What are Darwinists so afraid of?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern

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.

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."

I don't consider encouraging killing of people to be philanthropy.

I am sure you must be mistaken. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation surely does not encourage the killing of people.

Buffett's school of investing (value investing) regards monopolies and company's protected by the govt. as "good bets" because they have low risk and privileged status.

I found this web page. It lists the known holdings of Berkshire Hathaway. I am afraid it does not seem to corroborate your assertion. I am sorry to have to keep challenging your statements, but I cannot concede a point based on incorrect assertions.

Indeed. Foundations are one of the ways to do this. Available to the super-rich, but not to most of us commoners.

Our charitable donations are as deductible as Bill Gates's. Or at least I hope they are; I would not want to be audited!

Churches don't pay taxes, but they don't usually operate for profit, either.

The Gates Foundation does not operate for profit.

It used to be universally accepted that churches were a social good and should therefore be encouraged. The Founding Fathers certainly thought so. Of course, there are those extremists on this thread who would like to dismiss religion as a worthless fantasy. Are you one of those? ,/I>

It appears you must have missed my last post, in which I referred to the wonderful philanthopy of Christians. I find that it is better ot be careful about these sorts of challenges, as they often lead to ill feeling.

I don't see how Warren Buffett's bad politics support your arguments. He has been a bad influence in many ways. ,/I>

This was not my argument. My argument was that he is philanthropic, and apparenty an atheist or agnostic.

I never said atheists did not engage in philanthropy. However, there record there is pretty weak overall. A couple of super-rich guys do not outnumber the thousands of Christian philanthropists. (Besides, can you state conclusively what the personal beliefs of Buffett and Gates are? Do they advertise them? Are they in fact atheists? Agnostics? I don't really know. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep that secret, for business reasons.) In comparison, all the totalitarian socialist mass murderers in human history were militant atheists.

Neither Gates nor Buffett advertize their beliefs, but they are usually numbered based on limited public statements as atheists or agnostics, as you will find if you do a little research. And, as I am sure you will recall, Hitler was not a militant atheist, or indeed an atheist of any kind.

"I don't consider encouraging killing of people to be philanthropy."

Abortion is killing of people.

"Our charitable donations are as deductible as Bill Gates's. Or at least I hope they are; I would not want to be audited!"

Setting up a foundation is not just a "taxable deduction" like we peasants make. It's creating a self-perpetuating corporate entity, which can hire one's family and friends for generations.

My point was that churches don't pay taxes because they do not operate for profit. What does that have to do with the Gates Foundation?

I might also suggest you go into the average church (not some TV-evangelist's operation) and check out the salaries and office furniture compared to that in any billionaire's foundation. Check out how Salvation Army people live, compared to people at the Ford Foundation. Check out the medical missionaries in the jungle. There is no comparison. Case closed.

Sorry, I've studied value investing, and that school does like monopolistic companies, and those protected from fierce competition.

"Neither Gates nor Buffett advertize their beliefs, but they are usually numbered based on limited public statements as atheists or agnostics, as you will find if you do a little research. "

A "little research" won't tell you what their spiritual beliefs are, nor are they likely to say. They do seem to be liberal, yes. Beyond that, I don't know. If there is a simple answer to what their religion is, please let us all know.

"And, as I am sure you will recall, Hitler was not a militant atheist, or indeed an atheist of any kind."

I made that statement advisedly. Mao and Stalin make Hitler look like an amateur. In no way was Hitler a Christian, regardless of whether he was born into or raised in a Catholic home, or whatever. His beliefs were a crackpot amalgam of occultism, pagan Teutonic nostalgis, and (mainly) romanticism. Occasional orthodox-sounding language from Hitler can be dismissed as bombastic rhetoric served up to a population raised in a Christian culture. Everyone acknowledges that he was a demagogic orator with few peers.

There are two nagging questions about Darwinist evolutionary theory for which I have yet to find any satisfactory answer. Maybe you can help me with these -- you know, point me in the right direction to a direct, specific citation that clears up the difficulty.

It seems to me that Darwinist theory is based on the way things appear, and not necessary on what they intrinsically are. On this basis, I have no difficulty whatever appreciating that Darwinist theory is a good, general description of microevolution. My first question is: On what logical/evidentiary basis does Darwinist theory bootstrap itself from microevolution to macroevolution? Ultimately the theory appears to be an intuitive way to express what humans have directly observed. But humans have never directly observed anything about the origin of life, or even of the origin of species. It seems to me the theory rests mainly on conjectures, and those conjectures seemingly are constructed to give the Darwinist theorist what he wants -- an account of lifeforms that does not require any "guide to the system."

That is a lot more than two questions right there.

First, early evolutionists were largely limited to observations of morphology, and applied those observations to a wide variety of living organisms and to fossils.

Now, with genetics, there are a lot of direct observations which can be made which do not rely on "looks" or morphology, but actual solid, repeatable similarities and differences. A good example is the comparison of chimp and human DNA in an effort to learn more about the common ancestor.

It is gratifying to note that the earlier morphologists fared quite well when the new data from genetics came along. Huge numbers of things were confirmed, and I believe only a few were changed radically.

To the next part of the question: micro- vs. macro-evolution. Evolutionary theorists don't tend to make a big deal out of this; that is left for the creationists trying to find a weak point, or create one where none exists. What they would call micro-evolution is going on all the time. A variety of different traits will all be changing at the same time.

Take a look at the various ring species. One example is species which developed around a mountain, with each population just a little different from the previous, until when the moving population circles and meets the original population they can no longer interbreed. They are not technically a different species, as they are continuous in one direction, but the resulting endpoints can't interbreed.

Now take the ring species and stretch them out in a straight line, where the endpoints do not meet, and keep going for a few thousand miles and a few hundred thousand years. There you can have true speciation as the many small changes add up to a big change.

Origin of life: different subject.

Origin of species: we can observe that easily using the fossil record. There are a wide variety of species which we can watch change through time. Now, you won't believe a word of this, but tens of thousands of evolutionary scientists have no problem with it.

Conjectures: A conjecture can be

speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence); "speculations about the outcome of the election"; "he dismissed it as mere conjecture"
guess: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence
reasoning that involves the formation of conclusions from incomplete evidence

The layman often assumes that this is what science does. That view is not correct.

The goal of science is theory, which is defined more as described below than the conjecture described above:

Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses." Addendum: "Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws." (Courtesy of VadeRetro.)
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
When a scientific theory has a long history of being supported by verifiable evidence, it is appropriate to speak about "acceptance" of (not "belief" in) the theory; or we can say that we have "confidence" (not "faith") in the theory. It is the dependence on verifiable data and the capability of testing that distinguish scientific theories from matters of faith.

So, you can surely see the difference between conjecture and theory.

The second question has to do with what do we mean by "species?" I ask this, because nowhere have I found a rigorous definition of that term, consistently applied. At times it almost seems as if a "species" is whatever the observer cares to say it is.

I mean, just because a species of moth acquires a spotted pattern does not necessarily mean a new species has emerged. I think this would be just a case of the moth adapting to changes in its environment. Animals and humans do that all the time. But it seems they usually don't become entirely new species as the result of making such adjustments.

Species is a poorly defined term. It is generally taken to mean that two populations can't interbreed, and it works fine until some lion jumps a tigress...

In the long term, with evolutionary change working at higher levels (genus, etc.) this is less of a problem.

A good example of change coming with adaptation to environment: some six million years or so into the past, the forests in Africa began shrinking and the grasslands expanded. One portion of the ape population split into two groups, one staying in the forests the other taking to the grasslands (probably to the edges first). Over time this one species split farther and farther apart. Now, there are chimps in the forests and we are everywhere. This appears to have occurred as part of the adaptation to changing environments.

Hope these thoughts answer some of your questions. Perhaps others will fill in more details as the thread progresses. I did this off the top of my head, so if anyone can correct any errors that would be appreciated too.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.