Evolution's bottom line

National Center for Science Education ^ | 12 May 2006 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

In his op-ed "Evolution's bottom line," published in The New York Times (May 12, 2006), Holden Thorp emphasizes the practical applications of evolution, writing, "creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does," and citing several specific examples.

In places where evolution education is undermined, he argues, it isn't only students who will be the poorer for it: "Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?" He concludes, "Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school."

Thorp is chairman of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina.

[donh]

If by start of the 20th century you mean post-world war one, yes. Turn of the century? Not really. At any rate, I don't see the relevence to our discussion. I don't think any disputes rampant anti-semitism in Germany between the wars.

Fostered and nurtured by 1400 years of anti-jewish venom emitting by the catholic (and Lutheran) church. Which was also, quite recently in the previous century, still kidnapping jewish children to be brought up catholic in foreign lands, legally requiring jews to live in fenced ghettos, and proscribing them to second class citizenship in terms of sufferage, jobs, educational opportunities, and legal redress. I suppose you think Hitler invented the yellow star of David so that all jews were easily identifiable, whenever pogrom time arrived.

Yes you can. The number of instances of mobs mass-murdering Jews in Catholic Europe is small

That is not remotely true. The first crusade practically cleared jews from it's path on the way to the Holy Land, and that's just a minor entry in the genocide sweepstakes.

[curiosity]

Or if you've graded hundreds of papers like I have, after awhile you tend to get more lenient. I used to try to counteract that by grading them alphabetically and then the next time backwards. Don't know if it worked, though.

LOL! I've been there. Thankfully, my days as a TA are coming to an end. No more grading for me! Soon I will have slave, er, I mean grad student do all the things I was forced to do over the last 5 years.

[Right Wing Professor]

If you don't include caveats, they'll interpret you to mean that Hitler was a Christian in the same sense they are. No one wants to be put in the same group as Hitler; it will turn them off to your argument, especially if they realize that Hitler's religion is fundamentally different from what they consider Christianity.

You would think that people who supposedly espouse doing unto others as they would like others to do unto them would 'get' this, wouldn't you?

[mjolnir]

That's certainly the Humean argument against the possibility of design inferences; however, I think Hume is incorrect on this point as I think he is incorrect in his similar associationist explantions of other kinds of non-deductive inference.

[mjolnir]

I think you're right!

[donh]

This argument over whether jews are technically heretics or not is silly. The Inquisition was not an academic debating society that was overly concerned about whether the people they were torturing satisfied the exact definition of "heretic". And, in fact, did I not see that you have already conceded to someone else that there were, in fact, jews put to the torch by the inquision, and have now retreated to "only a few jews"?

Consider the jew-obsessed writings of some of the most influential figures of the Inquisition:

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, “The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Time of Bernard Gui,” Harvard Theological Review 63 (1970): 317–376

Shaye Cohen, “Between Judaism and Christianity: the semicircumcision of Christians according to Bernard Gui, his sources and R. Eliezer of Metz,” Harvard Theological Review 94 (2001): 285–321.

[PatrickHenry]

I think the relationship between the theory of natural selection and eugenics is one that should be investigated, just as the conservative consequences of the theory we all like that Freeper Arnhart writes about in his book, Darwinian Conservatism, should be investigated ...

Eugenics is pretty much the opposite of natural selection. Nature has her own criteria for what survives and breeds. Our deliberate choices suit our own purposes, but they're not necessarily going to result in something that can survive nature's tests. For example, many of our agricultural products are somewhat fragile, and wouldn't prevail in a natural state. In particular, Hitler's preference for only Aryan stock, had he succeeded, would have resulted in an impoverishment of the gene pool, which in nature is usually a bad choice for the long haul.

As for Arnhart, we had a thread a while ago on his work. I agree that Darwin's work is inherently conservative (but then we'd be haggling about definitions). To shortcut that, if you think Adam Smith's work is something that conservatives should embrace, then the same reasoning goes for Darwin's work. The survival and flourishing of enterprises in an unplanned economy is analogous to the activities of species in nature. It's arguable that Darwin was influenced by Smith's thinking. Both are products of the Enlightenment, as is the American Revolution itself. The knee-jerk rejection of Darwin (and of almost all scientific thinking) that I see on this website is -- to me -- the antithesis of conservatism (defined as Founding Father-style thinking about politics and economics).

[donh]

Yeah, but Hitler was never a Lutheran. The claim I'm disputing is the notion that the Catholic Church is somehow responsible for Hitler's ideas.

You mean, for example, the oft-repeated theory that he was carrying out Jesus's unfinished work, by eliminating the Jews? Yea, that probably had nothing whatever to do with his extremely catholic upbringing. Or do you mean the influence of the catholic priests the holy see permitted, throughout the war, to accompany the SS troops on their ghetto raids? Or maybe you are referring to Hitler's oft quoted favorite passage--Matthew 27:25. Which, I guess, comes from the Koran.

[Coyoteman]

Many sects of Christiantity have very odd beliefs. Look at the Mormons and the Christian Scientists (not that transubstantiation isn't an odd belief, either).

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973

[gusopol3]

Since evolution has been the dominant theory of biology for more than a century, it's a safe statement that all of the wonderful innovations in medicine and agriculture that we derive from biological research stem from the theory of evolution.

you say this is a “good article,” but probably its central proposition is so specious(e.g.:By studying animals given to him by his regal employer, Harvey eventually developed an accurate theory of how the heart and circulatory system operated.((William Harvey lived 1578-1657)), what would be a “bad article?”

[mjolnir]

Sure--- that applies to Hitler.

But eugenicists such as Oliver Wendall Holmes or W.E.B. DuBois or Sanger would say that a sensible program of eugenics consists of weeding out the weak, not developing the singular racial purity Hitler desired.

I guess one of the questions I have in mind would be, in what sense are we involved in the sort of competition Darwin envisioned, especially if one accepts William Hamilton? He thought Darwinian natural selection encompassed competition beteen the races and nationalities i.e. Europe vs. the Ottoman Empire and perhaps a Samuel Huntington would agree.

[donh]

After WW1 that's quite true but before the war there were countries where antisemitism was far worse.

Close enough for me. The countries that didn't lose WWI probably didn't have as much reason to hate anybody.

[Fester Chugabrew]

The Discovery Institute does not seem to demonstrate the problem of mistaking academic freedom for "antievolution" agendas. To the extent they expect evolutionism to be "outlawed" in public schools I will oppose them in the same manner I oppose evolutionists who think ID should be outlawed in public schools. If you fear a wedgie all I san say is, "So what?"

[PatrickHenry]

I guess one of the questions I have in mind would be, in what sense are we involved in the sort of competition Darwin envisioned, especially if one accepts William Hamilton? He thought Darwinian natural selection encompassed competition between the races and nationalities i.e. Europe vs. the Ottoman Empire and perhaps a Samuel Huntington would agree.

Darwin was aware of extinction. And he observed that primitive tribes were diminishing in number, as they came in contact with more advanced peoples. But this wasn't (usually) the result of deliberate wars of annihilation. It just happened. Primitive tribes are still shrinking in number. It's often far more due to disease, or to a reduction of their hunting grounds, failure to adopt modern agriculture, etc., than it is to warfare. So it was with the American indians. This is a kind of natural competition, but nothing like what Hitler attempted to accomplish.

[Right Wing Professor]

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

If theology were comedy, I wouldn't be so down on it. :-)

[donh]

I also beleive that it's pretty obvious that Behe's criticisms have sparked a lot of positive research such as the attempts of Pelger, et al to refute him, so I think he's already contributed to science as a whole.

Your readings of the status of Behe's opinions in the eyes of modern science is, well, kind of special. Most biologists consider him pretty close to holding crank status. One of his primary predictions about things that would never show up in refereed science journals had already been published quite a while before his book was. Not a great job of benchchecking. Try Miller's "Finding Darwin's God", for a point by point take down of Behe's special pleadings, and an accounting of the numerous contradictions of his claims that now exist in the refereed journals. None of these arguments really stand up very well upon inspection. Unless you are talking about the basic DNA/RNA machinery, there really isn't any interesting argument from complexity. 5 percent of a human eye's worth of function is plenty valuable to plenty of creatures, and that's all the justification it needs.

[curiosity]

Fostered and nurtured by 1400 years of anti-jewish venom emitting by the catholic (and Lutheran) church.

Some popes were anti-Jewish yes. Did they ever call for the mass murder of Jews? No.

Which was also, quite recently in the previous century, still kidnapping jewish children to be brought up catholic in foreign lands,

In the 20th Century? Name one instance.

legally requiring jews to live in fenced ghettos,

All the forced Ghettos were in Germany were abolished by the mid 19th century.

Even before that, not all Jews were forced into ghettos. In many cities they were allowed to live where they pleased.

Then there were the voluntary shtetls, like those of the Hasidim in Poland, where Rabbis encouraged self-seggregation to avoid assimilation.

and proscribing them to second class citizenship in terms of sufferage, jobs, educational opportunities, and legal redress.

Sure, that happened in some Catholic locales in some periods. It's a far cry from mass murder, though.

There were other times and places in Catholic Europe where Jews prospered. Claiming that the past 1400 years was nothing more than a conitnuous strech of oppression is absurd.

I suppose you think Hitler invented the yellow star of David so that all jews were easily identifiable, whenever pogrom time arrived.

I think it was the Moslems, actually.

At any rate, in medieval times, the star was supported by both Jewish and Christian leaders. The Rabbis didn't want their people assimilating, and the Christians didn't want their people intermarrying with Jews.

That is not remotely true. The first crusade practically cleared jews from it's path on the way to the Holy Land, and that's just a minor entry in the genocide sweepstakes.

. Yeah that was bad, albeit it took place 1,000 years ago. A minor entry though? I don't think so. This one was about as bad as it got before Hitler. Can you name an incident that was worse?

[curiosity]

The oft-repeated theory that he was carrying out Jesus's unfinished work, by eliminating the Jews? Yea, that probably had nothing whatever to do with his extremely catholic upbringing.

It most certainly did not. Never did the Church teach that killing Jews was Christ's work. If you want to claim otherwise, please provide a source.

Or do you mean the influence of the catholic priests the holy see permitted, throughout the war, to accompany the SS troops on their ghetto raids?

Please substantiate this claim. I'm not about to take your word for it.

Or maybe you are referring to Hitler's oft quoted favorite passage--Matthew 27:25. Which, I guess, comes from the Koran.

St. Matthew is no more responsible for Hitler twisting his Gospel than is Darwin responsible for Hitler twisting his theory.

[Right Wing Professor]

It's a far cry from mass murder, though.

Read the history of the Jews in Spain.

[mjolnir]

As far as I can tell my LIMITED perspective from lurking, MOST people on this site don't have a problem with science in general or Darwin's theory of natural selection in particular...

What they have is a problem with the likes of leftists such as Eugenie Scott, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, who either either bluntly and honestly or subtly and sneakily push the "Blind Watchmaker thesis" and see Darwin's theory of natural selection as a "universal acid".

I think the reason is that the notion of it as a universal acid seems to go well beyond the science behind the theory, yet Dennett presents the "acid" idea quite dogmatically.

I mean, Thomas Sowell makes the point that one Hayek's unplanned order need not be extended into a metaphysics to be accepted as economics.

It's true that many of the Founders were rationalist Deists, but they believed the argument from design to be an aid to science--- it resolved the problem Hume had left of the uniformity of nature, without which assumption induction was unjustifiable. that didn't make them anti-science, did it?

Does one have to accept that, as Bertrand Russell said, that

that Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms… that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave… all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.


to not be anti-science?