Why courts should stay the hell out of the controversy
In a discussion of a London Review of Books article by Rutgers philosopher Jerry Fodor titled "Why Pigs Don't Have Wings," Michael Ruse said,
You are very naive – it has everything to do with creationism – of course, to deny adaptationism is not to endorse creationism – but to write a piece slagging off natural selection in that way, is to give a piece of candy to the creationists – I am sure that duane gish has already incorporated this into his talks of course natural selection has to work on an array of given things, but this is not to deny selection – especially not through fodor’s silly arguments about analogies – and certainly not adaptationism the point of course is that fodor did not simply write a technical piece on adaptation – he wrote a piece flamboyantly denying selection in today’s climate, where we have just had two ultra right supreme court justices appointed, I think his behavior is somewhere between stupid and wicked.(emphasis added)
Labels: Evolution education (new #2)
posted by Larry Fafarman | 7/26/2008 05:25:00 AM
5 Comments:
So Ruse argues that scientists and thinkers generally ought to keep on believing in and proclaiming a doctrine of evolution in which natural selection plays a major role: even if the evidence doesn't support that idea! They ought to keep on proclaiming it because to do otherwise might help "the creationists," and might encourage "right wing supreme court justices" to decide to rule in a way that Ruse doesn't like!
Ruse, who calls himself "Darwin's bulldog," seems to be pretty goofy anyway. In the movie Expelled, he looks as if he's just climbed out of a UFO, as he speculates that the first life might have popped up "on the backs of crystals."
This character is a Darwin-fan to end all Darwin-fans. It's pretty clear to me that his zeal for the Darwin-faith is due to something other than alleged "science:" it seems to be due to hatred of certain religions.
And as I believe Larry suggests, if judges were less quick to stick their long noses into science education, it might be helpful to both society and to science.
If fundies were less quick to insert their personal faith into science, we wouldn't need judges to stick their long noses in as well.
I'm not sure whether any "fundies" are trying to insert their personal faith into science classes, or not? But I am sure that many "evolutionary biologists" want to present mechanistic versions of evolution as if they were well-established science: when they actually fit very poorly with much of the scientific evidence. So although I'm not a creationist, I don't run with conventional "evolutionary biologists," either.
"I'm not sure whether any "fundies" are trying to insert their personal faith into science classes, or not"
"My thesis is that the disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ ... The point to understand here is that Christ is never an addendum to a scientific theory but always the completion."
-William Dembski
"This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science...It's about religion and philosophy."
-Phillip Johnson
""We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design. Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions"
-Wedge Document
"To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."
-Wedge document
Read more. Also, you don't find it odd that the only people pushing hard for ID in schools is evangelical Christians?
"But I am sure that many "evolutionary biologists" want to present mechanistic versions of evolution as if they were well-established science: when they actually fit very poorly with much of the scientific evidence"
Please, humor me and tell me what evidence doesn't fit evolutionary theory. Which evidence contradicts evolutionary theory? Which evidence points to something, anything OTHER than evolutionary theory?
Evolution isn't perfect, but it sure as hell is well supported and has stood 150 years of scrutiny. It has stood through the rise of modern biochemistry, molecular biology and genomics. Hell, it has not only stood but it has been STRENGTHENED by these fields.
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