-
Downton’s Class System — and Ours
May 20, 2013 | 7 comments
-
The Mexican Kleptocracy: July 1989
April 19, 2013 | 0 comments
-
The Mexican Kleptocracy
April 19, 2013 | 3 comments
-
Black Plight: In Conflict With Unions
April 6, 2013 | 0 comments
-
An Assist from the Press
March 16, 2013 | 0 comments
Buy the Book
Up From Evolution
Reflections on a new book about C.S. Lewis, science, and society.
The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and
Society.
Edited by John G. West
(Discovery Institute Press, 350 pages, $24.95)
We normally associate C.S. Lewis with Christian apologetics, English literature, and the Narnia stories; less so with science and questions about evolution. But as the Discovery Institute’s John G. West points out in The Magician’s Twin, throughout his life Lewis was concerned about the abject submission of culture and politics to the growing authority of science. Lewis respected science, but he rejected the idea that it is the only reliable method of knowledge about the world. He called that error scientism. As for evolution, his skepticism about it increased over the years.
In this anthology, John West and his co-authors gather material primarily from four books by Lewis: Miracles, The Abolition of Man, That Hideous Strength and The Discarded Image. Their findings are enhanced by West’s research into Lewis’s papers and correspondence, now at Wheaton College in Illinois. He also made good use of unpublished annotations and underlined passages in books preserved from Lewis’s own library.
Lewis well understood the cultural dominance of the theory of evolution in his day and was at first reluctant to criticize the theory. He also tended to assume, as so many others have since, that Darwinism was better confirmed than it really was (or is). In fact, since Lewis’s death in 1963, the new findings of molecular biology have made the theory look a good deal less plausible than it did 50 years ago.
In the past, some evolutionists claimed Lewis as an ally. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, a Christian who admired Lewis and was influenced by him, believed that Lewis accepted that “Christians should accept the animal ancestry of humans.” But he neglected to study Lewis’s published comments. Others have openly misrepresented what he believed on the subject.
Lewis was “a thoroughgoing skeptic of the creative power of unguided natural selection,” John West points out, and as the years passed he became increasingly critical.
Lewis further argued (in Miracles) that the human faculty of reason is itself supernatural and that it is impossible to rely on our mental processes if they are the product of the random motion of molecular particles. Belief in materialism is therefore self-defeating. On that point, at least, C.S. Lewis and the British biologist J.B.S. Haldane were in agreement.
Of particular interest are Lewis’s comments in his posthumously published book, The Discarded Image. He notes the shift in recent centuries “from a devolutionary to an evolutionary scheme”; from a cosmology in which it was once considered axiomatic that “all perfect things precede all imperfect things.” That is a quotation from the sixth century philosopher Boethius, who wrote the Consolation of Philosophy, a work widely read in the Middle Ages. Today, in biology at least, “the starting point is always lower than what is developed,” Lewis commented.
The modern intelligent design movement has raised a related question: How did we ever acquire the information that is essential for an organism to develop in stages from amoeba to Man? No such progression has ever been observed, experimentally, and the question raised by the advocates of intelligent design has never been answered.
Lewis anticipated that our own “model” is also likely to change. We can see why, and perhaps it is already doing so. One big social change in the 150 years since The Origin of Species was published is that the old faith in progress has been lost. At the end of The Origin Charles Darwin wrote: “As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.”
Improvement was thought of as having been built into the Cosmos. That faith endured throughout the 19th century and for the first half of the 20th. But we no longer believe in the doctrine of progress. The Holocaust, the Gulag, and two world wars didn’t help, of course. But for their own reasons, often inexplicit, intellectuals now see the world in a much more pessimistic way than they formerly did.
Environmentalists in particular view humans as little more than polluters who should reproduce less frequently — or perhaps stop entirely. Nature might then be restored to its pure and unsullied state. A surprise best seller in 2007 was The World Without Us, from which human beings have disappeared, for unexplained reasons. The book was greeted as a new vision of Utopia.
But absent a robust faith in progress, I suspect, people will not easily believe in evolution either. Evolution is a theory that arose with the Enlightenment, when change came to be equated with progress. But that vision is remote from our own world and there have been other such U-turns. For example, who in C.S. Lewis’s day would have predicted the abrupt return of Islam within four decades of his death?
The idea that progress can no longer be relied upon has seeped into corners of the academy, where we are finding calls for the renewal of eugenics. If Man will not improve on his own, then he must be remade, willy-nilly. A chapter in The Magician’s Twin tells us about Julian Savulescu, the head of something called the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. He was a student of the Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, who earlier called for the extension of human rights to animals. “Bioethics” may be on its way to becoming the polite new word for eugenics.
Darwin became uncomfortable later in life because he believed that social reformers in England were undermining natural selection (the “survival of the fittest”) by introducing what we would call welfare programs. Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton launched eugenics as a corrective and it was later adopted by National Socialists in Germany. That discredited eugenics, but Julian Huxley (the grandson of Darwin’s strongest supporter) was still backing the movement as late as 1960.
About the Author
Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages, and most recently Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? (2009).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Tom Bethell
More Articles From Buy the Book
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/21/up-from-evolution
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
allanius | 9.21.12 @ 7:50AM
Good article! Great way to start my Friday. Thanks!
Dodd2| 9.21.12 @ 8:53AM
Neo-Darwinism, as scientifically flawed and sophomoric as it is, has served its purpose of de-Christianizing society.
And that is a tragedy of the 20th Century which is still adversely affecting us today.
C. Vernon Crisler | 9.21.12 @ 10:25AM
Dittos.....
obadiah| 9.21.12 @ 8:27PM
it's got to be dittos. Nothing but dittos is permitted. evolution is false and evil -- "the global warming scare" is a hoax -- clint was great -- dittos
cowgirl| 9.21.12 @ 10:56AM
Darwin had lots of issues - the first of which he was a drunk. Second he flunked out of dental school, married his first cousin and then produced 10 children - 3 of whom died in infancy from what is widely believed to be hemophilia - the remaining 7 were sickly most of their lives - much like Darwin. Actually Darwin sounds like an earlier version of what would becom the United States' first family - the Kennedys.
Darwin believed that mutations would sprout new species. Guess that did not work well for Darwin as he married his first cousin and created 10 mutations - 3 which died (please someone tell me with factual data how blood clotting "evolved") and 7 who were sick most of their lives - what happened to the "new species" there Chuck.
Evolution is a complete joke used by evil people to further their own personal agendas. Much like Global Warming and Global Cooling which was popular in the 70's but never happened.
One cannot fix stupid.
Kingofthenet| 9.21.12 @ 5:47PM
Your kidding right, Darwin was most likely one of the top 10 SMARTEST people in the last 500 years.
cowgirl| 9.22.12 @ 1:45PM
Liberals like you claim that Ted Kennedy was the Lion of the Senate and great Statesmen. He was a drunk, murderer, accompliance to rape and was a traitor to this country.
Dawrin was a drunk, flunked out of dental school, married his first cousin, hung around in the forests of South America for two years with tribes that believe in things like sun gods, rain gods and practiced witchcraft. The first chapter of his treatise on the evolution of man was filed with lies - i.e. the comparison of the dog fetus and the human fetsus doctored up by Haeckel - later a member of the German Nazi's - to make them look the same.
Yep, Darwin like the Kennedy (heroes of the American Left) are the smartest people in the world. Right - I am an Princess Diana.
You cannot fix stupid
Seek| 9.21.12 @ 7:13PM
Cowgirl's comment appears to be the joke. Any theory can be used by "evil" or "good" people for advancing their own personal "agendas." So what?
The theory of evolution isn't a proxy religion. It's merely a way -- the most plausible we know of -- to explain differentiation of animal, plant and other species. And like all theories, it stands or falls on the basis of empirical investigation. The Book of Genesis, for all that it is a great piece of literature, cannot generate testable hypotheses. This is why "creationism," quite properly, is regarded as a pseudo-science.
cowgirl| 9.22.12 @ 1:46PM
Evolution is a proxy religion. What world are you living in this year? The Origin of Species if full of lies - see my response to Kingboy.
But the truth is Seek and Kingboy... Death comes to us all - the questions is - where will you be when that happens.
Kingofthenet| 9.21.12 @ 5:46PM
The Author is another Discovery Institute Lackey, who has ZERO credibility on Evolution.
John Navratil| 9.22.12 @ 9:56AM
This author merely has zero credibility.
Kingofthenet| 9.21.12 @ 5:46PM
The Author is another Discovery Institute Lackey, who has ZERO credibility on Evolution.
Nick| 9.21.12 @ 5:58PM
Darwin is the one who has ZERO credibility on evolution,
because he was........WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!
John II| 9.22.12 @ 3:10PM
"For example, who in C.S. Lewis's day would have predicted the abrupt return of Islam within four decades of his death?"
Answer: Hilaire Belloc, for one. Actually, the possibility was a parlor topic for the Brits through much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. One common objection to the possibility was the significance attached by the Brits to Islamic fatalism. In his essay on "The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed," however, Belloc responds to the objection by pointing out that Islam's doctrine of fatalism was in full vigor at the height of Islam's power:
Another objection was Islam's "fissiparous" tendency toward civil division, to which Belloc responds that, over and over again in its history, Islam has suddenly united under a leader and "accomplished the greatest things."
Belloc concludes: "Now it is probable enough that on these lines--unity under a leader--the return of Islam may arrive. There is no leader as yet, but enthusiasm might bring one and there are signs enough in the political heavens today of what we may have to expect from the revolt of Islam at some future date--perhaps not far distant."
Belloc wrote those words in 1938, coincidentally the year Lewis published "Out of the Silent Planet," the first novel in his Ransom trilogy.
Kingofthenet| 9.22.12 @ 6:10PM
What's wrong with 'Trans-Human' anyway, if there was a SAFE way to make humans, Smarter, Stronger ,Faster you would have to be an idiot NOT to embrace it.
John II| 9.22.12 @ 10:20PM
Well, partly because people of your sort, Kingie, would be the first to clamor to be made Smarter, Stronger, and Faster without any pesky effort on your part, and the consequences would be very unsafe for the rest of us.
But there are deeper reasons as well. If you can work up the interest, try Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" (the brooding novel, I mean, rather than any of the movies you've seen) and, come to think of it, C.S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength."
And now back to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," the superior 1932 version in which Fredric March perfectly captures the original-sin motif of the Stevenson novella. The 1941 version with Spencer Tracy isn't too shabby either. The 1973 version with Kirk Douglas is tolerable, but the 1999 version is so ludicrous as to render respectable the 1952 "Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," in which Boris Karloff actually plays the Doctor pretty well. I have mixed feelings about the 1920 silent version with the great John Barrymore--except to say with certitude that it too attests to the fascination of all generations with the (Biblical) theme.
Most people seem to recognize certain deep truths about the human condition, Kingie--it apparently has to do with what St. Paul calls "the law written on the heart."
Kingofthenet| 9.23.12 @ 1:53AM
Dude, I would DEFINITELY be Khan....
Kingofthenet| 9.23.12 @ 1:56AM
Oh and don't forget, Captain America, The Hulk, Storm and and all the rest are 'Trans-Human'.
John II| 9.23.12 @ 3:52PM
Now why am I guessing that, no matter what superhero you chose, Kingie, you'd quickly morph into the Green Goblin?
Myself, I'd want to be Plato and Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas and Dante and Shakespeare and Browning and Wittgenstein all rolled into one. That way, I could watch the rest of my movies on fast-forward and finish them before I die. The preoccupation would keep me from becoming dangerously intolerant of human stupidity.
And now back to "The Sixth Finger " (1963), an episode of the old "Outer Limits" TV show in which a very young David McCallum (the elderly forensic medical examiner "Duckie" in the current, rather long-running NCIS TV series) plays a bitter semi-educated coal miner miraculously transformed into a man of the future, with a sixth finger (greater dexterity) and a big bald head (more room for the gray matter) and a colossal attitude, wherewith he simply kills people he finds disagreeable because of their relatively monkey-like status and puny intellects.
I mean, he just stops their hearts by glancing at them and applying his futuristic psychokinetic powers. Dude, he really sucks.
Mnestheus| 9.24.12 @ 12:44AM
We normally associate Tom Brthell with Christian apologetics, pseudoscientific literature of which he is a prolific author, , and the Narnia stories, which are more realistic than his fantasic view of Darwin and Einstein.
But seeing Tom slouching into lockstep behind the magi of the Discovery Institute reminds us that throughout his life Bethell has always subordinated reality to metaphysics and believes in the abject submission of culture and politics to the growing authority of religion. Lewis respected science, but Bethell rejects it as a reliable method of knowledge about the world, damning objectivity as the godless error scientism. As for evolution, his skepticism about it increased over the years, until his views fused with the Discovery Institute's blimnkered legalism and he became o sort of PZ Meyers of the party of the right.
If he perseveres, he will not be much missed.
John II| 9.24.12 @ 10:47AM
Who's "We"?
Mnestheus| 9.24.12 @ 8:12PM
Good question, but better ask Tom:
We normally associate C.S. Lewis with Christian apologetics, English literature, and the Narnia stories; less so with science and questions about evolution. But as the Discovery Institute's John G. West points out in The Magician's Twin, throughout his life Lewis was concerned about the abject submission of culture and politics to the growing authority of science. Lewis respected science, but he rejected the idea that it is the only reliable method of knowledge about the world. He called that error scientism. As for evolution, his skepticism about it increased over the years.
gene| 9.25.12 @ 2:31PM
We have the Law of Biogenesis
We have the Theory of Evolution.
The latter negates the former, but anyone who questions this is marginalized as a Religious Fanatic or a Fundamentalist Wacko. When pressed on this, the Evolutionists will claim. Well there only had to be ONE exception over the eons for this to work, and we are here, so it must have happened at least once. Nothing created everything by blind chance. REAL Scientific.
Yeah. Right. Evolution is actually a Religion if anyone wants to look at it closely.