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University of California system sued over creationism
National Center for Science Education ^ | 08 September 2005 | Staff

Posted on 09/15/2005 6:36:25 PM PDT by PatrickHenry

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To: johnnyb_61820
That's simply false. Behe's work published in Protein Science dealt with the mathematics behind the "copy and modify" method of evolving new genes. Likewise, Dembski's work in No Free Lunch and Searching Large Spaces deal with creating information through mutation in living biological systems.

Behe and Dembski, despite the technical window dressing are basically arguing that because they can't explain how something happened, it must be impossible. This is not the basis of a devastating refutation of evolutionary theory.

281 posted on 09/16/2005 11:01:40 PM PDT by donh
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To: johnnyb_61820
If you have bad assumptions, logic will lead you the wrong way. My own theory is that Darwinists are people who _only_ have abstract logic, and not any other facet of wisdom. Therefore, they are unable to analyze their own assumptions, because logic is their only tool, which is completely inadequate to the task. It is true that there are some in the Church without logic, but I think you are confusing what you see as a "lack of logic" with what is really a "broader wisdom than logic alone can provide".

Deductive logic, which is what you are referring to, is a very minor tool with minor applications in science, much like a microscope. Serious scientific reasoning, including about biological evolution, much like in any other serious human enterprise, is largely the domain of inductive and analogical reasoning.

282 posted on 09/16/2005 11:10:55 PM PDT by donh
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To: curiosity
But we are special. God set up the laws of nature so that we would eventually arrise. Even a small change in some of the fundamental constants of nature would make life impossible. We evolved because God wanted it that way.

Nature tells us the exact opposite. Chemistry doesn't abide by the principle of probabilities as described in the Infinite-Monkey Theorem. The letters that stay on the page for the monkeys, do not stay on the page for chemistry. Chemicals continually bind and unbind, making the idea of a random event for an infinite amount of time will produce the probability of 1, impossible.

If you are saying the Creator supernaturally continued to manipulate the chemistry to get the result He wanted, then we are not speaking about Neo-Darwinian Evolution.

283 posted on 09/16/2005 11:15:39 PM PDT by bondserv (Creation sings a song of praise, Declaring the wonders of Your ways †)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Variation in fruitflies does not necessarily parlay into something as huge and as minutely ramified as ‘The Origin of Species and the Descent of Man.’

The argument for evolutionary theory does not rest on observing every minute step in the process, any more than the theory of universal gravitation relies on observing its effects in every square inch of the known universe, or the theory of continental drift relies on someone seeing south america and africa separate.

284 posted on 09/16/2005 11:32:57 PM PDT by donh
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To: metmom
I worded that poorly. I know spontaneous generation was proved wrong.

No. It was not. Science doesn't prove things; it guesses at things, and tries really hard to make good guesses. Presently, it guesses that spontaneous generation isn't a necessary assumption to explain why naturalistic origins of life are possible.

While we now know far more than even 100 years ago, there is still far more that we don't know and scientists are continually updating and revising their theories as new data comes in. When we know all the facts and all the proofs are in, then it can be declared dead.

No such point will ever be reached. You are asking far more of science than it is capable of.

Until then there remains a need to consider it. If creation is wrong, prove it.

It is not science's job to either prove or disprove creation by a Prime Mover god. Science gets along just fine without entangling itself in questions it is structurally unequipped to answer.

Don't just categorize it as a myth

Show me anywhere in "Nature" or "Science" or any technical biology journal or a position statement by an important scientific association that suggests this.

and dismiss it off hand.

Not science's job. Science needs an opinion about the nature of God like a fish needs a bicycle.

285 posted on 09/17/2005 6:12:41 AM PDT by donh
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To: narby
This is one reason why I abandoned my faith.

I'm one of the others....

286 posted on 09/17/2005 6:18:11 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: narby
I must conclude that humans are hard wired to make up their own religion from whole cloth.

Ain't Evolution wonderful!!

287 posted on 09/17/2005 6:18:59 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: curiosity
The same cannot be said for schools of a Protestant fundamentalist bent.

Oh... I'm sure one could SAY it, but do you have any data to back up YOUR claim?

288 posted on 09/17/2005 6:20:38 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: NJ_gent
It's really a shame that some schools are failing to prepare their students for the real world...

So, do you feel that the NEXT world is not 'real'?

289 posted on 09/17/2005 6:22:04 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: narby
But the recent spread of fundamentalist Christian denominations and their descent into cult-like denial of reality is a sad departure from what I was taught as a youth.

I'm glad you do not follow this same line of reasoning in your political outlook, or you'd stay away from the voting booth because of 'cult-like' voters out there.


What you were taught as a youth WILL come back to you:

Proverbs 22:6
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

290 posted on 09/17/2005 6:27:47 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: atlaw
Dear atlaw,
      Death is simply a separation. It can be a separation of the soul from the physical body (which is what most are referring to when the word 'death' is used) or it can be the separation (death) of a friendship, relationship, marriage (divorce. If you've ever lost a loved one and gotten a divorce you know what I'm talking about.), etc.
I know this over simplifies the eggheaded jargon you're trying to use to dazzle those of us you believe to stupid to understand your BS way to much to satisfy your desire that someone take your bait and run with all of your hypotheticals but death is nothing more than a "separation." A "Spiritual" death (which many of you atheist might think you'll love) is nothing more than an eternal separation of your eternal soul from God; without whom there is no “life.”

Now the question you must settle in your heart is, "Do souls and spirits really exist?"

If you don't think they do then enjoy wallowing in the mire. ;)

291 posted on 09/17/2005 6:29:18 AM PDT by divulger ("Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo." - H. G. Wells (1866-1946))
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To: steve-b

Your 'theory' is wrong!

His Noodly Appendages PUSH!


292 posted on 09/17/2005 6:29:41 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Right Wing Professor

It's the same guys websites!

Anyway.... he has this assertion:

3) Conclusion: Therefore, irreducibly complex structures could not have been produced by natural selection.

...which I say is wrong. Evoultion COULD produce ICS's IF all the parts needed are mutated all at once: IE punk eek.


293 posted on 09/17/2005 6:41:34 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: narby
As predicted in my original post, you're confident that your interpretation is correct, and others are wrong.

Just as YOU do, Narby, in the way YOU think about religion is right, and the religious folks are all wrong.

294 posted on 09/17/2005 6:43:17 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
...it has been dealt with scientifically and defeated.

Not so!

Even in these threads, MANY evo's say, "...that everything was created by God.

It's just the He (she, it) used EVOLUTION to accomplish His (her, it's) task."

295 posted on 09/17/2005 6:47:49 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: balrog666

Of course not!

'GOD' tricked him!!!!


296 posted on 09/17/2005 6:50:02 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Hyzenthlay

Well, it WAS creationists who convinced Bush to blow up the levee!


297 posted on 09/17/2005 6:50:54 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Elsie

Are you proud of that?


298 posted on 09/17/2005 6:51:54 AM PDT by From many - one.
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To: atlaw

Genesis 2:16-17 states:

"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

What is the correct interpretation of the word "die" (or the reference to death) in that passage? My parenthetical examples in the original question are just some of the interpretations that have been proffered over time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, now I get it...

This one puzzled me for a while, and then it dawned on me what the scriptures were saying.

[**My Personal Opinion here] Let me re-phrase this way, the day you eat of it you will be subject to physical death... Read the passage carefully, it does not say that the day you eat of the fruit, you will die that day. Previously in Genesis it appeared that Adam an Eve would live forever in fellowship with God in the Garden. Upon sinning creation itself changed its physical form as we see by the snake have bodily changed so that it would now crawl on its belly and eat of the dust of the earth. We see that humans changed too, women would now be subject to pain in childbirth and the man would have to toil to feed himself. And emotionally people changed, the woman and her seed would have "enmity" with the serpent.

It's likely a weakness in the differences between English and Hebrew. Not necessarily a translation problem. For example, there are some languages that don't have words that are even related to other languages. Some languages have subtle variations and nuances of the same word. So in some languages it takes several words to describe a single word in the other language.

There are also cultural issues that may be unwritten, i.e. "understood" by the writer and never actually written because it would be silly to them to do so.

And yes, I have verified at least the language related issues with my wife who graduated summa cum laude with a degree in cross-cultural communications.


299 posted on 09/17/2005 6:52:41 AM PDT by woodb01 (ANTI-DNC Web Portal at ---> http://www.noDNC.com)
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To: atlaw
And if that is the case, why would the knowledge of good and evil cause Adam's soul to die >>>

It wasn't the 'knowledge', but the failure to be obedient: "Thou shalt not"


I know that being 'obedient' is anathema to most all Americans these days, and THAT is what is sticking in their craw.

300 posted on 09/17/2005 6:54:14 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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