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Those Defensive Darwinists
The Seattle Times ^ | 11/21/05 | Jonathon Witt

Posted on 11/22/2005 12:44:07 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo

THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.

In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.

The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.

For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."

University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."

This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.

The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.

The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."

Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.

One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."

And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.

How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.

Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.

Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.

Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.


TOPICS: Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: darwin; evolutionism; intelligentdesign
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To: Liberal Classic; Alamo-Girl
Please you are the one distorting and taking this out of context

No one is condoning racist or anti-semite

This was my point before you use these as tools like strawman,or canards to pounce or beat up those you disagree with!

561 posted on 11/23/2005 12:15:49 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: Ichneumon

It sounds plausible using radio active decay, presumably emitting a naturally occuring random source for a random seed. But I'd have to think about it and talk to other people if it is reasonable. Do you think it makes sense? Quatum physics itself has also been challenged.

There must be some measurement error that affects true randomnesss. Any influence introduced into a theoretical truly random equation would affect it.

The website looks like a hype though. Why couldn't you use any type of random signal pairs then to generate a sequence of truly random numbers? These must abound in nature.


562 posted on 11/23/2005 12:16:43 PM PST by phantomworker (A new day! Begin it serenely; with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense!)
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To: Right Wing Professor

Oh great. Islamist nonsense.

****

Yada yada

I figured that would grab you don't stay focus on the topic look for a liberal tool to use!

LOL


563 posted on 11/23/2005 12:19:38 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: restornu
No one is condoning racist or anti-semite

But *you* are trying to accuse Darwin -- and evolutionists -- of condoning Communism.

This was my point before you use these as tools like strawman,or canards to pounce or beat up those you disagree with!

Like you're using Communist canards to beat up on evolutionary biology?

564 posted on 11/23/2005 12:31:01 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Right Wing Professor; Alamo-Girl

that is my fault for not looking to see who publish the link I really did not know they got into that stuff...

All I am saying you really think you are not listening to another source when I asked who flashed the blue print in one mind for an inventions or an solution to a puzzle..

there are two directions one build life the other feeds off of life!

you are either building or distroying life!

Good begats good, contrary begats contrary!


565 posted on 11/23/2005 12:32:18 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: Ichneumon

When you strip it all aways evolution in the way most use it is to deny a ID instead of yes sometimes their could be an evolving

as in survival a mutaion will take place to adapt!


566 posted on 11/23/2005 12:36:50 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: Right Wing Professor; Ichneumon; Liberal Classic; CarolinaGuitarman; All

Enjoy your turkey day


567 posted on 11/23/2005 12:43:21 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: restornu
I figured that would grab you don't stay focus on the topic look for a liberal tool to use!

I correct the first three points first.

You think fighting the enemies of America is a liberal tool?

568 posted on 11/23/2005 12:51:16 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: restornu
that is my fault for not looking to see who publish the link I really did not know they got into that stuff...

Lying Dog claimed he had no idea what his source was, either.

569 posted on 11/23/2005 12:53:03 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: wyattearp
Hey, nice tagline,...must have taken you years to dream that up. If Darwin is right, and you're sure he's right, then why do you care what other people think or propose?

You care because any proposal that might contradict your pristine secular view of man upsets your balanced world and you are fearful of being on the wrong side of the argument.

Darwinists are secularists. They deny the existence of God. Socialism actually depends on acolytes like yourself. Social Darwinism is a liberal tool developed for the sole purpose of destroying democracy and this republic.

Defensive secularists like yourself fantasizing about shooting people with shotguns from ambush are typical of Darwinists. After you've completed your doctorate in molecular biology, you may return and lick my boots!

570 posted on 11/23/2005 12:57:50 PM PST by Doc Savage ("Guys, I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more COWBELL...Bruce Dickinson)
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To: Right Wing Professor
Lying Dog claimed he had no idea what his source was, either.

Excuse me I don't lie nor have a reason to lie if I google for engel and darwin and get a bumo site so what I told I did not check the source!

My focus was the topic which you evols have a trouble with staying on!

DO NOT LABLE ME AS LIING AGAIN LIKE YOU SEEM TO CALL OTHERS!

571 posted on 11/23/2005 1:04:17 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: Doc Savage

The whole boot licking thing is a little weird...


572 posted on 11/23/2005 1:05:29 PM PST by durasell
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To: Doc Savage
"If Darwin is right, and you're sure he's right, then why do you care what other people think or propose?"

Because we care about science education.

" Darwinists are secularists."

Nope.

"They deny the existence of God. "

Nope.

"Social Darwinism is a liberal tool developed for the sole purpose of destroying democracy and this republic."

Third strike.

" Defensive secularists like yourself fantasizing about shooting people with shotguns from ambush are typical of Darwinists."

We couldn't dream up a funnier creationist stereotype than you.

"After you've completed your doctorate in molecular biology, you may return and lick my boots!"

You'll have to fulfill your sexual fantasies somewhere else.
573 posted on 11/23/2005 1:17:00 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: CarolinaGuitarman
Darwin's theory deals with the diversity of biological organisms. It has nothing to do with the fields of history or sociology.
"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time, the anthropomorphous apes . . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
"It has often been said . . . that man can resist with impunity the greatest diversities of climate and other changes; but this is true only of the civilized races. Man in his wild condition seems to be in this respect almost as susceptible as his nearest allies, the anthropoid apes, which have never yet survived long, when removed from their native country."

574 posted on 11/23/2005 1:17:18 PM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1 (Darwinism is a boil on the ass of Free Republic, Time to lance it.)
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To: restornu
Excuse me I don't lie nor have a reason to lie if I google for engel and darwin and get a bumo site so what I told I did not check the source!

I guess we know what credibility to attach to your posts, then.

DO NOT LABLE ME AS LIING AGAIN LIKE YOU SEEM TO CALL OTHERS!

As long as you stick to the truth, I won't call you a liar.

The site has a reasonably good spell checker, by the way.

And Happy Thanksgiving!

575 posted on 11/23/2005 1:19:23 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor

BTW I am NOT a Dog....

you folks are very hostile and discourteous

Does in order to believe in evolution mean void of humanity!

All of you are very unpleasant not only towards me but also to all that disagreee with you!

There is no common ground one can converse from it is either all on you folks terms or nothing!


576 posted on 11/23/2005 1:20:19 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: restornu
BTW I am NOT a Dog.... you folks are very hostile and discourteous

Unfortunately you are a slope-headed knuckle-dragging sub-human in the eyes of FR darwinists. Don't sweat as I am too.

Guess which great evolutionist said this:

"The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he, after all, is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable."

577 posted on 11/23/2005 1:27:16 PM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1 (Darwinism is a boil on the ass of Free Republic, Time to lance it.)
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1
Why not put the whole paragraph this came from, so that more context can be had.

"The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies -- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae -- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." (Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd edn., London, John Murray, 1882, p. 156

From talk origins:

"First of all, Darwin is making a technical argument as to the "reality" of species, particularly Homo sapiens in this case, and why there should still be apparently distinct species, if all the different forms of life are related by common descent through incremental small changes. His answer is that competition against those forms with some, even small, advantage tends to eliminate closely related forms, giving rise to an apparent "gap" between the remaining forms. Whether or not Darwin was right about that is irrelevant to the use of this quote mine, of course, since that is part of the context that the creationists using it have assiduously removed."

and

" Throughout the Descent, when Darwin refers to "civilised races" he almost always is referring to cultures in Europe. I think Darwin was simply confused at that time about the difference between biological races and cultural races in humans. This is not surprising at this time - almost nobody made the distinction but Alfred Russel Wallace.

. . . At this time it was common for Europeans (based on an older notion of a "chain of being from lowest to highest") to think that Africans ("negroes") were all of one subspecific form, and were less developed than "Caucasians" or "Asians", based on a typology in around 1800 by the German Johann Friedrich Blumenach. In short, Darwin is falling prey to the same error almost everyone else was . . . So far as I can tell, he was not hoping for the extermination of these "races", though. ... Throughout his life, Darwin argued against slavery and for the freedom and dignity of native populations under European slavery.

Darwin was not perfect. But he was no racist."
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part4.html


If Darwin looked at race differently than we would today, that doesn't change the fact his views on it were enlightened for his time. He did view all the races as one species, which was not a universal thing then. He was vehemently apposed to slavery. I know of no other thinker of his day who had modern views on race. Your smear is just that, a smear.
578 posted on 11/23/2005 1:33:36 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Right Wing Professor
As long as you stick to the truth, I won't call you a liar.

I don't like your unsavory ways...

Nor do I like be threaten in a accusatorial fashion

you Evols may think you are smarter and better than those Freaky Believers but you must perform your daily task like the rest of us!

579 posted on 11/23/2005 1:34:13 PM PST by restornu (Rush 24/7 Adopt-A-Soldier Program solution to CNN)
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1

" Guess which great evolutionist said this:

"The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he, after all, is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable."

None. Hitler was a creationist.


580 posted on 11/23/2005 1:36:22 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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