Darwinism to Face Scrutiny in Ohio and Minnesota

family ^ | 02.26.04

[Fester Chugabrew]

Ha! Good one.

[qam1]

The key, of course, is that once you warp the sediments into mountains, deposition is over. Erosion begins. Your Adirondacks are part of the same major system as my Alleghenies: the Appalachians. If you can find a fossil later than the Permian, about 250 million years ago, it's a miracle.

Actually the Adirondacks aren't part of the Appalachians they are a spur off the Canadian Sheild. They are 4x older at ~1 Billion years which is why you don't find any fossils because they pre-date all complex life and unlike the Appalachians they are mostly very erosion resistant metamorphic rock.

[ohioWfan]

I can't 'demonstrate' that God exists. You sound just like the cosmonaut who went into space and said, "I didn't see God, so he must not exist." You're expecting empirical evidence for a reality than transcends it.

I'm also not going to give you an apologetic as to the veracity of Scripture. I could give you details of why it is a valid historical document (eyewitness accounts, comparative documents, archaelogical evidence, etc.), but you're not likely to believe that either.

The only way for you to 'get it' is to open your mind and your heart to the ONE who Created you.........seek Him, and the rest will come. You shouldn't believe ME.......you should believe HIM, and He will speak to You if you ask Him to.

[VadeRetro]

Whoops! I should not trust my memory but keep forgetting that I can't.

They are 4x older at ~1 Billion years which is why you don't find any fossils because they pre-date all complex life and unlike the Appalachians they are mostly very erosion resistant metamorphic rock.

Sounds pretty boring.

[keats5]

OK, then. Let me rephrase the question, since you object to the term "Darwinism". (I simply used that term because of this thread's title.)

Would you consider anyone who questions anything about EVOLUTION to be a "creationist fanatic"?

Frankly, I become concerned at any overpoliticalization of science, either for or against evolution. And I have indeed seen credible arguments against evolution. Just one example is the criticism of the common depiction of Haeckel's woodcut drawings of embryonic forms of different species, which were found to be fraudulent as early as 1915. Haeckel drew the embryos to look similar to each other, whereas even in the early 1900s, scientists could see from actual embryos, that Haeckel's woodcuts were fraudulent. Of course, now they seem utterly ridiculous, in light of modern ultrasounds. Yet, today, they still appear in my son's 7th grade biology book. Now I could accept their appearance in a history book, or in an article about "The History of Evolution." But, no, they are in this biology book to lend credence to the theory of evolution.

This is not a religious objection. Yet it is questioning a commonly taught aspect of evolution. Would you consider me a "creationist fanatic" simply for asking this question?

[js1138]

Asking questions does not make you a fanatic. Asking the same questions over and over after they have been satisfactorily answered might make you a fanatic. Your concern over Haeckel's drawings is obsessive and unwarranted.

[keats5]

How so?

[qam1]

Sounds pretty boring.

We may not have fossils but we do have Champ

[VadeRetro]

Looks an awful lot like "Nessie."

[Junior]

Bubba, I'm a devout Catholic, so don't go getting all high and mighty on me. A couple of things: 1) The Book of Genesis can be read allegorically without altering one iota of the Truth. 2) God gave me a brain and eyes. He expects me to use them. Tossing out the accumulated evidence of more than two centuries of research to assuage an aesthetic sense (and face it, your literal reading of Genesis is purely asthetic) is anethema to me. It would be like the servant who buried his talents because he was afraid of what the Master might do.

[js1138]

How so?

Haeckel made a conjecture based on his observations. He may or may not have slanted his drawings to support his conjecture, but there is little about his drawings that a non-biologist would classify as fraudulent. I would guess that a layman presented with his drawings and actual photographs of embryos would not be able to identify the significant differences.

His conjecture was that embryos resemble the adult forms of their ancestors. This is not true. A more recent conjecture, also partly wrong, is that embryos resemble the embryos of one's ancestor species. The full truth is more complex.

There are lots of examples of conjectures being wrong. The early Lowell drawings of Mars are inaccurate. There is no doubt they were distorted by an imagination that wished to validate a conjecture about Mars. But they were not fraudulent. And they generally appear in textbooks as illustrations of historical events in science. They are not presented to illustrate proof of Martian canals, and Haeckel's drawings are not presented as proof of his obsolete conjecture.

[Jeff Gordon]

Also, please explain to me why I should not ascribe "arrogance" to the assertion that their world view is the only valid one for the classroom.

Mysticism should be taught in religious and philosophy classes, not in science classes.

[PatrickHenry]

Get back to me when you stop saying that the sun rises and sets......

It's not what I say about the motion of the sun and the earth, it's what scripture says. Don't want to give your views about the solar system? That's okay. I understand.

Oh.....and that passage in Joshua. I believe it.

Thanks for answering.

In the meantime, please don't post to me with any more feeble attempts to entrap, OK?

I wanted to know your thinking about those scriptural geocentric passages. Sorry if that embarrassed you.

[VadeRetro]

Yet, today, they still appear in my son's 7th grade biology book. Now I could accept their appearance in a history book, or in an article about "The History of Evolution." But, no, they are in this biology book to lend credence to the theory of evolution.

What book is this? Are you telling me the drawings used are identifiably Haeckel's but the context is not historical?

[ohioWfan]

I didn't mean to get 'high and mighty' on you, and I apologize.

I've taken it on the chin here from others (perhaps not you), and it's time to leave for good.

If you are a devout Catholic, perhaps you should investigate how many times Genesis is quoted in the New Testament (including by Christ) as fact, and not as allegory. But, as a Christian what matters is that you believe, "In the beginning, GOD....."

[ohioWfan]

Embarrassed?? LOL!

You can misinterpret Scripture all you like, but you'll certainly not 'embarrass' me.....

I've said it to others.......you don't have to answer to ME, you have to answer to your CREATOR.

I'd give that some serious thought if I were you.........

[Joe Bonforte]

Would you consider me a "creationist fanatic" simply for asking this question?

No. Questioning is the essence of science. The embryo picture thing was exposed because of the natural questioning of science, instead of being taken on faith by everyone after that. So was Piltdown Man.

But the underlying assumption of questioning is this: You have to be prepared to accept the answer, even if it was not what you originally expected, even it goes against your pre-conceptions. If you are not willing to "question" evolution and be prepared to come away supporting it, then you are not really questioning it.

If someone appeared tomorrow with credible evidence that a major tenet of evolution was wrong, I'd have to look at that and reassess. But it would be weighed against all the evidence (vast mountains of it) in favor of evolution. I've looked at the creationist stuff. It's not in that category.

The "evidence" for intelligent design is in two categories - mathematical "equations" that prove nothing because the numbers involved are completely subjective, or "don't you see how complex this is - it could never have evolved." And when I say I think it could easily have evolved over a long enough time span, they just say "Come on, look closer. Can't you see it. It's just too complex!". That's not science, it's philosophy. It's not falsifiable, as others have pointed out.

So, no, asking questions doesn't make a fanatic. Refusing to accept answers you don't like does.

[greenwolf]

Darwin and Darwinism dead and buried!

By all rights they SHOULD be; no normal theory would still be being discussed after being overwhelmingly disproven over a 150-year time span.

[PatrickHenry]

I've said it to others.......you don't have to answer to ME, you have to answer to your CREATOR. I'd give that some serious thought if I were you.....

Got it. You don't know, or won't say, whether you accept the geocentric universe presented in scripture. But somehow you do know, or you certainly suggest that you know, about how I stand with the Creator.

[VadeRetro]

no normal theory would still be being discussed after being overwhelmingly disproven over a 150-year time span.

This statement is true and yet it doesn't tell you what it should.