Posted on 07/23/2004 1:48:15 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Most agree that the modern creation movement began in 1961 with the publication of The Genesis Flood, the classic work on flood geology. God has marvelously blessed in succeeding decades, and now there are scores of creationist organizations worldwide, with books and videos and seminars and websites multiplying rapidly. Not only has creation information become widely available, but the face of science has swung dramatically toward creation positions (i.e., recognition of the lack of transitional fossils, the acceptance of catastrophism in geology, etc.).
[Snip]
ICR remains distinct from other creation groups in its graduate-degree programs and staff of research scientists researching and gathering information made available to all the groups. Sometimes I wonder what could be accomplished if we had access to the huge government grants available to our evolutionary colleagues at universities, but we're winning without these grants.
The rather new Intelligent Design (ID) movement has also emerged, and has been quite effective in demonstrating the exquisite design in living things, quite beyond the ability of natural processes to produce, and the religious, naturalist underpinnings of evolution. Their membership spans a wide spectrum of viewpoints, from evolutionists, to New Agers, to Bible-believing Christians. As a tactical strategy, ID has chosen to be scrupulously secular in their presentation.
While ICR applauds the work of ID, sells their materials, and supports their efforts, we cannot join them. As a Christian, Bible-based organization, our goals are different. [Snip]
[Note: the article is copyrighted, so I've excerpted some portions.]
NAMBLA goes against my libertarian proclivities in that children are not capable of making informed decisions. Where the f*** do you get these tangential spins?
"As long as they believe in limited government, I'll accept them in the party."
-Junior
....ignorant creationists.
Isn't that repeating yourself?Don't both those words mean the same thing?
Presumably dead thread placemarker.
Thanks! Good to see you my old friend. :-)
From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany
By Richard Weikart
In this compelling and painstakingly researched work of intellectual history, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially those pertaining to the sacredness of human life. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially in terms of intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Weikart concludes that Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis. He convincingly makes the disturbing argument that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles rather than nihilistic ones. From Darwin to Hitler is a provocative yet balanced work that should encourage a rethinking of the historical impact that Darwinism had on the course of events in the twentieth century.
Endorsements:
Richard Weikart's outstanding book shows in sober and convincing detail how Darwinist thinkers in Germany had developed an amoral attitude to human society by the time of the First World War, in which the supposed good of the race was applied as the sole criterion of public policy and 'racial hygiene'. Without over-simplifying the lines that connected this body of thought to Hitler, he demonstrates with chilling clarity how policies such as infanticide, assisted suicide, marriage prohibitions and much else were being proposed for those considered racially or eugenically inferior by a variety of Darwinist writers and scientists, providing Hitler and the Nazis with a scientific justification for the policies they pursued once they came to power.
-- Dr. Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, and author of The Coming of the Third Reich
This is one of the finest examples of intellectual history I have seen in a long while. It is insightful, thoughtful, informative, and highly readable. Rather than simply connecting the dots, so to speak, the author provides a sophisticated and nuanced examination of numerous German thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were influenced to one degree or another by Darwinist naturalism and their ideas, subtly drawing both distinctions and similarities and in the process telling a rich and colorful story.
-- Ian Dowbiggin, Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island and author of A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America
This is an impressive piece of intellectual and cultural history--a well-researched, clearly presented argument with good, balanced, fair judgments. Weikart has a thorough knowledge of the relevant historiography in both German and English."
-- Alfred Kelly, Edgar B. Graves Professor of History, Hamilton College, and author of The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860-1914
This is truly a well-crafted work of intellectual history, and one directly relevant to some of the most consequential ethical discussions of our present time. Christians and all people of good will would do well to ponder these arguments, recognizing how easily the best and brightest can commit the worst and darkest under the progressive banner of biological "health and fitness." The book should provoke much debate and discussion, not only among historians but among ethicists and scientists too.
--Thomas Albert Howard, Associate Professor of History, Gordon College, author of Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (forthcoming)
The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed. Every parent ought to know this story, which Weikart persuasively explains.
--Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance
If you think moral issues like infanticide, assisted suicide, and tampering with human genes are new, read this book. It draws a clear and chilling picture of the way Darwinian naturalism led German thinkers to treat human life as raw materials to be manipulated in order to advance the course of evolution. The ethics of Hitler's Germany were not reactionary; they were very much "cutting edge" and in line with the scientific understanding of the day. Weikart's implicit warning is that as long as the same assumption of Darwinian naturalism reigns in educated circles in our own day, it may well lead to similar practices.
--Nancy Pearcey, co-author of The Soul of Science and How Now Shall We Live
Richard Weikart's masterful work offers a compelling case that the eugenics movement, and all the political and social consequences that have flowed from it, would have been unlikely if not for the cultural elite's enthusiastic embracing of the Darwinian account of life, morality, and social institutions. Professor Weikart reminds us, with careful scholarship and circumspect argument, that the truth uttered by Richard Weaver decades ago is indeed a fixed axiom of human institutions: "ideas have consequences."
--Francis J. Beckwith, Associate Director, J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, and Associate Professor of Church-State Studies, Baylor University
About the Author
Richard Weikart is an associate professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus. He has lived in Germany over five years, including one year on a Fulbright Fellowship. He has published two previous books, including Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein (1999), as well as articles in German Studies Review, Journal of the History of Ideas, Isis, European Legacy, and History of European Ideas.
What's your personal stake in all of this? I say "personal stake" because you seem to take these discussions so personally. I guess the thread the other day got your bile juices flowing, and since the discussion died down, and you really didn't convert anyone, you needed to post something to get another fix.
At least the IRC represents itself to be a religious organization. My beef with the rabid, bug-eyed, strident proponents of evolution is that they DON'T represent their theory as being founded on faith. In this regard, there is greater honesty on the part of ICR than is displayed by the average shill for evolution.
Malcolm Muggeridge once commented that "...education has replaced institutional religion as a fount of hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness." The same could be said of the evolution shills.
Well said and thanks for the invitation to see it lol.
>>As a Christian, Bible-based organization, our goals are different.
How would that be different? Different from searching for truth?<<
Wasn't it Indiana Jones who said to his college class something to the effect of "we study facts here. If you are looking for truth, that is religious studies, down the hall."
Science is about how. Religion is about why.
That's a very insightful point, and it hadn't occurred to me look at thinks that way before.
Great post, RA. In fact, I'm going to go back and re-read it.
After going back and looking at my own post, I realize I should be more careful combining prior posts in answering a current one.
FYI, what was in quotes from my reply #4 was taken from an NSF abstract. My original post did include the reference.
The entire rest of the post was my own.
Sigh.
As a Christian, Bible-based organization, our goals are different.
How would that be different? Different from searching for truth?
Actually, yes.
"Creation science" is a terrible oxymoron. Science is about the pursuit of knowledge. When proven incorrect, scientists disregard their hypotheses. Creationists just talk louder.
Name calling is the best you can do. But is there any real substance related to your gripes? Certainly, there are some Creationists that don't have a scientific background. And a subset of this group doesn't know what they are talking about. But you seem to think there are no questions related to science. You seem to think that the scientific community has it all figured out. Is this true? Is macro-evolution established fact? Have we gone back into time and observed it? Hardly!
Perhaps, just one of you could present some evidence explaining the difference between ID and the creation movement. Specifically, what are the arguments against evolution? What does the Intelligent Design community say and how do their arguments challenge naturalism -- specifically what does Dr Dembski say? Do the Creationists have no arguments against evolution? Is their framework totally without merit?
You all seem to be parrots of the academic establishment, intellectually devoid of balance, unwilling to look at another point of view. Most of you seem to be ignorant and don't know what you are talking about!
I didn't name call. "Creation science" is not science. I'm not saying anything bad about people who believe in it, other than they don't follow the scientific method. That's hardly name-calling.
Science isn't about magically knowing all the answers. It's a process, in which knowledge is slowly built. Modern science doesn't pretend to know all the answers to everything. Creationists do. Real scientists know that a lack of complete knowledge does not mean that existing knowledge is false.
Once creationists admit that their premise could be wrong, and evolution could be right, then I'll debate them. Scientists admit that their premises could be wrong. Evolution, however, has been tested and tested and tested.
IDers admit that evolution is a fact. That I can respect. If they want to believe that god shapes evolution, that is their right and I can respect that. Creationists? Nope. Won't pretend that's anywhere near science. I admire their beliefs in the face of all evidence, but I won't presume to try to change their minds.
The only scientists who don't believe in evolution are those who decided that they wouldn't believe in it before they started. That's a position that no one can debate with, as they have already shown that they don't want the truth, only their dogma.
placemarker
Dead thread placemarker back! LOL
Horatio,
"Science isn't about magically knowing all the answers."
Many Naturalists project that they know more than they actually do. Macro-evolution is a case in point. They don't know the processes but believe in the magical Darwinian mechanism, that in a thermodynamic sense is no mechanism at all.
"It's a process, in which knowledge is slowly built. Modern science doesn't pretend to know all the answers to everything. Creationists do. Real scientists know that a lack of complete knowledge does not mean that existing knowledge is false."
Creationists don't pretend to have all the answers -- though they do argue that evidence does support the creationist framework.
"Evolution, however, has been tested and tested and tested."
There has never been a case where evolutionists have demostrated macro-evolution in the lab. It is speculated that macro-evolution is possible based on the evidence from micro-evolution.
"IDers admit that evolution is a fact."
Some IDers do and some do not! The ID movement is a large group of people that challenge the naturalistic assumption that random mutations alone can produce the complexity that exists within life.
"Creationists? Nope. Won't pretend that's anywhere near science. I admire their beliefs in the face of all evidence, but I won't presume to try to change their minds."
Creationists start off with different presuppositions than naturalists -- that God exists and has brought about the creation. No matter ones perspective, you need a framework or starting point to enable science to be conducted. If one throws out the possiblility that God may exist, then your science is effected. Assuming naturalistic causes, when actually dynamic and constrained initial and boundary conditions occured, skews the results causing one to favor the naturalistic assumption. Creationists use the scientific method just like naturalists, though the presuppostions are different.
"The only scientists who don't believe in evolution are those who decided that they wouldn't believe in it before they started. That's a position that no one can debate with, as they have already shown that they don't want the truth, only their dogma."
There are many scientists who examing the evidence find the Naturalistic straight jacket on science dangerous and harmful for science. They find the notion of nature self-producing complex systems absurd and devoid of logic. Also, these same people tire of the evolutionary dogma that gives "just so" stories to explain the development of complex systems.
Name one reputable scientific organization that does not believe in evolution.
And by "reputable" I mean one that wasn't founded on disbelieving evolution.
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