This is a follow-up to our earlier post on this topic: Rush Limbaugh on Evolution.
At Rush’s website we find this, presumably a partial transcript from his broadcast of 01 October: Who Cares What Darwinist Fanatics Think? We’d like you to click over there to read it all, so we’ll just give you a few excerpts, with bold added by us. Here it comes:
All I have to do is say Darwin, I don’t care what follows, I get loads of e-mail from people ripping me.
[…]
And all I said was Charles Darwin and Karl Marx are responsible for more deaths than even global warming.
Global warming hasn’t killed anyone. Followers of Marx, yes — millions. But Darwin? Let’s read a bit more:
As far as I’m concerned Darwin is corrupt and everybody that believes in Darwinism is corrupt and they present a problem.
Can you believe this? The man’s gone daft! We continue:
Liberals love anything that allows them to say there’s no God. Liberals will go anywhere and support anything if they can use it to say there’s no God. Okay, fine. Then they come up and they say survival of the fittest, fine and dandy.
Darwin ran around saying there’s no God? Who knew? Anyway, in this next part of the rant, Rush comes close to making sense, although he’s obviously confusing “social Darwinism” (which Darwin never espoused) with the biological theory:
Well, then why don’t they let survival of the fittest rule in American society? They love Darwin, and they love survival of the fittest except when it comes to America. Now they want equality of outcomes. They don’t want survival of the fittest. They want survival of the incompetents. In fact, they want the incompetents to triumph over the competent.
There he lurched close to the truth, but not close enough. Natural selection, if it were applied to society, is the polar opposite of Marx’s “To each according to his needs.” Rush understands that, so he should love Darwin. Instead he hates him — because he was “corrupt.”
This is the end of Rush’s transcript:
These people that believe in Darwin are no different than people who have faith in Jesus Christ or Mohammed or what have you. It’s fascinating.
Rush knows how to think. We’ve heard him say intelligent things quite often. And he certainly understands politics. He should have enough sense to stick with what he knows. But he obviously doesn’t.
Copyright © 2010. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
He’s just killing his credibility with anyone who has the ability to think. Unfortunately, he has a vast audience that hangs on his every word, and they will just parrot his unthinking comments about evolution.
hows that ropey dopey goin Mr Oxycontin?
Ah yes…still suckling on that fat Purdue teat I see…..
As to sticking to what he knows….hmmmm….would that be how to burn crosses and wear sheet and pillow case ghost outfits? Or just being a fat no brain hypocritical lying twat? Or stuffing those prescription drugs down your neck whilst denegrating drug addicts?
I’d quit listening to his show, but I already don’t listen.
Sandman, of course, calls Limbaugh a Klansman, which is totally unjustified. Rush is an out-and-proud creationist, but that doesn’t make him Klansman. It’s not okay to lie about people, even if they insist on being stupid in public.
This claim of “belief in Darwin” is found so often in IDiot screeds simply because it is a lie that anyone with an ounce of integrity could easily discover.
The trouble is that admitting that people actually accept (believe, as it is justified belief) evolution due to the evidence would give their ignorant herd animals permission to consider the evidence. That would not do.
Glen, I think it’s post-modernism. I think they think that all university-educated people are postmodernists and that if they appeal to the social construction of knowledge or whatever then we’ll fold up.
Remember a character over at Klinghoffer’s beliefnet blog, kernestm? Remember how he appealed to me tearfully, that I had been taught “humanism” and by the standards of “humanism” I had to accept all belief systems as equally valid and disavow claims to absolute knowledge or something?
Everything is getting so ironic nowadays. Arguments, especially on teh internets, seem always to be “Well, since you believe in X then I am going to make an argument that you must accept for the same reason you accept X; if you don’t it proves you’re not consistent.” Half the time a belief in X is just a stereotype anyway. (Limbaugh’s argument for why “liberals” should reject “Darwinism” is a perfect example, but the mirror image argument is made by the left all the time.)
I really wish people would just argue for what they themselves think, on principles they themselves hold. It’s all so meta I can’t keep track.
Here’s what I wrote on Talk.Origins about the shock jock:
Even if Limbaugh is as science-illiterate as he comes across (I
suspect that at least some of it is faked), he has most likely read
and understood the answers to his misconceptions, including (3 references from “Index to Creationist Claims” in my original post) .
[Those refutations of his nonsense] are hard to miss, especially for someone who (1) scours the literature to find opponents’ views that he can misrepresent, and (2) has an anti-evolution activist brother (David) who must have these articles at his fingertips.
But he knows he can’t refute the refutations, even with quote mining
or other word games. So he pretends that they don’t exist.
As for “telling them what they want to hear,” I would bet that both
Limbaugh brothers have also read and understood this.
One more thing I want to add here is that I’m almost certain that, once they start obsessing (a la Klinghoffer) about the “evils” of “Darwinism,” it’s a sign that they are fully aware that they can’t challenge (1) the solid conclusion of ~4 billion years of common descent with modification that even some creationists have conceded, or (2) the only theory that explains it.
Oops, sorry for the formatting.
Frank J says: “Oops, sorry for the formatting.”
That was pretty bad. I think it’s all fixed up now.
Rush examines all issues with the same cold rationality, logic and evidence with which he looks at evolution and global warming. If he ever lurches toward the truth or even rationality its because he lost track of the BS he was piling up. But he is the voice of the republican party and none in the party dare contradict him.
Rush isn’t in this for “Truth” or whatever. He’s in it to make money! He’s unrestrained capitalism at it’s finest.
(IMO)
I suppose I should add that he’s free speech at it’s finest as well. We can’t have free speech unless we let the village idiot talk.
However, Rush is a product. He’s in business to sell himself. That was my original point.
Limbaugh seems to be conflating the theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin with the creationist construct of Darwinism as religion.
Now he’s arguing against a strawman, and should have no trouble burning that sucker down. What people left of Limbaugh want is equality of opportunity, even if that means taking steps to denormalize things like racism and other ugly forms of bigotry.
Can somebody please tell me how the acceptance of the ToE demands the acceptance of survival of the fittest** economic ideals?
Does Limbaugh have even a passing familiarity with logic?
** (limiting the definition to the typical creationist meme of most violent/strongest )
Tundra Boy says:
That’s what he knows of it. Pity, really. And when he gets unfavorable feedback (he must get a lot of that all the time just for being conservative) it just reinforces his opinions. I doubt that he’ll ever realize he needs to re-think this issue.
I’m a regular listener and a subscriber to Rush’s 24/7 website and podcasts. I’ve listened for years and generally agree with his conservative views. I think his insight into the motives of politicians are often astoundingly accurate.
His periodic rants on Darwin and evolution, on the other hand, are painful for me to listen to. His otherwise keen intellect (my opinion) goes off the rails and he drops down to a pure emotional level. He is, of course, making a huge mistake. He is alienating a group of listeners who might agree with his political analysis but will wonder if they can trust him on anything when he is so off the deep end on this.
I, and I bet many others, feel like the kid who goes hunting and fishing with his favorite uncle whom he greatly admires, but then the uncle comes to Thanksgiving dinner, gets drunk and makes a fool of himself.
TeeJaw says:
The problem is that he thinks anyone who criticizes him about this must be his political adversary. I doubt that he’d listen to anyone, unless it’s someone with political views he knows and trusts. So who could that be?
Given the bizarre nature of his beliefs about Darwin and natural selection I doubt anyone could. He listens respectfully when kooks call his show with crackpot political or economic theories which he abhors, but when thoughtful callers try to talk sense to him on Darwin he shouts them down and belittles them.
I doubt he’d give a fair hearing to Larry Arnhart who has made the case for why conservatives need understand Darwin. The parallels between the spontaneous order that results in free markets and biological complexity and diversity that results from natural selection should be immediately recognized by free market conservatives, but that is lost on Rush. It’s always amazed me that conservatives who recognize that free markets operate more efficiently when freed from central planning also believe that biological order and complexity just could not have happened without central planning.
When someone is unable to see that using a religious argument in an attempt to refute a scientific theory is intellectually vapid there is probably no hope for them ever changing their thinking.
But someone might get Rush’s attention might by pointing out that Republican school boards in Pennsylvania and Kansas were summarily thrown out of office by voters and replaced with Democrats when they tried to force the teaching of creationism in public schools. Apparently, even people who are fairly religious themselves would rather have their children taught science than have public school teachers preach religion to them.
TeeJaw says:
I’ve been trying to make that point for a long time around here. For example: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Barack Obama. Some seem to get it, some don’t. So whatcha gonna do?
Guys, LRA has it exactly right- he’s an ENTERTAINER, he runs a radio show to MAKE MONEY. He’s not a politician. He is not a scientist. He’s an ACTOR.
Why is anyone paying attention to anything he says about science?
Probably because his audience does not see him as you and we do, and this has consequences for public and instructional education.
Seconded. And judging from some of the comments, he does not seem to be a very good Conservative.
SC: “I doubt that [Rush Limbaugh would] listen to anyone, unless it’s someone with political views he knows and trusts. So who could that be?”
Charles Krauthammer, perhaps. But I don’t think Limbaugh is interested in listening to reason — railing on against “Darwinism” is too good of a rant, and too much of a boost for his ratings, for him to stop.
I think it more likely hurts him with his audience than helps. Those who agree don’t need this and it’s not why they listen. If he never said a word about Darwin he would have them anyway. There is another group of listeners that like his political commentary but not his Darwin rants. They are put off. His Darwin rants are neutral with some, negative with others, and not really positive with any, in my view. He doesn’t care. He does what he does for his own personal reasons. He is a talented man with flaws. We all have flaws but some are more irritating than others. His Darwin diatribes violate many of his own professed principles and are most irritating to those of us who believe ‘There is grandeur to this view of life…”
I did a dissection of Limbaugh’s earlier comment on evolution from last week if you’re interested. I’m afraid I cut him a little less slack that you seem to be though. See: Rush Limbaugh’s clueless rant about evolution.