Sadly, an Honest Creationist

SecularHumanism.org ^ | Richard Dawkins

[Demidog]

This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a mind capable of such doublethink.

The Author is lying here. He has gone through great pains to show that this fellow is as honest as the day is long and rejects evolution not on scientific terms but on spiritual terms and faith.

Thus he is not engaging in doublethink at all but honest spiritual reflection. Myself, I don't think that evolution is important in the scheme of things. It doesn't make the bible wrong since the creation myth really is a myth. A story told to describe that particular tribes view of creation and their part in it. It was in fact, part of the tribes oral tradition before being finally written down. It doesn't have to be factually correct to be inspired by God nor does one have to reject science to believe in God or the Bible.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say: "You must reject science and evolution or suffer eternal damnation."

[RadioAstronomer]

Yes. I pays to see where the person of science has published before wasting time on their "science."

I'm not sure I follow you. I am published, so what! That in itself does not make me a better scientist. But the rest of the scientific field scrutinizes what gets published so to speak. This can give the author a feedback as to the validity or deficiencies of his or her paper/data.

[Nebullis]

I just work with satellites and astronomy.

Ah! (I should have guessed from your name...)

Don't mind me. I'm not very particular.

[RadioAstronomer]

Don't mind me. I'm not very particular.

ROFL! Actually, I really do appreciate being corrected when I make a mistake in a post. I learn from my own mistakes. :)

[RadioAstronomer]

Who wrote that law?

I'm not following what you are driving at here.

[Rowdee]

..."Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a mind capable of such doublethink. It reminds me of Winston Smith in 1984 struggling to believe that two plus two equals five if Big Brother said so. But that was fiction and, anyway, Winston was tortured into submission. Kurt Wise—and presumably others like him who are less candid—has suffered no such physical coercion. But, as I hinted at the end of my previous column, I do wonder whether childhood indoctrination could wreak a sufficiently powerful brainwashing effect to account for this bizarre phenomenon"....

Wonder if the author has reviewed the teaching in our schools lately....2 + 2 can be anything so long as the child feels good--he or she will learn at some later point in life that the answer is 4....another godless phenomena from the 'enlightened' ones. And, of course, there are still enough parents who wouldn't stand for their children to be tortured--yet!

[keithtoo]

"One good example of this is the fact that whales and dolphins have hip bones, left from eons ago when their ancestors walked on land. "

Billy, Billy, Billy....did you hear that tale from a bunch of old Science Rabbis? I know you cant support that statement from a scientific basis (pictures? fossil evidence? any evidence? wishful thinking - ding ding ding!). This belief of yours is based upon a belief system inculcated from your youth, much as the Mr. Wise in question here.

[Ahban]

We give mathematical models showing that the formation of life by random chance is impossible by any rational definition. You say "But amino acids don't form in a purely random way, there are rules!" OK, the chances of assembly of amino acids is not "random", but some of the rules make the odds of life forming WORSE than if it was random.

Example: amino acids interact with other types of moleclues (like water !)far more readily than they do with each other. In any such environment where bonds can be made or broken such interaction will mitigate AGAINST the long chains of acids needed.

In other wild theories about things self-organizing when energy is passed through them, I have never known a case where the level of self organization approaches the level needed for a single protien, much less life! Plus, the energy passing through will tend to break the forming chains more than build them. That is one problem with the under-sea vent hypothesis.

[Sloth]

Kurt Wise doesn?t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a mind capable of such doublethink.

No doublethink required. Given the supposition of an omnipotent creator, the physical evidence becomes meaningless.

Some prints of paintings have a swirled texture artificially added to the surface, to simulate the brushstrokes of a real painting. This does not provide physical evidence that it IS a real painting, merely that its creator had the ability to make it seem like one.

[RadioAstronomer]

Billy, Billy, Billy....did you hear that tale from a bunch of old Science Rabbis? I know you cant support that statement from a scientific basis (pictures? fossil evidence? any evidence? wishful thinking - ding ding ding!). This belief of yours is based upon a belief system inculcated from your youth, much as the Mr. Wise in question here.

Take drectly from the web (not mine):

Scientists have long known that whales have vestiges of pelvic girdles and hindlimbs that were interpreted to mean that modern whales are descendants of land animals that once moved about on legs (Michael J. Novacek, "Whales Leave the Beach," Nature, April 28, 1994, p. 807). This assumption has since been verified by the discovery in Pakistan of an amphibious ancestor of whales that lived 52 million years ago. The fossil shows clearly defined front and hindlimbs that probably enabled it to leave the water and move about on land, awkwardly undoubtedly, because the body was more adapted to swimming (Ibid.; Philip D. Gingerich et al, "New Whale from the Eocene of Pakistan and the Origin of Cetacean Swimming," Nature, April 28, 1994, p. 844). A subsequent discovery of whale fossils in Egypt has shown that descendants of the amphibious "whales" possessed hindlimbs but no front limbs, and even today some whales are born with external vestigial hindlimbs.

[T Ruth]

Read up on quantum physics? It appears that God does in fact play dice with the universe. Makes sense to me, if I were an omnipotent deity, I'd be bored with a universe in which I knew everything that would happen; I'd want some randomness tossed in.

One of the weaknesses of the theory of evolution is that it has no coherent explanation of what "chance" is. Indeed, "chance" is difficult to rigorously define. If it is not defined, how is anyone to know whether it exists? Has it ever been empirically observed?

One place where we can observe what most people would agree is chance is . . . at the casino. And there we see that to generate "chance" or "randomness" requires a careful construction of various apparatuses, the common purpose of which is to insulate the outcome from the will of an individual. Whether it is a roulette wheel, a pair of dice, or a deck of cards, the essential function of a game of chance is to prevent the operator from influencing the outcome.

Now then, if "chance" is indeed a construct to insulate phenomena from will, and if we were ever to observe "chance" occurring in nature, we might have to conclude that God exists. The evidence, i.e., the existence of "chance," would imply that there is a will from which the phenomena of nature are being insulated.

There is not space here, nor do I have the time now to go into this more deeply. But if you will try as an exercise to rigorously define "chance" in such a way as to take that definition and use it as a guide to empirical observation, as any good scientist should do, you may find that the above reasoning is not easily dismissed.

In my view it ironic that the postulate of "chance" in the theory of evolution is an implicit acknowledgement of God's existence. But others have made the above point in other language.

[pcl]

The fact that papers in legitimate journals have been peer reviewed indicates to me that the writer is probably (but not necessarily) doing legitimate science.

[Mensch]

there is no sensible limit to what the human mind is capable of believing, against any amount of contrary evidence.

How else would one explain so many liberals and creationists?

[RadioAstronomer]

The fact that papers in legitimate journals have been peer reviewed indicates to me that the writer is probably (but not necessarily) doing legitimate science.

I agree completely.

[RadioAstronomer]

And who or what is the driver?

Why does there need to be a "driver" at all? The universe works pretty well by itself without being mucked about.

[keithtoo]

Scientists have long known (theorized, based upon a big freakin hole in their presuppositional beliefs)that whales have vestiges of pelvic girdles and hindlimbs that were interpreted to mean that modern whales are descendants of land animals that once moved about on legs (Michael J. Novacek, "Whales Leave the Beach," Nature, April 28, 1994, p. 807). This assumption has since been verified (verified...by one fossil, probably fully developed, not transitional in form. Thats OK though, their ought to be about a gazillion others to fill in the blanks...or maybe not) by the discovery in Pakistan of an amphibious ancestor of whales (objection your Honor, this is wishful thinking)that lived 52 million years ago. The fossil shows clearly defined front and hindlimbs that probably (probably!!! this is science damnit!!!) enabled it to leave the water and move about on land, awkwardly undoubtedly, because the body was more adapted to swimming (Ibid.; Philip D. Gingerich et al, "New Whale from the Eocene of Pakistan and the Origin of Cetacean Swimming," Nature, April 28, 1994, p. 844). A subsequent discovery of whale fossils in Egypt has shown that descendants of the amphibious "whales" (thanks for teh quotation marks to verify the non-committal nature of this PROOF)possessed hindlimbs but no front limbs, and even today some whales are born with external vestigial hindlimbs (proving??? nothing, but the fact that they have appendages that cannot be readily explained).

[RadioAstronomer]

You have freep mail! :)