Darwin and Ben Carson

World famous neurosurgeon Ben Carson is scheduled to give the commencement address at Emory University, an invitation which has some of the Emory biology faculty in a bit of a snit. Carson, understand, does not subscribe to the Darwinian orthodoxies, and his appearance at Emory, despite his remarkable scientific and medical accomplishments, is therefore a matter to be protested.

Here's the gist of it from the Baltimore CBS News affiliate:

World-renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson is under fire from several biology professors at Emory University, where he’s scheduled to give the commencement address.

They wrote a letter to the school newspaper after learning Carson does not believe in evolution, calling it “deeply concerning . . . That he equates the acceptance of evolution with a lack of ethics and morality.” And that “not only encourages the insertion of unnecessary and destructive wedges between Americans but stands against many of the ideals of this university.”

“Dr. Carson was a childhood hero of mine, and he still is a hero of mine,” said Arri Eisen, Ph.D., Emory University Department of Biology. “What worried me the most was the fact that he said if you do accept evolution that you’re somehow ethically lacking.”

Well, now, that's an interesting objection to having Carson address the Emory grads. He has the temerity and bad manners to take Darwinism to its logical conclusion and to take Darwinians at their word when they acknowledge the incompatibility of a Darwinian worldview and any meaningful ethics.

Sal Cordova at Uncommon Descent (Comment #8) elaborates:

[S]o the Darwinists at Emory complained about Dr. Carson associating evolutionism with the lack of ethics. Why then don’t they write letters of complaint to their own! Consider the words of evolutionists themselves.

Evolutionism says rape is as natural as the leopard’s spots:

“Just as the leopard’s spots and the giraffe’s elongated neck are the result of aeons of past Darwinian selection, so also is rape.” — Randy Thronhill and Craig Palmer

It says about the same about murder

“over the eons of human evolution murder was so surprisingly beneficial in the intense game of reproductive competition” — David Buss

and

“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.” — William Provine

and

“No inherent moral or ethical laws exist, nor are there absolute guiding principles for human society. The universe cares nothing for us and we have no ultimate meaning in life.” — William Provine

And here are some other delicious quotes from Darwinists:

We assume that cannibalism is always an aggressive, barbaric and degrading act,.... But that is a serious over-simplification, one that has kept us from realizing that cannibalism can have positive meanings. Beth Conklin, Vanderbilt University

and

Sexual relationships between humans and animals come as such a shock to people, but it doesn’t to me. There can be very deep, meaningful relationships between humans and their pets. Skatje Myers

Actually, Cordova is just sifting through the topsoil of what is a rich mine of such admissions. Here are a couple more quotes from Darwinists who admit that the Darwinian view of life pretty much does away with any meaningful ethical standards:

"If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then — then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing." [Biography, "Jeffrey Dahmer: The Monster Within," A&E, 1996.]

"What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler was right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question." Richard Dawkins

"Ethics is just an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate." E. O. Wilson and Michael Ruse

“Worse, the worldview of science is rather chilling. Not only do we not find any point to life laid out for us in nature, no objective basis for our moral principles, no correspondence between what we think is the moral law and the laws of nature....We even learn that the emotions that we most treasure, our love for our wives and husbands and children, are made possible by chemical processes in our brains that are what they are as a result of natural selection acting on chance mutations over millions of years. And yet we must not sink into nihilism or stifle our emotions. At our best we live on a knife-edge, between wishful thinking on one hand and, on the other, despair.” Steven Weinberg

And from the master himself:

"One who does not believe in God or an afterlife can have for his rule of life…only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best." Charles Darwin

Perhaps the Emory biologists are so busy peering through their microscopes that they've neglected to pay attention to what their colleagues who are more attuned to the big picture are saying about the frightening and dehumanizing implications of the theory they so deeply treasure.

Hummingbird Video

A year or so ago Illustra Media produced a beautiful film about butterflies, and they now have another one in the works on birds. The trailer is a lovely close-up of the amazing phenomenon of hummingbird flight. Note how the hummingbird can fly both backwards and sideways. They can also fly upside down, and are the only kind of bird in the world that can do all this. Their wings beat an astonishing 70 times a second in normal flight and they weigh about as much as a penny.

Some other interesting facts about these birds include:

• Hummingbirds are the tiniest birds in the world.
• The bright radiant color on hummingbirds comes from iridescent coloring like on a soap bubble or prism.
• Hummingbirds are very smart and they can remember every flower they have been to, and how long it will take a flower to refill.
• Hummingbirds have little to no sense of smell.
• Hummingbirds do not drink though their beaks like a straw. They lap up nectar with their tongues.
• Hummingbirds have very weak feet and can barely walk. They prefer to fly.
• Hummingbirds do not mate for life.
• Hummingbirds have an average life span of about 5 years.
• Hummingbirds can live for more than 10 years.
• A hummingbird will visit an average of 1,000 flowers per day for nectar.
• Hummingbirds eat small soft bugs for protein.
• A hummingbird will lap up nectar at a rate of about 13 licks per second.
• Hummingbirds are only found naturally in the Americas.
• There are more than 300 types or species of hummingbirds. Most of which are found in South America.
• There are more than fifteen (15) types or species of hummingbirds that breed in the United States.
• Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, the only species which breeds in the eastern U.S., have been known to travel 500 miles over the Gulf of Mexico to breeding grounds, a 20 hour non-stop trip.

Check the link for more.