Recently, John West reflected at Evolution News that defenders of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution solely by natural law, acting on randomness, seem to have lost their shine.

As he says, many will remember Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) and Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002). Even Richard Dawkins did serious science before the promotion of atheism seems to have claimed most of his time.

But what do we see now?

So who is the most prominent public advocate of Darwin in America today?

Probably Dave Farina, aka “Professor Dave.”

Except Professor Dave isn’t actually a professor, and he doesn’t even have a PhD in a science or any other discipline. He makes his money off of YouTube videos. And many of his arguments consist of copious four-letter words, and I’m not speaking of the words “atom,” “gene,” or “cell.” Farina’s method is to attack anyone who disagrees with him as evil or an idiot — or both. More recently, Professor Dave has revealed himself to be a vile anti-Semite to boot.

JOHN G. WEST, “DARWINISTS DEVOLVE,”EVOLUTION NEWS, FEBRUARY 5, 2024

Why Is This Happening?

How about: Serious science isn’t confirming Darwinism so serious scientists are lying low and a popular YouTube account moves into the void.

But there’s something else. Darwinism was heavily promoted by the New Atheism, which was almost personified by the Four Horsemen of the New Atheist apocalypse. Here’s a 2007 discussion among the Four — Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens:

What has become of the Horsemen since?

Zoologist Richard Dawkins, while still popular, currently facies cancelation risks due to his insistence on biological facts about human sexuality. Trends he encouraged have now turned on him and fashionable atheists face divided loyalties. Cancel culture may prove more attractive than Dawkins’s insistence on biological reality.

Philosopher Daniel Dennett received surprisingly negative coverage in The Guardian last year — by fellow atheist Stuart Jeffries for his book I’ve Been Thinking (Allen Lane 2023):

It’s typical of Dennett to tell us smugly that the four atheist thinkers call themselves the Brights, with the implication those poor saps who find solace in religion are dim. Even an atheist such as me can find Dennett’s unremitting glee in his presumed intellectual superiority ugly. Unattractive too is Dennett’s incessant offloading of his accomplishments. Scuba diver, sailor, pianist, sculptor, cider maker and farmer. There is no end to (him going on and on about) his talents.

STUART JEFFRIES, “I’VE BEEN THINKING BY DANIEL C DENNETT REVIEW – AN ENGAGING, VEXING MEMOIR WITH A HUMILITY BYPASS,” THE GUARDIAN, OCTOBER 1, 2023

The Brights? If human consciousness is an illusion, as Dennett has said, then he is simply more deluded than most, right? As his point of view percolates down, he becomes all the less worthy of attention himself.

And Sam Harris? As a neuroscientist, Harris is well-known for his adamant, and popular, claim that free will is an illusion. But then something he said in 2022 raised a lot of eyebrows. On a podcast that year, he asserted that the media were justified in keeping the scandal of Hunter Biden’s laptop from the public eye if it prevented Donald Trump from winning the election because:

“Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement, I would not have cared,” he said. “There’s nothing, it’s Hunter Biden, it’s not Joe Biden. Whatever the scope of Joe Biden’s corruption is…it is infinitesimal compared to the corruption we know Trump is involved in. It’s like a firefly to the sun.” 

GRAIG GRAZIOSI, “WHO IS SAM HARRIS AND WHY DID HIS TRUMP COMMENTS CAUSE SUCH A STIR?,” THE INDEPENDENT, AUGUST 19, 2022

The corpses of children? Agree or disagree about the underlying political issues, but after that image, many people found Harris a less glamorous figure.

Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) died shortly after the Four Horsemen discussion aired so he never had to address the implications of the denial the existence of the mind, the rise of private truth in biology, or the limits of morally tenable government.

New Atheism — Waning

Five years ago at Slate Star Codex, psychiatrist Scott Alexander, sympathetic to the cause, offered a detailed explanation as to why the New Atheism was waning:

As far as I can tell, it eventually ended with the anti-social-justice atheists stomping off to YouTube or somewhere horrible like that, while most of the important celebrity members of the public-facing movement very gradually turned into social justice bloggers.

For example, I look at Pharyngula, which during its heyday was the biggest atheist blog on the Internet. On the day I am writing this, its front page contains posts like “Are They All Racists On The Right Side Of The Aisle?” (recommended answer: yes), a discussion of how opposing the Gilette commercial represents “classic toxic masculinity”, and an attack on Milo Yiannopoulos. Its sidebar includes links to “Discussion: Racism In America”, “Discussion: Through A Feminist Lens”, and “Social Justice Links Roundup”. There’s still a little bit of anti-religious content, but mostly in the context of Catholics being racist and misogynist.

SCOTT ALEXANDER, “NEW ATHEISM: THE GODLESSNESS THAT FAILED,” SLATE STAR CODEX, OCTOBER 30, 2019

He adds, “It’s not ‘blogs on atheism’ anymore. It’s ‘blogs by atheists about social justice’. The whole atheist movement is like this.” That would imply a lack of underlying intellectual foundation but Dr. Alexander does not draw that conclusion.

At any rate, the decline of the New Atheist movement may help account for the general decline in serious arguments against design in nature, the reality of the human mind and free will, and theism. The good news for proponents is that they can focus on educating the public. Little is to be gained via contentions with trolls.

Cross-posted at Mind Matters News.