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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 11/09/2007 : 18:41:57
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Charles Darwin.
According to conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza, a dash of Social Darwinism (though he doesn't call it that) might be just the ticket for the Creationism and the Right: But if Christian anxiety is misplaced, conservatives are even further off the mark. That's because Darwin's theory actually supports conservative positions in all kinds of interesting ways. First, Darwin gives a dark and selfish view of human nature, which is why we need a tough foreign policy to deal with bad guys who cannot be talked out of their badness--even if U.N. cocktails are served. In addition, the selfishness in human nature warrants a system called capitalism which channels this self-orientation toward the material betterment of society.
It gets better. Darwin shows that social institutions like the family are founded in the deep human drive to reproduce and care for the young. Reproduction and self-perpetuation are the natural root of human family arrangements, which cannot be redefined as mechanisms of "self-fulfillment" without jeopardizing their biological basis and function. Consider a simple statistic: when divorced moms remarry or have boyfriends in the house, those surrogate parents are vastly more likely to physically and sexually abuse the children than their own parents. Darwinian theory supplies the reason: the real parent shares the same genes as the child and this forms a bond that dispels sexual attraction and discourages abuse. "Family values" are supported by modern evolutionary biology. |
Well, isn't that interesting? After all these years of scientists being falsely accused of being part of the abuses of "Social Darwinism," now the accusers on the Right may be trying it on for size. And looking at it with quite cynical glee, as well!
PZ had this to say:
It's a cunning plan to sow confusion, which is ultimately all the Intelligent Design creationists are good at. If state education standards mandate instruction in evolution and if the laws of the land make teaching Intelligent Design creationism illegal, well, they'll adapt and teach "evolution" … it's just that this version of "evolution" flouts the ideas of experts, ignores the evidence, misrepresents the theory, and promotes a role for design in "evolutionary" history.
It's an interesting tactic. Simply write a very bad book about evolution, market it appropriately, and find enough ideologically motivated science teachers to use it, and they will have effectively continued their efforts to subvert science education in this country. After all, the successful court challenges to block creationism in the classroom have done so on the basis of their violation of the separation of church and state, not so much on their quality and competence; propagating awful science is probably constitutional. |
Chu-Carrol had this:
| There's a chance that “Explore Evolution” will be as transparent as Pandas and People before it, where the “scratch out creation, write Intelligent Design” tomfoolery was blatantly obvious. Perhaps this rebranding will produce nothing more than bad science books, against which we can argue on scientific grounds — but then again, all those school boards in places like Dover and Cobb County aren't just going to change their attitudes, let their faith fall by the wayside and embrace knowledge in a giant expl
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 11/09/2007 21:36:53
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2008 : 01:56:21 [Permalink]
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I didn't feel like starting a new thread about this Dinesh D'Souza guy, so I figured I'd just link to an article that mentions how full of s$$t he is. You can also type his name in the search function at the scienceblogs.com site and get a lot more interesting information about him.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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Surprise new poster boy for Creationists?
