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.

[Dimensio]

I find it humorous that your debate teacher told you that it is unimportant to recognize consequences.

No one told me not to recognize consequences. However, pointing out that alleged consequences of accepting evolution as valid are undesirable does not in any way show that the theory of evolution is false. Moreover, you have still not demonstrated that anything that you have claimed as a consequence of accepting evolution as valid is actually factual.

[Californiajones]

Me using the word "EvoThink" is a personal attack? Uh, how do you get that? It is a description of a belief system. Please don't affect offense or try to censor me because there is a bit of Orwellian sarcasm afoot, Cman...

[jennyp]

Hey there, CJ. You never did tell us what you were a professor of, over there in that college you teach at.

[Oztrich Boy]

Intelligent Design it not based on the Bible

[Coyoteman]

Me using the word "EvoThink" is a personal attack? Uh, how do you get that? It is a description of a belief system. Please don't affect offense or try to censor me because there is a bit of Orwellian sarcasm afoot, Cman...

Well, it wasn't a compliment.

I did half of my grad school years in physical anthropology, things like human races, human osteology, and lots of evolution classes.

Your classification of those of us on FR who have actually studied the subject as engaging in "EvoThink" is certainly not complimentary.

We may not share all of your beliefs, but some of us have actually spent many years studying a wide range of scientific subjects, including evolution.

And yes, we are conservatives (how many times did you vote for Reagan?).

If you have a scientific argument, please present it. Leave the "EvoThink" type comments for the liberals.

[Californiajones]

Overlooking the "biographical fallacy" inherent in your question, Jenny, I still submit it's none of your business.

[Fielding]

You invite personal attack. Do you like to fight?:)

[Californiajones]

Someone who voted for Reagan but never read Orwell? Shame on you!

And as for "personal attack" -- you JUST wrote that it sounded like "I didn't get out much"!

Babe, that's a personal attack.

Me using the word EvoThink is not personal attack -- I don't know you or pretend to know you. I'm not complimentary about the disastrous effects on the culture because of Darwin.

And I do "get out much". Just got off the plane in fact, Freeping abroad is fun.

[Dimensio]

You invite personal attack. Do you like to fight?:)

I am not attempting to initiate a fight. I am merely pointing out the logical and factual errors present in the postings of Californiajones.

[Dimensio]

I'm not complimentary about the disastrous effects on the culture because of Darwin.

Despite your continued assertions of such effects, you have yet to demonstrate that the theory of evolution has caused any such thing.

[CowboyJay]

"Einstein was wrong"

I'll take his word over yours.

[Dimensio]

I believe that Einstein later admitted that he was wrong on that particular subject. I may be mistake, however.

I assume that you are aware of the meaning behind the quote.

[Californiajones]

Forest for the trees, Dimensio, forest for the trees.

[Dimensio]

Repeating "forest for the trees" does not demonstrate that your claims regarding undesirable consequences from the theory of evolution is accurate. Moreover, you still have not explained why you believe the theory of evolution to be false.

[Californiajones]

Don't know what else to say, sorry, I'm really bored by anything BUT the cultural effects of EvoThink.

I guess it is because it has a direct effect upon the way our children are taught and raised and how we think about who we are as individuals and as a nation.

I also don't like EvoThink because I am not a monkey or an ape and I am not descended from one. Darwinism effects who we think we are and if we are just dumb animals, we will tend to act in immoral ways (survival of the fittest).

Please, don't tell me Darwin didn't intend for us to think we are dumb animals, I'm not into equivocating, these Freeper Evo threads have just been rehashed to death and I'm bored.

[CowboyJay]

"I assume that you are aware of the meaning behind the quote."

Order in everything... fundamental laws of nature, and all that.

[Dimensio]

Don't know what else to say, sorry, I'm really bored by anything BUT the cultural effects of EvoThink.

As I have said before, you have yet to demonstrate that what you call "EvoThink" is actually a logical product of the theory of evolution. Unless you do this, your entire argument is based upon a completely unsupported assertion. Moreover, even if you are correct in your claims -- and, as I have said, you have not provided any evidence to suggest that you are -- undesirable consequences of a concept are not evidence against a concept.

I guess it is because it has a direct effect upon the way our children are taught and raised and how we think about who we are as individuals and as a nation.

You have yet to demonstrate any such effect. You have repeatedly asserted such an effect, but you have not shown how the theory of evolution causes such an effect.

I also don't like EvoThink because I am not a monkey or an ape and I am not descended from one.

You have thus far provided absolutely no evidence to support this claim.

Please, don't tell me Darwin didn't intend for us to think we are dumb animals,

Are you suggesting that Darwin did intend such a thing? If so, then -- like all of your other claims -- you have yet to provide evidence to support it.

these Freeper Evo threads have just been rehashed to death and I'm bored.

The "rehashing" is likely a result of individuals such as yourselves making completely unsubstantiated claims, and then refusing to provide any evidence to support them.

[Dimensio]

Order in everything... fundamental laws of nature, and all that.

It appears that you are unaware of the history behind the quote after all. Einstein was commenting on the beginnings of Quantum Theory, which he initially rejected because he did not care for the implications. Moreover, I have come to understand that Einstein later conceded that quantum theory does in fact have merit.

Einsten's "God does not play dice" quote concerned quantum mechanics and nothing more.

[Ken H]

Art Bell has married a 20-something woman from the Phillipines, and is going to live there.

[Ichneumon]

[There is no one "favorable" or "detrimental" in most individuals. There are thousands of benign (here and now), slightly detrimental (here and now), slightly beneficial (here and now), etc. The range is huge. That seems to be the point you are missing.]

Thank you for the expansion. However, I wish to understand the process at its basics. To do so, Gaussian distributions can be modeled at their means.

No, they can't -- not without introducing error. For *some* modeling this error is small or cancels out, and is a useful way to simplify the calculations without sacrificing a significant amount of accuracy. For others, however, it causes the model to become entirely invalid.

For the sake of clarity, those mutations that are only “slightly” detrimental or “slightly” beneficial can be regarded as benign.

No, they can't, because in evolutionary processes, a great deal of fitness increase occurs due to the slightly beneficial mutations. Even worse for your attempt at a simplifying assumption, the fact that "slightly beneficial mutations" are amplified through the population means that their you're attempting to hand-wave away a "butterfly effect", whereby small inputs can potentially have large consequences for the system. And if you know as much math as you try to portray, you'll know that nonlinear/chaotic systems do *not* lend themselves to the kinds of simplified linear analysis you're attempting to do here.