An ad hominem Creationist Legend

b informs me via email that he's recently had a run in with a creationist and asks me to confirm or deny her bizarre argument:

I was conversing with someone on the train today and wanted a point clarified. So rarely is talking to strangers on a train a good idea, but they got my attention when I briefly looked up from my book, The Blind Watchmaker, and they started asking about what I was reading - then I noticed the "Jesus Saves" badge - and instantly regretted talking about the nature of the book as they got off and racing.

Anyway, this fairy tale enthusiast said (and do note this does not affect my philosophy but is simply a question of fact I would like to refute with confidence should it ever arise in future) that Darwin retracted his theories before his death. Is this true? If so, is it a scientfic retraction, or a retraction for his family's sake? If it is not true, what is their allegation based in?

Absolutely false!

Unfortunately this urban legend is not as uncommon as it should be. But you've come to the right place -- a creationist friend of mine once tried this one on me and I was pretty confident in telling her that she had been misinformed as I had already read more than one Darwin biography. (As an aside, if you like thick, detailed biographies, full of family anecdotes: Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist argues that the troubled political climate of Victorian England and the influence of Malthus on economics were major influences on Darwin's theory.)

I don't recall whether I successfully disabused her of an urban legend that she probably really wanted to believe but I have since discovered that even the more honest creationists don't even believe the story!

The only other thing I should mention is that your little friend is conflating 2 separate questions:

Did Darwin recant his scientific theory? and
Did Darwin become a Christian on his deathbed?

Now, in that urban legend they are also conflated, but one must remember that no one really thought Christianity and evolution necessarily incompatible until the 1920s. Sure, people thought that it was dangerous to make God seem so superfluous, but there weren't really any young earth creationists as the geology was already so well proven. All the criticisms of Natural Selection before the 20s were scientific questions. The correct answer to both of these questions is actually "no". But it could well have been "yes" to one but not the other.

The reason I mention that is because Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey! He had very influential friends who were able to get an agnostic buried in THE cathedral beside Newton and so many others. Apparently he was even nominated for a knighthood just before the Origin came out but, Richard Owen, a scientific enemy, had heard enough about Natural Selection to tell Vicki that it'd be a bad idea. (As an aside, Newton, although Christian, was quite the heretic and probably shouldn't have been buried in Westminster Abbey either.)

Evolution, Religion and Society

Yesterday I was helping a friend pack to move house when she gave me (along with many other cool things) a spare Bible she had lying around, as you do. It's New International Version, which I've never read before. Years ago, when I was a Christian, my church used the Good News. A Christian friend had already told me that NIV is the best translation and Good News "too interpretive" but I suspected that this meant that Good News just wasn't her interpretation. Then just a week or two ago an agnostic(?) friend (who is in the process of converting to Judaism!) also asserted the superiority of the NIV, explaining that it was written by professional translators, with no particular theological axe to grind. [I have since learnt that just the opposite is true, see comments.] (I do hope Wade is reading. If we're lucky he might even leave a comment arguing for the superiority of his fancy New Revised Standard Version!) But I digress... I was surprised to find myself accepting a Bible but did so because it will probably come in handy next semester when I take the discussion classes for Prof. Lisa Lloyd's "Evolution Religion and Society" class.

I am really looking forward to teaching this class (I have twice passed on other options) but am not sure how easy it will be. I have a little teaching experience already: I have tutored dozens of high-school (and quite a few university) students in maths, chemistry and physics, just one or two at a time; and I have supervised classes of up to sixteen first and second year university students in the chemistry labs. But I've never given a class where the topic is discussed.

When I was an undergrad I started paying attention to the way different academics run their classes. Some played devil's advocate a lot, while others were more upfront about their own prejudices and encouraged the more vocal students to argue for the opposite view themselves. I might have to do a bit of both. Certainly I'm going to emphasise that both science and religion must be approached philosophically, that is, giving clear arguments with explicit premises and being aware of one's own assumptions. When I mentioned this to one of my classmates he pointed out that this is likely to alienate many of the religious students who relish their blind faith. I'm well aware of this but I think that if I'm seen to come down hard on any student who gives bad arguments for belief in science then the students will see that I'm not being partial.

I think I've had enough theological debates with Christian friends that I can teach this class without being disrespectful of religion in general. Some would argue that that's important for paedogogical reasons (I'm not too sure that it is). It's definitely important to be respectful for pracatical reasons when you live in small-town America, Paul Mirecki of Kansas U. got beaten up for calling Creationism a "mythology"!

Good News

The Pentagon has announced that the prisoners being held at Guantánamo Bay will be treated according to their rights under the Geneva Convention. Finally, after four year of denying that they had rights!

It's yet to be seen how the executive branch of government will try to get out of what the judiciary has declared but the fact that they're claiming that it's not even a reversal in policy suggests that they won't be trying anything too devilish.

Independence Day

Tomorrow is the 4th July, Independence Day here in the U.S. of A. (It will be my first!)

I have to say, that is one of the things I think the US does better than Australia, being an independent republic with its own head of state. I'm not saying I think Australia should have a directly-elected president; I'm just really disappointed that the country (about 55%) voted against becoming a republic in the 1999 referendum.

Still, after all these years, very very disappointed.