Atheism: Autopsy of a Failed Faith

As part of my “Debate With Atheists About…Well…Just About Everything,” I wrote…

Just for the record, I DO think an atheist can be an advocate for the “good”, but it’s very, very hard, and even when it CAN be done, it’s still unnecessarily vulnerable to folks who want to say “Homey don’t play that.” Exhibit A: Islamic fundamentalists.

Needless to say, this statement – just like everything I wrote – would be vigorously opposed by most atheists. They insist that faith in God is NOT necessary for “the good.” A belief in Darwinism, materialism, atheism, etc. is sufficient for a healthy moral order.

And what IS a “healthy moral order?” That depends. There is some disagreement within the atheist community. However, I’ll tentatively divide those guys into 3 categories: The Nihilists (“all morality is an illusion;” think Nietzsche); the Objectivists (“morality DOES exist and is universal;” think Ayn Rand) and the Sentimentalists (“morality sort of exists, but is always relative;” think Richard Rorty).

I just made up the term “Sentimentalist Atheist.” And I would argue that they make up the vast majority of atheists (probably about 80%). What makes them “sentimental?” Even though they vocally loathe religion, they behave morally (for the most part) and have no interest in shedding their morality (think of Richard Dawkins or E.O. Wilson). In fact, if you studied them on a purely behavioral level – and knew nothing of their personal beliefs – you might find no difference between them and most Christians (except for praying and going to church, obviously). They marry and have children. They hold the door open for the person walking behind them. They say “Sorry” when they bump into strangers accidentally. They pay their taxes. They abstain from crime. And they even donate to charity (except to religious charities, of course).

How do we account for this behavior? Is it “logical” for an atheist to behave this way? And would a society completely composed of atheists behave this way? Let’s find out.



For starters, let's look at a brief dialogue between me and “Grant,” which arose from the comment section of one of my previous essays.

Todd: Personally, when I was an atheist, I was just as “moral” as I am today as a theist, but it was a “folk morality.” I knew – on an intellectual level – that morality was an illusion, but I “liked” being moral, and why? Probably because I had spent 15 years absorbed in a Christian culture, and still had the residue of faith on my soul. Being “bad” morally made me feel “bad” emotionally…

I think the morality of atheists is a consequence of being born and raised in a religious culture for a long, long time before they even begin to question their faith. As religious culture fades away (partly because of the efforts of atheists, btw) morality (among atheists and theists, too) is likely to wither away…

In today’s age, an atheist almost certainly has to be a materialist, and a materialist almost certainly has to be a Reductionist. And how do Reductionists see human beings? According to them, we're just mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Does that seem like a positive attitude toward humanity? Is that an ideology that can sustain human dignity? I think not. And once we absorb that attitude toward our fellow man, is there anything beyond fear of the law that can motivate a person to respect the lives of others? No. Once you start peeling the onion a little bit, you see that atheism is intellectually defenseless against the subjection and destruction of humanity. One caveat, though: It is not so much the disbelief in God that is lethal; it is the reductionist materialism that is the foundation of atheism…

Grant: While it's fascinating to hear you explain to me what I almost certainly must be I think I'll fall back on the fact that I have known hundreds of atheists and never met a single one who thinks people are "mindless meat puppets."

Todd: Ah, now we’re coming to the nub of the matter. I’ll try to incorporate your statement into a new observation: While atheists DO think people are “mindless meat puppets” in a scientific sense (sorry, but that is exactly how atheism is articulated by people like Dawkins and Dennett), the atheists DON’T ACT like people are “mindless meat puppets.” They still act like people have inherent dignity. And that’s good! They are resisting the teachings of their leaders. They can’t overcome their desire to live in a teleological, moral order. And again, that’s good! So the question becomes…Why can’t atheists understand that? Why can’t they see the discrepancy between their philosophical atheism and their daily behavior? If they COULD see it, they might question their atheism, and start groping toward a new spirituality.

Grant is a “sentimental atheist.” He is an all-too-common child of modern civilization. He assumes he’s the pinnacle of civilization because he’s smart, tolerant, and liberal. In truth, he’s the red-headed stepchild of civilization. The rest of the family doesn’t accept him. And why should they? They realize what the atheist does not: The atheist is a luxury of civilization, not a creator of it. I’m almost tempted to call atheists “free riders” on the Western moral tradition. A harsher person might call them “parasites” (drawing nutrition from their hosts, while weakening them), but I’ll refrain from using such a pejorative term.

“NO!!” shout the atheists. “You have us all wrong!!!” For Christ’s sake, how many times do we have to tell you: You don’t need God to be ‘good!’”



Larry Anhart is one of those atheists. He is a professor at Northern Illinois University, author of the book, Darwinian Conservatism, and the main contributor of a blog by the same name. I haven’t read Prof. Arnhart’s book, but I did read one of his most recent blog entries: Do Human Rights Require Religious Beliefs?


Prof. Arnhart realizes that most people would automatically answer: “Yes, it does.” He opens…

What difference would it make if we accepted what Bernard Williams has called "Nietzsche's thought"--"there is, not only no God, but no metaphysical order of any kind"?

One consequence, Nietzsche suggested, is that we could no longer believe that human beings were created by God in His Image and thus endowed with equal dignity. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote: "The masses blink and say: 'We are all equal.--Man is but man, before God--we are all equal.' Before God! But now this God has died." The modern morality of human equality is secularized Christian morality that cannot be continued after the death of God.

Does this mean, then, that we could no longer hold it to be self-evident that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights?...

These are the questions raised by Michael J. Perry in his book Toward a Theory of Human Rights… Perry asks: "For one who believes that the universe is utterly bereft of transcendent meaning, why--in virtue of what--is it the case that every human being has inherent dignity?". If we have no answer to that question, Perry insists, then we have no answer to those human beings who assert that they have the right to exploit and abuse other human beings because what we call right is really just the rule of the stronger…

The failure to provide a cosmic standard of value is also why Perry rejects the positions of Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty, who say that human rights rest upon human sympathy and solidarity. Nussbaum and Rorty believe that the lives of human beings have value in so far as we care for them. The idea of human rights is promoted by extending our moral sentiments to embrace ever wider circles of humanity.

Perry objects to this sentimental morality that although normal human beings--those who are not psychopaths--do care for some other human beings, particularly those of their family or tribe, it is not true that normal human beings care for all other human beings equally and impartially…

William Schulz is the former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. In his book In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All, he dismisses appeals to God or Nature or Reason as insufficient to sustain the morality of human rights. Instead, he agrees with Richard Rorty in relying on David Hume's insight that morality depends on sympathy and the moral emotions that incline us to care for our fellow human beings…

He goes on to say:

"Robert Frost once observed that poems begin with a lump in the throat, and I think human rights do too. . . . far better than by appeals to God or Nature, is to point to the capacity to identify with others, the capacity for human empathy or solidarity"...

But notice the implications of this. This view of morality as rooted in the moral emotions of evolved human nature does not appeal to any metaphysical "beyond" for cosmic support. Those like Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, and Perry would say that without such a metaphysical foundation, morality is impossible. Those analytic philosophers today who look to pure logic to prove the principles of moral obligation as inherent in the logical order of things continue in this Platonic tradition...

There is a foundation for human dignity, but it's not a transcendent or transhuman foundation--God, Nature, or Reason--but the empirical foundation of evolved human nature as the source of sympathy and the moral sense.

I give Prof. Arnhart a lot of credit: This is probably the best defense of how morality can be justified by Darwinian atheism that we will ever see. The question is: Does it work?

As you would probably expect, I have to answer “No.” Why? Well, because there’s a few contradictions. And they’re big ones. In the heart of his essay, Arnhart writes…

[Perry] hasn't made a good case for his claim that religious belief necessarily supports a morality of universal love or egalitarian humanitarianism. He admits that in practice, much of the history of religion is a history of brutality. But he would say that this comes from the failure of believers to live up to the true teaching of their religion.

Assuming Arnhart agrees with Perry’s criticism of religion (and I think that’s an excellent assumption), we have several unresolved questions that need to be addressed.

First, if humanity has experienced a “history of brutality” – whether in the name of religion, racism, class struggle, or whatever – it certainly puts a major cramp on the idea that humanity has an intuitive moral sense.



The idea that morality is “innate” has been pushed by Darwinists who account for morality as a product of evolution, but it is also very popular among certain Christians, who say it’s evidence of God’s existence and His benevolence.

Personally, I strongly disagree with the idea of an intuitive “moral law.” That’s one of the reasons I find C.S. Lewis – arguably the most famous Christian apologist – so useless.

Last year, I wrote…

According to Mr. Lewis, every human being is born with an “intuitive” understanding of “right and wrong.” This is just plain false. Every mother and father will confirm that NO child is born with an “intuitive” sense of “right and wrong.” Rather, those children must be TAUGHT to understand the difference – and the best way to understand THAT difference is through REASON (although, especially in the early years, social conformity and a few spankings might help).

Lewis’ further explanation that the Holocaust is proof of this “moral law” that is “commonly known to all human beings?” Oh really? I would beg to differ. The fact that SS guards laughed while shooting innocent women and children in the concentration camps and then mailed photos of their crimes to their families back home certainly negates any theory that “right and wrong” is “intuitive” in human beings. The fact that even today, in most Muslim cultures, teenage girls who are raped are then MURDERED by their own parents (to cleanse the “shame” on their family) shows that there are no universal, intuitive standards of “right and wrong.”

While both Christians and Darwinists are wrong to posit an intuitive “moral law,” it is the Darwinists who suffer most if such a law does not exist. Why? Because – as Arnhart’s essay shows – the idea of a “moral sense” is the only thing stitching together a coherent atheist defense of morality. If the “moral sense” goes, so does the idea of atheist morality.

However, an atheist might argue: Even if you’re right, how do you account for Arnhart’s observation that emotional appeals to compassion work on both atheists and believers (as demonstrated by the founder of Amnesty’s experience)?

Easy. See my discussion with “Grant” above. “Amnesty” is a product of modern Western Civilization. The people who finance “Amnesty” – which include Christians AND Atheists - are also products of that civilization. They were raised on the nourishment of that civilization, whose food is faith, and whose water is reason.

As I wrote on Sep. 22:

For thousands of years of human history, life all across the world life was - to quote Hobbes - "nasty, brutish, and short." Then, in one small region of the world in one brief window of time, a civilization emerged in which people (on average) lived for 75+ years in excellent health, enjoyed an economic quality of life unimaginable to their ancestors, experienced freedom from tyranny and violence, and entertained nearly limitless opportunities for creativity and self-expression.

This civilization (first blossoming in the US, Great Britain, France, and Holland in the 18th century, spreading to most of Western Europe by the late 19th century, and spreading even into remote corners like Latin America by late 20th century) was no accident. And it was not inevitable. It was a coming together of a religion and a philosophy.

As I wrote in January...

I've never felt comfortable when politicians describe America as a "Judeo-Christian country" or reaffirm the need to preserve our "Judeo-Christian values"...It defines our country, our values, and our heritage through religion alone.

About a year ago, I coined the term "Christian-Enlightenment" because it combines the religion of the West (Christianity) with the ground-breaking Enlightenment ideas (freedom, reason, the Scientific Method, etc.) that enabled the West to dominate the world.

Ethiopia is a "Judeo-Christian" country, but it's one of the worst countries on Earth because it doesn't have the Enlightenment heritage of Europe and the United States.

The West is a product of the "Christian-Enlightenment." The "Christian Enlightenment" unlocked the "genius of man" - the genius of the rational man - unencumbered by religious superstition or political oppression. But how many people in the West realize that? Not many. And therein lies our problem. How can we preserve Western civilization when so few of us understand it?

The atheists obviously don’t understand it. If faith and reason are the vital ingredients of our civilization, to claim (as they do) that atheism and emotion can – by themselves – sustain our civilization is a pure fantasy, to put it mildly (For more on this topic, see my essay, “Will Western Civilization End in Your Lifetime? Yes, Probably”).

So Anhart’s theory is dead. There is no intuitive moral sense, and whatever morality we DO possess is TAUGHT to us by a civilization that requires faith, not atheism. The “Sentimental Atheists” – like Arnhart – are free to live their lives and advocate their ideas, but the rest of us have no obligation to take their ideas seriously.

So if the Sentimental Atheists can’t defend morality, and the nihilistic atheists obviously deny morality, can ANY form of atheism work in a moral sense? The only remaining candidate is “Objectivism” – the gospel of reason articulated by Ayn Rand and her followers.



I am sympathetic to Objectivism (without the atheism, of course), because I share the Objectivists’ belief that 2 axioms are the foundation of any moral order: 1) Reality exists, and 2) Reason is the best means to master Reality. From those 2 axioms, Rand developed a cohesive, self-confident moral philosophy, expressed in Atlas Shrugged.

But does it work? Well, it used to. But not now.

As I wrote on Sep. 18...

I think--at one time, decades ago--it was possible for an atheist to be a full partner in the fight to preserve Western civilization. Ayn Rand comes to mind. So does Karl Popper. They loved freedom and America, and just as importantly, they loved mankind. They also lived in a more innocent time (1940s/50s)--a time before Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, and the rest of the Reductionist movement.

Today, atheism equals reductionism. Reductionism is the idea that we're all mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Even human reason (which was championed by Rand) is impotent in the reductionist/atheist worldview. As David Brooks says, "Reason is just the press secretary of the emotions."

As we've discussed before, a free republic has to believe that its citizens have the capacity for reason and morality (two things denied by the atheist/reductionist crowd). Otherwise, it is intellectually defenseless against Washington elites who want to lead their brethren around by the nose.

In conclusion, for me, it's not the principle of atheism ("no God") that is incompatible with Western civilization; it is the modern practice of atheism ("reductionism") which denies not only God's existence, but the existence of a truly rational, moral human being.

Ayn Rand belonged to a more innocent time. In her era, one could be a materialist/atheist, and still believe in reason/morality. But if the materialist insists that reason is an illusion, where does that leave rational moralists, like today’s Objectivists? The Objectivists are like dinosaurs who are still groping around the Earth after the asteroid destroyed their habitat. With Reductionism toxifying their intellectual landscape, they have no way to survive. Today, the only “fit” atheist is a Reductionist – whether of the nihilist kind or the sentimental kind.

Of course, as Reductionism gains more intellectual power, even the sentimental atheists will lose ground. After all, the Western Civilization that nurtures their sentimentalism is dying. And thus, in the coming decades, the nihilists will predominate in the atheist community. "Sentimental Atheists" like E.O Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Larry Arnhart, Dennis Mangan, and Luke Muehlhauser are all products of their time, and “the times, they are a changing.”

So to quote Casey Stengel: “Can ANYONE play this game?” Yes, one type of atheist. The atheist who acknowledges that atheism IS toxic – both to the individual and society – but is still an atheist because – with a heavy heart – they've concluded that atheism must be true. And how many atheists advance such a view? Very few. I certainly haven’t met any in my online discussions. And in the culture at large, I cant even think of anyone– although I’m tempted to put John Derbyshire on the list.



Derbyshire is a Darwinist, a Reductionist, and officially a “Myseterian” – which, in practice, is little different from atheism. So let’s call Derbyshire an atheist, shall we? Why does he have value? Because he’s honest enough to admit the problems with atheism, and thus – despite his atheism – he can show the advantages of faith. What kind of atheism is this? Let’s call it “Self-Loathing Atheism.”

At the start of this essay, I wrote…

I DO think an atheist can be an advocate for the “good”, but it’s very, very hard, and even when it CAN be done, it’s still unnecessarily vulnerable to folks who want to say “Homey don’t play that.” Exhibit A: Islamic fundamentalists.

I stand by all that. Atheism can’t advance the "good." Indeed, it directly opposes the "good." The modern synthesis of atheism with reductive materialism is a triumph of nihilism. In that sense, the most "logical" form of atheism is nihilism. That's why the power of nihilism will grow. And that's also why - from society's perspective - the only useful atheist is one who acknowledges the horror of atheism. In short, a “self-loathing atheist.”

And yet, I’m still supposed to believe that atheism is the wave of the future? If it is, it’s a very bleak future indeed.


**UPDATE, DEC. 20, 2009**


Part of this essay - along with some new commentary - has been cross-posted at Larry Auster's website.

Larry wrote...

Did you coin the category, "sentimental atheists"? It is brilliant. That's exactly what they are. Having no solid, rational basis for moral truth, they are sentimental and emotional about moral truth. There are these things such as morality or conservatism that they WANT to believe in, though they have no solid grounds for them. This makes them sentimentalists.

I also wrote:

Not to sound like Hegel or anything, but I believe that--over time--major philosophical contradictions are unsustainable. They will inevitably resolve themselves. We see that, for instance, in modern America: Our decades-long mix of socialism with freedom has brought us to a crossroads: Will we have socialism? Or will we have freedom? Because we are rapidly reaching a point where it will be impossible to have both. In the same vein, "sentimental atheism" is a strange mix of something good (love of morality), and something awful (atheism), but the awful part is becoming so big that a choice will have to be made: Morality or Atheism? And if you can't make a choice, you will become irrelevant.

Dennis Mangan picked up on Auster's entry and responded here.


Dennis wrote (in part)...

We know that many atheists, perhaps the great majority, behave morally, e.g., they care for their children, are not common criminals, and so on. Therefore moral behavior does not require religious belief.

I responded...

I think the relevant question isn’t so much “can an individual be moral without religious belief?” Yes, I think he can. And the evidence you cite above is sufficient. That is the behavior of a “sentimental atheist.” The better question is, “can atheism – by itself – be a motivator for moral behavior?” As I said in my essay (which I encourage you to read), I think the answer is "no."

In your entire blog post today, you never articulate what is the motivation for an atheist to be moral. That’s because there is none. What looks like motivation is merely the product of being born and raised in a Christian-Enlightenment culture, and developing an understandable attachment to such a great culture. It’s not the behavior of atheists that’s at issue; it’s their lack of appreciation for how religion itself – specifically, Christianity – has built the entire artifice that surrounds you. A purely atheist culture (or even a mostly atheist culture) would descend into barbarism very quickly, as I explained in my essay.

An atheist who understood this essential point might have different policy priorities, including ensuring that religion continues to be an active part of U.S. society (in contrast to say, Europe). As you point out, an atheist wouldn’t necessarily become an advocate of open borders (to use your example). But he might, say, be comfortable with allowing criticism of Darwinism to be taught in public schools. That’s just one example.

**UPDATE, JAN. 4, 2010**

To see the best of Mangan's comment thread, Sentimental Theists, click here.

John Derbyshire: A Collection

Over the years, National Review columnist John Derbyshire has written some excellent articles on science, religion, and philosophy. While I don't agree with him on the Darwin/I.D. debate, and I find him a little too eager to advance Reductionism, I find him congenial on most other issues. So without further ado, here are some of his best articles, along with a few highlighted tidbits.


God and Me: Faith FAQ: "Religious feeling just is, there in human nature, unremovably and inescapably…It’s there, and decent societies have to incorporate it somehow, to the general advantage…The trick, if you want a reasonably happy and stable society, is to corral human nature into useful, non-socially-destructive styles of expression… Any aspect of human nature can get out of hand, as we see with these Muslim fanatics that are making such nuisances of themselves nowadays. That doesn’t mean the aspect is bad, just that some society has done a bad job of corraling it.


What's So Scary About Evolution? — For Both Right and Left, a Lot: "A Darwinian view of human nature really is quite sensationally revolutionary. In particular, it makes a hash of intrinsic human equality. We may of course — and we should, and I hope we ever shall! — hold equal treatment under the law to be an organizing principle of our civilization; but that is a social agreement, like driving on the right, not a pre-existing fact in the world."


The Rapture for Nerds: "Hopes for AI have been around as long as hopes for fusion power…Some folk at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute are tackling the fruit fly brain. This may actually be more promising, as fruit flies are the most studied of all creatures, especially by geneticists. Still, the scale of the project is intimidating. A fruit fly brain is barely visible — about one-eightieth of an inch from side to side. Yet the full mapping of one such speck will need, the researchers are estimating, about a million gigabytes of data storage, and 'To get any good data, you'd have to compare hundreds of fruit-fly brains.' Says the project director: 'In a hundred years I'd like to know how human consciousness works. The 10- or 20-year goal is to understand the fruit-fly brain.'"


Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 1: "Down at the quantum level, things get radically weird, we all know that. The issue here this morning was: Do brain processes partake of the weirdness? Sheehan believes they do. He offered some arguments from physics, and some experimental results. Most startling of the latter were experiments that seemed to show presentiment. In brief: You show your suspect a blank screen. Then you randomly display a picture, either an 'emotional' one, that will evoke a strong neuro-response (e.g. naked woman) or a 'calm' one (e.g. seascape). Then you quickly go back to the blank screen. You are monitoring neural reactions all the time. The 'emotional' pictures show a strong reaction after they are shown, of course; but they seem to show a measurably stronger reaction before being show, too."


Toward a Science of Consciousness, Part 2: "How far do we still have to go 'toward a science of consciousness'? A long way yet, was my parting impression. In his 2007 Teaching Company lecture series Consciousness and its Implications (which I recommend), philosopher Daniel Robinson remarks that: 'Despite the tremendous growth of knowledge over recent decades, the problem of mental causation … is pretty much where it was in the time of the ancient Greek philosophers.' That matches my own conclusions from the Tucson meeting."


The Dream of A.I.: "Artificial humans? We could not create an artificial ant, with all its complex social behavior based on scent and visual clues. Even in fields where there is obviously a great deal of money to be made, progress has been barely perceptible. Anyone who could get a computer to drive a car as safely as a human being does would certainly clean up, yet the news from the auto manufacturers, who are throwing a lot of resources at this, is that we are not even close. Yet driving a car is a very low-level function of the brain, as proved by the fact that you can think about several other things while you are doing it."


Islamophobophobia: "Inside every Muslim today there is a voice whispering: 'Our faith is so pure and true, our civilizations lasted so long and ruled so many, our God was so potent: yet here we are in the modern world, backward and poor except where accidents of nature have blessed us, our rulers corrupt, our culture mocked or ignored, our people squabbling among themselves, or fleeing the homelands to work as taxi drivers and menials in the great glittering cities of the infidels, those homelands themselves part-stolen by the wretched Jews. It's all wrong, wrong, wrong! Grrrrr!!!' That's the Islam we're up against. I don't myself believe we can do much to reform it. Muslims have to do that for themselves."


March of the Godless: "Outside the sphere of religion, it is difficult for most of us to get a firm grip on the big questions, the questions that have agitated mortals since Achilles moped in his tent before Troy: 'How shall we live?' and 'Why must we die?' These matters, dealing with the foundations of morality and the place of human life in the grand scheme of things, color political issues here in the U.S.A., and so are constantly discussed and debated. This gives a depth and gravity to national political discourse that in other countries, I think, is mainly lacking. Now that I have acclimatized myself to this aspect of American public life, in fact, I find myself thinking, when I read newspapers and magazines from England, that there is something frivolous and shallow about the way matters are presented over there. (And China, where they are not spoken of in public at all, seems a very dark place.)"


Don't Blame Islam: "In our current conflict, our enemies are all Muslims. I don't believe that our enemy is Islam, though. Islam came up in a primitive, tribal society that has never since enjoyed any real political progress. The Arabs are still primitive and tribal today; but their failure to create modern nation-states arises from their ancient habits of thought, behavior and social exchange, and from geographical constraints, not from anything in Islam. Indeed, those Arab countries — Iraq, Syria — that are established on secular principles are even more degraded and corrupt than the theocracies…Instead of mocking or dismissing Islam, we should appeal to believers to look to the nobler and more generous texts in their scriptures, the texts that emphasize a common humanity. We have nothing to gain from alienating honest Muslims, any more than they have anything to gain by being enemies of the West."


Note: For my other articles on Derbyshire, click here.

Daily Wrap-Up

Going, Going...Galt: "Many people briefly go through an 'Ayn Rand phase' where they devour Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and dream of being a heroic architect standing athwart mediocrity. But government expansion in 2009 has touched off a remarkable revival of interest in Rand, spurring endless speculation that her philosophy of self-interest and free-market economics will come back in vogue. Writers point to a spate of Rand-themed releases, including two new biographies, uncountable articles, talk-show bits, merchandise, even a videogame. Here's a history…"


John Derbyshire Hearts Roissy: "I'm by no means the first to admit it, but I find the Roissy in DC blog hilarious and totally addictive. He's one of us, for sure (secular, Right); and his stone reductionism appeals to me enough to override the nagging feeling that I'm probably a bit of a herb myself, or was when it mattered."


John Derbyshire on the Death of Intellectual Protestantism: "So far as the great mass of American Protestants are concerned, theology is a dead letter. They are either “tribal Protestants,” going to church because their parents did, or because their neighbors do, or else they are Left Behind fundamentalists of the Huckabee persuasion, fundamentally anti-intellectual and indifferent to theology, or to any kind of intellectual inquiry...Intellectual Protestantism probably survives in a few seminaries somewhere, but nobody cares."


Chuck Ross Analyzes the "Vibe" on Different Blogs: "Todd White's site reminds me of the house of this Mormon kid I used to be best friends with. You go over there and his mom is always baking ginger bread cookies. They want to keep up the auspices of Pleasantville, but deep down, they just want to convert you. Those Mormons (and Todd White) are tenacious."


The U.S. Budget Deficit in International Context: "A few weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund released a report analyzing the fiscal situation of the world’s largest economies. As I discuss at greater length in a piece over at e21, the IMF finds that the United States is not alone in facing daunting fiscal challenges. For example, the IMF predicts that the United States will have the fifth highest structural primary budget deficit in 2010."

Survival of the Most Pious?

In his Nov. 11 NRO column, Survival of the Most Pious?, John Derbyshire reviews Nicholas Wade's new book, The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures.

While most of Derbyshire's column is "chloroform in print," the ending is worth sharing...

Religion will presumably survive as long as we are recognizably human. What will it look like, though?

In a thoughtful closing chapter Wade peers forward into the possible future of religion. He thinks that traditional religion has lost too many of its bouts against modernity and rationality, and needs some radical reworking if it is to fulfill human religious yearnings as it used to. He asks: "Is there not some way of transforming religion into versions better suited for a modern age?" If there is, can we discern the shape of whatever rough beast is slouching towards Bethlehem?…

The various attempts to establish "ethical religions," from Emerson's Transcendentalism to Scientific Buddhism, have in any case fallen flat, offering only cold temples to their followers. A transformed religion, Wade tells us, must "touch all the senses and lift the mind … find a way to be equally true to emotion and to reason, to our need to belong to one another …" The transformation, he says, needs to be similar in scope to the transition from hunter gatherer religion to that of settled societies.

What may actually happen, it seems to me, will be a partial reversion to Paleolithic styles. The dissolution of the power relations that prevailed until just a generation or two ago — hierarchies of class, race, sex, age, and behavioral inclinations — has returned us to the egalitarianism of our remotest ancestors. Perhaps our religion will likewise regress.

Such a regression, if it occurs, will only be approximate. We are not now what we were then.

The Glorious Eighteenth

Last month, the conservative columnist John Derbyshire showed his love for the Eighteen Century in his National Review column, The Glorious Eighteenth.

Mr. Derbyshire is a vocal Darwinbot, which makes the following line kinda amusing…

I used to take the 19th century as my personal favorite — all that wonderful science and math; the social improvements; the comparative peace. The more I learn, the less sure I am of this, and the more I favor the 18th. There was science a-plenty in the 18th, too, after all; and that science had, as Richard Holmes describes in his recent book The Age of Wonder, a romantic quality it lost sometime around 1830.

Hmm, I wonder what happened around 1830.

Of course, my mind immediately jumped to Darwin and The Beagle. Then - in a fit of serendipity - I stumbled across the Number One review of Mr. Holmes' book on Amazon.com.

According to the review...

Holmes goes on to label two huge expeditions as sorts of watermarks. Captain James Cook's first encircling of the world, between 1768 and 1771, and Charles Darwin's celebrated voyage and research conducted on the Beagle, between 1831 and 1836.

Yep, Darwin's voyage seems like a fair ending for "The Age of Wonder."

Darwinism. Materialism. Reductionism. Atheism. They are the world’s great universal acids. Is it no wonder science lost it's "romantic quality?"

Derbyshire continues…

The arts may have lost their footing at the same time: it is odd how many of the graphs in Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment turn to a long downward slide soon after 1800. Murray: "The environment for producing great art in any field became progressively less favorable over the course of [the 19th century] …"

Yep, I think there’s a link between Reductionism and the decline of the arts. But that’s a blog post for another time…

Are We Truly “Doomed?” John Derbyshire Says “Yes.”

Last week, I finished reading John Derbyshire’s new book, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism. As most of you know, Mr. Derbsyhire is a regular columnist for National Review who isn’t afraid of speaking candidly about controversial topics.

What’s his book about? As he explains on the opening page…

This book is addressed to American conservatives. It’s argument is that things are bad and getting worse for our movement, for our nation, and for our civilization. A large part of the reason they have gotten so bad is that too many of us have fallen into too foolishly utopian ways of thinking.

I agree with all that. As I wrote in my Sep. 22 essay, “Will Western Civilization End in Your Lifetime? Yes, Probably”…

If I was a betting man, I would bet on the collapse of the West in my lifetime. But it’s far from guaranteed. And it will almost certainly be a gradual process – with some brief recoveries in between.

Why the pessimism?

First let me set the context: The mystery isn't why the West will collapse ("all good things must come an end"). No, the mystery is how the West was able to last as long as it did!

Think about it: For thousands of years of human history, life all across the world life was - to quote Hobbes - "nasty, brutish, and short." Then, in one small region of the world in one brief window of time, a civilization emerged in which people (on average) lived for 75+ years in excellent health, enjoyed an economic quality of life unimaginable to their ancestors, experienced freedom from tyranny and violence, and entertained nearly limitless opportunities for creativity and self-expression.

This civilization (first blossoming in the US, Great Britain, France, and Holland in the 18th century, spreading to most of Western Europe by the late 19th century, and spreading even into remote corners like Latin America by late 20th century) was no accident. And it was not inevitable. It was a coming together of a religion and a philosophy.

As I wrote in January...

I've never felt comfortable when politicians describe America as a "Judeo-Christian country" or reaffirm the need to preserve our "Judeo-Christian values"...It defines our country, our values, and our heritage through religion alone.

About a year ago, I coined the term "Christian-Enlightenment" because it combines the religion of the West (Christianity) with the ground-breaking Enlightenment ideas (freedom, reason, the Scientific Method, etc.) that enabled the West to dominate the world.

Ethiopia is a "Judeo-Christian" country, but it's one of the worst countries on Earth because it doesn't have the Enlightenment heritage of Europe and the United States.

The West is a product of the "Christian-Enlightenment." The "Christian Enlightenment" unlocked the "genius of man" - the genius of the rational man - unencumbered by religious superstition or political oppression. But how many people in the West realize that? Not many. And therein lies our problem. How can we preserve Western civilization when so few of us understand it?

Thankfully, the Founding Fathers understood it. They were the product of "The Age of Reason." They created the institutions and customs to preserve it. And when the European intellectuals started abandoning Reason in the mid-19th Century (and totally gave up on it by the end of World War One), only the U.S. was able to stop the descent into the abyss.

Why? Because of the Founders. They created the framework for the U.S. to become an economic superpower - and that economic power - in time - became military power - unprecedented military power.

However, that “Christian-Enlightenment” framework is eroding. Why? Because the ideas that motivated the Founding Fathers (upholding reason while balancing faith) are no longer in vogue among the Elites. The conservative elites are beholden to Christian fundamentalists who genuinely fear Reason because it contradicts Scripture. Meanwhile, the Liberal elites are “Reductionist.” What is Reductionism?

As I explained in an earlier essay, Is “Atheist Conservative" an Oxymoron?…

Reductionism is the idea that we're all mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Even human reason (which was championed by Ayn Rand) is impotent in the reductionist/atheist worldview. As David Brooks says, "Reason is just the press secretary of the emotions..."

A free republic has to believe that its citizens have the capacity for reason and morality (two things denied by the atheist/reductionist crowd). Otherwise, it is intellectually defenseless against Washington elites who want to lead their brethren around by the nose.

In conclusion, for me, it's not the principle of atheism ("no God") that is incompatible with Western civilization; it is the modern practice of atheism ("reductionism") which denies not only God's existence, but the existence of a truly rational, moral human being.

Mr. Derbyshire is one of the few conservative leaders who is also a Reductionist. Indeed, he’s taken it upon himself to become a leader in the fight against Intellectual Design (and a disingenuous leader at that. I criticized him here).

Regardless, Mr. Derbyshire – to his credit – validates my point (a point made by many others, such as Larry Auster, Tom Wolfe, etc.) which is that civilization can not survive such a debased view of itself.

As I wrote in my essay, Ideas Have Consequences…

If the day should come when a critical mass of Americans believe… 1) We are nothing more than hairless apes, and 2) Free will is an illusion...Then it’s hard to see how freedom can survive more than another 1-2 generations...unless, of course, there's some sort of intellectual renaissance.

Ironically, Mr. Derbyshire seems to agree. This gives him more intellectual credibility than other conservative Reductionists, such as Charles Murray, who honestly think that conservatism and Reductionism can get along quite swimmingly.

As I wrote in my critique of Mr. Murray’s speech, The Happiness of the People…

Mr. Murray correctly diagnoses the "bag of chemicals" philosophy as the source of the "Europe Syndrome," but he doesn't recognize that the syndrome can't be defeated by only treating the symptoms (in this case, rolling back the welfare state). The syndrome itself (reductionism) must be treated, as well. In some of the best unintentional comedy ever found in a political speech, Mr. Murray thinks reductionist science will help advance the conservative movement and facilitate the "happiness of the people!" Ha!

I give Mr. Derbyshire credit for being honest enough to see the negative consequences of his own ideas. So why does he propagate those ideas? Well, because he thinks they’re “The Truth.” Of course, I don't think they're "The Truth" at all. I think they're a bunch of B.S.

As I wrote in my essay, Materialism is Dead: Now What?

In the last few decades, there has been a quiet revolution in the scientific community – especially in the areas of physics and biology – whereby a growing body of evidence leads to an inevitable and surprising conclusion: it is “rational” to believe in God, and even better, a personal God who has a loving interest in our lives.

Despite the hopes of millions of atheists who hoped that science would eventually destroy God, today there is more “reason” to believe in God than at any time in history.

This isn’t the time and place to go over those arguments (they’re peppered throughout my blog). Rather, I just find it curious that Mr. Derbyshire has chosen to remain in his Reductionist prison rather than reevaluate whether or not Reductionism is true (and thus, helping to rescue the civilization he loves so much).

Overall, though, I do highly recommend the book. While I don’t share Mr. Derbyshire's views on Reductionism, we still have a lot in common when it comes to other issues (the size of government, immigration, foreign policy, etc). Also, no one doubts that he’s a talented writer. Indeed, I’ve read nearly everything he’s ever written. Seriously. Lastly, he seems to be a man who enjoys good-faith, spirited dialogue (for the most part), rather than recoil from it. That’s why I recommend the book and I hope it receives a large audience.

-Todd

Quote of the Day

"Human beings are spiritual creatures, and that side of our nature must find nourishment. That the big old institutional faiths — Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism — will continue to provide that nourishment is open to reasonable doubt.

We are more and more accustomed to high evidentiary standards in our work and leisure — if only from watching courtroom dramas on TV or doing quality control and evaluative work. Each of us has his own threshold of credulity, of course, but it's hard to believe the average hasn't been creeping up, and will continue to do so.

This saps away at faith in the magical and miraculous, without which the big old religions are holed below the water line." - John Derbyshire

Quote of the Day

"Jonah Goldberg and I have occasionally, though only very briefly, batted around the idea that the modern age is in want of a metaphysic.

"I can’t speak for Jonah, but the thought that is in my own mind when I say this is that both naked materialism and the metaphysics appended to the traditional religions are unappealing to great numbers of moderns.

"Materialism fails to convince because it implies that mind is an illusion. To this, an ordinary person will reply: 'To what is this illusion presenting itself?' Materialism has no answer. Nor does it have anything to tell us about free will, morality, or any of the other conundrums discussed at the end of Pinker’s How the Mind Works.

"To adhere to religious metaphysics, on the other hand, you actually have to belong to one of the established religions, all of which require belief in things (resurrection, transubstantiation, reincarnation, Chosen People) that seem, to many minds accustomed to the evidentiary standards demanded by modern science and law, incredible.

"There are of course lots of people who are perfectly satisfied by materialist atheism, and many more who find they can leap the credulity hurdles required by traditional religions. To many hundreds of millions of moderns, though (I am not speaking of only the U.S.A.: the rest of the world does, after all, exist), there is no satisfactory conceptual grounding for their beliefs, desires, and intentions. We really ought to be able to come up with something." - John Derbyshire

Strange Thinking by the Conservative Elite

Yesterday, I wrote about John Derbyshire, who is one of my favorite conservative writers, although he’s also a sharp critic of the I.D. movement. This led me to reflect on how other conservative pundits have judged the Intelligent Design debate.

Today, two of the most prominent conservative leaders are George Will and Charles Krauthammer. I like them both. They are above-average thinkers who usually have insightful opinions about politics and current events. But in 2005, they both wrote pieces about I.D. that reflected – shall we say – “strange thinking,” or maybe (if we’re being harsh) no thinking at all.

Let’s start with George Will. In his column, he casually wrote that I.D. advocates were trying to “insinuate religion…into high school biology classes” and then warned that such “zealots” were causing the “conservative coalition” to become “unglued.” In a Nightline discussion that same year, Will paraphrased his opposition to I.D. this way…

“Cal says that the essence of science is open-ness. I think it's more than that. It's open-ness to discussion of testable hypotheses, falsifiable hypotheses, hypotheses for which you can conceive of contradicting evidence. And I do not believe that the adherents to the doctrine of Intelligent Design are open to that kind of evidence.”

But as other people have pointed out…

“In what sense is evolution testable and falsifiable?”

“In what way is the ‘Big Bang’ 'testable' or 'falsifiable'? But no one (not many anyway) laughs off Steven Hawking the way they do Dembski or Behe. Besides, to be 'testable' or 'falsifiable' something must first be observable. Please tell me when a dinosaur was observed evolving into a bird. Don't tell me about the fossil record. No one observed the fossils being formed either. The primary reason Intelligent Design is untestable is the so called 'mainstream' doesn't want to test it. In particular, Dembski's work is largely mathematical, what's 'untestable' about that?”

(By the way, if you have time, scroll through some of the comments to that article: The radical materialists shout “Grow up moron” and call the author a “scientifically-illiterate dishonest Christian hick.” There’s no such venom on the other side)

But I digress…

On to Krauthammer…

Krauthammer, to his discredit, never even bothers to explain why he opposes Intelligent Design. Instead, his piece is riddled with inflammatory rhetoric. He calls I.D. a “tarted-up version of creationism” (which is so fundamentally untrue that it exposes just how little he knows about the subject). He also calls I.D. a “fraud,” a “national embarrassment,” and an “insult to religion and to science.”

Wow! I’ve never seen Krauthammer so mad about anything (with the exception of Islamic terrorism).

While Krauthammer’s hostility is in a class by itself, the conservative elite shares Krauthammer’s dislike of Intelligence Design. In fact, I can’t think of a single conservative pundit who has chosen to go on offense when it comes to I.D., with the notable exception of Ann Coulter. Read Chapter 8 of her book, Godless.

So what do we make of all this? Well, I don’t want to speculate too much. I just think it’s interesting that 3 of the leading lights of the modern conservative movement – Derbyshire, Krauthammer, and Will – have all written pieces on I.D. and yet all of those pieces are quite lousy (at least by the authors’ usually high standard), which shows that, even now, I.D. is grossly misunderstood – even by so-called “intellectuals.”

If I.D. was actually understood, and still opposed, I would have to do some soul-searching; but since it’s so misunderstood, it’s hard to give much credence to the arguments of other side. And therefore, it’s even harder to feel much angst from the level of opposition it arises.

-Todd

**UPDATE 03/21/09**



I decided to do a little more research on this topic (although what I researched was quite disappointing). First, I found John Derbyshire's review of Expelled, the popular documentary regarding the I.D. controversy (although "review" might be a misnomer, since Derbsyhire admits that he never saw the movie!).

At the risk of sounding over-the-top, Mr. Derbsyhire's piece is outrageous - one of the most mean-spirited, yet intellectually sloppy, articles I have ever read (and it really pains me to admit that because, as I've mentioned before, I really enjoy Mr. Derbyshire as a political writer).

Like Krauthammer, Mr. Derbyshire frequently uses the slur "creationist" (with the sort of pleasure usually found among 13-year old boys when they discover the word "fag."). As I've mentioned before, whenever commentators use the word "creationist" to tar I.D. proponents, it reveals either 1) ignorance about a topic they claim to be an expert on, or 2) deliberate and false distortion of their opponents. Either motivation is unacceptable.

The rest of Derbyshire's 2,200-word piece is literred with insults: According to Mr. Derbsyhire, Expelled is "stupid," "creationist porn, propaganda for ignorance." He then concluded his piece: "For shame, Ben Stein, for shame." And yet, in all those 2,200 words, Mr. Derbyshire never addresses the questions raised by Expelled. Not once. In fairness, he provides a link to the Expelled: Exposed website, but still, for the sake of being "reader-friendly," it would've nice of John to provide 1 or 2 rebuttals in the course of his text. That's not too much to ask.

The greatest irony is that Mr. Derbsyhire writes eloquently about the importance of scientific inquiry to Western civilization..

"Western civilization has many glories. There are the legacies of the ancients, in literature and thought. There are the late-medieval cathedrals, those huge miracles of stone, statuary, and spiritual devotion. There is painting, music, the orderly cityscapes of Renaissance Italy, the peaceful, self-governed townships of old New England and the Frontier, the steel marvels of the early industrial revolution, our parliaments and courts of law, our great universities with their spirit of restless inquiry.

And there is science, perhaps the greatest of all our achievements, because nowhere else on earth did it appear. China, India, the Muslim world, all had fine cities and systems of law, architecture and painting, poetry and prose, religion and philosophy. None of them ever accomplished what began in northwest Europe in the later 17th century, though: a scientific revolution. Thoughtful men and women came together in learned societies to compare notes on their observations of the natural world, to test their ideas in experiments, and in reasoned argument against the ideas of others, and to publish their results in learned journals. A body of common knowledge gradually accumulated.

"Our scientific theories are the crowning adornments of our civilization, towering monuments of intellectual effort, built from untold millions of hours of observation, measurement, classification, discussion, and deliberation."

I share Mr. Derbyshire's love of science, but as I've pointed out before, that's precisely why I feel the need to defend Intelligent Design's right to be heard. By contrast, Mr. Derbyshire calls I.D. "anti-civilization" and "an appeal to barbarism."

Come on, John, tell us how you really feel!

But what's just as interesting is the response to John's piece among his National Review colleagues...based on my research, I could not find a single rebuttal to his outrageous claims. NR had to bring in 3 outsiders (including 2 from the Discovery Institute) to challenge Mr. Derbyshire's arguments head-on. NR's leading lights were dead silent.

This reinforces my earlier observation that the Conservative Establishment is "out-to-lunch" on the I.D. issue (even though they could provide it some useful "political legitimacy"). Oh well.

-Todd

**UPDATE: MARCH 22, 2009**

I found another Derbyshire piece on I.D., although (to his credit) it's actually worth reading (and not just a childish screed). I won't deconstruct the article line-by-line (perhaps another time), but one sentence stood out to me: "Darwinism is the essential foundation for all of modern biology and genomics."

But is it?

Derbyshire should take a look at this Feb. 2009 piece in Forbes.com: The Dangers Of Overselling Evolution by Philip S. Skell, who is emeritus Evan Pugh professor of chemistry at Penn State University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

In his article, Dr. Skell says...

"I don't think science has anything to fear from a free exchange of ideas between thoughtful proponents of different views. Moreover, there are a number of us in the scientific community who, while we appreciate Darwin's contributions, think that the rhetorical approach of scientists such as Coyne unnecessarily polarizes public discussions and­--even more seriously­--overstates both the evidence for Darwin's theory of historical biology and the benefits of Darwin's theory to the actual practice of experimental science.

Coyne seems to believe the major importance of biological science is its speculations about matters which cannot be observed, tested and verified, such as origin of life, speciation, the essences of our fossilized ancestors, the ultimate causes of their changes, etc.

Experimental biology has dramatically increased our understanding of the intricate workings within living organisms that account for their survival, showing how they continue to function despite the myriad assaults on them from their environments. These advances in knowledge are attributable to the development of new methodologies and instruments, unimaginable in the preceding centuries, applied to the investigation of living organisms. Crucial to all fruitful experiments in biology is their design, for which Darwin's and Wallace's principles apparently provide no guidance.

Contrary to the beliefs of Professor Coyne and some other defenders of Darwin, these advances are not due to studies of an organism's ancestors that are recovered from fossil deposits. Those rare artifacts--which have been preserved as fossils--are impressions in stones which, even when examined with the heroic efforts of paleontologists, cannot reveal the details that made these amazing living organisms function."

"Examining the major advances in biological knowledge, one fails to find any real connection between biological history and the experimental designs that have produced today's cornucopia of knowledge of how the great variety of living organisms perform their functions. It is our knowledge of how these organisms actually operate, not speculations about how they may have arisen millions of years ago, that is essential to doctors, veterinarians, farmers and other practitioners of biological science."

"In 1942, Nobel Laureate Ernst Chain wrote that his discovery of penicillin (with Howard Florey and Alexander Fleming) and the development of bacterial resistance to that antibiotic owed nothing to Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's evolutionary theories.

The same can be said about a variety of other 20th-century findings: the discovery of the structure of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; new surgeries; and other developments.

Additionally, I have queried biologists working in areas where one might have thought the Darwinian paradigm could guide research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I learned that evolutionary theory provides no guidance when it comes to choosing the experimental designs. Rather, after the breakthrough discoveries, it is brought in as a narrative gloss.

The essence of the theory of evolution is the hypothesis that historical diversity is the consequence of natural selection acting on variations. Regardless of the verity it holds for explaining biohistory, it offers no help to the experimenter--who is concerned, for example, with the goal of finding or synthesizing a new antibiotic, or how it can disable a disease-producing organism, what dosages are required and which individuals will not tolerate it."

"It is unseemly and scientifically unfruitful that a major focus in biology should have turned into a war."

**UPDATE, MAY 16, 2009

Given the strange thinkinging by "conservative leaders" George Will and Charles Krauthammer (as shown above), perhaps it's no surprise that the most famous conservator leader of them all - Rush Limbuagh - has also shown some inexcusable ignorance about Intelligent Design. In a December 2005 radio broadcast, Limbuagh called I.D. proponents "disingenuous" and went on to say..

"Let's make no mistake. The people pushing intelligent design believe in the biblical version of creation. Intelligent design is a way, I think, to sneak it into the curriculum and make it less offensive to the liberals because it ostensibly does not involve religious overtones, that there is just some intelligent being far greater than anything any of us can even imagine that's responsible for all this, and of course I don't have any doubt of that. But I think that they're sort of pussyfooting around when they call it intelligent design."

Gee, with friends like this, who needs enemies! For no apparent reason, Limbaugh preemptively confirms the most powerful argument used AGAINST Intelligent Design - that it's a "disingenuous" attempt to bring the Bible into the classroom, and therefore a violation of the separation of church and state.

Why does Limbaugh feel the need to cut I.D. supporters at the knees with a blatantly false statement? After all, I.D. is not a "disingenuous" form of creationism. As Jonathan Witt, Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, says in the article...

"Traditional creationism begins with the Bible and moves from there to science. Intelligent design begins and ends with science...The theory of intelligent design is a methodology for detecting design, and scholars from a variety of backgrounds employ it – Christian, Jew, Hindu, even a former atheist like Antony Flew, who still rejects the God of the Bible."

As if the events of the last 8 years weren't proof enough (in terms of economic policy, foreign policy, and just place common sense), the conservative movement has GOT TO GET SOME NEW LEADERS!

**UPDATE, MAY 17, 2009**

I like Ross Douthat, the young conservative writer who recently earned a promotion to the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times. I also read his book, Grand New Party. But in this article on I.D. he reveals what could be his fatal weakness: an eagerness to abandon conservative principles to curry favor at coktail parties (in that case, he would be following in the footsteps of his mentor, David Brooks). See this line from his New Republic article, How Intelligent Design Hurts Conservatives (By Making Us Look Like Crackpots)...

"Intelligent design will run out of steam--a victim of its own grand ambitions. What began as a critique of Darwinian theory, pointing out aspects of biological life that modification-through-natural-selection has difficulty explaining, is now foolishly proposed as an alternative to Darwinism. On this front, intelligent design fails conspicuously."

A cynic might say we should expect this kind of sloppy reasoning from a young man who grew up in Manhattan and attended Harvard University...but I'm old-fashioned...I think people can overcome their environment and show independent judgment even if it means being scorned by their "betters." If Douthat wants to be one of the stars of the next generation of conservative leaders, he needs to care less about the opinions of people who live on the Upper East Side, Harvard Yard, and Chevy Chase, and tap into the soul of the "Real America." I still have confidence that he can do that.

Onto a related subject...more George Will news!

We discussed some of his "strange thinking" at the beginning of this post...but maybe there's a method to his madness...at the end of a long piece about penguins and grizzly bears (not the usual fare for a political columnist), Will writes...

"Reality's swirling complexity is sometimes lovely, sometime brutal; its laws propel the comings and goings of life forms in processes as impersonal as Antarctica is to the penguins or the bears were to Treadwell or Alaska was to Drop City North. It is so grand that nothing is gained by dragging an Intelligent Designer into the picture for praise. Or blame."

By using those words, George Will reveals himself to be either an atheist or an agnostic... knowing that, it would be fair to assume that his opposition to Intelligent Design is NOT a product of objective principle, but rather, is an extension of his personal religious beliefs - beliefs, it should be added, that he is quite eager to enforce through coercion.

-Todd

**UPDATE, JUNE 24, 2009**


I might need to start a regular feature called "Gratuitous Bashing of I.D. by Conservative Writers." There never seems to be enough of them! Sigh.

This time the culprit is columnist Tony Blankley.

In this Jun. 17 piece about the economy, he opens…

“To borrow Niall Ferguson's metaphor, if finance is an evolutionary process, then regulation is its intelligent design — which, I would add, is a cognate of faith, not science.”

As Ace Ventura might say, "Allllllllrighty then…"

Denyse O’Leary has the dubious task of trying to understand Blankley's put-down...

"The whole tangled metaphor reads like the guy doesn’t get it. Whether one regulates or doesn’t regulate is intelligent design - because intelligent agents make the choice either way. And regulation has its own evolutionary process - often, alas, it is the law of unintended consequences = the system evolves without guidance to produce unintended outcomes. Some people should read up on ID and Darwinism before they use them as metaphors."

Agreed.

**UPDATE, JUL. 1, 2009**

This week, conservative pundit (and former presidential candidate) Pat Buchanan writes a favorable review of Eugene Windchy's new book, The End of Darwinism: And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold."

As William Demski observes, "It’s nice to see people like Pat Buchanan feeling more at ease about going after Darwin."

Indeed.

Note: The End of Darwinism was released by Xlibris, a print-on-demand publisher.

-Todd

** UPDATE, JULY 20, 2009**

Last week, on July 15th, Washington Post columnist and former Bush Administration speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote a glowing piece on Dr. Francis Collins, President Obama’s nominee to head the National Institutes of Health.

While some I.D. advocates are troubled by Dr. Collins’ comments about evolution, that is precisely why Mr. Gerson is so favorable toward him.

"Collins's appointment says something good about the maturity of modern evangelicalism, which is starting to abandon some of its least productive debates with modernity.

Criticisms of evolution, rooted in 19th-century controversies, have done little more than set up religious young people for entirely unnecessary crises of faith as they encounter scientific knowledge.

In the running conflict of modern biology and evangelicalism, Collins is a peacemaker."

David Klinghoffer, for one, takes issue with Dr. Collins’ “maturity” and “peacemaking.”