Darwin put to flight in Bible Belt [Evolution vs. Creationism]

Times of London ^ | 30 January 2005 | Sarah Baxter

[nasamn777]

Sort of ironic to see someone arguing that imperfections in life forms are evidence they were created by a deity.

Design is an interesting process. It depends on the requirements imposed on the design. Sometimes an engineer will misread the requirements and obtain a design that is very functional to the one who designed it and not very functional to the customer. The requirements are dependent on the purpose of the designer. So without knowing the purposes of God, it is hard to that a design is imperfect -- unless of course you know the mind of God.

Another point about design is that the optimization process requires trade offs. For example, if one optimizes each subsystem independently, the designer will most always develop an inferior device when the subsystems are put together. Design optimization most often requires the non-optimumal operation of all or some of the subsystems to ensure the optimal operation of the total system. What is optimal is based on the purpose of the designer.

Pick your theory. The Biblical Christian God, space aliens from the planet Xenu, or abiogenesis. All are compatible with Evolution.

But evolution is not compatible with science!

Evolution has nothing to do with whether you have any hope of eternal life or not.

To be honest a naturalistic framework is pretty futile! What is the basis for human rights -- other than something that the masses thought up? What is the basis of conservativism? Without God life does not make sense!

[Tribune7]

Without God life does not make sense!

Ditto that.

[DannyTN]

"Is the faith of creationists so weak that they feel the need to have their faith buttressed by science and academic disciplines that only exist in Universities?"

A conflict between scientific evidence and the Bible should not be allowed to persist when that evidence is flawed and there is evidence in support of the Bible. To allow that to persist is a disservice to our children. They should not be asked to choose between faith and science when the science that is being presented is based on flawed assumptions and ignores evidence in favor of the Bible.

What is the problem with teaching creationism in Sunday school, which is where it belongs, if folks need to teach it.

What is the problem with scientists speaking out and publishing tapes showing evidence that contradicts evolution? What is the problem with me spending $90 to reinforce to my kids that another theory does exist and does have scientific evidence backing it? Why should Sunday School spend it's time digging into science to counter the public schools when it should be teaching scripture?

[freespirited]

The point of ID is that it is impossible that we are here by chance and natural selection. How would you address that?

If you've been reading the EVO threads, my point all along has been that there is no addressing the ID people scientifically. They have yet to set forth falsifiable hypotheses and test them and publish the results. That is why I and some of the others from the EVO list do not regard ID as a scientific theory.

If ID folks show some respect for the scientific method, they will be surprised how the discussion will change. Although I have to say, they have used up a lot of credibility asserting conclusions without having done any experiments.

[dr_lew]

Saying it over and over does not make it so, evolution is one of the most foolish belief systems known to man.

Nobody believes in evolution anymore - it couldn't compete with the other theories.

[freespirited]

5. Why don't women just make their own sperm?

Because they don't have testicles.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Dimensio]

Odd. The book descriptions don't claim that all of the quotes are from atheists. Where did you get that information?

Are the quotes in that book anything like these?

Figures that an aspiring creationist con-man would try to cash-in on the collective dishonesty of the movement.

[Dimensio]

You know, If I am wrong I turn to a pile of dust when I die. If you are wrong, well my friend where does that leave you for eternity?

Pascal's Wager is a false dichotomy fallacy. Moreover, you are assuming wrongly that all who accept evolution are atheists.

Next time you want to make an argument, perhaps you should see that it is logical and based upon premises that are not bogus.

[Dimensio]

The guy has three PH D's

And who better to tell us about biological systems than a mechanical engineer.

I guess that's slightly better than a trial lawyer, but not much.

[Mockingbird For Short]

1 Peter 3 ...: 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were...

Notice the word "willingly" in that passage? "Willingly ignorant..." Evolutionists stick their fingers in their ears when God claims to have created the world because they don't want to know that He did... Why IS that? Is it because they would have to acknowledge God's existence, and if they acknowledged God's existence, they might also have to acknowledge that He is responsible for their own existence, and if He is responsible for their existence, they might have to feel accountable to Him?

OK, flame away! I can take it!

[Dimensio]

Why do we all not just live like animals then? From what did our compassion and other emotions evolve from?

Humans tend to survive better in communities than alone -- at least, that's how it was for quite some time. Compasson and other such emotions have given us the ability to better exist as part of a group rather than as totally individualistic creatures.

[Dimensio]

But evolution is not compatible with science!

Asserting this over and over does not make it true.

To be honest a naturalistic framework is pretty futile! What is the basis for human rights -- other than something that the masses thought up? What is the basis of conservativism? Without God life does not make sense!

Evolution has nothing to do with whether or not a God exists.

[DannyTN]

I noticed something tonight.

One of the tapes I bought pointed out that Jesus' first miracle, turning the water into wine, was to create something with the appearance of age. I.e. wine.

I've never given much thought to the theory that God created an old earth, because I'm not sure that's what the evidence shows. But starlight has always been a problem.

Genesis says God created the stars after He created the earth. I've always assumed that the following verse simply meant the heavens were old as in 6000-10000 years old.

I've always said God interacts with time different than we do, and that's how he knows the future. If God can travel in time or more likely exists throughout time simultaneously, the same dynamic could have allowed God to create the heavens after He created the earth, but to cause the heavens to be older than the earth. He could have created the Earth first from His point of reference and then created the heavens second but at an earlier point in time.

"that by the word of God the heavens were of old"

Now of course the Evo's will jump on this and say how could He travel in time or exist across multiple points in time. But 200 years ago, we didn't even know what a dinosaur was. I don't for a second assume that our knowledge of physics and time is anywhere complete.

[Mockingbird For Short]

According to Genesis, there was light long before there were stars!

[Mockingbird For Short]

(Sorry Danny, I read your post too fast.) I've never had a problem with apparent age. Part of that is because of the nature of faith. God has existed from eternity... I can't explain his "apparent" age either.

[ROTB]

>Odd. The book descriptions don't claim that all of the quotes
>are from atheists. Where did you get that information?

The description for "The Revised Quote Book" does say "One hundred and thirty quotations, most from evolutionists themselves" and when I owned the book, I remember the 1st 120 were from atheists obviously talking about how bad the evidence is for evolution, and the last 10 were very obviously from creationists, the very last being a quote from the New Testament. Contrary to what is indicated at the link you cited http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html the quotes in "The Revised Quote Book" are of extremely generous length beyond the critical and damning sections, to avoid any charges of taking said quotes out of context.

Regarding the book "That Their Words May Be Used Against Them", it has more than 3500 quotes, and in the words of the author in the forward, "almost all" are atheists. I thus felt comfortable saying that 3000+ are by atheists.

>Are the quotes in that book anything like these?

These are the books cited, but having personally read the latter, and read through much of the former, I wonder if the writer of the article you cited here http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html really did read the same books.

>Figures that an aspiring creationist con-man would try to
>cash-in on the collective dishonesty of the movement.

Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Matthew 5:11

Yesss! Thank you!

Here are some quotes from page 30 of the book "That Their Words May Be Used Against Them" that I previously posted on FR.

Few cosmologists today would dispute the view that our expanding universe began with a bang -- a big, hot bang -- about 18 billion years ago. Paradoxically, no cosmologist could tell you how the Big Bang -- the explosion of a superhot, superdense atom -- ultimately gave rise to galaxies, stars, and other cosmic lumps.

As one sky scientist, IBM's Philip E. Seiden, put it, 'The standard Big Bang model does not give rise to lumpiness. That model assumes the universe started out as a globally smooth, homogenous expanding gas. If you apply the laws of physics to this model, you get a universe that is uniform, a cosmic vastness of evenly distributed atoms with no organization of any kind.
Ben Patrusky
"Why is the Cosmos 'Lumpy'?
Science-81(June 1981) p.96

How is this being taken "out of context?" What laws of Physics do you know of that give rise to a universe of galaxys millions of light years apart after a "big bang?"

Let's move to "The Revised Quote Book":

If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely 'out of date', we just drop it.
T. Save-Soderbergh and I.U. Olsson

...yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.
Stephen Jay Gould

I stand by my sources.

ROTB

[Johnny Crab]

Repeat after me:

"When nothing blew up, it became rocks and gas. They were very careful so the sun stayed there while the big planet-rocks went to where they are supposed to be now so they wouldn't fall into the sun or crash into each other. The moon knew where to go to after it figured out its gravity issues and knew it had to survive. After a long time, water appeared and turned some rocks into soup. After more long times, the soup turned into living stuff. Eventually, everything else figured out what to do because it had to and here we are NOW."

I do recall some senior courses in electromagnetic theory and physics where light acts like a wave(radio) or a particle depending on the "circumstances".( http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/light/waves.html http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/light/spectrum.html) and that was 15 years ago.

For those never being able to "see"(visualize) light(waves) from an antenna....I guess wind doesn't exist either because you've never seen it.

Oh no! Light catching antenna and bottles!!!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6029947/

http://www.msnbc.com/news/242698.asp?cp1=1

[jennyp]

This is nothing rational about attacking lines of thought that questions the belief that life sprang by chance from a single cell which somehow popped up in violation of biological law.

This reminds me of a question I've always wondered: Just what is the penalty for violating a biological law? And is it a state issue or is it federal?

[jennyp]

For that matter, what's the penalty for violating this one:

300,000 kilometers per second. It's not just a good idea. It's the law!