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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]

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To: Aquinasfan
"Even in these cases, Prof. Behe argues, they have not explained, step by step, how simple systems could evolve into complex ones."

And that's the argument, isn't it? How could 3/4 of a flagellum be of benefit to the organism?

The difference between simple and complex - lift up the hood of a modern car and look at the engine, life up the hood of a Model T and look at the engine. A Model T engine is vastly simpler but it still worked.

In biology, consider a cell membrane channel. Simple channels can be made of two proteins that can allow a molecule in or out of the cell. If any control is present, it is open or closed, movement is down the concentration gradient. A complex channel can be made of 8 or even 16 proteins with a myriad of subunit proteins attached. These channels can respond to cell potential differences, or receptor binding, or ion concentrations. They can even transport material against a concentration gradient. The have more flexibility and more control - same job.

A simple system does not mean parts are missing. It means fewer parts used to do the job. Sometimes it is not as efficient (modern cars are faster and have more power than a Model T) or doesn't have a high level of control (simple versus complex channels), but it does the same job.

361 posted on 02/15/2004 2:30:22 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: betty boop; Alamo-Girl; marron
Personal hells find a way of spreading to and embroiling others, in ways that hurt others.

Yes. Thanks for your warnings! There are many ways to be wrong. That fact alone might give us a clue to those who would move away from what is true.

I just heard Chris Wallace asking someone, "What's wrong with gay marriage?" Yes, that's like asking, "What's wrong with dark light?," or for that matter, many many other questions. "What's wrong with marrying a sheep?" "What's wrong with using automobiles for neckties?" "What's wrong with swimming in foldaway sofas?"

Beware the corruption of meaning and the redefinition of words. There are many ways to be wrong. That fact that there is wrong doesn't however mar the clarity of what is true.

"Why do the nations imagine a vain thing?"

Beware also the redifintion of words such as: human, life, being, organism, kind, purpose, fitness, development, nature, body, soul, spirit, etc.

362 posted on 02/15/2004 2:34:58 PM PST by unspun (The uncontextualized life is not worth living. | I'm not "Unspun w/ AnnaZ" but I appreciate.)
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To: PhilipFreneau
BTW - What is it with your hatred that automatically equates evolution with atheism?
363 posted on 02/15/2004 2:35:34 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: The Raven
Invoking God to explain what we can't otherwise account for, he says, is "a kind of idolatry," because true faith should come from within and not because we can't fully explain the natural world.
This needed repeating.
364 posted on 02/15/2004 2:40:08 PM PST by R. Scott (My cynicism rises with the proximity of the elections.)
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To: Ophiucus
Yep - cause and effect aren’t always readily obvious.
365 posted on 02/15/2004 2:44:09 PM PST by R. Scott (My cynicism rises with the proximity of the elections.)
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To: Ophiucus; Aquinasfan
And that's the argument, isn't it? How could 3/4 of a flagellum be of benefit to the organism?

Inter caecos, rex luscus

Inter caecos regnat strabus

366 posted on 02/15/2004 3:59:20 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Virginia-American
"what's that written in?"

"Latin, a language they use when they want to impress others"

Paraphrase of Twilight Zone (or was it Outer Limits?) dialogue.

367 posted on 02/15/2004 4:06:36 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: R. Scott
Yep - cause and effect aren’t always readily obvious.

Especially in physiology and medicine.

368 posted on 02/15/2004 5:39:25 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Virginia-American
Inter caecos, rex est luscus

And post #348.

369 posted on 02/15/2004 5:49:47 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Sofa King
If you're not going to consider mutations and genetic recombination, then you're not even talking about evolution.

It is pretty simple. You jumped into a conversation that I was having with RWP(see post 130). He stated that I needed to reproduce in order to pass on my genes. That is not true. My genes exist in my parents. There is a "unique" combination of those genes that belong to me, however the genes exist apart from me. That is a fact and is clear. This was in discussing what was more important for survival, surviving or reproducing. In the case of humans you have to survive in order to reproduce. The individual does not have to survive in order for a particular gene to be passed on. I think that is pretty much a tenet of Darwinian evolution. The tendency for a gene to be passed on is a determining factor, not whether a particular individual survives/reproduces or not.

370 posted on 02/15/2004 6:24:38 PM PST by AndrewC (I am a Bertrand Russell agnostic, even an atheist.</sarcasm>)
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To: AndrewC
"There is a "unique" combination of those genes that belong to me, however the genes exist apart from me."

Your combination of genes is just as important, and is just as much what "your genes" refers to as the individual genes themselves. You probably have some traits that neither your mother nor father has, which may or may not give you an advantage in survival.

My truck is more than just it's parts. If it is taken apart and it's pieces scattered, it is no longer my truck, even if it's individual parts survive.
371 posted on 02/15/2004 6:36:44 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: Ophiucus
I've seen it with and without the 'est'. Also, "inter caecos luscus rex." (Google search finds several variations)
372 posted on 02/15/2004 6:45:12 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: donh
>> That is because evolution is a scientific theory, which is allowed in government schools, whereas christianity is a religeous othodoxy, which is forbidden in government schools, for the very good reason that our founding fathers did not want to go back to the days when your religeous beliefs could get you garroted, quartered, or burned at the stake.

You obviously have no clue what the founding fathers wanted. Any attempt to explain away 150 years of teaching Christianity in public schools will make you sound as ignorant (or as deceitful) as those who argue that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a collective right. I suggest you discard your left-wing revisionist history and research the original intent of the founding fathers, in particular their intent toward religion.

373 posted on 02/15/2004 6:49:15 PM PST by PhilipFreneau
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To: Ophiucus
In your grotesque ignorance - try to realize that evolution is science - a pursuit of knowledge and understanding. It's too bad that your version of godliness requires object ignorance. It is your prejudice that screams false science since it threatens your control.

I am a scientist, Sonny. Evolution is junk science, in the same league with the so-called "Big Bang" and "Cassini Divisions".

In this country, religion is taught in churches while science is taught in the schools.

That was not true from the beginning of our nation. It occurred for the first time during the middle of the last century (mid 1900's) via the usurpation of power by tyrannical judges. Your kind cannot win by constitutional methods (via a lawful constitutional amendment), so you resort to judicial tyranny to force your will on the people.

Religion and only religiously approved subjects is the hallmark of nations like Iran, not the USA.

Don't confuse Christianity with Islam, sonny. It make you look even more stupid than you already look.

You are free to worship as you choose but you are NOT free to force others to adhere to your beliefs.

That is called "crying stop thief, first", a common tool of the tyrant. You claim that you do not want people ramming their beliefs down your throat; but what you are really saying is it is okay for you to ram your beliefs down others throat. You are a hypocrit.

Nations do thrive with moral and spiritual balance but are destroyed when fanatics like you go marching in their jackboots in the name of God.

That is another tool of the tyrant: labeling anyone with a belief in Christ as a Nazi. Very slick trick, sonny. But anyone with half-a-brain knows that totalitarianism is an ungodly disease, brought on by tyranny of various stripes, such as communism, facism, etc. -- never true Christianity. In fact, history has shown 26 times to be precise how nations that rebelled against God were destroyed. You really do need to learn some history, sonny, before making any more foolish statements.

374 posted on 02/15/2004 7:15:15 PM PST by PhilipFreneau
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To: Ophiucus
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?

Earlier in his career, Gould made some public statements that have been posted on crevo threads on FR ad nauseum, that clearly showed an atheistic point of few. Later in his life he consistently considered himself an agnostic Jew. I'll let him speak for himself in this article from 1997:

Gould

375 posted on 02/15/2004 7:31:59 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: PhilipFreneau
You obviously have no clue what the founding fathers wanted. Any attempt to explain away 150 years of teaching Christianity in public schools will make you sound as ignorant (or as deceitful) as those who argue that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a collective right.

It was the civil war that pushed federal rights down on the states. You may not like this, but whether you do or not, it explains why the feds did not interfere with schools being run by state or local governments which "explains away" rather neatly your "150 years". To pretend that the founders had no strong notions of denuding churches of the power to be authorized state religions, in even the most trivial matters, is to fly in the face of the evidence of the 1st amendment and the writings of Jefferson, Adams, and Madison.

I suggest you discard your left-wing revisionist history and research the original intent of the founding fathers, in particular their intent toward religion.

I suggest you do the same, and I suggest you look at the actual documents, such as the Bill of Rights, or the Federalist Papers, or the correspondences of the two main culprits--Madison and Jefferson, rather than at some half-baked creationist web-site pulling quotes from Washington's barber's second cousin.

376 posted on 02/15/2004 7:59:44 PM PST by donh
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To: Ophiucus
Newtonian physics still hold true in the Newtonian framework.

Not if your meter stick has fine enough gradations.

Einstein widen the framework, the scope, included more variables, and came up with mathematical explanations to include the new variables.

Einstein destroyed the objectively fixed universe that Newton's theories require. A universe in which time can pass at a different rate for one person than another, is not remotely the same universe Newton projected.

There could not be a more dramatic change in the behavior of the universe, as astronomical observation at large scale and distance verifies.

377 posted on 02/15/2004 8:04:47 PM PST by donh
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To: Ophiucus
You're failing to see the point. In the practical world of science, that is proof. If a scientist is asked, where is your proof, he lists his experimental results and cites those of others.

Which is, quite obviously, an example of confirming evidence which increased our confidence, not of proof. An astrologer, a phrenologist, a flat-earther, or a "creationist scientist" can do exactly the same thing--why aren't their offerings also proof? All you have done is increase your confidence in theories in this manner. It is not remotely proof, either formally or vernacularly, even if you plan to insist that it is until we all turn blue and rot. You have learned sloppy usage, in your little corner of science's realm, and you keep insisting your sloppy usage is some kind of established dogma. It is not. Most scientists in the public eye have enough sense to refrain from claiming that natural science theories are "proven".

378 posted on 02/15/2004 8:11:43 PM PST by donh
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To: PhilipFreneau; RadioAstronomer
Evolution is junk science, in the same league with the so-called "Big Bang" and "Cassini Divisions".

Huh? Cassini Division

do you have a better explanation for the observed recession of galaxies than the Big Bang?

do you have a better explanation for the observed microwave background radiation than the Big Bang?

do you have a better explanation for the observed abundances of hydrogen, deuterium, helium and lithium than the Big Bang?

379 posted on 02/15/2004 8:13:11 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Ophiucus
That is simply not the way science works - definitely not in biological sciences.

biological science does not rely on inductive reasoning about experimentation and discoveries to increase our confidence in theories? Say again?

380 posted on 02/15/2004 8:13:59 PM PST by donh
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