November 18, 2009
ALL HUMOR IS CONSERVATIVE FILES:
So I'm driving to work today, which requires cutting through the Dartmouth campus and a bunch of students are on the corners with signs saying
"Charles Darwin 150th Anniversary
Free copy of Origin of Species"
Got stuck at a light so I asked for one. And by the time the light turned green I knew it was a hoax. For one thing, this version lists the full subtitle of the original ""...or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." No one who believes in Darwinism advertises its racialist origins, especially not in a supposedly promotional copy of the book.
But then the Introduction, though not overtly anti-Darwin, starts pointing out weaknesses that the theory has never managed to overcome. ISo I googled it when I got home. Here's a bit of an explanation from the author of the Intro, Ray Comfort, about what's going on Why I Published a New Origin:
When I discovered that the famous On the Origin of Species was public domain, I decided to publish it myself and write an Introduction and give away copies of the book to university students, in honor of the book's 150th year of publication.But when Kirk Cameron (my TV cohost on The Way of the Master) and I produced a short video clip explaining what I wanted to do and posted it online, we kicked a hornet's nest. A big one.
Why are many atheists so angry? Why are they talking about book burnings, threatening to resist the giveaway and rip out the Introduction, etc.? Why was richarddawkins.net encouraging people to collect copies and rip out the Introduction? Professor Dawkins himself said that even though "a lot of people seem to be very worried about this," he wasn't at all worried. Why did he then tell Toronto university students to tear out the Introduction? There have been more than 140 different editions of On the Origin of Species, many with special Introductions, so what's the big deal with this one? If I am (as Professor Dawkins says) "an ignorant fool," why are so many feeling threatened by what I've written? Surely, the Introduction will be ignorance and foolishness, and simply confirm the students' presuppositions that intelligent design isn't worthy of even a first look.
There's a reason that they are deeply concerned.
The Introduction quotes Charles Darwin saying that blacks are closer to gorillas than whites and that natural selection has left men more intelligent than women. It also has quotes from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf showing Hitler's undeniable links to evolution. Of course, Hitler also used Christianity to further his political agenda, but my point is that Nazi Germany was the natural outcome of what Darwin called "one general law." Darwin said the law of natural selection is "Let the strongest live and the weakest die" (Chapter Seven, "Instinct"). Adolf Hitler put the theory of Darwinism into practice.
The Introduction also defines an atheist as someone who believes that nothing created everything—which is a scientific impossibility. Professor Dawkins believes that nothing created everything, and his belief is a big intellectual embarrassment to his followers. Now, anyone can get their own copy of the book on Amazon.com and read the Introduction, but don't be fooled by the comments. No doubt they will be hijacked by atheists. When my book You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence But You Can't Make Him Think bumped Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion on Amazon.com in the atheist category, hundreds of angry atheists left scathing comments on Amazon.com and gave my book the lowest rating.
So, is this book going to be a backward step for science, as some have maintained? Of course not. Science is a wonderful discipline, to which we are deeply indebted. It will, however, be a backward step for the pseudo science of Darwinian evolution, of which there is no empirical proof.
As campus stunts go, this one's priceless.
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