17AR22-32

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AR 22:32 - Darwinian explanation for gene’s origin ... still missing

In this issue:

ASTROLOGY - China's wholly uncritical "growing thirst for spiritual guidance"

CULTURE - the influence of Big Tech on "the catastrophic collapse of the news business and the degradation of American civic culture"

ORIGINS - "no Darwinian explanation exists for ... the origin of the cornerstone of modern biology, the gene"

SOCIOLOGY - from "unquestioned dominance of church and state - to where rules and traditions become destabilized"

Apologia Report 22:32 (1,352)

August 23, 2017

ASTROLOGY

"When Young Chinese Ask, 'What's Your Sign?' They Don't Mean Dragon or Rat" by Amy Qin -- "China, the birthplace of the Chinese zodiac and some of the world's oldest and most sophisticated fortunetelling techniques, has a new obsession: Western astrology.

"What remains a largely niche interest in the West has in recent years become a mainstream cultural trend in China, especially among the younger generation." This, despite a sea of conflicting authorities in which anyone can claim their predictions are the most accurate.

Qin reviews numerous examples of how seriously people in China are taking western astrology. In one, an auto sales company manager runs a help-wanted ad that favors Scorpios, Capricorns, and Geminis. "It is not the only instance of what has become known in China as 'zodiac discrimination.' A recent survey showed that 4.3 percent of college graduates looking for jobs in China had experienced discrimination based on their Western or Chinese zodiac sign. On Baidu Baike, the Chinese version of Wikipedia, there is even an entry for the term 'xingzuo zhaopin,' or job recruitment based on Western zodiac signs. ...

"Over the centuries, China developed a set of sophisticated divination techniques for use within and outside the imperial court. Today, many Chinese still consult fate-calculating practices like bazi, which determines a person's fortune based on birth year, month, date and hour.

"And the traditional Chinese zodiac, which features 12 animals representing 12 years, is so widely referenced that in 2014, several provinces reported a spike in births among young couples hoping to have their babies in the last weeks of the auspicious Year of the Horse to avoid the less favorable Year of the Sheep.

"China is, of course, not the only place where interest in the occult thrives. A survey <www.goo.gl/2WzRbW> by the National Science Foundation, published in 2014, found that in recent years the number of Americans who said they believed that astrology was 'sort of scientific' or 'very scientific' was on the rise.

"The difference in China is the visibility of the phenomenon. Unlike in America, there is little embarrassment about believing in Western astrology. Determining your fortune based on the interaction between the sun, the stars and the planets is just what Chinese have been doing for hundreds of years.

"At the root of Western astrology's popularity, some astrologers say, is a growing thirst for spiritual guidance." New York Times, Jul 22 '17, pA8. <www.goo.gl/np7sSF>

Highly recommended on this topic: The Souls of China, by Ian Johnson [1].

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CULTURE

World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, by Franklin Foer [2] -- Kirkus (Jul '17 #2) reports that "the governing ethos of what the Europeans call GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) is to aggregate us into a big data collectivity and manage our every desire, memory, taste, and everything else that makes us individuals." The blame is assigned to "the tech billionaires' forays into media [which] 'have eroded the integrity of institutions ... that supply the intellectual material that provokes thought and guides democracy.'" Included among the "most profound insights in the book" is the observation of "the economist Herbert Simon, who observed that the true cost of information was its sapping of the information consumer's attention - which is why things come to us in sound bites and bullet points these days." Foer's "proposed remedy is pretty much his own, perhaps by way of John Prine: blow up the TV and computer and read a (printed) book."

Publishers Weekly (Jul '17 #4) summarizes: "Former New Republic editor Foer constructs a scathing critique of tech culture and breaks down the collective history and impact of giant corporations.... He traces the origins of big tech monopolies back to the 1960s and specifically to the 'crown prince of hippiedom,' Stewart Brand, who spread the vision of a 'world healed by technology, brought together into a peaceful model of collaboration' with his publication of The Whole Earth Catalog <wholeearth.com> (once described by Steve Jobs as 'the bible' of his generation). ... The result is of extraordinary detriment to American culture, writes Foer, who blames the collapsing value of knowledge, on [GAFA, whose] growing stranglehold on commerce have played a role in "the catastrophic collapse of the news business and the degradation of American civic culture."

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ORIGINS

Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something "Alive" and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It, by J. Scott Turner [3] -- from the publisher: "a professor, biologist, and physiologist argues that modern Darwinism's materialist and mechanistic biases have led to a scientific dead end, unable to define what life is - and only an openness to the qualities of 'purpose and desire' will move the field forward Scott Turner <www.goo.gl/n1e7Wu> contends."

Kirkus (Jul 15 '17) adds: "The discipline of biology is in crisis, writes Turner in this ingenious mixture of science and philosophy that points out major defects in Darwinism and then delivers heterodox but provocative solutions. That biology is in crisis may be news to readers, but the author points out that no Darwinian explanation exists for the origin of life or the origin of the cornerstone of modern biology, the gene. ... Aware that alarm bells will sound, Turner denies proposing intelligent design but adds that the obstacle is philosophical: biologists must accept that Darwinian evolution is a 'phenomenon rife with purpose, intentionality, and striving.' ... Mostly, the book is a virtuosic, if revisionist, history of evolutionary thought that rehabilitates traditionally scorned figures ... and delivers admiring portraits of the geniuses of modern evolutionary ideas.... Creationists happily trumpet any criticism of Darwinism as proof that it's false, but Turner is only proposing that the strictly materialist approach to studying life could use some help. That organisms strive is not magic but an emergent property. An unsettling but highly thought-provoking book."

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SOCIOLOGY

The Sociologist's Eye: Reflections on Social Life, by Kai T. Erikson [4] -- "The book follows a narrative line redolent of the American historian Henry Adams, as the world goes further away from unity - under the unquestioned dominance of church and state - to one of multiplicity, where the rules and traditions become destabilized. Erikson presents a modern world that is increasingly fractured due to nationalism, racism, wealth inequality, and what he calls 'speciation,' where people define their political or racial enemies as subhuman. ... 'When those frameworks are stripped away,' writes the author, 'when all those politically imposed border lines are erased, the true map of humankind - the natural geography of the world - will emerge.'" Uh huh. Kirkus, Jul '17 #2.

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - The Souls of China, by Ian Johnson (Pantheon, 2017, hardcover, 480 pages) <www.goo.gl/XrjcHQ>

2 - World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, by Franklin Foer (Penguin, 2017, hardcover, 272 pages) <www.goo.gl/dUjEaC>

3 - Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something "Alive" and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It, by J. Scott Turner (HarperOne, 2017, hardcover, 352 pages) <www.goo.gl/PykDYt>

4 - The Sociologist's Eye: Reflections on Social Life, by Kai T. Erikson (Yale Univ Prs, 2017, hardcover, 432 pages) <www.goo.gl/xqXw5Z>

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