#myth

Myth, or not?

Written in 2009, there is a book titled “The Myth of the Missing Black Father” which challenges the claim that black communities in the US suffer from a lack of a strong father figure in the family. This book doesn’t exist as an isolated one off, either. Here are just a few other places where this counterclaim is made:

In summary, the claim is that while many black parents do not cohabitate, black fathers are still much more involved in their children’s lives than is generally thought. The claim is that this allegedly pernicious myth arose out of racist inclinations to scapegoat black fathers for shortcomings in black communities. But we have also heard President Obama talk about absent black fathers. The BLM website *used to* advocate for the abolition of the western nuclear family— they have since erased that claim, curiously.

So, which is it? Black communities suffer from absentee fathers, or not? Or somewhere in between? Will the real myth please stand up?

You may be wondering why this topic about Evolution is not in the Science Forum, but here in the Religion Forum. Bare with me.

For the longest time, I was apathetic to Evolutionary Theory. It didn't speak to me. I come from a Physics/Mathematics background. So the whole thing didn't look serious to me. From someone who studied things like Quantum Mechanics, Gravitation & Particle Physics, evolutionary ideas looked too mechanical, too naive, too archaic. No maths. The world we commonly encounter in our daily lives is minimally energetic. That's why it looks as if things are mechanical, as if things affect each-other, as if we understand the parts of a problem, then we can understand the problem. In another highly energetic world the things we think of as common sense would become completely uncommon. That is the quantum realm, the femto-world, where things are highly energetic for their sizes, weird shite happens. The world is not a a large reductionist structure, it's a weird mysterious enigma. Evolutionary postulates, however, are reductionist champions. That's why they never made much sense to me. But they always held some romance to them. Maybe I just don't get it yet, maybe I'm not seeing what all these people are seeing. This, until I read Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker. This book completely changed my mind about Evolution. I thought I was in for a scientific adventure. What does the icon of Evolution have to say? To my astonishment, this was no book of Science. This was not terrible Science. The few psychiatry papers I read before were terrible. The alien articles I read were terrible. This was simply not Science at all, rather Literature, of the Myth genre. The entire premise of the book is: 'Evolution is true, therefore let's imagine how it happened'. A genesis story of creation with a materialist mythology. Hence the title, Imagination... I mean... Evolutionation.

For a theory which has been systematically & consistently taught for decades across the globe as a core science curriculum, Evolution fails spectacularly in gaining support. Despite all the promotions, the majority of people outside Europe & East Asia do not believe in mainstream Evolution. In the US, only 20% of Americans believe in the mainstream claims of Evolution, whereas 40% deny it, despite the decades long totalitarian tyranny the evolutionary narrative exerts over the country's education & academic arenas. The evolutionationists believe that it's the fault of the Church. In truth, it's the fault of the theory itself. The Church could not thwart antithetical scientific ideas about the cosmos from spreading when it had absolute power over the people. It is of highest absurdity that the Church would be able to thwart sensible scientific ideas when in a time where it is of ultimate powerlessness in state & academic institutions. Very few people insist on denying things they see with their eyes & realize to be true in favor of their dogmas. Certainly, the idea is simply not that compelling. The evolutionary narrative is a failed narrative. It had all the chances in the world & all the powers of the state to gain support, yet it barely managed to. 

For those of you who subscribe to this mythos. Before you get your panties in a wad, this has nothing to do with Creationism. I'm Muslim, the truth of Evolution does not add to or diminishes from my faith. In fact, the earlier theories of evolution emerged from the Muslim world. Ikhwan Safa taught that life progresses from plants to monkeys to humans. Ideas which have been adopted by many among the Mutazilites after them, eventually making it into Europe in early 19th century. Such is an idea which has been circulating in the Muslim world for over a thousand years, yet barely being able garner any serious support. Disgraceful! Maybe in 500 years we'll have a quantum theory of biology. But for now, this evolutionary story may very well be all that we can muster. That said, if you're a Christian, why do you believe in this evolutionary story while you have a more compelling life story in the Bible? If you're a naturalist, what makes you believe in the truth of this story knowing that it's unscientific?