I'm sorry this isn't going to be very well-organized. I'm curious to investigate and explore some of the history of how evolutionism has been and continues to be promoted, particularly by the organizations begun by robber barons.
I see the term 'collaborate' as more accurate than conspire.
Answers dot com gives 1. To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort.
2. To cooperate treasonably, as with an enemy occupation force in one's country.
The first definition applies across the board, and the second may also apply to some specific cases. I consider it somewhat unlikely we'll stumble upon any secret plans, and I don't intend to spend much time looking for them.
While researching Edwin Hubble's role in advancing evolutionist cosmology, I came upon this:
Edwin Hubble of the Carnegie Institution's Mount Wilson Observatory counted 44,000 nebulae in 1283 photographs covering only a small sample of the sky.
"Carnagie Institution yet again?" I thought. For everywhere we turn, it's them or Rockefeller or one of the other small handful of elitist organizations. They've been investing in promoting their Darwinist worldviews for quite a long time now.
A thread like this is bound to be disorganized, if new discoveries are reported when they come in. For example, while continuing to research Hubble, I found this
"Science Service" organizaton. The title "Finding Aids to Personal Papers and Special Collections in the Smithsonian Institution Archives" doesn't begin to tell the story; one must scroll down. It's quite interesting stuff.
The activities of the staff and organization were wide-ranging and reflect the breadth of science and scientific concerns during the twentieth century. Slosson and Davis were involved extensively with groups like the American Association for the Advancement of Science, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi, and American Eugenics Society, and the staff writers covered dozens of scientific meetings every year, sometimes serving as officers of those associations.
But perhaps that's getting the cart before the horse. Upstream we read
The inspiration for such an organization developed during conversations between newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps (1854-1926) and zoologist William E. Ritter (1856-1944), who headed the Scripps-funded oceanographic institute in California. ...
Scripps supplied an initial donation of $30,000 per year from 1921 until his death in 1926. His will placed $500,000 in trust for Science Service and provided a continuing endowment until the trust was dissolved in 1956.
Now we're getting somewhere, especially considering E.W. Scripps' opinion:
For thirty years and more I have watched and studied the great and popular newspaper, the immediate and the future effect of its teaching. I believe that few people aside from myself have any idea of the tremendous, the almost invincible power and force of the daily press. I am one of those who believe that at least in America the press rules the country; it rules its politics, its religion, its social practice. I believe that if all the newspaper editors of the United States were of one mind on any one matter on what the public ought to do, and if they had the courage of their convictions, it would only be a question of a short time before the nation as a whole would think as these editors think and do that which these editors think it ought to do.
To be open and honest, Scripps paid lip service to doing things right when starting up the Science Service
"Document A - The American Society for the Dissemination of Science," dictated by E. W. Scripps on March 5, 1919 (see Box 1, Folder 1), declared that the "first aim of this [proposed] institution should be just the reverse of what is called propaganda."
Ha ha, very funny. Who could expect for a minute that a media "service" run by an eugenicist would produce anything other than propaganda?
Anyhow, it's about time to wrap up the post. Davis, you'll recall, scroll up, or take my word; Davis was also connected with this Sigma Xi group, which was also geared up to promote Hubble's ideas. What ideas? The very ones I set out to investigate. Here's one summary
During the 1930s when a relativistic, expanding, homogeneous model of the universe lead to an age for the universe embarrassingly less than the geological age of the earth, the astronomer Edwin Hubble, influenced by philosophical values, persisted in his support for a theory in conflict with observation and prediction. Notwithstanding well attested and unrefutable evidence of geological time, and various astronomical observations as well, the theory of a homogeneous, expanding universe of general relativity proved, in practice, not falsifiable.
The philosophical nature of Hubble's argument will be quite demonstrable as soon as I track down a lecture of his I once read. He claimed he saw two valid interpretations of his observations, and one was totally unacceptable, given his preferences.
