Darwinism and intimidation

Is it possible that the only thing that keeps Christianity going is the culture of intimidation that makes many afraid to question it? Has Christianity succeeded socially, not logically or morally?

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I have never felt a culture of intimidation from the evolutionary biology side, even when I was a YEC. Now as a Christian in a YEC church, I definitely feel a culture of intimidation. I read publications that say I’m “dangerous”, a “compromiser”, “following the crowd”. People tell me that “real science doesn’t conflict with the Bible”, and their definition of “real science” specifically excludes evolution and the age of the earth. People tell me that the Bible and evolution are mutually exclusive, basically putting pressure on me to choose between the two. How can you choose between two things you believe to be true? It’s a false dichotomy. Evolution is called “silly”, and evolutionary ideas are mocked in Bible classes.

These things are done prior to people realizing I accept the evidence for evolutionary biology. Once they realize that, they do treat me with love and understanding, and we have had good conversations. But the culture is very anti-evolution, and it can certainly be intimidating.

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Have you stopped beating your wife?

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I agree with @boscopup. The clearest impressions I had from true teachers in college who excelled at evolution and understanding were by far and away more Christlike, understanding, compassionate and tolerant than the fearful, judgmental and reactionary pronouncements of Christians who didn’t know what evolution was. I was actually rather a nincompoop, as I asked them silly questions (in retrospect) about the age of the earth–and received only gracious consideration in return. Greg Boyd in “Benefit of the Doubt” experienced the same thing from his science teacher, who insisted that he be given all the time he needed to ask questions and challenge in the name of creationism–against the impatience of the other students.

My own experience affirmed that we don’t need to be afraid to ask good questions and learn the truth; after all, God is on the side of the truth. He doesn’t fear questioning.

Biologos is a great place to ask questions carefully and get good answers, without judgmentalism.

Thanks.

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I cannot know what your familiarity with the scientific academic community is, but the consensus around evolution comes from the weight of evidence, so no intimidation is necessary or manifest. As far as questioning goes, debate is as typical as not, but concerning particulars and not the general outline.

The thinking behind such a question as posed generally goes like this. Evolution is such a fairy tale. If there is so much going against it, how can it be taught at universities? It cannot be the facts, so it must be something else. Something ulterior - brainwashing, intimidation, promotion, conformity, humanism, maybe something to do with worldview, anything but persuasion by an honest appraisal of evidence. Maybe the professors just pretend to believe, but secretly, in the dark recesses of their hearts, they harbor doubts they hide from others.

All of that is a fantasy. There is in no way shape or form some groundswell on campus broadly questioning Darwin or the established scientific model of the universe or any such thing. This is settled science for the vast majority, including fellow Christians in science research or resource geology. Further, the adoption of mainstream science is embraced freely, it is the weight of evidence, not coercion, which is at the base of the consensus. Science is derived from evidence and not from worldview.

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…supplanted by the neutral theory of evolution and population genetics. That is widely unknown among creationists of several varieties. Have the former made their way into current high school and undergraduate biology textbooks?

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In my 1995 evolutionary capstone course, it was not at all close to Darwinism simpliciter–that was the biggest thing that struck us at the beginning, with Gould providing the text and some of the most convincing evidence for evolution (in my mind at the time) being genetic–with typing of mitochondrial RNA that was similar to prokaryotes and, I recall, some discussions of pseudogenes. These were actually more exensively discussed in my cell and molecular and genetics courses in 1994. It’s also the time that I accepted evolution as a possibility (in a concordist sense, though that has changed for me as well).

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Exactly.

I suspect most ID/creationists know they can’t argue against the science, so they try to cast theories as -isms in order to fight them on ideological and philosophical grounds. This is why we see so many arguments against evolution talking about nihilism and/or eugenics. A quick glance over at Evolution News & Views bears this out in spades.

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There are creationists who openly admit that there is a lot of evidence supporting the theory of evolution. Todd Wood is a Young Earth Creationists that I have a lot of respect for because he honestly addresses the evidence and his own worldview.

Apologies for the long quote, but I couldn’t find a way to trim it down.

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No.


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Without the contrast with science this doesn’t work very well…

Logic and morality are not one-way streets. So Christianity succeeds logically and morally just as well as anything else has. But such are mixed bags to be sure. As some people have used Christianity or atheism it is not logical or moral at all. But others have used them both logically and morally just fine. So… if it is supposed to be some kind of final solution or panacea then neither Christianity nor atheism are it.

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The only purpose of that post was to provide the writer of the original post with a mirror to see how ugly his words actually were. Of course it “doesn’t work very well.” The OP was laughable.

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What do you mean by “Darwinism”? Seriously. That question needs to be asked. You might take a look at the Wikipedia article “Darwinism” to see just how ambiguous and vague that word is. Then could you re-cast your question using something more precise that the ambiguous, almost non-scientific word “Darwinism”, please?

That is, focus of the content of the concept you are addressing (survival of the fittest? something genetic? some sociological idea which borrows the label?) and avoid the slippery, almost meaningless label “Darwinism”.

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You are right, David. My impression is that Darwinism is used primarily to create a negative image by association. It really does not describe modern evolutionary thought, and adding the “ism” to a word tends to mean it is a belief system. I admit that both sides of the debate are guilty of casting aspersions as the use of creationism and fundamentalism can be used negatively as well.

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Indeed it does. It’s the language of evolution denial. Anytime you see “Darwinism” or “neo-Darwinism” as synonyms for evolution, you don’t even have to wonder where the author is going. The terms are so anachronistic that I would compare it to using the term “Negro” as a substitute for “black” or “African-American” in a 2019 essay about race. It’s offensive and 50 years behind the times.

Here’s a fun fact. The Discovery Institute promotes that high schools should “teach the controversy” about evolution. The organization’s science education policy would make @Paul_Allen1 happy. It says “evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can’t be questioned.”

“Discovery Institute believes that a curriculum that aims to provide students with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories …”

Notice the “neo-Darwinian” terminology. Now, here’s where the fun begins. In almost all states, the progression in high school science is biology-chemistry-physics, mainly because the sciences are limited by the math curriculum. (High school chemistry and physics require Algebra I as prerequisites.)

In middle school science, students have learned the basics of Mendelian inheritance, natural selection, environment and ecology. Are they ready to discuss the “strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory”? Obviously not. They are in 9th grade; they barely grasp the Darwinian component, let alone the “neo-” or neutral drift or anything beyond that point. Worse, is a student who hasn’t even taken high school chemistry ready to evaluate the finer points of “chemical evolutionary theory”? The answer should be obvious to everyone except the Discovery Institute.

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In keeping with some other responses, I point out that “Darwinism” has become an ideologically loaded term, well beyond even what the term “Mendelism” meant a century ago. Probably this has something to do with Charles Hodge’s very negative answer to his famous book, “What Is Darwinism?” from the 1870s.

The Dawkins crowd, the Discovery folks, and Ham’s people all have one thing in common: they fail to recognize that science doesn’t equate with metaphysics. It’s one thing to study evolution at the level of the observations, mathematical theory, and experiments (and yes, there are experiments bearing on it); it’s another thing to extrapolate that science into a worldview of nihilism and anti-religion, and then glibly to preach those views with claimed “scientific” support. The ID folks love the lablel, “Darwinism,” but they often mean larger worldview claims rather than Darwin’s theory itself, though sometimes they do mean aspects of the theory. This should be a big problem for them: they are collapsing Dawkins into Darwin, yet Darwin would have rejected that association. They should know better than to do this; thus, I sense political motivations rather than a wish to be more helpful to people who don’t have the same level of understanding as the experts.

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Yes, the Dawkins crowd

Paul, as you can see from the responses, you’ve ‘poked the bear’ as I have a number of times in this forum. Good for you!

The movie ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ documents in some detail the extreme culture of intimidation in the scientific academic community.

Personally, I’ve noticed it from my high school and college days in the 1980’s. I went to a large public high school and large state university in NJ, and it was clear to me in science classes that the last thing desired was to question majority theory, or frankly, to question anything. Seemed odd to me for educational institutions.

Early in my reading on the debates on origins, I was counseled that in virtually every Darwinist’s mind is the mindset from the movie ‘Inherit the Wind’, which is quite loosely based on the Scopes Trial of 1925. It is a classic piece of propaganda, and it has ingrained in the minds of many that to question Darwinism is to place you in the category of an ignorant hick.

I have found that spirit to be alive and well here among many professing Christians who are EC.

Keep questioning, and keep learning!

Mark

“Great are the works of the LORD; They are studied by all who delight in them.” (Psalms 111:2)

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I agree with you, Mark, that we should question things in general. I think our schools tend to repress open discussion of serious subjects. Secular schools tend to do in primarily in the area of politics, and some Christian schools are notorious for doing it in areas of dogma and evolution. Certainly good ideas should be able to withstand scrutiny, but that is not always afforded.
In the case of evolution, the bottom line is that there is healthy debate on the details, but the framework is well established. If good arguments existed with data to back them up, I bet they would be welcomed.

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Interesting take. I’ve never seen the movie. My mindset is based much more on dealing with critics of evolution for several decades. In that time I’ve seen a great many question evolution. At least 95% of those questioning it had virtually no understanding of the subject and a similar number had no interest in having their questions answered. There have certainly been exceptions, which is one reason I generally try to answer people as if they were sincerely wanted to learn about evolution rather than merely trying to poke holes in it.

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