06.29.08
Daily Kos and the evolution confusion
They Can Never Take Our FREEDOM!!!
by DarkSyde
I wish Daily Kos, and DarkSyde, its principal evolution blogger, would get with it on the question of Darwinism and its serious failings as a theory of evolution. Keep in mind that Daily Kos is a political blog, and that the politics of evolution requires something more than talk.origins boilerplate.
Granted, the evolution issue has drifted into left/right polarization, to its complete stultification, and confronted with the Louisiana bill it is hard to expect more than kneejerk commentary.
DarkSyde’s commentary here forgets a few things, first that we aren’t in Dover, and the law in question, whatever the views of creationists in the background, is not about intelligent design or creationism. And those on the creationist right are not the only ones who would like their ‘freedom’ on this question. In general the secular public has been well-behaved on this issue (brainwashed) and it is very easy to score points with Dawkins-style indignation over the ‘idiots’ who don’t buy the party line on Darwinism.
Actually, this bill could be an opportunity for liberals to actually improve education! It could be made clear to students that the fact of evolution is very secure, and that would challenge creationists, while the theory of its mechanism is insufficiently scientific, too ideological, and prone to Social Darwinists interpretations, and that would be a challenge to the right.
When the liberal left starts to mock the idea of ‘FREEDOM!!’ we should pause and reflect.
Critiquing Darwinism should be a progressive issue, as it was in the days of Jennings Bryan. This progressive critique could all too easily upgrade itself beyond Bryan’s confusions and create a perspectrive on history that might actually serve the liberal/let better than the regime of technological scientism they are reduced to defending without realizing its severe limits.
DarkSyde said,
June 30, 2008 at 12:29 pm
But of course you can “critique ewvolutionary biology.” In fact you can tell whopping lies about it as you do here on this blog on a regular basis. There’s an entire Internet and blogosphere to do so in, there’s a sorta fake science commnunity and churches populated and led by people who don’t know any better — whom you can still swindle for at least awhile longer — and private schools. Heck you can start a creationism club for young or old, write letters to the editor of any paper in the land as many times as you want. You can do all that and more legally, it is your Constitutionally mandated right to believe whatever hogwash, fairy tale, or scam you want to swallow and regurgitate.
But that’s not enough for you is it? What you want to do, what you’re pining away to do and whining that you cannot do, is having sole possession of the state sanctioned ability to lie to science students in K-12 classes on the tax payer dime telling them directly or indirectly your failed pseudoscientific quasi supernatural drivel is comparable to legitimate biology, physics, and astronomy, while prosyletizing your narrow religious opinion. And the Supreme Court and othjer high coursts have ruled that that is unconstitutional, as in against the law.
nemo said,
June 30, 2008 at 3:36 pm
My experience with Darwinists who make charges of lying is that they are liars themselves.
I am often unsure which it is with Darwinists, and there are only two possibilities, completely confused/brainwashed or liars.
If, as the owner of this blog, I were a liar I would have been a big celebrity by now, but having chosen to expose lies on both sides of the debate I am generally censored and banned, as I was at Daily Kos, whence you come.
If you would read my critiques you would see that I am not a creationist or a proponent of intelligent design. And you must surely be aware of that fact.
The question of the Lousiana law can’t be settled, it seems, by either party to the debate. But the law, at least in principle, disallows religion in the classrom but does allow critical discussion of the questions about evolution.
What will be the result I don’t know, but diatribes against the Bible Belt don’t make much hay if Darwinists are, in fact, unable to get straight their own theory, or are perhaps the liars you don’t condone.
Which is it finally? Are Darwinists liars, or simply confused?
I am not sure, but I doubt if the Lousiana law is unconsitutional, and the case of Dover is not directly relevant here. The formulation of the law is not about inserting ID into the classroom.
If Darwinists could manage to be critical of their own work they would see an opportunity here to create a significant educational situation, embracing evolution but leaving the question of the mechanics of evolution for what it is as yet, unknown.
Meanwhile, I think it inappropriate for Daily Kos to be run by talk.origins level discourse. There is an immense liberal public out there who aren’t clear about evolution, and who deserve a critical biology that can really tell the truth about evolution to help them withstand creationist fundamentalism.
In its current form the liberal Darwinist faction is simply feeding their own reaction.