Posted on 02/17/2012 4:17:50 PM PST by wagglebee
WASHINGTON, February 17, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - What do Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, “father of the sexual revolution” Alfred Kinsey, Lenin, and Hitler have in common?
All these pioneers of what some call the culture of death rooted their beliefs and actions in Darwinism - a little-known fact that one conservative leader says shouldn’t be ignored.
Hugh Owen of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation told an audience on Capitol Hill before the March for Life last month that the philosophical consequences of Darwinism has “totally destroyed many parts of our society.”
Owen pointed to Dr. Josef Mengele, who infamously experimented on Jews during the Holocaust, Hitler himself, and other Nazi leaders as devotees of Darwinism who saw Nazism and the extermination of peoples as nothing more than a way “to advance evolution.” Darwinism was also the “foundation” of Communist ideology in Russia through Vladimir Lenin, said Owen, who showed a photograph of the only decorative item found on Lenin’s desk: an ape sitting on a pile of books, including Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” and looking at a skull.
“Lenin sat at this desk and looked at this sculpture as he authorized the murder of millions of his fellow countrymen, because they stood in the way of evolutionary progress,” Owen said. He also said accounts from communist China report that the first lesson used by the new regime to indoctrinate religious Chinese citizens was “always the same: Darwin.”
In America, the fruit of Darwinism simply took the form of eugenics, the belief that the human race could be improved by controlling the breeding of a population.
Owen said that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a prominent eugenicist, promoted contraception on the principles of evolution. “She saw contraception as the sacrament of evolution, because with contraception we get rid of the less fit and we allow only the fit to breed,” he said. Sanger is well-known to have supported the spread of “birth control,” a term she coined, as “the process of weeding out the unfit.”
Alfred Kinsey, whose “experiments” in pedophilia, sadomasochism, and homosexuality opened wide the doors to sexual anarchy in the 20th century, also concluded from Darwinist principles that sexual deviations in humans were no more inappropriate than those found in the animal kingdom. Before beginning his sexual experiments, Kinsey, also a eugenicist, was a zoologist and author of a prominent biology textboook that promoted evolution.
Owen, a Roman Catholic, strongly rejected the notion that Christianity and the Biblical creation account could be reconciled with Darwinism. He recounted the story of his own father, who he said was brought up a devout Christian before losing his faith when exposed to Darwinism in college. He was to become the first ever Secretary General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
“The trajectory that led from Leeds and Manchester University to becoming Secretary General of one of the most evil organizations that’s ever existed on the face of the earth started with evolution,” said Owen.
Thank you for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
Am I supposed to go first?
Okay. I'll take a stab at it.
I'll begin with a conclusion: One cannot reason with an "ideologist," a/k/a ideologue.
Eric Voegelin, the great German–American philosopher of history and of Spirit gave a perceptive, penetrating description of the underlying problem leading to this conclusion in his marvelous essay, "On Debate and Existence" (1967) — in which he also put his finger on the cause of the problem:
In our capacity as political scientists, historians, or philosophers we all have had occasion at one time or another to engage in debate with ideologists — whether communists or intellectuals of a persuasion closer to home. And we all have discovered on such occasions that no agreement, or even an honest disagreement, could be reached, because the exchange of argument was disturbed by a profound difference of attitude with regard to all fundamental questions of human existence — with regard to the nature of man, to his place in the world, to his place in society and history, to his relation to God. Rational argument could not prevail because the partner to the discussion did not accept as binding for himself the matrix of reality in which all specific questions concerning our existence as human beings are ultimately rooted; he has overlaid the reality of existence with another mode of existence that Robert Musil has called the Second Reality. The argument could not achieve results, it had to falter and peter out, as it became increasingly clear that not argument was pitched against argument, but that behind the appearance of a rational debate there lurked the difference of two modes of existence, of existence in truth and existence in untruth. The universe of rational discourse collapses, we may say, when the common ground of existence in reality has disappeared. [Emphasis added]From this point, I just want to fly off and try to see the Darwinist "second reality" in the Big Picture, in its full ideological proportions.
First, some "givens":
(1) Charles Darwin's Evolution Theory is a fine example of Nineteenth-Century science: At bottom, it is constructed on the basis of Newtonian mechanics.
(2) As such, it "reduces" all natural phenomena to material and efficient causes only. The paradigm here is "matter in its motions": Brute inorganic matter is posited as the cause of all things, including the rise of Life, of Mind, of human societies.
But nobody seems interested in asking this question: If the motions of matter are not in some way "lawful," then how can they produce anything other than accidents? Or are we to think that Life and Mind are "accidents?" Maybe even "accidents" in need of "correcting?"
But if we are to regard the motions of matter as "lawful," the next question just naturally comes: Who is the lawgiver, the Truthgiver, who authenticates the laws?
(3) Any and all consideration of Final Cause operating in Nature is streng verboten. Don't even go there.
It's clear to me that species evolve. But it's also clear to me that species do not evolve into other, novel species. There is nothing in the "book of Nature" that can tell me otherwise. (I.e.; on the basis of evidence and experience).
But here's a tantalizing question: Since ToE tacitly assumes that "progress" in "fitness" is necessary for species survival, does it not also allow for the possibility of the devolution of a species, unto its own extinction?
Put another way, an individual of a species must be "fit" to breed, thus to pass on a "fit" inheritance to his descendants. Thus do species "survive."
But what if a member of the species is unfit to breed in the first place? In many human cases nowadays largely owing (I imagine) to contempt for Nature's way of doing things?
It seems clear to me that Nature is deadly serious about sex as essentially purposed to procreation, not recreation....
Not breeding deplenishes Nature's potentialities in the (non-existent) next generation....
Looks like devolution to me.
Also it looks strangely "machine-like" to me. It's as if a certain part of the "intelligentsia" have parted company with the human realm altogether, finding machine-like models of thought more congenial to, and consistent with, their worldview, methods, and purposes.
LOLOL! Though such folk routinely deny Final Cause in principle, they implicitly rely on one or more of them just to get through the day. Anytime we're working towards a goal, a final cause is already manifest to guide our proceedings.
At this point, I'm just scratching my head, wondering where such deniers of First Reality come from; why they reject essential truths about the very structure of Reality in which they necessarily exist; why they seem to reject the human condition in principle....
Very troubling. Much gloom here. It seems to me that we, as Americans, are a divided society right now — divided along the lines sketched out in the above. But what it all finally comes down to is this:
Are we as a people to live in truth, or in untruth?
May God be with us! May He continue to bless the American people!
Thank you ever so much for writing, dearest sister in Christ!
We certainly have had our share of "Second Reality" correspondents over the years. The replies we get are often completely irrelevant to the issues on the table. Debating someone who lives in a second reality is futile.
I strongly agree with your three "givens!"
Such a worldview strikes me as profoundly irrational. In such a world, meaning becomes impossible; for a series of accidents — even an "eternal" one — does not furnish universal criteria for distinguishing and judging. Human language could not have evolved under such conditions. Science itself would be impossible.
To me, the atheist worldview is profoundly false for these reasons among others.
Yet if a man wants to live in a Second Reality like this, it is his right to do so as matter of private conscience.
The public problem is: There are ideologists of this type who will not rest until their preferred Second Reality becomes mandatory for the rest of us.
Just some thoughts, dearest sister in Christ, FWTW. Thank you ever so much for writing, and for your kind words of support!
Thank you so much for all of your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
It is "self-authenticating": It rejects any Truth at all that is not sui generis. Holders of this view refuse in principle to be judged, either by God or man.
This seems not what the great pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus had in mind in his description of a "public man."
Basically, Heraclitus' "public man" was a man well aware of the fact that "the Logos is one and common" for all men — Logos meaning the Truth of Reality, Alpha to Omega. Man does not determine the conditions of Reality. Rather, he is a part and participant of/in it.
If I get Heraclitus right, it would appear that our contemporary self-exiles unto Second Realities qualify for the other basic Heraclitean category of humanity, the private man. Heraclitus compares such to dreamers, to men "turning aside into their own private worlds." Such men reject in principle the idea: The Logos is "one and common," from which ultimate criterion flows every good principle for the truthful order of Nature, of human souls and thus, of human societies. [I just designate such folks as "lotus eaters"....]
Seems to me Heraclitus was a pretty good psychologist.... He seems to have anticipated (by about 2,000 years) our modern-day Existentialists' elaboration of the psychological principles of existential angst and self alienation....
Heraclitus just called them "dreamers" — i.e., men out of touch with Reality.
Well, enuf for now, dearest sister in Christ. It is such a blessing to have you to speak with about these matters. Thank you ever so much for writing!
They may have said they were scientific, but they were not. Just using the term doesn't make it so.
Here's a review of a book on the subject:
Book Description
Publication Date: June 1, 1994
In this book, Dr. Soyfer, a former Soviet scientist who had met Lysenko, documents the destruction of science and scientists under the influence of Lysenko. Contrary to numerous opinions, Lysenko was an poorly educated agronomist who happened to have been in the right place at the right time: In the '30s, "Pravda" wrote him up as a pioneering scientist. Recognizing that newspapers and popular support could fuel his rise to the top of Soviet society, he set about making a name for himself as a scientist in non-academic journals and periodicals. His peasant upbringing and miraculous findings--never empirically proven or duplicated--made him a star proletarian scientist, the kind needed to bring about true Communism.
Along his way to the top, he was assisted by many people who thought him a sincere, but ill preparted, scientist; he later had many of these people purged after gaining the almost total support of Stalin and Khrushchev. His grand claims of producing superior cattle and wheat, among other things, consistently failed, yet no one dared oppose or even question his policies. Whether to propel himself upward, bring down the academics he apparently detested, or protect himself and his "science", Lysenko nearly eliminated all serious work in genetics, agriculture, and biology from the '30s into the '60s. Numerous scientists were exiled, fired, or executed during his reign as the people's scientist; according to the author, the effects still linger in Russia.
An amazing story of how, when politics decrees what science is acceptable and how it is going to work in the political paradigm, the results can be tragic.
The attempt to bend science to an ideology had severe consequences in the USSR (as it also did in China). People were executed, millions starved to death, and those countries are still trying to rebuild their science programs. They send students to the US to learn how to be scientists.
I should point out that it does not matter which ideology you try to cram science into. Science simply cannot function as an ideological support tool.
I think I’ve said that . . . many times, but lately in #512, this thread.
“Echoing the scientific philosopher Karl Popper, Stephen Hawking . . . ”
Really?! You’ve previously informed us (in #512 and #520) that you had never heard of Karl Popper. (“Karl Popper is almost unknown among scientists. I do not recall ever hearing his name before”)
Thanks to the Internet, I can quickly look up Popper (and just about anyone else). My assessment is that he was attempting to describe the scientific method from an outsider's point of view; his view of it was rather simplistic and inaccurate. I have also learned that he, like many others, is often quoted out of context by advocates of "creation science".
Apparently this thread has made you acquainted with the mysterious and obscure Karl Popper. Further, it would appear that even so eminent and acclaimed a modern scientist as Stephen Hawking knows of the nebulous Mr. Popper (as do most all scientists, if the truth be acknowledged).
Actually, that quote did not indicate whether Dr. Hawking is aware of Popper. The author of that Wikipedia article was comparing a statement of Dr. Hawking's to a statement made by Popper. I would not make any assumptions about whom other scientists may have heard of; by the paucity of mentions of Popper in the scientific literature, the failure of any of my colleagues to ever mention him, and the utter lack of mention in any science course, seminar, meeting, etc., I have ever attended, I would guess that he is as unknown to most scientists as he was to me just a few days ago.
Now you’re having a continuing discussion on Mr. Popper with a few other correspondents, so I will leave you to your discussions, following its progress with interest.
In the meantime, the observations you attribute to Mr. Hawking represent a brief summation of two thousand years’ thinking of Western Civilization Philosophy on the subject of the ‘Scientific Method’ upon which hangs the entire future of your chosen career.
The scientific method was not developed by philosophers, but by scientists. Science and philosophy are, as far as I can tell, diametric opposites. Throughout undergraduate and graduate school, the subject of philosophy never came up.
” Dr. Soyfer, a former Soviet scientist who had met Lysenko, documents the destruction of science and scientists “
Spirited: Of course they did. But just as Richard Dawkins, Lewontin, and all such fools who pretend to discover something about mankind by studying slimemold colonies seek not truth and reality but rather personal power through propagation of “second realities” so was this the case with scientific Marxist socialists.
There are some scientists who do not confuse their field of endeavor with philosophy and religion but many more who do. Of this last group are all metaphysicians (i.e. Dawkins) who falsely claim that evolutionism is a fact.
At bottom, the real purpose behind naturalism is keeping God the Father out while the real purpose behind evolutionism is the reconciliation of opposites. Death (matter) with life. Slimemold with consciousness. Man with God.
This is the very particular science of magic.
*sigh*
There is no religion of "Darwinism." Ditto for the imaginary religions of "Scientism", "Materialism", "Naturalism", or whatever "-ism" you want to attribute to scientists. Science is an academic pursuit. It is not a religion, nor are we scientists its worshippers.
I did a quick check on a few names in my Oxford Companion to Philosophy (new edition). Just a few. Imagine what I found:
Niels Bohr - Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics.
Nicolaus Copernicus - the first astronomer to formulate a scientifically-based heliocentric cosmology that displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.
René Descartes - philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer.
Albert Einstein - theoretical physicist - widely considered one of the greatest physicists of all time.
Galileo Galilei - Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher.
Sir Isaac Newton - an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher.
Max Planck - discoverer of quantum physics.
Aristotle - Greek philosopher and scientist.
Apparently, none of these worthies fit your definition of “influential or well-known among scientists.”
Their inclusion in an encyclopedia of philosophy does not make them philosophers. Most of the names on that list were scientists who used the scientific method--observation, logical deduction, formulation of testable hypotheses, experimentation, etc. Perhaps some of them engaged in philosophical thought meandering as a hobby, I don't know.
The only exceptions on that list would be Descartes and Aristotle. Descartes may have had some training in logical thought, but whatever contributions he may have made to mathematics and science (I don't know what they supposedly are) are obscured by his diving head first into the existentialist nonsense world of philosophy. Cogito ergo sum doesn't even come close to being a scientific concept. I don't know what Aristotle is remembered for (genuine scientific contribution, or philosophical nonsense) and I can't look him up because my internet is buggy.
I've been comparing the discipline of historical sciences (e.g. anthropology, Egyptology, archeology and evolution biology) to hard sciences (e.g. physics and chemistry.)
The use of the term "historical sciences" is, as far as I can tell, meant to denigrate the pursuit of knowledge where a body of evidence was formed in the past. To my knowledge, real scientists do not use this terminology.
There *is* a demarcation between observation and controlled experimentation; there isn't a single discipline you mentioned above that doesn't use both methods. Both are hypothesis-driven; both rely on logical deduction.
Moreover, I'm focusing on the philosophical divide between them. To the historical sciences, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. To the hard sciences, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
There is no philosophical divide to speak of. Of necessity, the scientific method is driven by the nature of the problem being studied, but because one approach is better suited than another approach does not mean that the other approach is invalid. Furthermore, we are constrained by evidence: without evidence, there is nothing to test or observe. To try to infer the existence of something in the absence of all evidence regarding said existence is not science.
The divide is so great, the historical sciences are often seen as inferior to the hard sciences. Physics, for instance, is often seen as far more rigorous and reliable than archeology.
Again, what divide? And physics is seen by whom as being more rigorous and reliable than archeology? Many branches of physics are based purely on observation (any kind of astrophysics, for example), while archeology is based on examination of physical evidence--to me, archeology with its measurements and biochemical analyses seems a bit more reliable than inferences made about the nature of radiowave emitters located millions of lightyears away.
Personally, I value physics far above any other science discipline and mathematics above physics.
All sciences are fundamentally physics. Mathematics, to a large extent, was invented to conceptualize physical phenomena.
As an aside, just about every life process conforms to a logarithmic model. Evolution, our physical senses, bacterial growth, population growth, response to pharmaceuticals, etc., can all be explained by logarithmic functions. *I* find that pretty fascinating.
When examining methodology, the opposite of "historical" science is "experimental" science and chief among the "experimental" sciences are the "hard" sciences, e.g. physics and chemistry.
The article I linked for you earlier examines methodological and epistemic differences between historical sciences and experimental sciences.
The author of that article was not a scientist, and was (like Popper) attempting to explain the scientific method from an outsider's point of view. Her use of the term "historical" in conjunction with science is unfortunate and inaccurate. She came close to, but did not quite grasp, that the methodologies she should have been discussing are "observational" vs. "controlled experimental." That said, she did not say that "historical" (i.e. observational) is less reliable than controlled experimental. It most certainly has its place within the realm of scientific investigation.
Biology has a leg in both methodologies; many of its hypotheses are "historical" (e.g. evolution biology and astrobiology) but not all (e.g. molecular biology.)
To reiterate, most scientific disciplines have both observational and controlled experimental components. It is difficult to think of any scientific discipline that does not incorporate elements of both methodologies. I should point out, however, that "astrobiology" barely qualifies as a scientific discipline. At such time as we find evidence of extraterrestrial life, then astrobiology will become valid. Until then, so-called astrobiologists are merely taking their knowledge of life-supporting conditions on earth and extrapolating it to other planets. I would say that with n=1 of known life-supporting planets, we have no hypothetical basis on which to extrapolate whether life exists on other planets, because we have no idea what other forms life might take, or the chemistries it might use.
I will also add, that while you try to relegate evolution biology to having no more basis than examination of fossils (that literal creationists either deny exist, or insist are actually only a few thousand years old despite the scientific measurements indicating otherwise), when I go into the lab and do certain types of experiments, I have to control for evolutionary processes just as much as for any other factor. I grow human cells. They evolve. I have a few weeks in which to conduct experimental manipulations before they evolve to the point where I can no longer be sure that I am looking at results from the same experiment that I started. After about 20 generations, or 6-10 weeks, I throw the cells away and start with a new batch. That is not a "historical" observation, it is an experimental reality.
But to whatever extent a hypothesis presupposes that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is a "just so" story - inferior to my eyes and the eyes of many others.
Again, scientists cannot test what isn't there. If you have a way to test, examine, or quantitate something of which there is no evidence, please share it.
I do not know that Dawkins is a slimemold researcher. People who research slimemolds (fascinating organisms, btw) are not doing so because they're trying to discern any metaphysical components of what it means to be human, but because knowing the biology of simpler organisms informs us about the biology of more complex organisms.
Anyway, Dawkins and other atheists make a big mistake when they try to use science as evidentiary proof of atheism. Scientists can no more prove than disprove the existence of God.
There are some scientists who do not confuse their field of endeavor with philosophy and religion but many more who do. Of this last group are all metaphysicians (i.e. Dawkins) who falsely claim that evolutionism is a fact.
For the nteenth time, "evolutionism" is not a religion. No matter how many times you or any literal creationist try to make it one, it is not. Shall I once again link to the explanations of what a theory is, and what it does? Evolution, as a theory, works very well, as can be seen by the remarkable advances in the biological and medical sciences which wouldn't have been possible without that theoretical framework.
Unless you have arbitrarily decided that God cannot possibly exist if the book of Genesis is not a literal account, there is nothing intrinsic to the theory of evolution that excludes the existence of God. Nothing!
At bottom, the real purpose behind naturalism is keeping God the Father out while the real purpose behind evolutionism is the reconciliation of opposites. Death (matter) with life. Slimemold with consciousness. Man with God.
This is the very particular science of magic.
At bottom, the real purpose behind creationism is to convince people that science is just another religion, so as to discredit it as being an inferior religion. But science is only a method of describing the physical universe, which simply cannot be used to examine non-physical topics.
Put it this way:
Richard Dawkins says that the fact that the process of evolution occurs by well-defined chemical and physical mechanisms is proof positive that there is no God.
I say that the fact that the physical and chemical processes driving evolution resulted in sapient and sentient species despite the logic that would seem to indicate that awareness is not a property of physical matter is proof positive that God exists.
Which of us is correct? Who has the evidence on their side? Honestly, I would say neither.
Do you see how easily you fell into logical fallacy here? You went from 'cannot test what isn't there' to 'test, examine, or quantitate something of which there is no evidence'. Very smooth move there. Very smooth.
The assumed events known as the Big Bang, long-ages, abiogenesis and macroevolution are clearly untestable and may or may not exist. By slipping in the requirement for 'no evidence' you have moved from science to interpretation and philosophy. This allows you to claim that 'evidence' (no matter how flimsy) for these assumed events exists that allows you to 'quantitate' them.
In reality, you are not 'quantitating', you are extrapolating and that act assumes that extrapolation is not only possible but appropriate; something that you must assume and cannot know. This is not science, no matter how often you claim that it is. It is philosophy.
What remarkable advance could not have been made without belief in evolution?
"But science is only a method of describing the physical universe, which simply cannot be used to examine non-physical topics."
Evolution is just such a non-physical topic. It is a philosophical belief, unobservable and untestable. Evolutionary 'theories' such as punctuated equilibrium actually predict that evidence to support them cannot be found.
This is clearly philosophical no matter how many times you claim that it is not.
You may believe that 'evolution resulted in sapient and sentient species' as a philosophical position but it is scientifically impossible to claim that it is a fact. Real scientists know that and would never make that claim.
Wow, I don't even want to try to wrap my brain around that one. How you can assume that something is present despite no evidence of it is beyond me. By that (lack of) logic, I must assume that the lack of evidence of an elephant being in this room does not indicate that there really is no elephant here. Wow.
The assumed events known as the Big Bang, long-ages, abiogenesis and macroevolution are clearly untestable and may or may not exist. By slipping in the requirement for 'no evidence' you have moved from science to interpretation and philosophy. This allows you to claim that 'evidence' (no matter how flimsy) for these assumed events exists that allows you to 'quantitate' them.
I'm not a physicist, so I won't address the evidence that led to the big bang theory. I'm not sure what you mean by "abiogenesis", unless you mean the hypothesis that living creatures can arise from non-living matter. That hypothesis is only taught as a matter of history in science classes, in order to demonstrate how the scientific method was used to show that it was a false hypothesis that was correctly rejected. And simply rejecting the huge body of evidence supporting "macro" evolution because you think that evolution is proof-positive that God does not exist and you don't want to believe that God doesn't exist is not a valid argument. If you want to address the actual evidence, and you can offer a scientifically-sound, hypothesis-driven alternate theory, by all means, feel free to do so. This may take you a few years...
I should also point out that just because a science is primarily observation based, and not controlled-experiment based, does not make the science invalid. I already discussed this.
In reality, you are not 'quantitating', you are extrapolating and that act assumes that extrapolation is not only possible but appropriate; something that you must assume and cannot know. This is not science, no matter how often you claim that it is. It is philosophy.
Here, I have not quantitated anything. I generally save the quantitating for when I'm in the lab gathering data. As far as extrapolating goes, that is a perfectly valid method of advancing science. In order to extrapolate, one must make certain assumptions which one believes are supported by the data. Those assumptions can be tested. If what one has extrapolated then turns out to not be the case, then one must revisit the assumptions and data. This is an iterative process, familiar to most, if not all, scientists.
Starting with the fact that I'm a real scientist, and I did make that claim, as I believe most real scientists that I know would also claim, that rather shows your last statement was disproved before you even typed it.
You may choose to believe that sapient and sentient species do not exist. I, however, believe otherwise. I take their apparent existence as being sufficient proof that they do indeed exist. As I've said, I really don't get into all of that existentialist nonsense aka philosophy.
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