Kalamata:
"The loony Michael Shermer even has a name for your high priests [”shamans”]:" I admire & respect Shermer for his work on this: Denying History, Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do They Say It
Shermer's nature is skepticism, so I suspect the full context of your quote would show his words are intended somewhat ironically.
Calling science-popularizers "shamans" is Shermer's way of saying "be suspicious of them".
Kalamata quoting Michael Ruse: "...the literalists are absolutely right.
Evolution is a religion.
This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”
[Ruse, Michael, “How Evolution Became A Religion.” National Post, May 13, 2000]"
I know nothing of Michael Ruse, but calling evolution "a religion" seems to me just a provocative way to sell books.
The fact is, strictly defined there is nothing "religious" about natural-science in general or evolution theory specifically.
They are the opposite of any religion because they specifically and emphatically refuse to consider any non-natural (i.e., supernatural, spiritual) processes or explanations.
Sadly, it may be true that some people, lacking any other religious inspiration, glom onto science or evolution as a substitute -- similar to the way some fans hold up an Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson as some sort of deity.
Sure, it may happen, but nobody claims that's ideal or even "normal".
Kalamata on Thomas Paine: "I’ll bet he and Bertrand Russell would have gotten along very well."
Russell was a modern atheist, Paine was an Enlightenment Era deist who actually thought of himself as a Quaker.
So, remember my point here: none of our Founding Fathers were atheist, not one, even Thomas Paine, meaning: our Founders' understanding of natural-philosophy, aka natural-science, was purely methodological, not philosophical or ontological.
Kalamata: "You forgot to mention they were all were genius scientists and creationists, even Steno, who based his work on the evidence of a global flood and a 6,000 year earth:"
Neither Steno in 1660, nor any of the others you mentioned, knew of data which would allow them to accept or reject theories about the earth's age & evolution.
Kalamata quoting Newton: "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” "
My belief is that nothing in the Universe is outside the scope, plan or intentions of our Creator, so I agree with Newton.
Kalamata: "You commented on Paley. Did you forget?"
Why not just answer the question?
Kalamata: "Again, the Bible is loaded with scientific gems, for anyone who bothers to look."
Maybe, but the Bible doesn't give a … hoot about science, science is not its purpose.
Instead, what the Bible intends to show us is that God created and rules over the natural realm -- and indeed that He can over-rule nature whenever that suits His purposes.
The Bible doesn't care about giving us an accurate picture of nature, instead it cares about demonstrating how God rules nature.
So, the fact that we can find some pretty amazing "gems" as you call them is interesting, but they are not the Bible's purpose.
Kalamata: "Linnaeus was a creationist who wrote of the created kind:"
Sure, we all speak informally of "this kind" or "that kind", but neither Linnaeus nor any other scientist ever defined "kind" as a taxonomic category.
Kalamata: "He also believed in the immutability of the species, but with an inherent potential for variation: '...these forms have produced more forms, according to the laws laid down, but always ones that are similar to themselves. ' "
Right, and what Linnaeus could not appreciate was that if you repeat the process, say, a million times, then the final "forms" produced are not necessarily so "similar to" the very first forms.
Kalamata: "The Latin Vulgate erroneously translated the created kind as either species or genus.
When Linnaeus adopted his classification scheme, he included both words, with the genus rank just above the species:"
Every English translation uses "kind" or occasionally "type", neither of which is defined scientifically.
If the Vulgate is a mistranslation, then "genus" and "species" are simply Latin words used in error and Linnaeus' adopting them bring us no closer to a scientific definition of the biblical "kind" -- i.o.w., "genus" and "species" are simply words borrowed from a Bible for use elsewhere.
They tell us nothing specific about the Bible.
Kalamata: "And Darwin was, naturally, a failed theologian."
William Paley's field is listed as "natural theologian".
Charles Darwin's fields are listed as "natural history, geology".
Those were recognized then and now as vastly different schools of study.
Kalamata: "If you were a scientist, like William Paley, and some ideologue claimed you were not, that would be ad hominem. "
Paley was no scientist, he was a theologian -- look it up!
Darwin studied theology, but his field work and publications were in "natural philosophy", aka science.
Your insistence otherwise are simply shameless lies, FRiend.
Kalamata: "Are you conceding my point that evolutionary biologists are not scientists?"
No, why would you suggest it?
Kalamata: "Who invented that stupid rule?
There is nothing more natural than the creator of all nature."
First, by definition & experience, God is not "natural", He's supernatural, spiritual.
Yes, He can take human form, but even then was well beyond "natural" powers.
As for your question, well... sorry, FRiend, but did you ever get an, ah... edumacation?
You know, you need some of that for these sorts of discussions.
Basic history of Western Thought begins with Greeks like Plato & Aristotle and was taught in medieval Universities as various branches of philosophy -- theology, metaphysics and, yes, "natural philosophy" which looked for natural explanations of natural processes.
Natural philosophy is today's natural-science and it all begins with the assumptions that it's not theology, it's not metaphysics, it's not anything except the search for natural explanations of natural processes.
But that was/is strictly a methodological assumption, the philosopher-theologians who invented "natural philosophy" had no intention to deny God's existence, merely to set aside for others to contemplate any considerations of God's influence on nature.
That assumption was, is and will remain part of the core definition of our word "science", whether you like it or not.
Kalamata on science in the Bible: "It doesn’t have to.
It has a perfect record."
Your claims regarding the Bible's intentions toward science are simply false.
You've gone way beyond what the Bible itself says.
Kalamata: "Scientists have always recognized “kinds”, or the modern equivalent, family.
You must be thinking about evolutionists, not scientists."
Even your own man, Linnaeus in 1750, understood that "kind" was not "family" -- indeed, according to your own quote, Linnaeus didn't use the term "family" in his classifications.
He did use "genus" and "species", but there's no suggestion anywhere they define the Biblical word "kind".
Kalamata: "The barrier is the “family”, or “kind”, which is exactly what biblical science predicts, and exactly what real scientists have been claiming all along. "
Your term "biblical scientist" is an oxymoron.
The rest is just more nonsense because, words like "species", "genus" or "family" cannot by themselves be a barrier to anything, and definitions of those terms are not strictly based on the ability (or lack of) of various sub-groups to interbreed.
Yes, the most frequent dividing line is genus, but it is not always a hard rule.
Kalamata: "Biochemist Michael Behe explains it this way:"
The words you quoted are gibberish, meaningless word-salad, unconnected to anything real.
Kalamata: "Speciation is the result of devolution, not evolution.
The “kind” doesn’t change."
And still more gibberish.
Kalamata: "LOL!
You really should get up to speed.
That highly imaginative “whale evolution” chart you presented was debunked years ago. "
It was denied, like Holocaust denial, never "debunked".
Kalamata: "This is Dr. Hans Thewissen on the Ambulocetus:"
Other reconstructions don't include the blow-hole, so it seems some scholarly disagreement there.
Kalamata: "This is Dr. Phil Gingerich on the Rodhocetus:"
Other reconstructions don't include a tail fluke on Rodhocetus:
Kalamata: "This is Thewissen on the ear of the Ambulocetus and Pakicetus:"
Your video shows us one Ambulocetus ear bone, said to be "questionable".
It does not show us what other similar fossils have been found.
It does not tell us what judgments were used to name that a pre-whale ear bone, or indeed, what criticisms have been raised of it.
Kalamata: "Like all other evolution frauds (Piltdown Man, Haeckels Embryos, Junk DNA, Vestigial Organs, etc.), it will be years before they are removed from museums and our children’s textbooks."
Beyond Piltdown & Haeckels, there's no evidence of "fraud" here, only of the usual scholarly debates.
It's how science is supposed to work.
Kalamata: "The dirty little secret of the “whale evolution” fraud is that even if all the animals turned out to be exactly as claimed, there would still be no proof of whale evolution.
Each species in that chart is not only distinct and specialized, but there is no evidence that any of them had offspring, nor is there evidence of the minute transitions that would be required to support species transitions."
Sure, despite 150+ years accumulating billions of fossils representing hundreds of thousands of extinct species dated over hundreds of millions of years, it is still estimated that fewer than 1% of all species who ever lived have been found as fossils.
So there are huge gaps in the fossil record, likely always will be.
That's one reason evolution remains a theory, regardless of how many facts confirm it.
to all: sorry for this over-long post. Next time I'll split it up into smaller segments. ![]()
>>I admire & respect Shermer for his work on this: Denying History, Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do They Say It
What, in particular, did you like about that book?
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>>Shermer's nature is skepticism, so I suspect the full context of your quote would show his words are intended somewhat ironically. Calling science-popularizers "shamans" is Shermer's way of saying "be suspicious of them".
Shermer is not a skeptic of "science" so-called, and certainly not of its popularizers, of which he is one.
https://michaelshermer.com/2002/06/shamans-of-scientism/
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>>I know nothing of Michael Ruse, but calling evolution "a religion" seems to me just a provocative way to sell books. The fact is, strictly defined there is nothing "religious" about natural-science in general or evolution theory specifically. They are the opposite of any religion because they specifically and emphatically refuse to consider any non-natural (i.e., supernatural, spiritual) processes or explanations.
You really should try to keep up. Evolution is the established religion of the United States, and everyone who is anyone knows it. as the visiting Chinese scientist explained:
"In China you can question Darwin, but not the government. In the United States, you can question the government, but not Darwin."
LOL! This is from a speech by Michael Ruse at the 1993 American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, hosted by Eugenie Scott:
"... what [Phillip E.] Johnson was arguing was that, at a certain level, the kind of position of a person like myself, an evolutionist, is metaphysically based at some level, just as much as the kind of position of let us say somebody, some creationist, someone like Gish or somebody like that. And to a certain extent, I must confess, in the ten years since I performed, or I appeared, in the creationism trial in Arkansas, I must say that I've been coming to this kind of position myself... I think that we should recognize, both historically and perhaps philosophically, certainly that the science side has certain metaphysical assumptions built into doing science, which -- it may not be a good thing to admit in a court of law -- but I think that in honesty that we should recognize, and that we should be thinking about some of these sorts of things... it seems to me very clear that at some very basic level, evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism, namely, that at some level one is going to exclude miracles and these sorts of things, come what may... evolution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically. I guess we all knew that, but I think that we're all much more sensitive to these facts now. And I think that the way to deal with creationism, but the way to deal with evolution also, is not to deny these facts, but to recognize them, and to see where we can go, as we move on from there." [Ruse, Michael, "Speech by Professor Michael Ruse, AAAS Annual Meeting." Access Research Network, 1993]
"Certainly, historically, that if you look at, say, evolutionary theory, and of course this was brought out I think rather nicely by the talk just before me, it's certainly been the case that evolution has functioned, if not as a religion as such, certainly with elements akin to a secular religion. Those of us who teach philosophy of religion always say there's no way of defining religion by a neat, necessary and sufficient condition. The best that you can do is list a number of characteristics, some of which all religions have, and none of which any religion, whatever or however you sort of put it. And certainly, there's no doubt about it, that in the past, and I think also in the present, for many evolutionists, evolution has functioned as something with elements which are, let us say, akin to being a secular religion." [Ibid.]
http://www.arn.org/docs/orpages/or151/mr93tran.htm
This is Julian Huxley on evolution as religion:
"I find myself inevitably driven to use the language of religion. For the fact is that all this does add up to something in the nature of a religion: perhaps one might call it Evolutionary Humanism. The word 'religion' is often used restrictively to mean belief in gods; but I am not using it in this sense—I certainly do not want to see man erected into the position of a god, as happened with many individual human beings in the past and is happening still today. I am using it in a broader sense, to denote an overall relation between man and his destiny, and one involving his deepest feelings, including his sense of what is sacred. In this broad sense, evolutionary humanism, it seems to me, is capable of becoming the germ of a new religion, not necessarily supplanting existing religions but supplementing them. " [The Human Phase, in, Huxley, Julian, "Evolution In Action." Harper & Brothers, 1st Ed, 1953, Chap 6, pp.171-172]
Colin Patterson describes evolution not necessarily as a religion, but as faith-based:
"I think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years if you had thought about it at all, you've experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge, to evolution as faith. I know that's true of me and I think it's true of good many of you in here." [Patterson, Colin, "Speech at the American Museum of Natural History New York." American Museum of Natural History, 1981]
This scientist implies a sort of religious fanaticism among some evolutionists:
"Religious people disliked [evolution] because it appeared to dispense with God; scientists liked it because it seemed to solve the most important problem in the universe- the existence of living matter. In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it." [Lipson, Henry S., "A Physicist Looks At Evolution, A Physicist Looks At Evolution." Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 4, May, 1980, p.138]
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>>Russell was a modern atheist, Paine was an Enlightenment Era deist who actually thought of himself as a Quaker. So, remember my point here: none of our Founding Fathers were atheist, not one, even Thomas Paine, meaning: our Founders' understanding of natural-philosophy, aka natural-science, was purely methodological, not philosophical or ontological.
Are you claiming that Russell and Paine were not ideologically in the same ball-park? Both were anti-Christian.
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>>Neither Steno in 1660, nor any of the others you mentioned, knew of data which would allow them to accept or reject theories about the earth's age & evolution.
You mean, they were not given the chance to be brainwashed, don't you?
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>>My belief is that nothing in the Universe is outside the scope, plan or intentions of our Creator, so I agree with Newton.
Newton never allowed the "science of the day" to trump the Word of God.
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>>Why not just answer the question?
What was the question?
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>>Maybe, but the Bible doesn't give a … hoot about science, science is not its purpose.
Why all the science in God's Word, if God doesn't give a "hoot about science"?
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>>Instead, what the Bible intends to show us is that God created and rules over the natural realm -- and indeed that He can over-rule nature whenever that suits His purposes. The Bible doesn't care about giving us an accurate picture of nature, instead it cares about demonstrating how God rules nature.
I call that sophistry . . . major league!
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>>So, the fact that we can find some pretty amazing "gems" as you call them is interesting, but they are not the Bible's purpose.
What you pretend are idle words, are the inspired words of God:
"man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." -- Deu 8:3 KJV
"Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him." -- Pro 30:5 KJV
"But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." -- Mat 4:4 KJV
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" -- 2Tim 3:16 KJV
There is a cloud of witnesses disputing you.
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>>Sure, we all speak informally of "this kind" or "that kind", but neither Linnaeus nor any other scientist ever defined "kind" as a taxonomic category.
Of course they do, but many are too pig-headed to use the name "kind", choosing rather to use the name "family" to distance themselves from the Word of God, as you do.
The Hebrew word "miyn" is used ONLY to classify plants and animals (Gen 1:11-12, 1:21, 1:24, 6:20, 7:14; Lev 11:14, 11:19, 11:22, 11:29; Deu 14:13, 14:18; Eze 47:10), and for nothing else. The word was translated to "kind" in the English versions. Linnaeus used the Latin Vulgate translation of genus and species, the meaning of which has been corrupted.
But, no matter what you call it, the "kind" denotes the genetic boundary which no plant or animal can cross.
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>>Right, and what Linnaeus could not appreciate was that if you repeat the process, say, a million times, then the final "forms" produced are not necessarily so "similar to" the very first forms.
No, Linnaeus understood very well that there is an inherent boundary, which Charlie's vivid imagination wildly extrapolated into the pseudo-science (or, rather, the fairy tale) of common descent.
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>>Every English translation uses "kind" or occasionally "type", neither of which is defined scientifically. If the Vulgate is a mistranslation, then "genus" and "species" are simply Latin words used in error and Linnaeus' adopting them bring us no closer to a scientific definition of the biblical "kind" -- i.o.w., "genus" and "species" are simply words borrowed from a Bible for use elsewhere. They tell us nothing specific about the Bible.
Wrong. The Bible states that plants and animals multiply after their kinds: not after a single-cell microorganism; but after their OWN kinds. Prior to the flood, God specifically chose two of each kind (or seven, in some instances) to board the ark so they could repopulate the earth, after the flood. Darwin corrupted that solid, scientific fact with his wild imagination. We are only learning today of the fallacy of Darwin's extrapolation.
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>> William Paley's field is listed as "natural theologian". Charles Darwin's fields are listed as "natural history, geology". Those were recognized then and now as vastly different schools of study.
You missed my point. Charlie's "science" was his wild imagination, which interprets to, he wasn't a scientist.
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>>Paley was no scientist, he was a theologian -- look it up!
I have his book, Natural Theology, and it promotes intelligent design and fine-tuning, unlike the pseudo-science Darwin imagined.
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>>Darwin studied theology, but his field work and publications were in "natural philosophy", aka science. Your insistence otherwise are simply shameless lies, FRiend.
Scientists do not resort to wild extrapolations of observable data, like Charlie did.
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>>First, by definition & experience, God is not "natural", He's supernatural, spiritual. Yes, He can take human form, but even then was well beyond "natural" powers.
Neither is magic "natural" according to your own definition, but you seem to have no problem believing it.
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>>As for your question, well... sorry, FRiend, but did you ever get an, ah... edumacation? You know, you need some of that for these sorts of discussions.
I was indoctrinated for most of my life, like you. Only late in life did I get an education.
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>>Basic history of Western Thought begins with Greeks like Plato & Aristotle and was taught in medieval Universities as various branches of philosophy -- theology, metaphysics and, yes, "natural philosophy" which looked for natural explanations of natural processes.
There is nothing more natural than our creator, and his creation.
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>>Natural philosophy is today's natural-science and it all begins with the assumptions that it's not theology, it's not metaphysics, it's not anything except the search for natural explanations of natural processes. But that was/is strictly a methodological assumption, the philosopher-theologians who invented "natural philosophy" had no intention to deny God's existence, merely to set aside for others to contemplate any considerations of God's influence on nature. That assumption was, is and will remain part of the core definition of our word "science", whether you like it or not.
Denying the creator, his marvelous works, and his instruction book, hinders the advancement of science. Imagine how much science would have advanced if, over the past century and a half, there were not armies of "scientists" trying to prove Darwin right, rather than trying to prove him wrong so we could move on?
Evolution is completely useless to science, and every real scientist knows it.
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>>Your claims regarding the Bible's intentions toward science are simply false. You've gone way beyond what the Bible itself says.
Your platitudes are getting tiresome. Take your Bible out of the trash can and show us why my claims are false.
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>>Even your own man, Linnaeus in 1750, understood that "kind" was not "family" -- indeed, according to your own quote, Linnaeus didn't use the term "family" in his classifications. He did use "genus" and "species", but there's no suggestion anywhere they define the Biblical word "kind".
In this statement, Linnaeus seems to be saying there can be multiple genera within a single kind, distinguishable by their "essential character".
"The succulent plants are worthy of distinction; so are the largest genera, e.g. Euphorbia. The chief of this kind are: Haller's Allium Our Musa, etc. . . . By its unique pattern, the ESSENTIAL character distinguishes a genus from those of the same kind included in the same natural order." [Freer, Stephen, Translator, "Linnaeus' Philosophia Botanica." Oxford University Press, 2005, p.19, 142]
How do you interpret that statement?
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>>Your term "biblical scientist" is an oxymoron.
The term "evolutionary science" is an oxymoron.
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>>The rest is just more nonsense because, words like "species", "genus" or "family" cannot by themselves be a barrier to anything, and definitions of those terms are not strictly based on the ability (or lack of) of various sub-groups to interbreed.
Long-term scientific observation of both living organisms, and the fossil record, has shown my statement to be true, and yours to be hogwash.
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>>Yes, the most frequent dividing line is genus, but it is not always a hard rule.
More than a few classifications seem to be arbitrary, perhaps corrupted by evolutionary dogma.
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>>The words you quoted [of Michael Behe] are gibberish, meaningless word-salad, unconnected to anything real.
Only the scientifically-challenged, and/or those protecting their turf like street thugs, would say such foolishness. Michael Behe's books are masterpieces of scientific rigor, unlike the junk science you are accustomed to.
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[Kalamata wrote] "Speciation is the result of devolution, not evolution. The “kind” doesn’t change."
>>And still more gibberish.
You are even more scientifically-challenged than I imagined. Speciation is the result of a loss of genetic information, period. There are no exceptions.
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>>It was denied, like Holocaust denial, never "debunked".
That is insanity. The myth of whale evolution is the stuff fairy tales are made of, like the unicorn.
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>>Other reconstructions [of Hans Thewissen on the Ambulocetus] don't include the blow-hole, so it seems some scholarly disagreement there.
There is no disagreement. The Ambulocetus is Thewissen's "baby", so his sensational admission may have caused some to change their mock-ups, or if creating new ones, to leave out the imaginary blow hole.
But Evolution Icons DIE HARD, and we are stuck with Ambulocetus for years to come, despite the fact that all eight characteristics Thewissen reported as whale features are questionable, or absent altogether.
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>>Other reconstructions [of Phil Gingerich's Rodhocetus] don't include a tail fluke.
Get a clue, fellow! The revelations by Gingrich and Thewissen were from many years back, perhaps as early as 2012. Naturally some of the more (tongue-in-cheek) "honest" artists would want to exclude something so obviously fraudulent.
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>>>Your video shows us one Ambulocetus ear bone, said to be "questionable". It does not show us what other similar fossils have been found. It does not tell us what judgments were used to name that a pre-whale ear bone, or indeed, what criticisms have been raised of it.
You just cannot let it go, can you. That kind of attitude gave our children a half-century of the fraudulent Piltdown Man, and more than a century (and counting) of the fraudulent Haeckel's Embryos; and, now, fraudulent "whale evolution".
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>>Beyond Piltdown & Haeckels, there's no evidence of "fraud" here, only of the usual scholarly debates. It's how science is supposed to work.
Nonsense. Real scientists don't imagine things based on a world view, and pretend it is science. Evolutionists do, but not scientists.
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>>Sure, despite 150+ years accumulating billions of fossils representing hundreds of thousands of extinct species dated over hundreds of millions of years, it is still estimated that fewer than 1% of all species who ever lived have been found as fossils. So there are huge gaps in the fossil record, likely always will be. That's one reason evolution remains a theory, regardless of how many facts confirm it.
That is meaningless. The observable evidence in the fossil record shows disparity before diversity, and abrupt appearance followed by statis. That matches the observable evidence of living organisms. Real science is based on observable evidence.
For the rest of you, this photo is of the original seal-like creature imagined by Gingerich (on the left, with the few skull and jaw fragments on which it was based drawn below,) side-by-side with the a drawing of the same creature based on later fossils
The paleontologists at the University of Michigan have unusually vivid imaginations.
Mr. Kalamata