X-Message-Number: 4575
Date: 30 Jun 95 02:24:41 EDT
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: Davidson on Evolution

Jim Davidson writes:

>My, my, my, what a compliment.  Did Mike Darwin just say that _I_ seem to know
a
>great deal about evolutionary biology?  I think he did.  Not good for my
>humility quota.

>My background includes graduating summa cum laude from high school,
>matriculating to Columbia University as a John Jay Scholar and National Merit
>Scholar where I got a BA in American History (minoring in astrophysics).  In

>1987, I finished my MBA at Rice, worked for 4 years in aerospace, and have done
>sundry other things since including teaching at community colleges.


I asume from the first sentence (taken in the context of second paragraph which

follows it)  of this post that it was meant to be facetious :)!  I (Mike Darwin)
didn't even make it through my second year of college!  With the academic CV
above you'd have to be a Christian Fundamentalist or "very pretty and very

spreadable" to have amassed such credentials and NOT know a lot about evolution.

This post is ironic.  I just came from hearing Dawkins speak at CalTech on
Evolution versus Creationism.  Now, there's a guy who knows a lot about
evolution:and it's a fool's bet he doesn't know enough to shame both of us (Jim
and I).

Funny thing though, I sort of felt sorry for him:


Although I did ask him (badly) a question which would save him a lot of time and
trouble:  here is Dawkins, an Oxford Professor (Blind Watchmaker, Selfish Gene,
the word "memes", etc),  going around wasting his time preaching to the choir
(it was a Skeptics Society sponsored talk). 


He has all these beautiful RATIONAL  answers about evolution and he can't figure
out that the answer to his fundamental sore point (why people persist in
BELIEVING such nonsense as Creationism) (he likened it to someone claiming that
Classical Roman Civilization never existed and was all made up by school
teachers so they could make a living teaching Latin (which they also cooked
up)).

 In fact, so sore over this point is he, that opened his talk by saying that
FAILING to teach evolution to children was, in his opinion, child abuse, on a
par with physical child abuse, and that parents' rights do not extend to
allowing their childrens' heads to be filled with damaging lies.

The question I asked Dawkins after his talk was in effect, "well if these lies
are so damaging, how come they not only exist, but predominate, are present in

all human cultures and in fact no human civilization exists without them?"  Here
I was speaking of religion, which Dawkins prettyy directly indirectly attacked
repeatedly during his presentation (and is what  is clearly what's driving the
Creationists).
 
Did it ever occur to the Master Evolutionist that there might be a very good
EVOLUTIONARY reason why everybody wants to believe in this crap?

BTW the talk was very good and Dawkins is a gifted speaker as well as a
brilliant scholar.

Anyone want to know his answer?
Anyone want to know mine?
Anyone got some of their own that Dawkins and I haven't thought of?

Mike Darwin


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