Op-Ed: Charles Darwin Meets His Maker
Jason Spaceman
------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Lukens
It's amusing to see the variety of fish symbols found on people's
cars. Some are plain, some have "Jesus" in them, some have "truth" in
them, and some have "Darwin" in them with little feet on the fish.
Some have the "truth" fish eating the "Darwin" fish. It seems we
cannot escape this great controversy, even in traffic.
Either a Creator made life long ago, or lifeless minerals somehow
turned into all life forms we see today. That's it in a nutshell. To
find answers on which is true, we can only rely on the evidence
available.
Charles Darwin's theories on "On the Origin of Species by Natural
Selection," published in 1859, caused an intellectual upheaval that
questioned assumptions about where humanity came from and where it is
going. The upheaval continues to this day.
Both creationists and Darwinists acknowledge what we call
Microevolution, or the variation within species. That means a species
will adapt and acclimatize to its surroundings while not changing into
a different species over many generations.
Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
it is a bit of a stretch.
So, when does a protozoan change into other protozoan, or let's say, a
tadpole? And when does that tadpole become a rodent, and that rodent
becomes a monkey, and that monkey becomes a human? Doesn't even a
basic life form have a beginning, or have been created, somewhere?
Science is about the search for truth, and it is supposed to take us
where the evidence leads. Darwin assumed in time evidence would be
found to support his theory. Nearly 150 years later, it has not
happened. The Missing Link is still out there. Extensive fossil
searches have turned up scant evidence that species evolve into new
species.
Furthermore, evolution theory is neither observable nor testable. And
some scientists are beginning to doubt that Darwin's theory can fully
account for the great variety of life on this planet.
Yet biology aside, the seeds of what is called "Social Darwinism" have
been sown. The logical consequence to humanity if Darwin's theories
are true are that the healthy and strong are more worthy of survival
than the sickly and weak. We see this attitude already played out in
many areas of society today.
The "survival of the fittest" mindset has lead to much cruelty toward
people. Carried to its logical conclusion, it ultimately leads to a
"scientific racism," that says some races are less evolved than
others.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Read it at
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/jlukens_20050613.html
J. Spaceman
Grogs
news:q4qqa19g4vophicgs...@4ax.com:
Translation: OK, let me just set up a few strawmen and make evolution
claim a few things it doesn't really claim. OK now, wave magic wand and
presto: evolution is dead!
Niels van der Linden
> The logical consequence to humanity if Darwin's theories
> are true are that the healthy and strong are more worthy of survival
> than the sickly and weak.
More *likely* of survival, you fascist bigot. Moreover, if you'd know
*anything* about evolution, you'd understand there is no such thing as an
objective 'healthy' or 'strong'.
> We see this attitude already played out in
> many areas of society today.
No, we see *this* attitude played out in society everyday:
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/index.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/int/long.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/inj/long.html
> The "survival of the fittest" mindset has lead to much cruelty toward
> people. Carried to its logical conclusion, it ultimately leads to a
> "scientific racism," that says some races are less evolved than
> others.
If you'd know *anything* about evolution, you'd know there is no such thing
as a species. It's all one big DNA-fest (or alternative form). As evolution
is *utterly* unplanned, there are no goals, no prizes, no better, no worse.
About the logic of creationism, or biblical literalism: the bible isn't
internally consistent, and thus has no logical meaning.
Read it at
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA005.html
William McHale
> From the article:
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Lukens
> It's amusing to see the variety of fish symbols found on people's
> cars. Some are plain, some have "Jesus" in them, some have "truth" in
> them, and some have "Darwin" in them with little feet on the fish.
> Some have the "truth" fish eating the "Darwin" fish. It seems we
> cannot escape this great controversy, even in traffic.
> Either a Creator made life long ago, or lifeless minerals somehow
> turned into all life forms we see today. That's it in a nutshell. To
> find answers on which is true, we can only rely on the evidence
> available.
Oh something else happened. Science deals with what is observable not with
philosophical or theological speculations. As a theist who is deeply
interested in science it bugs the hell out of me to see people who really
don't know anything about science objecting to evolution because they believe
it denies God's role in creation. How come we don't have anyone objecting to
Newton or Einstein because they "deny" God's role in making the planets orbit
the sun and in preventing us from falling off of the Earth?
Evolution is simply a theory for explainging the natural mechanisms of how
current life forms developed from earlier ones. It says nothing about the
creation of life itself (that is another science) nor does it require one
to abandon a belief in a deity.
> Charles Darwin's theories on "On the Origin of Species by Natural
> Selection," published in 1859, caused an intellectual upheaval that
> questioned assumptions about where humanity came from and where it is
> going. The upheaval continues to this day.
> Both creationists and Darwinists acknowledge what we call
> Microevolution, or the variation within species. That means a species
> will adapt and acclimatize to its surroundings while not changing into
> a different species over many generations.
Microevolution is a term developed by Creationists because they cannot
deny that evolution does shape species in small ways. An evolutionary
scientist sees no need to define what is one end of a range of changes that
cause one species to emerge from another.
> Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
> time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
> it is a bit of a stretch.
Not really, it is rather well supported for at least some species in the fossil
record.
> So, when does a protozoan change into other protozoan, or let's say, a
> tadpole? And when does that tadpole become a rodent, and that rodent
> becomes a monkey, and that monkey becomes a human? Doesn't even a
> basic life form have a beginning, or have been created, somewhere?
> Science is about the search for truth, and it is supposed to take us
> where the evidence leads. Darwin assumed in time evidence would be
> found to support his theory. Nearly 150 years later, it has not
> happened. The Missing Link is still out there. Extensive fossil
> searches have turned up scant evidence that species evolve into new
> species.
Actually there is an awful lot of fossil evidence out there. We have a
lot of different ancestor species for man and some other animals. Granted
there are some gaps, but that is inevitable given the nature of how fossils
form. Heck most of the bones of those who lived 2000 years ago no longer
exist; it doesn't mean those people never lived.
> Furthermore, evolution theory is neither observable nor testable. And
> some scientists are beginning to doubt that Darwin's theory can fully
> account for the great variety of life on this planet.
Yeah, mostly scientists who have never really studied evolution.
> Yet biology aside, the seeds of what is called "Social Darwinism" have
> been sown. The logical consequence to humanity if Darwin's theories
> are true are that the healthy and strong are more worthy of survival
> than the sickly and weak. We see this attitude already played out in
> many areas of society today.
Social Darwinism has always been a perversion of Darwinism just as
eugenics was. That however does not invalidate the basic theory itself.
> The "survival of the fittest" mindset has lead to much cruelty toward
> people. Carried to its logical conclusion, it ultimately leads to a
> "scientific racism," that says some races are less evolved than
> others.
The cruelty has always existed; racism existed long before Darwin came around.
Don't make the mistake to assuming a new justification of a behavior
is the same as the behavior itself.
--
Bill
> J. Spaceman
No 33 Secretary
> Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
> time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
> it is a bit of a stretch.
>
Liar. It has, after all, be observed.
--
Terry Austin
www.hyperbooks.com
Campaign Cartographer now available
Richard Forrest
Jason Spaceman wrote:
> From the article:
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Lukens
>
> It's amusing to see the variety of fish symbols found on people's
> cars. Some are plain, some have "Jesus" in them, some have "truth" in
> them, and some have "Darwin" in them with little feet on the fish.
> Some have the "truth" fish eating the "Darwin" fish. It seems we
> cannot escape this great controversy, even in traffic.
>
> Either a Creator made life long ago, or lifeless minerals somehow
> turned into all life forms we see today. That's it in a nutshell. To
> find answers on which is true, we can only rely on the evidence
> available.
>
> Charles Darwin's theories on "On the Origin of Species by Natural
> Selection," published in 1859, caused an intellectual upheaval that
> questioned assumptions about where humanity came from and where it is
> going. The upheaval continues to this day.
>
> Both creationists and Darwinists acknowledge what we call
> Microevolution, or the variation within species. That means a species
> will adapt and acclimatize to its surroundings while not changing into
> a different species over many generations.
>
> Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
> time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
> it is a bit of a stretch.
>
What, in spite of the fact that we have observed speciation events?
Where do these people get their information from?
> So, when does a protozoan change into other protozoan, or let's say, a
> tadpole? And when does that tadpole become a rodent, and that rodent
> becomes a monkey, and that monkey becomes a human? Doesn't even a
> basic life form have a beginning, or have been created, somewhere?
>
> Science is about the search for truth,
So they don't understand science either. Why am I not surprised?
>and it is supposed to take us
> where the evidence leads. Darwin assumed in time evidence would be
> found to support his theory. Nearly 150 years later, it has not
> happened.
You mean, that if we pretend very hard we can ignore the libraries of
scientific publications which show that the theory is well-supported by
the evidence.
> The Missing Link is still out there.
Do these people realise that the very phrase 'missing link' is a
throw-back to pre-Darwinian theories of the phylogenetic relationships
of living organisms? That the very concept of a 'missing link' is
rendered invalid by evolution by natural selection?
> Extensive fossil
> searches have turned up scant evidence that species evolve into new
> species.
>
> Furthermore, evolution theory is neither observable nor testable. And
> some scientists are beginning to doubt that Darwin's theory can fully
> account for the great variety of life on this planet.
Yet those scientists rarely, if ever, present those doubt in scientific
forums, but present them to audiences composed of adherents of that
peculiar distortion of Christianity represented by fundamentalists in
the USA.
>
> Yet biology aside, the seeds of what is called "Social Darwinism" have
> been sown. The logical consequence to humanity if Darwin's theories
> are true are that the healthy and strong are more worthy of survival
> than the sickly and weak. We see this attitude already played out in
> many areas of society today.
Complete and utter bollocks!
Why is it beyond such people to try to understand the theory they
attempt to criticise?
>
> The "survival of the fittest" mindset has lead to much cruelty toward
> people.
And as we all know, before Darwin's time there was never any cruelty
between people, and everything in the garden was rosy.
What planet do these people live on?
> Carried to its logical conclusion, it ultimately leads to a
> "scientific racism," that says some races are less evolved than
> others.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Less evolved"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Complete, utter, mindnumbingly stupid, ignorant, pathetic, illogical,
uniformed, disingenous, tripe.
Why does someone who is too stupid to fart and chew gum at the same
time think they are qualified to criticise a scientific theory they
don't even try to understand?
Oh, wait: Perhaps it is *because* they are too stupid to fart and chew
gum at the same time.
RF
Divin Marquis
> Furthermore, evolution theory is neither observable nor testable. And some
> scientists are beginning to doubt that Darwin's theory can fully account
> for the great variety of life on this planet.
Too bad he did'nt bother mentioning those "scientists". Could have been
amusing.
9fingers
He forgot my favorite - a fish with the word "Gefilte" in the middle.
(Gefilte fish is a Jewish dish.)
John Baker
wrote:
I've also seen one showing the Darwin fish, with shark fin and very
big teeth, swallowing the Jesus fish.
Frank J
Jason Spaceman wrote:
> From the article:
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Lukens
>
> It's amusing to see the variety of fish symbols found on people's
> cars. Some are plain, some have "Jesus" in them, some have "truth" in
> them, and some have "Darwin" in them with little feet on the fish.
> Some have the "truth" fish eating the "Darwin" fish. It seems we
> cannot escape this great controversy, even in traffic.
>
> Either a Creator made life long ago, or lifeless minerals somehow
> turned into all life forms we see today. That's it in a nutshell.
And that has no bearing whatsoever on evolution, which happens after
life arrives.
> To
> find answers on which is true, we can only rely on the evidence
> available.
>
> Charles Darwin's theories on "On the Origin of Species by Natural
> Selection," published in 1859, caused an intellectual upheaval that
> questioned assumptions about where humanity came from and where it is
> going. The upheaval continues to this day.
>
> Both creationists and Darwinists
Before I even read any further, I'll stick my neck out and say that the
rest of this article will be pure nonsense. If I need to I'll
apologize.
> acknowledge what we call
> Microevolution
OK, it looks like an apology won't be necessary...
>, or the variation within species. That means a species
> will adapt and acclimatize to its surroundings while not changing into
> a different species over many generations.
>
> Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
> time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
> it is a bit of a stretch.
Too bad that it has been directly observed.
>
> So, when does a protozoan change into other protozoan, or let's say, a
> tadpole?
Oy, I may have to apologize anyway, as this is starting to sound like a
parody.
> And when does that tadpole become a rodent, and that rodent
> becomes a monkey, and that monkey becomes a human? Doesn't even a
> basic life form have a beginning, or have been created, somewhere?
>
> Science is about the search for truth, and it is supposed to take us
> where the evidence leads. Darwin assumed in time evidence would be
> found to support his theory. Nearly 150 years later, it has not
> happened. The Missing Link is still out there.
Missing Link ??? Was this written on April 1?
BTW: Note "out there" as opposed to "nonexistent."
> Extensive fossil
> searches have turned up scant evidence that species evolve into new
> species.
>
> Furthermore, evolution theory is neither observable nor testable. And
> some scientists are beginning to doubt that Darwin's theory can fully
> account for the great variety of life on this planet.
Yeah, I hear they faked the moon landing too. But who cares which
theory is right or wrong, the good part is in the next paragraph.
>
> Yet biology aside, the seeds of what is called "Social Darwinism" have
> been sown. The logical consequence to humanity if Darwin's theories
> are true are that the healthy and strong are more worthy of survival
> than the sickly and weak. We see this attitude already played out in
> many areas of society today.
And that never happened before Charles "breathed by the Creator" Darwin
came along. Hmm. Never knew that ;-)
>
> The "survival of the fittest" mindset has lead to much cruelty toward
> people. Carried to its logical conclusion, it ultimately leads to a
> "scientific racism," that says some races are less evolved than
> others.
OK, I confess. All us "Darwinists" have traded "Origin of the Species"
for "The Bell Curve" as our new bible.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Read it at
> http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/jlukens_20050613.html
Why? Is there a Theodoric of York "Naaaaah" at the end?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> J. Spaceman
Steven J.
"Jason Spaceman" <notr...@jspaceman.homelinux.org> wrote in message
news:q4qqa19g4vophicgs...@4ax.com...
> From the article:
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Lukens
>
> It's amusing to see the variety of fish symbols found on people's
> cars. Some are plain, some have "Jesus" in them, some have "truth" in
> them, and some have "Darwin" in them with little feet on the fish.
> Some have the "truth" fish eating the "Darwin" fish. It seems we
> cannot escape this great controversy, even in traffic.
>
> Either a Creator made life long ago, or lifeless minerals somehow
> turned into all life forms we see today. That's it in a nutshell. To
> find answers on which is true, we can only rely on the evidence
> available.
>
archaic prokaryotes, into people is not the same thing as turning lifeless
chemicals into people), or a confusion of abiogenesis and evolution. Of
course, since creationism sees the opening chapters of Genesis as
explanations for the origin of life, the origin of species, the origin of
complex adaptions, and the origin (and nature) of morality, I suppose it's
natural that creationists don't distinguish among these topics.
Jeff Lukens, in his June 13th article on evolution and creation makes a
number of errors, from the religious views of Albert Einstein to those of
"Intelligent Design" proponents, to, of course, the contents, implications
of, and evidence for the theory of evolution. It's impossible to deal with
them in detail in a response of manageable size, so this is going to be a
quite cursory reply.
It's difficult to know what he means by "species" when he denies evidence
that "macroevolution" has occurred. It is true that in common usage of
biologists, "macroevolution" means the transformation of one species into
another. By the understanding of "species" that has prevailed among
biologists since Linnaeus in the 18th century, the evolution of one species
into another has been observed in the laboratory (and in the London subway,
where a new species of mosquito has emerged in the last 100 years. There
are also fossil sequences (Stephen J. Gould -- widely quoted on the paucity
of interspecies transitional fossils -- described the gradual evolution of
one species of the snail genus _Cerion_ into another as shown in fossils he
discovered) showing speciation, but I suspect in all these cases Lukens
would say "but they're still mosquitos, or fruit flies, or snails."
I suspect that by "macroevolution" or "change into new species" he means not
changes like those from, say, a brown bear to a polar bear (unobserved, but
strongly supported by genetic evidence that shows polar bears are more
closely related to some brown bears than other brown bears are), but a
change from, say, a theropod dinosaur to a modern bird, or, more
particularly, from an ape to a modern human. The fossil evidence for these
changes is better than Lukens would apparently care to believe, whether in
the form of feathered dinosaur fossils (showing gradual stages in the
evolution of feathers and wings), to fossil skulls that straddle any
boundary one might wish to set between the human and "ape kinds" (and indeed
creationists cannot agree among themselves whether well-preserved specimens
like ER1470 (_Homo rudolfensis_) are "fully ape" or "fully human."
But note that the principle evidence for evolution, whether in Darwin's day
or ours, is not fossils, but the relationships among living species. One of
the problems Darwin sought to solve was the nested hierarchy of life noted
by Carrolus Linnaeaus: the arrangement of species in genera united by many
traits shared by only members of that genus, in orders united by a someone
smaller number of unique shared traits, in classes united by their own suite
of traits common to members of the class and not found elsewhere, and so on.
for example, all animals with mammary glands also have (although this hardly
seems a logically necessary corollary of mammary glands) a single bone in
the lower jaw, three bones in the middle ear, and a single (left) aortic
arch.
There are no birds with mammary glands (or with a left rather than right
aortic arch). There are no bats with feathers; they all make do with the
general mammalian architecture, including fur. This is an odd feature if
species, or "kinds," are separately designed for their particular roles, but
is a typical pattern for groups of entities resulting from common descent
with modification. Families of documents hand-copied from a common original
fall into consistent nested hierarchies, as do families of languages, but
designed artifacts do not. This same nested hierarchy is reflected in
genetic and biochemical traits. Humans share pseudogenes (nonfunctional
"crippled copies of functional genes) with chimpanzees and other primates,
with those in chimps more similar to those in macaques, but all disabled in
the same way.
Lukens may even mean, by "changing species" the change from the "species"
that is unliving matter to life itself; he speaks of the theory as the idea
that "lifeless minerals changed into all the life forms we see today."
Actually, the origin of life (as opposed to changes in life that already
exists) is not the subject of the theory of evolution; Darwin considered the
problem, in his day, impossible to address, and was willing to allow for the
possibility that the original forms of life were specially created. Modern
abiogenesis researchers (biochemists rather than evolutionary biologists)
search for ways that RNA and proteins could have spontaneously
self-assembled and given rise to more complex life, but the theory of
evolution does not require the success of any particular theory of how life
came to be, any more than a history of the Second World Way depends on
knowing how the Germans came to occupy Bavaria back in the Dark Ages.
Lukens is wrong in implying that evolutionary theory implies "Social
Darwinism" of any sort. The theory deals with what has, or does, happen,
not with what ought to happen; it is descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Arguing that the survival and reproduction of randomly varying offspring is
not itself random is no more an argument for oppression of the weak by the
strong or for the superiority of one "race" to another, than the law of
gravity is an argument for pushing people off rooftops. Natural selection
has no goals towards which we can strive and no preferences towards which we
can shape social policies. We can change the selective regimes in force
from one to another, but evolutionary theory gives us no reason to prefer
one selective regime to another (and note that eugenics programs or ethnic
purges are *artificial*, not *natural* selection, reflecting a certain lack
of confidence in purely "Darwinian" mechanisms on the part of social
engineers).
Indeed, racism is doubly contrary to evolutionary theory.
First, the theory deals in "fitness," which is specific to a particular
environment; what is fitter or "superior" in one environment may be less fit
or "inferior" in another. There are no traits that are universally
"better," and certainly mere strength is not an exception. Note that "more
evolved" means simply more changed from a common ancestor; it may imply
"fitter" for some particular niche (though not all evolution is adaption),
but not necessarily "smarter" or "stronger," much less "more worthy." One
species or "race" may be more evolved in one respect, while another is more
evolved in another respect (rattlesnakes are more evolved in humans in
having no limbs, hollow poison fangs, and other snaky features, while humans
are more evolved in having warm blood, large brains, and other mammalian
features).
Second, populations vary among themselves; this variation is what natural
selection must work with. Darwin himself noted that there is no trait on
which one could rest a claim of "racial superiority" which was possessed by
all members of one race and no members of another. Later evolutionists,
however much they may have shared their society's assumption (also shared,
often in stronger form, by their creationist contemporaries) that, *on
average*, whites were smarter than members of other races, invariably noted
that of course there were (as the theory demanded) many individual
exceptions. Note that the theory itself does not require that races exist
(and modern evolutionists mostly doubt that true races exist among humans)
or that any particular differences exist in average group abilities.
To the best of my knowledge, Hitler did not consider "Aryans" to be "more
evolved" than other groups. Certainly he did not consider them smarter; his
claim to Aryan superiority rested on his assumption that they were more
willing to subordinate themselves to the purposes of the race. Nazi school
texts presented natural selection in highly colored terms, as a mechanism
for preserving the integrity and purity of species and races, but did not
discuss it as a mechanism for changing one species into another, or even one
race into another. If the _Table Talk_ can be trusted, Hitler was not even
sure that natural processes could account for human origins.
Note that most of the people publically connected with the Intelligent
Design movement do not assert that living things had to be created just as
we see them now. Some, like Michael Behe, have publically stated that they
do not disagree with common descent, or even with natural selection as a
mechanism for some (but not all) adaptions. Others, like Jonathan Wells,
seem to concede some sort of evolutionary history to life, but are cagy
about how much evolution (and Wells seems to deny common descent, preferring
a sort of directly evolution as in the early theories of Lamarck). They try
to stuff a vacuous "Designer" into gaps in current scientific explanations,
while offering no account of how this Designer is supposed to operate, or
when and where He has intervened in the history of life, or how one would
distinguish between the effects of a Designer of unknown and unguessable
motives and the actions of unknown or poorly understood natural causes.
This utter vacuity makes ID impossible to test; the "evidence" for design
consists entirely of supposed problems for evolutionary theory (as has been
noted, ID "theory" seems to amount to "somewhere, somehow, something or
other is wrong with evolution"). Evolution, on the other hand, is quite
testable. The consistency of the nested hierarchy is a continually
available test for common descent. Pseudogenes shared between humans and
dogs but not between humans and monkeys would be quite a problem for
evolutionary theory, to take one minor example. The mechanisms of natural
selection are testable: if it turned out (as creationists sometimes seem to
suggest) that survival of offspring is random with respect to inheritable
variations, that would show that natural selection could not work at all, or
if, in fact, beneficial mutations never occurred (e.g. no genes for
antibiotic resistance appeared in nonresistant strains of bacteria -- but
they do), this would disprove the mechanism.
Regarding Lukens's closing remarks, Einstein denied belief in a personal
God; the Creator he acknowledged was a personification of the laws of nature
rather than an artificer of individual species or a judge of the quick and
the dead. Michaelangelo was not a scientist. Galileo and Newton both
opposed the religious establishments of their time, emphasizing the primacy
of observations and the theories that explained them over dogma that read
scripture as a science text. And, for that matter, several prominent
evolutionary theorists today are Christians, and no more see evolution by
natural causes as contrary to believe in a Creator than Galileo or Newton
saw belief in a heliocentric solar system governed by natural law.
Lukens closes by arguing that it is easier to believe in creationism rather
than in evolution, but I am not sure this is true. As Thomas Huxley once
argued, it is easy to *say* that one can imagine creation, but can you
picture in your mind the actual creation of a new species? What would one
see, if one saw Adam (or australopiths) being formed from the dust of the
earth? Do dolphins just materialize in water as though "beamed down," or in
what way do they form? One can readily picture a breeding population giving
birth to a host of variant offspring, with some being a bit better adapted
to their environment than others, and small changes gradually being added
one to another. One can also better imagine ways to test this account of
origins against the evidence, than ways to test special creation when one
has no idea how special creation would even work in practice.
-- Steven J.
>
>
>
>
>
> J. Spaceman
>
Clayton...Less Calories, More Filling
"Jason Spaceman" <notr...@jspaceman.homelinux.org> wrote in message
news:q4qqa19g4vophicgs...@4ax.com...
Why are the most ignorant the ones who shout their bullshit from the roof
tops the loudest?
Tom McDonald
Christian Abuse! Christian Abuse!
We Christians are OPPRESSED in America! This is PROOF!
Truth Fish Must Eat All Darwin Fish!
(And why no Lute Fisk? SCANDINAVIAN ABUSE!!)
--
Tom McDonald
http://ahwhatdoiknow.blogspot.com/
bob young
Grogs wrote:
> presto: evolution is dead!.....
.....and the imaginary god is ALIVE
Praise de Lawd
Shawn
context, Fox News loves to do it. If you can stomach to watch the propaganda
for any period of time it's easily observable. When they want to insert
their own, unverifiable opinion, they preface it with "some people say..."
and treat it as fact. We don't know why these supposed people are, but from
the opinions they seem to espouse I can only imagine they're Sean Hannity
and Anne Coulter. Hell, now that I think about, these "some scientists" are
probably Sean Hannity and Anne Coulter...
"Divin Marquis" <postm...@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.06.13...@127.0.0.1...
Shawn
"John Baker" <nu...@bizniz.net> wrote in message
news:m7ora1l8ugr5u7abn...@4ax.com...
OOOHHH where can i get one of those?
Shawn
"Steven J." <sjt195...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote in message
news:11as8s8...@corp.supernews.com...
Bravo
Bill Hudson
For its clear and approachable language, and concise and incisive
content, so nominated.
DanielSan
http://www.evolvefish.com for one.
The Enigmatic One
news:gDure.3735$eM6....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> It's a common technique to get in questionable information. In another
> context, Fox News loves to do it. If you can stomach to watch the
> propaganda for any period of time it's easily observable. When they
> want to insert their own, unverifiable opinion, they preface it with
> "some people say..." and treat it as fact.
Well...
...some people say that there's a woman to blame.
-Tim
Niels van der Linden
Jim Willemin
news:1118732097....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:
>
>
> Steven J. wrote:
<snip excellent letter, to save bandwidth>
>
> For its clear and approachable language, and concise and incisive
> content, so nominated.
>
>
Seconded
Shawn
"Jim Willemin" <jimwi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns967555CF49969ji...@216.196.97.142...
Do you need a third?
/going to the voting thread now
Stan Gosnell
$eM6...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:
> OOOHHH where can i get one of those?
Try this one. http://www.rof.com/Plaque_TRex.htm
--
Regards,
Stan
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin
Andrew Arensburger
> Christian Abuse! Christian Abuse!
> We Christians are OPPRESSED in America! This is PROOF!
> Truth Fish Must Eat All Darwin Fish!
> (And why no Lute Fisk? SCANDINAVIAN ABUSE!!)
You can order a lutefisk fish here:
http://www.zydecogifts.com/html/darwin.htm
or a sushi fish, if that's what floats your boat.
Ring of Fire ( http://www.rof.com/ ) has a lot of good ones. I'd seen
the ProCreation plaque ( http://www.rof.com/Plaque_ProCreationFish.htm )
before, but not the T-rex one ( http://www.rof.com/Plaque_TRex.htm )
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Go ahead. Make my .sig.
floyd
William McHale wrote:
> In talk.origins Jason Spaceman <notr...@jspaceman.homelinux.org> wrote:
> > From the article:
> > ------------------------------------------------------
> > Jeff Lukens
>
[snip]
> > Both creationists and Darwinists acknowledge what we call
> > Microevolution, or the variation within species. That means a species
> > will adapt and acclimatize to its surroundings while not changing into
> > a different species over many generations.
>
> Microevolution is a term developed by Creationists because they cannot
> deny that evolution does shape species in small ways. An evolutionary
> scientist sees no need to define what is one end of a range of changes that
> cause one species to emerge from another.
"Microevolution" is not a creationist strawman term, it has a valid
biological meaning. It refers to the accumulation of beneficial and/or
neutral genetic changes and the removal of detrimental and/or neutral
alleles that does not result in reproductive isolation of a daughter
population from its parent population. That is, it's the kind of
"change in the relative frequency of alleles in a gene pool over
successive generations" that does not result in speciation.
"Macroevolution" also has a valid bilogical meaning. It is that kind
of genetic change that _does_ result in reproductive isolation.
Creationists like to re-define these terms to mean "a little change"
and "a big change" and you're correct that *those* definitions are
bogus. Microevolution *can* often have quite profound phenotypic
effects (IIRC, a single point mutation is responsible for antenopoedia
in flies, but I might be wrong there) so "microevolution" sometimes
means "a lot of observable difference". By the same token,
macroevolution (i.e. speciation, reproductive isolation) can occur
without any recognisable physical change at all. The taxon _Astraptes
fulgerator_, a Costa Rican butterfly, for example, may actually consist
of at least 10 cryptic species (Herbert et al. 2004
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/41/14812). Ten distinct
species of _A. fulgerator_ are largely sympatric and display no
genetalic differences in the imago (which is the standard evidence for
distinguishing insect species) and can only be recognised as distinct
in their larval stages and through DNA barcoding. So "macroevolution"
is not synonymous with substantial phenotypic difference between
ancestors and descendants either.
But just because creationists re-define the terms to suit their own
purposes doesn't mean the terms themselves are without value. If
someone decides to call dog poo "chocolate ice cream", that doesn't
mean that the term "chocolate ice cream" is without merit. I'm not
willing to cede ground on these terms and allow the creationists to
redefine them. Doing so would simply require us to spend more time
comming up with new names for these well-observed phenomena, which
would take time away from doing useful research.
>
> > Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
> > time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
> > it is a bit of a stretch.
>
> Not really, it is rather well supported for at least some species in the fossil
> record.
You win my "understatement of the day" award. :-) That's about
equivalent to saying "gravity is rather well supported for at least
some objects because at least some things fall down".
[snip]
> > The "survival of the fittest" mindset has lead to much cruelty toward
> > people. Carried to its logical conclusion, it ultimately leads to a
> > "scientific racism," that says some races are less evolved than
> > others.
>
> The cruelty has always existed; racism existed long before Darwin came around.
> Don't make the mistake to assuming a new justification of a behavior
> is the same as the behavior itself.
>
Jeff Lukens, the author of the article, is quie clearly hoping that his
readers are as ignorant of history as he is of biology. Slavery and
genocide based on so-called "racial" variation date back to the 15th
century, at least (I can't find much evidence that the idea of "race"
as Americans usually understand it existed prior to that time) and
OtOoS was published in the second half of the 19th century. Lukens
almost *has to* know this. It's impossible to know anything about US
history without being aware of the attempted genocide of Indians and
the enslavement of Africans. It doesn't take a math major to realise
that the 16th century happened _before_ the 19th century (but I reserve
judgement on the average creationist's mastery of mathematics, so
perhaps this is an honest mistake on his part). Cruelty to "outsiders"
has been rationalised at least as long as we've had written records; we
have a written history of being complete jerks that stretches back
nearly as far as we have writing, and I suspect we'd mastered the fine
art of asshattery long before that. The fact that the asshats
corrupted Darwin as a new rationalisation for their psychological
illness is irrelevant. They would and did, and still do use any idea
they could get their filthy paws on to try to justify their behaviour.
In the past, they used distortions of passages in the Bible as
justifications, some (e.g. the "christian identity" fascists) still do.
Others used the Great Chain of Being philosophy. Others used
"Manifest Destiny", "lost races of Moundbuilders", "historical
imperitive" and who knows what else. Today, sociopaths often use the
Koran as an excuse to blow things up. But it's not the Koran, the
Bible, or OtOoS that is at fault. Any of those works can also be
interpreted as a source of ideas favorable to social justice, equality,
kindness and altruism. Sick people do sick things; it's their sickness
that is to blame, *not* what's on their bookshelves. And of course
anyone who knows the firts thing about evolution knows that it most
explicitly does *not* state that "some races are less evolved than
others". In fact, Darwin is quite clear that all living things are
descended from a single ancestor, so *all* living organisms are exactly
equally as evolved as all other living things.
Jeff Lukens, the author of the article, is either an idiot or an evil
liar. I favor the former; "there's no point attributing to malice what
can be explained by stupidity", but YMMV.
Katt
news:1118863365.027870.7500@g44g2000cwa.
> Today, sociopaths often use the
> Koran as an excuse to blow things up. But it's not the Koran, the
> Bible, or OtOoS that is at fault. Any of those works can also be
> interpreted as a source of ideas favorable to social justice, equality,
> kindness and altruism. Sick people do sick things; it's their sickness
> that is to blame, *not* what's on their bookshelves.
Fine posting though that was overall, I think (with all due respect...) that
it's unfair of you to lump Darwin's book with the religious crap. Unlike
OtOoS, the others *actually contain explicit orders and/or permissions to
murder, mutilate, enslave, oppress and discriminate*, and have to be
'selectively read' to function as a source of the good and nice ideas you
mention. Sick people do indeed do sick things; we must also remember,
however, that *books can also be sick*...
Katt.
scooter
Jason Spaceman wrote:
> From the article:
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Lukens
>
> It's amusing to see the variety of fish symbols found on people's
> cars. Some are plain, some have "Jesus" in them, some have "truth" in
> them, and some have "Darwin" in them with little feet on the fish.
> Some have the "truth" fish eating the "Darwin" fish. It seems we
> cannot escape this great controversy, even in traffic.
>
> Either a Creator made life long ago, or lifeless minerals somehow
> turned into all life forms we see today. That's it in a nutshell. To
> find answers on which is true, we can only rely on the evidence
> available.
>
> Charles Darwin's theories on "On the Origin of Species by Natural
> Selection," published in 1859, caused an intellectual upheaval that
> questioned assumptions about where humanity came from and where it is
> going. The upheaval continues to this day.
>
> Both creationists and Darwinists acknowledge what we call
> Microevolution, or the variation within species. That means a species
> will adapt and acclimatize to its surroundings while not changing into
> a different species over many generations.
>
> Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
> time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
> it is a bit of a stretch.
>
> So, when does a protozoan change into other protozoan, or let's say, a
> tadpole? And when does that tadpole become a rodent, and that rodent
> becomes a monkey, and that monkey becomes a human? Doesn't even a
> basic life form have a beginning, or have been created, somewhere?
>
> Science is about the search for truth, and it is supposed to take us
> where the evidence leads. Darwin assumed in time evidence would be
> found to support his theory. Nearly 150 years later, it has not
> happened. The Missing Link is still out there. Extensive fossil
> searches have turned up scant evidence that species evolve into new
> species.
>
> Furthermore, evolution theory is neither observable nor testable. And
> some scientists are beginning to doubt that Darwin's theory can fully
> account for the great variety of life on this planet.
>
> Yet biology aside, the seeds of what is called "Social Darwinism" have
> been sown. The logical consequence to humanity if Darwin's theories
> are true are that the healthy and strong are more worthy of survival
> than the sickly and weak. We see this attitude already played out in
> many areas of society today.
>
> The "survival of the fittest" mindset has lead to much cruelty toward
> people. Carried to its logical conclusion, it ultimately leads to a
> "scientific racism," that says some races are less evolved than
> others.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Read it at
> http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/jlukens_20050613.html
>
> J. Spaceman
This Lukens guy could not be a bigger idiot. He's wrong about literally
everyhting he wrote from the theory of evolution to his attribution of
science and evolution to social constructs. It looks as if he is trying
to write a sociological paper,but it is clear he has no clue. If he
were a high school student, I might give him a "D"--but thats pushing
it.
Cary Kittrell
>
Darwin of course met His Maker much earlier, when he was a seminarian.
However, a few decades of viewing the immense suffering upon which the
natural world is built, coupled with the meaningless death of a beloved
daughter, convinced him that He was not all He had been made
out to be.
-- cary
John Baker
Sorry, I have no idea. Wish I did. I've never seen another one, and I
didn't ask the guy where he got it.
William McHale
> William McHale wrote:
>> > Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
>> > time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
>> > it is a bit of a stretch.
>>
>> Not really, it is rather well supported for at least some species in the fossil
>> record.
> You win my "understatement of the day" award. :-) That's about
> equivalent to saying "gravity is rather well supported for at least
> some objects because at least some things fall down".
Well I wasn't trying for understatement, only recognizing that while it is
possible to test gravity for absolutely anything you can encounter there are
species extant on the world today whose fossil record is very incomplete.
They might be filled out in the future or they may never be filled out,
it doesn't invalidate evolution just shows that fossilization is not a sure
thing.
--
Bill
littlejon
"William McHale" <mch...@beast.toad.net> wrote in message
news:Zegse.7$7H1...@news.abs.net...
> In talk.origins floyd <far...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>
>> William McHale wrote:
>
>>> > Darwinists also say that species can change into new species over
>>> > time. This is called Macroevolution, and from a scientific standpoint,
>>> > it is a bit of a stretch.
>>>
>>> Not really, it is rather well supported for at least some species in the
>>> fossil
>>> record.
>
>> You win my "understatement of the day" award. :-) That's about
>> equivalent to saying "gravity is rather well supported for at least
>> some objects because at least some things fall down".
>
> Well I wasn't trying for understatement, only recognizing that while it is
> possible to test gravity for absolutely anything you can encounter there
> are
> species extant on the world today whose fossil record is very incomplete.
DNA
floyd
OtOoS is an excellent work of explanatory theory and a tremendous
compilation of supporting evidence, and I agree that it contains no
prescriptive injunctions of any kind. In those respects, it is very
different from any of the religious works I mentioned. However, I
maintain that it is not the object (in this case, the religious
scripture) that is at fault. The Koran is not the cause of 9-11, and
the Bible was not the cause of the inquisition or slavery, any more
than OtOoS was the cause of eugenics or the Tuskeegee experiemnts. As
an analogy, a piece of wood with a nail in it can be used to build a
house for a poor family or it can be used to kill a person. It's not
the wood that is good or evil. I feel the same way about books.
Even Mein Kampf and Mao's "Little Red Book" are not evil, per se. I
don't think inanimate objects are capable of being either good or evil.
Mein Kampf and Mao's LRB can be and have been used to inspire hatred
and intollerance, or they can be and have been used as teaching aids,
to warn people about what happens when we allow demagogues to make our
decisions for us. The Bible can inspire us to feed the hungry and help
the poor, or it can inspire us to kill or enslave those who are
different from ourselves. It's not the book that is good or evil, it's
the use to which it is put by people. In other words, I was trying to
ascribe "blame" for sick actions where it actually belongs; sick
people. If a book tells me to be intollerant, cruel, or in some other
way unpleasant to others, it is still *my* responsibility to accept or
reject that teaching. As long as we have brains that are capable of
conscious decision making, it's not the books or the words that are at
fault for our sick actions, it's our decisions.
I agree that Darwin specifically, deliberately, and explicitly avoided
the naturalistic (is/ought) fallacy. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop
sick people from misusing the ideas it contains. If we were all
intelligent enough to take the book at its face value, there would
never have been any eugenicists here in the US.
That said, I see your point that it's inappropriate to include OtOoS in
the list, specifically *because* it contains no prescriptive injuctions
toward specific behaviours ("good" or "bad"), while the religious texts
do. Thanks for that insight.
John Wilkins
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
"Darwin's theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other
hypothesis in natural science." Tractatus 4.1122
AC
bob young
AC wrote:
Denied. You came in too late and you also forgot to zip up your flies.
>
>
> --
> mightym...@hotmail.com
William McHale
> DNA
True, but fossils are prettier :)
--
Bill