In his latest blog post, Ross Douthat, the 30-year old political columnist at the New York Times, seems determined to show why his alma matter, Harvard University - and indeed, most Ivy League schools* - are a net liability on our society. The Ivies have attracted many of America's most gifted students, but when those students attend an Ivy League school, they will be indoctrinated with so much junk science, political correctness, and moral relativism, their raw brainpower morphs from an asset into a liability. Why? Because their mind becomes cluttered with dangerous nonsense – nonsense that is rarely questioned or expunged due to the student's sense of entitlement and superiority.
Take young Mr. Douthat, for instance. Even though he wear his Catholic faith on his sleeve, on October 4, he applied for lifetime membership in the Kumbaya Club by writing a long, dull, mealy-mouthed piece in which he basically blamed Christianity for the rise of the New Atheists. Now, that might be acceptable fare from an anti-Christian hack like Richard Dawkins or P.Z. Myers. But Mr. Douthat is supposed to be a defender of Christianity. If Douthat is being groomed by the nation's elite to become one of the leading Christian conservatives of the future, shouldn’t Douthat show a better understanding of his faith?
I’m not the only person who's noticed Douthat’s descent into the abyss…
Sad that the dumbest thing I’ve read in the New York Times for years came from the blog of Ross Douthat, the Catholic conservative voice at the Gray Lady:
"Maybe the encounter with a post-Christian Europe will supply the Islam of recent immigrants with the cultural vigor that’s been missing, for centuries now, in Baghdad and Cairo and Damascus. Maybe a kind of 'Euro-Islam' is being forged that’s capable of contending with secular liberalism for converts. Maybe a Tariq Ramadan-esque figure will emerge to play the Muslim Saint Paul to the E.U.’s Roman Empire."
Goldman explains why Douthat's prediction is absurd…
Europe’s Christians not only have declined to evangelize the Muslims in their midst: they have backed away from helping Muslims who came to Christianity quite on their own, as Magdi Allam protested. Paul Berman is a secular liberal, but a consistent one, and came to the conclusion that Tariq Ramadan is a menace. Ross Douthat is a Catholic conservative, but an inconsistent one, and flirts with the idea that Tariq Ramadan might be part of Europe’s spiritual re-awakening.
If this was the first dumb thing Ross Douthat ever said, I might let it slide. But, unfortunately, it’s part of a larger pattern in which he totally misunderstands religion, and specifically, the proper role of religion within society. In October, he criticized constructive efforts by Christianity to modernize itself; now he’s encouraging the growth of a parasitic form of Islam to validate his delusional hope that it might facilitate a continent-wide spiritual re-awakening.
Douthat should make Gates of Vienna his homepage and read a few of their articles. Then he might realize that the growth of Islam is not an "opportunity for spiritual awakening;" it is a grave, perhaps mortal, threat to European Civilization (including Christianity).
Douthat is not only jumping sharks; he’s jumping logic itself.
Note: *Of the 8 schools who formally constitute the Ivy League, Harvard is definitely the worst; Yale and Princeton are probably in the next tier of horror. And then Brown, Penn, Columbia are in the tier below that. Dartmouth and Cornell seem OK. Personally, I think the best university in the country is Stanford.
Note: Douthat's position on the Darwin/I.D. debate is equally troubling (see here).
**UPDATE, DEC. 13, 2009**
Goldman continues his criticism of Douthat in a new post here.
Yesterday, Nemo posted a link to a Sep. 12 Wall Street Journal piece in which arch-atheist Richard Dawkins and “Kumbaya Gal” extraordinaire Karen Armstrong debated the question, “Where does evolution leave God?”
While Armstrong is a best-selling "religious scholar," after reading the piece, I am shocked by 1) how ignorant she is about basic aspects of religion, and 2) how she draws terrible conclusions from what little knowledge she has. Dawkins wipes the floor with her. It’s no contest.
One of the strange oddities of Armstrong’s devious self-promo is the way her book on theology tossed in the towel on Darwinism.
You would think the great critic of modern scientism, and rationality, would expose the theory of Darwin. But no, that’s too dangerous: best to compromise on that issue.
We could certiainly do with a more compassionate theory of evolution, the more so since Darwin’s theory looks like an ideology designed for anti-compassion.
Armstrong is basically an atheist who is trying to keep her irons in the god fire, so she can be a religious expert.
I responded…
Karen Armstrong sounds like an atheist who grew disillusioned with atheism because it leads to nasty consequences, and thus, tried to salvage God by saying that we should honor “Mystery” itself as a God-like force worthy of worship and sacrifice.
Needless to say, this perspective will not be persuasive to ANY atheist or believer.
Perhaps a few agnostics will find it compelling, and I’m sure the MSM will continue to honor her as a bold, trailblazing thinker (when she’s nothing of the sort). But I guess that’s inevitable when most people are tired of the New Atheists and the New Fundamentalists. They’ll cling to any mushy moderate, even if it’s a total clown like Karen Armstrong.
Good points. I think that theists will discover to their surprise that Armstrong makes a poor case for god.
*Note: In my writings, I usually refer to Karen Armstrong, Robert Wright, Francis Collins, and their ilk as “Kumbaya Guys.”
The Kumbaya Guys are believers in God who wants to find a “compromise” with atheists by accepting Darwinism without condition – in return for the atheist’s permission that they can believe in a God, as long as that God is separate from the material world. The “Kumbaya Guys” will sell out any religious principle just so they can find “peace” with those who have no interest in “peace.” They’re the Neville Chamberlains of 21st Century religious debate.
The Selective Compassion of Karen Armstrong: "Among people who know nothing about religion and don’t care much about factual information (an unfortunately large demographic), Karen Armstrong has become something of a sensation. But for those who think that claims about religion, ethics, or history should have some grounding in reality, Armstrong is considered an embarrassment." H/T: Darwiniana
A Christian Defends Ayn Rand: "There is one aspect of Rand's worldview, known as objectivism, which any Christian should appreciate: her belief in absolute reality. Rand believed in an objective world external to man's senses, and with it, absolute truth and morality…Rand's belief in objective truth and morality, regardless of its form, is an aberration among atheists."
Ken Wilber Rejects Darwinism: “Folks, give me a break on this one. I have a Master’s degree in biochemistry, and a Ph.D. minus thesis in biochemistry and biophysics, with specialization in the mechanism of the visual process. I did my thesis on the photoisomerization of rhodopsin in bovine rod outer segments. I know evolutionary theory inside out, including the works of Dawkins et al…. Instead of a religious preacher like Dawkins, start with something like Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. And then guess what? Neo-Darwinian theory can’t explain shit. Deal with it.”
Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry With Evidence for Darwinian Evolution: "Both at the Dover trial and in his lectures and books (such as Only a Theory), one of Dr. Kenneth Miller’s primary responses to Michael Behe’s arguments for irreducible complexity is to cite evidence for common ancestry. This class of evidence does not refute Behe because at most, evidence of sequence similarity in DNA demonstrates common ancestry—not a Darwinian evolutionary pathway. Indeed, on closer inspection, it turns out that much of Miller’s favorite evidence does not even provide a strong case for common descent: Miller assumes that functional genetic similarities must result from common descent, ignoring the possibility that such biochemical similarities might result from common design upon a functional blueprint."
I’ve been trying to ignore Karen Armstrong’s new book, The Case for God, for the same reasons I yawned over the Robert Wright's "brilliant" "enthralling" masterpiece, The Evolution of God.
Mr. Wright is one of those stereotypical "kumbaya guys" who plead for believers and materialists to come together, make peace, and put their differences aside - which - in practice - means that believers can keep some vague concept of "God" plus the ethics of altruism ("Love thy neighbor," etc.) but they MUST accept Darwinism and materialism.
Needless to say, this is bad a deal for believers. And it's also intellectual sloppiness of the highest order.
From what I saw in the media, Ms. Armstrong's book is another boring effort to pump new life into the "Kumbaya" tradition. And for that reason, I was content to ignore it.
However, on Oct. 4, Ross Douthat, the new columnist for The New York Times, published a warm review of Ms. Armstrong's book in his piece, Perpetual Revelations.
Douthat is an intriguing character. Earlier this year, I wrote...
I like Ross Douthat... 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 cocktail parties (in that case, he would be following in the footsteps of his mentor, David Brooks).
Yes, and in light of this week's book review, I think it's safe to report that Mr. Douthat has joined his mentor in the intellectual abyss.
Let's dissect Douthat's column, shall we?
Douthat sets the scene...
Karen Armstrong, a former nun turned prolific popular historian, wants to rescue the idea of God from its cultured despisers and its more literal-minded adherents alike…
Both modern believers and modern atheists, Armstrong contends, have come to understand religion primarily as a set of propositions to be assented to, or a catalog of specific facts about the nature of God, the world and human life.
Fine, so far so good. But who, pray tell, is to blame for this tragic situation? Well, the Theists, of course!
Religious thinkers succumbed to a fatal case of science envy… Instead of providing the usual portrait of empiricism triumphing over superstition, Armstrong depicts an extended seduction in which believers were persuaded to embrace the “natural theology” of Isaac Newton and William Paley, which seemed to provide scientific warrant for a belief in a creator God. Convinced that “the natural laws that scientists had discovered in the universe were tangible demonstrations of God’s providential care,” Western Christians abandoned the apophatic, mythic approach to faith in favor of a pseudoscientific rigor — and then had nowhere to turn when Darwin’s theory of evolution arrived on the scene.
Yes, the problem in contemporary society is that Christians are too rational and scientific in their approach to religious practice (rolling eyes). And those well-meaning atheists – bless their hearts – had no choice but to react negatively to this development (rolling eyes again).
An Aquinas or an Augustine would have been unfazed by the idea of evolution.
Really? No wait, really?
But their modern successors had convinced themselves that religious truth was a literal, all-or-nothing affair, in which doctrines were the equivalent of scientific precepts, and sacred texts needed to coincide exactly with the natural sciences. The resulting crisis produced the confusions of our own day. To escape this pointless debate, Armstrong counsels atheists to recognize that theism isn’t a rival scientific theory, and that it is “no use magisterially weighing up the teachings of religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life.
Huh? We shouldn’t judge religion by its “truth or falsehood?” That’s a new one!
The leading lights of premodern Christianity…were fiercely dogmatic by any modern standard. They were not fundamentalists, reading every line of Scripture literally, and they were, as Armstrong says, “inventive, fearless and confident in their interpretation of faith.”
Yes, that is correct. They were quite “fearless and confident” in defending their faith. So maybe Aquinas, Augustine, and the gang WOULD have been opposed to Darwinism, after all?
It’s possible to gain some sort of “knack” for a religion without believing that all its dogmas are literally true: a spiritually inclined person can no doubt draw nourishment from the Roman Catholic Mass without believing that the Eucharist literally becomes the body and blood of Christ. But without the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Mass would not exist to provide that nourishment. Not every churchgoer will share Flannery O’Connor’s opinion that if the Eucharist is “a symbol, to hell with it.” But the Catholic faith has endured for 2,000 years because of Flannery O’Connors, not Karen Armstrongs.
Yes, exactly. Douthat's view of faith is unfulfilling for most Christians and would lead to its demise. So what’s Douthat’s point? What’s Armstrong’s point? My brain hurts.
On Mar. 19, I wrote...
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.
Obviously, that confidence was misplaced. By displaying such sloppy thinking about a very important subject, the conclusion is clear: Young conservatives can do better than Ross Douthat.
Yesterday, I wrote about the "Kumbaya Gang" (Robert Wright, Francis Collins, et al.) who want to create a comprehensive peace between Darwinists and believers. And what are the terms of such a peace? The believers must accept Darwinism and - in return - the Darwinists will kindly tolerant them. And what concessions do the Darwinists offer in return? Nothing - besides tolerance, of course. Swell deal.
Anyhoo...Apparently, the new Robert Wright book sparked an online debate between pro-Darwin professor Jerry Coyne and Jim Manzi(who's Jim Manzi? I have no idea. Apparently, he's a contributor to The American Scene). Today, another American Scene contributor - Noah Millman - decided to inject his wisdom into the evolutionary debate.
And how much wisdom did he provide? Not much. Apparently, Mr. Millman is eager to join the "Kumbaya Gang," but it's not clear if the Gang will accept him. Why? Well...you'd think the Gang must have some intellectual standards, right?
Anyhoo...I decided to write the following comment...
There's so much flawed thinking in this post, I'm not sure where to start.Some of the claims (like Darwinism is the "basis of all modern biology") are totally false and have been refuted convincingly and frequently.Therefore, I won't waste much time on them here (if you're interested, you can visit my website).
Instead, I'll focus on just one of Noah's mealy-mouthed, confused statements.
He writes...
"We have to distinguish between factual and hermeneutical claims...With hermeneutical claims, the question that arises is not truth but persuasiveness...The Anthropic Principle and the Many Worlds Hypothesis are competing hermeneutical frameworks for “answering” the question of why we live in a universe with intelligent life as opposed to one without intelligent life...These are hermeneutical rather than factual claims, because they cannot, in principle, be tested."
Umm, here's a factual claim: The universe is real!Oh, here's another one: There's no evidence - zilch - of any universes besides this one.Therefore, the Anthropic Principle is superior to the Many Worlds Hypothesis because it deals with something factual (OUR universe) rather than something that is speculative (OTHER universes).
I apologize in advance for my arrogant tone, but I'm not sure how else to react when such sloppy thinking is articulated in such a casual way.
-TW
This lead to an exchange with "Chet," a pro-Darwin advocate. I won't repost Chet's comments (you can read them here), but needless to say I wasn't impressed.
My first reply to Chet...
Chet: You’re repeating talking points from your college biology professor. Please study this issue before using cliches. Even an honest Darwinist would admit that this claim is bogus.
For example, take the pro-Darwin Penn University Professor Dr. Phillip Skell, who wrote a Feb. 2009 article in Forbes magazine, The Dangers of Selling Evolution.
One quote from his article will suffice:
“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.”
To repeat: Darwinism offers “no guidance” to experimental biology.
I’ll also quote from Dr. Cornelius Hunter, who admittedly is a Darwin skeptic, but his quip is too good to ignore: “The only area of thought in which evolutionary studies has a significant role is evolutionary studies. One could fit into a thimble the important scientific advances made possible by evolution.
-TW
And here's my second reply...
Chet: Repeating the same points over and over again isn't going to make them true.No, biology was NOT stamp collecting before Darwin.For example, Grey's Anatomy (the textbook, not the TV show) was published BEFORE Darwin.
You wrote, "The structure of DNA could not have been elucidated by Watson and Crick without knowing that it was the molecule of heredity – and why would anyone assume there was a mutable molecule of heredity except for Darwin?"
Again, this shows distortion and wishful thinking.The principles of genetic heredity were established by Gregor Mendel, NOT Darwin.In fact, Darwinists ignored Mendel's work for decades because it was believed to contradict Father Darwin.For more, see the Wikipedia entry on Mendel.
You wrote, "Why do all organisms (with nearly no exceptions) use the same 22 left-handed amino acids?"You use this as evidence of Darwinism.Actually, this is evidence for the idea of "common descent."Common descent does not equal Darwinism.Dr. Michael Behe, for example, one of the strongest Darwin critics, supports Common Descent, for example.
But I'm glad that you raised the issue of amino acids.What is most interesting is not the physical substance of amino acids, but the information CONTAINED INSIDE the physical substance.
The best way to understand DNA is through Information Theory.DNA is a code.A language.To quote Bill Gates, "DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created."
The computer you're using now wasn't created by accident, was it?
No.It was created by design.Purposeful design.
-TW
And lastly...
Chet,
In the words of Fred Hoyle (an esteemed astronomer): “The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way [natural selection] is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.
Because Mr. Wright is one of those stereotypical "kumbaya guys" who plead for believers and materialists to come together, make peace, and put their differences aside - which - in practice - means that believers can keep some vague concept of "God" plus the ethics of altruism ("Love thy neighbor," etc.) but they MUST accept Darwinism and materialism.
Needless to say, this is bad a deal for believers. And it's also intellectual sloppiness of the highest order.
Professor Coyne - unlike the rest of the "Kumbaya Gang" - is quite blunt about the atheistic implications of Darwinian theory - which he approves, of course.
True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. (It is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers.)
As it pertains to Robert Wright's book, Professor Coyne once again challenges the muddled thinking of The Elite (The New York Times? "Brilliant!" The New Yorker? "Enthralling!") and provides some much-needed clarity to this whole debate.
While many religious people have been persuaded by Darwin's overwhelming evidence, there still remains a need to find greater meaning behind it all--to see our world as part of an unfolding and divinely scripted plan….
And so the faithful--the ones who care about science at all--have tweaked the theory of evolution to bring it into line with their needs, to make it more congenial. Although life may indeed have evolved, they say, the process was really masterminded by God, whose ultimate goal was to evolve a species, our species, that is able to apprehend and therefore to admire its creator…
Wright makes a really remarkable claim, a metaphysical one, that this whole process is driven by God, who is pulling society toward moral perfection…
First, God directed the process of evolution so that it produced rational and moral creatures with the capacity to love: "Maybe natural selection is an algorithm that is in some sense designed to get life to a point where it can do something--fulfill its goal, its purpose." And then there was some social engineering: "God was so wise that he set up a world in which the rational pursuit of self-interest leads people to wisdom…"
With Nonzero and The Evolution of God, Wright has helped to pioneer a new genre: the intellectual feel-good book--chicken soup for the brain. In this season of the "new atheism," believers are looking for ways to remain faithful but still feel smart. Wright's elaborate argument can do the trick. One reviewer declared that The Evolution of God gave him hope by showing that the evolving doctrines of theology might point to "humankind's slow education into the real nature of the divine," and another exulted that Wright "gives relief and intellectual ballast to those believers weary of the punching-bag tone of the recent faith-and-reason debates…
This is creationism for liberals. While biblical literalists discern the hand of God in features such as eyes or wings, Wright finds it in the process of evolution itself--and in human history. Darwin strongly disavowed such attempts to envision God directing evolution…
Except for his claim that theology is malleable to social forces, which is hardly novel but never mind, there is nothing in Wright's argument that withstands close inspection--nothing in his understanding of theology, of morality and its history, of evolution, of science.
How so? Well, you can read the whole article. But I warn you, it's 17 pages long.
Well, I guess that's better than plowing through the 576 pages of Wright's book.
Darwin Movie Coming Out: "Real life couple Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany will kick off the Toronto International Film Festival with the life story of Charles Darwin...The movie centers on Darwin's struggle between science and God as he refines his theories amid his wife's deep religious conviction and grief over the death of his young daughter." The trailer can be seen here.
Enron and Darwinism: A Perfect Fit: A TV series about the notorious Enron Corporation. One viewer writes: "Of interest to me was the unapologetically explicit philosophy of Darwinism which was prevalent at Enron from top management to commodity traders."
A review of Niles Eldredge's book, The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism: "Where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms."
Denyse O'Leary Coins A Great Term: "Darwinbots." "I call the outraged Darwinists “Darwinbots” because I’ll bet that most of them have never seen The Privileged Planet or considered grappling with the questions it raises about design and purpose in the universe.Einstein and Heisenberg grappled with these questions, but the matters that torment great thinkers are beneath the notice of Darwinbots, whose program does not, so far as I can see, contain an independent thinking module."
Denyse O'Leary on the Motivation Behind "Evolutionary Psychology:" The Darwinist "cannot accept that humans actually have consciousness or free will, or that our current circumstances largely result from the exercise of these functions. Rather, he needs to find the answers in the unthinking behavior of non-humans and pre-humans...Any explanation of that sort, no matter how ridiculous, will always make more sense to him than any explanation based on the effects of intelligence, as a creative force in its own right."
Denyse O'Leary on the Link between Darwinism and Marxism: "I don’t see my blog as an exercise in Christian apologetics...I am fascinated by the decline of materialism, typified by widespread public scoffing at its creation story, Darwinism. Had I been born twenty years earlier, I might have covered the decline of Marxism in the same intrigued way, but that show was largely over by the mid-Eighties." For my take on this subject, see here and here.
Life would be less stressful if we didn’t have to make so many tough choices. For example, you love eating pizza, but you also value keeping your arteries unblocked. You must choose--though lots of us refuse to do so, the result being arteriosclerosis.
Sometimes the choice is between beliefs. When it comes to Darwinian evolution and the challenge it presents to belief in God, a lot of thoughtful men and women seem intent on not facing up to a tough but necessary choice, between Darwin and God.
Thus, over on The New York Times bestseller list is The Language of God, a book by evangelical Christian and genome scientist Francis Collins. He cheers for Darwin, both in his book and in an interview with Beliefnet, while recounting sticky-sweet memories of how he accepted Jesus on a nature hike.
The key point is whether, across hundreds of millions of years, the development of life was guided or not. On one side of this chasm between worldviews are Darwinists, whose belief system asserts that life, through a material mechanism, in effect designed itself. On the other side are theories like intelligent design (ID) which argue that no such purely material mechanism could write the software in the cell, called DNA.
To put it starkly, Darwinism would put God out of business. God’s authority to command our behavior is based on His having created us. By this, I don’t mean that He formed the first person from clay less than six thousand years ago, but that His guidance was necessary to produce the chief glory of the world, life. If the process that produced existence and then life was not guided, then God is not our creator.
In a National Review Online article, It's God or Darwin, Klinghoffer makes the following points about the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision regarding the teaching of Intelligent Design...
Is it really true that only Darwinism, in contrast to ID, represents a disinterested search for the truth, unmotivated by ideology?
Judge Jones was especially impressed by the testimony of philosophy professor Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University, author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Professor Forrest has definite beliefs about religion, evident from the fact that she serves on the board of directors of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association, which is "an affiliate of American Atheists, and [a] member of the Atheist Alliance International.”
There is Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, of the University of Texas, who defended Darwinism before the Texas State Board of Education in 2003. In accepting an award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation,Weinberg didn't hide his own feelings about how science must deliver the fatal blow to religious faith: "I personally feel that the teaching of modern science is corrosive of religious belief, and I'm all for that! One of the things that in fact has driven me in my life, is the feeling that this is one of the great social functions of science — to free people from superstition." When Weinberg's idea of science triumphs, then "this progression of priests and ministers and rabbis and ulamas and imams and bonzes and bodhisattvas will come to an end, [and] we'll see no more of them. I hope that this is something to which science can contribute and if it is, then I think it may be the most important contribution that we can make."
For more ugly quotes from the "Usual Suspects" (Dawkins, Dennett, Myers, etc.), read the whole piece. Klinghoffer continues...
Admittedly, there are those in the Darwin community who argue that Darwinism is compatible with religion. Judge Jones himself, in the Kitzmiller decision, writes that
many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.
Some advocates go further, seeing Darwin as a friend to faith. When I was in New York recently I spent an enjoyable hour at the new Darwin show at the American Museum of Natural History. In the last few yards of exhibit space, before you hit the inevitable gift shop, the museum addresses intelligent design. There's a short film with scientists talking about Darwin and religion, seeking to show that Darwinism actually has religion's best interests in mind.
This reminds me of the scene in Chapter 6 of The Mustard Seed, when Brian volunteers to tutor a high school student named Chris, and Chris barks...
“Look, bro, if anyone thinks the rules of evolution don’t apply to us…well, they’re just living in a freakin fantasy world. For years, I’ve been absorbing the truth, even if other people choose to ignore it. I don’t care if the truth earns me an ‘F’ now, because it will provide me with an ‘A+’ in the Real World, and that’s the only place where any of this shit matters.”
Klinghoffer concludes...
There is irony in the way the media generally follow Barbara Forrest's line in portraying ID as a "Trojan Horse" for theism. It would be equally accurate to call Darwin a trojan horse for atheism.
Wth apologies to Judge Jones, there is no coherent reconciliation between God and Darwin. Attempts to show how we can have both faith in a spiritual reality (religion) and faith in pure materialism (Darwin) always end up vacuuming the essential meaning out of either God or Darwin.
And this, I think, is why some Darwin advocates dislike religion. It's why they fight it with such passion: Because negating religion is the reason behind their belief system. To their credit, they recognize a truth that others prefer not to see. That is: One may choose Darwin or one may choose God.
**UPDATE, MAY 18, 2009**
On the other side of the spectrum, Jerry Coyne, an atheist professor at the University of Chicago, draws the same conclusion about faith and Darwinism (they are NOT COMPATIBLE). In an otherwise pitiful New Republic article (I felt like my IQ dropped 30 points after reading it), Professor Coyne makes one reasonable (and powerful) point...
The National Academy of Sciences, America's most prestigious scientific body, issued a pamphlet assuring us that we can have our faith and Darwin, too:
Science and religion address separate aspects of human experience. Many scientists have written eloquently about how their scientific studies of biological evolution have enhanced rather than lessened their religious faith. And many religious people and denominations accept the scientific evidence for evolution.
Would that it were that easy! True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. (It is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers.)
Besides his "aesthetic design" argument, Giberson offers another reason for his faith--we might call it the argument from convenience.
As a purely practical matter, I have compelling reasons to believe in God. My parents are deeply committed Christians and would be devastated, were I to reject my faith. My wife and children believe in God, and we attend church together regularly. Most of my friends are believers. I have a job I love at a Christian college that would be forced to dismiss me if I were to reject the faith that underpins the mission of the college. Abandoning belief in God would be disruptive, sending my life completely off the rails.
This touching confession reveals the sad irrationality of the whole enterprise--the demoralizing conflict between a personal need to believe and a desperation to show that this primal need is perfectly compatible with science.
It is in our personal and professional interest to proclaim that science and religion are perfectly harmonious. After all, we want our grants funded by the government, and our schoolchildren exposed to real science instead of creationism. Liberal religious people have been important allies in our struggle against creationism, and it is not pleasant to alienate them by declaring how we feel. This is why, as a tactical matter, groups such as the National Academy of Sciences claim that religion and science do not conflict. But their main evidence--the existence of religious scientists--is wearing thin as scientists grow ever more vociferous about their lack of faith…Attempts to reconcile God and evolution keep rolling off the intellectual assembly line. It never stops, because the reconciliation never works.
Reflecting on Coyne's admission, critic Carol Iannone writes...
Remember this when you see a version of Inherit the Wind, with its fradulent implication that the Bible and Darwin are perfectly compatible, and its closing scene with the Clarence Darrow character exiting happily with both in his briefcase. Generations of schoolchildren have been misled by this lie. Now at last we have the truth and can begin again to build on that.
**UPDATE, MAY 19, 2009**
A fine quote by Denyse O'Leary which summarizes the situation perfectly:
"There is no conflict between faith and science. But there is an irreconcilable conflict between Christianity and Darwinism."
"One of the few Darwinians to speak frankly about this clash of world views is William B. Provine, Professor of the History of Science at Cornell University, who admits that "prominent evolutionists have joined with equally prominent theologians and religious leaders to sweep under the rug the incompatibilities of evolution and religion."
"The reason for this benign coverup is that, according to Provine, 'If modern evolutionary biology is true, then all these lofty desires'–such as 'the existence of a personal god, free will, life after death, immutable moral laws, and ultimate meaning in life'–are 'hopeless.' Instead, he declares, 'we're produced by a process that gives not one damn about us. It simply plops us here as humans on the earth the same way it does chimpanzees or gorillas or the AIDS virus or anything else.'"
