JohnClark wrote:So...I guess I'm failing to see the point here. Was Charles Darwin a racist/sexist man? Almost certainly. Does that have anything to do with the validity of evolution? No, not at all. To give another example of the same, Thomas Jefferson was one of the most important figures in early America, and yet he owned slaves and considered blacks inferior to whites. Does this render his political writings and developments meaningless? Certainly not, and we can see both the good and the bad in him, just as we can in Darwin. Darwin's attitudes towards women and blacks may not be worthy of emulation, but they don't discredit his work any more than Jefferson's slave owning discredits the constitution.
I fail to see the validity of the argument as well.
By the standards of his day, it could even be argued that Darwin was progressive.
In the context of the US at this time, Civil war and following, even some of the most strident abolitionists still maintained the superiority of the white "race" over the "black" race.
Lincoln himself repeatedly, while being anti-slavery, made it clear that he believed the negro was in no way the equal of the white man on many levels. He even early on, advocated emancipation with forced emigration back to Africa or to a colony in Central America. He made it clear, on several occassions, that he saw the constitution as allowing for slavery, and he stated openly in a letter to Greely during the civil war that he believed the Union itself more important than slavery and if he could save the Union by continuing slavery he would.
In the end, the emancipation proclomation, while entirely consistent with Lincoln's personal feelings which condemned slavery wholeheartedly, was issued because Lincoln deemed it consistent with what was needed to bring things to a head and force a conclusion in the war that would settle the issue forever. He did this first and foremost as needful for the Union, not on his moral opposition to slavery.
You have to realize that at this time of history, in England and the US, that even while Egland had abolished the slave trade some time earlier, there was still a very clear deliniation in the minds of white europeans and Americans that saw the African, as backwards and inferior.
Rather than attributing this to cultural issues, a difference in climate and resources (etc.), they saw it in terms of what appeared to them as genetic and even theological confirmation of their own superiority.
It has taken time to move away from that, and frankly we still live in a world where that viewpoint exists in varying forms in this and other contexts, whether white/black, arab/jew, hutu/tutsi .... etc.
Hitler derived a significant portion of his program from concepts strengthened by Darwin that moved from science into philosophy and were based upon a concept called eugenics. It's highly improbable that Darwin would have approved of that particulat use.
A good deal of what I see happening in the entire evolution/creationism debate is a confusion of terms of fields that happens on both sides.
Evolution is sound science. There is much that is clearly demonstrated to high scientific standards in terms of changes over time. Christians would do well to be more familiar with this and there is an apalling lack of education and appreciation of this that is addressed in other threads.
What is also true is that beyond the platform of sound science, there is a realm within the culture of evolution that is not purely scientific, in the sense that it cannot be proven and is not strictly falsifiable.
Christians sometimes break this into the category of "Macro" and "Micro" evolution. I frankly think the terms not particularly helpful and so I try to avoid them.
Is it reasonable to presume that because science, by its inherent nature, can only deal with natural causes, that therefore only natural causes exist?
My answer is no. But because science is limited in that regard, that is all it reasonably can deal with as a field.
There are multitudes of scientists who recognize this and yet are still effective and good scientists in terms of their work and approaches. They have no difficulty realizing that their field requires a scientific methodology while their own beliefs and values easily accept that there is truth outside of science and that the supernatural can exist and influence our world and them personally.
There is a branch of philosophy, however that I refer to here as "Methodological Naturalism" that in effect takes the position, that only that which is "true" scientifically can be relied upon and therefore anything that falls outside of that realm is to be presumed not true until proven otherwise.
In "macro" evolution, this translates to the presumption that because the supernatural cannot be proven to scientific preciseness and exactitude, that only those explanations that are naturalistic and observable are to be considered.
Thus, a framework is constructed with underlying assumptions that in turn become somewhat circular, even though they are not always stated openly in the logical constructs.
This is where a great deal of the argument takes place.
Evolutionists do not openly state their underlying presuppositions or recognize them as based in epistomology and philosophy rather than hard science.
Creationists (Old and Young) often times do not do the work to understand the science that is there that is pretty strong and very clear as to the current observable presence of evolution.
We talk past each other using our own terminology and definitions.
I know this is in many ways a gross oversimplification. But I think there is a great deal of truth in it that can help in the discussion from both sides.
Using arguments like attempting to paint Darwin as a bigot is really just an appeal to emotions and has nothing to do with the merit of the argument.
My thoughts anyway.
Have at them.
