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Evolution Critics Are Under Fire For Flaws in 'Intelligent Design'
Wall Street Journal ^ | Feb 13, 2004 | SHARON BEGLEY

Posted on 02/13/2004 3:14:29 AM PST by The Raven

Edited on 04/22/2004 11:51:05 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Even before Darwin, critics attacked the idea of biological evolution with one or another version of, "Evolve this!"

Whether they invoked a human, an eye, or the whip-like flagella that propel bacteria and sperm, the contention that natural processes of mutation and natural selection cannot explain the complexity of living things has been alive and well for 200 years.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creationuts; crevolist; evolution; intelligentdesign
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To: balrog666
I'm going to slink away and pout.........
321 posted on 02/14/2004 5:29:01 PM PST by Elsie (When the avalanche starts... it's too late for the pebbles to vote....)
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To: longshadow

322 posted on 02/14/2004 5:31:08 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.)
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To: Elsie
That question is answered by how successful the individual is at reproduction. There is no way to know if a change is beneficial or harmful except by noting reproductive success.
Obviously if the individual dies before reproducing, the change is harmful. But most changes will be subtle and have marginal effects on reproduction. Marginal meaning statistical.
323 posted on 02/14/2004 5:38:32 PM PST by js1138
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To: AndrewC
Your 'fact' is wrong. The entire basis of sexual reproduction is that genes are mixed and matched to produce different variants.
324 posted on 02/14/2004 5:51:26 PM PST by Sofa King (MY rights are not subject to YOUR approval http://www.angelfire.com/art2/sofaking/index.html)
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To: Elsie
WhAT!?

Ever read Kipling's "Just So Stories"? In there is the story of how the elephant got its long nose. In brief, elephants didn't used to have long trunks. They used to have little noses until a little young elephant was tricked by a monkey to get close to a river. A crocodile popped up out of the water and grabbed the little elephant's nose. He cried out and tried keeping the croc from dragging him in the water, his mom ran over and started pulling him back harder and harder. The more she and the croc pulled, the longer and longer his nose got. Finally she pulled him free and he had this big long nose that stretched to the ground. Ever since then, elephants have had a long trunk.

This is how many people view evolution - a change happens to an individual and it is passed down from then on.

Instead, early elephants with slightly elongated trunks had a better chance of surviving and reproducing. These then produced elephants with longer trunks, which survived even better, producing elephants with even longer trunks. The genetic combination from generation to generation made for a greater chance of longer and longer trunks.

So the individual doesn't change - cutting off a dogs tail, like they do with some breeds, does not produce short tail dogs in the future. If dogs with genetically short tails (if this were a survival trait), would mate - with a greater likelihood of even shorter tails resulting.

Thus the statement individuals do not evolve, populations do.

325 posted on 02/14/2004 5:58:33 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: js1138
Obviously if the individual dies before reproducing, the change is harmful.

Not necessarily.

The death could have been for any number of unrelated reasons...

326 posted on 02/14/2004 6:00:14 PM PST by Elsie (When the avalanche starts... it's too late for the pebbles to vote....)
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To: Ophiucus
That's right! Kill the blasphemers! Burn the heretics! No thought not approved by the Church. No Book but the Bible. Believe only what we tell you to Believe.

I believe you have it backwards, sonny. Evolutionists and other atheists have been suppressing Christianity for decades. If you were honest you would have said,
"Kill the Bible Thumpers! Burn the Christians! No thought not approved by the totalitarian leftists. No Book but Darwin. Believe only what we tell you to Believe.

327 posted on 02/14/2004 6:00:37 PM PST by PhilipFreneau
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To: Elsie
You simply refuse to pay attention to anything that's important about an argument. Survival is statistical. In the grand scheme of things, individuals are tokens.

Yes, there is luck. Individuals die because they are at the wrong place at the wrong time. But this will affect all members of a population equally, regardless of their genes. Evolution is about the statistical survival and reproductive success of populations having variety in there genes.

This is why populations that get too small are at risk of extinction. Without variety the population cannot adapt to environmental changes.

328 posted on 02/14/2004 6:17:38 PM PST by js1138
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To: PhilipFreneau
I believe you have it backwards, sonny. Evolutionists and other atheists have been suppressing Christianity for decades

If you serious, DADDY, I would have been laughing - but it so pathetic. Oh yeah - those evil atheist evolutions have been running around closing down Christian churches and burning books that mention creation.

Funny how it is only certain "Christians" who in the past made teaching evolution a crime and are trying do so again. Why is it that these "Christians" are suppressing evolution?

Because nobody can have a thought that these "Christians" don't approve. Sounds like a theocratic totalitarianism.

329 posted on 02/14/2004 6:17:54 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: marron
The feeling's mutual marron. Thank you!
330 posted on 02/14/2004 8:34:16 PM PST by betty boop (God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. -- Paul Dirac)
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To: Alamo-Girl
Hebrews 1:3: Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power....

Oh thank you so very much, A-G, for citing Hebrews 1:3 here -- these verses are so stunningly beautiful in their radiant truth....

Thank you also for your kind words. Hugs!

331 posted on 02/14/2004 8:39:16 PM PST by betty boop (God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. -- Paul Dirac)
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To: PhilipFreneau; Ophiucus
Evolutionists and other atheists have been suppressing Christianity for decades.

To be fair, Gould was one of the atheists who did such things. I would say he has passed on to a better place, but I don't know where atheists go. Maybe it's something like the men in Lord of the Rings.

332 posted on 02/14/2004 8:54:57 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Elsie
I gave you an illustration of a population changing without any individuals changing themselves (other than by birth and death.)
333 posted on 02/14/2004 9:29:44 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: longshadow
"Festival of Wildly Elliptical Planetary Orbits" memorial placemarker

LOL!!!

334 posted on 02/14/2004 9:39:11 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: balrog666; Alamo-Girl; marron; unspun
The answer given by the great thinkers is that God was doing the only thing that remains when you've got absolutely everything: God was engaging in play.

This is an interesting theory, balrog. (Who are these great thinkers?)

Then again, maybe God just wanted to have a beloved.

Who can really, truly say, balrog? What mortal knows the mind of God?

335 posted on 02/14/2004 9:54:11 PM PST by betty boop (God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. -- Paul Dirac)
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To: betty boop
Thank God for you, betty boop!
336 posted on 02/14/2004 10:34:20 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop
What mortal knows the mind of God?

I'm tempted to name him, but he hasn't posted on these threads for a while, so I'll bite my tongue. Suffice to say, there are those who are quite self-assurred.

337 posted on 02/14/2004 10:42:51 PM PST by js1138
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
"Evolutionists and other atheists have been suppressing Christianity for decades. "

To be fair, Gould was one of the atheists who did such things.

When would that have been? If you are talking about Stephen J. Gould, then he was one who fought against the efforts in Kansas and Arkansas to make the teaching of evolution illegal (an example of fundamentalist Christians trying to suppress evolution) and the House bill in Ohio that was going to make teaching 'theological conception' in biology classes (a blatant violation of the first amendment) but how can you construe that as suppression of Christianity when he was fighting the opposite?

It's interesting how none of the articles on his death or the obits mentioned his religion, maybe it was one of the slanders that usually goes along with "evolutionist" even though there isn't such a thing.

338 posted on 02/14/2004 10:56:55 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Celtjew Libertarian
You might be interested by a school of Talmudic thought that explains the "two creation stories" in Genesis by reasoning that Adam was NOT the first man. Men, as the animal Homo Sapiens, existed prior to Adam-- but possessing only the Ruah (animal spirit), not the nefesh (intellectual soul) and neshama (spiritual soul).

The designation of Adam in Gensis 2 as being made in G-d's image refers to the fact that Adam, alone in creation, had free will-- and a mind to use that free will.

The souless men, by this theory, survived until the Flood-- interbreeding with Adam's line to create the Nefillim (Giants) .

339 posted on 02/14/2004 10:57:19 PM PST by ChicagoHebrew
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To: Ophiucus
Maybe he meant Steven J. Gold.
340 posted on 02/14/2004 11:02:13 PM PST by js1138
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