Month: April 2007
Darwin’s Theory and Cancer
Darwinist blogger Orac recently took issue with my observation that Darwin’s theory plays no important role in medicine. Orac, a surgical oncologist, insisted that Darwin’s theory is very helpful in modern cancer research. He wrote:
Alex Rosenberg’s “Darwinian Reductionism” Under Fire
The May-June 2007 issue of American Scientist contains John Dupré‘s review of Darwinian Reductionism: Or, How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology by Alex Rosenberg. Dupré fears that Rosenberg’s adherence to strict physicalist reductionism (“Darwinian Reductionism”), where “everything is ultimately determined by what happens at the physical level–and that this entails that the mind is ‘nothing but’ the brain,” is based upon a failure to understand why most philosophers of biology have abandoned such reductionism rather than a new revelation. As Dupré points out, most philosophers have abandoned this view because, among other reasons, genes have a “many/many” relationship with phenotype. More specifically, his [Rosenberg’s] portrayal of the genome as a program directing development, which is the centerpiece of Read More ›
Chapman and West in The Dallas Morning News: Why not Debate?
This morning’s Dallas Morning News features a bold op-ed by Bruce Chapman and John West calling for critics at SMU to employ the method of Charles Darwin himself: engage in the discussion. The article, “Are the Darwinists afraid to debate us,” is a response to the SMU science professors who called on their university to ban the conference from campus.Rather than “ludicrously comparing ID proponents to faith healers or even Holocaust-deniers,” as one columnist did last week, Chapman and West suggest that critics of intelligent design “engage ID scholars in a serious discussion.” They pointedly ask, “what is so frightening about allowing it [the evidence for design] to be heard at SMU?”
Darwin’s Nose
The published letters of Charles Darwin reveal a man who debated about design in a manner that seems “more tolerant and humble” than one encounters in the current debate, says Anthony Barnes in a book review in The Independent (U.K.). It could also be noted that Darwin was treated better by his critics 150 years ago than his followers — the dominant neo-Darwinists — treat their critics today. Darwin himself obviously thought a lot about religion, but, like his successors, he had what seems like a rather puerile understanding of theology and philosophy. He told the American botanist Asa Gray that Darwin’s own nose, which he considered large and unattractive, was evidence against design. “Will you honestly tell me that Read More ›
Pseudo-Darwinism: A Theory for All Seasons
Recently on Panda’s Thumb, Darwinist and biologist Reed Cartwright takes issue with my observation that Darwin’s theory had nothing to do with Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA and the genetic code: