A Ruling Elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia (Associate Reformed Synod), he has served as Chairman of the Diaconate, Superintendent of the Sunday School and President of the Men’s Bible Class, and has represented the church at meetings of Catawba Presbytery and the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church

All this didn’t prevent Rusty DePass from being a racist.

“It is certainly arguable that Darwinism is inherently racist, if this means implying that the races are unequal in abilities due to evolution, and that moral issues of equality are secondary and relative. But from a totally objective standpoint this is irrelevant to the scientific debate. But should the science of the debate be muzzled out of concern for the moral/political correctness of it?”

I see that you say you are a scientist. I thought you were a preacher. My apologies.

I don’t usually read your posts due to the low information content (in the Shannon sense). however this caught my eye from upthread:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. [NB: Predicts genocide as the consequence of NS in action among human races - then does not address the exposed moral hazard or suggesxt a remedy; the "remedy" of coruse, was Eugenics, which prevailed up to the post WW 2 era, and which has consequences still]

Three things strike me about this quote and commentary sentence.

1 – you are consistently using the term ‘moral hazard’ in an odd way. The term has an established meaning – the consequences of information asymmetry on risk taking. I have tried to interpret your text were you use this term in the standard way, it doesn’t work. I can on;y assume you are using it in some private way as equivalent to ‘moral danger’. There is no need to put another barrier in way of communicating with your audience, there are enough.

2 – you write that Darwin did not propose a remedy to the problem under discussion, and then state that the remedy was eugenics, all in a section trying to tie Social Darwinism directly to Darwin himself. That is pretty self-throat-cuttingly incoherent.

3 – you write that Darwin predicted genocide as the consequence of NS. That is nowhere in the quoted sentence. He plainly say extermination, which was a process he saw happening around the world by small and individual choices, such white settlers hunting aboriginal peoples for sport, or by economic means. The example of the ethnic cleansing of the eastern North America by the US goverment of its native population was available to him, but I do ot see in this sentence an anticipation of we have come to understand as genocide. Had he done so, he would not have posited that the process would take centuries.

Further, and more importantly, it is not as a result of the publicatioin of his books that this process of extermination is taking place. Even if Darwin himself saw it as selection, the actors in that process, the Boers and Australians and Americans, were not acting under the influence of his ideas. They had other motivations, perhaps social, economic, or religious, or perhaps their own animal appetites.

Of course every person who sees such injustice should fight it, and fight it Darwin did, by writing Descent of Man.

Of the three onward comments, the one that is the most helpful is that by Magnan.

And so, to that we primarily turn; with it in mind that physics — my home discipline — is forever scarred by the memory of two burning Japanese cities in 1945; burned by unleashed nuclear fire. A fire that arguably was in part unleashed because leading scientists in the Manhattan Project reported a false consensus claim to the decision-makers, instead of giving the duly weighted balanced counsel of the senior scientists.

And, a lot closer to home, where I sit, the repeated claims of “consensus” among scientists on the state of the Montserrat volcano in the early years of the crisis, helped create a false sense of control of the situation that led to imprudent public policy and foolish individual actions. Officially, nineteen people paid with their lives for that early individual and collective folly; and the official forensic inquiry found the local and metropolitan UK Govts to bear partial responsibility for the deaths of fourteen individuals. (Sadly, it seems the messenger then found himself attacked for the message of unmet responsibility, and an attitude of blaming the victims — not to mention the warners — is still not yet fully rooted out.)

It was only after the wave of deaths in 1997, that a process of expert elicitation that reports on the credibility-weighted range of scientific opinions, was adopted; so that the majority and dissenting views are more or less built in to the official decision-making process. (Resemblance to my views on the need for balance on origins science is NOT coincidental.)

I will not elaborate on my own experience as a publicly dissenting scientist here, commenting from the points where my own discipline gave me insights, or that of other concerned citizens. Just, let us say that the personal element gives bite to my observation that:

“Science at its best is the unfettered (but ethically and intellectuality responsible) pursuit of the truth about our world, based on observations, analysis and discussion among knowledgeable peers.”

In short, there is indeed a delicate balance of responsibility that a serious profession has, including that of self-policing. (Which is not to be confused with institutional censorship, or suppression of responsible dissent.)

And, where such a profession fails to address its social responsibilities for long enough, sufficient damage can be done that those whose duty is to protect the public’s welfare, have a duty of intervention in the interests of the public. (Ignorance of this issue is one reason why I have long felt that a Science in Society ethics course should be a compulsory part of an undergraduate major in science, and a similar seminar should be an element of any graduate level programme. Examples should come from all major disciplines, and of course Hiroshima, the Holocaust and the issues of scientific racism should be prominently featured in those case studies.)

On Mr Kellogg’s remarks, I simply note that the significance of a book — as opposed to a film — should be understood in light of the corpus of Francis Schaeffer’s writings (several of which were based on use of tapes of speeches etc, but which stood in their own strength as a WRITTEN corpus); as may be seen from the five volume “Complete Works” issued even as he battled cancer in the waning days of his life.

Similarly, Mr Frank[y] Schaeffer’s views of his father as linked by DK should be balanced by those of Os Guinness; who is in effect Francis Schaeffer’s main intellectual heir.

When it comes to the remarks by Seversky, lamentably, all he has managed to do is to underscore the depth of the now generations-long professional failure to fully and frankly reckon with and properly address the moral hazard uncovered at the heart of Mr Darwin’s work, writings and scientific-cultural legacy.

Attempts to deflect responsibility and to distract attention from this moral hazard (including blaming the messenger), simply show the weakness of the underlying dismissive argument.

Of such, the best that can be said, is that it reflects the underling issue that Science is now a major cultural institution and profession in our civlisation.

As such it now — and in fact, for generations — has a major professional responsibility on matters of ethics and on those of due intellectual balance and humility in light of the inherent limitations of the scientific methods. Sadly, major leaders and institutions have repeatedly failed in this duty, now over generations, but in our day particularly highlighted by issues surrounding the Darwin 200 celebrations.

Further failure to fully and properly address and correct failings will in the end force the public and their representatives to act in the defense of the safety of the community.

We have been warned.

The question now is: will we heed the lessons of sad history, or will we be instead doomed to repeat its worst chapters?

GEM of TKI

The simple fact is that the world is the way it is. Our knowledge of that world is not evil in itself but the uses to which it is put by people can be. Some human illness is caused by viruses or bacteria. Our knowledge of those organisms is of immense value in the treatment of disease but it can also be employed to create biological weapons. Does the evil reside in the organisms themselves, our understanding of how they work or in using that understanding to design weapons of mass destruction? My view has always been that evil lies in the intention and the act not the knowledge or tools used by the evil-doer.

As for racism, the first step in dealing with it is to admit that we are all at least capable of it at some level since it derives from our instinct to try and make sense of the world by classifying it. It existed long before Darwin formulated his theory and has probably been around for as long as humans have organized themselves into separate social groups.

And if Darwin and his theory are to be held at least partly responsible for some of tragedies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, what shall we say of the various religions that have been around for millennia before him? We discussed in previous threads the involvement of the Roman Catholic Church in slavery. We could also consider, as a further example, the appalling consequences for the native peoples of South and North America of the depredations of the Spanish conquistadores, all of whom would no doubt have proclaimed themselves to be good, honest God-fearing Catholics.

All these points have been raised before with the author of the original post yet she persists with these attacks on the “old Brit toff” – a jibe which itself suggests prejudice based on social class and nationality. She complains above of being attacked but what does she expect? She proclaims herself to be a responsible and ethical journalist yet indulges in the populist jeering of the cheap tabloid hack. Would she prefer that we ignore what she writes?

To me this is an interesting issue, whether the search for truth in science should be limited or policed by social and moral arbiters of what is good for society and what is not. This issue goes far beyond biological origins science, into nuclear physics , chemistry, and of course molecular biology. I don’t pretend to know for certain what the answer is, but it is clear that there is no simplistic answer. A case can always be made for saying “this area is potentially dangerous to society, therefore it is forbidden”, but there is always the risk that this will prevent the development of unpredictable benefits for humanity. The worst problem with this is, “who polices the police?”,that is, policing and controlling directions of research is open to so much abuse by special interests. Who is to be allowed to be the social and moral arbiter? An obvious example is religious interference with stem cell research. I’m not trying to start a debate on stem cell research, just pointing out that this is an example.

“Part of that, plainly, is that the racist legacy of Darwinism has to be faced and fairly addressed.”

It is certainly arguable that Darwinism is inherently racist, if this means implying that the races are unequal in abilities due to evolution, and that moral issues of equality are secondary and relative. But from a totally objective standpoint this is irrelevant to the scientific debate. But should the science of the debate be muzzled out of concern for the moral/political correctness of it?

As a practical matter, the most totalitarian banning of research presently is in the area of ID, not Darwinism. Next would be denial of funding for research in parapsychology. Both areas where there is a challenge to the prevailing paradigm.

That Mr Kellogg sees the issues in the BOOK, Whatever Happened to the Human Race [the movie being derivative . . . ], as “peripheral,” tells us all we need to know.

Not really. The movie was imagined first, and the book was a companion to the movie, as Frank Schaeffer makes clear in his memoir.

Why does God allow evil?

H’mm, first, we must have a foundaiton for asking the question: that is, materialists need to aswer to — what is the significance of evil as an objectionable reality, for evo mat views? On this, Koukl aptly notes:

Evil is real . . . That’s why people object to it. Therefore, objective moral standards must exist as well [i.e. as that which evil offends and violates] . . . . The first thing we observe about [such] moral rules is that, though they exist, they are not physical because they don’t seem to have physical properties. We won’t bump into them in the dark. They don’t extend into space. They have no weight. They have no chemical characteristics. Instead, they are immaterial things we discover through the process of thought, introspection, and reflection without the aid of our five senses . . . .

We have, with a high degree of certainty, stumbled upon something real. Yet it’s something that can’t be proven empirically or described in terms of natural laws. This teaches us there’s more to the world than just the physical universe. If non-physical things–like moral rules–truly exist, then materialism as a world view is false.

There seem to be many other things that populate the world, things like propositions, numbers, and the laws of logic. Values like happiness, friendship, and faithfulness are there, too, along with meanings and language. There may even be persons–souls, angels, and other divine beings.

Our discovery also tells us some things really exist that science has no access to, even in principle. Some things are not governed by natural laws. Science, therefore, is not the only discipline giving us true information about the world. It follows, then, that naturalism as a world view is also false.

Our discovery of moral rules forces us to expand our understanding of the nature of reality and open our minds to the possibility of a host of new things that populate the world in the invisible realm.

Then, perhaps, one may fairly address the problem of evil in light of Plantiga’s Free Will defense, which has brokent eh deductive/logical form of this problem since the turn of the 1970′s (a few have not got the memo though . . . ), has reduced the inductive form to due proportions,a nd has putt he existential/pastoral challenge of evil into a more manageable framework.

As to the fact that some have “killed” in God’s name, actually in some cases that is perfectly in order: there is a REASON why God has given the civil authority as his “servants to do [us] good,” the power of the sword of justice.

For, there are evil doers out there who abuse the power of moral choice — the foundation of virtue especially of love; the cornerstone of all virtue. And so, a world in which virtue andchred by love is possible is one in which evil is also possible. But, a world in which love is possible is arguably superior to one in which it is impossible as it has no creatures capable of the choice to value, respect and cherish.

Perhaps, what is meant instead is that some have MURDERED by blasphemously abusing God’s name to “justify” their wrong. Indeed, that has happened [as I noted on above . . . notice how often the context and balance of what a theist has to say are so often ignored in the rush to a handy strawman soaked in oil of ad hominems . . . ], and my more precise description reveals at one the root problem: it is ever so seldom that one sees major evil raw and nakedly rampant in its own naked name. That is, the counterfeit proves only one thing: there is good money out there, and someone wants to exploit that fact to gain an improper advantage for what cannot stand up in its own name.

5] On missing the point tellingly . . .

[HDX 33, citing GEM;] What I am raising is that we have a major and unaddressed moral hazard of Darwinist thought.

[HDX:] And this is irrelevant to the whether we share common ancestry with other life on earth.

HDX, science at its best is an unfettered (but ethically and intellectually responsible) pursuit of the truth about our world based onobservation, experiment, analysis and discussion among the guild of peers.

When scientists fail to be ethically and intellectually responsible, this has serious implications,a s over 100 million ghosts from the past century remind us.

In particular, when your theory produces a moral hazard, one has a responsibility to address it, to limit its impact. That is a duty of any profession worthy of its name and the trust of self-governance by the community of peers.

Unfortunately, ethical responsibility is a duty that origins sciences have manifestly been failing for about 150 years [with some really awful consequences], and so those sciences, duly, have now come in for serious scrutiny by the general public. That may be painful and resented, but the fact is, that generations-length failure to police one’s profession that has brought damage to the world, leads to a proper public interest to curb out of control and destructive behaviour.

Part of that, plainly, is that the racist legacy of Darwinism has to be faced and fairly addressed.

And, instead of a whitewashed, hagiographical celebration, Darwin 200 provides a good time for us to show ourselves responsible.

The above attempted rebuttals and dismissals, sadly, do not show the degree of responsibility required.

GEM of TKI

PS: RDK, I trust the above will show the sobering “what” on the “so” . . .

That Mr Kellogg sees the issues in the BOOK, Whatever Happened to the Human Race [the movie being derivative . . . ], as “peripheral,” tells us all we need to know. Issues like: the abandonment of the sanct6ity of life ethic based onteh rise of scientific evolutionary marterilaism and associated secular humanism, devalues human life and injects amorality inot the public domain. Consequences like: once human life is defvalued, it hen becomes an easy matter to dismiss and destropy first the unborbn child inthe womb, then the “unsatisfactory” child who has been born, thent o euthanise those who are somehow regarded as deficient. rthen, to commit genocide, once there is an utter breakdown in respect for the vaslue of life.

A cascade of breakdown of ethics and justice that shoud sound all too sadly familiar in light onoty only of the history fo germany across C19 and into C20, but which sounds suspiciously like recent and current headlines in our own day.

Let us contrast the Creation-anchored ethics of the US Declaration of Independence (which can be traced onward to Locke and thence Richard Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity and the NT and OT teachings on the principles of ethics in light of our common humanity being rooted in the fact of our being jointly made in God’s image):

When . . . it becomes necessary for one people . . . to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, [cf Rom 1:18 - 21, 2:14 - 15], that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security . . . .

It is sadly plain that in too many cases, significant sectors of the evolutionary materialist elites of our own day and the as yet unfinished recent past have plainly become destructive to the proper ends of government and civil society, and that this is driven by implicaitons of their a priori imposed philosphy of evolutionary materialism flying under the false colours of “science,” and associated contempt for those deemed less fit to survive.
Such matters are not “peripheral.”

3] HDX, 33: Lets stop here. Evolution does not say anything about the Cosmos or purposeless laws.
HDX, please stop right there.

Don’t get into equivocations, red herrings and strawman distortion games with me. That will sonly underscore that you have either grossly misunderstood what is going on adn what is thewrefore at stake, or that you are being a rheotorical manipulator.

Onlookers, if you read more carefully than HDX has (on the charitable interpretation of what he did in 33): I spoke explicitly to the WORLDVIEW of Evolutionary Materialism, which has given rise to the cascade of evolutionary materialist paradigms for science of origins — cosmological evo, planetary system evo, biogenesis through chemical evo, biodiversity through Neo-Darwinian macro evo [and sub-schools of thought on varieties of chance variation and non-foresighted unintelligent selection forces (natural, sexual etc . . . )], and socio-cultrual and “racial” evo of humanity.

That underlying a priori commitment to materialism has been embedded in recent redefinitions of science like “Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations of the world around us.” [This is of course the agenda-serving Kansas re-definition insisted on by NAS, NSTA, NCSE etc and hailed in the media.]

The underlying philosphical agenda that has taken science in our day into babylonian captivity — and I’se be “chanting down Babylon one more time . . . “ here — was aptly summarised by US NAS member Mr Lewontin in his notorious 1997 NYRB article on Sagan’s last book:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

In that context, I deduced from the logic of the associated commitment to blind mechanical necessity, chance initial and intervening conditions and assocaied stochastic processes, the following implications:

. . . all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance.

But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as “thoughts” and “conclusions” can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance ["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning ["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism].)
Therefore, if materialism is true, the “thoughts” we have and the “conclusions” we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity . . .

[ . . . ]

It is sad to see further remarks and attempted rebuttals simply underscore my main point and concerns above.

1] SBS, 38, and Darwin and human — not cabbage — races:

It is obvious that many in our day lack a historically contextual understanding of Evolutionary Theory, its history of ideas roots, and the associated philosophy of lewontinian scientific evolutionary materialism. Thus, it is important to put up on the table, the following, from Origin, from Descent, and from a notorious letter to Mr Graham, of 1881:

_____________

EXH, A: from intro to Origin: [T]he Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings throughout the world . . . inevitably follows from the high geometrical ratio of their increase . . . This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. This fundamental subject of Natural Selection . . . almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life, and leads to what I have called Divergence of Character . . . . I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification.
_______________

EXH, B: From Descent, Ch 6: Man is liable to numerous, slight, and diversified variations, which are induced by the same general causes, are governed and transmitted in accordance with the same general laws, as in the lower animals. Man has multiplied so rapidly, that he has necessarily been exposed to struggle for existence, and consequently to natural selection. He has given rise to many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species . . . .

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. [NB: Even though Darwin acknowledged the implications of the evidence provided by an American Unitarian minister on his observation of negro regiments of the Union army in the US Civil War, Darwin retained the above wording unchanged in later editions of Descent. Remember, having derived this moral hazard, CRD, then simply goes on to his next point, as though he has not portended the sad history of too much of C20. By striking and respect-worthy contrast, H G Wells warned subtly on such hazards in his series of Sci Fi novels at the end of C19. Oh, that we had read even just the opening of War of the Worlds or the implications of the upper classes of Britain being reduced to pretty sheep for the tables of the descendants of its lower classes in Time Machine, or the horrors of an ethically -- and so, intellectually -- irresponsible Dr Moreau on his notorious Island, with due moral sensitivity!]

________________

EXH, C: letter to one William Graham dated July 3, 1881: I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turk [And were i in Mr Oktar's shoes, that would get me well vexed, for good reason in light of what we may read in Descent Ch 6 as excerpted above], and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.

____________

What “Race” meant for CRD when applied, not to cabbages but to humans, is sadly plain for all with eyes to see, ears to hear, and consciences to heed. (And, SBS, remember that Mrs O’Leary is an Irish descendant, as am I [and I am also a Jamaican in whose blood the history of 1865 runs]. I challenge you to read Chs 5 – 7 of Descent, noting the import of Saxon = English [with toffs being the upper classes thereof . . . notice what happens to the toffs in CRD's little tale . . . by contrast with in H G Wells' Time Machine], Celt = Irish, and Scot = Scottish (Presbyterian!); with the history of the Irish potato famine in mind. Mrs O’Leary is NOT quote-mining or cherry picking.]

And, fellow denizens of the Clapham bus stop, SBS’s strawman-laced, ad hominem loaded response — even more sadly — makes the issues Mrs O’Leary has highlighted very seriously unfinished business. Matters that for our own safety and that of our children, we had better heed.

[ . . . ]