The lies of Lynchburg: How U.S. evolutionists taught the Nazis.

Answers In Genesis ^ | September 1997 | Carl Wieland

[Fichori]

First published:
Creation 19(4):22–23
September 1997

by Carl Wieland

The chilling revelations of a recent television documentary¹ expose the disturbing consequences of evolutionary ways of thinking. Beginning in the 1920s, many thousands of people in the United States were sterilised against their will and without their consent, to prevent ‘undesirable breeding’. Over 8,000 of these procedures took place at a major centre to which such ‘undesirables’ were sent, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

[Mr. Silverback]

Only if the argument IS from ignorance and is a ‘God of the gaps’ argument.

But it will be characterized as such whether it is or not.

Seriously, let's try a thought experiment. Tomorrow a research team identifies a structure or process that appears to be irreducibly complex. They do all their homework, they have peers review the work and everything adds up. Ten years later, hundreds of researchers have tried to find a way it could be less complex and still work, and they've come up with nothing. Commentators legitimately compare it to a court case where there's a lot of evidence against the accused, but there's this one piece of evidence that makes it impossible for him to have comitted the crime.

Do you really think that Richard Dawkins is going to say, "Well, maybe there is a God" or even say "I still don't believe there's a God, but it seems likely that much of science has been going down a dead end street for the past 10 years or so"? Or will he just say, "This is the God of the gaps, it's not science, eventually we'll find out what allowed this structure to evolve, it's all part of the wedge strategy, etc., etc., ad nauseum."

You see, the problem is that even if evolution is not religious in nature, we have spent so much time telling people that evolution is beyond proven and that it's the core of modern science that it is now too big to fail. It's too embedded. If it were admitted that it has been falsified (or even admitted that an apparent falsification is the research of a real scientist and not a creationist plotter) it would be like shouting "science is bunk" from the mountaintops. It wouldn't be true that science was bunk, but so many scientists have made the science "brand" about Dawkinism that the PR effect would be similar.

[Just mythoughts]

Your initial point was that the theory was dependent upon public funding. Obviously this is not the case. Now you bring up the fallacy of appeal to consequences.

WRONG, I stand behind my initial point as you call it. TOE is nothing without public funding. TOE is a cult funded and paid for by taxpayers, plain and simple. Consequences are always there with anything including the TOE.

[allmendream]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Even if there was a “gap” that needed to be explained by supernatural powers (there isn't), a supernatural explanation is not and never will be science. If your impulse is to fill every “gap” (real or imagined) with God, then obviously you are engaged in a “God of the gaps” argument.

“We have no physical mechanism to explain it..... must have been God” is not the scientific method. Never was. Never will be.

No, Dawkins and the Creationists who want to conflate evolution with atheism have attempted to “brand” evolution as an atheist enterprise.

The scientists working in Biology are mostly people of faith such as myself.

[allmendream]

The theory of natural selection was formulated and researched and became preeminent WORLDWIDE among scientists long before public funding, and mostly (at that time) in the face of government opposition both in the USA and the USSR and elsewhere.

[tacticalogic]

First one would need competent teachers to teach the subject.

Is there specific legislation dealing with the competence of teachers you want changed, and what do you want to change it to?

What do you propose be legislated as the test of competency to teach the subject (and exactly what is the subject in question, ToE, biology, or general science)?

Does this competency test extend beyond ToE to other venues like radiometrics or geology where current scientific theories conflict with the creation doctrine of some religious beliefs?

[Just mythoughts]

The theory of natural selection was formulated and researched and became preeminent WORLDWIDE among scientists long before public funding, and mostly (at that time) in the face of government opposition both in the USA and the USSR and elsewhere.

Yep, it has been around since the Garden of Eden, I was not arguing its antiquity.

[allmendream]

You are arguing that the theory is dependent upon public funding, yet acknowledge that it became the preeminent theory among biologists long before public funding for it existed, and even in the face of government opposition.

Cognitive dissonance?

[Just mythoughts]

Does this competency test extend beyond ToE to other venues like radiometrics or geology where current scientific theories conflict with the creation doctrine of some religious beliefs?

Remember I said competent teachers but I did not say specifically which venue lack competency. I have spent much time studying the Bible and I have yet to find any place in it wherein it suggests or states this earth is a young planet. Everything points to a very very old planet, and even the evidence found all over this globe indicates the same finding.

And Peter actually says there are three different heaven/earth ages. Which certainly explains why there are no flesh human remains to be found with the dino remains. Because they did not co-exist in the same age.

The Heavenly Father is the ultimate scientist and I am not opposed in the study of any venue unless that venue is based upon the removal of the Heavenly Father, which is the base of TOE. But hey I do not advocate making TOE illegal, because I also believe that we in these flesh bodies have the GOD given right to believe whatever we choose to believe. I am opposed to the legislation of a TOE instruction that is against the Heavenly Father.

[Just mythoughts]

You are arguing that the theory is dependent upon public funding, yet acknowledge that it became the preeminent theory among biologists long before public funding for it existed, and even in the face of government opposition. Cognitive dissonance?

If the TOE'rs did not have by law pupils to instill their TOE the discipline would have long been dead. Now who has a dissonance issue?

[allmendream]

Based upon what, your say so? The theory has received experimental confirmation after experimental confirmation from many independent lines of inquiry.

The theory was not established with government support, and was researched often in the face of government opposition. Neither is its existence as the preeminent biological theory WORLDWIDE in any way dependent upon U.S. or any other public funding.

In other words, your statements hold no water and are reflective not of reality, but your own prejudice and ignorance.

[Mr. Silverback]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Even if there was a “gap” that needed to be explained by supernatural powers (there isn't), a supernatural explanation is not and never will be science. If your impulse is to fill every “gap” (real or imagined) with God, then obviously you are engaged in a “God of the gaps” argument.

Thank you. You've now basically confirmed EXACTLY what I was saying.

Now, it's true that I believe in a six day creation. But I didn't say anything about "Once we have something of irreducibly complexity that means Yahweh did it." I said that if an irreducibly complex structure or process is found, it will not be taken as evidence that current evolutionary theory is in error. I never talked about proving creation, I talked about falsifying evolution.

And what's your reaction? "God of the gaps." And you're not even a Dawkinsian!

“We have no physical mechanism to explain it..... must have been God” is not the scientific method. Never was. Never will be.

The problem (as you've shown here and many of your colleagues have shown for the last 12 years) is that "We have no physical mechanism to explain this, so maybe there's something wrong about our theory of the mechanics" will be regarded as outside science, as an example of saying "God did it" whether the person believes God did it or not!

[Just mythoughts]

In other words, your statements hold no water and are reflective not of reality, but your own prejudice and ignorance.

But of course the high mighty mind of TOE speaks of prejudice and ignorance.... Time will tell to whom these words actually apply.

[allmendream]

I.D. is a Trojan horse for creationism.

Irreducible complexity is negative evidence attempting to give short shrift to the power of natural selection of genetic variation, it is not in any way positive evidence of a “designer”. It is an attempt to detail a “gap” that the ‘cdesign proponentist’ wants to fill with ‘the designer’ a.k.a. God.

[Mr. Silverback]

Forgive my rudeness: I forgot to thank you for confirming my point.

Thanks!

[Mr. Silverback]

Forgive my rudeness: I forgot to thank you for confirming my point. I especaially feel bad about it now that you've gone and done it twice.

Thanks! Times two!

[allmendream]

And you have confirmed my point. Just because you decry the idea that “irreducible complexity” is an appeal to “god of the gaps” doesn't make me pointing out that this is exactly what it is incorrect.

You think “irreducible complexity” is a gap in the explanatory power of natural selection, and you wish to fill that gap with the unmeasurable, unreplicable and unpredictable (and thus unscientific) power of “the designer”.

[Mr. Silverback]

If irreducible complexity were proven, it would be evidence that the current evolutionary model is flawed. It would not prove that there is a God, or that he created.

So you've proven my point a third time. Really, you're too generous.

[tacticalogic]

Remember I said competent teachers but I did not say specifically which venue lack competency.

If you want to get something done that's going to involve legislation you're going to have to get specific. Can you do that?

[allmendream]

It would not be evidence of anything and nothing in science is ever “proven”. Once again you have displayed your ignorance of what science is.

Moreover there is no positive evidence of irreducible complexity. It is an appeal to ignorance. I.D.’ers don't know or cannot explain (or more likely don't want to accept the explanation) how this structure could arise by natural selection of genetic variation; thus it must have been “designed” by the “designer”.

In what way is that not a “designer of the gaps” argument?

[netmilsmom]

Thank you so much, my FRiend!