Survival of the Evolution Debate: Why Darwin is still a lightning rod.

The Weekly Standard ^ | 01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17 | by Adam Wolfson

[GSlob]

"Some scientists with first-rate credentials, namely Michael J. Behe..."
Second-rate professor from a second-rate institution [which still had enough sense to distance itself from him] is barely a first rate credential.

[sig226]

Yet, they forget that Darwin was a Christian, and that the origin of species does not in any way address the origin of life. How did living things evolve from non living things? How did a stone gain an evolutionary advantage by becoming able to be killed?

Oops.

[coloradan]

I don't think the liberal elites have a problem with ID or creationism as such. Rather, I think they are apoplectic that such curricula could possibly infect their lily-white, pure-as-the-driven-snow liberal government indoctrination camps, er, publik screwls. Anything that threatens their stranglehold of the Articles of Indoctrination are evil, evil, evil, whether they grounded on faith or on empirical science, (true) history, or economics. (Incidentally, I say this as a firm evolutionist.) In my opinion, if government schools didn't exist, liberals wouldn't care that some people are taught ID or whatever.

[Ostlandr]

I imagine even the Creator would have had trouble explaining genetics, DNA and evolution to a bunch of bronze age sheep herders. It would be like explaining macroeconomics to a bunch of kindergarteners.
As humans mature, we're allowed to understand more and more of exactly how Creation itself works.

[JHBowden]

This crap makes us all look stupid.

[From many - one.]

Exactly.

The Bible's not supposed to be a biology textbook.

[labette]

"Oops."

LOL. I'll bet you don't frequent these evolution threads much.
Darwin's clerics will be along shortly to tend to your reeducation.

[balrog666]

Evolution rules biology with or without Darwin.

Unlike religions, which rely on the (relative) truth of its founder. And dies likewise.

[coloradan]

You ask an essentially semantic question. If molecules could replicate, it's doubtful anyone would call them "alive," but as this process became more complex (damage repair, enzymes, metabolism, etc.) eventually, everyone would agree that it is alive. But it's not like there would be one single step where everyone would agree the step is non-living, and the one of the next higher complexity everyone agrees is living, thereby bringing about a sudden transition from one to the other. So it gets down to, how exactly do you define the word "living?" That's why I call it a semantic question.

For example, are viruses alive? I personally say no, but mine isn't the only opinion. (My reasons: Viruses have no metabolism, and can't replicate unless something else does which they subvert. We can eat dead things and still live and reproduce, but viruses can't propagate unless they infect a living cell.) Viruses are very much a gray area between living and dead, anyway. And the Bible is silent on viruses, so that particular doctrine is unilluminating.

[Nateman]

Frankly as a CONSERVATIVE I get irritated by evolutions opposition on my side! Makes us look like a bunch of stubborn flat earthers when this argument was lost over a CENTURY ago. Gives the bad guys an excuse to knock down our legitimate arguments because they figure we don't have the capacity for reasonable thought.

You want an example of TRUE irreducible complexity? Go to a camera shop. You will note most cameras have multiple lens in series. Lets you do neat things like Zoom in and other neat tricks that would be very valuable to a creature, yet not a single living thing on Earth has this setup! Just because we are not clever enough to figure out how nature did it does not mean its irreducibly complex!

[RegulatorCountry]

"How did living things evolve from non living things?"

Unintelligent Non-design?

[shuckmaster]

I've been saying all along that ID was a underhanded plot to make conservatives appear ignorant. This article appears to drive home that point implying that only liberals are smart enough to understand elementary science and biology while conservatives back charlatan hacks like Behe and Dembski.

[sig226]

I have no problem with Darwin. I believe in evolution. The trouble is that it's the origin of species, not the origin of life. Evolution falls apart at the single celled level back in the beginning. It also fails to address the need to reproduce. The complex organism has to invest extra energy and risk in reproduction. If you are the female, reproduction might kill you. If you are the male, reproduction might get you killed.

People accuse me of injecting God into the equation, when they say that single celled life decided to reproduce, I say Why? They say it just happened that way. So I am injecting God in the equation, they are basing their concepts on Magic.

[DeweyCA]

You are right. Many (not all) Libs, primarily the secularists, desperately want evolution to be taught in schools solely for the reason that it will undermine the Christian faith of the sudents. If the kids weren't required to go to those schools, the Libs would care much less about evolution. After all, how much does macro-evolution really come up in everyday life? Evolution is a vital part of their irreligious views. Like Dawkins said, evolution lets them justify their unbelief in god. That is usually the heart of it for most secularists. Secularism is their religion.

[taxesareforever]

If the human race evolved from one of something, why so many different languages?

[sig226]

It is far from being a semantic question. Life is almost impossible to define and I say almost because maybe somebody will come up with a definition for it someday. Crystalline molecules reproduce. Black pieces of paper convert one spectra of energy, visible light, to another spectra in the infrared reange. Catalysts convert one type of molecule to another and transfer information. Fire consumes complex carbon chains and oxygen, releases heat and light and excretes smoke, and if you've ever seen forest fire jump a break, you've seen it reproduce, too. You might say, "Eventually the fire goes out." Starved of fuel, you and I will also go out.

The difference is that I can make those things, predictably, given a set of rules provided by scientific observation. I can pile all the chemicals in all the right places in all the right proportions onto a hospital bed and I can't make you. Even if it looked like you, it would not be alive.

[sig226]

Now that's a clever answer. See if you can explain it. Go on, we've got all day.

[Louis Foxwell]

Unlike religions, which rely on the (relative) truth of its founder. And dies likewise.

___________________________

There he goes again, equating God with religion.

[sig226]

I assume you're having fun. :)