Dear Cyndy,

     Thank you for your letter, and especially for your
willingness to consider the argument that Darwinism is
intellectual trickery. I apologize for misrepresenting this
notion as my idea. It was in fact Jonathan Mengs who
suggested it to me.  Claiming the idea as my own was an
inadvertent slipup.  I am not a plagiarist. I spoke with
Mengs. I was not surprised when he in turn admitted that
the argument was not his own but stemmed from Katenus.
When I tried to reach Katenus on the telephone, it was Elly
who answered.  "They're up to their old tricks again," she
said. "They arrested him on fabricated evidence, claiming
that he had insulted the President of Police by denying the
authenticity of Brandes' Nobel Prize. Everyone knows that
the Nobel Prize is a fake, but no one dares say so. Katenus
didn't say it either. He's too astute to expose the obvious.
They were looking for some crime to stick to Katenus, and
charged him with criminal contempt for a true statement
which he did not make.  Last night finally, I had a heart-
to-heart talk with Brandes, who assured me that Katenus
will be home this afternoon. I'll tell Katenus to telephone
you as soon as he has recovered from this latest ordeal."

     When Katenus finally did call, he was once more in
great spirits, pleased as always to be given a chance to
discuss his eccentric notions. He gave me permission to
record our telephone conversation, and rather than
attempting to summarize, I'll append a transcript:

MK: I'm no religious fundamentalist. My assertion that
Darwinism is intellectual trickery does not reflect a belief
that Genesis should be interpreted literally.  I consider
the Biblical story of creation a myth, an epic poem which,
like all poetry, I take very seriously. I consider the
representation of an anthropomorphic deity as the Creator
of the Universe to be the ultimate monument to human
creativity.  Jehovah is the epitome of the artist.  All
artistic creation is divine. All artists create in the
image of God.  For the artist, God is the authentic role
model. Indeed, every serious artist emulates the original
creation by fashioning a world, albeit a world of his own,
or by striving to do so.  Please keep in mind that one of
the artists most impressive to us (J.S.Bach) wrote SIX
Brandenburg Concerti, SIX partitas for solo violin, SIX
sonatas for violin and harpsichord, SIX partitas for
harpsichord, SIX sonatas for solo flute, SIX sonatas for
solo violincello, SIX sonatas for flute and harpsichord,
SIX sonatas for cello and harpsichord, always SIX, because
there were SIX Days of Creation. [The original sin, if I be
permitted this digression, is not that desire for knowledge
which persuaded Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit.
The original sin ensued upon the inadequacy of the
knowledge thus obtained. The original sin is the mistaken
belief that human kind is distinct and totally different
from other animals.]

EJM: Katenus, I'm much appreciative of your exegesis of
Genesis, but that doesn't answer my question. The issue
which I have been asked to explore with you is not the
Mosaic account of creation but your own derogatory
evaluation of Darwin's theory of the origin of species.

MK: It's important to be precise. I'm not at all critical
of the curiosity and openmindedness of the scientist on the
Beagle who explored the islands of the South Pacific. What
distresses me is the interpretations that have been given
to the results of his investigations.

EJM: Please elaborate.

MK: Surely you are acquainted with the deplorable political
perversions of Darwin's work which masquerade under the
name of Social Darwinism.

EJM: Agreed.

MK: I recognize an analogous epistemological perversion in
the Disneyland version of Darwinism which claims the
ability to (re)construct a prehistoric landscape dominated
by such as dinosaurs.

EJM: What's your objection?

MK: Notwithstanding the empirical data which are cited in
its support, the landscape with dinosaurs and other
prehistoric creatures is a synthetic fantasy which I cannot
accept.

EJM: Why not?

MK: It is an illusory, a spurious knowledge because it is
not susceptible to being experienced; it is real only in
the imagination; its only reality is fantasy.

EJM: So what else is new. Tell me a history that does NOT
entail fantasy.  What are the differences between
imaginative reconstructions of the world thirty million
years ago, thirty thousand years ago, three thousand years
ago, three hundred years ago, and thirty years ago. Are
they not all of them history? And if it is acceptable to
reconstruct a world as it was thirty years ago, why is it
unacceptable, using the same logical techniques, to
construct a world as it might have been thirty million
years ago?

MK: You have asked the salient question to which I will try
give you an answer which I hope you will find persuasive.
The correct name for the topic about which we are debating
is "history", or if you prefer, "philosophy of history."
History - Geschichte - is "story', is my telling you the
story of "Geschehen", of what has happened, and the only
story I can truthfully convey is the story of what has
happened TO ME.

EJM: Then according to you, the only credible historian is
God who is by definition omniscient and has "experienced"
everything, whatever that might mean.

MK: You're trying to make a fool out of me, and in the
process are making a fool of yourself. Nothing is absolute;
everything is a matter of degree. Take two extreme
examples: 1) I look at my sore thumb, its nailbed suffused
with blood, and with a vivid memory how I struck it yesterday
with a hammer when failing painfully to hit a nail on the
head; surely I'm qualified to recite the "history" of that
event. 2) I go to my study, and relying on computer
software that I don't quite understand, on astrophysical
data which are in part conjecture, I invent an hypothesis
that some many millions of years ago, the "universe" "came
into being" with a "big bang".  To make this hypothesis
plausible, I must also assume that in addition to
matter and "anti-matter", the "big bang" brought into being
space and time, else the "big bang" could not have
constituted a pure beginning without all precedent. Given
the limitations of my humanness, such a "big bang" is
nothing that I could possibly experience and its
proposition as potentially knowable is a logical-
mathematical trick, whose boldness and brashness must not
serve to mask its existential limitations.

MK: History is the tale of a continuum of vicarious
experience, ranging from the bruised thumb, which however
immediate, is nonetheless remote from my present
consciousness by at least 24 hours, to the hypothetical
fantastic "big bang" which is absolutely outside the range
of all conceivable experience. The key is the relativity of
Socrates' prohibition against claiming to know what one
does not. Absolute unconditional historical knowledge, if
it existed at all, would be immediate, present, utterly
compelling, instantaneous. All other historical knowledge
has only conditional validity. Some of the parameters of
such conditional validity are susceptible to an enumeration
and description, which in the present context is only of
illustrative significance.

EJM: I hesitate to interrupt and wish not to be rude. But
please, get to the point. Why do you designate the dinosaur
displays at the Museum of Science as intellectual trickery.

MK: Because they are an insult to the memory of Socates,
who advised us not to claim knowledge that we do not, that
we cannot possess.......

EJM: You are silent. Your silence startles me. Have you
nothing more to say?

MK: No.

        ===========================================

Dear Cyndy,

That's it for today. Time for a shower and a shave. More
on another day, perhaps over the weekend. Give my best to Ned.

Jochen