Charles Darwin — VOICES for REASON

Darwin’s masterpiece The Origin of Species was published 150 years ago today, and the truths Darwin discovered are now the cornerstones of modern biology.

Nevertheless, creationists are still trying to dodge the facts and distort Darwin’s science and legacy. The latest scheme is a creationist edition of Origin with an introduction that attacks Darwin personally and rehashes scientifically illiterate claims against evolution. The edition has been published by creationist Ray Comfort, a colleague of child-TV-star-cum-evangelical-fanatic Kirk Cameron, in order to hand out free copies to students on college campuses.

Check out this four-part exchange between Comfort and scientist Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.) It is revealing, I think, of the hostility and utter ignorance of Darwin’s enemies, as well as the futility—Scott’s valiant efforts notwithstanding—of trying to engage in reasoned debate with people who are essentially anti-reason.

In his autobiography, Darwin said: “I have almost always been treated honestly by my reviewers, passing over those without scientific knowledge as not worthy of notice.” While this is too broad a dismissal of all nonscientist commentators, it certainly applies to those who willingly and militantly embrace scientific ignorance in the name of faith.

There is a growing tradition of celebrating Darwin’s birthday as an occasion to promote science and reason.

 Why Darwin as opposed to, say, Isaac Newton? (Well, we do celebrate on Newton’s birthday, but only by coincidence: he was born on December 25th!)

 I think Darwin’s birthday is an important occasion to celebrate in the spirit of fighting back against the anti-science, anti-reason viewpoint put forward by creationism and its evolutionary descendant, “intelligent design.”

 Ayn Rand certainly reacted with a fighting spirit when she encountered creationism in the early ’80s. In a 1981 talk at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston (“The Age of Mediocrity,” published in The Objectivist Forum), she explained the philosophic roots of creationism’s attack on science. Commenting on its threat to science education, she said:

To claim that the mystics’ mythology, or inventions, or superstitions are as valid as scientific theories, and to offer this claim to the unformed minds of children, is a moral crime.  

In the face of that moral crime, it is an act of justice to celebrate a man who worked so hard to advance human knowledge and who exemplifies the rational pursuit of truth.

Here’s a story from the UT Daily Texan about Keith’s talk at UT Austin. It includes a good summary of the event along with quotes from the talk itself.

The headline is a little vague and possibly misleading; Keith’s not an “environmentalism speaker” as the title suggests (in fact, he is a vocal critic of the ideology behind environmentalism). His lecture tour on Darwin continues in Athens, GA, tonight and concludes tomorrow night in Charlotte, NC.

I’ll be speaking on Darwin and evolution at four college campuses next week. I’m looking forward to meeting the students and hearing their comments and questions about this important scientist and the discoveries he made.

We’ve timed the speaking tour to culminate on Darwin’s 200th birthday:

• On February 9, I’ll be at the University of Texas, Austin.
• On February 10, I’ll be at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
• On February 11, I’ll be at the University of Georgia, Athens.
• On February 12, I’ll be at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

If you’re local, come check it out!

Here is the talk description:

The theory of evolution is often disparaged by its opponents as being “just a theory”–i.e., a speculative hypothesis with little basis in hard, scientific facts. But this claim carries with it the implied accusation that Charles Darwin was “just a theorist”–i.e., that he was merely an armchair scientist and that his life’s work was nothing more than an exercise in arbitrary speculation. A look at Darwin’s pioneering discoveries, however, reveals the grave injustice of this accusation. Darwin was not “just a theorist” and evolution is not “just a theory.” In this talk, celebrating the Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s masterpiece On the Origin of Species, Dr. Lockitch explores Darwin’s life and work, focusing on the steps by which he came to discover and prove the theory of evolution by natural selection.

More information on the ARC website. (Registered users can watch a video of the talk. I also have an article based on the talk in The Objective Standard.)