Intelligent design [was] old news to Darwin

Chicago Tribune ^ | 13 September 2005 | Tom Hundley

[PatrickHenry]

So what would Charles Darwin have to say about the dust-up between today's evolutionists and intelligent designers?

Probably nothing.

[snip]

Even after he became one of the most famous and controversial men of his time, he was always content to let surrogates argue his case.

[snip]

From his university days Darwin would have been familiar with the case for intelligent design. In 1802, nearly 30 years before the Beagle set sail, William Paley, the reigning theologian of his time, published "Natural Theology" in which he laid out his "Argument from Design."

Paley contended that if a person discovered a pocket watch while taking a ramble across the heath, he would know instantly that this was a designed object, not something that had evolved by chance. Therefore, there must be a designer. Similarly, man -- a marvelously intricate piece of biological machinery -- also must have been designed by "Someone."

If this has a familiar ring to it, it's because this is pretty much the same argument that intelligent design advocates use today.

[snip]

The first great public debate took place on June 30, 1860, in a packed hall at Oxford University's new Zoological Museum.

Samuel Wilberforce, the learned bishop of Oxford, was champing at the bit to demolish Darwin's notion that man descended from apes. As always, Darwin stayed home. His case was argued by one of his admirers, biologist Thomas Huxley.

Wilberforce drew whoops of glee from the gallery when he sarcastically asked Huxley if he claimed descent from the apes on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's. Huxley retorted that he would rather be related to an ape than to a man of the church who used half-truths and nonsense to attack science.

The argument continues unabated ...

[snip]

[Junior]

He's a troll.

[Right Wing Professor]

I followed up on your link, BTW, and found the source you cited is being promoted as a high-school text for Christian schools. That's scary.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

Evolution's had its fair share of bogus information.

Here's my personal preference though; I have no problem with the theory of evolution. The only thing that concerns me is that it's taught as FACT, when it has yet to be proven as such.

Teach and schools all they want. Heck, showcase competing theories such as ID alongside it! But all that matters to me is that people remember the 'theory' part of the phrase.

Teaching evolution = okay.

Teaching evolution as fact = not okay.

[SeaLion]

To calim to believe the words of Christ, would impy a believe in Christ, and how can one justify that when one believes in evolution, for did not John in John chapter one say: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made." The word "Word" is Jesus.

I'm still resolved not to enter into "war." So with genuine respect (and not with any snobbishness, honestly), I really have to insist that, if you have belief that the Bible is to be taken literally, as I myself was originally raised to believe, then it behooves you to learn (as, yes, I did) sufficient Koine Greek to read and understand it in the language of its composition. John states that In the beginning (arkhe) was the Logos--a beautiful word in Greek, borrowed into other languages as the root for logic--but no, let's not go there...

Logic would tell you, however, that we may have different understandings of Jesus. You could be right, or I could be right, or indeed we could both be wrong. Science won't tell us that--and its not a question to take to science.

But if you believe your religious belief has already provided you with all answers about the world, you don't need science. Leave it alone, don't try to pervert it

[Das Outsider]

Shy and reclusive, Darwin disliked argument. He also was plagued by poor health. In particular, he suffered from terrible flatulence that made him reluctant to venture out in public.

What are you trying to suggest? Post-Cambrian explosions?

[Coyoteman]

Koine Greek to read and understand it in the language of its composition

I thought the Greek versions were later. I seem to remember about AD 900? but that could be faulty memory.

Aren't the Dead Sea Scrolls closer to the original versions?

[Das Outsider]

I thought the Greek versions were later. I seem to remember about AD 900? but that could be faulty memory.

You are probably thinking of the Latin copies. The Greek witnesses of the New Testament go back to the 2nd century (A.D. 125 [papyrus 52]).

[wallcrawlr]

must have been a poorly evolved digestive system

[Das Outsider]

Aren't the Dead Sea Scrolls closer to the original versions?

For the Old Testament books, yes. The Hebrew reflects an earlier form used prior to the Massoretes (6th-century A.D.).

[wallcrawlr]

"Blessed are the peacemakers"

Thats the same bumper sticker phrase most lib's use to imply they are religious.

[trisham]

The Big Bang Theory of cosmology didn't originate until the middle of the 20th century or thereabouts (I'm not a cosmologist, I can't give you an exact date).

Quite right.

The Big Bang Theory is the dominant scientific theory about the origin of the universe. According to the big bang, the universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions.

In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was the first to propose that the universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom. His proposal came after observing the red shift in distant nebulas by astronomers to a model of the universe based on relativity. Years later, Edwin Hubble found experimental evidence to help justify Lemaître's theory. He found that distant galaxies in every direction are going away from us with speeds proportional to their distance.

The big bang was initially suggested because it explains why distant galaxies are traveling away from us at great speeds. The theory also predicts the existence of cosmic background radiation (the glow left over from the explosion itself). The Big Bang Theory received its strongest confirmation when this radiation was discovered in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who later won the Nobel Prize for this discovery.

Although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it probably will never be proved; consequentially, leaving a number of tough, unanswered questions. http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/universe/b_bang.html

[SeaLion]

Aren't the Dead Sea Scrolls closer to the original versions?

It's better than that -- the Nag Hammadi codices include additional gospels (such as a Gospel of Thomas) which are very interesting--but the history of the early Church is a very complicated tangle of power struggles, denouncing of heretics, suppressing of awkward texts, etc. etc. I'm not Christian-bashing here, just noting some of the additional problems in trying to derive any kind of absolutes (moral or scientfic, though it's oxymoronic to talk about 'scientific absolutes', but let that go) from a literal reading of the Bible. But the right to read it that way is an absolute right of anyone who so wishes, I don't challenge that. I do challenge the right of anyone to impose an interpretation of any religious scripture (whether Bible, Koran, Upanishad etc. etc.) in the public school science curriculum

[Das Outsider]

Thats the same bumper sticker phrase most lib's use to imply they are religious.



Maybe they mean Pacemakers ?

[PatrickHenry]

Took some digging to find this. It hasn't been needed for a couple of years:

Automated Troll- Guard ^tm notification:
All trolls ignored.
Security settings on high.
Idiot tolerance level on low.
Troll traction index: 17%

[Amish with an attitude]

"Nice try, but evolution says nothing about the origin of life"


Why do evolutionists distance themselves from the discussion of the origin of life?

[highball]

Me: You do understand that there's a difference between monkeys and apes, don't you?

Ultra Sonic 007: Condescending, much? It doesn't do you much a favor when you presume me to be a dummy.

Um, you're the one who brought up the relatively distant relation between humans and Rhesus monkeys. It's a specious comparison, because monkeys are not apes. What exactly was your point in raising that issue in the first place?

I'm not presuming you to be a dummy. Quite the contrary. I do think you're using disingenuous tactics, with the bait-and-switch monkey comparison and by implying that "scientific theory" means "untested and unreliable." But "disingenuous" does not mean "stupid."

[bethtopaz]

I have always believed that evolution is an invention to escape the fact that there is a God greater than us. Period.

[bobdsmith]

Word.

[highball]

Evolution's had its fair share of bogus information.

Yes, it has.

Funny thing, though - all of the evolutionary mistakes and frauds have been exposed by scientists. Compare that with the creationist lies and frauds, which have been exposed by... scientists.

Scientists approach all new information with skepticism, even information that would seem to reinforce their original impressions. That's part of the scientific method.

It tells you who's really interested in truth and who's interested only in promoting an agenda.

Heck, showcase competing theories such as ID alongside it!

ID isn't a scientific theory. It fails the most simple test of the word. There are no competing scientific theories. Once there are, they should of course be taught alongside evolution. Until then, keep the bogus ID pseudo-science out of the classroom.

Once again, you imply that "theory" somehow means "not proven." That's just not the case, and insisting that it does is disingenuous at best.

[RightWhale]

Rev William Paley's watch was about a foot across and weighed ten pounds, but without ID, science would be next to impossible. Strange to think of it, but in an evolving universe the laws of physics would be changing in unpredictable ways.