Special Report
A Classic Evolution Policy Blunder
Critics of evolution need to stick to scientific evidence.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law last year an act that sets parameters for teachers who introduce scientific supplements on Darwinian evolution, global warming, human cloning and other controversial subjects. The state’s Science Education Act encourages “open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied.” It specifically prohibits religious instruction or interpretations (or irreligious interpretations, for that matter). The law is simple, reasonable and avoids constitutional and scientific mistakes that afflicted earlier laws in Louisiana and elsewhere.
But in Livingston Parish, east of Baton Rouge, some enthusiasts for a literal Biblical account of creation decided that the new law gives them authority to teach creationism — the account from Genesis. That view clearly violates the law and also the U.S. Constitution as it long has been interpreted. Reported statements from Livingston school board member David Tate were so fallacious and confrontational that they could have been scripted by his supposed adversaries if they were looking for ways to make him look bad.
“We just sit up here and let them teach evolution,” Tate orated, “and not take a stand about creationism. To me, how come we don’t look into this as people who are strong Christians and see what we can do to teach creationism in schools. We sit back and let the government tell us what to do. We don’t pray to the ACLU and all them people: we pray to God.”
Tate’s fulminations are not characteristic of the educators and legislators who passed the new Louisiana law, but you can be sure that the Darwinist opponents of the law will try to make them sound representative. The same thing happened in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005 when school board members decided to grab onto the phrase (not the reality) of “intelligent design” to promote religious doctrine. The board members, as in Livingston, Louisiana, were as ignorant of the limits of the scientific case against strict Darwinism as they were of the content of intelligent design theory. The scientists and political scientists at Discovery Institute — colleagues of mine — who actually know something about intelligent design, tried to dissuade them, but to no avail. The Dover board members did not believe that a court could stop them. But a central Pennsylvania federal judge, John E. Jones, did stop them.
Where public school districts have been willing to stick to scientific evidence for and against Darwinian theory, and ignore religious implications in the classroom, Darwinian opponents have not sued, let alone sued successfully.
Darwin’s theory of evolution, as its main advocates assert it, presumes that there can be no scientific evidence against a totally unguided and unintelligent course to evolution. Evidence to the contrary is ruled out ahead of time. This causes Darwinists to label practically anyone a “creationist” who refuses to take the standard line. That of course includes young Earth creationists who think the world is only a few thousand years old, but also scholars who make a more limited critique that Darwin’s theory cannot account for evidence of purpose and design in nature and the origins of the universe. Even “theistic evolutionists” — who claim to adopt Darwin’s theory, but still see a prior purpose of some kind guiding evolution — are subject to Darwinian censure if they make that claim too boldly in a classroom.
To clear the air of Darwinist cant and enter a debate on the actual evidence, no religious assertions are necessary or desirable. Obviously, there may be religious implications to repudiation of Darwinism, just as there may be irreligious implications to the theory itself. Plainly, emotions on all sides are stirred up by those implications. But science is not supposed to be about religious implications, but about the evidence; and scientific evidence, though illuminating, can only take one so far.
Science class — in public schools, at least—should leave religious implications at the school door. Even if one doesn’t agree with that policy, the federal courts are clear on the matter.
Someone should explain the facts of life to the Livingston Parish school board.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (461) | Leave a comment
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Darin| 8.4.10 @ 7:29AM
Evolutionists use examples of micro-evolution (animals adapting to their environment) and extrapolate macro-evolution (animals changing into different animals). Such has never been observed in either real life or in the fossil record. Numerous fraudulent attempts have been (and are still being) made, but none have been validated.
Modern science has defined itself to include only the observable, yet science preaches that unobservable and unsubstantiated macro-evolution must have happened and allows no discussion to the contrary of their "faith." The complexity of life in truth speaks far more strongly in support of creation than evolution.
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 9:26AM
You appear to be ignorant of science in general, the scientific method, and the specific scientific Theory of Evolution. Were you educated, and I use that term loosely, in a religious school?
CRAIG| 8.4.10 @ 12:37PM
vtwin--please explain the evolution of the eye--
where did the first cells evolve from to create sight??
cnocspeireag| 8.4.10 @ 12:46PM
CRAIG, you really can't expect vtwin to provide you with free education. The stages of evolution of the eye are well documented. Look them up on the internet or get yourself to a library.
sen| 8.4.10 @ 4:31PM
Craig, if you really want to know, take a look at pp 343-345 of the 2nd edition of Mark Ridley's book "Evolution". Just in invertebrates (animals w/o backbones) vision has evolved over 40 separate times. There's an example showing the steps for molluscs - starting with light-sensitive cells, which fold over to increase surface area, then a sort of "pin-hole camera", etc.
Believer| 8.6.10 @ 6:32PM
Craig- I was watching the discovery chanel and a scientist said that the eye probably started as a freckel, sound scientific reasoning.
Bob C| 8.8.10 @ 12:43PM
NOW, evolution is finally starting to make sense to me! lol Bob
Darin| 8.4.10 @ 2:21PM
By all means, enlighten me on the following:
- The difference between left-handed and right-handed proteins and how the type which occurs on its own is not conducive to life.
- Answers to problems created by the idea of irreducable complexity (the below note on the eye is one - vision takes several independent things to happen, and taking even one out of the equation eliminates vision).
- Verified evidence of macro evolution. A plant or animal adapting to its environment is not a change in family, genus, or species (the last being subjective as categorizing methods have changed over the years).
I wait with anticipation your response to any or all of these 3 items. Or are you ingorant of science in general, the scientific method, or just logical thought?
Jaime| 8.4.10 @ 4:26PM
That isn't true. It looks like you're mangling the old idea that amino acids only exist in the L- form and not the D- form. It is a non-sequitor and an incorrect premise. While amino acids are synthesized in the L-form, protein can contain D isomers after posttranslation modification. Therefore, left and right handed amino acids are conducive to life.
Jaime| 8.4.10 @ 4:26PM
That isn't true. It looks like you're mangling the old idea that amino acids only exist in the L- form and not the D- form. It is a non-sequitor and an incorrect premise. While amino acids are synthesized in the L-form, protein can contain D isomers after posttranslation modification. Therefore, left and right handed amino acids are conducive to life.
Jaime| 8.4.10 @ 4:27PM
Macro evolution is traced by fossils. Many intermediate forms (including iconic Archeopterix) survived. Lifetime is not enough to see how species come apart but Baltimore checkerspot butterflies (~100 years in US) and Anopheles mosquitoes (M and S forms) are diverging rapidly with minimal inter-form mating. Soon the sexual isolation will lead to speciation. (I apologize for the previous double-post.)
Believer| 8.6.10 @ 6:43PM
Jaime- The Archeoptrics was discounted in 1986 by science as a link between dinsaurs and birds but Educaters not wanting to admitt that fact still teach it today as fact. Just one more pile of bologna from the evolution crowd.
Richard Forrest | 11.21.10 @ 2:43PM
"The Archeoptrics was discounted in 1986 by science as a link between dinsaurs and birds "
Complete and utter nonsense! Two cosmologists (Hoyle and Chandrasekar) wrote a rather silly paper based not on direct observation but on photographs of one of the nine specimens of Archaeopteryx (note spelling) claiming that the feather impressions were faked. This ignores the fact that most of the other specimens show some feather impressions, and that we now have numerous specimens of feathered dinosaurs from China and Argentina which show not only feathers, but which taken as a group show the evolutionary history of feathers.
Those feather impressions are real. I've looked at them not only on the actual London specimen of Archaeopteryx but on the Berlin specimen as well. Hoyle and Chandrasekar's paper demonstrated not only an ignorance of taphonomy, but of the fossil record of Archaeopteryx itself. It was soundly refuted in a paper by Charig et al in 1986. It's authors - of whom I know only two personally, but have no reason to think that they do not represent the views of the others - were very annoyed by having to waste time correcting Hoyle's ignorant and amateurish mistakes. Palaeontologists would much rather be describing new material than having to counter such stupid and unfounded attacks.
Throwing around assertions which only demonstrate your ignorance of the subject don't add weight to your argument.
Jaime| 8.4.10 @ 4:28PM
The eye is not irreducibly complex. If you remove the lens and all of the jelly inside you'd still have a pin hole camera that would function as an eye.
Jaime| 8.4.10 @ 4:29PM
This an appeal to ignorance more than an argument. It appears that they are attempting to make a false distinction between macro and micro evolution. Anyway, there is vast amount of phylogenetic data that supports a shared common ancestor to species alive today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
Doug| 8.5.10 @ 11:11AM
Jaime
I've checked your wikipeidia reference for the "vast amount of phylogenetic data" you proport is there. In the first three paragraphs which set up the concept of a phylogenetic tree are the following phrases:
* "Evolution is regarded as a branching process, whereby populations are altered over time and may speciate into separate branches"
* "The problem posed by phylogenetics is that genetic data are only available for the present, and fossil records (osteometric data) are sporadic and less reliable."
* "Thus, a phylogenetic tree is based on a hypothesis of the order in which evolutionary events are assumed to have occurred."
I not a big fan of participating in "Wiki wars" but the hard eveidence you claim isn't claim by that very "evidence."
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 11:23AM
Then, if you want to prove the phylogenetic tree through DNA, you must look a little closer. Here, for example, where endogenous retrovirus insertions, which are strictly unique and inherited under certain circumstances, show a clear pattern that confirms the evolutionary branching of primate species:
http://www.evolutionarymodel.com/ervs.htm
Doug| 8.5.10 @ 12:13PM
Actually, I'm not trying to prove the phylogenetic tree; you seem to be. I am most interested in what is provable and what is not. I have reviewed the highly technical article you reference. I understand some, but not all of it for sure. What I can read plain English, and the author himself uses the same kind of "wiggle" words and justifications about how the theory of evolution cannot explain or does not fit the evidence entirely - but inserts comments or explanations that are accurately translated as 'that's OK, because we already know that evolution is true.' This is the same kind of logic that the author uses to criticise the critics of evolution.
My take is the scientific community would do itself and the rest of us a great service if it would present evidence honestly and stop using Darwin to fill in the gaps and paint over discrepancies. There is either evidence PROVING evolution, or there isn't. If there isn't, it's a theory still - parrading around as proven fact. That's my read.
H.H.| 8.5.10 @ 8:59PM
Theories don't become facts, they explain them.
CarrieK| 8.6.10 @ 3:49AM
They TRY to explain them.
CarrieK| 8.6.10 @ 4:59AM
They TRY to explain them.
Doug| 8.5.10 @ 11:29AM
Jaime
The additional Wikipedia entry on the evolution of the eye, likewise sets up the entire piece by saying in essence 'what we are about to say is theory and there is little evidence to support it.' Here is some of the opening statements on the piece you sight.
"This period saw a burst of apparently rapid evolution, dubbed the "Cambrian explosion". One of the many hypotheses for "causes" of this diversification, the "Light Switch" theory of Andrew Parker holds that the evolution of eyes initiated an arms race that led to a rapid spate of evolution.[8] Earlier than this, organisms may have had use for light sensitivity, but not for fast locomotion and navigation by vision.
Since the fossil record, particularly of the Early Cambrian, is so poor, it is difficult to estimate the rate of eye evolution."
MosesZD| 8.5.10 @ 6:41AM
You're pretty funny. There are hundreds of examples of various stages of "eyes" in nature. Some are as primitive as light-sensitive skin cells, some far, far superior to our own eye;(which is one natures worst efforts, having evolved backward from how it SHOULD have developed and taking massive amounts of dedicated brain power to fool the mind into believing it's seeing everything, when it's not.
Further, the eye is one of worst possible arguments to the "proof" of a designer. After all, it is a horrible mess and he'd have failed any freshman design course in any second-rate engineering college in America. It is a horrible, horrible piece of work.:
The lens makes the image upside down, therefore the brain has to flip it. The cellular layers are backward -- light has to travel through many layers of cells to get to the rods and cones, which should be on top of those cells, not underneath. Because of that flaw, the optic nerve has to go through the middle (it doesn't in many species), therefore the brain has to dither in what it believes to be in the middle of your vision (another flaw).
In short, three major design flaws. Two of which give us poorer vision than we should have, if the eye had been designed.
eiseman| 8.5.10 @ 1:29PM
So based on your logic we couldn't have been created or designed because somewhere else on earth there are species with better functioning or more efficiently designed eye mechanisms.
Do these species you mention also design rockets or ponder theories of relativity?
Tim Ganstrom | 8.6.10 @ 2:42AM
@MosesZD: As a design engineering professional myself, your comments remind me of a quote that was attributed to Mark Twain, but may not have come from him. Either way, it fits: "It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it, and remove all doubt."
First, If you can design a better eye that the one you are using to read this sentence, then do it, in less than 9 months, and make yourself a fast millionaire!!! [Oh, and while you are at it, try doing it without any eyes, nor with a brain.]
Second, if you study our eyes with any kind of real sincerity, you'll find that flaws you claim are necessary for proper intended function. For example, if our rods and cones were not behind layers of amazing filtering 'fiber-optics' we would all too often burn holes in our rod/cone layer when looking at the sun briefly, or some other crazy bright source.
You could say a lobster eye is 'better' than ours. But than again, I could say a Hummer is better than a Ferrari, but they were built for different purposes, and therefore any real comparison is inherently subjective.
If you believe you are so incredibly intelligent, I suggest you go study epistemology and prepare yourself for some good philosophy of science. Then and only then will you keep yourself from stumbling along blindly in science itself. I wish you the best of luck.
Michael| 8.7.10 @ 4:01PM
proteins - asymetrical atomic structure/folding produce mirror image versions. Life started using one version (50/50 chance) and all subsiquent life descended was "locked in" to that one.
-IR -- long time busted...by DARWIN in OtOoS! It is not that sensitive, removing ONE part does not destroy it...Even Behe has admitted as much.
Macro- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
Also, read up on the cultivated Brassicaceae family, many of which have been developed in the last 5,000 yrs.
tew| 8.4.10 @ 3:45PM
*applause*
Well said.
tew| 8.4.10 @ 3:46PM
This interface does not seem to be threading correctly. I apologize for any confusion; the applause is for vtwin's post of 9:26AM.
Quartermaster| 8.4.10 @ 6:48PM
If vtwin's smear, made this morning is something you applaud I would be forced to say thet neither of you can differentiate between philosophy adn science. From the standpoint of science Darwinism is as much a religion and as Hindusim.
Darwin was a philosopher, not a scientist. His philosophy has long been discredited and the current crop of his followers are engaged in a losing rearguard action.
Sorry, the eye, deprived of the fluid in it, will not function as a pin hole camera. The aperture is much too large. Fossils are also no help. They arrive and depart fully formed and changed almost not at all.
I make my living with Science and I recognize it when I see it. You characters are simply dilettantes, at best, who like to delude yourselves and smear others.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:26PM
Well, Quartermaster(bator), I wonder what science
you could possibly be "making a living from" and
be so howlingly ridiculously ignorant of basic science.
Darwin was an experimental scientist. He spent his life studying biology and made many contributions to the field. Origin of Species is a wonderful piece of scientific expostion. Indeed, Darwin brought biology away from natural theology and into science with his work.
As to pinhole cameras and eyes, the eye of the nautilus is exactly a pinhole with no lens.
Yep. You don't know your rump.
MosesZD| 8.5.10 @ 6:59AM
No you don't make a living as a scientist. You don't even come close. You might use science, like an eye doctor, but you're not a scientist.
However, are a liar. And we can tell this when you call Darwin a "philosopher" when he was, in fact, one of the most influential experimental/observational biologists in all history.
You call the Theory of Evolution a religion. If you were a scientist, you'd know that something raised to "theory" status means it's at the TOP of the science hierarchy and is a COMPREHENSIVE explanation of a phenomenon in nature based on facts and laws. You certainly wouldn't be pretending (or ignorantly asserting) the position that Evolution is a Religion.
One other thing, please stop saying the Theory of Evolution is on it's deathbed. Ignorant people, such as yourself, have been saying that for over ONE-HUNDRED YEARS.
No joke. Evolution has been proclaimed "dead" at various times, by various RELIGIOUS people, since the days of Darwin. Yet, here we are, a 150 years later and nobody has ever refuted evolution.
They lie about evolution, Darwin, etc. Like you do. But never do they put on proof. A lot of bad, silly, childish and ignorant arguments. But never do they put on proof.
Lots of grandiose claims, like "I'm a scientist," but never do you see any behavior that would indicate the person is a scientist or has even the most basic grasp of what science is and how it works.
Igor| 8.5.10 @ 8:47PM
Anyone else envisioning MosesZD cackling maniacally as he wrote this and previous posts, a giant VandeGraf generator crackling in the background?
Sorry about that. From now on I'll let the secular humanists take care of the ad hominen attacks. But if you "scientists" (materialists) would go back to acting like Jack Webb-ish NASA nerds and give up the angry mulla-shrieks, maybe we'd forget that you are trying to impose your worldview more aggressively than any recent Pope.
Margie| 8.5.10 @ 12:47PM
Excellent post, Quartermaster!
Miss Alabama| 8.4.10 @ 9:31AM
AN EVOLUTION BLUNDER?
I laugh out loud! Mr. Chapman, evidently you do not know the readership of AmSpec. At least 98% of them are creationists, and the majority of them have made at least two emotional pilgrimages to the crackpot Creation Museum in Petersburg KY. Many of them contributed to its foundation!
Man, you need to read the commenters a little more closely. These people aren't just conservatives--they're neanderthal reactionists on just about every topic.
Lord, have mercy! I'm still laughing.
AmSpec is made up mostly of deranged dogmatists who believe every biblical myth is the literal truth.
Their minds are closed to any scientific idea that is not rooted firmly in the bible. Biblical inerrancy is the mantra they repeat over and over and over and over . . . . . . . world without end.
Amen
Anna K. from Emory U.| 8.4.10 @ 9:42AM
Miss Alabama,
You are a hoot. I always get a kick out of your posts.
I read AmSpec to get a "balanced" view, but when it comes to religious fanatic crackpots, I agree with you: you'll find a lot of them here on this post ranting and raving.
I've missed your posts for the past month. You must have been on vacation. Keep your comments coming. They're always fresh and witty.
Eric Cartman| 8.4.10 @ 9:44AM
Miss Alabama is a sh*thead!
stu| 8.4.10 @ 11:25AM
witty?
Like a sledgehammer?
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.4.10 @ 10:05AM
Here we have it folks, "Lucifer quoting scripture."
As a Christian, I have always been fascinated with evolution studies. I went to Baylor U. "Jerusalem on the Brazos river" (smile), founded by hardshell Southern Baptists.
Baylor has been turning out brilliant scientists in several disciplines since like 1845.... Biology... medicine... and now has one of the nation's finest nuclear studies labs.
As I have posted before... I believe the Great Scientist... is The person we call God. He may have been experimenting for untold billions of years, both here on our world, and billions of other worlds he created, and perfected.
Pretty cool science project, wouldn't youall agree?
Not only that, but God is 100% in favor of "scientific freedom". He proves it every day when idiots and fools are allowed to stumble around in the dark.
I pray often that the idiots who deny God, will have one more chance to walk into the light, before their own personal judgement day.
GalapagosPete| 8.4.10 @ 12:00PM
Ken, Thank you for the demonstration of open contempt. You are further evidence - if any was needed - that god-worshipers are in no way made better by their religious beliefs.
One more reason for atheists to keep away from people like you.
Darin| 8.4.10 @ 2:23PM
The problem with "billions of years" is that you by definition have sin and death before the fall of man (when sin entered the world).
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 2:48PM
I agree, one does not have to abandon their spiritual beliefs to study science.
rud_awakning| 8.5.10 @ 12:14AM
I was writing a blogger today on several issues, one has appearently crossed. Is teaching evolution and Origins of Life, necessary to get better scores in math and reading for State and Fed testing? Many of the doctors, inventors and scientists never took a class in evolution. I don't think it matters. As far as the guy in LA, maybe if he gets the idea that science is just an observation of how G_d made creation, he might be more open minded. But as I think about his comments, probably not. So my question then to evolution educators is, do you feel threatened that you could loose your jobs if ID on the platform of discussion, came up with a better theory?
Sheikh Mahandi| 8.5.10 @ 11:24AM
The discovery institute has been running for over a decade now and to date it has not come up it's promised competing theory to Evolution.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:09PM
It's even better than that. The Discovery Institute has yet to publish a single paper that is relevant to science!
Brian Mc| 8.4.10 @ 10:14AM
Miss Alabama,
If I am wrong, I can live with that. If you are wrong, why are you laughing? How can you live with that prospect?
GalapagosPete| 8.4.10 @ 12:18PM
Probably because she doesn't consider it to *be* a prospect, but rather a very, very unlikely possibility in view of the lack of any evidence supporting it.
Kristjan Wager | 8.5.10 @ 3:18AM
Pascal's wager is intellectually corrupt - it assumes that there is only two options (either the Christian is right, or the atheist is right), but in reality there are many other possibilities (the Muslim is right, the Hindu is right, the ancient Baalites were right etc.)
So, in other words, if you are wrong, it might be as bad for you as it is for the atheist - how can you live with that prospect?
Igor| 8.5.10 @ 8:56PM
Actually, there are only two options in the wager and in the universe in which logical rules apply -- theism and atheism. (The only plausible copout is agnosticism, but usually that's a pose hiding one of the above).
MosesZD| 8.5.10 @ 7:11AM
Because she's not wrong? Because she knows far, far more about your Iron Age myth than you? She knows the various religions that served as a source material for Judaism and it's cousins? She knows the bible better than virtually all Christians who are, almost to a man, incredibly ignorant to what it actually says?
Every person in the world is born an atheist. They are then acculturated to some belief system. Here in the west, it's usually one of the hundreds of forms of mutually exclusive Christianity. However, these people remain athiests to every other religion on the planet.
Some people throw off the fairy stories. We stop believing in Santa Clause. We stop believing in the Easter Bunny. We stop believing in your religious delusion of Christianity without subscribing to someone else's religious delusions of Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, etc..
Mark James| 8.4.10 @ 12:21PM
Dear Miss, yes they are a bit far "out there" but they are entitled to their beliefs and denigrating them and referring to "biblical "myths" does nothing to support science.
Most of us who are scientists and who support intelligent design can easily see the possibility of evolution as one "possible" methodology by which the design was implemented. I say possible because neither extreme view is scientifically provable at this time. The non creationist evolutionist (and literally all other atheistic science views) seem to believe that because they have discovered the process, this tends to prove God does not exist. This is based on human egotism resulting in intellectual arrogance.
On the other side the Biblical extremists tend to believe that just because God could have created man "instantly"and because the Bible tries to help man understand that which is not conceivable by using simple metaphors such as "on the sixth day" therefore they believe they are honoring God's majesty by insisting on a literal translation.
Both extreme's are guilty of viewing God as having limits therefore both views are incorrect. What is actually most important is that we continue to examine the data and discover "How God did it" so that we can truly understand God's majesty and give up our arrogance and pride that separates us and so dishonors Him.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.4.10 @ 12:50PM
Mark James,
Welcome to the conversation.
Very well stated, sir.... and your patience with these fools delights me.
Jim| 8.4.10 @ 1:57PM
You wrote: "The non creationist evolutionist (and literally all other atheistic science views) seem to believe that because they have discovered the process, this tends to prove God does not exist. "
This is not correct. Science is not athiestic. Science is SECULAR.
As far as the diversity of life on earth, science described (and is continuing to fine-tune) the processes described in the theory of evolution as the best available theory based upon current evidence. "Intelligent Design" (ID) is a POLITICAL movement to reinstall the Bible into public schools. It is not science. Read "The Wedge Document" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
when you have a chance.
Frightening stuff!
MosesZD| 8.5.10 @ 7:13AM
Intelligent Design is not a scientific concept. It is a religious concept. You've already gotten your tail kicked once on this subject. Stop pretending otherwise.
Lying is wrong. Even if it is for Jesus.
Too Hott| 8.4.10 @ 3:37PM
Miss Alabama,
You have got to be the biggest idiot on the planet. If you believe in evolution why haven't you evolved into a smarter species. I'm sorry, you have evolved, into a jackass. If evolution is a fact then why are there still apes. Why are there still freakin tadpoles which supposedly millions of years ago man began the evolutionary process. If our ancestors were apes and there are still apes why didn't they evolve. People are still people and apes are still apes so what is your answer you clown. If your so smart and believe in the Big Bang theory where did all the chemicals, atoms, or whatever come from to coalesce and then explode. If there was a blank slate, absolutely nothing existed how did the big bang happen. Answer the question. Your reply will be who existed before God. Those who believe in something higher than ourselves take it on faith. You think your to intelligent to believe in something greater than yourself because in your arrogance you are the greatest thing.
Mike Haubrich| 8.4.10 @ 5:07PM
This is joke, right? A Poe? If not, you should probably try getting an education; but this time pay attention.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 8:48PM
Great response. Anyone who has the audacity to believe in God now needs an education? Instead of using the tired cliche of the dumb religious nut that gets Christopher Hitchens' ass handed to him every time he tries to debate, try answering a few of the questions posed without referring to opposing beliefs. If macroevolution were so clear as you think, we wouldn't be having this debate.
Kristjan Wager | 8.5.10 @ 3:25AM
Belief in god doesn't indicate a need for an education, but using stupid arguments like "If evolution is a fact then why are there still apes" surely do.
Let me put it simply in terms that you might be able to understand: if you are decendant from your grandparents, why do you have cousins?
Does that question make sense? Not really. The same goes for the apes question, since apes are decendants of a common ancestor with humans (actually, humans are also a sort of apes, but I presume we are talking about the other species of apes).
Oh, and for Hitchens getting his ass handed to him - I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. I have yet to see Hitchens loose any debate on religion.
" If macroevolution were so clear as you think, we wouldn't be having this debate."
There is no debate among scientists in the relevant fields (or generally in the rest of the Western world). Evolution is a well-tested and well-documented scientific theory, and without it, nothing we know about biology would make sense.
toohott| 8.6.10 @ 12:09PM
A Poe. What is that? Where is Edgar Allen Poe mentioned in the comments? As to an education, I have one, thankfully, it's not in science. And by the way I don't need an education to realize the fallacious argument that is evolution. If evolution is right why have people who live in cold climates not grown fur to adapt to their environment. The supposed millions of years of evolution and a freakin ape still has'nt the ability to speak. Apes must have been really dumb. Alot like you Mike. Micro and Macroevolution is all bull. People like to use those big words so they sound more convincing in their lame arguments. That's like everyone using the term "narrative" in the media today instead of saying story, it makes them sound more intelligent. "Gravitas" was the big buzz word a few years back. I digress. Evolution is a load of crap. If we have been evolving for this long one would think there wouldn't be stupid people like you Mike anymore for me to make fun of. For give me for those ad hominem attacks on your evolving personage Mike.
skinner city cyclist| 8.8.10 @ 10:10AM
Clearly a Poe. The lameness is too rank. I suggest reading a book for a change.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:06PM
Actually Miss Alabama might be one of the few sane people to reply to this board. That doesn't include you Mr. (not) Too Hot. No doubt you are of European descent.
If Americans are descended from Europeans, why are
there any Europeans left?
The Big Bang is pretty much undeniable. It's what you get when you observe the expansion of the universe that is predicted by the Einstein's equations of general relativity and run the clock backward.
You wouldn't know anything about that Mr. (not) Too Hot. Where did you get your education? The turnip patch?
GW| 8.4.10 @ 8:50PM
Where did you get your education, your uncle's bedroom? No one is denying the universe had a start; Genesis says so as well. But where did the energy, matter, and structure to cause a Big Bang come from? How did this matter and energy coalesce to form intelligent life by pure happenstance?
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:59PM
As to the origin of the universe, nobody knows. The current speculations are that the universe may have begun as a quantum fluctuation in a false vaccuum. The problem of course is that there is no data from the moment of the Big Bang that anybody has found yet.
As far as the origin of life and the origin of species, we have no reason to believe that purely natural processes are insufficient. That also is on the investigation table of science. By no means is science "done".
mcgozer| 8.5.10 @ 12:37AM
To suggest that the big bang is unbelievable because "where did the energy, matter, and structure to cause a Big Bang come from? How did this matter and energy coalesce to form intelligent life by pure happenstance?" so that you can believe instead in an infinite, eternal, all knowing, all powerful being is silly, isn't it? I mean, where did the energy, matter, and structure to cause a supreme being come from? How did this supreme being coalesce to form intelligent life by pure happenstance?
Sheikh Mahandi| 8.5.10 @ 11:30AM
If there are Americans, why are there still Europeans ?
When you were born did your parents disappear?
The argument that because there are still apes evolution could not / did not happen is a complete nonsense.
toohott| 8.6.10 @ 12:16PM
That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, although if I were around you very often I'm sure you come up with some doozies. I didn't come from a stinkin ape, thanks Charlton Heston, but I'm not sure your forefathers weren't with your stupid comment. How does an ape learn to type.
John Stockwell| 8.6.10 @ 5:14PM
Not Too Hot,
You didn't come from a "stinkin' ape" but you and
me and all other life on earth, came from a common
ancestor, so apes and humans share common ancestry.
Howard A. Landman| 8.13.10 @ 5:41AM
"If evolution is a fact then why are there still apes." Because there were multiple species, and not all of them went extinct, and only one branch of them evolved into us. It's a stupid question, equivalent to asking "If dogs were bred from wolves then why are there still wolves?" or "If I paint one branch of a tree red why are there still unpainted branches?"
"Why are there still freakin tadpoles" Because they didn't go extinct either.
"If our ancestors were apes and there are still apes why didn't they evolve." They did. Modern apes are not the same as the apes of several million years ago.
"If your [sic] so smart and believe in the Big Bang theory where did all the chemicals, atoms, or whatever come from to coalesce and then explode." It is difficult to be certain exactly what could have happened in the early stages of a Big Bang, because the energy levels would have been unbelievably high. There were almost certainly no (or very very few) atoms at that time because they would have been rapidly ionized and torn apart. There is no consensus theory of what might have existed before a Big Bang and caused it. It is not even clear that the notion of "before" makes any sense when discussing an event that would have had densities much greater than that of a black hole; time is supposed to stop at event horizons.
"If there was a blank slate, absolutely nothing existed how did the big bang happen." We don't know whether your assumption is correct, that is, whether the Big Bang started with "nothing" or "something". We don't have any hard evidence either way. We have no way of looking back in time past the Big Bang to see.
Believer| 8.6.10 @ 6:56PM
Miss Alabama- Be careful when you bragg about laughing, remember that old saying that stated "he who laughs last".
Richard| 8.4.10 @ 10:17AM
Science has no quarrel with belief in the "unobservable". Just don't call it science. The science classroom is for science, not religion. Do creationists have so little confidence in their belief that they feel threatened by science? If you wish for religion in the public school classroom, be careful what you wish for. Do you really want to get in bed with the Federal Department of Education? Imagine how they could corrupt the religious view.
CharlieEcho| 8.4.10 @ 11:21AM
Richard; our government, though it has yet to establish a committee or particular office specific, has and is corrupting our religions. I have much to learn concerning both religion and science. But I do have faith. There must be a supreme being or we would surely not have made it this far. God Bless.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 8:53PM
Good point Richard...what enumerated powers in the Constitution give the Federal Government *any* control of educational matters? These questions should be left to the states. Otherwise, someday the shoe might be on the other foot and states like Massachusetts might be forced to stop teaching evolution because a conservative activist judges orders it.
MosesZD| 8.5.10 @ 7:16AM
You know, they want religion in the classroom. But when they find out they'll have to allow their children to be taught by Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Catholics or whatever particular brand of religion they hate... Many of them start to think twice and realize that if THEY get the opportunity, so will the heathen and the heritic... :)
Believer| 8.6.10 @ 7:13PM
Richard- Did you know that one of the first things Congress did was Alocate money for Bibles in public schools? And as for" unobservable" things the reason for so much fuss over the subject of evolution is " No observable facts" just speculation. these websites that supposedly prove evolution are no more than speculation, All fossil records show a species fully developed with no intermediate species found. But of course you take the word of master speculaters and will not admit you just might be wrong.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:12AM
Science deals quite nicely with the "unobservable" every day. Darin, you're completely wrong.
What science can't deal with is the "untestable". Just as in a criminal trial, you don't have to witness the crime to prove it happened.
"Macro-evolution" as you call it is testable, has been tested, and passed the tests. There is more testable DNA evidence for common descent than all the DNA evidence used in every criminal trial in history combined.
So my friend, putting all ideology aside and just looking at the facts - you are wrong.
Now the question to you is: which is more important - your ideology, or the truth?
Darin| 8.4.10 @ 2:30PM
Macro evolution has been proven? Where? Any DNA tests would simply show common design and zero evidence that the dog changed into a horse. You extrapolate "common design" as evidence of evolution, yet it points to a common designer. Hearts of various animals are similiar. Evidence of evolution or evidence of a designer?
If I see a pocket watch, a wrist watch, a wall clock, and a grandfather clock, do I conclude one changed into the other? Or do I conclude someone designed them and they resemble each other because they serve a common purpose.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 12:05AM
Darin - where do you and William Paley manage to find these watches that reproduce to make baby watches? I'd really like to see that.
Can you please put a video on youtube of your pocket watches and wrist watches that come together to procreate? That's really awesome, and the whole world would like to see that.
But until you actually have watches that make baby watches, your analogy is a complete and total failure.
So, I'm waiting to see that video!!!
Believer| 8.6.10 @ 7:22PM
RickK- You again are wrong about DNA, the only thing DNA can pass is "information". That means it must have an informer, DNA does not sit back and decide how its gowing to build some body part that information has been passed to it. You ask if the truth is important, well I ask is reason important to you.
RickK| 8.6.10 @ 8:21PM
Believer, I don't even understand what you've said in this post. We know DNA "information" increases through natural causes (most commonly, gene duplication and divergence) with no divine intervention at all. So your version of "information" can form through completely natural, non-divine, non-magical forces. There is no "conservation of information" - that's a fake slogan cooked up by creationists.
Belief is not knowledge, Believer.
Ray| 8.4.10 @ 12:35PM
I am a Christian and a scientist. For the record, there is plenty of evidence of evolution in the fossil record AND real life. Read "Finding Darwin's God" for a sensible solution to this dilemma. The religious non-scientists AND the non-religious scientists need to keep the philosophy out of this debate. Science can only deal with HOW, not WHY.
Fred Wasserman| 8.4.10 @ 6:42PM
I started reading the comments re. creationism/evolution, but I could not stomach the tone of some of these repulsive writers. Know-it-all buffoons--I'm talking about those who are supporting creationism. How dumb can you get! Yet they strut their blind ignorance as if they are proud of it. Anti-science, anti-intellectuals, all of them!
GW| 8.4.10 @ 8:59PM
When you have nothing to argue, just call the opposing side idiots. Great strategy! Cuz that makes you smart by default!!!!!!
In seriousness, though...in what sense of the phrase, would make you think that militant atheists, (I'm talking about people like Christopher Hitchens) *aren't* "know it all buffoons"?
Poochie| 8.4.10 @ 9:06PM
Quick! Ive got to know, and I've got to know it now!
For God's sake, tell me how many angels can stand on the head of a pin?
Inver Stone| 8.6.10 @ 9:32PM
Fuck off you god soaked idiot
Michael| 8.7.10 @ 3:53PM
"...never been observed in either real life..."
Speciation HAS been observed.
"...or in the fossil record."
Whales, horses, hominids, to name a few.
"Modern science has defined itself to include only the observable"
Totally wrong. Straw man! ALL Theories (such as gravity, etc.) include the unobservable.
"The complexity of life in truth speaks far more strongly in support of creation than evolution."
No -- the flaws of life speak to evolution, not design; the genetic relationships speak of descent, not design; the fossil record speaks of gradual change, not creation.
Go read: "Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne.
Eric| 8.4.10 @ 7:42AM
This article is completely beside the point. The reason there is endless conflict over what children are taught is that the state enforces a socialist monopoly in education, and members of the Left ruling class constantly attempt to use this monopoly position to indoctrinate. Parents instinctively fight back against this undermining, and they are absolutely right to do so.
The most fertile grounds for indoctrination and the crushing of “bourgeois” values are history, civics, and health class. But you can hardly blame parents for fighting back in science class too, because – as our dear Leader so often demonstrates – the Left always makes the values fight spill over into the science classroom. Science is being relentlessly prostituted to serve power, as the ruling class follows scientific statements (sometimes true, but increasingly fraudulent) with yet another declaration that “science demands” that citizens submit and surrender some particular value or freedom that is not consonant with Party policy.
If everyone were free to choose what to study then all arguments by anyone - evolutionist, creationist, or intelligent design - would have to be based on scientific persuasion instead of government force. So instead of your half-surrender to the intellectual bullies, why don’t you spend your God-given resources fighting for freedom? You sanctimoniously declare “science…should leave religious implications at the school door”. But the Left will never allow that. We will never have free science until the education resources taxed away from parents into the hands of rulers are put back into the hands of parents.
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 10:00AM
Everybody is free to study whatever they want. But schools are not for religious indoctrination. I learned about evolution outside the classroom because my teachers were creationists like yourself. All I had heard were the stupid straw man such as "nobody has seen a chimp turn into a man in the zoo," or the type of misinformation that most of you creationists spout.
Science is, and should be kept, ignorant of religion. This is because science should be guided by the facts. Students should learn what science indicates and why. When I was a creationist I was be able to accept this very fact. Creationism, and its disguised form of "Intelligent Design" are not science.
Creationists seem to forget that the classroom is but a starting point in our education. True learning happens after reflection and further study (this is one reason why our students don't learn that much, only a few do a conscious effort at following up, reflecting, and further study). You can always go home and "learn" the straw man of evolution as taught by creationist charlatans. With the little we learn about evolution, I doubt that students would be able to see how science is misrepresented by the charlatans. But, if they go further into truly understanding evolution, they might learn better ways to disguise the I.D. as if it were not creationism mixed with an argument from ignorance and look kind of scientific. Such charlatanry seems to be profitable.
AustinG| 8.4.10 @ 11:12AM
From my perspective you attack the religious side a little too hard. That is probably because you have been more exposed to the hypocricy on that side. The I.D. argument is a good one if you hear it from an educated person. If you hear it from someone who isn't that educated then it isn't. That can be said for most any angle of any issue.
The problem with evolutionists is that they claim that it explains more than it really does. That also is the problem with many people and religion dating back to before the time of Galileo. The theory of evolution is not a threat to my belief in God. There is too much order in the universe for everything to be just happen stance.
There are also alot of holes in the theory of evolution that require "faith" for you to believe that human beings evolved from apes let alone single celled organisms. Then you get the odds of random mutations actually developing a benefitial trait that could be passed on. As we discover more and more about things like molecular biology it makes evolution seem more and more unlikely. It would take millions of generations to produce one mutation that was benefitial. That one mutation isn't going to be a different trait in and of itself. So how do you get to complex organs being formed like eyeballs or wings for flight? Those facts make the species to species evolution theory pretty implausible. Yet some out there defend evolution theory with religious like zealotry.
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 2:08PM
Thanks for your measured answer Austin, but my attack on I.D. and other lines of charlatanry are based on years of experience talking to these people. They got what they deserve. Cdesign proponentists (google for that if you have the time) are just as hypocritical as the rest.
Now note, please, that the very basis of your argument against "evolutionists" is that "they think evolution explains more than it really does" (after years researching the issues, my complain is that it explains, very convincingly, "too much"). Then you points at gaps in knowledge. There was a time when we humans did not know of a natural explanation for thunder, thus "gods." Now we know better. This is why these fallacious arguments are called arguments-from-ignorance. When divested of their hypocritical disguise as I.D. the fallacy is called god-of-the-gaps. You should see why this is not scientific backup for I.D. But, rather, problems to be solved.
I note that you have learned the creationist charlatan parlance. Surely in good faith. After all, it is hard to believe that someone defending "God" would lie to you. For instance, no scientist, atheist or not, would say that science talks about order coming from happen stance. Creationists build the false dichotomy that it is either intelligence or chaos. Scientists think natural laws, natural processes. Not chaos.
No holes in our common ancestry with chimps and the other apes. The evidence is too much to ignore, and comes from different lines of research. From the fossil record, to the patterns of parasitic DNA in our genomes (and much more).
Random mutations produce useful stuff in the lab. No reason why it wouldn't in nature (google for "directed evolution"). If you like computers, maybe you would like to know about "genetic algorithms," which solve problems by introducing random variation and selection.
Just a few answers to your complains. Sure, many things in evolution are not explained at the tiniest detail. There are open questions about which mechanisms dominate evolutionary histories, we don't know how some features evolved. But that means there are open questions, not that I.D. has any scientific support. Again, not knowing stuff, does not mean that I.D. is scientific.
RAMIII| 8.4.10 @ 1:32PM
Casual,
Just one question: On what premise does one study Science?
RAMIII| 8.4.10 @ 1:37PM
BTW Casual; your appeal in your argument to the entirely unverifiable statement that you "were a creationist" does nothing to bolster your position. It makes you look like a fraud by appealing to an emotional statement to support a searching out of the facts by giving yourself a fake platform from which to speak. It is my view that your argument is fallacious because of your appeal to something unprovable.
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 1:48PM
I was not trying to convince you of anything by stating my previous beliefs. I was illustrating the point that if you understand the difference between science and religion you are not necessarily an atheist. Scientists such as Ken Miller and Francis Collins do believe in "God," yet they don't deny evolution, nor do they pretend to have religion being taught as if it were science. That was the point of that bit.
So, do you think understanding these differences makes you an atheist by necessity?
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 1:54PM
I know this line of creationist rhetoric. I don't pretend to waste time on it.
Science has to ignore religion by necessity and let the facts speak for themselves. Otherwise there are many levels of problems. Which religion will be allowed to dictate which facts we deny for contradicting such religion, and which we allow? Just the very notion of denying facts because of such contradictions makes me feel sick. If a religion holds the truth, why deny facts? (Before you jump. I am not talking about evolution, but about the facts such as those that support evolution, or the very old age of the Earth, which is very different.)
RAMIII| 8.4.10 @ 2:09PM
I have no desire to deny facts. My question remains: On what/which premise are facts observed. There is NO such things as unbiased observation, only those who claim they are unbiased. In other words, why are the facts worth studying?
Who said anything about atheists? You are inferring something into my question(s) which I have not implied. Also your language in the original post seemed somewhat charged (e.g. "stupid straw man", incidentally I've never heard THAT ridiculous argument from a credible source).
The more serious question is: Why do we have monkeys, our earlier ancestors, but none in between, and then us humans existing now when one of the arguments of the theory of evolution is "survival of the fittest"?
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 2:53PM
1. I said I am not wasting time on that line of rhetoric. I requires too much effort for the little traps built into it. You already started on some of them "no such thing as unbiased observation." I knew that part and expected it. It is rhetoric, but it takes forever to disentangle.
2. I did not say you said anything about atheism. I said that was MY point in the bit you were calling fallacious. (See? Classic creationist rhetoric all along. Don't pay attention to context. Find holes to introduce the rhetorical devices.)
3. Obviously you have learned this from creationist charlatans, and, even immersed in your misinformation, you don't see that you answered yourself. You see a big gap between chimps and us. What could have killed anything "in-between"? It was our ancestors who killed other hominid species competing for the same niches. Chimps live elsewhere. This is why our ancestors did not kill, nor supplant, their ancestors.
RAMIII| 8.4.10 @ 3:07PM
You have stated some interesting points and have clearly thought about this, but you assume incorrectly that I have submitted my "learning" to "creationist charlatans".
Since you refuse to answer my original question I can only assume (perhaps incorrectly as well) that you are hiding your bias behind not wanting to "waste your time" -- so now you are wasting mine.
Also your third point places its weight on something you have no proof of other than subjective reasoning. There is no empirical evidence that homo sapiens murdered Cro-Magnum Man or other possible in-betweens.
Further, why are monkeys living in different environments than us? How did we get so separated from our ancestors?
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 3:37PM
Assume whatever you want (this kind of "provocation" is also part of the "no such thing as unbiased" line of rhetoric. Do you learn this at some kind of apologist school? May I have the textbook?). I said I won't waste time on it.
I should have said "killed and/or displaced." Sorry. The story is based on several lines of evidence. But sure, some educated speculation on top. If you have a better explanation about how our relatives went extinct let me know.
Why wouldn't monkeys live in a different environment than us? (See how hard I am trying not to take issue with your colloquial use of the word "monkey.")
Niches have no insurmountably high walls between them, do they? So, a competing species might push another into a different niche, where, either they adapt (evolve), or they die. Tribes can live close to a boundary and some variants might go into this empty niche and conquer it. Long story way too short. But what can you do in a blog?
OK. Leaving now. Work to do. Places to see. You know.
RAMIII| 8.4.10 @ 4:17PM
At the risk of further provocation: Thank you for the dialogue on this topic.
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 6:09PM
RAMIII,
Thanks to you. Your answer won you a zillion points. I would buy you a beer. No sarcasm at all.
Back to life. :-)
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:32PM
Essential science is common sense formalized and extended.
Darin| 8.4.10 @ 2:34PM
The eugenics movement in the United States in the 1920's was directly traceable to the teachings of evolution - the belief that some "groups" were better than others. This was picked up by the National Socialists in 1930's Germany, Mao's China, the Khemr Rouge, and so forth. How many millions have been slaughtered based on the teachings of evolution?
Kristjan Wager | 8.5.10 @ 3:42AM
The concept of eugenics was, sometimes, based upon a misunderstanding of evolution, but that doesn't have anything to do with the validityof the theory of evolution.
See: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006.html
Many of the groups you mention rejected evolution, so they based their eugenics on other principles. If they actually killed people because of belief in eugenics, which they didn't all do - the Mao and Khemr Rouge regimes killed people for other reasons, not out of eugenic principles.
MosesZD| 8.5.10 @ 7:35AM
The Nazi's specifically denied Darwin and Evolution. They specifically endorsed Christianity. Germany itself was over 97% Christian and was considered, in that time, to be the "most Christian" state in Europe.
Hitler was a Catholic. Hitler personally did not believe in the theory of evolution. Hitler personally did believe that GOD created the Germans as a "master race" to rule over the "lesser races." Hitler used the bible, the same way the KKK uses the bible, to "prove" that point.
Hitler states all of this in Mein Kampf. Maybe you should actually read it... I know it might be a stretch for you to actually learn something on your own, through original research, instead of having lies and hate spoon-fed to you. But, who knows, maybe it'll make you a slightly better person.
As for Mao, Mao was a Buddhist and was a "Utopian." Nothing he did was explained by the theory of evolution. Everything he did is explained by his Utopian philosophy he perverted into the Cult of Personality known as Maoism.
Pol Pot was born and raised a Catholic and went to Catholic Schools. Nothing he did is explained by the Theory of Evolution. However, it doesn't take much in the way of brains or education to see him as just another totalitarian dictator grabbing onto an ideology (Marxism in this case) and using it to gain power.
Josef Stalin was born and raised a catholic, and went to catholic schools. Stalin explicitly rejected Darwin and the Theory of Evolution. The USSR was "Lamarkian" in it's biological philosophy through Stalin's life. Only after Stalin died were Russian scientists allowed to "accept" the Theory of Evolution. This is well evidenced in the historical record. The WEST's historical record if you have any doubts to the accuracy of the Soviet historical record.
Nothing any of them did was by, for or because of the Theory of Evolution. Anyone who claims contrary is a liar or is ignorantly repeating lies.
Margie| 8.5.10 @ 12:57PM
Who cares what Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot believed or to which Religion they supposedly adhered? It matterns not an ioata, and it proves nothing.
Either you choose to believe what God says or you choose to believe a lie. That's what it comes down to. I choose to believe God.
Howard A. Landman| 8.13.10 @ 6:03AM
It proves that, for example, the movie Expelled is full of lies.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:16AM
"another declaration that “science demands” that citizens submit and surrender some particular value or freedom that is not consonant with Party policy"
You're allowed your own beliefs, but you're not allowed your own facts. The Moon orbits the Earth, in spite of what some radical Hindus believe. Species evolve, in spite of what some radical Christians believe.
What should we teach our children - your ideology, or the truth?
Believer| 8.6.10 @ 7:34PM
RickK- Would you rather have America 60 or 70 years ago when they where a Christian Nation or have as it is today a degenerate, immoral , depraved cesspool. And as for America under your beliefs, The clock is ticking.
RickK| 8.6.10 @ 8:54PM
Believer, you are really demonstrating a complete lack of actual understanding of the world. 70 years ago was 1940. On a per capita basis the people of the United States live in a more peaceful society, are better fed, live longer, watch fewer children die, have more access to information, and enjoy greater gender, racial and ethnic equality.
How do you measure "better", Believer - fewer blacks and Asians and women and gays in positions of power?
Vern Crisler| 8.4.10 @ 12:50PM
Amen, Eric.
Many Christians are making the same mistake William Jennings Bryan made. They are attacking evolution, but are turning a blind eye to problems of government schooling.
Many people used to support a union of church and state and it took centuries to convince reasonable people that such a union was not good.
We have the same problem today regarding education and the state. Many feel it is a good thing, so it will take many years to convince them that a separation of education and the state is the best course.
All of this rancor between Christians and Darwinists would disappear overnight if it the state would get out of the business of controlling education.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:03PM
You said better what I wanted to say before I got distracted. Whatever course of action is right in education (and as someone who has both parents in the educational system, know most people have no idea how to improve schools), it should not be decided by judges or the Federal Government. The state of Louisiana should be able to teach whatever measures it deems fit, as should a very different state culturally like, say, Oregon.
Red Phillips | 8.4.10 @ 7:59AM
"That view clearly violates the law and also the U.S. Constitution as it long has been interpreted."
Is this a conservative website? Is this author a conservative? What matters is not how the Constitution "has long been interpreted." What matters is what the people who wrote and ratified it intended. Its called original intent. NOTHING in the Constitution as written or intended prevents a state or locality from teaching whatever they see fit.
"the federal courts are clear on the matter"
Well I guess that settles the matter then, because we all know that conservatives bow the knee to judicial supremacy. Did I accidentally stumble upon the Huffington Post?
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:05PM
I was likewise disturbed by that statement. The issue isn't about creationism vs. evolution per se, it's about an overbearing Federal judiciary and educational system.
Jeff W.| 8.4.10 @ 8:07AM
The decisive phrase in this article is: "That view clearly violates the law and also the U.S. Constitution as it long has been interpreted."
The First Amendment was first "applied" to the states in 1947 by a New Deal Court that simply lied about the history and legal meaning of that Amendment. That is the lie that Bruce Chapman endorses.
Second, the First Amendment was never justiciable, even against the Federal government, until the New Deal era. There are no First Amendment federal court cases in American history prior to the nine twenties – and the creation of the ACLU.
This is because the First Amendment neither defines freedom of speech or freedom of religion. Like the rest of the Bill of Rights, it is a statement of principle, but those principles are to be defined by legislative enactment and by the common law -- not by the federal courts ruling on "constitutionality." Again, that was the meaning of the Bill of Rights until the New Deal era.
I know, I know -- that is not the system of government that we have today. The Constitution is gone. But reading a so-called conservative this early in the morning , while he parrots the legal and historical lies of the Left, requires a response.
Red Phillips | 8.4.10 @ 2:01PM
Amen Jeff. See my comment directly above in case you didn't already. A conservative could accept that this is the de facto state of the law, but they couldn't be happy about it. For Chapman to just put this out there without any sort of caveat on a conservative website demands a response.
The first amendment says “Congress shall make no laws…” It applies ONLY to Congress. Congress is the ONLY body that can violate it. A school district in Louisiana couldn’t violate the first amendment if they expressly set out to try. This is elementary for anyone seeking to apply original intent. All it takes is an ability to read and understand plain English.
Nick| 8.4.10 @ 7:00PM
Mr. Phillips,
We find ourselves in agreement on another subject. I thought the same thing when I read
what Mr. Chapman wrote about how the Constitution has long "been interpreted."
His larger point is well taken, though. The Dover school board was voted out of office, even though they were right.
Red Phillips | 8.5.10 @ 12:36AM
"The Dover school board was voted out of office, even though they were right."
Yes, but the Dover school board wasn't in conservative Bible Belt Louisiana.
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 8:33AM
Left to it's own devices, everything in the universe tends towards disorder, or "entropy".
However, when one considers the incredible amount of order, complexity, and precision contained in the functions of microscopic cells, the mere idea that this happened all on it's own is just plain stupid.
To break it down to it's simplest form, proponents of evolution would have us believe that some time in the unknowable past, billions and billions and billions of years ago, in the dark void of nothingness, that nothingness somehow willed itself into something-ness.
Do you get that? "Nothing" made itself(!) into "something". But how could that be? If there's "nothing", then there's "nothing" there to become "something".
Then, according to the evolutionists, that "something", a lifeless, random conglomerate of matter, somehow developed the imperative to order itself into cohesive, specific units, and reproduce!!!
It's absurd. It's idiotic. And it's NOT scientific.
Evolution is the religion of the Left. It allows them to justify EVERYTHING they want to do, from experimenting on embryos to abortion to eugenics to mass murder.
As a seminarian dabbling in politics, young "Soso" (as his mom called him) Dzughasvili finally embraced radical Marxism and atheism after reading Darwin's "Origin of the Species".
Whatever happened to "Soso"? Well, as an adult, he preferred to be called by his Christian name "Iosef", but his close friends called him 'Koba". Everyone else called him "Stalin".
ccd| 8.4.10 @ 9:50AM
The flaw in your reasoning is the misinterpretation of the principle the entropy of the universe always increases. While this is an accurate statement it neglects the fact that an application of an energy can rapidly increase the local order.
Creationist, including IDers,are not merely in opposition to evolution but the entire interconnected framework of scientific theories.
Vern Crisler| 8.4.10 @ 12:54PM
ccd, your response is simplistic. A grenade is an application of energy, but does no rapidly increase the local order. Energy is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition for order.
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 1:45PM
And from that overly simplistic explanation, you somehow posit that something can spontaneously generate itself out of nothing..?
And by the way..."ID'ers" are NOT in opposition to "the entire interconnected framework of scientific theories", whatever that actually means. In fact, most people who believe strongly in I.D. do so because they realize that evolution is in opposition to the scientific method, not the other way around.
You do realize, don't you, that evolution is NOT a theory?? It does not meet the criteria of a "theory". Evolution is barely a hypothesis. It has never been observed, and it has NEVER been proven to be true - EVER. Yet so many out there, yourself included, accept it carte blanche, and never ask any tough questions about it.
Darwinian evolution is a farce.
And BTW...I'm a scientist, myself. I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology (Cum Laude, too...just so you know I was paying attention).
I never fail to be amazed by how the know-nothings who believe in evolution assume that the other side is ignorant.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 9:03PM
So, you are really Doctor of Nothing, Dr. Right (wrong).
I never fail to be amazed by partially educated
ignoramuses such as yourself, a know-nothing
fool who couldn't find his butt with both hands.
So what do you do for a living now, Mr. BS in
Biology?
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:11PM
Once again, someone with expressed scientific credentials is called stupid for arguing with the materialist's status quo that seeks to replace God in society for cold, cruel, fate.
I guess, in your opinion, the Church was right to put Galileo under house arrest because a majority of "scientists" in the 1600s agreed the Earth was the center of the Universe.
John Stockwell| 8.5.10 @ 11:32AM
GW I don't know how to say this any other way, but you are an ignorant fool.
Obviously, Dr. Right doesn't know his rump from a hole in the ground. He may have a b.s. in biology, but as with any entry level degree, it is not a qualification of anything. He obviously had not used
that degree in a long time, to be so howlingly ignorant of biology.
As to the Galileo affair, if you ever were to get an education and have an honest thought in that wooden head of yours, you would learn that Galileo got in trouble because he attempted to dictate an alternate interpretation of scripture to the Inquisition in order to justify Copernican astronomy.
Galileo also wrongly assumed that the Inquisitors had not read his book and he lied to the Inquisition claiming that he was really trying to disprove the Copernican theory.
Incidentally, the scientists employed by the Church confirmed Galileo's observations. They even had better telescopes than he did. The issue was bucking the plain reading of the Bible, it was not primarily a science issue.
In short, the Church was doing the same thing that modern creationists are doing.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 2:34AM
GW says, "Once again, someone with expressed scientific credentials..."
Correction: this individual asserts scientific credentials. All we can go by is what he posts and those do not support his claim.
MosesZD| 8.5.10 @ 7:47AM
You're clearly not a scientist. You clearly don't know what a theory is. Evolution has been observed.
And, btw, a bachelor of science in biology DOES NOT MAKE YOU A SCIENTIST. Seriously, you're really puffing yourself up here.
You would be, if you were really, really good, might get a turn in the rotation as a lab tech. Feeding the Zebra fish and cleaning out dishes, at best.
You wouldn't be doing science. Not in the real lab. Maybe repeating some historical experiments in some biology lab in a basement, with the rest of the wanna-bes. But not real science. You don't even start real science in biology until you're enrolled in graduate school to get your PhD.
Now, my wife is a real scientist. She has a PhD in Biology and is a research scientist at Washington Univerisy Medical School in St. Louis. This is after a decade at Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville.
She's got dozens of papers to her credit. Do you? Because the out-put product of science is PUBLICATION. If you're not publishing, you're not a scientist. :)
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 10:14AM
The Theory of Evolution explains the diversity of life on earth, both pass and present, as having evolved through the process of natural selection but offers no explanation as to the origin of life.
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 10:15AM
Sorry Past and present.
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 1:47PM
The hypothesis of evolution explains nothing of the sort.
It is fantasy, Belief in evolution requires blind faith; belief in God is self-evident from the complexity inherent at all levels of the universe.
The universe is not a random accident. That is a silly, immature assumption.
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 3:18PM
Doc, I was defining the scope of the Theory of Evolution, in seeking to explain the diversity of life on earth but not the origin of life itself nor the origins of the universe, not challenging your religion.
Creationism is nonsense| 8.22.10 @ 2:14PM
"belief in God is self-evident from the complexity inherent at all levels of the universe. "
Your silly inference does not have any scientific evidence to support it.
"The universe is not a random accident."
Your unsupported assertion is noted and dismissed as arrant nonsense.
"That is a silly, immature assumption."
No, it's a appropriate inference from the available scientific evidence.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 10:27AM
Something can self generate from nothing. This video does not prove evolution, but it does prove complex systems can evolve from survival of the fittest.
The evidence for evolution is deeply woven throughout all of God's creation, all you have to do is look for it with an open mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:12PM
A YouTube video! That proves once and for all we are descendents of amoebae.
Tim*| 8.4.10 @ 5:43PM
Stalin read Darwin's , Origin of the Species when he was 13 . He didn't enter the the Georgian Orthodox Tiflis Theological Seminary until he was 14 and 1/2 .in July of1894 .
"The Tiflis Theological Seminary, although a religious institution, did not limit its instruction to Church teachings: it was also Georgia's principle center of higher learning, drawing upper-class students from all across the region. This set the scene for much conflict between the strict Russian Orthodox priests who administered the school, and the secular, often radical Georgian student body. In the years before Stalin arrived, a number of violent incidents had erupted, including a series of student strikes and the murder of a rector. The five years that Stalin spent at the Seminary fell within a period of relative quietude, but the student body remained independent-minded: radical ideas bubbled beneath the lid of priestly authority."
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 9:06PM
Interesting little story. Funny how the kind of
evolution that the Soviet communists promoted
was the Larmarkian evolution theory of Lysenko.
The communist ideology was that if they could create the perfect communist worker enviroment, their citizens would adapt in a few generations to be the perfect communist workers.
The Soviets were not "Darwinists". They were "Lysenkoists".
Tim*| 8.4.10 @ 11:57PM
Touche' !
Are Ya listenin' Doctor Reich .
2Anglico| 8.4.10 @ 8:57AM
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". What could be more clear?
As to prior court decisions, man is an imperfect being, except those cloaked in black robes, right?
canuckistani| 8.4.10 @ 9:06AM
....and Abraham lived for 1000 years.
pete the mediocre| 8.4.10 @ 10:32AM
Abraham lived until Issac was a young man.
If you are going to belittle the Bible at least get a rudimentary grasp of what you're writing about.
vince| 8.4.10 @ 9:00AM
How does teaching creationism in a local school violate the constitutional provision "congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion." This obviously prevents congress from teaching religion but does not limit state or local governments from doing whatever they want.
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 3:56PM
Through a very eloquent multistep interpretation of the United States Constitution:
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
"No state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 4:08PM
The United States Constitution and the Theory of Evolution, Man is indeed capable of the extraordinary.
Tim*| 8.4.10 @ 6:17PM
The Rest of the Story .
The Free Exercise Clause immediately follows The Establishment Clause for a reason.
" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Jefferson had no problem with Theological Chairs and studies at his native state university ,The University of Virginia . He only stipulated that the various sects pay the theological professors' salary . Also ,Jefferson admired the use of his native Charlottesville , Albemarle County Court House for Religious services .
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 9:07PM
Creationism is a fundamentalist relgious doctrine. It is not science.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:14PM
Evolution is a fundamentalist materialist doctrine. It is also not science.
John Stockwell| 8.5.10 @ 11:44AM
Well, GW, I have said it before, you are an ignorant fool.
Evolution is a scientific theory, and it just happens to be the standard model of the origin of species and our basic view of the entire structure of biology.
Again, maybe someday you will actually turn that dead brain of yours on and get a real education.
The term "materialism" actually is not a philosophy that is believed by anybody in today's world. About as close as you could get would be "physicalism" which would be the notion that all of our reality is described by the laws of physics.
There hasn't been a physicalist since the 19th century, when the scientists of the era thought that they had it all in the bag with William Roan Hamilton's formulation of mechanics, and Maxwell's formulation of electromagnetism.
In those days a lot of scientists thought that it was a matter of "mopping up" before all phenomena would be understood in terms of these basic theories. In short they believed that science was
practically "done".
Today, every scientist knows that we do not know all of the laws of physics, and that there are great issues of science to be resolved. So, there are no "physicalists" in the scientific community.
Indeed, the only people today who fit the description of "people who believe science is done" are poorly educated religio-fascists like Dr. Reich above and yourself GW (I bet that stands for God's Wanger).
Your only hope is to extract your cranium from your rectum, get a real education, start listening to real scientists, and stop listining creationists.
(Hey miracles *can* happen.)
Margie| 8.7.10 @ 4:39PM
Your only hope is that you repent and believe God. But that would take you getting humble.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 4:41PM
Margie, Why should I accept your assertion?
If I said that your only hope was to repent and believe in Thor, would you accept my assertion as true? Why or why not?
Margie| 8.8.10 @ 7:45PM
It isn't 'my' assertion, that's why. It's what God says. I had to listen to what He says I must do just like we all do and He says we all have to repent and believe in His Son or else Hell awaits us.
Have you ever read this? Have you ever given Him a fair trial?
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than Light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the Light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God." Jn. 3:16-21.
This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the good news. The bad news is that we all have fallen short because of our Sin. But the doubly good news is that Jesus died in our place for our sins. Without His sacrifice we were destined for Hell. He is the only one who overcame Sin and death and rose from the dead and He is the only one who has the power to save us from it.
Jesus said to her, "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live." Jn. 11:25.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:20PM
Well, you really can't talk to people like Margie.
You could make a Margie doll, with a pull string.
You pull the string, and out comes some random
Bible quote wrapped in some inane and saccharine platitude.
You have to feel sorry for people like Margie who have been so thoroughly mind-raped and brain-washed that they can't think for themselves anymore.
frank drackman | 8.4.10 @ 9:10AM
Evolution violates the 2d law of Thermodynamics.
I can't remember what it is, but Evolution violates it..
OTOH Barbara Mikulski does look a tad Cro-Magnon.
Frank
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 1:41PM
Creationism (a/k/a "intelligent design") violates all the laws of nature. I don't understand them all, but creationism violates them.
(No, evolution does not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. It actually helps the process of energy dispersal.)
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 1:52PM
The First Law of Thermodynamics states that the total amount of matter and energy in the universe is a constant. Matter and energy cannot be destroyed, only interchanged.
And yet we have a universe FULL of matter and energy!
So where did it all come from???
Did it will itself into existence? If you believe in evolution, then you MUST believe that nothingness somehow realized in it's nothingness that it was nothingness, and desiring "somethingness", it self-generated.
That's not just illogical...It's stupid. It defies the very laws of physics that govern the known universe.
To the evolutionist, the existence of the universe is a "singularity".
There's a better word for "singularity"...It's "miracle".
The universe WAS designed. To deny this is to deny reality.
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 2:39PM
Your argument is contradictory. If matter and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, why would they have to come from somewhere else?
Where do you get the idiocy about "willing itself into existence" and all the nonsense you wrote? You should change your name to Dr. False Dichotomy or Dr. Builder of Straw Men. Maybe save time and rename yourself as Dr. Fallacies. But you did a good job at presenting something I would not say (build a straw man), call it stupid (defeating the straw man), and pretend that such thing surely is what me, and others, think. Of course. It would be much harder, and require you to truly self-educate and think, to defeat something real. Why bother? Your friends will admire you for defeating straw men anyway.
The singularity is not "evolutionist" but "cosmologist." "Evolutionists" can believe in a god creator of the Universe, deny big bang theory, and still accept evolution. Your conflating evolution and cosmology shows you for what you are: well-versed in creationist rhetoric, ignorant of science, and self-righteous in your nonsense.
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 4:42PM
All things that exist have a causality to their existence.
If what I said is illogical, or a "straw man", then use facts to refute it.
Go ahead.
...Waiting...
[crickets]
I've argued (and defeated) people who have far more insight into this then you ever will. Based on the total lack of any substance to your post, I'd recommend you quit while you're ahead.
BTW...As I AM a scientist, I'll also wager I know FAR more about it than you do?
[crickets]
Casual Bystander| 8.4.10 @ 6:04PM
All things that exist, exist. Whether there is a "cause" for all of their existences, well, who knows?
Not a straw man? Show me the godless scientists who said that matter and energy "willed" themselves into existence.
Waiting ... [crickets]
Lack of substance? Sure, like your automatic straw-man and defeat tactics have so much substance.
A scientist? Oh my gosh! I am in so much trouble! Of course you have to be. After all, who but a scientist would conflate "evolutionists" with "cosmologists"? Who but a scientist would present entropy using one of the worse "explanations for kids" about it (disorder)? Who but a scientist would display such ignorance about the theories for the origin of life?
Sure, Dr. Fallacies, sure. I peed my pants at the majesty of your title and your obvious display of wisdom. I rather hide before you devastate me with your amazing preparation.
[crickets]
vtwin| 8.4.10 @ 7:03PM
Sorry Doc, not to cast doubt on your claims of earlier victories in debate, but it sure looks like you have been bested this time.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 2:52AM
Doctor Right says, "BTW...As I AM a scientist, I'll also wager I know FAR more about it than you do?"
You *claim* to have a BS in Biology. Even if this is true, most of your comments are with respect to matters outside your degree field, and in fact you have demonstrated no more knowledge than the average person, and less so than many of those posting here.
Wayne Robinson| 8.4.10 @ 4:49PM
Doctor Right;
The actual figures for the Universe are:
Matter 4-5%
Dark matter about 24%
Dark energy about 72%
Energy 0%
Total mass of the Universe 0 (zero, gravity is an negative force which cancels out all mass).
This is just standard cosmology.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:16PM
Yet it still came from somewhere.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 2:43AM
Perhaps, or perhaps it was always here. We simply don't know, but not knowing does not equal, or even support the belief, that god did it. It never has, and it never will.
Margie| 8.8.10 @ 7:34PM
So smarty pants, if you claim not to know, how can you in your arrogance in the next breath dismiss God?
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.." Rmns. 1:16-20.
GalapagosPedro| 8.8.10 @ 11:36PM
Not arrogance Margie, just lack of anything pointing to some god. But maybe then to you it is very easy to find logic in the next sentence:
"I don't know, therefore pixies exist"
I hope you see the problem with that. If you do, well, that is exactly how an atheist thinks of any god, as about any pixie. Fictitious characters whose existence is not justified by us not knowing something.
Margie| 8.9.10 @ 2:15PM
GP,
You want to deny the existence of God, therefore no matter what anybody says to you won't matter. No one can convince a man against his will. If, after reading Romans 1 along with other parts of the Bible I posted, it doesn't stir anything at all within you~ then perhaps you are destined to be lost for ever. I hope that is not the case!
It's up to you to seek Him. Why should God make you do something? Would you want to forcibly make someone love you? No, but He is there for you, patiently waiting still.
"Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you; therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him." Is. 30:18.
"Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." Is. 55:6-9.
We have to seek Him His way. After all, who are we to demand anything from the Creator of the Universe? The question is~ are you willing to give Him a fair trial?
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:25PM
There goes the Margie doll again.
Margie dolls have a lot of pent up anger because they know that they really are spewing drivel. People are laughing at you, Margie.
No doubt you will use the old "fear-threat" argument, where you quote something from the "loving god" that says that he will torture all nonbelievers for eternity.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:30PM
Sorry Dr. Right,
The first law of thermodynamics is the principle of conservation of mass energy. It merely says that mass-energy is conserved in isolated systems. There is no implication that the universe as a whole is isolated.
Furthermore, you being such a bright SOB and all,
you would know that the laws of thermodynamics are limiting cases of statistical mechanics. There is nothing that says that these conservation laws hold, except as time averages.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 9:11PM
Frank you are a mental giant----NOT!
The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy increases. For an isolated system in equilibrium this
would mean that parts of the system would tend to become less complicated with time.
Guess what? The Earth is not an isolated system and biochemistry and the chemistry of the surface of the earth is far from equilibrium.
In fact, the second law of thermodynamics drives
the chemistry on the earth.
Moral. Don't repeat idiot strawmen arguments that
you don't understand.
Jon| 8.4.10 @ 9:18AM
The biggest problem here is this. Darwin wrote the "Theory of Evolution". In order for it to be scientific fact it would have been proven many times over and made the "Law of Evolution". Until it is it should be taught as only a theory and any other scientific argument against it should be allowed.
cdc| 8.4.10 @ 9:57AM
A scientific law is a statement that expresses a fundemental principle whereas a scientific theory is a collection of concepts and rules that explains empiracl data. The terms do not imply that one has been proved and the other has not.
Scientific law and theories are always open to argument and refutation, however creationists refuse provide evidence that any laws have been violated or that any alternative theories provide a more coherent explanation.
Believer| 8.4.10 @ 10:49AM
cdc- Creationist refuse to provide evidence, your total ignorance of the evidence which is available to anyone, shows that your minds made and no ones going to change it. With so much at stake I would advise you to try reason instead of speculation.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 2:59AM
Believer, cdc was making a general statement that creationists have failed to provide evidence for their beliefs in a scientific manner to the scientific community, and that they continually misstate scientific principles, for example Jon's "a theory isn't a fact until it becomes a law."
cdc explained Jon's error to him in a decent, patient tone; how is that not being reasonable? How is that speculation?
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:24AM
A scientific "THEORY" is a model that explains many facts. Atomic THEORY explains that matter is made of atoms, and how those atoms interact. Do you deny atomic theory because nobody renamed it "Atomic Law"? How about the Theory of Relativity? Tectonic Plate Theory? The Germ Theory of Disease?
I recommend, if you don't want to look silly in the future, that you abandon this "only a theory" nonsense.
As for Evolution - the evidence that species evolved and continue to evolve is found in shared & divergent morphology, co-evolved relationships, convergent evolution, observed speciation, Lenski experiments, shared DNA, inherited ERV markers, molecular biology, vestigial traits, atavisms, genetic mutation, embryology, the fossil record, paleontology, archaeology, transitional species predictions, radiometric dating, dendrochronology, thermoluminescence dating, ice core dating, biostratiography, archaeogenetics, biogeography, plate tectonics, geology, chemistry, and physics.
Don't you ever ask yourself: "If God created all this evidence that species evolve, who am I to deny it?"
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 1:56PM
The "evidence" for evolution is found NOWHERE.
None of these "co-evolved" relationships are fact. They are mere speculation.
Educate yourself. All living things have DNA, and DNA only has certain forms (codons). That is NOT proof of evolution. In fact, it is quite the opposite: DNA is a CODE. Codes are designed, they don't create themselves.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 9:50PM
Educate yourself, Doctor Right.
Start with unique endogenous retrovirus markers that can ONLY be explained by inheritance, and appear in exactly the pattern predicted by evolution.
When you're on a jury for a criminal trial and you're presented with the evidence that the bullet came from the defendant's gun, the gun was still in his possession, he was spattered with the victim's blood, had gunshot residue on his sleeve, was known to be in same room as the victim when the victim was shot, do you conclude that the defendant is innocent because God could have magically created the whole scene?
We KNOW simple mechanisms in nature can build stunning complexity. We KNOW species evolve.
Denial of facts is really just another form of lying.
Believer| 8.5.10 @ 10:50AM
RickK-educate yourself, when trying to explain DNA dont forget to mention that Dr. Francis Crick who won the Nobel prize in DNA research said " Theres no mathimatical possibility of DNA occurring naturally". That pretty much ends the argument for using DNA as an example for any one who trys to use DNA in evolutionary teaching.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 11:18AM
Believer - does honesty mean NOTHING to you? Does it matter at all to you whether you're stating truth or obvious falsehood?
Give me the citation where Crick said that. But if your quote is this:
"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle."
Do NOT repeat the creationist dishonesty of leaving out the REAL quote, which is:
An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against."
And I STRONGLY suggest, before you quote Crick as a creationist, that you read this article where Crick admits he was overly pessimistic about abiogenesis:
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/reprint/7/1/238
So Believer - here's one of those tests in life: after reading the above, do you really think Francis Crick believes life was created by direct divine intervention, and not through natural chemical and biological actions?
Believer| 8.5.10 @ 11:50AM
RickK-If Dr. Crick changed his mind on the possibillitys of evolution that did not change the Math, Please dont diss me with the typical evolutionist argument on the possible. If you took the numbers to Vegas there arent enough Billions or Trillions of years to get a winning day, much less to start a mutation process that would get to modern man. When I ask you to reason I was being unfair to you as it is immpossible for the human mind to comprehend spiritual things, Faith is like good looks if you dont have it you have to be Born again to get it. I have decided to stay off these topics for awhile as nothing is accomplished, good luck to you when the " terror by night comes".
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 5:06PM
You misrepresented Crick. You failed to provide a citation for your quote. You failed to acknowledge your error. So you failed the test.
Think about that.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:41PM
Well, Jon. It might surprise you, but you know virtually
nothing about science.
All of the sciences have begun by people amassing a collection of observations. Through systematic study in each case, regular behavior of the observed phenomena allowed the early scientists to propose "laws" which are ways of describing generally observed properties seen in a large number observations. Laws come first.
Theories are structures that describe and explain the laws and tell us why we should expect the laws to hold, or to show that some laws are really illusions.
In the case of evolution the laws were:
1) taxonomy (the apparent relatedness of all species)
2) faunal succession (the order that fossil organisms
are found in the fossil record)
3) reproduction with variation (offspring are not
exactly the same as their parents)
4) more offspring are produced than are needed for
simple replacement (if left unchecked the number
of individuals would grow exponentially in each
species)
The notion of common descent, which is the fact
or phenomen of evolution explains the first two laws.
The process of the origin of species is described by
descent with modification and natural selection.
The theory of evolution is tested every time a gene
is mapped. The theory explains why species are
organized into a hierarchical structure, why there
are really no novel parts in organisms---that new
structures are modified older structures, or are
duplications of preexisting structures.
The theory is what scientists are after, and the
predictions and expectations made by the theory
are "hypotheses".
Margie| 8.7.10 @ 4:55PM
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Jn. 1:1-5.
"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
"Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed'?
"Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?
It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment.
From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken.
"Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.
"Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?
You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!
"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?
What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
"Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man; to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?
"Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?
From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?
The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
"Can you bind the chains of the Plei'ades, or loose the cords of Orion?
Can you lead forth the Maz'zaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?
"Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you?
Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, 'Here we are'?
Who has put wisdom in the clouds, or given understanding to the mists?
Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, when the dust runs into a mass and the clods cleave fast together?
"Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert?
Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?"
Job 38:1-41.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 4:51PM
Margie, if you have nothing useful to add to the discussion please don't bother us.
Margie| 8.8.10 @ 7:24PM
"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good." Ps. 14:1.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:33PM
Now, somebody went and pulled the string
on the Margie doll.
Hello, Margie, are you still in there somewhere? Where is the human Margie?
When they pull your string it's all incoherent Bible-babble.
A. C. Santore| 8.4.10 @ 10:00AM
Although the theory of evolution can explain how life changes, it cannot explain how life is created.
Nor can religious "creationism," although it tries.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:43PM
Well of course not. evolution is the theory of the
origin of species. It is not the theory of the origin
of life.
The origin of life topic is called "abiogenesis" and is a branch of chemistry that seeks to find plausible chemical pathways that could have led from base chemicals to the simplest of biology.
Margie| 8.7.10 @ 5:22PM
The origin of life topic?
A branch of chemistry? Ha!
"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth." Gen. 1:1.
"So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." Gen. 1:21.
"So God created Man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them." Gen. 1:27.
"These are the generations of the Heavens and the Earth when they were created. In the day that the LORD God made the Earth and the Heavens..." Gen. 2:4.
"This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created Man, he made him in the likeness of God." Gen. 5:1.
"For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created Man upon the Earth, and ask from one end of Heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of." Duet. 4:32.
"Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?" Mal. 2:10.
"For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be." Mk. 13:19.
"Thus says God, the LORD, who created the Heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the Earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: "I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD, that is My Name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them." Is. 42:5-9.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:36PM
Well, somebody did it again.
You have got to stop pulling the string on the Margie doll. We got another volley of irrelevant first millenium BCE mythology.
Poor old broad. They really broke your mind, didn't they?
Anson Heath| 8.4.10 @ 10:14AM
Eric has it exactly right. Where in the US Constitution does the federal government have the right to dictate to my locality what I teach my children?
Any other question is secondary at best.
Until we deal with the main question, we will always have to deal with some intruder into our lives.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:47PM
Anson Heath, you are quite right, you may teach your children anything you want, no matter how hare-brained or idiotic.
However, if you are sending your kids to public school, then you are asking the State to educate them.
The State may not violate the anti-establisment clause of the US constitution.
Assuming that you want your kids to be able to go to higher education, or be employable, it might be a good idea for them to have science classes taught by teachers who given them the information about the real issues of the day of science.
Science classes are not about what the teachers think, they are not about what the students thing, or about what the parents thing. Science classes are what the members of the scientific community see as being important.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:47PM
Anson Heath, you are quite right, you may teach your children anything you want, no matter how hare-brained or idiotic.
However, if you are sending your kids to public school, then you are asking the State to educate them.
The State may not violate the anti-establisment clause of the US constitution.
Assuming that you want your kids to be able to go to higher education, or be employable, it might be a good idea for them to have science classes taught by teachers who given them the information about the real issues of the day of science.
Science classes are not about what the teachers think, they are not about what the students thing, or about what the parents thing. Science classes are what the members of the scientific community see as being important.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:18PM
This is why you will never be a Constitutional scholar. The First Amendment is clear. CONGRESS shall make no law... (it does not refer to the state or local school boards)
dcd| 8.4.10 @ 11:48PM
an interesting position. If the constitution only applies to federal actions, I take it you believe that the right to bear arms is only enforcible against the fed. Chicago government will be very happy with this conclusion.
John Stockwell| 8.5.10 @ 5:58PM
The original meaning was to prevent the establishment of a national religion, at the expense of official religions that some of the States had legislated. In fact, prior to the passage of the 14th ammendment, the Bill of Rights did not apply to the States.
The 14th Ammendment "Due process clause" changes that in that effectively no state can pass laws that conflict with the US constitution, so this expands
the establshment clause of the 1st ammendment to
apply to the States.
So GW, you really are an idiot.
Sarbo| 8.4.10 @ 10:26AM
I find this whole debate surreal. The Creationists do not dispute evolution of animal and plant kind. They all know, as we do, that today's birds are descendants of a dinosaur species, that crocodiles are dinos. The Darwinians do not even pretend they know how life forms started. They only talk about natural selection, as if it answers all legit questions. Even Darwin didn't write a book about origins. He called his magnum opus the "Descent of Species'.
This from an earlier edition of the Encyclopaedea Brittanica, which in my schooldays in the seventies, was THE bible of scientific fact. Inter alia, the editors wrote that the planet was a ball of fire. Then, it cooled. The oceans became a soup of chemicals. Then these chemicals somehow merged and became super-molecules. Then these somehow developed a skin. And all the rest followed.
If this is Science, I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to have this education.
The point is, how did life originate? How did inanimate matter come alive? The pretenders say that life was introduced onto Planet Earth from a comet. That still begs the question ... how did life originate in a far-off planetary system?
Answer that and the debate will cease.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 10:39AM
Go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
And here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg
You cannot debate faith or facts. Evolution is a Scientific Theory, which means it is the best "story" we have so far, to describe the facts we have observed about God's Earth. Creationism is about faith in a literal interpretation of the Bible.
It is that simple.
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 4:44PM
Evolution is NOT a theory. It is a hypothesis.
Evolution has NEVER been observed. Ever.
It has never been proven. EVER.
It is nothing but rank speculation.
It requires more blind faith to believe in the idiocy that is evolution than to believe in creationism.
Dale Husband | 8.4.10 @ 4:57PM
And you don't know what you are talking about, obviously. What is evolution? What is a hypothesis? What is a theory? What would be an observation of evolution? What would be proof of it? What is speculation? What is blind faith?
Until you answer and clarify all those questions, your statements are meaningless. Indeed, most of us who DO study evolution call them outright lies.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 6:17PM
Simply put, you do not know what you are talking about.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 6:17PM
Simply put, you do not know what you are talking about.
Sarbo| 8.5.10 @ 10:38AM
Where does faith fit into all of this? Remove the Higgs bosom from the argument, and you only have trust left. Trust becomes faith when you believe you cannot possibly be wrong. Obama's promise of lowering the oceans was a statement of faith, long evolved away from trust.
The Q remains .... how did inanimate matter come alive? We don't need faith to answer this, only Science. Up till now, Science has drawn a blank.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 11:53AM
"Up till now, Science has drawn a blank"
No, you've drawn a blank because you apparently don't know anything about the field.
Review the list of citations on this web page, and tell me if that's "drawing a blank":
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.c.....tline.html
There are big, exciting unanswered questions in the study of the origins of life. Scientists admit this openly and freely. "Big, exciting, unanswered questions" are WHY people become scientists! But to dismiss Origin Of Life research as "failed" and appeal to divine intervention is to admit ignorance of OOL research.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:45AM
Every mystery ever solved turned out to be NOT magic. An appeal to divine intervention, though tried many millions of times throughout history, has never yet been the right answer.
The Sun - was a god, now a ball of fusing hydrogen
The Moon - was a god(dess), now a big round dusty rock
The stars - were gods or spirits, more flaming gas balls
The tides - were attributed to gods, now gravity
The seasons - attributed to gods, now Earth's tilt
Earthquakes - were caused by gods, now plate tectonics
Lightning - was thrown by a god, now static electricity
Rain & drought - was God, now atmospheric moisture
Health & disease - was God, now germs & genetics
Schizophrenia - was demonic possession, now brain chemicals
Epilepsy - was divine possession, now neurology
Origin of species - was God, now science (evolution)
Identity & personality - was the soul, now neuroscience
We've made many amazing discoveries about how early life could have "evolved". Given the historical failure of divine explanations, it's a safe bet that life formed through natural mechanisms without direct divine intervention.
You can believe God is behind it all, indirectly, if you want.
But you CANNOT name a single example EVER where a natural phenomena did not have a natural cause.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 12:54PM
Amen brother, amen.
RAMIII| 8.4.10 @ 1:45PM
Then what do you do with the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? I am interested in your explanation. And also before you debunk that historical fact I would like you to explain to me how you know that Abraham Lincoln was our 16th President, not to mention that he even existed.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 9:58PM
Do you know anything about the source documents of the New Testament? Do you know how many of the actual authors of the NT books personally met Jesus? None. And Biblical scholars agree that the authors of both Matthew and Luke were working from the account in Mark. John's account was written DECADES later than the others. It's ALL hearsay, and all could easily stem from one source story.
Just because someone wrote that an event was witnessed by hundreds doesn't mean it actually was - especially since there is NO independent record of ANY of Jesus's magical feats.
There are vastly more eyewitness accounts, MUCH more recent, that swear that Elvis Presley was alive after his death. Do you believe in Elvis's resurrection?
The resurrection of Jesus is NOT a proved fact. There is nothing like enough evidence to prove a massive suspension of the laws of physics.
RAMIII| 8.5.10 @ 9:12AM
You didn't answer my question about our 16th President.
You are actually comparing Elvis to Jesus?!?
So what exactly do you believe about the accounts of Jesus? What did they do with his body?
Have you actually read the New Testament yourself?
How do you know the laws of physics?
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 9:40AM
Ok, let's talk about the existence of Lincoln versus the resurrection of Jesus.
We have thousands of examples of documents written by Lincoln, none by Jesus.
We have thousands of documents written to and about Lincoln from people who directly knew him. We have none for Jesus.
We have thousands of independent accounts from contemporaries of Lincoln, even from his enemies and from strangers. We have nothing about the resurrection of Jesus except what was written by people who really wanted to believe in his divinity. And scholars will readily state that it is possible all the Gospel accounts come from one original source or story.
We have many many MANY documents from Greek and Roman authors during the period surrounding Jesus's supposed resurrection, and not one mentions anything magical - no rising from the dead, no dead saints rising from their graves, no earthquake... nada.
And for Lincoln, we have a period where historical scholarship is based on being factually accurate. However, at the time of Jesus, historians regularly talked about and apparently believed all manner of magical events. Telling tall tales was common practice.
Yes, I've read the New Testament. Have YOU ever read it as just a document, without the veil of ardent belief? It is a human creation, fanciful and flawed as any document of its age. Have you read any non-canonical gospels? Have you read any of the Nag Hammadi library? Do you know anything about the authors of the New Testament books? Do you know what "pseuoepigraphical" means, and its relevance to the New Testament books?
Jesus rose from the dead because you believe it, not because there is compelling evidence that it actually happened.
RAMIII| 8.5.10 @ 12:19PM
What kind of Christians have you had the pleasure to have contact with?
You made all kinds of assertions about how the New Testament record is unreliable but provide nothing substantial regarding why you BELIEVE that. You assume that I was taught what to believe. The fact is that I picked up the New Testament on my own and started reading to discover whether or not there was truth in those pages.
The New Testament is in fact the most reliable ancient set of documents we have with many archeological finds that support it. You make reference to fake authors but provide no specifics. It sounds to me like the New Testament is flawed and Jesus did not rise from the dead because you don't believe it.
In reference to history: are you saying that the people that lived then (millennia ago) didn't care about providing accurate history for posterity? Many of these cultures were so advanced that we still haven't figured out how they achieved some of the things that we consider wonders of the world. This I suppose would address the Lincoln Question.
Every age has had Scholars, Heroes, Leaders, Crooks, Deceivers, Fools, Wise Men, etc.
What I want to know is why is our origin such an important issue? What makes us hungry to KNOW things? Why do we see the vastness of space and want to delve into it? Why do we research the atom and find a different kind of universe that is just as fathomless as the one that contains all the stars and galaxies?
Why is it so hard to believe in a God who not only created, but also still intervenes and cares for his creation? Read the letters of Paul the Apostle and The Acts of the Apostles -- these are not writings of crazed imaginations -- they are writings of brilliant minds. I have no desire to believe myths. See 1st Corinthians Chapter 15.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 5:18PM
Regarding your Lincoln comparison - I assume since you failed to respond to my analysis, that discussion is finished.
As for the origins of the New Testament, you tell me - what are the earliest manuscripts we have? What do scholars who analyze the original writing say? How many of the miracles and features attributed to Jesus were seen in earlier stories of other deities or divine people?
Do you know how many verses in the NT were added decades or centuries later by scribes, long after the original authors were dead and gone?
How can you base your worldview on one book, but know so little about its origin? How is it that an atheist is explaining this stuff to you?
To understand the origins of the NT, I suggest you read the works of one of the nation's best NT scholars - Dr. Bart Ehrman, who was the head of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. As for the historical accuracy of the Bible, I suggest you read Israel Finkelstein.
But whatever you do, I suggest you do more than just READ this book on which you're basing your worldview. I suggest you try to understand it within the context in which it was written.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 2:13AM
RAMIII says, "You made all kinds of assertions about how the New Testament record is unreliable but provide nothing substantial regarding why you BELIEVE that."
It isn't up to us to disprove stories about someone with superpowers; such a document cannot be accepted at face value in the first place since we have no examples of superpowered beings outside of fiction or myth.
And in fact you agree with regard to the Greek/Roman gods, the Norse gods, the Egyptian gods, etc. You don't find those writing convincing, just as we fail to find yours convincing.
You're an atheist for all gods but one; we just include that one in *our* atheism.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 1:59AM
"...explain to me how you know that Abraham Lincoln was our 16th President, not to mention that he even existed. "
Google "Matthew Brady" +Lincoln
Doctor Right| 8.4.10 @ 4:50PM
"But you CANNOT name a single example EVER where a natural phenomena did not have a natural cause."
Yes, I can. Are you ready?
THE UNIVERSE.
If not designed, where did it come from?
As I already stated, the 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed, only interchanged.
We have a universe FULL of matter and energy. So WHERE did it come from?
The Big Bang? WRONG AGAIN!!!
Even if we posit that the Big Bang occurred, and that prior to that event, all matter in the Universe was compressed into a grain the size of a B-B (as has actually been theorized by soc-called "cosmologists"), then you must answer the following question:
Where did the B-B come from??
Did it will itself into existence? If so, what a neat trick!!!
That would mean that nothing suddenly realized it was nothing - a difficult thing, since if it's nothing, how does it realize that it's nothing?? Then upon realizing it was nothing, the notbhingness suddenly decided (without benefit of a brain) that it wanted to be "something"...Again, what a neat trick!!!
Do you not see how foolish that sounds? But that is EXACTLY what the evolutionists want us to believe. Oh sure, they dress it in fancy language, like "string theory" or "parallel universes", but what they really want you to believe is that something came from nothing.
That's not science. That's magic.
That's stupid. And so is evolution.
Dale Husband | 8.4.10 @ 5:01PM
No, YOU are stupid. Where did God come from? Why deny the Big Bang theory because you don't understand it, as you clearly do not. That's arrogance.
Believer| 8.4.10 @ 10:38AM
The problem with evolutionists who spout " Science" is that they depend entirely upon speculation to make their points, they wont read or study the oposition because their minds are made up. they know that if they allow the teaching of I.D. then students will see that the theory of evolution is really the"speculation of evolution". When Scientists like Dr. Francis Crick who recieved a Nobel prize for his research in DNA states that theres no mathimatical possibility of DNA occurring naturally, instead of accepting his word they discard him as a crackpot. Another Christian Microbiologist, Dr. Scott Woodward's studies have shown that Dinosaur DNA shows no relationship to birds or reptiles, which is essencial for the evolutionists theory to work. My advise to those who defend evolution is to study the oposition with an open mind, and stop trying to sway us with $3.00 words like ccd does.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 10:48AM
Where did Dr. Woodward get "Dinosaur DNA"? That would be a wonderful discovery considering how fragile DNA is. I thought the only non fossilized dino remains were the insides of a Tyrannosaur's thigh bone, where the fossilized rock was leached out in a lab. And the remains, soft dense morrow like tissue, had structures and chemical fragments (no DNA survived) exactly like modern birds.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 10:50AM
Look here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.....ssues.html
So where is the dino DNA???
Believer| 8.4.10 @ 11:03AM
Fenestra- your questions come from a mind thats made up, try an open mind and read some of Dr. Woodwards work. Any reasonable man would look at DNA and say that since theres no mathimatical possibility of it occurring naturally, then it could not have evolved. Reason man reason.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 11:14AM
As I said, you can't argue faith.
A very simple question:
Where did he get the DNA? Where?
I don't need to read comic books to understand that Batman is a fictional person.
You see your faith, and as a believer you think that it contains all the answers. I see the world, and glory in God's creation.
Believer| 8.5.10 @ 11:06AM
Fenestra- As I said, you cant argue evolution. If you want to ask a scientific question, go to the scientist's work. I by no means have all the answers but I have enough to know that the theory of evolution is a fiction based on men who are so arogant they refuse to accept the possibility that there might be someone smarter than man. Try Reason and study, Oh never mind your too smart for that.
cnocspeireag| 8.4.10 @ 1:06PM
Fortunately for all of us, but unfortunately for your argument, DNA forms itself all the time by natural means during the process of human reproduction.
Look up some real chemistry and leave the creationist tracts behind. By your 'reasoning', no complex molecules could ever form and plastics would be rarer than diamonds in the real world. Complex molecules simply don't form by all their atoms coming together at once (the source of your mistaken calculation), but by many sequential reactions.
Dale Husband | 8.4.10 @ 5:03PM
"When Scientists like Dr. Francis Crick who recieved a Nobel prize for his research in DNA states that theres no mathimatical possibility of DNA occurring naturally, instead of accepting his word they discard him as a crackpot. Another Christian Microbiologist, Dr. Scott Woodward's studies have shown that Dinosaur DNA shows no relationship to birds or reptiles, which is essencial for the evolutionists theory to work. "
Believer, where are you getting these outright lies from. Answers in Genesis?
Don't diss Francis Crick| 8.4.10 @ 11:37PM
Francis Crick has been misquoted countless times by creationists on this one. They took and modified a paragraph out of context used it to claim that Crick agreed with their idiocy.
Crick was explaining that of course it was ridiculous to think that evolution happens "randomly," and followed immediately with how evolution works. Clue: it is not random. There is variation and selection. Selection and building on previous success, all natural processes make evolution nonrandom. Only creationists misrepresent evolution as meaning "DNA happened randomly." The crackpots are these charlatans who took the quote out of context. Not Crick.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 9:42AM
Not to mention the fact that Crick clearly stated in later years that he could see how life started through natural processes because he'd seen the advances of the "replicator first" research.
Gary Hurd | 8.7.10 @ 9:56AM
The announcement that dinossaur DNA had been sequenced, "DNA sequence from Cretaceous period bone fragments" S. Woodward, N. Weyand, M. Bunnell, Science 266, 1229 (1994), has been found to be a false lead. The supposed sequence was found to have been a combination of contaminants, and laboratory errors. See,
Austin, J. J., A. B. Smith, R. H. Thomas.
1997 "Palaeontology in a molecular world: the search for authentic ancient DNA" Trends Ecol. Evol. 12:303–306
Cam| 8.4.10 @ 10:41AM
Bruce Chapman clearly thinks Creationism is not a valid scientific theory. His article seems to suggest that it is a religious tenet only with no scientific component. Creationism as a theory posits that God created life—as described in Genesis—and that scientific evidence bears testimony to this, such as the apparent intelligent design of organisms; the existence of DNA; Natural Law; the fossil record; etc.
However, Darwinism is also contains religious tenets as well as a scientific evidence. Darwinian evolutionists say that there is no God; that the origins of life can be explained by unguided and random natural processes, and that the evidence bears testimony to this, such as the apparent macro-evolution of species; observed species variations and commonalities; etc. Why then should the whole of Darwinism not be excluded from the schools, too?
The two competing theories present scientific evidence in the context of an underlying philosophy to explain the origins of life. That is what a scientific theory does; i.e., postulates a reason for the evidence. I don’t really see how you can divorce the philosophical underpinnings from the theory; you would just have an unrelated collection of evidence, and … so what? Is it really such a bad thing to completely and honestly teach kids the two competing theories on the origins of life, and then let the kids and their parents decide which one makes the most sense?
In my opinion, Bruce also gives undue regard to Federal court interpretations in this matter. The courts have clearly erred in the past. Simply presenting philosophical arguments underlying competing scientific theories in public schools does not constitute establishment of a State religion or even show deference for one. Accepting bad Federal court precedent is a recipe for civic failure. (The Dred Scott decision comes immediately to mind.)
I was also a little turned off by Bruce’s rough handling of Mr. Tate in the article, accusing him of “fallacious and confrontational” statements and using the dreaded biblical “literalist” label to try to negatively stereotype him. David Tate is essentially right: most schools do teach Darwin’s complete evolutionary theory, including the religious philosophy behind it (“there is no God”), and they present it as absolute fact. But public schools absolutely must not mention even just the scientific evidence for creation, much less the biblical account underlying it. Mr. Tate has earned the right to “fulminate” a little, in my opinion.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 2:23AM
Cam says, "Darwinism is also contains religious tenets as well as a scientific evidence. Darwinian evolutionists say that there is no God..."
What is said personally by evolutionists and what is part of the theory of evolution are two different things.
"...that the origins of life can be explained by unguided and random natural processes, and that the evidence bears testimony to this, such as the apparent macro-evolution of species; observed species variations and commonalities..."
How are any of these religious tenets? Perhaps you should give us *your* definition of a "religious tenet."
Cam| 8.16.10 @ 9:52AM
"There is no God" is the evolutionists' religious tenet, Pete. It is the philosophical underpinning of their theory on the origins of life. And most evolutionists I have read are not shy about letting you know it. That is clearly a religious tenet.
Evolutionists must fit the extant scientific evidence into their theory of origins … and because there is no God, none of the evidence must ever lead to a Creator. It’s a bit backward, in my opinion. I would prefer to let the scientific evidence lead where it may; no exclusions.
GalapagosPete| 8.19.10 @ 1:46AM
"'There is no God' is the evolutionists' religious tenet, Pete."
You didn't explain why it's "religious." Having an opinion about some aspect of religion is not in and of itself necessarily religious. And in any case, what about Christian evolutionists?
"Evolutionists must fit the extant scientific evidence into their theory of origins … and because there is no God, none of the evidence must ever lead to a Creator...I would prefer to let the scientific evidence lead where it may..."
"Theory of origins?" I assume you mean the origins of *species.*
In fact, naturalists set out to figure out how the world worked starting from an assumption that 1) it was created by God, and 2) that God had done it by creating the world with natural laws that could be understood by humans, rather than that every phenomenon is constantly caused by direct Godly intervention. They fully expected to hit a divine wall at some point: "This far and no further."
That hasn't happened. What we've found is that things we thought were behind that divine wall turn out not be be, as we learn more. The wall keeps getting pushed back. There is no reason to believe this will not continue.
This is where the evidence is leading us. Your preference is also science's preference.
Cam| 8.19.10 @ 11:11AM
I would say that the statement “There is no God” is unequivocally and self evidently religious, not requiring much additional explanation. Religious: of or pertaining to religion. Religion: “A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe ...” (Dictionary.com). Ergo, stating that there is no God is a religious view.
Again, the fact of the matter is that the leading voices of evolution (Gould, Dawkins, etc.) have told us quite clearly that there is no God and therefore a Creator can never be the explanation for the origins of life on earth. Even the most casual reading of their writings shows this is what they think, Pete. I’m not sure why you would care to dispute that?
As to letting the scientific evidence lead where it may, we are right back to the genesis (no pun intended) of this discussion: that is simply not allowed in public schools. In the vast majority of schools, Darwin’s theory of evolution is the only explanation given to kids for the origins of life on earth. No competing theories need apply.
GalapagosPete| 8.20.10 @ 2:35AM
"I would say that the statement “There is no God” is unequivocally and self evidently religious..."
It is a view *about* religion, but it is not a religious belief in the sense that Christians believe that the communion wafer and wine actually physically transform into the flash and blood of Jesus, i.e., god disbelief isn't part of a set of more-or-less coherent religious beliefs that form a religion.
"Again, the fact of the matter is that the leading voices of evolution (Gould, Dawkins, etc.) have told us quite clearly that there is no God and therefore a Creator can never be the explanation for the origins of life on earth. "
In fact, Dawkins has said no such thing. He concedes that there may indeed be a god, but that he has never been shown compelling evidence to support the assertion. And I believe he has said that if there *is* a god, it is unlikely that any of the many religions have it right.
As for Gould, while he absolutely held the idea of "creation science" to be junk, he also promoted the idea of nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA), which suggests that he probably had, at the very least - and yes, probably the most - an open mind.
Also, we must still distinguish between what is actually part of the Theory of Evolution and what is believed by those who accept evolution, even when it's prominent evolutionists/atheists. God disbelief is no part of the theory.
"As to letting the scientific evidence lead where it may, we are right back to the genesis (no pun intended) of this discussion: that is simply not allowed in public schools."
Religious beliefs about gods creating the universe are not allowed in public schools because they *are* religious beliefs. (I have not been in school for some time, but in my son's high school science class in California I think they spent about 15 minutes on it, preferring on the whole to leave it to college classes.) For that matter, what would be taught? What would the discussion consist of? "The evidence is also consistent with everything being created by an all-powerful being"? Well, what evidence *isn't?*
Science has come to a different conclusion based on the evidence, and until this theory is falsified *by another scientific theory,* Darwin's theory is going to continue to the the only one taught in public schools. And probably in most private colleges, for that matter.
John W.| 8.4.10 @ 11:01AM
I generally run away from this topic with more energy than I'd use running away from radioactive waste. But I’m going to make this one time exception.
1. Kip Thorne, one of the greatest living astrophysicists and a cosmologist at Cal Tech, was once asked what came before the Big Bang. His answer was “God.” If by Intelligent Design you mean faith in a divine Being who created the universe and ordained its structure, I’m right there with you.
2. A friend loaned me three of the best books on ID (in his opinion). First observation (second below): They assumed ID was correct in order to reinterpret the evidence for evolution, then asserted that ID was correct because the reinterpreted evidence supported it. That’s called circular reasoning, and it has no place in science.
3. There was a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between “accuracy” and “precision.” E.g. carbon dating was discarded because it was asserted to be inaccurate. This is false. Carbon dating is completely accurate, with a precision of plus or minus some number of years that increases as the sample gets older. Discarding carbon dating because of limits in precision is intellectually dishonest, if not outright misleading. The same type problem occurs throughout the ID “evaluation” of evidence.
4. Proponents of ID seem to have no realization of how interconnected science is. You don’t get to “just” discard carbon dating. You also have to discard *all* nuclear physics. Which leads to discarding *all* quantum physics, all astrophysics, and so on. Which means, among other things, that you’ve discarded all scientific and technical explanations for the operations of the computer you are using to read this.
5. Much like AGW “science” it relies on cherry picking data, discarding vast quantities of data, and demonizing anyone who points out problems in methodology. (Google “Judith Curry” over the past month to see an example of the latter.) When ID starts to accept the evidence, *and actually propose a theory accounting for it*, it will deserve to be taken seriously.
6. At a minimum, get your terminology correct. Recognize the difference between “hypothesis,” “theory,” and “law.” Acknowledge that there are competing theories that attempt to account for the observable facts supporting evolution.
As I wrote above, I generally avoid this topic because the ID argument is based on faith and emotion, both of which intrude on science but neither of which is appropriate to science. But bad science drives out good. If we stand any chance at all of exposing the politicized science The One and his cronies are using to cram their Leftist agenda down our throats, ID is a terrible starting point.
John W.| 8.4.10 @ 11:07AM
As a side note, anyone teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution who interjects religious elements, as in the above cite "Darwinism is also contains religious tenets ... Darwinian evolutionists say that there is no God," doesn't undersatnd the theory either. And that's true regardless of their opinion, pro or con.
Ragnar| 8.4.10 @ 11:18AM
Anyone who believes that the world is 6,000 years old is as a much a ding dong as the jihadists who believe that matrydom brings an eternity of delight with 72 virgins with self healing hymens.
Richard2010| 8.4.10 @ 11:51AM
What? No 72 Virgins?
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 11:24AM
Well actually;
An omnipotent God could've created the world five minutes ago, with all our memories and evidence in place, just to see what we would do.
Hey man, don't bogart that fatty.
Richard2010| 8.4.10 @ 11:54AM
Will an omnipotent God create the Virgins for an eternity of delight?
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 12:18PM
Gosh I hope so.
But what about their rights? I wouldn't want to be a self repairing virgin for eternity. Ouch!
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:52AM
Let's talk for a moment about Bruce Chapman's "Intelligent Design".
Proponents say: "Intelligent Design is the scientific search for evidence of design in nature."
In theory, that may be true. In practice however, ID is an advertising campaign and a tool for fundamentalist Christians who see it as a wedge with which to drive Genesis back into science classes and public policy.
The actions of the ID proponents are not the actions of scientists. They do not attempt to convince their scientific peers with weight of evidence. They treat criticism as an attack, as a shunning, rather than as part of the gauntlet that any new scientific idea must run. The ID proponents appeal directly to the public with scientific-sounding books like "Signature in the Cell", using math and ideas that the vast majority of the general public is not equipped to critique.
And they use lawyers and press releases. The Discovery Institute in Seattle is promoting intelligent design with a media machine that is churning out several press releases every week. Using funding from Young Earth Creationists, the lawyers and politicos who head the Discovery Institute keep the ID "manufactroversy" in business.
Actions speak louder than words. If there are any actual honest ID "scientists", people actually trying to study something scientifically and trying to devise actual falsifiable tests, they are lost in sea of bamboozle and mis-direction that is the heart and soul of the "Intelligent Design" lobby.
The pseudo-scientific advertising machine of the Discovery Institute most closely resembles the ad campaigns by Big Tobacco in the late 60s. But where Big Tobacco were (by their own admission) marketing doubt in the science that showed smoking causes cancer, the Discovery Institute (by its own admission) markets doubt in the materialist science of evolution.
These are not the ACTIONS of people of science. They are the actions of people of politics and religious ideology.
And it is completely appropriate to keep such truth-distorting ideology away from our children - whether we're talking about the health effects of smoking, or the fact that species evolve.
fwb| 8.4.10 @ 11:53AM
For all you GREAT scientists on this board, remember this :
Everything we claim (theories, laws, etc) is as we believe it to be because someone simply said so.
Scientists make up everything we "know" based on the observations and limits of each scientist's capacity to grasp the universe and to dovetail his thoughts into the body of "common knowledge".
It's time to get true and admit Darwin DID NOT come up with TENS. Most of what ends up being believed out of the historical record is bogus crap. Historians write things as they see them regardless of where "truth" lies. There is an actual truth. Man can work toward discovering it but will likely never find it.
I find it interesting that biology and other soft sciences cling so tightly to TENS that any other paradigm is unimaginable. Members of the hard sciences often do not hold on to their theories so tightly. Thank GOD that some folks are willing to continue to investigate and develop alternative theories. If we were to believe the soft science folks, we would still be living on a flat Earth and would never have developed any of our medical advances. My advice: Pull your head out and think. But then not 1 in 100,000 humans actually uses their grey matter to think.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 12:20PM
Biology is a "soft science"? How many children in your family have contracted polio, measles or smallpox? How many have died of minor wounds turned septic? But I suppose that doesn't matter, does it?
Science is NOT about "just believing what others say" - you're confusing it with religion. The effectiveness of science is measured by how accurately it predicts what will happen. I accept much of physics works not because I'm told it works, but because I see the predictions of science are so accurate we can put a probe in a precise orbit around Saturn.
And evolutionary biology makes many MANY successful predictions about what we will definitely, and definitely NOT find in nature, in DNA, and in the fossil record.
Now, let's talk about the predictive power of religion, shall we? Let's put religion to the test. "Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." Matthew 16:28
Now, in the 2000 years since that wrong prediction, every single century has seen somebody of authority use the Bible to predict the imminent end of the world. So far, they've all been 100% completely, totally, and embarrasingly wrong.
So you've got it backward. Religion, not science, is based on belief without evidence.
Fenestra| 8.4.10 @ 12:31PM
Very well said.
Anyone who insists that these are all opinions ignores the fact that airplanes fly, buildings stand and bridges span. The same science that enables us to understand the laws of nature, to build and fly and delve into the depths of this planet, tells us that evolution is fact.
Ray| 8.4.10 @ 12:29PM
What's wrong with teaching both evolution and creationism? The two theories, and they are both theories, are competing theories. They should both be taught. There's nothing wrong with competition between ideas and theories. It a health means of debate and it stimulates discussion and introspection, the hallmarks of successful education. How can anyone argue against that?
Edward| 8.4.10 @ 1:10PM
Creationism and ID are not science. Science is the search for a 'NATURAL' explanation for phenomena or, as the Greeks put it 'you are forbidden to invoke the eternal gods'. This doesn't mean they are not valid, but since they can make no testable predictions they are not science.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:50PM
First of all. Creationism is *not* a theory in any scientific sense. Creationism is a form of religous apologeticism
that is cast in the form of phoney science. Creationism consists largely of nay-saying, out of context quoting, and outright lies about science. Creationism has no place in science classes.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:24PM
Then neither does macroevolution. It seeks to destroy the cultural fabric of an advanced, moral society and replace it with materialist philosophy that favors eugenics and moral relativism.
John W.| 8.5.10 @ 8:31AM
Wrong. It seeks to explain the changes over time in orgsnisms, observable in a variety of data sets. If your moral and religious beliefs hinge on some cosmic magician pulling a universe out of his pointy hat 6,000 years ago, you need to study up on the difference between religion and cult.
John Stockwell| 8.6.10 @ 6:06PM
What BS!. Science is about understanding the processes by which our envirnoment and ourselves operate. This is an investigative program, whose results are not mere guesses, or opinions.
We don't really know how morality and all of that fit in the package. Although there are recent experiments that show that many of our notions of morality and fairness are shared by other species.
As far as your claims about "materialist philosophy" are concerned, you are merely repeating b.s. creationist propaganda. (In another post, I explain that there hasn't been an actual materialist in more than a century.)
Pat| 8.4.10 @ 12:55PM
If you’re thinking of quitting the Global Warming field, primarily because the bottom has dropped out of this market, you should consider the exciting new field of Evolutionary Genetics – many dazzling opportunities and lucrative jobs will soon be opening within this recently developed area of science. What is Evolutionary Genetics you may ask – it’s the study of how human behavior, even your very thoughts, are influenced by your genes and how these genes came to be. For example, are you a religious person? You definitely have the “GOD” gene. Are you a guy living in San Francisco who likes hanging out in Public Restrooms – then you no doubt have the “GAY” gene. In fact, there are thousands of genes which constantly influence our behavior according to America’s leading evolutionary biologists. The “Intelligence” gene, the “Aggressive” gene, the “Liberal” gene, the “Shoplifting” gene, etc.
And how can evolutionary biologists be so sure genes explain our everyday behavior – well, besides the fact the Feds are giving them millions in grants to study the connection, the theory of evolution says genes, and only genes, must explain human behavior; in fact, any form of behavior, plant, animal and mineral is influenced by genes. As we have recently learned, evolution is more than a theory, it’s a fact and all evidence points to evolution as the cause of most things – how we got here – what we will eventually become – random movements of the stock market. Sure, you might laugh at that last one, but there is a guy in North Dakota who, for a modest signup fee of $150, will use his knowledge of Natural Selection to identify those stocks with the “Fitness to Survive” market swings – check it out.
But I’m sure you’re impatient to hear how you too can be part of this new field and start earning the big bucks. The key to success within Evolutionary Genetics is in developing novel ways to explain everyday human behavior and offering these explanations to the general public – for money of course. As an example, a popular course presently sweeping colleges around our country is a seminar in “Evil Genes”. In this seminar, freshmen college students learn how “Evil Genes” can explain the behavior of historic bad guys like Hitler, Stalin, Jack the Ripper and Pee Wee Herman. Sure, you might suspect this is just another fluff course intended to provide an easy A and continuing employment for sociology professors. But you would be wrong to entertain such a foolish assumption, this seminar is firmly rooted in evolution theory and science.
If you have a background in science, you might ask exactly where this evil gene is located on the human chromosome, what scientific evidence exists to support this genetic connection to behavior, etc. You might even point out that Hitler’s body was burned to a crisp by the fleeing Nazis, so how was his DNA analyzed to identify his Evil Gene? Well, there’s no point in explaining evolution to doubters if you’re constantly going to demand proof, proof, and more proof – science can’t be expected to function within an atmosphere of intense suspicion. Suffice it to say “Evil Genes” is legitimate science and, as this author points out, there is no place in America’s public schools for silly religious objections to accepted science – or, perhaps you carry the “Skeptic” gene.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 9:30PM
Humorous. But, if materialist philosophers (those who are infesting the boards today) truly believe in macroevolution, then there is a scientific reason for everything humanity believes in. Thus, every creationist nutjob like myself has no free will in the matter sense it is a matter of genetics and ancestory that causes me to falsely believe in a Designer. And if that is the case, nothing they say will sway me since my brain is only a concoction of chemicals and molecules that prevent me from ever accomplishing something beyond my fate driven existence. And if this is the case, serial murders must be forgiven since it was their uncivilized, prehistoric monkey-men ancestors that caused their behaviors and not free will.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 10:29PM
What is WRONG with you people - it's all or nothing, black or white, with no in between. You're saying if ANYTHING is genetically determined, then EVERYTHING is genetically determined.
In fact, studies of identical twins raised apart, and many other rigorous statistical studies show that human behavioral traits are roughly 50% genetic inheritance, and 50% a combination of environment, individual variations in development, and maybe something else we don't yet understand.
Embrace the gray - there are answers to life's mysteries, but they're not black & white, not simple, and require an open and educated mind.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 10:29PM
What is WRONG with you people - it's all or nothing, black or white, with no in between. You're saying if ANYTHING is genetically determined, then EVERYTHING is genetically determined.
In fact, studies of identical twins raised apart, and many other rigorous statistical studies show that human behavioral traits are roughly 50% genetic inheritance, and 50% a combination of environment, individual variations in development, and maybe something else we don't yet understand.
Embrace the gray - there are answers to life's mysteries, but they're not black & white, not simple, and require an open and educated mind.
GW| 8.4.10 @ 10:40PM
Is God a possibility in your open and educated mind or have you hypocritically closed your mind enough to deny the existence of the almighty?
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:09PM
It doesn't take an open mind to believe in God in spite of the lack of evidence.
Do you think natural philosophers (early scientists) woke up one day 200 years ago and said "let's all be atheists!"?? Newton was trying to prove God existed, thought he had, and was proved wrong. Darwin was deeply bothered by the implications of his ideas. The history of science is full of people who discovered that what was once thought to be God's actions actually had natural, non-divine explanations.
In other words, the scientific community was dragged kicking and screaming to the conclusion that natural phenomena have natural, non-divine causes. It was the reluctant, inevitable conclusion drawn from the evidence. And only the most open minds considered the possibility that there was a natural explanation for everything that happened in the world around us.
I can't disprove God, nor can I disprove invisible fairies shaped like tiny flying pigs. But it takes more than YOUR belief to convince me he exists.
Unlike you, my mind is open enough - you show me some actual evidence of a deity, and I'll spin on a dime and believe. But you have to do better than to point at something that we don't YET understand and say "God did it." You must show me some well-documented phenomenon that MUST have been divine intervention, and I'll run through the streets proclaiming a god exists. Present a resurrected Jesus dancing across the waves, and I'll even admit that the Christian god exists.
But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so go find some.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 2:30AM
No, I concede that your idea of god is a possibility, you just haven't presented any compelling evidence to support your assertions. (But don't feel bad, no one else has either!)
On the other hand, if your god exists, then he knows exactly what it would take to immediately convince me of his existence and etc. He's choosing not to do it, so clearly my atheism is his fault.
john Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:40PM
You really don't get it, GW. Science is not about supernatural stuff.
You have to realize that most of us non-religious people got that way by reading the Bible, not by doing science.
The Bible, and religion fail on their own merit (or lack there of). This has nothing to do with science.
Science is a separate topic.
Hank Reardon| 8.4.10 @ 1:16PM
Darwin's Theory of Evolution was an interesting conjecture for its time. It is essentially a pre-modern idea, the last one, to my knowledge, that is still used in science.
The facts have not proven it out. That is why there is so much arm-waving by evolutionists. They imagine they are serving a larger good by supporting Evolution - protecting the great unwashed from Biblical literalism. Whatever this effort may be, it is not good science.
Darwin said that new species (the tile of his book was The Origin of Species) would arise from a very large number of "small" ("small" being undefined, one of the many weaknesses of the Theory) changes. Darwin himself said this would lead to a fossil record very different from the fossil record of his time, in that further investigation would find all these intermediate forms. They have not been found to this date. New species appear in the record fully formed and do not change during their period in the fossil record. This is NOT what Darwin predicted.
Darwinism has never found, or not yet found its Isaac Newton. Where is the math in Darwinism? Evolutionists like to condescend that they are talking about very large amounts of time for evolutionary changes to take place, as if this idea is beyond the ken of ordinary schlub.
Well, this is the 21st century. We have scientific notation. In a rough guess, the earth has been around and cool enough for life for about 10^12 days - about a trillion days. So, let us have it!! What is the basic "unit" of evolution? And how many days on average does it take for one unit of evolution to occur?
None of these things have been addressed. Is it IMPOSSIBLE that Darwin was right? No. We certainly can't say that. But Evolution certainly has not been PROVEN as the only agent of change.
My own view is that the origin of species remains a mystery. We simply don't know how it occurs. So, let's get our a** in gear and find out. The Evolutionists stifle REAL science because they pretend to have an answer they don't have.
james| 8.4.10 @ 1:51PM
Forever unknown and unknowable. Each advance, or discovery, shows the need for more advancement and more discovery. This is what doctrinaire Darwinists can't stand and what the creationists don't contemplate.
Darwinism has evolved into a standard-issue bludgeon of the cretinous left, and the high quality of its science is now overlooked, as are the many facts of life it can't help us with. As long as the radicals control the academy and the thought factories of modern life, it will be thus.
By the way, the next time you get into a discussion with that little Oberlin graduate over there about, like, you know, evolution? you can know for an absolute certainty that he not only hasn't read Origin of Species but doesn't even know it is actually a book.
edward| 8.4.10 @ 2:18PM
No one reads Darwin to study evolution, just as no one reads Einstein who is studying relativity. There have been many advances in the 150 years since Darwin and the 100 since Einstein .
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:12PM
james said: "Forever unknown and unknowable. Each advance, or discovery, shows the need for more advancement and more discovery. This is what doctrinaire Darwinists can't stand"
I love it when people imply that because science changes, we don't actually learn anything.
I especially love it when they say this over a global digital communications network while sitting warm and comfortable and well-fed in a dry house humming with modern electronic devices.
Yeah, tell us again how science doesn't learn anything, and how we can't know anything.
Joe D.| 8.4.10 @ 1:57PM
Bruce Chapman - You are wrong again. Please re-read the first amendment. It is very Constitutional to teach Creationism. And Creationism is as scientific as evolution or are you blind like so many other athetist to the scientific evidence on the side of creation.
edward| 8.4.10 @ 2:25PM
It may be constitutional but it's not science.
Dale Husband | 8.4.10 @ 5:08PM
Next you will assert that the Earth is flat, that it is at the center of the universe, and that God spoke to you last week. What a delusional ass!
hazim| 8.4.10 @ 2:13PM
Craig has a good point. Th evolution of the eye (Darwinists) starts with "light sensitive cells".... but not how or where the light sensitive cells came about.
edward| 8.4.10 @ 2:23PM
The evolution of the eye is one of the more popular topics and you can find may papers on-line discussing it from an evolutionary view.
R Hampton| 8.4.10 @ 2:47PM
hazim,
Start by Googling: origin opsins
edward| 8.4.10 @ 3:08PM
There are a number of articles in Nature
From wikipedia :
The earliest predecessors of the eye were photoreceptor proteins that sense light, found even in unicellular organisms, called "eyespots". Eyespots can only sense ambient brightness: they can distinguish light from dark, sufficient for photoperiodism and daily synchronization of circadian rhythms. They are insufficient for vision, as they can not distinguish shapes or determine the direction light is coming from. Eyespots are found in nearly all major animal groups, and are common among unicellular organisms, including euglena. The euglena's eyespot, called a stigma, is located at its anterior end. It is a small splotch of red pigment which shades a collection of light sensitive crystals. Together with the leading flagellum, the eyespot allows the organism to move in response to light, often toward the light to assist in photosynthesis,[17] and to predict day and night, the primary function of circadian rhythm
richard| 8.4.10 @ 3:46PM
Show me just one monkey that changed to a man, and I might believe this evolutionist trash. You'd have to believe that a hurricane ripping through a junk yard would create a fully funtional 747 out of old rusty auto parts....
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:09PM
Here's one that is more than halfway their.
http://newtech.aurum3.com/rese.....ies-found/
Definitely an ape man. An uneniable transition between apes and humans.
richard| 8.4.10 @ 3:51PM
I'm a big believer in the "big bang" theory!
(God said, "Let Me make man in My image" and
BANG: there we were.
Mark| 8.4.10 @ 4:08PM
Science (knowledge) falsely so called.
The problem with the current method of teaching science in public schools is that the State through the school has already determined the source and nature of the evidence that is permitted to be presented in the class room. This is done through the text books, the curriculum and final exams as well as the ACT, SAT etc…
It is analogous to a trial where the only evidence that is permitted is that which the State says is evidence. Science and the scientific method are defined by being Observable, Testable, Repeatable, and not Falsifiable, evolution fails when honestly examined.
Education in general and science in particular is purported to be neutral and objective, however when one is forced to suppress any other evidence then it can hardly be described as being scientific and neutral. Have you seen Ben Steins’ movie Expelled No Intelligence Allowed,
Besides can a person really be intelligent and disregard the historical evidential eye witness testimony of the One who was there.
For your edification read the fallowing short article.
100 years of fruit fly tests show no Evolution http://www.icr.org/article/5532/
markr| 8.4.10 @ 4:46PM
You and your kids of course attend church every Sunday at least, dont you ? Thats when and where you can fill your desires for the answers your religion provides. Ask your minister to teach every night if thats what you want. Is easy.
Mark| 8.4.10 @ 9:02PM
I would prefer to seek knowledge and understanding from those who are well qualified in their field of expertise, so I infact turn to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and similarly Answers In Genesis.
No kidding| 8.4.10 @ 10:05PM
Those are propagandists posing as scientists. They sure are well qualified in their field: misguiding creationists by misrepresenting science and scientists.
dmv| 8.5.10 @ 12:12AM
What research has the ICR accomplished? No creationist/ID theories have proved to be valuable or even marginally useful in the burgeoning biotechnology buisness. Buisnesses want employees who are likely to be productive, and therefore look for scientific credentials: i.e. BS MS PHD in biology or chemistry. Degrees preeching just don't seem to indicate abilities to engineer new plant genomes or cancer cures.
Colleges prefer to train students who are likely to earn the above valuable degrees and therefore ask prospective students if they are familiar with the fundementals in the ACT or AP exams. Students who base there answer or the book of genesis probably won't be capable of achieving the degrees and being useful to buisness.
mark| 8.5.10 @ 8:53AM
Perhaps you should open your eye and examine the BS, MS and PHD's at ICR.
What has Evolutonary theory produced in the way of advancements. No a flawed evolutionary apriori has been an impediment to real technology advancements in biology and medicine. because it has the wroung starting point.
Examine the The RATE Project, by ICR.
No kidding| 8.5.10 @ 9:03AM
I have checked their "articles." After that I don't need to see their titles to know that they write pseudoscience, sometimes self-contradictory, in a propagandistic style aimed at misguiding creationists.
What about you check Panda's Thumb, or Talk Origins? They have titles too, they have actual scientists contributing with new discoveries to the world, they don't write in a propagandistic style, and they are far better informed about evolution and about the other scientific concepts that ICR and the like misrepresent.
Brian| 8.4.10 @ 5:26PM
The problem with this debate is the extremists on both sides. How many of the "leading" evolutionary biologists, like Richard Dawkins, are avowed atheists? Lots of them. Their unstated goal is to "prove" that God doesn't exist. On the other hand ID advocates want to "prove" God does exist. The fact is that both are matters of faith, and we will never know for sure. I choose to believe there is a creator. All I ask of the atheist evolutionists is that they admit their beliefs are as much a matter of faith as mine. In my 52 years on this planet, I have seen innumerable front page headlines about the discovery of the "missing link". Much less publicized is the inevitable news item of six months later buried deep within the paper that, once again, they were wrong. I don't doubt that evolution exists and is occurring even as I write this. However, there is a distinction between a species evolving and the origin of life or the origin of a species. I have still never seen any credible evidence that man was once an ape, and doubt I will in my lifetime. This is admittedly very simplistic, but I look at all the wonders around me and cannot bring myself to believe it was all an accident.
Robert| 8.4.10 @ 5:32PM
It's humorous to read all this blah blah about ID...and not one word refuting Michael Behe. Most of the evolutionists here haven't read his material, or his refutations of his critics....just clinging to their theory.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 8:17PM
Michael Behe has yet to present any science to back up his assertions, so really there is nothing to refute. Essentially, Behe accepts the notion of common descent, which is to say that he accepts the "fact of evolution". He claims that decent with modification and natural selection is not sufficient to produce certain complex structures in biology. One by one, his examples have fallen by the wayside.
At most Behe appears to be destined to be a small footnote in the history of science, if that at all.
No kidding| 8.4.10 @ 8:18PM
Mike's arguments have been shown nothing more than a big display of ignorance. Once in court. But that is beyond the point. Do you expect us to go remind you of each and every "argument" ever proposed by the I.D.ers and refute it? "Argument from ignorance" describes 99% of them. Use your own intelligence to "fill in the gaps" for the specific forms of the argument we don't mention.
Marc Jeric| 8.4.10 @ 6:27PM
I am not an atheist - by respect for my dead mother I am an agnostic. My dispute with the darwinists is with their faulty logic - they say on one hand that species mutations happen by chance, and then the better mutation survives because it is better; then, they also say in the same breath that a particular mutation was better because it survived. That is a classic example of circular logic that was demasked way back 2000 years ago by Aristotle.
On the other hand a French scientist whose name escapes me now set up the following calculation. We know that a simplest living cell consists of many thousands of different molecules which are composed in very complicated arrangement - think of helix. He simplified the whole known cosmos, some 10 to the power of 80 molecules, into just two kinds of molecules - say white and black - instead of many millions of different molecules. Then he further simplified our real cosmos and put it all into that darwinian organic soup at a temperature conducive to life. A further simplification was that the living cell arrangement was a simple string of 2000 molecules arranged in a straight string white-black-white-black and so on to the full number of 2000 molecules. Then he calculated the time necessary for that simplified living cell to happen by chance: the time necessary to produce one such cell was 16 billion years, which is longer than the presumed age of the cosmos now estimated at about 12 billion years (since the big bang). His conclusion was that such birth of that extremely simplified living cell is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE.
So without getting bogged down into religious disputes we can state that the Darwin's theory is beyond stupid - it is ridiculous.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 7:55PM
Marc Jeric,
You are engaging in strawman demolition.
First of all, the mutations that occur are not "guided". The majority of genetic changes are duplications, transpositions, translocations, and deletions of existing genes. There are point mutations that really fit the notion of "random" as being what mathematicians call "Poisson processes".
The overwhelming pattern of variation in organisms is modification of existing structures, or the duplication and subsequent modifications of existing structures.
The natural selection part is not, by any means random.
Surviving organisms pass their genes on to their descendants. The survivors do not reproduce at the same rate, so the genetic makeup of the population changes with time. This is not circular or tautological.
As to your "random assembly argument". There are no scientists who ascribe to or have ever ascribed to a random assembly of complex molecule hypothes, making all such "random assmbly arguments" moot.
(Indeed, this type of argument is really an argument
against "abiogenesis" not against evolution.)
Essentially, all other arguments against evolution
are similarly flawed, and similarly ignorant.
You may be an agnostic. You don't have a clear
understanding of science either.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 10:37PM
"Darwin's theory is beyond stupid - it is ridiculous."
Except for the fact that DNA PROVES different species have common ancestors. Study up on endogenous retrovirus marker patterns among humans and great apes.
And except for the fact that we've SEEN evolution through random variation and natural selection - see the Lenski experiments.
And except for the fact that the fossil record quite nicely supports evolutionary theory. What Darwin got wrong was the notion that evolution occurs at a constant rate. But he didn't understand population genetics. If he had, he would have realized that large populations are more evolutionarily stable than small populations.
Otherwise, Darwin was pretty spot on, and no amount of religious denialism can change the fact that millions of pieces of evidence support his theory.
Marc Jeric| 8.5.10 @ 12:54AM
Let me add to my write-up above: the absolute conclusion on the bais of that simplified calculation is that a spontaneous formation of a living cell, even when simplified to a ridiculous degree as above explained is a mathematical impossibility by definition.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 9:48AM
Yes, the sudden spontaneous appearance of life IS impossible.
That's why creationism and "ID" are impossible.
Of course, people involved in "origin of life" research do not for a second believe that a cell appeared fully formed.
I know, it's hard to grasp, but it's true. The actual science DOESN'T match the creationist cartoon representation.
Margie| 8.5.10 @ 2:20PM
Mr. Jeric,
Even the man who's child Jesus had just healed of demon possession needed help in fully believing~
"Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" Mk. 9:24.
"The spirit is indded willing, but the flesh is weak." Mt. 26:41.
When I was younger I used to call myself a realistic agnostic. Then I honestly prayed and asked God to reveal Himself to me. He not only did that in a miraculous way but He increased my faith through prayer, and reading the Bible, and reading about and listening to the testimonies of others that Jesus healed physically.
"For all the promises of God find their Yes in Hhim. That is why we utter the Amen through Him, to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 1:20.
In my youth I used to say I was a realistic agnostic. I thought there was a God but needed proof. I prayed honestly
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:46PM
So, you traded "realistic agnosticism" for "unrealistic religionism" aka ...hmm... I was going to say "Bible idolatry", but what you have is more like an addiction. I guess it would have to be Bibleholism.
So, you became a Bibleholic, and now you are the Margie Doll. Pull string for Bible verse. No humanity left at all.
Dean from Ohio| 8.4.10 @ 6:39PM
Most of the people who are so dogmatically in favor of "molecules to man" evolution have never had to design anything complex in their entire lives. They have no idea how hard it is.
Here is a challenge: Design and build a system that will keep the temperature within an air-filled quart-sized glass jar at a constant temperature plus or minus 1 degree F for one year (99.99%), with the glass placed in the outdoors in the open air. You are not allowed to use any commercially available refrigeration or heating systems or thermometers, and no human intervention is allowed to influence the temperature. You cannot use any electric power from the wall socket, or from anything connected to the wall socket. The temperature must be taken and recorded every 8 hours +/- 1 hour.
When you have done this, get back to me on this website. See you next year.
John Stockwell| 8.4.10 @ 7:59PM
Design doesn't have anything to do with biology or
evolution, so your temperature-controlled jar experiment
doesn't mean anything.
No kidding| 8.4.10 @ 8:33PM
Sure. After you show me that you can keep your temperature within 1 F for one year (99.99%), placed in the outdoors in the open air. You are not allowed to use any commercially available refrigeration or heating systems or thermometers, and no human intervention is allowed to influence the temperature. You can't eat nor drink water (that would be like connecting yourself to the wall socket). The temperature must be taken and recorded every 8 hours +/- 1 hour. You can't use the thermometer for anything but measuring the temperature.
I don't see any reason for your proposed experiments, but if we want to play for no reason, why not give you a counter challenge.
---
As for design. True, it can be very hard. This is one reason scientists who wanted to design proteins gave up and opted for directed evolution. Just randomly introduced mutations and selection. It worked.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:20PM
Hey Dean - think about the global network that puts a cinnamon roll on your breakfast plate. Think about all the people involved in growing and harvesting wheat, sugar, cinnamon, cows. Think about all the people that make the equipment used to harvest those crops. Think of all the people involved in the farming, processing and distribution of all the world's food.
Pretty complex, huh?
So name the designer.
cdc| 8.5.10 @ 12:20AM
An interesting endeavor would be to review the patent database for the steady evolution of temperature control systems. The progress through incremental change is quite fascinating.
The old creationist parable of finding a watch and positing a supreme watchmaker neglects all the little changes, modifications, and refinements that went into making a time piece: starts with a sundial continues through atomic clocks.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 12:25AM
It also suggests legions of fecund watches giving birth to baby watches. Life reproduces, watches don't - except, apparently, in creationists' pockets.
Dean from Ohio| 8.4.10 @ 6:43PM
P.S. You can use a thermometer to take the measurements every 8 hours, but your control mechanism cannot use it.
Jim O'Brien| 8.4.10 @ 8:43PM
A great book to read is "Signature in the Cell - DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design" by Stephen C. Meyer. It is not a superficial argument for intelligent design. In fact, much of it is difficult science for the layman. A quick summary might be this: life is too complex to have evolved purely by chance. There had to be a designer, who is not necessarily God, but surely far more advanced than humans.
Mark| 8.4.10 @ 9:29PM
And where did these more advanced beings come from that designed us who designed the designer. I have several book Behe, Johnson, and others in the ID movement they have good arguments when it comes to refuting Darwinian evolution. But they just come up short when you have to take a position on can we known for certain that there is a self exist being who has revealed himself in time and history.
Sure thing| 8.4.10 @ 10:17PM
Of course life did not evolve by chance. It evolved by variation and selection.
Meyer's is a pseudoscientific treatise of misrepresented problems. Many of them already solved. Meyer's is a set of arguments from ignorance. Some of wilful ignorance I might add.
Complicating the whole story with scientific sounding lingo adds to his credibility to the ignorant and unprepared. The idea is to attack the opposition with such convoluted, and particular examples, that it will take forever to work each of them out of their fallacious origins. The whole idea is to win by confusion into making the less savvy public to buy into thinking that I.D. is actually science.
But the whole can be easily dismantled by just warning the reader: what you are about to read is Meyer's attempt at confusing you with big words while presenting arguments from ignorance. These are equivalent to the times when we did not know that tides are produced by the moon's gravitational pull and assuming a god is doing it because we don't know why tides happen.
Sure thing| 8.4.10 @ 10:23PM
The signature of the cell shows all kinds of "scars" of an origin filled with uncertainty, patching, fixing, duplicating, parasitic invasions, and awkward compromises. None particularly what would be expected from intelligent design.
Sure thing| 8.4.10 @ 10:24PM
I meant the true signature of the cell. Not the stupid book.
Henry| 8.4.10 @ 9:46PM
All of you sound like Protestants and Catholics of the 100 years war. Evolution, if it is science, needs no fervent religious support from fanatics who emit more heat than light. And if it is not science, all the heat cast will not illumine anything. Science works by hypotheses that attempt to account for data. It makes no metaphysical claims one way or another--it is an empirical undertaking. Evolution, as some here seem to take it, is a metaphysical idea substituting for the idea of a transcendent cause. That is not science. Evolution, as it is supposed to be taken, is a scientific theory which, for the time being, seems to explain important data. A thousand years from now, it may well be laughed at or it may in turn have evolved into a better idea or simply supplanted by presently unknown data which it would not account for. Such was the fate of Newtonian mechanics, which cannot account for the new data of atomic physics.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 10:13PM
Sorry, but Newton's mechanics work just fine for balls on the pool table or any number of other things you encounter every day. Nobody laughs at Newton - he worked out basic laws that are quite simply correct, no matter how much time passes.
Sorta like Darwin.
Paul Burnett | 8.4.10 @ 10:04PM
This is more pitiful than amusing. The Dishonesty Institute sidles up to the creationist rubes and uses all the code words about "Darwinism" and "evilution" and goes "wink wink" and "nudge nudge" about how intelligent design creationism has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, nosiree, and this here "intelligent design" law is really really scientifical and all.
And then they disown the poor dupes when they break cover, thinking it's okay to come out of the closet and admit that it was all about good old fashioned creationism after all. And just like they did in Dover, they betray their co-religionists - again. One wonders how many more times they will be able to take advantage of the scientifically illiterate and willfully ignorant doofuses of the fundagelical world.
Paul Burnett | 8.4.10 @ 10:18PM
Bruce Chapman must have been hallucinating when he wrote: "Where public school districts have been willing to stick to scientific evidence for and against Darwinian theory, and ignore religious implications in the classroom, Darwinian opponents have not sued, let alone sued successfully."
Since there is no "scientific evidence...against Darwinian theory," it would be interesting to find out where Chapman claims these fictional public school districts are.
C'mon, Bruce - you said "districts" - so there are at least two public school districts that have stuck to "scientific evidence...against Darwinian theory..." Where are they, Bruce? Name names. We're calling your bluff.
Don't anybody hold their breath.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 10:56PM
The argument isn't really "ID/Creationism" versus "Evolution". Evolution happens - creatures evolve. We evolved from earlier forms. The evidence is there, the mechanisms are well understood. The evolutionary model makes successful predictions all the time. The Theory of Evolution is a solid as atomic theory, tectonic plate theory, and the germ theory of disease.
Many religious people believe in natural evolution - they believe God set off the Big Bang and let it run from there. Others believe the Book of Genesis is 100% factual history and life on Earth started in 4004 BC, in October. So there is no consistent "creationism" viewpoint.
So the argument is really "evolution acceptance" versus "evolution denial", where evolution denial is no different than any other form of reality denial. Evolution denial = Holocaust denial = lunar landing denial = round Earth denial.
Evolution is a solid theory, simple at the core and complex in the details. It employs well-understood mechanisms:
Replication + Variation + Selection = Evolution
It has evidence to support each component, it has mountains of evidence found in the fossil record, in vestigial traits in living creatures, in atavisms, in morphology, in genetics and in molecular biology. The facts of evolution are supported by and mesh with other sciences like geology, paleontology, physics, other aspects of biology, cosmology, etc. And it is supported by thousands of critical scientists trying to prove each other wrong, or trying to add their own insights to the theory.
For evolution to NOT be true, many other sciences must have also made major mistakes.
Evolution-deniers claim Evolution is "only a theory" because they say "theory" = "guess" or "hunch". But in science the word "theory" means a complex model to explain many facts. Evolutionary Theory is just as well supported as the THEORY of Relativity, Tectonic Plate THEORY, the Germ THEORY of Disease and Atomic THEORY. You can (and do) bet your life on these theories.
Evolution-deniers claim there is no evidence for Evolution. This is a lie. Google "Talkorigins evidences for evolution" to find over 30 different categories of evidence for evolution, including ways evolution could be falsified - but it isn't. Why? Because it is true.
Of course, the strongest evidence for evolution is found in DNA. We count on DNA every day to answer some of the most important questions in our lives: Should this person be on Death Row? Is this stranger really my birth mother? Are these remains from the World Trade Center really all that's left of my father? Will my unborn baby be healthy?
That same reliable DNA also tells us that we share kinship with all of Earth's creatures. DNA is just as reliable for proving "common descent" as it is for answering those other hard questions.
Evolution-deniers claim scientists are "abandoning" evolution because some scientists signed a statement saying they are skeptical that Darwinian evolution accounts for all the variation in the species. But (1) this doesn't mean those scientists believe it takes divine or non-natural intervention for evolution to happen, and (2) the list is a fraud - a simple analysis of the list is available on Youtube showing it is nonsense.
Not only that, but there are over 12,000 Christian CLERGY who've signed a statement supporting evolution and rejecting the teaching of creationism as science. Science isn't about voting, but even if it was, evolution still wins. Google the "Butler College Clergy Letter" to read the statement and all their names.
Evolution-deniers claim the fossil record does not support evolution, and that there are no intermediate species or transitional fossils. This is an outright lie.
Professional evolution-deniers like Kent Hovind or Harun Yahya claim that a "transitional fossil" is some unworkable mutant like half-crocodile/half-duck or half-starfish/half-flounder. They paint these ridiculous pictures of absurd creatures, then say "see! Evolution is false because these don't exist!".
Evolution deniers say "you expect me to believe a reptile one day gave birth to a bird?" Of course, it doesn't work that way, any more than an Ancient Latin-speaker one day gave birth to the first French-speaker.
Like changes in language, evolution works by tiny changes in populations over a long time, so that species slowly morph into different forms. When you grow from an infant to an adult, your left leg doesn't grow to full size first, then your right arm, then your head. Similarly, evolution doesn't put a crocodile's head on a duck's body.
For a devout Christian's explanation of transitional species, google "Ken Miller transitional species".
Scientists used evolutionary theory to predict a particular undiscovered species should exist, when it should have existed, and where to dig NOW to find a fossil of it. They went to that spot and found five examples. What successful predictions has creationism ever made? Google "search for Tiktaalik" for the evidence of this.
Here is a fantastic video explaining many many transitional species:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....mp;index=8
Evolution-deniers, unable to refute the actual theory of evolution, then say "evolution doesn't explain the creation of the first life or the creation of the universe." That is also dishonest, because the theory of evolution doesn't ATTEMPT to explain those. It's like saying all of chemistry is false because it doesn't explain where the elements came from.
The birth of the universe is cosmology, not evolution. And non-life to life is abiogenesis and organic chemistry. The theory of evolution is about how different species formed.
That said, we've learned a LOT through "origin of life" research. But that's for another day...
Evolution-deniers claim we've never SEEN evolution - that's a lie, because we have. Google "Lenski evolution experiment", "Grant Galapagos finches", and "Italian wall lizard evolution" for just a few examples of OBSERVED evolution.
And this example is amazing, of how we now know that not only did other apes and humans share common ancestors, but we can see the markers from retrovirus infections caught by those common ancestors. And the markers exist in EXACTLY the pattern in human and ape DNA predicted by evolutionary theory.
http://www.evolutionarymodel.com/ervs.htm
Finally, bad scientific theories get killed by the scientific process: The Four Humours, Polywater, N rays, luminiferous aether, phlogiston, etc. But the mechanisms of evolution have only become stronger and better understood over the past 150 years. Why? Because species evolve.
So only by rejecting knowledge and denying reality (or by lying) can you deny that life evolved and continues to evolve.
RickK| 8.4.10 @ 11:15PM
Denying evolution is bad theology, to be avoided by honest Christians:
The following is signed by over 12,000 Christian Clergy:
"We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris."
A very clear statement by people who are educated in theology and who have devoted their lives to the service of Christ.
http://www.butler.edu/clergypr.....rgyLtr.htm
Nate| 8.4.10 @ 11:31PM
"Critics of evolution need to stick to scientific evidence."
Same goes for the space alien issue.
We who know that space aliens live among us, probing us in midnight visitations, implanting micro-chips in human hosts, cloning, amassing their forces for a final invasion of the planet, etc., must stick to the science when trying to convince people of what we know to be the truth.
sunshine| 8.4.10 @ 11:47PM
Modern science has defined itself to include only the observable,but i think The complexity of life in truth speaks far more strongly in support of creation than evolution.
cdc| 8.5.10 @ 12:32AM
Yes modern science has restricted itself to only the observable. That is the whole point. Sticking to what can be observed and tested enables science to generate repeatable observable predictions. Those predictions let engineers predict if the building will stand, doctors predict if the drug will heal, and bloggers to predict if their computer will turn on.
If you want to talk about the unobservable and unrepeatable, just lable it religion and make up what ever you want.
Henry| 8.4.10 @ 11:52PM
RickK,
As a professional biologist, I'm well aware of what evolution can encompass. I'm also well aware that Newtonian mechanics accounts for a wide range of phenomena. You missed the point. And you missed it because your mind set is basically that of a believer.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 12:00AM
Henry, based on the evidence it is clear that species evolve. Based on the evidence, it is also impossible to conclude the existence of a transcendent cause.
So explain to me how that proves I'm a "believer". Take me through the logic that brought you to that conclusion.
James| 8.5.10 @ 12:06AM
Professor Edwin Conklin observed, "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop."
“That is, the idea of a cell ever forming by chance is so impossible that for it to ever happen, we are going to have to discover entirely new natural laws of physics, chemistry and biology in order to be able to explain it.”
Where are we when presented with the mystery of life? We find ourselves facing a granite wall which we have not even chipped . . We know virtually nothing of growth, nothing of life."—*W. Kaempffert, "The Greatest Mystery of All: The Secret of Life," New York Times.
"The over-riding supremacy of the myth has created a widespread illusion that the theory of evolution was all but proved one hundred years ago and that all subsequent biological research—paleontological, zoological and in the newer branches of genetics and molecular biology—has provided ever-increasing evidence of Darwinian ideas."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 327.
"The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity—omnipotent chance."—*T. Rosazak, Unfinished Animal (1975), pp. 101-102.
"To involve purpose is in the eyes of biologists the ultimate scientific sin . . The revulsion which biologists feel about the thought that purpose might have a place in the structure of biology is therefore revulsion to the concept that biology might have a connection to an intelligence higher than our own."—Sir Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 32.
"Nowadays computers are operating within a range which is not entirely incommensurate with that dealt with in actual evolution theories. If a species breeds once a year, the number of cycles in a million years is about the same as that which one would obtain in a ten-day computation which iterates a program whose duration is a hundredth of a second . . Now we have less excuse for explaining away difficulties [via evolutionary theory] by invoking the unobservable effect of astronomical [enormously large] numbers of small variations."—*M.P. Schutzenberger, Mathematical Challenges in the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (1967), pp. 73-75 [an address given at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology Symposium].
"We believe that there is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current conception of biology."—M.P. Schutzenberger, Mathematical Challenges in the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (1967), pp. 73-75 [an address given at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology Symposium].
"Time is no help. Bio-molecules outside a living system tend to degrade with time, not build up. In most cases, a few days is all they would last. Time decomposes complex systems. If a large `word' (a protein) or even a paragraph is generated by chance, time will operate to degrade it. The more time you allow, the less chance there is that fragmentary `sense' will survive the chemical maelstrom of matter."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 233.
"So the simultaneous formation of two or more molecules of any given enzyme purely by chance is fantastically improbable."—*W. Thorpe, "Reductionism in Biology," in Studies in the Philosophy of Biology (1974), p. 117.
"The presence of a living unit is exactly opposite to what we would expect on the basis of pure statistical and probability considerations."—*Peter Mora, "Urge and Molecular Biology," in Nature (1963), p. 215.
"It is very hard to avoid using words that suggest purpose when describing the wonderfully adapted structures that occur in the living world."—*L.E. Orgel, The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection (1973), p. 182.
"That life is, . . is a miracle from the point of view of the physical scientist."—*E.P. Wigner, "The Probability of a Self-Reproducing Unit," in the Logic of Personal Knowledge (1961), p. 231.
"To put it at its mildest, one may question an evolutionary theory so beset by doubts among even those who teach it. If Darwinism is truly the great unifying principle of biology, it encompasses extraordinarily large areas of ignorance. It fails to explain some of the most basic questions of all: how lifeless chemicals came alive, what rules of grammar lie behind the genetic code, how genes shape the form of living things."—*Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe (9182), pp. 108, 117.
"The answer would seem to me, combined with the knowledge that life is actually there, to lead to the conclusion that some sequences other than chance occurrences must have led to the appearance of life as we know it."—*J.D. Bernal, The Origins of Prebiological Systems and Their Molecular Matrices (1965), p. 53.
"There is a growing likelihood that the genome may contain even more than one hundred thousand million bits of information."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 351.
"Rather than accept that fantastically small probability of life having arisen through the blind forces of nature, it seemed better to suppose that the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act. By `better' I mean less likely to be wrong."—*Fred Hoyle "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections, in Engineering and Science, November 1981, pp. 8, 12.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 12:23AM
Here we go again - condemning evolutionary theory because it doesn't explain how life started.
Tell me, James, do you have a similar set of quotes condemning chemistry because it doesn't explain where the elements come from?
Do you condemn physics because it doesn't explain where the universe came from?
James - of the people you quoted - which of them would disagree with the following statement:
"The species alive today, including humans, evolved from earlier forms of life."
Please list the people in your quote list that refute that statement.
Ralph Westfall | 8.5.10 @ 5:10AM
Reductionism is OK in science, so the inability to explain the origin of life doesn't invalidate evolution as a scientific theory. It just means that evolution can't answer the much more important question of how we got here. It also means that its use by Richard Dawkins et al to proselytize their irreligious faith is illegitimate.
http://mysite.verizon.net/west.....ution.html
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 8:13PM
I've read quite a bit of Dawkins, and he has said repeatedly that he can't disprove the existence of an incorporeal, transcendent, undetectable being.
But natural evolution DOES remove divine magic from the equation of how living things today came to be.
Ralph Westfall | 8.5.10 @ 11:51PM
Evolution is moot in the absence of life.
RickK| 8.6.10 @ 9:02PM
So we're back to that...
You seem to think evolution of species is not meaningful without explaining how life started. Do you think chemistry is less meaningful because it doesn't explain where elements come from? Do you think physics is less meaningful or less true because it doesn't explain where the universe came from?
Do you think ANY of this makes Genesis any MORE true? Anyone can make up a story to fill in a gap in knowledge.
The honest approach is to say "this is what we know" and "this is what we don't know... yet".
Ralph Westfall | 8.6.10 @ 11:45PM
Without any credible explanation of the origin of life by natural causes, the theory of evolution does not support arguments against the existence of God.
RickK| 8.7.10 @ 3:38PM
We don't need arguments against the existence of God. If you tell me there's a ghost in your garage, it's not up to me to disprove it.
What's lacking is evidence OF the existence of God. That species form apparently without divine intervention removes one more piece of evidence that believers once used to justify their belief in God.
Ralph Westfall | 8.7.10 @ 9:22PM
Jesus changed me from being a drunk to a productive member of society. That plus the Bible are all the evidence I need.
Species can't form without an origin of life.
RickK| 8.7.10 @ 11:46PM
Chemistry can't work without elements. How is it possible for chemistry to work if it doesn't explain where the elements come from?
I'm happy that you're no longer a drunk, but your evidence does not in any way whatsoever (1) refute the fact that species evolve or (2) prove the actual existence of a supernatural, all-powerful but completely undetectable being named God who teaches genocide and kindness in the same book.
Ralph David Westfall | 8.8.10 @ 10:40PM
A material universe and life unquestionably came into existence. However the origin of both is contrary to the overwhelming weight of what science has found about matter, energy and biology. This doesn't prove the existence of God. However it does make metaphysical explanations of origins plausible alternatives.
I can't prove the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent deity who intervenes into the affairs of mankind. You can't prove that everything is the result of natural causes. You have your faith and I have mine.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 4:45PM
Ralph, I sincerely congratulate you; "God" was merely a placebo that allowed you to have the confidence to accomplish sobriety by yourself.
"Species can't form without an origin of life. "
Absolutely correct. Life had an origin.
Ralph David Westfall | 8.11.10 @ 2:40AM
Hey, if it makes you feel better to think that God is a placebo ...
Regarding the origin of life, see my posts above.
GalapagosPete| 8.11.10 @ 11:37AM
Doesn't matter whether it makes me "feel better"; reality isn't about feeling better , it's about reality, and in reality you have failed to meet the burden of proof to support your assertion about the existence of your god (or any other). The fact that you achieved sobriety is wonderful, but you did it all by yourself, perhaps with the support of other people who encouraged you. The fact that you believe that there was an external supernatural being responsible for your success is unconvincing to me; it's your subjective experience, so why *should* I believe it?
Your posts about the origin of life say only that you think discovering it is important - so do I - that if we don't know it evolutionary theory isn't invalidated - I agree - and you repeated yourself about evolution not being possible in the absence of life, which is like saying "Photosynthesis wouldn't matter if there was no Sun."
Ralph David Westfall | 8.12.10 @ 4:54AM
1. Where does it say that I have to objectively prove the existence of God? And why?
2. Did I say you had to believe my sobriety came from God? If you have a need to think otherwise, that does me no harm.
3. What were the natural causes that led to all the current matter and energy in the universe, starting from nothing?
4. Why is it that scientists haven’t been able to create life in the laboratory? They have all kinds of sophisticated tools and techniques, and a very large body of accumulated knowledge to guide and control the processes. All this is in marked contrast to the chaotic conditions on this planet billions of years ago. If someone gave a large team of engineers enough resources, they could make a working copy of any kind of machinery or electronics, no matter how large or complex. Why hasn’t life been successfully reverse-engineered?
GalapagosPete| 8.13.10 @ 12:22AM
1) You don't have to prove the existence of god at all; that's up to you. What I'm saying is that if you *do* want to do so, objective evidence is required.
2) I have no *need* to believe anything, I'm simply rejecting your assertion as unsupported by evidence. If anything, the *need* seems to be yours to believe in a god, since you're the one who brought it up in the first place.
3) No one knows what if anything existed before our universe.
4) Because they don't yet know how.
150 years ago: Why can't science make a heavier-than-air flying machine? A hundred years ago: Why can't science build a rocket and send it to the moon? Fifty years ago: Why can't science build a computer than fits on your desk and runs Windows?
Today: Why can't science create life in a test tube?
They will. And based on the rate of scientific discovery, in our lifetime. (I say "our"; of course I have no idea how old you are but if you're 60 or less chances are you'll see it.) But if life being created in the lab would make you question your faith you should re-examine your beliefs, and if it isn't a challenge to your faith why would you care?
Ralph David Westfall | 8.13.10 @ 3:27AM
1) "You don't have to prove the existence of god at all; that's up to you. What I'm saying is that if you *do* want to do so, objective evidence is required."
We're making progress in that you've softened the "burden of proof" rhetoric. But where is it written that I need objective evidence to believe in God? My subjective experiences over 39 years are entirely adequate for me.
2) "I have no *need* to believe anything, I'm simply rejecting your assertion as unsupported by evidence. If anything, the *need* seems to be yours to believe in a god, since you're the one who brought it up in the first place."
And you’ve responded three times in regard to my statement that God enabled my sobriety. The way you word and punctuate your repeated responses suggests that it creates an uneasiness about your faith in the non-existence of God. BTW since you suggested placebo effects, what is your basis for saying that’s what got me sober?
3) "No one knows what if anything existed before our universe."
True. So any ideas about how the universe came into existence must be based on some kind of faith.
4) "Today: Why can't science create life in a test tube? They will."
That is a faith statement. As it says in almost all investment literature, "past performance is no guarantee of future results."
FWIW I think science may someday create life "in a test tube." However that could be irrelevant to how we got here if the processes are substantially different from what might conceivably have happened on this planet billions of years ago.
GalapagosPete| 8.13.10 @ 11:57PM
1) "But where is it written that I need objective evidence to believe in God? My subjective experiences over 39 years are entirely adequate for me."
But not to me. Subjective experiences are not evidence. If you don't care about proving the existence of your god to *others,* you're fine. But then what are you doing here?
2) "The way you word and punctuate your repeated responses suggests that it creates an uneasiness about your faith in the non-existence of God."
This is called "projecting." I have no faith in the non-existence of god, or Santa, or Easter Bunny, or a teapot orbiting Pluto. However, the existence of these things has not been demonstrated. Again, the burden of proof is on those making a positive claim.
"BTW since you suggested placebo effects, what is your basis for saying that’s what got me sober?"
You said, "Jesus changed me from being a drunk to a productive member of society."
It was your belief that you were being helped by an unseen entity that allowed you to become sober. Sadly, you didn't think - and apparently still don't - you could have done it on your own.
Since it has been demonstrated that people do beat addictions on their own, with no evidence of external superior beings assisting them, it is reasonable to take the position that such beings do not exist and do not provide aid to addicts - even if it is shown later that they do.
3) Ideas are not based on faith. Scientific hypotheses are based on observation and evidence. For example, no scientist claims that the universe started out as a pink marshmallow, because there is no observation or evidence that supports that hypothesis.
Currently we have a fair idea of the origin of the universe back to the first few nanoseconds or so, but not before that. No one - no scientist - is saying we *know* what happened. Only faithists claim to know absolutely.
4) "That is a faith statement."
No, it is based on the work that is going on, and my experience with science eventually figuring things out. If we had no clue about biology, then it would be a faith statement.
But even if it could be considered faith, it would not be along the lines of, "The universe was created so-and-so-many years ago in this order by my god, who possesses these attributes, and works in mysterious ways, and did all these other specific things for which there is, of course, no evidence, which is fine because I don't need evidence, and don't even *want* evidence, because that would violate my faith."
Hardly the same thing as, "Scientists usually get it right in the end, so they'll work this out too."
Of course it could take much longer.
"However that could be irrelevant to how we got here if the processes are substantially different from what might conceivably have happened on this planet billions of years ago."
Yes, if they do it by adding pink marshmallow, a substance that probably didn't exist billions of years ago, that would not fulfill the requirement of creating it in the conditions that we believe existed on Earth at that time. So let's take it as a given that they're bright enough to work that one out.
Ralph David Westfall | 8.14.10 @ 7:00AM
“Subjective experiences are not evidence.”
R: Are you telling me that you have never learned something from experience? Or that you have never done something based on “gut feel” rather than objective evidence?
“If you don't care about proving the existence of your god to *others,* you're fine. But then what are you doing here?”
R: Actually my first post was about why evolution was a valid scientific theory, despite the fact that it couldn’t explain the necessary antecedent of the origin of life. After that, I was responding to issues raised by others. I am not trying to prove the existence of God because that is no more possible than proving that everything results from natural causes. BTW what are you doing here?
“Since it has been demonstrated that people do beat addictions on their own, with no evidence of external superior beings assisting them, it is reasonable to take the position that such beings do not exist and do not provide aid to addicts - even if it is shown later that they do.”
R: Are you saying that if something causes something in some circumstances, it must cause it all of the time?
“Currently we have a fair idea of the origin of the universe back to the first few nanoseconds or so, but not before that. No one - no scientist - is saying we *know* what happened.”
R: Would you agree with a statement that the universe came into existence by natural causes?
“If we had no clue about biology, then it would be a faith statement.”
1-Why are investment prospectuses required by law to say, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results?”
2-Do you believe that a universe of the current size composed entirely of monkeys randomly typing will eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare within the time span of the existence of the universe?
3-One of the trends in biological science is that the more that is discovered about life, the more complex it is found to be. There is credible possibility that continuing research will provide more compelling evidence of the unlikelihood of life originating by natural causes rather than enabling the creation of life in a way that could have happened billions of years ago.
GalapagosPete| 8.16.10 @ 2:47AM
"Are you telling me that you have never learned something from experience? Or that you have never done something based on “gut feel” rather than objective evidence?"
I said subjective experience is not evidence. And it's not.
"I am not trying to prove the existence of God because that is no more possible than proving that everything results from natural causes."
The difference being that natural forces have been observed as existing and having effects.
"BTW what are you doing here?"
Doing my small part to promote rationality.
"Are you saying that if something causes something in some circumstances, it must cause it all of the time?"
I am saying that we have never observed evidence of any supernatural beings at all, much less that such beings care about individuals, or that they could or would take action to assist individuals in any way at all. And since we *have* seen people do things for themselves, there is no need to invoke such beings as an unneeded alternate explanation.
"Would you agree with a statement that the universe came into existence by natural causes?"
As far as we know there's no reason it could not have. However, even if we are never able to discover the origin of the universe, which is certainly possible, that will in no way support the assertion that some outside intelligence had anything to do with it.
"Why are investment prospectuses required by law to say, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results?”…Do you believe that a universe of the current size composed entirely of monkeys randomly typing will eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare within the time span of the existence of the universe?"
If you can explain the relevance of these questions to this discussion I’ll address them.
"There is credible possibility that continuing research will provide more compelling evidence of the unlikelihood of life originating by natural causes rather than enabling the creation of life in a way that could have happened billions of years ago."
Without getting into parsing phrases like "more compelling" by saying that something is either compelling or it is not, I will say that your suggestion is unlikely because mere complexity does not mean anything about whether something is the product of intelligence or nature.
Ralph David Westfall | 8.17.10 @ 3:14AM
“I said subjective experience is not evidence. And it's not.”
R: You are not answering the question about whether you have ever personally acted on the basis of subjective experience rather than objective evidence.
“natural forces have been observed as existing and having effects.”
R: The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were also observed by large numbers of witnesses. His resurrection is inconsistent with anything that natural forces have ever caused.
“And since we *have* seen people do things for themselves, there is no need to invoke such beings as an unneeded alternate explanation.”
R: We have also seen people who have not been able to beat addictions on their own or with others’ help, so the fact that these things have helped some doesn’t support your claim that natural causes are an adequate explanation of all the successes.
[universe came into existence by natural causes?] “As far as we know there's no reason it could not have.”
R: Have you never heard of Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy?
[Why are investment prospectuses required by law to say, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results?”…Do you believe that a universe of the current size composed entirely of monkeys randomly typing will eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare within the time span of the existence of the universe?]
“If you can explain the relevance of these questions to this discussion I’ll address them.”
R: Their relevance isn’t hard to figure out. It will probably come to you when you answer them. If you’re still having problems after that, I’ll explain it (and give you some more questions to ponder).
GalapagosPete| 8.19.10 @ 2:07AM
"You are not answering the question about whether you have ever personally acted on the basis of subjective experience rather than objective evidence. "
Because it is irrelevant, unless you can explain why it isn't. My point was that *your* subjective experience has no meaning for me regarding the existence of gods, UFO aliens, ghosts, or anything else for which there is no good, objective evidence.
"The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were also observed by large numbers of witnesses."
There is a myth about is that asserts it happened and was witnessed by many people, but I have no reason to believe supernatural claims in old stories.
"We have also seen people who have not been able to beat addictions on their own or with others’ help, so the fact that these things have helped some doesn’t support your claim that natural causes are an adequate explanation of all the successes."
In fact it does, since I never said every addict has kicked their habit, only that natural causes are a perfectly satisfactory satisfaction for those who have.
"Have you never heard of Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy?"
If you mean where did the energy in the universe come from, that is unknown. However, this does not automatically mean that it was created by gods, since the gods themselves have to have an origin.
"Their relevance isn’t hard to figure out. It will probably come to you when you answer them."
I can make assumptions but I do not care to do so; I am not a mind-reader and I have no interest in guessing games; either ask a direct question or make a direct statement.
Ralph David Westfall | 8.20.10 @ 3:31AM
[You are not answering the question about whether you have ever personally acted on the basis of subjective experience rather than objective evidence.]
“Because it is irrelevant, unless you can explain why it isn't.”
R: ATFQ (answer the felicitous question). You said before that you were “Doing my small part to promote rationality.” Your refusal to engage in the Socratic method by answering questions doesn’t speak well of your positions.
[The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were also observed by large numbers of witnesses.]
"There is a myth about is that asserts it happened and was witnessed by many people, but I have no reason to believe supernatural claims in old stories."
R: Saying something is a myth doesn’t prove anything. Can you can provide records from medical scientists who certified that Jesus was dead, and from others who did DNA tests that showed it was not really Him when he appeared to many afterward? You need to provide a basis for that characterization.
“In fact it does, since I never said every addict has kicked their habit, only that natural causes are a perfectly satisfactory satisfaction for those who have.”
R: Actually you said essentially the following:
1. Some addicts have kicked their habit through placebo effects.
2. Placebo effects are natural causes.
3. Therefore whenever someone kicks a habit, it is due to natural causes.
If that’s not an accurate summation of what you said, please provide a revised syllogism that more accurately represents what you did say.
[Have you never heard of Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy?]
“If you mean where did the energy in the universe come from, that is unknown. However, this does not automatically mean that it was created by gods, since the gods themselves have to have an origin.”
R: And did I say that it was created by gods? Or God? Since I didn’t, why do you feel the need to keep putting words in my mouth?
I’ll throw you a lifeline on this one. There has been some speculation to the effect that the sum total of the matter and energy in the universe nets to zero, which would make the existence of the universe consistent with the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. However even if that is true, it doesn’t explain where the additional energy came from to cause nothing to differentiate into the universe as it now exists. Or why scientists are unable to replicate the effect with substantial quantities of matter.
BTW before the overwhelming evidence for the big bang, skeptics used to say that the universe was eternal, so it didn't have to come from anywhere. Even though it was good enough for them back in the day, they now have problems when the same statement is made about God.
“I can make assumptions but I do not care to do so; I am not a mind-reader and I have no interest in guessing games; either ask a direct question or make a direct statement.”
R: I already asked you the following two direct questions, as well as the one above about your subjective experiences. Are you afraid to answer them?
1-Why are investment prospectuses required by law to say, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results?”
2-Do you believe that a universe of the current size composed entirely of monkeys randomly typing will eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare within the time span of the existence of the universe?
Creationism is nonsense| 8.22.10 @ 7:06AM
"1-Why are investment prospectuses required by law to say, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results?”"
Hilariously irrelevant.
"2-Do you believe that a universe of the current size composed entirely of monkeys randomly typing will eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare within the time span of the existence of the universe?"
Hilariously irrelevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
GalapagosPete| 8.24.10 @ 12:19PM
"And did I say that it was created by gods? Or God? Since I didn’t, why do you feel the need to keep putting words in my mouth?"
I'm done with you; I can respect an honest defense of one's beliefs, but you turn out - surprise! - to be just another dishonest creationist.
I can't say I didn't see this coming, with your sophomoric attempts to "prove" your case with the "Socratic method", poor analogy and Philosophy 101 questions about monkeys and typewriters, but I had hoped that was due to inexperience on your part. I was wrong.
Kent Hovind, the very epitome of the dishonest creationist, would be proud of you.
Ralph David Westfall | 8.24.10 @ 9:41PM
Here's another question for you to refuse to answer: Is calling people names another example of your “Doing my small part to promote rationality?”
GalapagosPete| 8.25.10 @ 11:10AM
Ralph, I'll give you this: maybe - just *maybe* - it wasn't actually outright dishonesty, maybe you though you were being clever with your "But I never *said* that God created the universe" comment". Maybe you thought you were being true to the "Socratic method" or something; if so, I retract the "dishonest" characterization and replace it with "too damn dumb to waste time with."
Once you've declared yourself to be a Christian there are certain concepts that go along with that, including the Christian belief that their god created reality. So when a Christian responds with "And did I say that [the energy in the universe] was created by gods? Or God? Since I didn’t, why do you feel the need to keep putting words in my mouth?" they're either being dishonest or too effin' cute for words, and in either case I have no time to waste with a person like that.
And in fact I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Kent Hovind, creationist, liar, convicted tax cheat and current resident of a federal prison in Pensicola, Florida; even he would not say anything that egregiously stupid. I think. Well, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, anyway.
I suggest that in the future you just talk to people instead of trying to impress them with how clever you are with syllogisms and the Socratic method - unless you're in a formal debate somewhere, of course; but not on a blog; here you just look like an icehole trying to score rhetorical points.
So I retract and apologize for the "dishonest" comment because I could have been wrong about that, but I still intend to waste no more time here, and I'll even leave you the last word, content to let others who come by to judge.
Ralph David Westfall | 8.25.10 @ 2:58PM
“Ralph, I'll give you this: maybe - just *maybe* - it wasn't actually outright dishonesty, maybe you though[t] you were being clever with your ‘But I never *said* that God created the universe’ comment.”
R: Speaking of dishonesty, in your previous post you said, “I'm done with you;” And yet, here you are again.
Speaking of putting words into people’s mouths, my actual statement in the post dated 8.20.10 @ 3:31AM was: “And did I say that it was created by gods? Or God?” Obviously it is my personal belief that the universe was created by God. However because it is not provable (nor disprovable either), I have deliberately avoided making any categorical statement to that effect in this thread. Ultimately it is, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command.” (Hebrews 11:3)
“Maybe you thought you were being true to the ‘Socratic method’ or something; if so, I retract the ‘dishonest’ characterization and replace it with ‘too damn dumb to waste time with.’
R: As I noted previously, here's another question for you to refuse to answer: “Is calling people names another example of your ‘Doing my small part to promote rationality?’”
“I suggest that in the future you just talk to people instead of trying to impress them with how clever you are with syllogisms and the Socratic method”
R: This appears to be a blatantly self-serving attempt to justify your unwillingness to answer the questions I raised. A major problem with Internet forums is that the lack of structure makes it very difficult to establish anything, because people use specious arguments to try to establish their points, rather than facts and logic. Evasions and obfuscations are another prominent tactic. Syllogisms and the Socratic method are quite appropriate ways of dealing with such sophistry.
cdc| 8.5.10 @ 12:44AM
You are overestimating computing power signifcantly. Yes they are much faster today, increasingly due to the power of evolutionary algorithms; however supercomputers are still challenged by the complexities of a single protein's folding. It is therefore unfeasible that any machine extant can run through millenia of planet spanning evolution in a couple weeks.
John Stockwell| 8.6.10 @ 6:45PM
Dear James,
Quote mining is dirty business. I would refer interested parties to
http://www.talkorigins.org/faq.....oject.html
for examples of the depths that creationists will go to in order to misrepresent evolution. If you see a creationist quote a scientist, get the original source that has the context.
For discussions of so-called "probability arguments
against evolution" I would refer interested parties
to:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faq.....oprob.html
The bottom line is that all probability arguments against evolution or abiogenesis happening are exercises in strawman demolition. The form of these arguments usually contain the ingredients of a "named scientist" plus an "unrealistic model", usually some sort of random assembly argument, and "huge number".
The game of the creationist is to get you to look at the name of the scientist and the big probability number, but to not let you think too much of the bogus model that the individual is using to get the number.
Henry| 8.5.10 @ 12:09AM
RickK,
Simple. I essentially pointed out that scientific theories --paradigms-- have a fairly short life span. They are not necessarily proven 'wrong', but rather too limited to cover new discoveries. A scientific mind is not religiously attached to theories. A 'believer's' mind is.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 12:18AM
Typical post-modernist "we can't know anything" nonsense.
Your Newton example was wrong - his mechanics still hold true. Theories that make large numbers of accurate predictions are not overturned, they're enhanced. Do you think we'll find that matter isn't made of atoms? That tectonic plates don't move? That bacteria, viruses and single-celled critters have nothing to do with disease? Because those are all just as likely as determining that species don't evolve.
I'm fact-based, accepting the models that make the best predictions. That's known as having an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.
Henry| 8.5.10 @ 12:25AM
RickK,
Didn't you read? I said, "They are not necessarily proven 'wrong', but rather too limited to cover new discoveries." Of course Newton serves to measure a very wide range of phenomena; any schoolboy knows that, or any engineer. It is of no use in trying to account for or measure quantum phenomena, or in other words, too limited to cover the data in question. Your emotionalism is obvious.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 12:31AM
So if Newton wasn't proved wrong, Henry, then is accepting the truth of Newtonian mechanics an example of thinking like a "religious believer", as you seem to be saying?
I don't understand your accusation. How does relying on a model that works make me a "believer"?
Or, is your "believer" accusation limited only to the theory of evolution? How about if I'm convinced that tectonic plates move. Does that make me a "believer"?
John Stockwell| 8.6.10 @ 6:51PM
The validity of the Newtonian theory has been delimited by experiment. Where Newton's view of physics works well, all other future theories that purport to describe the same physical phenomena must work equally well.
Newtonian physics is "lawlike" in that the theory states a collection of succinct assumptions (Newton's three laws, for example) and the rest of the results follow by deduction from those laws.
More modern theories allow us to derive Newton's laws from more fundamental propeties, furthermore those theories (quantum mechanics in the small scale and special and general relativity on the large scale) give
better results than Newtonian physics in their appropriate regimes.
RickK| 8.7.10 @ 3:47PM
None of which refutes Newton's findings or makes them any less applicable. What are you trying to prove?
Accepting that Newtonian mechanics work does not make someone a religious believer, any more than accepting that evolutionary theory works.
James| 8.5.10 @ 12:27AM
Evolutionary theory is not merely a biological theory, it makes metaphysical claims, like it or not. That is why you are fanatical about it.
GalapagosPete| 8.5.10 @ 2:21AM
What sort of metaphysical claims are found within the theory of evolution?
John Stockwell| 8.6.10 @ 6:56PM
Dear James,
There are no metaphysical assumptions in the theory of evolution that don't exist in the rest of science. Basically biology is a special case of chemistry, which in turn is a special case of physics.
The evolution deniers are the fanatics.
Henry| 8.5.10 @ 12:34AM
In fact--and this may surprise you--evolutionary theory is hardly necessary to do good biology. What is needed is a lot of chemistry, physics, and certain mathematics. This is quite different from doing good physics without Newton or Einstein, etc. Evolutionary theory is a rather hybrid animal.
cdc| 8.5.10 @ 12:51AM
It is also possible to a lot of meteorology without believing in the atomic theory of matter. The theory is still valid and will be increasingly necessary for a complete understanding of the subject.
GalapagosPete| 8.5.10 @ 3:01AM
"In fact--and this may surprise you--evolutionary theory is hardly necessary to do good biology."
To do the mechanics of biology? Perhaps not. Understand what you're doing? Absolutely.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 12:44AM
Hmm.... You both changed the subject.
Henry, you didn't answer my question - how does accepting evolutionary theory make me a "believer" if working theories aren't "proved wrong"? Does accepting Atomic Theory or Tectonic Plate Theory make me a "believer"?
James, which of the people you quoted would disagree with the statement that "species evolve"?
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 9:17AM
*crickets*
Russell | 8.5.10 @ 3:01AM
Chapman's incomprehension of evolution verges on the miraculous. Is the Discovery Institute bucking for the canonization of the Blessed Dunning of Kruger?
vel| 8.5.10 @ 10:52AM
wow, way to throw your fellow creationists under the bus, Mr. Chapman. Thanks to the Dover case, we know that creationists are the same as supposed proponents of "intelligent design" courtesy of that little typo in "Of Pandas and People", "cdesign proponentsists" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdesign_proponentsists#Pandas_and_.22cdesign_proponentsists.22) I do wonder about supposed Christians like you who have continued make the claim that intelligent design isn't really creationism. Who was the intelligent designer, Mr. Chapman? Aliens? Do you honestly believe anyone thinks you mean that? Or do you just lie to avoid the legal drubbing that you continually get with your lies about how ID is science when it has produced nothing scientific at all. Mr. Chapman's sad hypocrisy is evident every time he blithely accept science which makes him comfy when the same science also shows his creationist claims are lies.
Margie| 8.5.10 @ 1:51PM
Gen 1:1~ "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth."
God created them. Then He created Man.
"..then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Gen. 2:7.
"So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name." Gen. 2:9.
"Every word of God proves true; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him." Prov. 30:5.
"The unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple." Ps. 119:130.
"The simple acquire folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge." Prov. 14:18.
"He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.." Dan. 2:21.
"In the pride of his countenance the wicked does not seek Him; all his thoughts are, "There is no God." Ps. 10:4.
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding." Job 38:4.
Hank Reardon| 8.5.10 @ 2:05PM
What is the most important prediction that neo-Darwinan Evolution has made?
cdc| 8.5.10 @ 2:52PM
My favorite predictions of evolution are the locations of various mineral deposits. But I suppose the most important would be the prediction mutatable molecules that wil transfer traits from one generation, these are commonly known today as DNA genes. Of course the most urgent one today is the development of resisant diseases and pests.
What is one single prediction of creationism/ID ? Something observable that wasn't expropriated from evolutionary theory.
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 8:10PM
Important prediction? It depends on whether you think the truth of our origins is important or not. You must think so, since you've entered a blog discussion on the topic.
Examples of evolutionary predictions:
- By using our understanding of evolution, tectonic plate theory and geology, scientists predicted where to dig to find undiscovered fish-to-amphibian transitional species.
- That we would continue to find transitional species all over the world.
- That we would find feathered dinosaurs.
- That the unique markers left in DNA by ancient retroviruses would follow a pattern that exactly matched the branching evolutionary tree of species.
There are many many others, several of which are available here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faq.....tion1.html
Hank Reardon| 8.5.10 @ 8:26PM
RickK
OK. An impressive list.
How were these predictions made? Is there a reference paper associated with each of them? For instance, is there a "feathered dinosaur paper" that I can reference?
I have never found the random mutation / natural selection explanation convincing for reasons that have nothing to do with the creation question. To put it simply, if a bear is going to turn into a whale, it has always seemed to me that it would become a bad bear long before it became a good whale. And given that the process was RANDOM, a VERY high standard, I just could never see it.
It seems to me that even in the reference URL you gave, there is still a confusion between common descent, which seems to be the theme of that material, and the "origin of species" - i.e. HOW a new species comes into existence. Not only are the changes random but they must occur in sequence AND each change must not only point toward the new species but be beneficial to the current species as it is. A VERY VERY high berm to get over.
RickK| 8.6.10 @ 12:08PM
You seem to think evolution is directed, working toward a new species. A bear doesn't decide to evolve into a whale (which is not how whales evolved). Changes don't happen in a pre-determined sequence.
At this point I must pause and say this: you have based your opinion on a very weak understanding of how evolution actually works. You may find this statement offensive or insulting, but I promise you that it is true. It's like me expressing strong opinions on automotive engine design - a topic about which I know very little. If you want to contribute in a useful way to discussions like this, if you want your opinion to have weight and merit, I STRONGLY recommend you read a good book or two on evolution. "The Blind Watchmaker" or "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Dawkins, "Evolution" by Zimmer - any of these will give you the basics.
As for your bears/whales example - bears didn't evolve in to whales. Think more of a wading mammal like a small hippo, or a cow that's fond of marshes.
Do you think, over time, a population of wading mammals might evolve to sometimes swim, sometimes wade? Let's say there's a bit more food in areas where their feet leave solid ground.
Do you think a population of wading/swimming mammals might evolve into mostly swimming, sometimes wading mammals? Let's say the water is filled with food, and the individuals that can wander a little farther off shore get more food and have more babies, who are like them (with minor, random variations).
And so on...
This is exactly what we find in the fossil record. This is exactly what we see in evolutionary studies of rapidly-reproducing organisms.
Once enough time has passed, enough evolutionary steps have separated different changing populations, we see them as different "species". So the population of barking mammals that stayed on land became dogs, and the population of barking mammals that took to the water became seals. That's an oversimplification, but this isn't a book, it's a textbox.
As for predictions - try Robert Bakker's "The Dinosaur Heresies" for predictions about feathered, fast, and warm-blooded dinosaurs. And here is a good link for the ERV pattern in primate DNA:
http://www.evolutionarymodel.com/ervs.htm
And for a great example of "we predict we'll find a novel new species HERE", look at this link:
http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/searching4Tik.html
(click the "next>" link to go thru the story board)
Happy reading!
Hank Reardon| 8.5.10 @ 3:22PM
cdc...
"But I suppose the most important would be the prediction mutatable molecules that wil transfer traits from one generation, these are commonly known today as DNA genes. "
What is the reference on that? The paper that presented it?
Brian| 8.5.10 @ 3:35PM
Every one knows humans evolved from a mud puddle. I seen it on TV. Maggots on dog poop have DNA like humans. My teachers taught me those maggots are my great grand daddies. Its science. Mud-maggots-man.
Bob| 8.5.10 @ 5:35PM
While this article feigns balance on the issue of evolution in our schools (something we never see on this issue in the main stream press and science journals), it could have been written by any advocate for the scientifically unsupportable status quo.
First, it generally berates anyone who believes in a young earth by referring to them merely as "young Earth creationists" (without regard for any of their academic credentials) and the others (i.e. those with "who make a more limited critique that Darwin's theory") as "scholars." Right up front its clear, you have religious zealots with no credibility on the one side of the issue (the young earth guys), and highly educated and therefore unbiased and thoughtful academics on the other. Not true, of course, but it sure bolsters the agenda of the writers position. (I'm wondering if any of these "scholars" were educated in the same institutions that trained up the global warming "experts" that think that CO2 has suddenly become the ultimate threat to mankind ?)
And I just love this one: "Science class -- in public schools, at least--should leave religious implications at the school door. Even if one doesn't agree with that policy, the federal courts are clear on the matter." "...LEAVE RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS AT THE DOOR." There isn't a legitimate scientist around that doesn't acknowledge the philosophical implications of much of the scientific evidence in both cosmology and biology, and now you're saying that we have to disregard it because it has been defined out of the picture by those with opposing religious worldviews... regardless of the evidence?. What happens when the evidence clearly discredits unguided materialist macro evolution and the age of the earth is insufficient for even speculative assumptions on the evolutionary processes that must have taken place to create the complexity of life we see on earth, and what happens when we reach back to just before the big bang and start throwing around words like "something from nothing" like we're talking about something that we've experienced on a daily basis, let alone are able to comprehend. The atheists have a death grip on evolution, and they cling to it with unbridled religious zealotry, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. It allows them to define the rules of the game, and fill in the scientific blanks with gross speculation that falls right into line with their worldviews and their philosophical viewpoint. And sorry, Bruce, but the federal courts have also ruled that atheism is a religious viewpoint. And if we are consistent, we would have to say that it also has no place in science class... wouldn't we? (Weren't the federal courts also the same authoritarian body that one time decided that some people were not as human as others, and could be sold into slavery? Wow, I'll hang my hat on that group of experts any day... or not!)
(I've always liked the work of the Discovery Institute, but now I'm beginning to wonder if I've should begin to examine their works more critically.)
RickK| 8.5.10 @ 8:00PM
"What happens when the evidence clearly discredits unguided materialist macro evolution"
Where do you get this stuff? Where is this "evidence to the contrary"? Please give us a sample of this evidence that disproves that species evolve.
Even Stephen Meyer doesn't dispute that "macro-evolution" occurs - that species evolve naturally over time to take on new and novel forms, driven primarily by natural selection.
So please - don't just claim all this evidence, show us!
Gabriel Hanna| 8.5.10 @ 6:07PM
This is what happens when people try to talk out of both sides of their mouths in the age of the Internet.
The Discovery Institute can no longer pretend that it only cares about science, when it's talking to a secular audience, and that it only cares about the God of Abraham, when it's talking to a religious one.
No one really believes in "intelligent design"--the DI fellows believe in the God of Abraham, and their supporters are creationists--and thus the Discovery Institute is caught if a cleft stick of its own cleaving.
If you abandon God to win a court case, you lose your creationist supporters, but you can't win in court talking about God.
The fundamental dishonesty of the Discovery Institute should be obvious to everyone by now.
Paul Burnett| 8.5.10 @ 10:06PM
Gabriel Hanna wsrote: "The fundamental dishonesty of the Discovery Institute should be obvious to everyone by now."
That's why more and more of us only refer to it as the "Dishonesty Institute." (And then there is the fact that the only thing they've "discovered" is how to scam money out of the Templeton Foundation and other religious folks.)
Eve| 8.5.10 @ 10:16PM
Well, well. "If you can't explain something simply, then you don't understand what your explaining well enough." Einstein
Simply put - Evolution is theory, piled upon theory, upon theory, upon theory. There is plenty of scientific evidence that can refute multiple aspects of evolution. So let's start at the beginning, like how did life begin? Science shuts evolutionist down right at the gate!
GOD on the other hand can not be proven or disproved to exist period.
So really at issue here is the fact that evolution is nothing other than a religion. Which IS being sponsored by our government. Which is against the constitution.
Thank you
RickK| 8.6.10 @ 9:18AM
Eve said: "There is plenty of scientific evidence that can refute multiple aspects of evolution."
Prove it.
Give us the single biggest piece of evidence that conflicts with evolutionary theory. I asked the same thing of Bob above.
If you're so very sure, let's hear it.
Richard| 8.6.10 @ 1:47AM
Mr. Chapman suddenly reminds me of the character Mark in That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis.
Where is the objectivity that made the D.I. so raw? Has the fossil record suddenly exploded with unfabricated transitional specimen? I dont think so.. poor Brontosaurus...he went extinct two times. But that happens often in paleontology. I have spent a lifetime following purported "findings" empirical or otherwise of the tenured academia. I have watched them change substantially from year to year. Each contradiction claiming some new tier of authority. Excuse me while I yawn. There is "faith" in any THEORY dumbasses. The only thing we do know, is that we dont know.. ok?
The Louisiana and federal laws would be better served if our schools taught our children HOW to think and not WHAT to think. Logic? In other words Darwinism is a DOCTRINE a DOGMA a FAITH just as is Intelligent Design. Get off your high horses and please deduct one point from the D.I. for lack of perspective.
GalapagosPete| 8.6.10 @ 3:17AM
Richard says, "There is "faith" in any THEORY..."
Not in the sense that you seem to believe. In science, "faith" is based on repeated observations, physical evidence and research. For example, in our experience, light from objects moving away from us is red-shifted, light from objects moving closer is blue-shifted. Scientists have "faith" in this as a fact and so use it in their observations. This "belief" is the results of decades of astronomical work.
Then there's the sort of faith you're thinking of, which is religious faith, based on wishful thinking.
Obviously there are two sorts of faith and cannot be considered the same sort of thing at all, any more than the colloquial use of "theory" and the scientific meaning of the word; the scientific meaning has rigor, which the other does not.
"Doctrine" and "dogma" are synonyms, and are correct with regard to IDC, but not evolutionary theory, any more than atomic theory. These are the best explanations we have for the observed phenomena and the evidence.
IDC is a fiction, intended not as a serious scientific explanation but solely to re-introduce religion into government-funded schools.
Richard| 8.6.10 @ 11:08PM
Negative sir
Ill explain. Faith exists in ALL judgments we make. There is no "soft faith" although I will agree that there are degrees of faith. Faith is used to fathom the unknown. Any SCIENTIST true to his discipline knows that old adage "The only thing we DO KNOW is that we DONT KNOW" Knowledge...what is that? The deeper we look the more we realize we dont understand.
Faith is everywhere. When you stand at the precipice and finally decide to jump you do so based on two things. Firstly your mind processes the available information provided by your senses. It uses it to perform all these complex geometric equations and provides you with a sense of probable success. That feeling ALWAYS has an element of the unknown associated with it. It is at this point you apply faith to your judgment. The adrenaline pumps (because its your first time) and you jump. Now, every time the jump is repeated the sense of the unknown diminishes and you trust to your success more and more. You are actually performing an experiment. (Not neccesarily a controlled lab experiment but then complete control doesnt exist anyway.) But heres the kicker. The "unknown" never really diminished. You were just "conditioned" to the jump. You never attained any new senses and the only information gleaned was to what degree of physical attunement you had to maintain to reproduce your results. At this point, an honest individual would recognize that faith is still present and needed. Just as it is needed in all judgments, because we just dont really know.
The sciences are the various disciplines of study of our reality. Science is the shared mechanism for the study. It is NOT a religion. Its actually a problem solving process. Darwinism is NOT science although many scientists might believe in it and wish it were so. Darwinism is a belief. It can't even really be a theory since its fundamental principles have never been observed and are therefore untestable. But there are a number of modern concepts that fit that description so its not really worth the effort. The point is that there is FAITH where there is UNKNOWN period.
What is interesting though, to compare how well it stands up to time. Im not sure why you mentioned a study of a few decades when the study of creation has been going on for millennia.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 5:03AM
Richard posted "Faith exists in ALL judgments we make."
No, only in areas where we lack experience and facts, and even then it is not the same as religious faith. I judge it safe to drive my car to work on the freeway not because I have faith that nothing will happen but because in my experience, if I am careful and aware the odds of something happening are reduced. I am aware that there are may things outside of my control but I accept the risk as unavoidable; it's just the danger inherent in driving.
"Faith is used to fathom the unknown."
Faith cannot help you fathom anything.
"Any SCIENTIST true to his discipline knows that old adage "The only thing we DO KNOW is that we DONT KNOW" Knowledge...what is that? The deeper we look the more we realize we dont understand."
No, scientists are aware that there is much more to learn, and that we will probably never know everything, but in fact we know quite a lot, more than we used to and not as much as we shall. And yes, the more we learn the more we realize there is TO learn. This is why scientists are excited by the unknown: the more that is unknown the more there is to learn.
[Long paragraph about why bungee jumping - or possibly sky diving - is fraught with unknowns and you need faith to get through it.]
No. I may say casually that I "have faith" in the operators of the bungee jump, but it's not the sort of faith you seem to think it is. That's merely a shorthand way of saying that I am aware that hundreds or thousands of people have done this before, that the physics are well-understood so the rope won't break or I hit the ground before the rope stops me. It is, if you will, evidence-based faith, which is not really faith at all.
And afterward, despite your insistence that the unknown has not diminished, in fact it has: not the unknown of the mechanics of the jump itself because that hasn't been an unknown for a long time, not even to me; but the unknown of whether I can overcome an irrational fear. Yes, there is a small chance something can go wrong - like driving; I am aware of that, but I accept the risk. Not because of faith, but because the evidence tells me that the risk is very small.
An honest person who was thinking clearly would admit that faith is not a factor here.
"Darwinism is NOT science although many scientists might believe in it and wish it were so."
Darwinian evolution, your personal desires notwithstanding, is most certainly science; that's why scientists work on it. You can make whatever claims you want about its untestability but that simply shows you don't understand the scientific method.
"Im not sure why you mentioned a study of a few decades when the study of creation has been going on for millennia."
A "study of creation"? What exactly were these people studying, and with what tools?
And while evolution has been researched for at least 150 years, we have learned more in the last few decades than in all of human history before that.
Dude| 8.6.10 @ 4:54AM
>>>"The scientists and political scientists at Discovery Institute -- colleagues of mine -- who actually know something about intelligent design, tried to dissuade them, but to no avail."
Bruce is lying. It was the DI who gave the school board "free legal advice" and said ID was totally legal to teach (Francis Beckwith if I recall correctly). It was only after the TMLC got involved and told them that that was probably a bad idea that the DI changed their tune.
>>>"Darwin's theory of evolution, as its main advocates assert it, presumes that there can be no scientific evidence against a totally unguided and unintelligent course to evolution. Evidence to the contrary is ruled out ahead of time."
Another lie. But what else can we expect from the president of the DI? Put simply, evidence for ID has simply never been presented. Which is why they rely on anti-evolution apologetics instead, appealing to the logical fallacy "If not A, therefore B".
The DI come up with a "scientific theory" of ID yet?
Didn't think so.
Paul Burnett| 8.6.10 @ 7:43AM
"Eve" recycles another tired old creationist lie: "So really at issue here is the fact that evolution is nothing other than a religion."
Nobody who accepts the fact of evolution or the body of theory explaining evolution refers to evolution as a religion. This charge that evolution is a religion derives from the scientific illiteracy and willful ignorance of the religious people who make this absurd charge - religion is the only metaphor they know, so that's what they use. They might as well call watching NFL football or NASCAR racing a religion.
Richard| 8.6.10 @ 9:26PM
So you've seen evolution Paul? I mean first hand eye witness of one species changing into another?
Funny how the whole Darwinism is religion binds you guys up so badly. Well the reason is simple. Its because evolution requires immense faith to believe. You have to have "faith" that things never witnessed first hand by anyone with the presence of mind to record what they were seeing have and are occurring. You have to believe a theory that is contrary to a number of principles used in everyday disciplines. But it is even far more than that. Why? because religion is not faith and faith is not religion. Religion is political. People of like world views join groups to support each other. But they dont always see eye to eye. So what do they do? They set forth an agreed dogma and stick to it quite often in opposition to clear quantifiable evidence, public opinion, common sense, haha ya. Ill offer a PRIME example of modern darwinistic dogma. Abiogenisis is no longer included in the argument for evolution. Why? Darwin himself knew that abiogenisis was key to the structural argument of evolution. What happened? Why has evolutionary theory changed so much since Darwins day? Has new evidence that directly supports the theory arisen? Nope what happens is peripheral data appears on the research scene and is co-opted by Darwinites as "OMG LUK WUT WEE FOWND" when in fact the data would only be relative if they key structural principles of evolutionary theory could be observed in some way.
Darwinism is a religion plain and simple
axbucxdu| 8.7.10 @ 12:23PM
Thanks, Richard. I've also noticed the careful exclusion of abiogenesis from the neo-darwinists' arguments. I mean, what was the title of Darwin's book? How easily (more like conveniently) they forget.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 4:38PM
Darwin's first book was "On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". He was presenting his theory of how life on Earth became diverse, not how it began. That was not part of his theory, so it is not part of evolutionary theory today.
Abiogenesis is a separate field of science. is it important to evolution? Yes, but it is not part of evolutionary theory, and even if we never figure out the origin of life, evolution stands on its own.
Human Ape | 8.6.10 @ 2:22PM
Bruce Chapman = Liar For Jeebus.
RickK| 8.6.10 @ 5:29PM
IN CONCLUSION:
Bruce Chapman and the Discovery Institute are trying to distance themselves from Livingston, LA.
How unfortunate. Unlike Mr. Chapman, the good people of Livingston are honest. When they want to teach children Christian Biblical creationism, they call it "creationism". They don't try to hide behind wiggle words like "Intelligent Design".
Even Bruce Chapman has said in what he thought was a private document that the Discovery Institute's goal is:
"To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God."
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
And the Discovery Institute's links to the situation in Livingston, LA are many and strong:
http://lasciencecoalition.org/.....itute-law/
How unfortunate, when a Louisiana school board resorts to honesty and proclaims their creationist agenda, the Discovery Institute turns tail and runs away.
Paul Burnett | 8.6.10 @ 9:36PM
Rick K pointed us to http://lasciencecoalition.org/.....itute-law/ which definitively proves there is no doubt whatsoever that the Dishonesty Institute's fingerprints are all over the Louisiana Pro-Creationism Act - and Bruce Chapman piously denies this.
Bruce Chapman also has not provided us with the names of the schools that have used "scientific evidence...against Darwinian theory." That's because they don't exist, because there is no such thing as "scientific evidence...against Darwinian theory."
The pseudoscience of intelligent design creationism loses more traction every day, as more and more of its lies are exposed.
RichardN| 8.7.10 @ 2:08AM
It took several decades to prove Piltdown man a fraud but it obviously served its purpose. Kind of reminds me of what the CRU was doing fudging evidence, smearing those who disagree etc.... Thank GOD it didn't take several decades for that one to unfold.
RickK| 8.7.10 @ 9:33AM
Piltdown Man - another example of the triumph of science.
Let's look at two frauds, shall we Richard?
Piltdown Man - a fossil claimed to be an early hominid. The owner made his claims, published some pictures, then locked the fossil away so nobody could examine it. Scientists demanded to see it, to ask questions, to QUESTION ONE OF THEIR OWN to ensure he was telling the truth. When the fossil was finally released, it was SCIENTISTS who exposed the forgery.
Now, let's look at Peter Popoff, a charlatan preacher who magically hear God's voice telling him personal details of the audience members at his well-attend prayer or revival meetings. Poor rural people, impressed with his apparent hotline to God put thousands of dollars they couldn't afford to give into his collection buckets. Of course, it was all a fraud - Popoff's wife, after gathering information off of people's ticket purchase forms and from conversations before the prayer meeting, would use a radio to feed Popoff information through a tiny earpiece he wore. His conman preacher act was the basis for the Steve Martin movie "Leap of Faith".
Was it other religious leaders who questioned Popoff's claims and exposed him as a fraud? Of course not - religion doesn't ask questions.
For that matter, was it other priests who exposed the pedophile scandal?
But it is scientists who have uncovered fraud after fraud and error after error among their ranks - polywater, N-Rays, Benveniste's homeopathy, Korean cloning scandal, cold fusion, Wakefield's MMR vaccine panic.... The list is endless.
Piltdown Man is just another example of how the scientific process, while messy and sometimes erratic, is the best system we have for seeking and FINDING the truth.
Thank you, Richard, for bringing it up.
Tulsa Jack| 8.6.10 @ 10:51PM
There is a Transcendent Eminence that creates all those, and only those, that do not create themselves. Does the Transcendent Eminence create itself? If it does, it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, then it does. Since this question has no answer, the premise that a divine creator, a metaphysical first cause, exists is indeterminate.
Eminent logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell could not resolve this “paradox of contradictory self reference,” which he restated from the Liar’s Paradox of Epimenides.
The positive solution is that God simply IS, with neither a beginning or an end. The Lord was not created, but is eternally existent and everlasting. I interpret the Bible to confirm this view. The corollary is that God and the Universe are One; the Two Worlds of Matter and Spirit combine in a Cosmic Harmony, sometimes called The Dance. This simple, archetypal belief is "The Perennial Philosophy." We are sparks of "Anima Mundi," the World Soul, enlivened for a moment and then returning to the Sea of Light. "Being exists in Essence as Potential" (Peter Quince).
Looked at this way, those who "dispute about it and about," in the words of Omar Khayyam, seem to me to be wasting time. If God is love, then Love is God, and rather than nod before the tavern door we should be doing our best to draw closer to our transcendent Father and Mother by working to increase the store of love in the world. Certainly only a fool would make the Big Guy mad at him.
RichardN | 8.7.10 @ 2:04AM
The Bible says God created man in his own image, darwinist say man evolved from a common ape like ancestor. Science is trying to make a monkey out of God.
Personally I'll go with two of the greatest scientist of all time.
In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence. -Newton
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. -Einstein
When the two get together again we understand more.
An interesting read here:
Galileo Redux
http://www.americandaily.com/article/8759
Margie| 8.7.10 @ 3:19PM
"The Bible says God created man in his own image, darwinist say man evolved from a common ape like ancestor. Science is trying to make a monkey out of God."
And if you believe Darwin, you are calling God a liar.
Paul Burnett| 8.7.10 @ 3:43PM
The difference between Darwin and God is it can be proven that Darwin existed.
Richard| 8.7.10 @ 4:24PM
There's another difference. Most people place value based on the fruits of the labor. And where Darwinism sowed death Judeo-Christianity has sown life. Switch on.. switch off..
The funny thing is is Darwinism would not exist but for the open mindedness of Western thought. And now that Darwinism has a foothold its plan for continued existence is to squelch the opposition. Further evidence of the frailty of the argument.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 6:41PM
"And now that Darwinism has a foothold its plan for continued existence is to squelch the opposition."
You're awfully loud for someone being "squelched"! But if that you mean "not allowed to present your religious beliefs in science class in public schools," well, alchemy is not presented in chemistry, astrology in astronomy or phrenology in physiology.
Why? Because even though they still have followers - especially astrology - they, at the very least, are not supported by evidence. Creationism is in the same boat: it still has followers but evidence is absent.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:54PM
Poor Margie, in her state she believes that scientists believe "Darwin". Scientists go with the data, and the data lead to common descent.
The poor Margie doll, hollow eyed and devoid of thinking capacity, even she shares common ancestry with everything else that is alive, though she herself, barely qualifies.
Margie| 8.7.10 @ 4:28PM
What? Why.. I'VE never actually seen him! (Darwin).
The diff between Darwin and God is that Darwin is dead.
"God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.: Ex. 3:14.
"Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." Jn. 8:58.
"Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.." Rmns. 1:20.
"Men, why are you doing this? We also are men, of like nature with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the Heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them." Acts 14:15.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 6:33PM
If you say that Darwin is dead you have conceded his existence.
However, you still have failed to present a convincing argument that your god ever existed. If you believe that childish arguments are better than no arguments at all, you are incorrect.
Margie| 8.8.10 @ 7:13PM
"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Cor. 1:18.
GalapagosPete| 8.9.10 @ 12:21PM
Why did you think that quoting a wholly self-serving statement from the bible would be in any way whatsoever convincing to anyone?
Margie| 8.9.10 @ 1:56PM
Because it's the truth. And it IS convincing to those who are honestly seeking it. It's up to you.
"You will seek Me and find Me; when you seek Me with all your heart.." Jer. 29:13.
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." Prov. 9:10.
If you have no interest in, and no fear of God in you, you are lost. And if you miss Salvation, you've missed everything.
GalapagosPete| 8.10.10 @ 2:18AM
I'm sure you think it's the truth, but why should I? You present no evidence, only quotes from your holy book.
You seem to be coming from a philosophy that we all really believe in your god but that some of us are resisting this belief. I assure you that this is not the case. The burden of proof is on you, and you have failed to meet it. Until you or someone meets that burden, there's gonna be a lot of atheists, and, I suspect, more all the time.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:58PM
Poor broken minded Margie the Pullstring Doll.
She doesn't have a clue as to how science works, how scientists think, or that evolution is not a religious issue.
She thinks that to be a scientist is to be an atheist, when that isn't true. Atheists get to non-belief the same way that religionists get to belief----by reading the Bible. (Brain on, of course.)
Poor Margie....
axbucxdu| 8.7.10 @ 6:26PM
"Evolutionary biologists act certain that they know HOW new life forms originate and complexify. But they don't.... Many biologists claim they know for sure that random mutation (purposeless chance) is the source of inherited variation that generates new species of life and that life evolved in a single-common-trunk dichotomously branching-phylogenetic tree pattern. "No!" I say. Then how did one species evolve into another? This profound research question is assiduously undermined by the hegemony who flaunt their "correct" solution.... Our zealous research, ever faithful to the god who dwells in the details, openly challenges such dogmatic certainty. This is science."
Ref: Margulis, Lynn (2006). "The Phylogenetic Tree Topples," American Scientist vol. 94, p. 194.
RickK| 8.7.10 @ 9:57PM
ok, axbucxdu, now comes one of those tests of integrity.
What EXACTLY was Lynn Margulis referring to in that quote? Can you tell us?
She is frequently misquoted by creationists. So here's your chance to demonstrate if you can describe precisely what Lynn Margulis was talking about.
If you get it right, then it will demonstrate that you have both integrity and an understanding of some subtle issues in evolutionary theory.
So let's have it.
RickK| 8.8.10 @ 10:15AM
*crickets*
Lynn Margulis was referring to disagreement over the role of symbiosis in providing evolutionary variation. She was NOT arguing against the fundamental principle that species evolve through natural mechanisms involving replication, variation and natural selection.
axbucxdu| 8.8.10 @ 3:53PM
Not so fast. She seemed to be saying more than that, but I'm no telepath so let's quote her again in her own words:
"But many biologists claim they know for sure that random mutation (purposeless chance) is the source of inherited variation that generates new species of life and that life evolved in a single-common-trunk, dichotomously branching-phylogenetic-tree pattern! "No!" I say. Then how did one species evolve into another? This profound research question is assiduously undermined by the hegemony who flaunt their "correct" solution. Especially dogmatic are those molecular modelers of the "tree of life" who, ignorant of alternative topologies (such as webs), don't study ancestors. Victims of a Whiteheadian "fallacy of misplaced concreteness," they correlate computer code with names given by "authorities" to organisms they never see! Our zealous research, ever faithful to the god who dwells in the details, openly challenges such dogmatic certainty. This is science. "
And now mine: In general, she's complaining about those that argue their evolutionary views, wrt the HOW mechanism, with certainty, when the basis for that confidence is nothing more than seriously outdated or incomplete information (e.g., alternate topologies, like networks. Though I'd take her analogy here a step further, to consider the idea some put forth that life is organized somewhat like the internet, where organisms exchange information not only vertically between generations of the same species, but horizontally across contemporary life forms in REAL TIME. After all, the network's purpose is communication, and the more robust the connections and the higher the speed, the better. But all of this clearly lies outside Darwin's original ideas, as she describes them anyway.), an ABSTRACT and antiseptic separation from the subject of study, and of course when it's maintained at the obvious expense of ignoring other data and fields of study.
She also has an obvious problem with brute force randomness. Good. So do I.
Now in particular, I'd also say that she doesn't appreciate the invasion of biology by the concepts of system theory with its supporting army of number crunchers (the swipe at molecular modelers). Here she sounds too much like a newbie, encountering what E. Atlee Jackson of the Santa Fe Institute calls the Second Metamorphosis of Science, for the first time. Tough, is what I say.
The genetics is destiny fad might be on its way out, maybe to be supplanted by epigenetics and minimum energy and/or transport, who knows, but all I can say here is that she'd better brush up on her abstract algebra. Like Jackson implies, the modelers are entrenched for good reason, so she may as well get used to it.
Regardless of my interpretation, upstream in the editorial she states flatly, and courageously in my opinion, that evolutionary biologists do not understand the HOW mechanism of descent and subsequent development. Despite the undisputed empirical facts that she cites to support what I would call Darwin's first order approximation
(natural selection) of how species develop, that's still a fatal admission. In my book a valid scientific theory can always, at least in the abstract, be used for engineering: the HOW is paramount.
No HOW, then no way: there's too much wiggle room for human opinion otherwise.
You know, despite being immersed in it daily, darwinists could benefit from a study of complexity, on neutral territory say, a place like Santa Fe. They'd have a better grasp of not only the problem at hand, but more importantly, of their limitations at solving it with natural selection.
Incidently, the Margulis quote from my previous post was pulled from a 2009 In Context article from the Nature Institute's Craig Holdredge. It's not immediately apparent that they have any ID/creationist affiliation.
And your post above, where you unilaterally determined the rules of engagement, makes me think she's talking about people like you. Is she? Let's have it.
P.S. I'll be be happy to have my lollipop shipped USPS.
RickK| 8.8.10 @ 9:03PM
Ahh, very good! You did some homework to understand the context of your quote. Then you now must know that Lynn Margulis unambiguously rejects creationism, intelligent design, or any attempt to insert a supernatural agent in the wonderful workings of nature.
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 10:02PM
Margulis is upping the ante, she's not raiding the game.
axbucxdu| 8.14.10 @ 9:55AM
Indeed, John. As she herself states, it needs to be upped. I wouldn't be surprised though, that when the dust settles, the laws of physics and those of systems, information, and communication theory will trump natural selection.
Frd| 8.7.10 @ 6:39PM
You people arguing with atheists about the evolution of body parts are being trolled.
When scientists can explain the fact that evolution works in reverse of their own concept of the law of thermodynamics then there is a start to the debate.
Then I want to see protoplasm formed on its own into a single complex cell. I want to see that cell, without dna programming from a previous cell, split, and form male and female, while having no way to process energy or respirate, survive long enough to suddenly generate a new type of cell.
Your so called scientific proof is still looking at life forms already created. I'll await the book that explains this process with pictures. Thanks.
RickK| 8.7.10 @ 10:02PM
What are you talking about?
Evolution explains that your ancestry goes back through thousands of "species". Evolution explains that you are blood relative of every living thing on this planet. Evolution explains what some native tribes instinctively understand - that all life is directly connected.
In other words, evolutionary theory tells us more about our true origins than all the holy scripture and all the philosophy from the entirety of man's history.
That's a fine accomplishment.
axbucxdu| 8.7.10 @ 7:03PM
"Frd| 8.7.10 @ 6:39PM
You people arguing with atheists about the evolution of body parts are being trolled. "
Allow me to abbreviate Werner Heisenberg: "The problem exists only so long as we are unaware of it. When it is recognized, we can consider the danger as half-removed."
It seems the Discovery Institute stimuli provoked the expected (and dutiful) response.
Paul Burnett| 8.7.10 @ 7:37PM
"axbucxdu" wrote: "It seems the Discovery Institute stimuli provoked the expected (and dutiful) response. "
It usually does - that's what Bruce Chapman is complaining about: The creationists try to defend intelligent design creationism, displaying their scientific illiteracy and willful ignorance in its defense. This just proves over and over again that intelligent design creationism is purely a religious issue, not a scientific issue. All you gotta do is look who defends it most fervently.
Richard| 8.7.10 @ 11:12PM
ID has been ridiculed by the academically obsolete who fear it challenges their attempted stranglehold on the common sense values and direction of our country. If the academic obsolete (people who fail in the real world) were true to the fundamentals of science they would embrace the relevance and possibility of ID/IC as presented by Meyers/Behe respectively as they are valid theory. But no.. the author, Chapman was shmoozing so he could get invited to nurd conventions where the tenured academia stroke each others peens. And throwing the Creationists under the bus in typical nurd fashion. Its what nurds do sometimes around bullys.
As I have said before in previous posts, Darwinism requires as much if not more faith than Creationism. It is in fact a religion with its own dogma and hierarchy. I will gladly debate point by point the falacies of Darwinism and its pretended evidence any day of the week.
Want to start with the speculative nature of the fossil record? How about co-opting irrelevant phenomena like nylonase? How about all the failed attempts at forcing evolution ie: fruit flies? (Something I might add Darwin thought necessary in his original writings) or maybe studies with fabricated results or unscientific methodologies ie: Peppered Moth? What about problems with peer-review? Id mention abiogenisis but eh I hate kicking nurds when theyre under the table.
See you quacks might have the judges, and you might have the schools, but you dont have the general populace. And Almighty God gave us tools to deal with peen-bean condescending Darwinites which are reason and sensibility.
RickK| 8.7.10 @ 11:51PM
Richard said: "As I have said before in previous posts, Darwinism requires as much if not more faith than Creationism."
Yes, you said it before, and you were wrong then just as you're wrong now.
As the 12,000 Christian clergy who signed this letter would attest, you're just transmitting ignorance and displaying hubris, Richard.
"We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. "
-- Butler College Clergy Letter
Richard| 8.9.10 @ 1:08AM
sounds like they need to loosen their collars and let the blood flow...
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 5:18AM
"Want to start with the speculative nature of the fossil record?"
Speculative in what respect?
"How about co-opting irrelevant phenomena like nylonase?"
How is an example of evolution irrelevant to evolution?
"How about all the failed attempts at forcing evolution ie: fruit flies?"
What do you think the researchers were trying to accomplish with fruit flies?
"...or maybe studies with fabricated results or unscientific methodologies ie: Peppered Moth?
What do you think the Peppered Moth exhibit was intended to demonstrate?
"What about problems with peer-review?"
To what specific problems with peer review do you refer?
"Id mention abiogenisis but eh I hate kicking nurds when theyre under the table..."
And because you don't understand what abiogenesis actually is or even that it isn't a part of evolution.
Richard| 8.9.10 @ 1:03AM
Speculative nature of the fossil record:
EMOlutionists attempt to co-opt the evidence of the fossil record because they want to show a progression of natural adaptations. Problem number one is there is an old saying that says, "If you are looking for something, you will find it" Now maybe that is part of the human condition but it is something science must try to reject. True scientists MUST be skeptical. Problem number two is most fossils are fragmentary or by their very nature decayed in some fashion. This leads to people "filling in the blanks" We understand of course that most anybody with a few years of anatomy under their belt has some ability to extrapolate information based on imperfect data, but that cannot be considered "science" That is speculation. Speculation leads to and encourages more speculation until you get outright fabrication to keep the money flowing.
An age old example is the Brontosaur/Apatosaur head. Another example is A. Afarensis. It is well known Johansen was in competition with Leakey at the time. It is also well known that his current grant was about to be pulled just prior to his discovery. And then we get to his discovery... Well part of the remains were found one day and the other parts on the following day some distance away... What was the geological data? What other remains were found in the area? Only a portion of the original skeleton was found in relative order. The rest was found and subjectivly assembled. Hrrmn I read the original reports saying that the remains were found among many other fossils. The Hadar is a desert area subject to flash floods. Was this the kill site of some carnivore? anyway there were a lot of unanswered questions but Mr Johansen needed the bills sooo...anyway it is logical to reason that where you find conditions conducive to fossil creation you would expect to find a lot. Well problem is... we see vast and to date UNKNOWN variety in the animal kingdom. This living variety is beyond our current abilities to catalog. How do we presume to catalog the pieces parts of the unliving? any honest paleontologist will say this. Its just a guessing game unless you have complete specimen like those Wales Icthyasaur specimen for example.
Im sure most emos cringe at mention of lucy or brontosaur but that is just the tip of the iceberg. For example every time I turn around there's some new form of proto-animalia in the news. Once thought to be extinct NOW ALIVE AFTER 189743562852 years!!! Heh funny thing is these same or similar creatures are used in models showing progressive evolution ie: the typical fish to reptile diagram. Well heres some news for everyone, bony fishes exist today, in fact they are everywhere, as do fish with stiff fins, as do amphibians that breath air and water!!! quick get the newsman! It is speculation that attributes a successive order to these creatures. There are NO transitory specimen ever found period. I know people CLAIM to have found transitional specimen but they havent. What a transitional specimen NEEDS to show is actual intermediary skeletal formations in a reasonably successive order. Please dont link the BS on pandathumbs or talkorigins. Half that stuff was discredited years ago like the horse ancestor crap please... I thought evolutionary theory states we will see progressive adaptation and that said adaptation would breed out the weak and thus change the species? heh yea well guess not eh? So anyway the fossil record is scattered and fragmentary at best but since we have "intermediary" species alive today like I guess mudskippers? then why not subject a given population to some environmental change ie: less and less water and predict a change to a terrestrial form? oops I forgot, people have been trying this for years with no success so far. But that's the scientific method isnt it? If you want me to believe that your subjective analysis of the fossil record is accurate then repeat it.
==================================
"How is an example of evolution irrelevant to evolution?"
It is relevant to perhaps speciation but not "evolution" in the sense that modern apostles of darwin use. To say that bacteria can now digest well anything is like saying hound dogs can now follow a 4 day trail in the rain... Impressive but not really decisive in any new way that supports the theory of emolution.
==================================
[ "...or maybe studies with fabricated results or unscientific methodologies ie: Peppered Moth?
What do you think the Peppered Moth exhibit was intended to demonstrate? ]
It's irrelevant what they were trying to demonstrate. The ends do not justify the means.
==================================
"To what specific problems with peer review do you refer? "
Peer review was originally designed to protect the scientific community from embarrassment. Believe it or not a multitude of quacks were setting themselves up as "scientists" to deceive the public for their own financial gain. Review of ones studies was meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. Why? MONEY The more valid you seem the more likely your funding continues. Up until now there is nothing wrong as long as intellectual honesty and true skepticism prevail. What happened is that the community became increasingly political and self-preserving and in recent years has used the mechanism of peer-review to ostracize legit studies and peoples like the DI for instance. The new claim is that review by the elitists of the scientific community is the last word and either makes or breaks a study. Well, there is rarely consensus but by and large there is an overwhelming prejudice against certain ideas. A number of post on this board demonstrate this concept with clarity. Well the ULTIMATE review is the public. Unfortunately the elites dont seem to think we matter. Thats why people like Phil Jones get reinstated with out so much as a decent reach around. The more the community attempts to squelch reasonable argument the more the public will hold the community in contempt.
==================================
"And because you don't understand what abiogenesis actually is or even that it isn't a part of evolution. "
ok..I know modern Darwinian zealots have removed abiogenisis from their model but Darwin knew it was the primary structural argument for his theory of evolution. Why? because if your argument is undirected process causes change among species then logic dictates same undirected processes generated original life. The argument is that evolution continues to date right? Well the problem is The Grand Darwininian Diocese deemed the concept potentially derogatory to their overall argument and removed it contrary to common sense and intellectual honesty. It is in fact a prime example of the zealous dogma inherent in modern Darwinism.
GalapagosPete| 8.10.10 @ 2:39AM
Let's take this in chunks.
"...there is an old saying that says, 'If you are looking for something, you will find it...'"
I've never heard that one, and it seems unlikely to be true, because if it were true every single hypothesis in science would be a theory because *everyone* would find evidence of their hypothesis being true, and scientific discovery would be chaotic and impossible.
"True scientists MUST be skeptical."
Skeptical doesn't mean rejecting every explanation until a perfect one is found.
"Speculation leads to and encourages more speculation until you get outright fabrication to keep the money flowing."
*Informed* speculation leads to answers. Of course there's speculation in science. There has to be; that's how the discovery process gets started. Ultimately, however, is is the evidence that carries the day.
"An age old example is the Brontosaur/Apatosaur head."
Yes, the Apatosaurus skeleton in Yale's Peabody Museum had the wrong head from about 1870 to 1970; this was corrected 40 years ago. By scientists, some of whom apparently had suspected it for some years.
There have been mistakes and frauds in all of science, not just evolution; this does not mean that the entire discipline should be discarded, just that scientists should be more careful. However, as in all human endeavor, there will always be mistakes, and there will always be those who commit fraud for one reason or another.
Unless you can demonstrate that these rare examples indicate that the entire fossil record is fatally flawed, you're wasting your time here.
Richard| 8.11.10 @ 10:00PM
-Ill follow your example and respond in chunk fashion-
(( "...there is an old saying that says, 'If you are looking for something, you will find it...'"
I've never heard that one, and it seems unlikely to be true, because if it were true every single hypothesis in science would be a theory because *everyone* would find evidence of their hypothesis being true, and scientific discovery would be chaotic and impossible. ))
another way of saying this is "people see what they want to see" The concept is sound, and common to the human condition. The scientific method was developed primarily to combat this. That is the whole emphasis on objectivity.
(( "True scientists MUST be skeptical."
Skeptical doesn't mean rejecting every explanation until a perfect one is found. ))
I never said that or meant to imply it. But there is a difference between "honest skepticism" and outright rejection of all judgment. For example in the interest of sanity and progress we accept certain theory to be true or given. We call these things laws or postulates. We use them to disprove theory. Im sure everyone here is already aware of all this.
((*Informed* speculation leads to answers. Of course there's speculation in science. There has to be; that's how the discovery process gets started. Ultimately, however, is is the evidence that carries the day. ))
Um no...The discovery process begins with "OBSERVING" something and asking questions. What was observed and what questions were asked that lead to the theory of evolution?
re: Bronto head/ Lucy examples
Ok if you think those are the ONLY examples out there then you either arent that old or have been misinformed. I just like using them and Piltdown bc it pisses of evo poeple hehe. Ever heard of Chinese fossil fakes? China has inundated the fossil market with extremely well done fabrications. but that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Just because we can see the fakes of 100 years past doesnt mean they dont exist today. What makes us so different from our forefathers?
GalapagosPete| 8.10.10 @ 2:44AM
"Well part of the [Lucy] remains were found one day and the other parts on the following day some distance away..."
Lucy's bones were all found at one location; another, unrelated knee joint was found prior to Lucy, some distance away, but it had nothing to do with Lucy.
"I read the original reports saying that the remains were found among many other fossils."
What of it? They weren't hominid fossils.
"...anyway it is logical to reason that where you find conditions conducive to fossil creation you would expect to find a lot."
Why? There aren't dinosaur or hominid graveyards, you know.
"Im sure most emos cringe at mention of lucy or brontosaur but that is just the tip of the iceberg."
I wouldn't know; what's an emo?
"...every time I turn around there's some new form of proto-animalia in the news. Once thought to be extinct NOW ALIVE AFTER 189[,]743[,]562[,]852 years!!!"
I'd like to see anything that's almost 190 billion years old. That's almost 14 times as old as the universe!
But as for animals thought to be extinct turning out not to be: why not? There's no law that says old species *have* to be extinct. We just had old fossils and hadn't turned up any living specimens, so it was assumed they'd died off. See the sentence in the above paragraph about mistakes in science.
Personally I'm hoping dinosaurs are discovered on a plateau in Africa or South America. *That* would be totally cool.
Richard| 8.11.10 @ 10:48PM
re: Lucy
The point is Johansen marketed Lucy as "The Missing Link" Magazines and journals proliferated with declarations like "Origin of Man Question Answered!" and "Owned Creationists!!!" ...that was the point. Get it?
re: dino/hominid graveyards
Maybe not "graveyards" but Im sure youre aware that most paleontologists look for fossils in rock formations believed to have once been part of shallow slow moving water features ie shale/ sandstone? Or that when these locations are subject to natural erosionthey evidence a high probability of discovery?
emo = slang for evolutionistarian. Short for emotional, the term is used to descibe people of the Darwinistic bent that become overly emotional when their religion is attacked.
"I'd like to see anything that's almost 190 billion years old. That's almost 14 times as old as the universe! "
might be 19,000,000 times even!
re: extinct animals come to life
The point is the concept was of this primordial fauna giving way to more advanced species when the concept that modern species ARE more advanced, better adapted, or that even some linear sequence exists is completely arbitrary. HAH I recall when coelacanth lived in warm shallow seas! I guess the rent was too high so he had to move...
re: dino-plataeu
Maybe even miniature versions on a S. Pacific island or arboreal versions in the Amazon?
GalapagosPete| 8.12.10 @ 11:50AM
He marketed it that way, or the media did?
No scientist is going to claim he's found the "missing link" because there's no such thing. He'd be ridiculed by his colleagues.
Richard| 8.12.10 @ 11:52PM
"He marketed it that way, or the media did?"
with out offering any evidence I ask you which answer inspired his patrons? Furthermore, if you are willing to agree that [someone] published material indicating A. Afarensis was either possibly or probably the proverbial missing link, then where was Johansens public renouncement?
Please dont get indignant over the fallacies of man. Like Ive said before, the scientific community like most human organizations is rife with corruption and error. Embryology anyone?
GalapagosPete| 8.13.10 @ 1:48AM
"[W]ithout offering any evidence..."
Refreshing honesty, that!
"...I ask you which answer inspired his patrons?"
His "patrons"? You mean the Medici's?
His *funding* came from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and supporters and board members of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, which you could have found out yourself if you were really interested in the truth. Took me all of two minutes. Okay, maybe three. It's in the acknowledgments for the book Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins, which I found online.
Do these sound like people who be impressed by a scientist seriously claiming that he had found *the* missing link? *A* missing link, absolutely; but not *the* missing link.
renounce: 1. to give up or put aside voluntarily: to renounce worldly pleasures. 2. to give up by formal declaration: to renounce a claim. 3.
to repudiate; disown: to renounce one's son.
Well, 1 doesn't apply at all; 2 doesn't because he can't renounce someone's else's claim, only his own, and he never made a claim he had to renounce; 3 doesn't because he didn't have to disown anything.
So I'm going to assume that in your eagerness to libel Johanson through innuendo what you really meant to say was, "Why didn't he correct the public misunderstanding?"
I'm sure he did when he was being interviewed by some "science" writer for a newspaper or magazine who mentioned the missing link, but it's like constantly having to explain to creationists that the origin of *life* is not and never has been part of the theory of evolution. In spite of the fact that they cannot locate a point in time when the theory included abiogenesis, much less a point when - how did you put it? Oh, yes - "...modern Darwinian zealots have removed abiogenisis [sic] from their model...", you insist it *must* have been in there. It wasn't; never has been.
"Rife with corruption and error"?
"Rife"? Really?
1. of common or frequent occurrence; prevalent; in widespread existence, activity, or use: Crime is rife in the slum areas of our cities. 2. current in speech or report: Rumors are rife that the government is in financial difficulty. 3. abundant, plentiful, or numerous.
So corruption and error are abundant in science and most human organizations; corruption and error are plentiful in science and most human organizations; are of common or frequent occurrence; prevalent; in widespread existence, activity, or use.
And you don't think you're overstating this just a little bit? All *I* said was that the media got it wrong, as they frequently do. But not because they're rife with corruption - error, perhaps, but not corruption.
Richard| 8.13.10 @ 3:38AM
emo much?
rife ...really
there is neither "A" missing link or "THE" missing link.
Richard| 8.13.10 @ 5:12AM
Just watched a History channel presentation on magnetic fields. They just claimed to DATE paleomagneticly a Martian rock to 1.9 Billion years old. Hrrmn How did they calibrate that? Im sure you wont understand the significance of what I jsut said but rest assured it is a prime example of what ive been saying.
GalapagosPete| 8.11.10 @ 11:51AM
Richard says, "I know modern Darwinian zealots have removed abiogenisis [sic] from their model but Darwin knew it was the primary structural argument for his theory of evolution. Why? because if your argument is undirected process causes change among species then logic dictates same [some?] undirected processes generated original life."
Darwin was very interested in the origin of life, considered it quite important, had an idea of his own about it, but nowhere will you find that he said that not knowing it invalidates evolution.
As I wrote elsewhere, not knowing how the Sun works does not mean that our theories of photosynthesis are in any way invalidated or even made less important.
However, you are free to show us where Darwin said that never discovering the origin of life would invalidate his theory; where abiogenesis was a part of the original theory; and where and when it was removed and by whom.
Richard| 8.12.10 @ 11:30PM
RE: Darwin and the Elusive Puddle of Muck
Well if settling on the the title "Origins of Life due to the Process of Natural Selection" doesnt convince you then I dont know what will!!
Richard| 8.12.10 @ 11:42PM
Actually there are three core questions that are the basis for all human motivation. They are; "Who am I?" "What am I?" and "Where did I come from?" Wars are fought, children reared, and nations are built all in pursuit of these three mysteries. Scientific studies are performed to study our world and ultimately answer one of these three questions. So which one does the Origin of Species want to answer?
Richard| 8.13.10 @ 12:45AM
"As I wrote elsewhere, not knowing how the Sun works does not mean that our theories of photosynthesis are in any way invalidated or even made less important. "
Theres a HUGE difference between observing a phenomena and hypothesizing to its mechanics and "ASSUMING" a phenomena exists and attaching other natural phenomena to it to create the illusion of validity and supply its proponents with a wellspring of data to confuse the argument and inundate its opponents with irrelevant evidence.
By the way "Gravity" is also an observable and measurable phenomena. It makes evolutionists look like retards when they attempt to co-opt observable measurable phenomena into their arguments
GalapagosPete| 8.13.10 @ 2:07AM
The existence of evolution is as well-established in science as that of photosynthesis. Your opinion notwithstanding, evolution is a fact.
But that wasn't my point.
Not knowing all parts of a process does not invalidate our explanations of those parts we *do* understand.
We have fossils, we have geology, we have radiometric dating, we have DNA; All these things are consistent with an ancient Earth - that's ancient as in *billions*, not *thousands* of years - on which life formed billions of years ago and gradually changed in form and complexity.
We got the science, we got the facts. You, on the other hand, got nuthin'. So if *we're* retards - nice word, by the way, I always love it when so-called Christians show their true colors, their complete contempt for those who don't buy their snake oil - that still puts us way above you.
GalapagosPete| 8.13.10 @ 1:51AM
Are you seriously unable to read the difference between "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" and "Origins of Life due to the Process of Natural Selection"?
Seriously?
GalapagosPete| 8.13.10 @ 2:21AM
And so, Richard, I bid you adieu. I'd like to say it's been educational but in fact you've offered nothing new, just the same recycled rubbish creationists keep offering up in lieu of reality.
And there's the main difference: science keeps learning, creationism does not; in fact, creationists deride learning as science showing that it's wrong, or as you would say, "rife with corruption and error."
No doubt you'll go on spewing out your falsehoods, not knowing or not caring that they are falsehoods; and when pinned down you head off somewhere else entirely. (The "three core questions that are the basis for all human motivation" indeed!) Or you depart from reality entirely by re-titling Darwin's seminal work with one that completely changes the meaning.
I leave you with a final thought: apparently you believe that one day you'll stand before your god, and he will look into your soul and demand you account for yourself. Do you truly think that telling him, "I deliberately kept myself ignorant so that I could say whatever I thought needed to be said for your greater glory" will be met with approval?
Do you really think your god is that stupid?
Richard| 8.13.10 @ 3:34AM
haha
your overly emotional responses show the weakness of your argument. Im surprised you didnt correct my punctuation as well?
If you didnt notice the "re-title" was a joke... its called rhetoric and used to make a point. guess they never taught that back in your Episcopal Church of Latter Day Darwinism?
You might not understand the "three question" thing but that doesnt invalidate it. Im just sorry that your education was so weak... I really am and dont mean that sarcastically. It is in fact the reason I originally posted here. Its a sad fact that in Darwins day people were taught how to think. Now a days we just regurgitate data spoon fed by others.. quite sad
I have no qualms about my actions. I dont claim to always be right but I claim to have done what I thought best and contrary to what you seem to think am far more open to external input than most, yourself included.
Brenda Tucker | 8.8.10 @ 2:09PM
I studied new age literature in theosophy and Saint Germain Foundation for over 20 years and then had an epiphany. If you want to read about a new theory of evolution discernible within this literature, you could search the word: girasas which I designed to use in reference to a higher kingdom that is descending into the human kingdom. The reverse side to this current trend is the descent of the human into the animal. In the process of human becoming material through the animal kingdom, the e. animals (evolving animals) were ascended off the earth. According to this view or theory, what we see around us are involving animals, plants, and minerals or i. animals for short.
Due to these new concepts and meanings: girasas, involution, i. animals, and a few others such as shistas, we can DECIPHER what we find in books such as the ones I have read outside of the school system to provide deeper meaning to our understanding of evolution.
While humans on earth today would be evolving and we would be meeting and interacting with another evolving kingdom at this time, the girasas kingdom, the other lives on the planet create an illusion for us of evolution because we see the complete (relatively completed) gamut of forms from higher to lower. There are many filled in creatures from the e. animal stage to the human stage.
The theory that is detailed a bit on my website, but also in internet postings by me, puts the evolving animals at a point about midway through their entire growth which extends from plant to human.
With a kingdom descending into the human (or animal or plant) and then sharing that form for a time before the lower kingdom vacates the earth, we have the illusion that we are better than we are because of the interactions and learning that takes place.
A book such as THE SECRET DOCTRINE by H.P. Blavatsky could be a resource that is used to present this alternative theory to Darwin's and in fact it was published in 1888. People have elected to reject this work, and I myself, felt compelled to drop out of college in order to study the material with a more knowledgeable group in a more conducive environment, namely while a staff member at The Theosophical Society.
While studying there, I never once heard their ideas presented in the way that I am presenting them to you (and to others over the past 15 years) now. No one bothered to name a kingdom that descends into humans even though Jesus Christ often speaks of this kingdom in the Bible. In fact, an intentional BLIND is used by H.P. Blavatsky in writing THE SECRET DOCTRINE by her putting limits on the number of kingdoms that evolve on earth throughout 7 rounds. She gives details of the 7 kingdoms that are required to inhabit a globe such as earth with the human kingdom being the highest of 7 kingdoms.
In order to connect the dots, we must see the necessity of taking her fundamental presentation of life one step further by allowing a girasas kingdom to descend into humans and ascend us off the globe just as each kingdom has encountered before us. The difference would be that the girasas kingdom is not limited in their existence to this round-taking that occurs in the kingdoms that exist on earth. They may very well have graduated into another type of evolutionary-existence though their duties and tasks take them back to earth at the time humans make their ascent as they are needed in the process.
The illusion that the life around is evolving is enhanced by the fact that the girasas kingdom may have angelic lives (those are all the involving kingdoms) that accompany them and so when they begin their descent they bring with them angels that they somehow work into our ecological systems and where our human (accompanying) angels complete their tasks the girasas angels begin the further development for their own occupation of the forms. Likewise, we will trade some of our angels off to the animal kingdom so that as evolution occurs so does growth in our environments simultaneously.
Adam fits in nicely with this scenario because each of the 7 human races has a buried shista or prototype to be used as a starting point from the last time the earth was inhabited by humans (see my webpage). Adam is drawn up from its burial place and converted (last round was watery) from a water-dwelling human into a land-dwelling human. When this occurs for the fifth race, our present race, there is already in existence a fourth race on the earth (which we are told has since become completely extinct), and hence the form needs to become capable of living on land as well as capable of replacing the previous race. (The 4th race has no contact with any indwelling evolving animal as all animals were ascended in the previous 3rd race and totally off the earth.)
Here is a theory that I can present to you with the addition of the word girasas which could be presented as giving meaningful insight to life and why religions differ. Each religion as well as each continent is said to exist in a special relationship with one of the races, so that Egypt would be first race, India second, Greece third, China fourth, Europe fifth, N. America, S. America, and Australia (future) sixth, Africa seventh. The religions correspond with Egyptology, Hinduism, Mythology, Buddhism, Christianity, ???????, and Judaism (7th subrace of 5th race)-Muslim (7th subrace of future 6th race).
At least we could understand why Christianity keeps its form of teaching and instruction to humans even in the face of "overwhelming" evidence against its logical truth. But then, the beauty of science is that they constantly refute each other and even the 98% similarity that we have so often heard of human and ape is being altered (see SURVIVAL OF THE SICKEST) to the current understanding that only 3% of our human DNA is actually involved in the building of our forms and nearly half of the remaining DNA takes part in advancement of our lives in regard to our health and ability to fight disease or adapt to disease causing agents.
James| 8.8.10 @ 6:12PM
“And the salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred.” Wolfgang Smith, Teilhardism and the New Religion
“I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.” Søren Løvtrup, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth
“Nowhere was Darwin able to point to one bona fide case of natural selection having actually generated evolutionary change in nature….Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.” Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crises
“The theory of evolution is impossible. At base, in spite of appearances, no one any longer believes in it….Evolution is a kind of dogma which the priests no longer believe, but which they maintain for their people.” Paul Lemoine. Encyclopedie Francaise 1937 edition
“Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution, we do not have one iota of fact.” Dr. T. N. Tahmisian Evolution and the Emperor's New Clothes by N.J. Mitchell
"Today the tables are turned. The modified, but still characteristically Darwinian theory has itself become an orthodoxy, preached by its adherents with religious fervor, and doubted, they feel, only by a few muddlers imperfect in scientific faith." M. Grene, Faith of Darwinism,"
"The main problem in reconstructing the origins of man is lack of fossil evidence: all there is could be displayed on a dinner table." - New Scientist 20 May 1982
"The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of imagination." Albert Fleischmann. Witnesses Against Evolution by John Fred Meldau
"The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity - omnipotent chance." T. Rosazak, "Unfinished Anima
----------------------------------
* "I have little hesitation in saying that a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory."
(Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer, cosmologist, and mathematician, Cambridge University)
* "The pathetic thing is that we have scientists who are trying to prove evolution, which no scientist can ever prove."
(Dr Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize winner and eminent evolutionist)
* "The theory of evolution suffers from grave defects, which are more and more apparent as time advances. It can no longer square with practical scientific knowledge."
(Dr A Fleishmann, Zoologist, Erlangen University)
* "It is good to keep in mind ... that nobody has ever succeeded in producing even one new species by the accumulation of micromutations. Darwin's theory of natural selection has never had any proof, yet it has been universally accepted."
(Prof. R Goldschmidt PhD, DSc Prof. Zoology, University of Calif. in Material Basis of Evolution Yale Univ. Press)
* "The theory of the transmutation of species is a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency."
(Prof. J Agassiz, of Harvard in Methods of Study in Natural History)
* "Evolution is baseless and quite incredible."
(Dr Ambrose Fleming, President, British Assoc. Advancement of Science, in The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought)
* "Overwhelming strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us ... The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words."
(Lord Kelvin, Vict. Inst., 124, p267)
* It is possible (and, given the Flood, probable) that materials which give radiocarbon dates of tens of thousands of radiocarbon years could have true ages of many fewer calendar years."
(Gerald Aardsman, Ph.D., physicist and C-14 dating specialist)
* "We have to admit that there is nothing in the geological records that runs contrary to the views of conservative creationists."
(Evolutionist Edmund Ambrose)
* "The best physical evidence that the earth is young is the dwindling resource that evolutionists refuse to admit is dwindling ... the magnetic energy in the field of the earth's dipole magnet ... To deny that it is a dwindling resource is phoney science."
(Thomas Barnes Ph.D., physicist)
* "No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution."
(Pierre-Paul Grasse, Evolutionist)
* "The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it ... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution ... if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."
(Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer, cosmologist and mathematician, Cambridge University)
* "It is easy enough to make up stories, of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."
(Luther D Sutherland, Darwin's Enigma, Master Books 1988, p89)
* "Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which - a functional protein or gene - is complex beyond ... anything produced by the intelligence of man?"
(Molecular biologist Michael Denton, Evolutionist: A Theory in Crisis (London: Burnett Books, 1985) p 342.)
* "When I make an incision with my scalpel, I see organs of such intricacy that there simply hasn't been enough time for natural evolutionary processes to have developed them."
(C Everett Koop, former US Surgeon General)
* "Modern apes ... seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans ... is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter."
(Lyall Watson, Ph.D., Evolutionist)
* "Although bacteria are tiny, they display biochemical, structural and behavioural complexities that outstrip scientific description. In keeping with the current microelectronics revolution, it may make more sense to equate their size with sophistication rather than with simplicity ... Without bacteria life on earth could not exist in its present form."
(James A Shipiro, Bacteria as Multicellular Organisms, "Scientific America, Vol.258, No.6 (June 1988))
* "Eighty to eighty-five percent of earth's land surface does not have even 3 geological periods appearing in 'correct' consecutive order ... it becomes an overall exercise of gargantuan special pleading and imagination for the evolutionary-uniformitarian paradigm to maintain that there ever were geologic periods."
(John Woodmorappe, geologist)
* "That a mindless, purposeless, chance process such as natural selection, acting on the sequels of recombinant DNA or random mutation, most of which are injurious or fatal, could fabricate such complexity and organisation as the vertebrate eye, where each component part must carry out its own distinctive task in a harmoniously functioning optical unit, is inconceivable. The absence of transitional forms between the invertebrates retina and that of the vertebrates poses another difficulty. Here there is a great gulf fixed which remains inviolate with no seeming likelihood of ever being bridged. The total picture speaks of intelligent creative design of an infinitely high order."
(H.S.Hamilton (MD) The Retina of the Eye - An Evolutionary Road Block.)
* "My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed."
(N.H.Nilson, famous botanist and evolutionist)
* "None of five museum officials could offer a single example of a transitional series of fossilised organisms that would document the transformation of one basically different type to another."
(Luther Sunderland, science researcher)
* "The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, but it has spawned a science because it is distinguished by two factors which inflate its apparent relevance far beyond its merits. First, the fossils hint at the ancestry of a supremely self- important animal - ourselves. Secondly, the collection is so tantalisingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. Hence the amazing quantity of literature on the subject ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man."
(John Reader, Whatever Happened to Zinjanthropus? New Scientist Vol. 89, No.12446 (March 26,1981) pp 802-805))
* "The evolutionist thesis has become more stringently unthinkable than ever before."
(Wolfgang Smith Ph.D.)
* "The only competing explanation for the order we all see in the biological world is the notion of Special Creation."
(Niles Eldridge, PhD., palaeontologist and evolutionist, American Museum of Natural History).
Darwin's Own Confession
* "Not one change of species into another is on record ... we cannot prove that a single species has been changed."
(Charles Darwin, My Life & Letters)
* "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
(Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, chapter "Difficulties")
* "A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp ... moreover, for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully."
(Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D., physicist and mathematician)
* "As yet we have not been able to track the phylogenetic history of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present."
(Chester A Arnold, Professor of Botany and Curator of Fossil Plants, University of Michigan, An Introduction to Paleobotany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947, p.7)
* "The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated."
(John Adler with John Carey: Is Man a Subtle Accident, Newsweek, Vol.96, No.18 (November 3, 1980, p.95)
* "...most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument in favour of Darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true."
(Dr David Raup, Curator of geology, Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago)
* "Despite the bright promise that palaeontology provides means of 'seeing' Evolution, it has provided some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and palaeontology does not provide them."
(David Kitts, Ph.D. Palaeontology and Evolutionary Theory, Evolution, Vol.28 (Sep.1974) p.467)
* "Hundreds of scientists who once taught their university students that the bottom line on origins had been figured out and settled are today confessing that they were completely wrong. They've discovered that their previous conclusions, once held so fervently, were based on very fragile evidences and suppositions which have since been refuted by new discoveries. This has necessitated a change in their basic philisophical position on origins. Others are admitting great weaknesses in evolution theory."
(Luther D Sutherland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books,1988) pp.7-8)
* "The fact that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable, and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in 'hard' science has become a dogma can only be explained on sociological grounds."
(Ludwig von Bertalanffy, biologist)
* "Micromutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified, or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical theory. I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: ... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?"
(S Lovtrup, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (London:Croom Helm, p.422))
* "If one allows the unquestionably largest experimenter to speak, namely nature, one gets a clear and incontrovertible answer to the question about the significance of mutations for the formation of species and evolution. They disappear under the competitive conditions of natural selection, as soap bubbles burst in a breeze."
(Evolutionist Herbert Nilson, Synthetische Artbildung (Lund, Sweden:Verlag CWK Gleerup Press, 1953, p 174)
* "In all the thousands of fly-breeding experiments carried out all over the world for more than fifty years, a distinct new species has never been seen to emerge ... or even a new enzyme."
(Gordon Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery (New York: Harper and Row, 1983, pp 34, 38)
* "The uniform, continuous transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus, so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature."
(George Simpson, palaeontologist and Evolutionist)
Fossils
* "As is well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the fossil record."
(Tom Kemp, Oxford University)
* "The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does not make them utter fools ... Clearly some refuse to learn from this. As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated: if only they had the evidence..."
(William R Fix, The Bone Pedlars, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984, p.150)
* "The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps; the fossils are missing in all the important places."
(Francis Hitching, archaeologist).
* "The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply."
(J.O'Rourke in the American Journal of Science)
* "In most people's minds, fossils and Evolution go hand in hand. In reality, fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation. If Evolution were true, we should find literally millions of fossils that show how one kind of life slowly and gradually changed to another kind of life. But missing links are the trade secret, in a sense, of palaeontology. The point is, the links are still missing. What we really find are gaps that sharpen up the boundaries between kinds. It's those gaps which provide us with the evidence of Creation of separate kinds. As a matter of fact, there are gaps between each of the major kinds of plants and animals. Transition forms are missing by the millions. What we do find are separate and complex kinds, pointing to Creation."
(Dr Gary Parker Biologist/palaeontologist and former ardent Evolutionist.)
* "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and palaeontology does not provide them."
(David Kitts, palaeontologist and Evolutionist)
* "... I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed and a palm tree have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition."
(Dr Eldred Corner, Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, England: Evolution in Contemporary Botanical Thought (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961, p.97))
* "Fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation."
(Gary Parker, Ph.D., biologist/palaeontologist and former evolutionist)
* "So firmly does the modern geologist believe in evolution up from simple organisms to complex ones over huge time spans, that he is perfectly willing to use the theory of evolution to prove the theory of evolution [p.128] ... one is applying the theory of evolution to prove the correctness of evolution. For we are assuming that the oldest formations contain only the most primitive and least complex organisms, which is the base assumption of Darwinism ... [p.127] If we now assume that only simple organisms will occur in old formations, we are assuming the basic premise of Darwinism to be correct. To use, therefore, for dating purposes, the assumption that only simple organisms will be present in old formations is to thoroughly beg the whole question. It is arguing in a circle. [p.128]"
(Arthur E Wilder-Smith, Man's Origin, Man's destiny: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1968, pp127-8)
* "It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint, geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by the study of their remains imbedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of the organisms they contain."
(R H Rastall, Lecturer in Economic Geology, Cambridge University: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol.10 (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1956, p.168)
* "I admit that an awful lot of that [fantasy] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared fifty years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now, I think that that is lamentable, particularly because the people who propose these kinds of stories themselves may be aware of the speculative nature of some of the stuff. But by the time it filters down to the textbooks, we've got science as truth and we have a problem."
(Dr Niles Eldredge, Palaeontologist and Evolutionist)
DNA
DNA is DeoxyriboNucleic Acid. Chromosomes are thread-like structures made of DNA and protein. There are 46 chromosomes in man.
* "The set of genetic instructions for humans is roughly three billion letters long."
(Miroslav Radman & Robert Wagner, The High Fidelity of DNA Duplication, Scientific America, Vol. 259, No.2 August 1988, pp40-46)
* "DNA and the molecules that surround it form a truly superb mechanism - a miniaturised marvel. The information is so compactly stored that the amount of DNA necessary to code all the people living on our planet might fit into a space no larger than an aspirin tablet."
(Paul S Taylor in The Illustrated Origins Answer Book page 23)
* "... Life cannot have had a random beginning ... The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10 to the power of 40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated on the Earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court ..."
(Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space)
* "The chance that useful DNA molecules would develop without a Designer are apparently zero. Then let me conclude by asking which came first - the DNA (which is essential for the synthesis of proteins) or the protein enzyme (DNA-polymerase) without which DNA synthesis is nil? ... there is virtually no chance that chemical 'letters' would spontaneously produce coherent DNA and protein 'words.'"
(George Howe, expert in biology sciences)
* "...An intelligible communication via radio signal from some distant galaxy would be widely hailed as evidence of an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the message sequence on the DNA molecule also constitute prima facie evidence for an intelligent source? After all, DNA information is not just analogous to a message sequence such as Morse code, it is such a message sequence."
(Charles B Thaxton, Walter L Bradley and Robert L Olsen: The Mystery of Life's Origin, Reassessing Current Theories (New York Philosophical Library 1984) pp 211-212)
* "Generation after generation, through countless cell divisions, the genetic heritage of living things is scrupulously preserved in DNA ... All of life depends on the accurate transmission of information. As genetic messages are passed through generations of dividing cells, even small mistakes can be life-threatening ... if mistakes were as rare as one in a million, 3000 mistakes would be made during each duplication of the human genome. Since the genome replicates about a million billion times in the course of building a human being from a single fertilised egg, it is unlikely that the human organism could tolerate such a high rate of error. In fact, the actual rate of mistakes is more like one in 10 billion."
(Miroslav Radman and Robert Wagner, The High Fidelity of DNA Duplication... Scientific America. Vol. 299, No 2 (August 1988, pp 40-44. Quote is from page 24))
* "In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutations plus natural selection - quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection a tautology."
(Arthur Koestler, author)
* "Evolution lacks a scientifically acceptable explanation of the source of the precisely planned codes within cells without which there can be no specific proteins and hence, no life."
(David A Kaufman, Ph.D., University of Florida, Gainsesville)
* "Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate....It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect ...higher intelligences...even to the limit of God...such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific."
(Sir Fred Hoyle, well-known British mathematician, astronomer and cosmologist)
* "Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century."
(Michael Denton, 'Evolution, A Theory in Crisis' page 358)
* "Any suppression which undermines and destroys that very foundation on which scientific methodology and research was erected, evolutionist or otherwise, cannot and must not be allowed to flourish ... It is a confrontation between scientific objectivity and ingrained prejudice - between logic and emotion - between fact and fiction ... In the final analysis, objective scientific logic has to prevail - no matter what the final result is - no matter how many time-honoured idols have to be discarded in the process ... After all, it is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution and stick by it to the bitter end -no matter what illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers ... If in the process of impartial scientific logic, they find that creation by outside intelligence is the solution to our quandary, then let's cut the umbilical chord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking us and holding us back ... Every single concept advanced by the theory of evolution (and amended thereafter) is imaginary as it is not supported by the scientifically established probability concepts. Darwin was wrong... The theory of evolution may be the worst mistake made in science."
(I L Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities PO Box 231, Greenvale, New York 11548: New Research Publications, Inc. pp 6-8, 209-210, 214-215. I.L.Cohen, Member of the New York Academy of Sciences and Officer of the Archaeological Institute of America).
* "The notion that ... the operating programme of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial soup here on earth is evidently nonsense of a high order."
(Evolutionist Sir Fred Hoyle)
* "The theory of Evolution ... will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has."
(Malcolm Muggeridge, well-known philosopher)
* "We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy. It is time that we cry: 'The emperor has no clothes.'"
(K.Hsu, geologist at the Geological Institute at Zurich)
* "Far from being an established fact of science that it is so typically portrayed to be, evolution is, in reality, an unreasonable and unfounded hypothesis that is riddled with countless scientific fallacies."
(Scott M Huse, The Collapse of Evolution (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, pp 127)
* "Unfortunately many scientists and non-scientists have made Evolution into a religion, something to be defended against infidels. In my experience, many students of biology - professors and textbook writers included - have been so carried away with the arguments for Evolution that they neglect to question it. They preach it ... College students, having gone through such a closed system of education, themselves become teachers, entering high schools to continue the process, using textbooks written by former classmates or professors. High standards of scholarship and teaching break down. Propaganda and the pursuit of power replace the pursuit knowledge. Education becomes a fraud."
(George Kocan, Evolution isn't Faith But Theory, Chicago Tribune 9 Monday April 21 1980)
* "Scientists who go about teaching that Evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining Evolution we do not have one iota of fact."
(Dr T N Tahmisian, a former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission physiologist)
* "Evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless."
(Dr Louise Bounoure, Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Director of the Zoological Museum and former president of the Biological Society of Strasbourg)
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:05PM
Well, for folks who want to wade through James' Gish gallop of disinformation I would refer you to refutations of everything that James has posted,
and likely everything that he will post ever in his life
http://www.talkorigins.org
James| 8.8.10 @ 6:15PM
The Plague of Scientistic Belief By Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Smith
The plague of scientistic belief
By Wolfgang Smith
Nothing strikes the contemporary mind as more certain and authoritative than the findings of physics, astronomy, chemistry, and, of late, molecular biology. These are the “hard” sciences of the present age, which, by empirical means, of a scope and accuracy that stagger the imagination, have put us in touch with fundamental realities that could not even have been conceived in bygone days. Moreover, this group of sciences has been in a sense “visibly validated,” for all to see, by the technological miracles which now surround us on all sides; how, then, can one doubt—much less deny—its findings? In truth, one cannot; quantum particles and fields, galaxies and quasars, molecules and the genetic code—all these are undeniable facts, which must henceforth be reckoned with.
We must remember, however, that facts and their interpretation are not the same thing. And since, subjectively, facts are invariably associated with an interpretation of some kind, it comes about that science as a rule presents us with two disparate factors: with positive findings, on the one hand, plus an underlying philosophy in terms of which the formulation and disclosure of these discoveries are framed. In its actuality science is never the kind of purely empirical enterprise it is generally reputed to be, which is to say that ontological as well as epistemological presuppositions do inevitably play an essential role. What is more, these various philosophical articles of belief are rarely if ever examined or subjected to critical scrutiny by the scientific community. They are the foundational ideas one absorbs, as if by osmosis, in the course of one’s scientific education; they pertain, one might almost say, to the scientific unconscious. And when it happens that one or the other of these ingrained philosophical dogmas does emerge into the light of day as a subject of discourse, the typical response on the part of scientists is to point immediately, by way of validation, to the success of the scientific enterprise: “It works!” one is told in effect. And yet in reality no philosophical belief has ever been validated by an empirical finding; the fact is that verification as well as falsification through empirical means apply to scientific as opposed to philosophical propositions. The separation between these two domains, however, is rarely attempted by scientists; only in times of extreme crisis, when the foundations of a science seem to be crumbling, does one encounter serious thought concerning questions of this kind, and even then such inquiries are pursued only by an adventurous few; it takes an Einstein or a Heisenberg to descend, as it were, to the foundational level, where philosophical axioms begin to come into view. What the rank and file absorb from these founders, moreover, pertains mainly to the technical aspect of the enterprise: one accepts the equations of relativity or the formalism of matrix mechanics, while all but ignoring the philosophical side of the coin. It is safe to say that the men and women who engage in the day-to-day business of scientific research tend not to be overly interested in philosophical subtleties; and so they incline to retain the philosophical axioms to which they have become accustomed over the years, and which could only be recognized as such, and dislodged, through serious and concentrated inquiry. It thus comes about that in the minds of scientists today, good science and inferior philosophy coexist and are in fact inextricably intertwined; as John Haught of Georgetown University has recently pointed out, “Some of the most prominent scientists are literally unable to separate science from their materialist metaphysics.”
This said, I can proceed to state my primary thesis: I contend that by virtue of the aforesaid confusion scientists have promulgated philosophic opinions of the most dubious kind as established scientific truths, and in the name of science have thrust upon an awed and credulous public a shallow world-view for which in reality there is not a shred of scientific support. Having gained the trust and admiration of society through the technological wonders which they have engineered, I maintain that scientists as a class have usurped their authority by predisposing the public against the high truths of religion. I am not suggesting, to be sure, that they have consciously deceived others, but rather contend that they have themselves been misled as a rule in matters pertaining to philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. Meanwhile the fact remains that these “blind guides” are exerting an inestimable influence upon education and public belief, with disastrous consequences to human welfare, both here and hereafter.
I will apply the term “scientistic belief” to designate philosophical opinions that masquerade as scientific truths. Let me give two examples. As my first I will take the tenet of universal mechanism, or what could equally well be termed the axiom of physical determinism. The idea is simple: The tenet affirms that the external universe consists of matter whose motion is determined by the interaction of its parts. Given the initial configuration or state of this matter, and having once ascertained the laws which determine the effect of these interactions upon the resultant motion, one is supposedly able in principle to calculate the future evolution of the universe, down to the minutest detail. The cosmos is thus conceived as a kind of gigantic clockwork, in which part interacts with part to determine the movement of the whole. One knows that this idea began to take shape in the sixteenth century and has played a decisive role in the evolution of modern science. By the time of the Enlightenment, in fact, it had come to be almost universally regarded as an established scientific truth. Thus Hermann von Helmholtz, for instance, one of the leading scientists of the nineteenth century, could say with serene assurance: “The final goal of all natural science is to reduce itself to mechanics (sich in Mechanik aufzulösen).” With the advent of quantum theory, however, the picture has changed; for it turns out that the new physics is not compatible with the mechanistic premise. Yet, despite the fact of quantum indeterminism, not a few eminent scientists continue to champion the mechanistic tenet. Albert Einstein himself, as one knows, so far from admitting that the discoveries of quantum physics have overthrown the classical postulate, argued precisely in the opposite direction: it is the principle of determinism, he said in effect, that invalidates quantum mechanics as a fundamental theory. This illustrates quite clearly the philosophical and indeed a priori character of the tenet in question, and the fact that propositions of this kind can neither be verified nor falsified by empirical findings. This fact, however, remains generally unrecognized, with the result that the postulate of universal mechanism has retained to this day its status as a major article of scientistic belief.
My second example pertains to a more fundamental stratum of philosophical thought, and is consequently still more far-reaching in its implications: “physical reductionism,” let us call it (for reasons which will presently become clear). The thesis hinges upon an epistemological assumption, an idealist postulate, one could say, which affirms that the act of sense perception terminates, not in an external object as we commonly believe, but in a subjective representation of some kind. According to this view, the red apple which we perceive exists somehow in our mind or consciousness; it is a subjective image, a fantasy which mankind has all along mistaken for an external object. Thus thought René Descartes, to whom we owe the philosophical foundations of modern science. Descartes sought to correct what he took to be the mistaken notions of mankind concerning perceptible entities by distinguishing between the external object, which he termed res extensa, and its subjective representation existing in the mind or so-called res cogitans. What was previously conceived as a single object (and what in daily life is invariably regarded as such) has therefore become split in two; as Whitehead has put it: “Thus there would be two natures, one is the conjecture and the other is the dream.”1 It is to be noted that this Cartesian differentiation between the “conjecture” and the “dream” goes not only against the common intuitions of mankind, but is equally at odds with the great philosophical traditions, including especially the Thomistic, where the opposition becomes as it were diametrical. Now, it is this questionable Cartesian doctrine—which Whitehead refers to as “bifurcation”—that has served from the start as the fundamental plank of physics, or better said, of the scientistic world-view in terms of which we habitually interpret the results of physics. And once again we find that the two disparate factors—the operational facts of physics and their customary interpretation—have become in effect identified, which is to say that the tenet of bifurcation does indeed function as a scientistic belief.
I would like to emphasize that in addition to the fact that bifurcation contradicts the most basic human intuitions as well as the most venerable philosophical traditions, there is also not a shred of empirical evidence in support of this heterodox position. Nor can there be, as follows from the fact that physics can be perfectly well interpreted on a non-bifurcationist basis, as I have shown in a recent monograph.2 It turns out, moreover, that the moment one does interpret physics in non-bifurcationist terms, the so-called quantum paradoxes—which have prompted physicists to invent the most bizarre ontologies—vanish of their own accord. It seems that quantum physics has thus implicitly sided with the pre-Cartesian world-view.
It remains to explain why I have referred to bifurcation as “physical reductionism.” The reason becomes clear the moment we return to the bedrock of the perennial Weltanschauung. The red apple we perceive belongs then once more to the external world; it constitutes a corporeal object, I will say, meaning thereby that it can be perceived. The “molecular” apple, on the other hand, with which the physicist is concerned, is bereft of sensible qualities, and is consequently imperceptible. It constitutes what I term a physical object, as distinguished from a corporeal. From a bifurcationist point of view, however, the physical object is all that exists in the external world. The corporeal, thus, is conceived in effect to be “nothing but” the physical. The red apple—which, from an orthodox point of view, exists!—is thus in effect “reduced” to the physical: it is identified with the “molecular” apple, as conceived by the physicist. The tenet of bifurcation, therefore, implies what I term physical reductionism; and the converse, to be sure, is equally apparent.
In both of these two forms, the Cartesian thesis has been for centuries presupposed without question by scientists and the educated public. It has become ingrained in the scientific mind to the point where even the anomalies of quantum physics have failed to arouse suspicion. As one philosopher of science has recently admitted in private: “Those who work on the physicist’s plane find it almost impossible to eliminate the bifurcationism implicit in their work.” Now, this uncritical and habitual acceptance of the Cartesian thesis by “those who work on the physicist’s plane” effectively obscures its philosophical status; and as is the case with all scientistic beliefs, the tenet thus becomes science by association, as one might say.
One could argue that bifurcation—or, equivalently, physical reductionism—constitutes in fact the most basic contemporary scientistic belief, the tenet which all other scientistic beliefs implicitly presuppose. Take, for instance, the idea of universal mechanism: does it not hinge upon bifurcation? In a remarkable passage, amply worth quoting, Descartes himself admits as much:
We can easily conceive how the motion of one body can be caused by that of another, and diversified by the size, figure and situation of its parts, but we are wholly unable to conceive how these same things can produce something else of a nature entirely different from themselves, as for example, those substantial forms and real qualities which many philosophers suppose to be in bodies.3
The philosophers alluded to, of course, are the Scholastics, whom Descartes opposes radically. What the French savant tells us—with admirable clarity!—is that not until the universe has been reduced to the status of “quantified matter” does the idea of universal mechanism become conceivable. And is this not, finally, the reason why Galileo and Descartes saw fit to ban “those substantial forms and real qualities” from the external world? Was not the bifurcation postulate introduced precisely to render thinkable a “totalist” physics based upon mechanical principles?
The two examples may suffice to introduce the general phenomenon which I have termed scientistic belief. It hardly needs pointing out, moreover, that if physics, the most exact of the natural sciences, is thus associated with scientistic—and indeed, from a traditional point of view, illusory!—notions, what can one expect in the case of less rigorous disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, physical anthropology, and psychology, not to speak of the so-called social sciences.4 The unappreciated fact is that science in its actuality bestows both truth and error: not only enlightenment, but benightedness as well. One could even argue that so far as the general public is concerned, it is the second of these effects that predominates; the truths of hard science, after all, are mainly accessible to the expert, the scientifically proficient. This holds especially in the case of fundamental physics; by the time a fact of quantum theory, for instance, has been popularized, what remains is mainly a scientistic notion. One could put it this way: As science evolves, its actual insights become more and more abstract, more and more mathematical, and thus denuded of sensible imagery; these insights thus become a kind of esoteric knowledge, to which only the “initiated” have access. Moreover, what is validated by empirical findings, and also, in a way, by the miracles of technology, is precisely that kernel of esoteric insight, and not the outer shell of scientistic beliefs, which the public at large mistakes for enlightenment.
I would like now to consider the implications of these facts—of this cultural phenomenon—with reference to religion and the spiritual life. As has already been noted, I perceive the impact of scientistic belief upon the religious domain as adverse in the extreme. I should add that the problem has been greatly exacerbated by the fact that theologians and pastors as a rule are ill-equipped to deal with questions of this kind, and all too often have themselves been swayed by scientistic claims.
What does it matter, some will say; what if we are perhaps mistaken about the nature of causality, or about the terminus of sense perception, or even about the much-debated question of evolution—so long as we stand on the side of truth in matters of religion. I would point out that the question is not quite so simple. We must not forget that religion—so long as it has not degenerated into a social convention or mere sentimentality—demands the whole man; holiness and wholeness are inseparable. Does not the “first and greatest” commandment enjoin that “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”? What we think about the world—our Weltanschauung —cannot legitimately be excluded from the domain of religion. As St. Thomas Aquinas writes in the Summa Contra Gentiles (Bk. II, ch. 3): “It is absolutely false to maintain, with reference to the truths of our faith, that what we believe regarding the creation is of no consequence, so long as one has an exact conception concerning God; because an error regarding the nature of creation always gives rise to a false idea about God.” I would add that I perceive the contemporary penchant for accommodating the teachings of Christianity to the so-called truths of science as a striking confirmation of this Thomistic principle: a case, almost invariably, of scientistic errors begetting flawed theological ideas.5
In a word, what we think about the universe does matter in our religious and spiritual life. And moreover, with due allowance for what might be termed “invincible ignorance,” we are responsible for the opinions we hold in this seemingly secular domain. “With all thy mind”: these four words should suffice to apprise us of this fact.
I will go so far as to contend that religion goes astray the moment it relinquishes its just rights in the so-called natural domain nowadays occupied by science. I believe that the contemporary crisis of faith and the ongoing de-Christianization of Western society have much to do with the fact that for centuries the material world has been left to the mercy of the scientists. This has of course been said many times before (but not nearly often enough!). Theodore Roszak, for instance, has put it exceptionally well: “Science is our religion,” he observed, “because we cannot, most of us, with any living conviction see around it.”6 And one might add that perhaps only those who already have at least a touch of authentic religion do in fact stand a chance of “seeing around it with any living conviction.” So too the name of Oskar Milosz (1877-1939) comes to mind, a European writer who had this to say: “Unless a man’s concept of the physical universe accords with reality, his spiritual life will be crippled at its roots, with devastating consequences for every other aspect of his life.”7 It could not have been better said! As regards the implications of the scientistic world-view for the life of the Church, let me quote from a recent book by the French philosopher Jean Borella: “The truth is that the Catholic Church has been confronted by the most formidable problem a religion can encounter: the scientistic disappearance (disparition scientifique) of the universe of symbolic forms which enable it to express and manifest itself, that is to say, which permit it to exist.” And he goes on to say: “That destruction has been effected by Galilean physics, not, as one generally claims, because it has deprived man of his central position—which, for St. Thomas Aquinas is cosmologically the least noble and the lowest—but because it reduces bodies, material substance, to the purely geometric, thus making it at one stroke scientifically impossible (or devoid of meaning) that the world can serve as a medium for the manifestation of God. The theophanic capacity of the world is denied.”8 Let us be clear about it: Borella is pointing the finger squarely at what I have termed physical reductionism: “le problème le plus redoubtable qu’une religion puisse rencontrer,” he calls it. What he terms a “reduction to the purely geometric” corresponds precisely to what I call the reduction of the corporeal to the physical: it is this scientistic contention that would obliterate “the theophanic capacity of the world.”
It is of course to be understood that the “symbolic forms” to which Borella refers are not, as some might think, subjective images or ideas which in days gone by men had projected upon the external universe, until, that is, science came to apprise us of the truth. The very opposite is in fact the case: The “forms” in question are objectively real and indeed essential to the universe. We may conceive of them as “forms” in the Aristotelian and Scholastic sense, or Platonically, as eternal archetypes reflected on the plane of corporeal existence. In either case they constitute the very essence of corporeal being. Remove these “symbolic forms,” and the universe ceases to exist; for it is these “forms,” precisely, that anchor the cosmos to God.
It is needless to point out that science has not in reality destroyed these forms, or caused their disappearance; however, the scientistic negation of corporeal being entails a denial of the substantial forms or essences which constitute that order of being, and of the sensible qualities by which these forms or essences manifest themselves to man. The scientistically prepared mind, therefore, has become increasingly insensitive to what Borella terms “the universe of symbolic forms,” to the point where that universe has become for it all but invisible. It is in that sense that the “theophanic capacity of the world” has been diminished to an unprecedented degree.
The consequences, however, of that diminution cannot but be tragic in the extreme. In his denial of essences, scientistic man has destroyed the very basis of the spiritual life. As Borella points out, he has obliterated the domain “that enables the Church to express and manifest itself,” and hence “permits it to exist.” The refutation of scientistic belief, therefore, is not an optional matter for the Church, something from which she can afford to abstain; it is rather a matter of urgent necessity, a question ultimately of survival.
It may be well, finally, to reflect anew upon what St. Paul has to say concerning “the theophanic capacity of the world” in his letter to the Romans. “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,” he declares, “being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” To which he adds: “So they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:20-22). I need hardly point out the striking relevance of these words to all that we have discussed. The “things that are made” are doubtless corporeal natures, the objects that man can perceive; and what about “the invisible things of him”: are these not precisely eternal essences, ideas or archetypes? So long as man’s heart has not been “darkened,” the sensory perception of “things that are made” will awaken in him an intellectual perception—a “recollection,” as Plato says—of the eternal things which the former reflect or embody. St. Paul alludes to a time or a state when man “knew God,” a reference, first of all, to the condition of Adam before the fall, when human nature was as yet undefiled by original sin. One needs to realize, however, that the fall of Adam has been repeated on a lesser scale down through the ages, in an unending series of “betrayals,” large and small. Even today, at this late stage of history, we are, each of us, endowed with a certain “knowledge of God” to which we can freely respond in various ways. And that is precisely why we, too, are “without excuse,” and why, to some degree at least, we are responsible for the opinions we hold concerning the cosmos. Everyone perceives the universe in accordance with his spiritual state: the “pure in heart” perceive it without fail as a theophany; and for the rest of us, whose “foolish hearts are darkened,” the theophanic capacity of the universe is reduced in proportion to this darkening.
I would like however to emphasize that this correspondence between our spiritual state and our Weltanschauung applies in both directions, which is to say that not only does our spiritual state affect the way we view the external world, but conversely, our views concerning the universe react invariably upon that state. This is in fact my central point: Cosmology matters, it has a decisive impact upon our spiritual condition. Even what we think about the purely physical world turns out to be crucial; for indeed, “unless a man’s concept of the physical universe accords with reality, his spiritual life will be crippled at its roots. . . .”
This brings us at last to the pastoral question: what can be done pastorally to counteract the scientistic influence? The major problem, clearly, is to inform the pastors themselves: to alert them, first of all, to the fact that there is a crucial distinction to be made between science and scientism, and then to the fact that scientistic belief is antagonistic to our spiritual well-being. This however will not be easy to get across, for it offends against the prevailing trend, both in civil society and within the Church. It is only by an act of grace, I surmise, that any of us are able to muster the discernment, and indeed the sheer boldness, to cast off the scientistic Weltanschauung and recover a Christian world-view. And this task, this imperative, I say, is at bottom spiritual. It is to be accomplished, thus, not simply by reading books, or through a process of reasoning, but above all through faith and prayer. The dictum credo ut intelligam applies to us still, and perhaps even more urgently than in the comparatively innocent days of Augustine or Anselm. It is needful that we be touched and enlivened by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, who “will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). In our struggle to transcend the scientistic outlook, we are dealing, moreover, not simply with a belief system of human contrivance, but with something more formidable by far; for here too, in the final count, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). How could it be otherwise when it is “the theophanic capacity of the world” that stands at issue: the very thing “which enables the Church to express and manifest itself, that is to say, which permits it to exist.” If the cosmos were indeed what scientism affirms it to be, our Catholic faith would be a mockery, and our sacred liturgy—the well-spring of the Church itself—an empty charade. This fact cannot be ignored with impunity.
*********************************************************
1 The Concept of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1964), p. 30. Despite his eminence as a philosopher and the fact that, along with Bertrand Russel, he is the father of mathematical logic, Whitehead’s strictures against the Cartesian axioms have aroused little response from the scientific community.
2 The Quantum Enigma (Peru, Illinois: Sherwood Sugden, 1995). A useful summary of the book with commentary has been given by William A. Wallace in “Thomism and the Quantum Enigma,” The Thomist 61 (1997), pp. 455-467. See also Wolfgang Smith, “From Schrödinger’s Cat to Thomistic Ontology,” The Thomist 63 (1999), pp. 49-63.
3 Cited in E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Principles of Modern Physical Science (New York: Humanities Press, 1951), p. 112.
4 See Cosmos and Transcendence (Peru, Illinois: Sherwood Sugden, 1984), a work in which I have sought to unmask the major articles of scientistic belief and delineate their impact upon contemporary society.
5 The paramount instance of scientistic theology is doubtless given by the far-flung speculations of Teilhard de Chardin. See my monograph, Teilhardism and the New Religion (Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books, 1988), where I have dealt with this question at length.
6 Where the Wasteland Ends (Garden City: Doubleday, 1973), p. 124.
7 Cited in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Religion and the Order of Nature (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 153. Concerning Oskar Milosz, see Philip Sherrard, Human Image: World Image (Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 1992), pp. 131-146.
8 Le sens du surnaturel (Geneva: Editions Ad Solem, 1996), p. 74. See also the English translation: The Sense of the Supernatural (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998).
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 9:08PM
Actually, there hasn't been any "scientism" in the scientific community in more than 100 years. We all are aware of the fact that there are great unresolved issues in science. Thus, none of us who are practicing scientists, for a moment, believe that science has all the answers.
The only people who would want you to believe that science has exhausted all possibility of advancement are anth-intellectual people like James here.
Creationism is a form of scientism.
GalapagosPete| 8.8.10 @ 6:49PM
When creationists run out of arguments they copy and paste long posts from creationist web sites.
No one's going to read that nonsense. Either argue for yourself or stop bothering the grown-ups.
James| 8.8.10 @ 7:02PM
Wolfgang Smith is a world class mathematician and expert on quantum physics. What he writes about science is hardly "nonsense."
RickK| 8.8.10 @ 9:08PM
LOL James again with the big cut&paste;.
Tell us James, do you have any thoughts of your own on the subject?
And guess what - after all your pasting and quote mining...
species still evolve!
And you are a blood relative of chimpanzees. That hasn't changed :-)
Paul Burnett| 8.8.10 @ 9:16PM
Brenda Tucker invokes Madame Blavatsky...ye gods, what's next? Immanuel Velikovsky?
James' cut-and-paste exercise is just pitiful. And quoting from Wolfgang Smith, formerly a mathematician who specialized in aerodynamics problems before devolving into creationist mysticism, proves nothing: (1) Smith is not a biologist, and (2) he is a known opponent of evolution and a supporter of the pseudoscience of intelligent design creationism. Sorry, James - have you written anything original, or do you just repeat what others have written?
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 8.8.10 @ 10:28PM
James, GOD does not need you or I to prove His existence. And before you give yourself a migraine doing verbal battle with the atheists & non-believers here please take this into consideration. Who better makes a case for the existence of GOD better than the atheists themselves. If GOD did not exist, there would be no atheists. There would be no need for them. An atheists lives & breathes to prove to others that GOD does not exist. If He didn't exist why would atheists exist? The atheist's very existence & purpose in life proves GOD's existence, not that proof is needed. Every time an atheist battles believers that atheist proves GOD exists by the atheist's over the top attempts to prove He doesn't exist. Either GOD exists (which He does) or atheists need to get a life. Actually both of these notions sound like a good idea. Take care James & GOD (yes atheists, there is a GOD!) bless you sir. And just remember, as long as evil exists alongside good, atheists will exist along with GOD.
p.s.: I want to personally thank all of the atheists & non-believers who prove the existence of my GOD & Creator every day in their feeble, yet nonetheless faithful attempts to prove He does not exist. As long as you exist, I know GOD exists too! Your services are much appreciated! And may GOD bless you too!
GalapagosPete| 8.9.10 @ 1:13AM
"If GOD did not exist, there would be no atheists."
We're not saying that gods don't exist, just that you haven't demonstrated that they do.
Richard| 8.9.10 @ 1:38AM
I can respect honest skepticism
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 10:04PM
I just believe in one fewer god than most people.
James| 8.8.10 @ 11:14PM
Re:
Sorry, James - have you written anything original, or do you just repeat what others have written?
Are we here to be "original" or are we here to find the truth--which is timeless. I willingly and gratefully defer to those who are more intelligent and learned than I, and I cite them because their arguments are those of intelligent and learned men. I am not interested in scoffers and fanatics.
Incidentally, Smith is not "formerly" a mathematician, nor did he "specialize" in aerodynamics. And precisely, he is an "opponent" of evolution for strong reasons, and not out of impassioned fanaticism. Intellectually, he is by far your intellectual superior, and you are stupid not to note that and at least ponder his arguments respectfully.
GalapagosPete| 8.9.10 @ 1:06AM
Yes, yes, he's very smart, but even smart people can have stupid opinions about areas outside their area of expertise. This is one of those cases.
Richard| 8.9.10 @ 2:33AM
Hey guys
I like to break things down to the lowest common denominator. What i believe is all life and verily all creation that we can understand is explained in Genesis.
-and God created the light and the dark and made division between the two-
You see, all things are light and dark, Life, and death...switch on switch off... that which is, and that which is not...The presence of, and the absence of...
If you're in to modern physics you know that this fundamental concept is gaining ground every day. If you're in to biology you might wonder where this plays into epigenetics. Chemistry should be obvious. Einstein hinted at it.
I believe and seek after life, the rest of you believe and seek after death. In the end I will live, because I will seek after it. You will not because you will not know what to look for.
GalapagosPete| 8.10.10 @ 2:22AM
Is gravity light or dark? Life or death? Of or off?
GalapagosPete| 8.10.10 @ 2:23AM
Of = On
Richard| 8.11.10 @ 9:07PM
on of course!
John Stockwell| 8.9.10 @ 10:07PM
Dualism was one of the first attempts that human society made in creating science. It was a good start, now you only have about 2500 years to catch up.
Richard| 8.11.10 @ 9:14PM
haha gg smarty farty condescension FTW
However they had it right 2500 years ago. It was before we filled our philosophies neutrel ambiguity...
Frank| 8.10.10 @ 10:52PM
You are all a pack of sorry fools. It's hilarious and entertaining, though.
GalapagosPete| 8.11.10 @ 12:46AM
Speaking for myself, we're all glad to make you feel superior.
Creationism is nonsense| 8.22.10 @ 1:57PM
"Darwin's theory of evolution, as its main advocates assert it, presumes that there can be no scientific evidence against a totally unguided and unintelligent course to evolution."
Well, what would such supposed "evidence" really be? Who or what entity has been discovered to be "guiding" evolution? When and how did it do this? Not to mention why did it do this? To produce humanity? Ridiculous.
You have no "evidence". You have nothing but a supposed supernatural entity and you are surprised that scientists reject that? And you wonder why you are called "creationists"? It's a profitable anti-science scam, isn't it?
Your supposed "signature in the cell" is simply a completely invalid inference that some unknown and inknowable "intelligence" created life 4 billion years ago. Why should any scientist pay attention to such nonsense?