Posted on 09/20/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.
They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.
After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."
That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Which is why there is an hour more moonlight during midnight savings time. "Spring upward, fall downward" is just the way we remember how it works.
"God" isn't a proper name. It's more of a title. The Almighty's proper name isn't known, but he goes by "I am who am," or Yahweh.
Mostly, they would want to discuss religion or just comment about their rebirth os something equally off topic. There were those (not necessarily creationists) who objected to calling imaginary numbers "numbers." (The anti-set theory guys hadn't arrived yet.)
Since the "evidence" for evolution is highly problematical, to simply "explain" what is unsettled is rather difficult.
What part of evolution is observable and testable? Since it has "happened" primarily in the past - ???
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Yes, macro-evolution.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Yes, macro-evolution.
All present and fossilized animals found should conform to the standard evolutionary tree. And they do.
Fossilized intermediates should appear in the "correct" chronological order on the standard tree.
Many organisms should retain vestigial structures as structural remnants of lost functions.
Species that are more closely related should share a greater portion of their DNA.. Excerpt:
[A]n hypothesis of evolutionary relationships is provided by the fossil record, which indicates when particular types of organisms evolved. In addition, by examining the anatomical structures of fossils and of modern species, we can infer how closely species are related to each other. When degree of genetic similarity is compared with our ideas of evolutionary relationships based on fossils, a close match is evident.
And if Harun Yahya is correct, the other creationists will lack virgins.
OK, try here.
Fundamentalism in the sense of strict biblical literalism is a minority position among religious believers. Most religious traditions do not make a virtue out of alienating the culture. Despite postmodernity's inroads, science retains tremendous cultural prestige. The religious world by and large would rather live in harmony with the scientific world. Most religious believers accept that species have undergone significant changes over the course of natural history and therefore that evolution in some sense has occurred (consider, for instance, Pope John Paul II's recent endorsement of evolution). The question for religious believers and the public more generally is not the fact of evolution but the mechanism of evolutionary change -- that chance and necessity alone are enough to explain life.
I will say it again. Behe, Dembski and Denton have all accepted the fact of evolution. Denton has openly opted for fine tuning or the anthropic principal. Dembski seems to believe something which might be fine tuning or it might be micromiracles.
The anthropic principle is not science, but it isn't anti-science. It doesn't interfere in the ongoing activities of science. Micromiracles are something that science whittles away at.
ROFL! More 'argumentum ad la-la-la-I can't-hear-you".
Still, I'll give you this. Few others will attempt to prove the demonstrably false, or deny the obviously true, as doggedly as you.
Good old Pascal's Wager -- the church as mafioso.
From your link, it seems like Dembski has adopted the micromiricale approach. Interesting.
Thanks for the info.
Try to keep it to one reply per post, OK? I know most of my thoughts deserve an entire thread, but curb your enthusiasm.
‘Biologists would dearly like to know how modern apes, modern humans and the various ancestral hominids have evolved from a common ancestor. Unfortunately, the fossil record is somewhat incomplete as far as the hominids are concerned, and it is all but blank for the apes. The best we can hope for is that more fossils will be found over the next few years which will fill the present gaps in the evidence.’ The author goes on to say: ‘David Pilbeam [a well-known expert in human evolution] comments wryly, “If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we’ve got he'd surely say, ‘forget it: there isn’t enough to go on’.”
(Richard E. Leakey, The Making of Mankind, Michael Joseph Limited, London, 1981, p. 43)
He hasn't exactly flipped sides, but he has recognized that evolution is a fact. He still believes it was guided. That's pretty much the position of science prior to Darwin.
With Denton, Behe and Dembski recognizing evolution as a historic fact, that's pretty much 100 percent of the qualified science competent ID advocates.
Was the Red Sox winning the World Series a micromiracle or a macromiracle?
Living in Boston makes it seem like a Macromiracle.
If Allah is number one, that would explain why everyone wishes... oh never mind.
It was the work of Satan.
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