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Feb. 8th, 2005 @ 10:55 pm Volume 1, Number 3
LYING TO CHILDREN

One of my favorite books on evolutionary theory is Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by the philosopher Daniel Dennett. I would rank Dennett’s achievement with Richard Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker and the various Stephen Jay Gould collections — though Dennett has problems with Gould, and I imagine the sentiment was reciprocated while Professor Gould was alive. Tufts versus Harvard.

Near the end of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Dennett gives us a startling paragraph (page 515): “Save the Baptists? Yes, of course, but not by all means. Not if it means tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world ... Some recent writers recommend a policy in which parents would be able to ‘opt out’ of materials they didn’t want their children taught. Should evolution be taught in the schools? Should arithmetic be taught? Should history? Misinforming a child is a terrible offense.”

Dennett’s words came to mind recently when a vote by the School Board of Dover — a small Pennsylvania town about a two-hour drive from my house — made national headlines. The Board in its wisdom decided that science teachers must hereafter present “intelligent design theory” as a valid and vigorous alternative to Darwin’s account of life on earth. On January 16, 2005, Dover High School administrators read a four paragraph mandated statement to students at the start of their biology classes. The second paragraph comprises the following ill-ordered sentences:

“Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.”

I find this paragraph incoherent at best. “Gaps ... exist for which there is no evidence” is simply bad writing. A gap is ipso facto something for which evidence exists (namely, human observation of the void in question). Would the Board tell Dover’s high school students, “Alligators exist for which there is no evidence”? Perhaps they would. I assume the Board meant to say, “Gaps exist that the theory cannot explain.”

The first three sentences were evidently composed in the hopes that from now on, whenever the term “scientific theory” reaches a student’s ear, he or she will hear “mere theory” — that is, a simple and perhaps even hazy conjecture (which is not how scientists employ the term “theory”). But then, bang, along comes a walloping non sequitur, sentence number four, in which “a theory” suddenly becomes a robust, satisfying, and noble thing indeed.

What is the poor student to make of this self-contradictory paragraph? Is this what passes for public education in Dover, Pennsylvania? Deliberately misinforming a child is a terrible offense, and willfully confusing him or her isn’t much better.

The Dover School Board’s third paragraph is equally unenlightening:

“Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.”

So what exactly is “intelligent design” (or, to give the argument its full name, Intelligent Design Implicit Onto-Theology)? I would argue that intelligent design is “an explanation of the origin of life” the way that Poseidon is an explanation of the origin of tsunamis. Like the Poseidon hypothesis, IDIOT cannot be falsified, cannot be tested, makes no predictions, and begs every single scientific question it raises. If our planet’s biosphere was designed by the Martians, or Jesus Christ, or Cronus on his throne, or a mediocre graduate student doing a Ph.D. experiment on Altair-4, then who the hell designed them? There is no way to ponder such mysteries without leaving the realm of science entirely — a perfectly reasonable thing to do, except in certain contexts, such as a high school biology classroom.


BEHE'S DISINGENUOUS IDEOLOGY

Monday’s New York Times included a piece by Lehigh University biologist Michael J. Behe, our culture’s most conspicuous exponent of intelligent design theory. Behe’s article is a masterpiece of obfuscation, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who wishes to understand the depths of disingenuousness to which an otherwise honorable man will descend in the name of defeating Darwinism. (Check out the op-ed page for February 7, 2005.)

Behe's religious views are hardly a secret, and the God hypothesis is implicit in every page of his monumentally unimpressive book, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. But, of course, Behe knows better than to announce his theism up front, hence his opening gambit in the Times: “The theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea, even though devout people opposed to the teaching of evolution cite it in their arguments.”

The theory of intelligent design is manifestly a “religiously based idea.” What it is not is a theory.

When it comes to argument by false analogy, Behe has few equals. “Unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains. Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore.” Note the rhetorical sleight-of-hand by which Behe moves from the uncontroversial idea that Mount Rushmore was carved by human beings to an ostensibly iron-clad conclusion that the biosphere was consciously contrived by a higher power.

But of course living creatures are not remotely like Mount Rushmore, a work of art that, with all due respect to Gutzon Borglum, I can take or leave. Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, and other biologists have exhaustively documented the ways in which hundreds of species, our own included, are actually pretty miserably designed, bursting with appalling inefficiencies, functionless redundancies, weird improvisations, and endlessly fascinating instances of evolutionary opportunism.

To give Behe his due, he is apparently willing to allow that something like natural selection may have occurred after the Christian God — whoops — after the Intelligent Designer assembled those organic molecules, programmed them to bring forth complex forms, and plopped them down on our planet. But the fact remains that Behe is essentially in the same position as those 19th-century physicists who realized that Newtonian mechanics could not fully account for the perihelion shift of the planet Mercury. To their everlasting credit, neither the physics community nor the clerics of the day appealed to an Intelligent Clockwinder as the only plausible way out of the difficulty. Instead they remained true to their respective callings, and eventually one of best and brightest of our species, Albert Einstein, devised a paradigm — the general theory of relativity — that seems to have resolved the discrepancy.

With its overwhelming scope and exquisite subtlety, the theory of natural selection is, to say the least, difficult to grasp. I’m not really sure I can do it. Evidently the human mind is poorly equipped for simultaneously holding all the various material and nonmaterial forces in its grasp: the scale of geological time, the algorithms of biological reproduction, the myriad selective pressures, the often complex logic of the fit between an organism and its ecological niche — not to mention the unimaginable quantities of death and copulation that lie at the heart of the theory. (Could it be that Americans’ traditional discomfort with oblivion and orgasms partially explains our native detestation of Darwin?) But just because you and I and Michael J. Behe have difficulty wrapping our intellects around Darwin’s dangerous idea, that does not, in my view, give us the right to lie to our children.


THE LATEST NEWS

I recently had the pleasure of chatting in cyberspace with Frank Herbert’s grandson, Byron Merritt. You can check out the interview at these coordinates:

http://www.fwomp.com/int-jamesmorrow.htm

The J.R.R. Tolkien online secondary school curriculum I wrote with my wife Kathy still appears on the Houghton Mifflin website:

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/lordoftheringstrilogy/lessons/

The conversation between James Morrow and Brett Alexander Savory still resides in this sector of the digital galaxy:

http://www.chizine.com/james_morrow_interview.htm
About this Entry
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From:[info]iambeatnikpoe
Date: February 8th, 2005 09:16 pm (UTC)
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If these are Jim's source materials for Prometheus... I'm damned excited to see what he's whipping up for the novel as he recites chapters to himself outloud in his bedroom!
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: February 9th, 2005 02:15 am (UTC)
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I like to characterize the difference between scientific and creationist reasoning with this analogy...

I don't know if you ever do crossword puzzles, but when you're looking at that empty grid, there's a lot of uncertainty as you start filling in the first few clues. But as you go along, you become more confident that you're on the right track, because assuming that you're getting the right answers, the more clues you fill in, the more they confirm each other. To put it in language a scientist might use, consilience of clues grants confidence in your answers.

But creationist argument is a lot like someone pointing to each clue separately, and saying "Well, this COULD be another word, and so could that, and so could the other..." Perhaps, but the question is: do these alternate answers fit together as well?

If they don't, then the criticisms are pointless, aren't they?
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From:[info]jack_yoniga
Date: February 9th, 2005 06:36 am (UTC)
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Good analogy.
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From:[info]jack_yoniga
Date: February 9th, 2005 06:36 am (UTC)
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Great stuff here, Jim. Lovely to read over and get the ol' brain working on a Wednesday morning.

I'm gonna link to it from my own LJ.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: February 9th, 2005 02:21 pm (UTC)
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I am always surprised when the subject of Evolution is presented as if the theory is mutually exclusive with Creation. Presumably, this dichotomy arises when we get dogmatic and insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible.

From:[info]creed_of_hubris
Date: February 9th, 2005 05:43 pm (UTC)
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I should point out that the theory of Intelligent Design is falsifiable.

God could always show up and tell us that he had nothing to do with creating life on earth, that it was the fault of that drooling idiot Yaldabaoth and therefore not at all "intelligent".
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From:[info]sammka
Date: February 14th, 2005 07:49 pm (UTC)
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WELL THEN HE'S OBVIOUSLY NOT GOD. ;p
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From:[info]senornacho
Date: March 4th, 2005 07:19 pm (UTC)
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Typical of fundamentalists, the best way to combat something they don't like is to obfuscate the issue.

I wonder how many of these people pushing "Intelligent Design" have actually read The Origin of Species? I can't figure out what the hub-bub is over, frankly. Charles Darwin wrote about how many species can evolve from few, NOT how life was created in the first place. The IDIOT's are using a strawman argument for no apparent reason.

Secondly, evolution is a provable theory. Look at man today as opposed to a hundred years ago. We are taller, healthier, and live longer due to various technological achievements. Evolution is an end result of your environment, good or bad. If we suddenly found ourselves under water (think of the movie Waterworld for example) and were able to survive, our progeny would eventually mutate in some way to accommodate the survival of our species. Hell, if bacteria and the like can survive in hostile environments why is it so hard to believe that life didn't start that way? Maybe God is just trying to trick us by creating closed-circuit lifeforms like the ones linked above? They seem to have no inherent purpose, after all. They just live.

"Intelligent Design" on the other hand, is nothing more than a fanciful fairy tale. "What if???" they cry, with nothing but the Bible as their proof. I think I'll take scientific tests and data over the Brothers Grimm any day.

They're right about one thing though, the Theory of Evolution is exactly that, a theory. But the thing about theories is that after they've been discussed and argued over and over, the body of involved scientists decide if it's a working theory or not. If it is, it's taught and explored until it's either completely destroyed or completely proved. Or until something better comes along. "Intelligent Design" doesn't even measure up to a scientific theory! Maybe if I submitted a theory detailing a guy named Marvin actually molds human beings out of model clay and airplane glue, we could finally have a serious scientific contender.

Actually, I'd buy "Intelligent Design" if it's proponents conceded that aliens could have created us instead of Santa Claus. It would definitely be a more interesting read!
From:[info]cloud9punk
Date: May 4th, 2005 12:59 pm (UTC)
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I am doing a research project on disproving evolution and proving creation. I happened to see this at a google search, and I just wanted to say that i agree with you and appreciate what you're doing, putting the truth out there like that. And is there a certain place you got all of this from, in case i decide to use some of this info for my paper? thanks.
From:[info]james_morrow
Date: May 6th, 2005 07:15 am (UTC)
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My essay called "Lying to Children" is a distillation of my thoughts on the evolution controversy. There was no single source. Look especially into Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Jay Gould, and Robert T. Pennock. Clink on this link for a crucial Dawkins interview:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/30/dawkins/index.html
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: May 15th, 2005 05:03 am (UTC)
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I was re-reading Only Begotten Daughter last night, and it occurred to me that I didn't really buy the scene where Jesus claims ignorance of Paul's church. He had a Bible to read; I just don't think it's possible that he could have a Bible and not know about the gentile churches, or for that matter, the other tenets of Christianity that surprised him. Hell, even the Gospels spelt out pretty clearly what the Eucharist was.

Funny scene though. :)

From:[info]james_morrow
Date: September 19th, 2005 04:33 pm (UTC)
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I understand your objection -- there's a potential logical error in my novel. It's true that the Jesus of my Hell scene owns a Bible, but the joke is that he has only recently reacquainted himself with the Gospels. And by the evidence of the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it's impossible to make a case that Jesus intended to found a religion: one elliptical remark to Peter about building a church -- and God knows if that's a good English translation of the Greek reworking of a hypothetical source document recording what Jesus may or may not have originally said in Aramaic -- as opposed to hundreds of verses on the cryptic non-church that Jesus called the Kingdom. The eucharist business is equally fuzzy. (There's certainly no directive to reenact the Last Supper on a daily or weekly basis.) A splendid book on this subject is "The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity" by a Loyola philosophy professor named Thomas Sheehan.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 1st, 2005 11:42 pm (UTC)

What I don't understand

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I guess what I don't understand is, why not just allow children to learn all of the major theories about the origin of the universe? Creation, evolution, AND intelligent design are all worthy ideas for kids to learn about. I'm not going to even bother defending creation and/or intelligent design here, although, like I've stated before on this blog, I am a religious believer. I just wish that BOTH ardent secular humanists AND religious people would simply relax and allow it all in mainstream education. Let the flowers bloom. It seems like this whole debate is much ado about nothing.
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: June 17th, 2005 05:41 am (UTC)

Re: What I don't understand

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Because not all 'theories' have equal dignity, and it is an insult to the science classroom to pretend that they do. Someone has to draw a line in the sand in defense of plain-old-truth. How ironic that it's the 'relativistic' secular humanists, eh?

From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 18th, 2005 10:20 am (UTC)

Re: What I don't understand

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Sounds like YOU'RE the one who hates being questioned.
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: June 19th, 2005 05:16 am (UTC)

Re: What I don't understand

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Jeez, don't start crying on me!
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 18th, 2005 10:17 pm (UTC)

Re: What I don't understand

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Mr. Morrow, do you really want kids to grow up without learning what creationism and intelligent design are all about? Why keep them ignorant of largely accepted ideas? Liberal education can't have lines drawn in the sand. If for no other reason, kids should learn these things so they can relate to those who do believe in them. I'm a believer in creationism, but I fully intend to make sure my future kids know what evolution is all about, just so they don't grow up to become ignorant people.

I don't understand why everyone who posts on this blog are so afraid of religion. OK, maybe some of you have had bad experiences growing up with it, so you don't like it. Fine. But don't let that cloud your judgment and make you miss the tremendous beauty of religion -- bringing people together, helping the poor (almost half of the hospital beds in America are run by the Catholic Church), keeping teen pregnancy down in religious families, helping people with sordid pasts change their lives for the better. Secular humanism has no conduit for such things, in and of itself, like religion does.

OK, so you know a few religious people who are hypocrites. Yes, there have been evil people who claim to be religious. Fine. Well, last week two PETA employees in North Carolina were charged with animal abuse. Does that make the entire animal rights movement hypocritical? I don't think so. The problem with modern science is that it only accepts what has no exceptions -- what functions in all cases under the same conditions. As a "social scientist" myself, I can tell you that NOTHING in human life functions the same under the same conditions. Raise ten children the same way, teach them the same values, and I can guarantee you that one of them will stray from those values. That doesn't mean we should ignore the tremendous good those values do for the other nine.
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: June 19th, 2005 05:16 am (UTC)

Re: What I don't understand

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Religion is inherently divisive. Just look at history. This is not an abberation of a few fanatics, it's built into the system and is a necessary part of it.

It is also inherently repressive. There is a reason why the church so often locks horns with science. It does not like new ideas, especially when those ideas contradict faith.

You should thank secular humanism for keeping religion in line. You think they stopped witchhunts and inquisitions because they saw the error of their ways?
From:[info]james_morrow
Date: September 19th, 2005 11:49 pm (UTC)

Re: What I don't understand

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Dear Anonymous: You ask me, "Mr. Morrow, do you really want kids to grow up without learning what creationism and intelligent design are all about? Why keep them ignorant of largely accepted ideas?" Those are two ostensibly fair questions. However, I can't accept the premises on which they are apparently predicated.

First of all, it seems to me that what creationism and intelligent design are "all about" is a peculiar assumption by the religious right that God is such a feeble and ephemeral entity that he cannot prosper apart from the disingenuous initiatives of the faithful. But I don't think that's what you want teachers telling kids about creationism and IDIOT.

The fact is that, as a scientific construct, IDIOT is in no way commensurate with the Theory of Descent with Modification. The move from Darwinism to creationism is a monumental non sequitur. It's like saying, "We should teach our students about the Russian Revolution only after informing them that the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series."

Do I want my children to learn about the weird and unsupportable things that people have believed over the years -- astrology, phlogiston, the hollow earth theory? Yes, I suppose so, but only up to a point. Perhaps as a sidebar in an anthropology course. I would not want astrology, phlogiston, and the hollow earth theory taught as viable alternatives to astronomy, chemistry, and geology. That way lies madness and, worse, ignorance.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 2nd, 2005 02:42 pm (UTC)

Richard Dawkins

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Mr. Morrow, Richard Dawkins is an outrageously bigoted individual. In Free Inquiry Magazine, he wrote, "As a Darwinian, the aspect of religion that catches my attention is its profligate wastefulness, its extravagant display of baroque uselessness…Nature cannot afford frivolous jeux desprits.” (2004)

This is absolutely vile. It's ironic that the magazine is called, "Free Inquiry"? Freedom for everyone but the rejecters of evolution.

90% of the world believes in some form of a deity. Does this man have such little respect for humanity that he can't even respect the most fundamental characteristic of human nature, which is faith? As an evolutionist, how would Dawkins explain the fact that humans have not "progressed" out of faith, which according to him is "wastefulness"? It's so inconsistent.

Adam
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: June 17th, 2005 05:39 am (UTC)

Re: Richard Dawkins

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The fact that you consider that vile speaks volumes. See, it's not vile. It's one side expressing its position, just like Christians do. Because that's what happens in a free society; people get to speak their minds, their ideas are put out there in the marketplace, where they compete for acceptance.

I've noticed that Christians tend to interpret the mere existance of differing viewpoints as an attack and a threat. Consider four groups often described as being 'anti-Christian': Hollywood, the media, the courts, and science.

If these four groups were actually anti-Christian, christianity would simply vanish in a generation. But they're not anti-Christian. Each is simply doing exactly what Christianity does; pursuing its goals in its own way. Yet Christianity interprets this as an attack. Why?

Fear. Christianity hates open debate. It hates being questioned, it hates being challenged, it hates anyone who doesn't look at things the way they do. Mere existance is a threat. Hence the constant whining about how persecuted they are. Suck it up, loser. Play the game with the rest of us, and stop sounding like a four-year old who didn't get a cookie.

From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 18th, 2005 10:19 am (UTC)

Re: Richard Dawkins

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Suppose I were to say that the way YOU live your life is wasteful and useless? Free debate is one thing, but a rant is another.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 18th, 2005 10:29 am (UTC)

Re: Richard Dawkins

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And yet, you completely ignored my question. If nature cannot afford the wastefulness of religion, then shouldn't nature be eradicating it, if evolution were to be true? Shouldn't we be seeing a steady decrease in religiosity in mankind?

I see three propositions held by Richard Dawkins:

A. Religion is wasteful, and nature cannot "afford" it.
B. The worthy and useful things in nature survive and improve.
C. The unworthy and useless things in nature disappear over time, gradually.

If A, B, and C are to true, then it would stand to reason that religion would be dwindling as a major force in human life. But it's not dwindling. How could a theory such as evolution, which is predicated on progress, see no progress?
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: June 19th, 2005 05:12 am (UTC)

Re: Richard Dawkins

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Richard Dawkins has written about a dozen books on evolution; why not consult one of them?

Stupid question...I know perfectly well why.

So, I'll just quickly make two points. First, nature and human culture aren't the same thing; second, evolution is not predicated on progress.

You don't know what you're talking about, and you don't want to know what you are talking about. Get back to me when you've actually read a book with an open mind.

Bigotry is also a fundamental quality of human nature. If faith deserves respect, I guess bigotry does too.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 19th, 2005 12:37 pm (UTC)

Re: Richard Dawkins

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These are the fundamental assumptions made by Darwinism. I have read a lot of Darwinianian literature. I admit that I am not as familiar with the nuances of the theory as you are, as you have far less knowledge of religion as I do. And I can tell you that you know absolutely nothing about religion.

You think I'm a close-minded person, do you? Why then do I read James Morrow? Why then do I enter into dialogues with Darwinians. You know nothing about me. If you're as committed to science as you say, you are committing the cardinal sin of the scientific method, which is assumption-making, not even willing to prove your hypotheses.

The one thing that I will grant you is that you are right that secular humanism is indeed responsible for taming the dark side of religion. I have no problem admitting that.

Bigotry is not a fundamental quality of human nature. Humanity can eradicate bigotry, but it will never eradicate faith. Everyone in the world takes things on faith every single day.
From:[info]james_morrow
Date: September 19th, 2005 05:32 pm (UTC)

Re: Richard Dawkins

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Dear Adam: I don't think Richard Dawkins is being bigoted here at all. Disarmingly harsh, maybe. Disorientingly candid. But not bigoted. To my ear, Dawkins is criticizing a characteristic human activity that he finds wasteful, the way a pacifist might critique war or an an environmentalist might bemoan development or a feminist might assail institutionalized patriarchy.

I appreciate your frustration with Dawkins's stridency. But if we promiscuously paste the term "bigot" on anyone who presumes to critique a hallowed institution, then Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama are bigots too. Are environmentalists bigoted against loggers? Maybe. Are feminists bigoted against good old boys? Could be. But that's hardly the place to start appreciating environmentalism, feminism, or any other admirable initiative.

It's true that ninety percent of the world believes in a deity. But that doesn't give their faith a privileged status. There was a time when ninety percent of the world believed you could rank order the various human groups -- nations, races, ethnic clusters -- according to their inherent intellectual and moral worth. (For all I know, ninety percent of the world still believes that.) It does not follow, however, that rank ordering humankind is an activity we should celebrate.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 2nd, 2005 02:47 pm (UTC)

There is a story...

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There is a story about a famous rabbi who was seated on an airplane, flying first class, from Israel to New York. Seated next to him was the leader of the Israeli socialist-labor movement. After take-off, one of the rabbi’s students came forward from the back of the plane to replace his shoes with a pair of slippers. Ten minutes later, another of his students came forward to bring him some sandwiches and drinks. The labor leader, most impressed, said, “Wow, Rabbi. You sure have devoted sons. All my sons do is ask me for money.” The rabbi corrected him, “Those are my students, not my sons. Were they my sons, you would have seen real service!” Then he went on to explain, “But your sons are only adhering to your teachings, as my sons do to mine. I teach them about creation and God revealing Himself to us at Sinai, and since I am older than they, closer to those grand moments, I am closer to God and thus holier, so their duty is to serve me. You, on the other hand, teach your children that they are descended from the ape, and because you are older than they, you are more ape than they, so it is your duty to serve them.”
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: June 17th, 2005 05:31 am (UTC)

Re: There is a story...

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Doesn't sound like any rabbi I've ever spoken to. But it does sound a lot like the sort of apocryphal story fundamentalists tell, which turn out to not even be true, to make some sort of point that they can't make with facts.

Do you ever think that it undermines faith in the older stories, to see how easily Christians make up new ones?
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 18th, 2005 10:34 am (UTC)

Re: There is a story...

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This story is not made up, and even if it were, it doesn't negate the wisdom of it. The point is that religion is not wasteful and useless. It DOES have value. Furthermore, I'm a Jew, not a Christian. It really is insulting that you jump to conclusions about my religion, as if Christianity is the only religion out there.
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From:[info]j_brisby
Date: June 19th, 2005 05:18 am (UTC)

Re: There is a story...

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You're Jewish? You have no idea how much my respect for you just dropped. Jews should know better than to throw accusations of bigotry around. Jews of all people should know what is bigotry and what isn't. You should be ashamed. I'll bet you have (or had) family members who could teach you what bigotry really means. You don't have a clue.

From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 19th, 2005 09:01 am (UTC)

Re: There is a story...

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OK, I see absolutely no reason to continue. I have been the one trying to be open-minded to both sides. You, on the other hand, just want to be nasty.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: June 19th, 2005 11:05 am (UTC)

Re: There is a story...

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Had Dawkins said, "As a Darwinian, the aspect of JUDAISM that catches my attention is its profligate wastefulness, its extravagant display of baroque uselessness…Nature cannot afford frivolous jeux desprits,” the Anti-Defamation League would be all over him, demanding an apology. And I guarantee you, he'd lose a lot of opportunities for research grants.

Richard Dawkins is the Darwinian version of Archie Bunker.

OK, I'm officially done.
From:(Anonymous)
Date: August 24th, 2005 06:25 pm (UTC)

TELLING TOLKIEN TO CHILDREN

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JIM MORROW CO-WRITES A CURRICULUM FOR KIDS ABOUT FRODO?

CAN THIS BE THE SAME JIM MORROW WHO SWORE TO ME HE COULDN'T FINISH
THE LORD OF THE RINGS AT THE 1995 WORLD FANTASY CON IN BALTIMORE?

WHO SNIDELY DISMISSED MY THEN FANTASY-IN-PROGRESS "THE GIFT" BY SAYING
"DOES IT HAVE DRAGONS AND WIZARDS AND CASTLES?" IT DID.

WHO COINED THE PHRASE "OH NO, NOT ANOTHER F-ING ELF!"

MY GOD THERE'S HOPE FOR US ALL:)

LOVE

PATRICK O'LEARY
From:[info]james_morrow
Date: September 19th, 2005 06:26 pm (UTC)

Re: TELLING TOLKIEN TO CHILDREN

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Hi Patrick: Yep, friend, you got me. Nolo contendere. I was indeed bewildered by my first encounter with "The Lord of the Rings," and after that, I found it convenient to dismiss Tolkien's achievement without really coming to terms with it.

As I've said on several occasions in the past, I think that public education is the best idea human beings every came up with -- and that Manicheism is the worst. So when my wife Kathy and I noticed that Houghton Mifflin was looking for a Tolkien curriculum developer, I decided it would be fun to combine two of my passions, education and anti-Manicheism, in one project. I knew that, as one of the world's greatest armchair Tolkien scholar-enthusiasts, Kathy would not allow me to address the Manicheism of Middle Earth in smug or spurious terms.

Some of the discourse on this blog concerns the issue of bigotry. In wrestling with Tolkien's great themes -- the nature of evil, the varieties of heroism, the problem of power, the imperative of loving the Earth -- I like to believe I overcame a less-than-defensible prejudice against this fascinating, frustrating, brilliant, limited, amazing author.

But I didn't coin the phrase, "Oh, no, not another f---ing elf." That was said by one of the Inkings while Tolkien was reading them the manuscript-in-progress.
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From:[info]acertaindoebear
Date: August 26th, 2005 05:47 am (UTC)

Some musings for you

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Hello m'dear,

I found out this LJ from a friend of mine. If you don't take unsolicited comments or if this is inappropriate, do feel free to delete.

Anyway, what is going on in the USA is very strange to this Canuck. And I think to the rest of the world. It seems that the USA is home to a 'brand' of Christianity that is unlike anything else in the world. But I do think that the Creationism/ID issue isn't about religion; it's political. Biblical literalism I think is a creature of the USA; perhaps an influence of the Puritan sect who I read were too conservative for Europe (I did a double take at that when I first read about that) and so, they fled to the USA. I think those Puritans informs a lot of the USA culture: it's conservativism (where even liberals are conservative), it's reliance upon overwork , a viewpoint where something has to have a use to be considered 'good', and a tendency to polarize issues.

Have you checked out the August 2005 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer? There is a great transcript of a talk given by Carl Sagan. That guy is amazing. Two of the things that rang for me was the problems with Science Education in the USA and on skeptics and Religion.

I heard that at one time Latin used to be taught in USA High Schools and that General Semantics was taught in colleges. That is another loss to be sad about.

Take care and I wish you good luck with this blog, m'dear, and to not take these angsty youngsters too literally -:)
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From:[info]dan_cosman
Date: September 15th, 2005 05:47 am (UTC)

First a Story

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The Christianity of today, or at least the Christianity of my childhood, was one of love, empathy, benevolence and, of course, a special and irrevocable relationship with Christ. It was wonderfully pacifying. Ah, the memories.

The following is a true story:
One day I picked up the bible and decided to read the old testament. Flipping to a random page (some will say the devil guided my impressionable hand), I began to read about a G(g)od who was so EVIL that my breath was literally sucked from my lungs. This god was horrible! He was vengeful, hateful and DEMANDED that all must love him with undying devotion. "If your wife or children speak against me, you must CERTAINLY (the diction floored me) be the first to cast the stone" Oh no! Religion's worst enemy had surfaced... doubt was taking a breath.

To my pastor I implored: "Tell me what this means!? This is not the God I know! This cannot be the father of Jesus, whose love doth guide and console! Tell me, please! Why is this in the Bible?" I remember his words with such clarity that he could be typing this in my stead. To me he said, "Try not to think about it too much. God had to work in different ways before Jesus came."

Needless to say, that was the beginning of the end.

Since then, I have made it a mission of mine to gather info from the various academic discourses that deal, in some way, with organized religion.

Anthropology; Sociology; Philosophy; Literature, and, of course, Theology.

I will not lay out the various arguments/explanations of these fields... if you're interested, take a survey course in each, followed by a more specific course which will deal more directly with the 'bigger' questions.

By taking a bit of info from Anth, and combining that with some Soci; adding a touch of literary theory, and then topping it off with a healthy dose of Phil and Theo, I have come to an easy-to-articulate conclusion.

Here it is: Organized Religion is bunk. I feel truly sad for those people who believe that there exists such an overtly illogical and silly thing as a supreme being.

End of Story - Onto Comment

(My post was too long, so I've done a double post... please read on, if you so desire)
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From:[info]dan_cosman
Date: September 15th, 2005 05:49 am (UTC)

Then a Comment

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If you deny the following, you haven't done your homework: The doctrines of the early Roman Catholic Church were ones which were predicated upon a simple, yet effective, principle. Fear. I don't need to substantiate this. Nor need I substantiate the following: There is no better tool for controlling the minds and bodies of the masses than a strong dose of daily fear.

Flash forward to the future!

As the human mind was constantly evolving and generating new ways of spreading information to lots of people in a quick and cheap fashion, so too did the Church find it necessary to alter its overt totalitarianism into something which would be more palatable to the expanding minds of the general population. The result? A personal relationship with Christ. People were starting to think in individualistic ways and so their religion morphed and changed in order to remain relevant. Yada yada - modern day: Technology - SCARY SCARY! CNN has been demonizing blogs since they started to surface. I'm not getting into Americanism now... maybe later...

BUT! You say, You have yet to give us an answer. You deny a creator, yet here we are! Explain that, hotshot!

Sure.

Do I believe in evolution? Evolution is real. Sorry, boys and girls, but it is. We can prove it. However, if we evolved from a puddle of slime or not... I can't really wrap my mind around the enormity of what that implies, so, no, I don't really buy that. I don't buy any of the theories, be they modern or Greek, which attempt to explain how the world came to be and how we came to be... I'm quite content to say, "At this point in human cognitive evolution, there is no theory which adequately convinces me." This is a VERY frightful place for most people. It is a place where YOU are in control of YOUR life. Most people don't want that kind of responsibility.

To conclude: When someone asks me what I believe concerning the origins of species, I am rather content to reply that I can happily live my life in an angst free fashion without an answer to that question. I just don't know. Maybe the answer is beyond human cognitive ability. Perhaps it has thus far evaded our perception.

I'll tell ya one thing, though: There ain't no bearded white dude sitting on a star way up in outer space watching over us... to think that that is possible is just plain silly.

The end.

(As this is James Morrow's Blog, and I have willing posted here, it is automatically conceded by all parties involved that I'm fair game. Enjoy!)
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From:[info]booksxyz
Date: September 15th, 2005 07:11 pm (UTC)

james

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We at the American Public School Endowments here in Lafayette, Louisiana are working on rebuilding schools damaged by Katrina. Children's authors R.L. Stine and Phillip Pullman have been generous enough to endorse our efforts, and Neil Gaiman gave us a quick link from his journal recently which helped us a great deal.We are seeking further author endorsements from the scifi/fantasy and speculative fiction community. Donations are greatly appreciated, but not required to get involved with the project We would be honored if you would give us a statement of support, to help us draw attention to this project. If you know anyone else in the writing community that would be interested in helping out, either with an endorsment, a gift, or both, please feel free to pass my information on.

We are listed on guidestar.org, www.networkforgood.com, and to help out, or get more information, go to www.apse.us

Thank you,

Jacob Rakovan
American Public School Endowments
www.apse.us
337 769 1466
jacob@booksxyz.com
From:[info]james_morrow
Date: September 19th, 2005 08:25 pm (UTC)

Re: james

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Dear Jacob Rakovan:

I am more than happy to support your efforts, and I encourage my readers to make whatever contributions they can to the cause of rebuilding schools damaged by Katrina.

Coincidentally, earlier today, in replying to Patrick O'Leary's comment about my involvement in a J.R.R. Tolkien curriculum, I remarked that I regard public education as the best idea human beings ever devised. In my particular case, the public schools almost certainly saved me from what would have otherwise been a hopelessly provincial perspective on the world. My tenth-grade English teacher, James Giordano, made me the contrarian novelist I am today.

What most troubles me about George Bush's immediate agenda is his apparent intention to use the Katrina reconstruction effort as a Trojan Horse -- a way for him to smuggle his dubious voucher scheme into the hearts and minds of parents seeking the best possible education for their children. I can't speak for others of my generation, but I thank God that I went to a well-funded, unequivocally public, and, perhaps most important of all, manifestly secular high school.

And now I'll go look for other venues in which to tell people about the American Public School Endowments. I wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

James Morrow
From:(Anonymous)
Date: January 12th, 2006 04:09 am (UTC)
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I agree wholehartedly
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From:[info]davidkeck
Date: August 2nd, 2006 10:15 pm (UTC)
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I am still at the stage where I feel like an oaf blundering into other people’s discussions, but here goes:

My most recent experience with old Mr. Darwin was attending the recent exhibit at the Museum of Natural History here in New York. It was a fascinating thing, showing a little of how reluctant the man was to introduce the idea of evolution through natural selection, among other things.

It seems to me that natural selection is frustratingly simple (once even a little light is shed on it). I remember sitting in the bathtub as a kid and suddenly piecing the thing together based on what little I’d heard or absorbed somehow. (I can’t have been very old, and I’m certainly not all that bright). Anyone who breeds animals must see the process in action, (though I know farmers who won’t entertain the idea for a moment).

Perhaps the best revelation of the big New York Darwin show, however, was that Darwin liked to eat the animals he discovered. I seem to recall some sort of club that he belonged to. In any case, there are stories about him finding a number of different exotic species -- and consuming them. In fact, he becomes something of a reviewer. There isn’t enough meat on an armadillo, for example. Or the sea iguana would be better for someone who was more concerned about his stomach than his pallet. One rare specimen, we are told, eluded Darwin for quite some time -- until he realized the cook had prepared it for his dinner.

Though it challenges some of the most deeply held beliefs of our (or any) day, Darwin’s theory survives. (He’d probably appreciate that).