Posted on 09/13/2005 4:15:07 AM PDT by 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]
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
May we take that as a confession that 'ID' is indeed plain old religious Creationism, but re-branded for another go at the science curriculum? Some of the ID proponents have been trying to persuade me that ID isn't 'religion by the backdoor,' as the 'Intelligent Designer' could be aliens from another planet (I'm not kidding)
A whole ne line of scientific thought is emerging.
The argument from how I want things to be.
Me. Me Me. I want. I want. I want.
It appears he passed a little of the rocks down in your head.
YOU misunderstood. You assumed I meant one thing about like you said when I did not. I meant that that evolution would have happened after the Big Bang.
Please, do we really have to be? We'd probably agree about so many other things--why can't we agree that religion is fine in the Church (or Synagogue or whatever your faith is), but wildly out of place in the science classroom?
I just don't see that science has gone out picking a fight with religion--though I see plenty of religious leaders (such as the Taliban) suppressing science because some religious leaders want absolute power. But this is America, right?
I enjoy the debate, happy to listen to your arguments with all due respect, and ask the simple right to reply: that isn't war, it's discussion. It's healthy, democratic, and one of the delights of freedom under our constitution.
Even an evolutionist like myself can still believe in Matthew 5:9
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.
And this one:
At the house in Downe where he spent the last 40 years of his life, he rigged up a system of mirrors so he could peek out the window of his study and see who was at the front door. Unwanted visitors were sent away.
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
Macroevolution is just evolution that includes changes in reproduction over time, therefore inhibiting interbreeding and creating a new species by definition.
"There is no difference between micro- and macroevolution except that genes between species usually diverge, while genes within species usually combine. The same processes that cause within-species evolution are responsible for above-species evolution, except that the processes that cause speciation include things that cannot happen to lesser groups, such as the evolution of different sexual apparatus (because, by definition, once organisms cannot interbreed, they are different species).The theory doesn’t look short of support.The idea that the origin of higher taxa, such as genera (canines versus felines, for example), requires something special is based on the misunderstanding of the way in which new phyla (lineages) arise. The two species that are the origin of canines and felines probably differed very little from their common ancestral species and each other. But once they were reproductively isolated from each other, they evolved more and more differences that they shared but the other lineages didn't. This is true of all lineages back to the first eukaryotic (nuclear) cell. Even the changes in the Cambrian explosion are of this kind, although some (eg, Gould 1989) think that the genomes (gene structures) of these early animals were not as tightly regulated as modern animals, and therefore had more freedom to change. "
from. It can be found in 
from that great satirist pamphelteer Jack Chick
I don't really want to go into the teaching evolution debate. But I'll just say this, I don't mind ID being mentioned. Nor do I mind evolution being taught. People go too much into a tizzy on both sides. My real feeling is that nobody really knows exactly so it's not a big deal to me.
I see you aren't afraid to misquote God. (See my profile page -at the bottom- for the correct quote)
Jehovahs Witnesses, probably... :-)
Faulty premises can lead to faulty conclusions.
Society offers greater protection (hence increased opportunities for survival) than living outside of a civilized society with its human construct morality. Loving one's neighbor as oneself is fundamental to that increased protection. Your premise that "survival of the fittest" is the opposite of "love your neighbor as yourself is not justified.
Inspiring work! Next you’ll be calling him a “poo poo pants”, and posting funny pictures of his face on a monkey or something.
Since we're talking Darwinian evolution here, I'm hopeful that you'll be able to point out where in Darwin's writings on evolution that he stated "that life began with an explosion, an explosion of absolutely nothing, that explosion of nothing created a dot, a dot that could be smaller than a period on this page, that dot than exploded and over the course of billions and billions of years, that explosion became earth and all the suns, moons, stars, planets, etc."
If morality is a human construct, then it is subject to human whim... in other words, one can change it to fit their circumstances.
In this case, the one who has the ability to take the food will win and the other will lose. Survival of the fittest.
Good catch!
In this case, the one who has the ability to take the food will win and the other will lose. Survival of the fittest.
Sounds like you're referring to New Orleans.
thanks for the acknowledgement.
Certainly, N.O. is a good example of how Godless people act.
Biloxi, a town that was wiped out, dropped to their knees in prayer then gathered together to help each other out.
Biloxi, a town that was wiped out, dropped to their knees in prayer then gathered together to help each other out.
Good example.
I'd like to see that passage, too. All I can find is the following, from the concluding chapter of Origin of Species (my emphasis):
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
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