Category: Culture & Ethics
Science Needs Skeptics, Not Magisteria
Does science have a magisterium? That’s the question Jay Richards puts to NRO’s John Derbyshire today at The American, where he aptly notes: Derbyshire appeals to a scientific magisterium: “Science contains a core magisterium, which we can and do trust.” This should give anyone who has followed the climate change debate the creeps–a reaction Derbyshire anticipates in the column. But he seems blind to why talk of a scientific magisterium is creepy; so let me spell it out. Other than listing the things Derbyshire thinks are settled and “without serious competitors,” he doesn’t really even identify what the magisterium is. This gives the impression that the magisterium is the subjectively determined list of things that people with power claim are Read More ›
How Darwin Leads People to Eventually Say, “Hitler Was O.K.”
Ideas matter. That’s the lesson of history, and one brought into stark relief by Richard Weikart’s work as an historian. This week Dr. Weikart has an article that delves into what Darwinism really means for Darwinists and morality: The Darwin celebrations this year have reinforced my concern that Darwinism is not merely a scientific theory. For many Darwinists, it is much more than that. For some it is the basis for a secular worldview that not only rejects theism, but also promotes moral relativism. How clearly this is seen in Weikart’s example: A young man was performing rap songs on evolutionary themes that he had been commissioned to write and perform for the Darwin celebrations in Britain. He told us Read More ›
U.N. Population Fund: Genocide Helps Prevent Global Warming
Forget your Prius. Forget all that tedious recycling your kids bug you about. Forget solar panels on your house. The UN Population Fund has a better way to fight the scourage of global warming: Condoms. Fight Climate Change With Free Condoms, U.N. Population Fund Says London (AP) – The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday. Who knew that thing you carried in your wallet throughout high school could save the planet. The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: “Women with access to reproductive health services … Read More ›
Todd’s Blog Bungles Wiker’s New Book, The Darwin Myth
Wood has Wiker asking the wrong question. Wiker didn’t ask, when did Darwin become an evolutionist, he asked, when did Darwin develop his worldview or philosophy? That is a powerful and important question and one not asked enough by Darwin’s biographers past and present; too bad Wood missed this point so tellingly and clearly made by Wiker.
Pro-Intelligent Design Book Makes Times Literary Supplement’s “Books of the Year” Issue, But Dawkins and Other Darwinists Left Out in Cold
Although this year has been widely touted as the “Year of Darwin” because of its big Darwin-related anniversaries, the book reviewers at the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) in London seem less than enthralled with the year’s crop of pro-Darwin retreads from the publishing industry. Indeed, the TLS’s “Books of the Year” issue just released last Friday fails to include any of the year’s big pro-Darwin tomes such as Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True or even Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth among its “Books of the Year.” Instead, the only book so honored that focuses on the Darwin-ID debate is Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, which was selected by noted Read More ›