How strange: Antony Flew was, and maybe is, a eugenics sympathizer. This is really going to mess up the great story of his conversion.
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Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
How strange: Antony Flew was, and maybe is, a eugenics sympathizer. This is really going to mess up the great story of his conversion.
owned.
So maybe the shooter in Finland is a deist too.
Should it be any surprise that intelligent design related people have connections to/support eugenics. Isn’t that essentially what ID is? An intelligent being/race guiding the development of a species sounds like eugenics to me.
They’re going to say that it’s because of Antony’s continued attachment to his atheist past that he’s into eugenics, obviously. While overlooking the obvious possibility that he does not know what he is talking about regarding anything.
I agree, the response will simply be “That proves Atheism = Darwinism = Eugenics”.
BTW don’t dismiss Flew too cheaply. His earlier works were generally well reasoned and well written. A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
I met Professor Flew at a conference about five years ago and was seated next to him at dinner. His mental decline was already becoming evident. When he made some comments to me about immigration politics in the UK that were quite evidently rooted in knee-jerk racism, I decided (more out of charity than anything else) to pretend that it was a sign of his age – both in the sense of the times/environment he was raised in and in the sense of the evident beginnings of senility. Now it appears I was far too charitable.
Oh well. I never considered him amongst the great (or even merely good) philosophical minds of the 20th century anyway, even on the specific topic of atheism. It is sad to see his decline exploited by fundamentalist ghouls, but it’s not a decline that started from any great heights in the first place.
I have to say I regard this as rather unfortunate–Flew was looking like a very sympathetic figure up until now.
A couple of articles by Antony Flew appear on the recommended readings of this so-called “race realist” website.
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/late/newart.html
Eugenics and “race realism” was once mainstream science until after WWII. In some corners of science it never died. James Watson should be a reminder of that.
Though Flew won over the cuckoo’s nest
Well after his mind was at his best,
I think it is worth noting:
Before one offers one’s support
It’s wise to wait for full report
Of what Flew is promoting.
There seems to be some evidence
That Flew was, in a proper sense,
Supportive of eugenics;
Attempts to take his words, and mold
Some other version to behold
Are verbal calisthenics.
Creationists may want to see
Philosophers in company
(They act as if enchanted!).
But don’t complain that life’s unfair–
When you make wishes, best beware–
Your wishes may be granted.
From Colugo’s link, it appears that Flew published in the British conservative journal RightNOW!, and that at least on one occasion, he appeared in the same issue as J. Phillippe Rushton, the noted Canadian race “researcher”. For that matter, apparently a 2006 review by him in the same journal speaks approvingly of Darwinian conservatism.
And loaded up on Davocet
Flew lost his mind
To much regret.
Dembski smiles in celebration
Full of shit
And complex specified information.
I don’t get all this talk about Flew not being in possession of his full mental faculties.
After all, none after than Dr. Dembski can PERSONALLY vouch for Flew:
“I was on the committee to award Flew the Phillip Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth (which he received at Biola University in the spring of 2006). I made the telephone call to Flew on behalf of Biola asking him to agree to accept the award. When I spoke to him, it was clear to me that he was in full possession of his faculties and that he knew full well the cost he was paying for breaking ranks with his atheist colleagues.”
I mean what would all these other people know, who had personally met with him, had numerous conversations and correspondence? After all Dembski isn’t a Dr. for nothing now!
Interesting information, Tulse.
A search of the blog shows that Larry Arnhart of Darwinian Conservatism appears to disapprove of eugenics (at least the Galtonian kind as opposed to preventing major genetic diseases).
http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/search?q=eugenics
Personally, I’m opposed to any and all politicization of evolutionary biology. Invoking the authority of evolutionary science in support of a particular ideology is a temptation that ought to be resisted.
I never heard of Andrew Flew before. Apparently he is a British philosopher and a Tory.
Not at all clear why I should have cared in the first place who he was.
At this point, his main value seems to be as an outrageous example of fundie Xians being just plain, flat out evil. Like anyone needed another example.
I loves me some Cuttlefish!!
Come on, PZ.
I know you are trying to knock the Christianists who exploit a senile old men – and rightly so – but doing that by calling attention to a piece by Flew on eugenics in a book published in 2007 is not the appropriate way to do this.
Don’t you think that after reading the NYT piece by Oppenheimer it is bad form to attack Flew for antything he has written in the last couple of years – be it his conversion to Deism or a favorable mention of eugenics?
Let’s show some compassion for a confused old man.
“I know you are trying to knock the Christianists who exploit a senile old men – and rightly so – but doing that by calling attention to a piece by Flew on eugenics in a book published in 2007 is not the appropriate way to do this.”
Well, what is? If the Christianists are going to use him as an evangelization tool, might as well make sure all the facts are on the table. And judging from some other pieces linked in the comments, the eugenicist sympathies in Flew’s piece doesn’t appear to be isolated to that article alone.
Ermm, it doesn’t exactly look like PZ is “attacking” Flew…The only comment he seems to have made on the article is that this may throw a wrench in the gears of his Miraculous Infidel Conversion Story.
Cuttlefish makes me feel very humble.
by calling attention to a piece by Flew on eugenics in a book published in 2007
Flew’s right wing views aren’t recent; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew#Political_commitments
Don’t you think that after reading the NYT piece by Oppenheimer it is bad form to attack Flew for antything he has written in the last couple of years – be it his conversion to Deism or a favorable mention of eugenics?
What the eff are you talking about? Did you even read PZ’s words? “This is really going to mess up the great story of his conversion.” — when did that conversion happen, eh?
Let’s show some compassion for a confused old man.
Again, what the eff are you talking about? What did PZ write that is lacking in compassion?
P.S.
antything he has written in the last couple of years – be it his conversion to Deism
What has Flew written about a conversion to Deism? He didn’t write a single word of There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, and his new intro to God and Philosophy made no mention of any conversion.
I’m guessing Alzheimer’s and cash. Either that or AiG has the negatives of that time he was stuck in the elevator for 8 hr with Ann Coulter (shudder).
This really doesn’t matter, does it?
Arguments are not supported by the act of an individual person changing their mind. Theists become atheists and atheists become theists all the time. If Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris suddenly converted to Christianity, or if Bill Dembski or Papa Ratzi publicly renounced their theism, it would not give one iota of support to either position. But people are all too eager to think things like this matter. The fighting over Anthony Flew is a manifestation of primate sociology (“our tribe took one of yours!”), not reasonable debate.
Re Flew and Deism – he gave a lengthy radio interview for the BBC a couple of years ago, the transcript is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/belief/scripts/antony_flew.html
Not much sign of galloping senility there, whatever the situation is two and a half years later, and he’s definitely a deist. Flew’s political views are on the extreme far right in UK terms, and he has always been a controversialist and a self-promoter. I think it’s probable that his mind has largely gone now, but I also think it’s probable that if he was still in command of all his faculties, the book would have been published in much the same form.
I’d never heard of the ‘Worlds Most Famous Atheist’ until the stories of his conversion began to circulate. I guess its the old argument from authority. If you think of all validity eminating from a central figure – the same way the catholic church derives its teachings from whatever the pope decides to decree, then the idea of that figure changing his mind has enormous consequences for the whole belief system.
Its as if the Pope suddenly decides that Limbo doesn’t exist (the location of lost souls place, not the beach party dance), and all catholics suddenly need to change their beliefs to fit in with this new view (although that example is a little extreme and most unlikely to happen;).
We get the same thing with Darwin, as if finding some fault with him or his viewpoint or examples will completely invalidate all the subsequent discoveries in the field of evolution.
This really doesn’t matter, does it?
Of course it matters. The religionists are parading Flew and giving him awards; this undercuts their argument from authority.
But people are all too eager to think things like this matter.
You’ve confused things mattering with arguments being logically valid.
I also think it’s probable that if he was still in command of all his faculties, the book would have been published in much the same form.
Regardless of whether you think it, it is false, as Richard Carrier has established.
The problem in this case has nothing to do with Flew specifically. The problem is the presence of an approving entry on eugenics in an “encyclopedia of unbelief” published by Prometheus. This is a disaster.
The problem in this case has nothing to do with Flew specifically. The problem is the presence of an approving entry on eugenics in an “encyclopedia of unbelief” published by Prometheus. This is a disaster.
There are two problems — religionists parading Flew around as an argument from authority against atheism, and the atrocious eugenics article.
The Christianists are welcome to him. Looks like he’ll be happier in their company anyway.
I don’t quite get how one case of senile dementia is supposed to convince me that common superstitions are valid in some way.
-jcr
Think of Flew as a trojan horse
And just let nature take its course
I don’t think PZ is attacking Flew, but I think he needs to be very careful not to give any impression that he might be doing so. This piece could be easily be distorted as either distasteful schadenfreude, or else argumentum ad hominem.
It would probably be best to concentrate on the behaviour of those involved in the apparent exploitation of an elderly man losing his faculties, rather than than their success or not in doing so (we already know that the book is essentially a gospel to the converted, rather than being likely to become a mainstream success).
An aged philosopher, Flew,
Hung about with a fundie or two.
His passing velleity
To ponder the deity
Caught him up in a hullaballoo.
I couldn’t care less about Anthony Flew. I couldn’t care less if any atheist becomes a deist or a theist or a whatever. Nor could I care less if any theist becomes a deist or an atheist or any of the permutations around the issue.
There is only one basis on which I COULD care about those things: as a demonstration that a specific religious view is not an innate property, i.e. is something one can change one’s mind about.
Other than that, changes of heart and conversions are entirely meaningless. What DOES matter is the arguments and reasons for doing so. If Flew has some cracking good reasons to convert to deism or theism then lets see them. Thus far, the reasons I have seen are poor, they are the standard illogical, poorly reasoned, credulous clap trap. If the theists and deists want to trumpet this as a victory of some kind, let them, just destroy their arguments. It isn’t hard after all. Trying to explain Flew’s change of mind might be a vaulable enterprise in terms of understanding the psychology of such conversions, however one has to be careful not to stray into the territory of dismissing Flew or damning him because of his conversion. He can be wrong, just like anyone else. Demonstrate how he is wrong, don’t try to demonstrate he is flawed person by virtue of this change of mind.
Louis
I nominate Louis for The November Molly Award – using “credulous clap trap” in a post alone calls for some serious recognition.
Flew also was involved with a group that supported Apartheid if anyone wants to know. Its on his entry in Wikipedia.
A flea and a fly took a Flew.
They knew just what to do.
“Let us lie,” said the flea.
“Ab-so-lute-leee” said the fly.
So they lied through a flaw in old Flew.
The verse in this thread may be the Pharyngula community’s best yet.
It is interesting that Flew has a favorable view of Alexis Carrel. The inarguably brilliant Carrel was a fascist and eugenicist who advocated the euthanasia of the mentally ill in gas chambers and was responsible for a famous but bogus chicken heart cell study that falsely suggested that ordinary somatic cells were immortal. That study inspired many other experiments and bad theories, including the testicular transplants mentioned on a Retrospectacle post as well as Carrel’s friend William Arbuthnot Lane’s aggressive colon removal surgeries, based on the notion that the only reason that cells died was because of the accumulation of toxic products. Even though Hayflick disproved it, Carrel’s immortal cell line study was cited for decades; many are still not aware that the study was a hoax or bad design (the cells were continuously replenished with new cells in the chicken blood). Alternative / holistic / colonic websites still refer to Carrel’s chicken heart cells in support of their “detox” paradigm. Carrel also collaborated with Charles Lindbergh on developing organ perfusion devices to keep organs alive for transplant. (The new book The Immortalists by Friedman covers this collaboration.) Sayyid Qutb, one of the intellectual founders of modern militant Islamism, was influenced by Carrel’s elitist and organicist social philosophy.
The social and scientific views of Richard Lynn, another one of Flew’s authorities, are disturbing even by the standards of “race realism.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lynn#Dysgenics_and_eugenics
Flew, along with Dawkins, Francis Crick, EO Wilson, Kurt Vonnegut (!?), and others, signed a 2001 declaration in support of human cloning. Not just therapeutic cloning, but reproductive cloning as well.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/cloning_declaration_17_3.html
“Nor is it clear to us that future developments in cloning human tissues or even cloning human beings will create moral predicaments beyond the capacity of human reason to resolve.”
Remember when Dawkins stepped in it by calling for a reconsideration of eugenics? I wonder if there is a Flew connection. Probably not. While Flew appear to be favorable towards sinister old-fashioned eugenic thought, Dawkins almost seems like a naif, musing about about traipsing ahead with gene manipulation to enhance athletic or musical performance (what about unintended downstream and interactive effects?)
http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.1031440.0.eugenics_may_not_be_bad.php
“I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler’s death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them.”
I’d never heard of the ‘Worlds Most Famous Atheist’ until the stories of his conversion began to circulate.
Because he’s not? I’d say the most famous atheists alive today are probably Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens – though Bertrand Russell would have taken the title until his death.
Who is Flew? I’d never even heard of him before PZ started the threads about him. Besides – when did it become news that an atheist allegedly found religion? Is someone keeping score? Is it now:
Faithful who became atheists: 8,873,921
Atheists who became faithful: 1
or something?
Is Professor Flew capable of writing a cogent article or book or not?
Yesterday, the consensus was that he likely was not.
Today, most posts assume that his eugenics entry was authored by none other than himself, because of his prior leanings.
But if he is not capable of authorship, then who wrote the eugenics essay?
And why would an essay on eugenics be acceptable in a volume on unbelief, especially since it was presumably written by someone who now believes?
Apart from being aware that Eugenics was once regarded as a scientific consensus, taught in many universities around the world before those who knew it to be false finally discredited it entirely, I don’t know the detailed history. But glancing at the article, it looks to me as if the only evidence of support for eugenics was an insufficient condemnation, a failure to use the association with Hitler, and a preference for one writer, who we are told is a eugenics supporter, over another, who we are told is of far better quality as argued from the authority of academic historians.
Maybe he is, and no doubt the “evidence” is sufficient for you to be able use it to discredit by association any deist views he might express. But do such debating tactics serve to convince those who want to see science use scientific truth to defeat rhetoric? Is not his Deism sufficient to discredit him on its own?
If an invalid argument leads to a correct conclusion, are the means justified by the end?
The comment above about reproductive cloning reminds me of what I was complaining about on John Lynch’s thread. The moral case against reproductive cloning is very weak (assuming the technology could be brought to a point where it is safe). See the extensive writings on this by John Harris and my own more modest contributions in various journals – most recently an article from a couple of years back in Monash Bioethics Review: “Human Cloning and ‘Posthuman’ Society.” Monash Bioethics Review 24, 1 (January 2005): 10-26.
The opposition to reproductive cloning is mainly based on the “yuck factor” and religious opposition to “playing God”. The attempts to rationalise these things are poor. Many people seem to feel in their bones that reproductive cloning is wrong – but many people feel the same way about homosexuality, interracial marriage, and all sorts of other things that I consider politically acceptable or even morally good.
Okay, so I have now publicly “supported” reproductive cloning (with appropriate reservations about safety). Actually, this is hardly a new position for me – as mentioned above. But the point is that I can now be smeared by some as favouring “eugenics”, if reproductive cloning is labelled a “eugenic” technology.
We should be very careful about throwing around the word “eugenics” and its cognates. If individuals and couples in the future sometimes have reason to use reproductive cloning or embryonic sex selection, or whatever other technology is available, their motivation will not necessarily be anthing like that of the racists and loons who ran the authoritarian programs that we now associate with “eugenics”. Nor would the outcomes be the same (to argue for the legality of reproductive cloning is not to advocate racist acts, compulsory sterilisations, or the even more horrible abuses committed by the Nazis).
By the way the strongest argument against reproductive cloning, given the current state of the technology is precisely a eugenic one: we don’t want to use technologies, such as reproductive cloning and Thalidomide, that (would) increase congenital abnormalities. There is nothing wrong with such eugenic thinking (remember, the word just means something like “good birth”). There was a lot wrong with the authoritarian, racist programs in Nazi Germany, the US, and other places in the first half of the 20th century. But we need to be careful not to use the taint of the latter against every possible technology or practice that can be called “eugenic” in some sense. If we did not incorporate a eugenic element in our moral thinking, we’d be happily still using Thalidomide, not worrying about fetal alcohol syndrome, etc.
This is an area where emotions run high, and where religionists and other irrationalists can have a field day. We should be open minded about new technologies and very careful in our analyses.
You know, this is just purely idle speculation on my part, but I have wondered a bit if Flew either invented or exaggerated his “conversion” for the precise purpose of getting his political views out there. If he felt that they were important enough, there would have been no better way to gain a public platform than to take advantage of the Media Machine that is modern Christianity, and he’d know that.
Give them enough to get evangelicals to go crazy over the propaganda opportunity; but give out little enough that people who understand philosophy will recognize that there’s really not a lot of meat there — and play it like a doddering old fool. Make some confusing changes, be all things to all people. Perhaps, leave a confession to be read after you die, when the pieces can be put together, and it turns out you were a very shrewd fox indeed. And in the meantime, take every opportunity to turn the conversation to politics.
Ok, probably not, but it would be kinda cool.
That said, I’ll second Louis’ excellent post at #35, and point out that in Dan Barker’s autobiographical book Losing Faith in Faith, the former popular evangelical minister says that when he announced he was no longer Christian, but instead an atheist, virtually nobody in his former community was interested in hearing his reasons. That is, they didn’t want to examine his arguments. They brushed them off when he tried to tell them. No, they wanted to know what had happened to him personally: who hurt him; who disappointed him; what sad event had made him unhappy and bitter enough to “lose” his faith?
Contrast that with the atheists. Yes, we’re looking at whether or not Flew has gone senile or has an agenda. But, bottom line, the very first thing nonbelievers were interested in was the REAL “why” — the argument. Fine Tuning? First cause? Trot it out and take it apart and see if it’s valid. Is it a good reason? Does it work?
We only ask “what the heck happened to Flew?” now because the arguments he uses appear to really, really suck.
Faithful who claim they used to be atheists but offer no proof, suggesting that the claim is for rhetorical effect only: C.S. Lewis, Paul Vitz, Lee Strobel . . .
What. Only eight hours will do… will do… that… to a man…
Cannot be.
You are mistaken. He didn’t. He said “there is reason for prayerful hope” that it doesn’t exist.
If he came out saying straight away that limbo didn’t exist, he would be on a slippery slope away from extra ecclesia nulla salus.
Wenn Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.
LOL!
What. Only eight hours will do… will do… that… to a man…
Cannot be.
You are mistaken. He didn’t. He said “there is reason for prayerful hope” that it doesn’t exist.
If he came out saying straight away that limbo didn’t exist, he would be on a slippery slope away from extra ecclesia nulla salus.
Wenn Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.
LOL!
Why are so many people for genitic engineering but not eugenics? i don’t get it. shouldn’t we be trying to better our selves, our offspring and our society through selective breeding and weeding? p.s. i never intend to have kids because i am an unfit specimen. i fully intend to adopt some nice healthy kids and raise them rather than risk passing on my genetic disorders to any potential offspring and i wish other people would too
Aaron @49,
Why are so many people for genitic engineering but not eugenics?
Because they’re two different things, and their moral implications are very different.
Like our host, I don’t think genetic engineering has much of a moral implication. That is, it won’t have, once the technology has advanced to the point where it is safe and effective. (Mind you, maybe we can’t get there without experimentation that we would deem morally unacceptable.) There will always be limiting cases. Would we be happy with a state engineering Star Wars Storm Trooper-like soldiers — big, fast, strong and aggressive, but with little capacity for disobedience or moral reflection? But if we could tweak genes such that their bearers were less prone to myopia, or breast cancer, or schizophrenia, or whatever, where is the moral quandary?
Eugenics is another thing altogether. But here we need a bit of nuance. There are different sorts of eugenics. On the whole, the “breeding” sort is less likely to be offensive than the “weeding” sort. (Whether it is particularly effective is another question.)
As for your own children (or lack thereof), the choice is all yours, and I don’t think anybody could fault your decision not to have kids because you don’t think much of your genotype. (If anything, this is the opposite of “fault”, especially given your desire to adopt.) Orthodox Jews, not a group known for adherence to dreams of Hitlerian supermen, maintain databases through which those carrying genes for some of the recessive genetic disorders that disproportionately afflict the Ashkenazi population can discover whether a potential partner carries the same gene, with the idea of avoiding marriage and reproduction with that person. That’s a sort of eugenics, and not one I think anybody would find morally reprehensible.
But when one proposes preventing those deemed genetically inferior from reproducing, things look different. If people are uneasy with the idea of forced sterilisation of those deemed undesirable breeding stock (“three generations of imbeciles is enough” and all that), good; they should be uneasy with it. And if we are talking about “culling” those deemed unfit, we are totally on nazi territory.