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YES, EVOLUTION STILL HAS UNANSWERED QUESTIONS; THAT'S HOW SCIENCE IS
WSJ ^ | June 3, 2005 | Sharon Begley

Posted on 08/21/2005 1:18:04 AM PDT by MRMEAN

Compared with fields like genetics and neuroscience and cosmology, botany comes up a bit short in the charisma department. But when scientists announced last week that they had figured out how plants grow, one had to take note, not only because of the cleverness required to crack a puzzle that dates to 1885, but because of what it says about controversy and certainty in science -- and about the evolution debate.

In 1885, scientists discovered a plant-growth hormone and called it auxin. Ever since, its mechanism of action had been a black box, with scientists divided into warring camps about precisely how the hormone works. Then last week, in a study in Nature, biologist Mark Estelle of Indiana University, Bloomington, and colleagues reported that auxin links up with a plant protein called TIR1, and together the pair binds to a third protein that silences growth-promoting genes. The auxin acts like a homing beacon for enzymes that munch on the silencer. Result: The enzymes devour the silencer, allowing growth genes to turn on.

Yet biology classes don't mention the Auxin Wars. Again and again, impressionable young people are told that auxin promotes plant growth, when the reality is more complex and there has been raging controversy over how it does so.

Which brings us to evolution. Advocates of teaching creationism (or its twin, intelligent design) have adopted the slogan, "Teach the controversy." That sounds eminently sensible. But it is disingenuous. For as the auxin saga shows, virtually no area of science is free of doubt or debate or gaps in understanding.

(Excerpt) Read more at american-buddha.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anothercrevothread; china; creationism; crevolist; enoghalready; enoughalready; evolution; fossil; id; india; israel; makeitstop; notagain; science
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To: RobbyS

That's a lot of letters


341 posted on 08/21/2005 7:37:21 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (Free Katie Holmes)
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To: MRMEAN

Evolution has a lot of questions because there are no answers. It is, plain and simple, a bunch of gobbly gook. It amazes me that people who appear to be intelligent can believe this stuff.


342 posted on 08/21/2005 7:39:54 PM PDT by DennisR (Look around - there are countless observable clues that God exists)
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To: furball4paws

***A Creator that endows his creation with the inalienable "right" of life, does not allow 30-60 million to die just so he can step in at the last minute and "turn the tide of WWII***

He also endowed them with freedom of will and personal responsibility and will call each and every one to give a personal account of what they did with those gifts and reward them accordingly.



***If this is your Creator, how can you depend on Him to do the right thing?***

If Jesus Christ died for me, I can trust him for the rest.


343 posted on 08/21/2005 7:40:59 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: Doctor Stochastic

Should Zeitgeist be replaced by Uhrseele?

Yes. I'd like to hear AlGore try to pronounce it in his next major speech.

344 posted on 08/21/2005 7:41:21 PM PDT by ml1954
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To: RobbyS
The promulgation of Darwinian ethics led to a rejection of the Judeo-Christian idea of the sanctity of human life. Was genocide, such as that perpetrated by Hitler, inevitable?

Darwinian ethics?

No such thing. Any theory or belief system can be perverted to the "dark side."

Darwin had a theory and people of all kinds have been running with it ever since. Just like they have with hundreds of other ideas. Think there is only one kind of Islam? Check the headlines. Even Christianity has split into many versions.

Sorry, I can't buy into this one.

345 posted on 08/21/2005 7:43:31 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Is this a good tagline?)
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To: PetroniusMaximus

"He also endowed them with freedom of will and personal responsibility and will call each and every one to give a personal account of what they did with those gifts and reward them accordingly."

And being omniscient and omnipotent, he knew that he had made imperfect beings and said *Screw it*. If humans are fallible it is God's fault, he made us that way. Knowing that many would not make it and would be sent to hell. Hardly a compassionate and loving God.


346 posted on 08/21/2005 7:44:39 PM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: MRMEAN

read later bump


347 posted on 08/21/2005 7:49:19 PM PDT by Kevin OMalley (No, not Freeper#95235, Freeper #1165: Charter member, What Was My Login Club.)
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To: furball4paws
"In which commandment does God say "I have endowed men with certain inalienable rights among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" God is silent here."

Thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not steal. They are both contained within the general command to "love your neighbor as yourself."

348 posted on 08/21/2005 7:51:03 PM PDT by spunkets
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To: DennisR
Evolution has a lot of questions because there are no answers. It is, plain and simple, a bunch of gobbly gook. It amazes me that people who appear to be intelligent can believe this stuff.

Do you actually have a legitimate, substantial critique of the theory of evolution or do you specialize only in empty rhetoric?
349 posted on 08/21/2005 7:53:28 PM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: CarolinaGuitarman

And being omniscient and omnipotent, he knew that he had made imperfect beings and said *Screw it*. If humans are fallible it is God's fault, he made us that way. Knowing that many would not make it and would be sent to hell. Hardly a compassionate and loving God.

What we have here is a group of critics of evolution who claim evolution is scientifically flawed and that their faith based belief system provides a better explanation.

However, that faith based system is severely flawed logically.

Ironic, isn't it.

350 posted on 08/21/2005 7:55:27 PM PDT by ml1954
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To: Abogado

Absolutely incorrect.

String theory is the rule that no matter how carefully wound, string will unwind into multiple knots.


351 posted on 08/21/2005 7:55:30 PM PDT by From many - one.
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To: Coyoteman

If Christianity can produce the Spanish Inquisition, Darwinism could,and did produce Hitlerism. All that was needed was the right soil. Whose passages of Mein Kampf are paraphrases of Haeckel. But Germany was especially ripe for a misapplication of a scientific theory. Bismarck's "Blut und Eisen" policy of unification had had a great effect on Germany. Our so-called culture wars are pallid in comparison with Bismarck's Kulturkampf with the Catholic Church. The socialist movement was even more anti-Christian. Darwinism was simply a stick with which German militarists, liberals and socialists could use to show that Christian morality was passe.


352 posted on 08/21/2005 7:58:07 PM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: Oztrich Boy

Sorry, look befoe for the clean version.


353 posted on 08/21/2005 7:59:55 PM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: RobbyS
If Christianity can produce the Spanish Inquisition, Darwinism could,and did produce Hitlerism.

Some Christians devolved into the Spanish Inquisition.

Some folks used Darwin as an excuse for Hitlerism.

S*** happens. That don't make it right. That also doesn't say much about the original belief. Unless you want to throw both Christianity and Darwinism out???

354 posted on 08/21/2005 8:03:01 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Is this a good tagline?)
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To: RobbyS

If Christianity can produce the Spanish Inquisition, Darwinism could,and did produce Hitlerism.

So the primary objective of the Nazis was to kill anyone who didn't think Darwin's Theory Of Evolution was true? I didn't know that. Gee, you learn something everyday.

355 posted on 08/21/2005 8:04:59 PM PDT by ml1954
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To: From many - one.
Absolutely incorrect.

String theory is the rule that no matter how carefully wound, string will unwind into multiple knots.

I thought that was Murphy's law :)

356 posted on 08/21/2005 8:05:23 PM PDT by Abogado (Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt)
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To: Birdsbane
Yes, Creationism has unanswered questions, but that's how faith works...

Faith actually provides much more reliable answers than science. The trick is in what one places their faith and belief. If one places faith in that which isn't as faithful, then one is far more likely to encounter frustration from unreliable consequence.

For those with unaswered questions in Creationism, simply place your faith in Him for the appropriate answer and He is faithful and at liberty to provide a reliable, graceful solution.

357 posted on 08/21/2005 8:12:47 PM PDT by Cvengr (<;^))
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To: Coyoteman

And some Darwinists--those in Germany--applied Darwin's biological theories for social and political purposes. Something similar happened in Spain in the 15th Century. The Inquisition was a ROYAL institution which was applied not against Jews but against Jewish Christians. Isabella was egged on by "old" Christian families who resented those Jews who, after 1430, had in large numbers assimilated into Spanish society. The rap was that they were secretly practicing Jewish rites while pretending to be Christians. In fact, this was generally a lie. The real cause was that the Jewish Christians were prospering too well, exciting the envy of others. Under Torquemada, the Inquistion spent twenty years hounding Jews to death. Along with this we have the reduction of Grenada and the expulsion of the Jews. NOW, you get the real hypocrits, Jews who accepted baptism rather than be expelled.


358 posted on 08/21/2005 8:15:54 PM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: Cvengr
For those with unaswered questions in Creationism, simply place your faith in Him for the appropriate answer and He is faithful and at liberty to provide a reliable, graceful solution.

And taste the lotus blossom. And listen to the Sirens' song. Have a Fosters. The waters of Lethe beckon. No worries, mate!

359 posted on 08/21/2005 8:16:10 PM PDT by onewhowatches
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To: Abogado

Murphy's Law:

Anything that can possibly go wrong will.

Most important corollary:
....and at the worst possible time, too.


360 posted on 08/21/2005 8:17:48 PM PDT by From many - one.
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