Why We Are Still Arguing About Darwin

TCS Daily ^ | 10 Jan 2008 | Lee Harris

[neverdem]

Today, almost one hundred and fifty years after the publication of The Origin of Species, we are still arguing about Darwin. How is this possible? If Darwin's theory of natural selection is a scientific theory, as its defenders claim, then why hasn't it been able to establish itself securely in the public mind? Why, in short, is Darwin still the subject of continuing controversy and acrimonious debate?

Contrast this on-going battle over Darwin with the fate of the other great scientific revolutions. The same Christian fundamentalists who argue that public school should teach creationism have no quarrel with the Copernican revolution. No one argues that public schools should be forced to teach the Ptolemaic system because it permits Joshua to make the sun stand still. Yet polls in the USA show that a large segment of American society continues to reject Darwin's scientific revolution.

Modern proponents of Darwin, like Richard Dawkins, have an elegant explanation for this puzzling phenomenon. Those who reject Darwin are ignorant boobs who take the Bible literally. The Bible says God created man in his own image, and so that is what they believe, despite the evidence that shows that human beings share more than 98% of their genes with chimpanzees. Therefore, in order to get people to accept Darwin, you must first destroy their adherence to Biblical fundamentalism. Once people see that the story of Adam and Eve is simply a fairy tale, they will be in a position to embrace the idea that we all descended from lower primates. But is this interpretation really psychologically plausible? Is it only the second chapter of Genesis that stands in the way of a universal acceptance of Darwin's theory that we descended from creatures far more monkey-like than us-like?

The stumbling block to an acceptance of Darwin, I would like to submit, has little to do with Christian fundamentalism, but a whole lot to do with our intense visceral revulsion at monkeys and apes. This revulsion, while certainly not universal, is widely shared, and it is a psychological phenomenon that is completely independent of our ideas about the literal truth of the Bible.

Our visceral revulsion at the mere sight of lower primates has been noted by the Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal. Observing the visitors to the chimpanzee colony at the Arnhem Zoo, de Waal noticed a frequent pattern among them. Many people would stare at the chimps for a few minutes, then, after saying, "Oh I could watch them all day," they would swiftly make their way to the nearest exit. They had had enough monkey business. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, another great naturalist, was equally aware of this deep-seated revulsion against monkeys. In his novel Elective Affinities, a character declares her feelings about monkeys in no uncertain terms: "How can anyone bring himself to expend such care on depicting horrid monkeys! It is debasing simply to regard them as animal [!], but it is really more malicious to succumb to the temptation of seeking in them the likeness of people you know."

This visceral revulsion against monkeys explains why so many people prefer to hold on to the far more flattering mythology of man's creation as it was presented in Genesis. It is not Genesis that turns them against Darwin; it is Darwin that makes them turn to Genesis.

Now the proponents of Darwin will argue that a visceral revulsion is not a logical argument, and the proponents of Darwin will of course be right. From the fact that most people are horrified to think of themselves as descending from the lower primates, it does not follow that they must have arisen from a more respectable ancestry.

At the same time, those who accept Darwin (as I do) need to understand the true origin of the revulsion so many people feel against his theory. For the basis of this revulsion is none other than "the civilizing process" that has been instilled into us from infancy. The civilizing process has taught us never to throw our feces at other people, not even in jest. It has taught us not to snatch food from other people, not even when they are much weaker than we. It has taught us not to play with our genitals in front of other people, not even when we are very bored. It has taught us not to mount the posterior of other people, not even when they have cute butts.

Those who are horrified by our resemblance to the lower primates are not wrong, because it is by means of this very horror of the primate-within that men have been able to transcend our original primate state of nature. It is by refusing to accept our embarrassing kinship with primates that men have been able to create societies that prohibit precisely the kind of monkey business that civilized men and women invariably find so revolting and disgusting. Thou shalt not act like a monkey - this is the essence of all the higher religions, and the summation of all ethical systems.

Those who continue to resist Darwin are not standing up for science, but they may well be standing up for something even more important - a Dawkinsian meme, if you will, that has been instrumental in permitting mankind to transcend the brutal level of our primate origins. Our lofty humanitarian ethical standards have been derived not by observing our primate kin, but by imagining that we were made in the image of God. It was only by assuming that we were expected to come up to heavenly standards that we did not lower our standards to those of our biological next of kin. The meme that asserts that we are the children of God, and not merely a bunch of wild monkeys may be an illusion; but it is the illusion upon which all humane civilizations have been constructed. Those who wish to eliminate this illusionary meme from our general meme pool may be acting in the name of science; but it is by no means obvious that they are acting in the name of civilization and humanity.

[allmendream]

ex nihilo means ‘from nothing’.

The Bible says ‘from dust’.

Anything else in the Bible you need correcting on?

[GodGunsGuts]

==ex nihilo means ‘from nothing’....The Bible says ‘from dust’...Anything else in the Bible you need correcting on?

Wrong again, Allmendream:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth—Genesis 1:1

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear—Hebrews 11:3

Now if you’re saying that he formed man from the dust, I won’t disagree with you. But as far as creating the cosmos, God created from nothing.

[GodGunsGuts]

Isn’t God awesome!

[dgiovan]

Show me the millions of people who have believed in Darwin so strongly they’d give their own lives defending that belief.

Just for the sake of argument, say someone showed you what you request. What would that prove to you?

[GodGunsGuts]

==Just for the sake of argument, say someone showed you what you request. What would that prove to you?

I agree with you. The question wasn’t formulated properly. All kinds of Nazis and Communists gave their lives to advance evolution. The question is, why would the apostles give their lives in support of a cause that the secularists would have us believe the apostles knew wasn’t true? The answer is obvious. The apostles really believed Jesus resurrected from the dead, just as He said he would.

[ml/nj]

And that relates in what way to my point that an either/or presentation to young people, where either the Bible is true, or evolution is true, will lead at least some of them to reject their faith?

Well, here's what you said back at #56 to jeddavis:

That's an easy thing to say if you think that anything you personally don't accept isn't "science".

See, the way this works here at FR is you make a point about something, and then the rest of us are free to support it or challenge it. Your point, it seemed to me, was that evolution was "science" and and that jeddavis didn't really understand what "science" was. So I thought it only natural to ask you what you thought "science" was since here I am, with my nearly ancient BS & MS degrees from RPI, thinking that evolution is no more "science" than is creationism or Gorebaloney. So I just thought it natural to ask what you meant by "science."

ML/NJ

[GodGunsGuts]

I appreciate your post, but I think you may want to consider the question from a different vantage point. That is, I think it a perfectly reasonable to apply science to “test” the Bible as history. The most obvious application of science to the Bible would be in the field of archeology. But I should think that it would be equally appropriate to apply the other sciences as well re: YEC, the created kinds, etc.

[ml/nj]

I'm not sure what your post has to do with mine. Surely there are things in the Bible which are true and confirmed by archaeological finds. This does not really tell us much about accuracy or truth value of the things which cannot be or have not been confirmed in some manner.

ML/NJ

[GodGunsGuts]

==Surely there are things in the Bible which are true and confirmed by archaeological finds. This does not really tell us much about accuracy or truth value of the things which cannot be or have not been confirmed in some manner.

You are right to stipulate that the Bible is consistently confirmed by archeology. But my question has little to do with what has yet to be confirmed. All I’m saying is that it is perfectly reasonable to use the scientific method to confirm or deny the Bible as history. This would include archeology, the biological sciences, the physical sciences, as well as cosmology.

[Coyoteman]

You are right to stipulate that the Bible is consistently confirmed by archeology.

Archaeology does not confirm a global flood around 4350 years ago. Sorry.

[GodGunsGuts]

==Archaeology does not confirm a global flood around 4350 years ago. Sorry.

Are you kidding, archeology is choke-full of descriptions of a global flood from ancient societies all across the globe. As someone who claims to be an (atheist) archeologist, I suggest that you clear away your biases start taking these descriptions seriously:

FLOOD LEGENDS

In the traditions of most ancient civilizations there can be found a legend concerning a flood of such enormous proportions that it is believed to have covered the whole Earth. Such was the destructive force of this flood that few land animals and plants survived it. For readers in Western society the most famous version is the story of Noah and the Ark as recounted in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Although it may be the best known, the account of Noah’s adventure is neither the only nor the oldest such legend.

Legends of a flood can be found in the folklore of such diverse places as the Middle East, India, China, Australia, southern Asia, the islands of the Pacific, Europe, and the Americas. But the best-known flood legend—that on which the story of Noah is based—had its origins among the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley.

Excavations in Mesopotamia have led archaeologists and other scientists to conclude that a number of serious floods occurred there between 4000 and 2000 BC. It is possible that one of these floods was so destructive that it made a lasting impression on the population and became a subject for the ancient literature of the period.

In a fully developed form, the Mesopotamian flood myth appeared in the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, one of the first literary masterpieces, which relates the adventures of a hero-king of Sumer. The earliest versions of the epic derive from the first part of the 2nd millennium BC. The story of the flood is told to Gilgamesh by Utnapishtim, the counterpart of Noah in the story. Advised by the god Ea that his city is to be destroyed by flood, Utnapishtim is told to build a ship for his family, servants, and animals. After a seven-day flood, the vessel comes to rest on a mountaintop. The wrath of the gods has been appeased, and Utnapishtim and his wife are granted immortality.

Parallel legends were told in other parts of the Middle East at an early date. The Mesopotamian version was probably brought to Canaan, the land where the Israelites settled, by the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The tale was reshaped by later Hebrew writers into a narrative about God and his purposes for mankind. In this version it is the whole Earth that is to be flooded. Only Noah, his family, and the animals he collects are to be saved. The flooding lasts 40 days, and afterward Noah’s Ark settles on top of a mountain.

In Greek mythology the flood was first mentioned by the poet Pindar in the 5th century BC. In this legend Zeus has decided to destroy the Earth. Only King Deucalion and his family are saved by taking refuge in an ark well stocked with provisions.

Religious texts from the 6th century BC in India tell the story of Manu, meaning “man,” who is warned by a fish about a coming flood. In the legend Manu builds a boat and saves himself.

In China the flood myth had a different emphasis from the legends told in the West. The flooding of the land from time immemorial was seen as a hindrance to agriculture. The floodwaters were made to recede through the labors of a savior-hero named Yu the Great, who successfully dredged the land to provide outlets to the sea for the water. Thus was the great central river valley of China made suitable for agriculture and the development of civilization.

http://history-world.org/floods.htm

[allmendream]

DNA methylases recognizing appropriate DNA sequences and methylating them.

Histone acytlyases and deacytlyases recognizing appropriate DNA sequences and acting upon nearby histones bound to the DNA.

[GodGunsGuts]

How and why do they “recognize” them?

[allmendream]

Correct. Genetic code specifies the amino acid sequence of the proteins that perform functions/ basic building blocks. The epigenetic pattern is one of several methods of controlling what building blocks/functional units are made.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your insights!

[GodGunsGuts]

The epigenetic pattern? They follow an EPIGENETIC pattern? Ok, what determines the pattern, and what controls the controllers?

[GodGunsGuts]

How about a little two way sharing? Where have you been? This is interesting stuff, no???

[allmendream]

It is based upon the 3-D shape of the protein and the electromagnetic attraction/repulsion of the amino acids in that particular shape with that specific DNA sequence.

An open reading frame (gene) will have a promoter sequence upstream of it that a transcription factor protein will recognize (when appropriate) and then recruit RNA polymerase to make a transcript of the gene so a protein that will perform a function will be built.

This DNA/protein interaction is what first got me interested in Molecular Biology. I thought there might be some sort of ‘master key’ where given a sequence of DNA a sequence of Amino Acids that would bind to it could be predicted; but so far they all seem to be unique cases or variations on a theme (i.e. there is no predictable correlation).

[Coyoteman]

Archaeology does not confirm a global flood around 4350 years ago. Sorry.

Your post of a bunch of old myths means nothing. Those myths are from different peoples, and most likely are referring to different events which happened at different times. And did you include the recent stories from Indonesia, where 160,000 people were killed in that tsunami? In pre-literate societies that would be a myth in a few generations. Sorry, this folklore does not prove a global flood.

Care to cut-and-paste again, sticking to archaeology this time? That was your initial claim.

[GodGunsGuts]

Precisely! Does this paradox give you pause to consider other possibilities, or are you forever going to remain stuck on outmoded paradigms? I don’t say this as an insult. I say this to someone who is obviously smarter and more knowledgeable than me. C’mon man. Get off your hind end and start thinking outside of the box!