When and Why Anti-Darwinism First Arose

Discovery Institute ^ | June 2, 2009 | David Klinghoffer

[GodGunsGuts]

When and Why Anti-Darwinism First Arose

I'm a big fan of Rod Dreher. His Crunchy Con blog rarely fails to enlighten me, so I've been looking forward to his reflections on faith and science, generated by his current visit to Cambridge University as a Cambridge-Templeton fellow. Rod blogged today in response to a lecture and discussion in which evolution came up. He writes that "Darwinism wasn't initially opposed by Christians" and credits William Jennings Bryan with rallying the faithful against evolution. This is worth some further elaboration. How soon did opposition to Darwinism develop? Among whom, and why?...

[GodGunsGuts]

Ping!

[stormer]

[presently no screen name]

He writes that "Darwinism wasn't initially opposed by Christians" and credits William Jennings Bryan with rallying the faithful against evolution.

And I write..."It's more like evolution initially opposed God's Word".

[BillT]

Mendel proved Darwin wrong almost immediately.

[mikeus_maximus]

Darwin and his ideas functioned as a Rorschach test. Those who felt religious tradition to be a burden tended to see evolution as a source of liberation.

And so it is today.

[jessduntno]

[Tax-chick]

I'm a big fan of Rod Dreher. ... and now that you know that, you can disregard anything further I might say.

[Boxen]

Really? I’m not a trained biologist or anything, but I’d still love to see a source backing up this claim.

[GodGunsGuts]

A Temple of Darwin tent meeting where the Darwin-drones relive their evolutionary heritage with American Indians?

[allmendream]

I am a trained biologist and I would love to see a source for that claim as well.

[steve-b]

So, basically, the anti-evolution argument boils down to:

You can't handle the truth!

[steve-b]

The doctor will be investigating the source of that claim as soon as he puts on his rubber glove and changes the batteries in his little flashlight.

[GodGunsGuts]

==So, basically, the anti-evolution argument boils down to: You can’t handle the truth!

You might be onto something there!:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism....It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

—Professor Richard Lewontin, geneticist and Temple of Darwin devotee

[tumblindice]

“Enough is enough! I’ve had it with these muthacrunchycon snakes in muthacrunchycon church!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhvOeNCKhs

A ding dang diddly darned mad Ned Flanders

[Madam Theophilus]

I would recommend these sources as to historical surveys on the Christian church’s and Protestant teaching on creation.

THE GREAT TURNING POINT by Terry Mortenson

Protestant Reformed Journal, Volume XXXVI, November 2002,
“In the Space of Six Days,” by Mark L. Shane (an excellent historical survey of the church’s teaching on creation and how reformed denominations came under the influence of Darwinism) The article is continued in the April, 2003 and November, 2003 issues.
http://www.prca.org/prtj/index.html

There are also several historical essays in the newly published: COMING TO GRIPS WITH GENESIS: BIBLICAL AUTHORITY AND THE AGE OF THE EARTH edited by Terry Mortenson PhD. and Thane H. Ury PhD.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

WOW. Science Fiction and Junk Science quote of the day!

---

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism....It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

—Professor Richard Lewontin, geneticist and Temple of Darwin devotee

[Boxen]

That passage is from Richard Lewtonin's review of Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Billions and Billions of Demons.

The rest of the paragraph reads:

"The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. "

[GodGunsGuts]

That is exactly how most people feel about Darwood’s Evo-religious creation myth.