The Economist now knows for sure that Darwinism is more important than science achievement

David Warren, a stalwart hack of the Ottawa Citizen, derides a recent Economist article, "Untouched by the hand of God: How people in various countries view the theory of evolution" (Feb 5th 2009), which allows us to know,

IT IS 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which suggested that all living things are related and that everything is ultimately descended from a single common ancestor. This has troubled many, including Darwin himself, as it subverted ideas of divine intervention. It is not surprising that the countries least accepting of evolution today tend to be the most devout. In the most recent international survey available, only Turkey is less accepting of the theory than America. Iceland and Denmark are Darwin's most ardent adherents. Indeed America has become only slightly more accepting of Darwin's theory in recent years. In 2008 14% of people polled by Gallup agreed that “man evolved over millions of years”, up from 9% in 1982.

Well, let's see: The United States is the world's science leader, Iceland is on life support, and Denmark? Well, Denmark is a brave little country if you go by the Mohammed cartoons episode, but these days, they would be wiser pray for divine intervention than subvert it.

But classically, for Darwin enthusiasts, basic facts mean nothing; only attitude means something.

Anyway, Warren had pretty much the same reaction, and writes to say about the article:

1. It wantonly confuses two issues: whether evolution happened, & whether Darwin's explanation of it is true. (Darwin hardly "discovered" evolution.) I would myself have to agree "Yes" to the proposition as stated, though I would almost certainly VOTE "NO" since I would spot the game.

2. It implicitly accepts a choice between "faith" & "science," while explicitly denying that any such mischief could ever be intended. The very evocation of the choice is scientistic.

3. Like Darwinism itself, it reduces great complexity to pristine simplicity, by removing from consideration every detail except the premise from which it begins.

He adds,

The Economist itself did not used to play these cheap-hit media games. That is why I used to subscribe to it (decades ago), & read it attentively every week -- back when it served a much smaller audience of businesslike people who were averse to the sort of pony-doo that is smeared through the liberal newsmagazines. Today it is only slightly better than Newsweek or Time, & full of exactly the sort of progressive posturing & "attitudinizing" that it used so roundly to condemn.

But David, isn't that's precisely what we should expect when people confuse the mere attitudes of science celebrities and the pop science media for actual evidence and actual achievement?

I think I will order the Economist staff another jug of Kool-Aid. The brew seems to be taking effect, at last. Goodness knows, I have waited long enough for this.

Science and culture: God as an "unnecessary hypothesis?"

In "Theology After Newton", physicist Stephen M. Barr notes:

In Newtonian physics, change and movement were explained by the inertia of bodies and the forces bodies exert on each other. And since God is not a material body, many people thought that the new science had relegated him to the sidelines. At most, he was allowed to act in the distant past, as an all-foreseeing designer, a conception of God that Pannenberg criticizes as leading, on the one hand, to deism and, on the other hand, to a clash between predestination and human freedom. Even worse, the belief that took hold after Newton-that everything could be explained naturalistically, through physical forces and mathematical laws--seemed to make the existence of God an "unnecessary hypothesis," as Laplace put it. As theology lost its explanatory role, its assertions came to be seen as lacking empirical content and therefore as untestable.

Some theologians took refuge in fideism or a "flight to commitment," such as Karl Barth's "altogether unsecured obedience" to the Word of God. Others retreated to the position that theological language is "performative" rather than "informative." Yet others reduced the gospel to social action. The result has been a situation in which theology is marginalized and seen as largely irrelevant to life and thought. Society and its institutions grew secularized, and intellectual life did as well: the study of history and science undertaken without concern for a wider context of meaning. (First Things)

I've been known to call this "flight to commitment" by a ruder name: "aimless Jesus-hollering."