The American Spectator : Facing Up to Darwin

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Facing Up to Darwin

By Roger Scruton from the February 2012 issue

There is a philosophy of the human condition that stands apart from biological science without opposing it.

It is fair to say that "Darwin's dangerous idea," as Daniel Dennett has described it, has caused more trouble to the ordinary conscience than just about any other scientific hypothesis. We cannot easily reject the theory of evolution, which explains so much that we observe in the lives of plants and animals; and we cannot easily accept it either, when it comes to understanding human beings. It is not only the religious world-view that seems so precarious in the light of it. All kinds of moral aspirations, set against what we can know or surmise about our hunter-gatherer ancestors, seem to be so much wishful thinking. How can we entertain the liberal hope for equality between the sexes, for universal human rights, for a global community without wars, when we reflect on the harsh conditions in which our species is said to have evolved, and for the need, in those conditions, for belligerence, relations of domination, and an innate division of labor between woman and man?

For a long time in the wake of Darwin's Descent of Man, social scientists and anthropologists argued that human beings are not simply biological organisms, whose behavior is to be explained by their inherited constitution, but also social beings, whose most important traits are "socially constructed." On this view culture is an independent influence, which works on the raw material of human biology and changes it into something finer, more malleable, and more responsive to moral and spiritual ideals. In this way, thinkers like Durkheim and Weber hoped to rescue human nature from Darwin by describing another input into our behavior than our biological inheritance. Not only did this give a new purchase to religion; it liberated morality from the constraints of evolutionary thinking. Morality was returned to its throne as a guide to life, by which wisdom and reason override the demands of instinct and desire.

But the respite from Darwin was only short-lived. Evolutionary psychologists have since turned their attention to culture itself, arguing that culture is not, after all, an independent input into human behavior. Culture too, they argue, is part of our biological inheritance. It is not simply that there are extraordinary constants among the many cultures that we observe: gender roles, incest taboos, rites of passage, festivals, warfare, mourning, religious beliefs, moral scruples, aesthetic interests. Culture is also a part of human nature: it is our way of being. We do not live in herds or packs; our hierarchies are not based on strength or sexual dominance. We relate to one another through language, morality, and law; we sing together, dance together, worship together, and spend as much time in festivals and story telling as in seeking our food. Our hierarchies involve offices, responsibilities, gift-giving, and ceremonial recognition. Our meals are shared, and food for us is not merely nourishment but the occasion for hospitality, affection, and dressing up. All these things are comprehended in the idea of culture and culture, so understood, is uniquely human. Why is this?

The social scientists respond that culture is uniquely human because we created it. But the Darwinians reject that answer as a fudge: if we created culture, what explains our capacity to create it? The answer is that this capacity evolved. Culture is therefore an adaptation, which exists because it conferred a reproductive advantage on our hunter-gatherer ancestors. According to this view, many of our cultural traits are local variations of attributes acquired during the Pleistocene age and now "hard-wired in the brain." But if this is so, cultural characteristics may not be as plastic as the social scientists suggest. There are features of the human condition, such as gender roles, that people have believed to be cultural and therefore changeable. But if culture is an aspect of nature, "cultural" does not mean "changeable." Maybe these controversial features of human culture are part of the genetic endowment of mankind.

This new way of thinking gains credibility from the evolutionary theory of morality. Many social scientists suppose morality to be an acquired characteristic, passed on by customs, laws and punishments in which a society asserts its rights over its members. However, with the development of genetics, a new perspective opens. "Altruism" begins to look like a genetic "strategy," which confers a reproductive advantage on the genes that produce it. In the competition for scarce resources, the genetically altruistic are able to call others to their aid, through networks of cooperation that are withheld from the genetically selfish, who are thereby eliminated from the game.

If this is so, it is argued, then morality is not an acquired but an inherited characteristic. Any competitor species that failed to develop innate moral feelings would by now have died out. And what is true of morality might be true of many other human characteristics that have previously been attributed to nurture: language, art, music, religion, warfare, the local variants of which are far less significant than their common structure.

If we accept the argument of the evolutionary biologists, therefore, we may find ourselves pushed toward accepting that traits often attributed to culture may be part of our genetic inheritance, and therefore not as changeable as many might have hoped: gender differences, intelligence, belligerence, and so on through all the human characteristics that people have wished, for whatever reason, to rescue from destiny and refashion as choice. But to speculate freely about such matters is dangerous. The once respectable subject of eugenics was so discredited by Nazism that "don't enter" is now written across its door. The distinguished biologist James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, was recently run out of the academy for having publicly suggested that sub-Saharan Africans are genetically disposed to have lower IQs than the Westerners who strive to help them, while the economist Larry Summers suffered a similar fate for claiming that the brains of women are at the top end less suited than those of men to the study of the hard sciences. In America it is widely assumed that socially significant differences between ethnic groups and sexes are the result of social factors, and in particular of "discrimination" directed against the group that does badly. This assumption is not the conclusion of a reasoned social science but the foundation of an optimistic world-view, to disturb which is to threaten the whole community that has been built on it. On the other hand, as Galileo in comparable circumstances didn't quite say, it ain't necessarily so.

SOME CONSERVATIVES take comfort from this, arguing that liberal egalitarian values are, after all, no more than wishful thinking, and that the attempt to impose them through the school and university curriculum goes against human nature and is therefore doomed to failure. To take this line, however, is to announce the defeat of liberalism by conceding the defeat of conservatism too. Conservatism is founded, like liberalism, on the assumption that human beings are free, that they can to a certain measure shift the boundaries that constrain them, and that there is a right and wrong in human affairs which are not simply dictated by biology. It is imperative, therefore, to find another response to the evolutionary picture. The real question raised by evolutionary biology and neuroscience is not whether those sciences can be refuted, but whether we can accept what they have to say while still holding on to the beliefs and attitudes that morality demands of us.

From Kant and Hegel to Wittgenstein and Husserl, there have been attempts to give a philosophy of the human condition that stands apart from biological science without opposing it. Those great thinkers told us in their several ways that we are both human beings and persons. Human beings form a biological kind, and it is for science to describe that kind. Probably it will do so in the way that the evolutionary psychologists propose. But persons do not form a biological kind, or any other sort of natural kind. The concept of the person is shaped in another way, not by our attempt to explain things but by our attempt to understand, to interact, to hold to account, to relate. The "why?" of personal understanding is not the "why?" of scientific inference. And it is answered by conceptualizing the world under the aspect of freedom and choice. Our world is a palimpsest, and over the book of nature, written in the language of cause and effect, there is another and incommensurable text, written in the language of freedom. We cannot rewrite the book of nature so that it accords with our hopes and ideals, for these have no place in that book. But we can rewrite the book of freedom, and that is where the contests lie.

Consider, then, the dispute over gender and gender equality. Liberals do not deny that there are two biologically fixed kinds of human being—the male and the female; but they deny that there are two culturally fixed kinds of person—the masculine and the feminine. For the liberal, the division of roles, rights, and duties that conservatives defend is neither decreed by nature nor endorsed by the moral law. The response of conservatives should be to defend this division of roles, rights, and duties for what it is—the foundation of the most important personal relation that we have, which is the relation that binds a man and a woman in marriage. I don't think I have ever written a sentence more politically incorrect than that one. Nevertheless, as Galileo was wise enough not to say, if you don't like it, that's your problem.

About the Author

Roger Scruton is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book is The Uses of Pessimism (Oxford University Press).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (187) | Leave a comment

Darin| 2.29.12 @ 6:52AM

What evolution "observes in the lives of plants and animals" is microevolution - minor changes within a species to adapt to its environment. What evolution has NEVER shown is macroevolution (e.g., a dog becoming an elephant). The difference is key.

Further, Darwin knew nothing of cell structure. In the 1850's, the cell was thought to be a blob of protoplasm. We now know a cell is vastly complex with numerous interdependent pieces. The odds of even the simplest cell developing by chance are so astronomical it is impossible. It's the same as the odds of a print show blowing up and forming the unabridged dictionary.

Vern Crisler| 2.29.12 @ 9:31AM

Right. It's too bad some conservatives or classical liberals try to tie defense of the free market to Darwinism (e.g., Hayek). The theory of evolution will end up on the trash heap of history at some point in the future, along with its defenders. Conservatives should have nothing to do with it, and especially the nonsense of evolutionary psychology.

WM| 2.29.12 @ 6:31PM

You're dreaming. It is a century and a half old for a reason. It is correct.

Tom near Boston| 2.29.12 @ 8:57PM

Genesis is more than 25 times older than that. You're going to have to do better than that.

morris| 3.4.12 @ 6:50PM

thousands of years with genesis was pretty much just spinning wheels. Just a couple centuries of darwins theory led to huge advancements in almost all fields of scientific knowledge and facilitated leaps in medicine

merlin| 3.1.12 @ 5:03AM

The theory of evolution is so dead. Behe in The Edge of Evolution and Sanford in Genetic Entropy both disprove it.

Websites to visit if you doubt the death of evolution: Creatiion Evolution Headlines, Discovery Institute, Uncommon Descent and many others.

milt| 3.4.12 @ 6:54PM

behe's a joke, when he testified in the dover case even he had to admit evolution worked even using his own skewed models. The only way to get honesty out of behe is to put him under oath and back him into a corner.

Karen| 3.1.12 @ 8:20AM

It's a century and a half old because it remains theoretical. A theory is not a fact.

Patricia Kenny| 3.2.12 @ 9:42AM

Are you actually that ignorant of the meaning of "theory" as it is used in science? In science, "theory" is an explanation, arrived at through inductive reasoning and observation . Data is collected that may confirm or disconfirm this theory. And guess what? The data confirm the theory of evolution!
(Do you feel similarly about the "theory" of gravity or atomic "theory"? How about the cell "theory")

dcm| 2.29.12 @ 10:35AM

Biological science does not recognize a distinction between "macro" and "micro" evolution. More importantly creationist/ID proponents have never proposed any mechanism by which an organism can determine it has micro evolved too much for the happiness of IDists. Small changes steadily accumulate into big changes.

Vern Crisler| 2.29.12 @ 11:17AM

But not enough change dcm. Change toward greater complexity is what is needed, and that's what we haven't seen.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 11:46AM

Vern,

It takes 76 distinct morphological changes to change a lizard into a duck. Find me one of those changes in the fossil record.

Now multiply those 76 changes by the millions of different types of creatures in the world.

The fossil record should be screaming out a record of all those changes. What you find is silence.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 12:06PM

And another thing: Contrary to what others have posted here, the fossil evidence does NOT contain a record of gradual changes. All fossil creatures appear suddently, without predecessors and fully formed.

In addition, evolutionary biologists claim "incremental changes" can be observed in real time (fruit fly mutations, peppered moths, etc.,). If we can observe those, then we should be able to find examples of a lizard transitioning to a duck in real time as well. Yet nowhere in nature do you see this process occuring and the sheer diversity of life on the planet would lead one to logically conclude you should be able to observe the evolutionary process going on all the time. Yet everything is static.

But the theory of evolution is not logical. It is a faith system. And as a faith systems, its true believers will brook no heresy.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 12:59PM

You don't know what you are talking about there are TONS of Transitional Fossils. You don't have to look far, how about 'Early' man, Lucy CLEARLY wasn't our EXACT species(It didn't exist yet) but she also wasn't an ape, how do you explain that?

Roger McKinney| 2.29.12 @ 1:12PM

You don't know what you're talking about. The evidence for transitional fossils almost doesn't exist. See Roger Lewin's book "Bones of Contention." Also, read any textbook on evolution; every one has almost a whole chapter of excuses for the lack of evidence.

WM| 2.29.12 @ 6:39PM

The "sudden appearance" as you call it is not really so sudden. Hundreds of millions of years ago, our ancestors were all soft-bodied. All of them. Soft-bodied organisms don't leave fossils.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 6:58PM

Not true. Plenty of soft-bodied jellyfish fossils.

So far, have yet to encounter a pro-evolution poster on this board who has his facts straight.

rainor| 2.29.12 @ 3:47PM

"76 distinct morphological changes to change a lizard into a duck."
Now you're just talking gibberish.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 6:27PM

What the hell do you think evolution is?

rainor| 2.29.12 @ 8:23PM

The better question is what do you think "a morphological change" is, you didn't get that term from any biology textbook.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 8:36PM

Dang!

You guys are going to have to do a lot better than this!

Here you go (from wikipedia):

"In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features

This includes aspects of the outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern) as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs. This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function.

Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or Taxon and its component parts."

rainor| 2.29.12 @ 10:52PM

the field of morphology exists but what do you mean by "a morphological change" and more particularly where did you get "76". You didn't get this from a biology text or wikipedia. This appears to be the standard creationist tactic taking scientific term and mangleing the meaning beyond comprehension in an attempt to lend a scientific gloss to creationist bunk.

PaulyD| 3.1.12 @ 5:48AM

A few examples:

Morphological change 1: Scales change to feathers.

Morphological change 2: solid bones changes to hollow bones.

Morphological change 3: cold blooded changes to warm blooded

etc.etc.,

Are you telling me you are not smart enough to get this?

rainor| 3.4.12 @ 6:45PM

That is what I guessed you meant, and you clearly didn't get this from biology texts. The number of changes required to get the primitive scale evolve into a hair or feather is a heck of a lot mor than 76. And why did you stop at at scale to feather, why not include the verious subcomponents of the feather as well.
Like I said before this is just more goofball creationist claptrap trying to masquerade as vaugly scientific. It only goes to demonstrate how little creationists know about physiology and anatomy.

Karen| 3.1.12 @ 8:23AM

Really? Wikipedia? You couldn't find a better source than that? I have students who try to rewrite Wikipedia every day.

PaulyD| 3.1.12 @ 8:46AM

OK, have your students look up "morphology" on dead tree in the Dictionary in the school library. Any person with sound judgment and who is PROPERLY EDUCATED knows how wikipedia works and can distinguish between what topics are reliabley covered and what are not.

God help us if this is what passes for education today.

PaulyD| 3.1.12 @ 8:48AM

And yes, I know, its spelled "reliably."

WM| 2.29.12 @ 6:40PM

Ducks are not descended from lizards. They share a common ancestor.

Fail.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 7:01PM

And what common ancestor was that?

Please provide your proofs.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 1:22PM

DCM, for Creationist ideas to work you need TWO types of DNA, one that can ONLY do 'Micro' changes, and ones that can do both, of course there isn't Two Types of DNA.

http://www.youtube.com/user/th.....mUGJ3Jh7fc

merlin| 3.1.12 @ 5:37AM

King, exactly backwards. There are more than 3000 genetic defects (genetic diseases) in humans. Is evolution the process, by NS, of removing those defects? But evolution also needs to create new structures, new body plans, new active sites on protiens and new information. That has to be another type of genetic change, which HAS NOT BEEN OBSERVED. If you think it has, give some examples. There must be lots of them. And don't bother with examples of bacteria that develope resistance to whatever. Behe has nailed that coffin shut in The Edge of Evolution.

When I was in school, a while back, cycle cell anemia was the only example of evolution that was given. Good grief.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 11:46AM

This argument your making is ridiculous because dogs do not turn into elephants...Monkeys do not turn into fish...this would be like saying a branch on one side of a tree grows into a leaf on the other side...its so ridiculous you cannot comprehend it. We have plenty of fossil evidence for similar organisms gradually transitioning through species. The end results may be light years apart, but the process proceeds in tiny incremental stages.

Note that I'm not defender of Darwin. I do not think Evolution is by chance...rather, the precoded DNA reacts to the stimulus of its environment, molding all life and yielding an incredible variety of interesting life in their proper place in time. And I think this is all gods will.

There are problems in Darwins theory, namely, the idea of evolution by random mutation. I prefer the older lemarkian view (Im assuming I spelled that wrong?) that Animals evolve in response to the problems they face. If you isolate a group of humans in such an envirenment that they need to swim a whole lot, I would bet that they would start growing webbed hands, or something analogous, despite the fact that Humans now have shown no noticeable variation in the size of the little membranes between fingers and toes. Thus, Evolution requires entirely unused sections of DNA to be activated before natural selection can even occur.

That said, this irrational denial of MarcoEvolution when the fossil evidence shows it happens so clearly, will do nothing but harm to all of Christianity (I'm assuming you are a Christian) by discrediting us in the minds of non christian as illogical idiots. We might be disturbed by the idea that we evolved from Apes, but we are simply going to have to live with it...it's not as if it contradicts Christianity.

Darin| 2.29.12 @ 12:34PM

I am a Christian and believe God created plants and animals much as we see them today. Minor changes have occured (the Bible uses the word "kinds"), but Animal A never turned into Animal B. Monkeys never became men. Fish never became walking land animals. You say there is "plenty of fossil evidence for similiar organisms gradually transitioning through species." No, there isn't. There isn't one piece of validate evidence, though there have been many attempted hoaxes. I challenge you to identify even one.

Also, believing man evolved from apes DOES contradict Christianity. Violently. Man was created in the image of God and endowed with a spirit different than all other living creatures. Only man has an eternal soul. Apes don't, though the Bible does speak of animals having a "spirit," this is a description of a living creature, not a soul.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 1:33PM

What was a Neanderthal? Seriously, it was intelligent, wore clothes, buried it's dead with rituals, but was NOT Modern man, they were bigger and Stronger.So what were they?

Nick| 2.29.12 @ 11:35PM

KooK of the Net,

If you are any indication, Neanderthals were....you: Slow and stupid!

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 1:38PM

"Fish never became walking land animals".

We have numerous species who can be said to live a partly aquatic life do we not? There are species of fish which have developed hands, yes, HANDS (Mudskipper, look it up) for moving around on land. Amphibians exist in varying degrees of semi aquatic life, as do tortoises and many semi aquatic mammals. Is it then a stretch of the imagination to imagine organisms undergoing similiar stages in the past?

Take the evolution of flying dinosaurs into birds. Ever hear of the archeopteryx? Is that a hoax? Are all the intermediate species of apes which have larger brains, walk upright, etc etc, a hoax? If all of biology has been victim to such tremendous fraud, why should anyone trust anything any scientist says? You might as well start assailing Newtonian gravitational theory because it would be about as easy to fabricate and keep hidden all those fossils as it would be to fabricate evidence for Newtonian physics.

"Also, believing man evolved from apes DOES contradict Christianity. Violently. Man was created in the image of God and endowed with a spirit different than all other living creatures."

Wheres the contradiction? If man has evolved into his present state from an inferior organism, why does that mean his superiority or supremacy is somehow nullified? We might have evolved from Apes, but we are not the same thing as them. Our existence has a completely higher character, regardless of how we got here. Christian ethics and Evolution both clearly show us to be the dominant form of life, we are the most advanced, we are the most god like. Just because we advanced from something inferior is not to say we are not superior. Is an adult a baby because he once was an infant? when the bible says "we are in the image of God" it is not saying we are literally like God...we are more like him than everything else that we can see, yes, but we are not God.

The only argument you have supplied here is "no, your wrong". You've been swallowing lies told you by stupid atheists and stupid christians, that Religion and science cannot co exist. Forgive my french but open your f*cking mind, unless you want your kids to abandon Christianity because they look at you and say "My christian parent believes stupid things therefore Christianity is stupid". I mean this with absolute seriousness. When you throw it this pernicious, stupid, anti scientific nonsense, you are contributing to the damnation of people around you. So STOP IT.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 2:04PM

Most likely because they could fly was the REASON that birds are the one last remaining 'dinosaur' all the others couldn't escape the devastation of the meteor strike.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 2:34PM

King,

You must be one of the "True Believers!"

:-)))

VivaLePerniciouski| 2.29.12 @ 3:32PM

In order to stamp out stupid anti scientific nonsense please contribute a brief summary of your position on manmade global warming. Thank you in advance for your contribution to the absolute seriousness of these matters.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 3:50PM

"VivaLePerniciouski"

I lol'ed

VivaLePerniciouski| 2.29.12 @ 5:43PM

In summation:

On the validity of the theory of evolution: all the fossils of intermediate species.

On the validity of manmade global warming: no comment.

On the validity of Christianity: irrelevant when some individuals are unintelligent.

Thanks again for your contribution to these absolutely serious matters.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 5:52PM

"Thanks again for your contribution to these absolutely serious matters."

Your welcome. I agree that these are very serious matters. Literally a matter of damnation vs. salvation and so on...I don't see Global Warming in quite the same light. Seriously, and honestly, I am in the middle of that. I think it occurs, but not by enough to warrant a strong reaction. But it doesn't really have much to do with what we are talking about here?

So what is your position on Evolution?

VivaLePerniciouski| 2.29.12 @ 7:07PM

Evolution theory does not possess the integrity to be a credible scientific theory. One reason is the complete lack of any intermediate fossils. This battle has been waged here over and over, including:

www.spectator.org/archives/201.....tcontainer

There is no contradiction between Christianity and science. Science provides explanations of God's creation cosmologically and ontologically.

Stammon| 2.29.12 @ 12:10PM

I'm sorry but you simply do not know what you are talking about. It is not random chance that drives evolution, but survival. Evolution explains life by insisting that only the survivors live to breed the next generation. It's that simple, and that complex.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....plpp_video

axbucxdu| 2.29.12 @ 1:48PM

"...Evolution explains life by insisting that only the survivors live to breed the next generation."

In an editorial Margulis once simply called it, "descent with variation".

A tautology has that nasty property of simultaneously explaining everything and nothing. Yet one can always rely on the Darwinist to emphasize its (trivial) truth while ignoring the scientific emptiness of stating that A=A. How convenient.

Dave Williams| 2.29.12 @ 12:26PM

No, no, no. You cannot apply statistical thinking to all processes. For example, say your license plate reads "AR3GP8". The "odds" of that happening are 26 x 26 x 10 x 26 x 26 x 10, a very large number. And yet, there it is....it's a MIRACLE!

Darin| 2.29.12 @ 12:36PM

Yet the very existing of defined characters is by definition an act of creation. SOMEONE had to make the license plate, create the letters, and put them on the plate in that precise order.

Stammon| 2.29.12 @ 12:40PM

AR3GP8 and BR3GP7 and CR3GP6 and DR3GP5....
Wow they are all miracles. Everything is a miracle if you don't understand anything.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 1:37PM

Calculating Odds when you don't know how many possibilities there are or how nature stacks the deck is foolish.

axbucxdu| 2.29.12 @ 7:08PM

It's foolish except when a darwinist like Dawkins stretches his beloved science and does precisely this very thing. For instance, when he uses probabilistic reasoning to support his arguments against the transcendent he is most certainly stacking the deck. Kant's 4th Antimony cannot be cheated by any means, even by scheisters like Dick. Perhaps you should share what you wrote above with him.

merlin| 3.1.12 @ 5:53AM

Stammon, they all came about by someone's intention and a certain degree of intelligence. Can you give me an example of just a sentence that came about by chance?

Some evolutionist famously claimed that if you had a million monkeys typing randomly on a million typewriters you would eventually get the complete works of Shakespeare. This is not true. You could never get more than a few sentences.

And KoftheNet, that is by knowing the number of possibilities.

Bob K.| 2.29.12 @ 8:14AM

"Liberalism, in its noblest and also in its most essential sense, had always meant (and, faintly, here and there it still means) an exaltation, a defense of the fundamental value and category of human dignity. Darwinism suggests that there was, there is, and there remains no fundamental difference between human beings and all other living beings. In sum: either human beings are unique or they are not. Either thesis may be credible but not both; and this is not merely a religious question." John Lukacs. "Democracy and Populism." 'Progressive Liberalism.' page 49.
Published 2005.

Darwinists won't accept that there is a fundamental difference between human life and all other forms of life: and that difference is "free will."

Renaissance Nerd| 2.29.12 @ 9:26AM

I think animals have free will as well--even plants--but only to the degree their intelligence extends. Same goes for humans. Free will is a sliding scale based on mentation as well as an absolute. It's the reason everyone attacks free will at the knowledge end--you can't make a choice if you don't know about it, or if you've been taught to believe that the Fates, Norns, or 'Society' allows you no choices. Enslave the mind and the body will follow, hence all the socialist movements over the last couple of centuries. Look at any leftist you like if you want an example of a mind enslaved.

Bob K.| 2.29.12 @ 12:58PM

On this matter, I'll defer to this historian, who is an expert on Hitler and who also writes on the subject of Historical Consciousness; Professor John Lukacs.

I refer you to these Chapters in his essay "Democracy and Populism:" Specifically the chapters on 'Ideas and Beliefs' p. 235 and 'Hope against Fear.' p. 240. In the former he states that "people do not have ideas, they choose them." (1st paragraph) In the latter at the top of page 242 where he states (quoting Kierkegaard) that "It is possible to be both good and bad, but it is impossible at one and the same time to become both good and bad." Lukacs continues: "The choice is ours, because of human free will, which exists whether people believe in it or not. And this recognition is especially timely now when, together with the devolution of democracy, we are already in the midst of an increasing intellectualization of everyday life, of the increasing intrusion of mind into matter, with all of its---unforeseeable---consequences, when the causes of the worst catastrophes may no longer be outward but inward, arising from the inside of mankind." citing Luke 6:43 and Mark 7:21.

I think if you read his historical essay "Democracy and Populism -- Fear and Hatred" you will find it very thought provoking. It was published in 2005 by Yale University Press.

Bob K.| 2.29.12 @ 5:00PM

This is a concept that runs through his other Historical Essays.

Here, from "At The End of an Age" in Part Two, 'The Presence of Historical Thinking' at page 50 he writes: "All living beings have their own evolution and their own life-span. But human beings are the only living beings who know that they live while they live -- who know, and instinctively feel, that they are going to die."

This book length essay of 225 pages was published in 2002 and printed by the Yale University Press.

Bob K.| 2.29.12 @ 6:18PM

And this concept appears in his histories. In "A New Republic--A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century" copyrights 1984 and 2004 in Chapter Nine: 'Inheritances and Prospects' he examines the origins of environmentalism which began with the conservationists among the Progressives before World War I. "Ever since the beginning of the century they failed to recognize that the pollution of 'the environment' was the result of the pollution of minds, rather than the reverse; that their reverence for 'nature' -- a reverence that has been mechanical and animistic at the same time -- was essentially Darwinian, unwilling to accept that there is a fundamental difference between human life and all other forms of life. Consequently their, often necessary, defense of 'the environment' depended on their extension of extremely bureaucratic regulations." p.373

Is not this not unlike the ways the Liberal/Progressives have handled the cultural/gender disputes that Mr. Scruton has written about here? The building up and the necessity of a heavily administrative and bureaucratic structure to enforce their beliefs!

Stammon| 2.29.12 @ 12:46PM

My dogs have free will. They can leave anytime, but don't. They love us, we love them. There is no difference in kind, just degree.

Bob K.| 2.29.12 @ 6:35PM

Your dogs, and all dogs, are proof that the "science" of Eugenics works with at least some members of the Canine family. That explains their behavior. But as Mr. Scruton notes above Eugenics has been so discredited by Nazism that "don't enter" is written across it's door.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 9:01PM

Bob K.

Hmmm, dog eugenics. Therein hangs a tale...
(pun intended).

Dog breeding, or "artificial selection", illustrates the limitations of "natural selection" as the mechanism behind evolution.

A dog breeder can easily create a new breed of dog within the lifetime of the breeder. Since it is literally possible to observe a large dog such as a German Shepard, transformed into a small dog, such as a dachsund within that breeder's lifetime, one would assume we could experimentally take this breeding process to the next step and begin the transformation (evolution) of the dog into a new species. The fact that we can't do that is just one more proof that evolution is impossible.

cls| 2.29.12 @ 9:14PM

We're already watching the speciation of dogs. The smallest and largest dogs physically find successful mating almost impossible. Ongoing gentic drift, fairly soon, result in genetic incompatiblities as well. This pattern has already been thoroughly documented with various island lizard populations. Genetic incompatibility is the basic definition of speciation.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 9:40PM

Get back to me when one has turned into a cat.

cnc| 3.4.12 @ 6:31PM

A dog turning into a cat would be an example of creationism, miraculous transformation of one physical structure into another like clay to man or bone to woman.
That such sudden and inexplicable (miraculous) transformations are never observed weighs heavily against the creationist's explanation of the world.

Tom near Boston| 2.29.12 @ 9:10PM

Actually, Stammon, the elephants at the circus could leave anytime too, but "choose" not to because they've been conditioned by being chained since they were baby elephants.

Only humans truly posess free will, since only we can respond to the voice of the moral law within us, and thus overcome our conditioning. That's the reason we don't watch Katie Couric anymore.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 9:19PM

LOL

W| 2.29.12 @ 8:26AM

Interesting article. The debates on evolution usually do not deal with the question of the origin of life and concentrate on what happened after the origin.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 11:49AM

That being the million dollar question which scientists will likely never be able to show...if you ask me, the jump from inanimate to animate biological matter seems to indicate something akin to a Miracle.

vls| 2.29.12 @ 1:10PM

biologists are steadily figuring out abiogenisis and synthetic biology and at some point in the future will manufacture life in the lab. Will this be considered proof that life is not miraculous or that life requires an intelligent agent to occur?

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 1:42PM

If Intelligent life creates life in a lab will that be proof that life does not require an intelligent agent to be created?

You sir, make me laugh. I ain't even going to bother with the rest of what you are saying until you address that hilarious contradiction.

tlc| 2.29.12 @ 1:53PM

Did you read the question? I did not ask intelligent life creates life in a lab will that be proof that life does not require an intelligent agent to be created. I asked if it would proof that life is not miraculous, meaning that it does not require supernatural intervention.
Further, if intelligent life synthesizes life in the lab using conditions and materials that would be available in the absence of an intelligence, then that would be considered evidence that abiogenisis does not require intervention.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 2:15PM

If something which requires intelligent life happens in a vacuum where non exists, that is not supernatural?

"Further, if intelligent life synthesizes life in the lab using conditions and materials that would be available in the absence of an intelligence"

LOL! Yes yes yes, because we can run an experiment as if we were not running an experiment. As intelligent beings, we can do something which required us to do it, and then conclude that this is what happened when we did not exist. Are you being sarcastic boyo? This is hilarious!

seriously, your pretending my characterization of your argument was wrong but that was precisely what you said...you just changed around your wording..."Well if we run an experiment using experimental parameters to recreate a world where we could not possibly run an experiment, we will prove that that which occurred during the experiment could occur when the experimenters were not even in existence".

I might as well say its possible for right angles to occur naturally if I somehow recreate the primeval earth and drop a rock in just such a way that an exact right angle is formed. You are really pushing the envelope of logic here, sir.

If we recreate life in a lab, we will not have solved the problem. Where did life come from? Did aliens make it, if not God? Okay, then where did the Aliens come from? And that is a serious argument I hear from atheists all the time. You push them on this, they always spiral into bizarre incoherency.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 1:49PM

Also, I will be surprised if Scientists figure out how life began...but I will also be incredibly impressed. It will be an interesting thing indeed, yet another way in which we are more and more like God. But this does not bring up much closer to how life emerges in a seemingly empty universe devoid of ourselves. If we do recreate the creation of life, it is the same as when we make a work of art...it is a good but derivative and inferior version of the master's version.

W| 2.29.12 @ 5:20PM

That proves a smart scientist took existing material to manufacture life.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 5:53PM

And where did the scientist come from?

W| 2.29.12 @ 7:14PM

Also, where did the material come from?

VivaLebowski| 3.1.12 @ 12:13AM

Is that supposed to be a rhetorical question? You already know what my answer is. A non-contingent being who is by its own nature not dependent on anything else, but is all the thing from which everything else is derived.

In the layman's term, God. Does that explanation solve this guys problem, life popping out of inanimate matter? No, not really.

tadcf| 2.29.12 @ 9:35AM

Your final statement is not just politically incorrect, it's just plain incorrect.

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 9:37AM

If we accept the conclusion of the author, then there would be no reason to have women vote, no reason to give Blacks freedom, and no reason to free slaves.

And for people who don't understand the science behind evolution, there is no way to "see" a "dog turn into an elephant" because you don't live that long. What we do have is fossil evidence from identifiable periods of time and now, vast similarities in DNA structure that supports evolution as a SCIENCE. There are no other alternative scientific explanations for this chain of evidence. How else would you explain the changes in skin color related to climate temperatures?

There have always been homosexuals -- just as there have always been women. From a scientific perspective, there is no difference between giving women increasing rights and giving homosexuals increasing rights.

Let's protect the liberty rights of ALL people and not discriminate on pseudo-religious grounds. This article is simply another try by a religious individual to make an obtuse argument, seemingly non-religious, to justify their beliefs. Just admit it -- you don't like homosexuality because of your parochial belief system....

Mick Lee| 2.29.12 @ 9:56AM

Science is not an ethical system--it has nothing to say about what morals should be.

Maybe, as you say, "From a scientific perspective, there is no difference between giving women increasing rights and giving homosexuals increasing rights." But " scientifically", there is also no imperative to do so.

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 10:06AM

Absolutely. Science may be able to address the societal effect of these changes AFTER they have occurred, but social models tend to be so complex with a huge number of variables that getting a scientific explanation is extremely problematic.

Vern Crisler| 2.29.12 @ 11:18AM

There is no science behind the theory of evolution.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 1:43PM

Good thing the Flu immunization people don't follow your example, because they HAVE to predict the future based on evolution.

Vern Crisler| 2.29.12 @ 2:07PM

This is a common mistake among Darwinists -- confusing change with evolution. Change is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition for evolution.

Prothonotary warbler| 2.29.12 @ 12:02PM

The only conclusion to which Scruton comes is that the relation that binds a man and a woman in marriage is founded on the roles, rights and duties that inhere naturally in being a man or a woman. It is nonsense to say this has anything to with women voting or slaves being freed.

Skipping lightly over the fact that you seem most comfortable addressing yourself to "people who don't understand the science" we find that science has a "perspective" on "...giving women increasing rights and giving homosexuals increasing rights." Really? Well then, we can't stop with just protecting the "liberty rights of ALL people," we must insist on "giving" ALL people ever INCREASING rights, as are women and homosexuals.

Clearly this article is obtuse to you. You make no attempt to address the fundamental philosophical issues that great thinkers have spent their lives investigating. Do you suppose the author mentions Kant, Wittgenstein and others just to name-drop? But, hey, its just a lot of pseudo-religious parochial belief system stuff.

W| 2.29.12 @ 5:23PM

PW
Are you a fan of Chambers or Hiss? I bet Chambers.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 12:09PM

This is complete nonsense...if one takes the evolutionary view of morality, Homosexuality has got to be one of the worst things imaginable...go ahead, lets start encouraging a behavior which would lead to our extinction if everyone was doing it!

The distinction between Genders is a logical and fundamental product of evolution. Homosexuality is a behavior. Your analogy breaks down immediately.

"If we accept the conclusion of the author, then there would be no reason to have women vote, no reason to give Blacks freedom, and no reason to free slaves."

This is ridiculous as well...by inter breeding the entire Human race has made sure that every single population is not too specialized. We are all mutts, genetically speaking, and this has made sure that we all collectively have not harmfully spun off into different adaptations. I like the idea of every race on the planet mixing it up BUT I do not subscribe to the idea that every race on the planet is exactly the same...over time, certain genetic traits, harmfull or good, do get embedded in certain populations. Sad but true. But the difference is marginal, certainly not enough to necessitate any withholding of rights. Just as individuals are incredibly unequal in skill and ability etc etc, but deserve equal legal rights, the same goes for different racial and ethnic groups.

Women do, undeniably, have somewhat different roles. But is that an inequality? An inferiority? I don't think so...perhaps if one buys into the idea that being better at raising children and being able to give birth is a bad thing, but this is completely ridiculous, contrary to evolutionary and christian morality. Women should not go about assuming they can be good soldiers like all the men, because, quite simply, they can't. They aren't built for it. Men cannot do nearly so much to raise a child (though they are important). The only reason this truth is so uncomfortable is because people have perversely decided that waging war is better than raising children.

ella8| 2.29.12 @ 9:15PM

Or could it be that homosexuals are not the center of the universe and some people just have a different vision of what marriage is. A procreative vision of marriage simply cannot be lived by homosexuals. It has nothing to do with condemnation of homosexuals. I have a right to believe in a transcedent vision of marriage. That does not take anything from gays. They can get married, but it will not be the same kind of marriage. I can't change that reality, it just is.

Tom near Boston| 2.29.12 @ 9:34PM

Fiscal, I went back over and over the conclusion of the author, which states that there really are masculine and feminine roles, and that their union is and always has been what we call marriage. You're going to have to walk me through how that argues in favor of slavery.

You're also going to have to walk me through why similarities in DNA across various types "proves" evolution -- what, God can't create from really good stuff that works?

By the way, I love your characterization of we who don't agree with Darwinism as those who "can't understand" it. I used to buy Carl Sagan and all sorts of things, when I believed everything I heard on PBS. No significant head injuries have intervened that I can recall, but I don't buy it anymore.

I agree -- let's give liberty to all the people. I happen to believe that sex is for a man and woman within marriage. You know, the same belief that most people professed in public back when we had a functioning society. You won't believe this, Fiscal, but I think that the soul of each and every homosexual person is absolutely as precious to God as mine and Billy Graham and the Pope and Tim Tebow. And it's because of that belief that I don't appreciate being hushed up by people who claim to speak on behalf of liberty. And the "gay marriage" sham is demonstrably about manipulating the law into shutting up people whose views you disagree with.

Renaissance Nerd| 2.29.12 @ 9:38AM

I'm agnostic on evolution for no other reason than so many people demand that I believe it. I can see the elegance of the theoretical construct, but I still have seen no direct evidence even of microevolution, even though I reckon it might be true. I won't swallow, however, until I'm persuaded, and nobody attempts to persuade. Gould's monster book, all of Dawkins' books, among others, amount to little more than screaming 'you must believe because I'm smarter than you' which somehow fails to persuade me (well Gould's not so much, and punctuated equilibrium actually fits the evidence better, but without any known mechanism other than assertion). Many evangelical Atheists and other Darwinist true-believers are very likely much smarter than I am, but they take the position of weakness, by commanding me to believe and mocking me if I won't. If their position is so irresistable they should invite and encourage teaching of creationism and ID in schools, if they could only benefit by the comparisons. However by attempting to add government force to their argument they only weaken it.

I see human beings as existing on three levels rather than two--a physical being, a person or social being, and a spirit that amounts to distilled intellect and life-force that inhabits the body. The combination is why science still can't define life, though it can describe the tiniest particles that make up life. The problem is that science as we know it can't describe the universe as it is, because there are too many paradoxes. Instead of demanding religious belief and commanding blind obedience, science and scientists should take a humbler approach and build a universal theory piece by piece, instead of jumping ahead to conclusions that are light years beyond our current comprehension. Still, I'm not holding my breath. Arrogance is an innate trait of intelligence, as I'm only too well aware, having a plentiful store of it myself.

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 9:55AM

The problem here is the confusion created by combining philosophy and religion with science. Many of you imbue science with philosophical thought. Science only creates theories that can be proven through the scientific method. If something cannot be proved through data and experimentation, then it is NOT science. That's why creationism and non-intelligent design is NOT science. People who don't understand science do not realize that you cannot prove something through negative means. It is nothing more than an unproven belief.

And science certainly can explain the universe as it is if it is in the realm of the scientific method. When you create religious or philosophical theories based on belief systems, you cannot use science to justify or deny these beliefs as this is circular argumentation.

And by the way, people who do not believe in a supernatural being should not call themselves "atheists". The word "Atheist" is the way a "believer" describes a non-believer. In that sense, it is much like the words "intelligent design". I would not explain my avocation to you by saying "I am not a doctor".

Arrogance is much more prevalent among evangelicals and extremists who will not accept the views of others who believe differently -- i.e., no tolerance of others.

W| 2.29.12 @ 10:05AM

Fiscal
Can you explain the origin of life, not the evolution after origin, by or through the scientific method by proving through data and scientific method?

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 10:10AM

If there is an "origin of life", then it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for science to define it. We can talk about this philosophically, but cannot use science to determine the answer. This comes down to "belief", not science.

W| 2.29.12 @ 11:16AM

So what is your opinion on the origin of life? And why did you put it in quotation marks?

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 11:22AM

I put it in quotes because I really don't KNOW if there was an "origin" or it just existed. There are theories that support either, but no significant proof. Honestly, I don't really care either way because it doesn't affect my current life.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 1:46PM

The origins of life are in Chemistry and physics. Some molecules come together naturally others are repelled

W| 2.29.12 @ 4:29PM

King
where did the molecules come from?
Fiscal
If you believe that there is no origin then you can be comfortable with the atheist view that there is no Creator. If you believe there is an origin then you have to explain origin which will lead you to Creator which is not consistent with your atheist view. I am not criticizing atheism or seeking to convert you.

Karma Sutra Chameleon| 2.29.12 @ 10:41AM

It's turtles all the down, baby. Turtles!

auntturtle| 3.1.12 @ 11:56PM

Thank you for the link, Karma Sutra Chalmeleon. A prior comment had bad-mouthed wikipedia, but with all its faults, wikipedia is really pretty wonderful in that it actually provides an entire article with historical background to the "turtles-all-the-way-down" story.

Renaissance Nerd| 2.29.12 @ 10:33AM

It is not religious people or philosophers who imbue science with religious or philosophical beliefs, but scientists, including Darwin himself. What is often referred to as 'science' is anything but; it's a cosmic nihilist philosophy pretending to speak for all science. Science, as you define it, excludes the Big Bang Theory, Evolution, Quantum Mechanics, etc. None of these things can be observed in any measureable way. They really aren't theories, but hypotheses that have yet to reach the level of theory.

Science, as you define it, would function in the way I wished for above; it would describe what is describable, and leave off extrapolating a universal theory of everything from a few data points that cover only a tiny fraction of what there is to know.

People who do not believe in a supernatural beings are agnostics. People who DISBELIEVE in a supernatural being are atheists. They preach their doctrine with faith as absolute as any Jesuit missionary.

Arrogance is rife among people with any amount of learning and intellect, whether their education is in Gay & Lesbian Studies or Physics or Biology or Divinity. It is a simple truth that intellect and arrogance go hand in hand. It is really hilarious to claim that those who demand that all of us change our religions to match their 'science' are being tolerant. Refusing to knuckle under isn't arrogance. Your construction is completely asinine--"...who will not accept the views of others who believe differently." Why on earth should they? It is perfectly normal and natural not to accept views which conflict with our own. It is not intolerance, it's simply the way things are, have always been, and will always be. Arrogance and intolerance would be to demand that others accept our beliefs, as scientists do, right now, in many venues around the world. Now the word scientists is much misused, and the use I just made of it is facetious, because a real scientists, who knows his human limitations and functions within the scope of his knowledge, will make no demands that others believe anything other than what he can actually prove in his own specialty. Those who pretend that their own beliefs in 'science' are superior to religion and philosophy and so should rule over them, are not scientists, but politicians and sophists. Because thus far, science itself, real, actual, science, has had nothing to say about philosophy or religion. Most of the 'settled' science remains debatable, AS IT SHOULD. It is not science acting in its own sphere, as you describe it elegantly, that is the problem, but professed scientists attempting to use science out of its sphere to control the beliefs of others. It is politics rather than science.

You tell me that cympanzees and humans have 99% identical DNA, I believe you. I feel no obligation to believe anything you attempt to extrapolate from that data point, because it's mere speculation. The real question is: why does that 1% make such a tremendous difference in our species? I won't ask such a question of science, because there's no way to measure it. No matter how elegant the speculation, I will feel no obligation to believe, because elegance doesn't determine truth. In this I will have to return to religion and philosophy to try and understand. Which is exactly what Evolutionary Psychology does, while pretending to be science.

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 11:37AM

You really don't understand the scientific method, do you..... By the way, the 1% difference does not make a huge difference. Apes have a lot in common with us in terms of body structure, ability to think and learn, procreating in the same way, etc. They even have some ability for abstract thought. Gee, this makes me hungry for a banana.....

You are simply trying to denigrate the field of science because it interferes your religious belief system. With your perspective, it is obvious why we are beginning to fall back and be non-competitive in the areas of math and science. Personally, I don't see the conflict between religion and science because they attempt to answer different questions. Those who use science as justification for philosophy are just as misinformed as those who use religion to denigrate science. So I get you -- the world was created in 6 days and is only 5000 or so years old. The science of geology and carbon dating is not real. Humans entered this world just like they are today even though we can't find any ancient fossils that support that.

Your mistake is in conflating science with philosophy or trying to prove religion with scientific method.

The bottom line is that you cannot have an open discussion with a religious zealot because they are not open to conflicting theories and certainly not open to conflicting truths.

Jacob Morgan| 2.29.12 @ 1:50PM

The scientific method is what gave credibility to science. It was what seperated modern science from, say, alchemy. Science made better steel, drugs that actually worked, trains that moved faster, etc.

But there is really no application of the scientific method to the origin of life. Where is the control group? Where is the experiment? The scientific method has no relation with anything Darwin did.

The scientist at the time that did use the scientific method was Gregor Mendel, and if the genetic laws that he had discovered been widely known at the time it is doubtful that Darwin would have published his book at all. It refuted Darwin's notion of infinite elasticity, which made his theory so much more plausible. Darwin could breed brown pigeons into white pigeons, thus he concluded he could breed them into white penguins if need be in a direct, predictable, methodical fashion. By the time Mendel's work was rediscovered Darwinisim was so entrenched that his supporters had to fall back on the improbable gene mutation theory to rationalize keeping it.

What Darwin came up with was something that had explainatory power. Well, great, Galen's concept of humors in medicine had great explanatory power as well and people much smarter than anyone on this message board went along with it for centuries. For something not subject to the scientific method a theory needs to have not just good explainatory powers, but good predictive powers to justify itself. The only thing that Darwinisim can successfully predict is that dead things don't reproduce.

Personally, I don't know how much, if any, of natural history went down along the lines of those suggested by evolutionists. The origination of the species could have very well have been divinely "programmed" in an evolutionary manner at the moment the universe came into being. That would explain the improbability of so many random mutations necesary not just for the current state of living things, but for any thing living at all. But at any rate, I do resent Darwinisim being a shibbolith for how smart one is, or being made out as being the start of modern science, etc. Real science had already started before Darwin and not having blind faith in Darwinisim has not held me back from a good career as an engineer nor has it held back other engineers I know that don't buy into it either.

More to the subject of the article, it was Chesterton who said that if we were not created equal then we evolved unequally. The point being that there is no reason for equal rights if everyone is in a different stage of evolutionary perfection. And if societal norms are part of evolution, why obey them? Is obesity a problem due to a tendancy to eat whenever food was available from centuries past? Is that not to be rejected now that food is cheap? What relevance is societal evolution to how one should actually live today? Maybe those societies evolved to put down the exceptional people, and who is not exceptional? Without natural law, human rights are a house of cards.

vls| 2.29.12 @ 1:37PM

Scientists are as entitled as anyone to have opinion and beliefs and, like everyone else, to arrive at those by their own experiences. And, like everyone else, scientists are free to talk about their opinions and beliefs.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 1:54PM

What are you talking about? Of course they have the right to say these things! I hate it when you try to argue with someone and they say "Well your trying to clamp down on my free speech". No, when I actually say "You cannot say these things and the government should stop you" that's when we have a free speech issue.

Everyone has their right to an opinion. But opinions can be wrong.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 1:46PM

Well said.

Vern Crisler| 2.29.12 @ 11:19AM

Since evolution cannot be proved it also is not science.

tlc| 2.29.12 @ 1:45PM

Evolution has been proved using the scientific methods of observation and experiment.

Vern Crisler| 2.29.12 @ 2:08PM

Not a shred of proof.

weimar| 2.29.12 @ 4:39PM

copius and unrefuted mountains of proof

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 6:40PM

Another "True Believer!"

merlin| 3.1.12 @ 6:07AM

merlin| 3.1.12 @ 6:24AM

My comment below was meant for weimar, not Vern Crisler.

weimar, if the proof is so good, why did Dr. Steven J. Gould, a noted evolutionist and on the Harvard faculty, come up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium? Precisely because the fossil record DID NOT SUPPORT THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION.

So, I repeat. BS

merlin| 3.1.12 @ 6:27AM

It seems that I have not evolved far enough to get my comments where I want them to be.

Brian Mc| 2.29.12 @ 2:29PM

If it has been 'proved' why do we still call it a 'theory'?

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 2:55PM

The Theory of Evolution is a theory, but guess what? When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use.1 That's right, it all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn't believe in evolution because it was "just a theory", they'd probably be a bit puzzled.

In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations.2 It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be.

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.

This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.

Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.

Brian Mc| 2.29.12 @ 4:23PM

Crap, I say. It is called the "LAW" of Gravity. It is no theory; it is proven to exist making it an infallible truth, substantiated beyond any doubt.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 9:24PM

Yes, we're such heretics. Maybe we should be burned.

TrueBlue| 2.29.12 @ 7:03PM

It's still science, it's just scientific THEORY rather than scientific fact. Even Darwin admitted it was only a theory, and could be relatively easily disproven, both of which the hardcore evolution supporters love to ignore.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 7:40PM

There is no suck THING as Science Fact, theory is the 'Gold Standard'

Nick| 3.1.12 @ 12:02AM

Actually, Darwinian evolution never made it past the hypothesis stage of the scientific method. There is no way to test it through experimentation. Darwin made sure of that.

It was a poorly constructed hypothesis, at that. DNA and genetics have proven that life on this planet could not have spontaneously erupted and evolved into the billions of species we now think inhabit the earth.

mike jones| 2.29.12 @ 9:42AM

Evolution is the understanding that the biological structures that comprise an organism are changing and not static, and over a lengthy course of time the DNA comprising those structures changes as certain genotypes prove unfavorable to reproduction. that's it. Evolution never states anything else, and every 'science' that came from it (eugenics, survival of the fittest, etc.) what's missing in its entirety from this article is that Evolution has no 'end game', that is, no ultimate, perfect species. as such every course of research attempting to follow this understanding is flawed and based not on the scientific method, but on contempt for the human condition and a megalomanic obsession with an overarching belief in ideaological standards that are supremely dangerous.

henry| 2.29.12 @ 9:47AM

As heavily as the Church influenced and modified philosophy and scientific thought a thousand years ago so the new religion of the politically correct holds sway today. Foster child of the scientist, Darwin, and the activist philosopher Marx, the pc filter has crept into every aspect of academia, the media and “progressive” thinking.
It defines the chasm between the left, regarded as informed and enlightened, and the right, labelled bigoted, ignorant and retrogressive. The irony is that this philosophy, which venerates Darwin, stands his law of natural selection on its head. Instead of rewarding the strong and punishing the weak, modern progressive societies do the opposite. That’s why western civilization is on its knees.
We live in a world of denialism, blame and wishful thinking. But, like Nemesis of old, grim reality is still there, waiting for the day of reckoning.

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 10:01AM

"Instead of rewarding the strong and punishing the weak, modern progressive societies do the opposite."

Are you daft, young man? The disparity between rich and poor is increasing. Society always rewards the strong. It is the structure of DEMOCRACY that gives voice to the weak because they have the voting multitudes. How many poor people run for President? The extension of your logic is that we should return to dictatorships because that is more "natural". Geeezzz....

henry| 2.29.12 @ 11:28AM

To clarify my view: the weak are rewarded with social security in the form of entitlements, while the strong pay the taxes that keep the system going. The weak are rewarded with low interest rates, while those that exercise fiscal restraint and save are punished by a poor return for their efforts.
The politicians and opportunists you refer to are evil, which introduces a new parameter. They manipulate the system to their own end. This does not make them desirable from an evolutionary standpoint.
The question of a purely Darwinian formula for a just society is very complex.
Rational debate should not descend to the level of sneering vituperation.

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 11:45AM

The weak are NOT rewarded in society. Mitt Romney pays less taxes than I do. The rich reward themselves with tax breaks, investments in the Cayman Islands, subsidies, and preferences. The weak have the highest interest rates as the coupon rate for banks is near zero and loans to people with poor credit exact very high interest rates. With regard to entitlements, we may agree that they've gone too far, but I wouldn't consider $15,000 per year as a "reward". I think your perspective is skewed by listening to too much Fox News and TAS.

For the record, I'm libertarian leaning. I'd like the government to be much smaller and would leave much more to the individual whether it is for their retirement or for that matter, abortion and gay marriage. So I'm not a big supporter of huge entitlements. But to believe that the weak are rewarded more than the strong is pure idiocy.

W| 2.29.12 @ 7:31PM

Mitt Romney 's income is about 20 million a year, all from dividents, interest and capital gains so his RATE is 15%. He has paid an average of 3million per year in income tax, and gave away an average of 3 million per year to charity. So unless you paid more than 3 million in income tax you did not pay more in taxes than Romney.
Keep in mind that Romney, like other investors, already paid income tax on the income he generated to produce the wealth he now has invested that produces the income of dividends and capital gains.
As a libertarian you should be for the lowest possible income tax rate to reduce the size of government and the power of the IRS.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 2:00PM

Modern social democratic systems really punish the middle class...they reward the rich and the poor. On one hand, Medicare, Welfare, food stamps...on the other hand, corporate welfare, and massive tax exemptions. The powerful need votes, so they court the lower classes, then they buy themselves a slice of the pie. The people who get really screwed are the middle class.

Look at it this way...Socialism rewards those who have no money and those who have enough money to buy into the system. If we did not have the massive tax system, all the regulations, all the welfare redistribution, there would be less rules for the rich to manipulate! You cannot cheat in a system which has no rules (not that I recommend a completely free market).

And then, maybe, just maybe, Capitalism could pull more of the poor up, as it was for the past several hundred years.

JAH666| 2.29.12 @ 10:12AM

This seems to be the day for spiritual/philosophical discussion on conservative blogs. There is an article over on PJMedia about the definition of agnosticism that is in the same vein as this excellent article.
Theories, discussion and arguments about evolution, faith and humanity in general set humans apart from the rest of the biological entities of planet Earth in that we CAN speculate, theorize and ultimately: seek to understand the infinite!

David T| 2.29.12 @ 10:16AM

Traditional marriage is a deposit of faith in the future. Without it, our society will not survive.

ncatty| 2.29.12 @ 10:24AM

Aren't we limited in our understanding of existence by our 5 senses?

David T| 2.29.12 @ 11:22AM

Yes, but reason tells us there's more to life than our senses can convey and revelation confirms it.

Fiscal| 2.29.12 @ 11:49AM

Whose revelation??????

David T| 2.29.12 @ 12:59PM

"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Jesus Christ, c. 30 A.D., as quoted by St. John the Apostle

tlc| 2.29.12 @ 1:38PM

But what confirms revelation?

David T| 2.29.12 @ 3:26PM

The God-given conscience (aka the natural law), but we suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Purple Lips| 2.29.12 @ 12:01PM

Darwin was a man of his times. He put to pen what many thinkers were already thinking. Biological Determinism (we are nothing more than the sums of our cells) not only lays waste to religion, but it also knocks Man off of his perch. It takes the 2000 year tradition of philosophical metaphysics and throws it into the dustpin of History. If Darwin is right, then Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau, the Founding Fathers, as well as Adam Smith, Locke, and Karl Marx were wrong. If Darwin is right than there is no Soul, and there are no transcendents (no Universal Human Rights, for instance). Darwin not only put God to rest, but the entire tradition of Western Civilization.

It is funny that same people who love Darwin are the very people who cling to non-Darwinistic thoguht. Feminism, Marxism, Gay rights are finished if Darwin is right.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 1:03PM

ALL morality is finished if Darwin is right.

If our existence is a matter of pure chance, then were are purely material creatures. As a result, all our laws, philosophy and religion are nothing but a product of our imaginations. We are therefore free to imagine any law and morality we feel like imagining.

The Nazis took this materialistic view of humanity to its logical conclusion. Since as the Master race they were more "evolved" than non-Aryan races, they believed themselves free of older ideas of objective truth (like Chrisian doctrine). As a result they felt justified to make up any laws that allowed them to assert their Aryan supremacy. In their eyes, it was not murder to eterminate the less-evolved because they had logically concluded that less-evolved people are in essence no different than other lesser-evolved animals (such as rats). So they conluded if its OK to exterminate rats that give Aryans trouble, where is the moral wrong in exterminating less-evolved people who are giving Aryans trouble?

And who were we to judge them if there is no standard of objective truth?

tlc| 2.29.12 @ 1:39PM

Darwin was right and morality is not finished. Therefore your premise is incorrect.

Purple Lips| 2.29.12 @ 1:53PM

Ah, but you are wrong. It is not that there won't be any morality, but what people consider moral will become nauseating. It is only because a dwindling majority still clings to God and Guns that a whisper of our tradition and civic order remain. And when that majority disappears the Left will get what it has always dreamt of.

But, that future will be anything but kind. Nature abhors a vacuum. And despite Darwin's ideas, people will always have religious inclinations. And once Leftists destroy the last vestigies of the Christian West, Islam will spread. Look at the UK. In recent years over 100,000 native Brits have converted to the Religion of Peace. And the Mullahs have little regard for smarmy, liberal metrosexuals

tlc| 2.29.12 @ 9:06PM

Evolution isn't new, its been around for billions of years. Morality coexisted with evolution 2000 years ago and it can easily coexist with evolution now.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 1:58PM

This has got to be one of the DUMBEST arguments Christian Apologists make, the ol Objective truth. It usually involves Hitler, as in IF morals are just 'man made' who is to say Hitler was wrong? like I can't say i am rich, unless I compare myself to the richest person in the world? Or some theoretical person that OWNS every single thing in the world? How does that make sense?

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 2:05PM

"like I can't say i am rich, unless I compare myself to the richest person in the world? Or some theoretical person that OWNS every single thing in the world? How does that make sense?"

What your saying makes no sense. Seriously. I have no clue what point your trying to make.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 2:16PM

OK, let me explain SOME Christians believe that IF there isn't a 'perfect' real life example of PERFECT morals and goodness, as in a Supernatural God, than we cannot judge anything it can change with current whims.This makes NO sense.
1. Yes it's true morals and what is considered good CAN change.(Thank goodness or we would still have slaves)
2. We can ALWAYS judge, by OUR own standards.And we do, case in point some things are a crime in other Countries that aren't here.
3. how do we KNOW God is ALL good, because it tells us? It is under NO limits, IT is all powerful(Supposedly) and can define ANYTHING, ANYWAY it wants, and we would be compelled to follow, due to its limitless power.

Brian Mc| 2.29.12 @ 2:34PM

Where did you get your sense of right and wrong?

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 2:42PM

Well not from the Govt. that's for sure, I have no problem with someone smoking a plant or jaywalking. Ever notice that there are a HUGE number of people who would shoplift, but wouldn't rob a bank, doesn't seem logical on the surface does it? The Bank has FAR more money in it than most any item you could steal in a store. So why NOT more Bank Robbers? Well if you look into it more deeply the answer is OBVIOUS, because the penalty for shoplifting is a FRACTION of the penalty for Bank Robbery.If tomorrow you made the penalty for Bank Robbery the SAME as shoplifting, you would INSTANTLY see a 10,000% increase in Bank Robberies, same for Rape or any other 'Serious' crime.

Brian Mc| 2.29.12 @ 2:55PM

You failed to answer the question. Let's put it another way; as a child you would say, "That's not fair", where did this sense of fair play come from?

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 4:48PM

From my parents and society?

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 3:59PM

"1. Yes it's true morals and what is considered good CAN change.(Thank goodness or we would still have slaves)
2. We can ALWAYS judge, by OUR own standards.And we do, case in point some things are a crime in other Countries that aren't here."

What is the significance of this? Our perception of good just changes as our perception of the truth...but for all that, what is good and what is true never changes. 2 + 2 = 4 no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise. Objective reality, truth, morality, etc etc. exist quite independent of our foolish perceptions of them. Human rationality can reveal more and more of the real truth of course.

"3. how do we KNOW God is ALL good, because it tells us? It is under NO limits, IT is all powerful(Supposedly) and can define ANYTHING, ANYWAY it wants, and we would be compelled to follow, due to its limitless power."

Why would you even bother asking such a question when you don't seem to believe in any concrete morality at all?

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 2:19PM

King,

First, I have no idea what you are talking about. It is YOUR post that doesn't make any sense.

But I wasn't making a case for objective truth. I was explaining one aspect of Nazi philosophy.

We all think the Nazis were evil. But do you think the Nazis regarded themselves as evil? Of course not. So what were they thinking about themselves that would justify their mass killings in the death camps?

One has to look at the rationale of a wicked person' acts from their perspective in order to understand why they do wicked things. The theory of evolution, which also spawned the eugenics movement, made up an essential element of their delusional thinking. But then again, so did the Occult, but that is another story...

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 2:25PM

I think basic human faults like Anger, Desire for Power, and Pride can explain most of what the Nazi's did. Let's not forget Hitler created the SS, because the average German wouldn't do those kinda things. Rommel was a German, but no way would he EVER be running a Death Camp, he was a proud soldier, and a DAMN good one.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 2:36PM

King,

Where did the Nazi expression "The Master Race" come from?

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 2:48PM

Do you think EVERY German believed that? Some did, but you know you could 'almost' forgive them, here they are a small Country and they manage to conquer half the world.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 2:53PM

King,

I'll save you some trouble: I have excerpted a passage from Jerry Bergman's article "Darwin and the Nazi Holocaust" below:

"The theory of evolution is based on individuals acquiring unique traits that enable those possessing the new traits to better survive adverse conditions compared to those who don’t possess them. Superior individuals will be more likely to survive and pass on these traits to their offspring so such traits will increase in number, while the ‘weaker’ individuals will eventually die off. If every member of a species were fully equal, natural selection would have nothing to select from, and evolution would cease for that species.

These differences gradually produce new groups, some of which have an advantage in terms of survival. These new groups became the superior, or the more evolved races. When a trait eventually spreads throughout the entire race because of the survival advantage it confers on those that possess it, a higher, more evolved form of animal will result. Hitler and the Nazi party claimed that one of their major goals was to apply this accepted ‘science’ to society. And ‘the core idea of Darwinism was not evolution, but selection. Evolution … describes the results of selection’.16 Hitler stressed that to produce a better society ‘we [the Nazis] must understand, and cooperate with science’.

As the one race above all others, Aryans believed that their evolutionary superiority gave them not only the right, but the duty to subjugate all other peoples. Race was a major plank of the Nazi philosophy; Tenenbaum concluded that they incorporated Darwinism:

‘ … in their political system, with nothing left out …. Their political dictionary was replete with words like space, struggle, selection, and extinction (Ausmerzen). The syllogism of their logic was clearly stated: The world is a jungle in which different nations struggle for space. The stronger win, the weaker die or are killed ….’ 17

In the 1933 Nuremberg party rally, Hitler proclaimed that ‘higher race subjects to itself a lower race …a right which we see in nature and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right,’ because it was founded on science.15

Hitler believed humans were animals to whom the genetics laws, learned from livestock breeding, could be applied. The Nazis believed that instead of permitting natural forces and chance to control evolution, they must direct the process to advance the human race. The first step to achieve this goal was to isolate the ‘inferior races’ in order to prevent them from further contaminating the ‘Aryan’ gene pool. The widespread public support for this policy was a result of the belief, common in the educated classes, in the conclusion that certain races were genetically inferior as was scientifically ‘proven’ by Darwinism. The Nazis believed that they were simply applying facts, proven by science, to produce a superior race of humans as part of their plan for a better world: ‘The business of the corporate state was eugenics or artificial selection — politics as applied biology.’ 18,19

As early as 1925, Hitler outlined his conclusion in Chapter 4 of Mein Kampf that Darwinism was the only basis for a successful Germany and which the title of his most famous work — in English My Struggle — alluded to. As Clark concluded, Adolf Hitler:

‘ …was captivated by evolutionary teaching — probably since the time he was a boy. Evolutionary ideas — quite undisguised — lie at the basis of all that is worst in Mein Kampf -and in his public speeches …. Hitler reasoned … that a higher race would always conquer a lower.’20

And Hickman adds that it is no coincidence that Hitler:

‘ … was a firm believer and preacher of evolution. Whatever the deeper, profound, complexities of his psychosis, it is certain that [the concept of struggle was important because] … his book, Mein Kampf, clearly set forth a number of evolutionary ideas, particularly those emphasizing struggle, survival of the fittest and the extermination of the weak to produce a better society.’ 21

Furthermore, the belief that evolution can be directed by scientists to produce a ‘superior race’ was the central leitmotif of Nazism and many other sources existed from which Nazism drew:

‘ … its ideological fire-water. But in that concatenation of ideas and nightmares which made up the … social policies of the Nazi state, and to a considerable extent its military and diplomatic policies as well, can be most clearly comprehended in the light of its vast racial program.’ 22

The Nazi view on Darwinian evolution and race was consequently a major part of the fatal combination of ideas and events which produced the holocaust and World War II:

‘One of the central planks in Nazi theory and doctrine was …evolutionary theory [and] … that all biology had evolved … upward, and that … less evolved types … should be actively eradicated [and] … that natural selection could and should be actively aided, and therefore [the Nazis] instituted political measures to eradicate … Jews, and … blacks, whom they considered as “underdeveloped”.’ 23

Terms such as ‘superior race’, ‘lower human types’, ‘pollution of the race’, and the word evolution itself (Entwicklung) were often used by Hitler and other Nazi leaders. His race views were not from fringe science as often claimed but rather Hitler’s views were:

‘ … straightforward German social Darwinism of a type widely known and accepted throughout Germany and which, more importantly, was considered by most Germans, scientists included, to be scientifically true. More recent scholarship on national socialism and Hitler has begun to realize that … [their application of Darwin’s theory] was the specific characteristic of Nazism. National socialist “biopolicy,” … [was] a policy based on a mystical-biological belief in radical inequality, a monistic, antitranscendent moral nihilism based on the eternal struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest as the law of nature, and the consequent use of state power for a public policy of natural selection….’ 24

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 4:25PM

So what? So in a long Winded way , you basically say they took some ideas of Darwins and perverted them.Nazi's believed alot of stuff, 99.99% we ALL would agree on, they believed the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, and that's it's good to be armed with rifles in war.The fact that they abused a scientific principal, doesn't invalidate the principal itself.After all CROOKS and COPS both use guns.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 6:01PM

Social Darwinism does not really crop up in modern societies we deem good and just. It is not something we American's have in common with the Nazi's, but it is something which follows quite nicely off of natural selection when you combine that with a secular materialist world view. Yes, the Nazi's bent it around for their own use, but Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, they all warped Communism. Are we then to conclude that Marxism has nothing to do with the Red holocausts of the 20th century and that Karl Marx should be held blameless in the worst example of mass murder in Human history?

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 7:51PM

Karl Marx was a writer and philosopher, and NEVER killed anyone. So yes he WAS completely blameless.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 8:21PM

King,

You've taken this thread as far away from my original point as you can. Simply put, the theory of evolution is used to justify a materialistic world view that results in the amorality of Nazism and, yes, Communism too (Commies envisioned "new communist man" as their super-evolved human)

Contrast that with the Christian worldview that brought us out of moral darkness and has given us the progress and prosperity of Western civilization and the blessings of liberty in America.

Choose the materialisic path of evolution as the Nazis and Communists did and you'll find yourself in the express lane to Hell (which we seem to be driving in now. I'm sure Obama believes in evolution too, ha!)

alexi| 2.29.12 @ 8:47PM

People can use any source to justify their actions, this does not affect the validity of the source (ie using calculus to prove that a particularly grotesque murder was necessary does not mean calculus is false, it means you're a psychopath).
Further, the communist violently disapproved of evolution and sentenced many evolutionary biologistss to death. The favored theory, now thoroughly debunked, was lysenkism.

alexi| 2.29.12 @ 9:00PM

This is an excellent of the logical fallacies known as arguing from adverse consequences (bad things happened so it must be wrong), and post hoc ergoe prompter hoc (hitler came after darwin, so he was inspired by darwin).
While pervasive logical fallacies and outright fraud are standered and accepted practice for creationists and IDists, such arguments are diligently expunged by the scientific method so that sound and reliable theories such as evolution will develop.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 9:10PM

You have failed to properly apply the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc to my argument. Hitler was not inspired by Darwin because he came after Darwin. He was inspired by Darwin because he believed him.

alexi| 2.29.12 @ 10:41PM

hitler never mentioned darwin. In fact among the books that the nazis banned were those on darwinism, see Der Bucherei, 1935

PaulyD| 3.1.12 @ 5:51AM

To quote Dr. Egon Spengler:

"You never studied..."

Roger McKinney| 2.29.12 @ 1:17PM

I think the author misses the point of evolution and neurological science: their point is that mankind is not free. Free will is an illusion caused by complexity. We are nothing but quivering bowls of chemical reactions.

Without free will there can be no morality at all. All that chemical reactions can produce is adaptations to the environment that enhances survival. According to evolution and neural sciences there is no free will, no morality, no love (only sex), no meaning and no truth.

tlc| 2.29.12 @ 1:43PM

Just because you understand that free will derives from chemistry and physics does not mean it does not exist. As an analogy, stars twinkle in the sky, we now know that stars are massive fusion reactions and the twinkleing is caused by atmospheric distortion. Does that mean stars don't twinkle in the sky? Of course not, we simply now know what the stars and the twinkleing are.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 4:42PM

Let me ask you something if Tonight when you went to sleep and a Mad Scientist replaced your body with an EXACT Duplicate and 'copied' your mind to the new one and destroyed your old body, would you be you or would you have died?

WM| 2.29.12 @ 6:33PM

"According to evolution...there is no free will"

Uh, what?

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 1:52PM

When the Roman Catholic Church, the most Technologically advanced religion on Earth, believes in Evolution, anyone saying it isn't true is on REAL shaky ground.

wert| 2.29.12 @ 1:59PM

An interesting point is that Santorum, who vocerferously proclaims himself to be a great catholic does not abide by the teaching and position of the catholic church. He is more interested in sucking up to evangelicals than being faithful to his professed catholicism.

weimar| 2.29.12 @ 2:18PM

It is nice to see the Spectator not acting as a mouthpiece for Discovery Institute garbage. More of this along with advocacy/support for scientific research and ambition; and maybe the republican can gain some creditability among the millions of engineers and scientists in this country.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 2:24PM

What, like Dr. Werner Von Braun (God rest his soul), who was a Creationist?

weimar| 2.29.12 @ 3:56PM

Yes, Like him. Although there weresome notable scientists today the overwhelming majority of scientists and engineers are completely comfortable with evolution. If the republican party wants their support, it would be best not alienate and offend them.

Kingofthenet| 2.29.12 @ 4:37PM

Republicans are Anti-Science, the party of Stupid.

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 5:16PM

And what a fantastic beacon of non-generalizing tolerance you are for all us Republican idiots!

At least give us the benefit of the doubt...I don't go around saying ALL democrats are stupid, or that all Democrats are evil, or that all Democrats are marxists...yeah, a majority are stupid but so is mankind. Only a minority of you are downright evil and only a minority of you are communists.

See that? Tolerance. Something you should learn, boyo.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 6:33PM

Weimar,

Yes, yes, the Devil always calls for peace, civility and comity when he's losing an argument. Heaven forbid that we might offend the right people.

Frankly I'm not interested in pandering. Let those clueless engineers and scientists vote Democrat.

rainor| 2.29.12 @ 8:37PM

Who's calling for peace. Every time creationists debate they are crushed. Most notably in the recent Dover trial; where, as usual, creationists were shown to be breathtakingly inane frauds and liars.

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 9:14PM

Boy, have you got that backwards!

ccc| 2.29.12 @ 10:36PM

and you provide another example of creationist fraud

l;8| 2.29.12 @ 3:25PM

to bad empirical limitation of your senses get in your way of knowing all .(senses or lack of )

VivaLebowski| 2.29.12 @ 5:19PM

I'm happy to see that there seems to be quite a few conservatives and liberals on this board. anyone know if the same is true for the rest of American spectator?

PaulyD| 2.29.12 @ 6:45PM

Pretty much.

And always enough Liberal Trolls to add spice to the mix!

Cheers! PaulyD

podbaydoors| 2.29.12 @ 5:31PM

RE: "The once respectable subject of eugenics was so discredited by Nazism that "don't enter" is now written across its door." Ya think so huh? Tell that to Ms. Sanger's drones who carry on their atrocities in a thinly veiled adaptation of her original intent.

WM| 2.29.12 @ 6:32PM

Objectivism.

Tiddly| 2.29.12 @ 8:14PM

It's not "gender roles," Mr. Scruton, it's sex roles. Learn grammar.

POST American| 2.29.12 @ 10:20PM

---Putting aside for a moment yesterday's
report of unrepentant, indeed, virulent
Princeton EUGENIST, Peter Singer's call
for designating children up to the age of
3 as ---'disposable'
(---DO CHECK IT OUT!---)

"Remember, what we call Darwinism
is really nothing more than a scientifically
framed presentation of the tenets of
Brahminism. Darwin was merely laying
out the inner belief system of the capstone.
MOST of his 'new' findings were just regurgitations
--from his grandfather's work. What MADE
Darwin were the decades and decades of
relentless promotion ---from the top.
In essense, Social Darwinism is nothing
but a glib justification for the PSYCHOPATHY
of this stage of capstone social control
---and EUGENICS."

-------------------------------ANY QUESTIONS?

P.S.

"Remember, ALLLLLL science is nothing
more than a technique of the imagination
for bringing about, or resurrecting, a
desired mythological system."
-Joesph P. Ferrell
Eminent researcher
(online radio interview)

In other words --

--'Everything OLD is NEW-Remberg AGAIN'

-------------------------------------AGAIN and AGAIN

-----------------HUAC/ NUREMBERG that is. . .

cls| 2.29.12 @ 10:34PM

do you mean Joseph P. Farrell the noted theologist

Karen| 3.1.12 @ 9:37AM

Thanks! I didn't know this.

Skeptical Red| 3.1.12 @ 8:38AM

Darwin never said that everything that exists results from superior "fitness". He merely demonstrated that those species most adapted to their environments have a greater tendency to survive as a species, a rather tautological idea.

Now we have neo-Darwinists telling us that our brains are "hardwired" for this or that behavior. This is not a falsifiable proposition and thus is not science.

If you want to see whether people are "hardwired" for cooperative or altrusitic behavior after millenia of social living, drop 100 Europeans into the Amazon without survival gear. If you want to talk about how civility is "hardwired" and not a culturally-developed value, look back 60 years to Nazi Germany--a country once dominant in centuries of science, literature, music and philosophy--, or look at today's Middle East, or to Somalia.

POST American| 3.2.12 @ 5:58AM

That's Joseph P. Farrell.

Farrell NAILS the Darwinist cover op,
and much else ----TO THE WALL.

kwan| 4.3.12 @ 12:29PM

Evidently the conservative Supreme Court justices didn't get the memo from the oval office that they're suppose to take a dive and give a thumbs-up on the total constitutionality of the unconstitutional ObamaCare. Oh boy dey's in big trouble now.