# Kurt Vonnegut doesn't accept evolution? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 23, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286 "2006-01-23T19:29:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/61 "2006-01-24T17:58:58Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > If folks are saying, “You’re admitting the possibility of a god? Heresy!” then yeah, I agree, they’re doing what he’s talking about. > > If folks are saying, “I disagree that evolution can’t possibly explain a human being,” then they’re not being tribalistic. Disagreeing with someone is not tribalism: it’s healthy debate. > > I disagree with Vonnegut’s “couldn’t possibly” statement, whether he meant it or not. My disagreement with him on that does not mean that I want his head on a pike. > > Daniel I guess I shouldn’t have said this thread, because you are right, many are debating it openly. I should have said the OP was a great example of tribalism, posted in the **BBQ Pit** as a knee-jerk condemnation of KV. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/62 "2006-01-24T18:10:38Z")
Just a side note, Kurt has written that he thinks the entire Human evolution was orchestrated by Marooned aliens who needed a part built. Sirens of Titan of course 😉 Jim ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/63 "2006-01-24T18:23:11Z")
> [@What Exit?](#): > > Just a side note, Kurt has written that he thinks the entire Human evolution was orchestrated by Marooned aliens who needed a part built. > > Sirens of Titan of course 😉 > > Jim And I, for one, welcome our new Trafalmadorian overlords ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/64 "2006-01-24T18:24:59Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > I guess I shouldn’t have said this thread, because you are right, many are debating it openly. I should have said the OP was a great example of tribalism, posted in the **BBQ Pit** as a knee-jerk condemnation of KV. Huh? I was complaining that Vonnegut didn’t seem to understand the basics of evolution. I even said “I can respect saying ‘I don’t understand’.” But he went beyond that. > [@Kurt Vonnegut](#): > > They say—you know, about evolution, it surely happened; the fossil record shows that—but look, my body, and your body, are miracles of design. The scientists are pretending they have the answers, how we got this way, when natural selection couldn’t possibly have produced such a machine. Scientists aren’t pretending; the facts have lead them to the conclusion: evolution via natural selection. I’m all for debating “Emotion. Free-will. Consciousness etc.” But the debate needs to start from what we actually _know_ (or our best approximation to that). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/65 "2006-01-24T18:27:35Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Huh? I was complaining that Vonnegut didn’t seem to understand the basics of evolution. I even said “I can respect saying ‘I don’t understand’.” But he went beyond that.Scientists aren’t pretending; the facts have lead them to the conclusion: evolution via natural selection. As I said, I seriously doubt his comment comes from ignorance; indeed, i think that your comment about his ignorance comes from your own ignorance about his body of work :). Either he misspoke, or he’s changed his mind recently (and in a direction that I don’t like, I admit). The misspeaking thing seems much likelier: it’s not as though the interviewer asked him difficult followup questions to clarify. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/66 "2006-01-25T01:21:46Z")
I heard the NPR interview, enroute to work, and started listening about midway, so didn’t know who was talking. He sounded very tired , old , and weak in voice. I thought the comments on tribalism were interesting; the interviewer sounded taken aback about the comments on evolution. At the end of the interview, I was really shocked that it was Kurt Vonnegut. Not because of the content, but because he sounded so bad. Very precarious. I add this, not to generate pity, but to say that with his bad health, perhaps Vonnegut is not at the top of his game live interview wise. I’ll have a bit of compassion for a writer who helped my teenaged mind open up a great deal. Sad to hear him so weak, but there were nice glimmers of his thinking outside of boxes. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/67 "2006-01-25T15:15:02Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > And I, for one, welcome our new Trafalmadorian overlords “There’s no such place as Traflamaduke!” ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/68 "2006-01-26T16:54:26Z")
As a sort of postscript, I just finished reading “A Man Without A Country”. My conclusion is that KV has definitely entered his twilight era. He is sounding like the nutty-professor-uncle who keeps repeating the same witticisms (now hoary chestnuts) from earlier lectures, updated to adjust for current events, as if pitching it to a freshman class who wouldn’t know he’d already used it in last year’s class. He even threw some of this material into the NPR interview as if it were casual conversation. So it’s pretty clear to me that although he hasn’t fundamentally changed what he believes, he’s losing his ability to articulate it in original ways. Fair enough. He’s written around 20 books which is around 20 times more than most people will ever think of writing. If he writes any more I’m sure I’ll buy them and read them, but I don’t expect great things at this point anymore. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/69 "2006-01-26T18:05:53Z")
That was very much my impression of the Daily Show interview. He had a few chestnuts he was determined to broadcast, context be damned, and Jon Stewart had a hard time keeping him on topic. It was kind of like reading a thread where one of those one trick pony drops in just to go, “Speaking of Condoleezza Rice’s fashion choices, male circumcision is destroying our culture.” Stewart was finally able to get Vonnegut to quit tryin to read from an actual piece of paper on which he had jotted his witticisms by promising to publish it on the Daily Show website. ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/70 "2006-01-26T18:35:47Z")
There is a Listen button on the page linked to by the OP. You can hear the whole interview for yourself. It seems to me Vonnegut 1) agrees that evolution is a fact 2) argues that scientists too behave tribally 3) neither evolution nor religion has offered complete explanations of the “something wonderful going on” Seems sensible to me, and I agree with others that whether the above is right or wrong does not affect to one iota my enjoyment of his books. I sympathise with the OP’s reaction though. In high school, my very inspired English teacher successfully instilled in me an appreciation of Shakespeare. He almost dashed it, though, by airing speculations that Willy was gay (I suffered from a mild case of homophobia at the time). He engaged the class in a discussion of “why would it matter?” that took me a year or so to fully digest. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/71 "2006-01-26T21:46:24Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > Has evolution ever explained consciousness? Emotion? Dreams? What some people would call a “soul”? Uh…has anything else? As far as I know, religion has made assertions about these things, made claims, but not actually _explained_ them; when it gets down to brass tacks, most religions ask you to take it on faith, or present you with a Zen koan, or claim God is inscrutable. They don’t _explain_ those intangibles any better than science has, to date. > [@davenportavenger](#): > > Kurt’s not saying they can’t have evolved, > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Kurt Vonnegut > The scientists are pretending they have the answers, how we got this way, when **natural selection couldn’t possibly have produced such a machine**. huh? Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286/72 "2006-01-26T22:06:30Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Uh…has anything else? As far as I know, religion has made assertions about these things, made claims, but not actually _explained_ them; when it gets down to brass tacks, most religions ask you to take it on faith, or present you with a Zen koan, or claim God is inscrutable. They don’t _explain_ those intangibles any better than science has, to date. Yeah, a point I’d wanted to make as well. This is classic anti-evolution slippery-slope talk. Science is a process. It’s not done yet. Creationists use the fact that Science has not achieved all answers as a basis for dismissing it in favor of religion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kurt-vonnegut-doesnt-accept-evolution/341286.md?page=3)