Californians Say Teach Scientific Evidence Both For and Against Darwinian Evolution, Show New Polls

Discovery Institute ^ | 5/3/04 | Staff: Discovery Institute

[Right Wing Professor]

I kind of like having him back, for the entertainment value.

Aric's back?

[bondserv]

In the beginning was the Word.

Information was critical to the Creation of life. And as most microbiologists are discovering, (Of which Darwin was ignorant) all of the little creatures are machines with purpose and multiple integrated systems. Lots of the Word in them.

Were they just dumb goatherds?

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

2000 year old highly sophisticated scholar revealed above.

[bondserv]

Yup! Like me, he struggles with paragraph usage.

[microgood]

The evidence begs to differ.

LOL...You are the one in denial, not me.

[PatrickHenry]

But that does not mean it [macro-evolution] is true, but that is the best we have right now. And I would agree that macro-evolution takes a more scientific approach than global warming, but it still is not near as solid as F = ma.

No one says it's true. It's part of the theory of evolution. It's totally consistent with the part you already accept, which you term "micro-evolution." Same mechanisms, more time required. That's the whole thing. It's a rational, comprehensible, cause-and-effect explanation of the available data. It makes predictions about what kinds of fossils might be found, and what can't be found (such as a pegasus). It's a useful framework for understanding biology. F = ma is a law, which is to say it's a description of what's observed. Sort of a distillation of observations. But it's not an explanation. Theories (or explanations) are, of necessity, on less firm ground, and are always capable of being disproved by newly-discovered data, or newly-formulated explanations that fit the data better.

[orionblamblam]

> In the beginning was the Word.

A god speaking or singing the universe into creation is a fairly common myth.

> 2000 year old highly sophisticated scholar revealed above.

2000 year old pretentious New York Times columnist writing style revealed above, you mean.

[Right Wing Professor]

Were they just dumb goatherds?

By the time of Christ, they'd had >200 years exposure to the Greeks. From what I remember of discussions with Alamo Girl on the book of Enoch, c. 200 BC, it showed Hellenistic influences.

[PatrickHenry]

By the time of Christ, they'd had >200 years exposure to the Greeks.

I read somewhere, maybe Will Durant, that when the Greeks and Jews first encountered each other in a big way, during the time of Alexander, each culture was fascinated by the other. Many Jews adoped Hellenic culture, and (according to Durant) the Hellenes wrote that they had discovered a nation of philosophers. Clearly (aside from theology) the Greeks were way ahead at the time of the cultural encounter. No nation ever had a collection of people like Aristotle, Euclid, Archemedes, etc. The US came close, during the Revolutionary period.

[bondserv]

The theory of Evolution is like attributing the production of a sandcastle to the ocean because you observed the water "creating" the mote.

Two men become stranded on a remote island. As they explore the island they come upon a sandcastle with towers, buttresses and a drawbridge. The design of the castle is amazingly intricate.

One man comments, "It is amazing what time and the ocean and a few simple natural tools can create. The small rocks and seashells on the shore must have got caught in eddies and swirled around and chiseled out that castle. There were a few palm leaves floating by that scribed out the little lines that look like bricks. We are alone here and there is no need to consider anything else."

The other man looked at him incredulously and said, "No, that castle was created by another intelligent being with a clear intent of design, we are not alone."

[microgood]

No one says it's true. It's part of the theory of evolution.

It is a theory. But I have had several posters at FR state it is absolute fact, just as the earth is round. Obviously you are not one of them.

Since you are knowledgeable on the subject, however, just wondering what you thought of the controversy surrounding the Cambrian Explosion, where basically all life that currently exists today appeared at the same time and that 98% of all species are now extinct, both phenomena in defiance of what evolution would predict (as well as the loss of phyla).

Even many hardcore evolutionists have a hard time with this one, including Dawkins, Gould and even Darwin.

[longshadow]

theoretical placemarker

[PatrickHenry]

Since you are knowledgeable on the subject, however, just wondering what you thought of the controversy surrounding the Cambrian Explosion, where basically all life that currently exists today appeared at the same time and that 98% of all species are now extinct, both phenomena in defiance of what evolution would predict (as well as the loss of phyla).

I haven't put a lot of study into the Cambrian, but I don't think it's all that much of a mystery. The creationist websites make a big deal of it, as if it boggles everyone's mind, but I don't think it does. It followed an ice age, and perhaps a mass extinction, so there were mostly empty niches that could be filled. The appearance of several new body types wasn't all that sudden, certainly not "at the same time." The Cambrian period involved millions of years, which for primitive animals is tens or hundreds of millions of generations. And not every body type appeared in the Cambrian. Mammals, reptiles, birds, and even insects, for example, came later. But it was a time when several new types appeared, and contrary to what you may have heard, ancestral forms have been found in earlier strata. Nothing about the Cambrian contradicts the theory of evolution. Nothing quite as productive has happened since, because when vacant environmental niches get filled with flourishing species, in the absence of another mass extinction it's difficult for several significantly new types to get very far without becoming food for something already there.

[Elsie]

They were a wandering sheep-herding tribe. This disallows great social complexity. Their neighbors were considerably more advanced in most ways than them.

 

AHhhh....

 

The arrogance of the 'learned'.

 

I disagree.

[Elsie]

 Being dead, it's unlikely that he believes much of anything at this point.

 

So much for YOUR world view.

 

I would say he knows it ALL now.

[Elsie]

It followed an ice age, and perhaps a mass extinction, so there were mostly empty niches that could be filled.

Humans 'fill' all kinds of 'niches' as well, and we've evolved nothing to be able to do so.

[microgood]

Thanks for the info. Going to do some more research on that subject. Where we came from and how we got here are still the most fascinating questions we face as humans.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I personally don't have the guts to gamble my eternity that the Bible might be wrong.

Are you willing to gamble that the Quran might be wrong?
Are you willing to gamble that the Vedas might be wrong?
Are you willing to gamble that the Upanishads might be wrong?
Are you willing to gamble that the Bhagavad-Gita might be wrong?
Are you willing to gamble that the Dhammapada might be wrong?
Are you willing to gamble that Book of Mormon might be wrong?
Are you willing to gamble that Dianetics might be wrong?
Are you willing to gamble that the Book of the Dead might be wrong?

You are making the same bet againse each one. Each claims to be the One True Way. Do you have a criterion for deciding which you prefer?

[orionblamblam]

Hey! You left out the Eddas! How can you expect to get into Valhalla if you don't even have a working understanding of the Havamal?

[orionblamblam]

> I would say he knows it ALL now.

Yes, you would say that.

Doesn't make it correct, however.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Not only that, but all Creationists worship Tyr, Woden, Thor, and Frigga (not to mention Saturn, the Sun and Moon.)


So many religious casinos (casini?), so little moral capital.