When and Why Anti-Darwinism First Arose

I agree with the previous comment. This post also seems to suggest that the world has indeed become more immoral after the Origin was published. This is an empirical question. I doubt that it has.

Moreover, if Darwin's theory has been abused to achieve immoral ends, how is this different than the abuse of all manner of scripture by religious zealots through the ages? For you, does the abuse of scripture in order to achieve violence cast doubt on its veracity?

I'm even torturing the facts a little here to be generous. One doesn't have to abuse scripture, Hebrew or otherwise, to commit atrocities. One only has to carry out its explicit edicts to commit atrocities, which our post-Darwin world now almost universally condemns.

(worth a second mention)

Congratulations to you – and your fine colleagues at the Discovery Institute- on your stalwart efforts to debunk the Jewish conspiracy which goes by the name of the theory of evolution.

For this you have been nominated for the Sheikh Harami Interfaith Trophy.

The Quran records – in a tale connected to a rabbinic midrash (see Jerusalem Studies in Arabs and Islam (1991), pp. 162-175)- that, for their disobedience, some Jews were turned into apes/monkeys and pigs (2:65, 5:60, 7:166) . Being regarded as the offspring of pigs and monkeys has served as an ongoing source of shame and ignominy for generations of Jewish people.

So, in the nineteenth century, a remedy to lift this burden arrived in the form of a bright, young explorer returning from an expedition to the Galapagos Islands, where he had made some intriguing observations: Charles Darwin.

Darwin – either a crypto-Jew himself or an individual with sympathy for the Jews- seized upon this opportunity, perhaps even massaging his data (as Friar Mendel must have done in his well-known experiment).

When everyone is responsible, no one is responsible; similarly, if all of humankind descends from the animal world (especially, from monkeys), then no one group- such as the Jews- can be singled out for stain and stigma.

Thus, in one stroke, in the name of science, the burden of Jewry’s shame and disgrace is obliterated once and for all.

(Or, alternatively, according to this view, we are all Jews now.)

Well done, Daud, in exposing this junk science and the propaganda fraud which is evolutionary theory!

Rabbi Meyer Schiller would be so proud.

DELETING this post will simply confirm the truth of its contents.

As is the case with most of what you write, this idea that acceptance of the theory of evolution leads to 'tragic consequences' is completely contrary to reality. Acceptance of the theory of evolution correlates with less crime, better health, better education, etc.

"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies (Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly...No democracy is known to have combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high rates of societal health. Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution usually correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional. None of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction. In some cases the highly religious U.S. is an outlier in terms of societal dysfunction from less theistic but otherwise socially comparable secular developed democracies."

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Wallace's embrace of Victorian-style spirituality (not Christianity or Judaism) in the 1860s considerably damaged his career, which went into decline; yet it was his friend Charles Darwin who was instrumental in getting him a pension when he retired, over the objections of some other members of the academy.

Is that the action of 'cold materialist atheist'?

As for repudiating Darwin, Wallace was a strong champion of Origin of Species from the beginning, and remained so; he even wrote a book defending natural selection, called 'Darwinism:An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with Some of Its Applications', in 1889, decades after OoS was published, and well after he embraced spiritualism. Wallace and Darwin differed mainly in the Wallace was unable to conceive how natural selection operating over vast spans of time could account for consciousness and 'higher functions' of the human brain. Essentially it was an argument from incredulity, shot through with mystical, anthropocentric, unscientific faith that the universe has a *purpose*: to bring forth humanity, of course!

The supposed evil 'consequences' of Darwin's findings, are merely the consequences of human selfishness, stupidity and illogical tendency to proceed from an 'is' (the 'struggle' of all against all in nature) to a moral 'ought' (what is 'natural' is 'good'). Blame that on evolution or God, if you like.

David: Benjamin Wiker reminds us that purely scientific resistance to natural selection arose quickly, including from some of Darwin's closet scientific allies....It's arguable, however, that Darwin's bitterest critics on religious and moral grounds were not clergymen at all but his fellow scientists

Even the most cursory study of the history of science shows that in the case of any new theory, the bitterest critics are other scientists, often erstwhile "closest scientific allies". This is absolutely irrelevant to truth or falsity. The side with the best evidence eventually wins out--sometimes it's the new theory, sometimes it's the attackers.

Wilker as quoted by David: Ironically, three of these men -- Lyell, Gray, and Wallace -- affirmed evolution [in the sense of an old earth and common descent] but thought that natural selection alone was radically insufficient to account for man's moral and intellectual nature.

OK, David, I'll put it to you directly--do you at least accept the possibility of an old earth (which I think you have admitted previously) and common descent (on which you've said nothing)? Once again, it's a matter of simple courtesy to come clean about exactly what you believe in order for us to further any kind of dialogue beyond talking points.

Finally, for the fiftieth time: It can be cogently argued that heliocentrism and nuclear technology both lead to very bad consequences. Is that sufficient reason to call them in to question on scientific grounds? I mean, by your logic we should look at every scientific idea in terms of its socio-cultural effects, and if we don't like these, reject it regardless of the scientific evidence. Oddly, it's only ever evolution that you argue should be "reevaluated". Could you please, please, please speak to this? I don't see how serious dialogue is possible without figuring out where you stand in this area.

A YEC site says this:

This angle makes it sound like scientists are on a noble quest for the truth without any preconceptions or philosophical bias. It whitewashes the fact that all studies of historical geology must make a lot of assumptions about Earth history, which nobody ever witnessed and which is impossible to reconstruct using the scientific method. The assumptions that long-age geologists begin with are based on their materialist worldview that they accept based on their faith and philosophy, not science. [Emphasis supplied]

www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/1115dinosaur.asp

See if you can spot the similarities between that statement and David's anti-evolutionary institute.

From the Governing Goals listed in the Wedge Document of David's institute:

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.

From the CSC's earlier mission statement:

This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and music.

Ah, yes, the only difference between David's and the DI's position and that of the YECs is that the evidence for an old earth and universe passes the religious tests of the former, but not those of the latter. The same "assumptions" ("working axioms" one might more reasonably call them) underlie both the conclusion that the earth is old and that life evolved.

If the DI gets its way, however, there will be nothing except evidence-free theology to combat YEC insistence that the ancient earth should be treated as fiction. The DI cannot win against evolution using science, so it has to get rid of science by calling it "materialism" and thus illegitimate. But that's what all pseudoscientists must do, YECs, IDists, Raelians, and astrologers.

Whether or not David believes in an ancient earth is thus superfluous, because he has to destroy scientific standards in order to inject his theology into science teaching (whether as the DI's bogus "criticisms" of evolution, or otherwise), and that leaves the door wide open for the AIG to teach that the earth is young.

This is not a slippery slope argument. YECs and IDists simply have the same goal, of destroying scientific standards, since their ideas cannot withstand scientific scrutiny.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

All of this is off the scientific point to be made. A scientifically verified world design has been found, so the current debates are obsolete -- if other scientists than me will get off their dogmatic denial of design to confront the evidence I have tried to bring out for the last six years. You are all wasting years, rather than heed the call of new knowledge. Not even the Discovery Institute or David Klinghoffer, whom I have tried to inform of my discoveries, will condescend to let the new science out. See my new blog at http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com, and please read the few posts there starting from the earliest.