Good Schools, Nathan, Richard Dawkins, Darwin and Evolution

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CONTENTS:

"...every group that wishes to see conflicting interests resolved reasonably, or is wise about the conditions under which it enjoys its own freedom, must be profoundly concerned with the state of freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of inquiry and teaching, freedom of press and other forms of communication, freedom of cultural opportunity and development. For in large measure intelligent moral choice depends upon them."
--Sidney Hook (1902-1988), disciple of John Dewey, and champion of pragmatism and democracy

Nathan

--Comments on Darwin

Nathan recently wrote Goodschools. As always, I will present Nathan's words verbatim, and then comment on what I consider to be the salient points.

Nathan writes:

Goodschools,

I have watched the letters that appear on your website for months, and am now willing to put my two cents in.

You have stated that "Darwin's theories, especially his notion of
origins, and natural selection, are totally unsound from the scientific viewpoint." Yet I have not found much information anywhere on your site to back up that claim, aside from Stuart A. Kauffman's "'Natural selection, operating on variations which are random with respect to usefulness, appears a slim force for order in a chaotic world. ... Our legacy from Darwin, powerful as it is, has fractures as its foundations' (p.643, The Origins of Order, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)." Yet this quote has
nothing to back it up.

From your constant stress on logic and reason, I would expect that your claims of Darwin's poor scientific foundation would have more support than just a few quotes (the most recent of which is from 1993.)

Where, specifically, is the "bad science" that you claim? Is it in the
concept of common ancestry? Or natural selection? Genetic recombination? Mutation? I am just trying to feel out the territory I'm in.

Also, do you by any chance have an alternate hypothesis to fill the void left by Darwin's removal? I would be quite interested to hear it.

Thank you,
Nathan

I respond:

Point #1:

Nathan writes: "You have stated that "Darwin's theories, especially his notion of
origins, and natural selection, are totally unsound from the scientific viewpoint." Yet I have not found much information anywhere on your site to back up that claim, aside from Stuart A. Kauffman's "'Natural selection, operating on variations which are random with respect to usefulness, appears a slim force for order in a chaotic world. ... Our legacy from Darwin, powerful as it is, has fractures as its foundations' (p.643, The Origins of Order, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)." Yet this quote has nothing to back it up.

From your constant stress on logic and reason, I would expect that your claims of Darwin's poor scientific foundation would have more support than just a few quotes (the most recent of which is from 1993.)"

My response: I appreciate your comments here, but I think you are missing something. It is not the purpose of Goodschools to re-print the over 700 pages of Stuart Kauffman's book. It is your job to read it, not mine to include it on this site. To say that "...this quote has nothing to back it up" is both cavalier and highly dismissive. I think it is incumbent upon you to point out his errors. I am sure he would be most interested in reading your review of his work. I know I would look forward to it.

If my list of scientists who have a problem with Darwin does not suit you, you have only to read the current journals, or even take a walk through your nearest good book store.

Point #2:

Nathan writes: "Where, specifically, is the "bad science" that you claim? Is it in the concept of common ancestry? Or natural selection? Genetic recombination? Mutation? I am just trying to feel out the territory I'm in."

My response: Nathan, I think you miss the point here. It is not the aim of Goodschools to review textbooks line by line, marking out the areas that will not stand up to scrutiny. That is the job of others. The fact is that the "real" scientists (those engaged in original-source research, not those in our schools of education), have for some time viewed Darwin's works as flawed. I believe that it is never acceptable to teach what we know to be flawed. As I responded some time ago to another writer (Chandler): "Consider this: What if we taught that the earth was flat, or that it was at the center of the universe? Just how would such erroneous teaching further the educational process? ...Or, how would it benefit science if we taught that there were no mathematical axioms? In its purest sense, education is the passing down the most accurate body of information known to exist. Darwinism is both racist, and very bad science."

Point #3:

Nathan writes: "Also, do you by any chance have an alternate hypothesis to fill the void left by Darwin's removal? I would be quite interested to hear it."

My response: Nathan, I really appreciate your letter. You were both civil and articulate. I suspect that you are a very intelligent, well-intentioned person. However, it is this portion of your letter that is most telling. Nathan, if you had more carefully read my responses to other writers you would know that I view the "fear of replacement" argument as the weakest of all arguments on behalf of Darwin. I went back and looked at my response to Jonathon, and found my words then to best express my disdain for this argument:

...From the early days of John Dewey, to the present, the main thing supporting Darwinian teaching in the public schools was the fear of creationism. It never mattered that Darwin was based on wrong thinking (bad science); nor did it matter that it was formulated as a framework for racism. All that mattered was that Dewey and his followers were able to use its pseudo-scientific "proofs" to supplant creationism in public education.

Still, today, all that keeps it in the textbooks is fear of replacement. The schools of education throughout the country (throughout the world, for that matter) are simply afraid to digest what the real scientists are saying. ...All because of their fear of replacement. They fear that to pull the legs out from under Darwin would mean they would be forced to accept full-blown creationism. It does not. All it will mean is that we will begin to look at the matter afresh, and, perhaps, be honest with ourselves, and our students. Let's face it, Darwin represented a racist lie from the beginning. It just happened to be a handy lie.

Nathan, it is never logical (nor moral) to continue to teach what is known to be wrong, simply because we lack enough knowledge to see the whole picture. This is referred to as "physics envy" in Kauffman's book.

Again, I want to thank Nathan for writing.

(I strongly recommend "The Origins of Order," by Stuart A. Kauffman (Oxford University Press, 1993). In the Preface of this book, Dr. Kauffman writes: This book is an attempt to focus attention on new themes in developmental and evolutionary biology. It is, in fact, an attempt to include Darwinism in a broader contest..." It is not light reading, but quite enlightening.)

Would you like to read other letters from Darwinists, and my comments?

Would you like to see related letters and my comments?

--Mike Carrier (MA, NYU--Graduate School of Arts and Science)

This site features a frank presentation of issues facing parents, taxpayers and schools in reforming schools in the twenty-first century. Good Schools promotes good schools, and explains what is necessary to achieve good schools. We are convinced that good schools can be obtained only with sound curriculum, which does not include the teaching of Darwin's theory of origin, or Darwin's theory of evolution. We believe that local school boards need to be empowered, and the influence of teachers' unions ought to be limited to labor-related issues. Teachers' unions should have no say in curriculum.

We are convinced that the teachings of Darwin, particularly Darwin's teachings on evolution, and Darwin's theories on origins, ought not be taught as fact. Darwin and Darwin's theories are not generally accepted by contemporary physicists and cosmologists, and, therefore, Richard Dawkins and Darwin's theories ought not be accepted whole-cloth by our schools of education, and ought not be presented as fact in public schools.

Because Richard Dawkins has set himself up as the number one defender of Darwin and Darwin's theory of evolution, we will go to some length explaining Dawkins' Darwin defenses, and we will do our best to explode Dawkins' Darwin defenses.

We seek to show from Darwin's own hand that Darwin, and Darwin's theory of evolution, are racist at the core. Darwin was a racist, Darwin's theory of evolution is racist, and Darwin's theory of origins is racist.

We further seek to show that Darwin's theory of evolution is not scientific. We show that racism, more than science, was behind Darwin and Darwin's theory of evolution, and Darwin's theory of origins.

Some of the terms commonly used on this site are: Darwin, Dawkins, schools, public schools, education, gun control, teachers, John Dewey, Littleton, racist, racism , school choice, African American, Sidney Hook, evolution, and Mike Carrier.