Darwinist dogma. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: What is it about me that causes Mr Mautner (see May 2003, page 78) and Mr Seiver (Letters, May) to froth at the mouth? I just don't understand it.

I am going to assume that Mr Seiver is an adult. If he isn't then I hereby offer an advance and hypothetical apology for writing in a way which to the average child or teenager will probably seem very complicated. Seiver begins frothing when he says my paper on Darwinism is "unpersuasive", "superficial" and "better suited to a Christian lifestyle magazine". He claims that my understanding is inadequate and that I myself am dogmatic. My reasonings, he alleges, are "indistinguishable" from the reasonings of an Anglican Archbishop--the supposed similarity being, I think, in the opinion of my critic, a terrible flaw. In other parts of his letter he says my ideas are "crass" and "erroneous". He twice declares my essay to be unfit to appear in the science section of Quadrant. He alleges that I and/or the Editor are disingenuous because "to masquerade [sic] dogmatic beliefs as scientific argument stifles ... intellectual debate". Seiver rarely supports his allegations by quoting my actual words. He is a careless reader, a careless writer and, I fear, a careless thinker. I can support these claims by referring to his words.

In paragraph 1 he says one of my arguments is dogmatic. A less careless writer would not have used the word argument. For the so-called argument is not an argument at all but a statement about logical compatibility--as follows: "evolution is quite compatible with creationism as such ..." Since my critic makes no attempt to disprove that statement I suppose he must think it is self-evidently false. But it isn't false at all. It has to be said that Seiver creates terrible confusion at this point. He muddles up three very different things: (1) the compatibility of two theories; (2) the truth of one of those theories; and (3) my personal beliefs. That the theory of evolution and creationism are compatible does not mean that creationism must be true. Nor does it follow that I personally believe creationism to be true.

It is obvious that the theory of evolution is compatible with the existence of a Creator and is also consistent with the non-existence of a Creator. How so? Partly because the concept of logical compatibility is what it is and partly because evolutionary theory has nothing to say about the beginning of the Universe--as Darwin rightly noted. Evolutionary theory is not the same thing as cosmology.

The second paragraph of Seiver's letter contains some interestingly unusual reasonings. For example: I had suggested that the awe biologists feel in regard to Darwinism might be partly motivated by atheism; at once Mr Seiver takes a big jump, a real Fosbury Flop, to the conclusion that I am a Christian. But the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise; and it also happens to be ...