tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post2084445092925028166..comments2024-03-28T08:30:20.260+01:00Comments on The Ugley Vicar: Another Nightmare: The Intellectual Eclipse of the WestAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03590979027426082714noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-26572320270720133262009-10-17T17:34:32.815+01:002009-10-17T17:34:32.815+01:00Tony, thanks for this. I'd picked up the link,...Tony, thanks for this. I'd picked up the link, though it is in an area about which I know nothing! Could I just say, I don't want to present "Darwinism as the great intellectual blockage to free inquiry." I was really only wanting to say that here, in one particularly important area for our <i>social</i> (not just scientific) understanding, there is, as it were, a 'blackout' on language, even from other scientists, which might challenge the prevailing 'wisdom'. It is not Darwinism that is getting in the way but (in this particular area) Darwinists may be the problem.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03590979027426082714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-59910425429839159132009-10-17T15:29:53.707+01:002009-10-17T15:29:53.707+01:00John
I hope this does not seem a bizarre intrusio...John<br /><br />I hope this does not seem a bizarre intrusion into your debate. Your thought-provoking piece was linked to on the IN DEFENCE OF YOUTH WORK blog at http://indefenceof youth work.wordpress.com, where a debate about the relationship between so-called intellectuals and practitioners, between classically theory and practice is taking place.<br /><br />In terms of your argument a signicant context is the imposition particularly under New Labour upon Youth Work of prescribed and predictable outcomes, which are the very antithesis of a volatile and voluntary, creative and collective process, which carries no guarantees.<br /><br />On a personal level I have grown ever more suspicious of Theory, which is not to be confused with being opposed to Thinking, forever Thinking. My own history is significantly influenced by three decades of seeing myself as a Marxist with all its problematic certitude. And I do not see myself as a post-modernist. One of my favourite thinkers Cornelius Castoriadis commented that social and political theory had become the imposition of a template of definitive explanation on what is always a fluctuating set of social relations, but nevertheless he continued to imagine and struggle for a more just and equal society.<br /><br />As for Darwin he has never been important to my way of thinking. My own atheism owes him no debt. And it seems to me that the comments on your piece that rush to see Darwinism as the great intellectual blockage to free inquiry protest too much.<br /><br />Thanks for the stimulus<br /><br />Tony TaylorTony Taylorhttp://criticallychatting.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-61239267543451845142009-10-07T16:32:16.205+01:002009-10-07T16:32:16.205+01:00Michael, I think I agree that Darwin does also bel...Michael, I think I agree that Darwin does also belong in the category of those with room for 'intellectual leisure'. The important thing is that he was free to think.<br /><br />Let me take this opportunity to say, however, that I believe the modern adulation paid to Darwin owes more to the intellectual agenda of his adulators than to the man.<br /><br />This is how Darwin summed up his 'theory' (with some edits for brevity):<br /><br />"If ... organic beings vary at all ... and I think this cannot be disputed; if there be ... at some age, season, or year, a severe struggle for life, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then ... I think it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variation ever had occurred useful to each being’s own welfare ... assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection. (Charles Darwin, <i>The Origin of Species</i>, 169-170, quoted in Kirsten Birkett, <i>The Essence of Darwinism</i>, 20)<br /><br />Now as I've said, this is - as Darwin himself observes - virtually a truism. It requires no new observations, for if his first two propositions are true (which, as he says, seems self-evidently the case), then so ought to be the third, that 'Natural Selection' occurs.<br /><br />However, Darwin lacked a mechanism for inheritance and he was wrong in the one he himself suggested. It is what others have made of 'Darwin-ism' that really matters today, and it is that 'ism' (and the massive support it attracts) which shows that we are just as intellectually vulnerable as our forebears to constraining free enquiry.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03590979027426082714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-40841822413113050362009-10-07T15:53:23.180+01:002009-10-07T15:53:23.180+01:00Charles Darwin must be one of the few people who m...Charles Darwin must be one of the few people who manages to remind me simultaneously of both <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Christmas" rel="nofollow">Father Christmas</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Haddock" rel="nofollow">Captain Haddock</a>. As such, I find much fuss in various directions concerning his legacy somewhat perplexing.<br /><br />Still, he also seems to fit your types of external scientific fertilisation of Einstein, Mendel et al in that throughout his endeavours he attempted to engage with general understanding in a public, but not vulgarly journalistic, manner. These days, by way of contrast, we appear to have polarised between self-selecting professional coteries on the one hand and shameless hucksters on the other, with little room extant for amateur critical engagement.<br /><br />Michael Canaris<br />SydneyMichael Canarishttp://canaris1.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-47999857963644907672009-10-07T14:50:06.809+01:002009-10-07T14:50:06.809+01:00Anonymous - have you got any sort of reference for...Anonymous - have you got any sort of reference for that Speakers' Corner event?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03590979027426082714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-50491230578754669512009-10-07T14:28:26.317+01:002009-10-07T14:28:26.317+01:00The Essex Chronicle is sponsoring the first ever S...The Essex Chronicle is sponsoring the first ever Speakers' Corner event in Chelmsford High Street opposite HSamuel on Saturday October 10 starting at 11am.<br /><br />The aim is to establish, or maybe re-establish townspeoples rights to speak up - so long as what they say does not conflict with the law of the land - with the vision of a permanant Speakers' Corner somewhere in the town centre.<br /><br />If any Bloggers or Bloggets feels like getting out from behind their PCs and telling it like it was, why not come along to listen or perhaps have a say from the soapbox/pulpit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-64289927937702380852009-10-07T12:16:58.192+01:002009-10-07T12:16:58.192+01:00I heard on Radio 4 this morning that in the next f...I heard on Radio 4 this morning that in the next few days there will be a debate, I think at the British Library, on whether the "scholar" is dead and has been replaced by the "researcher" who exists solely to produce results. Sounds like the same issue John has raised, and readers of the blog may be interested. Can't find any details on the BL website, but will let you know when I do.<br /><br />Stephen Walton<br />MarburyStephen Waltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18442509405293891085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-63606154522004974682009-10-07T09:44:34.588+01:002009-10-07T09:44:34.588+01:00John,
Your point about learning to think is criti...John,<br /><br />Your point about learning to think is critical. I was an academic scholar in ancient history at an Oxford college consistently near the top of the Norrington Table, and yet, the first place I learned the tools of critical, rational thinking, was 4 years later when I started at Oak Hill.<br /><br />The use of logic, recognition of logical fallacies in argument, ability to distinguish constituent elements in questions and arguments, recognition of the proper (and improper) place of rhetoric and emotion etc, were not things I ever encountered at Oxford.<br /><br />If that is the case at the best university in the country, be it arts or sciences, then your fears are well-founded.Neil Jeffers, Lowestofthttp://www.neiljeffers.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-87050926170161022522009-10-07T08:12:09.865+01:002009-10-07T08:12:09.865+01:00You should get out more.
Frank. Merseyside.You should get out more.<br />Frank. Merseyside.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-39799464205162299142009-10-06T22:42:24.739+01:002009-10-06T22:42:24.739+01:00Hi Peter, although the aim of the article is not t...Hi Peter, although the aim of the article is not to discuss the merits or demerits of Darwinian theories, I'm rather with John Lennox, who comments in <i>God's Undertaker</i> that Darwin's proposal is not so much a theory as a truism - which is to say that if the propositions are both true that (a) some variable characteristics favour the survival of certain organisms above others and (b) that these variable characteristics can be handed on from one generation to the next, then it must <i>inevitably</i> follow that they will tend to be 'selected' in the surviving population. As a proposition, this requires neither observation nor evidence to deduce. That does not mean it is <i>untrue</i>, but it does rather put Darwin's 'discoveries' in their proper 'scientific' perspective, and also, I take it, explains the need for 'neo' Darwinism.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03590979027426082714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-91183856468642502162009-10-06T19:58:05.228+01:002009-10-06T19:58:05.228+01:00I concur with John Thomas re the excellence of the...I concur with John Thomas re the excellence of the article. Two brief responses: (a) a culturally hegemonic China might bring with it the extraordinary energy and courage of the Chinese churches; (b)Karl Popper in various ways (though particularly concerned about Marxism and Nazism) anticipated your concerns here about totalitarian ideas beyond question, but also, specifically, I recall a remark he made about the status of 'evolution': even in the 1940s or so when he wrote, that it was not properly named as 'the theory of evolution' because it was not open to questioning, which is the essence of any 'theory'!Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9031852996869768738.post-22496221956081565632009-10-06T19:10:43.697+01:002009-10-06T19:10:43.697+01:00What an excellent article! I too have debated, onl...What an excellent article! I too have debated, online, with closed-minded Darwinist fanatics - not a nice lot! I'm reminded of the one about the Chinese scientist visiting the US (1980s? '90s?) "In our country we may not criticise the Government. In yours, you may not criticise Darwin". I blame the MSM Darwinist hagiologists, such as Dawkins, Attenborough, etc. Dawkins clearly has the most closed mind of all time - not the formula for healthy, real, developing science.John Thomashttp://www.affirmingthefaith.comnoreply@blogger.com