Would Darwin be a Darwinist today???

Creation Magazine ^ | September 2009 | Don Batten, Ph.D.

[GodGunsGuts]

Charles Darwin did some good science. Some of his research, such as that on coral growth, marine atolls and the important role of earthworms, stands today. On the other hand he was a creature of his time—a time dominated by deistic ideas that God was remote and the universe ran itself according to laws of nature.

Amongst the intelligentsia, “natural theology”—the study of nature to find God—had largely replaced the Bible (revelation from God himself).

With the influence of James Hutton and Charles Lyell,[1] ideas of vast ages of slow and gradual change had taken root, overturning the earlier acceptance of biblical history where Creation and the Flood accounted for the rocks and fossils.[2]

Into this context, Darwin’s idea of natural processes explaining the origin of life’s diverse forms found acceptance. But would Darwin be a Darwinist if he were alive today?...

[stuartcr]

How could he not be?

[RichInOC]

I think he’d take one look at modern man and put his books and notes to the torch.

[stormer]

The idea of evolution was not the brainchild of Charles Darwin, it had been around for quite some time and was a topic of scientific discussion since at least the beginning of the 19th century. What Darwin provided was a mechanism that explained how that evolution took place.

[DBrow]

I think he’d be a Gouldist, after looking at modern data.

[qam1]

Would Newton be a Newdist if he were still alive?

[GodGunsGuts]

Ping!

PS I especially agree with the authors concluding remarks. Evolutionists remain evolutionists despite the fact that the HMS Beagle has long since been sent to the bottom by massive waves of scientific falsification from just about every conceivable direction. Evolution is a religion, a belief system, a way of life....but it is not, or at least can no longer be considered, science.

[fish hawk]

If he is in Heaven, he probably would not change. However if he is in Hell, I suspect he would dump evolution and become a “Believer”.

[GodGunsGuts]

The problem is, science has shown that Darwin’s mechanism is insufficient to explain even trivial aspects of biological change, let alone the entire diversity of life on Earth!

[Natural Law]

No one would argue that God created fire or the physics that enable a flame to burn. Those chemists who studied the phenomenon and sought to explain it in scientific terms would not be considered heretics. By extension, scientists who first observed and explained the process in which cells are fueled by the Adenosine Triphosphate process were also not Godless. So why does the scientist who proposed a theory to explain a process in which living organisms adapt to a dynamic environment evoke such righteous indignation?

[FreedomProtector]

Thanks for posting.

[BenKenobi]

Because the process “random chance” is not an empirical conclusion. It’s bad science, random simply means we don’t understand the patterns behind mutations. I’m a believer that eventually we will be able to predict how and why mutations occur, and that will lead to a modern theory of evolution, on par with Newtonian mechanics for physics. Darwin doesn’t offer testable predictions, and his philsophy is closer to Aristotle then Newton.

[Natural Law]

"Because the process “random chance” is not an empirical conclusion."

The possibility of favorable or beneficial mutations is mathematical. The probability of it is theological.

[FormerRep]

What science are you talking about? If you’re referring to Discovery Institute then the fluff the pump out isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Darwin - unlike the sneering of the article’s author would suggest - was a religious man that didn’t want to explore the origins of life (see his letters - don’t have link as yet will put up when I find it) only the origin of speciation. He lamented to his colleagues that people were trying to make more of his theory than he intended.

Darwin would not be a Darwinist no more than Christ would have been a Christian - those are artificial titles delivered after the fact.

[stormer]

“...science has shown that Darwin’s mechanism is insufficient to explain even trivial aspects of biological change...”

Anxiously awaiting the scientific support for this idiotic statement.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

In all fairness, in Darwin’s time, the Church of England was split, with some insisting on a literal interpretation of Biblical statement, and others asserting a poetical view of the early Bible, with no real conflict between it and science.

Contemporaneously, the German and French higher critics were cross examining the text of the Bible against other histories, while the lower critics were checking the various translations of the King James and Douay-Rheims Bibles, to the Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Bibles, looking for translation errors.

And while they came up with an equal number of hits and misses in this endeavor, they did make a slew of important religious discoveries. But in turn, this supported the poetic interpretation of the early scriptures. For example, the use of a person’s name to mean both them as an individual and their tribe.

At the same time, in Britain, the more secular scientific community was advocating dismissing religion from the scientific argument altogether.

So even in Darwin’s time there was no end to the available argument.

[FormerRep]

While thumbing through the letters I found an interesting comment on feminism from Darwin in his letter to C.A. Kennard.

http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-13607.html

5300 Letter 13607 — Darwin, C. R. to Kennard, C. A., 9 Jan 1882
Summary Thinks that “women though generally superior to men [in] moral qualities are inferior intellectually”. Believes that men and women may have been aboriginally equal in this respect but that to regain equality women would have to “become as regular “”bread-winners”” as are men”. Suspects the education of children and “the happiness of our homes” would greatly suffer in that case.

[betty boop]

“By the mid-1980s there was great optimism that molecular techniques would finally reveal the universal tree of life in all its glory. Ironically, the opposite happened.”

Whatta surprise. Perhaps something was wrong with the fundamental presupposition at work here: That any whole can be completely understood from an analysis of its parts. That might work for mechanical systems in Nature; but it does not work for living systems in Nature.

But that is a lesson that is highly resisted by devotees of materialism. So if the materialists simply persist in following their currently "sanctioned scientific techniques," then I don't think the rest of us should hold our breath waiting for any breakthrough in the understanding of biological life anytime soon.

The materialist — and quite often atheist — tail seems to be wagging the dog of science itself nowadays. JMHO, FWIW.

[GodGunsGuts]

Darwin was a cowardly atheist who lacked the courage of his convictions. You obviously haven’t been reading the most recent scholarship on Darwin’s atheist religious beliefs.

And what fluff are you talking about with respect to Intelligent Design? Last I checked, their scientific predictions are coming true precisely where the Temple of Darwin predictions are being falsified.