Posted on 05/12/2006 12:13:47 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
In his op-ed "Evolution's bottom line," published in The New York Times (May 12, 2006), Holden Thorp emphasizes the practical applications of evolution, writing, "creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does," and citing several specific examples.
In places where evolution education is undermined, he argues, it isn't only students who will be the poorer for it: "Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?" He concludes, "Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school."
Thorp is chairman of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina.
Well, I do not accept your demands...you insist that the beginning of life, and evolution of life, are necessarily tied together...now, that may be your own personal view, but it does not hold true for other people...other people may have 'speculate' about how life began, but also understand, that simply because they do not know how life first began, is not an obstacle to supporting evolution...there can be and are many speculations about how life first began...the Christian God as the creator, seeding from outer space, any one of many other gods in various creation stories, chemical evolution, and on and on and on...the problem is, how does one prove any of these?...
You illustration of telling a child about Santa Claus, and then speculating that the child will necessarily ask about the origin of Santa, falls short...some children will ask about Santas origin, and others simply wont care so long as Santa brings his gifts...
You wish for there to be somewhere a verifiable strata of earth, that contains kind of like an evolutionary ladder, all in one place, showing the slow progression from one form of life to another...well, good luck with that...I dont know that it is going to happen...that any living being actually survives to become a fossil, is chancey at best...all conditions must be just right for this to happen...that is why, fossils taken from one site, one strata, are compared with others found around the world, in other strata...
People cry foul and whine when new discoveries cause certain speculations to be readjusted, or new ideas to come forth due to the new evidence...they claim that evolution cannot be supported, because it is constantly changing, being made to accomodate the new evidence...I ask why is this a bad thing?...the theory of evolution itself, is not in question, but rather what we have thought about certain particular fossils may have to be readjusted...I mean, if medicine was not readjusted and modified to accomodate new research, and new discoveries, they would still be practicing medicine like it was practiced long ago...
I do thank you for your response, and tho I dont agree with you, your post and your ideas were interesting, and thought provoking...
No, not necessary, thats a unknown. However if you think everything can be explained faith and belief in the unknown what is the origin of God.
Touche. But ...
1) I doubt sexual abuse by pastors comes anywhere close to the Catholic Church scandal. I don't have any hard numbers, but there is no "scandal" rocking the world of Bible believers.
2) The Bible should be judged on its own merits, not on the behavior of the bottom of the barrel.
Have a great day.
You are correct in every way. Anti-evolutionists set up Hitler and Stalin as their examples of Devils, and then attribute to them supernatural powers. The IDist/creationists seem to get their jollies from "guilt by association", whatever negative assocation they can come up with.
IDists claim that there is an "intelligent design" view and that evolution is "an equal religion". They say "Darwinism". Of course, there is no such thing as "Darwinism". This is a word made up by IDists to label those who do not accept their views. A cheap argument by labeling. There is no definition of "darwinism" except by what IDists set up as a strawman argument.
But consider what characterizes traditional religions and whether evolution is a religion. The historical record shows numerous distinctions.
As a starting point, we are careful about "I think" and "I believe". In casual language, I "think" daffodils are beautiful is the same as I "believe", I 'consider' daffodils to be beautiful, I 'regard/appreciate' daffodils as beautiful. Religious faiths do not use the phrase "I think"; they say "I believe". We all know the joke that "we should all believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink."
There is no reason to consider the theory of storkism as equal to the missionary position. The "teach the controversy" position collapses on storks.
Personally, I like storks.
Actually, here's an article called "Hitler's War on Christ" ...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26030
Fact One: Lysenko was put in charge of Soviet Agriculture because he kissed old Joe's ass. This was not an evolutionary decision - it was a political decision made for reasons only Uncle Joe could say (I'm being charitable).
Fact Two: Lysenko's handling of Soviet agriculture and the systematic dismantling of genetics and evolution research was responsible for the deaths of many Soviet citizens. Even old Michurin embraced Darwin before his death.
Tossing out Evolution for political reasons is no different than tossing him out for religious reasons (the mechanisms are the same) and the same effect will inevitably follow while the rest of the world continues to prosper and make progress.
Some interesting calculations on that from Frank J. Sonleitner (paragraphs added):
It is unreasonable to expect to find long continuous chains of transition forms in the fossil record. Consider the evolution of the modern horse from eohippus, which occurred over a period of 60 million years.
If we assume a generation time of three years, that corresponds to 20 million generations. Let us further assume that it takes 1 foot of sediment to bury a horse (probably not enough for the larger, more recent horses, but more than enough for the dog-sized early ancestors, so 1 foot is a reasonable average). To get a really complete series of transitional forms, we would require at least 1 specimen from each generation. But, if every three years, a river flood buries one horse or horse ancestor under 1 foot of sediment, that eventually amounts to 20 million feet of sediment! Which translates into 3,788 miles, a figure almost equal to the radius of the earth!
The total thickness of the Tertiary sediments in western North America that contain the fossil equid sequence is a bit under 10,000 feet. Thus only a tiny fraction of a complete transitional series could have been preserved. Yet, the known fossil horses provide a fairly continuous record with only one or two small gaps.
Source:
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/2142_51_sonleitner_what39s_wr_11_24_2004.asp
Below is the scientific definition of evolution;
In the life sciences, evolution is a change in the traits of living organisms over generations, including the emergence of new species. Since the development of modern genetics in the 1940s, evolution has been defined more specifically as a change in the frequency of alleles in a population from one generation to the next by reproduction or nature. In other fields evolution is used more generally to refer to any process of change over time.
Evolution is ongoing change and difference. The thing you call speculation by science is a fact observed by most. Of ~6.7 people on earth no two have ever been observed to be the same. They are different by evolution or small changes and differences. Science does not call this truth or proof because a clone could appear in the future or may have occurred in the past. However none have been found in the past and none are expected in the future and evolution is as close to a certainty than anything else known to man. A few of religion still think themselves a clone.
Thanks very much for your post #268...those figures are quite startling...I knew that Elpassers wishes for such an evolutionary ladder were unrealistic, I did not actually realize that they were quite impossible, given these statistics...
And thanks for including the link from where you got this information...more reading material for me, for later...I appreciate it..
Not really. Leibniz made exactly this criticsim of Newton's theory of gravitation, calling it a mystic form of "action at a distance". Leibniz had a point, --- Newton could only offer laws that described how it worked; what Newton could not do was offer a mechanism by which it worked.
Today, we know that Leibniz was wrong and Newton correct,even though what gravity is, is still fairly mysterious.
Similarly with intelligent design. I see nothing unscientific in searching empirical evidence that purpose in nature is not always merely apparent, whether done at the level of cosmology, biology or cognitive science.
Now, Newton would have been "unscientific" had he stated that his inference that gravity was caused by God was a scientific inference, but he did not do that even though he he believed in some sense, on some level, it was true. Similarly, it is laudable and not hypocrtical for IDers to say that they can't identify the designer.
Remember, in the days before the RNA world scenarios,Francis Crick bought into ID at the level of prebiotic evolution while remaining a devout atheist. Was he during that time a superstitious nut or a huckster? Certainly, he had no evidence of aliens seeding worlds-- all he had was an inference based on the evidence at the time that DNA had likely been designed.
I would label his aliens theory as speculation that went beyond science but his inference that DNA had been designed every bit as "scientific" an inference as his later rejection of panspermia.
In any event, the idea that because a medical doctor or patient or life-scientist thinks there is something to ID or some other competitor to Darwinian natural selection such as the various theories of co-evolution or self-organization does not mean they must therefore think there is nothing to Darwinism at all. Even the most rigid ID supporter accepts "micro-evolution" which what is being atalked about re: "finding cures for resistant infections."
The use of evolutionary algorithms, et al to show the efficacy of natural selection because it is built on a similar paradigm are a similar red herring. Reverse engineering follows the same sort of paradigm as ID, and reverse engineering has proven efficacious as well. But so what?
The mechanical model of Descartes has proven to have a great deal of application, but with regard to gravity, it was a bust.
The idea that thinking of Darwinian natural selection as a theory in some particular rather than a fact will make anyone an scientific ignoramus or hurt science eduction is just silly.
What's hurting science education is the lack of mathematical grounding kids have, as Darwin, who who envied the mathematical aptitude of his cousin, Francis Galton, would be the first to agree.
The last thing that will hurt science education is too many kids growing up to be complete science dorks like Charles Townes, the Nobel Prize winner in physics who rejects ID at the biological lvel but who holds that it is more persuasive than any of the alternatives at the level within which cosmology operates.
Post #269...excellent...
On the matter of clones...I think that all of us, at one time or another, have been mistaken for being someone else...someone thinks we are the 'spitting' image of someone they know...I know that I have had this happen to me quite frequently, seemingly more than the average person...I have come to conclude, that I must have a 'generic' looking face, that very closely mirrors someone elses face...it is always amusing to me, when folks actually think they have spoken to or met me before, and yet they are mistaken...
Which leads me to believe, that altho I, and all these other people for whom I am mistaken, obviously share some genetic traits, accounting for us looking like twins, still we are unrelated in any way... selecting certain traits when producing a new being through reproduction, can sometimes lead to unrelated persons looking like almost clones...its quite fascinating...
Whats wrong with Hitlers own words. He said he was a Christian and put it down in writing. He also said he followed the teachings of a M. Luther.
Hitler's Religion
by John Patrick Michael Murphy
In George Orwell's book, 1984, it was stated, "Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past."
Who is going to control the present - fundamentalism or freedom? History is being distorted by many preachers and politicians. They are heard on the airwaves condemning atheists and routinely claim Adolph Hitler was one. What a crock! Hitler was a Roman Catholic, baptized into that religio-political institution as an infant in Austria. He became a communicant and an altar boy in his youth, and was confirmed as a "soldier of Christ" in that church. The worst doctrines of that church never left him. He was steeped in its liturgy, which contained the words, "perfidious Jew." This hateful statement was not removed until 1961. Perfidy means treachery.
In his day, hatred of Jews was the norm. In great measure it was sponsored by the two major religions of Germany, Catholicism and Lutheranism. He greatly admired Martin Luther, who openly hated the Jews. Luther condemned the Catholic Church for its pretensions and corruption, but he supported the centuries of papal pogroms against the Jews. Luther said, "The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves," and "We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them." "Ungodly wretche," he calls the Jews in his widely read Table Talk.
Hitler seeking power, wrote in Mein Kampf. "... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." Years later, when in power, he quoted those same words in a Reichstag speech in 1938.
Three years later he informed General Gerhart Engel: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." He never left the church, and the church never left him. Great literature was banned by his church, but his miserable Mien Kampf never appeared on the Index of Forbidden Books.
He was not excommunicated or even condemned by his church. Popes, in fact, contracted with Hitler and his fascist friends Franco and Mussolini, giving them veto power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. The three thugs agreed to surtax the Catholics of their countries and send the money to Rome in exchange for making sure the state could control the church.
Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books before they address their pews and microphones. Acclaimed Hitler biographer, John Toland, explains his heartlessness as follows: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god..."
Hitler's Germany amalgamated state with church. Soldiers of the vermacht wore belt buckles inscribed with the following: "Gott mit uns" (God is with us). His troops were often sprinkled with holy water by the priests. It was a real Christian country whose citizens were indoctrinated by both state and church to blindly follow all authority figures, political and ecclesiastical.
For example, also in accord with "natural selection and survival of the fittest," male lions usually kill all the cubs in a pride when they take it over from another male. There are many other examples of ubiquitous infanticide in nature. Nor is infanticide uncommon in human cultures. None of this, however, morally justifies infanticide.
Human beings obviously evolved from animal predessors. Early humans developed language and social understandings than were in a struggle to understand responsibilities to the group. Individualistic perspectices like, "Nah,'I don't believe in the rain god' would not give you love and hugs in your clan.
Ethical concerns and common interest concerns developed. The notion of sin and "morality" from an invisible god of punishments derived from the old shamans. The idea of extending "humanness" to blacks, to Native Americans came later. The idea that female humans might be equal humans was a key understanding from Darwin.
If you are able to find and post a scholarly peer-reviewed work by a legitimate historian that makes your case, please do so.
In the meantime, you may want to read the most in depth work on the subject to date. It is referred to in this article. Follow the supplied link to the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion. It annihilates any such delusions.
Enjoy.
No, he didn't. He attacked some unspecified 'ultra-Darwinists'. Do you ever, once, tell the truth about anything? You might try it. It's quite exhilarating.
Exactamundo They don't make money, anymore than governments do. They take money.
Bored? What's that?
Many in history try to revise and distance themselves from Hitler and I have read many of the revisions and most are by Christians. However I was living part of his reign saw his speeches and read his own writings Mien Kamp. Many in this country supported Hitler and his views of Jews. Until we declared war on Germany there were Nazi chapters in every major city of the US, the largest being in Detroit and they were well supported by local Christians and others. Of much popular debate was whether we should fight with the Allies or Hitler.
Sorry about that.
Have a great night. My teenager is out of town and me and the Mrs. are going to share a sweep the kitchen pizza and watch a movie. Life is good.
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