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Eric Hoffer’s Skepticism About Darwinism
ENV is pleased to welcome guest blogger Tom Bethell, a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Regnery) and other books. Many years ago I interviewed Eric Hoffer (1898-1983), and may have been the last journalist to do so. Widely known as the Longshoreman Philosopher, he was for years a member of the dockers’ union in San Francisco, but his views were not those of your typical stevedore. He had published The True Believer in 1951, and more books after that. Impressed by the breadth of his mind and the unconventional nature of his opinions, I wrote and asked if I could come and interview him. That was in 1980. He invited Read More ›
If Darwinian Evolution Can’t Fix Broken Genes, How Can It Create New Ones?
The Darwinian model of evolution holds that one of the key mechanisms of evolutionary innovation is the duplication of genes and the subsequent divergence of one of the duplicate copies to undertake a new functional role. Because a probability of a single gene stumbling upon a significantly different (yet functionally advantageous) sequence is so small, the idea is that, following a duplication of a gene, one copy is able to retain the original function, while the other is free to explore the vast sea of combinatorial possibilities in search of some novel function. It is widely believed that a duplicate gene has no phenotypic cost or advantage associated with it – that is, it is selectively neutral. In such a Read More ›
Racism? Sexism? Que sera, sera.
Evolutionary evangelist Jerry Coyne argues that we are all just slaves to our genes and that behaviors likes racism and sexism are facts of evolution. They’re in our “own nature”. We may also have evolved to be sexist and xenophobic, but that doesn’t mean that we should give up trying to extirpate racism and sexism from our world. After all, by asking people to stop disliking foreigners, or those of different races, we may be asking them to defy their own nature. Yet, he thinks we should try to stamp them out anyhow. But, if these traits are simply a result of our genetic make-up won’t evolution eventually either enhance such traits or eradicate them forever? In its own good Read More ›
When Evolutionary Psychology Collides With Morality
In 2006, the New York Times published an exceedingly long book review titled “An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong,” covering Harvard evolutionary psychologist Marc D. Hauser’s theories of the evolution of human morality. “Religions are not the source of moral codes,” stated the review when describing Hauser’s ideas, further noting that this claim, “if true, would have far-reaching consequences.” The review observed that “[m]atters of right and wrong have long been the province of moral philosophers and ethicists,” but after Hauser’s work, “[m]oral philosophers may not welcome a biologist’s bid to annex their turf.” So who has authority over morality: evolutionary psychologists, or theologians? In his book, Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, Read More ›
Karl Giberson v. Al Mohler on Darwin: The Grudge Match
It’s always a bad sign when people start publishing “open letters” to one another. Our BioLogos friend Karl Giberson is embroiled in a strangely bitter dispute with Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Bitter, at least, on Dr. Giberson’s side. In this dustup, theistic evolutionist Giberson displays a lot less dignity than the object of his ire, Dr. Mohler, and less regard for truth notwithstanding that it’s precisely a lack of truthfulness with which he seeks to tar Mohler. Dr. Giberson’s concern as always is to demonstrate the Christian bona fides of Darwinian theory. Writing on the Huffington Post under the striking headline “How Darwin Sustains My Baptist Search for Truth,” he now takes Mohler to task Read More ›