Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday
Once, again, after returning from fascinating Belarus (undoubtedly one of the most interesting countries on the planet, and surprisingly enjoyable to visit despite its grim and sinister regime) I'll take the opportunity for a little general conversation. First, I'd like to introduce a new expression to this weblog. In future, I propose to use the word 'Boatang', as a verb and a noun, to describe the action of making unsupported assertions. As in "That's a bit of a boatang" or "You seem to have boatanged there " . The reason for this is to be found on the thread "Get Ready for Blackouts", towards the end, where "Kevin Boatang" directly asserts that I made several errors of fact but - repeatedly challenged to substantiate this serious claim for nearly two weeks - has not done so. I really don't think this should pass unnoticed. And, since it's not his real name, it is quite a mild penalty.
Which brings me to the interesting responses to my Wednesday posting last week ("Soft on Brown" etc). First of all, nobody, least of all the person who accused me of being soft on Gordon Brown, seems to have responded to my request for evidence of this supposed softness. On the contrary, my accuser has re-engineered his accusation into a wholly different( and contradictory) a complaint that I do not attack Mr Brown enough. One or the other, Mr Gower, but not both.
Perhaps someone could explain to me what purpose would be served by me if I attacked Mr Brown just now? First, everyone is doing it, including all the lackeys of New Labour who never dared attack Mr Blair. What difference would it make if I spat into this ocean? Second, such universal conformist unanimity must be repellent to the independent mind. Third, as Mr Gower seems to acknowledge, the aim of the attack on Mr Brown is to avoid any proper examination of Mr Cameron, and to build him up, not through his own positive attributes but through dwelling on the negative side of Mr Brown. Yet Mr Cameron's policies are more or less identical to those of Mr Brown. He suggests I should point this out more. Well, I say that all the time. I can't see how I can do it any more.
A couple of umpiring issues: I am, I'm afraid, almost wholly baffled by the strange, veering contributions of Miss Scherer, who has (I hope) abandoned long incomprehensible postings and gone for short incomprehensible ones instead. I am also puzzled by the way some male correspondents seek to ingratiate themselves with her. This isn't a social networking site ( so far as I know) and if she wishes to be listened to , then I think she should make more of an effort to see that her postings make sense. She's clearly capable of it when she tries. I have been reluctant to say this directly for some time, but feel the moment has come. I could also do without any more long biblical quotations. Even those that don't have Bibles should be able to get hold of them, and don't need great slabs of scripture laid out before them all the time. A brief reference would do, and a bit more of a supporting argument.
As for the enquiries about circumcision, it had never occurred to me that the Church of England required this operation, and the mental picture of various doddering rectors being compelled to perform rather delicate surgery over the font, as tearful mothers and wincing fathers looked on, has given me some of my more enjoyable moments in the past week. It just goes to show that religious education in this country has been in deep trouble for a long, long time.
Now, what was it I said about evolution? . Actually, this was what I said :"On the issue of science, and whether it conflicts with theism, I'd just like to ask for reminiscences here. What were you taught in school about evolution by natural selection? I do mean school. Specialist scientists will obviously have had a different experience once they specialised, but something tells me most readers here are not specialist scientists. My memory is that it was taken as a given fact, and so not particularly examined or discussed. I've certainly found the huge complexity of the subject far more interesting than I had thought it was, when I have examined it in adult life. From the way in which some people trumpet evolution as a settled fact, and become livid with rage if it is questioned, while often demonstrating major misunderstandings of it , I suspect that most of us are in the same state. We know it's so, but don't really know why."
Note that I express absolutely no opinion here about the theory of evolution by natural selection. None at all. I ask for reminiscences about how it was taught at school.
Yet this question ( and thanks to the minority who actually answered it) is instantly identified by some contributors as a menace to their faith in the theory of evolution, and off they go again. In turn, the opponents or critics or sceptics of the theory pile in, in standard mode. "Creationist!" "Biff!" "Thud" "What about the Dover School judgement?" "Well, what about the Scopes Trial?" ."Was it through your mother, or your father, that you claim descent from the apes?" "Crunch!" "Wallop!" "Fundamentalist!" "This is a pity, because it is sadly rare to find pro-evolutionists who are tolerant of sceptics, and it rapidly becomes a dialogue of the deaf.
That's why I tried a different approach. For in my view the theory of evolution is done no favours by its fervent supporters. Interestingly, it's not comparable to other major scientific theories (like the theories of flight, gravity and relativity) to which its supporters always link it. These can be used to predict events, and are testable. Evolution is a theory about the distant past, unobserved and now unobservable.
My own unease about the theory of evolution (and unease is what it is) is largely caused by the furious reactions of its supporters to any doubt. I think their fury, intolerance and abuse (and they are guilty of all these things, just as boneheaded bible literalists were guilty of them when Darwin first advanced his theory) are a sign that they lack confidence. Most of us probably know about Karl Popper's doubts, about the apparent circularity of the evolutionary theory, doubts which he famously recanted later. If such a distinguished philosopher of science can even entertain such doubts, it seems to me that it is reasonable for others to do so too. As for his recantation, it's a word I don't like the sound of, redolent of show-trials as it is. I'm not even sure you can recant a doubt, once you've expressed it. What's interesting is that he must have come under grave pressure to do so. And I'm told that later editions of the work in which he expressed his qualms were not edited to remove those qualms.
As for the teaching of evolution in school, my point was that anything which is taught as a given fact really deserves to be given the occasional once-over, to see if it really is a given fact. This is particularly the case in the teaching of history, which is subject to frequent revisions and even revolutions in interpretation, and science, likewise in a state of unending revision, driven by doubts and discoveries, as it should be. Evolution is historical science, and so specially subject to these rules.
But what would happen if evolution were actually taught properly, with discussions of the arguments, a genuine account of the Scopes trial instead if the fiction of 'Inherit the Wind', a history of the frequent revisions of the theory, even perhaps a mention of the Piltdown fraud and its over-ready acceptance? Not to mention the disagreements about the nature of evolution between such figures as Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins. Surely, if it were so settled and certain, its leading supporters would not need to disagree about what it actually is? As it is, I believe quite a lot of school pupils have until recently been subjected to Haeckel's dubious drawings and the questionable tale of the Peppered Moth.
By the way, talking about 'Inherit the Wind', I find it very interesting that 'Inherit the Wind', though otherwise economical with the truth,. quite rightly condemns the backwoodsmen for seeking to suppress an argument by use of law (though it fails to mention that whole trial was deliberately provoked by the American Civil Liberties Union, which wanted a test case). Whereas the Dover Trial, which evolution partisans now make much of, was also the use of the law to suppress an argument. The evolutionists, on the side of liberty in the past, now seem to me to be on the side of suppression. Why would that be?
"And the misunderstanding of evolution is constantly demonstrated by its use in normal language,often as a synonym for 'development' of any kind. Last year we were told in a major advertising campaign that some version or other of Microsoft had 'evolved'. Maybe it hadn't evolved, but had been revised and developed by directing brains - intelligent designers, if you like? Though I suspect Apple Mac users, always dismissive of Microsoft's efforts,might argue. "
With public understanding of the theory at such a minimal level, and the word incessantly misused in normal conversation, no wonder many of evolution's defenders are mixed up about what they are actually supposed to believe. They confuse adaptation within species - observable, undeniable fact - with evolution of species, a wholly different thing extrapolated from adaptation but not demonstrable in action. What I think we often hear, in the anguished, intolerant howls of evolutionists when doubts are expressed, are the sounds of the insecure, who have been taught to believe something without being properly told why they should do so. They then argue in the angry, frightened manner of people who have always thought that they knew something - and know realise that they only think they know it.
What have I said above? Well, I've treated evolution with respect, and seriously, as what it is - an elegant, captivating, powerful and ingenious theory about the origin of species. I offer no alternative theory, because the other theories, insofar as they even exist, likewise lack the predictive quality that a theory needs to be treated as fact.
I've declined to treat evolution by natural selection as an established fact at least partly because of the books of Professor Dawkins. Far from knocking the unease out of my head ( as one correspondent alarmingly hopes they will do), they only tend to increase my unease. If it's all so settled, why does he argue so urgently and incessantly. Who is he really trying to convince? I suspect that his main target is himself.
Can those who believe the evolutionary theory is an established fact please respond without name-calling, and simply show us, without unscientific appeals to majority opinion or claims that it 'stands to reason', why it is so?
Among responses to the Sunday column, I'm struck by the hostility of several correspondents towards Lillian Ladele, the registrar who did not want to take part in homosexual civil unions. She didn't, so far as I know, say her faith was 'insulted' by these partnerships ( as one contributor says). She just asked to be excused from officiating at them, or registering them, as she thought them morally wrong. Having read the Employment Tribunal judgement, which describes at length the way in which homosexual colleagues decided to make a major issue out of her request, I'd add a few other things.
One, she wasn't originally employed by Islington Council, but by the government as a registrar, who then supplied her services to the council. This gave her a special legal position, which she later lost when registrars were transferred to local authority employment. She became a registrar before civil partnerships were introduced, and their introduction - and the change in her actual employer - was a major alteration in her terms of employment. As I explained in my article, she was one of a large number of registrars, and her preferences could easily have been accommodated. Why weren't they?
"Mark" suggests that Muslim registrar might refuse to officiate at the wedding of a Jew. I would be interested to know on what grounds such a registrar might argue this, but since both Jews and Muslims support marriage ( and have scriptures condemning homosexual acts) I think it much more likely that a Muslim registrar will decline to officiate at a Civil Partnership. I rather hope that, when this happens, the Muslim is a black woman, in which case the contradictory rules of political correctness will tangle up in a three-way train-wreck of absurdity.
Some other attacks on her: She is said to have no right to take a moral stand on this because she has a child out of wedlock. On the contrary, if she regrets this past action ( as I think she has said she does) then she has surely more reason to respect the rules of her religion in future. She is said to be hypocritical in officiating at secular marriages when she is a Christian, and should therefore want all marriages to be religious. Well, up to a point. Christians obviously think that religious marriage is better than a civil ceremony. But they would undoubtedly prefer couples to contract a civil marriage than not to be married at all. Her argument about civil partnerships is that she does not believe that two men, or two women, can contract a marriage, which can only take place between a man and a woman. This is a legitimate view, it is the view of her faith, and until very recently it was the unchallenged opinion of everyone in this country. When she became a registrar, it was also the law of the land.
She believes that civil partnership is a marriage in all but name, and she would therefore be committing a dishonest act if she officiated at such an event.
Rose H (20th July, 4.5I pm) says that she cannot pick and choose what she does if the law changes. Why not? If conscience conflicts with the law, should there be no rights for the person who follows conscience? Or does Ms H say this merely because she happens to disagree with Miss Ladele about this issue? Look at the way we all sneer at the German functionaries who followed orders ( and the law of the time) in National Socialist Germany. Well, if we don't want that attitude here, then we should make sure that anyone who follows his or her conscience has rights in law - regardless of whether we agree with them. She also refers to "one mention of homosexual and you are galloping of on your hobby horse". Really? I think it has been quite a while since I have discussed the subject at all. I would be happy if I never had to write about it at all. The issue here is one of freedom of thought and conscience.
Paul P (20th July 10.50 pm) suggests that the "Christian lobby" wish to discriminate against those who disagree with their opinions. No, I don't think so. Even assuming they had any chance of doing so, the "Christian Lobby" here involved was defending an individual against an institution. The individual's opinions had got her into trouble. I cannot think of any policy pursued or supported by the 'Christian lobby' or any conservative group that would have the effect of bringing trouble on the head of any left-wing or politically correct person, because they expressed an opinion. Can Mr P explain? I know of no serious attempt by anybody to make it a criminal offence to deny the existence of God, as Mr P alleges. Can he elaborate? As for the blasphemy laws (which are perhaps the cause of his confusion) , I personally support their abolition, even though they are a dead letter, because they are used as an excuse in Muslim countries to apply much more serious such laws against Christians.
The contribution from "Dino" ( wasn't that the name of the pet Dinosaur in the Flintstones?) originally contained a supposed quotation from the Bible which "Dino" claimed could be used to support or excuse racial bigotry. I must admit I didn't recognise it - perhaps it came from one of those modern Rocky Horror translations - and so I've excised it for now. If "Dino" can produce chapter and verse then we can see it in context and discuss it rationally, though it seems to me that the recent record of the church on racial bigotry is a pretty clean one. I should also point out here that bigotry against someone for their skin colour is not morally or practically or in any other way comparable to moral disapproval of a wilful sexual act. Arguments based on this falsehood automatically fail.
As I pointed out, nobody should have needed to do any extra work because of Miss Ladele's position, as there is a large number of registrars and the dwindling number of civil partnerships. All that was required was a bit of tolerant give and take. And some homosexual colleagues of Miss Ladele were opposed to that. She was, in my view, severely bullied. I really can't see how anyone can justify that in any cause at all.
"Steve H" argues ( I think) that I can't support Miss Ladele and condemn radicals who seek to turn the Church upside down. Well, I don't see why not. They're two quite different things. He then mixes this up with the establishment of the C of E.
"But you can't argue on the one hand that "radicals" have no right to campaign to change the direction of the CofE and on the other hand argue (as you have in the past) in favour of an established Church.
"For as long as the constitution decrees that the head of state to whom British women and homosexuals owe allegiance must be a member of the CofE and decrees that CofE bishops have reserved seats in the legislature which determines the laws governing the lives of British women and homosexuals, then British women and homosexuals (of whatever denomination) surely have a right to try to change the direction of the CofE if they disagree with it. "
This is an ingenious argument but ludicrously overstates the power and influence of the Church, while wholly missing the point. The Church of England is not like the TUC or the CBI or the Committee of Vice Chancellors. It doesn't develop 'policies' .. It stands - or should stand - for what it believes to be eternal verities beyond dispute. We may owe allegiance to the Queen as our Sovereign, but observant citizens will have noticed that she is seldom the person who tells us what to do in her name, or seeks to influence our thoughts. Islington Council, or the BBC have much more authority in this field, and a real reformer would do well to get his feet under the table in local government and broadcasting( as they have). .
As for the Bishops, they form a rather small proportion of an enfeebled revising chamber, are by no means reliable supporters of the principles they are paid to defend, and anyone wishing to change the country would be going a very roundabout and bizarre route if he chose to do so by getting control of the General Synod. On the other hand, someone wishing to drive Christianity out of the public sphere, and weaken its message and authority, could have a great effect by infiltrating and dividing that church. QED.
He adds" A more democratically valid view would be to argue not that people should get out of the CofE if they don't like how it treats women and homosexuals, but that the CofE should get out of government if it doesn't like treating women and homosexuals equally"
I don't quite know why this is more valid. Why not just say that it is the view you prefer, because you prefer sexual liberation to religious faith. I take the other view.Nor, as I explain above, is the Church of England 'in government'. It has a tiny influence on power, which it is entitled to use and should use more. I wonder how Steve will like it if he gets his way, Christianity is driven from the public sphere and this country becomes Islamicised. Liberal reformers always imagine that if they tear something down, nothing will arise to take its place. And they are invariably mistaken.
I agree with "Stuart" that "Prince Caspian" has been critically mauled and I personally won't be sorry if it flops. I always had my doubts ( and expressed them) about the filming of the Narnia books, in which much of the text is actually the expression of thoughts. I didn't like the film of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and I don't intend to see 'Prince Caspian'. I also think it almost impossible to portray the temporary transformation of English schoolchildren (of a type now vanished) into warriors and kings. I suspect that the least typical of the books 'The Horse and His Boy' would be the easiest to film, being a pursuit through exotic surroundings (in which the Pevensie children have only the most marginal role), ending with a battle and a surprise disclosure.
They were only filmed because of the success of the (wholly different) Lord of the Rings trilogy. Pullman's books, likewise, were obviously going to be hard to film, but such a fuss was made about his brilliance etc etc etc that they got a free pass into Hollywood. . Both flops have their lessons, but the Pullman flop, for obvious reasons, gives me more satisfaction.
