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 ...
Leave out the olive oil
I've had ratlesnake and alligator and it was not worth the effort. I think everything tastes like chicken, because chicken doesn't taste like much by itself. So, it's easy to prepare it in many ways and get many tastes.
I'd just as soon leave out the hint of garlic and the sage!
Again, there is no way to evaluate a position an organism occupies in its evolutionary path.
"Do we have a trail of monkeys that goes all the way back to a fish?
No. We do not need uninterrupted lines of descent for every organism to know evolution is active.
"I bet you can find chimp bones from a million years ago.
Forest dwelling mobile organisms are not preserved well.
Do you mind clarifying what the heck you mean here?
Maybe you are assuming that all evolutionary paths lead to speaking, tool using, philosophizing organisms and any organisms that don't reach that state within a given time are not evolving? Is this what you mean?
Hint schmint. Use 8 cloves.
Vampire problems?
That's what I thought as well. I can't help but be amused at the creationist caricature of evolution, with all organisms "leading up" to humankind, and us being the grand finale.
Every time I realize that the other side is simply beating us to death with its own refusal to know what evolution is and implies ... my posts start getting deleted.
Should I be worried now?
Ok good. :-)
So could Modernman. Sigh.
Lots of things don't preserve well. Fossils are rare indeed! Time wounds all heels!
But when one is looking for an excuse to dismiss evolution, even a tiny gap or "missing link" looks good.
They ignore the tens of thousands of good fossils we do have as "inconveniences" to be readily dismissed because they don't believe in that evilution stuff anyway. Because they need to destroy people's trust in science, in order to destroy people's trust in evolution, they pervert the scientific method. Here's a good quick explanation of science:
Piling up facts is not science--science is facts-and--theories. Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning; a valid theory organizes them into far greater usefulness.CS/ID has to IGNORE old facts and hope for no new facts; and it discloses no unsuspected facts (i.e., no predictive power or falsifiability). It has to redefine "theory" to mean "proved to 199 decimal places" for evolution, but to "whatever the bible says" for CS/ID.A powerful theory not only embraces old facts and new but also discloses unsuspected facts.
And their understanding of evolutionary science is very limited, and probably derived from the CS/ID websites. This is typical:
"Where are the bones of australo-pithecus versions of monkeys?
Didn't monkeys split off from the ape line many million years before the ape line began to diverge into early apes (including Australo), modern apes, and humans? So why should there be an Australo on the monkey side? That was a unique development on the ape side. (Duh!)
If the question is where are the precursors on the monkey side, they are there too! Maybe a few gaps in the various branches, but its a pretty big and solid tree.
Excuse my naivete in situations such as this, but when a person is banned from FR, can they come back under a different name? Or, more importantly I guess, would they?
OK. Most of Europe, especially Spain and Italy were murderous and tyrannous because they judged that preaching anti-Trinitarism was a state crime. Anyone holding such views is also murderous and tyrannous.
Some try. In some cases they've come back dozens of times. They're quickly spotted and banned again. The good guys rarely sneak back. It's almost always the maniacs.
Actually, subconsciously, I think they do. Their arguments against evolution are uniformly juvenile and lacking in substance, and keep being repeated over and over again, despite constant refutations. Consciously, they believe they're fighting a rear-guard action against the forces of evil. Deep down inside, though, they realize those forces aren't evil and actually make good points, which only causes them to redouble their efforts.
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