"The danger of worshipping Darwin"

Gambler

Interesting article posted to the BBC News site by an Atheist on the danger of placing Darwin himself above the science:

In this year of his double anniversary, are we in danger of turning Charles Darwin if not into God, at least into the founder of a secular religion?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7924423.stm

Malari

I saw a promo for this last night and thought "I must watch that" but didn't realise he was putting that kind of spin on Darwinism. Sounds a bit ridiculous.

Goduznt Xzst

Malari wrote: »

Sounds a bit ridiculous.

My thoughts exactly.

Dades

I fail to find any relevance of the title of that article, to anything he has actually written in it.

It's a tabloid headline with content that completely fails in any attempt to justify it.

sink

I think what he is saying is that 'Darwinism' is in danger of turning into dogma if people place him on a pillar rather than the scientific method. I don't see any danger of that ever happening and he hasn't shown any evidence, but I will hold my judgement until I have watched the program.

Goduznt Xzst

It looks like a show that is dealing mostly in hypotheticals, for sensationalist affect:

ergo, "people like Darwin right? Well imagine if fundamental weirdos liked Darwin :eek: and imagine if these weirdos made a cult of Darwin :eek::eek: and then there where so many of them they voted a Darwin Cult weirdo into government, and then this guy became the PM and tried enforcing the draconian laws of this Darwin Cult on the people. I mean that would suck right and Santa would probably be replaced by a Darwin Monkey who instead of bringing you gifts just sits in the corner throwing feces at you. The End. Moral: I made up some stuff in my head which means it is dangerous to worship Darwin, QED"

You could replace "Darwin" with "Cheese" and it would have the same intellectual weight.

velocirafter

its sounds a bit like this southpark episode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go_XII

pts

I found it pretty interesting, even though I didn't agree with everything written.
However I did find that the final paragraph resonated with some of the discussion's in A&A:

But religions are absolute. They bring their truth and then repel all boarders. They divide mankind into the saved and the ignorant damned.
In this story, there is no us and them. Darwinism, as I take it, is a creed of observation, fact, a deep modesty about conclusions and lifelong readiness to be proved wrong.
I don't say it offers everything that religion can. But I do say that, in this respect, it is better.

It seems to pick up some similar themes as:
http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/lets-get-rid-of-darwinism/?scp=6&sq=darwin&st=cse

Gambler

Yeah, to be honest the article seems to be more a means of pulling in people to watch the program and to my mind it fails in that effort, I'm not inclined to watch it after reading the article..

I do have to say, the premise is something that the religious types would love to have us talk about more in the hope that they can continue to portray evolution as a "belief" or a "leap of faith" and in that sense I find it worrying when atheists start to play into that idea.

The last thing we need is people saying "Even an Atheist like XXXX thinks that we treat Darwin like a deity that can't be wrong". The fact is that we all are open to the idea that his theory could be wrong, we just need someone to bring a reasonable alternative hypothesis to the table before we give it credence.

robindch

Dades wrote:

It's a tabloid headline with content that completely fails in any attempt to justify it.

Doesn't altogether surprise me, since Marr is one of the BBC's better interviewers. He does a talk program on Monday mornings on Radio 4 which, in general, is fairly critical of religion whenever it shows up. He also has a constant stream of biologists, sociologists, historians, medics and similar types on as guests and allows them to air evidence-based opinions.

I wonder if he's trying to grab the creationists' attention by playing into their hands?

Zombrex

The article warns about treating science as dogma (which I think most would agree), but is very light on examples of where this is actually happening.

The best he can come up with seems to be that Owen's statue in the main hall of the museum was moved (doesn't explain for how long, or why), and that there are cultures books about Darwin (Darwin or evolution it is not clear).

That doesn't seem that convincing.

sink

Wicknight wrote: »

The best he can come up with seems to be that Owen's statue in the main hall of the museum was moved (doesn't explain for how long, or why),

David Attenborough talked about this on his last tv documentary 'The Tree Of Life' celebrating Darwin's 200th. He said it was simply to commemorate his birthday but did not mention the statues would be returned to their original positions at any stage.

nkay1985

velocirafter wrote: »

its sounds a bit like this southpark episode

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go_XII

That's exactly what I was going to post. I think he watched that South Park episode, then sat down and decided "Yes, this is exactly what's happening right now." Not much to it tbh.

AtomicHorror

We've ditched some of Darwin's science because it didn't hold up... I don't think we're in danger of putting the guy on a pedestal. We still hold Newton in high regard even though he was wrong about Mercury.

Simon.d

Darwin was a good scientist, but I think he's getting a rather disproportionate amount of praise... As is known, the model of natural selection was deduced independently in an around the same time by another biologist (something to do with trees!), which put pressure on Darwin to publish his own works, meaning the science of evolution would probably have been highlighted around that time without his contribution..

Regarding importance to science, I think Darwin's contribution pales in comparison to that of Albert Einstein, who is my benchmark for a truly great scientist..

sink

Simon.d wrote: »

Regarding importance to science, I think Darwin's contribution pales in comparison to that of Albert Einstein, who is my benchmark for a truly great scientist..

Niehls Bohr doesn't get enough respect, he was right where Einstein was wrong.

AtomicHorror

Simon.d wrote: »

Darwin was a good scientist, but I think he's getting a rather disproportionate amount of praise... As is known, the model of natural selection was deduced independently in an around the same time by another biologist (something to do with trees!), which put pressure on Darwin to publish his own works, meaning the science of evolution would probably have been highlighted around that time without his contribution..

Regarding importance to science, I think Darwin's contribution pales in comparison to that of Albert Einstein, who is my benchmark for a truly great scientist..

Darwin's significance is in his contribution to our understanding of the nature of ourselves, of humans. We're simultaneously less special yet more amazing than we assumed. That's something that every scientist, if not every person, can relate to. Einstein's findings are certainly more complex, more of a paradigm shift. But perhaps not as personal to us.

Galvasean

Ask people what Darwin did and they'll (generally speaking) know he devised the theory of evolution, which they can elaborate on somewhat.
Ask the same people what Einstein did and answers are usually along the lines of, 'Theory of Relativity' - which they cannot elaborate on or the discovery of the speed of light (I know a couple of people who seem to think Einstein invented the speed of light).

Simon.d

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Darwin's significance is in his contribution to our understanding of the nature of ourselves, of humans. We're simultaneously less special yet more amazing than we assumed. That's something that every scientist, if not every person, can relate to. Einstein's findings are certainly more complex, more of a paradigm shift. But perhaps not as personal to us.

I agree, but the point I was making is that we could just as easily be praising Alfred Russel Wallace for discovering Wallacism ( doesn't have the same ring!), who actually published a paper on Natural Selection prior to Darwin.. How many of ye heard of him? He came to more of less the same conclusions as Darwin, but get's none of the credit (even though he got there first...)

Wallace (on Natural Selection) wrote:

The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow.

A Primal Nut

Gambler wrote: »

Interesting article posted to the BBC News site by an Atheist on the danger of placing Darwin himself above the science:



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7924423.stm

Nobody worships Darwin - thats rediculous. Its the creationists who always focus on the messenger: "Darwin married his cousin, changed his mind on his deathbed, bla, bla, bla." As if that has anything to do with whether evolution is true or not. I think most evolutionists are able to seperate the theory from the messenger. In religion, the messenger is the most important thing, even if the message is rediculous.

AtomicHorror

Simon.d wrote: »

I agree, but the point I was making is that we could just as easily be praising Alfred Russel Wallace for discovering Wallacism ( doesn't have the same ring!), who actually published a paper on Natural Selection prior to Darwin.. How many of ye heard of him? He came to more of less the same conclusions as Darwin, but get's none of the credit (even though he got there first...)

Natural selection alone was not what Darwin's theory was about, and it's considered the most self-evident element in the model. I'd be surprised if a quite a few people have not suggested it in some form or another prior to Darwin. Not to diminish Wallace's contribution to the field, but he was some way from the fully realised model that Darwin had been brewing simultaneously. Wallace and Darwin's combined paper (Wallace's first comprehensive airing of his ideas on natural selection) is 17 pages. Darwin's book is about 700 and was nearing completion when Wallace wrote his part of what would become that joint paper. So I don't think we can really credit him as equal or greater than Darwin in this. An important contemporary certainly, but I don't think he's been unfairly treated by history (at least not by modern historians). Except perhaps in the way that history tends to become distilled so that only the giants are remembered by everyone.

AtomicHorror

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Nobody worships Darwin - thats rediculous. Its the creationists who always focus on the messenger: "Darwin married his cousin, changed his mind on his deathbed, bla, bla, bla." As if that has anything to do with whether evolution is true or not. I think most evolutionists are able to seperate the theory from the messenger. In religion, the messenger is the most important thing, even if the message is rediculous.

That's because religious information is conveyed on the basis of authority. It's hard for some to conceive of a system of knowledge which replaces authorities with "experts" who may be torn down at a moments notice.

Goduznt Xzst

Did anyone actually watch it? Funnily enough I had completely forgotten about it until a devoutly Christian Aunt of mine, who doesn't accept evolution and who knows I am an Atheist, rang me to tell me to watch this. Knowing Andrew Marr is an Atheist, I said that I would if she would watch it in entirety herself, to which she agreed.

I think the reasoning behind Andrew Marrs choice in title became clear from this. It is really a hook with bait on it to get Christians who still don't accept evolution to watch it. From the title alone it looks like it's going to be a piece which is against evolution, when it really isn't. It went on to show that evolution is a proven fact and that the danger is not the theory itself, but what we as humans do with it and how we understand it.

Malari

Yeah, I watched it. It was nothing new to me, but I impressed my boyfriend by quoting famous lines from Haldane and Huxley before Andrew Marr spoke them :pac:

The nature of the article became clearer as you watched the program. It was the history of Darwin's theory and how it was received at the time, as well as the acceptance and interpretation of it by varied historic figures, and it's further influence right through the 20th century. Worth watching, I thought.

Dades

I watched the first half last night and will watch the rest over the weekend.
Interesting stuff.

Though apart from some dramatic music, I wasn't really sensing the 'danger' tbh. :P

robindch

Saw it as well. You gotta hand to Marr, though, he can do a dramatic voice and intense stare with the best of them.

Still, the bit about the Terra del Fuegans was new to me -- of all the things that they could have left behind, a teacher, a doctor, a farmer, a carpenter or a blacksmith, they left the poor saps with a priest.

Does anybody know how that bit finished up? Did the priest leave TdF again on the Beagle, or did he stay on?

Galvasean

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

I think the reasoning behind Andrew Marrs choice in title became clear from this. It is really a hook with bait on it to get Christians who still don't accept evolution to watch it. From the title alone it looks like it's going to be a piece which is against evolution, when it really isn't. It went on to show that evolution is a proven fact and that the danger is not the theory itself, but what we as humans do with it and how we understand it.

As I recall National Geographic recently had the title 'Was Darwin Wrong?' on one of their magazines. After some deliberation they concluded 'no'. :cool:

AtomicHorror

Galvasean wrote: »

As I recall National Geographic recently had the title 'Was Darwin Wrong?' on one of their magazines. After some deliberation they concluded 'no'. :cool:

New Scientist did one better and ran a front cover "Darwin Was Wrong". The conclusion of which was "but only a little bit".

Dades

robindch wrote: »

Still, the bit about the Terra del Fuegans was new to me -- of all the things that they could have left behind, a teacher, a doctor, a farmer, a carpenter or a blacksmith, they left the poor saps with a priest.

Phew - I wondered was I the only one who never knew about his time in TdF. :pac:

Goduznt Xzst

robindch wrote: »

Still, the bit about the Terra del Fuegans was new to me -- of all the things that they could have left behind, a teacher, a doctor, a farmer, a carpenter or a blacksmith, they left the poor saps with a priest.

No, they left the poor saps with GOD. Unfortunately for the Priest though, this trip would prove to be one of Gods tests of faith by making the scary natives pull out his hair with clam shells.

I think this episode was going down the route that evolution removes the foundation of our morals and ethics that are based in religion as it can explain our human traits without the need to be imbued with a soul at some point in our evolution. So without this foundation, then what is the point of having ethics and morals at all?

There was nothing however in the show about worshipping Darwin, so maybe this will be covered in a subsequent episode.

Galvasean

AtomicHorror wrote: »

New Scientist did one better and ran a front cover "Darwin Was Wrong". The conclusion of which was "but only a little bit".

I'm surprisd our nuetral nemesis hasn't quoted it (out of context) in the other place..