Discovery Institute on “Darwinian Morality”

THIS is one of those rare occasions when words fail us — almost. We encountered a new blog article at the website of the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute‘s creationist public relations and lobbying operation, the Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids, a/k/a the cdesign proponentsists).

It’s by David Klinghoffer — whose peculiar line of work is familiar to our readers — and it’s titled Darwinian Morality: How the Truth Refreshes.

That’s right, dear reader. Klinghoffer, whose service in the creationist cause is so well known to you, now presumes to discuss — and criticize! — something he calls “Darwinian morality.”

We are always candid with you so we’ll say this right up front: Klinghoffer’s essay strikes us as being far too bizarre to think about long enough for our usual analysis. For that reason we’ll give you only a very few excerpts, and we’ll toss in some remarks between them. It will be your task to click over to the Discoveroid site to read it all. Then you can ponder the deeper meaning, if there be any.

Here we go, and the bold font was added by us:

Assurances that we have nothing to fear from Darwinism are a familiar species of evolutionary apologetics. We’re told that Darwinian thinking doesn’t threaten morality, religion, or belief in life’s having an ultimate meaning. …

Anyone who’s honest with himself knows this is all propaganda and wishful thinking, but it refreshes us nevertheless to hear Darwinists themselves confess — even trumpet — the truth.

What in the world is that man talking about? We could understand an essay’s starting out like that if the topic were, say, Islam or some other religious system. But evolution is either good science or it isn’t. Period. Klinghoffer’s moral concerns are separate issues.

It may be that belief in Noah’s Ark is somehow vital to someone’s morality and the “ultimate meaning” of his life. If so, we think that’s unfortunate but it’s his problem — and it doesn’t have any bearing on the theory of evolution. Noah’s Ark is a scientific and intellectual shipwreck, and if anyone has built his ethical life around that myth then he has problems unrelated to biology.

Unlike the Discoveroids, we’re not pretending to run a spiritual ministry or a personal advice operation here, so we don’t involve ourselves in those matters. If someone out there is struggling with a moral crisis over creationism, maybe Klinghoffer can guide him. We certainly can’t. But whatever anyone decides about the meaning of his life, it has no effect on the reality of science.

Klinghoffer spends the rest of his little essay discussing sexual behavior. Frankly, dear reader, our own inclination is to either ridicule or ignore the opinions of Klinghoffer in all things — and we’ll ignore his views on that topic especially. If someone wants to consult Klinghoffer as a marriage counselor or whatever, that’s his decision. Therefore we’ll skip over most of what Klinghoffer has written here, and jump right to his last paragraph. There we find this:

Given the Darwinian premise, we are left with only three real options. Self-deception …, admitting the truth — which is a horrible one — or lying about it for the sake of scoring propaganda points. Some choice.

Okay, dear reader, now perhaps you understand why Klinghoffer’s essay has left us almost speechless. We’d describe it as a classic case of projecting onto one’s opponent all of one’s own flaws. Let’s try flipping it around to see if it fits:

Given the creationist premise, someone like Klinghoffer has only three options: (1) self deception; (2) admitting the truth (really horrible!); or (3) pursuing a career of lying.

Hey — that works!

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