I recently came across this
article which attempts to identify why some people oppose Darwinism. I will let the article speak for itself. There is also a lively discussion linked to the article. Anybody have any thoughts or reactions to the article and the discussion?
2 comments:
"our intense visceral revulsion at monkeys and apes?" Harris grasps at straws indeed! He attempts to remain politically correct. He manufactures a "plausible" reason for our rejection of "origins," instead of impolitely calling us "boobs," a la Dawkins and company.
It's simply another case of outright ignorance of who we are. and what we believe. It struck me also as being a patronizing piece of fluff, as in "There, there -- you can't help it, you're suffering from an irrational fear of apes. Completely understandable."
Almost as an aside, he repeats the rumour that Joshua caused the sun to stand still, and refers to the disproving of the Ptolemaic theory. This allows him to suggest that since we were wrong about that Bible "myth,' then the rest of it is open to question. I say 'rumour' because while it happened that way, it wasn't Joshua -- it was Yaweh the Creator, who interrupted the clock that day, 'way before Ptolemy was a gleam in his daddy's eye.
And note the sound scientific foundation on which he builds his case -- Frans de Waal's day at the park, and a statement by a prim character from a Goethe novel. Hmmm.
No, I'd give the intellectual honesty points to Dawkins, et al in this one. I'd much rather be called "ignorant boobs who take the Bible literally."
And just for the record -- I'm not afraid of monkeys, even after being attacked and bitten by one at a carnival, when I was four years old. Just think, though -- if that happened today, I'd have ended up owning the James E. Strates Shows!
Friar Tuck,
You think the author is grasping at straws? You should read the discussions.
As I see it, Darwinism is a faith, pure and simple; whose adherents fancy themselves above "faith". The cognitive dissonance must be intolerable. Hence the heated over-reaction to any questions raised about the dogma. While I do respect the honesty of some of the more hard-line evolutionists, such as Dawkins, it is worth noting that their response to questioning quickly devolves into sputtering. ("Ignorant boobs".)
My daughter spotted a copy of "Irreligion" by John Allen Paulos, who also wrote the useful "Innumeracy". Alas, in "Irreligion", he sets out to disprove God by attacking such closely held Christian tenets as: 9/11 conspiracies and the "Bible code" books. As I told her, he must have searched long and heard for the barrels holding those fish.
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