I recently wrote about Dr Tim Ball’s essay about Velikovsky and climate sceptics. That reminds me of another great essay I read almost two years ago, by Christopher Booker. It was about the bicentenary of Charles Darwin, author of The Origin of Species and the inventor of the theory of evolution. Booker wrote:
What is fascinating about the Darwinians is their inability to accept just how much they do not know. Armoured in their certainty that they have all the answers when they so obviously don’t, neo-Darwinians such as Richard Dawkins rest their beliefs just as much on an unscientific leap of faith as the ‘Creationists’ they so fanatically affect to despise. It is revealing how they dismissively try to equate all those scientists who argue for 'intelligent design' with Biblical fundamentalists, as their only way to cope with questions they cannot answer.
Something strikingly similar has been taking place over the belief that the world is dangerously warming, due to the rise in man-made CO2. For a time the believers in this theory seemed to have the evidence on their side, as CO2 levels and temperatures rose in apparent harmony. But lately all sorts of evidence has been put forward by serious scientists to suggest that this theory is seriously flawed, not least the fact that recently falling temperatures were not predicted by any of those computer models on which the advocates of global warming rest their beliefs.
It becomes increasingly obvious that, like the Darwinians, the warming supporters are so convinced by the simplicity of their theory that they are unable to recognise how much they do not know - and like the Darwinians their response has been to become ever more fanatically intolerant of anyone who dares question their dogma. This might not matter so much if they hadn’t, on the basis of their faith, persuaded so many of the world’s politicians to propose measures which threaten to inflict a real economic disaster on the world.
A very astute observation indeed! Personally, I’m not a creationist, and I find it vexing, outrageous, nefarious and disgraceful that the fanatical AGW-cultists dare to compare us climate sceptics to Bible-thumping fundamentalists. However, I believe in keeping an open mind, and to be honest the science of origins is far from settled. Both sides have good points, and it would be best for science if everybody could admit that: it is never good for science to solidify into rigid dogma enforced by a cruel and oppressive inquisition. And I do enjoy thumping the Bible once in a while, and if anybody has a problem with that, then it is their problem and not mine, and they will surely burn in hell!
Have you noticed that evolution used to be about the progression from lower to higher forms of life, but nowadays, they define it as “any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next”? In other words, any kind of change is evolution. If somebody with brown-haired parents is born with red hair (like my brother’s youngest child), it is “evolution”. Evolution has effectively become unfalsifiable. Does this sound familiar? “Global warming” and “climate change”? Need I say more? They used to call it “global warming” but since it is not warming anymore they have changed it to “climate change”. In addition, many evolutionists faked the data, cooked the books, boiled the spaghetti, like in the case of the infamous "Piltdown Man". That is just like Mann's "hide the decline". Indeed, the parallels are uncanny and legio!
Id quod circumiret, circumveniat.
