Abe Lincoln Joins the Discovery Institute

You know about the Discoveroids’ creepy practice of retroactively recruiting dead people in order to add prestige to what’s going on in their Seattle ministry. They have an illustrious roster of long-deceased members, and occasionally they find a new cadaver they can dig up for display in their gruesome gallery. It’s an outrageous activity because the dead can’t complain, so they suffer the ignominy of being displayed in the Discoveroids’ Hall of Ancestors.

The last time we described their macabre membership drive was here: William Jennings Bryan Joins Discovery Institute. That one didn’t trouble us. Of all the carcasses they’ve stashed in their cellar, only Bryan’s belongs there. He would have voluntarily joined the Discovery Institute.

Here are links to all their earlier body-snatching episodes, starting with Thomas Jefferson, and then Alfred Wallace (because of some foolishness he wrote in his dotage), and then Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and then they really got carried away when Charles Darwin Joins the Discovery Institute, and then James Clerk Maxwell, and then — this one was also rather audacious — Superman, and most recently, as we already mentioned, William Jennings Bryan.

Now we bring you another ghoulish episode in the invasion of the Discoveroid body snatchers — this time their victim is Abe Lincoln. It’s written by none other than John West (whom we affectionately call “Westie”). He’s Associate Director of the Discoveroids’ creationist “think tank,” which makes him one of the chief Keepers of their wedge strategy. He was also an early winner of the Curmudgeon’s Buffoon Award, thus the jolly logo above this post.

Westie’s latest is Darwin Day, Abraham Lincoln, and Intelligent Design. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:

Today [this was posted late on 12 February] is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Of course, it’s also Charles Darwin’s birthday — they were born on the same day in 1809.

Before reading Westie’s post, we would have assumed that Darwin’s and Lincoln’s common birth date was of interest only to astrologers, practitioners of augury, and other soothsayers — but now we’ve learned that it’s also of great significance to the Discoveroids. Well, why not? Their intellects are unbounded by the godless constraints of reality and rationality. Westie tells us why their shared birth date is important:

That means it’s the season when die-hard supporters of Darwin’s theory typically try to supplant Lincoln with Darwin. This year, three U.S. Congressmen have reintroduced legislation to officially recognize February 12 (Lincoln’s birthday) as “Darwin Day.” Given the partisan affiliations of the congressmen (they’re all Democrats), one may be forgiven for thinking that their motives, ahem, might not be solely to honor Darwin. Perhaps they also want to demote the memory of the first Republican President.

How many incredible statements are in that paragraph? (1) we’re trying to “supplant Lincoln with Darwin,” (2) recognizing Darwin Day is a uniquely Democrat affliction; and (3) Darwinists want to”demote the memory” of Lincoln. What’s Westie saying — that Darwinists are all Lincoln-hating, die-hard, unreconstructed Confederates?

Let’s not waste time trying to make any sense out of that. We’ll just read on:

If that is the case, they should try to be a little more creative next year. Rather than simply reintroducing the same tired Darwin Day proposal, why not suggest blasting away Lincoln’s face on Mt. Rushmore and replacing it with the smiling visage of Saint Charles?

M’god — what’s going on in Discoveroid headquarters? Westie continues:

This is not to claim that all Darwinists are snubbing Lincoln for Darwin Day. Indeed, others seem to be trying hard to shoehorn him into their celebrations. These more inclusive Darwinists include members of the Ethical Humanist Society of Green Bay, Wisconsin, who apparently were going to discuss both Darwin and Lincoln at their annual Darwin Day confab. … I have no way of knowing what the humanists of Green Bay actually discussed last night, but I do think it is a stretch to use Lincoln as a prop for Darwin Day.

Having claimed that Lincoln has no place “as a prop” for Darwin Day, Westie now gets around to snatching Honest Abe’s carcass and claiming him as a Discoveroid. Watch how he does it:

That’s because Lincoln’s views on evolution weren’t in sync with standard Darwinism … .

That’s not surprising. Darwin published his theory in 1859. That’s the year Lincoln was running for President of the US. The Civil War began shortly thereafter, and it effectively (but not officially) ended when Lee surrendered at Appomattox on 09 April of 1865. Lincoln was killed a week later, so it’s understandable that he had things other than evolution on his mind from 1859 to the end of his life. It’s possible that he never even heard of Darwin or his theory. Here’s more from Westie:

As far as I know, Lincoln never publicly discussed the topic of evolution. What we know about his views comes from secondary sources, chiefly Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon, an admittedly controversial figure in Lincoln studies.

In other words, Westie is working with a clean slate, because Lincoln never mentioned Darwin’s theory. Moving along:

However, there was one book about evolution that Lincoln seems to have taken a definite interest in. According to Herndon … James Keyes of Springfield, Illinois gave or loaned Lincoln a copy of Robert Chambers’s book The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chambers is typically regarded as a forerunner of Darwin, and for good reason. Chambers put forward a comprehensive, if wildly speculative, account of both cosmological and biological evolution as the result of simple physical laws.

Westie is relying on a third-hand tale to the effect that Lincoln read a book by a pre-Darwinian author of whom no one ever heard. So what? Another excerpt:

If Herndon is to be believed, Lincoln embraced the idea of evolution. But it was the idea of evolution proposed by Robert Chambers, not Charles Darwin. And there was a world of difference between the two.

Is this the best that Westie can do? Apparently so. He drones on and on, describing what Chambers wrote — as if it were important. For example:

Chambers argued that because of the regularities of structure found throughout the biological world there must have been an “original Divine conception of all the forms of being which these natural laws were only instruments in working out and realizing… “

No one cares what Chambers wrote — well, no one but Westie. We don’t actually know: (1) whether Lincoln ever read the guy’s book; (2) or if he did read it, when he did so; or (3) what he thought about it. But lack of verifiable evidence is never a problem for creationists. Westie then gives us another Chambers quote (which we’ll ignore) but in doing so he makes a ghastly slip:

Elsewhere in his book, Chambers even endorsed and paid homage to William Paley and other early proponents of intelligent design: [quote ignored].

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! We’ve been saying for years that Paley’s watchmaker analogy is one of the principal pillars of intelligent design “theory,” and Westie seems to agree. Then he goes on to quote yet another second-hand source for the proposition that:

Lincoln believed that the “order and harmony of all nature” provided convincing evidence that nature had “been created and arranged by some great thinking power …”

Again, there’s no direct evidence from Lincoln himself that he ever had such views, and there’s no evidence that he ever rejected — or even knew of — Darwin’s work. Nevertheless, Westie concludes with this:

Given Lincoln’s acknowledgment of the clear evidence of design in nature, not only would he be banned from expressing his views on evolution in most public schools today, but he definitely would never be invited to most Darwin Day events.

So there you have it, dear reader. According to Westie, Lincoln was so hostile to Darwin’s theory that he’d be banned from Darwin Day celebrations. But he’s welcome at the Discovery Institute. He’s just been retroactively adopted as their newest founding member.

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