Ms. Judson has a noble sentiment, but words like this are all they have, and we’ll have to pry them from their cold, dead hands. To pick up Erich’s theme from a few posts after this, evolution and the teaching of evolution are icky to them, and they need to disseminate a vocabulary that emphasizes that ickiness in order to stir up support for the creationist campaign.

What really makes Darwin’s theory so controversial is that a better adapted species does not fit with the hierarchy model of all species being subordinate to humans. Natural selection allows for lateral and atavistic adaptations. This is what scares the proponents of creationism. The idea that mankind is not the closest to a perfect being and is gradually being changed by the environment breed a fear of the next step in evolution (or devolution) for mankind. If this is what they are fighting, they have already lost as human mutants are born every day, and only time will tell which of these subtle variations may be a survival advantage in the future.(I’m not talking about X-men comic book mutation here, but things like immune system variations and changes in the central nervous system)

I’ve read some of Freud’s lectures, and Feynman’s, and articles by Einstein. But I have not read Darwin cover to cover. I’d also tried to read Galileo and Newton, and gave up in much the same manner as I quit on Darwin. The ideas were brilliant at the time, and still hold up. But the changes in both literary style and innate understanding of the universe since then make reading these guys hard going.

I’ve absorbed their distilled and refined ideas from other sources; sources that I trust enough to not feel the need to go back and compare to the original. Unfortunately, Creationists also read only quote-mined excerpts from authorities they trust, revealing a very different picture.

Also, since many Christian fundies base their disbelief in evolution on the fact that they’ve “never seen one species change into another,” I like to point out that they’ve also never seen someone walk on water, cure the blind or return from the dead, but that hasn’t stopped them from believing these things happened.

When he developed his theory of the unconscious mind, it was revolutionary. It is solid as a rock today. No credible person holds that all cognition is accessible through introspection.

Second, consider that Freud was a thinker of broad scope. Many of his writings are still terrific. One of my favorites is Civilization and its Discontents, on which I once posted.

Old Freud was no fool. We must also keep in mind the limited information with which he had to work. Here are a smattering of good Freud quotes:

Anatomy is destiny.
Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), Collected Writings, 1924

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.
Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)

Experience consists of experiencing that which one does not wish to experience
“Jokes and Their Relation To The Unconscience?”

Here’s a bunch more.

By picking on Darwin, they can claim that he was wrong. In many details, he was. We know this because of nearly 200 years of careful study of every aspect of what he wrote. All such studies reinforced his basic idea, even those proving some of his details to be in error.

The term Darwinism is only used by detractors of modern biological theory. Scientists don’t use the term unless they are referring to a particular passé school of thought specifically identified by its place in history and its relationship to modern understanding. It can only be abolished by the coiners, not by the victims.

Unfortunately, it gets repeated by journalists who often lack the background to know its divergent meanings to various groups. Much like the word “theory”.

But as one of the commentators to the original Judson post said, “[It is] probably better to have Darwin headlining your discipline than be a psychologist fighting against Freud’s legacy. At least Darwin was RIGHT.”