Posted on 07/27/2006 3:00:03 PM PDT by BrandtMichaels
What are Darwinists so afraid of?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jonathan Witt © 2006
As a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the '90s, I found that my professors came in all stripes, and that lazy ideas didn't get off easy. If some professor wanted to preach the virtues of communism after it had failed miserably in the Soviet Union, he was free to do so, but students were also free to hear from other professors who critically analyzed that position.
Conversely, students who believed capitalism and democracy were the great engines of human progress had to grapple with the best arguments against that view, meaning that in the end, they were better able to defend their beliefs.
Such a free marketplace of ideas is crucial to a solid education, and it's what the current Kansas science standards promote. These standards, like those adopted in other states and supported by a three-to-one margin among U.S. voters, don't call for teaching intelligent design. They call for schools to equip students to critically analyze modern evolutionary theory by teaching the evidence both for and against it.
The standards are good for students and good for science.
Some want to protect Darwinism from the competitive marketplace by overturning the critical-analysis standards. My hope is that these efforts will merely lead students to ask, What's the evidence they don't want us to see?
Under the new standards, they'll get an answer. For starters, many high-school biology textbooks have presented Haeckel's 19th century embryo drawings, the four-winged fruit fly, peppered moths hidden on tree trunks and the evolving beak of the Galapagos finch as knockdown evidence for Darwinian evolution. What they don't tell students is that these icons of evolution have been discredited, not by Christian fundamentalists but by mainstream evolutionists.
We now know that 1) Haeckel faked his embryo drawings; 2) Anatomically mutant fruit flies are always dysfunctional; 3) Peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks (the photographs were staged); and 4) the finch beaks returned to normal after the rains returned – no net evolution occurred. Like many species, the average size fluctuates within a given range.
This is microevolution, the age-old observation of change within species. Macroevolution refers to the evolution of fundamentally new body plans and anatomical parts. Biology textbooks use instances of microevolution such as the Galapagos finches to paper over the fact that biologists have never observed, or even described in theoretical terms, a detailed, continually functional pathway to fundamentally new forms like mammals, wings and bats. This is significant because modern Darwinism claims that all life evolved from a common ancestor by a series of tiny, useful genetic mutations.
Textbooks also trumpet a few "missing links" discovered between groups. What they don't mention is that Darwin's theory requires untold millions of missing links, evolving one tiny step at a time. Yes, the fossil record is incomplete, but even mainstream evolutionists have asked, why is it selectively incomplete in just those places where the need for evidence is most crucial?
Opponents of the new science standards don't want Kansas high-school students grappling with that question. They argue that such problems aren't worth bothering with because Darwinism is supported by "overwhelming evidence." But if the evidence is overwhelming, why shield the theory from informed critical analysis? Why the campaign to mischaracterize the current standards and replace them with a plan to spoon-feed students Darwinian pabulum strained of uncooperative evidence?
The truly confident Darwinist should be eager to tell students, "Hey, notice these crucial unsolved problems in modern evolutionary theory. Maybe one day you'll be one of the scientists who discovers a solution."
Confidence is as confidence does.
I dont have a lot of time today to enjoy this discussion, and I need more time to digest and study what the both of you are saying...however, I will notice that the two of you have quite opposing ideas, concerning the book of Genesis, and yet you both use the book of Genesis as your reference and authority for what you are saying...which of course, leads me to wonder which of the two scenarios is correct...but please, each one of you, please contrast your own scenario with the others scenario and see where the differences lie...
I am not a Biblical scholar, and probably have not studied the Bible as thoroughly or completely as either one of you may have done...so you can see where my confusion lies...two different scenarios, but both using the book of Genesis as reference and authority...
I find all this quite fascinating, and would be appreciative of any remarks you may have to make concerning this, and also if the two of you, could perhaps even discuss this between each other, so that I can see where each of you is drawing different meanings out of the same passages...
The greatest contrast I can see is between post 1157, by JustMyThoughts, and then post 1168 by Presently No Screen Name....these two posts dont agree with each other at all, and yet both posts are based on the same passages in Genesis...
I know this is quite a bit to ask, but I appreciate any input either one of you may have...
Thanks in advance...
Thanks..
"... A nation that could content itself with external reforms would not have the slightest chance of success in the general struggle for life among the nations of the world. A movement that would confine its mission to such adjustments, which are certainly right and equitable, would effect no far-reaching or profound reform in the existing order. The whole effect of such measures would be limited to externals. They would not furnish the nation with that moral armament which alone will enable it effectively to overcome the weaknesses from which we are suffering today.Hmmm ...
In order to elucidate this point of view it may be worth while to glance once again at the real origins and causes of the cultural evolution of mankind.
The first step which visibly brought mankind away from the animal world was that which led to the first invention. The invention itself owes its origin to the ruses and stratagems which man employed to assist him in the struggle with other creatures for his existence and often to provide him with the only means he could adopt to achieve success in the struggle. Those first very crude inventions cannot be attributed to the individual; for the subsequent observer, that is to say the modern observer, recognizes them only as collective phenomena. Certain tricks and skilful tactics which can be observed in use among the animals strike the eye of the observer as established facts which may be seen everywhere; and man is no longer in a position to discover or explain their primary cause and so he contents himself with calling such phenomena 'instinctive.'
In our case this term has no meaning. Because everyone who believes in the higher evolution of living organisms must admit that every manifestation of the vital urge and struggle to live must have had a definite beginning in time and that one subject alone must have manifested it for the first time. It was then repeated again and again; and the practice of it spread over a widening area, until finally it passed into the subconscience of every member of the species, where it manifested itself as 'instinct.'
This is more easily understood and more easy to believe in the case of man. His first skilled tactics in the struggle with the rest of the animals undoubtedly originated in his management of creatures which possessed special capabilities.
There can be no doubt that personality was then the sole factor in all decisions and achievements, which were afterwards taken over by the whole of humanity as a matter of course. An exact exemplification of this may be found in those fundamental military principles which have now become the basis of all strategy in war. Originally they sprang from the brain of a single individual and in the course of many years, maybe even thousands of years, they were accepted all round as a matter of course and this gained universal validity. ...
Stay away from Creationist websites, They'll rot your brain.
(That goes double for Ms. Coulter)
I just had to go through the your-you're and its-it's distinction with a whole bunch of university students, LOL!
See post #238, above.
See #636.
Is there something wrong with the idea that God started it all?
Or does it just not seem very "miraculous" to you?
I was told the Darwin story by a friend who must have gotten bad information but it really doesn't matter. The true transitional fossils showing one life form slowly turning into another simply don't exist. The fossils you guys present as that don't clearly show the slow transitions that evolution calls for. I think that is pretty obvious; if it were not this debate would have been over long ago. There are so many good scientists too, that see the falicy of toe some of which have been posted. Anyways, you guys are compelled to try and make some fossils fit into the TOE for some strange reason. I hope you will have more of an open mind.
University students??? Good grief!
CR/IDers often like to claim their insults are all in fun and don't count. There are some evos that cannot comment without insults like yourself, but they are rare. They've already heard from me.
Oh, I forgot god-science is humorless.
Well, I think Pastafarianism is cute. But otherwise I know of no god-science.
Too bad you have no real proof outside of a 5 min Disney Animation.
Science doesn't deal in proofs, they deal in evidence. So far you have refused to examine the evidence provided and inacurately labeled them all "fakes."
You guys want to pull some sort of gravity trick when there is absolutely no connection other than to divert your lost argument.
The Theory of Gravity was used as an analogy. Analogies are accepted in debate.
Fact is I put my faith in Jesus Christ while you put yours into a bunch of lying, twisting scientist stealing gummit grant money.
I don't have "faith". I Know there is a God. I accept the evidence for ToE. When they show some evidence for a different theory, I consider it.
Fact is your religion has cost the lives of 200 million people around the world under Nazism/Communism.
My religion is gnostic Buddhism.
Fact is your religion is as dead as Latin and in 10 years will be as dead as communism.
Again, you attempt to insult me by calling ToE my religion. You are wrong.
Go pull the victim card that Christians are mean.
How am I a victim? Because I pointed out your rudeness? Most Christians are good people. You seem to be an exception.
You still have the gummit forcing your religion down kids throats at the point of a gun.
Point of a gun? You are being overdramatic. I'm a homeschooling advocate.
What Conservative doesn't question something as full of holes as evolution, the foundation of Communism??
I question a lot of things. I questioned ToE, and it came up logical. You have to ask the right questions to get the right answers.
And I don't see evolution as the foundation of communism.
I managed to respond to your questions without insults. How? Hate doesn't dwell in my heart.
So, using the reptile-to-mammal as an example, what else should there be? What would the predictions of creationism and ID be? (keeping in mind that Dempbski and Behe accept common descent)
The debate ended about 120 years ago as far as biologists are concerned.
There are so many good scientists too, that see the falicy of toe some of which have been posted.
Maybe, being generous, a few hundred, almost none of whom are biologists. Something like 99.7% of biologists consider evolution a done deal. Read the Paleos website. Just kidding; it's too huge. Instead, start with the vertebrates and follow any lineage you like; there are lots of intermediate/transitional forms.
Anyways, you guys are compelled to try and make some fossils fit into the TOE for some strange reason. I hope you will have more of an open mind.
Remember that the fact of evolution (then known as the Law of Faunal Succession) was known decades before Darwin and Wallace came up with the theory of evolution by natural (and sexual) selection; Lamarck and Buffon, among others, had earlier theories to explain the fossil facts.
Modern genetic data have strengthened the case for common descent.
You Are What You Post
Depending on the depth of their criticism, it does.
If the earth is only 10,000 years old, computers can't exist.
If dinosaurs co-existed with humans, then there's no such thing as gasoline.
These disciplines are all connected. And the simple fact that you can't even call the discipline of evolutionary biology by its correct name, shows that you don't accept science for what it is.
You prefer to you use the perjorative, "Darwinism", even though it's been pointed out on these threads many times that the majority of biologists have never read Darwin because he's so out of date.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
yes: University students. ie: high-school graduates.
this is nothing new.
once upon a time, my grandfather devised a test for applicants seeking translator positions in the organization of which he was a part.
it had become apparent that possession of a college degree, even one from an Ivy League school, was no guarantor of linguistic competence, even in English - let alone a multiplicity of foreign tongues.
so... a test:
*******
Given:
1. The sentence "I went to the store to purchase one pound of butter"
2. the word "only"
Instructions:
1. Insert the word "only" before, between, or after each word in the given sentence, once per iteration. Transcribe each result.
example:
a. "Only I went to the store to purchase one pound of butter"
b. "I only went to the store to purchase one pound of butter"
etc...
2. In one paragraph per result, describe the difference in meaning between the original given sentence and the modified result.
*******
the ones who passed the test were those who asked "HOW long do we have for this test?" within thirty seconds of having read the Given and Instructions.
It's not that it doesn't seem miraculous, what I'm looking for is a description of: (1) What this God did, and (2) A description of this God.
That's all.
If you can lay that out for me, I'd appreciate it.
I well understand this, tortoise. But to me it is a trivial observation that misses the point I'm trying to raise, yet oddly one that, if anything, underscores what I have alluded to as "the observer problem."
Surely you do not mean that it is the observer who constitutes objective reality by means of his observation. What is constituted is his subjective relationship to that reality. And yes, I recognize that observations will be analyzed according to the "code" that the observer has internalized through his own observation and experience. But so far, we are still speaking of the observer, and not that which is observed -- which other observers may interpret differently, according to their own subjective codes.
But it seems clear to me the universe has not been constructed according to such observational processes, for the stupid simple reason that human observers did not emerge until quite late in the evolutionary process. Therefore the origin and evolution of the universe must be independent of human beings.
Your argument reminds me of the Marquis Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), who was known in his own time as the Isaac Newton of France:
"A brilliant mathematician and wily politician, Laplace was an almost perfect embodiment of the arrogance of the ‘Age of Enlightenment.’To which in all likelihood, Laplace would reply: “Hmph. I know what you’re driving at, sire, but I have no need of this … ‘God’ hypothesis.” [all quotes excerpted from Ottaviani and Purvis, Suspended in Language, 2005.]“[For Laplace said:] ‘Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis … to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes.’
“This mechanistic view was a dream of many, starting with the ancients who talked about the ‘music of the spheres’ as they envisioned the universe as a series of interlocking crystalline spheres spinning inside each other.
“[But it might be objected:] ‘This “intelligence” of yours, would it be the author of the universe, who I note you left out of your book Méchanique Céleste....’
Two points here: NO observer from within four-dimensional spacetime exists who has comprehensive knowledge of this kind -- not even a Laplace. And yet there it is -- the universe, all the same. It was here before we humans got here, and will likely survive when/if we are here no more.
Second, the person who makes such a statement has effectively promoted himself to the status of a god, or even of God Himself.
Capice, mi amice?
Thank you for writing, tortoise.
God created the physical world.
Why do you need a description?
Oh, I am SO looking forward to hearing the details, when you're ready to "go public!"
Please do keep me posted, MHGinTN. Thank you so much for writing!
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