Has the growth in interest in design helped to chase blatant philosophical materialism out of textbooks?

Has the growth in interest in design helped to chase blatant philosophical materialism out of textbooks?

Just wondering. Have you seen examples from recent textbooks that match these examples from the1990s through 2001?:

From Joseph S. Levine and Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life (D.C. Heath and Co., 1st ed. 1992, p. 152:

Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless--a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit.


Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.

(My source tells me that this language was not removed for the 2nd ed. in 1994.)

From Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates), p. 5:

Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism…

From William K. Purves, David Sadava, Gordon H. Orians, H. Craig Keller, Life: The Science of Biology (2001, 6th Ed., Sinauer; W.H. Freeman and Co.), p. 3:

Adopting this view of the world means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that the living world is constantly evolving, and that evolutionary change occurs without any ‘goals.’ The idea that evolution is not directed towards a final goal state has been more difficult for many people to accept than the process of evolution itself.

Hat tip for excerpts Stephen E. Jones, pictured above.

Textbooks: Unfortunately, Richard Feynman was NOT joking!

Recently, I was blogging on lousy textbooks and why they stay lousy.

An editor friend in Toronto offers me the salutary reminder that problems with science textbooks go back a long way, and were highlighted in 1964 by eminent physicist Richard "Surely You're Joking, Mr. - " Feynman. Alas, he wasn't, as this excerpt illustrates:

I'll give you an example: They would talk about different bases of numbers -- five, six, and so on -- to show the possibilities. That would be interesting for a kid who could understand base ten -- something to entertain his mind. But what they turned it into, in these books, was that every child had to learn another base! And then the usual horror would come: "Translate these numbers, which are written in base seven, to base five." Translating from one base to another is an utterly useless thing. If you can do it, maybe it's entertaining; if you can't do it, forget it. There's no point to it.

[ ... ]

But it's worse.

[ ... ]

Finally I come to a book that says, "Mathematics is used in science in many ways. We will give you an example from astronomy, which is the science of stars." I turn the page, and it says, "Red stars have a temperature of four thousand degrees, yellow stars have a temperature of five thousand degrees . . ." -- so far, so good. It continues: "Green stars have a temperature of seven thousand degrees, blue stars have a temperature of ten thousand degrees, and violet stars have a
temperature of . . . (some big number)." There are no green or violet stars, but the figures for the others are roughly correct. It's vaguely right -- but already, trouble! That's the way everything was: Everything was written by somebody who didn't know what the hell he was talking about, so it was a little bit wrong, always! And how we are going to teach well by using books written by people who don't quite understand what they're talking about, I cannot understand. I don't know why, but the books are lousy; UNIVERSALLY LOUSY!

Anyway, I'm happy with this book, because it's the first example of applying arithmetic to science. I'm a bit unhappy when I read about the stars' temperatures, but I'm not very unhappy because it's more or less right -- it's just an example of error. Then comes the list of problems. It says, "John and his father go out to look at the stars.

John sees two blue stars and a red star. His father sees a green star, a violet star, and two yellow stars. What is the total temperature of the stars seen by John and his father?" -- and I would explode in horror.

The Textbook League offers a much longer excerpt from which this is taken.

Having helped put together a number of textbooks, including a few science jobbies, all I can say in response to "Believe the textbook" is, "No, because we can't afford to."

Look, a lot of textbooks are like sausages - if you knew what goes into them, you would ask for the salad menu.

Note from The Textbook Letter, July-August 1999: "Judging Books by Their Covers" appeared as a chapter in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" -- Feynman's autobiographical book that was published in 1985 by W.W. Norton & Company. These excerpts are from The Textbook Letter, July-August 1999.

Thinkquote of the day: More antireligious dogma in publicly funded biology text

This should disappear from the next revision of the Monroe Strickberger textbook:

"The advent of Darwinism posted even greater threats to religion by suggesting that biological relationship, including the origin of humans and of all species, could be explained by natural selection without the intervention of a god. Many felt that evolutionary randomness and uncertainty had replaced a deity having conscious, purposeful, human characteristics. The Darwinian view that evolution is a historical process and present-type organisms were not created spontaneously but formed in a succession of selective events that occurred in the past, contradicted the common religious view that there could be no design, biological or otherwise, without an intelligent designer. … The variability by which selection depends may be random, but adaptions are not; they arise because selection chooses and perfects only what is adaptive. In this scheme a god of design and purpose is not necessary. Neither religion nor science has irrevocably conquered. Religion has been bolstered by paternalistic social systems in which individuals depend on the beneficiences of those more powerful than they are, as well as the comforting idea that humanity was created in the image of a god to rule over the world and its creatures. Religion provided emotional solace … Nevertheless, faith in religious dogma has been eroded by natural explanations of its mysteries, by a deep understanding of the sources of human emotional needs, and by the recognition that ethics and morality can change among different societies and that acceptance of such values need not depend on religion. ( Evolution by Monroe, W. Strickberger (3rd ed., Jones & Bartlett, 2000), pg. 70-71)

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy att he University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Flunk all students sympathetic to intelligent design?

Recently, at the Post-Darwinist, I commented on the effort by UCal San Diego to warn frosh against ID via a compulsory lecture the way they used to warn against sex, drugs, and rock n' roll in my day. I remarked:

I have repeatedly asked the Discovery Institute (ID central) how much they are paying these people to promote ID by launching publicly funded campaigns against it. But the are slippery folk and I don't expect an answer any time soon. When I get the scoop, I will post it, in case an enterprising Darwinist would like to undercut the going price (it's a jungle out there, ya know ...) by offering an even more bone-headed approach.

Well! University of Toronto-based evolutionary biologist Larry Moran, of textbook fame - whose eagerness to please is legendary and was much remarked at the Toronto ID conference has graciously upped the ante. He has advised the Post-Darwinist's comments box that the solution is "flunk the IDiots." He follows up at his own blog:

I agree with the Dembski sycophants that UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place. Having made that mistake, it's hopeless to expect that a single lecture—even one by a distinguished scholar like Robert Pennock—will have any effect. The University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education.

Now, that is a pre-emptive bid, and I suppose he will want to discuss, um, money with the Discos, who - I assume - are watching the Post-Darwinist for possible offers from other parties as well.

Persons wishing to help destroy Darwinism by unleashing illegal persecutions on doubters are entitled to outbid Moran. A word of advice: Be imaginative but economical. The word on the street is that the Discos are a stingy lot because they are used to getting a big bang for their buck, promoting intelligent design worldwide on a shoestring.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.