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Darwinism and popular culture: Remembering Malcolm Muggeridge

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Evolution Deceit, an interesting Turkish creationist book, is good at assembling and clearly explaining the arguments against Darwinism that you can be pretty sure the average lay person will not hear from conventional TV nature programs. It does, however, get some Western intellectual history wrong. This example attracted my attention, of course:

Quoting British journalist and broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge,

I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. – Deceit, p. 164, The End of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980, sp. 43.)

He is identified there as an atheist.

Now, I knew Muggeridge at that time, and he had slowly been making his way back to Christianity since the early 1970s (dying a Roman Catholic, in the words of the ancient Protestant curse).

“Evolution,” in the popular “hey, we just evolved, that’s all,” sense was one of the many ideas Muggs had begun to forswear – indeed to abjure because he had witnessed first hand the cultural vulgarity it underwrites. Read more here.

Comments
Is this the very same Adnan Oktar behind "The Atlas of Creation"? The very same Oktar that hates Jews, engages in censorship of opponents, was found in possession of cocaine, and who blackmails dissenting members of his mafia goon-squad? The very same Oktar caught up in a prostitution ring? Creationism sure has some strange bedfellows nowadays.RDK
June 12, 2009
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Thanks, that is a high compliment considering how people hoarded Classic Coke when it was taken off the market briefly. I'm sorry if you feel I was "threadjacking" but since I wanted to comment on the whole sequence of your recent posts that covered both Oktar and Darwin, I felt this overlooked post was as appropriate as any other. What do I know about Oktar and von Brunn? Not enough to write "journuendo' the way you have. Perhaps every ID supporter feels the same way about Oktar? We may find out soon. Which are we more likely to find in von Brunn's library, Darwin's Descent of Man or Oktar's Holocaust Lie? While you are speaking with him, ask Adnan about this quote from a French press interview: September 11 was highly organized. It was an action perpetrated by Masons and atheist Zionists. As pleasant as it would be, the main point of my comment was not to motivate your disavowal of Mr Oktar. It was to motivate some small amount of self examination on your part over your double standard with respect to your opinion pieces posted here at UD. You obviously know what journalism is. You attended that recent science journalism conference, and it generated some interesting posts. You padded around in the footsteps of Suzan Mazur as she tried to get the pot to boil under the Altenerg 16 story. But when you put on the kultur kampf secret decoder ring the investigative stance goes out the window. You become credulous instead of skeptical. If you can write this way and not feel the need to wash your hands like Lady Macbeth, then you are a candidate for the Roger Ailes/Father Coughlin award in journalistic demogoguery. But I wouldn't want to be in your position when answering the question "Grandma, what did you do during the Culture War?"Nakashima
June 12, 2009
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Nakashima, you are a classic, like classic Coke. Here I was primarily talking about my "old hack in residence" mentor Muggeridge, not Oktar. I asked Oktar to explain himself here a while back, and he did. I must get round to formally reviewing his book, and then I have a number of questions to ask, including questions about this business of Holocaust denial. Do you know if Oktar has anything to do with von Brunn? O'Leary
June 12, 2009
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Mrs O'Leary, I was going to write something trivial about fly fishing, when I was suddenly struck by the contrast between your treatment of Charles Darwin and your treatment of Adnan Oktar. What is it about about Oktar that exempts him from your fulminations? Whose views are closer to von Brunn's, Darwin's or Oktar's? Why wasn't your headline Breaking Story Holocaust Museum murderer influenced by Turkish Anti-Semite Holocaust Denier? Your double standard is obvious, but do you have an explanation for it deeper than Proverbs 30:20?Nakashima
June 12, 2009
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