Posted on 01/18/2005 9:49:17 AM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist
Top flight scientists have something to tell you about evolution. Such statements will never be found in the popular magazines, alonside georgeous paintings of ape-man and Big Bangs and solemn pronuncements about millions of years for this rock and that fish. Instead they are generally reesrved only for professional books and journals.
Most scientists are working in very narrow fields; they do not see the overall picture, and assume, even though their field does not prove evolution, that perhaps other areas of science probably vindicate it. They are well-meaning men. The biologists and geneticists know their facts, and research does not prove evolution, but assume that geology does. The geologists know their field does not prove veolution, but hope that the biologists and geneticists have proven it. Those who do know the facts, fear to disclose them to the general public, lest they be fired. But they do write articles in their own professional journals and books, condemning evolutionary theory.
Included below are a number of admissions by leading evolutionists of earlier decades, such as *Charles Darwin*, *Austin Clark, or *Fred Hoyle. The truth is that evolutionits cannot make scientific facts fit the theory.
An asterisk (*) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the set of books this encyclopedia is based on (see BOOKSTORE), only 164 statements are by creationists.
(Excerpt) Read more at pathlights.com ...
I suppose that depends on where you put the goalpost and whether you are allowed to move it after the play begins. There are species in transition as we speak. Good examples are found in ring species. There are countless examples of species that can be hybridized with varying degrees of viability. You don't have to search for fossils to see intermediates. They are all around us.
LOL. Just another 'missing link'.
The scientific method can and is applied to psychology and sociology, but the social science disciplines do not quite lend themselves to the rigor of the natural sciences. In any case, the latter certainly doesn't prevent quackery in chemistry or biology or astronomy or geology - e.g., creation science.
Nonsense. Most knowledgeable people see this thread and see another creationist quote mine--a tactic that is deplorable, as it claims that people say things that they have never said. People here have already shown that many of the quotes are outright falsehoods. What does it say about Pathlights that they have to resort to them instead of showing the evidence for Creationism? It tells me that they don't have much data for their model, and that they have to resort to slime tactics to make their model look better. Lying for Christ, I believe it's been called, is never a good tactic, it alienates more people than it attracts, especially when the lies are exposed to the light. Keep it up if you want to drive people away!
As of course evidenced by the high similarity between shark and dolphin DNA
You see, these evolutionists think science and knowledge trump all else, where I, as a Muslim, believe faith in Allah trumps all else.
All Fundamentalism is the same
After Darwin had completed Origin, he thought he might have overdone the "rhetorical question" style. So he asked Richard Owen (a creationist) whether it might not give a impression of a level of uncertainy he did not have.
Owen answerd "Pish, it adds to the charm of the writing".
Practically the first review of Origin published, by Owen, critical of the theory, highlighting Darwin's "doubts".
the social science disciplines do not quite lend themselves to the rigor of the natural sciences.
Sociology and Psychology could become sciences if the 'rigor of the natural sciences' was applied. But funding in the universities would probably dry up in that case. So they exist in the twilight zone somewhere between real science and superstition and folklore. Physics and chemistry and biology existed there at one time.
Unfortunately, what could be true sciences of sociology and psychology are corrupted by politics and economics.
So I repeat they are not really science. What I object to is they try to present themselves as such (kind of like the MSM claiming they are unbiased). At least economists admit that their avocation is not a science (because they no one would believe them if they tried).
BTW, 'creation science' can't even be elevated to the level of quackery.
Darwin's style can be a little leaden to modern ears, but his approach to argument, his way of sharing his intellectual journey even to the extent of playing "devil's advocate" against his own ideas, is the antithesis of creationist "scholarship." The contrast works incredibly in his favor and shows the creationists as not only dishonest but shrilly mean-spirited.
Most of those quotes seem to be from within the last fifty years. By contrast, calculus was invented in the 1600s and still works as well as it did then. Heat equations were invented when Napolean ruled France, and they still work. Electric light bulbs were invented over a hundred years ago and they still work pretty much the same as they did then. The diesel engine was invented over a hundred years ago and it still works, dynamite and smokeless powder still work after 130 years, airplanes still work nearly a hundred years after Kitty Hawk...
Why is evolution different from every other science? What is it about evolution which makes anything written about it more than five years ago out of date and irrelevant?
Nice ad hominem.
I'm reading a book right now by a creation scientist that's fascinating. The author holds a PhD in Chemistry and was the national chess champion in his home country of Australia. Pretty bright guy: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/j_sarfati.asp
His response to a critique of something he wrote is fascinating: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/negative_22October2001.asp
I suspect you've never read a "creation scientist" come across so reasonably....
read later
The last 50 years have been huge in science. I'm not going to try to describe the difference, but it's probably a quadrupling of our knowledge.
As far as evolution goes, any quote more than 30 years old is from someone who at the time could not possibly have known half of what's in this compilation of evidence for evolution.
And that's just addressing the age of the quotes, not their honesty.
Nice ad hominem.
It wasn't an ad hominem and an ad hominem wasn't intended. BTW, there must be a target of an ad hominem. If you read this in the context of the discussion it was written in, you'd see there was no target.
So apparently you just take exception to the statement.
Science is not about 'creation'. Religion is about creation. 'Creation science' is an oxymoron.
Creationists won't disagree with that point.
You really should read what creation scientists are saying, rather than what people *say* they are saying.
As I wrote just a minute ago, I've been reading a book by Jonathan Sarfati ("Refuting Evolution"), and I'm reading things I had never considered before.
For example, this creation scientist DOES NOT say that there haven't been drifts in species, or even transitions from one "species" to another. He frames evolution as the theory that creatures gain genetic information over time. Creationism posits that God created creatures as "kinds," and over time their genetic information can change, and some can be lost. Hence different kinds of horses, fish, people, and so on.
The point is that evolution framed this way -- the increase of genetic information over time -- just doesn't happen. There may be curious examples of gene doubling (simply duplicating a set of genes), but there's no *new* information.
It's really a fresh way to consider this topic, to me....
But then, I only have two post-graduate degrees, and none of them in biological or chemical sciences, so there's a lot I don't know about this topic....
Darwin's ability to critique his own ideas was (IMHO) his most outstanding intellectual trait.
Consider that Darwin worked in almost complete isolation, as to the substance of his ideas about "species," from 1837 to 1846 or '47. (If I recall correctly. It was somewhere around that time that he first shared his ideas, with the botanist Hooker if I again recall correctly.) Even then there was only a very small circle of friends with whom he discussed evolution, and there's no real evidence in the correspondence that he much needed their help.
Even though Darwin would include a chapter on "Objections to the Theory" in later editions of The Origin, were he acknowledged and responded to various criticisms by other scientists, there was not, at least by my reading, a single objection that he hadn't already identified and systematically thought through previously. The specific objections were only variations on themes Darwin had already hummed to himself in his study.
Normally even a great scientist requires some intellectual feedback from others, some help in identifying problems that need to be addressed. To develop a major new theory to the degree that Darwin did, and identify nearly every major problem situation in regard to the theory's application, all with virtually no collegial assistance, is remarkable. Astonishing even.
You were equating "creation science" with "quackery." Therefore those scientists who hold creation science as a more plausible explanation of "all this" are quacks. That's an ad hominem attack -- to dismiss the arguments by dismissing those who argue them.
This whole scientific inquiry is about where all this stuff came from, and how it develops/changes. If that inquiry logically leads to a Designer, then what?
We all approach this with presuppositions. I approach it with the presupposition that God exists, and that He's revealed Himself through Jesus. You may believe that God does not exist, or that He's irrelevant. And that presupposition prohibits you from even considering an alternative to evolution. The challenge is to consider the evidence and let it lead us to uncomfortable territory....
Love them ad hominems, hm? Yeah, Sarfati is an idiot. And so am I. You win.
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