Darwinism and popular culture: Sister Eugenie explains it all for you

Just when you thought that the intelligent design controversy was about whether Darwinism can do all that the Darwinists claim, friend David Rice draws my attention to this June 30 Ring of Fire radio show featuring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., among others:

Eugenie Scott, Executive Director Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, with the inside story about the Discovery Institute, the well-financed "think tank" promoting intelligent design and other far-right causes.

He listened to it, and notes,

Politics, folks, it's all about politics. Eugenie, true to form, goes political in this interview to discuss the "stealth" tactics of the Discovery Institute to establish a right-wing political agenda and basically a theocracy. She doesn't discuss the evidential claims of ID at all; this was ALL about motives. The double standard lives on. She's done it again and I hope she keeps it up.......the NCSE is loosing big time.

She says that ID backers are "right wing libertarians" and that the Wedge document is a "road map to theocracy".

To conserve your time, David advises, "Hit the "Hour 2" link on the right. Jason Alexander talks politics for a little and then Eugenie Scott appears at the 18 minute, 24 second mark."

To conserve your sanity, I suggest asking yourself how people could possibly be theocrats and libertarians at the same time.

Like, I'm this bigtime theocrat so I am going to MAKE you go to church. On the other hand, I am also a libertarian, so it's no problem if your church is the Whoop-de-DOO!! Lounge and Strip Bar. Or, by registering on the Internet, you can get your waterbed declared a church. It's all good for business, right?

I think we better get back to what's wrong with Darwinism myself.

Update!: Aussie prof who protests Darwin Exhibition misrepresentations is NCSE associate

I have recently enjoyed a most interesting correspondence with Hiram Caton, retired poli sci prof and former colleague of the late David Stove who is attempting to set right the many misrepresentations in the current Darwin Exhibition, which has travelled from the American Museum of Natural History to various points (some near you probably). The main problems can be traced to ridiculous hagiography, of course. I have often pointed out (and am certainly not the first to do so), that Darwinism functions as a sort of religion for its fervid supporters, often in desperate conflict with transcendent faiths.

It now emerges that Prof. Caton, who is not affiliated with any religion, is an associate of the National Center for Science Education, the American Darwin education lobby, a relentless promoter and enforcer of Darwin in the tax-supported school systems. Specifically, he tells me that he is

an evolutionist who opposes the introduction of creationist concepts into secondary school biology. In fact, I'm an associate of the lead organization in the struggle against the creationists, the National Center for Science Education. The NCSE is aware of my article.

He is also listed as a supporter of the Darwin Day celebrations.

I should think Caton is trying all these people’s patience rather sorely, and all the more so because he is planning a full scale essay on the discrepancy between the theory and evidence for Darwinism, for which details will likely be available here.

Now, speaking of discrepancies, I don't see any discrepancy in principle between wanting to prevent creationist concepts from being taught in secondary schools and wanting to knock the stuffings out of the Darwin myth.

Indeed, contrary to widespread legacy media mythmaking, even the Discovery Institute, the ID think tank, does not not want intelligent design (ID) concepts taught in schools.

(And I suppose only religious school systems could consider teaching actual "creationist" concepts, as such, since these concepts are clearly linked to theism, the Bible, etc.)

Similarly, I rarely encounter people who do not want evolution taught in schools. They want its baggage train to be unloaded somewhere else. Unfortunately, it often isn't.

Some interesting comments from our correspondence that Dr. Caton has given me permission to post:

Here is the skinny on Caton's key observations:

^The Origin is based on principles, which I specify, that had been in place for about 50 years. ^The evolution concept had *saturated* public opinion in the UK by 1860. The notion that public prejudice against evolution obstructed its publication is nonsense. The idea of a 'missing link' between apes and humans was also widespread. ^The natural selection principle was first published *before* Darwin departed on his voyage and was independently discovered again in 1836 by Darwin's old pal, Edward Blythe. ^The eugenics idea wasn't discovered by Galton; it was clearly stated by the French translator of the Origin in 1863, who attributed it to Darwin; he didn't disavow the attribution. Three of Darwin's sons were members of the Eugenics Society and one, Leonard, was a major force in the society. A key figure in the creation of Neo-Darwinism, R A Fisher, was a dedicated eugenicist. Fisher's patron was Leonard Darwin. ^Darwin's writings had virtually no effect on experimental biology of his day, eg, Pasteur, Robert Koch. ^Two of Darwin's most vocal advocates, Huxley and Ernst Haeckel, denied that natural selection was the generative principle of evolution; for Haeckel it was Lamarckism.

While we are here, in 1969, I studied Victorian literature at a small university in Ontario. While Darwin's Origin was certainly identified as a milestone, it was only one of many milestones. I was clearly given to understand that the mindset it typefied was already a commonplace. That was not emphasized as a talking point. It emerged clearly from our studies. One result is that Darwin hagiography obscures the true history of the modern era.

What has been the reaction to his observations?

A number of leading evolutionists and historians have commented on my essay. None question my facts (well, one questioned one important claim). But some expressed unease about my criticism of the Great Man. My response is that I criticize only the interpretation of his reputation, and its creation in the first place. I state in the article what I think his real achievement was, and I hail it as a great scientific achievement. In correspondence with creationists, I plead that they exaggerate the influence of Darwin/evolution on the secularization process. By far the greatest influences are liberal and socialist blank slate theory. That influence is so great, indeed, that many evolutionists abandon Darwin when it comes to the crunch: the inheritance of behaviors, such as sex, race, and age differences: they endorse the blank slate belief. To put it another way, the Darwinian Revolution didn't happen in the social sciences. The controversy over sociobiology and over the Bell Curve are hot spots on that map.

Hmmm, yes indeed. Although Darwinism and liberal "blank slate" theory (= if outcomes are not equal, society is unjust) are not often in direct, perceived conflict, in any actual conflict, blank slate will win.

One thinks of former Harvard president Larry Summers, completely orthodox in his rejection of intelligent design, but utterly destroyed by "blank slate" political correctness about women in science.

I noted, in response to Caton that I do not think that high school science classes should be discussing the ID-Darwinism uproar:

It is difficult enough to teach basic concepts. Unfortunately, however, some want to import to Canada an American-style controversy by pushing evolution as early as possible, as an antidote to creationism/ID. As I have said, that would greatly help both the creationists and the ID guys - but at the expense of the public and the student. (You see, these kinds of issues can’t get as hot in Canada all by themselves, because our system is not nearly as polarizing as the American one. There is no functional equivalent here of the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way, or the Christian Right. Publicly funded voluntary religious schools are legal here, with little controversy. People rarely sue school boards and school boards do not pull “Dovers”. So Canada is not a natural setting for such a controversy. But if it does become a setting, well, business will boom for me. But I don't want it to happen anyway.

That said, I think teachers should not be forbidden to respond to student questions, let alone given documents to read aloud, or propaganda to cite. Teachers are either professionals or they aren't. If they cannot be assumed to generally have good judgment about teaching, it's all over anyway.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

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?

Animations of life inside the cell, indexed, for your convenience.

My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design. My reviews of movies relevant to the intelligent deisgn controversy.

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

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

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 will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. 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. Rudesby 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.

Darwinism proponent now simply avoids ID arguments?

David Rice III writes to say that on a recent WXXI radio program (September 20, 2006), Eugenie Scott, promoter of Darwinism to American school systems, seems to be playing the "religion" card.

All Scott talks about is the church and religion without bothering to define evolution coherently or non-equivically. She even said that Darwin's theory said that "change and improvement can come about through time". She talked about the Scopes Trial and the demographics of creationism. From the callers, to the host, to Genie herself, doubts about Darwin were presented as all about fundamentalism, religious motives, political motives and economic motives without bothering to check their own at the door. Amazing double standard.

He concludes

Scott used to be (in my opinion) a somewhat respectable foe. But she has not bothered to really engage in the arguments for ID and this radio appearance is one more example of that. The only time the words "intelligent design" leave Scott's mouth is at the 24:48 mark where she said "Actually before I mention intelligent design, I also had a thought regarding that last call...." and then it is never uttered there after - she DIDN"T address intelligent design. This schtick is just not going to work.

No, it is not going to work. How can it possibly work when major Darwinists spent last year on an "anti-God" campaign? The fact is, Darwinism has always been promoted as the creation story of materialist atheism. No spin aimed at foolish or disaffected clergy is going to change that, nor is Scott going to succeed in characterizing the inevitable blowback from traditional religions and non-materialist philosophies as a form of aggression.

Interestingly, I had morning coffee with a publisher the other day, and he gave me to understand that he did not understand how Scott could be attempting to spin Darwinism - in the wake of Dawkins' anti-God campaign - as something other than a promotional vehicle for atheism. I would say simply this: In the wake of the anti-God campaign, including the blasphemy challenge and the (anti) God movie, it is obvious that an atheistic agenda lurks behind the current public promotion of Darwinism. Whether things might have been otherwise is hardly the point. We must address what Darwinism has become now.

If you want to understand why the intelligent design controversy cannot go away, read By Design or by Chance?.

News brief: Darwin lobbyist's retraction of accusations against ID advocate published in California Wild

In a move that may be a victory for reasonable discussion of the problems around Darwinism, National Center for Science Education's executive director, Eugenie Scott, has retracted her assertions against California lawyer and ID advocate, Larry Caldwell. She states in a Letter to the Editor :

Further investigation suggests that the books Refuting Evolution and Life: How Did It Get Here? were submitted to the Roseville school board by other residents, not by Larry Caldwell, and were not considered after submission. [ ... ]

Finally, the person described by a scientist as having a "gross misunderstanding of the nature of science" in his analysis of the Holt textbook was not Caldwell. [ ... ]

and her name appears below it.

(Note: If this is not the story you were looking for, see the Blog service note below or the stories listed in the sidebar. )

That letter is followed by Caldwell's own letter, where he says, among other things,

Contrary to false statements and implications in Scott's article, I never asked the district to ban or limit the teaching of evolution in biology classes, or to present the Bible or the Genesis account of creation in biology classes, or to teach creation science, or young-earth creation, or intelligent design theory in biology classes, and our district's board of trustees never considered implementing any such policy for its biology classes. Contrary to Scott's claim, our board also never "declared that . . . [any] creationist materials would be 'recommended' but not required."

Contrary to false statements and implications in Scott's article, I never asked the district to ban or limit the teaching of evolution in biology classes, or to present the Bible or the Genesis account of creation in biology classes, or to teach creation science, or young-earth creation, or intelligent design theory in biology classes, and our district's board of trustees never considered implementing any such policy for its biology classes. Contrary to Scott's claim, our board also never "declared that . . . [any] creationist materials would be 'recommended' but not required."

Scott also falsely claims that I purportedly "offered a stack of supplemental books and videotapes that . . . [included] a young-earth creationist book, Refuting Evolution by Jonathan Safarti; and the Jehovah's Witness book Life: How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or Creation? Thanks to its free distribution, this book is probably the most widely-circulated creation science book in the country."

The truth: I had never even heard of these two books until I read Scott's article. I never proposed these books, or any other "young-earth creationist," "creation science," "creationist," or ID books or materials for use in the classroom.

As I said in the beginning, Eugenie Scott's article contains much more science fiction than fact about me and my QSE Policy, and about what really happened in the evolution debate in the Roseville Joint Union High School District.

The public policy debate over how we should teach evolution in America is too important to be based on such science fiction. At stake is whether our students will receive a quality science education, in which they learn the truth about evolution, or a science indoctrination, in which the truth is hidden from them.

Wow. I have covered this beat for years, and this is the first time I can recall seeing anyone like Caldwell actually allowed to just explain the facts of the case without any mainstream legacy media spin at all. Things must be changing. (Mind you, it helps to be a California attorney ... )

Groups like NCSE that claim they want to improve science education should be happy to co-operate with the process of getting basic facts right without the threat of a lawsuit. Let's hope that the outcome is more open discussion of the problems of Darwinism. But even if that does not happen any time soon, justice was served in this case.

Here's a link to the original story about the California Academy of Sciences agreeing to correct potentially libellous statements about attorney Larry Caldwell, who thinks that students should know about weaknesses as well as strengths of Darwinian evolution theory.

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.

Privileged Planet Uproar: An All-American Jihad?

National Center for Science Education (“Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools”) has now weighed on on the Privileged Planet controversy, having posted a review denouncing the film by astronomer William H Jefferys of the University of Texas at Austin.

It sounds as if NCSE is suffering from an advanced case of mission creep: Privileged Planet is not about evolution and the Smithsonian is not a public school. The fact that NCSE is even involved demonstrates the extent to which this conflict stems from what I have come to call the Church of St. Carl (Sagan) paradigm—the belief that the purpose of science is to be the tool of naturalism (the philosophy that there is nothing beyond nature).

Thus, it is acceptable to screen movies at schools and universities that provide evidence against meaning and purpose in the universe but not to screen movies that provide evidence for it. The trouble is, the Church of St. Carl is publicly funded in a nation that chose not to establish a church. To me, that is the most significant part of the controversy.

The Discovery Institute has in turn denounced the denouncer and nuclear physicist David Heddle retorts,“I have seen many rants against ID (Intelligent Design), but I cannot recall one as comprehensively bad and unthinking.”

(Service note: IF you are looking for a basic introduction to the uproar over the screening of The Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian, you can start anywhere in the archives from May 25, when I broke the story, on. I suggest you go here and here to start, and then this one will bring you up to date. Note that the blogs on the right-hand panel also update the story at various times, so try them too. Right now I am providing a review and detailed account of the controversial film Privileged Planet. itself. - Denyse)

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is printing letters on the controversy.

Discovery's Rob Crowther seems disgruntled by the fact that the Post printed letters from Darwinbots (people who had not seen the film and rushed out to denounce it, believing that it opposes Darwinian evolution). He writes,

What's worse is that the Washington Post knows full well what the film is about -- columnists and reporters working there claim to have seen it -- and yet chose this letter to represent the view of the letters they presumably received.

I can just imagine Crowther’s frustration, but would ask him to keep this in mind: Journalism is the first draft of history, as the cliche puts it. It is important to record popular delusions and the madness of crowds, just as it is important to record thoughtful observations.

You see, in later years, few will admit to having got all het up and run off to denounce a film they had never seen and knew nothing about. To protect their dignity (vanity), some will insist that that was merely a false accusation by an obscure Toronto blogger (“not even an American”). Not so. Thank heavens some of this stuff is captured forever in the archives of the Washington Post.

(Note: In an earlier version of this post, the disgruntlement was mistakenly attributed to screenwriter Jonathan Witt, who is no better pleased by misunderstanding/misrepresentation of what his film is about.)

You know, there is a curious resemblance between the intelligent design controversy in the United States and the struggle for the soul of Islam in the Middle East. Just as the religious orthodoxy in Muslim countries will not permit the practice of any religion but Islam, so the science orthodoxy in the United States will not permit anyone to question Darwinism, no matter what evidence they offer. And the Darwinbots remind me of the mobs that rioted over largely unfounded rumours that American officials were desecrating the Koran at Guantanamo Bay.

Fanaticism, in my view, is its own punishment, because the fanatic is deprived of the good of the intellect: He would have no way of knowing if he was wrong.

I will post another instalment of my own extended review of Privileged Planet this afternoon.