…and this is a 
Pat Boone has another article on evolution in WingNutDaily. It does not disappoint in its off-the-scale stupidity. Just one paragraph is enough to tell you it's a waste of time.
But in a fascinating book, John Myers' "Voices from the Edge of Eternity," we find the detailed personal account of Lady Hope, of Northfield, England, who visited the aging scientist often at his bedside during his last days. It's too long to recount well here, but she tells of the Bible he was reading constantly and of the worship services that took place regularly in the summerhouse in his garden. She says that when she brought up the controversy still raging between believers in the Genesis account of creation and the growing group of scientists and teachers dismissing that account in favor of his "The Origin of Species" and related theories, he seemed distressed. And "a look of agony came over his face as he said 'I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time about everything. To my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.'"
Lady Hope was a good evangelical Christian—that is, she was a shameless liar, fraud, and fool. I can see where Pat Boone might feel some affinity for her dishonest propaganda. It also explains how he can close with a quote from another liar for Christ (Moonie version):
Now, Dr. Jonathan Wells states flatly, "I think in 50 years, Darwinian evolution will be gone from the science curriculum. People will look back on it and ask how anyone could, in their right mind, have believed this, because it's so implausible when you look at the evidence."
But 50 years could be enough to destroy the faith of two generations of our young, enough to replace it with a bankrupt false religion. Will we have the courage, the gumption, to make sure that doesn't happen?
Wells is wrong, of course; the only way we can strip evolution from the science curriculum is by destroying science in this country altogether. If that's the promise of these creationists, let's hope we have the courage to destroy faith even more quickly.
Comments
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | February 4, 2007 12:19 PM
Indeed. If forced to choose, I too would rather be lame than blind.
The real problem, of course, is not that science is destroying faith. The real problem is that the continual assault of true believers is highly damaging to science education largely in one country, the United States. They must be oppossed. If that means I have to be accused of destroying their faith, so be it....SH
Posted by: Zeno | February 4, 2007 12:28 PM
Pat Boone provides a perfect example of over-reaching. He doesn't even know that Lady Hope's story is a long-exposed hoax, yet presumes to preach at us about science and evolution. At least he was able to come up with that clever watchmaker metaphor. If only someone had thought of that before. Original thinking is Pat Boone's hallmark!
Silly man.
Posted by: hoary puccoon | February 4, 2007 12:43 PM
I believe the Lady Hope story was originally debunked by Darwin's daughter, who was herself a sincere Christian. If that's true, no matter how you cut it, some good Christian woman perjured herself.
Posted by: Zuckerfrosch | February 4, 2007 12:46 PM
A comment on Lady Hope: it looks like she's been shown to be a fraud based on the comments of Darwin's daughter, although I could see people breaking this down into a he said/she said type argument, where we'll never know if Darwiin refuted the theory of evolution or not. But my comment is: who cares? Who cares if Darwin really refuted the theory of evolution? If he did, would that change the mountain of evidence that has been collected in support of it since? Is the human genome any less sequenced because Francis Collins is born again? That's the beauty of science. It's not about belief, but the evaluation of facts. Strange as it is to say, Darwin's opinion on the truth of his model is as irrelevant as the opinion of creationists on it. Which is why I think it's telling that they use this as an argument. To them, the strength or weakness of a scientific model is belief, not evidence.
Posted by: Caledonian | February 4, 2007 1:17 PM
But no one is forcing you to choose between those weaknesses, so you are happily free to indulge yourself in both of them.
Posted by: Rey Fox | February 4, 2007 1:34 PM
Bit slow with the declaration, aren't we?
Well you see, Zucker, fundies have a certain authoritarian mindset through which they view everything. Ideas aren't particularly important, but the demagogues behind them are. In other words, they think we worship Darwin, and if they somehow discredit the man and in doing so, cut off the "head", then the "body" will die with it. Childish, really.
Posted by: Sastra | February 4, 2007 1:53 PM
As others here just pointed out, the Lady Hope story can serve to demonstrate how some Christians seem to seriously misunderstand the process of science. That, or they've bought into the "evolution is a religion" meme to the point where they fail to discern critical differences between even bad science theories and corrupted matters of faith.
Special revelations stand or fall on the honesty and character of the mystics to whom they have been revealed. If you can somehow show that a proposed Messenger of God is a liar or scoundrel -- or if he "takes it all back" -- then the message can be doubted. The revelation is false.
But that's not the way science works, and that's not what evolution rests on. Even if Darwin "recanted" on his death bed, so what? If we were to find out that the Wright Brothers lied, they faked all the documentation and photos, do Christians think there would suddenly be mass panic at the airports, with pilots being forced to announce to their passengers "Sorry, breaking news shows that the Wright Brothers lied. Aviation is dead. Please prepare for landing, and finding an alternate mode of transport. Thank you."
Posted by: Colugo | February 4, 2007 2:05 PM
PZ Moran, University of Minnesota:
"(T)he only way we can strip evolution from the science curriculum is by destroying science in this country altogether. If that's the promise of these creationists, let's hope we have the courage to destroy faith even more quickly."
Geoffrey Miller, University of New Mexico, 'Edge.org':
"A great ideological war is raging between the Godless--people like me, who trust life--and the Gutless--the talking heads of the extreme, religious right, who fear death, and fear the Godless, and fear ongoing life in the future when they no longer exist."
Larry Moran, University of Toronto, 'Sandwalk':
"Science and religion are at war and only one of them is going to emerge victorious."
Sam Harris, Edge.org:
'Science Must Destroy Religion': "The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum."
Such stirring, epochal, call-to-arms rhetoric strikes me as being very much in the Romantic tradition, even if the specific views espoused are incompatible with those of the Romantics. More proximately, it is a reaction to an apparently existential threat to science: recent attacks on scientific naturalism and rationalism, especially by religious fundamentalists, but also by postmodernists and the New Age movement.
Posted by: Jon H | February 4, 2007 2:07 PM
Read Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" sometime, for an 1860's English view of an evangelical - an annoying, nosy tract-passer.
Posted by: Hank Fox | February 4, 2007 2:08 PM
...
...
Well, that's one possible interpretation. The other is that he's lying and knows it, but doesn't care because he believes in a "higher truth" that makes lies okay.
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Posted by: Alon Levy | February 4, 2007 3:16 PM
I think you mean "denied." To refute means to prove wrong: "the Great Depression refuted the classical notion that recessions were always self-correcting"; "many creationists have tried to refute the theory of natural selection, but none has been successful."
Posted by: davis | February 4, 2007 3:41 PM
I'm still pissed off that his sappy, white bread version of "Tutti Frutti" outsold Little Richards's. I blame Dick Clark.
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | February 4, 2007 4:11 PM
Oh, great, that lame ol' canard. 'Darwin recanted', along w/Paine, Voltaire & Ingersoll.
Xtians always buy into the '11th hour' redemption crap.
& Wells is a freckin' parrot: the 'demise' of evolution's been predicted for nigh well 129 yrs. (give or take).
Personally, I've been taking swings (figuratively speaking) at Chuck Norris' moronic columns, for anyone interested.
http://biblioblography.blogspot.com/2007/01/chuck-norris-has-become-right-wing.html
This will be an ongoing phenomenon, as I don't respond well to argumentum ad baculum.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | February 4, 2007 4:22 PM
That's one mean, lean evolution machine.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | February 4, 2007 4:41 PM
Ha, is it 50 years now? Just a year or two ago it was 10 years and "Darwinism" would be dead (I don't care whether it was Wells or some other liar who said it, they all have the same (lack of) data and the same propensity toward mendacity). If the day of the death of science continues to recede at that pace, in 10 years it will be a millenium before "Darwinism" is predicted to be dead.
Maybe they do learn, just a little.
As far as Pat Boone is concerned, he's as credible in science and history as he was in heavy metal.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm
Posted by: John D. Hynes III | February 4, 2007 5:27 PM
I am proud that my name appears on top of the talk.origins article you linked to, even though all I wrote was the question and not the answer. It's my one, tiny contribution to the debate. Funny how people keep saying Darwin recanted when even creationists admit it's not true!
Posted by: Azkyroth | February 4, 2007 6:38 PM
I can't wait for the next installation, "Water: Official Declared Wet."
Posted by: Colugo | February 4, 2007 7:04 PM
"PZ Moran"
How mortifying. How could I have conflated those two? Well, they both have informative blogs that I read on a daily basis.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 4, 2007 9:24 PM
If that means I have to be accused of destroying their faith
if their faith is so weak, Scott, you should be happy to put the sword to it, right?
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | February 5, 2007 1:38 AM
Heh, I didn't note that, but it is indeed noteworthy.
Even the slowly mowing fusion project has better success rate - they have said about 50 years (contingent on funding et cetera) for a long time, but they have a definitive roadmap that now has moved forward again.
Posted by: QrazyQat | February 5, 2007 4:00 AM
BTW, James Moore (the Darwin biographer, not the UCSD primate guy or me) did a book on the Lady Hope story. Very thorough. One of the most interesting parts, for me, was the letter from a preacher/evangelist who Darwin let use a field for temperance meetings (his family supported temperance due to seeing problems with drinking in the family). Anyway, this preacher gave a ringing endorsement of Darwin the man and made clear that Darwin did not share his own Christian beliefs but supported his temperance work despite that. The book wasn't a big seller, but it's handy to have for those who run into this and want more info (can't give any more details cause it's at home now and I, rather pleasantly, am not. :))
Posted by: Peter McGrath | February 5, 2007 7:29 AM
Another great fictional evangelist and fraud is the Reverend Stiggins in The Pickwick Papers. He preaches temperance and drinks like a hole in the sand, talks charity and extorts money and hath certainly committed adultery in his mind. The paragraph in whch Tony Weller, coachman and wit, who hass beeen persecuted by the reverend for most of the book, takes revenge on Reverend Stiggins is fantastic:
'Then, seizing the reverend gentleman by the collar, he sudddenly fell to kicking him most furiously, accompanying every application of his top-boots to Mr Stiggins's person with sundry violent and incoherent ananthemas upon his limbs, eyes and body.
"Sammy," said Mr Weller,'"put my hat on tight for me."
Sam dutifully adjusted the hat with the long hatband more firmly on his father's head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater agilitry then before, tumbled with Mr Stiggins through the bar, and through the passage, out the front door and so into the street; the kicking continuingg the whole way, and increasing in vehemence, rather than diminishing, every time the top-boot was lifted.
It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed manwrithing in Mr Weller's grasp, and his whole frame quivering with anguish as kick followed kick in rapid succession; it was a still more exciting spectacle to behold Mr Weller, after a powerful struggle, immersing Mr Stiggin's head in a horse-trough full of water and hold him there until he was half-suffocated.
'There!' said Mr Weller, throwing all his energy into one most complicated kcik as he at length permitted Mr Stiggings to withdraw his head from the trough. "Send any vun o' them lazy shepherds here and I'll pound him to a jelly first and drownd him artervards! Sammy, help me in and fill me a small glas of brandy, I'm out o'breath, my boy!'
Legal disclaimer: none of the above is to be construed as incitement to the kicking of reverends and/or immersing their heads in a trough while pouring sundry violent and incoherent ananthemas upon their limbs, eyes and body. But having read the whole book, you may think Mr Stiggins got off rather lightly.
Posted by: Steven | February 5, 2007 7:33 AM
Wow Pat Boone is a complete tool.
Posted by: Poseidon | February 5, 2007 12:27 PM
First off, I love that phrase.Secondly, I should have listened and prepared myself. Three lines into his first paragraph, I snorted hot tea through my nose. Thanks a lot.
Posted by: Anton Mates | February 5, 2007 1:49 PM
Well, except that Darwin's daughter's comments are backed up by the truckload of public and private correspondence (largely available online) from his later life wherein Darwin reaffirms his agnosticism, his belief that the Bible is mostly fictional, and his conviction that evolutionary theory is correct. His friends and son also confirm this in their writing.
Not at all, but Darwin doesn't deserve to be so badly misrepresented.
This is also a very good chance to learn just how impervious some creationists are to facts. I mean, all you'd have to to do is notice Darwin's birthdate, the publishing date of the Origin and the time he spent putting that book together to realize that his saying--
"I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time about everything. To my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire."
--would be absurd.
Posted by: Leon | February 5, 2007 3:53 PM
Thank you for your description of Lady Hope, PZ:
Lady Hope was a good evangelical Christian--that is, she was a shameless liar, fraud, and fool.
It did my heart good to read that!
Posted by: Leon | February 5, 2007 3:57 PM
Thank you for your description of Lady Hope, PZ:
Lady Hope was a good evangelical Christian--that is, she was a shameless liar, fraud, and fool.
It did my heart good to read that!
Posted by: Jennie | February 5, 2007 9:10 PM
I was exposed to this claim for the first time by a plumber, who had noticed the Darwin fish on our car. Being rather puzzled, I responded by observing that Jesus is supposed to have lost his faith on the cross ("why hast thou forsaken me," or something) - so that means there's no god, right?
I had to get a new plumber.
Posted by: Ryan | February 7, 2007 9:52 PM
So is there a right wing message board for these loonies where we can go make fun of them?
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 7, 2007 10:04 PM
Strange as it is to say, Darwin's opinion on the truth of his model is as irrelevant as the opinion of creationists on it.
Indeed, it should remind one of Einstein's commentary on the field of quantum mechanics that followed his theories.
His commentary has no relevance either to his own theories, nor to those that built on his theories.
so regardless, true or false (and most likely false), xian fundamentalists overascribe the importance of "person" in the advancement of science.
but then, that shouldn't surprise, as their worldview is basically built on authoritarianism anyway.
There is no scientific Pope, and they just can't seem to grasp that concept.
Posted by: QrazyQat | February 7, 2007 10:06 PM
A comment on Lady Hope: it looks like she's been shown to be a fraud based on the comments of Darwin's daughter, although I could see people breaking this down into a he said/she said type argument,
Besides the other voluminous correspondence of Darwin's, there's the letters I mentioned above from a preacher who actually did know Darwin. And I think it may be -- I don't have the book I mentioned at hand -- that Lady Hope wasn't even in England at the time she says she was, as well as the above-mentioned preacher's (and others) pointing out that she was not a trustworthy individual in many ways.
Posted by: Ichthyic | February 7, 2007 10:22 PM
I had to get a new plumber.
what's really fun is when you tell a "xian" where that symbol (the fish) was originally co-opted from.
hint:
look up "vessica pisces"
Posted by: MSS | February 12, 2007 6:01 PM
Just a word on poor Pat's column: not only is the Lady Hope story repeated, but so is the old lie that Clarence Darrow used a 'teach the controversy' approach at the Scopes Monkey Trial. That's still in there, in spite of being demonstrably false: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darrow.html.
Posted by: Larry | February 21, 2007 8:19 PM
Pat Boone is a fucking retard, just because his tiny brain can't comprehend evolution (looking at his comments proves he doesn't know shit) doesn't mean it didn't happen!