We can’t help you.
Sign noted in a computer guy’s office somewhere in North America: If after ten minutes at the poker table you do not know who the patsy is—you are the patsy.
First, what exactly is Darwin’s theory anyway, other than an invite to the approved parties?
Here it is: Information can be created without intelligence. That is, natural selection acting on random mutation explains the order of life we see all around us. What can’t survive won’t, and that explains how very complex life forms and structures — including the human mind — get built up.
True: Things that can’t survive don’t. But why would that fact alone drive nature to produce anything as simple as a kitten, let alone a math genius?
We’ve looked earlier at documented ways evolution can really happen — if all we really want to know is how life forms can change over time. That said, I spent the last fifteen years trying to understand the cultural part.
Darwinism isn’t just about evolution as such. It is also a way of looking at life. It tries to explain life without assuming that there is any actual mind at all, dispensing with traditional philosophies and religions.
Humans are assumed to do what they do because they are guided by their instincts, in the same way that nature haphazardly produces a kitten or a math genius.
Ideas have consequences. Think of that when, for example, an elaborately coiffed* person on prime time TV announces … [blather re some politician’s views on “evolution”] More.
Don’t let it get any worse. See also: Talk to the fossils: Let’s see what they say back
It wasn’t ID that made Darwinism a bad idea. It was a bad idea to begin with.
But profitable for certain lobbies, of course.
* Are you paying, via some publicly funded broadcasting program, for the Darwin fretgirl’s hairdos? Be sure to tune in for that at least. It’s all you’ll get.
If you are stuck funding Darwin in failing school systems, well, as we search for solutions out of the mess … do you by any chance live in a free country? Check that out; some people do live in free countries, apparently.
Note: No more news blogging till tonight, due to O’Leary for News’ alternate day job.