MikeBGene@aol.com writes
in message <6b.27e35bb.26065bba@aol.com>:
> In a message dated 3/19/00 3:22:02 AM Dateline Standard Time,
> tich@primex.co.uk writes:
>
> << Dembski writes:
>> Daniel Dennett even recommends
>> "quarantining" parents who teach their children to doubt Darwinism
>> (see the end of his *Darwin's Dangerous Idea*).
>
> Dembski has here conflated ideas from two paragraphs, and created
> a meaning which is expressed by neither of them. So you can judge
> for yourselves, here are the two consecutive paragraphs in full:
> "We should not expect this variety of respect [for religions]
> to be satisfactory to those who wholeheartedly embody the memes
> we honor with our attentive--but not worshipful--scholarship.
> On the contrary, many of them will view anything other than
> enthusiastic conversion to their own views as a threat, even
> an intolerable threat. We must not underestimate the suffering
> such confrontations cause. To watch, to have to participate
> in, the contraction or evaporation of beloved features of one's
> heritage is a pain only our species can experience, and surely
> few pains could be more terrible. But we have no reasonable
> alternative, and those whose visions dictate that they cannot
> peacefully coexist with the rest of us we will have to quarantine
> as best we can, minimizing the pain and damage, trying always
> to open a path or two that may come to seem acceptable.
>
> "If you want to teach your children that they are the tools of
> God, you had better not teach them that they are God's rifles,
> or we will have to stand firmly opposed to you: your doctrine
> has no special glory, no intrinisic and inalienable merit. If
> you insist on teaching your 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 the earliest opportunity.
> Our future well-being--the well-being of all of us on the
> planet--depends on the education of our descendants.">>
>
> I must confess that I fail to see how this was a mis-quote.
What? If you only saw the first paragraph, I can somewhat
understand how you could say that, but the second paragraph is
clear that the solution to parents who teach their children to
doubt Darwinism is not quarantine of the parents but "deprogramming"
of the children. "At the very least" may sound ominous but
the first paragraph is also quite clear that quarantine is only
necessitated, in Dennett's view, if those to be quarantined
perceive opposing views as an "intolerable threat" and will
commit violence to eliminate them (i.e., rather than peacefully
coexist).
It is obvious that parents merely teaching their children opposing
views are not in that category.
> Dennetts words drip with know-it-all arrogance, to the point
> where he does assert that we should quarantine, the best we can,
> those who "cannot peacefully coexist" with his personal metaphysics.
Note the word "peacefully", please. I wholeheartedly endorse
quarantining any faction or group that can not peacefully
resolve its differences with society. Terrorism should never
be tolerated.
Dennett is guilty of using too many hot-button terms in his
rhetoric but he clearly didn't imply what Dembski says.
<snip>
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