Name the creationist

Posted by Josh Rosenau on May 19, 2008
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Who wrote:

A manifestly unsound system like that of Darwin exercises a much more powerful influence than the deepest speculations, just because of its ?practicability.? And so we have seen the idea of evolution develop itself till it spread from biology and geology to all spheres of thought and investigation, and, intoxicated by its success, exercised such a tyranny that any one who did not swear by it was to be looked upon as a simpleton.

No, not Ben Stein in Expelled, nor Denyse O’Leary’s latest crush.

For extra credit: Why should modern IDolators be very worried about quotes like that?

On An Entirely Different Note: National Director of the KKK Thomas Robb blasts Expelled, refusing to let Ben Stein give Darwin credit for racism. And if anyone knows racism and evolution don’t mix, it’s the KKK.

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Comments

  1. #1 Anthony
    May 19, 2008

    Presumably, because Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s “The Foundations of the 19th Century” is seen as part of the ideological foundation of Nazism?

  2. #2 Colugo
    May 19, 2008

    I immediately recognized the passage, but I don’t want to spoil the fun for others.

    National Director? What a blandly boring title. What happened to flamboyantly colorful titles like Imperial Cyclops and Grand Wizard? I would be wary of Robb’s “expertise,” even on subjects he ought know a lot about.

  3. #3 Josh Rosenau
    May 19, 2008

    Anthony is on the right track, but it goes even deeper.

  4. #4 A Lurker
    May 19, 2008

    Is using Google cheating? It it is then call me a cheater because Google easily finds the quote.

  5. #5 Josh Rosenau
    May 19, 2008

    Google is just a way of extending your memory.

  6. #6 Mary Alice
    May 20, 2008

    Ben’s daddy would not be proud of him on this. Herb Stein was bright, witty and conservative, and certainly could distinguish fact from fiction.

  7. #7 Joseph Hertzlinger
    May 21, 2008

    If an association with Nazis is enought to discredit a scientific idea, would that include the ideas of Werner von Braun?

    Will Ben Stein next claim we did not go to the moon?

  8. #8 Robert Carnegie
    May 21, 2008

    If it’s on the same page as “So we need to burn all the Jews”, someone should photostat it and send it to Stein.

  9. #9 TomS
    May 21, 2008

    I’ve been looking through this book for all of the references to “Darwin” in the index.

    It is a mixed bag. At times, there are somewhat favorable references, but at others, quite unfavorable. Here are some of the unfavorable:

    (There is a rather long-winded passage which dismisses the idea of universal common ancestry for all animals in a footnote which begins on page 42 of volume 1)

    “… Darwinian castles in the air…” footnote to page 264, volume 1

    “… no tenable conclusion can be derived even from the most consistent, and, therefore, most shallow, Darwinism …” pages 215-216, volume 2

    “The most salient phlogiston of the eighteenth century was really nothing less than Darwin’s theory of natural selection.” page 325, volume 2