Posted on 02/22/2004 2:32:07 PM PST by attiladhun2
Whether a new trend or mode of thought has a generally beneficial or corrupting effect is not usually apparent for some decades or even centuries from the time it first becomes widely accepted. However, in the case of Darwin's hypothesis, the insidious nature of his doctrine was revealed within a very short span of time.
Communists, anarchists, and other social revolutionaries of the nineteenth century were already confirmed materialists before Darwin began to espouse his ideas. What the Origin of Species did, however, was endow their atheism with something of a scientific aura. It turned an emotional attachment to godless materialism into an intellectual one. Bomb-slinging radicals needed not any longer blame their renunciation of the Church and her dogmas on abuse at the hands of some wicked old nun while attending catechism. The lumps on the tops of the heads of budding young radicals as they fidgeted in their chairs administered via the knuckles of Sister Theresa and other holy hags could now be considered only secondary evidence for atheistic materialism.
The old Menshevik revolutionaries were content to let the evolutionary process play itself out. They were still committed to Marx's dialectical process and believed that the Capitalist Stage of human development would eventually advance into the Socialist Stage. Some saw this as the Final Stage, while others foresaw a Communist Stage beyond that of universal socialism where crime and warfare would finally come to an end and the institution of the state itself would become obsolete. The, on the other hand, Bolsheviks believed they could bypass the slow process of social evolution altogether and usher in the Communist Stage outright. In this respect they could be called believers in social-punctuated equilibrium. In a way, they were right, because they did create a Monster, though not the Hopeful one envisioned by some of Darwin's recapitulationist expositors. In this case the lizard did not lay the egg which became a bird, but the lizard laid an egg and a sociopathic-mass murderer was hatched complete with all the accouterments of slaughter.
The notion of progress is an ancient one. A cursory reading of Greco-Roman literature will establish that. It was obvious to a philosopher like Aristotle that human society moved from less to more advanced states largely through the invention of new ideas and products. This was considered quite natural. However, until relatively recent times it was concomitantly believed that some things remained largely fixed. This was considered part of the nature of things as well. Some fixed things included the role of the male as father and provider and the role of the female as mother and nurturer. The institution of marriage between these two was considered as much a part of the natural order as the change of seasons. The law was another one of those things considered fixed. These concepts were like immovable boulders in a phenomenological river.
Darwin's hypothesis has radically changed all of that. Beginning in the late 19th Century, law schools began to replace the Scriptures as the basic legal foundation with the Darwinian hypothesis. Rather than a permanent reference point, the law began to be seen as an evolving concept. With a concept of law now more analogous to a glob of puddy than a slab of stone, the letter of the law and original intent were not as important to jurists trained under the new paradigm. Activist judges could now find ideas like "the separation of church and state" in the First Amendment when such a phrase does not exist there. They then could use this invented phrase to seriously compromise the Free Exercise clause of the Bill of Rights or even to ignore it almost completely.
Although Justice Black and the other members of the Supreme Court who gave us Roe vs. Wade did not dare cite The Origin of Species as evidence in their infamous 1973 ruling, who can doubt that evolution did not influence their thinking? Did they not study the same “monkey to modern man” charts we all did in high school and college? Did they not also hear (erroneously) the same lectures describing gill slits at certain stages of pre-natal mammalian development? This would indicate, one would suppose, a rather fishy ancestry for all us fur-bearing critters!
We are now beginning to see the final outworking of this legal Darwinism. Radical homosexual activists and their allies knew they were making little headway in shoving their lifestyle down our throats in the people's legislative chambers. So what more logical place to turn to have the legal imprimatur stamped upon their particular perversion than a gaggle of judges who see the law as so much silly puddy! The institution of marriage as a union between one man and one woman is now in grave danger of being overthrown by activist judges who see such a definition as outmoded. In their minds if the law is an evolving thing then every other social institution that has a legal basis must be likewise evolving and cannot be considered permanent. Marriage was in a tenuous state to begin with in our modern world, and will not likely survive this latest onslaught.
In the last generation social activists and their friends in the legislative branch gave us the welfare state. This helped to virtually destroy the nuclear family in some minority communities. As a consequence, a horde of fatherless young men was turned loose upon society. Gang violence, drug addiction, and a second and even third generation of fatherless young people are even now spreading their misery far beyond the boundaries of "the hood." Many of these same social activists are now sitting on the judicial bench ready to rule traditional marriage out of existence by fiat. Who can doubt what the whole country will eventually look like after the final nail is hammered into the coffin of traditional marriage by these activist judges. Just drive around any big-city ghetto and view the garbage-strewn streets and the graffiti covering practically every wall. Observe the barred windows and doors. Look at the crowds of aimless young men hanging around the street corners shooting dice and drinking cheap wine. You are looking at the future of your own and nearly every other neighborhood. This is evolution, all right, but not quite what Darwin and his disciples had in mind.
Please list for us the scientific advancements we can attribute to the Theory of Evolution alone.
I don't know what the truth is regarding evolution influencing legal theory in the late 19th century, but let's assume it did. Then the concept of a "living constitution" and "loose construction" would go against evolutionary thinking!
Every evolutionary biologist will tell you that the vast majority of mutations that have some effect, have a negative effect. Most of these mutations throw a monkey wrench into an interconnected system that already works well enough. This is why we don't see new species popping up every generation or two.
But the Constitution has a mechanism for the orderly introduction of legal novelty: Individual states can enact their own laws in a wide variety of areas, setting up a "laboratory of democracy" with competing laws leading to better or worse outcomes compared to their neighbors. Nationwide laws of relatively small effect can be passed by Congress, while laws that violate the basic structure of government need to pass an onerous process of constitutional amendment. The founding fathers wrote the Constitution in this way because they learned from history. Thus the Constitution sets up a highly evolved legal system.
Heck, even Thomas Jefferson was a punctuated equilibriationist:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
No reason one can't believe in evolution and Divine Providence.
Proof positive creationists and liberals share something in common...
2) "Dr." Dino went bankrupt in 1996.
Then there is, as there always is, the question of the money. It is only reasonable to inquire if Hovind even has the $250,000. In 1996, Hovind filed for bankruptcy, declaring in official court documents under penalty of perjury that, as of that time, he was receiving no income and owned absolutely no property. [23] If there is any reason to believe that his economic worth has significantly changed since then, it is not immediately obvious. All he has said about the existence or whereabouts of the money is: "The offer is legitimate. A wealthy friend of mine has the money in the bank. If the conditions of the offer are met, the money will be paid out immediately. My word is good." [24] Sliding over the last sentence for the moment, it appears that the money and its whereabouts are as anonymous as the committee. Indeed, it is hard not to wonder if this rich friend of Hovind's, if he or she exists, is not also sitting on the committee, if it exists, "guarding" his or her funds. Apparently, we are never to know. It is perhaps instructive to compare Hovind's monetary arrangements with those of James Randi's, who has a $1,000,000 offer for evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. In Randi's offer, an independent, public investment firm certifies the existence of the money and holds the account containing it.
Unprecedented growth in biotech industry.
Now then, where (other than the internet) is the comparable "creation science" industry?
LOL! Sounds like the name of some character out of the old "Amos and Andy" radio show.
I would be willing to bet the creation science, in all its various forms, is more lucreative that genetic engineering. At least for the moment.
Well, probably a dirt-bag, low-life, slime-ball, huckster like some of those on the "creation science" lecture (and book sales) circuit can make more than a PhD biochemist.
And your job isn't easily subject to offshoring. (I'll keep it in mind.)
Its been a real shot in the arm for the comic book industry.
One could as well describe an apple freshly picked from the tree and predict that it will eventually show soft spots and brown areas. Some would see beyond that to the black spots, wrinkled peel and a bad smell, where there would no longer be a desire to acquire and eat it and the quest for that apple would be obsolete. 
Except just this one little problem, IT IS NOT TRUE.
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