Posted on 09/11/2008 9:55:10 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Sept 10, 2008 — Astrobiologist David Deamer believes that life can spontaneously emerge without design, but he thinks lay people are too uneducated to understand how this is possible, so he gives them the watered-down version of Darwin’s natural selection instead, which he knows is inadequate to explain the complexity of life. That’s what he seemed to be telling reporter Susan Mazur in an interview for the Scoop (New Zealand). Is the lay public really too dense for the deeper knowledge of how evolution works?...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
You tell me.
Good explanation of what happens, but it doesn't explain the why.
Nyuk, Nyuk!
THIS Danny Lee?
Funny I don’t recognize a single name amongst his “circle of friends”....
but I sure as hell DO recognize the websites he’s been on today!
Here’s one article he’s read:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/8/1572/82153/661/591235
You godless liberals posing as conservatives are just too damned funny!
Actually, not. Read what you wrote carefully.
The material world can be the result of supernatural forces, or maybe extra-natural would be a better word; but that doesn't mean that it still cannot be tested or measured by the same scientific method used when the assumption is made that the world is the result of *natural* forces.
The scientific method is useful for collecting and organizing data collected. It's useful in that it gives scientists a universal guideline to follow so that another's work is reproducible and there's some sense to it.
It does not give scientists any reason to make philosophical assumptions about the world in which we live. Those assumptions are subjective and the result of philosophy. The assumption that everything has only a natural explanation is just that. Since science only deals with the *natural* and not what it labels the *supernatural*, then making philosophical determinations is way outside the scope of what science is capable of, therefore there's no basis for those determinations.
Philosophy is Philosophy, and despite Science once being called “natural Philosophy” it is distinct in that it can explain and predict natural phenomena based upon natural causes.
I had a great Molecular Genetics teacher once, a Russian anti-Lysenko exile who would ‘bless Ronald Reagan every day in my prayers’. He said ‘it seems to me that when you don't have any facts or a theory to explain them, all you can do is wax philosophical’.
You have no explanation for why a bacteria would intentionally increase its mutation rate in response to stress. The theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation has an answer at the ready. Science assesses theories based upon their explanatory and predictive powers. Evolution through natural selection of genetic variation has VAST explanatory and predictive powers.
I have no disagreement with anything the article you posted to me states. It clearly describes the amazing adaptability of bacteria in general. Changes in gene expression, however, is not evidence in support of “macro-evolution”. It is, however, at the very core of “adaptation”.
Sorry, but they're not going to say "God did it." and give up everytime they find something they can't explain. They keep looking. It is what they do, and what they have always done. You can argue that it should be different all you want, but that's the way it is.
They will follow the evidence wherever it leads. You might like to be able to tell them that if that evidence leads them into territory already claimed by religious dogma they must stop there and not pursue it any farther, but you can't. The conflict between scientific inquiry and religious dogma has been there as long as both have existed.
You have a problem with exposing Marxists?
What is “Rio Linda”? I’m not familiar with that expression.
I keep hearing that, and then I keep hearing about and getting handed links to cretionist web sites, and hearing claims about the hundreds and thousands of people who are joing the ranks of the creationists every day.
Not my original work:
While biologists do draw a distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution it really is a distinction without much difference. Or to put it another way, the distinction is a rather artificial one imposed by biologists. The simple answer is that the process at work in macro-evolution is precisely the same one at work in micro-evolution.
So to say you believe micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution may sound erudite to the uneducated, but to those who are familiar with the topic you sound like a boob. It is like saying I believe in molecules, but not in atoms, electrons, protons and neutrons.
So please, if you don’t like the idea of evolution and evolutionary theory makes you feel slightly ill, fine, but don’t use the argument about micro vs. macro evolution. Please. Simply say, “I just can’t bear the thought that I am a descendant from a primate that roamed the African plains.” I might disagree with you. I might think
You're assuming they have but you don't know for sure, and you're basing your assesment of the situation on that assumption.
“For those of you in Rio Linda” is a favorite expression of Rush Limbaugh, from the time he was just broadcast out of Sacramento (and I used to listen to him when I was in High School) and the small Sacramento community of Rio Linda, from where he always seemed to get some rather interesting callers.
You said “ It would not, however, undergo a change in genetic makeup”.
What do you mean by “genetic makeup” if not its DNA code?
Is not its DNA code altered by increasing production of error prone DNA polymerase?
You have a problem with exposing Marxists?
No, I have a problem with people who “expose marxists” that ARE marxists in the first place!
Here’s a clue, a guy that frequents the Daily Kos, the Guardian and so on, and calls someone else a marxist would quite naturally raise a red flag in my book!
Have you investigated Danny Lee’s background with one ounce of energy as you have to investigate this so-called marxist Lewontin?
Or do you have problems only with so-called marxist scientists but give marxist book reviewers a free pass in making your non-points?
I don't give him a free pass. If he is a Marxist he should all the more know another Marxist. It is far more beliveable to see a marxist call another marxist a marxist. Leaves out the doubt that he is not familiar with the person and his ideas.
I see that you are up to the old Marxist's tricks of demonizing me instead of my message ...
Had you studied the english language, you might suspect that it would result in "speciation." (it doesn't)
"Evolution happens."
In a pig's arse.
"This adaptability of life due to the ability to select from genetic variation has been seen in thousands of experiments."
Great, but it doesn't take much experimentation to see it. Problem is that it was built in, and thus no evolution is needed. God knew what every species would encounter, minute by minute, and accounted for it.
No, I’ve merely illustrated that you give one marxist a complete free pass and benefit of the doubt, while trusting him to ‘know a marxist when he sees one’, while utterly dismissing the possibility that indeed Lewontin may NOT be a marxist in the first place.
See, my expereince is when a left wing kook that frequents the daily kos (etc.) which has this utterly nasty habit of calling for instance US troops nazis...
which I linked...
if such a person called someone a marxist, my very first reaction would be hmmmmmm....dude MUST be a capitalist and work backwards from there.
And again, speaking of demonizing someone, why is it important Lewontin IS a marxist, assuming he is, again?
I didn't give him a free pass. In fact, it was, I think, the third source I posted affirming that Lowentin is a Marxist and you have not given one iota of evidence that he is not a Marxist, only using the Marxist trick of demonizing me instead of my message.
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