Whenever we ask for those "sophisticated" arguments for the existence of god(s) we are directed to various Courtier's Replies discussing how to rationalize the properties of various gods. They all begin with the assumption that god(s) exist. As I pointed out earlier, there's no reason why an atheist should care about things like the problem of evil. It makes about as much sense as debating the cut of the Emperor's new clothes or the stylishness of his new hat.
Alvin Plantinga is one of these "sophisticated" theologians. Listen to him explain why atheists should believe in god(s). Is this really the best they can do?
1. The second most common complaint is that we don't even have good arguments for atheism—at least not as good as those thinkers of the 20th century who were full of angst over not having a god to believe in. Apparently modern atheists aren't very sophisticated unless they are contemplating suicide.
[Hat Tip: Jerry Coyne: Plantinga on why he believes in God, dislikes the New Atheists, and finds naturalism and evolution incompatible.]
251 comments :
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 251 of 251But, you see, natural selection isn't about a mathematical form, it's about organisms living in a myriad of actual physical conditions of effectively infinite variety.
Quite a set of misunderstandings here. Natural selection has a clear mathematical formulation that guarantees it is applicable to any organisms that have ever existed, in their populations. The general description of the mean trait value between two generations has to include the covariance between phenotype and fitness (even if that covariance itself is stochastic, to sooth Larry Moran). TTC's comment here shows he is not acquainted with science.
I asked about a half dozen people with degrees in biology who I know, a mix of researchers and biology teachers to define natural selection and I got quite a variety of answers, one of them contradicted another.
Clearly, you didn't ask the evolutionary biology textbooks. You talked about "legitimate representatives of evolutionary biology", remember? Not just average biologists with just a minor in evolution in their first year. I expect if you ask a set of evolutionary biologists to define a hormone, you'll get diverse responses too. Ask the specialists, so ask the textbooks.
And Darwin's natural selection certainly isn't the same as natural selection after the synthesis with genetics.
Sure it is: selection is a statistical phenomenon, and Darwin described that in words. The actual genetics of a trait are not important - only the covariance of trait value and fitness is, whatever the genetics of the trait. If TTC had got as far as the first year genetic single locus model, that too is comprised within the general selection gradient formulation.
Reading any textbook on evolutionary would help TTC a lot ..
@The Thought Criminal Friday, August 17, 2012 1:47:00 PM
I've been impressed at how skilled Charles Darwin was at sanitizing what he was saying, note how he seems to want to pretend that those "variations" weren't actually contained in the organisms that were what got "favored" or destroyed. Including "man" as that was what he talked about in this passage from the 5th edition of On the Origin of Species
Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? ...
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=F387&pageseq=121
(5th ed.), London: John Murray, pp. 91–92, (1869)
I'd like to have more information about the context in which Darwin adopted Herbert Spencer's most notorious phrase and think about his, perhaps, attempt to make the idea palatable by substituting "variations" for people.
" .. seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred " - as in artificial selection by man on sheep or pigeons or pigs, as documented in the previous chapter. NOT variations in the species Homo sapiens. TTC quotemines.
SLC, you accused me of throwing up ink to change the subject when you are the one who did that to throw it off of what I answered to the post and the comments about that post. You "threw up ink" instead of answering my point about the inability of materialism to account for how any human thought.
By the dogma of materialism toughts are bound to a particular brain chemistry and the particular physical conditions that produce particular chemical reactions. How do you get from that particular reaction to a universally valid one? Materialism can't account for how human minds, each with its own particular chemistry and conditions, could produce universally true ideas. And it can't judge which of many ideas, each the correct product of chemicals and physical conditions, would be better.
Materialism demands a closed universe but it can't produce the assumptions of transcendence necessary to even judge if a right answer to an arithmetic problem is better than the wrong answer. Eddington pointed that out in the 1920s. Materialism that pretends to be scientific can't account for how science could be valid.
You didn't like me saying that but you didn't want to try to refute it. That's why YOU brought up ESP, Martin Gardner and James Randi in response to what I said in this thread, because you wanted to change the subject.
You are a transparently dishonest ideologue of the CSICOP kind. Or whatever one of the Kurtz cult's galaxy of alphabet soup named entities you're associated with.
Natural selection has a clear mathematical formulation that guarantees it is applicable to any organisms that have ever existed, in their populations.
You can formulate something purporting to be of such universal application but it has no meaning apart from actual events and the participants in those events, each of them quite unique. How do you know that your formulation is valid without consulting actual events purported to be natural selection IN NATURE? And how can you know it is a universally true representation of all possible events that would constitute natural selection when the vast majority of such events are unknowable?
If your formula is valid in all possible instances, does it tell you when natural selection started in life on Earth? Tell me if it does and how you know that. I believe that even Darwin noted there had to be a variation for natural selection to work on, how do you know there was physical variation of the kind that you would need for natural selection to work during the first thousand years of life on Earth?
Clearly, you didn't ask the evolutionary biology textbooks.
If you want to use that as a standard of evidence of durability of an idea over time, would you be willing to test a representative sample of biology text books from the 1920s to see for ideas that are universally present to see if they've stood the test of time? I'm old enough that 1986 seems awfully recent. Since I've mentioned Eddington here, already, he once estimated the life of an idea in science as about fifty years. But I don't think he was thinking of ideas as changing over time.
Apropos of the argument that gave rise to this discussion, how many biology textbooks of that period contained some of the eugenics "science" that would seem to have fallen out of favor, unfortunately to be reintroduced in the mid-70s under a different guise.
Sure it is: selection is a statistical phenomenon, and Darwin described that in words. The actual genetics of a trait are not important - only the covariance of trait value and fitness is, whatever the genetics of the trait.
Well, Darwin believed in the heritability of acquired traits. His son talked about that in the 1930s, after the synthesis - an article I'm using in my series brings that to mind. You say his natural selection is identical to all other articulations of natural selection how does that mesh with your statement?
Oh, I know how this game works, SLC, you keep asking, pretending I'm the one who brought up "ESP" and your ideological heroes when you did that for the reason I said and either I stop wasting time or Larry Moran puts a stop to it, perhaps not noting that you're the one who is keeping it up.
I was hoping heleen would answer, she seems to know something so I'm just throwing some ideas into the air to see what she'll say about them.
I'm not getting into a statistical argument with you here, SLC, for the reasons I gave above. Any one who wants to read what Jessica Utts said they can read the paper she said it in at her UoC Irvine faculty website above. I remembered that Dean Radin had posted on this:
The combined 4.9 sigma result reported for the Higgs boson is hailed as a stunning achievement that took trillions of recorded events, billions of dollars, and thousands of scientists.
By contrast, several classes of combined psi effects already provide empirical results that are much, much greater than 5 sigma, with hardly any funding and a few handfuls of scientists working the problem.
I must have part-remembered reading that when I made a similar point yesterday, though I had written on the cost of the thing as well. Maybe he'll play with you while I'm writing my posts.
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Am I the only one for whom the Plantinga comment thread does not give the comments that appear in 'recent comments'?
However, I wonder how you would make the case for all that atheism has to offer “in the here-and-now”, and also, how would that apply to the apparent human longings that seem to reach for something beyond the “here-and-now.”
Already addressed by Dr. Mick Jagger.
You can't always get what you want.
Denny: My motive is that I am trying to see an atheist’s way of addressing issues that seem to be uniquely human.
Like what? Wanting what you can't have? That IS the human condition. What could be more human than wanting what you can't have? It's certainly my condition when I watch the women's volleyball team.
TTC has been repeatedly asked to present evidence that Darwin supported coercive eugenics.
His reply: my evidence is that I'm smarter than you.
If you were smarter than us, you would have used your brain to present evidence supporting your hypothesis. You did not do that, contradicting your repeated claims to superior, or any, intellect.
TTC: Like it or not, what Darwin et al wrote is there to be read, cited and used.
Like it or not (and TTC hates it) the evidence shows that Darwin opposed coercive eugenics of Galton's and Gaskell's sort.
TTC's big fat problem is that he has zero evidence that Charles Darwin ever supported coercive eugenics, and we have evidence Darwin opposed coercive eugenics. His flogging of this point is idiotic or dishonest, doesn't matter which.
Consequently, TTC tries to slide over to a more slippery argument by changing the subject to "Social Darwinism" which was a term invented 62 years after Darwin was dead, invented by Hofstadter in 1944. It's guilt-by-SEMANTIC association.
This isn't even the usual pathetic guilt-by-association argument of the usual right-wing sort, e.g. "Obama went to a cocktail party with terrorist bomber Bill Ayers, therefore Obama supports terrorist bombers." The usual guilt-by-association argument involves real contacts between people, maybe through letters or comments or meetings.
No, TTC's argument is even dumber and easier, it's guilt-by-SEMANTIC association: Darwin supposedly supports "Social Darwinism", a term invented 62 years after he died, and some people accused of "Social Darwinism" supported coercive eugenics (some didn't). Therefore Darwin is semantically associated with coercive eugenics. Duh.
This is a pathetic POS argument, but this shit is all TTC has.
Since Hofstadter invented the term "Social Darwinist" in 1944, 62 years after Darwin was dead, various scholars have made various, different lists of historical figures whom they accused of being "Social Darwinist" long after the accused were dead. Lists of "Social Darwinists" often include many people, like Herbert Spencer and Adolf Hitler, who didn't believe in Darwinism as a scientific theory.
When you're as dumb as TTC and you're losing an argument badly, you need a semantic trick for which any evidence will make your word-game fly, and "Social Darwinism" is that trick.
Most scholars don't even bother to define "Social Darwinism" anyway, but their definitions must be effectively different, because they all make different lists of who was "Social Darwinist." The only thing they have in common is that they they don't like the people on their own list. It's a pseudo-intellectual way of saying "Bad People I don't like." All the targets were dead by then and couldn't defend themselves, but many would have angrily disagreed with that appellation, certainly Spencer and Teddy Roosevelt.
Since "Social Darwinism" has no standard definition, just about anyone can be accused of being "Social Darwinist" (and countless people have been). The bar of evidence is set so low it's basically zero, and that's the only kind of argument available to morons like TTC.
Probably most people accused of "Social Darwinism" didn't believe in Darwinism as a scientific theory. This is significant because the period 1875-1930 is called the "Eclipse of Darwinism" when most scientists did not believe that Natural Selection drove evolution. And the latter part of the "Eclipse of Darwinism" was the heyday of coercive eugenics in the USA.
Continuing:
So coercive eugenics is ANTI-correlated with belief that natural selection drives evolution. Anti-correlation is disproof of causation.
There's no evidence that Darwin supported coercive eugenics or "Social Darwinism." We presented evidence that Darwin opposed coercive eugenics. TTC didn't present any evidence from Darwin himself that he supported it.
Now let's looks at TTC's bullshit "evidence."
TTC has presented "shocking" quotes showing that Darwin invested in railroad companies. Big fucking deal. Investing in the stock market makes you Social Darwinist now? Then every US congressman, every Supreme Court judge and the President are all Social Darwinists.
TTC: No one here cares if Darwin invested in railroad companies. Investing in railroad companies does not prove Darwin supported coercive eugenics.
TTC has presented "shocking" quotes showing that Darwin agreed with Haeckel's defense of free speech for scientists in Freie Wissenschaft und Freie Lehre. TTC tells us that is "Social Darwinism."
TTC: No one here cares if Darwin agreed with Haeckel's defense of free speech for scientists. Agreeing with Haeckel's defense of free speech for scientists does not prove Darwin supported coercive eugenics.
TTC has presented "shocking" quotes showing that Darwin opposed policies of trade unions, e.g. equal pay for all union members. TTC tells us that is "Social Darwinism."
TTC: No one here cares if Darwin opposed equal pay for union members. Opposing equal pay for union members does not prove Darwin supported coercive eugenics.
Moreover, TTC has repeatedly on this and other threads accused Allan Miller of lying about TTC.
TTC in fact has presented no evidence of Allan Miller lying about anything.
I am starting to believe Carrie does have telekinesis-- she's certainly making my brain explode.
Why doesn't she just burn the high school gymnasium down with her mental powers, and get it over with already?
Carrie: Materialism demands a closed universe but it can't produce the assumptions of transcendence necessary to even judge if a right answer to an arithmetic problem is better than the wrong answer.
Translation: you can't prove 2+2 = 9 is wrong unless you believe in invisible spooks in an invisible spook-world.
Tell me, Carrie, you stupid fuckhole, how is it exactly that the assertion 2+2=4 requires us to believe in your invisible world full of invisible spooks? And why do we have to make offerings to them?
If mathematics is a useful part of scientific theories, that are useful only because they make testable predictions about observable quantities-- why then do we have to believe in spooks which cannot be mathematically defined, and whose hypothetical existence does not lead to any testable predictions, except those which have already been falsified? Answer the question, you dumb POS.
Carrie: How do you get from that particular reaction to a universally valid one?
Tell us, you stupid POS, what is a "universally valid" chemical reaction? Define a "universally valid" chemical reaction, you stupid fuck.
Is it or is it not true that in quantum mechanics, all particle interactions increase information irreversibly, in the quantum mechanical sense? Why should reactions in the human brain be incapable of compiling information, when all natural processes increase information as defined by Claude Shannon's equation for mutual information?
For the record, Carrie here is peddling presuppositional theology, the theology of Cornelius Van Til (who said that the Bible can contradict itself an unlimited number of times, because God's logic is different than human logic) and of Rousas Rushdoony (who promoted a pro-eugenics, racist and totalitarian theology.)
Carrie is more closely associated with eugenics and racism than Charles Darwin is.
TTC introduced Nazism into the discussion, and into the "Origin of Life" thread. When he is crushed on this topic, TTC attempts to assert that Nazism is irrelevant and moreover, says that he didn't bring up the subject he brought up.
TTC: “Did you ever hear of Nazis? Do you have any knowledge of the history of the last century? Or are you totally callous to the violations of rights under eugenics laws in North America or what that led to in Europe where it led to the murders of huge numbers of people?"
TTC brought up the Nazis. The Nazis said their Third Reich was anti-atheist and built on Christian moral values. Is TTC totally callous about eugenics laws in Nazi Germany and how that led to the murders of huge numbers of people, in the name of Christian moral values and anti-atheism?
TTC invoked the long-debunked Darwin-to-Haeckel-to-Hitler myth invented by Daniel Gasman, that no historian today defends.
TTC: In Germany, no matter what Darwin apologists contend, Darwin's foremost disciple, Haeckel was a direct link between Darwin and Naziism.
I demonstrated that this “direct link” didn’t exist and that historians view Gasman’s Darwin-to-Haeckel-to-Hitler link with contempt.
TTC’s response: Doubles down on lies.
TTC: ...he [Darwin], clearly, praised as he praised Galton's eugenics, not to mention Haeckel's.
Bullshit. TTC does not even present evidence from any of Haeckel's documents prior to Darwin’s death in 1882 to show what "Haeckel’s eugenics" would even mean pre-1882.
TTC: The discussion in Germany was already well on its way to that end by the time Darwin died [1882]. ...And, as his [Darwin’s] correspondence shows, he was well aware of what German eugenicists were up to.
Bullshit. Darwin’s correspondence shows no such thing. TTC does not even present evidence from any of Haeckel’s documents prior to Darwin’s death in 1882 to show what "German eugenics" would even mean in 1882.
TTC: I used primary documents to support my argument.
Bullshit. The fuck you did. TTC cited Stephen Jay Gould, a tertiary source, who cited Daniel Gasman, a secondary source, for his absurd Darwin-to-Haeckel-to-Hitler link. TTC’s only sources for this were Gould, a tertiary source, and a quote mine of Darwin’s support for Haeckel’s scientific ideas in the 1860’s, which TTC dishonestly calls Darwin’s support for Haeckel’s political beliefs in the 1890’s after Darwin was dead a decade, which TTC says were the basis of Nazi policies another 40 years after that.
TTC: Haeckel is only one of several links between Darwin and German eugenics, and German eugenics was what fueled the Nazis...
TTC lied outright, saying that Darwin supported Haeckel’s political beliefs, by employing a quote mine. In the quote mine, Darwin supports Haeckel’s scientific ideas of the 1860’s. TTC uses these quotes to claim that Darwin supported political beliefs which Haeckel (along with many Germans) embraced in the 1890’s, a decade after Darwin was dead.
What fueled the Nazis was not eugenics, but anti-atheism, anti-Semitism and anti-Communism, which the Nazis insisted were all the same thing, because Jews were “materialists” and Communism meant rule by Jews.
TTC: I wouldn't try to make an inept, incompetent and anachronistic case that Charles Darwin had responsibility for the Nazis.
Bullshit. That is exactly what TTC did: his inept, incompetent and anachronistic case. Now try walking it back, moron.
Hey Diogenes, I featured you in my post today.
I ask because in my recent long fight at Sandwalk Blog the two lifejackets in the form of quotations that are always thrown to the eugenics-free Darwin got hauled out by one "Diogenes", as ironically named a scientistic crackpot as inhibits the comment threads.
http://zthoughtcriminal.blogspot.com/
That's the difference between us, Diogenes, well, one of them. Charles Darwin and even natural selection could slink to the bottom of the ocean and I'd still know that evolution was a fact. You wouldn't know what to do without your mascot.
The other is that you're a total crackpot.
Who's Cornelius Van Til?
Riddle: When a drunk and a fool are having an argument, how do you tell which one is the fool?
Answer: In the morning the drunk will sober up. The other one is the fool.
Riddle: When a fool argues with TTC, which one is the fool?
Answer: Which one of them takes TTC seriously? Which one of them continues to try to argue with somebody who will not argue reasonably? Which one of them might wake up sober in the morning?
Seriously, there is an argument that by demolishing TTC's attempts at persuasion, one might make it easier for third parties to find the truth. However, if we posit third parties that might be tricked by TTC's approach we are talking about people who will not know a rational argument when they see it. To sway such people you would do better to adopt TTC's methods.
Try another riddle.
Riddle: What's the difference between TTC and a troll?
Answer: Some people say that trolls do not believe what they say, that they only want to attract your attention and keep your attention and if possible get an emotional response from you.
Does TTC believe what he says? If so, then perhaps he is not a troll. Do you really care whether he believes it? Does it make any difference to anybody whether he really believes it, or whether he is just a garden-variety troll? Maybe we should use McCarthy's approach. If it looks like a trool, and it walks like a troll, and it quacks like a troll, maybe we should treat it like a troll.
I rest my case, bring back involuntary commitment.
Who's Cornelius Van Til?
Diogenes, you liar, it was Allan Miller who introduced Hitler into the discussion on the Origin of Life thread, I was discussing the origin of life. Long before the Nazis.
Lies in the name of science. That's the slogan of the new atheists.
TTC: Who's Cornelius van Til?
I thought you had ESP?
Read my mind. First letter Fuck, last letter A donkey.
I thought you had ESP?
Both predicate and what comes after it are untrue. All I've ever said is that I read some reviewed research and an assessment by one of the finest statisticians in North America about it. Something you've never done. Just as you've never read anything by Darwin or you'd not quote mine him from Darwin Fan Club sources.
First letter Fuck, last letter A donkey.
Oh, the erudition and eloquence. I'll name you in the two long posts about your quote-mined Darwin. I believe it's the only thing you offered in that long argument, which is more than the rest of your side did. None of you have read any Darwin, or you'd know of the one other life jacket available before that also proves inadequate and St. Darwin sinks and a rational and informed person can never believe in him again. As I proved in my Sunday post.
J Thomas, list the books of Charles Darwin you've read.
Maybe you should name the books relevant to he topic of this thread you've read. I'll name two of those I've read, The Philosopy of Physical Science and The Nature of the Physical World by Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Varieties of Religious Experience and A Pluralistic Universe by William James. Why I am not a Christian and Science and Ethics by Bertrand Russell.
There I've named two and others that I've used ideas from in the on-topic part of the discussion.
I'd name the ones I've read in the diversion after brought that up here, too but that was the diversion part of the discussion.
You know, historians who look into those Darwin questions seem to have far less trouble telling the truth about it than the sciency types. But they do spend a lot of time looking at what people have said and analyzing that instead of physical evidence so maybe that's where the difference starts. Oh, sorry, I'm not addressing you in the last part of this, that's in case Larry Moran or another adult reads it.
Diogenes, you liar, it was Allan Miller who introduced Hitler into the discussion on the Origin of Life thread,
I re-checked that thread, and indeed TTC is correct, it was Allan Miller who dropped the H-bomb first, though briefly. TTC launched from that into a long, long tangent about German eugenics being inspired by Darwin. I apologize for mis-stating that.
TTC: Hey Diogenes, I featured you in my post today.
You're writing about me in your diary? Gosh. I made a picture of you today, it was on a long strip of paper but I had to flush it.
TTC is correct
You say that as if it's a surprise? I'd have thought the citations would have indicated I try to be.
What can I say, Diogenes, I'd had enough of that kind of thing when Miller said that. I say that in my first post from this morning
But the charge isn't that Darwin drew up and endorsed the complete history of eugenics as it became real in the world, the charge is that he inspired it, that he established its premise that he gave it his blessing as Galton and others established the "science" during its gestation to full term. [As I show in my post today, they included Leonard and George Darwin as well as Wilhelm Schallmeyer. Haeckel is getting his own post] One of the first lines of defense by his champions is the deliberate distortion of that charge into an absurdity that couldn't be true, in lieu of presenting a case against the accusation as its made. That is what happened when Allen Miller inserted it, irrelevantly, against me during an argument about an unrelated matter*. That was my inspiration for this series of posts overturning the phony Darwin that so much of his ideology stands on. I want to destroy that one so the real Charles Darwin will be known in his own words and deeds.
* When you hear the word "Darwin", your first association is frequently "Hitler", Allan Miller Sandwalk Blog August 9, 2012
That bit of snark turned out to be my limit of toleration for that tactic of dishonest argument. His clearly unhinged fellow Darwin champions, "Diogenes" and "J Thomson" also used it. I wasn't surprised, it's a continuing feature of the new atheist discourse.
You can read my response to Miller and the ensuing brawl at the link. Please, notice who provided documentation and citation in the argument if you read it.
I already showed TTC's ignorant self-contradictions on the subject of Nazism, in my comment of Monday, August 20, 2012 4:22:00 PM.
TTC contradicts himself, makes things up, pushes the "Darwin-to-Haeckel-to-Hitler" hoax that no historian will defend, then says he didn't claim Darwin caused Nazism. So what does he mean, then? No one cares anymore.
TTC: I wouldn't try to make an inept, incompetent and anachronistic case that Charles Darwin had responsibility for the Nazis.
That is exactly what TTC made: an inept, incompetent and anachronistic case.
You should go back and look at what I posted, "Diogenes" I gave a quote from Steven J. Gould who made the connection from Haeckel to the Nazis, as anyone with a functioning sense of reason could see. So you can blame Gould for that part of that chain, in what I posted, at least.
The only part of it I dealt with was the link from Charles Darwin to Haeckel, and I'm afraid Charles Darwin did that himself when he wrote to Haeckel that he was one of the few people who understood natural selection, when he cited him favorably in The Descent of Man, when he carried on a long term correspondence with Haeckel, when he hosted him at Down, very likely taking him for a nature stroll or two on Sandwalk. All of those things are documented in Darwin's letters, in Darwin's Descent of Man and by his son Francis Darwin (another eugenicist son of Darwin). Charles Darwin linked himself to Haeckel as Haeckel linked himself to Darwin.
You can't overturn that so you lie about it.
As for the link from Haeckel to the Nazis, other people have made that link, I haven't dealt with it, though I certainly wouldn't hesitate to present the evidence if I chose to.
If you don't like those facts, Diogenes, live with it. The historical and textual records are there, they are far more complete and comprehensible than anything in evo-psy and much in other areas of science. There's a huge difference between physical evidence and textual evidence, texts are there to transfer information, that's the purpose they are made. You're not going to lie them away. The rest of the world isn't obligated to lie to make you happy. If me telling the truth makes you unhappy, you're making it very difficult for me to regret telling it.
You are such a card, Diogenes. You're ready for open mike night.
I just figured out why you never found an honest man. You wouldn't know honest from your elbow.
Since "Social Darwinism" has no standard definition, just about anyone can be accused of being "Social Darwinist"
There is no doubt now Charles Darwin defined "Social Darwinism" he said that it was the same thing as Natural Selection on page 92 in the 5th edition of On the Origin of Species as I pointed out last week:
Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations, and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, and would be left either a fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in certain polymorphic species, or would ultimately become fixed, owing to the nature of the organism and the nature of the conditions.
Only Darwin coyly says "variations" when that really means "organisms" including people being destroyed or preserved as he would make clear two years later in The Descent of Man.
Charles Darwin called his claim to fame, Natural Selection "Social Darwinism". It couldn't be clearer, if you can read and if you know the first thing about this issue.
Which of Darwin's books have you read, Diogenes? Convince me you're pulling your stuff out of Darwin's books instead of the bowels of new atheist online wisdom.
J Thomas, list the books of Charles Darwin you've read.
Homey don't play that.
But just for gedanken, let's pretend I played that game your way. I would look online for a list of books that would look impressive, and claim to have read them all.
And then as we discussed some of those books it would gradually become apparent to most observers that I had not actually learned anything from any of them. Still, every time you tried to make an argument, I would say that you were wrong because I had read more books than you had. Somehow, when I claimed to read more books it was supposed to meant I was right and you were wrong!
Wouldn't you feel bad to argue with somebody like that? Somebody who consistently lost arguments and didn't even notice that he had lost them?
Well, that's why I've stopped arguing with you. You don't know how to make a logical argument and you show no sign that you can learn. I feel ashamed to pick on you. It probably wasn't your fault that you turned out like this, but you have some sort of illusion that you are doing something that is somehow worthwhile -- and it's embarrassing to watch.
Denny,
I don't use evolutionary logic as a support for my views on anything other than matters of biology. Atheism came first - I was never a theist in any strong sense. It so happens that evolution offers a pretty good answer to one of the questions that religion has attempted to solve - 'how did we get here?'. It does not address any of the others, although I have my answers on those - the nature of morality, say, or the sense that I acknowledge that exists in many people that there is something 'else' about existence outside the physical.
When I said 'Help in the here-and-now is all the atheist has to offer', I simply meant as a person, not atheism as a worldview that I would wish others to buy into. As a personal opinion it reflects a more accurate picture of the actual state-of-affairs of existence, and it's on that basis I argue for it, rather than a worldview I would commend to another. It may seem as if one is evangelising for atheism, but it is simply discourse - "THIS is how I think things are" - as I might argue for plate tectonics or prions as a disease agent. This also motivates arguments against the bad science that frequently comes from the religious side.
My 'bottom line' is simply that I find the notion of God to be fundamentally unbelievable. Personal existence is weird. Being a conscious entity, while being aware (at least, considering it true) that that experience is simply an emergent phenomenon upon the interactions of atoms and electrons whizzing between them? Strange. But it would be no less strange if the reality turned out to be a 'soul-based' platform, an extra-molecular consciousness that was able to manipulate (and is clearly strongly influenced by) the molecular one.
God, are you still at it?
Just to repeat my 'lie', in full -
"When you hear the word "Darwin", your first association is frequently "Hitler", "wrong about some stuff...", or "over-praised"! So I admit to some jerking. :0P"
Note the wry exclamation mark and the tongue-pulling emoticon. It was snark of the mildest kind; an elbow in the ribs. You are on a hair-trigger.
But hey, it gave you the opportunity to open 'the Darwin files' once more, so don't complain. And you continue to display your grasp of his biology to great comic effect, so we all got something out of it.
The only reason I've asked you to do that is that you and Miller have produced nothing to support your arguments, no citations, no quotes no links to relevant information. Diogenes has but got caught distorting them by, uh, "quote mining". When it's an argument about what specific people have said, that's how you argue it, by citing what they said and documentation of what they did. You haven't done that and I suspect it's because you, like the majority of Darwin's blog champions, have never read anything he wrote from cover to cover. A few have read Voyage of the Beagle, fewer seem to have read On the Origin of Species (especially the later editions relevant to this argument) and just about none have read The Descent of Man, which is the most relevant to this argument. Fewer, still, have looked at his letters and notebooks which often provide confirmatory evidence that what he said in public matches what he said in the relative privacy of a letter. Of course, I've mentioned why his children and those who knew Darwin and spoke to him are more credible than people who never met him, especially those born many decades after his death, they talked to him at his most candid, they heard things he didn't want to put on paper. And some of what he put on paper is pretty damning.
Yet you've brought nothing to this argument. That's why it's fairly obvious you haven't read any of the relevant material, the material that proves the case that Darwin was not only the inspiration of eugenics, he was active in its earliest stages of development. I'm expecting to learn more about that by studying his other children's eugenics activities, during his life. With Leonard Darwin it's explicit, he was sure he was carrying out his father's work and he knew him better than any of the champions of the phony, eugenics-free Darwin.
Perhaps it's a novel idea to you but you need to know what you're talking about before you can say anything true about it. The Darwin Fan Club is based on myths cooked up by ideologues and put on TV by the BBC and other upholders of that myth. Try reading the books and looking up Darwin's citations and who those men were. That's where he confirms his status as the inspiration of eugenics and an active participant in its early development.
At this point, I'm mostly interested in responding to you to see how clueless you guys are of the most basic requirements of rational discourse. And you think you're the champions of reason.
Allan Miller, that's what started it, your bringing that into an argument about a topic entirely unrelated to the discussion in a way I'm all too familiar with. And once in it the only defense that you boys have made for your hero is the dodge of trying to turn the issue into one so ridiculous that it's false on its face.
I thought my first answer to you might shut that off but you boys ran with it. Emoticons are stupid, I never notice them.
I'd just as soon kill off Darwin so he doesn't enter into every damned discussion of these issues. But his and related myths is as much as most of you blog atheist know about things. I actually had an argument a couple of months ago with a genetics researcher at a university and a physics teacher at a prestigious prep school who believed Inherit the Wind was an accurate depiction of history. And the documentation to prove the movie was as phony as movie history always is couldn't be clearer.
I'm not a fan of lying as history or science and am even less of a an of lying as politics.
Yes, old bean, I know exactly how it unfolded! I was there. I overestimated your ability to take a sly dig. Boo hoo.
As to the 'all too familiar' aspect of this - that is exactly what I was mocking! You think you are the first person on the internet to make this case? Jeez, it is rife. Google "Darwin eugenics Nazi" or similar, and fill your boots.
So yes, the joke certainly backfired, as you managed to hijack not one but two threads on your pet subject.
For all the books you may have read on the subject, an ability to comprehend them does not come across. (No-one ever managed to persuade someone that their comprehension is poor by saying so, of course!). But that you even read politics into his famed orchids-bees-and-geology tome shows a certain ... ahm ... creative interpretation.
This preservation of favourable variations, and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.
You really think he was setting up an agenda for human society by that passage, which you bolded? No, don't answer, of course you do. But I rather think you won't be able to help yourself anyway.
TCC, you have learned that when people criticize your approach you can accuse them of the same thing they accused you of. Diogenes caught you making misleading quotes out of context, so you accuse him of the same thing. I point out some of your logic mistakes so you accuse me of being illogical. That way, people who aren't paying attention and who want to give you the benefit of the doubt, can assume that we're probably all about equal here and the truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
When it's an argument about what specific people have said, that's how you argue it, by citing what they said and documentation of what they did.
That's what honest people do. But you have demonstrated that you do that dishonestly. So nobody reasonable will not trust your quotes unless somebody trustworthy backs them up. You lost that trust when Diogenes pointed out a dishonest quote and your only response was to claim that he had made dishonest quotes.
Yet you've brought nothing to this argument.
I have not made an argument myself. I started out ready to accept your claims. My concern was that it was not important. OK, Darwin was a 19th century British aristocrat. What difference does it make to anything if he had the typical opinions of a 19th century British aristocrat, and not the opinions of a 1980's PC liberal? He also did some good work on evolution.
But then I noticed that you were being illogical and I started pointing that out, and you didn't answer any of my complaints -- you only complained about me. And Diogenes showed that you were lying, and you didnt present any defense, you just complained about him.
So that's what I'm bringing to the argument. I am pointing out that your logic is bad and your evidencial claims are lies. This does not say anything about what's true about Darwin. Darwin could be everything you claim independent of your completely bogus claims about him.
See, if you told a bunch of illogical lies trying to prove that the surface of the sun is hotter than the surface of the earth, I could point out that your arguments are illogical lies. But just because you lie about it, doesn't mean it isn't true. Darwin could be everything you say. I haven't done anything to prove he isn't. I've only shown that you have done nothing useful whatsoever to back up your claims.
Perhaps it's a novel idea to you but you need to know what you're talking about before you can say anything true about it.
But you don't always need to know anything about the topic to tell when somebody is saying something wrong about it.
I will give you an example.
Jim owns 10 flums. Bob owns 20 flums. But Jim's flums are big flums, much bigger than Bob's. Bigger flums are best flums. Jim doesn't have as many flums as Bob does, but his 10 flums are as flummy as 40 regular flums. So Jim has 40 flums. But Jim's flums are big flums, and they count as much as 160 regular flums. Really Jim has 160 flums.
What do you need to know about flums to tell whether these statements are all true?
I don't need to read what Darwin said to tell that your arguments are bogus. I only need to read what you said.
Well, you see, Allan Miller, I've been hearing that line for the biggest part of a decade.
How can you know if I comprehend a book that I've read unless you've read it? ESP?
Since I gave entire paragraphs and Diogenes was the one who cut them off to change their meaning, as I pointed out, it's clear who was guilty of "quote mining".
Did you read my post on that the other day, when I pointed out a rather hilarious instance of "quote mining" in an online source, I'd guess "edited" by your club, in an article about "quote mining"?
How Much Do You Have To Quote Before You're Not "Quote Mining"
http://zthoughtcriminal.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-much-do-you-have-to-quote-before.html
I don't need to read what Darwin said to tell thatu your arguments are bogus. I only need to read what you said.
As I asked Miller, how do you know that, ESP?
So I was right, you haven't read anything by him and does it ever show. The only way to know what Darwin and Galton and all of the other's said is by reading what they said. You can't deduce it, you can't guess it, you can't make it up out of your fondest dreams based on your favorite myths. What they said is what they said.
How can you know if I comprehend a book that I've read unless you've read it? ESP?
Your comprehension may indeed be excellent; I am saying that it does not come across - certainly not on matters of biology. I don't need ESP to spot your errors in posts made here.
I have read the Origin, from which your quote came. I think I've said so before. As to the rest of his oeuvre, you provide direct quotes to support your case, and I can Google up the relevant passage just to make sure you haven't missed anything important - context. But it all boils down to interpretation. If you quote a quote, and say it says X, and I read it and don't agree that it says X at all ... do I really have to read the whole sodding book to come to that conclusion?
People who agree with your case as presented are presumably spared the chore of reading the entire collected works, Lives and Letters. People who disagree on the evidence you present are guilty of some 'thought crime' - Darwin fanboys, liars, thick as pigshit or with comprehension issues.
I indulged a little reverse snark on the latter point. But when you read "race" as human race, and "varieties" in similar light, in a treatise upon biology, I do have to wonder.
J Thomas, and Larry, are right, however. I will leave you to it. I think you rather revel in going against the grain.
What difference does it make to anything if he had the typical opinions of a 19th century British aristocrat, and not the opinions of a 1980's PC liberal? He also did some good work on evolution.
As it happens, that is relevant to my post today. Perhaps Larry Moran would like to think about what Darwin was saying about our Great-great grandparents:
How Much Did Darwin Really Believe in Natural Selection
Perhaps it was wishful thinking on Darwin's part, believing that characterization of the "Irishman". I will say, outright, that I think there is a lot more wishful thinking in Darwin than leads to good science. In fact, in this book that was so useful to eugenicists, most of his assertions betray his class bias, his Anglo-Saxon privilege, his racism and bigotry and his male supremacy. But, it being Darwin, you're supposed to overlook those and the effect it obviously has on his second major SCIENTIFIC BOOK dealing with evolution. You are supposed to excuse his disabilities in objective thought due to him "being a man of his time". But what, in most cases of hero worship, is merely historically dishonest, when it's science, which is supposed to be a very reliable source of knowledge about the world and when that world is the one Darwin addresses in The Descent of Man, that excuse is inadequate. In this case it was extremely dangerous. If scientists want to enjoy the enhanced credibility and repute that comes with the belief that they have taken the greatest possible trouble to produce real science of the greatest possible reliability, they don't get to use the excuse that their insertion of their own self-interest and their prejudice into the work has an excuse.
http://zthoughtcriminal.blogspot.com/
But I haven't been arguing biology here, I've been arguing the historical and literary record. I said somewhere that this is a political, not a scientific brawl.
I not only provided quotes that you can google, I've provided citations and links to the entire work when those are available online.
If you mean the exchange I had with heleen and you about whether or not natural selection has changed in meaning over the century and a half it's been circulating, that's also documentary in nature. It's a fact that Darwin's NS isn't the same as Fisher's or Wallace's or what it became after drift and neutral theory came about. For one thing, it's got competition as THE means of change over time now. I think it will only get more competition as time goes on and more is learned. I doubt it's going to survive the century. If we don't manage to end our evolution with our self-imposed extinction, proving we're maladapted for life.
TTC has not presented any evidence to support his claim that "Darwin was not only the inspiration of eugenics, he was active in its earliest stages of development."
We asked him for evidence, he tells us his evidence is: "I'm smarter than you. I read more books than you did."
No, that is not evidence for your claim, and it works against your claim. If you have read so many books about eugenics, why did you not find any evidence in them that Darwin supported coercive eugenics? You read all those books and found no evidence for your claim? Then you lose the argument.
Every argument with a Christian theist boils down to their claim: "I'm smarter than you." No, that works against you. If you're so smart, why did your vast education not provide you with evidence for what you're claiming? We conclude the evidence does not exist.
If you have such a superior intellect, how bad is it for you that even a superior intellect like yours cannot present evidence that Darwin supported coercive eugenics?
TTC presented no evidence of Darwin being "active" in development of coercive eugenics-- the word "eugenics" being invented 3 years after Darwin was dead. Anyone "active" in such a movement would certainly leave a paper trail, and TTC could find none, despite claimed vast reading.
Moreover, TTC has presented no evidence from either Galton or Haeckel or Darwin or anyone, as to what pre-eugenics might have looked like or been proposed in 1882 when Darwin died, or before that. Obviously the word "eugenics" didn't exist then, so what were they talking about then? TTC simply uses guesswork and innuendo and projects future knowledge onto past actors.
TTC: you and Miller have produced nothing to support your arguments, no citations, no quotes no links to relevant information.
That's right, they didn't-- a claim supported by no evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
TTC: Diogenes has but got caught distorting them by, uh, "quote mining"
The fuck I did. TTC copied and pasted the same quote from Darwin that Ben Stein quote mined in "Expelled", the exact quote used on thousands of creationist sites. The part that I quoted showed that Darwin opposed withholding care for the weak or sick, which he called "an overwhelming present evil."
That's analogous to opposing coercive eugenics, although the word "eugenics" was invented 3 years after Darwin was dead.
TTC has no evidence that that was a "quote mine." TTC presented nothing that might change the meaning of Darwin's "an overwhelming present evil" in its context; thus TTC has no evidence that I quote mined.
TTC's claimed "evidence" of Darwin's "activity" in "eugenics" consisted of:
1. letters from Darwin to Haeckel in the early 1870's, where Darwin asks Haeckel about scientific topics like rudimentary structures.
2. Darwin agreeing with Haeckel's defense of free speech for scientists in Freie Wissenschaft und Freie Lehre (1879).
etc. That is not evidence Darwin was "active in the earliest stages of development" of coercive eugenics. It doesn't even tell us what Haeckel supported in the 1870's, nor what he would support in the 1890's a decade after Darwin was dead.
But TTC presented no evidence from Galton, Haeckel, or Darwin as to what evil, precisely, they had talked about pre-1882.
All we have-- ALL WE HAVE-- is Darwin's letter to Gaskell where Darwin references Galton's "marriage certificates" and Darwin says he's against them. Galton's "marriage certificates" might be coercive or voluntary eugenics, might be positive or negative eugenics.
I'd guess coercive negative eugenics, which if true, means that Darwin was against coercive negative eugenics of Galton's sort, and against Gaskell's proposals also.
SLC said, “Just for Mr. Denny's information, my PhD thesis adviser was a born again Christian who was perfectly capable of interpreting scientific data, at least in physics.” – OK then. Am I to assume that your thesis adviser was a theistic evolutionist/creationist? Or, did he reject any theistic implications, when it came to natural science? In other words, did he have your confidence as a knowledgeable science advisor only in the area of physics, and was he an IDiot concerning the biological sciences? A dichotomy like the one I imply would more likely mean you would see him as an IDiot in all scientific respects. Correct?
Darwin had many bad attitudes, but they were shared with ALL white males in the 19th. century. We can admit he had bad attitudes, but it's not necessary to make up things he didn't say or do and attribute them to him, out of an infantile desire to be anti-PC.
Darwin opposed slavery, supported free market capitalism, and opposed withholding care from the weak and the sick. Darwin supported imperialism, but also supported humane treatment for natives throughout the British Empire.
Darwin predicted that some non-white races would go extinct, but so did every white intellectual, pastor, bishop, novelist, poet etc. in all of Western civilization starting perhaps 100 years before The Origin of Species. As Patrick Brantlinger makes clear in Dark Vanishings, predicting the extinction of non-white races was already an old cliche by the time Darwin wrote The Origin. The Puritans had predicted the extinction of Native Americans by comparing them to the Canaanites in the Bible. Everything American from "The Song of Hiawatha" to Last of the Mohicans, everyone from Tom Jefferson to Ben Franklin, predicted the extinction of Native Americans. Many non-white races had in fact gone extinct before Darwin wrote The Origin, including Caribs, Tasmanians, Guanches, etc.
But unlike many, Darwin also actively opposed genocide of non-whites. He was a member of the Society for the Protection of Aborigines (SPA), one of the few organizations that was, for a while, partially effective in ending or limiting genocide of natives throughout the Empire.
Darwin made a few (two or three) racist statements, but also many other statements that undermined and challenged the widespread and deeply entrenched racism of his culture, including the pseudoscientific racism that went back many decades before The Origin.
I have read many books from the nineteenth century in support of racism, including many written before The Origin, and they're horrible.
So the difference between me and TTC is that I've read more shit from the nineteenth century than he has-- more stuff that's pre- and post-Darwin, and I know that Darwin was much less racist, less cruel and callous, than most 19th century authors. The 19th century was a horrible time, including the anti-evolutionists and Christian authorities, most of whom were more racist and callous than Darwin.
In every historical era, anti-evolutionists were always more racist than evolutionists.
Darwin did little to make 19th century attitudes worse, and did much to undermine many such attitudes, particularly racism. In the context of the 19th century, Darwin's Descent of Man has to be regarded as anti-racist. See for example, Michael Graves' The Emperor's New Clothes for a history of race theory and Darwin's relation to it.
There are many other quotes where Darwin talks about sympathy, and asserts that sympathy will necessarily become "more widely diffused", transcending national and ethnic barriers, and even being extended to animals. These statements are also incompatible with withholding care for the weak and sick-- incompatible with coercive eugenics.
So I don't believe the myth of "St. Darwin" as TTC idiotically accuses me of. I just know that Christian anti-evolutionists of the 19th century were worse than Darwin.
Let's blame Darwin for things he really said and wrote, but let's not accuse Darwin of things he didn't do. TTC accuses Darwin of things he didn't do, because TTC want to restore intellectual and moral authority to Christian leaders who, historically, did nothing to oppose or who supported slavery, racism, imperialism, hereditary aristocracy, the genocide of South African Bushmen and the death of a million Irishmen. Christian authorities supported those things back then; they can't pass the blame now to Darwin, who didn't support them, as the facts show.
Diogenes, I think I found an example of Charles Darwin quote mining.
Addendum: John Wilkins did the service of posting the essay of W. R Greg which Darwin took that passage from. With Wilkins commentary. You can see in the comments that I was engaged in researching Darwin back then. I don't know why there is text in the original as given by Wilkins contains things not present in The Descent of Man. I would propose that Darwin might have been sanitizing it a bit, making it slightly more palatable. Also, Darwin took it from a longer paragraph. Was Charles Darwin guilty of "quote mining"? It makes you wonder what a careful inspection of other quotes in the book would show in that line.
http://zthoughtcriminal.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-much-did-darwin-really-believe-in.html
I've documented everything I've said Darwin said and did. Through his words, through the words of his children. You think you know Charlie boy better than they did, Diogenes? How? You consult a medium? You channeling him?
I said somewhere that this is a political, not a scientific brawl.
OK, politically whose side are you on? I think you're kind of on my side on some issues -- the sort of ally I'd would rather not have.
You say Darwin is damaged goods so we must throw him out of our club. Tell people he was a racist. Then we claim evolutionary theory doesn't depend on him and everything important was done by good guys.
Like the CCCP did with Trotsky, "distance" ourselves from him. Write him out of the history books.
How will this help us? Creationists will oppose us always.. They will still consider us the evil enemy, and they will think they won. They think Darwin was the source of evolution the way Moses was the source of Judaism or Lenin (not Trotsky) was the sole source of the USSR. If they hear that we have given up on Darwin they will celebrate. To them it would be like Catholics deciding that the Pope's too evil to be a Catholic. They would thrust to the hilt.
Where next? Darwin studied evolution and he turned evil. Does thinking about evolution make people turn evil? So many evolutionists have turned into atheists.... Evolution is dangerous to think about. It must be suppressed.
What about people who like science? They mostly don't care about Darwin's personal life. Any more than details of his scientific ideas. It's ancient history. Suppose that while he was in argentina he bought a harem of slavegirls and had sex with all of them between looking for giant sloth bones, and when he left argentina he sold the slaves. Who cares?
Politically, your approach narrows the coalition. "Only the best people can join our side. If you have flaws then join the other side, we'll fight you.". That does not work.
"Race" in politics is a club. People who care about some race join that club, and then they suffer because they can only let people into their club that they can pretend are their race. It isn't about reality, it's about their beliefs. People like that often try to mistreat people who are not in their club, and every racist club is worried that others will harm them. So as good people our task is to protect racists when other racists are hurting them, and oppose racists when they try to hurt people. Not just make them all our enemies all the time.
When racist israelis mistreat racist palestinians, we oppose that, and when racist arabs mistreat racist israelis we oppose that too. We accept assistance from anybody who's ready to do good at the moment, and then oppose them when they do bad.
Getting all upset about people's ideological purity is a goddamn mistake. It tutns you into a despised minority.
I think that's what you want for us. You want us to throw out most of our supporters and be the purest losers in the world. No thank you.
Darwin had some important ideas about biology and he spread them effectively. Beyond that, give it a rest. Throw Darwin out of the club? How about Fisher, you don't have to argue about his morals. How about Gould, who publicly admitted he was a lifelong Marxist? How about Moran, an atheist? How many people do you want to keep? Maybe to you everybody but you has moral flaws and politically you are a party of one?
I'd feel more comfortable if I knew that you were against me. I prefer that you support the other team. The better you persuade them to throw people out of their club, the happier I'll be. And yet, do I want to throw people out of my club because they want to throw people out of the club? I'll just have to do my best with you on my team, if you in fact are.
Only when it's Darwin is someone required to lie about him, his flamingly obvious eugenics assertions, his ocean of racism and bigotry that leaps off of just about every page of The Descent of Man, his disdain for the poor. Darwin is unique in all of scientific biography in it being required that people lie about what he said and what he did to maintain a pious myth. Well I won't lie about it. As I indicate below I'm beginning to check out some of his quotes after finding he sanitized W. R. Greg, altering what he said to use some pretty repulsive "science" from that textile baron to support Darwin's own proto-eugenics.
Only when it's natural selection is a scientific theory not supposed to be questioned, even as science finds it necessary to twist and change it because of its inadequacy in its original form -partly due to not enough information being known. You're supposed to lie that the perfect explanation of evolution sprang out of inadequate information when Darwin decided to swipe a repulsive, unfounded, political idea from Malthus and start telling stories with it. That the idea and the conclusions drawn from it have tended to, as Haeckel notes, support aristocracy instead of democracy is not to be mentioned, even as both Darwin and Thomas Huxley supported the book in which Haeckel said that.
I'm not lying for you, your Darwin god image is a fraud and I'm not pretending otherwise anymore.
Oh, Christ, you've made me break my vow of silence again!
[...] Darwin decided to swipe a repulsive, unfounded, political idea from Malthus [...]
Malthus's basic premise is mathematically irrefutable. Populations in a finite world will expand until they can expand no more. Something happens to them, something very real and non-political. There are not enough resources in the world to sustain every organism. Perhaps there is room in heaven, but not on earth. Deal with it; don't get shitty with scientists for noting it, and its consequences for ALL populations. It IS about biology - but you are determined to make it about politics.
It's like the old joke about the Rorschach ink blots - "you're the one showing me the dirty pictures!". You see politics everywhere - even in the near-axiomatic observation that varying populations will become enriched in the heritable qualities that assist survival. "Whose survival, huh? The rich? The aristocracy? The white European? Huh? Huh?". No, mate, just the goddamned survivors' survival. Is/Ought confusion peppers your every post.
Will you people never learn that when you're talking about the real world, real people, animals, plants their habitats(that they construct, by the way) their environment, etc. having an equations isn't enough, it has to be an accurate representation of what happens. A reduction only tells you a limited amount about that, you make a reduction by cutting things out.
And Malthus didn't just produce that, he obviously inserted many assumptions of class and biased evaluation into his study. As did Darwin, as can be seen on just about every page or The Descent of Man and in his more occasional writing. All of its "science" is seriously polluted with extra-scientific assumptions. I think that's what's going to turn out to be the breaking point of natural selection, that and that the idea is inherently teleological, as so many intelligent people have noticed, and science really can't deal with teleological concepts.
Popper was right in the first place when he pointed out that the concept is tautological, equating the mere fact of survival with "fitness" that is the reason for survival. Survival of the survivors. That was before he was pressured into retracting, something that can happen to people with something to lose when they turn apostate from the enforced, allowable POV. But I've got nothing to lose so I'm not afraid of saying it.
I'd bet that the idea doesn't survive the century as younger people and more information leads to a more complete picture of evolution than was available in 1859 or 1940. Still and inescapably fragmentary (see my post today), but more complete. Then the real reason for the Darwin cult will be obvious, as an icon of atheism.
I am surprised to see all the ajeda about eugenics. If life in general, and human life specifically, has no special purpose or meaning, and if the universe is quite likely doomed to self-destruction, and multiverse offers only a repeat performance of same, why are you all dissecting eugenics and its negative implications and its supposed adherents, as if it matters? After all, if eugenics was - is (abortion) - or might be simply part of human evolutionary natural selection, what’s all the fuss between all you Sandwalk fans?
Once again Larry and the atheist dupes reveal a total lack of capacity for logic.
Why are all atheist immune to logic?
Indeed, how do atheists believe they can deny the existence of logical absolutes all while pretending to be logically founded in atheism which has no choice but to deny logical absolutes?
- Its called "acute cognitive dissonance".
You people are quite hilarious in your lame attempts to refute arguments against your inane and self-admitted meaningless world view.
Atheism is philosophized insanity.
Denial, denial denial, that's all you have.
No wonder so many consider Dawkins, Myers, Moran et al, and of course their devoted disciples, to be philosophical morons.
We see the proof of it here every day.
Ignoramus atheists have given some incredibly stupid "rebuttals" to Plantinga here.
Take this lame brained "Negative Entropy" bozo who says,
"This Plantinga is one of those imbecilic philosophers who declared that Dawkins should not have made philosophical claims in "the god delusion" without being a philosopher. Yet, this Plantinga imbecile goes and tries his hands into "evolution" and "materialism" without understanding one bit about biology, not one bit about evolution, yadayadayada..."
Unreal.
To think these inane drones still talk of "Darwin's simple idea" - yup real hard to understand evolution huh?
It is a notorious fact that scientists - especially the materialist ones - are inevitably incredibly bad philosophers and logicians oh and liars - if one accepts Lewontin's claims.
In the famous words of Dorothy, I must ask the atheist non-thinkers here, "What would you do if you had a brain?"
Looks like "Negative Entropy" is in fact "Negative Brains".
Gary H. says,
No wonder so many consider Dawkins, Myers, Moran et al, and of course their devoted disciples, to be philosophical morons.
Maybe I really am a "philosophical moron." It should be easy to prove. Just give me your very best argument for the existence of god(s).
Waiting ...........
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