Posted on 03/09/2005 1:46:32 PM PST by metacognative
Opinions
There are valid criticisms of evolution
BY DAVID BERLINSKI
"If scientists do not oppose anti-evolutionism," said Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Council on Science Education, "it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak."
Scott's understanding of "opposition" had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates."
Everyone else had better shut up.
In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin's theory retains an almost lunatic vitality. Consider:
• The suggestion that Darwin's theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences -- quantum electrodynamics, say -- is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to 13 unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.
• Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak-to-nonexistent selection effects.
• Darwin's theory is open at one end, because there is no plausible account for the origins of life.
• The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.
• A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors, and depart leaving no obvious descendants.
• Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful.
• Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing.
• The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives -- differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?
If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory, since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?
These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested.
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So it would seem. There appears to be much disagreement over what constitutes valid criticism of a scientific theory. An interesting experiment would be to take the same standards being applied to the evolutionary theory and apply them to the gateway theory and observe the results.
What? No answers as to how entire galaxies apparently violated relativity?
Garbage...some of it more ably paraphrases P-Marlowe.
You do admit that some of it is forced, falsified, erroneous, etc., don't you?
EV is one of those suggestions that is worthy of reflection, but I don't think it's risen to the level of certainty. I don't think for very many people that it's risen to the level of "confident."
I'm starting to think radio-dating could be analogous to a blazing fire dwindling to a few sparks over a fairly short period of time. Too many anomalies [sp?] are revealed to trust the method as wholly reliable.
How do you know for sure it is a myth?
I believe he would fail at description. His article certainly does.
and then there was that sound last Thursday in color..
I see you sneaking through the thread. Why don't we simplify our side of this by simply asking, "How does evolution address the ORIGIN of life?" The Evolutionists have no answer, they just jump back to Natural Selection and Mutation (I believe those two things as fact). But, "How does nothing mutate or natually select?"
We were all created. Many devolve.
How many years did all the great evolutionary scientists put their faith and trust in the Piltdown man?
Romans 5:12-21
12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--
13. for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
14. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
16. Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
19. For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
21. so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
You'll see from the article that those are the figures for a 1 micron particle. Givining a ratio of aolar accelartaion/sun gravity of 1.17, greater than 1 so particles in a comet tail are swept away from the sun.
For a earth size object the ratio is 1.63 x 10-14. less than one, so the sun's gravity is able to hold the Earth in a stable orbit. The effect of the solar acceleration is to reduce the gravitational attraction ever so slightly.
Which actully means that the orbit is closer to the sun (maybe by a few millimetres) than it would be if the outward solar aceleration was ignored in calculating from the orbital velocity.
But....
...is there one between 'E' and JESUS?
I just ANSWERED this!
The challenge for EV, despite any difficulties, includes the challenge of transitional species. The whole idea is that a particular transitional was a successful adaptation that lived, breathed, roamed the earth for ages. Evidence against is an issue that simply needs to be accepted as detrimental to the EV case.
Remember that in determining the likelihood of a non-repeatable event we can only collect evidence. The evidence can include that which supports and that which counters.
Evidence For + Evidence Against = Level of Confidence
In terms of evidence that demonstrates that a particular item has been designed rather than randomly, naturalistically assembled, we can look at items which we know to have been designed and assembled and see what characteristics these designed items share.
Designed items have variously form, function, inter-relating parts, systems, inter-relating systems, non-random ordering of components, etc. A car, for example, has a form, a function, all the above... If the world were destroyed except for a car kept in a time capsule, a visiting intelligent life form could eventually determine that it was a product of intelligent design, no matter how primitive.
Life as we know it on earth shares these characteristics of other items we know to have been designed.
As Alamo-girl has carefully explained, the information systems within living organisms are so complex that they entirely defy randomness.
Ummm....wouldn't that be true only if there were no gravitational effects from the sun on the earth. It seems like you have to subtract the acceleration imparted by the solar wind from the acceleration imparted by the sun's gravity, and use the net force to determine the earth's equilibrium position from the sun based upon it orbital velocity, or compute the necessary orbital velocity based upon it's equilibrium position.
Not saying anything about the age of the earth, but I would like to use good vector mechanics to get there.
...and chicks: right?
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