Sen. Claire McCaskill’s gift of Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) is a gift that simply keeps on giving. Previously Akin alienated the GOP leadership and most of the known world with comments that, in cases of legitimate rape, women often do not get pregnant because “the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” He also claimed that doctor routinely performed abortions on women who are not pregnant. Now, at a Tea Party meeting in Jefferson City, Missouri, Akin has said that that there is no science behind evolution. Akin sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
Akin’s remarks not only leave doubt about his knowledge — or ability to understand – science but also what he considers “the thing” that he is supposed to do in Washington:
I don’t see it as even a matter of science because I don’t know that you can prove one or the other. That’s one of those things. We can talk about theology and all of those other things but I’m basically concerned about, you’ve got a choice between Claire McCaskill and myself. My job is to make the thing there. If we want to do theoretical stuff, we can do that, but I think I better stay on topic.
Of course, such comments could be used by some to disprove any evidence that we have evolved intellectually. Frankly, whenever I hear Akin speak recently I too begin to doubt evolution in the human species.
Notably, Akin sits on the committee with Rep. Paul Broun, the chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. Broun made headlines this month with the following statement: at the 2012 Sportsman’s Banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia on September 27th, he said this:
God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.
As many of you know, I have shown equal disregard for both of the main parties that hold a monopoly on power in the United States. Indeed, the low quality politicians that we see in both parties is the very danger of all monopolies — once protected from competition, the quality of a product declines. The political monopoly in this country is the ultimate example of that phenomenon. What we need is a Sherman Act for politics, starting with the eradication of the electoral college and the establishment of a new rule on general elections.
As for Republicans, I have many friends from that party who are intellectual and honest. These characters are destroying the credibility of their party which often appears anti-intellectual and anti-science.
” have shown equal disregard for both of the main parties that hold a monopoly on power in the United States. Indeed, the low quality politicians that we see in both parties is the very danger of all monopolies — once protected from competition, the quality of a product declines.”
Really, Mr. Turley? I will put up a Senator Bernie Sanders (a very high-quality politician) against anyone the Republicans can muster.
And, Gyges, a few things:
1. Evolutionary biology is only about species changing over time, whatever the mechanism. It also includes both microbial and multi-cellular, Bob’s right that these are fabricated divisions. People may specialize in study, but the division is a fabrication. Origin of Life is a separate category. Which leads to:
2. abiotic evolution doesn’t exist; it’s a very bad misnomer. Abiotic references the chemical synthesis of precursors necessary for life to develop, amino acids for example. It isn’t Evolution (Evolutionary biology) because Evolution is strictly change in species. It is Origin of Life, but that is different from Evolution. And still very much clouded.
3. You can’t even put Human Social Evolution in the same category as Evolution. It may have some dependence, which would be a good book of hypothesizing, on Evolution, but it isn’t Evolution. Evolutionary biologists do not study Human Social Evolution. Of course, evolutionary can be tacked on to anything to make you an evolutionary scientist.
Finally, really, I googled all this in about 15 seconds to refresh my memory. The search strings are embedded in all these comments. I didn’t ask anyone to do this for me.
“Consciousness really screws with evolution.”
Not really. Unless it is applied to directed evolution, i.e. eugenics. And that’s a decision. A very bad one as you yourself indicated. We are all dependent upon the forces of evolution. Not even the interventions of modern medicine affects that in the long term. We kill off one virus, another crops up to take its place. We beat down a bacteria with anti-biotics? They adapt. We find a way to address a genetic disorder? New ones will crop up due to random mutation induced by natural causes or as industrial by-products. We are not separate from the forces of natural selection and the process of evolution. Even genetic engineering won’t change that. We may be on the verge of being able to reshape humanity in some ways, but we will always be subject to the changes environments inflicts upon us. Evolution is a process that results from the interactions of organisms with other organisms and the environment. There is no escape from it. Consciousness is not special. It’s a natural consequence of neural network complexity. It’s not supernatural.
As to the damage on society done in the name of eugenics? You look to place blame in the wrong place if you are looking at misguided academics. Their mistaken beliefs were taken by politicians like Reinhardt Heydrich and put into motion by fascist (a syncretic form of extreme right wing governance) demagogues like Hitler for their own benefit as a rationale for industrialized genocide. Embracing a bad idea does not carry the same ethical weight as putting a bad idea into action.
You also discount the fact that both Eugenics and Nietzsche directly influenced the Third Reich. As for the Communists, they didn’t need Nietzsche or eugenics, relying instead on Lenin and Marx. The New Soviet Man was a focus on an ideological and societal shift, not literally rearranging the gene pool. The Cultural Revolution under Mao had more in common with the New Soviet Man than with eugenic rationalized genocide as practiced by the Nazis. It was an ideological/social movement unrelated to eugenics. Pol Pot, on the other hand, practiced democide to enforce his radical agrarian form of Communism and cater to his personal paranoia but it also had nothing to do with eugenics and everything to do with him being a madman.
Your style is known as argumentum verbosium (a form of logical fallacy), but your content is pure anti-evolutionary, anti-intellectual and pro-religion. Your logic is facile. Your history is distorted and incomplete. Your legal theory and political science terms are cherry picked when they are not simply manifestly wrong.
Religion is next to economics the leading cause of warfare in human history. The damage it has done to civilization is an order of magnitude greater than even the atrocities of the Nazis.
Highly educated people can adopt dangerous ideas.
The evil and the crazy can too.
Ultimately you’ve made the error of the fallacy of the excluded middle, a form of false choice based on your begging the question (also a fallacy) that those to blame for eugenics were the intellectuals and not the men building the camps and firing the ovens thus compounding your false dilemma with a false ethical dichotomy.
But there is also something else about highly educated people. They can also spot illogical fallacious argument built on weak evidence from a mile away. Logical fallacies are more than just errors in thinking. They are a way for people with an agenda to give what they say a thin veneer of reasonableness based on erroneous information and bad logic. Also your mention of Einstein in relation to quantum mechanics was argument by non-sequitur, another logical fallacy.
I’ll have to say you’re better than some of the propaganda trolls we’ve had recently, but your methods are the same nonetheless.
Gyges, this “The first chapter of the book is a warning about thinking about human society as separate from evolutionary forces” would actually give me warning about the book.
The question isn’t “separate” but “how dependent”, a very difficult to answer question of difference.
Consciousness really screws with evolution.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUlLp0xmsZ0&w=420&h=315%5D
“For example, those Akinoid kinds of mistakes gave us Social Darwinism and Eugenics.” Really gives me a what the hell moment??????
The Eugenics movement both in the UK and the US was widely backed by a variety of socialists (Fabian), academics, feminist groups, and less, much less so “right-winger” religiously challenged types like Akin. Two of my favorite writers, Shaw and Wells, were Eugenicists, and hardly fit in the Akin mold. Since most people continue to use that stupid left-right dichotomy, I will only use it to say Wells and Shaw were hardly righties. Sanger in the US was a Eugenicist. Some people’s favorite economist, Keynes, was a Eugenicist. Wikipedia is fairly accurate on this so please look up “Eugenics” and the movements in the UK and US. Anyone like Akin isn’t even a footnote in that movement. In fact, it was the religious that overwhelmingly rejected Eugenics and please don’t give me Coughlin to prove otherwise.
The Eugenics movement was driven by highly educated people of the time drawn to a belief that they could improve mankind by deciding whose genes should be passed on, usually based on their own biases and prejudices (Gould goes into this in “he Mismeasure of MaTn”. Progressives of the time could easily be Eugenicists. The New Communist Man and The Aryan Superman have similar underpinnings, and it can’t be blamed on Nietzsche.
As for Social Darwinism, same issue of taking a scientific and limited concept and turning it into a social movement and even an ideology, though Eugenics may require a reverse order.
Highly educated people can believe in really dangerous and stupid things, and use their authority to push those ideas. I wouldn’t typify them using Akin. It seems so, well, bigoted (obligatory disclaimer: bigoted doesn’t make you a racist or a sexist, or any ‘ist, just a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, add ahistoricity and it becomes alarming.)
Now, off this but related in only how someone can be so wrong: Einstein’s “doesn’t roll dice” was a response to quantum mechanics. Man was he wrong.
Slarti,
Speaking of Escher tiling of the plane, I recently saw a photo of where someone had custom wood tiles made of Escher’s lizards. It was taken part way through installation in a hallway. It was beautiful. I’d love to see some pics then the floor is finished (the tiles looked to be still raw wood).
OS,
No worries. I just happened to have recently read a Bradbury collection when he passed away and that story was in it. Also I have to second pete’s recommendation of Harry Harrison’s Deathworld and Stainless Steel Rat stories. Fun stuff, especially the Rat stories. Jim DiGriz is one of the best anti-heroes in science fiction and certainly one of the funnier ones. He was Han Solo before Han Solo was Han Solo.
**************
nick,
You are probably the worst amateur psychologist I’ve ever seen. Dredd is a better amateur biologist then you are amateur psychologist and he doesn’t know what the Hell he’s talking about. You seem to perpetually mistake a low tolerance for fools and/or trolls as anger. I wonder why that might be? (That was a rhetorical question.)
Also, I was never in chess club.
Gyges,
Whom you are dating is none of my business.
Bob,
“The terms, “abiotic evolution,” and “human social evolution,” have nothing to do with the Theory of Evolution. No matter how many times you repeat it.”
Hey, who are you going to believe, evolutionary scientists or a guy who uses quotes that have nothing to do with what he’s talking about?
The timing of this is a little funny to me, because as noted above, I’m actually reading a book about an evolutionary biologist who’s working on creating social institutions that account for our evolutionary history. The first chapter of the book is a warning about thinking about human society as separate from evolutionary forces.
So I’m literally faced with that decision. Guess who I’m going with?
Dredd,
“Modern science recognizes a difference in microbiological evolution compared with multicellular evolution.”
=====================================================
No, it doesn’t. Endosymbiosis, often used to explain the presence of mitochondria and chloroplasts in eukaryotic cells, does not separate “microbial evolution” (a fabricated division of the Theory of Evolution) from “multicellular evolution” (another fabricated division of the Theory of Evolution).
The terms, “abiotic evolution,” and “human social evolution,” have nothing to do with the Theory of Evolution. No matter how many times you repeat it.
Eric,
Don’t misunderstand me. I congratulated you on giving up. I don’t know why that offended you. You told us you were giving up. If you see no difference between the candidates, you’re not perceptive enough to vote. Please don’t.
If that’s what Akin is dumb enough to believe, then he should be denied science-based medical care if he’s ever sick or hurt. If, for example, his car crashed and he suffered a gaping, blood-gushing wound, he would only be allowed to have prayer healing, no gauze, sutures or transfusions.
Make him stand up for and live by what he claims to believe. It may not be for very long, but let him show how certain he is of his convictions.
Nick, Dredd, and Bob:
Nick – Thanks for the moral support.
Dredd – I agree with you that proof of “hate” is required in hate crimes trials. This is because, necessarily, the facts of a particular matter need to be compared to a legal standard, as defined by the law, in order for a just verdict to be rendered – beyond a reasonable doubt.
However, I was not comparing Biden’s behavior to any standard. I simply stated that it was sufficient for me that I chose not to watch the remainder of the debate, and to conclude that I personally could no longer support a ticket with his name on it. That is a purely subjective decision which can not be “proved”.
Bob – while it may appear to you that I have “given up”, for the past few years, I have been dutifully voting for the “lesser evil”. I have not “given up”, I have concluded that I no longer want to play the “my guy is less bad than your guy” game. In fact, I would argue that, at their very core — what they actually do vs. what they say they are going to do, both parties are essentially the same.
Did you notice that it took Obama until just before the election to say he supports gay marriage? Did you notice how long it took him to eliminate “don’t as don’t tell” in the military even though, as Commander & Chief he could have eliminated the ban on openly gay soldiers with a simple order on day one. Have you heard that Al Gore has made over $100 million investing in green energy companies that the Obama administration has supported.
$100 million from investments funded by our tax dollars — still think the Republicans are the party of the rich?
In both parties, deceit, hypocrisy, and corruption run very deep and, in my opinion, in equal measures.
As stated by Einstein, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
gbk, The clique groupthink is not really a metaset but a subspecies. It has a parasitic relationship w/ its host, a diverse and fairly normal species. This subspecies has a leader who has serious anger issues and almost no social skills. His academic records show him to be very bright but teachers consistently noted he “doesn’t play well w/ others.” His only extracurricular activity was chess club. To date, this mutation of sorts is indigenous to this forum. A social science group including psychologists, anthropologists, and curiously a lion tamer and shark expert recently applied for a Federal grant. They’re awaiting approval.
Pete999, Thanks for the Fonzie jump the shark clip.
Gene, you are correct. Ray Bradbury, 1951. Oh well. It was very late and I was too tired to look it up. I was working strictly from memory. After sixty-one years, one tends to forget exactly who the author of a short story might have been.
There is abiotic evolution, microbial evolution, biological evolution, and human social evolution.
Those don’t work in the same way at all.
So, the unique processes in each of those evolutionary realms throws a lot of Akinoid people off track.
Especially when they think “one size fits all”, i.e. that one and only one grandiose process is prevalent in each of those four types of evolution.
For example, those Akinoid kinds of mistakes gave us Social Darwinism and Eugenics.
Modern science recognizes a difference in microbiological evolution compared with multicellular evolution.
One difference between microbial evolution and mult-cellular evolution is Endosymbiosis:
(PNAS, Lynn Margulis, 1938–2011). Dr. Margulis was ridiculed for years by status quo evolutionists, refusing to publish her work, but finally when the evidence came in she was shown to be overwhelmingly correct.
I used to live in Missery, if it is possible, Claire is a bigger dufuss in her own way than Aikin is. One talks of legitimate rape and the other is just full of crap.
What a choice for the people of Missouri, they deserve better, so vote for the independent. Unless of course he is a commie or an evangelical Christian.
The people of Mizzoura might deserve this phony baloney Todd but the rest of us do not deserve him tipping the balance of votes in the Senate. If you have any relatives in that SEC state please call them and discuss this dufuss and see if they can get off the sofa and vote for Claire.