In celebration of Darwin in Malibu, which I'm directing at the Generic Theater in March, I am finally reading The Origin of Species and posting chapter-by-chapter summaries and commentary. Part 0 covers the history of the book, plus its title page and introduction.

Part Zero: The Origin of the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin was a naturalist. He was on track to become a doctor, but he proved a rather squeamish medical student, and left medical school for Cambridge to become instead an Anglican priest. His father, a doctor, was disappointed enough by this to say, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family." While at Cambridge, he found his true calling: that of a naturalist, an all-around scientist of the natural world (and especially the creatures which inhabited it). "Naturalists" were the progenitors of modern biologists, and like so many very early men of science, the best of them  became masters of many disciplines. Naturalists combined aspects of what we know today as biology, botany, entomology, taxonomy, chemistry, geology, and more.

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We are not trained to think. In classical education–the kind engaged in by the ancient Greeks and those in later generations who sought to emulate them–the study of learning was nearly as important as the learning itself. Logic was taught, so that the educated could understand where they were apt to be wrong and avoid being so. The intellectual leaders who poured the philosophical foundation upon which the United States of America was built–Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Monroe–were inspired by the works of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, the rediscovery of whom ended the Dark Ages. Jefferson himself believed no education could be thought complete without a full reading of Homer and Virgil in the original Greek and Latin. Can you imagine such a thing being spoken today, even by a President? The Renaissance (literally "rebirth") was a replanting of the classical spirit of self-discovery, and the Catholic Church–by nurturing the bud back into bloom through patronage–boosted its own prestige but doomed itself to death at the hands of the very tools it had kept safe: reason, education, and art. No church can survive the application of reason, and once its robes are exposed by education as imaginary, art steps in to make us laugh at the nakedness.

The American founders had no respect for the Church, nor for the Protestant denominations which followed it, despite treading carefully so as not to offend them and lose the support of the superstitious people they hoped to elevate. Fortunately (unlike in modern America) they had only to make occasional token gestures to appease the believers, like putting "and nature's god" (originally uncapitalized and clearly a Deist statement, not a religious one) into the Declaration of Independence, because nearly everyone allowed to vote back then was educated. That time was called the Enlightenment, and its leaders were writers and thinkers like Paine, Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Kant–men (and in rare cases, like Mary Wollstonecraft, women) who stood on the very edge of the Dark Ages and held up a light.

Bertrand Russell somewhat-famously said, "The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." The men who stood at the edge of that darkness were the doubters; they stood up against centuries of certainty because the truth was more important to them than the comfort of what they already believed. In other words, it didn't matter what felt true, it only mattered what was.

Does Reality Matter Anymore?

Can you imagine such a test being applied to the debate over health care reform?

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My hard drive crashed. I contacted Hitachi to return it on warranty. This is what they sent me:

Please include your complete shipping address, phone number, and a description of the drive failure, along with your proof of purchase so that we can start processing your RMA if validated.  Also, please answer the following question for export compliance certification:

Do you agree that Hitachi GST products will not be used for the design, development, manufacturing, testing, stockpiling, or use of biological, nuclear, missile or chemical weapons?

I guess they're hoping to catch all those people who are comfortable deploying WMD's but just can't find it in their hearts to lie to a minimum wage tech-support employee.

Look what I found today, the same day as all those nationwide teabagging demonstrations:

What do you think? Did I just discover proof of Intelligent Design?

Consider a long hallway. So long that in either direction, it fades into the distance. In the middle there is a walkway. On the right, like in an airport, is a conveyor belt moving forwards. On the left is a conveyor belt moving backwards. There are no handrails and it's easy to get on or off a conveyor belt.

You are walking along the walkway. People pass you going one direction or the other from time to time, sometimes passing you by, sometimes passing in the opposite direction. Sometimes you walk together a while with someone, sometimes you nod and wave and it's over in a moment.

You become friends with someone near you and begin to walk together. You enjoy your time, the company makes you happy. Sometimes your friend speeds up a little, and you have to speed up too to stay together, or the same happens but slowing down. It's the pace of life. More and more you walk together. Eventually you fall in love.

Then your friend wants to see more of what lies ahead, and suggests you both get on a forward-moving conveyor belt. You think it's a good idea and would gladly join her. But she gets on the conveyor belt going backwards.

All of a sudden she's moving much more slowly than you are, even though you haven't slowed down. Your friend speeds up some to try to match you, and says, "Where are you going? I thought you wanted to be together!"

You say, "I do, but you're on the wrong conveyor belt!" Your friend is hurt and says, "Don't criticize me." You are baffled. "I'm not," you say. "I love you and don't want to lose you. I'm not judging you–you're just on the wrong conveyor belt."

Your friend is hurt. Your friend reads a book and cries with her friends and tells you you need to take more ownership. "You say I'm wrong all the time." You don't want to fight; you slow down even more; but your friend keeps falling behind. Now your friend has to work even harder to keep moving forward with you. It exhausts her just to keep up. "It takes so much energy," she says. She tries her best to keep up, but all she feels is you pulling away. She slows; it all takes too much effort.

Your friend wants you to fix it; she sees how you aren't working as hard as she is. You share what you have with her–you give her food for strength, you sing her songs, you tell her you love her, you tell her not to quit; you give all you have. But she is demoralized and falls further behind. "I work so hard. I put in so much and you so little," she says. You try again to point out she's on the wrong belt; "I'm not placing blame, I swear," you plead. "How else do I tell you this isn't my fault?"

You are crying. You don't want to lose your friend. But you do not want to go backwards. You have been there already. You want to move forward, and you want to move forward with your friend. But you can't. It's not your fault, but you can't. You have to choose.

If you carry forward, your friend will call you cruel. Your friend will think you have walked away. Your friend's heart will be broken, like yours, but she will also feel betrayed. You speed up and down for the longest time, hoping eventually she will see, sometimes even getting on the belt with her for a time, to her great relief. When you get off again, she wonders why you've left her. You don't want to choose. You want her to get off the belt going backwards. You want her to see that it wasn't your fault. That it never had to happen. You try. She doesn't. You choose.

Anyone who's met Nick S. knows he's smart, insightful, and delightfully droll. When he calls you out on something, it's worth taking a hard look at yourself. He left a comment on my last post, Three Vague Words on Pottery Prove the Bible True, in which I claimed it was a wild leap of exaggeration to take an archaeological artifact of dubious value and hold it up as evidence of the literal truth of a Biblical parable. (Read the comments thread here.)

His comment was:

Yes, religious minded people can accept silly things to support their view of the world. It's a consequence of a preference for convenience and comfort rather than truth, I suspect. But then, the non-believers accept equally silly "truths" in their longing to discredit a worldview driven by faith and powered by something bigger than themselves.

Isn't it just as silly when people say things like, "hey I read the The Da Vinci Code, so now I know the truth, and I can stop thinking about such things"? Scientists too, in their sometimes-mad quest for more knowledge can also believe silly things. (Eugenics anyone?) Last time I checked there wasn't a lot of compelling evidence to sustain string theories and an 11-dimension universe, but people still talk about those ideas, and ideas like them, as if they were uncontested fact.

I value both faith and science, but I think if you wish to point out the foolishness of some religious folks, then it is only fair to also point out the excesses and foolishness of the knowledge-worshiping or narcissistic non-believers.

Nick, I can always count on you for a thoughtful and challenging comment! I wrote a response but it was too long to go in the comments thread, so here goes:

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Imagine, for a moment, you are a skilled archaeologist, having devoted years of your life to the uncovering, cataloguing, and assimilation of physical artifacts. You are on an expedition in Sweden, doing research into Scandinavian artifacts in the hopes of illuminating the lives and history of Vikings. One of the artifacts, one of many you publicly announce to little fanfare, is a shard of pottery. Only three words of the old language are clearly legible: "slave," "king," and "judge."

Those three words, common in Viking stories and legends of the day, say nothing about what or whom they refer to, and could be anything from a child's reader to an epic poem. A minority of modern Scandinavians still believe in the Viking gods, and they proudly insist that it refers to Odin–who in Norse mythology (oops, I mean in their truth) is the "king" of the gods, the head of the twelve "judges," and to whom male "slaves" were sacrificed during blót festivals. What more proof could any rational person need? Odin is said to have visited Uppsala, Sweden in person–the king of the gods walking on earth–and those three words on the pottery prove it!

The next day, all of Sweden is abuzz with wonder. The neo-Vikings rattle loudly in the media that their ancient beliefs have been shown true. A week later, their exaltation spreads to the world's newspapers, which pick up the story and spread it uncritically and with arresting headlines. "The God Odin is Proven Real," the stories read, "By Startling New Archaelogical Find." You are now a hero to neo-Vikings everywhere: you have just proven Odin.

Sound implausible? Read on.

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