Login |
New User
Books
Read the 1st Chapter!
The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution
The God Delusion
Over 1.5 million copies sold
The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing
by Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker
by Richard Dawkins
The Ancestor's Tale
by Richard Dawkins
Unweaving the Rainbow
by Richard Dawkins
Climbing Mount Improbable
by Richard Dawkins
Print
Darwin shouldn't be hijacked by New Atheists - he is an ethical inspiration
by Madeleine Bunting, Guardian
Reposted from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/darwin-anniversary-atheism?commentpage=8&commentposted=1
Next year's anniversaries of this great British scientist must explore beyond the usual squabbling over faith
Next year there will be no escaping one man and his legacy - 2009 will be marked by television series, books, debates, conferences and exhibitions devoted to Charles Darwin and his two anniversaries: the 200th of his birth; and the 150th of his book, On the Origin of the Species. One might imagine that there was little more to be written on the man, but the coming year will bring the publication of plenty more books, starting this week with a helpful Rough Guide to Evolution - Darwin's big idea that changed the world - and in 12 months' time 50 new titles should have arrived in bookshops. It is shaping up to be the biggest anniversary ever of an individual's life.
There are some obvious good reasons for making such a fuss. He is one of the three great intellectuals of the 19th century who shaped modernity, along with Marx and Freud. Unlike the others, whose reputations have been somewhat battered by a century or so of ferocious debate, Darwin's standing is now higher than ever. Much of what he argued has been proved right. Scientists, particularly biologists, are full of awe for a man whose thinking was so meticulous, so full of original insight and astonishingly ahead of its time. He is, Newton apart, the greatest British scientist ever, so it makes good sense for the British Council, among others, to use this as an opportunity to flag up the prestigious history of British science.
But there is an even more serious purpose than flying the flag or celebrating intellectual history. What drives this anniversary is a missionary zeal to persuade and convince the public of the truth of Darwin's great discoveries, because, astoundingly - despite the mountain of scientific evidence - there is still considerable scepticism and even hostility to this great Victorian. A poll for the BBC in 2006 found that less than half the British population accepted the theory of evolution as the best description for the development of life. Comparable figures in the US are attributed to its intense religiosity, but given the very low levels of regular worshippers in the UK, religious faith can't account entirely for the resistance to Darwinian evolution. So what is it?
Freud's explanation in 1920 was that "humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon its naive self-love. The first was when it realised that our earth was not the centre of the universe ... The second was when biological research robbed man of his peculiar privilege of having been specially created and relegated him to a descent from the animal world". One wonders how long it took for Copernicus to be treated with respect; one scholar of Darwin suggested it could be another couple of centuries before we can forgive the man.
There have been plenty of other reasons to be suspicious. Darwin's ideas have been taken up and used by a litany of crooks and villains for their own purposes. "Survival of the fittest", the phrase most closely associated with Darwin and more properly credited to his contemporary Herbert Spencer, hatched a host of pernicious theories in the 20th century from eugenics to social Darwinianism.
So the first imperative for the anniversary is to strip away the accumulation of mythology that has made Darwin such a villain. After speaking to five scholars of Darwin, who between them have accumulated a small pile of books on the subject, the one common refrain was that far too much has been dumped on the man. He was a brilliant scientist, but he was not a philosopher, nor a political or social theorist. He never claimed that his theories could explain everything, and certainly not everything about what it was to be human; on the contrary he himself maintained a very Victorian sense of moral accountability that he never sought to justify in terms of natural selection.
In particular, what would have baffled Darwin is his recruitment as standard bearer for atheism in the 21st century. Darwin kept his pronouncements on religion to a minimum, partly out of respect for his Christian wife. Despite continuing claims that he was an atheist, most scholars acknowledge that he never went further than agnosticism.
Yet bizarrely, the whole 19th-century collapse of faith is now pinned on Darwin. While he was poring over his pigeons, biblical scholars were hard at work radically revising the historical understanding of the Bible and arguably doing as much as he ever did to undermine the possibility of a literal reading of scripture. The work of the Victorian geologist Charles Lyell debunked the idea of seven days of creation in Genesis long before Darwin.
The fear is that the anniversary will be hijacked by the New Atheism as the perfect battleground for another round of jousting over the absurdity of belief (a position that Darwin pointedly never took up). Many of the prominent voices in the New Atheism are lined up to reassert that it is simply impossible to believe in God and accept Darwin's theory of evolution; Richard Dawkins and the US philosopher Daniel Dennett are among those due to appear in Darwin200 events. It's a position that infuriates many scientists, not to mention philosophers and theologians.
"A defence of evolution doesn't have to get entangled in atheism," says Mark Pallen, professor of microbial genomics at Birmingham and author of The Rough Guide to Evolution. Bob Bloomfield, of the Natural History Museum, says: "We want to move the agenda on to the relevance of his ideas today and put aside this squabbling over faith and dogma."
An attempt to do just that will be in one of the most important of the new crop of Darwin books: Darwin's Sacred Cause, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, published next month. They argue that Darwin was driven by a moral impulse - abolitionism. He set out to prove that all human beings, regardless of skin colour, were essentially the same, all descended within a few thousand generations from shared parentage. It was Darwin's refutation of the scientific racism of his day used to justify slavery.
Bloomfield argues that Darwin's theories of evolution are rich in the ethical inspiration essential for the huge environmental crisis we now face. Common descent provides scientific underpinning for the kinship of all human beings - this is no longer simply an ideal, but a scientific fact. And human beings are connected to all other living things on earth; our relationship with the natural world is not one of dominion but intimate interdependence. Darwin may have provoked outrage by displacing human self-aggrandisement, but he also hugely widened the scope of understanding into how the earth has come to be, and thus the responsibility for how it evolves from here. In comparison with such lofty aims, a row over whether evolution is proof of atheism would be a monumental and nonsensical waste of everyone's time.
m.bunting@guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/darwin-anniversary-atheism?commentpage=8&commentposted=1
Next year's anniversaries of this great British scientist must explore beyond the usual squabbling over faith
Next year there will be no escaping one man and his legacy - 2009 will be marked by television series, books, debates, conferences and exhibitions devoted to Charles Darwin and his two anniversaries: the 200th of his birth; and the 150th of his book, On the Origin of the Species. One might imagine that there was little more to be written on the man, but the coming year will bring the publication of plenty more books, starting this week with a helpful Rough Guide to Evolution - Darwin's big idea that changed the world - and in 12 months' time 50 new titles should have arrived in bookshops. It is shaping up to be the biggest anniversary ever of an individual's life.
There are some obvious good reasons for making such a fuss. He is one of the three great intellectuals of the 19th century who shaped modernity, along with Marx and Freud. Unlike the others, whose reputations have been somewhat battered by a century or so of ferocious debate, Darwin's standing is now higher than ever. Much of what he argued has been proved right. Scientists, particularly biologists, are full of awe for a man whose thinking was so meticulous, so full of original insight and astonishingly ahead of its time. He is, Newton apart, the greatest British scientist ever, so it makes good sense for the British Council, among others, to use this as an opportunity to flag up the prestigious history of British science.
But there is an even more serious purpose than flying the flag or celebrating intellectual history. What drives this anniversary is a missionary zeal to persuade and convince the public of the truth of Darwin's great discoveries, because, astoundingly - despite the mountain of scientific evidence - there is still considerable scepticism and even hostility to this great Victorian. A poll for the BBC in 2006 found that less than half the British population accepted the theory of evolution as the best description for the development of life. Comparable figures in the US are attributed to its intense religiosity, but given the very low levels of regular worshippers in the UK, religious faith can't account entirely for the resistance to Darwinian evolution. So what is it?
Freud's explanation in 1920 was that "humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon its naive self-love. The first was when it realised that our earth was not the centre of the universe ... The second was when biological research robbed man of his peculiar privilege of having been specially created and relegated him to a descent from the animal world". One wonders how long it took for Copernicus to be treated with respect; one scholar of Darwin suggested it could be another couple of centuries before we can forgive the man.
There have been plenty of other reasons to be suspicious. Darwin's ideas have been taken up and used by a litany of crooks and villains for their own purposes. "Survival of the fittest", the phrase most closely associated with Darwin and more properly credited to his contemporary Herbert Spencer, hatched a host of pernicious theories in the 20th century from eugenics to social Darwinianism.
So the first imperative for the anniversary is to strip away the accumulation of mythology that has made Darwin such a villain. After speaking to five scholars of Darwin, who between them have accumulated a small pile of books on the subject, the one common refrain was that far too much has been dumped on the man. He was a brilliant scientist, but he was not a philosopher, nor a political or social theorist. He never claimed that his theories could explain everything, and certainly not everything about what it was to be human; on the contrary he himself maintained a very Victorian sense of moral accountability that he never sought to justify in terms of natural selection.
In particular, what would have baffled Darwin is his recruitment as standard bearer for atheism in the 21st century. Darwin kept his pronouncements on religion to a minimum, partly out of respect for his Christian wife. Despite continuing claims that he was an atheist, most scholars acknowledge that he never went further than agnosticism.
Yet bizarrely, the whole 19th-century collapse of faith is now pinned on Darwin. While he was poring over his pigeons, biblical scholars were hard at work radically revising the historical understanding of the Bible and arguably doing as much as he ever did to undermine the possibility of a literal reading of scripture. The work of the Victorian geologist Charles Lyell debunked the idea of seven days of creation in Genesis long before Darwin.
The fear is that the anniversary will be hijacked by the New Atheism as the perfect battleground for another round of jousting over the absurdity of belief (a position that Darwin pointedly never took up). Many of the prominent voices in the New Atheism are lined up to reassert that it is simply impossible to believe in God and accept Darwin's theory of evolution; Richard Dawkins and the US philosopher Daniel Dennett are among those due to appear in Darwin200 events. It's a position that infuriates many scientists, not to mention philosophers and theologians.
"A defence of evolution doesn't have to get entangled in atheism," says Mark Pallen, professor of microbial genomics at Birmingham and author of The Rough Guide to Evolution. Bob Bloomfield, of the Natural History Museum, says: "We want to move the agenda on to the relevance of his ideas today and put aside this squabbling over faith and dogma."
An attempt to do just that will be in one of the most important of the new crop of Darwin books: Darwin's Sacred Cause, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, published next month. They argue that Darwin was driven by a moral impulse - abolitionism. He set out to prove that all human beings, regardless of skin colour, were essentially the same, all descended within a few thousand generations from shared parentage. It was Darwin's refutation of the scientific racism of his day used to justify slavery.
Bloomfield argues that Darwin's theories of evolution are rich in the ethical inspiration essential for the huge environmental crisis we now face. Common descent provides scientific underpinning for the kinship of all human beings - this is no longer simply an ideal, but a scientific fact. And human beings are connected to all other living things on earth; our relationship with the natural world is not one of dominion but intimate interdependence. Darwin may have provoked outrage by displacing human self-aggrandisement, but he also hugely widened the scope of understanding into how the earth has come to be, and thus the responsibility for how it evolves from here. In comparison with such lofty aims, a row over whether evolution is proof of atheism would be a monumental and nonsensical waste of everyone's time.
m.bunting@guardian.co.uk
Richard Dawkins' comment on the Madeleine Bunting column
A telling litmus test of an ignoramus on the subject of Darwin is their rendering of the title of his great book. The diagnlostic solecism -- remarkably common -- is to stick a 'the' before 'species'. Sure enough, Madeleine Bunting falls right into it, exactly as you would expect. The correct title, of course, is On the Origin of Species.
It is true that Darwin declined to call himself an atheist. But his motive, clearly expressed to the atheist intellectual Edward Aveling (incidentally the common-law husband of Karl Marx's daughter) was that Darwin didn't want to upset people. Atheism, in Darwin's view, was all well and good for the intelligentsia, but ordinary people were not yet "ripe" for atheism. So he called himself an agnostic, largely for diplomatic reasons..
In any case, what Darwin chose to call himself, as a pillar of his local parish in the nineteenth century, is of less interest than the cogency of the arguments themselves. Before Darwin came along, it was pretty difficult to be an atheist, at least to be an atheist free of nagging doubts. Darwin triumphantly made it EASY to be an intellectually fulfilled and satisfied atheist. That doesn't mean that understanding Darwin drives you inevitably to atheism. But it certainly constitutes a giant step in that direction.
Richard Dawkins
Comments 1 - 50 of 179 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #308271 by Librarian on December 29, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Here, Here! OhnhaiI'm looking forward to all the new books. I hope some will be written on a young adult level. I plan on stocking my personal and professional library shelves.
Other Comments by Librarian
3. Comment #308275 by melsdr on December 29, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I remember listening to an interview involving Bunting and Dawkins. When Dawkins asked why she called herself a Catholic, when the God she described didn’t bear any relation to the Biblical one, her answer was, "Well, why not'"
If that is the level of thinking she puts into her faith, then why should anyone take her seriously'
Every time I see her write, I am reminded of why I no longer read the Guardian. Everyone there seems to have head in anus syndrome.
Other Comments by melsdr
4. Comment #308282 by SK1988 on December 29, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Totally agree with Richard. Had an idea what to expect upon seeing the name Madeleine Bunting before even reading the article. As melsdr says, that interview was embarrassing for the poor woman. Other Comments by SK1988
5. Comment #308283 by Gordy on December 29, 2008 at 6:28 pm
I can't speak for all atheists, obviously, but personally I'd be quite happy if people just accepted the truth of evolution by natural selection, regardless of their religious views. As far as I can see, it is religious people who have made this an issue, not scientists. Other Comments by Gordy
6. Comment #308284 by mordacious1 on December 29, 2008 at 6:30 pm
What Darwin did, IMHO, is to show that there was no need for a supernatural "creator", no need whatsoever. Other Comments by mordacious1
7. Comment #308290 by Fuller on December 29, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Bunting's long, lame ramble was no match for Dawkins concise reply. Nice work. Other Comments by Fuller
8. Comment #308296 by JonLynnHarvey on December 29, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Just for the record, the full original title is"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" but in the 6th edition the title was shortened to "The Origin of Species."
Also worth noting, when Christie's auctioned off an 1860 edition, they billed it in their catalogue with the incorrect title "On the origin of THE species".
See "http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5119958"
Similarly, Nature magazine in reviewing a recent book "On the Origin of Phyla" also calls Darwin's book by the incorrect title. At least one online bookshop (Abbey's) uses the incorrect title in their catalogue. The online Literary Encyclopedia about great works of literature uses the wrong title (with the extra 'the') as well.
So "On the origin of THE species" seems to be one of those iconic phrases like "Elementary my dear Watson" (first introduced in a non-Doyle Holmesian radio play) or "Beam me up Scotty" or "Play it again, Sam" (the real dialogue is Rick: "You played it for her, you can play it for me. Play it!". Ilsa: "Play it, Sam.) that was never actually uttered (or written in this case) but has become famous nonetheless. A sort of low-grade meme perhaps.
Other Comments by JonLynnHarvey
9. Comment #308305 by NewEnglandBob on December 29, 2008 at 7:04 pm
1. Madeleine Bunting was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (full name: The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary).2. Bunting is noted for her advocacy of religious belief from a liberal position and her antipathy to atheism, claiming that atheists' antipathy to religion makes it impossible for them to criticise religion effectively.
3. Every article she has written is negative. I guess she hates everyone.
This is a journalist?
Other Comments by NewEnglandBob
10. Comment #308307 by mordacious1 on December 29, 2008 at 7:05 pm
JonLynnHarvey
Interesting, especially since "On the Origin of THE Species" makes no sense, given the content of the work.
Other Comments by mordacious1
11. Comment #308309 by mordacious1 on December 29, 2008 at 7:07 pm
NEB
She's also known for being a nitwit.
Other Comments by mordacious1
12. Comment #308317 by chuckgoecke on December 29, 2008 at 7:23 pm
A significant thing about Darwin was how Origin(building on Lyell, et al), by removing the need for a creator, freed scientists in other fields to imagine an uncreated universe, one that developed under only natural laws. To me this is what really kicked off the age of modern science starting in the 1870's when the nature of chemistry, matter and the cosmos was first cracked. Other Comments by chuckgoecke
13. Comment #308318 by imaginenoreligion on December 29, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Ms. Bunting cannot help but being he usual nonsensical self. It is beyond any stretch of the imagination to understand why she still manages to be paid for writing utter cack. In any case, yet another waste of perfectly good paper. Even a chimp, given half an hour and a banana would come up with more logical and informative material.I raise my glass to one of the most influential, clear and enlightened minds of the 19th century. To Charles Darwin, the terminator of gods, amongst other honourary titles.
Happy 2009 everyone.
EDIT: he* should have been her......
Other Comments by imaginenoreligion
14. Comment #308329 by MagnusFaustus on December 29, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Just what we need, a closet apologist trying to suggest our admiration of Darwin comes from some purely militant standpoint.
And Darwin as an ethical role model' Yeah, right.. The moment she mentions her other role models are the -delightful- characters in the bible, that little statement gets thrown right in the rubbish bin. It's obvious she doesn't mean it, and exposes another attempt to post-humously change the sides of a respected scientist.
First they have to go passing around deathbed conversion stories, now this. On the bright side they're getting more pathetic in their methods, so she's good for a laugh before you use her article for lining in a bird cage. Perhaps a mockingbird would be appropriate for Bunting.
Other Comments by MagnusFaustus
15. Comment #308331 by Styrer- on December 29, 2008 at 7:59 pm
It is no surprise to most educated readers that Bunting is still peddling her ill-conceived wares, successfully, in papers like the Grauniad. Such, they know, is simply required in hard financial times to make ends meet. The readers, the owners of such formidable reporting know, read the other bits, knowing she's venting. Again.Bunting has as much standing in the intellectual community as had my last one-week old Brussel sprout, which I could not stomach. And it was a real beauty.
But her type of ill-conceived, ignorant, spouting vitriol is attractive still, so some papers think, and it is now up to the readers of such formerly decent papers as the above to draw their own conclusions.
Bunting has become a standing joke.
Richard has delivered here a withering attack on a woman with absolutely nothing new to say. I do wonder if it might have not been appropriate for Richard to simply say in print that he too has something new and exciting to present for reading - a la Bunting - but which on final read-through he thought old and ill-thought out. And then finish his sentence there.
Mark Pallen should certainly be on Richard's list of NOMA advocates with whom to talk. But apart from all of the above, I reluctantly must thank Bunting for doing more through her inanity for the non-theistic view of this godless universe than a host of intelligent atheists can probably manage in one short piece of garbage such as the above.
Do read it again, and admire its verbosity in the complete absence of substance. It's a doozy.
Best,
Styrer
Other Comments by Styrer-
16. Comment #308333 by tybowen on December 29, 2008 at 8:04 pm
our relationship with the natural world is not one of dominion but intimate interdependence.
Which book is it that says man has dominion over the natural world? Oh right, the bible. Darwin so throughly blasted religious thinking its incredible.
Other Comments by tybowen
17. Comment #308337 by Bob Johnson on December 29, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Well, I guess I'm one of these New Atheists, although I've been a regular old-time atheist for round about 40 years. Why am I vocal now? Because, the theists are stepping up their level of insisting upon Bronze Age myths in a world that cannot afford to live in the past.Other Comments by Bob Johnson
18. Comment #308338 by Indian Joe on December 29, 2008 at 8:43 pm
On these twin anniversaries, of Darwin's birth and book, it is inevitable that the common affliction of 'on-the-other-hand' will grip the press. Another recent manifestation of OTOH is Jack Grimston's "Charles Darwin and the theory of copycats" (The Sunday Times, 28 Dec - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5404130.ece)According to the story, "a group of critics has commissioned computer experts with specialised antiplagiarism software to scour Darwin’s book, published in 1859, for similarities to a paper released the year before by Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist who worked for eight years in modern Indonesia. Initial indications are that the analysis will show that some of the most important ideas in On the Origin of Species were taken from Wallace..."
The article goes on to say that "most mainstream scientists have taken Darwin’s side, with Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist, calling the accusations “misplaced”.
“Darwin got it first, but foolishly he did not publish,” said Dawkins. “Wallace deserves credit but he was not the one who gathered the evidence into a book that actually changed people’s minds.”
Other Comments by Indian Joe
19. Comment #308340 by cyberguy on December 29, 2008 at 8:53 pm
The fear is that the anniversary will be hijacked by the New Atheism as the perfect battleground for another round of jousting over the absurdity of belief It's a position that infuriates many scientists, not to mention philosophers and theologians.
"A defence of evolution doesn't have to get entangled in atheism," says Mark Pallen, professor of microbial genomics at Birmingham and author of The Rough Guide to Evolution. Bob Bloomfield, of the Natural History Museum, says: "We want to move the agenda on to the relevance of his ideas today and put aside this squabbling over faith and dogma."
Seems like the perfect time to showcase atheism.
If some people (scientists, philosophers or theologians) get infuriated over it, then tough.
Other Comments by cyberguy
20. Comment #308341 by Styrer- on December 29, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Comment #308337 by Bob Johnson on December 29, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Well, I guess I'm one of these New Atheists, although I've been a regular old-time atheist for round about 40 years. Why am I vocal now? Because, the theists are stepping up their level of insisting upon Bronze Age myths in a world that cannot afford to live in the past.
But how on earth can we possibly say that we're getting through?
In the last two weeks, I've drunk beers with Sri Lankans in Colombo, cocktails with Muslims and Indians in the Maldives (how flash am I?) and over-chilled and poorly poured Guinness currently in Dubai. They will all call themselves Muslim, save for one chap from the Maldives who said he could not decide if he is Muslim or Christian because he's 'not sure about the confession thing'. What has become hugely clear to me in my chats with these people is that I know FAR more about their professed religions than they know. Their religion seems a culturally-hewn garment, whose metaphorical and real-world implications remain of no interest to them, which garment can be cast off in favour of Christian, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist robe at the switch of a simple trigger of a mention from me or my wife of disapprobation.
But they need a garment of one sort or another.
It is sad and desperate to note that it is at the level of such ridiculously under-privileged and weepingly educationally-deprived people that the propagation of religion - as a simple identifier, which cannot be dismissed but which must be embraced at all cost - is really at its most powerful.
Of course they had never heard of Dawkins, evolution was not hated but utterly misunderstood and hence presented no problem to their belief, and they were the loveliest smiliest people I've ever met.
The grip of religion is such, I think, that Dawkins and the others can only hope that their works will find their way to such people long after you and I, and Dawkins, have gone.
Best,
Styrer
Other Comments by Styrer-
21. Comment #308343 by Roland_F on December 29, 2008 at 9:06 pm
NOMA cannot work when one site is permanently breaking the boundary and is infringing on scientific turf with creationist/ID crap forced into Biology teaching. So theist are permanently violating the NOMA with their science sabotage acts and when atheist hitting back, then theist crying foul and asking for atheist to pull back behind the NOMA line.Atheist are permanently attacked and blackmailed and character assassinated as immoral, godless, sinners who deserve their fate of grilling eternal in hell - when they defend themselves this is considered as “strident” fundamental, militant etc.
Darwin’s theory natural selection is purposely obscured and labeled ‘just a theory’, I still have to find the theist who walks towards an abyss and claims ‘gravitation is only a theory’ to walk on . . .
Then the term Social-Darwinism is created and used to discredit Darwin’s work from theist, a wrong terms which should better be termed “Social-Mendellism” for the selective breeding of special attributes (white skin, blond hair, blue eyes).
So and now coming back to the article here: Atheist will highjack Darwin’s anniversary to attack the “poor defenseless” faithheads, well the article is written from a faithhead so what can one expect ?!?
Other Comments by Roland_F
22. Comment #308345 by Roland_F on December 29, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Styrer: drunk beers with Sri Lankans in Colombo, cocktails with Muslims and Indians in the Maldives, and over-chilled and poorly poured Guinness currently in Dubai.
Is this long and scarce energy (Peakoil !!) wasting travel approved von Teratonis ??
Beside drinking alcohol in Dubai is against the local (Shariah) law and punishable according to the prophet’s (be peace upon him !) teaching with 200 strokes with the cane. So if you are British and your religious leader R.W. the A.B. of C. succeeds in implementing Shariah Law in the UK you can already get used to it.
Other Comments by Roland_F
23. Comment #308349 by Styrer- on December 29, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Comment #308345 by Roland_F on December 29, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Styrer: drunk beers with Sri Lankans in Colombo, cocktails with Muslims and Indians in the Maldives, and over-chilled and poorly poured Guinness currently in Dubai.
Is this long and scarce energy (Peakoil !!) wasting travel approved von Teratonis ??
Beside drinking alcohol in Dubai is against the local (Shariah) law and punishable according to the prophet’s (be peace upon him !) teaching with 200 strokes with the cane. So if you are British and your religious leader R.W. the A.B. of C. succeeds in implementing Shariah Law in the UK you can already get used to it.
Technically to drink alcohol every individual needs a licence to do so. But this is bollocks if you're staying in a major hotel, and if you move to another hotel bar, you're rarely asked any questions. Of course I arrived in the afternoon of 28th, whereupon I was told that a 24 hour prohibition on alcohol was in force till Monday 6.30pm because of Islamic New Year. I recommend the San Pellegrino in such times.
Best,
Styrer
Other Comments by Styrer-
24. Comment #308359 by Daniella on December 29, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Next year they will be releasing a film about the life of Charles Darwin starring Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as Emma. Not many details available as yet in regards to release date etc... but...
The film is called 'Creation'!???
Here is the plot from Wikipedia
English naturalist Charles Darwin finds himself torn between his love for his deeply religious wife and his own growing belief in a world where God has no place.
I fear that this film is going to be hikacked by the religious.
Other Comments by Daniella
25. Comment #308361 by mordacious1 on December 29, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Daniella
Sounds like a chick flick.
Other Comments by mordacious1
26. Comment #308367 by Kimpatsu on December 29, 2008 at 10:21 pm
And let's not forget that, in her radio debate with Richard, Bunting kept saying "what is true?" as if truth cannot be accurately defined. Her thinking is so muddy, it's turgid. Other Comments by Kimpatsu
27. Comment #308371 by Quine on December 29, 2008 at 10:37 pm
It is the two hundredth year. They may cry and moan all they want, but we have waited long enough. Now we are going to say what we can show by evidence to be true, and will say it with a vast number of voices. Other Comments by Quine
28. Comment #308374 by Patrick McArdle on December 29, 2008 at 10:49 pm
"As far as I can see, it is religious people who have made this an issue, not scientists."This is especially true here in the States, where Bible-bangers love to shout about how they are "not descended from monkeys." (Since evolution shows that all extant primates, ourselves and monkeys included, evolved from now-extinct species, these Bible-thumpers merely reveal, yet again, their own ignorance.)
'What Darwin did, IMHO, is to show that there was no need for a supernatural "creator", no need whatsoever.'
Exactly. Darwin's science helped to push any concept of a supernatural power further back in time and space, toward the clockmaker god of deism. To this day, creationists claim their god can explain the gaps in human knowledge; as Darwin, Dawkins, and others close those gaps, this god gets left without a home.
Other Comments by Patrick McArdle
29. Comment #308375 by AfraidToDie on December 29, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Darwin has not been hijacked by the New Atheists; Darwin is detested by the religulous simply because they do not believe humans evolved from apes (or anything). Darwin’s theories can coexist with Deism, just not with Christianity or any of the other major religions which claim supernatural creationism. These religions drew the line in the sand that Darwin obliterated. If you are intelligent enough to accept the theory of evolution, you cannot believe in a supernatural creation of our species. This article is trying to hijack the relevance of Darwin’s work by implying there is room for the belief in supernatural creationism where that work has proven those beliefs false. Other Comments by AfraidToDie
30. Comment #308392 by Jesus86 on December 30, 2008 at 12:14 am
I don't understand the nit-picking about the title of Darwin's book. A book about plate techtonics called "On the Origin of the Continents" would make perfect sense.(Originally, there was just one large continent, which broke apart into the many continents we have now. Originally, there was just one species, which separated into the many species we have now...)
Of course it is best to get the title right -- i.e. as the author wrote it -- but how does inserting a word that does not change the meaning matter?
Am I missing something?
Other Comments by Jesus86
31. Comment #308396 by epeeist on December 30, 2008 at 12:23 am
Comment #308392 by Jesus86:I don't understand the nit-picking about the title of Darwin's book. A book about plate techtonics called "On the Origin of the Continents" would make perfect sense.The problem is that species can be used in both a singular and plural sense. On the Origin of Species definitely refers to more than one species. On the Origin of the Species could be either and has been taken by certain groups to refer specifically to humanity.
Other Comments by epeeist
32. Comment #308397 by stevencarrwork on December 30, 2008 at 12:26 am
BUNTINGBloomfield argues that Darwin's theories of evolution are rich in the ethical inspiration essential for the huge environmental crisis we now face.
CARR
Gosh, sophisticated theologians like Alister McGrath are constantly saying that Dawkins is quite wrong to draw any ethical or religious conclusions from a scientific theory.
And it turns out that Dawkins is right once more and theologians are wrong.
Of course, Dawkins is right once again when he concludes that we should never attempt to model society on the principles of natural selection, and try to do the opposite of having too many children, allowing many of them to die and breeding from the survivors.
Other Comments by stevencarrwork
33. Comment #308403 by Brian English on December 30, 2008 at 12:37 am
They argue that Darwin was driven by a moral impulse - abolitionism.So, he went on the Beagle looking for a way to abolish slavery? Lucky that evolution had more wider applications then isn't it? (facepalm)
Before Darwin came along, it was pretty difficult to be an atheist, at least to be an atheist free of nagging doubts. Darwin triumphantly made it EASY to be an intellectually fulfilled and satisfied atheist.I disagree. Hume and others demonstrated that there was nothing in design and cosmological arguments and since the ancient Greeks morality and the good life had been formulated in non-religious sense.
Other Comments by Brian English
34. Comment #308405 by MRA on December 30, 2008 at 12:42 am
2009 will be a big year for atheism due to the coincidence of the rise of 'new atheism', Darwin's anniversaries and the looming intellectual 'war' between those of faith and no-faith.Lots of documentaries due out next year are based on faith issues (there is one on the history of Christianity and another on faiths around the world being advertised for January). I hope that RD, friends and subscribers to this site are ready for a year of good debate!
Other Comments by MRA
35. Comment #308411 by Goldy on December 30, 2008 at 1:01 am
Before Darwin came along, it was pretty difficult to be an atheist, at least to be an atheist free of nagging doubts
Yup. Must've been a bunch of retrosection in old Siam before Darwin. And tibet, India, China, etc, etc.
Just how did all them Buddhists cope?
Other Comments by Goldy
36. Comment #308413 by Eamonn Shute on December 30, 2008 at 1:06 am
PZ Myers has written about this article on Pharyngula:http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/another_atheist_bashing.php
Other Comments by Eamonn Shute
37. Comment #308415 by Steve Zara on December 30, 2008 at 1:07 am
First, general support from me for any attacks on Bunting (and I particularly enjoyed Styrer-'s posts).But on another matter, I do wonder if Darwin really was that big step towards making atheism easy that Richard says. There were still major questions about the age of the Earth at the time of Darwin - knowledge of physics at the time led to a prediction of the age of the Sun of only tens of millions of years - nowhere long enough for natural selection to work. The time needed for Darwin's ideas to be scientifically consistent came from a later understanding that the Sun was fuelled by nuclear fusion, and had been around for billions, not millions of years. Also, the argument from design was refuted clearly by the philosopher David Hume some time before Darwin. (EDIT: I have just noticed Brian made the same point).
My humble opinion is that Darwin's discoveries were a major attack not so much on theism, but on biblical literalism, and perhaps it is only the combination of Darwin's ideas with nuclear physics (making the universe very old) and the later discovery of DNA (providing beyond doubt that Darwin was right), that removed any gaps at all for a theistic deity.
Sorry to stir things up a bit, but that is just my way.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
38. Comment #308418 by decius on December 30, 2008 at 1:10 am
Comment #308415 by Steve Zara You omit from the equation the powerful realisation of man being just another ape.
Other Comments by decius
39. Comment #308420 by Goldy on December 30, 2008 at 1:14 am
Comment #308418 by decius
And that "Darwinism" is a rather Eurocentric view. Do we know that some Chinese/Indian scholar - or indeed African/SE Asian scholar didn't come up with the same thing?
Maybe Darwin was lucky that he published when and where he did at the time he did (and we always forget Wallace...like he was chopped liver or something)...
Other Comments by Goldy
40. Comment #308423 by Steve Zara on December 30, 2008 at 1:15 am
Comment #308418 by deciusThat is a fascinating point. I am not sure that our true ape-ness has really sunk in, even amongst many scientists and other rationalists. Just to give an example, I have occasional arguments here with my friend MPhil, who considers that the way that humans deal with the world mentally is dramatically different from the way that even our nearest relatives do.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
41. Comment #308425 by decius on December 30, 2008 at 1:17 am
Comment #308420 by Goldy Do we know that some Chinese/Indian scholar - or indeed African/SE Asian scholar didn't come up with the same thing?
Surely you are jesting.
Other Comments by decius
42. Comment #308435 by Goldy on December 30, 2008 at 1:28 am
Decius
No. Too many books and papers have been destroyed in history. What we know is what we have been allowed to read. Say Cretinists get into power in the west - would our descendants know of Darwin then?
And how do we know this hasn't been postulated in other parts of the world already? Not like the rest of the world is short of intelligent and observant people and it's not like evolution is a hidden mystery....
Other Comments by Goldy
43. Comment #308439 by Dr Doctor on December 30, 2008 at 1:35 am
Richard Dawkins has already made some excellent points about the origin of Buntings' (and others) attitude in "Unweaving the Rainbow".If I recall correctly, he also makes the point about the difficulty that some have with the concept of us being mere animals.
Other Comments by Dr Doctor
44. Comment #308441 by Steve Zara on December 30, 2008 at 1:36 am
There have been plenty of other reasons to be suspicious. Darwin's ideas have been taken up and used by a litany of crooks and villains for their own purposes. "Survival of the fittest", the phrase most closely associated with Darwin and more properly credited to his contemporary Herbert Spencer, hatched a host of pernicious theories in the 20th century from eugenics to social Darwinianism.
There is an aspect to this that I have not seen clearly expressed anywhere. It is that apart from the obvious flaw in social Darwinism (if humans work to change things, it is not the same as blind natural selection - i.e. "Darwinism"), there is another major mistake with it. This is that it is based on the superstitious belief that what happens in Nature must have some intrinsic goodness. If Nature selects "the fittest", that must have some moral worth. So, social Darwinism isn't just not Darwinism, it is based on some supernatural idea of the Goodness of Mother Nature.
Incidentally, this is why I am personally uncomfortable about ideas like the "organic" movement, as it encourages a "Nature good, man bad" attitude, which comes close to a form of supernaturalism to me.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
45. Comment #308442 by MPhil on December 30, 2008 at 1:36 am
I have occasional arguments here with my friend MPhil, who considers that the way that humans deal with the world mentally is dramatically different from the way that even our nearest relatives do.
...and without wanting to start another one, I think it's a bit unfair to claim that this is because I lack some realization. :)
Other Comments by MPhil
46. Comment #308444 by Steve Zara on December 30, 2008 at 1:37 am
Comment #308442 by MPhilIt was unfair, and I am impressed by the speed at which you picked up on it :)
Other Comments by Steve Zara
47. Comment #308449 by decius on December 30, 2008 at 1:47 am
Comment #308435 by GoldyBut science is incremental. Discoveries can come about only after that a consistent method has been developed and when the relevant ancillary disciplines have come of age.
Others elsewhere may have had intuitions regarding the evolutionary process. Indeed you shall find in the west precursors such as Linnaeus, Maupertuis and Spencer who haven't been credited with the discovery precisely because intuitions and hypotheses are not self-consistent scientific theories.
Other Comments by decius
48. Comment #308454 by Goldy on December 30, 2008 at 1:54 am
Comment #308449 by decius
I agree. But the ideas need to be made known first to all others before those steps are formally made, don't you agree? And how much cross-continental flow of ideas occurred? We had a bit, yes, but the science I learnt at scholl all had western names. All of it appeared to be rooted in Europe.
Asia had atheistic religions and philosophy from way back. India gave us the zero. I read about what the Chinese are supposed to have done centuries before Europeans discovered how to do the same (Bonzai, you might have an example or two, if you are reading this. I don't have the references with me at the mo).
All I am suggesting is that maybe we are....a touch Eurocentric because we don't know what else there was "out there". We call it Darwinism because Darwin published his theory after the Enlightenment in Europe and when Europe was at it's peak. Why do we think this might not have occurred somewhere else earlier?
Other Comments by Goldy
49. Comment #308455 by MPhil on December 30, 2008 at 1:55 am
Steve, I happened to be browsing through. Nothing more to it than that :)
On a slightly related note, I think you may be interested in the papers available here by Kim Sterelny:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/phil/staff/sterelny-papers.aspx
Personally, I found "Language, modularity and evolution" to be amazing and his review of "A Devil's Chaplain" to be quite apt.
I would especially love to get my hands on his paper "Social intelligence, human intelligence and niche construction", but, alas, I have no subscription to the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Oh well, seems I have to buy another book. Bur right now, I think I'm gonna read his "The Evolution and Evolvability of Culture". Thank goodness (literally) for freely available research-papers :)
Other Comments by MPhil
50. Comment #308458 by Steve Zara on December 30, 2008 at 2:02 am
Comment #308455 by MPhilThanks Mike! Because of you, I know realise that "Folk Logic" is much like Folk Music - to be regarded with suspicion.
Other Comments by Steve Zara
Comment Entry: Please Login
Register a new account
This article is reposted from a website that accepts comments.
Why not share your comment on the article there as well? CLICK HERE
Upcoming Events:
DVDs
'The Genius of Charles Darwin: The Uncut Interviews' DVD
'The Genius of Charles Darwin' DVD
'The Enemies of Reason: The Uncut Interviews' DVD
'Richard Dawkins: Appearances & Events 2007-2008' DVD
'Enemies of Reason' DVD
'Root of All Evil?' DVD
'Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews' DVD
'Growing Up in the Universe' DVD
'Voices of Science' DVD
'The Four Horsemen' DVD
'Break the Science Barrier' DVD
1. Comment #308263 by Ohnhai on December 29, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I would like to say more but what more is there.
here is to 2009 and the year of Darwin. (raises a glass)
Other Comments by Ohnhai