Ann Coulter weighs in on Darwinism

uncommondescent.com ^ | William Dembski

[Tribune7]

I’m happy to report that I was in constant correspondence with Ann regarding her chapters on Darwinism — indeed, I take all responsibility for any errors in those chapters. :-)

[Dimensio]

The tenets of evolution ring true with godlessness

This statement is false.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Excellent list. BUMP!

[svcw]

Brilliant simply brilliant!

[editor-surveyor]

"evolution and God are compatible."

He who says that evolution and God are compatible makes God a liar.

In Genesis 1 the Lord states that he made the earth in six solar days, and repeatedly says that each creature reproduces after it's own kind. Just in case anyone is not clear on the issue, he repeats in Exodus, chapters 20 and 31 that it was indeed six solar days.

Can one call God a liar and still claim to be a believer? I know that many will provide their own feeble false answer to this, but they know that they are wrong. They know that they will not taste life.

[Right Wing Professor]

I wonder what Freud would have to say about your post.

Ich verstehe diese nicht, weil es auf Englisch geschreiben ist?

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . my agenda is protecting science . . .

Sounds like a lofty pursuit. Unfortunately your desire to protect science is clouded by a desire simply to promote an agenda for science that fits you most comfortably, and is thus unscientific to begin with.

Protect "science?" Wow! A guardian of truth and knowledge is in our midst; one who would reject the authority of biblical texts in favor of human opinions. I hope you find great reward in protecting science from those who believe organized matter performing specific functions is indicative of an Almighty Creator as attested by the biblical texts. As far as I can tell, your pursuit thus far has made for a fine crank at least.

[Ichneumon]

["You posted that it exists. Show put up or shut up."]

Open your window or your door and look around.

I've done that many times.

This world didn't happen by chance.

Of course it didn't. It happened according to various physical processes which can hardly be described as "by chance". Things don't coalesce gravitationally "by chance", for example.

Now, where was that evidence of God you promised us?

[taxesareforever]

Those that say they are Christian and subscribe to evolution are treading on very dangerous ground in regards to faith. If they lay claim to evolution then they most certainly can claim any other portions of the Bible are false. They are playing with fire.

[Sam Hill]

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. Hitler 1922"

Very misleading quote. Hitler was mocking a speaker (Count Lerchenfeld) who had said in a speech that a Christian could not be anti-Semitic. Hitler's full text, available in the collection of his speeches called "My New Order," pp 14-27, is dripping with sarcasm as his audience would have realized.

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so. Hitler, 1941"

The only citation for this quote is Toland's biography of Hitler, p. 703. (Without even any mention of a date.) He just mentions it in passing in quotation marks without any documentation. And Toland is not considered a serious historian.

Of course it flies in the face of everything Hitler was saying in his "Table Talk" right at that period.

It's kind of ironic coming from a poster who claims to be so rigorous. Nicht wahr?

[Ichneumon]

http://home.att.net/~scott.lisa.sutherland/evolution.htm

ROFL!!!

Thanks for providing us with yet another example of anti-evolutionists revealing that they're complete idiots on the subject they attempt to "critique" or "disprove".

Clue for the clueless (that would be you): Your link contains the idiot ramblings of an anti-evolutionist masturbating with a calculator, producing calculations which DO NOT ACTUALLY MODEL THE PROCESSES HE SEEKS TO 'DISPROVE'. What a moron! Yes, he shows that the production of an exact replica of a modern protein VIA RANDOM SHUFFLING is unlikely to occur. Well good for him. Unfortunately for Mister Stupid, no biologist has ever been ignorant enough to postulate that it *did* happen by that imbecilic method. HE'S CALCULATING THE WRONG THING.

Even if it *had* been an accurate model of protein formation (and it's laughably wrong), the author ALSO bone-headedly "forgets" to factor in the fact that achieving an "exact match" for a particular sequence (which is what this anti-evolution dipwad was calculating the odds of, albeit by the wrong process) is not required. It's as if he tried to calculate the odds of winning a hand of poker, by stupidly calculating ONLY the odds of being dealt a Royal Flush of hearts while his opponent was dealt a nine-high spade flush... Instead, just as there are a vast number of ways to win a hand at poker, the size of effective sequence space for biologically active proteins is mindbogglingly huge:

However, an analysis by Ekland suggests that in the sequence space of 220 nucleotide long RNA sequences, a staggering 2.5 x 10^112 sequences are efficent ligases [12]. Not bad for a compound previously thought to be only structural. Going back to our primitive ocean of 1 x 10^24 litres and assuming a nucleotide concentration of 1 x 10^-7 M [23], then there are roughly 1 x 10^49 potential nucleotide chains, so that a fair number of efficent RNA ligases (about 1 x 10^34) could be produced in a year, let alone a million years. The potential number of RNA polymerases is high also; about 1 in every 10^20 sequences is an RNA polymerase [12]. Similar considerations apply for ribosomal acyl transferases (about 1 in every 10^15 sequences), and ribozymal nucleotide synthesis [1, 6, 13].

Similarly, of the 1 x 10^130 possible 100 unit proteins, 3.8 x 10^61 represent cytochrome C alone! [29] There's lots of functional enyzmes in the peptide/nucleotide search space, so it would seem likely that a functioning ensemble of enzymes could be brewed up in an early Earth's prebiotic soup.

Yet again, the "anti-evolution calculations" fail to calculate anything resembling the actual situation, due to the anti-evolutionists' stupendous degree of ignorance on the topic they're attempting to "teach" us something about.

This is *typical* of the stupid "mathematical proofs" put forth by anti-evolutionists. They don't have the first clue how biochemistry works, so all they do is "model" the most simple-minded, laughably inaccurate cartoon method of biochemical synthesis that pops into their ignorant little heads.

You guys keep me rolling on the floor, this is better than the Comedy Channel!

Here, try to learn something for once: Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations. Sample excerpt:

Firstly, the formation of biological polymers from monomers is a function of the laws of chemistry and biochemistry, and these are decidedly not random.

Secondly, the entire premise is incorrect to start off with, because in modern abiogenesis theories the first "living things" would be much simpler, not even a protobacteria, or a preprotobacteria (what Oparin called a protobiont [8] and Woese calls a progenote [4]), but one or more simple molecules probably not more than 30-40 subunits long. These simple molecules then slowly evolved into more cooperative self-replicating systems, then finally into simple organisms [2, 5, 10, 15, 28]. An illustration comparing a hypothetical protobiont and a modern bacteria is given below.

The first "living things" could have been a single self replicating molecule, similar to the "self-replicating" peptide from the Ghadiri group [7, 17], or the self replicating hexanucleotide [10], or possibly an RNA polymerase that acts on itself [12].

Another view is the first self-replicators were groups of catalysts, either protein enzymes or RNA ribozymes, that regenerated themselves as a catalytic cycle [3, 5, 15, 26, 28]. An example is the SunY three subunit self-replicator [24]. These catalytic cycles could be limited in a small pond or lagoon, or be a catalytic complex adsorbed to either clay or lipid material on clay. Given that there are many catalytic sequences in a group of random peptides or polynucleotides (see below) it's not unlikely that a small catalytic complex could be formed.

These two models are not mutually exclusive. The Ghadiri peptide can mutate and form catalytic cycles [9].

No matter whether the first self-replicators were single molecules, or complexes of small molecules, this model is nothing like Hoyle's "tornado in a junkyard making a 747". Just to hammer this home, here is a simple comparison of the theory criticised by creationists, and the actual theory of abiogenesis.

Note that the real theory has a number of small steps, and in fact I've left out some steps (especially between the hypercycle-protobiont stage) for simplicity. Each step is associated with a small increase in organisation and complexity, and the chemicals slowly climb towards organism-hood, rather than making one big leap [4, 10, 15, 28].

Where the creationist idea that modern organisms form spontaneously comes from is not certain. The first modern abiogenesis formulation, the Oparin/Haldane hypothesis from the 20's, starts with simple proteins/proteinoids developing slowly into cells. Even the ideas circulating in the 1850's were not "spontaneous" theories. The nearest I can come to is Lamarck's original ideas from 1803! [8]

Given that the creationists are criticising a theory over 150 years out of date, and held by no modern evolutionary biologist, why go further? Because there are some fundamental problems in statistics and biochemistry that turn up in these mistaken "refutations".

Why don't you guys come back and try again when you have the first clue for a change, m'kay?

[Right Wing Professor]

Unfortunately your desire to protect science is clouded by a desire simply to promote an agenda for science that fits you most comfortably, and is thus unscientific to begin with.

Just your usual boring ad hominem, Fester. Must be tough to have nothing in your intellectual arsenal but unsubstantiable assertions. I don't know if I could handle feeling that impotent.

Protect "science?" Wow! A guardian of truth and knowledge is in our midst; one who would reject the authority of biblical texts in favor of human opinions.

The 'authority' of biblical tests was compromised hundreds of yours ago, as soon as we realized the earth was far older than 6000 years. That is not a matter of human opinion. it is a matter of scientific fact. I know you have a policy of keeping yourself ignorant of such matters, but most of us learned as children that simply shutting our eyes doesn't make vanish what we don't want to confront.

I hope you find great reward in protecting science from those who believe organized matter performing specific functions is indicative of an Almighty Creator as attested by the biblical texts.

I do. In my own small way, I see myself as standing before the gates, keeping the ignorant and the irrational at bay. Stand back, now. If I have to run you through, I'll feel bad about it later. :-)

As far as I can tell, your pursuit thus far has made for a fine crank at least.

That's rich, coming from you, a man who is actually proud of his inability to understand simple scientific ideas.

[Fester Chugabrew]

The statement was qualified with particulars you chose to omit, namely rejection of the authority and accuracy of the biblical texts. That, too, is at least a mild indicator of godlessness: twisting other people's words. Can't say I'm not guilty of ever doing the same, but at least I know where I came from and where I'm going.

[Fester Chugabrew]

If it were ad hominem I'd be calling you names. As it stands, I merely pointed out that you have no place to begin doing science until you have a philosophy from which to pursue it. Your assertion that you are some kind of "protector of science" is based upon little more than the assumptions with which you undertake science in the first place.

If you want to talk about "unsubstantiable assertions" let's talk about your results on a scientific basis. How effective have you been as a protector of science? How might we quantify your services for the good of science?

Actually, I bet you've contributed a great deal to science, but - call it ad hominem if you must - I have my doubts when it comes to your effectivenes in "protecting science."

[Right Wing Professor]

Hitler was mocking a speaker (Count Lerchenfeld) who had said in a speech that a Christian could not be anti-Semitic. Hitler's full text, available in the collection of his speeches called "My New Order," pp 14-27, is dripping with sarcasm as his audience would have realized.

Here's the full text, which oddly, you didn't quote.

My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.

"In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.

"Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.

"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice...

Please indicate to me anything that would lead one to believe this is intended to be sarcastic.

BTW, if you'd prefer it in the original...

“Ich sage: Mein christliches Gefühl weist mich hin auf meinen Herrn und Heiland als Kämpfe. Es weist mich hin auf den Mann, der einst einsam, nur von wenigen Anhängern umgeben, diese Juden erkannte und zum Kampf gegen sie aufrief, und der, wahrhaftiger Gott, nicht der Größte war als Dulder, sondern der Größte als Streiter! In grenzenloser Liebe lese ich als Christ und Mensch die Stelle durch, die uns verkündet, wie der Herr sich endlich aufraffte und zur Peitsche griff, um die Wucherer, das Nattern- und Ottergezücht hinauszutreiben aus dem Tempel! Seinen ungeheueren Kampf aber für diese Welt, gegen das jüdische Gift, den erkenne ich heute, nach zweitausend Jahren, in tiefster Ergriffenheit am gewaltigsten an der Tatsache, daß er dafür am Kreuze verbluten. Als Christ habe ich nicht die Verpflichtung, mir das Fell über die Ohren ziehen zu lassen, sondern habe die Verpflichtung, ein Streiter zu sein für die Wahrheit und für das Recht...

[Sam Hill]

"Please indicate to me anything that would lead one to believe this is intended to be sarcastic."

I note in your rigor, you leave out the lead up to the quote. (How objective of you!).

"I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling as 'a man and a Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite.

I say: My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.

In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. "Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.

As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice...."

Hitler used many rhetorical devices. (He was the only politician of his day to charge admission for his speeches.) Sarcasm was one of his favorite devices.

He is saying that it is the role of a good Christian to attack and destroy the Jews. That is absurdist sarcasm that his audience would have clearly understood.

If you don't know that Hitler loathed and despised Christianity, which he saw as just a furtherance of Judaism, than you know nothing about Hitler.

[AndrewC]

How do you know it's a hoax? How would someone who doesn't accept evolution argue that Piltdown is a hoax?

Okay, Pilty is not a hoax. He is real. Have at it.

[Right Wing Professor]

If it were ad hominem I'd be calling you names

You don't understand what ad hominem means.

As it stands, I merely pointed out that you have no place to begin doing science until you have a philosophy from which to pursue it.

Oddly enough, though, I did begin doing science, and continue to do it.

If you want to talk about "unsubstantiable assertions" let's talk about your results on a scientific basis. How effective have you been as a protector of science? How might we quantify your services for the good of science?

I think i've had some impact on this forum, and at my university.

Actually, I bet you've contributed a great deal to science, but - call it ad hominem if you must - I have my doubts when it comes to your effectivenes in "protecting science.

And Democrats are forever telling Republicans how they should campaign. Let's just say your expressed opinion in this matter is one that I am uninclined to treat as entirely disinterested.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

Here

Zec 12:1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.

Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul

1Cr 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;

(The breath of life does not equal soul)
Are you sure?

Isaiah 57:16
I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me— the breath of man that I have created.

The main focus of life in the Bible has always been the salvation of our soul. Is that not why we can have life after death? When God created us in His Image, was this reference to our bodies? I believe that it was the creation of our soul. He gave us a spiritual existence, in the same way He exist spiritually. He also gave us the traits that go with it. We have the ability to choose. We are free from being slaves to our instincts. We have imagination, and the ability to create, albeit on a much smaller scale. Most important, we have the ability to love, which is the greatest commandment, and also what God declares Himself to be.

1 John 4:8
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:7-9 (in Context) 1 John 4 (Whole Chapter)
1 John 4:16
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God

We belittle God when we try to make Him purely physical. The breadth of life is more than taking in and processing oxygen. If that were all it is, then we're all condemned to eventually die. Some day, inevitably, our bodies will give out, and we will not breath in oxygen. But, we will still exist in a spiritual sense. This is Life. If it's not, then why are we worshiping God in the first place? I have confidence in this! I worship God because I believe in eternal life with Him.

I do not think that it is belittling to Him to consider that His creation may be a much broader, and more extrordinary, than what is outlined in Genesis.

I think the scare is that if we do not take Genesis to be complete in it's detail, then how can we trust that the rest of the Bible is. Well, I ask, "What is the purpose of the Bible?" The story of creation in Genesis is beautiful. It is also short. We make it all the way to chapter 3 before prophesy of Christ begins. The key to everlasting life was prophesied throughout the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. Christ is the key to Life! That is the focus of the Bible.

I'm sure that if creation account in Genesis was as long as the New Testament there would be much fewer questions. God's concern however is us, and our life after death, that's why we have the Bible.



(...and man became a living being.... If you are trying to state that the qualification for living being is that it has a soul, then you can't do that.)

That's because mine says this

Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul

[Right Wing Professor]

I note in your rigor, you leave out the lead up to the quote. (How objective of you!). "I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling as 'a man and a Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite.

You didn't originally give any of it. So where does that leave you?

HItler was clearly contradicting Lerchenfeld. I don't dispute that. I see absolutely no sarcasm in his contradiction, and you have been unable to identify any. He pointed to the driving out of the moneychangers in the temple as an example of Christ's enmity to the Jews. This particular argument is in a long tradition of German Christian antisemitism, which dates back to Martin Luther and before. The speech was given in Munich, a strongly Catholic city, not the place to be sarcastic about Christianity. Earlier in the speech he had decried the demise of Christian capitalism at the hands of Jewish capitalism.

He is saying that it is the role of a good Christian to attack and destroy the Jews. That is absurdist sarcasm that his audience would have clearly understood.

Bull. Martin Luther preached the same thing. Was that absurdist sarcasm?

[WildHorseCrash]

Open your window or your door and look around. This world didn't happen by chance.

Okay. I checked. No God. Some grass, a bush, the mailman and a dog taking a crap against a tree, but no God.