Another wingnut mistakes social darwinism for evolution

I know. It’s WorldNutDaily, so it’s guaranteed to be abysmally ignorant, but I had to comment on the opening bits of this dreadfully bad review of Wiker’s book that blames Darwin for the Nazis.

As a prologue to this book review, I propose the question: Can an idea, a theory, even a delusion kill? A cursory review just of 20th century dictators who overtly or covertly embraced and applied Darwin’s ideas about evolution, survival of the fittest and natural selection to humanity, resulting in tens of millions of corpses they left in their wake, lamentably beckons a resounding, Yes!

I agree that ideas can be powerful things that can lead to lamentable outcomes. That’s why I insist that all ideas must be regarded with skepticism, tested thoroughly, and only those that meet some standards for rigor be accepted…and even that, only provisionally. Evolution has met those standards to a degree that you have to be a fool to reject it, especially when your alternative is the empty promises of Intelligent Design, and the bogus dogmatism of creationism.

Those millions of deaths are a consequence of fanatical adherence to poorly supported ideas: the ideologies of communism and fascism. Evolution is not at fault, and can’t be legitimately blamed, especially if your reasoning is as bad as Wiker’s.

In the opening chapter on Darwin, Wiker wrote: “Reading Charles Darwin’s ‘The Descent of Man’ forces one to face an unpleasant truth: that if everything he said in his more famous ‘Origin of Species’ is true, then it quite logically follows that human beings ought to ensure that the fit breed with abandon and that the unfit are weeded out.”

Wiker actually said that? He’s a bigger idiot than I thought. Does he also read books about epidemiology and assume that the science is all about killing the most people possible with microorganisms? Is oncology all about inflicting slow painful deaths on people? Are the police out to foment crime, and firemen have the job of starting fires?

What logically follows from Darwin’s theory is that fit individuals are those that survive and have offspring. There is no presumption that there is only one possible strategy to accomplish that survival: if we maintain a state that helps the weak and sick live and have children, then we have increased their fitness.

Maybe it’s just me, but I read the truth of evolution as saying that we can work to oppose brute nature and make life better for our fellow human beings, or we can surrender and refuse to resist nature’s course. We have a choice. You can be an enabler of greater rates of selection (using arbitrary criteria that may not generate enhanced survival for anything but the select occupants of a totalitarian state!) or you can work for a better life for more.

It’s somehow predictable that right-wing hacks always project their hateful vision of increasing mortality on a theory that allows for the possibility of change by reducing it.

Christian talk radio ineptitude

You can now listen to today’s Atheists Talk, or you can download the mp3. This was the session with Jeff and Lee of KKMS Christian talk radio, and I found it infuriating — they never answered any questions with a straight answer. Out of exasperation, I sent in this question, which was read on the air:

Jeff and Lee were asked a straightforward question: what is their best evidence for a god? Their reply was a shameless exercise in longwinded vacuity. Could they possibly simply ANSWER THE QUESTION, without babbling about the trinity and other such nonsense that even they admit they don’t understand?

That finally got them to try and answer…they claim to believe in a god because the world looks created to them. That’s awfully shallow and silly — they understand even less biology than they do theology, and that answer doesn’t explain at all why they believe in Jesus rather than Thor — but it’s something I’ve encountered often. It reinforces the importance of evolution, and explains why the religious are often so adamant in opposing science: it undercuts their rationale for believing in such goofball ideas.

The Genius of Darwin

Whoa, Charlie Booker’s review of a new documentary on Darwin really makes me want to see it.

Darwin’s theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it’s been under attack since day one. That’s just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we’d still be debating Newton with idiots too.

I think this might be the documentary he’s talking about, which has already made its way to youtube. Perhaps just as well, since I can’t imagine any television stations in the US clamoring to get it (and that is not a comment on its quality, but entirely about the absurd anti-intellectual propensity of too many Americans).

(Never mind, it seems this is a different documentary on Darwin. Still worth watching, though.)

VADLO

I’m wondering how this works. VADLO is a web search engine for biologists, and my first attempts at using it…it worked surprisingly well. I looked up a few techniques I’ve been using, and actually turned up some useful articles.

Radio reminder

Remember—Sunday morning at 9 Central tune in to Atheist Talk radio. This week, August Berkshire has two fundamentalist evangelical Christians on the show, Jeff and Lee from the Twin Cities Christian talk radio station, KKMS. I’ve dealt with these guys before, so my lip will be curled the entire hour. August will deal with them politely, you can be sure.

Hank Fox also tells me that Sunday is National Friendship Day. So what say you all try to get out and meet some new atheist friends? Look up your local godless group and see if they’ve got any fun events going on, and get to know someone new and intelligent and interesting? Last week I got to know Makita — there are all kinds of fascinating people out there, so talk to some!

i-f98f322c64b9202b9a3cc93fdf5bac78-makita.jpg

Who needs civil liberties?

As someone who takes his laptop everywhere, this is chilling news about the ongoing erosion of our rights:

Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

For further Orwellian perspectives, take a look at this quote:

Customs Deputy Commissioner Jayson P. Ahern said the efforts “do not infringe on Americans’ privacy.”

Information must be impounded, shackled, and waterboarded in this New Republican United States of America.

Am I still crashing IE?

I’ve been getting a volley of complaints that Pharyngula is crashing Internet Explorer. It turns out that this is a problem all over the web, and is Sitemeter’s fault. I’ve changed the code in a way that I hope will fix it — let me know if it doesn’t. (←cunning ploy there…if you’re still crashing, you may not be able to read that!)

P.S. Explorer is the worst browser available. If your computer has the resources to handle something else, switch!