Curtis Dahlgren
Evolution: The Thalidomide of social silver bullets
By Curtis Dahlgren
"The dirty lttle (secret) factoid about "Origin" by Darwin was that it was 100% about 'change' and zero percent about ORIGIN. The rest is all supposition, presumption, and extrapolation (not science)." – C. Dahlgren
FEBRUARY USED TO BE PRESIDENTS' MONTH (Washington, Lincoln, Reagan, etc.). Many of our colleges and universities this year will give all week to honoring Darwin – and no time at all to honoring Lincoln, who was born on Darwin's birthday. Shoot, academia would probably devote the whole month to Darwin and forget about the Presidents altogether, except that it's so-called Black History Month (why is that when Dr. King and George Washington Carver, etc, were born in January?)!
With all due respects Charles, I decided to honor February 12th by re-posting this column from October 20, 2003. I had never written full-time before and it was only column #7. BUT HAVE A NICE READ:
WHEN PEOPLE SAY, "It's not about [such and such]," often that's the very thing it's ALL ABOUT. Believers in Darwinism often say that evolution isn't about religion, or that it is "neutral on God." Educator John Dewey, however, half a century after the publication of Darwin's theory, said that evolution had "introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowledge, and hence the treatment of morals, politics, and religion." And I can picture him saying that with all the "neutrality" of Dan Rather announcing that the state of Tennessee had just gone for Al Gore in 2000.
One of the more honest Darwinists was Huxley, who made no secret of the fact that what evolution was "about" was freedom from traditional morals, for him and his friends. [Soneone once said that "when a man speaks loudly against religion, you can safely bet that it is his passions and not his Reason that has gotten the best of his faith"! But as Geisler and Turek said in a book, sorry "I just don't have enough faith to be an atheist."]
As for John Dewey's "politics," Karl Marx wanted to dedicate "Das Kapital" to Darwin. His request was turned down, but certain economists to this day still worship Darwin. [Marx thought that "Middle Class Economics (free enterprise) had failed, but problem was the discipline of economics was still in its infancy.]
And as Dewey's "religion," many theologians insist now that they are descended from some primate themselves! Enough said.
An even bigger issue than the theory's scientific accuracy is its ramifications – all the unintended Consequences, which I call the Thalidomides of the Social Silver Bullet that was Darwinism. I use "was" – the past tense – because someday it will be!
[There – that ought to move me up from #603 on the Loon List to a more respectable level. Maybe after I'm gone. Haha.]
Though touted by early advocates as a social cure-all for everything from poverty to guilty consciences, its actual ramifications have been specific and horrific. Darwin's Origin was published in 1859, and three years later, Russian writer Turgueniev described some of the consequences of the theory in Fathers and Children.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition ("Nihilism"), the world's first hippies weren't those of the 1960s, but those in 1860s Russia, the forerunners of the Communist Revolution:
"Turgueniev had noticed a new and strikingly original type [of student] – young men and women in slovenly attire, who called in question and ridiculed the generally received convictions and respectable conventionalities of social life. . . . They reversed the traditional order of things even in trivial matters of external appearance, the males allowing the hair to grow long and the female adepts cutting it short. . . . [They] had raised themselves above the level of so-called public opinion, despised Philistine respectability, and rather liked to scandalize people still under the influence of what they considered antiquated prejudices. . . .
"Some of the Nihilists maintained that things were not yet ripe for a rising of the masses . . . that before attempting to overthrow the existing social organization some idea should be formed as to the order of things which should take its place [but] . . . in a brochure issued in 1874 one of the most influential leaders (Tkatchev) explained that the object of the revolutionary party should be, not the preparation of revolution in general, but the realization of it at the earliest possible moment, that it was a mistake to attach great importance to questions of future organization. . . .
"In accordance with the fashionable doctrine of evolution [my emphasis], the reconstruction of society on the tabula rosa [the Britannica's term] might be left, it was thought, to the spontaneous action of natural forces." So says the Britannica, and the tsar was assassinated in 1881 by those "hippies" (virtually 100 years to the month prior to the attempt on President Reagan's life by someone influenced by our hippie movement). Violence and back-lashes to the assassination culminated in the 1917 revolution.
CONCLUSION - "The World & I," August 1999 ("Darwin's 'Origin' Transforms Culture"), said this:
"The scientific search for truth takes place in a cultural context, and Darwin's theorizing was no exception. He unconsciously absorbed many social and political values peculiar to his time, place, and class; and these values indirectly colored his ideas. . . . In their turn, social, political, and economic theorists appropriated features of Darwin's evolutionary argument for their own constructs, some of which were strikingly different from Darwin's values."
The eugenics movement and the Bolshevist Revolution are only two examples. The evils of all the wars of the Dark Ages were only dwarfed by the deaths resulting directly from the dogma of the various proponents of Darwinism in the 20th century. Ironically, I found a Wisconsin license plate made in 1917 that outlasted Russian Communism and its attempt to wipe out the Bible and religion and to engineer a secular "New Soviet Man."
Thomas Jefferson said, "I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. . . . So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro' all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to [one], in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of self-existent Universe" (letter to John Adams, 4/11/1823).
The term Darwinizing had been coined in the 1700s to refer to theorizing done by Charles Darwin's grandfather, so Jefferson had already heard it all and he still said that believers outnumbered non-believers a million to one. What's foreboding about today's secular movement is that John Dewey's public schools have used more patience and systematic methods than Russia's Bolshevists, and the scales are beginning to tilt in the other direction. All the Founding Fathers could do is give the new Republic a shove in the right direction. The final fate of their high hopes is, without a doubt, up to you and me – if you are up to the task, so help us God.
P.S. I heard that the U. of Michigan has a new "Speak Softly" campaign/speech-code. I guess that the highly paid faculty members will have absolutely no tolerance for the words retard, crazy, loon, or dumm kopf.
Unless you're referring to a Christian, a creationist, or a President of Israel. Or at least a politically incorrect one.
BUT DON'T QUOTE ME.
© Curtis Dahlgren
February 11, 2015
"The dirty lttle (secret) factoid about "Origin" by Darwin was that it was 100% about 'change' and zero percent about ORIGIN. The rest is all supposition, presumption, and extrapolation (not science)." – C. Dahlgren
FEBRUARY USED TO BE PRESIDENTS' MONTH (Washington, Lincoln, Reagan, etc.). Many of our colleges and universities this year will give all week to honoring Darwin – and no time at all to honoring Lincoln, who was born on Darwin's birthday. Shoot, academia would probably devote the whole month to Darwin and forget about the Presidents altogether, except that it's so-called Black History Month (why is that when Dr. King and George Washington Carver, etc, were born in January?)!
With all due respects Charles, I decided to honor February 12th by re-posting this column from October 20, 2003. I had never written full-time before and it was only column #7. BUT HAVE A NICE READ:
WHEN PEOPLE SAY, "It's not about [such and such]," often that's the very thing it's ALL ABOUT. Believers in Darwinism often say that evolution isn't about religion, or that it is "neutral on God." Educator John Dewey, however, half a century after the publication of Darwin's theory, said that evolution had "introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowledge, and hence the treatment of morals, politics, and religion." And I can picture him saying that with all the "neutrality" of Dan Rather announcing that the state of Tennessee had just gone for Al Gore in 2000.
One of the more honest Darwinists was Huxley, who made no secret of the fact that what evolution was "about" was freedom from traditional morals, for him and his friends. [Soneone once said that "when a man speaks loudly against religion, you can safely bet that it is his passions and not his Reason that has gotten the best of his faith"! But as Geisler and Turek said in a book, sorry "I just don't have enough faith to be an atheist."]
As for John Dewey's "politics," Karl Marx wanted to dedicate "Das Kapital" to Darwin. His request was turned down, but certain economists to this day still worship Darwin. [Marx thought that "Middle Class Economics (free enterprise) had failed, but problem was the discipline of economics was still in its infancy.]
And as Dewey's "religion," many theologians insist now that they are descended from some primate themselves! Enough said.
An even bigger issue than the theory's scientific accuracy is its ramifications – all the unintended Consequences, which I call the Thalidomides of the Social Silver Bullet that was Darwinism. I use "was" – the past tense – because someday it will be!
[There – that ought to move me up from #603 on the Loon List to a more respectable level. Maybe after I'm gone. Haha.]
Though touted by early advocates as a social cure-all for everything from poverty to guilty consciences, its actual ramifications have been specific and horrific. Darwin's Origin was published in 1859, and three years later, Russian writer Turgueniev described some of the consequences of the theory in Fathers and Children.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition ("Nihilism"), the world's first hippies weren't those of the 1960s, but those in 1860s Russia, the forerunners of the Communist Revolution:
"Turgueniev had noticed a new and strikingly original type [of student] – young men and women in slovenly attire, who called in question and ridiculed the generally received convictions and respectable conventionalities of social life. . . . They reversed the traditional order of things even in trivial matters of external appearance, the males allowing the hair to grow long and the female adepts cutting it short. . . . [They] had raised themselves above the level of so-called public opinion, despised Philistine respectability, and rather liked to scandalize people still under the influence of what they considered antiquated prejudices. . . .
"Some of the Nihilists maintained that things were not yet ripe for a rising of the masses . . . that before attempting to overthrow the existing social organization some idea should be formed as to the order of things which should take its place [but] . . . in a brochure issued in 1874 one of the most influential leaders (Tkatchev) explained that the object of the revolutionary party should be, not the preparation of revolution in general, but the realization of it at the earliest possible moment, that it was a mistake to attach great importance to questions of future organization. . . .
"In accordance with the fashionable doctrine of evolution [my emphasis], the reconstruction of society on the tabula rosa [the Britannica's term] might be left, it was thought, to the spontaneous action of natural forces." So says the Britannica, and the tsar was assassinated in 1881 by those "hippies" (virtually 100 years to the month prior to the attempt on President Reagan's life by someone influenced by our hippie movement). Violence and back-lashes to the assassination culminated in the 1917 revolution.
CONCLUSION - "The World & I," August 1999 ("Darwin's 'Origin' Transforms Culture"), said this:
"The scientific search for truth takes place in a cultural context, and Darwin's theorizing was no exception. He unconsciously absorbed many social and political values peculiar to his time, place, and class; and these values indirectly colored his ideas. . . . In their turn, social, political, and economic theorists appropriated features of Darwin's evolutionary argument for their own constructs, some of which were strikingly different from Darwin's values."
The eugenics movement and the Bolshevist Revolution are only two examples. The evils of all the wars of the Dark Ages were only dwarfed by the deaths resulting directly from the dogma of the various proponents of Darwinism in the 20th century. Ironically, I found a Wisconsin license plate made in 1917 that outlasted Russian Communism and its attempt to wipe out the Bible and religion and to engineer a secular "New Soviet Man."
Thomas Jefferson said, "I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. . . . So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro' all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to [one], in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of self-existent Universe" (letter to John Adams, 4/11/1823).
The term Darwinizing had been coined in the 1700s to refer to theorizing done by Charles Darwin's grandfather, so Jefferson had already heard it all and he still said that believers outnumbered non-believers a million to one. What's foreboding about today's secular movement is that John Dewey's public schools have used more patience and systematic methods than Russia's Bolshevists, and the scales are beginning to tilt in the other direction. All the Founding Fathers could do is give the new Republic a shove in the right direction. The final fate of their high hopes is, without a doubt, up to you and me – if you are up to the task, so help us God.
P.S. I heard that the U. of Michigan has a new "Speak Softly" campaign/speech-code. I guess that the highly paid faculty members will have absolutely no tolerance for the words retard, crazy, loon, or dumm kopf.
Unless you're referring to a Christian, a creationist, or a President of Israel. Or at least a politically incorrect one.
BUT DON'T QUOTE ME.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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