Archives
Darwin’s Racism and Darwin’s Sacred Cause
[Editor’s Note: Historian Richard Weikart is featured prominently in the just-released DVD, “What Hath Darwin Wrought?” exploring the painful history of Social Darwinism in Germany and America from the twentieth century to the present. To purchase a copy or find out more information about this documentary, visit www.whathathdarwinwrought.com.] Pointing out Darwin’s anti-slavery sentiments has been a favorite tactic for many years by those wanting to deny Darwin’s racism. However, Adrian Desmond and James Moore raised this discussion to an entirely new level by claiming in their 2009 book, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, that abolitionism was the driving force behind Darwin embracing biological evolution. This is especially remarkable because Desmond and Moore stated in their earlier biography of Darwin: “Social Darwinism” is Read More ›
Where are the US critics of Stephen Hawking?
At Discovery News (here and here), Bruce Chapman notes that Stephen Hawking’s dismissal of design in the universe has gone largely uncriticized in the US. Not so in his homeland. American media have tended to uncritical worship before Stephen Hawking and his new tome, a rebuke of The Grand Design. The Wall Street Journal has had three articles on it, one by Hawking. On CNN, Larry King was like a flustered peasant bowing before an oracle: he reads a question, the oracle speaks, he reads the next question… The English themselves are not in such awe. There has been a small parade of dismissive reviews, including some by bored scientists who found nothing new in Hawking’s argument that natural laws Read More ›
Nature: I used to love her, now I’ll have to kill her
[NOTE: Today we welcome a new contributing writer to Evolution News & Views, Heather Zeiger. Ms. Zeiger graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Dallas with a B.S. in chemistry and a minor in government and politics. She received her M.S. in chemistry, also from UTD; her research was in organic synthesis and materials.] The most general definition of bioethics is the relationship between man and technology. This relationship takes on many forms, some in the context of fear, as exemplified by Bill Joy’s now well-known Wired article, “The Future Doesn’t Need Us.” Others are in the context of hope or even a type of salvation, as exemplified in Ray Kurtzweil’s work, including The Singularity Is Near: Read More ›
Ruse’s Spin on Darwin’s Racism
[Editor’s Note: Historian Richard Weikart is featured prominently in the just-released DVD, “What Hath Darwin Wrought?” exploring the painful history of Social Darwinism in Germany and America from the twentieth century to the present. To purchase a copy or find out more information about this documentary, visit www.whathathdarwinwrought.com.] One of the biggest errors in Ruse’s recent op-ed piece in Huffington Post is his claim about Darwin’s racism. While admitting that Darwin upheld conventional Victorian racial views, Ruse still tries to distance Darwin from any connection to racial extermination. When discussing Darwin’s Descent of Man Ruse claims, “Darwin was explicit that when the races met and (as so often was the case) the non-Europeans suffered, it came not from intellectual and Read More ›
If You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Answers
Scientists from Discovery Institute and Biologic Institute are heading to Texas to Southern Methodist University Thursday, September 23rd for a special evening event: 4 Nails in Darwin’s Coffin Presents New Scientific Challenges to Darwinian Evolution. Following a screening of Darwin’s Dilemma they will answer questions from attendees. Three years ago Discovery funded and organized a two-day conference on the SMU campus titled Darwin vs. Design and featuring several scientists including Stephen Meyer who will also be at this year’s event. At that event some of the faculty and other Darwin activists around Dallas said that such a discussion had “no place on an academic campus” and tried to shut it down. We thought that created a teachable moment. So we Read More ›