Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

MY SECOND ANN COULTER THREAD - EVOLUTION DISCUSSION (or Here We Go Again)

Posted on 06/27/2006 5:06:32 AM PDT by 7thson

Ann Coulter states in her book on page 201 -

Darwin’s theory of evolution says life on Earth began with single-celled life forms, which evolved into multicelled life forms, which over countless aeons evolved into higher life forms, including man, all as the result of the chance process of random mutation followed by natural selection, without guidance or assistance from any intelligent entity like God of the Department of Agriculture. Which is to say, evolution I the eminently plausible theory that the human eye, the complete works of Shakespeare, and Ronal Reagan (among other things) all came into existence purely be accident.

On page 202, she states The “theory” of evolution is:

1. Random mutation of desirable attributes (highly implausible)

2. Natural selection weeding out the “less fit” animals (pointless tautology)

3. Leading to the creation of new species (no evidence after 150 years of looking)

My question – is she correct in her statements? Is that Darwin’s theory?

On the ligher side, check out the first paragraph on page 212. LOL Funny!


TOPICS: Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 1youreanidiot; 2noyoureanidiot; allcapitalletters; anncoulter; anothercrevothread; evolution; flailaway; godless; hurltheinsults; nutherpointlessthred; pavlovian; picsplease; royalwasteoftime; sameposterseachtime; thesamearguments; thnx4allcaps; uselessdiscussion; wasteofbandwidth
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 561-580581-600601-620 ... 701-713 next last
To: Virginia-American
Thinking back, I believe it was you that accused me of deceit (lying about being an undercover ID agent or something to that effect).

I didn't intend any such thing; show the actual post & I'll explain what I meant or apologize.

I'm the one that owes you an apology. Somewhere down the line in this thread (probably overnight) I swapped your identity and a similar but different posting title in my memory. Let me review my mistake here and get back to you.

581 posted on 06/29/2006 6:05:24 AM PDT by SampleMan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 569 | View Replies]

To: mc5cents
the first genocide in recorded history
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Numbers 31:17-18
582 posted on 06/29/2006 6:11:51 AM PDT by steve-b (Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 535 | View Replies]

To: HayekRocks
Do you not think that this is true, at least in part? We used to pray for rain. Now we surf to weather.com. We used to think sickness was the act of the devil. Now we know it is bacteria.

Part is true. People certainly pray less and people certainly don't believe they need exorcisms, when they probably do. What I don't think is that Jesus would pray less if He were here today nor do I think He would perform fewer exorcisms.

583 posted on 06/29/2006 6:13:54 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (More and more churches are nada scriptura.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 576 | View Replies]

To: Oztrich Boy
The quote is from Annorexia.

Average Percent of body's glucose burned up by the brain = 70%
Average Percent of body's nutrients consumed by the brain = 25%

Not implying anything; just saying....

584 posted on 06/29/2006 6:16:38 AM PDT by steve-b (Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 562 | View Replies]

To: Thatcherite
The thing is, we have no way of distinguishing between supernatural activity, and natural activity that we don't yet understand. Yet the two conclusions lead to vastly different results. Put it this way, no-one ever made a scientific advance by concluding that something they didn't understand was the result of a supernatural agency. To do so is to throw your hands up in defeat. Hence the default assumption has to be (b). That doesn't deny the possibility of (a); it simply says that we can never distinguish between (a) and (b) and (b) is the only possibility that can be investigated scientifically.

You are so right!

Indeed, I've said the same thing myself many times on these threads. To say that scientific knowledge can trump and replace superstition is hardly a revelation. At one time, only a couple of hundred years ago, pretty much every phenomenon was explained as direct supernatural intervention. The weather, disease, conception, tectonic action, germination. Now we know better. These things have natural explanations (which does not deny the possibility that a deity created the rules make the natural clockwork go). As an example lightning was explicitly believed to be the wrath of God by many religions. Evil to to attempt to deflect the power of God's manifest wrath with a lightning rod. Yet the cathouse with a lightning rod would be spared while the neighbouring church without one would be struck. God seemed to weak indeed, if His manifest will could be deflected by $1 of metal. Perhaps God was not personally directing every lightning strike after all. Religion is weakened by such conflicts whenever it fights the conclusions drawn by science. Physical evidence is a powerful persuader.

Reminds me of Galileo and the Catholic church and gravity. One of the things I learned in school when I was being taught how evil religion is.

I have never heard that said on these threads. Numerous top scientists and engineers are and have been religious. However science can only be meaningfully conducted by leaving Holy Writ at the laboratory door.

Exactly my point. So the premise of science is, "Nothing is supernatural so lets see what is really happening here".

585 posted on 06/29/2006 6:20:25 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (More and more churches are nada scriptura.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 580 | View Replies]

To: SampleMan
I'm the one that owes you an apology...... Let me review my mistake here...

poster.Credibility++;

586 posted on 06/29/2006 6:21:16 AM PDT by Thatcherite (I'm PatHenry I'm the real PatHenry all the other PatHenrys are just imitators)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 581 | View Replies]

To: Ichneumon
And she's not very honest either.

Perhaps when you complete that opus, it will shed light on an interesting question: Did Bill Clinton teach her how to be so dishonest, or did she teach him?

587 posted on 06/29/2006 6:22:16 AM PDT by steve-b (Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 567 | View Replies]

To: DungeonMaster
Reminds me of Galileo and the Catholic church and gravity. One of the things I learned in school when I was being taught how evil religion is.

Actually, what really got Galileo in trouble was his lampooning of the Pope in his writings. The scientific dispute was simply a tactical line of attack once the political catfight began.

588 posted on 06/29/2006 6:26:10 AM PDT by steve-b (Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 585 | View Replies]

To: Ichneumon
Klan's traditional program directed against Catholics,

Even here it is sometimes posted that Catholics are "anti-Christian" and they will all burn in hell.

589 posted on 06/29/2006 6:27:19 AM PDT by OmahaFields
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 567 | View Replies]

To: Ichneumon
First of all Ann Coulter would welcome your insults to her intelligence and I am sure give you back in spades her reasoning for what she states in her book viz Darwin. But that being said, there is an excellent book out there by Richard Wiekart which supports Coulters view of Hitler and the Nazis. Here is a blurb from the dustcover of the book:
In this compelling and painstakingly researched work of intellectual history, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially those pertaining to the sacredness of human life. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially in terms of intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Weikart concludes that Darwinism played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis. He convincingly makes the disturbing argument that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles rather than nihilistic ones. From Darwin to Hitler is a provocative yet balanced work that should encourage a rethinking of the historical impact that Darwinism had on the course of events in the twentieth century.

590 posted on 06/29/2006 6:27:29 AM PDT by mc5cents
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 567 | View Replies]

To: DungeonMaster
I'm saying science knows He didn't and has no other recourse. I happen to believe He did, by the way

Anti-Science philosophy alert.

591 posted on 06/29/2006 6:29:35 AM PDT by OmahaFields
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 573 | View Replies]

To: DungeonMaster
Exactly my point. So the premise of science is, "Nothing is supernatural so lets see what is really happening here".

I think we are now frantically agreeing with each other. It doesn't mean that scientists themselves have to reject the supernatural. Its just that they can only ever make scientific progress by assuming that currently inexplicable phenomena have a natural explanation.

Let's say we can see a man walking on water. Perhaps His ability to walk on water is supernatural. We train our scientific instruments on him/Him and we cannot detect any natural trick. No strange quantum fields made by advanced alien technology, no trickery or wires, the water just seems to support him. We can speculate that He is indeed the son of God, or we can reserve judgement pending further information or increments to human scientific knowledge. Science can form no conclusions about such matters. It can only say, "not yet understood".

592 posted on 06/29/2006 6:30:41 AM PDT by Thatcherite (I'm PatHenry I'm the real PatHenry all the other PatHenrys are just imitators)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 585 | View Replies]

To: mc5cents
Nazis

Uh, the terrorists are using "God" as their reason for trying to wipe us off the face of the earth. Islamists are pushing ID into American and Muslim schools.

593 posted on 06/29/2006 6:36:25 AM PDT by OmahaFields
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 590 | View Replies]

To: DungeonMaster
Exactly my point. So the premise of science is, "Nothing is supernatural so lets see what is really happening here".

Actually I misread what you said. I don't agree. I would word it as follows, "Science can only investigate the natural, so let's see if we can use science to understand what is happening here."

Science definitely doesn't say "Nothing is supernatural". Science has nothing to say at all about the supernatural. Science is the study of the natural.

594 posted on 06/29/2006 6:37:21 AM PDT by Thatcherite (I'm PatHenry I'm the real PatHenry all the other PatHenrys are just imitators)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 592 | View Replies]

To: Thatcherite
Let's say we can see a man walking on water.

At a low ange and at a distance, this would look like "walking on water". I am sure that Jesus had this technology.


595 posted on 06/29/2006 6:45:13 AM PDT by OmahaFields
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 592 | View Replies]

To: Thatcherite
Older design ...


596 posted on 06/29/2006 6:49:08 AM PDT by OmahaFields
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 592 | View Replies]

To: HayekRocks

Introductory ElectromagneticsDot and Cross Products, Line Integrals of Vector Fields,Gradient of a Scalar Field,Divergence and Curl,,Coulomb's Law,Gauss's Law,Electric potential ...
members.tripod.com/llovesumi/menu.htm - 16k - Cached - Similar pages


597 posted on 06/29/2006 6:51:52 AM PDT by Russ_in_NC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 561 | View Replies]

To: Thatcherite
I think we are now frantically agreeing with each other.

LOL, I like that statement.

It doesn't mean that scientists themselves have to reject the supernatural. Its just that they can only ever make scientific progress by assuming that currently inexplicable phenomena have a natural explanation.

No I'm not saying anything about scientists. We can no more separate the religion from the scientist than from the politician. Note: I consider atheist a religion, fwiw.

Let's say we can see a man walking on water. Perhaps His ability to walk on water is supernatural. We train our scientific instruments on him/Him and we cannot detect any natural trick. No strange quantum fields made by advanced alien technology, no trickery or wires, the water just seems to support him. We can speculate that He is indeed the son of God, or we can reserve judgement pending further information or increments to human scientific knowledge. Science can form no conclusions about such matters. It can only say, "not yet understood".

Good mental exercise. So much more useful than responses like "Ice, or bugs", and much appreciated. I'm able to follow your thought and I'm with you 100 percent again but I'd only have to add, that the "not yet understood" part would remain forever. The abilities of science to understand the natural world will continue to increase but they will never cross that line into the supernatural. I guess all I've been trying to say is that since science can never cross that line, to me, it is atheistic rather than agnostic. It starts out with there is no supernatural and it is unable to ever get past that. Maybe to some definition of agnostic and on some technicality this well seem to be more agnostic to many. So at that point it's perhaps only a semantics discussion.

598 posted on 06/29/2006 7:02:24 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (More and more churches are nada scriptura.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 592 | View Replies]

To: DungeonMaster
Not true of Evolution but true of some more specific theory like maybe "Darwin's theory of the evolution of species" or something. "Evolution" is a different and bigger thing.

When speaking of evolution in most scientific contexts, the subject is of the "theory of evolution". That the word "evolution" is sometimes used in other contexts in science does not mean that the theory of evolution covers cosmology or abiogenesis, nor does it mean that the same mechanisms of the theory of evolution apply.

As I asked before, what does science say about walking on water?

Science says nothing specifically about water-walking. It is more a matter of physcial properties that allow objects to float on the surface of water versus properties that cause objects to sink.
599 posted on 06/29/2006 7:05:24 AM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 504 | View Replies]

To: DungeonMaster

"I guess all I've been trying to say is that since science can never cross that line, to me, it is atheistic rather than agnostic."

And that just shows you don't know what the words atheistic and agnostic mean.

"It starts out with there is no supernatural and it is unable to ever get past that."

No, it does no such thing at all. This has been explained to you over and over. The supernatural is simply not capable of scientific examination. That is NOT the same as saying that the supernatural doesn't exist.

"Maybe to some definition of agnostic and on some technicality this well seem to be more agnostic to many."

Is there another definition of agnostic other than the accepted one?


600 posted on 06/29/2006 7:05:47 AM PDT by CarolinaGuitarman (Gas up your tanks!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 598 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 561-580581-600601-620 ... 701-713 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson