Friday, July 23, 2010

Cognitive Dissonance Creates Irrational Behavior

It was Gerald Schroeder in his book "The Science of God" who brought to my attention that the last words of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" is almost never accurately re-printed.

The original closing statement from Darwin in even the last (1876) revision according to http://darwin-online.org.uk/contents.html#origin reads:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Here is a screenshot from the last sentence for your convenience, so you don't have to download the 100Mb pdf like I did:







In Schroeder's example, he was referring to Stephen Jay Gould's omission of the phrase "with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that...". Having sufficiently confirmed for myself that Schroeder's depiction of Darwin's closing words was accurate I then sought to find whether most modern publishers properly include this quote, and I have found that most do not.

Here is an example from "Red and Black" Publishers:







And another from Nabu press (2010):











You may be wondering, with all of the other topics in the world to consider, why this one I took time to write about. The answer is in the destructive power of erasing and manipulating history. No other scientist in modern history that I am aware of has had their work contorted, mis-interpreted, filtered, and inaccurately extrapolated into non-truths as much as Charles Darwin. The reason for this mainstream manipulation is to make Darwin fit into a clean, clear-cut ideology with a primary aim to discredit the existence of a creator to the universe. The Darwinists who are uncomfortable with the truth that Darwin himself believed there was a "Creator" do not strike me as scientifically sound people. Scientists often have to address conflicting facts about nature, and many of the greatest discoveries in science have come from sound science that acknowledges these conflicts and tests theories to resolve them. It is very difficult to acknowledge and publish the truth when it does not fit your world view. Publishers that omit information so that they ensure that their books will continue to be ordered by Federally-funded universities have a dilemma. They know that they are publishing a non-truth, but the alternative is to lose, or possibly go out of business. It seems like a simple choice to omit a few words - hey, everyone else is doing it - we don't want to look like the ones publishing mis-information, and be branded as a "Creationist" publisher, no no no. That would be the end of us. So it continues...the lie propagates, until someone actually has the stones to remember and stand up for the accurate re-production of historical works. Then, with great time and patience, a greater number may follow the brave few as the weak follow the flock back to the direction of the truth only when it is comfortable and safe to do so.