Posted on 01/07/2006 7:44:07 PM PST by MRMEAN
Languages evolve too, and for many of the same reasons.
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Thanks for the ping!
Maybe it's because evolution is true?
CODSWALLOP. The dissenters from evolution are overwhelmingly creationists whose main objection is that evolution contradicts the account of Genesis.
A couple of years ago, there was some letter signed by some hundreds of Ph.D. scientists expressing dissent from Darwinism. I was curious, and as many of them had put their email addresses after their names, I emailed everyone on the list with a few questions. Mostly, I wanted to know whether they accepted or rejected the notion of common descent.
I got dozens of responses; I even had one stop by my office at Penn for a chat. All except a very few REJECTED the notion of common descent.
I had intended to publish my result, but after a day or two many of the respondees wrote back, churlishly rescinding their answers and forbidding me from making use of their specific responses. Apparently word got around that their answers might look bad.
So unfortunately, I can't give details. (Indeed, everything was lost along with my Penn email account.) But the main result was crystal clear: the respondees were overwhelmingly Biblical creationists, and personally rejected not simply Darwinism, but any theory involving common descent with modifications.
I would say closer to 80% of conservatives who are science minded enough, not to let the fact that evolution, which although it seems to be the darling of the left, interefere with the undeniable truth of Evolution.
you are not the majority you think you are.....You are a vocal minority that just happens to be part of our conservative voting block (unfortunately).
Darwin also did geology.
The creationist/ID camp I think is as damaging to the credibility of conservatives as the Gay marrage camp is for the Dems.
Fortunatly for us, it looks like we may be shuting down the anti-science crowd since Dover, while the Dems may be stuck with the gay marrage folks for awhile because they're supported by the MSM.
A type of organism that cannot reproduce cannot spread. That means there will only be one organism of that type on earth. Any day that organism could be destroyed by being crushed in a landside, eaten by something else, or falling to it's death. Once that happens that type of organism no longer exists.
On the otherhand a type that can reproduce will spread many copies of itself all over the place. Now accidents and predation might destroy a few copies, but the chance of every organism of that type being wiped out is very small due to the ability to reproduce. That is the advantage.
I know I said I'm taking a break, but I couldn't help but respond to this. I got to meet Stephen Barr on a couple occasions. Very nice guy; definitely a religious person, too; I attended a friendly debate between him and an atheist professor over the existence of God & the significance of religion. A definite good & living example that not all scientists who acknowledge scientific evidence pertaining to evolution and reject the shoddy methodology of ID are opposed to Christianity. One day I'll have to check out his book (even his atheist "opponent" publicly acknowledged that the science in it was impeccably good).
I believe this is true. There are still school boards that want to push creationism/ID, as in Kansas, and also the occasional state legislator, as in SC, but when they talk to their lawyers, after the lawyers have reviewed the Dover decision (Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.), very few of them will go all the way. The Dover decision is almost certainly the death of ID's attempt to sneak into science classes. And the total wipeout of the Dover school board in the recent election is -- we can hope -- the end of ID as a republican issue.
The bold sentence is exactly 100% of the reason intelligent design does not belong in a science course. There is no problem teaching it in theology or philosophy classes.
If non-science is put into our science courses, children may because confused about what "science" means. It seems that even many adults do not understand what differentiates science from the arts or theology, a sad state of affairs. The things taught in science classes are pieces of information acquired through application of the scientific method, and that's the way it should stay.
Again, ID does not replace natural selection. It supplements it, completes it.
At no point does ID undermine natural selection. Rather, ID provides an elegant and simple empirically-based theory that addresses questions that natural selection is at an utter and complete loss to even begin to address.
It doesn't. All evolutionary theory says is that those (species) who do not do what is necessary to survive are less likely to do so. There's no "want" or "desire" or "need"; it's just a big filter. Mutation proposes; selection disposes.
You statement is the statement of someone who has not looked at ID carefully and thoroughly, but is content to regurgitate the half-baked contentions that other shallow thinkers have made based on their own limited study or hearsay evidence.
You left out "intentionally."
At no point does ID undermine natural selection. Rather, ID provides an elegant and simple empirically faith-based theory hypothesis that addresses questions that creationists believe natural selection is at an utter and complete loss to even begin to address.
One doesn't look at the quality nor the desire of winning, only how many wins one has (like in the NFL.)
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