Excellent Fisking! I am sure Dembski is working on his apology to Darwin as we speak.
Kill the looters? Kinda, sorta sounds like that "materialistic ideology" he is always complaining about to me.....
Ah, yes - a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
This guy ought to wear a warning label: "May de-compensate without warning - administer Haldol 100Mg IM Stat! Beware of delusional speech or activities. Handle with care. Use tongs."
Well, dang!
I thought George was going to take on that kind observation about his national origin..."The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits..."
I know that he has a son and two grandchildren .... but that makes him not too prolific an Irishman.... I'd have to agree about him being "squalid" but that's because I'm all the way across the state from him.
Can't we come up with our own nickname for Dembski? Something clever?
OH, RSR your observation, "Colbert is funny because we know he's playing O'Reilly." IS TRUE. But, the really funny bit was at the WH Correspondent's dinner where it was quite clear that Colbert's satire only dawned on GWB about halfway through the gig. W looked mad enough to eat My Pet Goat.
But for Jon and Stephen I don't think I could make it through this administration.
Squalid? Doug, are you off your meds again?
The Colbert spoof at the White House Correspondent's dinner in 2006 is priceless!
For those of you who haven't seen it, or, viewed it recently, here is the link:
http://video.google.com/
videopla...183917758574879
W does look as though he has chewed up and swallowed My Pet Goat. Colbert has GUTS!
Oh, I'm sure that Dembski knows better. He's just a charlatan.
Judge Judy rule: lie once - you're a liar. Nothing else you say is trustworthy.
Sometimes I wonder if Dembski isn't indeed one of these angry atheists who want to crush religion under their heels, because he's doing such a good job of making his position look ridiculous that it's mind-boggling. I mean, I couldn't do a better job.
William Dembski, stealth atheist. I bet I could find "atheist quotes" from other people (like Dawkins) in his books to attribute to Dembski. I'm sure he won't mind.
Ah, context. Once again, Mr. Dembski is waxing unspecific and decidedly uncomplex.
Good job.
Good work! Misrepresentation PLUS straw man argument. It almost makes you sad that one one of those bastards actually read Darwin enough to pull out a misleading quote.
I was surprised by this seemingly blatant misrepresentation of Darwin's work. But after repeatedly reading the original passage I'm going to have to politely disagree with this fisking of Dembski.
Darwin was not trying to outright contradict Greg and Galton, he was advocating a weaker version of their theory. At the next paragraph, Darwin begins his analysis: "There are, however, some checks to this downward tendency..."
But shortly, Darwin gives his conclusion of the matter:
"If the various checks specified in the two last paragraphs, and perhaps others as yet unknown, do not prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men, the nation will retrograde, as has too often occurred in the history of the world..."
While Dembski was less than careful in contextualizing the quote, I think it is rather you who has misrepresented Darwin's position by claiming that he was arguing against Greg and Galton, rather than arguing for a less absolute form of it.
After reading Hmott's comment, I'm wondering if lolaphilologist would label those who had the knee jerk raction of attacking Dembski "bastards" themselves for not seeing the obvious point Hmott made about Darwin's actual feelings on the issue?
Do Darwin-worshippers have to fully read the entire passage and get their facts straight too, or is this someone you guys get a pass on?
Dear Hmott and Mr. Jonny Napa: May I politely suggest you read, and think carefully, about Darwin's "Descent of Man," Particualraly Chapters 3 and 4 where he develops the idea that human morality is a product of evolution.
Remember, it does Darwin's theory of evolution no good if natural selection works against the development of human empathy and a sense of morals.
Darwin was a man of his times. It is quite possible to make a parlor game of picking quotes out of context -- as Dembski has rather clumsily done here. Any honest reading of Darwin, however, shows him to be a man well ahead of his time in his opposition to slavery and enlightened view of the treatment of women -- which remain more advanced today than those currently advocated by fundamentalists, who display a marked tendency to place women in a second class category.
The same sort of game can be -- and has -- been played with other historical figures of the period. It's easy for example to pick out statements by Abraham Lincoln that show him to have opinions about blacks that most of us would cringe about today. That does nothing to change his role in ending slavery.
An article by James McPherson in the latest issue of New York Review of Books demonstrate that the black leader Frederick Douglas held different opinions about Lincoln at different times. McPherson's work is a serious attempt to help us contextualize both Lincoln and Douglas.
Dembski's ham-handedness is an attempt of obfuscate.
If we were to follow Dembski's model and review the statements of his intellectual forebearers -- the southern creationists and fundamentalists of the post Civil War South, what sorts of statements about blacks, women, the Irish and many others do you suppose could be trotted out?
(I decided on this screen name rather than Hmott. Sorry for the confusion.)
Red State Rabble:
I'm sure that Darwin did argue for morals developing through evolution. Without appeal to God or some type of higher authority there's no where else for them to come from.
There are different levels of context, though. Darwin is addressing a specific concept here, not the whole of his theory. As I read this passage, he is essentially saying that at times the brutes of society [brutes is my own here, not his] will overrun those of higher standards. He even makes a general appeal, though without specifics, to multiple historical instances.
So Darwin thought that the general trend was toward improvement, but it is implicit in this passage--not explicit--that he did indeed recognize a trend toward brutishness that is apparently and thankfully canceled out by other factors.
Commenting by HaloScan
