Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

What Are The Darwinists Afraid Of?
The Post Chronicle | 8\07\05 | Patrick J Buchanan

Posted on 08/07/2005 6:25:03 AM PDT by RepublicNewbie

In the "Monkey Trial," 80 years ago, the issue was: Did John Scopes violate Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of evolution? Indeed he had. Scopes was convicted and fined $100.

But because a cheerleader press favored Clarence Darrow, the agnostic who defended Scopes, Christian fundamentalism -- and the reputation of William Jennings Bryan, who was put on the stand and made to defend the literal truth of every Bible story from Jonah and the whale to the six days of creation -- took a pounding.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; crevolist; enoughalready; ohnotagain; patbuchanan; sameolsameol; scopes
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 221-240241-260261-280 ... 481-490 next last
To: R. Scott

Don't forget that a good old bleedin' is a cure for what ails ya.


241 posted on 08/07/2005 6:41:45 PM PDT by Conservomax (There are no solutions, only trade-offs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: balrog666
Maybe this is the final wave of religious fervor that will sweep us into the cold depths of TalibanUSA. Or maybe it's just a glimpse of the future FreeRepublic. Or ... Allah be praised. (Another scientist speaks for Creationism)
242 posted on 08/07/2005 6:42:30 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (You're not drunk if you can still lie on the ground without holding onto something)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 214 | View Replies]

To: woodb01
So either evolution is false, or the Newton's laws, etc., are false.

Being involved in the legal system, you no doubt have citations for this.

The two interesting legal theories I am toying with are that evolution, as understood and taught in schools today, is either a) a form of secular humanism, or b) paganism...

Which would make it ... um ... against Catholic teaching, would it not? Then what about this ?

Excerpt:

In his Encyclical Humani generis [1950], my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points (cf. AAS 42 [1950], pp. 575-576).
[Bolding mine] Another excerpt:

Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

So if your theory is right, the (ex-) Pope endored another religion!

243 posted on 08/07/2005 6:42:51 PM PDT by Gumlegs
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 228 | View Replies]

To: VadeRetro
Giving Miller full credit, the Flagellum Unspun page also deals with blood clotting, albeit briefly.

Enlighten me. If the blood clotting cascade was the result of evolution, rather than design, how many animals - including precursors to homo sapiens - died from cuts and wounds before a solution "evolved"?

244 posted on 08/07/2005 6:45:46 PM PDT by jackbill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 229 | View Replies]

To: R. Scott
"...Could it be the return to teaching of a flat Earth, a Table of elements containing only earth, air, fire and water? Could it be a return to teaching that all illness is caused by possession by evil spirits – or the four humors as an acceptable “scientific approach” to medicine?"

Could be...but doubtful.

The entire argument can be summed up in four words...it's what you believe.

The Bible and Religion gets put "on trial" by those who believe in evolution; the Darwinists dare the Creationists to "prove" the Bible is absolutely correct, while the Darwinist don't have any proof that it was evolution.

All the while, the average person is going to believe what s/he believes no matter what the current "wisdom" proclaims.

However, I'll have to agree with the President; if we allow Darwinism to be taught in schools, then Creationism should be taught as well. Either that, or don't teach either, and leave it up to the parents, Churches and whatever secular place the Darwinists meet.

Frankly, I'm sick of all of it - and I'm going to believe what I believe, regardless of all the liberals, atheists, and ACLU members on the planet.
245 posted on 08/07/2005 6:45:59 PM PDT by FrankR (Don't let the bastards wear you down...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Gumlegs
Ummmm ... is there a dispute regarding the presence of the earth?

No, and that is my point. Asking for a hypothesis, or scientific test to detect design is like asking for a hypothesis to detect the existence of planet Earth.

Depends on what you mean by "them."

By "them" I mean planet Earth and the universe. Nothing cryptic about it. If the earth and the universe were not designed, science would have no way of exploring it. Deal with it. Explain it away. Amuse the thinking man with your response. Besides, I'm sure you were there when it was all laid down and can explain the lack of an intelligent designer most intelligently yourself.

"Design" is a given under which science does take place. Science is "designed." It does not follow that life is "designed," or that the "design" of life should be assumed.

Why not? More people than scientists have figured as much, namely that where there is design, there is a designer. Not only so, but it has become increasingly apparent to many that life itself follows rules and patterns that are most easily attributed to design. Scientists who desire to push the notion that order and life can arise without the aid of an intelligent agent should pull their heads of the dark places where they are prone to looking and list themselves for hire in the philospohy and history segments of school cirricula.

It boggles the mind that evolutionists have the audacity to foist their philosophy upon science while demanding creationists supply hypotheses regarding the orderly nature of the world and the universe. If anything it is testimony to sheer laziness on the part of academia that evolutionism's ass wasn't kicked into the philosophy room a century ago or more. Somehow the NEA and its ilk must have gotten the better of us.

246 posted on 08/07/2005 6:46:15 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 166 | View Replies]

To: jackbill
I'm an engineer, not a biologist. I haven't the credentials to prove or disprove either argument. Do you?

No, but I can read. Nothing in the text you link reestablishes the flagellum as IC. It's a bait-and-switch "Tah-dah!" Announcing that Y. pestis has flagellar genes it is not using does not make the flagellum IC again. Announcing a competing evolutionary scenario to the one Miller outlines may undercut Miller in some manner personally, but it does not suggest that there is no evolutionary scenario at all unless two somehow cancels to make zero.

Further, I have earned the credentials to know your position is that of a tiny cult and that modern science agrees with Miller. In fact, I've chased down enough creation/ID arguments myself on these threads in the last six years to know that if there's a bigger liar than a creationist, it's a creationist who won't admit what he is. And that's ID.

They're all bad pennies. Six years later I don't know one good argument for creation/ID. Irreducible complexity isn't it. Gold chains allegedly found in coal aren't it. Human and dinosaur footprints found together in Texas aren't it. The Second Law of Thermodynamics isn't it. There aren't any.

247 posted on 08/07/2005 6:49:06 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 236 | View Replies]

To: js1138
Actually, they really are wrong even where they work perfectly, which is far and away most of the cases. They are not identical to the most technically accurate formulae available, which in turn are "right" in the sense of "not proven wrong yet."
248 posted on 08/07/2005 6:51:30 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 239 | View Replies]

To: R. Scott
Could it be the return to teaching of a flat Earth,


I wish you guys would try a little more decorum than that:

The passage saying the earth is round is Isaiah 40:22:

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.


The shape of the earth may already have been known in Isaiah's time. Ancient astronomers could determine that the earth was round by observing its circular shadow move across the moon during lunar eclipses. There is some suggestion that the Egyptians knew of the earth's spherical size and shape around 2550 B.C.E. (more than a thousand years before Moses). The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who was born in 532 B.C.E., defended the spherical theory on the basis of observations he had made of the shape of the sun and moon (Uotila 1984). If this information was known by educated Greeks and Egyptians during biblical times, its use by Isaiah is nothing special.
249 posted on 08/07/2005 6:52:10 PM PDT by Sybeck1 (chance is the “magic wand to make not only rabbits but entire universes appear out of nothing.”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: jackbill

Seventeen.


250 posted on 08/07/2005 6:52:20 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 244 | View Replies]

To: jackbill
If the blood clotting cascade was the result of evolution, rather than design, how many animals - including precursors to homo sapiens - died from cuts and wounds before a solution "evolved"?

Do you have any idea what evolution says about where blood clotting comes in versus where Homo sapiens comes in? I realize all you know is some story that says everything happened in one week, but really! If you don't know anything about evolution, how do you know it's wrong?

251 posted on 08/07/2005 6:55:39 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 244 | View Replies]

To: Gumlegs
forgivenyeah Since Aug 7, 2005

Ready, Aim...ZOT!

252 posted on 08/07/2005 6:56:40 PM PDT by RightWingAtheist (Creationism is not conservative!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 205 | View Replies]

To: Fester Chugabrew
There's increasing evidence that the human tendency to see 'design' or 'purpose' in biological entities is hard-wired into our cognition, probably by evolution. Dennett calls it the 'design stance'. Your incapacity for getting beyond this cognitive hardwiring, ironically, is a sign you haven't been able to transcend what evolution has equipped you with, as a rule-of-thumb for hunting or escaping wild beasts.

Of course, expecting as much out of someone who still believes 3000 year old creation myths is probably unreasonable.

253 posted on 08/07/2005 6:58:29 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 246 | View Replies]

To: Sybeck1

A circle is not a sphere. How do you pitch a tent on a sphere? The imagery clearly shows the Israelites thought the earth was flat.


254 posted on 08/07/2005 7:00:11 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 249 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor

http://joeclarke.net/2005/06/big-bang-big-scam-or-sometimes.html


255 posted on 08/07/2005 7:00:21 PM PDT by Sybeck1 (chance is the “magic wand to make not only rabbits but entire universes appear out of nothing.”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 253 | View Replies]

To: Sybeck1; R. Scott
The only flat-earthers are the evolutionists who seem to be unusually attracted to creating and believing hoaxes.

The Myth of the Flat Earth

Summary by Jeffrey Burton Russell

for the American Scientific Affiliation Conference

August 4, 1997 at Westmont College

click on the frame border for the document

256 posted on 08/07/2005 7:02:54 PM PDT by Dataman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 249 | View Replies]

To: Sybeck1
http://joeclarke.net/2005/06/big-bang-big-scam-or-sometimes.html

Wow, another uneducated Creationist blowhard. Gee, how compelling.

257 posted on 08/07/2005 7:04:00 PM PDT by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 255 | View Replies]

To: Sybeck1

The moronic twaddle you linked to is supposed to prove something? I've seen more intelligent writing in a men's room stall.


258 posted on 08/07/2005 7:04:09 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 255 | View Replies]

To: Gumlegs
No one says "design is not scientific," we say, "assuming design in the absence of evidence is not scientific." See the difference?

I would not say that my assumption that absolutely every time we don't see a designer we must assume one was present, is scientific. But possibility of design can be proven by observable science.

We can only assume that anything that functions with a purpose is designed for a purpose. Any technology, for example, is invented by a rational human mind with a purpose for that technology in mind.

However, things that function by accident still come about by some design, even though that design is unintentional. For example, someone drops his glass of coke on the rug and it puts a spot on the rug. The whole process has a certain design to it, though no direct purpose, so to speak.

Evolution is thought to be unintentional like the latter incident, where creation is thought to be intentional. Either's presumed effects can be validated by science or refuted by science. Both can be called sciences and both can be called faiths or theories.

But what makes intentional design more likely is the fact that things have functional value. One thing may function in a number of ways, but the design or pattern of that thing is suited for, geared toward, functionally more valuable to one function more than any other. For example, the coke bottle is suited more for handling and drinking more than spilling coke on a carpet. A funnel is more capable of funneling liquid downward than a coke bottle. A coke bottle generally faces up and holds liquid until its poured. The complexity of details of an object tell us what this object is designed to do. So yes, why not assume that a complex object is not designed? Unless, of course, you can prove that no purpose was involved with the final outcome of its pattern and function.

259 posted on 08/07/2005 7:04:46 PM PDT by LifeOrGoods? (God is not a God of fear, but of power, love and a sane mind.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 190 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor

How do you pitch a tent on circle?

So one day there was no matter in the universe and then the next day there was?

Sorry you can point me to all of the static electricity THOERIES out there, I'm not buying it.


260 posted on 08/07/2005 7:06:03 PM PDT by Sybeck1 (chance is the “magic wand to make not only rabbits but entire universes appear out of nothing.”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 254 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 221-240241-260261-280 ... 481-490 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson