Doubting Darwin

Newsweek via MSNBC.com ^ | 2/7/05 | Jerry Adler

[freespirited]

Ironically, this battle was touched off when Cobb County bought new textbooks that actually covered evolution, after years in which the subject was largely ignored. The same kinds of struggles are cropping up in towns in Wisconsin, Arkansas and elsewhere, as school boards try to implement state curriculum standards mandated by Congress. All sides are keeping a close eye on Ohio, which last year adopted standards including an incendiary phrase about "critically analyz[ing] aspects of evolutionary theory." Kansas, which in the November election handed the anti-evolution forces a 6-4 majority on the state school board, is due to review its standards in February; five years ago, the state was widely ridiculed for eliminating evolution from the required curriculum entirely. The only thing lacking for a full-scale culture war is involvement by the national conservative movement, which has treated it as a local issue. That could change, though. Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who wrote an op-ed article supporting the Dover School Board, says he regards evolution as one of the "big social issues of our time," along with abortion and gay marriage. . . . .

Soon thereafter, I.D. burst into public awareness with the publication of "Darwin on Trial" by Phillip Johnson, a Berkeley law professor who underwent a midlife conversion to evangelical Christianity. As a scientific theory, I.D. is making only slow progress in overcoming evolution's 150-year head start. . . .

[curiosity]

But we do have passages like Romans and other Scriptures that speak on death, blood, and the flesh that one can presume no death took place.

Ah, so you admit it! Your belief is based on a presumption. You are adding to the Word of God.

All those passages about blood and death and the flesh that you refer to could just as easily be referring to human death and not animal death.

We also have the commandmant to eat only plants given by God, which would rule out animals eating animals.

I know of no such commandment. Pray tell, where is it to be found?

[Stultis]

Certain proteins are expressed in the developmental stages of human embryos (or any animal). These proteins induce the formation of organs. However, if these proteins are continually expressed, cells will become cancerous. I would like for the evolutionists to explain how THAT process "evolved". If evolution is "fact", then the embryo would initially ONLY produce these signaling proteins. Therefore, you could NEVER evolve because all forms of life would become extinct due to the constant upregulation of these proteins (cancer). They would NEVER have the chance to "evolve" and put the 'brakes' on these proteins after initial development (as they currently do).

??? I don't understand the objection here. The regulation of these proteins is mediated by other proteins, or regions of the DNA that proteins bind to, or by the concentration of other chemicals in the cell that are in turn determined by the activities of genes. IOW it all goes back to the structure and sequence of the DNA. Why and how do regulatory mechanisms provide a different or special problem for evolution? It all comes down to the same mechanisms, changes in the structure of the DNA. If structural genes can evolve, so can regulatory ones.

[bondserv]

There was a bank robbery where a million dollars was stolen, involving a blue truck. It is true that not every blue truck in the city was the bank robber's.

Now the blue truck that was used for the bank robbery had a dented right front fender. Not every blue truck with a dented right front fender in the city was involved in the bank robbery.

Now the bank robbery truck was missing a left rear wheel hub cap. There may be five or six other blue trucks with dented right front fenders, and a missing left rear hub cap.

But this robber's blue truck had a gun rack behind the seat, was missing a left rear wheel hub cap, and had a dented right front fender. Maybe one or two blue trucks have gun racks, missing left rear hub, dented right fender.

But this robbers blue truck had a broken out left front headlight, with a gun rack, missing rear left hub, dented right front fender. Maybe one other truck in the city.

But this blue truck had a duffel bag with a million dollars in the back, broken left headlight, gun rack, missing rear hub and a dented right front fender.

You get the point.

[curiosity]

You get the point.

I must be stupid, because no, I don't get the point. Can you put it in terms that even an idiot can understand? Apparently, compared to you, I'm an idiot.

[bondserv]

Can you put it in terms that even an idiot can understand?

The duck quacks.

[curiosity]

Sorry, but for the life of me, I don't hear any quacking. Please elaborate.

[bondserv]

The Holy spirit was careful to spread the truth about sin bringing on the curse which ushered death into the world across the tapestry of scripture. Precept upon precept, here a little there a little.

If you review the scriptures I posted earlier, you will begin to see the painstaking efforts the Holy Spirit went to in order to insure what Genesis' "very good" Creation meant. To imply that God initially created animals to tear one another apart, limb from limb, is unbiblical. This is why Paul speaks of the corruption of the creation brought on by Adams sin.

Also the reference to a future time where animals will no longer destroy one another, in effect, reverting back to the lion eating straw and the Lamb lying with the wolf and feeding together.

The evolutionist cannot even imagine animals no longer destroying one another. We forfeited our earthly dominion when Adam sinned. Now wild animals will eat people, and not respond as God original intended for them to be only our servants, not our adversaries.

Biblically, plants do not have life because they don't have blood. This is why Cains sacrifice from his fields was unacceptable. He did not kill anything, which is required by God to cover sin. Abel sacrificed an animal from his flock, thus death, as with Christ on the cross, was acceptable to remedy sin.

[JWinNC]

to no one in particular...

Has anyone calculated the average number of this type of thread per day on FR? They are never pleasant exchanges... almost always spiraling down into name calling, tempers flaring, etc... That is, if they don't just simply start out that way.

I have a clear and strong position as to what I know to be truth, but regardless... how does anyone expect to teach or convert or just simply present their evidence with such poor behavior?

Perhaps it's just fun for some and perhaps others enjoy the nastiness or the superior feeling they get. I say a pox on all the nastiness from all sides. Internal debate and disagreement is fine, but Freepers should be better than what I see in these threads.

Just my two cents... putting on flame resistant suit... bracing for impact.

jw

[SuzyQue]

"Richard Dawkins, today's most influential evolutionist, describes natural selection as "a blind, unconscious, automatic process" that is "the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life."

That's a quote. The explanation. All life. What room does that leave for, well, say, God? Not much.'"

Good grief - why should we expect people who have no personal faith to include God in their explanation of scientific processes? Because they don't see God in the process, that does not invalidate the scientific process. They may not be able to see God anywhere. So what? Do they have to come from the same spiritual place as you or I before we can accept the possiblity that they have accurately described the PROCESS by which God worked?

[bondserv]

Plants are like our skin cells. They are systems with mechanisms, but we don't think of dead skin cells as the death of a "creature".

Plants were original created for creature sustenance. Our schools have so warped our thinking that this distinction is lost on many. There is common sense difference between a creature with blood that dies and a plant that withers like our skin cells.

[GarySpFc]

Good grief - why should we expect people who have no personal faith to include God in their explanation of scientific processes? Because they don't see God in the process, that does not invalidate the scientific process. They may not be able to see God anywhere. So what? Do they have to come from the same spiritual place as you or I before we can accept the possiblity that they have accurately described the PROCESS by which God worked?

No, if the scientific process is the same, but what they are describing is pure atheism, and conflicts with all forms of theism and not just Christianity.

[jennyp]

The evolution of useful idiots is a story all its own. It remains for the rest of us to recognize the difference between and "theory" and a "philosophy" when it comes to science.

Hey Fester, I asked you this before but maybe you missed it: What's with this "evolution is a philosophy" talking point that you're suddenly retailing? (Or is it wholesaling? :-)

[JohnnyM]

Actually I changed my mind. After doing some study, the Scriptures clearly support no death of either animal or man prior to the fall.

Here is the passage in Genesis 1

Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.

It is not until after the Flood that God allows for the eating of meat by man.

JM

[SuzyQue]

Gary - it still does not invalidate their description of the process. Because they are partially blind and cannot see the Creator says NOTHING about their description of the change/evolution of life forms.
Don't confuse the dictionary with the Word.

[GarySpFc]

Sorry, but I do not believe in theistic evolution.

[Thatcherite]

What Bondserv is saying is that we have to be capable of recognising crushing evidence. Like for instance the crushing evidence for the fact that evolution has occurred that we see in the fossil record and modern DNA.

I think this is what he means anyway.

[bondserv]

Like for instance the crushing evidence for the fact that evolution has occurred that we see in the fossil record and modern DNA.

If that is the case why is our country in such an uproar? It isn't only Bible believers that disagree with you.

Fossils are a bunch of dead things without dates stamped on them. Most often we find them pooled together, either in coal beds, oil reserves or fossilized bone graveyards.

[SuzyQue]

Gary - I understood that. What I'm trying to wrap my mind around is why there is so much heat from creationists about the possibility that evolution and religion can both be right. I understand why science types get frustrated when scientific evidence is brushed aside without due consideration. Why is it a problem to think that God used evolution as a tool?

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . it all goes back to the structure and sequence of the DNA. Why and how do regulatory mechanisms provide a different or special problem for evolution?

Who would use the words "structure," "sequence," and "regulatory mechanisms" on the one hand, and dismiss intelligent design out of hand on the other hand?

[curiosity]

I don't see God forbidding man from eating of animals in that passsage. Further, nothing in the passage suggests animals didn't eat other animals.

Also, if humans were forbidden from eating animals before the flood, what did Able eat?