Posted on 02/22/2009 10:58:04 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Opinion
Monday, Feb. 23, 2009
Evolution debate persists because it's not science
By Raymond H. Kocot
...
But did you ever wonder why Darwinism's general theory of evolution, sometimes called macroevolution, has been debated for over 150 years without resolution? The surprising answer is Darwin's macroevolution theory is not a legitimate science. The National Academy of Sciences clearly defined science in its 1998 guidebook for science teachers. The definition begins with [stating that] science is a particular way of knowing about the world, and ends with, "Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence are not part of science." In other words, a legitimate scientific theory (a hypothesis or idea) must be observable in real time and must be testable, yielding reproducible results. That is the core of the scientific method that has brought man out of the Dark Ages.
Because confirmable observations and generating experimental data are impossible for unique events like life's origin and macroevolution theory, world-famous evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr prompts evolutionists to construct historical narratives to try to explain evolutionary events or processes. In other words, stories are all evolutionists can muster to support macroevolution theory. If macroevolution theory, which must rest on faith in a story and is considered to be scientific, why not the creation story. With that in mind, it is no wonder the molecules-to-man debate has persisted for 150 years...
(Excerpt) Read more at myrtlebeachonline.com ...
I think they are having more fun discussing their gay issues.
Keep your sick fantasies to yourself. I’m not an evo-atheists, that may be what you spend your time dreaming about, but don’t think everybody else has the same deviant desires.
Speaking of the penis, why on earth would God design a single organ that is for waste excretion and reproduction?
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/penis_evolution
You know the old saying. Beware of those that shout the loudest for it is they that have the most to hide.
I asked the question as to how mammals evolve...
You still refuse to admit the scientific fact of the matter?
Just added penis obsessionists to the list.
Documentation or link please.
Fetish is the operational word here.
I am an atheist and I have always been a skeptic, especially when someone who claims to be atheistic and clings to an ecclesiastic model of educational inquiry about the mysteries of the universe (and there are many).
The notion that children need to be indoctrinated and badgered into thinking a certain way is the insecurity of adults, a universal dissatisfaction with mortality reaching out for an eternal ideal. Whether this is done by atheists or by godists, it is exactly the same... ecclesiasticism.
Man is only civilized by the ability for the weakest to kill the strongest. This is the only thing that sets us apart from all the other known forms of life.
This ecclesiastical approach to government (as in education) is likewise odious and representative of religious tyranny. It is some sort of a "sin' to hate or it is some sort of a sin to feel "greed."
The fetish of homosexuality is not something I am willing to genuflect before any more than I am interested in visiting an ancient idol to find answers...
The serious heat in the debate is generated by the extremes on both sides, whose religious beliefs are threatened by the possibility even that evolution and non-evolutionary processes might co-exist. I suspect that most folks -- especially those who believe in God -- are not particularly uncomfortable with the possibility.
Of the two sides, the "evolution is false" position comes across as the least rational of the two. The mechanism for the accumulation of mutations over time is a very plausible one, especially given mankind's increasing knowledge of genetics.
The problem with the "evolution is everything" position is more subtle, but also unscientific: it lies in the area of pre-excluded hypotheses -- the starting assumption is that (say) an intelligent design hypothesis is a priori invalid. (You can see this argument on any number of FR threads). Here, too, the problem with this approach is highlighted by mankind's increasing knowledge of genetics: the very existence of the biotech industry demonstrates that it is not scientifically sound simply to exclude a "design" hypothesis without question. Genetic design is an established fact, with a growing set of methods and tools to accomplish its aims. Of course, the scientist who offers a "design" hypothesis must still provide evidence suitable for accepting or rejecting the hypothesis -- but the hypothesis itself is not invalid. (In a scientific sense, we're talking about the difference between validation and verification.)
But again -- at root the real heat in this particular debate tends to center on religious, rather than scientific issues. If you scratch the surface of an ardent Creationist, you're likely to find a person who is seriously worried that "evolution is true" implies that there is no God.
On the other hand, the existence of people like Dr. Dawkins suggests that there may be very little separating their scientific beliefs from their militant atheist ones. For them, the opposition to a "design" hypothesis seems more rooted in the fear that it implies the existence of God, than in any purely scientific objection.
Stop that, you could go blind...
"Early in March Darwin moved to London to be near this work, joining Lyell's social circle of scientists and savants such as Charles Babbage,[54] who described God as a programmer of laws. John Herschels letter on the "mystery of mysteries" of new species was widely discussed, with explanations sought in laws of nature, not ad hoc miracles. Darwin stayed with his freethinking brother Erasmus, part of this Whig circle and close friend of writer Harriet Martineau who promoted Malthusianism underlying the controversial Whig Poor Law reforms to stop welfare from causing overpopulation and more poverty. As a Unitarian she welcomed the radical implications of transmutation of species, promoted by Grant and younger surgeons influenced by Geoffroy, but anathema to Anglicans defending social order.[55][45] In mid-July 1837 Darwin started his B notebook on Transmutation of Species, and on page 36 wrote I think above the first evolutionary tree.In their first meeting to discuss his detailed findings, Gould told Darwin that the Galápagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and the finch group included the wrens. Darwin had not labelled the finches by island, but from the notes of others on the Beagle, including FitzRoy, he allocated species to islands.[56] The two rheas were also distinct species, and on 14 March Darwin announced how their distribution changed going southwards.[57] By mid-March, Darwin was speculating in his Red Notebook on the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain the geographical distribution of living species such as the rheas, and extinct ones such as Macrauchenia like a giant guanaco. His thoughts on lifespan, asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction developed in his B notebook around mid-July on to variation in offspring "to adapt & alter the race to changing world" explaining the Galápagos tortoises, mockingbirds and rheas. He sketched branching descent, then a genealogical branching of a single evolutionary tree..."
Animal sex is a very peculiar obsession although not uncommon among hillbilly kids named "Buzzie" with crewcuts in rural areas who also can't leave mailboxes and M-80s alone for some reason. The primitive ape men fantasies part is interesting though. But bird sex is weird even by Victorian dork standards.
We? The one has naught to do with the other.
So long as someone is willing to pay there will always be someone willing to collect... The only issue for him is who holds the collection plate in his temple for the god of communism or the gods of religion.
As to how evolution works.......
DNA is the hereditary molecule. Life is unable to maintain and reproduce DNA with 100% fidelity, such that new variations are constantly introduced. New variations sometimes have a differential success when compared to their cohorts, such that those that favor reproductive success tend to persist and predominate within a population, and those variations detrimental to reproductive success are eliminated.
That is “the scientific fact of the matter”.
Now that being said, it would not be unusual for divergent sexual attraction (homosexuality) to not be associated with any one gene or trait, or any particular gene or group of genes.
It may well have to do with epigenetic signaling from both the father and mother, environment and hormone levels at critical times of development, antibodies raised by the mother that have an effect in the womb (sons born to mothers who previously had sons have a higher incidence of homosexuality than first born males), nobody knows for sure but I do think there is a biological cause.
I started reading Gould's essays in Natural History in 1974. Since then I've read a couple dozen books on Darwin and evolution without encountering the phrase "bird sex."
You obviously need professional help.
BIRTH DEFECT... thank you...
These seem to be Freudian sexual anxieties behind the anti-Christian hysteria. The real question is why obsessing on pictures of imaginary prehistoric ape men ( and demanding that others do so) seems to relieve the anxieties for them. You would have to study when the adolescent crisis set in and what series of events led to the fixation on the prehistoric ape men mythology as a solution. Something makes them feel comforted by obsessing on pictures of large, imaginary, prehistoric ape men. It may be a little like the geeks and nerds who turn to comicbooks with images of ultra-muscular superheroes like Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, and the Flash. Just a little more like the Swamp Thing monster obsessions.
There's always some kid in middle school, usually awkward around girls, who can't stop talking about Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Lizardman, the Wolfman, or various other mythical boogiemen and rural swamp monsters. It seems to be of that type. Then you see a sickly Victorian neurasthenic like Huxley latching on to this with obsessive-compulsive fury. Something psychological -in abnormal psychology - seems to be behind this. Most normal people don't get this hysterical about their hairy monster fantasies. Or it goes away when they finish puberty.
From photons that were repelled by other photons?
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