B. K. Silverthorne's List: evolution

• The state of Florida is considering a new science teaching standard that  presumes the accuracy of the theory of evolution, much to the consternation of  parents and other leaders who say society too often already has been embarrassed  by such "Flat Earth Society" thinking.

   

  At issue is a set of standards that will be considered by the state Board of Education  that will mandate the teaching of evolution as fact and, essentially, forbid the  discussion of facts that may contradict that theory.

   

  "The proposed standards [for evolution] … presume ideas to be facts and leave  no opportunity to study them beyond their narrow presentation," Fred Cutting, a  retired aerospace engineer, said. He served on the state's Science Standards  Framers Committee because of his expertise in biology, specifically species  origins and the human genome project, and found the treatment of evolution "very  one-sided, bias[ed] and narrow in its final views."

   

  The standards, he said, "are dogmatic and not scientifically neutral. … In  the biology standards for evolution that were proposed, there was no room for  any critical thinking or criticism of prevailing science theories. Students are  not encouraged to do any critical thinking or evaluations within the proposed  standards being questioned. The life sciences subcommittee refused to  distinguish between what can be observed, tested and objectively verified, on  one hand, and what is speculation and/or mere hypothesis on the other."

   

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• The state of Texas has decided that a graduate  school  with a faculty sporting Ph.Ds from UCLA, Penn State, the University of Montana,  Colorado State, Case Western and Indiana  University,  with a few lowly Ed.D. degrees thrown it, isn't qualified to grant master's  degrees because it teaches students to evaluate thoroughly the pluses – and  minuses – of evolution and creation.

• Our loyalties are to the  species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed  not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we  spring.
  

• As Carl Sagan concluded in his Cosmos television series, "Our obligation to  survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos,  ancient and vast, from which we spring."

• The irony is that evolutionists would recognize that a nonrandom signal from  space that carried information with meaning and purpose must have come from an  intelligent extraterrestrial. Yet they consider nucleic acids in the living  cell, a nonrandom sequence of nucleotides carrying far more information with  precise meaning and exquisite purpose, and say it must have arrived by chance!

• For example, I put to him that, since he is prepared to believe that the  origin of all matter was an entirely spontaneous event, he therefore believes  that something can be created out of nothing -- and that since such a belief  runs counter to the very scientific principles of verifiable evidence which he  tells us should govern all our thinking, this is itself precisely the kind of  irrationality, or ‘magic’, which he scorns. In reply he said that, although he  agreed this was a problematic position, he did indeed believe that the first  particle arose spontaneously from nothing, because the alternative explanation –  God -- was more incredible. Later, he amplified this by saying that physics was  coming up with theories to show how matter could spontaneously be created from  nothing. But as far as I can see – and as Anthony Flew elaborates – these  theories cannot answer the crucial question of how the purpose-carrying codes  which gave rise to self–reproduction in life-forms arose out of matter from  which any sense of purpose was totally absent. So such a belief, whether adduced  by physicists or anyone else, does not rest upon rational foundations.   

• This point is important in the  context of the charge raised by modern opponents of Darwinism that  the theory is responsible for the appearance of a whole range of unpleasant  social policies based on struggle.  Darwin exploited the idea of the  struggle for existence in a way that was unique until paralleled by Wallace  nearly 20 years later.  Their theory certainly fed into the  movements that led toward various kinds of social Darwinism, but it  was not the only vehicle for that transition in the late 19th century.  It  did, however, highlight the harsher aspects of the consequences of  struggle.  The potential implications were drawn out even more  clearly when Galton argued that it would be necessary to apply artificial  selection to the human race in order to prevent “unfit” individuals from  reproducing and undermining the biological health of the population.  This  was the eugenics program, and in its most extreme manifestation at the  hands of the Nazis, it led not just to the sterilization but also to the  actual elimination of those unfortunates deemed unfit by the state.   Did Darwin’s emphasis on the natural elimination of maladaptive  variants help to create a climate of opinion in which such  atrocities became possible?
      It has to be  admitted that, by making death itself a creative force in nature, Darwin  introduced a new and profoundly disturbing insight into the world, an  insight that seems to have resonated with the thinking of many who  did not understand or accept the details of his theory.

• But by proposing that evolution worked  primarily through the elimination of useless variants, Darwin created  an image that could all too easily be exploited by those who  wanted the human race to conform to their own pre-existing  ideals.  In the same way, his popularization of the struggle  metaphor focused attention onto the individualistic aspects of  Spencer’s philosophy.
• Keep in mind that Darwinism goes beyond a discovery of facts about the living  world.  The Origin did not really catalog any new facts of biology  that were not already known.  What he did was put them together into “one  long argument” that presented an entire history of life, a world view, that  generated all the variety of living organisms via selfishness and  struggle.  When any scientist proposes to change the way we think about the  world, Bowler argues that he or she must be willing to take responsibility for  the consequences
• Darwine is a potent psychedelic potion that lubricates the  imagination

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