Today Daily Kos blogger Erratic Synapse lashes Discover Magazine blogger Chris Mooney and Barbara Forrest, author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Their offense? Calling for "civility" toward Darwin-believing religious moderates. Mooney had previously attacked biologist Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution Is True, who urges a No More Mr. Nice Guy stance. Writes Coyne: "Professional societies like the National Academy of Sciences...have concluded that to make evolution palatable to Americans, you must show that it is not only consistent with religion, but also no threat to it." Coyne is particularly annoyed by the folks at the Darwin-defending but religion-appeasing National Center for Science Education, for "compromising the very science they aspire to defend."
In the 2008 documentary Expelled, atheist Richard Dawkins scathingly makes a similar point about the NCSE and its ilk. "There's a kind of science defense lobby or an evolution defense lobby, in particular," Dawkins says. "They are mostly atheists, but they are wanting to -- desperately wanting -- to be friendly to mainstream, sensible religious people. And the way you do that is to tell them that there's no incompatibility between science and religion."
Dawkins added, "By the way, I'm being a helluva lot more frank and honest in this interview than many people in this field would be."
Mooney, Forrest, and the NCSE prefer to see the truth -- that Darwinian theory indeed poses a threat to any meaningful theistic view -- kept hidden under a heavy woolen blanket. Otherwise the word might leak out and alarm winsome and useful Christian allies like Francis Collins and Karl Giberson, of BioLogos and Beliefnet's Science and the Sacred. Their names come up frequently in the debate.
The Daily Kos blogger laments, "While religious moderates may accept the theory of evolution and cosmic inflation theory, their means of reconciling their faith with scientific discoveries can still be pretty odious." He writes of one such theistic evolutionary strategy, associated with Cambridge University's Simon Conway Morris -- "the notion held by some religious moderates that the evolution of homo sapiens was inevitable," "a claim unsupported by scientific evidence."
And so on it goes. You can jump in in the middle of the fight, and should do so especially if you are a Darwin-believing religious liberal or moderate who's curious what the dominant atheist contingent in the Darwin community really thinks of you. To the extent that much of the touching need to reconcile Darwin and God is driven by social and self-image worries, theistic evolutionists may as well throw in the towel. They will never safely secure the esteem of the atheists.
Where, then, to turn? For a reasoned alternative, start by checking out Faith and Evolution.
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They hav fallen hook,line and sinker for this evovutiionists hogwash they so think that humans and apes are so related or that birds are the decedents of dinasours their so patheticly ignorant and they take everything their read on TIME,NEWSWEEK, and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC as the litteral truth its no wonder they cant do well in the SAT tests
Marc -
So essentially with your comment you're saying that people with religious beliefs are a) stupid, and b) naive, but you, of course, since you're a scientist (are you even?) are enlightened and privileged to knowledge that those with religious beliefs do not have, because you have (as you are implying) "a working knowledge of several disciplines like History, cellular biology, genetics, anatomy, geology, palentology, enviromental systems, atomic chemistry, taxonomy, cosmology, geography, sociology - etc... "
I hope that as a Bible-believing Christian I am never that proud. I wonder what you would say to someone like myself, who is a Theistic evolutionist. Meaning, I believe in the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ as being my Savior (and there is proof of that, even more than Napoleon ever existing) but I see no reason why creation is not able to adapt and change as needed to deal with the environment (survival of the fittest). I have to reject that humankind is just a bunch of evolved apes (and I know not all evolutionists claim this), but you must admit that there is something special and unique about humans (I would say something divine, but you would obviously disagree).
I have to ask what you mean by "truth". Can something be true if it is not provable scientifically? If that's your definition, then you have to rule out history as being true (because we can't prove that it happened scientifically). You also can't say that love really exists, or emotions, or a host of other things. But if you admit that these things do exist, then I think you need to ask if God could be true.
John, thank you for your post. You were able to clearly make your point, especially in the last paragraph and I agree that there are many things in this world that cannot be measured in a scientific experiment. Personally I am unconcerned about who is correct about creation. My purpose is to tend to my own soul and to grow spiritually and become more enlightened. How it all started is secondary. But then, I am not in an organized religion, which removes that burden from me. Why don't we allow everyone to believe what they would like to believe and spend our energies on important matters.
My name was not published in my answer to John above
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