists got together and decided it should.

But never mind all that, says Coyne. We’re at war here, and so all’s fair, even when one resorts to glaring contradictions and circular reasoning to support one’s assertions. “The battle,” he says, “is part of a wider war, a war between rationality and superstition. What is at stake is nothing less than science itself and all the benefits it offers to society” (p. xi).

That is, science as Coyne defines it, but not as Stephen C. Meyer defines it or as Hugh Ross defines it or as Michael Behe defines it or even as Frances Collins defines it. And absolutely not as Newton, Keppler, Copernicus or Galileo defined it, either. In Coyne’s oversimplified dichotomy, science = rationality, religion = superstition; the separate definitions are absolute in their application, and there’s no overlap whatsoever between the two. To phrase it another way, “Four legs rational; two legs superstitious.” Now bleat and re-bleat until the creationists give in, says Coyne.

Apart from the manifest falsehood inherent in the notion that science and religion are at war with one another (this is an idea that has only been around since the nineteenth century, conceived principally by the anti-religious nitwits John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White), it is profoundly paranoid. You see, Coyne says, people who doubt Darwin not only want to shove their pathetically irrational religious superstitions down your throat, they want to rob you off all the benefits of science. Which surely must mean: they want to take away your shiny iPods and MP3 players and GPS navigators and all the other do-dads we use to make life more convenient. Just why religious folk are motivated to do all this, Coyne doesn’t say; nevertheless, the warning is clear: Doubt ye not the True Faith as Our Lord Darwin Proclaimed It, or within weeks we’ll be living in caves and all our women will be wearing burqas! Such are the inherent dangers of telling students to keep an open mind.

And, once again, notice the oversimplification: the benefits of science, as if science has no downside. Never mind that science and technology can be (and have been) used for any variety of purposes, beneficial or otherwise. Consider, then, this short list of some of the other “benefits” of science (from David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion): “Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for Zyklon B, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental ballistic missiles, military space platforms, and nuclear weapons? If memory serves, it was not the Vatican.”

Further, “benefit” is not a statement of fact but rather a matter of opinion—what some view as beneficial others view as detrimental. Consider for example the internal combustion engine. While I see it as largely beneficial, there those who hold it as mankind’s bane, spewing copious amounts of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and poisoning our planet. So, who’s right? Actually, both are (though not to the same extent, the potential benefit of the internal combustion engine considerably outweighing its potential downside)—something that Coyne’s oversimplified analysis is fully unprepared to consider.

By far, however, the most glaring oversimplification is in Coyne’s use of “evolution,” the very focus of his inquiry. Time and again, he uses the word first one way, then another, with no apparent understanding of any inconsistency or equivocation on his part.

There are any number of ways to use the word, though there are three basic types. These are:

Note that each definition of evolution can be considered a proper subset of the definition that follows it: E1 evolution is change over time; E2 evolution is E1 evolution incorporating new speciation derived from parent species; E3 evolution is E2 evolution incorporating natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation. (For the purpose of brevity, from now on I’ll call the natural selection/genetic mutation criterion NS+RM.) So, E1, E2, and E3 evolution all adhere to the notion of change over time; and E2 and E3 adhere to the notion of new speciation; but only E3 entails the NS+RM criterion.

It is for this reason that E3 evolution is the most controversial of the three definitions. While Coyne is adamant that evolution is undeniable, and despite all the imprecations he is prepared to hurl at anyone who dares disagree with him, there are nonetheless those who steadfastly deny it. As just one example, there can be no greater contrast than this comment from David Berlinski: “I say it’s controversial, because I think it’s false. Not only do I think it’s false, I think it’s overwhelmingly false” (from the DVD "The Incorrigible David Berlinski"). The question, then, is: is the NS+RM criterion sufficient to make E3 evolution viable, and, if so, is there evidence to support it?

Needless to say, Coyne answers in the affirmative. His problem—and the great failure of his book—is that in trying to support his claim that E3 evolution is true, he can only cite evidence for the E1 or E2 sort. The efficacy of NS+RM has to be imagined into the picture.

Consider, for example, his discussion of the emergence of the wooly mammoth: “Mutations in the ancestral species led to some individual mammoths… to be hairier than others… This enriched the population in genes for hairiness. In the next generation, the average mammoth would be a bit hairier than before. Let this process continue over some thousands of generations, and your smooth mammoth gets replaced by a shaggy one” (p. 10).

And once again, the fabled Darwinian anecdote rears its ugly head, the kind of speculative narrative that Stephen J. Gould once derided as a “Just-So” story a la Kipling; instead of a preposterous tale of how the giraffe got its long neck or how the camel got its hump, the reader is treated to a children’s fable of how the mammoth got its wooly coat. And provided that Coyne’s reader is only a child, he can sidestep the flurry of questions that immediately pop up following his mythmaking: How is it that we know that the mammoth’s shagginess is the result of a fortuitous mutation of its hairiness gene? And which gene was that precisely? Did paleontologists unearthing a frozen mammoth carcass in the arctic examine the dead mammoth’s genetic code, whereupon they suddenly exclaimed “Hey! Look at the gene for hairiness—it’s different from the hairiness gene of the precursor species!!” And how many lucky mutations are we talking about here over those thousands of generations? Have any of these mutations been identified by examining the mammoth’s genetic code? Did a fortuitous mutation to hairiness lead to a more fortuitous mutation to greater hairiness which lead to an even more fortuitous mutation to shagginess? And, given the fact that genetic mutations do actually occur but that every mutation ever identified has been determined to be either completely deleterious to the organism or to have absolutely no effect, while no beneficial mutation has ever been observed in the wild or the laboratory, doesn’t this undermine the notion that any given genetic mutation could ever be beneficial? Why claim as true something there’s no evidence for? Isn’t a beneficial mutation just another way of appealing to miracles and magic?

Never mind that, says Coyne, here’s more proof. And so he proceeds with citing example after example of the same sort of evidence, the kind which demonstrates—at best—E2 evolution and leaves the E3 sort completely unaddressed. Clearly, his strategy is quantity over quality. Citing one source which he claims “documents over 150 cases of observed evolution,” he decrees: “We see fruit flies adapting to extreme temperatures, honeybees adapting to competitors, and guppies becoming less colorful to escape the notice of predators. How many more examples do we need?”

But more is not the issue. We can examine all the instances of microevolution we want. What we need is one demonstrated instance of macroevolution, other than some evolutionary fairy tale underpinned by the erroneous assumption that macroevolution is just microevolution extrapolated over time. I’m not asking for a demonstration of a microbe turning into a blue whale, just one demonstrated instance of a uniquely new species being derived from a progenitor species in which NS+RM has been clearly and unassailably identified as the causal mechanism differentiating the two. If that sounds like a lot to ask (and it is), then it suggests there is something patently wrong in the assertion that the theory of evolution—by which we mean E3 evolution—has been vindicated over and over again. It hasn’t, and highlighting examples of E1 and E2 evolution repeatedly will never accomplish that.

Neither will citing examples of evolutionary adaptations which undercut rather than support the notion of Darwinian gradualism. One such example, which Coyne cites as “one of the cleverest devices” is the “penis scoop” of some damselflies: “When a male mates with an already mated female, he uses backward-pointing spines on his penis to scoop out the sperm of earlier-mating males. Only after she’s despermed does he transfer his own sperm” (p. 165). Naturally, Coyne offers not one word of speculation as to the likely evolutionary pathways in which such a device might come about on its own. We’re only to marvel that mysterious are the ways of evolution, its wonders to perform. This is no real surprise, considering that in order to hail the penis scoop as an example of E3 evolution, two separate processes have to be clearly explained: the evolution of the backward-pointing penis spines (a morphological development) and the evolution of the behavior (a phenotype development) for scooping out rival sperm; and in both cases the causal factor NS+RM has to be outlined, else it’s not E3 evolution. Darwin argued that complex structures arose as the result of “numerous, successive slight modifications.” It is difficult, to say the least, to identify the convoluted process that must have taken place if the penis scoop (both in its morphology as well as its functional behavior) is to be described in terms of slight modifications, let alone to speak of the disbelief which must be suspended if we are to argue that such a process categorically did not have the penis scoop in mind as an end product. And as Coyne himself demonstrates, it is next to impossible even to cite the penis scoop as evidence of E3 evolution without appealing to the phraseology of the design theorist: “clever,” “device.”

But all Coyne can really do is cite his examples and hope the True Believer will take him at his word. When forced to offer a viable explanation to a serious question, all he is ever able to produce is a half-hearted evasion or an admission of ignorance. Concerning experiments on the African long-tailed widowbird, for example, he muses: “This raises a question. If males with 30-inch tails won more females [when widowbirds in the wild do not normally grow tails of such length], why haven’t widowbirds evolved tails that long in the first place? We don’t know the answer, but it’s likely that having tails that long would reduce a male’s longevity more than they would increase his ability to get mates” (p. 167). This is why evolution is true? Because having a long tail “likely” reduces longevity?

And again: “Why hasn’t the cost of sex led to its replacement by parthenogenesis? Clearly, sex must have some huge evolutionary advantage that outweighs its cost. Although we haven’t figured out exactly what that advantage is, there’s no shortage of theories” (p. 169). Yes, and all of them true, no doubt.

Thus, in order for evolution to be true, Coyne must paint all those who might disagree with him with as broad a brush as possible (to wit, “the creationist”) in order to parade his opposition as even dumber than himself. “Creationists often claim,” he pronounces “that if we can’t see a new species evolve during our lifetime, then speciation doesn’t occur. But this argument is fatuous: it’s like saying that because we haven’t seen a single star go through its complete life cycle, stars don’t evolve, or because we haven’t seen a new language arise, languages don’t evolve” (p. 199). Actually, what’s fatuous is Coyne’s comparison of novel speciation with a star going through its complete life cycle or with the emergence of a new language. For starters, stars don’t evolve, not in the E3 sense that Coyne is trying to defend, but only the E1 sense he oversimplistically conflates with all evolution. At best we can see the telltale signs that new stars are being born from the projected waste of old stars, but no astronomer yet has ever identified a new star in some point of space where just days or months or years earlier only the collected flotsam and jetsam of space had been there. This is not to say that new stars aren’t born in this way, but only that such an event has yet to be empirically observed. Just like speciation. Or evolution.

Ditto for languages, which, like stars, only “evolve” in the E1 sense. Sure, an Englishman says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth” when his Anglo ancestors a thousand years ago would have said “An angenom gesceop God heofanan and eorthan.” But to argue this fact as something comparable to the idea that human beings are the descendants of apelike forebears is absurd in the extreme. If human beings evolved in this way, it is because the DNA of the ape-men slowly changed into the DNA of modern men. Languages, last time I checked, don’t have DNA.

And surely even Coyne can fathom that language is the by-product of intelligence? A fortiori, whatever processes occur to create new languages out of old ones, surely even he can understand that absolutely none of those processes can be identified as our old friend NS+RM? (And, at the risk of making a nebulous point, we have seen new languages being created, and within our lifetimes. They’re called Swahili, Esperanto, Fortran, ASCII—and there are hosts of others.)

Besides all that, no one so far as I know (other than Coyne’s straw man creationist, the product of his feeble imagination) argues that speciation doesn’t occur. The argument, rather, is that if you can’t identify NS+RM as the creative causal factor responsible for new speciation, then you can’t say unequivocally that it is the creative factor, nor do you have any basis whatsoever for saying that science has now settled the matter, that evolution is true beyond all reasonable doubt, and that all creationists (whereby you mean doubters of the True Faith) should now shut up or you’ll set Judge Jones on their sorry behinds. This is by no means a way to establish the truth quotient of evolutionary theory.

But it’s the best Coyne is able to deliver. Evolution is true because it’s true. Creationism is bad because it’s bad. Science is right because science is right. Religion is wrong because it’s wrong. And we know this because Jerry Coyne tells us so, and so it must be true, else he would be talking out of both sides of his mouth. So when he tells us that “supernatural explanations always mean the end of inquiry: that’s the way God wants it, end of story” (p. 245), we should accept his asseverations as gospel. There’s simply no need to pause and reflect: “Always? Without exception? And supernatural explanations do this, when naturalistic explanations don’t? If that’s so, why did Nobel laureate Robert Laughlin once say ‘The Darwinian theory has become an all-purpose obstacle to thought rather than an enabler of scientific advance’?” Don’t wrack your brain over it; just keep reminding yourself that evolution is true.

Or, in other words, keep the faith, baby.

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# posted by Terry Mirll @ 6:21 PM 2 comments

Friday, November 06, 2009

 

On Raging Controversy and Trivial Pursuit

About this time a decade ago, the Big Fuss of the Day concerned New Year’s Day, January 1st, 2000. Two camps quickly came to the fore: one, ready to “party like its 1999” (to borrow the hook from the song by Prince), claiming that 01/01/00 represented the first day of a new century; the other, apparently not big fans of pop tunes, steadfastly maintaining that the year 2000 was the last year of the Twentieth century, not the first year of the Twenty-First.

Interestingly, no little controversy was stirred up over this notion. Discussions became heated. “December 31, 1999 is the last day of the Twentieth century,” claimed the one camp. “So put on your dancing shoes and party down already!”

“Hold on, Bojangles!” cried the other camp. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Look at the calendar. We went from 1 BC to 1 AD. There was no Year Zero. If the First Century began with the year 1 AD, then it ended in the year 100 AD. So every century begins with a year ending in 1 and ends with a year ending in 00. This century ain’t over yet!”

“What are you, some sort of killjoy?” screeched the first camp. “The dance halls have already been reserved. The tuxes have been rented. The bands have been hired and are tuning their instruments even now as we speak!”

“Not my problem!” countered the second camp. “We have a New Year’s celebration every year, so we’ll just have a normal celebration like always. Then we can have the big shindig next year, when the Twentieth century actually comes to an end!”

“It’s ending NOW, butt-monkey!”

“No, it’s ending a YEAR from now, pillow-biter!”

“No it’s not!”

“Yes it is! Didn’t you hear what I said about there being no Year Zero?”

“Who cares? 1999 begins with a 1. 2000 begins with a 2. That means a new century, as well as a new millennium!”

“Then why do all the years in the Twentieth century begin with a 19?”

“Distractions! Distractions!”

“Not at all! Why is the Twentieth century called the Twentieth if it’s full of years like 1905 and 1947 and 1981? Because its LAST year begins with a 20. The First century began in the year 1 and ended in the year 100. 100 begins with a 1, so it was the end of the First century. The Second century began in the year 101. And the Twentieth century began in the year 1901.”

“The Twentieth century began in the year 1900!”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because the Twenty-First century begins in the year 2000! Idiot!”

“Horse’s ass!”

And on it went. I remember reading scads of hastily-written, angry letters to the editor of my local newspaper, each camp decrying the other for its ignorance and pig-headedness. One letter claimed that those who claimed that 2000 was but the last year of the Twentieth century were wrong, for no other reason than that they were “arrogant” about it. If I’m lying, I’m dying—the fatal flaw to their argument was their arrogance, not their logic.

For purposes of full discloser, I was one of those who said that the new century would begin in 2001. Now it is certainly true that I seem arrogant. To quote my own brother, who loves me dearly, “You, sir, are a pompous ass!” To which I replied, “Sure, but what’s that got to do with the facts?”

Indeed, what at all?

Once, I even sat down with one of my co-workers and showed him, on paper, how, according to our calendar, the year 2000 was the last year of the Twentieth century. We went over it, step by step, carefully and methodically. I even talked about why Arthur C. Clarke entitled his novel “2001” (because it was the first year of the immanent century), and I even referenced, of all things, a question from a game of Trivial Pursuit I had once played, which asked for the date of the first day of the Twenty-First century (the correct answer, according to Trivial Pursuit: January 1st, 2001). When I finished, I was absolutely certain that my logic was iron-clad, irrefutable. No reasonable person would ever have disagreed with me, and only an insufferable dunderhead would state otherwise.

My co-worker looked at all I had shown him. He closed his eyes, deeply in thought. He crossed his arms, took a deep breath, and sighed. Then, he calmly shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Why? I asked. Had he disagreed with any point I had made? Was there something wrong with my logic?

No, he said.

Then what?

I don’t know, he said. But something.

I don’t think the matter was ever resolved. Here we are in 2009, and the only thing we can say for certain is that we’re in the Twenty-First century now, and that it began sometime ago, either in 2000 or 2001.

So, what’s my point?

First, I think it demonstrates something about the human condition, namely, that people don’t reason so much as rationalize. As a general rule, we DON’T look at all the facts and then draw our conclusions based upon them; most of the time, we seem to start with what we want to believe and then try to formulate a pathway towards it, using selected facts as supporting cobblestones and ignoring those facts that don’t fit our ready-made pathway.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, since, as St. Augustine pointed out, all knowledge is really a mere assent to belief. We look at some fact or factual assertion and then elect to believe it or not to believe it. Not cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) but opto ergo sum (I choose therefore I am).

Take, for instance, the assertion that dodos are extinct. Is this a fact that we know or a thing we believe? Sure, I can look around, and I don’t see any dodos anywhere; I can read in books that dodos went extinct sometime around the Seventeenth century. I can go to the local zoo and ask the zookeeper where the dodo cages are, and he’ll say “There aren’t any. Dodos are extinct.”

But does that mean that dodos really ARE extinct? Maybe there just aren’t any dodos where I happen to look. After all, I’ve never seen a baby walrus, but I’ll bet they exist. And maybe the books are wrong. It’s happened before. My fifth-grade history book said that Columbus set out across the Atlantic to prove that the world wasn’t flat; my college history book said he was trying to reach India. They can’t both be right. And maybe the local zookeeper is lying to me. These, too, are within the realm of possibility.

So, how do I KNOW that dodos are extinct? Because I don’t just look in a few places. I look in many places. Because I don’t just read in one or two books about the extinction of the dodo, but in many books. And because I can see no reason why the zookeeper would lie to me about the animals he cares for in his zoo. So, these things, taken together, give me a reasonable certainty that the statement “Dodos are extinct” is far more likely grounded in fact than in falsehood.

Still, it’s not a thing that I know, but a thing I believe. Knowledge is never absolute. This is why the Apostle Paul wrote about us seeing “through a glass, and darkly.” It’s reflected in Plato’s famous cave analogy. Heck, for that matter, it underpins Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle!

My second point about the 2000/2001 debacle concerns what it teaches us about another longstanding debacle, namely, the old Evolution/Shmevolution debate: if we can’t even come to agreement about something as simple and easily demonstrable as when the Twentieth century ends and when the Twenty-First century begins, JUST HOW IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GOOD ARE WE EVER GOING TO COME TO AGREEMENT ABOUT SOMETHING AS COMPLEX AND INTANGIBLE AS EVOLUTION?

Obviously, we aren’t.

How do I know? Some time ago, I bought a copy of David Berlinsky’s book “The Devil’s Delusion,” in which he tears apart the bare (and false) assertion from materialists that evolution “has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt.” No surprise here, but I thought the book was brilliant.

After I had finished, I loaned the book to a friend, another co-worker. A really sharp guy, this friend. He has a Master’s Degree in physics. He’s also an agnostic (or atheist, depending upon his mood), who staunchly adheres to fully naturalistic evolutionary theory and who steadfastly claims that Darwinian descent with modification is the best explanation for the complexity of life on earth. Later, when he returned the book, I asked him what he thought about it.

I couldn’t find much to agree with, he said.

Why? I asked. Something wrong with Berlinsky’s logic?

Naw, he said.

Then what?

He’s too arrogant.

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# posted by Terry Mirll @ 3:29 PM 0 comments

Friday, July 24, 2009

 

The Controversy Rages

What follows is from an exchange I recently took part in on the ID website Uncommon Descent. The topic at hand was a post introduced by Denyse O’Leary, “Darwinism and Pop Culture Attempts to Pretend that Darwin Did Not Extend His Theory to Human Society.” A frequent topic of debate is whether Darwinism necessarily implies Social Darwinism. Darwin’s defenders often try to deny the link between the two isms. Pay particular attention to the comments from “Mr Charrington.”

1
tsmith
07/21/2009
8:03 am
the darwnists cannot allow their icon, yea verily their god, darwin, to have his holy name profaned. their devotion to him is just further proof that evolution is a religion. atheism posing as ’science’

2
Terry Mirll
07/21/2009
6:29 pm
Actually, the god is naturalistic materialism. Darwin was only its prophet.

The attempt to divorce Darwin from Social Darwinism comes from the innate realization that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s no reason why we SHOULDN’T try to cull the weak, the infirm, the inferior from the human herd. After all, inferior strains of humanity, what Darwin called sub-species, are a drain on our limited resources and threaten our very survival. The trouble is, such a notion has led us to the greatest horrors of the 20th century: eugenics, euthanasia, and the Holocaust.

But, of course, its difficult for Darwin’s defenders to pretend darwinism is true if its end-product is a bunch of brown-shirted knuckleheads shoving Rabinowicz into an oven for no better reason than he’s Rabinowicz. So, they deny the link between their prophet and Social Darwinism.

The problem is, the link is still there.

3
Mr Charrington
07/21/2009
6:35 pm
Terry
“then there’s no reason why we SHOULDN’T try to cull the weak, the infirm, the inferior from the human herd. After all, inferior strains of humanity, what Darwin called sub-species, are a drain on our limited resources and threaten our very survival.”

But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc. Why would mere animals care about their species survival?

Why does it follow that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s any reason that we SHOULD try to cull the weak?

How can “mere animals” care about such things?

4
[Deleted to save space]

5
Terry Mirll
07/22/2009
5:43 pm
#3 Mr. C
But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc. Why would mere animals care about their species survival?

Land o’ Goshen! You HAVE read Darwin, haven’t you? According to Our Lord, PBUH, nature instills the drive to survive in all creatures, great and small. Any organism is innately concerned with its own survival, demonstrating its fitness by reproduction; the more it reproduces, the greater its fitness.

Why does it follow that if darwinian theory implies that human beings are mere animals like any other species, then there’s any reason that we SHOULD try to cull the weak?

Again, per Our Lord, PBUH, all living creatures compete with one another for survival, in a constant struggle brought about by our environment’s limited resources. In the Descent of Man, Our Lord, PBUH, argued that man uses his intellect to shape our own evolution (which is why, Our Lord argued, women are just so gawsh-darned inferior to men; men have made them that way). In allowing the weak, etc, to survive, we share with them the limited resources we would otherwise use to feed the healthy and strong, and thus ultimately endanger the survivability of our species.

So, since 1) we are acutely concerned with our own survival, and 2) use our intellect to shape our evolution, knowing that allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival, we would have every reason for eliminating the weak so that the strong would have greater access to limited resources (and, similarly, no reason whatsoever for tolerating the weak); the strong would then display their fitness by reproducing more of their kind, and thus enhance our survival.

The only trouble is, once people get this idea into their heads, eugenics and die Endloesung aren’t too far off.

6
Mr Charrington
07/22/2009
5:50 pm
Mr T
“knowing that allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival”

Does it? Why?

Also, please define “weak”.

7
Terry Mirll
07/23/2009
6:28 pm
Mr. C.
I think I’ve sufficiently explained how, according to Darwin, allowing the weak to thrive threatens our survival. If you’re asking me to defend that notion, I won’t. I’m not a Darwinist. If you don’t really believe that allowing the weak to survive actually threatens the survival of the strong, then I’d say you don’t really believe in Darwinism.

As for “weak”–it can’t be defined. This is one of the (many) reasons why I am not a Darwinist. Darwinism rests on precisely such tautological constructs, which is why I feel Darwinism fails.

The “weak”, according to Darwin, are those who aren’t identified as the “strong”, according to Darwin. The “fit” are those that survive; the “unfit” the ones who don’t. They just are. Ipse dixit, says the prophet. Now, either accept that without question, or PZ Myers will forever brand you a Bible-thumping creationist bent on dragging science back into the Dark Ages.

(End)

And now some observations:

Note how the Darwinist is unable to address the topic. Is there or isn’t there a link between Darwinism and Social Darwinism? Mr Charrington won’t say. He merely attempts to refute my assertions by asserting contrary assertions, without proffering any commentary whatsoever as to why he feels he’s right. Is this guy even listening? I doubt it. He’s more like John Cleese in the old Monty Python “Argument Clinic” sketch, ready to gainsay automatically anything someone else says.

Note what he has to say in (3). I say there’s no reason why human beings shouldn’t try to cull the weak from our midst, according to Darwin; I back up this assertion with the typical Darwinian caterwauling about competition over limited resources. Mr Charrington’s response is to counter “But in that case there is no reason to cull the weak, etc.” Never mind that the limited-resources argument is PRECISELY the reason why we should cull the weak, if Darwinism is true. Somehow, the very reason why we should eliminate the weak is also the reason why we shouldn’t.

Instead, he counters with this bit of nonsense: “Why would mere animals care about their species survival?”

Never mind WHY. DON’T animals care about the survival of their own? Don’t rabbits try to escape being chased down by coyotes? Don’t lionesses defend their cubs when a jackal gets too close to the pride? Isn’t self-preservation an instinct? The fact that these things occur is self-evident. But I guess if your goal is to do anything in your power to deny that Darwinism implies Social Darwinism, there’s no limit to whatever facts are to be ignored, no matter how obvious.
Note also in (6) that rather than engage the topic, he simply reiterates his musings from (3). Anybody who simply restates a question that’s already been answered isn’t really looking for answers, anyway. But this precisely the sort of gyrations the Darwinist has to go through to ignore the holes in Darwinian theory.

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# posted by Terry Mirll @ 5:07 PM 0 comments

Saturday, February 14, 2009

 

There's a Bright, Golden Smokescreen on the Meadow

My friend DR, from his blog Agnostic Popular Front (http://agnostichicagokie.blogspot.com/), posted a link concerning SB320, a proposed senate bill from the Oklahoma legislature, which reads, in part:


"The Legislature further finds that the teaching of some scientific subjects, such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects."

He concludes:

All this bluster about helping "students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories" is so much smokescreen, designed to obscure an intelligently designed wedge which starts with "scientific weaknesses" and ultimately widens out to the first verses of someone's favorite holy book. If you doubt this, just go back and look at the campaign propaganda of the legislators sponsoring and vocally supporting this bill.

So, I posted my reply, to wit:

Dude, whenever anyone starts talking about the "overwhelming evidence" of evolution, I can't help from rolling my eyes. I've seen the evidence for evolution, and it's far from overwhelming. What I've seen is evidence that seems to support evolutionary theory, provided we assume it supports evolution and nothing else, and which seems to support other theories, provided we don't first assume that it's evidence for evolution. In other words, it's evidence for whatever we say it's evidence for. That does NOT suit my definition for "overwhelming."

To say that the debate is between evolution and creation is to oversimplify the matter entirely. If our choices are only 1) evolution and 2) creation, where is there room for anything like theistic evolution (to which I am an adherent), creation science, or intelligent design? Instead of framing the discussion purely in either/or terms of evolution and creation, it is far more reasonable to frame the matter in terms of intelligent versus unintelligent causation. Then, the discussion concerning evolution becomes: is evolution the result of blind, purposeless forces, or can it be understood in terms of an intelligence driving it in particular directions? This is far more interesting than the old Evolution/Shmevolution rigarmarol.

Besides, if we claim (as you seem to) that religion is purely a matter of faith, we undermine scientific inquiry itself, for this, too, is often requires a faith commitment.

One example, among many, is multiverse theory. This requires a greater faith commitment than most religions. Ockham's razor becomes impossible to follow. Tell me which idea is unnecessarily overcomplicated: that there are millions, billions, or even an infinite number of universes out there (for which we have not only zero evidence, but cannot prove by any devisable means), and our universe just so happens to be the one conducive to the random formation of living matter; or that the one universe we see around us appears designed, perhaps because it IS designed.

You claim that "All this bluster about helping 'students understand, analyze, critique,
and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories' is so much smokescreen." This is only an opinion, not a fact, (and, in MY opinion, incorrect, as demonstrated by your failure to back up the statement with any kind of evidential support, other than the simple ad hominem that we need only look at the Bible-thumping schlubs sponsoring the legislation to know what is "really" going on here).

I could just as easily submit that the real smokescreen here is from the evolutionists, who are so wary of the lack of substance within their own theory that the only way they know of keeping it intact is to insulate it from all criticism and to prevent it from being reasonably questioned. So, which one of us is right?

Well, ME, of course! ;-)

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# posted by Terry Mirll @ 9:13 AM 4 comments

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

 

Klaatu to Earth: You're Not as Nice as Us, So We're Going to Kill You

Over the holidays, I found myself on my own while the wife and kids were out doing their last-minute Christmas shopping, so I decided to go to the movies. Wintertime, as we all know, is a rough season for the theaters. All the summer blockbusters have come and gone, leaving pretty slim pickings for moviegoers. In my case, I ended up unenthusiastically buying a ticket for the Keanu Reeves remake of the 1950s classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

To those who haven’t bothered to see the film yet, let me say: Don’t.

The film is less a remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” than a rehashing of “Plan 9 from Outer Space” with better special effects. I’m serious. In P9, the aliens were out to destroy us all because we had snubbed their attempts to reach out to us. In TDTESS, the aliens want to destroy us because we don’t take better care of our planet. “Environmentalist Whackos from Outer Space” would have been a better title.

What’s most surprising is just how little the film has to do with the original. Sure, there’s an alien named Klaatu, and there’s a big, scary robot, and the alien announces he has a message for the UN, but, apart from that, the remake has absolutely nothing to do with the original. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the original wasn’t all that great a film, even by 1950s standards. But the purpose behind making a new version of an older movie really ought to have something to do with improving the original or restating and enhancing its central theme, not simply slapping any old piece of garbage up on the screen just to make a buck, which is all that TDTESS ever sets out to do.

Instead, what we have is ninety minutes of cinematic muck that in many ways is even dumber than the original. Anyone expecting the film to hinge on the famous line “Klaatu barada nikto” is likely in for a shock.

In a nutshell, here’s the story: It begins in the 1920s, when a mountain climber (played by the illustrious Keanu R), camped for the night in his tent on some Himalayan mountain, has an encounter with a strange, otherworldly object—a large spherical device shimmering with an eerie glow. He touches it, which sets off a blinding flash. He awakens to find the object gone, but with a circular scar on his hand. Cue mysterious, suspenseful music.

Cut—don’t ask why—to the present day. A scientist, played by the lovely Jennifer Connelly, gets a phone call one evening from a stranger, who, in typical cinematic aplomb, says her presence is urgently needed. Before she can even hang up the phone, the FBI is already at her door, who whisk her away to some secret governmental command post. Ms. JC, along with a rather eclectic group of scientists (JC is a biologist; there’s even a linguist among them), are told that a mysterious object from space has been sighted, on a collision course with Earth, and that if it strikes, all life on the planet will be wiped out. (If that’s so, one wonders just what the Govt expects a biologist and a linguist to do about it.) At this point, the rest of the story unfolds like a series of randomly flipped cards: The object from space doesn’t collide with Earth, but instead slows and lands in Central Park; a spaceman (Keanu R) climbs out, announcing that his name is Klaatu; he is immediately shot by a trigger-happy soldier (the idea that soldiers are merely a bunch of thugs hell-bent of shooting first and asking questions later seems to be one of the central themes of the film—no kidding); Klaatu is captured, where he is quickly carted off for emergency surgery, followed by—mais bien sur—governmental interrogation; Klaatu escapes the secret governmental facility; biologist JC finds him, where she discovers his secret: he hasn’t been sent to deliver a message, but to destroy us all. Why? Because we, the dominant species of the planet, are at risk of wiping out all other species, and, according to the aliens who have sent the harbinger Klaatu, that just ain’t kosher.

Biologist JC then sets out to convince Klaatu not to destroy the human race. To do this, she calls for assistance from a Nobel prize-winning scientist, played by, of all people, John Cleese. Yes, that’s right. John “this parrot is most definitely deceased” Cleese, who manages to win Klaatu over to our side with this little tidbit of evolutionary fancy: in order to evolve, mankind needs a moment of crisis that will force us to take the next step up the rung of evolution; the aliens have given us that moment of crisis—now what they need to do is give us the chance to evolve. Just how making an evolutionary advance will make us more moral creatures (the kind that aid our fellow species rather than drive their extinction), the film doesn’t say. But it doesn’t need to—or, at least, it doesn’t bother. The ninety minutes concluded and the moviegoer sufficiently scalped of his nine bucks, the film ends.

Such is the Hollywood variant of evolutionary theory. Evolution is reactive. It occurs because some event makes an evolutionary advance necessary. Consider Kevin Costner’s wonderfully awful “Waterworld,” which depicts an inundated Earth, presumably as a result of global warming having melted the polar ice caps. Humanity survives afloat on ships, buoys, oil tankers, and whatever else they can find. In such a world, wouldn’t people get around much more easily if they developed thicker webbing between their fingers and toes? And wouldn’t they be able to swim more efficiently if they developed gills behind their ears? Enter Kevin, who has acquired just those characteristics. The environment triggers the need, and the need affects our evolution.

A more extreme yet equally insipid example is “A Sound of Thunder,” starring, I kid you not, Sir Ben Kingsley. A time-travelling explorer hunting dinosaur in the Jurassic inadvertently steps on a butterfly. When he returns to his own time, he finds the Earth completely changed. The environment has been completely altered, and human beings, rather than evolving from apes, evolve from some other species, and look like giant mole rats with long legs, slit eyes, and Fu Manchu mustaches. Reactive evolution strikes once again.

Which is, of course, utter nonsense. Even if evolution is true, that doesn’t mean evolutionary advancement occurs because environment necessitates it. Faster cheetahs don’t develop because faster okapi appear; faster cheetahs develop because the faster ones have a biological advantage over the slower ones in as much as they are better capable of catching okapi. The slower ones catch fewer okapi, which over time causes them to breed less and ultimately to die out.

What’s ironic is that those who say they believe in evolution often end up arguing for the reactive sort. Recently, I saw a program on the Discovery Channel about wooly mammoths, which actually argued that the cool climate of the Ice Age is what caused the mammoth to develop its shaggy coat. Sure. And that’s how the camel got its hump, too.

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# posted by Terry Mirll @ 5:09 PM 1 comments

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