Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!tank!ogil
From: ogil@tank.uchicago.edu (Brian W. Ogilvie)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Creationism in our schools and the Anti-Dogma statement
Summary: Coarse-grained distinction
Keywords: Darwinism evolution creation Haeckel fnord
Message-ID: <1397@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 89 22:10:59 GMT
References: <8558@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <2630002@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <13338@cup.portal.com> <206@maths.tcd.ie>
Reply-To: ogil@tank.uchicago.edu (Brian W. Ogilvie)
Organization: History of Science, University of Chicago
Lines: 39

In article <206@maths.tcd.ie> ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie (Fergal Toomey) writes:
>
>The way I see it, the difference between Creationism and Darwinism is
>essentially the difference between pseudo-science and science. The nature
>of this difference has been hotly disputed for years among scientific
>philosophers and no entirely satisfactory method of distinguishing between
>the two has yet been proposed. Just what is so scientific about Darwinism
>and so unscientific about Creationism? To date, nobody has managed to pin
>down this difference (if it exists).
>[...]
>                          Fergal Toomey, TCD.

On a very coarse level one may justly distinguish evolution as science
and creationism as dogma because evolutionary theory is open to change
while the creationist attitude does not permit any new data to alter the
belief in special creation of species, etc.

Ernst Haeckel, who was avidly antireligious and thus somewhat biased, makes
much of this distinction in his _Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte_ (_Natural
History of Creation_). Haeckel provides a good review of the arguments for
evolution and against creation, focusing especially on the presence of
rudimentary organs which are never used by their possessors (rudiments of
hind legs in aquatic mammals, etc.). He concludes that creationists, by
sticking to their guns even in the face of this evidence, demean their own
God by requiring him to hold to the classes of the ideal morphologists
when he designs his creatures!

In contrast, Haeckel shows how evolutionary theory has changed from the
early conceptions of Lamarck through Darwin and finally to Haeckel himself.
Each of the earlier thinkers had both right and wrong ideas, and the theory
changed as new concepts were introduced and older ones refined. Haeckel's
history is rather vulgar, but this point is clear. Since Haeckel was the
foremost popularizer of evolution in the nineteenth century (the _Naturliche
Schopfungsgeschichte_ was translated into every European language and
Japanese) this distinction was widely disseminated and formed the basis
for several defenses of evolution in the early part of this century.

---
Brian W. Ogilvie  /  ogil@tank.uchicago.edu