America's Taliban strikes again

Arkansas News Bureau ^ | 28 August 2006 | John Brummett

[PatrickHenry]

The Holocaust wasn't Hitler's fault. Darwin made him do it. Complicit as well are any who buy into the scientific theory that modern man evolved from lower animal forms.

That's the latest lunacy from one of our more fanatical right-wing American Christian television outfits, the Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Coral Ridge espouses that America is not a free-religion nation, but a Christian one. It argues there should be no separation of church and state.

Thus it's America's Taliban, America's Shiite theocracy.

It certainly has a propensity for explaining or excusing Hitler. A few years ago it brought in a conference speaker to argue that American abortion was a more horrible atrocity than the Holocaust.

One year it disinvited Cal Thomas as a conference speaker after Brother Cal got too liberal. You're thinking I must be kidding. But I kid you not. Brother Cal had displayed the utter audacity to co-author a book contending that American Christian conservatives ought to worry a little more about spreading the gospel from the bottom of the culture up rather than from the top of politics down.

Now this: Coral Ridge is airing a couple of cable installments of a "documentary," called "Darwin's Deadly Legacy," that seek to make a case that, without Darwin, there could have been no Hitler.

Authoritative sources for the program include no less than columnist Ann Coulter, noted scientist, who says she is outraged that she didn't get instructed in Darwin's effective creation of Hitler when she was in school. She says she has since come to understand that Hitler was merely a Darwinist trying, by extermination of a group of people he considered inferior because of their religion and heritage, to "hurry along" the natural survival of the Aryan fittest.

Also quoted is Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Project, who tells the Anti-Defamation League that his comments were used out of context and that he is "absolutely appalled" by the "utterly misguided and inflammatory" premise of Coral Ridge's report.

The documentary's theme is really quite simple: Darwin propounded the theory of evolution. Hitler came along and believed the theory. Hitler killed Jews. So, blame Darwin for the Holocaust. Blame, too, all others who agree with or advance Darwin's theory. Get back to God and Adam and Eve and all will be right again with the world.

"To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler," said Dr. D. James Kennedy, president of Coral Ridge Ministries. "The legacy of Charles Darwin is millions of deaths."

Obviously, the theme is breath-taking nonsense. You can't equate academic theory with murderous practice. You can't equate a thinker and a madman, or science and crime.

And you can't ever blame one man for another's actions. That once was a proud conservative precept. In a different context, you'll no doubt find Coral Ridge fervently preaching personal responsibility. Except, apparently, for Adolf Hitler, to whom these religious kooks issue a pass. Ol' Adolf, it seems, just fell in with a bad crowd.

By Coral Ridge's premise, Mohammed is to blame for Osama bin Laden. Actually, Coral Ridge might not argue with that. So how about this: The pope is to blame for the IRA. And Jesus is to blame for Mel Gibson, not to mention Coral Ridge Ministries.

[Omitted some author detail and contact info.]

[js1138]

His prediction was pretty much correct. He mentioned a time scale of centuries, which still seems realistic. The recent genocides inspired by western religions are pretty ferocious, even by the standards of Darwins period.

[RegulatorCountry]

"The recent genocides inspired by western religions"

You apparently subscribe to the "No Christ, No Hitler" school of "logic." Other than clinging to this, while decrying any link to Darwin on similar grounds, what recent genocide was inspired by western religions? Your definition of recent must not be very recent by my standards. "Inspired by" is an interesting way of gaining wiggle room too, in light of your stance on this and other "Darwin - Hitler" threads.

[PatrickHenry]

A clinical prediction of genocide is not outright advocacy. An instance of praising with a faint damn, perhaps.

You were previously informed that the quote being used by Wikipedia was in the context of explaining gaps in the fossil record. But you couldn't even wait for the next thread before misrepresenting that quote again.

Darwin wasn't the first person to observe that primitive people, all over the world, were dying off. Partly -- perhaps mainly -- it was from European diseases. He never advocated genocide. I'm not aware that he ever even discussed genocide. Vanishing species and vanishing tribes of humans were facts. He was observing and describing those facts, and reaching the conclusion that this is the sort of thing that creates gaps in our picture of the relationships between living species.

I say these things for the lurkers, and not in the hope of correcting your misunderstandings.

[RegulatorCountry]

"Darwin wasn't the first person to observe that primitive people, all over the world, were dying off."

Well, then, why don't you spell out, for the benefit of the lurkers, just who Darwin was talking about, when he referred to primitive people in that excerpt? It's there, in plain English. I'm also intrigued by the notion that Darwin had in his possession, or had observed, fossils of civilized Caucasians.

[stands2reason]

No, they aren't cool. But the Darwinist crowd on FR seems to revel in them, to wit, theocrats ( the implication being Christians want to suppress everyone disagreeing with them),

I consider a theocrat someone who thinks only Christians should be elected. There are many posters here who, along with Katherine Harris, believe that. You have a better term for a Christian-only government supporters?

pig-ignorant,

There is no better term for one who REFUSES to learn.

evil, etc.

I don't see creationists called "evil" EXCEPT by other Christians.

I think "country-clubber" and "RINO" are rather tame.

They aren't even accurate.

For one, I live in a house trailer, and I'm an independent conservative. Strike on both counts.

But of course, what it comes down to is, "They're just as bad!!!"

How can you see with that log in your eye?

[stands2reason]

I assert that Ann Coultier did a good showing the link between Hitler's Nazi beliefs and Darwin's "survival of the fittest"

This is a weird thing with evos. They expect you to back up your assertions.

[RunningWolf]

They want to offer as evidence up a skull made up of sometimes very few parts (one or two) found 40 meters from each other, or at the other extreme, a skull made up of sometimes a hundred or more fragments that truly could be assembled to look like several creatures.

Then they apply dating methods that suggest all the parts are within a certain age range (in the case of that image presented to you 1.7 million years) well apply the same margin of error in the dating method to each fragment separately and you end up with a very uncertain proposition.

These samples are the fragments of their 'mountain of evidence'. As you see, when you look closer and closer at it, the evidence begins to evaporate into the ephemeral imaginations of a person who desires to see the 'transitional' in the fragments.

W.

[RunningWolf]

This is a weird thing with evos. They expect you to back up your assertions

Another weird thing about the evos, is they seem to think that an evo saying 'I told you it works like this'/paraphrased> and so on, is to them a rock solid backing up their assertion.

[shuckmaster]

Are these the same bus load of nuts who are picketing soldiers funerals?

[stands2reason]

Evos do not think man created himself.

That's just goofy.

[stands2reason]

Evos do not think man created himself.

That's just goofy.

[Stultis]

If you only have the skull, how in the hell do you know if it had fins or legs.

We don't. We have virtually complete skeletons of Basilosaurus isis. (Although the species was known for many years before a particularly complete specimen revealed that it had very small, but perfectly formed, rear legs and feet.)

I just made the comment about the "skull alone" probably being too heavy to lift because you'd said you couldn't fill a single hand with the evidence of transitional forms. (Actually you said "missing links".)

... if it had fins or legs.

Uh, btw, whales don't have "fins" in the position of the front limbs. They're called "flippers". Granted whales do have a "dorsal 'fin'," but of course it's entirely different in structure and developmental origin from the fins of fishes, as of course is predicted and required by evolution since whales evolved from terrestrial tetrapods (land animals) that had long ago lost their fishy fins.

I've seen some of your proof which consisted of bones where legs should be but turned into a fin.

??? I can't make out what you're trying to say here. In any case, legs have never turned into fins. It happened the other way around.

Now they say it used to be a leg. Yeah right.

Yeah wrong. No evolutionist has ever said of a fin that it used to be a leg. Again the evolution went the other way. Fins became legs.

I'll tell you what, you show me a true whale of any age and show me the four legs on it.

Basilosaurus isis, an archaic cetecean of the Eocene, and the geologically most recent legged whale known, had flippers for forelimbs. This it didn't have "four legs". But I'd be happy to show you the rear legs:

For a clear picture of the actual fossils (fibula/tibula through the foot) see Gingerich's webpage (won't seem to let me embed the pic here). It's Figure 4, about a quarter of the way down the page. Also Figure 5 is a very complete fossil of Dorudon atrox, which is quite similar in overall form to Basilosaurus, and also retains the tiny hind limb.

Apart from Basilosaurus (and the other basilosaurids with rear limbs) there are no less than three other fossil whales with rear limbs. For the sake of space we'll ignore #3 in the sequence (Rodhocetus) which appears to have developed a powerful swimming tail, starting the rear limbs on the path to vestigial status. We'll also ignore #1 (Pakicetus). Although it's recognized as a full cetecean, based principally on distinctive skull morphology particular to the order, and had some aquatic adaptations, it was still structurally a terrestrial creature. (Note you could say the same about a sea otter. It's structurally terrestrial, even though it spends most of its time in the water.)

So then here's #2, Ambulocetus natans ("the walking whale that swims"). Unlike #3 it doesn't have a tail that is sufficient to provide locomotion in the water, and therefore almost certainly used its rear limbs to swim with, as well as for limited locomotion on land. So this "four legs on it," as the forelimbs are not mere flippers but have flexible wrists:

Actual fossil, unreconstructed (just arranged in body order). All these bones found in a single location belonging to a single individual.

This partial reconstruction mirrors actual fossil bones from side to side to give a more complete view. (I.e. it's a "reconstruction," but based only on bones actually found.)

And finally here's a complete reconstruction (i.e. extrapolated to give an approximation of the complete skeleton).

And one suggestion of what it might have looked like in life.

[stands2reason]

Which Creation story should the children be taught?

[Stultis]

my, So this "four legs on it,"

should read, So this [Ambulocetus] had "four legs on it,"

IOW, per your request to "show me a true whale of any age and show me the four legs on it". So, done.

[stands2reason]

What do YOU think that the two Columbine School murderer's shooting actions were based on?

They were based on anger. Not science.

[js1138]

Other than clinging to this, while decrying any link to Darwin on similar grounds, what recent genocide was inspired by western religions?

Islam is a western religion. The genocides in Africa fall along religious lines.

[Stultis]

One more thing... Those little bits at the end of Ambulocetus' toes? They're neither nails nor claws. They're HOOVES. This confirms the prediction (decades previous to the discovery of any of these fossils) that whales descended from terrestrial ungulates.

[stands2reason]

These "hummers" are my pet peeve. It's really annoying.

[Virginia-American]

.... I'll tell you what, you show me a true whale of any age and show me the four legs on it....

Actually, the presence of hind limb buds (the front limbs develop into thte flippers) in fetal cetaceans is one of the classical examples of recapitulation. Here's a good place to get started on the subject of cetacean hind limbs.

Source Normally, the hind limb is reabsorbed during development, but not always: this leads to another classic, the occasional presence of vestigial hindlimbs on cetaceans. Here's just one example, there are links to others at the first link I gave.

Finally, Nat'l Acad. of Sciences Abstract on the genetic mechanisms that are at work here.

Among mammals, modern cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) are unusual in the absence of hind limbs. However, cetacean embryos do initiate hind-limb bud development. In dolphins, the bud arrests and degenerates around the fifth gestational week. Initial limb outgrowth in amniotes is maintained by two signaling centers, the apical ectodermal ridge (AER) and the zone of polarizing activity (ZPA). Our data indicate that the cetacean hind-limb bud forms an AER and that this structure expresses Fgf8 initially, but that neither the AER nor Fgf8 expression is maintained. Moreover, Sonic hedgehog (Shh), which mediates the signaling activity of the ZPA, is absent from the dolphin hind-limb bud. We find that failure to establish a ZPA is associated with the absence of Hand2, an upstream regulator of Shh. Interpreting our results in the context of both the cetacean fossil record and the known functions of Shh suggests that reduction of Shh expression may have occurred 41 million years ago and led to the loss of distal limb elements. The total loss of Shh expression may account for the further loss of hind-limb elements that occurred near the origin of the modern suborders of cetaceans 34 million years ago. Integration of paleontological and developmental data suggests that hind-limb size was reduced by gradually operating microevolutionary changes. Long after locomotor function was totally lost, modulation of developmental control genes eliminated most of the hind-limb skeleton. Hence, macroevolutionary changes in gene expression did not drive the initial reduction in hind-limb size.

[stands2reason]

What do you call people who think only Christians should serve in government?