I referred earlier to biochemist Lawrence Moran’s post characterizing biologist Ann Gauger as “truly delusional” for writing here that Darwinism is on the ropes (“What If People Stopped Believing in Darwin?“). Setting aside the superficiality of Professor Moran’s comments, which include no substance and only insults, is he right that Dr. Gauger is wrong?
Not if you believe the New York Times. George Johnson writes there that he is nearly in despair over the success of scientific and other ideas that he doesn’t like (“The Widening World of Hand-Picked Truths“). He says, “The creationist battle against evolution remains fierce, and more sophisticated than ever.” More:
Like creationists with their “intelligent design,” the followers of these causes come armed with their own personal science, assembled through Internet searches that inevitably turn up the contortions of special interest groups.
Now, as I’ve point out before, Johnson like many mainstream science journalists is woefully uninformed about ID — as the confused conflation of intelligent design with creationism demonstrates. Nor does he understand that our argument is not with “evolution” but with the Darwinian understanding of how evolution works. In fact, Johnson subscribes to a Great Equation of a huge jumble of science-related ideas, from the serious to the ridiculous, which have nothing in common other than falling outside the mainstream.
But never mind that. The point to grasp is Johnson’s (accurate) judgment that skepticism, for good or bad, is ascendant. He’s wrong to lump all skeptics together, but right to see orthodoxy as on the defensive. He concludes on a note of pathos:
The widening gyre of beliefs is accelerated by the otherwise liberating Internet. At the same time it expands the reach of every mind, it channels debate into clashing memes, often no longer than 140 characters, that force people to extremes and trap them in self-reinforcing bubbles of thought.
In the end, you’re left to wonder whether you are trapped in a bubble, too, a pawn and a promoter of a “hegemonic paradigm” called science, seduced by your own delusions.
That’s all rhetoric. What’s of interest is his recognition of something that Moran denies. To see Darwinism as an endangered idea, whether that prospect pleases you or not, is certainly no delusion.
Image credit: World Telegram staff photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
