In atheism, Darwinism is the engine that allows the car to move. Without science to back up disbelief, they lose most creditability. The entire nature of believing without seeing is seen as unacceptable and un-scientific. Darwinism is important science, but for atheists to hijack it in the name of science is fraudulent. Darwinism alone, is not sufficient grounds for atheism to stand on so the debate of evolution has been mis-represented by both sides on its use and interpretation in the classroom.
Uses of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" finding has lead to many varying uses of it in public. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo spoke at the 1984 Democratic Convention. He mocked the Reagan policies of "space missiles" and "tax cuts for millionaires" with an accusation that Reagan's America embraced "social Darwinism." In the January 2009 issue of Scientific American, Gary Stix wrote in his article "Darwin's Living Legacy," that "The distortion and misunderstanding of Darwinism, from Nazi ideologues to neo-liberal economists to popular culture, have yet to cease." Michael Shermer wrote an evolutionary economics book, The Mind of the Market. He described it by saying "I drew the connection between (18th century economist) Adam Smith’s 'invisible hand' and Charles Darwin’s natural selection and noted how capitalists have long used social Darwinism to justify unfettered market competition."
Charles Darwin died as an agnostic, which is by definition, someone who is either skeptical on the existence of God or a rejection of belief, either for or against. He lost his faith due to the death of his 10 year old daughter, blaming the unfairness of this world on its creator. He, like Einstein, also became an agnostic because of his moral objection to the idea of eternal damnation in hell. These rejections of faith lie not in empirical evidence in nature, but in personal anguish towards the hardships of humanity on earth and a disgust with hell, which is biblically defined as a complete absence of God. He has since turned into the patron saint of atheism even though, he once expressed feelings that faith and science are perfectly compatible, only becoming hostile towards allowing religion in the door after losing his faith due to completely unrelated circumstances. Yet Richard Dawkins, an outspoken atheist scientist wrote in The Blind Watchmaker, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” This statement points not to the problems of Darwinism, but to the problems of atheism.
The greatest flaw with Darwinism and his classic, On the Origin of Species is that it doesn't account for the origin of a single species. There are also many publicly held fallacies on his theory with the greatest being where humans came from. It is a common misconception that evolution states that we are descended from apes. Really, we share a "common ancestry." Its work has provided far greater understanding of the natural world pouring the foundation for much of modern biology in everything from oceanography to medicine. Yet in science, you start with a hypothesis, followed by a theory and eventually ending with a law. It is not the law of evolution as would be the 2nd law of thermodynamics or Boyle's law, it is still the theory of evolution. It has not been able to be tested, repeated and reliable. Law's are simple and definitively explain that something happens as opposed to just how and why. In his Christian apologetic book, What's So Great About Christianity?, Dinesh D'Souza states that "evolutionary theory cannot account for the origin of life, the origin of consciousness, or the origin of human rationality and morality." He goes on to say that "evolution is a useful theory but one that falls well short of accounting for the kind of life we have in the world." (page 150) Many believers have no problem with using both science and religion to explain our existence, but the way the debate is frequently framed forces anybody in the middle to be excluded. D'Souza said "Christians and other religious believers should embrace evolution while resisting Darwinism. Instead of suing to get theories of creationism and intelligent design into the science classroom, Christians should be suing to get atheist interpretations of Darwin out." (page 153) He felt that the debate among Christians or any people of faith, is more a question of how God did it. D'Souza's isn't alone in his underlying premises' and interpretation of Darwinism. Pew Research poll found in recent years that almost 70% of Christians accept the theory of evolution, though, only 40% of scientists believe in God.
Intelligent Design is basically the recognition that God is the creator. It does not take issue with science or Darwinism, rather it, like D'Souza seeks to get rid of atheistic Darwinism in the classroom. Its proponents could say that Darwinism plus intelligent design equals humanity. Ben Stein made a documentary about this titled "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." He went around the world talking to scientists and people supporting intelligent design that have been outcast from the scientific community. Most of the documentary focused on the how life began with Stein claiming science doesn't go that far, but religion does. One notable interview he had was with accomplished biologist and personal atheist, Michael Ruse. Stein repeatedly pressed him to state the origin of life; Stein: "How did we get from an inorganic world to the world of the cell?" Michael Ruse: "One popular theory is it might have started off on the backs of crystals." To which, Ruse refused to elaborate. While Michael Shermer said "science does not make belief in God obsolete, but it may make obsolete the reality of God, depending on how far we are able to push the science." In the Scientific American issue of June 2008, Michael Shermer wrote an article critiquing Stein's movie titled "Ben Stein's Expelled Exposed." He never ventured into Stein's most important point on the question of where life began. In "The Latest Face of Creationism," Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott sharply go after any level of questioning to Darwinism along with any possible support for a God. The title of the article subtly implies that creationism has to evolve to survive. Even the cover title to the Darwin special issue is "The Evolution of Evolution: How Darwin's Theory Survives, Thrives and Reshapes the World."
Recanati Professor of Medicine at Harvard, Jerome Groopman defined the debate when he said "the clash comes from the two extremes." Christoph Schonborn, The Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, responded to the question "Does science make belief in God obsolete? No, as a matter of reason and truth. The knowledge we have gained through modern science makes belief in an Intelligence behind the cosmos more reasonable than ever. Yes, as a matter of mood, sensibility, and sentiment. Not science itself but a reductive 'scientific mentality' that often accompanies it, along with the power, control, comfort, and convenience provided by modern technology, has helped to push the concept of God into the hazy twilight of agnosticism." This kind of thinking brings us to modern thought on a higher power. It is much easier to reject faith in 2009 than it would have been in 1009 or even 1909 (A.D.). And it is not that God is obsolete in our daily lives, we see minute reminders of religion in public life constantly. Government offices are always closed on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath along with Christmas, children say it in the Pledge of Allegiance at school, it is on our currency, we have inalienable rights endowed by our creator, we live in 2009 A.D. which stands for Anno Domini, Latin for "in the year of our Lord." The problem lies in where we wished the evidence lead us as opposed to where it objectively does.
This year, 2009, is the sesquicentennial year (150 years) of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin while the Theory of Evolution has yet to cease from debate in the arena of ideas. The fundamentalist war for or against it misplaces priorities. There is a natural human tendency to be unreasonably stubborn and extreme to get the majority of what you want. The struggle is between the rejection of faith in the name of science or not. The current debate diverts the real disagreement so both sides end up being wrong. The embracement of faith with the capability of science frightens the secular atheists in the scientific community with the hidden motive of spreading disbelief through scientific logic. To the contrary, those in the deeply religious community push back towards the desire of a Godless society with overarching objection to widely believed science. While I support Darwinism for what it is and support getting rid of the atheist bend to its teaching, the real solution will only come in an understanding of the debate and revealing people's hidden motives.
Sources:
1. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariocuomo1984dnc.htm
2. Scientific American - January 2009 issues - "Darwin's Living Legacy" by Gary Stix
3. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=expelled-exposed
4. "What's So Great About Christianity?" By Dinesh D'Souza - book
5. http://www.templeton.org/belief/ - Internet discussion on "Does science make belief in God obsolete?" between some leading experts
6. "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" - Ben Stein - documentary film
7. Scientific American - January 2009 issue - "The Latest Face of Creationism" by Glenn Branch & Eugenie C. Scott
8. http://townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza/2009/02/12/the_two_faces_of_darwin?page=full&comments=true
Subscripts:
1. Full Disclosure: Neo-liberal economics is another term for classical economics. I consider myself an amateur classical liberal economist. Darwin himself is believed to have read influential classical liberal economist Thomas Malthus.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Predictability of Economic Statism
Thomas Sowell once said “the first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
Using deductive logic, the first sign of this recession was a slumping housing market followed by the collapse of the government sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The eye of the storm is the collapse of the American housing market which has had great reverberations. Millions of Americans made the irresponsible choice to buy homes they could not afford while President Clinton and President Bush drooled over "affordable housing" and record home ownership. All while the democrats in Congress promoted and protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from any reform or criticism. If the housing market were tied to the free market then the housing crisis would have been adverted.
We say history should be studied in part to learn from it, ultimately to not repeat the mistakes of the past. Here we have a chance to see whether we will truly learn from the past. Everything the politicians of today are interested in has been tried before including during the Great Depression when the situation was far more severe. President Hoover drastically raised taxes on the rich (from 25% to 63%) along with the estate and corporate tax which took money away from the job creating private sector and deterred incentive. He also practiced protectionism which stifled competition and drove up our prices. It did not work. President Roosevelt came to office and essentially tried the same, but on steroids with endless social programs. He took tax payer money and pretended to create jobs through public works. The end result is that both Presidents big government policies failed to get us out of the Great Depression causing it to be prolonged until WWII hit over a decade later. Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for economic science said "the Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy."
President Obama gave a speech at George Mason University on economics recently. He had the audacity to declare "only government can break the cycle that is crippling our economy." Spending tax dollars to provide jobs for tax payers is not a novel or new idea. Albert Einstein said "there is nothing that is a more certain sign of insanity than to do the same thing over and over and expect the results to be different." Obama said "we have already tried the wait-and-see approach to our problems, and it is the same approach that helped lead us to this day of reckoning." The notion that we have not tried to use multiple federal resources to fix our current situation is an insult to our intelligence. Dr. Walter Williams is a distinguished author, columnist and professor of economics at George Mason University. In his recent article "Congress' Financial Mess," he cited that regulations under the Federal Register (Cato Policy Report November-December 2008) rose to a record number of 75,526 pages during the Bush years.
If our government is serious about serving the best interest of the people then they should drastically cut domestic spending, balance the budget within 4 years, cut capitol gains taxes (or at least not raise them...), abolish the IRS while implementing a low, flat income tax and finally cut the corporate income tax. Lower taxes encourage positive risk taking along with increased incentive to work and save. We have the second highest corporate income tax in the world. As much as people like to participate in class envy against corporations and the wealthy, they employ millions. Ireland has cut their corporate tax rate now working wonders even for a country as small as theirs.
William F. Buckley said the role of conservatism is to "stand athwart history yelling STOP!" We have a chance to stand against the predictable decline in years to come. America has become the richest country on earth, not because our government produces such enlightenment, but because the people of this country know how to make it work. The only way we can recover is for our politicians to let us and the markets we produce take control of the situation for a change. That is "change we can believe in." That is something new.
Using deductive logic, the first sign of this recession was a slumping housing market followed by the collapse of the government sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The eye of the storm is the collapse of the American housing market which has had great reverberations. Millions of Americans made the irresponsible choice to buy homes they could not afford while President Clinton and President Bush drooled over "affordable housing" and record home ownership. All while the democrats in Congress promoted and protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from any reform or criticism. If the housing market were tied to the free market then the housing crisis would have been adverted.
We say history should be studied in part to learn from it, ultimately to not repeat the mistakes of the past. Here we have a chance to see whether we will truly learn from the past. Everything the politicians of today are interested in has been tried before including during the Great Depression when the situation was far more severe. President Hoover drastically raised taxes on the rich (from 25% to 63%) along with the estate and corporate tax which took money away from the job creating private sector and deterred incentive. He also practiced protectionism which stifled competition and drove up our prices. It did not work. President Roosevelt came to office and essentially tried the same, but on steroids with endless social programs. He took tax payer money and pretended to create jobs through public works. The end result is that both Presidents big government policies failed to get us out of the Great Depression causing it to be prolonged until WWII hit over a decade later. Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for economic science said "the Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy."
President Obama gave a speech at George Mason University on economics recently. He had the audacity to declare "only government can break the cycle that is crippling our economy." Spending tax dollars to provide jobs for tax payers is not a novel or new idea. Albert Einstein said "there is nothing that is a more certain sign of insanity than to do the same thing over and over and expect the results to be different." Obama said "we have already tried the wait-and-see approach to our problems, and it is the same approach that helped lead us to this day of reckoning." The notion that we have not tried to use multiple federal resources to fix our current situation is an insult to our intelligence. Dr. Walter Williams is a distinguished author, columnist and professor of economics at George Mason University. In his recent article "Congress' Financial Mess," he cited that regulations under the Federal Register (Cato Policy Report November-December 2008) rose to a record number of 75,526 pages during the Bush years.
If our government is serious about serving the best interest of the people then they should drastically cut domestic spending, balance the budget within 4 years, cut capitol gains taxes (or at least not raise them...), abolish the IRS while implementing a low, flat income tax and finally cut the corporate income tax. Lower taxes encourage positive risk taking along with increased incentive to work and save. We have the second highest corporate income tax in the world. As much as people like to participate in class envy against corporations and the wealthy, they employ millions. Ireland has cut their corporate tax rate now working wonders even for a country as small as theirs.
William F. Buckley said the role of conservatism is to "stand athwart history yelling STOP!" We have a chance to stand against the predictable decline in years to come. America has become the richest country on earth, not because our government produces such enlightenment, but because the people of this country know how to make it work. The only way we can recover is for our politicians to let us and the markets we produce take control of the situation for a change. That is "change we can believe in." That is something new.
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