From: Donald Nield (d.nield@auckland.ac.nz)
Date: Tue Nov 18 2003 - 17:30:57 EST
Denyse O'Leary wrote:
>
>
> Also, it seems to me that most Darwinists have
> never entirely repudiated Social Darwinism
> (rebranded as sociobiology or evolutionary
> psychology). They cannot in fact do so, because
> they need Darwinism to be a biological Theory of
> Everything.
>
> That puts them in a worse position than the
> creationists are.
>
> The creationists lose nothing by repudiating
> Henry Morris's views on race.
>
> By contrast, to repudiate sociobiology requires
> the Darwinist to set objective limits on what
> Darwinism can explain.
>
> In my view, Social Darwinism is the hidden
> factor explaining widespread rejection of
> Darwinism.
>
> Most people do not care whether Feathers for T.
> Rex is Jurassic Park: The Prequel! or just
> another load of horsefeathers. But they do care
> about things that concern themselves.
>
I agree with a lot of what Denyse has said, but I think that she should be more
careful in the way that she says it. I would want to repudiate Social Darwinism as
presented by social philosophers like Herbert Spencer, but I would also want to
take seriously the work of the scientists who work in the fields of sociobiology
and evolutionary psychology. People like Ham fail to make the distinction between
evolution and Social Darwinism.
Don
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