Ben Stein: Science Leads to Killing People

[MaryJohnZ]

You know better. As you learned, Darwin insisted that humans differ from animals in having rights to life and liberty, and in having a spiritual aspect lacking in animals.

Oh, really? Then why did he insist that man was not different from animals in kind. What you are saying contradicts that. In otherwords you agree with me that Darwin is contradictory.

Actually, he’s saying that instinct often leads us to compassion. He also says that even if it’s not strictly adaptive, we still protect the weak because not to do so is evil. This goes back to the error Reggie made: we should not always follow our nature as a guide to morals or ethics. We are, as Darwin said, called to a higher standard.

*I don’t believe that was what Reggie was saying at all but I will let her answer that. I think the problem still goes back to the numerous ways Darwin contradicts himself. First he says we are animals. Then he says we are more noble. First he says man’s social instincts develop based on what will bring him the greatest happiness. Then he seems to want to infer that is altered an the sympathy factor takes over and we become altruistic in some way. He even goes so far as to say sympathy becomes embedded into our genes. Inwhich case i guess there isn’t any merit in it because it simply becomes instinst for us. The man doesn’t know what he wants to say other than somehow he wants to make all the social and moral aspects of the human person
become explanable by material process…no God. And that is incompatible with teachings of the Catholic Church which says God intervenmed to give man his human nature which includes the immprtal soul and being made in God’s image. Darwin had a problem with believing in God, remember? *

Science can never do that. But, as several Popes have said, science is not inconsistent with such things.

True science will be consistent with Catholic teaching.

And from the excerpts presented to me, he had very little idea of what biology was about in general, and almost nothing about evolution in particular. I gather he was a journalist or a theologian, or a philosopher, or something.

And so was much of what Darwin wrote since he could never prove conscience developed in the material way he describes, and thus darwin’s followers talk like people following a Darwin religion. I guess that is why philosophers feel comfortable critiquing his ideas.

In Christ, maryJohnZ

 

[The_Barbarian]

Reggie writes:

Well, I think his science is a matter of interpretation and subjective judgement. In that case, Darwin’s beliefs and biases are part of “his science” since he was trying to prove something based on his philosophical values.

Darwin was a Christian when he wrote The Origin of Species. Dave Stove, whom you defend, was an atheist when he assailed Darwin. If they were pushing their philosophical values, you are on the wrong side, Reggie.

Actually it’s quite the opposite. Evolution has instilled human beings with certain values that help it survive. For example, you won’t find a society where cowardice, lying, thieving and murder were admired traits. Why? Because any society that advocated those things wouldn’t have survived.

I’m not sure if that really works.

Always has. Pathological societies have appeared, and but they are remarkably short-lived.

It may be true that there are no examples of societies that admired those vices that you mention. But we know that many societies of the past do not survive today. So, some other thing caused them to disappear.

All societies eventually disappear. But the ones that promote evolutionarily unfit ideas don’t last long.

I also don’t think that the most morally just societies survive the longest necessarily.

People are always astonished that the early Christians, who didn’t fight back, didn’t hate, didn’t return violence with violence, won in the end.

People are suprised that Buddhists have spread and flourished, that the Amish and Hutterites were not wiped out.

God watching over them? Maybe. Or maybe there’s some remarkable fitness in such characteristics. Or more likely, both.

That is true – agreed. I do think it’s significant that Darwin lost his faith in God though, because I believe he used his theory to communicate his unbelief.

Ironically, when he wrote his book, he communicated his belief in God. If you’re right, that’s significant.

But I also do not believe his theory can be demonstrated like a mathematical formula can be, or like the demonstration of gravity, so that’s a big difference also.

Of course we can show that his theory works. Undergraduates do it in lab exercises every year. The difference is that while we can see gravity and evolution happen, we know why evolution happens. No one yet knows why gravity happens.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
You know better. As you learned, Darwin insisted that humans differ from animals in having rights to life and liberty, and in having a spiritual aspect lacking in animals.

Oh, really? Then why did he insist that man was not different from animals in kind.

You don’t think those are great differences? That might be the problem, Mary. Darwin said that man differed from animals. Apparently, the way he thought they differed doesn’t seem right to you.

In otherwords you agree with me that Darwin is contradictory.

No, I just think that having rights and a spiritual difference are important. And you don’t.

Barbarian observes:
Actually, he’s saying that instinct often leads us to compassion. He also says that even if it’s not strictly adaptive, we still protect the weak because not to do so is evil. This goes back to the error Reggie made: we should not always follow our nature as a guide to morals or ethics. We are, as Darwin said, called to a higher standard.

I don’t believe that was what Reggie was saying at all but I will let her answer that. I think the problem still goes back to the numerous ways Darwin contradicts himself. First he says we are animals.

True. We are animals, but not merely animals.

Then he says we are more noble.

Some of us, at least.

First he says man’s social instincts develop based on what will bring him the greatest happiness. Then he seems to want to infer that is altered an the sympathy factor takes over and we become altruistic in some way.

This would be contradictory to a non-Christian. But God says that altruism will bring us the greatest happiness. Darwin, remember, was a Christian in his early years.

He even goes so far as to say sympathy becomes embedded into our genes. Inwhich case i guess there isn’t any merit in it because it simply becomes instinst for us.

He goes beyond that. Of course, every parent who is not seriously disordered will protecth their own child with their life. But he also shows that it extends beyond that to a sort of selfless altruism.

And that is incompatible with teachings of the Catholic Church which says God intervenmed to give man his human nature which includes the immprtal soul and being made in God’s image.

If he gave us our bodies and a few other features naturally, does that offend you, Mary?

Darwin had a problem with believing in God, remember?

Odd then, that he attributed the origin of life to God.

Barbarian on David Stove:
And from the excerpts presented to me, he had very little idea of what biology was about in general, and almost nothing about evolution in particular. I gather he was a journalist or a theologian, or a philosopher, or something.

And so was much of what Darwin wrote since he could never prove conscience developed in the material way he describes, and thus darwin’s followers talk like people following a Darwin religion.

It’s sad that a self-professed Christian has so little confidence in her own beliefs that she can think of no worse perjorative than “religion.” There’s a simple way to test your accusation:

Ask a scientist why he accepts evolution. If he says “because Darwin said so.” it’s religion. If he starts talking evidence, it’s science.

I guess that is why philosophers feel comfortable critiquing his ideas.

It’s notable that you prefer an atheist who dislikes evolution, to a theist who accepts it. Sometimes, you have to make a choice between what you want and what God wants, Mary.

 

[reggieM]

Odd then, that he attributed the origin of life to God in The Origin of Species.

It is odd since he had mentioned in his private journals that he did not believe that God existed when he wrote that.

Darwin was odd that way. Some would call him a liar and deceiver, but I’ll just accept that he was “odd”.

 

[reggieM]

I think the problem still goes back to the numerous ways Darwin contradicts himself.

Exactly. Like a politician struggling for acceptance, he spoke out of both sides of his mouth, trying to appease all sides. He deliberately tried to cover up his denial of Christ’s divinity.

Darwin had a problem with believing in God, remember?

I think Barbarian forgot that little detail about his hero.

Darwin called himself an agnostic and denied the divinity of Christ and he rejected Christianity outright.

His mention of God in his later writings was a deception – a means of getting some credibilty among the Protestant leaders of his day.

 

[reggieM]

Odd then, that he attributed the origin of life to God.

Again, Darwin was “odd” … but perhaps the cover-up of his true belief (lack thereof) was not as much his doing as his family’s.

'…the uncensored version of [Darwin’s] autobiography, published by Charles’s granddaughter, Lady Nora Barlow, in 1958, contained some 6,000 words expunged by Francis and Emma, much of which related to Charles’s irreligious nature, and which ‘might embarrass the Darwin name’

Thanks to Wolseley for this post …

*“I had gradually come by this time, * to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos or the beliefs of any barbarian.”
(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. 1, pg 277)

"I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation.”(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. 1, pg 278)

**“I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.” **
(Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, Michael Joseph, London, 1991, p. 658)

“I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.”(Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, Chatto and Windus, London, 1959, pp. 10, 318)

“Formerly I was led… to the firm conviction of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind.”(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. 1, pg 281)

“I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.”(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. 1, pg 278)

Much of what was released in Darwin’s autobiography was “cleaned up” and G-rated for public consumption; Ian Taylor, in his book In the Minds of Men (TFE Publishing, Toronto, 1984), informs us that many of Darwin’s views on the Bible and Christianity “were deleted by his son, Francis, at the insistence of his widow, Emma, in the version published after his death, as were his views on the Old Testament, namely, what he called, ‘its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc. etc.’…the uncensored version of the autobiography, published by Charles’s granddaughter, Lady Nora Barlow, in 1958, contained some 6,000 words expunged by Francis and Emma, much of which related to Charles’s irreligious nature, and which ‘might embarrass the Darwin name’.”**

 

[reggieM]

Some of us, at least.

Which people are not more noble than animals?

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Person who uses the scientific method to learn about the physical universe.

You think so? If so, you haven’t been reading my posts. As you would have learned, the creationists here go ballistic when I show that science isn’t much different than plumbing.

Sure. Science is merely an organized way to apply common sense. It has become arcane only because there’s so much to learn and because the methodology has become increasingly mathematical.

Engineering, mostly. Some medicine. Mary was extremely frustrated when she couldn’t find one case of a scientist (as opposed to engineers or doctors) who took part in the Holocaust.

I’m sure there must have been some, but clearly scientists were much less inclined than other Germans to do so.

Such people are merely products of your imagination. Scientists are pretty much like everyone else, albeit a bit more law-abiding and tolerant.

Can’t. The great limitation of science is that it can’t say anything at all about the supernatural.

Ah, you have a political axe to grind. Sorry, science can’t help you with that. Psychiatrists are physicians, not scientists, BTW.

Science can only make that possible. To get it done requires a faith in God and a willingness to do His will. If you don’t have it, science can’t get it for you. Is that the problem?

Indeed. As pointed out previously, you might as well assail plumbing for not leading us to a better life toward God. There is a way, but it requires setting your pride aside and letting Him take charge.

Will you do that?

---

I won’t answer your rhetorical trap, because you have misidentified my working within the material world with my pride. You do not know me and personalized the conversation innapropriately. Does that really help?

I don’t set the material universe aside in my search to love Him better and yes, plumbing can help us by giving us better sanitary conditions in which to live and worship and new plumbing inventions can also help that.

So I geuss again, we are left with what is your definition for scientists and which sciences get the exalted mantle? And what prevents them from straying from the method? And what rigor keeps human prejudice out of their method either by inclusion of data or exclusion?

There is also plenty of data time and again of scientists who committed human atrocities, but I guess since you are the arbiter of what is science and what is not you can pick and choose which scientists are scientists, so it is a fairyland of your own devising in which no amount of evidence of the misdeeds done in the name o science will convince you that exalted scientists have put forth theories that have had a devastating impact on 20th century society, because you compartmentalize all of their activities from the activity you arbitrarily deem as science.

 

[The_Barbarian]

I won’t answer your rhetorical trap, because you have misidentified my working within the material world with my pride. You do not know me and personalized the conversation innapropriately. Does that really help?

Actually, that’s what you tried to do to me. You asserted that I was presenting science as some kind of hifaluten priesthood, and I pointed out to you that it wasn’t essentially different than plumbing.

I don’t set the material universe aside in my search to love Him better

Neither do scientists. They just can’t use science to do it. If faith isn’t good enough for you, science can’t help.

and yes, plumbing can help us by giving us better sanitary conditions in which to live and worship and new plumbing inventions can also help that.

Another way that plumbing is like science.

So I geuss again, we are left with what is your definition for scientists and which sciences get the exalted mantle?

A person investigating the physical universe, using the scientific method.

A

nd what prevents them from straying from the method?

Common sense. When they stray, it doesn’t work anymore.

And what rigor keeps human prejudice out of their method either by inclusion of data or exclusion?

Common sense and peer review. If you let your expectations change your data, you’ll get bad results. And then peer review and reproducibilty problems ensue. It happens, but it doesn’t get far.

There is also plenty of data time and again of scientists who committed human atrocities

I guess there must be some, but I can’t think of any just now. Apparently, you can’t either.

but I guess since you are the arbiter of what is science and what is not you can pick and choose which scientists are scientists, so it is a fairyland of your own devising in which no amount of evidence of the misdeeds done in the name o science will convince you that exalted scientists have put forth theories that have had a devastating impact on 20th century society, because you compartmentalize all of their activities from the activity you arbitrarily deem as science.

Ah, you’re upset that I didn’t include police, politicians, clergy, engineers, and doctors? That doesn’t change anything, however.

Scientists are what they are. I’m thinking that maybe you define “scientist” as “people I don’t like very much.”

 

[The_Barbarian]

Which people are not more noble than animals?

Pol Pot comes to mind. I’m sure you can think of others.

I’ve spent a lifetime working with animals; few of them have shown me the sort of despicable behavior we see in humans who have lost their moral compass.

I once had a small terrier that interposed herself between me and a horse (she had never seen one before) and stood snarling, stiff-legged, ears back and teeth exposed, which indicates both terror and fury.

She was prepared to die for me, frightened though she was. That is nobility.

 

[reggieM]

Pol Pot comes to mind. I’m sure you can think of others.

I’ve spent a lifetime working with animals; few of them have shown me the sort of despicable behavior we see in humans who have lost their moral compass.

I once had a small terrier that interposed herself between me and a horse (she had never seen one before) and stood snarling, stiff-legged, ears back and teeth exposed, which indicates both terror and fury.

She was prepared to die for me, frightened though she was. That is nobility.

You believe animals have more inherent nobility than some people do. That doesn’t say much for your respect for the human soul – for which Christ died (even for sinnners).

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian on Darwin’s supposed atheism:
Odd then, that he attributed the origin of life to God.

Again, Darwin was “odd” … but perhaps the cover-up of his true belief (lack thereof) was not as much his doing as his family’s.

Let’s take a look:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved
Charles Darwin, last sentence of The Origin of Species 1872 edition

Nope. You’ve been misled about that. His relatives didn’t write it.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Mary writes:

Darwin had a problem with believing in God, remember?

Reggie gets a me-too:

I think Barbarian forgot that little detail about his hero.

See below. Nice try, though.

Late in life, Darwin admitted to leaning toward agnosticism. But he was a believer when he wrote his book.

 

[The_Barbarian]

(Reggie tries a little quote-mining)

You believe animals have more inherent nobility than some people do.

No. I know that some animals act with more nobility than some people do. Most animals have more nobility than sociopaths.

(and here comes the switch)

That doesn’t say much for your respect for the human soul

All humans, even evil, and degenerate ones, have immortal souls, and therefore are loved by God. That doesn’t make them noble.

Nobility is not an essential part of being human. It is what we become if we act against our baser impulses. Having an immortal soul does not confer nobility upon us. That we have to do for ourselves.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Actually, that’s what you tried to do to me. You asserted that I was presenting science as some kind of hifaluten priesthood, and I pointed out to you that it wasn’t essentially different than plumbing.

You are presenting an argument. The difference was I attacked your idea about scientists and askked you to identify them. You attacked me personally. Get it? One is asking for information, the other is just insulting a person ad hominem. Please stop.

Neither do scientists. They just can’t use science to do it. If faith isn’t good enough for you, science can’t help.

Our pursuit of the Lord is not limited simply to faith but also in trying to do His will to glorify Him and love Him more. Science can help us to understand him through his universe.

A person investigating the physical universe, using the scientific method.

But WHO in specific? What sciences? Not sociology, but yes paleontology? Is it just things quantifiable? Clarify please.

A

Common sense. When they stray, it doesn’t work anymore.

Not so. Gravity was conceptually overturned by Eibnstein. Newton was observably correct even though it lacked the understanding of gravity.

Common sense and peer review. If you let your expectations change your data, you’ll get bad results. And then peer review and reproducibilty problems ensue. It happens, but it doesn’t get far.

Who determines who constitutes the peer? What makes them unbiased? Isn’t there more of a danger of group think here?

I guess there must be some, but I can’t think of any just now. Apparently, you can’t either.

How about the lobotomies carried out as standard treatment in the 50s? Kids locked up as inmates in psychological tests? Nuclear science tests that put clouds of radioactivity into the air when we didn’t know the impact on the environment? The Tuskeggee experiment. Dr. Mengele genetic experiment.

Ah, you’re upset that I didn’t include police, politicians, clergy, engineers, and doctors? That doesn’t change anything, however.

Please stop personalizing the argument. If you don’t have somethingf meaningful to add, there’s no requirement to post.

Scientists are what they are. I’m thinking that maybe you define “scientist” as “people I don’t like very much.”

You’re wrong and it is an uncharitable assumption. We can do a better job of dialoguing than this.

 

[reggieM]

Nobility is not an essential part of being human.

Since all human beings are created in the image of God, then nobility is integral to the human person – sinner or not. That nobility is on a higher order of being than that of animals.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

Since all human beings are created in the image of God, then nobility is integral to the human person – sinner or not. That nobility is on a higher order of being than that of animals.

That is a beautiful statement. That Christ assumed our form and our weakness though without sin also gives humanity an incalculable nobility as a free gift if we choose to accept it. That we are invited to love the Lord and be His brother is an invitation that expresses the Lord’s sure belief in the nobility within His creation.

 

[reggieM]

Late in life, Darwin admitted to leaning toward agnosticism. But he was a believer when he wrote his book.

Darwin wrote:

“I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.”

He was 49 years old when he wrote the book.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian
Late in life, Darwin admitted to leaning toward agnosticism. But he was a believer when he wrote his book.

Darwin wrote:
“I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.”

He was 49 years old when he wrote the book.

When he published it. He put off publishing it for many years. And the first edition didn’t have his acknowledgement of the Creator. The 1872 edition did. Of course, he could have been a deist by that time. He didn’t acknowledge being a Christian too much longer than several years after the voyage of the Beagle.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Since all human beings are created in the image of God, then nobility is integral to the human person – sinner or not. That nobility is on a higher order of being than that of animals.

**no·bil·i·ty (n-bl-t)
n. pl. no·bil·i·ties

1. A class of persons distinguished by high birth or rank and in Great Britain including dukes and duchesses, marquises and marchionesses, earls and countesses, viscounts and viscountesses, and barons and baronesses: “The old English nobility of office made way for the Norman nobility of faith and landed wealth” Winston S. Churchill.
2. Noble rank or status: Congress may not grant titles of nobility.
3. The state or quality of being exalted in character.**
   Online Dictionary.

Reggie, you’ve confused “nobility” with “sacred worth.”

I’m sure you would not call Pol Pot, Hitler, or Charles Manson a person of “exalted character.”

Words mean things. If you don’t use them as others do, you will not communicate well.