Month: July 2008
The Dehumanizing Impact of Modern Thought: Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, and Their Followers
Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who endured the horrors of Auschwitz, astutely commented on the way that modern European thought had helped prepare the way for Nazi atrocities (and his own misery). He stated, “If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted,” Frankl continued, “with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers Read More ›
Intelligent Design, Evolution, Information and Purple People Eaters
Click here to listen to an IDTF podcast featuring part of Stephen Meyer’s opening remarks from this event. What do intelligent design, evolution, information and purple people eaters all have in common? Well, they all took front stage at Freedomfest in Las Vegas last week when ID proponents Stephen Meyer and George Gilder squared off against Darwinists Michael Shermer and Ronald Bailey in debating whether there is scientific evidence for intelligent design in nature. The debate was civil, and the audience appreciated the back and forth between the speakers and enjoyed being able to ask questions at the end of the formal debate–and even beyond that. For the rest of the evening following the debate itself Meyer and Gilder patiently Read More ›
Is “Evolution” a “Theory” or “Fact,” or Is This Just a Trivial Game of Semantics? (Part 1)
[Editor’s Note: This is a Part 1 of a 5 part series on whether evolution should be called a “theory” or a “fact.” See: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. The full article can be found here.] Many members of the general public who are skeptics of Darwinian evolution are intelligent people with a decent understanding of some of the scientific weaknesses with neo-Darwinian evolution. In fact, a recent article in The Scientist suggests that, “public discontent with classical evolution as an inclusive theory stems partly from an intuitive appreciation of its limits.” (Eric Smith, “Before Darwin,” The Scientist, June 2008:32-38.) But in this highly nuanced debate, such Darwin-skeptics must avoid semantic land mines if they Read More ›
Vladimir Nabokov, “Furious” Darwin Doubter
So was Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) secretly a fundamentalist Christian, a mad man, or just plain ignorant? The great novelist (Lolita, Pale Fire, Pnin) was, in his own telling, a “furious” critic of Darwinian theory. He based the judgment not on religion, to which biographer Brian Boyd writes that he was “profoundly indifferent,” but on decades of his scientific study of butterflies, including at Harvard and the American Museum of Natural History. Of course, this was all before the culture-wide sclerosis of Darwinian orthodoxy set in.
Starting to Explain the Mysterious “Altenberg 16” (Updated)
Update: Since this article was first published in 2008, Susan Mazur’s articles, which are referenced below, have been removed from the internet. For ENV readers who would still like to see her writings, the best option is to pick up a copy of Mazur’s book The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry, available on Amazon. Mazur’s book contains most of the same information and material cited from her articles below. Recently, Rob Crowther reported on the “Altenberg 16” conference that was planned for Altenberg, Austria. Sixteen leading leading evolutionary scientists — who do not support intelligent design but do have doubts about Darwinism — were to re-evaluate the core claims of neo-Darwinism. The conference apparently did happen, as Read More ›