Re: Nancy P is not perfect

Glenn, Bob, George, James, ...

In general I loathe the fallacious connections between Darwin and the
evils of the world as much as anyone. However, I think that it's fair
to say that if an individual, after reflecting on his/her own
intellectual development attributes to some author some impact on his/
her own thinking, we ought to recognize that. If Stalin says that he
was moved to atheism or Marxism or genocide or whatever because of
his reading of Darwin, isn't that a legitimate connection to note?
Stalin is responsible for his own intellectual development and the
consequences of his thought. (By the way, even a Calvinist and a
presuppositionalist can say that--whatever Jack's comment was
supposed to mean.) Darwin is not. I haven't seen the Nancy P. work in
detail, nor the basis of it in Stalin's biographers. Tracking a
thinker's intellectual development is a worthwhile historical
exercise. I think we ought to be reticent to give knee-jerk reactions
to these sorts of things. We don't like when people do it to us,
let's not do it back.

TG
________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D.
Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
(o) 970-491-7003 (f) 970-491-1801
Received on Tue Jul 26 11:39:27 2005