THE WORLD’S GREATEST CREATION SCIENTISTS (VON BRAUN)

“It’s not exactly rocket science, you know.” The cliche implies that rocket science is the epitome of something that is difficult, obscure, and abstruse; something comprehensible only by the brainiest of the smart. Names that qualify for the title “father of rocket science” include Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, and von Braun. But Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was mostly a visionary and chalkboard theorist, and Robert Goddard only targeted the upper atmosphere for his projects; he was also secretive and suspicious of others to a fault. Of the three, and any others that could be listed, Wernher von Braun has the prestige of actually taking mankind from the simple beginnings of rocketry all the way to the moon and the planets. His name is almost synonymous with rocket science. He is an icon of the space age. As we will see, he should be remembered for much more than that.

Von Braun (pronounced fon BROWN – and roll the R) is important in this series because he was recent enough to be in the living memory of many, and we have a great deal of documentation, photographs and motion pictures of him. Even young people (that is, anyone under 40) who did not live through the glory days of Apollo are all familiar with three of von Braun’s last great projects he took from vision to reality: the Space Shuttle, orbiting space stations and interplanetary travel. Unquestionably, he had a great deal of help. One does not do rocket science alone! At the height of the Apollo program, some 600,000 employees were involved in tasks from machining parts to managing large flight operations centers. Yet by wide consensus and by results achieved, Wernher von Braun was a giant among giants: highly regarded by his peers, respected by all who worked with him, a celebrity to the public, showered with honors, and unquestionably responsible for much of the success of the space program. Few have ever personally taken a dream of epic proportions to reality. The peaceful exploration of space! It was the stuff of dreams — dreams by Kepler, Jules Verne, science fiction novels and countless childhood imaginations, yet today it is almost too commonplace. Von Braun dreamed, but made it happen. He was the right man with the right stuff at the right time.

What kind of person was he? Many great scientists are quirkish or aloof in their personal lives, but we’re going to reveal a lesser-known side of von Braun, a spiritual side that kept him humble, grateful, unselfish, and strong. We’ll see a remarkably well-rounded individual, a family man who loved swimming and travel and popularizing science for children; a man who loved life, had charisma and energy and dignity and integrity, handled huge projects yet kept a winning smile and a sense of humor even in the most stressful of project deadlines. We’ll see a model of leadership that success-bound corporate heads would do well to emulate. Maybe you didn’t know (incidentally) that he was also a Christian and creationist. But first, a review of his record.

My question to you Patrick is does Darwinian evolution necessitate the evidence of superior (intellectually) races?

The existence of human individuals necessitates the existence of intellectually superior individuals. This is because we're not identical. Any trait you can name will be present to varying degrees in different people. The issue of "superior races" is probably more a question about statistics than anything else. That's because a race doesn't have intelligence; individuals do. Murray's book, The Bell Curve, attempted to deal with this issue; but it's something I'm not qualified to evaluate. I'm not ducking; I really don't know the answers. I don't know what purpose is served by doing statistical studies of groups of people. Is my zip code intellectually superior to yours? My hair color? My race? And if it is, so what?

Again, does evolution lead us to nature’s inevitable result of "favored races"? Yes or no?

Not necessarily with humans. We're not exactly scrambling for scarce resources. We have loads of people who are far less fit than we are, yet they're surviving and thriving. So the answer to your question is "no," because we're so good at what we do that we can afford to be generous.

As for your remark about my "troop," I'm sure that, upon reflection, you will realize it was inappropriate. You might even acknowledge this.

I am unsure if this relates to evolution or not.

The difference in intellect between individuals is obvious; that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with evolution though, does it?

The view of superior vs. inferior races has a certain dubious intellectual importance, perhaps it is fodder for the social sciences and selling books like The Bell Curve. It's not surprising, though, given the penchant for collectivist ideology of the last century-and-a-half.

More interesting to me is the question of cultures; are some superior to others? Why did the Egyptian culture last for thirty centuries and the Roman Empire last so long and why did they become "extinct" (to borrow a term)?

Ben Franklin gave us about two hundred years from the adoption of the Constitution. American culture is dissolving in the cheap acid of multiculturalism which is really more of an idea ABOUT culture, rather than a culture in itself.

I believe that all tradition, culture and religion seems to suffer under the omnivorous tyranny of ideology which has come to dominate all dialogue since Descartes.

I have come to recognize ideology as Original Sin writ large across the pages of history.

I am unsure if this relates to evolution or not.

Mostly "not," but I'll play with the ideas anyway:

The difference in intellect between individuals is obvious; that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with evolution though, does it?

No, not necessarily. Bright people tend to have bright kids. I can't evaluate the "nature vs. nurture" issue. This is more a matter of genetics than evolution, except to the extent that intelligence (at least partly a product of genetics) is a survival factor for the species. It no longer is, but in the very early days of our species, presumably the worst of the idiots didn't survive very long. Alas, their genes still pop up.

The view of superior vs. inferior races has a certain dubious intellectual importance, perhaps it is fodder for the social sciences and selling books like The Bell Curve. It's not surprising, though, given the penchant for collectivist ideology of the last century-and-a-half.

It's meaningless to me when someone claims that "group X is statistically smarter than group Y." The only value to books like Bell Curve might be that if group X is statistically doing worse in school, for example, than group Y, it could be useful to know that it's possibly not group Y's fault. But this is only significant in the context of government programs, etc. Without "great society" meddling, no one would need to know such statistics.

More interesting to me is the question of cultures; are some superior to others? Why did the Egyptian culture last for thirty centuries and the Roman Empire last so long and why did they become "extinct" (to borrow a term)?

There are definitely superior cultures. I won't even bother to argue with anyone who doesn't see this. Egypt is an interesting case. They lasted a very long time, and not because they respected "life, liberty, and property." It's been suggested that the combination of a military dictatorship, reinforced by a state-sponsored religion, plus a virtual monopoly over a scarce and vital resource (the Nile) gave them what they needed to survive so long. And Rome lasted only as long as they had military superiority.

Ben Franklin gave us about two hundred years from the adoption of the Constitution. American culture is dissolving in the cheap acid of multiculturalism which is really more of an idea ABOUT culture, rather than a culture in itself.

Don't get me started on this. Too depressing.

I believe that all tradition, culture and religion seems to suffer under the omnivorous tyranny of ideology which has come to dominate all dialogue since Descartes.

I suspect it started long before that. Too big a topic to get into. Wait for a philosophy thread to come along on this issue.

I have come to recognize ideology as Original Sin writ large across the pages of history.

Interesting notion. Any code of conduct that is not firmly grounded in reality can be a source of amazing problems.

As a youth, watching him on The World of Disney on those shows about space exploration and the ring-style space station, I was inspired to go into engineering, a life-long vocation.

They can throw out all of the crappy cliches they want, those "liberal elites", but Dr. Von Braun's memory will continue to rise above their petty carping.

As we allow the liberals a free hand at historical revisionism in our schools, the enemy of God creates more chaos and confusion, diverting our children from the truth.

Thank you for your personal response regarding Dr. Von Braun, it is as I remembered him as well. My Grandfather, a German with two of his four sons in the German army (my Dad the fourth son, was to young to fight in WWII), was murdered by the SS for refusing to Heil Hitler one to many times.

Yes, it's interesting. I assume you believe it helps you in some way.

I checked the full text (PDF file) of the article. It isn't anything a militant creationist would love. It's all old-earth evo and nothing but.

The author of the paper is investigating a promising synthesis of genetic and paleontological data. Note what she says on the rapid evolvability of "characteristically human" dental enamel.

Using a basic model (99), we estimated that the population mean for baboon molar enamel thickness could double in 250,000 years, or 50,000 generations, with a culling of fewer than 4 in 10,000 individuals per generation. Although this model is overly simplistic, it does demonstrate that enamel thickness could rapidly track dietary shifts through evolutionary time and that the potential for parallel evolution in this trait is high (i.e., enamel thickness is prone to homoplasy). Our quantitative genetic study of enamel thickness shows that this character is probably inappropriately weighted in many early hominid phylogenetic reconstructions. A developmental study of fossilized enamel growth suggests the same (100, 101).

Yes, she's saying that some people interpret some characters wrong. In particular, people don't allow for how fast bodily changes can track with environmental changes, some directly and independently, some pulled along by their genetic linkage to other traits which are the direct objects of natural selection.

You tend to think that every sour note is a victory for the anti-E crowd. This is far from true if your Morton's Demon would admit all the relevant data.

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