@ Seth Halpern:
Not brainwashed to find virtue in competition - or at least in winning - for oneself, but perhaps to believe that survival of the fittest is a natural and "progressive" process. Just a stray thought, but it's not a universal perception among human communities that it's good and natural for society to embrace strife, conflict, competition, dynamic mobility, etc.
I don't think Social Darwinism as originally conceived and elaborated has much currency - and even in its heyday it was used to justify radically contradictory approaches to politics and governance - but if you think of Darwinism in somewhat the same way that the Darwinists do, as a secular faith that replaces naive beliefs in a creator or designer, and when you consider that it is and has been mandatory teaching in all of our public schools for generations, then there's good reason to suspect it influences society in many ways, informing the unconscious presumptions of public discussion and opinion. I wonder, for instance, if the resiliency of belief in free markets isn't partly explained by a widespread belief, instilled from childhood, that competition inevitably produces improvement, by law of nature. In this way, the liberal intelligentsia's affection for Darwin may undermine their own political objectives and underlying moral positions. I'm not saying you'd have to reject the free market if you reject Darwinism, or that, conversely, Darwinism couldn't frighten people who feel unprepared for competition into seeking protection in the loving arms of the nanny state, but it would be strange if Darwinism didn't affect us significantly, if sometimes in contradictory ways.
the human must have emerged in an event, an event that involved the instantaneous elevation of one type of being into another.
How literally is that meant? A single historical event among some pack of hominids rummaging their way across the plains? Or do we imagine a latent capacity brought to the surface, a reaction to conditions and circumstances that could be repeated in isolated instances, each time as though for the first time, in different places, until it finally caught on and rapidly became generalized? Or do we imagine that it needs only to have taken place once, before rapidly overtaking and re-forming all (formerly) pre-human populations with which it came into contact?
Seems like the opposite of the 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Big Black Monolith fable that I found myself recounting somewhere else today. In that one, of course, the great advantage is primarily instrumental and objective, not social and subjective, and expressed first through violence, not a deferral of violence.
The questions were obviously offered to raise the seemingly common-sensical objections to pure Darwinism. It would be like beginning a an essay on Galileo by saying, "Heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Who on the basis of observation and intuition would be inclined to disagree?"
I'm surprised that a man of your learning, experience, and sensitivity is unable to understand the simple, commonplace rhetorical device. An avowal of belief, or even a serious argument in favor of it, would look much different.
Throughout the book, he refuses to pre-judge Intelligent Design and Creationist approaches, and seeks to correct the common, merely ideological acceptance of Darwinism. He deserves the same consideration that you or I deserve of having what he actually says discussed, rather than what it suits us to think he would like to have said.
He ignores important facts such as the deveopment of bacteria that are immune to antibiotics–an aspect of evolution that is happening in our own time.
George, you don't seem to be processing the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution - speciation and also the theoretical origins of life itself and all living "systems" through strictly Darwinian processes. Calling Berlinski "silently pro-creationism" is your unjustified assumption, and the same as calling him a liar, since he explicitly claims to be non-creationist.
We're not obligated to adopt a theory just because we don't have a better alternative. That Ptolemy's contemporaries and centuries worth of followers didn't have Copernicus around didn't make their depiction of the geocentric universe accurate.
@ George Jochnowitz:
I have zero interest in using or in suggesting anyone should or could use the Bible as an argument.
However, genetics - as in the inheritance of traits observable in animal breeding, which is what I believed you referred to - has nothing to do with Darwinian evolution other than to suggest a mechanism by which natural selection, one element of Darwinian evolution, might conceivably work. And Darwinian evolution is NOT the only kind of evolution there is. It's one theory of evolution. Others existed before Darwin got up on his hind legs. The IDers have their own theories, and there are other schools out there examining other means by which evolution might be guided - not by a supernatural being, but by as yet undiscovered processes and forces that allow for teleological or quasi-teleological development. Lysenko never makes an appearance in Berlinski's book, but some of the theories suggest he may be due for a revival of sorts...
We humans have always known how evolution works and have always made use of it. We are always indulging in selective breeding and generating new variants of animals.
Genetics is not the same as evolution, GJ, and evolution is not the same as Darwinian Evolution, Darwinism, or Neo-Darwinism. I don't believe that even "Young Earth Creationists" all dispute the evidence of "micro-evolution," while other Creationists or quasi-Creationists - like Sarah Palin or William F Buckley - fully accept it and may additionally acknowledge the apparent age of the Earth, the fossil record of species development and extinction, and the evidence before our eyes of extinction and selection advantages. The problems start with the inability of Darwinists to explain how irreducibly complex forms of life, at the microscopic and organ system level, could arise by chance + selection as narrowly defined within evolutionary theory. There are severe logical, not to mention biochemical, mathematical, and other problems, with everything that has so far been proposed.
@ adam:
First, just want to say, apologies for posting the review before having proofread it sufficiently.
Second, to reply to your comment: Until recently, well, until this book, I was an evolutionist who suspected that as yet dimly understood or inadequatley explored "design-like" or what you could term "cybernetic" (in the broad sense) forces might be involved within the natural selection model. As for Darwin himself, I assumed that his theories had withstood the test of time rather better than most of the great 19th century systems. Berlinski is rather convincing on the argument that raw natural selection + randomness, as defined by the Darwinists, is inadequate. So I have to move over to the skeptic camp: I'm an agnostic on Darwinian evolution, and I guess I believe that there's something natural selection-like and intelligent design-like going on that, when better understood, may transform our understandings of all of the relevant terms of the discussion.
@ Seth Halpern:
Not brainwashed to find virtue in competition - or at least in winning - for oneself, but perhaps to believe that survival of the fittest is a natural and "progressive" process. Just a stray thought, but it's not a universal perception among human communities that it's good and natural for society to embrace strife, conflict, competition, dynamic mobility, etc.
I don't think Social Darwinism as originally conceived and elaborated has much currency - and even in its heyday it was used to justify radically contradictory approaches to politics and governance - but if you think of Darwinism in somewhat the same way that the Darwinists do, as a secular faith that replaces naive beliefs in a creator or designer, and when you consider that it is and has been mandatory teaching in all of our public schools for generations, then there's good reason to suspect it influences society in many ways, informing the unconscious presumptions of public discussion and opinion. I wonder, for instance, if the resiliency of belief in free markets isn't partly explained by a widespread belief, instilled from childhood, that competition inevitably produces improvement, by law of nature. In this way, the liberal intelligentsia's affection for Darwin may undermine their own political objectives and underlying moral positions. I'm not saying you'd have to reject the free market if you reject Darwinism, or that, conversely, Darwinism couldn't frighten people who feel unprepared for competition into seeking protection in the loving arms of the nanny state, but it would be strange if Darwinism didn't affect us significantly, if sometimes in contradictory ways.
adam wrote:
How literally is that meant? A single historical event among some pack of hominids rummaging their way across the plains? Or do we imagine a latent capacity brought to the surface, a reaction to conditions and circumstances that could be repeated in isolated instances, each time as though for the first time, in different places, until it finally caught on and rapidly became generalized? Or do we imagine that it needs only to have taken place once, before rapidly overtaking and re-forming all (formerly) pre-human populations with which it came into contact?
Seems like the opposite of the 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Big Black Monolith fable that I found myself recounting somewhere else today. In that one, of course, the great advantage is primarily instrumental and objective, not social and subjective, and expressed first through violence, not a deferral of violence.
The questions were obviously offered to raise the seemingly common-sensical objections to pure Darwinism. It would be like beginning a an essay on Galileo by saying, "Heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. Who on the basis of observation and intuition would be inclined to disagree?"
I'm surprised that a man of your learning, experience, and sensitivity is unable to understand the simple, commonplace rhetorical device. An avowal of belief, or even a serious argument in favor of it, would look much different.
Throughout the book, he refuses to pre-judge Intelligent Design and Creationist approaches, and seeks to correct the common, merely ideological acceptance of Darwinism. He deserves the same consideration that you or I deserve of having what he actually says discussed, rather than what it suits us to think he would like to have said.
George, you don't seem to be processing the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution - speciation and also the theoretical origins of life itself and all living "systems" through strictly Darwinian processes. Calling Berlinski "silently pro-creationism" is your unjustified assumption, and the same as calling him a liar, since he explicitly claims to be non-creationist.
We're not obligated to adopt a theory just because we don't have a better alternative. That Ptolemy's contemporaries and centuries worth of followers didn't have Copernicus around didn't make their depiction of the geocentric universe accurate.
@ George Jochnowitz:
I have zero interest in using or in suggesting anyone should or could use the Bible as an argument.
However, genetics - as in the inheritance of traits observable in animal breeding, which is what I believed you referred to - has nothing to do with Darwinian evolution other than to suggest a mechanism by which natural selection, one element of Darwinian evolution, might conceivably work. And Darwinian evolution is NOT the only kind of evolution there is. It's one theory of evolution. Others existed before Darwin got up on his hind legs. The IDers have their own theories, and there are other schools out there examining other means by which evolution might be guided - not by a supernatural being, but by as yet undiscovered processes and forces that allow for teleological or quasi-teleological development. Lysenko never makes an appearance in Berlinski's book, but some of the theories suggest he may be due for a revival of sorts...
George Jochnowitz wrote:
Genetics is not the same as evolution, GJ, and evolution is not the same as Darwinian Evolution, Darwinism, or Neo-Darwinism. I don't believe that even "Young Earth Creationists" all dispute the evidence of "micro-evolution," while other Creationists or quasi-Creationists - like Sarah Palin or William F Buckley - fully accept it and may additionally acknowledge the apparent age of the Earth, the fossil record of species development and extinction, and the evidence before our eyes of extinction and selection advantages. The problems start with the inability of Darwinists to explain how irreducibly complex forms of life, at the microscopic and organ system level, could arise by chance + selection as narrowly defined within evolutionary theory. There are severe logical, not to mention biochemical, mathematical, and other problems, with everything that has so far been proposed.
@ adam:
First, just want to say, apologies for posting the review before having proofread it sufficiently.
Second, to reply to your comment: Until recently, well, until this book, I was an evolutionist who suspected that as yet dimly understood or inadequatley explored "design-like" or what you could term "cybernetic" (in the broad sense) forces might be involved within the natural selection model. As for Darwin himself, I assumed that his theories had withstood the test of time rather better than most of the great 19th century systems. Berlinski is rather convincing on the argument that raw natural selection + randomness, as defined by the Darwinists, is inadequate. So I have to move over to the skeptic camp: I'm an agnostic on Darwinian evolution, and I guess I believe that there's something natural selection-like and intelligent design-like going on that, when better understood, may transform our understandings of all of the relevant terms of the discussion.