Rebutting Darwinists: (Survey shows 2/3 of Scientists Believe in God)

Worldnetdaily.com ^ | 04/15/2006 | Ted Byfield

[SirLinksalot]

Rebutting Darwinists

Posted: April 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

I suggested here last week that the established authorities of every age act consistently. They become vigilantly militant against non-conforming dissidents who challenge their assumptions.

Thus when the dissident Galileo challenged the assumptions of the 17th century papacy, it shut him up. Now when the advocates of "intelligent design" challenge the scientific establishment's assumptions about "natural selection," it moves aggressively to shut them up. So the I.D. people have this in common with Galileo.

I received a dozen letters on this, three in mild agreement, the rest in scorn and outrage. This calls for a response.

Where, one reader demanded, did I get the information that 10 percent of scientists accept intelligent design? I got it from a National Post (newspaper) article published two years ago, which said that 90 percent of the members of the National Academy of Science "consider themselves atheists." Since if you're not an atheist, you allow for the possibility of a Mind or Intelligence behind nature, this puts 10 percent in the I.D. camp.

I could have gone further. A survey last year by Rice University, financed by the Templeton Foundation, found that about two-thirds of scientists believed in God. A poll published by Gallup in 1997 asked: Do you believe that "man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation?" – essentially the I.D. position. Just under 40 percent of scientists said yes. So perhaps my 10 percent was far too low.

Two readers called my attention to a discovery last week on an Arctic island of something which may be the fossil remains of the mysteriously missing "transitional species." Or then maybe it isn't transitional. Maybe it's a hitherto undetected species on its own.

But the very exuberance with which such a discovery is announced argues the I.D. case. If Darwin was right, and the change from one species to another through natural selection occurred constantly in millions of instances over millions of years, then the fossil record should be teaming with transitional species. It isn't. That's why even one possibility, after many years of searching, becomes front-page news.

Another letter complains that I.D. cannot be advanced as even a theory unless evidence of the nature of this "Divine" element is presented. But the evidence is in nature itself. The single cell shows such extraordinary complexity that to suggest it came about by sheer accident taxes credulity. If you see a footprint in the sand, that surely evidences human activity. The demand – "Yes, but whose footprint is it?"– does not disqualify the contention that somebody was there. "Nope," says the establishment, "not until you can tell us who it was will we let you raise this question in schools."

Another reader argues that Galileo stood for freedom of inquiry, whereas I.D. advocates want to suppress inquiry. This writer apparently did not notice what caused me to write the column. It was the rejection by a government agency for a $40,000 grant to a McGill University anti-I.D. lobby to suppress the presentation and discussion of I.D. theory in the Canadian schools. Suppressing discussion is an odd way of encouraging "freedom of inquiry." Anyway, the I.D. movement doesn't want to suppress evolution. It merely wants it presented as a theory, alongside the I.D. theory.

Why, asked another reader, did I not identify the gutsy woman who stated the reason for the rejection, bringing upon herself the scorn of scientific authority. That's fair. Her name is Janet Halliwell, a chemist and executive vice president of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. She said that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and the McGill application offered no evidence to support it.

The McGill applicant was furious. Evolution, he said, needs no evidence. It's fact. Apparently Harvard University doesn't quite agree with him. The Boston Globe reports that Harvard has begun an expensive project to discover how life emerged from the chemical soup of early earth. In the 150 years since Darwin, says the Globe, "scientists cannot explain how the process began."

The most sensible letter came from a research scientist. "I think that the current paradigm of evolution by natural selection acting on random variation will change," he writes. "I think that evidence will accumulate to suggest that much of the genetic variation leading to the evolution of life on earth was not random, but was generated by biochemical processes that exhibit intelligent behavior."

Then he urges me not to disclose his identity. Saying this publicly would threaten his getting tenure, he fears. Galileo would understand.

[Lucky Dog]

On average then there will be 10^4 mutations introduced into the population every generation.

Now you must take into account the number of mutations that are detrimental or benign versus beneficial and the probabilities of a change in environment natural selection pressure. Additionally, you must also account for how many generations it takes to have whatever sequential beneficial mutation appear and how many sequential mutations must exists for a new species to appear.

[PatrickHenry]

Additionally, you must also account for how many generations it takes to have whatever sequential beneficial mutation appear and how many sequential mutations must exists for a new species to appear.

Not all mutations are of equal weight. Some are really trivial. Others have a noticeable effect: One gene produces major changes in stickleback fish. So just counting mutations will accomplish little. And as I said before, all that is required for speciation is that the two populations no longer breed together. That can be due to a trivial factor. I don't think your attempt to model this stuff is on the right track.

[ml1954]

These models (global warming mathematical models) are generally based upon unproven assumptions.

The earth's climatological system like the the earth's biological system can be discussed and mathematically modeled in broad terms. Where the current climatological models generally fail is in their predictive capability (both postscriptively and prescriptively).

I think the global warming models fail not only because of false/unproven assumptions, but because the system they are trying to model is too complex.

And if we cannot create a testable/useful mathematical model of global climate change over relatively short periods of time because of it's complexity, how can we hope to create a testable/useful mathematical model of evolutionary biology -- a much more complex system, with many more variables, that operates over much greater periods of time.

In other words, I think it is probably futile to try prove or disprove biological evolution by using a mathematical model.

[Lucky Dog]

I have enjoyed our exchange. Unfortunately, I must depart the forum for business reasons. Perhaps we can continue the discussion on another day.

Regards, Lucky Dog

[Coyoteman]

Now you must take into account the number of mutations that are detrimental or benign versus beneficial and the probabilities of a change in environment natural selection pressure. Additionally, you must also account for how many generations it takes to have whatever sequential beneficial mutation appear and how many sequential mutations must exists for a new species to appear.

Start back in the past. How far? Take you pick, but find a spot.

Figure out how many mutations it takes to get from there to here in your chosen species.

The rest is left as an exercise for the student. (Show your work.)

[Ken H]

Until such time as science can replicate the Origins of Life, any theory is simply that, a theory.

Until such time as science meteorology can replicate the Origins of Life, a hurricane, any theory of hurricane formation is simply that, a theory.

[balrog666]

The troll has abandoned the thread. Everybody party now!

[js1138]

Now you must take into account the number of mutations that are detrimental or benign versus beneficial and the probabilities of a change in environment natural selection pressure.

I think you might be forgetting that most fatal and severely detrimental mutations will be eliminate prior to conception or prior to birth. The odds of a sperm cell conceiving are a billion to one. Egg cells have gone through fewer divisions and will have fewer mutations.

Just something to enter into your equations. Personally, I think your formulas are not very well thought out. The fact that you haven't mentioned this as a factor tells me you haven't studied the problem.

It is refressing to encounter a real argument, but I think as you study it, you will find others have been there before you.

[Coyoteman]

Like your tagline.

Here is something else to consider:

Ask the young: they know everything!

Joseph Joubert, Pensées (1842)

[balrog666]

... but I think as you study it, you will find others have been there before you.

It really makes you wonder about people who seem to think that no one in the history of the universe could possibly have considered such elementary ideas.

[balrog666]

Some ideas are never new. But they can still be published.

[Californiajones]

And Evos are to IDers like

the MSM is to Fox

It still puzzles me why Evos would be on a conservative forum at all, considering the psychological, philosophical and political damage that EvoThink has caused throughout its short, ridiculous Emperor's New Clothes enchantment on the world.

And no real Evo could believe in the God of the Bible. A personal Christ who knows our every thought, word and deed, and wants us to be in constant communique with Him because He is already right there, looking over your shoulder as you type, as you work, as you live your life? No, that's too scary for Evos -- and that is why they cling to their cultish theory of EvoThink. To contemplate that the God of the Universe is interested in, and yes, loves each little Evo in his own little Evo world is, as C.S. Lewis once said, as frightening as finding out there's a constant ghost haunting your room.

It is this personal God that Evos just can't digest.

IDer's know God wants mankind to figure out His greatness, His hand in the creation, His infinite wisdom. He wants us to figure out the natural world and its intricate processes, which all point to Him.

Evos can't deal with the concept of a real and personal and intimate God because it is way too scary. Our sins alone are too scary to contemplate if there is a personal and Holy and omniscient and omnipresent God as the Bible promises in Jesus.

"But the path is narrow and few take it..."

Lord bless you cranky old scared Evos. You're gonna need it, because all that stands now between you and God's loving judgment is a tattered old book of 19th century "scientifical theory". Afraid that won't be enough to ameliorate your sin.

[MissAmericanPie]

Is it urban legend or did Darwin actually say that if no fossils were found to back up his theory that it should be scraped?

[Dimensio]

But all that tells us is that we do not have the ability to detect the design. The design, however, is still there. That is the key. One who believes in God would be logically prohibited from believing in the randomness required of evolution.

There is nothing wrong with such a belief. The only error is in claiming that science can discern such lack of randomness.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"It still puzzles me why Evos would be on a conservative forum at all, considering the psychological, philosophical and political damage that EvoThink has caused throughout its short, ridiculous Emperor's New Clothes enchantment on the world."

We're here to counter the ignorance and falsehoods of people like you who rail against what you can't possibly understand. Creationism isn't conservative.

" And no real Evo could believe in the God of the Bible."

Except that most do.

"Lord bless you cranky old scared Evos. You're gonna need it, because all that stands now between you and God's loving judgment is a tattered old book of 19th century "scientifical theory". Afraid that won't be enough to ameliorate your sin."

Unless God doesn't understand why people like you refused to accept the evidence He lay abundant in his physical creation.

[Coyoteman]

Is it urban legend or did Darwin actually say that if no fossils were found to back up his theory that it should be scraped?

Do you have any idea of how many fossils have been found since 1859?

Here is one. Note the specimen number. This is Kenya National Museum, West Turkana, number 15,000. That is a lot of fossils from this one small area of Kenya. And this was found over 20 years ago. And there are a lot of other fossil producing areas in Kenya. And in Africa. And in the rest of the world.

Care to restate your question with about 150 years of scientific progress included? (Oh, and don't forget genetics and DNA. Darwin had no clue about those fields, but it turned out he was right when the new data came in. Not bad for an old evolutionist, eh? Or, do you call Darwin a Darwinist? Oh, I am so confused.)

---

Fossil: KNM-WT 15000

Site: Nariokotome, West Turkana, Kenya (1)

Discovered By: K. Kimeu, 1984 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.6 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7, 10), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Male (based on pelvis, browridge) (1, 8, 9)

Cranial Capacity: 880 (909 as adult) cc (1)

Information: Most complete early hominid skeleton (80 bones and skull) (1, 8)

Interpretation: Hairless and dark pigmented body (based on environment, limb proportions) (7, 8, 9). Juvenile (9-12 based on 2nd molar eruption and unfused growth plates) (1, 3, 4, 7, 8). Juvenile (8 years old based on recent studies on tooth development) (27). Incapable of speech (based on narrowing of spinal canal in thoracic region) (1)

Nickname: Turkana Boy (1), Nariokotome Boy

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=38

[Californiajones]

Oh. Hello C.G.

"No real Evo can believe in the God of the Bible."

I should explain.

Evos can't believe in the God of the Bible unless they take a scissors to it.

(as did Thomas Jefferson when he could not reconcile his sin with his sex slave and God's problem with it.)

[Dimensio]

It still puzzles me why Evos would be on a conservative forum at all, considering the psychological, philosophical and political damage that EvoThink has caused throughout its short, ridiculous Emperor's New Clothes enchantment on the world.

The theory of evolution is a scientific theory. It describes events that occur within biology. It has no implications for philosophy or psychology, and its explanations regarding psychology are only causal. The theory of evolution does not suggest any proscriptive or prescriptive action. Only those who do not understand the theory of evolution and those who are not honest in their statements claim that it carries political implications. You have made similar claims in a previous discussion, yet you never responded to valid criticisms of your incorrect statements, nor did you justify your continued use of the logical fallacy of appealing to consequence.

To contemplate that the God of the Universe is interested in, and yes, loves each little Evo in his own little Evo world is, as C.S. Lewis once said, as frightening as finding out there's a constant ghost haunting your room.

Curious that you quote a man who accepted the theory of evolution in your baseless attack on it.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Evos can't believe in the God of the Bible unless they take a scissors to it."

So YOU say. Most people who accept evolution say otherwise.

" (as did Thomas Jefferson when he could not reconcile his sin with his sex slave and God's problem with it.)"

The evidence he had relations with his slave is actually pretty weak. All that is known is that a member of his family did.

[Californiajones]

CG, point being that Evos will need much more than Darwin to expunge their record of personal offense (sins) against God. EvoThink distracts, discredits and detracts from this ultimate Biblical presentation.