Darwinism

"Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe."

"What if the orbit of Darwinism should be a little too circular? What if species should offer residual phenomena, here and there, not explicable by natural selection? Twenty years hence naturalists may be in a position to say whether this is, or is not, the case; but in either event they will owe the author of "The Origin of Species" an immense debt of gratitude...... And viewed as a whole, we do not believe that, since the publication of Von Baers "Researches on Development," thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated to exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in extending the domination of Science over regions of thought into which she has, as yet, hardly penetrated."

"The fact is that for complex systems like the bacterial flagellum no biologist has or is anywhere close to reconstructing its history in Darwinian terms. Is Darwinian theory therefore falsified? Hardly. I have yet to witness one committed Darwinist concede that any feature of nature might even in principle provide countervailing evidence to Darwinism. In place of such a concession one is instead always treated to an admission of ignorance. Thus its not that Darwinism has been falsified or disconfirmed, but that we simply dont know enough about the biological system in question and its historical context to determine how the Darwinian mechanism might have produced it."

"What’s being pushed is to have Darwinism critiqued, to teach there’s a controversy. Intelligent design itself does not have any content."

"Natural selection is the only workable explanation for the beautiful and compelling illusion of design that pervades every living body and every organ. Knowledge of evolution may not be strictly useful in everyday commerce. You can live some sort of life and die without ever hearing the name of Darwin. But if, before you die, you want to understand why you lived in the first place, Darwinism is the one subject that you must study."

"Whenever Darwinism is the topic, the temperature rises, because more is at stake than just the empirical facts about how life on Earth evolved, or the correct logic of the theory that accounts for those facts. One of the precious things that is at stake is a vision of what it means to ask, and answer, the question "Why?" Darwins new perspective turns several traditional assumptions upside down, undermining our standard ideas about what ought to count as satisfying answers to this ancient and inescapable question. Here science and philosophy get completely intertwined. Scientists sometimes deceive themsevles into thinking that philosophical ideas are only, at best, decorations or parasitic commentaries on the hard, objective triumphs of science, and that they themselves are immune to the confusions that philosophers devote their lives to dissolving. But there is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination."

"The idea of Darwinian natural evolution was paramount in Hayek’s early development. His family background was primarily in the natural sciences. While his maternal grandfather, Franz von Juraschek, was an economist and friend of some of the original mem bers of the Austrian school of economics, Juraschek died in 1910, when Hayek was ten or eleven. Despite Hayek’s precociousness, he could not have been much influenced by this grandfather. A far greater intellectual influence on Friedrich was his father, August, who was a medical doctor for the City of Vienna and a part-time professor of botany at the University of Vienna. Hayek mentioned the intellectual influence of his father on him in a late interview: “We have talked... about my contemporaries and to some extent about the influence of my father, which was of some importance.”"

"The intellectual milieu of Hayek’s youth was Darwinian. Hayek remarked that both his father and paternal grandfather were Darwinians and that everyone with whom his family associated through his fa ther’s university connections was secular. He recalled that, when he was about fourteen, his father gave him a substantial treatise on the theory of evolution. If he had received the work a year later, he noted, “I probably would have stuck with biology. The things did interest me immensely.” Hayek was extremely interested in botany until he was fifteen or so. It is easy to imagine that conversations regarding his father’s botanical work were a frequent topic around the Hayek family dinner table. August traveled extensively on plant expeditions and had a small business selling and exchanging plant specimens with which young Fritz (Hayek’s nickname, which he disliked) assisted him. The two also went to meetings of the Vienna Zoologic and Botanical Society together. It is possible that three generations of von Hayeks sometimes attended these meetings—Gustav, August, and Friedrich."

"Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century."

"Scientists have long known that Darwinism is false. They have adhered to the myth out of self-interest and a zealous desire to put down God."

"Darwin seems to lose out with the public primarily when his supporters force him into a mano-a-mano Thunderdome death match against the Almighty. Most people seem willing to accept Darwinism as long as they dont have to believe in nothing but Darwinism. Thus, the strident tub-thumping for absolute atheism by evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins, whom the new issue of Discover Magazine rightly criticizes as "Darwins Rottweiler," is self-defeating."

"The truth is Darwinism is not a scientific theory, but a materialistic creation myth masquerading as science. It is first and foremost a weapon against religion – especially traditional Christianity. Evidence is brought in afterwards, as window dressing."