From this morning's Inside Higher Ed:A tightly managed conference call with Ben Stein and producers of the upcoming documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” became the scene of yet another clash between proponents of intelligent design and defenders of evolutionary theory. Fresh from a botched attempt to crash a screening of the movie at the Mall of America last week, PZ Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota at Morris, had more success on Friday when he interrupted the call midway through a discussion of whether Darwinism inspired the Holocaust. Soon after one of the producers described ignoring Darwin’s influence on Hitler a “special form of Holocaust denial,” Myers offered some thoughts of his own (one participant in the call muttered, “You are a very persistent"). “The idea that Nazism is derived from evolutionary theory is pretty bogus,” he said. “Have you heard of a pogrom? Those have been going on for centuries.... You’re trivializing the whole thing to blame Darwin.” After one of the call’s organizers politely asked Myers to “do the honorable thing” and stay silent, the professor invited media to contact him for any clarifications about the producers’ “policy of lies.” (His latest blog post mocks Stein’s views by explaining why Newton’s theory of gravity is to blame for all force- and mass-related deaths.) Given that Stein’s new movie and campaign have him attacking higher education and pushing views that are widely seen as absurd by scientists and historians alike, he might not seem an obvious choice to speak at a major gathering of university leaders. But he is one of the featured speakers on the program of this summer’s annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. A spokeswoman for the group said officials there were unaware of his latest campaign and movie when they invited him to appear.
12 comments:
Well, yes, and while we're at it, let's blame Einstein for black holes and Hubble for the Big Bang.
Especially after World War II we not only abandoned but also forgot our own enthusiasm for and experiences with eugenics.
For most of the first half of the 1900s eugenics was mainstream science in the United States and western Europe. It led to a range of oddities and outrages, from "fitter family" contests at state and county fairs to forced sterilization approved by the U.S. Supreme Court (1927, Oliver Wendell Holmes in Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200: "three generations of imbeciles are enough").
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, once a major eugenics research center, now maintains an invaluable set of resources on the eugenics movement: http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/.
I did not know that. Interesting.
On the other hand, it does not require special knowledge to perceive that the attitudes that produced the Holocaust predate Darwin.
Duh.
Stein is a Republican, so you can be sure he's out to make money off of this absurdist crap.
So it appears, from 12:24, that it is not just "right wingers" that employ name-calling (or ad hominem, or weak generalizations, or even a combination of those, even somtimes in one short post).
Well, name-calling is calling someone a "name," i.e., applying a derogatory category or adjective to him/her in the absence of grounds for doing so.
Thus, for instance, calling Hillary Clinton a "liar" might be name-calling, but calling George W a "liar" surely wouldn't be, since the pattern of Pinocchioidal facts is manifest by now. No doubt George would take offense to the label, as would Pinocchio. Nevertheless, George is a liar, and I think and behave rightly in saying so.
One wonders about the moral and intellectual seriousness of those who are offended by the charge.
Relative to the standards of evidence understood throughout academia (this is an academic blog), the notion that Darwinian biology is in part responsible for the Holocaust is absurd. When things go badly for theories, they are called "falsified" or "insufficiently supported" or "inferior to alternatives." Disregarding the question of support/truth to make a grossly inept claim about influence is just stupid. Manifestly so. I.e., Stein's thinking on this score is "crap."
This might not be clear to a scientific and historical illiterate. --CW
Well, 2:05, sorry about your umbrage. But, like O'Reilly's fake "war on Christmas," here's Stein's fake "war on Darwin," all of which will assure him of some publicity and speaking fees.
So, yes, he's another greedy, lying Republican, and that's the fact, Jack.
Chunk, I have to disagree. There is a connection to Darwin"ian" thought - with emphasis on the "ian." It was just as scientifically invalid as social Darwinism, but nevertheless I believe the link is there. Sir Francis Galton, who founded and named this "science," honestly believed he was following in his cousin Darwin's footsteps.
Of course there's no connection now between evolutionary mechanisms and the horror that was eugenics, and no correct understanding of evolutionary theory could possibly support it. But at the time nobody had any clue of DNA, nobody had any clue that what we now call genomes and phenomes were different, and nobody had any clue of how specific characteristics (phenomes) were inherited. Some even believed acquired characteristics could be. It was horrible science, but it was science whose practitioners claimed Darwin as part of their legitimacy.
Cultural memory seems sometimes to be just up for grabs. Galton was a phenomenally brilliant man who gave us much of the statistical science we have available to us now. But he is remembered for his huge blunder of eugenics. Newton, on the other hand, gets remembered for calculus and laws of motion, and we all forget about the alchemy.
What Stein is up to I have no idea. All I know is his father was an eminent and influential Keynesian economist, and what you can make of that genetic link I don't know.
Let's not forget to blame Bush for something while we're playing the blame game.
It's the Goo's fault, the rat bastard!
OK I'll start by blaming Bush for a 3 trillion dollar war.
Next?
To 3/31 @11:24:
If the "attitudes that produced the Holocaust predate Darwin," why didn't the Holocaust happen then?
(I'm too friendly and polite to add: "Duh.")
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