Free Republic Poll on Evolution

Free Republic ^ | 22 September 2006 | Vanity

[PatrickHenry]

Free Republic is currently running a poll on this subject:

Do you think creationism or intelligent design should be taught in science classes in secondary public schools as a competing scientific theory to evolution?

You can find the poll at the bottom of your "self search" page, also titled "My Comments," where you go to look for posts you've received.

I don't know what effect -- if any -- the poll will have on the future of this website's science threads. But it's certainly worth while to know the general attitude of the people who frequent this website.

Science isn't a democracy, and the value of scientific theories isn't something that's voted upon. The outcome of this poll won't have any scientific importance. But the poll is important because this is a political website. How we decide to educate our children is a very important issue. It's also important whether the political parties decide to take a position on this. (I don't think they should, but it may be happening anyway.)

If you have an opinion on this subject, go ahead and vote.

[tomzz]

I'd assume that you couldn't evolve your way from something like Lucy to a neanderthal either. The neanderthal seems believable enough for what you'd call a proto-human or some such, while Lucy was clearly an ape or a monkey. I do not have an opinion as to what the neanderthal WAS; the interesting question is what he WASN't, which was any friend of Chuck Darwin's.

A neanderthal in a white shirt and tie in daylight would not cause panic in NY, while the next closest thing, which I take to be Heidelburgensis, would. Consider this:

That is basically Jay Matternes' reconstruction of a neanderthal. First time I ever saw that I figured I'd seen that guy somewhere before:

Is it possible that somebody forgot to tell the artists of the Indus Valley civilization that neanderthals had died out 35K years ago? Sir Mortimer Wheeler referred to the type of figurine above as "nonrepresentational art" and a depiction of a "priest/king type", and a google image search on 'priest king' turns up mainly images of the same figurine from differet viewing angles.

Then again there is Gunnar Heinsohn's statement:

Mueller-Karpe, the first name in continental paleoanthropology, wrote thirty years ago on the two strata of homo erectus at Swanscombe/England: "A difference between the tools in the upper and in the lower stratum is not recognizable. (From a geological point of view it is uncertain if between the two strata there passed decades, centuries or millennia.)" (Handbuch der Vorgeschichte, Vol I, Munich 1966, p. 293).

The outstanding scholar never returned to this hint that in reality there may have passed ten years where the textbooks enlist one thousand years. Yet, I tried to follow this thread. I went to the stratigraphies of the Old Stone Age which usually look as follows

modern man (homo sapiens sapiens)

Neanderthal man (homo sapiens neanderthalensis)

Homo erectus (invents fire and is considered the first intelligent man).

In my book "Wie alt ist das Menschengeschlecht?" [How Ancient is Man?], 1996, 2nd edition, I focused for Neanderthal man on his best preserved stratigraphy: Combe Grenal in France. Within 4 m of debris it exhibited 55 strata dated conventionally between -90,000 and -30,000. Roughly one millennium was thus assigned to some 7 cm of debris per stratum. Close scrutiny had revealed that most strata were only used in the summer. Thus, ca. one thousand summers were assigned to each stratum. If, however, the site lay idle in winter and spring one would have expected substratification. Ideally, one would look for one thousand substrata for the one thousand summers. Yet, not even two substrata were discovered in any of the strata. They themselves were the substrata in the 4 m stratigraphy. They, thus, were not good for 60,000 but only for 55 years.

I tested this assumption with the tool count. According to the Binfords' research--done on North American Indians--each tribal adult has at least five tool kits with some eight tools in each of them. At every time 800 tools existed in a band of 20 adults. Assuming that each tool lasted an entire generation (15 female years), Combe Grenals 4,000 generations in 60,000 years should have produced some 3.2 million tools. By going closer to the actual life time of flint tools tens of millions of tools would have to be expected for Combe Grenal. Ony 19,000 (nineteen thousand) remains of tools, however, were found by the excavators.

There seems to be no way out but to cut down the age of Neanderthal man at Combe Grenal from some 60,000 to some 60 years.

I applied the stratigraphical approach to the best caves in Europe for the entire time from Erectus to the Iron Age and reached at the following tentative chronology for intelligent man:

-600 onwards Iron Age
-900 onwards Bronze Age
-1400 beginning of modern man (homo sapiens sapiens)
-1500 beginning of Neanderthal man
between -2000 and -1600 beginning of Erectus.

Since Erectus only left the two poor strata like at Swanscombe or El-Castillo/Spain, he should actually not have lasted longer than Neanderthal-may be one average life expectancy. I will now not go into the mechanism of mutation. All I want to remind you of is the undisputed sequence of interstratification and monostratification in the master stratigraphies. This allows for one solution only: Parents of the former developmental stage of man lived together with their own offspring in the same cave stratum until they died out. They were not massacred as textbooks have it:

monostrat.: only modern man's tools

interstrat.: Neanderthal man's and modern man's tools side by side

monostrat.: only Neanderthal man's tools

interstrat.: Neanderthal man's and Erectus' tools side by side

monotstrat.: only Erectus tools (deepest stratum for intelligent man)

The year figures certainly sound bewildering. Yet, so far nobody came up with any stratigraphy justifiably demanding more time than I tentatively assigned to the age of intelligent man. I always remind my critiques that one millennium is an enormous time span--more than from William the Conqueror to today's Anglo-World. To add a millenium to human history should always go together with sufficient material remains to show for it. I will not even mention the easiness with which scholars add a million years to the history of man until they made Lucy 4 million years old. The time-span-madness is the last residue of Darwinism. This "most misleading Englishman" (Velikovsky) needed millions of years to let invisibly small alterations do the big visible changes. It is quite funny to observe catastrophism combined with darwinizing time spans. Yet, I see it all over neo-Catastrophism.

[PatrickHenry]

Nicely done!

[tomzz]

If I absolutely had to take a best-shot, wild ass guess as to the relationship between modern man and the hominids, my GUESS would be that apes and the hominids arose on this planet, and modern man was transferred here prior to whatever sort of catastrophe wiped the other habitable planets in the system prior to the flood. Like I say, there are a couple of other possibilities as well, but evolution is not amongst them.

[bvw]

Evolution: Creed not theory.

Except for ideas. Ideas do evolve, and it is the spirit in which ideas evolve and out of which ideas emanate into the world, and are manifested as things. Thngs in which the evolultion of ideas is evident. Things and series of things demonstrate the evolvultion of ideas when examined honestly and earnestly and in the absense of creeds.

[Virginia-American]

... Nobody is going to vote against anybody for wanting to have open discussions of controversies in classrooms.

However, any candidate, of any party, DeVos or Sharpton, who promotes teaching ID or creationism as though they were science, does not get my vote.

If he actually subscribes to this belief, he lacks the gumption to serve, and is quite likely to harbor other delusions as well.

If he doesn't believe it, but uses his rhetoric to pander rather than to lead, he lacks the integrity needed to hold office.

[Dimensio]

I am well aware of Dr. Kennedy's intellectually bankrupt attempt to construct an appeal to consequence fallacy based upon false claims that the theory of evolution has any social or economic goals or implications. The theory of evolution is not falsified because those who do not understand or who misrepresent the theory attempt to link it to fascism or communism.

[js1138]

Satan has always used the Word of God to tempt man away from Godliness - he cannot create; he does twist. All that tempter has is lies, and lies are nothing but a twisting of what is true. See Genesis 3 and Matthew 4.

Perhaps you'd care to tell us what Isaiah really meant, since you assert that he didn't mean what he said.

[Dimensio]

You may be onto something here, but let's just ask "Do the drugs that your doctor gives you cure your illness, or do you have to keep going back to get a useless prescription refilled time after time after time?

Do you know of a cure for hypothyroidism?

[DoctorMichael]

Definitely worth checking out!

Despicable people like Jim Jones use Christ to hoodwink people.

..is to....as....is to..

Therefore it follows: Christ is Evil!.....and a threat to God-fearing Christians!

[Quark2005]

Therefore it follows: Christ is Evil!.....and a threat to God-fearing Christians!

I don't doubt that Hitler, Stalin, etc. 'borrowed' Darwin's ideas. Let's also remember that Islam 'borrows' the concepts of 6-Day Creation, Adam & Eve, Noah's Flood, etc. from Judeo-Christian thought (i.e. the central tenets of Creationism). Kind of strange that 'objective' people see one link but not the other.

[Liberal Classic]

:)

[Liberal Classic]

Hey Splifford, is that you?

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Splifford the bat says: Always remember

A mind is a terrible thing to waste; especially on an evolutionist.
Just say no to narcotic drugs, alcohol abuse, and corrupt ideological
doctrines.

[FreedomProtector]

What wit!

I'm still counting valid meanings to the obvious pun.

[unlearner]

Wow. I am so not impressed. Cop out. Why even bother to post?

You claim my points are full of errors, then run away without any evidence whatsoever. And this comes from someone who will claim anyone who challenges his views is obliged to present rigorous evidence.

[FreedomProtector]

Very insightful.

[Quark2005]

Very insightful.

I concur. It makes perfect sense that Satan would use the scientifically bankrupt concepts of Creation Science and Intelligent Design, backed by Bible verses, to drive sensible people away from Christianity.

[FreedomProtector]

"It makes perfect sense that Satan would use the scientifically bankrupt concepts of Creation Science and Intelligent Design, backed by Bible verses, to drive sensible people away from Christianity."


It makes perfect sense that God would put little, tiny problems in the world for the materialist, the observed law of Biogenesis and the laws of probability. Maybe it is ironic that God designed the very smallest, simplest life to be one of the biggest traps for the materialist.

The evolutionist may try to open escape hatch of "given enough time surely anything can happen", or "'science doesn't understand all of the process' or 'there is much we don't know in this area'". Perhaps the escape hatches won't open. Given a huge amount of time, it is still highly improbable. If the natural processes existed to create life from non-life, wouldn't science observe the effects of those processes? Maybe the materialist is trapped between believing something that is highly improbable, escape hatches that won't open, or believing in an Intelligent Designer, i.e. God.

Maybe God had a sense of humor when he designed the very smallest, simplest life to be one of the biggest traps for the materialist.

Maybe this is what actually makes perfect sense and will enable 'sensible people' with hard hearts to turn to God:
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

[tomzz]

You need to reconcile yourself to the fact that the majority of Americans including politicians are never going to buy off on evolutionism.

[tomzz]

I think Hitler killed a few more people than Jim Jones ever did...