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Creationism update: Slandering Epicurus
May. 27th, 2005 08:17 pmVia The Poor Man, I see that Tech Central Station — Instapundit’s favorite right-wing propaganda mill — is now running essays preaching creationism (in its latest pseudo-scientific flavor, “intelligent design”). Not that scientific illiteracy is anything new for TCS; they once ran an article claiming that temperature does not measure a physical quantity!
The creationist article, by Mustafa Akyol, is a generally unremarkable piece of bullshit, hitting most of the usual ID lying points. False claim that ID is not motivated by religious belief — check. Appeal to “specified complexity” (ID shorthand for picking some existing biological feature and arguing that evolution must have had the goal of producing that feature) — check. Wait, here’s something new!:
Cute! Here’s what’s going on in that paragraph: Epicurus’s philosophy, generally called Epicureanism, claimed that a good life could be had by seeking modest and temperate pleasures — knowledge, freedom from fear, friendship — rather than following the dictates of gods. While the philosophical term “hedonism” is sometimes applied to this philosophy, the common use of the word implies a decadent lifestyle devoted to seeking crude pleasures and indulging gluttony, sloth, and lust.
By misrepresenting Epicurus’s ideas this way, Akyol implies (without actually saying outright) that evolution is part of a secularist plot to undermine belief in God so as to allow sinners to sin without guilt. (This plugs into something I’ve heard right-wing Christians say, that secularists really do believe in God, but we deny it so that we don’t have to live by God’s rules.) It’s a pretty elegant bank shot, economical and concise.
The creationist article, by Mustafa Akyol, is a generally unremarkable piece of bullshit, hitting most of the usual ID lying points. False claim that ID is not motivated by religious belief — check. Appeal to “specified complexity” (ID shorthand for picking some existing biological feature and arguing that evolution must have had the goal of producing that feature) — check. Wait, here’s something new!:
Non-design is "old ground," too. It dates back to Ancient Greece. As theologian Benjamin Wiker unveils in his book, Moral Darwinism, the first theory of an un-designed and evolving world was developed by Epicurus, the founder hedonism. And his point of reference was not scientific evidence; he simply wanted to get rid of the idea of the divine, which he found disturbing. Epicurus' ideas about nature were later developed by Lucretius and much later by the modern forerunners of Darwin.
Cute! Here’s what’s going on in that paragraph: Epicurus’s philosophy, generally called Epicureanism, claimed that a good life could be had by seeking modest and temperate pleasures — knowledge, freedom from fear, friendship — rather than following the dictates of gods. While the philosophical term “hedonism” is sometimes applied to this philosophy, the common use of the word implies a decadent lifestyle devoted to seeking crude pleasures and indulging gluttony, sloth, and lust.
By misrepresenting Epicurus’s ideas this way, Akyol implies (without actually saying outright) that evolution is part of a secularist plot to undermine belief in God so as to allow sinners to sin without guilt. (This plugs into something I’ve heard right-wing Christians say, that secularists really do believe in God, but we deny it so that we don’t have to live by God’s rules.) It’s a pretty elegant bank shot, economical and concise.
