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]

[Elsie]

So stone me.

Don't Do It!

He'll cry 'VICTIM' on us!!

--EvoDude

[Elsie]

That is creepy. Just creepy.

Yes, it is!

[Elsie]

Another day, and we have less food. What shall we DO?????

[Elsie]

I can't even be nuts normally.

Watch it!!

YOU'll be accused of being funny, too!

;^)

[Elsie]

(Did I hear a creationist in the back row say something about "no transitional fossils?")

No, but one did just say, "Where's the PICTURES of the bones?"

[VadeRetro]

Anything you can receive through a modem will either be a photograph or a drawing, not a bone. Limitations of the medium and all that.

[Elsie]

It was supposed to be a play on spelling pointed out by VuV;

I had gotten some of them for Christmas a few years ago.

[Elsie]

--you can count all the individual hairs.

Just like Jesus said!

(Though now, God keeps decreasing the number of mine!)

[Elsie]

Oh dear, which church?

Why...

The CHURCH!!

The ONLY one with the ACTUAL keys: The RCC!!

---

Wait!

The MORMON's claim that only THEY have the 'priesthood'.

Oh... I'm SO confused.....

[Elsie]

A container of Testamints!

[Elsie]

Shades of that scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...

Yes; truly electrifying!

[Junior]

It is quite possible that such folks don't find it necessary to seek help. Most people only get worried when the voices tell them to do things the people would find personally abhorent.

[PatrickHenry]

Were you there? placemarker
</flaming idiot mode>

[Elsie]

...with all organisms "leading up" to humankind, and us being the grand finale.

I wonder what will come after us?

We are actively engaged in making sure that evolution does NOT happen in Humans!

Every birth 'defect' is aggressively wiped out, so how can 'changes' be propagated?

[VadeRetro]

Most people only get worried when the voices tell them to do things the people would find personally abhorent.

And this is rare. Most people's voices whisper, "This is your chance! Go for it!"

[Elsie]

Wouldn't any such nation suffer an epidemic of obesity?

We HAVE!!

Therefore FSM is our GOD!

Hail to His NA's!!!!

[Elsie]

The FSM did give us the relatively low-calorie, low carbohydrate Spaghetti Squash, did he not?

False god: do NOT worship Him!!

[Junior]

...followers of evolution look in the eyes of their granddaughters, the ones they haven't help get aborted, and see pond scum and a rock.

Man, have you got issues. I don't have a granddaughter (yet), but when I looked into my kids eyes I saw little bits of me and their mother; and like any other parental warm-blooded organism on this planet I happen to be very protective of my offspring.

I'm definitely off my rocker, but I cannot fathom the twisted intellect that reads motives into others such as the ones you postulate are held by evolutionists. I've often thought it might be "projection."

[Junior]

Lateral transfer.

[Elsie]

About 15 minutes into it the variables became so numerous that I simply gave it up. I wish a few creationists would try that calculation so they could see how difficult it can be to find fossils for specific lineages and how remarkable it is we have as many as we do.

But if WE point out that all of the 'little changes' neccessary for Evolution to have actually occured in the amount of time postulated is likewise unimagineable, we get dismissed.

Strange....