You asked, “What explains the partisanship of this?” 58:08 I think there are two factors contributing to the current levels of partisanship.
-- I think the first contributing factor is highlighted in the conversation between Bret Weinstein and Dave Rubin.
"You asked me what we should keep if we were interested in not just sidelining progressivism." - Bret Weinstein https://youtu.be/yKWM76weXBc?t=1425
"I think that is a message that most conservatives hear; I mean, the word conserve is in there and conserving the environment is part of that." - Dave Rubin https://youtu.be/yKWM76weXBc?t=1461
Academics seem to have a fascination with the idea that people can be separated into those favoring progressive intuitions and those favoring conservative intuitions. Perhaps this can explain why there is a reproducibility problem in science since taking the time to verify and defend what is already in the canon of knowledge would be too conservative of an idea to be tolerated in academia. I think a lot of people associate Democrat (left) with progressive (new) and Republican (right) with conservative (old) in the Hegelian sense, creating a natural negative sentiment override.
-- The second contributing factor to the level of partisanship is the tension between people who believe science education reforms should be driven by scientific advancement and people who think science reforms should be driven by political agenda and used to force-feed ideology to prevent children from becoming anything other than the ideal citizen. Consider that anyone who openly questions gender ideology is labeled “conservative”, if you don’t think science is racist...“conservative”. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has now prioritized fighting racism in science.
New Film Series Explores Science’s Role in Fighting Racism | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
The AAAS is clearly ideologically captured, the question is how long the organization has been focused on forwarding a particular ideology rather than the advancement of science. I would suggest that a decade ago, there is reason to believe there were already a very large percentage of Americans who already believed the AAAS was ideologically captured. This returns the idea of left and right in American politics. Creationism has long been considered the conservative idea, with evolution being the progressive idea.
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science (2021) states that “the foundation of all life sciences is biological evolution”. 98 percent of its members express support for the statement that humans have evolved over time (Pew Research Center, 2015). In contrast, evolution is a highly charged topic among the US population with only 65 percent agreeing that humans have evolved over time.” (Pg 2) https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED625599
The AAAS has a history of using the views of its members as justification for labeling particular views as “scientific”. 98% is an impressive number of members in agreement. Coincidentally, Dr James Tour has been kept out of another prestigious organization, the National Academy of Sciences because of his views about biological evolution. https://youtu.be/Cz1ZmloM9sk?t=265 This implies 65% of the US population potentially believed organizations like the AAAS were ideologically captured and used as ideological weapons before gender ideology was a noticeable concern. I believe the word conservative has become a placeholder for the phrase “politically incorrect” in American politics. It might be worth considering whether using the words progressive and conservative is really a good idea to begin with.
Seems to be a smart cookie. However, the problem seems to be that he endorsed/signed the "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" statement by the Discovery Institute -- the Intelligent Design folks. At 4:55 of the video he says:
"I signed a statement in 2001 that says we are skeptical of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life."
Regardless of whether DI is peddling that, there is still some merit for that idea, at least absent their "conclusion", i.e., "therefore Jesus". But for example, you might check out Stuart Kauffman's ideas, even if there may be some valid criticisms of them:
Wikipedia: "Kauffman is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection in three areas of evolutionary biology, namely population dynamics, molecular evolution, and morphogenesis. "
Thank you for the thoughtful response, Steersman! I will need to read more Kaufmann to better understand those concepts. Which of Kaufmann's claims has the most merit in your opinion?
Basically that quote from Wikipedia, though Kauffman has written several books that elaborates on the theme, one a popularization, and one a more detailed technical analysis:
Think I read one or both of them, though it was sometime ago. But a salient quote from the latter:
Amazon: "Kauffman argues that biological order is largely self-organized and spontaneous, and proposes to extend evolutionary theory beyond Darwin."
A fairly popular perspective, increasingly so, though it's taken some time to develop. Kind of an interesting take that neatly summarizes an important dichotomy:
Springer Link: "Self-organization Proposes What Natural Selection Disposes"
You might also have some interest in this book -- highly recommended -- by Melanie Mitchell which discusses in some detail Kauffman's significant contributions to the field:
A further Wikipedia article that provides a decent summary of, and index into a range of perspectives on the topic -- including to Kauffman's contributions:
But you might also have some interest in "Darwin's Black Box" -- which I'd read some years ago, highly recommended, at least for a very readable and quite solid account of the biology:
Amazon: "... helped to launch the Intelligent Design movement: the argument that nature exhibits evidence of design, beyond Darwinian randomness."
Some fascinating and quite thorough discussions of biochemical complexity, and underlines or suggests some serious deficiencies in a simple Darwinian model -- which is largely Kauffman's quite solid argument. But it does address some of Kauffman's arguments before it, sadly, eventually falls back on a religious perspective: basically, "therefore Jesus".
Thanks Steersman. I want to apologize for the "most merit" comment. It wasn't what I was going for and when I read my own comment afterwards I felt like an ***hole. Thank you for graciously answering the question I would like to have asked, which is what do you find most appealing about Kauffman's work? It appears he is thinking "outside the box" which I appreciate. To me, the concepts of self-organization and spontaneity seem mutually exclusive once specified complexity reaches a certain level, so my skepticism for claims of spontaneity or spuriosity are pretty high. After considering your comment, I think I was being overly skeptical of his thesis before considering what he might have to say and am now eager to read your suggestions. Part of what provided me with the insight, that I was letting my skepticism get the best of me, was your suggestion that I read Darwin's Black Box, which surprised me on several levels. Frankly, I owe you another apology for underestimating the extant to which you have already considered challenges to Darwinian evolution. I can appreciate that you have read Behe's book and are able to find merit in some parts of it and not others. I am not surprised that Behe was unable to "show his work" between the challenges to Darwinian evolution and Jesus. As Paul Nelson points out, it is not a binary between Darwinian evolution (Common Descent, LUCA) and design, so more “showing your work” is required after establishing Darwin was mistaken. The four combinations of belief or disbelief regarding LUCA and design are:
No design/LUCA, No design/No LUCA,
Design/LUCA, Design/No LUCA.
So one can have the conversation whether LUCA existed or not while remaining in one of the two “No design” combinations. I truly admire your willingness to have that conversation, as it is exceedingly rare. I think the reason people often talk past each other on this topic is that they have different understandings of the word religion. I usually hear this conversation framed as a religious conversation and I think that framing is not quite accurate. I think it is helpful to think of this as a logical conversation about whether or not theologic is logic. I think all theologic is religious, but not all religion is theological. In other words, if one establishes the existence of theo, the continution of thinking logically with this understanding is theologic. In other words, theologic can be seen as thinking in this manner, “If the premise that theo exists is true, what else can be said to be true?” You can have logical and illogical responses to that question. The logical responses are theological and religious, the illogical responses are illogical but still religious. So to me, any religious conversation is separate from the conversation about whether or not a theo exists, because a religious conversation assigns the truth value of true to the premise that a theo exists. Thanks again for your thoughtful responses and keeping me in check.
No problemo 🙂, my pleasure. Your "challenge" gave me an opportunity to review my notes, to delve a little further into some sources I'd only bookmarked for later perusal. That article on "Self-organization Proposes What Natural Selection Disposes" in particular -- I see it's basically a review of another book I should look into myself, one that garnered a very good review by Kauffman -- Himself 😉🙂:
"Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection"
As for "Darwin's Black Box", that "therefore Jesus" quip or shot of mine is more something that characterizes the Discovery Institute than Behe himself who seems more open-minded, probably reflecting his scientific credentials. But he really did have some quite cogent criticisms of "Neo-Darwinism", and buttressed it with some solid facts and sources. Though I still think he was too dismissive of self-organization. But for instance, Lynn Margulis -- an ex-wife of Carl Sagan and a credible biologist in her own right -- had something of a damning, or at least arresting, challenge of biological orthodoxy:
Behe: "And Lynn Margulis says that history will ultimately judge Neo-Darwinism as 'a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology.' " [pg. 26]
However, I think your "Design/NoDesign; LUCA/No-LUCA" is something of a false analogy or incomplete characterization at best, particularly regarding the "Design/NoDesign" dichotomy. Consider Wikipedia's article on the topic:
Wikipedia: "Design refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, though it is sometimes used to refer to the nature of something - its design."
Something which has been central Kauffman's work, more or less right from square one. For example see his 1996 "At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity"
Amazon: "Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls 'order for free,' that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. .... Kauffman uses the basic insight of 'order for free' to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena."
Order is basically "designed in", right from square one, right from the Big Bang -- the design is in the "nature" of the beast, intrinsic to it. It is then somewhat academic -- something like Laplace's "unnecessary hypothesis" -- whether that Big Bang, that design was due to some "Creator" or not:
I - and parent friends concerned about gender ideology - are always on the lookout for that one article or podcast we can share with people who think we’re nuts and who will give only a smidge of their time to considering our point of view. This is the best comprehensive podcast I’ve come across to fit that bill. Am going to start sharing it ASAP.
An excellent conversation with Miriam Grossman. She summarizes the situation as a belief system, a religious cult. What is the name of this cult or ideology? My latest Substack is titled "The Ideology that Captured Our Culture" at https://2026.substack.com/p/the-ideology-that-captured-our-culture
"The preceding has been a paid commercial announcement. We now return you to your regular scheduled programming. ...." 😉🙂
Though some merit to your "Soviet Union never ended" -- and in many ways. What I find particularly exasperating and quite "distressing" is the ubiquity of Lysenkoism -- Russia's contribution to the annals of the corruption of science by ideology.
Several examples for your reading "pleasure" from Wikipedia and "Scientific" American:
You asked, “What explains the partisanship of this?” 58:08 I think there are two factors contributing to the current levels of partisanship.
-- I think the first contributing factor is highlighted in the conversation between Bret Weinstein and Dave Rubin.
"You asked me what we should keep if we were interested in not just sidelining progressivism." - Bret Weinstein https://youtu.be/yKWM76weXBc?t=1425
"I think that is a message that most conservatives hear; I mean, the word conserve is in there and conserving the environment is part of that." - Dave Rubin https://youtu.be/yKWM76weXBc?t=1461
Academics seem to have a fascination with the idea that people can be separated into those favoring progressive intuitions and those favoring conservative intuitions. Perhaps this can explain why there is a reproducibility problem in science since taking the time to verify and defend what is already in the canon of knowledge would be too conservative of an idea to be tolerated in academia. I think a lot of people associate Democrat (left) with progressive (new) and Republican (right) with conservative (old) in the Hegelian sense, creating a natural negative sentiment override.
-- The second contributing factor to the level of partisanship is the tension between people who believe science education reforms should be driven by scientific advancement and people who think science reforms should be driven by political agenda and used to force-feed ideology to prevent children from becoming anything other than the ideal citizen. Consider that anyone who openly questions gender ideology is labeled “conservative”, if you don’t think science is racist...“conservative”. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has now prioritized fighting racism in science.
New Film Series Explores Science’s Role in Fighting Racism | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
https://www.aaas.org/news/new-film-series-explores-sciences-role-fighting-racism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRzusl6hVQs
The AAAS is clearly ideologically captured, the question is how long the organization has been focused on forwarding a particular ideology rather than the advancement of science. I would suggest that a decade ago, there is reason to believe there were already a very large percentage of Americans who already believed the AAAS was ideologically captured. This returns the idea of left and right in American politics. Creationism has long been considered the conservative idea, with evolution being the progressive idea.
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science (2021) states that “the foundation of all life sciences is biological evolution”. 98 percent of its members express support for the statement that humans have evolved over time (Pew Research Center, 2015). In contrast, evolution is a highly charged topic among the US population with only 65 percent agreeing that humans have evolved over time.” (Pg 2) https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED625599
The AAAS has a history of using the views of its members as justification for labeling particular views as “scientific”. 98% is an impressive number of members in agreement. Coincidentally, Dr James Tour has been kept out of another prestigious organization, the National Academy of Sciences because of his views about biological evolution. https://youtu.be/Cz1ZmloM9sk?t=265 This implies 65% of the US population potentially believed organizations like the AAAS were ideologically captured and used as ideological weapons before gender ideology was a noticeable concern. I believe the word conservative has become a placeholder for the phrase “politically incorrect” in American politics. It might be worth considering whether using the words progressive and conservative is really a good idea to begin with.
America needs a recovery conversation. https://youtu.be/AKTyPgwfPgg?t=1586 We are in Negative Sentiment Override (NSO). https://youtu.be/AKTyPgwfPgg?t=1454 We need to get into Positive Sentiment Override. https://youtu.be/AKTyPgwfPgg?t=1407
Dr. James Tour:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour
Seems to be a smart cookie. However, the problem seems to be that he endorsed/signed the "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" statement by the Discovery Institute -- the Intelligent Design folks. At 4:55 of the video he says:
"I signed a statement in 2001 that says we are skeptical of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life."
Regardless of whether DI is peddling that, there is still some merit for that idea, at least absent their "conclusion", i.e., "therefore Jesus". But for example, you might check out Stuart Kauffman's ideas, even if there may be some valid criticisms of them:
Wikipedia: "Kauffman is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection in three areas of evolutionary biology, namely population dynamics, molecular evolution, and morphogenesis. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Kauffman#Works
Thank you for the thoughtful response, Steersman! I will need to read more Kaufmann to better understand those concepts. Which of Kaufmann's claims has the most merit in your opinion?
"most merit"?
Basically that quote from Wikipedia, though Kauffman has written several books that elaborates on the theme, one a popularization, and one a more detailed technical analysis:
https://www.amazon.ca/At-Home-Universe-Self-Organization-Complexity/dp/0195111303
https://www.amazon.ca/Origins-Order-Self-organization-Selection-Evolution/dp/0195058119/
Think I read one or both of them, though it was sometime ago. But a salient quote from the latter:
Amazon: "Kauffman argues that biological order is largely self-organized and spontaneous, and proposes to extend evolutionary theory beyond Darwin."
A fairly popular perspective, increasingly so, though it's taken some time to develop. Kind of an interesting take that neatly summarizes an important dichotomy:
Springer Link: "Self-organization Proposes What Natural Selection Disposes"
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1162/biot.2008.3.1.17
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228617818_Visions_of_Evolution_Self-organization_Proposes_What_Natural_Selection_Disposes
https://www.per.marine.csiro.au/staff/Fabio.Boschetti/papers/seven_visions.pdf
You might also have some interest in this book -- highly recommended -- by Melanie Mitchell which discusses in some detail Kauffman's significant contributions to the field:
https://www.amazon.ca/Complexity-Guided-Tour-Melanie-Mitchell/dp/0199798109
A further Wikipedia article that provides a decent summary of, and index into a range of perspectives on the topic -- including to Kauffman's contributions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
But you might also have some interest in "Darwin's Black Box" -- which I'd read some years ago, highly recommended, at least for a very readable and quite solid account of the biology:
https://www.amazon.ca/Darwins-Black-Box-Biochemical-Challenge/dp/0743290313/
Amazon: "... helped to launch the Intelligent Design movement: the argument that nature exhibits evidence of design, beyond Darwinian randomness."
Some fascinating and quite thorough discussions of biochemical complexity, and underlines or suggests some serious deficiencies in a simple Darwinian model -- which is largely Kauffman's quite solid argument. But it does address some of Kauffman's arguments before it, sadly, eventually falls back on a religious perspective: basically, "therefore Jesus".
Thanks Steersman. I want to apologize for the "most merit" comment. It wasn't what I was going for and when I read my own comment afterwards I felt like an ***hole. Thank you for graciously answering the question I would like to have asked, which is what do you find most appealing about Kauffman's work? It appears he is thinking "outside the box" which I appreciate. To me, the concepts of self-organization and spontaneity seem mutually exclusive once specified complexity reaches a certain level, so my skepticism for claims of spontaneity or spuriosity are pretty high. After considering your comment, I think I was being overly skeptical of his thesis before considering what he might have to say and am now eager to read your suggestions. Part of what provided me with the insight, that I was letting my skepticism get the best of me, was your suggestion that I read Darwin's Black Box, which surprised me on several levels. Frankly, I owe you another apology for underestimating the extant to which you have already considered challenges to Darwinian evolution. I can appreciate that you have read Behe's book and are able to find merit in some parts of it and not others. I am not surprised that Behe was unable to "show his work" between the challenges to Darwinian evolution and Jesus. As Paul Nelson points out, it is not a binary between Darwinian evolution (Common Descent, LUCA) and design, so more “showing your work” is required after establishing Darwin was mistaken. The four combinations of belief or disbelief regarding LUCA and design are:
No design/LUCA, No design/No LUCA,
Design/LUCA, Design/No LUCA.
So one can have the conversation whether LUCA existed or not while remaining in one of the two “No design” combinations. I truly admire your willingness to have that conversation, as it is exceedingly rare. I think the reason people often talk past each other on this topic is that they have different understandings of the word religion. I usually hear this conversation framed as a religious conversation and I think that framing is not quite accurate. I think it is helpful to think of this as a logical conversation about whether or not theologic is logic. I think all theologic is religious, but not all religion is theological. In other words, if one establishes the existence of theo, the continution of thinking logically with this understanding is theologic. In other words, theologic can be seen as thinking in this manner, “If the premise that theo exists is true, what else can be said to be true?” You can have logical and illogical responses to that question. The logical responses are theological and religious, the illogical responses are illogical but still religious. So to me, any religious conversation is separate from the conversation about whether or not a theo exists, because a religious conversation assigns the truth value of true to the premise that a theo exists. Thanks again for your thoughtful responses and keeping me in check.
No problemo 🙂, my pleasure. Your "challenge" gave me an opportunity to review my notes, to delve a little further into some sources I'd only bookmarked for later perusal. That article on "Self-organization Proposes What Natural Selection Disposes" in particular -- I see it's basically a review of another book I should look into myself, one that garnered a very good review by Kauffman -- Himself 😉🙂:
"Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection"
https://www.amazon.ca/Darwinism-Evolving-Dynamics-Genealogy-Selection/dp/0262540835
As for "Darwin's Black Box", that "therefore Jesus" quip or shot of mine is more something that characterizes the Discovery Institute than Behe himself who seems more open-minded, probably reflecting his scientific credentials. But he really did have some quite cogent criticisms of "Neo-Darwinism", and buttressed it with some solid facts and sources. Though I still think he was too dismissive of self-organization. But for instance, Lynn Margulis -- an ex-wife of Carl Sagan and a credible biologist in her own right -- had something of a damning, or at least arresting, challenge of biological orthodoxy:
Behe: "And Lynn Margulis says that history will ultimately judge Neo-Darwinism as 'a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology.' " [pg. 26]
However, I think your "Design/NoDesign; LUCA/No-LUCA" is something of a false analogy or incomplete characterization at best, particularly regarding the "Design/NoDesign" dichotomy. Consider Wikipedia's article on the topic:
Wikipedia: "Design refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, though it is sometimes used to refer to the nature of something - its design."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design
Something which has been central Kauffman's work, more or less right from square one. For example see his 1996 "At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity"
https://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Universe-Self-Organization-Complexity/dp/0195111303
Amazon: "Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls 'order for free,' that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. .... Kauffman uses the basic insight of 'order for free' to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena."
Order is basically "designed in", right from square one, right from the Big Bang -- the design is in the "nature" of the beast, intrinsic to it. It is then somewhat academic -- something like Laplace's "unnecessary hypothesis" -- whether that Big Bang, that design was due to some "Creator" or not:
https://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Laplace.html
https://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Newton.html
I - and parent friends concerned about gender ideology - are always on the lookout for that one article or podcast we can share with people who think we’re nuts and who will give only a smidge of their time to considering our point of view. This is the best comprehensive podcast I’ve come across to fit that bill. Am going to start sharing it ASAP.
Thank you. Please also check out our other videos on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/@drpeterboghossian
An excellent conversation with Miriam Grossman. She summarizes the situation as a belief system, a religious cult. What is the name of this cult or ideology? My latest Substack is titled "The Ideology that Captured Our Culture" at https://2026.substack.com/p/the-ideology-that-captured-our-culture
Excellent interview. Thanks, Peter, and Dr. Goldman for speaking about this openly and frankly. We have to stop denying our biology.
"The preceding has been a paid commercial announcement. We now return you to your regular scheduled programming. ...." 😉🙂
Though some merit to your "Soviet Union never ended" -- and in many ways. What I find particularly exasperating and quite "distressing" is the ubiquity of Lysenkoism -- Russia's contribution to the annals of the corruption of science by ideology.
Several examples for your reading "pleasure" from Wikipedia and "Scientific" American:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/wikipedias-lysenkoism
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/scientific-americans-lysenkoism
That would be funny to wear in the videos, but I wouldn't want to bias people as to any belief they think I hold as a result.
Think you meant to respond to "H.B".
But don't see any problem with wearing a football jersey -- didn't Orwell play for the Green Bay Packers? ... 😉🙂
Expect most people wouldn't get the reference.