Charles Darwin and The Origin of Species
2008 June 28
The Observer from June 22, 2008 has an excellent article on Charles Darwin and his publication of the theory of evolution in his book the Origin of Species.
This article repays reading in full, especially as so much nonsense is pushed these days by a vocal and fundamentalist element in society.
Darwin through his work has enabled all to have a much clearer understanding of the world and the place of man therein. Truly his work did change the world.
Adam turned his mind to Darwin after reading earlier in the day this article at Stuff on how a creationist group is promoting it’s viewpoint to schools in NZ.
Adam, I find it a bit amusing that your namesake was an intelligent design buff–well, a deist actually–who propounded the Invisible Hand and all that stuff. My own suspicion is that intelligent design is more deistic than Christian, and maybe many Christians latch on to it because they are looking for a middle ground to gain some traction and respect in a dominantly atheistic materialistic world. This is a lost cause–not the design bit, but the search for middle ground and respect.
Evolutionism as a metaphysic or theory of being is fallacious nonsense. Even Plato in his cave could have worked that out, without a single actual observation. Tautologies are neither scientific, nor rational. They are vacuous. Evolution is the grand tautology of the last century. Why would “science” adopt it so universally? For exactly the same reasons and dynamics as are now evident in the Great Global Warming Swindle. There are other non-scientific drivers at play.
You may be interested in a recent post where I argued that actually no-one really believes in evolutionism. But that is a small matter, since it remains a universally convenient fiction. http://jtcontracelsum.blogspot.com/2008/06/mythology-of-evolution.html
JT