Pheobe Debates The Theory of Evolution

Original scene from the show... Friends. ^ | NA | NA

[Mr.Atos]

I was just lisening to Medved debating Creationism with Athiests on the air. I found it interesting that while Medved argued his side quite effectively from the standpoint of faith, his opponents resorted to condescension and beliitled him with statements like, "when it rains, is that God crying?" I was reminded of the best (at least most amusing)debate that I have ever heard on the subject of Creationism vs Evolution, albeit a fictional setting. It occurred on the show, Friends of all places between the characters Pheobe (The Hippy) and Ross (The Paleontologist). It went like this...

Pheebs: Okay...it's very faint, but I can still sense him in the building...GO INTO THE LIGHT MR. HECKLES!!

Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: Nah. Not really. Ross: You don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: I don't know. It's just, ya know, monkeys, Darwin, ya know, it's a, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy.

Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, the air we breathe, like gravity... Pheebs: Uh, okay, don't get me started on gravity.

Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity? Pheebs: Well, it's not so much that ya know, like I don't *believe* in it, ya know. It's just...I don't know. Lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down, as I am being pushed.

Ross: How can you NOT BELIEVE in evolution? Pheebs: [shrugs] I unh-huh...Look at this funky shirt!!

Ross: Well, there ya go. Pheebs: Huh. So now, the REAL question is: who put those fossils there, and why...?

Ross: OPPOSABLE THUMBS!! Without evolution, how do YOU explain OPPOSABLE THUMBS?!? Pheebs: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts!

Pheebs: Uh-oh! Scary Scientist Man!

Pheebs: Okay, Ross? Could you just open your mind like, *this* much?? Okay? Now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat? And up until what, like, fifty years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess o' crap came out! Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?!?

Pheebs: I can't believe you caved. Ross: What? Pheebs: You just ABANDONED your whole belief system! I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Ross: But uh.. Pheebs: Yeah...how...how are you gonna go in to work tomorrow? How...how are you gonna face the other science guys? How...how are you gonna face yourself? Oh! [Ross runs away dejected] Pheebs: That was fun. So who's hungry?

[ALS]

Speaking of intellectual DISHONESTY, I see you conveniently left out all your posts I was referring to. That finds YOU in violation of making accusations without providing evidence.

[ALS]

Are you sure you want to rely on an avowed Marxist to make yours?

[ALS]

Karl Marx on Darwin:
"Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle. One does, of course, have to put up with the clumsy English style of argument. Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, ‘teleology’ in natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/letters/61_01_16.htm

[Aric2000]

He did nothing of the kind, you are reading into it far more then it is.

There is NO problem with BOTH Phyletic Gradualism, and Puncuated equilibria.

It is obvious that you do not really know what Gould and Eldredge were actually saying.

There were species that did gradually change, Phyletic Gradualism, and then they were saying that there were SOME species that rapidly changed, due to geologic isolation, climate change etc, which necessitated that quick change in order to survive.

There is NO problem with BOTH being in the theory, they do NOT contradict each other, nor do they somehow disprove evolution.

You are the one reading that into it, but I expect that from you, you're a certified ID'r(not namecalling, just stating what I believe to be a fact, if I am wrong in that assumption, please correct me).

[Virginia-American]

You should stick to fibbing for darwood. [sic].

That'll sure get the schoolboards to incorporate ID into the curriculum, and no doubt change the minds of a lot of scientists as well!

[ALS]

ahhh so that's your agenda

[Aric2000]

Please, DO Not Feed The Trolls....

Thank you

[ALS]

you'll starve if he doesn't

[gore3000]

There is no way, not even in principle, that ID could be falsified, because we're free to postulate anything we want to about the hypothetical designer.

Not correct. Who the designer is does not matter as to whether something was designed. We can look at a car and know it was designed by some human being without knowing the human beings name or the purpose of his particular design.

ID has no explanatory power at all - absolutely any observation is consistent with it

Not correct either. ID has a tremendous amount of explanatory power and I will give you an example of why it does. For many years after the discovery of DNA scientists kept looking for a cancer 'gene'. They never found it. However, as we learned a little more about how organisms work we realized that it was not a gene that caused cancer, but a process which was somehow not working properly. This process in many cases is the one which controls cell replication. A quite involved process which tells at what point a cell should replicate and at the same time tells the old cell (in older people of course) to commit suicide. So this shows that the Intelligent Design theory led to a solution which had not been looked at because of evolutionary theory insisting on randomness and denying design.

[Aric2000]

Please see post 2187....

[ALS]

yip

[Aracelis]

Ah well, nothing new going on here. Going to burn some lectures onto CDs. Have a great night!

[RightWingNilla]

Please, Do Not Feed Even Acknowledge The Trolls Existence....

[ALS]

Imagine that, an evo lecturing someone.

[ALS]

you'll both starve

[jennyp]

Speaking of intellectual DISHONESTY, I see you conveniently left out all your posts I was referring to. That finds YOU in violation of making accusations without providing evidence.

No, I referred to them right in the middle of post 2151:

Anyway, then I proceeded to analyze Pannehoek's full argument here and here, and found it a hopelessly muddled collection of plausible speculation and ad-hoc leaps joined by logical fallacies. In fact I concluded that his comparison of Darwinism and Marxism was "a cargo-cult justification for Marxism".

Your reaction was to characterize my contextual analysis of the quote you relied on as: ...

It's up to you to analyze my analysis of Pannehoek, and to show us all how my analysis is "blaming capitalism and God for Marxism", "defending Marxism", "putting all [my] faith in a Marxist", "tak[ing] to heart" the rest of his article, and "drool[ing] over their dogma, seeking to find something anti-conservative".

Put up or shut up.

[Virginia-American]

...[oncogenes]...So this shows that the Intelligent Design theory led to a solution ...

Can you quote an actual researcher saying something like that? Where does design enter into the picture? Isn't the failure to stop replicating controlled by the interaction between the cell's environment and its genome?

[gore3000]

Well, PE asserts that since the mutation would occur in a limited geographical range, the "transitional" forms are unlikely to be found. Ergo, when the daughter species "breaks out" they appear without transitional forms.

Is this explanation like the ones kids use that 'the dog ate the homework"?

[ALS]

I dun "put up" in my posts. Obviously you are engaging in deceiving lurkers. Hoping none will go back through the events as they happened. It's an old evo trick and one you are forbidden to partake of as per your name calling agreement.

I don't expect any evos to take you to task though. Honor among thieves and all that rot.

[Aric2000]

we recommend not engaging a non-complying poster because it could lead to disruptive dialogue and flame wars.