Posted on 09/29/2005 6:22:55 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
Hah! I knew it. You just want to impose your heritage on everyone! :-)
It has, or rather it has become the creation-myth for atheistic secular humanism.
Whatever the merits and demerits of the neo-Darwinian synthesis as science (and it has both), the polemical defense of the neo-Darwinian synthesis is now largely carried out by shrill atheists like Dawkins and leftist know-nothings with legged-fish Darwin decorations on their car trunks in parody of the Christian IXTHUS, who thus, unwittingly, make a 19th century biologist into an Antichrist.
The virulent defense of Darwinism has no parallel for other scientific theories--some of which have been attacked by religious figures (witness the Latin church's assault on the early heliocentric theory; Bp. Berkeley's attack on the calculus as used by the freethinker Edumund Halley--which oddly, was spot on, including at its core a rigorous proof of the absuridity of fluxions or infinitesimals)--precisely because other scientific theories have not come to fulfill mythic functions for a significant portion of the population.
Of course, the both the defense of Darwinism as a bulwark for atheism, by Dawkins and his ilk, and the assault on it as the same, have at their core the falacious belief that if a phenomenon is, in our best model, described in terms of a random process, it is void of intent. (The atheistic Darwinist uses this to reason Darwinism implies atheism, while the devout creationist uses this to reason, God implies the falsity of Darwinism.)
The belief is falacious as the case of futures markets shows: our best model, for futures pricing, the Black-Scholes Options Pricing Formula, is a stochastic differential equation, but no one believes that futures markets 'arose by chance', or that their dynamics is not, in fact, the result of actions by purposeful actors (traders).
sheesh dude...you went way over the edge on that last one.
it was a joke, no offense was meant, in fact I was poking fun at myself.
go take a walk bud.
Only if you've got an EXTREMELY limited imagination. A MYCOPLASMA genome has FEWER than a million basepairs, and 500 genes.
Then if you think you've succeeded in imagining how to do it, then DO IT. Make some.
I did'nt ask you to count noses and toes. I asked you to imagine how to MAKE life. If it's within the realm of imagination, much less the realm of possiblity of random events, then MAKE some.
Why?
I know we've gone to the moon. I'm confident, if we had the will, we coukld go to Mars. That I personally won't and can't do either of these things proves nothing.
It is entirely within the capability of current technology to make a mycoplasma. It would, however, be expensive, and since the scientific world knows that vitalism was disproven in 1828 (though apparenly news of this hasn't penetrated much of FR), there's really no good reason to do it. It would prove nothing.
Well then HEY, lets DO IT! Let's put to rest once and for all the notion that life is so complex that it couldn't have occurred by random events. (well I guess we would only be proving that INTELLIGENCE could produce synthetic life, but that's a start.)
About 4 billion years ago some pond scum figured out how to generate life. And it didn't even have the benefit of a science eduction from public school.
So, in answer to your question "Why?". I guess just to prove that we're not dumber than pond scum.
his point on making life....
on the evo time line, how long before a myco becomes a plant?
Now that is a lot easier to understand than the rest of this thread.
Well, suppose they stumbled upon some grass, what would they say?
Check Gen 1:12 before you answer.
I am sure you teach evolutionary theory in your Sunday School ...
I doubt its "taught"....although with some churches maybe....but I'll bet its at least mentioned as the alternative.
Do they mention the truth or the lies spread by the creationists?
That would be unconstitutional. It would be contrary to the separtation of church and state.
well from my informal poll of sitting in on every single sunday school class in america I found that it was mentioned exactly how you'd like it to be. extremely respected with no dissention.
re·li·gion: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
It has.
Probably everyone has embarrassed themselves here at one point or another. I am totally confused with the chart that was posted (#7) and what keyword abusers are. Sitting back and listening isn't helping me any. Can someone translate, please?
Good point.
Surely then there must be SOMEONE in the world capable of creating some simple synthetic life. That's got to be a whole lot easier than going to the moon. It's not exactly rocket science.
Good point.
Surely then there must be SOMEONE in the world capable of creating some simple synthetic life. That's got to be a whole lot easier than going to the moon. It's not exactly rocket science.
its listing the name of the person who posted the keyword.
thats it.
to me there are way to many instances of people tossing up a stupid keyword without having to post.
its like an anonymous shot at the thread.
I think its good to identify the keyword with the user who added it.
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