Hi Rich,
You wrote:
>If your point is that maybe Dennet really does hold the beliefs Dembski says
>he does, it's still irrelevant. Dembski doesn't say "I suspect that Dennett
>recommends..." or "I know from some other source that Dennett recommends..."
>Dembski makes a specific claim about what [Dennett] recommends in a
particular
>book. And that claim is untrue.
Is it? I have not seen a demonstration that this claim is untrue. All you
have
shown is that Dembski did not literally quote Dennett, yet Dembski never
pretends to be quoting from Dennett. For example, Dembski did not write:
Dennett "recommends quarantining parents who teach their children to doubt
Darwinism."
Keep in mind that we really don't seem to know what Dennett
is saying. We know he employs the common "us vs. them" thinking to
propose that "them" be quarantined, but we don't have a good handle on who
"them" are, we don't know what he means by "quarantine," and we don't
know what he means by "peacefully coexist." We do know that his blind
faith in his own metaphysics and memes have him believing that natural
selection evolved human beings and we do know he strongly desires to
re-educate the children of those who doubt his faith "as soon as possible."
Well, let's look at this re-education plan. But before doing so, let's
consider an excerpt from Ron Numbers's _Darwinism Comes to
America_ (Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 13):
"If Dawkins played the role of point man for late-twentieth-
century naturalistic evolutionists, Daniel C. Dennett gladly
served as their hatchet man. In a book called _Darwin's
Dangerous Idea_ (1995), which Dawkins warmly endorsed,
Dennett portrayed Darwinism as "a universal solvent,
capable of cutting right to the heart of everything in
sight" -- and particularly effective in dissolving religious
beliefs. The most ardent creationist could not have said
it with more conviction, but Dennett's agreement with them
ended there. He despised creationists, arguing that "there
are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than
the fanaticisms of fundamentalism." Displaying a degree
of intolerance more characteristic of a fanatic Fundamentalist
than an academic philosopher, he called for "caging" those
who would deliberately misinform children about the natural
world, just as one would cage a threatening wild animal.
"The message is clear," he wrote: "those who will not accomodate,
who will not temper, who insist on keeping only the purest
and wildest strain of their heritage alive, we will be obliged,
reluctantly, to cage or disarm, and we will do our best to
disable the memes [traditions] they fight for." With the
bravado of a man unmindful that only 11 percent of the
public shared his enthusiasm for naturalistic evolution, he
warned parents that if they insisted on teaching their
children "falsehoods -- that the Earth is flat, that 'Man' is
not a product of evolution by natural selection -- then
you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who
have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your
teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt
to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest
opportunity." Those who resisted conversion to
Dennett's scientific fundamentalism would be subject
to "quarantine."
Okay, so I use Websters to look up the word "quarantine."
One definition is as follows: "to isolate from normal relations
or communication." Hmmm. Normal relations and
communication among parents and children are to propagate
those memes [traditions]. That's an intimate part of the parent-
child relationship. And Dennett's plans of re-education
are indeed ways to isolate the parents and their memes from
their children. Thus, it is indeed quarantine Dennett is talking
about when advocates re-education "as early as possible." A way
cage a religion, a way to quarantine a religion, is to ban it to
the realm of the purely private and intervene on a parent's
education of their children.
Now, what's worse? That, in your mind, Dembski has misrepresented
Dennett or that Dennett advocates a form of intolerant
proselytism that would include indoctrinating children with
his personal brand of faith against the will of the child's parents?
Since the stench of Dennett's fundamentalism is so strong, it is
really hard for me to perceive this truly terrible sin of Bill
Dembski. What I see instead are folks trying to distract attention
away from the dangerous closed-minded intolerance of someone
like a Dennett.
But here's the fun part. Let's say Dennett has been misrepresented
by Dembski. That would not be significant if Dennett's overall
views are correct. In this case, Dembski's take on Dennett's writings
can be viewed as a meme generated by mutation. It wouldn't matter
if the meme was a mutant version of the original. All that matters is
if it propagates itself and out competes the original. If Demsbki's meme
propagates and entrenches itself such that Dennett's reputation is damaged,
then he would simply be a victim of his own universal acid. What's he
goin' do? Shake his fist at natural selection? At the act of mutation?
Oh, the sinister irony of it all! ;)
Mike
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