Posted on 03/29/2008 6:54:19 PM PDT by wastedpotential
Of all the factors that led to Mike Huckabee's demise in the 2008 presidential sweepstakes (insufficient funds, lack of foreign policy experience), there's one that has been largely overlooked: Huckabee's disbelief in the theory of evolution as it is generally understood – without the involvement of the Creator.
Perhaps you're thinking: What's evolution got to do with being president? Very little, as Huckabee was quick to remind reporters on the campaign trail. But from the moment the former Baptist minister revealed his beliefs on evolutionary biology, political commentators and scientists lambasted him. Some even suggested those beliefs should disqualify him from high office.
We believe most Americans
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
I doubt that. I suspect I'm the only one on these threads who spent half his time during six years of grad school studying fossil man, osteology, human races, evolution, primates, anatomy and related subjects. And I enjoy learning from those few folks who are pretty good at biology and genetics.
But I find avoiding those squishy subjects, like philosophy, where opinion is king and rhetoric is queen, is much to my benefit. And those subjects where "revelation is the highest form of knowledge" -- lets not even go there.
No, I'm saying that you have strayed into philosophy without wanting to make a philosophical argument. You practically pretend that science has no underlying philosophy--or if one exists, then it is completely problem-free. Crevo threads are the most common place where philosophically stunted scientists and science fans run into the minefield around the edges of the philosophy of science.
In short, you hold a definitional view that science (and possibly all truth) is naturalism and therefore evolution is true because any theological argument to counter it is false by definition. If you're arguing based on definitions, you're arguing philosophy--not science.
One question. Is there any universal truth that cannot be discovered by science?
The book Icons of Evolution is written by Jonathan Wells. Here is a review of that book.
Here are the concluding paragraphs:
In conclusion, the scholarship of Icons is substandard and the conclusions of the book are unsupported. In fact, despite his touted scientific credentials, Wells doesn't produce a single piece of original research to support his position. Instead, Wells parasitizes on other scientists' legitimate work. He could not have written the "Haeckel's embryos" chapter without the work of Richardson et al. (1997, 1998), or the "peppered moths" chapter without Coyne (1998) and Majerus (1998), or the "Archaeopteryx" chapter without Shipman (1998). Even then, Wells's discussions are rife with inaccuracies and out-of-date information. Wells seems to think that scientific theories are supported by certain "keystone" pieces of evidence, removal of which causes the theory to collapse. Paradigms in science work when they provide solutions and further research; their health is not tied to single examples. The paradigm of evolution is not tied to a single piece of evidence.If that is the case, why "defend" the "icons" at all? If evolution doesn't need them, why not just replace them? The answer is simple: There is no reason to throw out good teaching examples unless the criticisms leveled against them are valid. We should not just acquiesce to Wells's arguments unless they have merit. Just as no piece of evidence becomes a teaching example without extensive testing, no example should be removed on the basis of one poorly argued, inaccurate, and tendentious book. In each case, it is Wells's arguments that are wanting, not the "icon."
When Alfred Wegener first proposed his theory of continental drift, he was laughed at and ridiculed. What did he do? Did he form a non-profit advocacy group and lobby state school boards and lawmakers to force teaching of "evidence against" geosynclinal theory? Write a book called Icons of Uniformitarianism? Evaluate and grade earth science textbooks and demand that they be rewritten to remove examples of "borderlands"? No. He went back and did more research. He found like-minded colleagues and they produced research. He fought in the peer-reviewed literature. He produced original research, not polemical popular tracts or politics. Eventually his ideas were adopted by the whole of geology -- not through politics but because of their overall explanatory power. If Wells and his colleagues want "intelligent design" to succeed, they need to produce that research. Until they do, evolution remains the reigning paradigm and the "icons" are perfectly acceptable teaching aids.
From another review, titled Creationism by Stealth, by Jerry Coyne:
In 1976, Jonathan Wells a student in Moon's seminary, answered his leader's call. Wells writes, "Father's [Moon's] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me to enter a PhD program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle." The University of California supplied Wells with his weapon, a PhD in biology and, with Icons of Evolution, Wells has fired the latest salvo in the eternal religious assault on Charles Darwin.
Based on these, I don't think I would accord Wells much credibility in dealing with science, or the theory of evolution.
Beats me. Check back in a few hundred years. Science as we know it is a very young field. We're doing pretty good, and we have a good self-correcting mechanism to try to root out errors.
But I certainly wouldn't trust anything the philosophers have to say about science, as they have been philosophizing for millennia and can't even agree on the simple things like definitions of terms or when to adjourn for lunch.
And they are really miffed about being passed by in favor of a field of endeavor that actually produces results! ("But we were here first! Please pay some attention to us... Oh, please!")
It is your position that all universal truths can or will eventually be discovered by science? That there are none excluded by definition or by method?
By the way, understanding philosophical positions and difficulties with science does not mean arriving at a correct answer, but knowing when you can no longer make assumptions for the voracity of your position.
It is your position that all universal truths can or will eventually be discovered by science? That there are none excluded by definition or by method?
As I said, check back in a few hundred years.
I have so little interest in philosophy that I don't even care to debate it. For one thing, how does a philosopher know that he has come up with a correct answer? What test does a philosopher apply to determine his answer is correct, rather than just rhetoric?
I think you should continue this discussion with Alamo-Girl and betty boop. They would probably enjoy it far more than I would. I have pinged them to this post.
The entire argument about this general matter is clouded by the fact that one side is primarily arguing from faith, while the other is arguing from the scientific method.
The two sides can't even agree on how to argue, so it's impossible to reach a resolution.
The anti-evos wrongly assume that the scientists would feel threatened and actively oppose any new facts or arguments that challenge their current conclusions, when in fact, they would welcome them.
I haven't yet read the writings of a scientist who says that we've got every question answered, all the facts are known, and there's nothing further to learn.
in fact, the opposite is true. Scientists seize every new fact and try to fit it into the grand puzzle of historical life on this planet.
At the polar opposite, the YECs treat every new discovery as a threat which must be minimized, disproven, or ridiculed in order to fit it within their pre-existing conclusion. There's nothing scientific about that, nor even logical. But that's the reality.
Well, you quoted Asimov concerning assumptions. Logic is within the discipline of philosophy. Falsifiability is a philosophical concept not a scientific one.
It doesn’t need scientific proof. Not everything in life can be reduced to scientific parameters and yet is true and real.
Explain beauty scientifically. Or truth, morals, emotions, will, decision making, society,...
Or do they not exist because they can’t be reduced to a scientific experiment?
What tab?
While I do not know whether that statement is true for most creationists, I know it's not true for all. I certainly do believe the Genesis account as literal, but I not believe that speciation is impossible.
(Note that believing, even very strongly, is not knowing, and possible does not mean certain.)
I'm a computer programmer by trade and I know that DNA are, for all practical purposes, little (massive) programs, with built-in interpreters, so I know that it is possible to modify the DNA code to produce any sort of transitional or other strange species.
But, since my faith does not require me to believe in "Creation by speciation" I remain rather skeptical of the idea that a dog came from a fish, knowing that while speciation could happen, it seems mathematically very unlikely to me. And that, coupled with the fact that I haven't seen a dog come from a fish (or anything else similar), leaves me unconvinced that any dog ever did come from any fish.
And remember, just becomes something could be doesn't mean that it is be!
-Jesse
Thanks for the ping!
Excellent, AndrewC, excellent!
Huh? well, whatever. I guess I meant "Missing transitional species."
The fact is that the fish didn't give birth to the dog. So if you believe that the dog did descend from the fish, there had to exist a huge number of transitional species between the two. Like millions of generations, billions of animals, I'm guessing. Now if we find all those millions of transitional species skeletons, the theory works fine. On the other extreme, if none are found, then it's pretty shaky. But if some are found but not all, then it is valid to discuss the concept of "Absent transitional species."
"Missing Link" seemed fine to me, but if you'd rather me use "Undiscovered Transitional Species Fossils," then that is fine.
- and there are a lot of them.
I'll mention more on this down a few lines, but I'm interested in learning about them. approximately, what constitutes a "lot" of them, in this case?
If you can deny their existence,
I'm not denying their existence, I'm just not yet seeing the evidence for them.
after having been shown the evidence in popular science magazines and television programs for decades it can only be that you choose, for religious reasons, not to accept that evidence.
Incidentally, I'm only 30 and I grew up without watching TV, and without popular (or otherwise) science magazines. And even now, about the only times I watch TV is in passing down the isle in walmart or briefly when I show up at a friends house. If I have a few minutes I just find it so much more exhilarating and rewarding to write a program or build something or try a new scientific experiment.
I grew up on a small family farm, taking care of all aspects of animal husbandry and learned how life works from start to finish many times over. Between barnyard duties I read in my physical science books and electronics books and performed different scientific experiments. I like learning new things! (The small amount of schooling I did get also took place on the farm there, and I never attended public school.)
But it won't make that evidence go away.
So by all means, we've been talking about this evidence long enough :-), perhaps you could indulge me and show me your best evidence that dog came from fish!
Remember, that is what is taught in public schools. So it must be supported by enough evidence to be able to be believed with enough certainty to describe it as fact.
Thanks,
-Jesse
One would not need to hate God, or even believe in God in order to believe that no such thing as wrong exists.
Even if one has no concept of God(And you can't hate what you don't have a concept of) but they believe with all their heart that all came to be by chance and that there is no moral lawgiver greater then man, the only logical position is that no such thing as wrong exists. What one man says is wrong another might say is just fine. Logically, the only rule is to preserve one's self and offspring -- in other words, the rule of the jungle: Don't get caught.
I only mentioned that because as I think about the issue I see that a person is presented with two contradictory stories ("In 6 days God created the heavens and the earth" vs "Long long ago, far far away, there was, for all practical purposes, nothing, and then it exploded") and they both require significant faith. So then it is perfectly logical to ask ones self which story is more likely true: The one which proves that no such thing as wrong exists, or the one who says that such a thing as wrong does exist.
But my main point was that the evidence that the earth is billions of years old and that the big bang happened requires us to have faith in things which we did not see and which, in the case of the big bang, are now impossible.
Specifically, as I cited in the post to which you replied, "Physical laws as we know them did not exist due to the presence of incredibly large amounts of energy,.." So this takes faith too! How is that different then any other faith of geologic origins?
Herein I am not trying to prove ID or anything else -- I'm just trying to logically and honestly look at this big bang idea.
I think if we just asked people on the street whether the big bang was true, they would say yes. But if we asked them further, I'm betting that for the vast majority of them, it is a pure faith. They have chosen to believe in it and chosen to trust people that they don't know, about a thing that is physically impossible today, that nobody ever saw.
So whether there are some people for whom the big bang is more then just a faith, I do not know. But I'm quite certain that for most people, it is no more then a faith. The problem is, they don't know that it is a faith, and they all recite it as a known fact.
I sure hope that somewhere, somebody knows it to a significantly better degree then as a mere faith. After all, it's being taught all over as fact to innocent schoolchildren.
-Jesse
If you can deny their existence, after having been shown the evidence in popular science magazines and television programs for decades it can only be...
Dare I say that I found it delightfully amusing that you admonished me against using a newspaper term then immediately informed me that I should have learned from the TV.
May I say to you that the TV is even worse then the newspaper!
-Jesse
It seems quite a few folks here, including myself, aren't too familiar with all this genetic evidence.
Perhaps someone who knows about it could include a reference to their best evidence?
Thanks,
-Jesse
Wells used evolutionists own work against them so they cry foul because he didn't use his own research.
Why don't you try to find a valid criticism of the book. Show us where the author used bad science or unsupported conclusions.
One of my favorite chapters was the one on homologies. After reading it I flipped through my text book and found this little gem of circular logic. “Structures that are shared by species on the basis of descent from a common ancestor are called homologies. Homologies alone are reliable indicators of evolutionary relationship”
Just out of curiosity, if it is possible that God created the world, then why would it not be scientific to study the facts and see if they made sense in that setting? See below.
This rule states that scientists must look for a naturalistic cause (and only a naturalistic cause) for a natural phenomenon. In other words, scientists cannot invoke supernatural explanations.
Then why on earth do we have the big bang? That was a super natural explanation! According to Berkeley "Physical laws as we know them did not exist due to the presence of incredibly large amounts of energy,.." That is beyond natural, or technically speaking, Super-natural!
So how come the big bang, which operated outside of the known laws of physics, is science, while the idea that God created everything is not science on account of it invoking a supernatural explanations?
-Jesse
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