Culture & Ethics – Apologetics Ministry

25Jun 2020 by Post

Darwinism and “No Lives Matter”

alt-right, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, churches, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Evolution, evolutionists, Francis Scott Key, ID The Future, Mike Keas, No Lives Matter, Peter Singer, Podcast, pseudoscience, Racism, Richard Weikart, scientific racism, Shrewsbury, statues, Ulysses Grant, V.I. Lenin, vandals, white nationalists

I’ve wondered if the marauding vandals will come eventually for the Darwin statues. I hope NOT, but let’s face it — between Francis Scott Key or Ulysses Grant, on one hand, and Charles Darwin on the other, whose work has done more to undergird racism? There’s no contest. A classic episode of ID the Future, republished now, is eerie in its relevance to the culture at the moment. Host and science historian Michael Keas interviewed historian and Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Richard Weikart about the racial pseudoscience that’s integral to the Darwinian scientific heritage. As Professor Weikart explains, Darwin’s racism is not incidental to his case for evolution. It’s not as if he was merely a product of his time, with the reprehensible attitudes held by other…

23Jun 2020 by Post

The Biology of the Second Reich

Center for Science & Culture, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, documentary, Evolution, German Southwest Africa, Germany, Herero people, Intelligent Design YouTube Festival, science, Second Reich, society, The Biology of the Second Reich, World War I, YouTube videos

From June 16-30, we are holding an Intelligent Design YouTube Festival by highlighting 15 Center for Science & Culture YouTube videos that have received more than 100,000 views each. Here is video #8, “The Biology of the Second Reich.” Darwinism isn’t just bad for science. It’s been bad for society. This award-winning documentary tells the little known story of Darwinism’s influence on Germany before World War I, including its role in the genocide against the Herero people in German Southwest Africa. A couple of years after its debut, YouTube suddenly restricted the video to older viewers (and rejected our appeal to lift the restriction) — so you will need to log-in to your YouTube account to view it. If you’d like us to create more videos like this one, please…

09Jun 2020 by Post

The “Virus That Infected Philosophy”

art, barbarism, conservatism, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Evolution, Ideas Have Consequences, Immanuel Kant, Michael Egnor, Mind Matters, modernity, Nominalism, noumena, phenomena, philosophy, Politics, realism, Richard M. Weaver

Keep an eye on a new series at Mind Matters by Michael Egnor. In 1948, Richard M. Weaver wrote a little book, Ideas Have Consequences, that became a foundational text of 20th-century American conservatism. He traced modern barbarism to a wrong intellectual turn by William of Ockham in the 14th century — advancing nominalism over realism — leading from there through Darwinian materialism to most everything else that’s wrong with modern life. Egnor explains, “Nominalism is the view that universals exist only as concepts in the mind, but not in reality.” He concludes his first post in the series: Nominalism leads inexorably to Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena — things as they appear to our senses and things as they are in themselves. That distinction locks us into a…

05Jun 2020 by Post

Suicide by Zoom — Technology and Dehumanization

abortion, assisted suicide, California, coronavirus, Culture & Ethics, dehumanization, Humanize, Medicine, Meera Shah, New York State, oncologists, Oregon, oxymoron, pandemic, patients, Philadelphia Inquirer, Planned Parenthood, silver lining, suicide, Technology, telehealth, telemedicine, Wesley Smith, Zoom

Some have seen a silver lining in the pandemic and welcomed its encouragement of medicine practiced online, potentially freeing doctors to work across state borders, and widening access to care (or virtual care) generally. I’m not sure that’s to be celebrated in its entirety. The trend toward “telehealth” undercuts the crucial personal relationship between doctor and patient, which had already been in retreat before the virus came along. There are other downsides, too, including lethal ones. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, “The pandemic is helping U.S. abortion-rights advocates achieve a long-standing goal: Make it easier for women to use pills to end pregnancies up to 10 weeks.” Get your abortion pills online — what could be more convenient? NPR approves, quoting New York physician Meera Shah with Planned Parenthood: “I…

01Jun 2020 by Post

Human Zoos — How “Science” Fueled the Racial Fire

African-American, Africans, alt-right, Bellevue, Black Lives Matter, Bronx Zoo, Caucasian, Charles Darwin, clergy, Culture & Ethics, Discovery Institute, Evolution, George Floyd, Human Zoos, John West, lockdown, looting, Minneapolis, New York City, New York Times, original sin, Ota Benga, pandemic, police brutality, protests, pygmies, Racism, scientific racism, Seattle, South Bronx, St. Louis, textbooks, The Descent of Man, The Hub, Tukwila, United States, Wesley Smith

Scorching images from across the country fill our screens, a reminder that the racial past remains an unhealed burn in America’s present. The mood in our own area is shocked and anxious, as we watched violence and looting spread from Seattle to outlying cities like Bellevue and Tukwila. It is getting very close to home. Some have called racism America’s historical “original sin.” Where did many white people of the past get the wicked idea that their lives matter more than black lives? The question is complex but, without doubt, Darwinian theory helped to fuel our present racial fire. Comprehending the national burden of hatred is a task not only for scholars but for all Americans. So too with understanding the origins of the opportunistic criminality that has piggybacked on…

30May 2020 by Post

Why “Humanize”? A New Effort to Defend the Unique Dignity of Human Beings

animal rights, animal welfare, animals, Artificial Intelligence, Center on Human Exceptionalism, China, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, Darwin Day in America, David Klinghoffer, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Evolution News, facial recognition, Falun Gong, human exceptionalism, Human Zoos, Humanize, humans, John West, La Bella Principessa, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Egnor, quality of life, social credit, Steven J. Buri, The Biology of the Second Reich, Tom Shakely, transhumanism, triage, Uyghurs, Walter Bradley Center, Wesley Smith

Hello. My name is Wesley J. Smith and I am honored to be chairman of Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. I am writing to you here to introduce the CHE’s new blog, which we call Humanize. Humanize will complement and supplement the important work of the Center for Science & Culture and its invaluable Evolution News site. Why did we choose “Humanize” as the name for the site? The once self-evident truth of human exceptionalism is under intensifying attack, as readers of Evolution News know well. Indeed, one of the tragic trends in thinking about evolution has been to blur the distinction between humans and animals. History warns us not to regard this lightly. Recent documentaries by Discovery Institute Vice President John West, Human Zoos and The Biology of…

12May 2020 by Post

New Jersey’s Suicide Confusion

assisted suicide, coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, despair, District of Columbia, doctors, New Jersey, Phil Murphy, public policy, suicide prevention, Well Being Trust

New Jersey recently became one of the seven states (plus the District of Columbia) to legalize assisted suicide by statute. In effect, New Jersey sanctions suicide for some residents through its public policy. Now, with COVID-19, New Jersey officials are worried about a spike in suicide caused by the shutdown, so for them, suicide is bad. From the NJ.Com story: On top of the more than 78,000 Americans who have already died from the fast-spreading virus, a new study from the Well Being Trust found conditions from the pandemic — including lost jobs, isolation, and fear over the future — could lead to 75,000 deaths in the nation from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide over the next decade.This comes as a number of critics say they’re worried lockdowns designed to save lives from COVID-19 could…

03May 2020 by Post

Time to Make Fossil Fuel Industries “Pay”?

António Guterres, asbestos, carbon emissions, central planning, coal, coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, economic suppression, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, globalism, natural gas, natural resources, New York Times, obesity, oil refineries, polluters, regulatory control, subsidies, United Nations

Ever since the COVID-19 crisis erupted, commentators have predicted that activists would try to hitch global warming to the ongoing fight against coronavirus — not that this required true prophetic gifts. Activists think every crisis requires the dilution of national sovereignty, increased regulations, wealth redistribution, and higher taxes — including to combat the obesity epidemic. Unsurprisingly, and right on schedule, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres contributed an op-ed in the New York Times — filled with the usual global-warming bromides — arguing that the fights against the virus and climate change should be joined into one six-point “climate positive” plan. You like economic suppression? You like heavy-handed government regulatory control? You like globalism? Then, Guterres is your man. He writes: A recovery from the coronavirus crisis must not take us just back to where we…

24Apr 2020 by Post

Push to Replace Earth Day with “Nature Rights”

anti-humanism, boat basin, Common Dreams, conservation, Culture & Ethics, Deep Ecology Movement, Earth Day, ecosystem, environmental harm, Environmentalism, human benefit, Lake Erie, litigation, nature rights, pollution, regulation, Science (journal)

Earth Day, celebrated this past Wednesday, launched the modern environmentalist movement in 1970. Since then, the movement has moved way beyond the principles of conservation, remediation of polluted areas, and protecting species to embrace an anti-humanism that seeks to throttle our thriving in the name of “saving the earth.” The Deep Ecology Movement is one example. Proving the old maxim that the revolution always consumes itself, two environmental activists have now urged abandoning Earth Day as a “failure” in favor of pushing the “rights of nature.” From “Abolish Earth Day,” published in Common Dreams: Embedded within Earth Day is the pursuit of comfort: the feeling that a benevolent authority exists to protect human and ecological life. People want to believe that laws — federal environmental regulations — protect them, and…

18Apr 2020 by Post

We Need to Worry About Suicide Contagion, Too

contagion, crisis, Culture, Culture & Ethics, economic hardship, economy, ethics, Medicine, National Center for Health Statistics, population, report, suicide, suicide rate

The National Center for Health Statistics has published an alarming report about the increasing suicide rate — which has been increasing at 2 percent per year since 2006. From the report (my emphasis): This report highlights trends in suicide rates from 1999 through 2018. During this period, the age-adjusted suicide rate increased 35%, from 10.5 per 100,000 U.S. standard population in 1999 to 14.2 in 2018. The average annual percentage increase in the national suicide rate increased from approximately 1% per year from 1999 to 2006 to 2% per year from 2006 through 2018. Our ongoing suicide crisis is a reminder. Economic hardship breeds suicide, which as I have argued in the past, can also be a contagion. Photo credit: Road Trip with Raj via Unsplash. Cross-posted at The Corner. The post We…