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Eden and Evolution
The Washington Post ^ | February 5, 2005 | Shankar Vedantam

Posted on 02/06/2006 5:02:42 PM PST by CobaltBlue

Ricky Nguyen and Mariama Lowe never really believed in evolution to begin with. But as they took their seats in Room CC-121 at Northern Virginia Community College on November 2, they fully expected to hear what students usually hear in any Biology 101 class: that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was true.

As professor Caroline Crocker took the lectern, Nguyen sat in the back of the class of 60 students, Lowe in the front. Crocker, who wore a light brown sweater and slacks, flashed a slide showing a cartoon of a cheerful monkey eating a banana. An arrow led from the monkey to a photograph of an exceptionally unattractive man sitting in his underwear on a couch. Above the arrow was a question mark.

Crocker was about to establish a small beachhead for an insurgency that ultimately aims to topple Darwin's view that humans and apes are distant cousins. The lecture she was to deliver had caused her to lose a job at a previous university, she told me earlier, and she was taking a risk by delivering it again. As a nontenured professor, she had little institutional protection. But this highly trained biologist wanted students to know what she herself deeply believed: that the scientific establishment was perpetrating fraud, hunting down critics of evolution to ruin them and disguising an atheistic view of life in the garb of science.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: creation; crevolist; darwin; evolution; fairfaxcounty; highereducation; id; idiocy; ignoranceisstrength; intelligentdesign; mythology; nvcc; retard; scienceeducation; superstitiouskooks
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To: Shalom Israel
However, I would note that it's the naturaly reaction of a fascist, on considering evolution, to decide it's a good idea to help it along.

A facist and an idiot, you mean. Evolution has no inherent goal or direction, thus it cannot be "helped along".
121 posted on 02/07/2006 10:01:47 AM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: steve-b

on the contrary, we can describe mathematically the action of a falling object; we cannot do the same for "gravity" as an effect over the entire universe of things. The gentlemen in this case assumes that the same principle which "explains" the changes we can see, also explains those changes we have not seen.


122 posted on 02/07/2006 10:15:06 AM PST by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: From many - one.

Sorry, I do not participate in the cyclical nature of these types of threads.


123 posted on 02/07/2006 10:18:39 AM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: Stultis; longshadow
Nice collection of links. You realize, of course, that it is now your burden to trot that stuff out whenever the need presents itself. As for me, the whole issue of fraud on the part of evolution has faded into insignificance in view of the present day behavior of creationists (and their slick ID colleagues):

Intentionally and falsely trying to pass off Pandas as a science book is a far bigger and far more outrageous fraud, and will do more to destroy the ID charlatans at the Discovery Institute, than a whole army of Piltdown Men. I quote from the excellent opinion by Judge Jones:

As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards [Edwards v. Aguillard], which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge:
(1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID;

(2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and

(3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards.

This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content, which directly refutes FTE's [FTE = the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, the publisher of Pandas] argument that by merely disregarding the words "creation" and "creationism," FTE expressly rejected creationism in Pandas. In early pre-Edwards drafts of Pandas, the term "creation" was defined as "various forms of life that began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features intact -- fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc," the very same way in which ID is defined in the subsequent published versions.
Source: Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al..

From now on -- thanks to the geniuses at DI, the discredited fools on the Dover school board, and their dedicated lawyers -- when the creationists raise the phony issue of Piltdown Man, or Nebraska Man, or Peppered Moths, or Haeckel's Embryos, none of which amounts to anything anyway, the rational side of the argument has been given the all-time slam-dunk response -- Pandas!

124 posted on 02/07/2006 10:30:11 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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RevMoonDidit placemark


125 posted on 02/07/2006 10:30:31 AM PST by dread78645 (Intelligent Design. It causes people to misspeak)
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To: Dimensio
A facist and an idiot, you mean. Evolution has no inherent goal or direction, thus it cannot be "helped along".

I notice you don't bristle equally at the implied abuse of Christianity by fascist idiots...

Anyway, your statement is true but misses the point: locally--i.e., within a time-horizon of one or two generations, and in a particular historical context--it's possible to describe "fitness" in fairly specific terms. Epidemiologists do exactly that when they examine the evolution of new retrovirus strains so they can (hopefully) prepare vaccines in advance of next year's flu season.

Similarly, your average Joe is not a complete idiot when he observes that, say, a person in a vegetative state is "unfit" in a darwinian sense. Extending this definition to the crippled, retarded, sickly, etc., is not strictly valid but is not utter nonsense either. The average Joe is wrong only from the very long-term perspective, where he fails to realize that the future of mankind involves losing all hearing but seeing the entire RF spectrum, say.

So the fascist's main failing is not stupidity per se, but arrogance; he believes he can do natural selection one better with a bit of artificial selection. He has the hubris to feel comfortable assuming the godlike role of identifying and eliminating the unfit. He differs in degree, but not in kind, from the masses of people who are comfortable telling you what to eat, and punishing you for disobedience.

126 posted on 02/07/2006 10:33:10 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Stultis

Your link #2 is broken. And why, in 2006, are all your references circa 1999?


127 posted on 02/07/2006 11:29:49 AM PST by CobaltBlue (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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To: CobaltBlue
Your link #2 is broken. And why, in 2006, are all your references circa 1999?

First I made the original post in 2001. Also the debate (in the Calvin College/ASA Evolution Listserv) occured in response to several things that happened around that time: e.g. a (very misleading) review of Michael Majerus' book Melanism: Evolution in Action by Jerry Coyne in Nature, and the (mis)use of this by IDer Jonathan Wells to claim that the conventional Peppered Moth story was false, photos were faked, moths had virtually never been found resting naturally on tree trunks, etc.

As to my broken link I don't know what to tell you. I guess google.groups discarded or lost some data when they sucked up the old dejanews.org.

128 posted on 02/07/2006 12:11:29 PM PST by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: Stultis

I just read some more recent scientific articles on peppered moths, industrial melanism, several which touched upon the controversy.

I haven't come across a link for Kettlewell's original research.

I originally got interested in the peppered moth story after reading the article I linked previously, in Whole Earth.

That was before the issue became so politicized. "Politicized" is a weak word, cause celebre' might be better.

The recent articles I read seem to me to state that there is a statistical correlation between decline in industrial pollution and decline in percentage of melanic forms of certain moths. This seems entirely appropriate but not nearly as exciting as the way the story was told to me back in the Dark Ages when I was an undergrad.


129 posted on 02/07/2006 12:52:34 PM PST by CobaltBlue (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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To: Shalom Israel
All you say is true. But eugenics is explicitly what you get when a fascist ponders natural selection, just as inquisitions are what you get when a fascist ponders the evils of heresy. Some people talk about evolution; the fascist sincerely wants to do something about it.

That his idea of "fittest" always puts himself at the top of the heap is another issue--a psychological one...


I agree, but I think there is a mirror image than needs to be really seriously examined, for the purpose of preventing future socialist nastiness.

The combination fascism plus fondness of the idea of evolution leads to the idea that deadly government intervention is necessary and justified for furthering evolution.

The combination of fascism plus fear of evolution leads to the idea that deadly government intervention is necessary and justified for stopping evolution.

Both are insane, but the former has used up any marketing attractiveness it ever had. The latter is what socialism is now clinging to, and the ideological groundwork of it is currently being laid by people like Dawkins acting in concert with Singer-type government-worshiping Benthamite Utilitarians.

As far as who is at the top of the heap, socialism in general is an ideology fueled by jealousy. Socialism, in all forms, is technically absurd to someone of moderate intelligence who is thinking clearly. And, because of the fact that socialism is symbiotic with envy, the individual socialists who gain power will always tend to twist the definition of 'bottom of the heap' to those of whom they are envious. These will tend to be the people who garner the fruits of honest work (wealth through business sense, wealth through focused effort, and genuine artistic or scientific accomplishments), as socialists tend to spend their lives garnering different (and far less satisfying) fruits (various sorts of pats on the head, wealth through shady government deals, that sort of thing).

It is crazy to think that in an industrialized modern society, with all the wealth that creates, that you gain much anything by killing weak people instead of letting their relatives provide them with basic food, clothing, and shelter. Fascists aren't really targeting that power over life and death because they have an interest in "evolution", though they tell themselves and their followers that that is the reason. (They obviously don't have a genuine interest in evolution, because if they did, they'd bother learning enough about it that they'd be able to create political structures whose lifespans aren't best measured decades. Heck, if they had an honest interest in evolution, they might bother to notice the fact that the only species that builds cities and invents technology is also the only species that naturally cares for its sick and old, and buries its dead. And they might at least wonder about that.) It is really not in any core way about using government to further evolution. Instead, they target that power because they are seething with envy, and hate for the envied, and on some gut emotional level this leads them to desire the power to wipe out the envied. And they are thus drawn to ideologies that will give them that power. People are complex beings. Today, pleasure-pain utilitarianism combined with rabid anti-evolutionism looks like the best route they have to that power.

This socialism feeding off envy thing is the root of the problem, and the problem will surface again with a slightly different dress, unless it is recognized and fought. Fighting the marketing techniques it used 60 years ago is futile.

(I especially wonder why conservatives who believe evolution is bunk don't get this. Heck, if you think it is all bunk, why not recognize that the paper angel, in whose service nuts murdered millions last century, has now been refolded, that same paper, into a paper dragon that nuts intend to use to murder millions, again, if they can get away with it.)
130 posted on 02/07/2006 1:08:58 PM PST by illinoissmith
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To: illinoissmith
The combination of fascism plus fear of evolution leads to the idea that deadly government intervention is necessary and justified for stopping evolution.

That's a bit of a non-sequitur: if you don't believe in evolution, then you don't believe there's a need to stop it.

I've already mentioned what happens when a fascist discovers christianity: he decides that heretics should be burned for their own good. That would probably include evolutionists, but they'd have to get in line with the wiccans, queers, low-church Anglicans...

It is crazy to think that in an industrialized modern society, with all the wealth that creates, that you gain much anything by killing weak people instead of letting their relatives provide them with basic food, clothing, and shelter.

I think even arguing that point means you're playing by the madman's rules. Feeding your sick parents isn't about whether it's cheaper to whack 'em--sometimes, it is. You feed them anyway.

131 posted on 02/07/2006 1:38:48 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: illinoissmith
....socialism in general is an ideology fueled by jealousy.

That's true at a high level, but deep down we're all wired for socialism because, in small tribal units, it confers a survival advantage. We haven't evolved the right instincts for social structures larger than a dozen or so. That's why even freepers, in a pinch, usually turn out to be statists.

132 posted on 02/07/2006 1:43:32 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Shalom Israel
All you say is true. But eugenics is explicitly what you get when a fascist ponders natural selection, just as inquisitions are what you get when a fascist ponders the evils of heresy.

Wrong. Eugenics is artificial selection applied to human beings, not natural selection. Blame practitioners of animal husbandry, if you must blame someone, not Darwin.

133 posted on 02/07/2006 2:00:15 PM PST by WildHorseCrash
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To: VadeRetro

Not the Lord-- the Father of Lies understands. (HINT: not the Lord)


134 posted on 02/07/2006 2:11:32 PM PST by stands2reason (It's now 2006, and two wrongs still don't make a right.)
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To: WildHorseCrash
Wrong. Eugenics is artificial selection applied to human beings, not natural selection.

Please learn to read. I referred to eugenics as "artificial selection", and never referred to it as "natural selection". In the post you quote, I said, "eugenics is what you get when a fascist ponders natural selection." That's a statement of historical fact; eugenicists and social darwinians explicitly extrapolate their theories from the principle of survival of the fittest.

Obviously, Darwin himself is not to blame. He was dead by the time such movements got off the ground.

135 posted on 02/07/2006 2:28:49 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: illinoissmith
The combination fascism plus fondness of the idea of evolution leads to the idea that deadly government intervention is necessary and justified for furthering evolution.
The combination of fascism plus fear of evolution leads to the idea that deadly government intervention is necessary and justified for stopping evolution.

There's a third possibility: REVERSING evolution. This is really what the Nazis were all about. They were attempting to undo "race mixing" and restore the "purity of the blood". They were creationists (of a mystical sort) who believed that each race had been created with a distinct "soul". The race "soul" was carried in the "blood".

136 posted on 02/07/2006 2:35:31 PM PST by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: Shalom Israel
Please learn to read.

Please learn to think.

I referred to eugenics as "artificial selection", and never referred to it as "natural selection". In the post you quote, I said, "eugenics is what you get when a fascist ponders natural selection." That's a statement of historical fact; eugenicists and social darwinians explicitly extrapolate their theories from the principle of survival of the fittest.

You may have used "artificial selection" in a later post, but you did not use anything but "natural selection" in the post I responded to (or in any post priot to it on this thread, for that matter). Further, I did not say you referred to it as natural selection; I was responding to the false information which you disseminated in your post. I was making the point that to assert that eugenics results from or is anyway related to natural selection is idiocy.

Moreover, the fact that the eugenicists and so-called social Darwinists idiotically (or ignorantly) attributed their thinking to Darwin and the principles of natural selection does not give anyone license to propagate the error.

Obviously, Darwin himself is not to blame. He was dead by the time such movements got off the ground.

On that we can agree.

137 posted on 02/07/2006 4:04:54 PM PST by WildHorseCrash
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To: WildHorseCrash
You may have used "artificial selection" in a later post, but you did not use anything but "natural selection" in the post I responded to...

However, if you'd read more carefully, you'd find it precisely as I explained it: eugenics was invented by fascists cogitating upon the phenonenon of natural selection.

Moreover, the fact that the eugenicists and so-called social Darwinists idiotically (or ignorantly) attributed their thinking to Darwin...

You appear to again be introducing the red herring that Darwin himself was somehow directly responsible for eugenics. That's ridiculous--which is why nobody made any such claim.

does not give anyone license to propagate the error.

You may have drawn an erroneous conclusion from a true statement, but please don't misplace the blame. Admit your error like a man, and I'll forgive you.

138 posted on 02/07/2006 4:28:41 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Shalom Israel
However, if you'd read more carefully, you'd find it precisely as I explained it: eugenics was invented by fascists cogitating upon the phenonenon of natural selection.

Wow, your history is as screwed up as your prose. Even the modern eugenics movement predated fascism by decades; its core ideas have been around in one form or another since Plato. It certainly was not "invented by fascists."

And it certainly does not make your ridiculous statement any more true. Some fascists contemplated natural selection and understood it to be a scientific theory. Some foolish people (not all fascist) contemplated using artificial selection to "correct" what they foresaw as the consequences of permitting so-called inferior people to reproduce. Again, that they ignorantly attributed it to the theory of natural selection does not give anyone license to repeat their idiocy unchallenged.

You appear to again be introducing the red herring that Darwin himself was somehow directly responsible for eugenics. That's ridiculous--which is why nobody made any such claim.

No, I was simply using "Darwin" as a shorthand for his theory. The fact that I said, "...attributed their thinking to Darwin and the principles of natural selection..." should have made this explicit to the average reader. Not exactly precise, but understandable to all but the daftest minds. I apologize if I overestimated your thinking and reading comprehension skills. I'll try not to repeat the error.

Admit your error like a man, and I'll forgive you.

LOL. That's precious. Really. What are you, twelve years old?

139 posted on 02/07/2006 5:20:40 PM PST by WildHorseCrash
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To: Shalom Israel
eugenicists and social darwinians explicitly extrapolate their theories from the principle of survival of the fittest.

And Hitler explicitly extrapolated his rabid anti-Semitism from his professed Christianity. Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Can we agree that both natural selection and Christianity have been misused by evil people to justify their policies? Can we also agree that linking either Christianity or the theory of evolution to 20th century tyrannies and genocides is an exercise in sophistry?

140 posted on 02/07/2006 5:24:35 PM PST by Ken H
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