It is no secret that John Derbyshire is a friend of mine. I am sure most SB readers would find such a connection abhorrent, nevertheless, any man who picks up Mark Ridley's Evolution at my recommendation is a friend :) The goddess of evolution should not just be admired and given due respect, one should strive to understand her. In any case, it is easy to stand by Darwin's legacy amongst fellow travellers, but over the past year Derb has been defending the scientific consensus over at NRO in the face of a wall of reader hostility and relative neutrality from his colleagues.
With this, I point you to A Frigid and Pitiless Dogma, Derb's review of Ramesh Ponnuru's Party of Death. Here is a sampler:
The philosophical passages strictly follow the Golden Rule of religious apologetics, which is: The conclusion is known in advance, and the task of the intellectual is to erect supporting arguments. It would be an astounding thing, just from a statistical point of view, if, after conducting a rigorous open-ended inquiry from philosophical first principles, our author came to conclusions precisely congruent with the dogmas of the church in which he himself is a communicant. Yet that is the case, very nearly, with Party of Death. Remarkable! What if, after all that intellectual work, all that propositional algebra, all those elegant syllogisms, the author had come to the conclusion that abortion was not such a bad thing after all? I suppose he would have been plunged into severe psychic distress. Fortunately there was never the slightest chance of this happening.
This isn't a standard production from either Left or Right that will make anyone happy. Though the piece implies that Ramesh Ponnuru is in a cult and hints that it is he who has a necro-fixation it is not totally unsympathetic either.
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Its okay, I really enjoyed Prime Obsession.
just got john's new book about algebra in the mail. will report back on that!
What a fantastic review. I share Derb's utter and sober bafflement over culture-o'-lifers. Ponderous moral hysterias over Schiavo and blastocysts can only be considered a form of religious nuttiness. (though Raving Atheist will probably disagree!)
But on to the more pressing issue, what he was really complaining about in that one aside is endnotes, not footnotes, and yes, death to endnotes. Please books, can we just use footnotes - I hate fishing through the book every third sentence.
Also, to nitpick, modern publishing software can automatically adjust endnote numbers - authors don't need to go in and readjust every endnote everytime they add a new one in the middle like in the olden days.
Man, this thing is just chocked with great, colorful quotes:
"For RTL is, really, just another species of Political Correctness, just another manifestation of the intellectual pathology, the hypertrophied and academical egalitarianism, the victimological scab-picking, the gaseous sentimentality. that has afflicted our civilization this past forty years. We have lost our innocence, traded it in for a passel of theorems. The RTL-ers are just another bunch of schoolmarms trying to boss us around and to diminish our liberties."
John Derbysire has on occasion called me a friend: the feeling is not mutual.
Thanks for the reminder why I don't generally read National Review anymore (I used to read it religiously. Hell, I even used to be a YAF, but we're all young and foolish sometime).
John Derbyshire does actually have a good grasp of the differences between science and pseudoscience and correctly identifies creationism as the latter; he also accurately demolishes the arguments in the bags of creationist hate mail he's received as a result of his article "Pseudoscience vs. Snobbery." The article itself can be read here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire042203.asp
or here:
http://www.olimu.com/WebJournalism/Texts/Commentary/Doonesbury.htm
I would quibble with Derbyshire about whether or not it's important for the average youngster to have some understanding of evolution. Derbyshire clearly thinks it's not particularly important. I think it might make a big difference politically and ethically whether, on the one hand, one believes that god gave us the planet to pretty much use up any way we please and besides, it's all coming to an end Real Soon Now, or, on the other hand, one believes (or better, accepts) that all living things are part of one big family.
As a practical political matter, Derbyshire is just whistling past the graveyard. Out here in the boondocks (noting that the red state/blue state division is largely a big city vs. small town/rural phenomenon) the takeover of the Republican party and the conservative movement by fundamentalists is remarkable. If I run into a politician who believes that the world is 10,000 years old, more or less, or that global warming is a hoax cooked up by fanatics bent on destroying American capitalism, or that evolution is Satanic - I'm almost certainly talking to a Republican.
Derbyshire is a good reminder that there is more than one way to be on the right. But that's not something he's willing to grant about being on the left. Here's the second paragraph of the article I linked to above:
Yep, that's right, they're all Commies. What trashtalk. I'll think I'll go take a bath.
enon, that commentary was from 2003. derb might stand by all the details, but evolution happens. for a fact i know that derb is more persuaded by the possibilities of bioengineering then he was 4-5 years ago, when he placed it in the "fantasy loon" category.
John Derbysire has on occasion called me a friend: the feeling is not mutual.
Derbyshire is my friend at least :)
f I run into a politician who believes that the world is 10,000 years old, more or less, or that global warming is a hoax cooked up by fanatics bent on destroying American capitalism, or that evolution is Satanic - I'm almost certainly talking to a Republican.
Yes, and if you run into a politician who believes that astrology works, or that genetically engineered crops have been "proven" to be unsafe, or that global capitalism is a plot cooked up by corporations bent on destroying the shining future of communism, or that human evolution stopped 100 kYa...you are likely to be talking to a Democrat.
Yes, and if you run into a politician who believes that astrology works, or that genetically engineered crops have been "proven" to be unsafe, or that global capitalism is a plot cooked up by corporations bent on destroying the shining future of communism, or that human evolution stopped 100 kYa...you are likely to be talking to a Democrat.
The Democrats where you live must be much stranger than the ones in my neck of the woods; the ones around here are mostly just corrupt and concerned with finding government jobs for their cousins.
And the first name that comes to my mind when "politician" and "astrology" are mentioned in the same sentence is . . . . Reagan.
Enon, you said,
I think it might make a big difference politically and ethically whether, on the one hand, one believes that god gave us the planet to pretty much use up any way we please and besides, it's all coming to an end Real Soon Now, or, on the other hand, one believes (or better, accepts) that all living things are part of one big family.
I believe that is what is termed a "false dichotomy". I, for one, believe that we evolved into being the most advanced species on the planet and that gives us the right to do pretty much what we want with the planet.
I also think you should crank down on the bile a bit.
...that gives us the right to do pretty much what we want with the planet.
REALLY?...
Yes, and if you run into a politician who believes that astrology works, or that genetically engineered crops have been "proven" to be unsafe, or that global capitalism is a plot cooked up by corporations bent on destroying the shining future of communism, or that human evolution stopped 100 kYa...you are likely to be talking to a Democrat.
Seriously, some of those sorts are too far left to call themselves democrats. That's why there are such things as the Green party.