Proofs of Evolution Examined - Answers to my Evolutionist Friends (excerpt)

www.creationism.org ^ | 4-20-2002 | Thomas F. Heinze

[prisoner6]

Answers to my Evolutionist Friends  ·   by Thomas F. Heinze

---

This is the book I am working on now. Would you like to help?
If you find a mistake, let me know. If you think of things I
should have added, tell me. Whatever! Your comments do not
have to be favorable, but try to make them helpful.  (4-20-2002)

Answers to my Evolutionist Friends
Proofs of Evolution Examined
by Thomas F. Heinze

 The theory of evolution gave credibility to atheism because it seemed to provide a scientific foundation which atheism had lacked. Before the theory most people believed that God had created. Many really wanted to believe that there was no God, but it was difficult to be a convinced atheist with no logical explanation at all for matter and life. Where did they come from? Evolution was embraced by many because it provided an explanation: a bridge they could cross over into what seemed to be a fuller understanding of the life that surrounded them without having to involve a Creator. The bridge of evolution was erected on a number of seemingly sturdy pillars of scientific knowledge, each one of which inspired faith in the whole theory.

In the intervening years, a lot of water has washed over these pillars and swept them all away! The shaky old bridge still stands as a religious or philosophical belief system to be clung to by faith, but the seemingly compelling "scientific proofs" which once gave the theory of evolution its credibility have been proven false by subsequent discoveries. This has not been the tragedy to the theory of evolution that one might think. The reason?

--   During the time when it really seemed scientific, the theory attained the status of the sacred religious/scientific tradition taught almost exclusively in the world's schools.

-- The pillars were not all swept away at the same time, so new ideas replaced the old. In this way there was always something an evolutionist could believe in.

As we look back now, though, we see that virtually every evidence which brought people to believe in evolution was based on false facts. As you will see, many of the facts which have long been known to be false are still found in many of today's school books.

The pillars

What are the false ideas that herded people into the evolutionist fold, the pillars that upheld the theory which were swept away by later scientific discoveries?

--   Each evolutionary step moves ahead from a previous step. Go back far enough, and you run out of previous steps.
--   Spontaneous generation: Given the right environment, life just comes about from chemicals.
--   A cell so simple it could happen by chance.
--   The inheritance of acquired traits.
--   Normal variations between individuals chosen by natural selection were the principle mechanism of evolution.
--   Missing links exist. They will soon be found.
--   Evolution happens today. The peppered moths were dark colored and changed to light.
--   The many vestigial organs proved evolution to be true.
--   Comparative anatomy is evidence for evolution.
--   Embryology: The embryo in the womb retraces the stages of its previous evolution.
--   Uniformitarian Geology: Erosion, and sedimentation have always taken place at more or less the same rate as is average today. It was believed that great floods and other events that would deposit many layers of sediment in a short time had not happened.

[SkyRat]

I dont think I could stand it as long as you. I lurk around threads like this for a long time now and started posting just recently. I doubt I'll have the same persistence.

But I've got a secret weapon. I filter every thread through a small script of mine. The first thing I did was ignoring everything written in blue or any post with the words "God hates Idiots" in it. It's far easier that way. The next thing I'm gonna do is compressing the messeages of some of the seniors in here. I'm pretty sure everything what medved said in the last 2 years or so can be compressed into a tiny file under 100kb. The collected information of posters like VadeRetro should be several times larger.

I think I could replace medved with a small shell script and nobody would notice.

[f.Christian]

Welcome!
Free Republic is an online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!

[Phaedrus]

Did you come here expecting to have a tea party with these evo whacks--DEVILS?

They may be wrong and misled or whatever but they are not devils and calling them devils is ad hominem attack, which is not permitted here. It doesn't help.

The Evols have taken a position. It's called a theory. Now they are expected to support it, to show us that it's true. They haven't done so and I don't think they can.

I have faith in people -- I believe that showing them all the evidence, for and against, and exposing any lies or misdirection is enough, that they will figure it out. The Evols vastly overreach the case that they do have. In the long run, it will be enough that people know this.

[f.Christian]

hahahahahaha...funny---faith in orcs!

[Doctor Stochastic]

You might look at links to the program PARRY by K. Colby.

[longshadow]

This is the problem with taking at face value the posts of a person who missed this morning's dose of Thorazine -......

From what I've seen for the past year or more, it wasn't just this morning's dose that was missed.....

[f.Christian]

Good News For The Day


‘I am the truth. . ..’(John 14:6)

For most of time, men and women have assumed that the truth was there to be found out. This began to change in the 19th century and the change gathered pace in the 20th. As people began to question the existence of God, it became obvious to some, that the existence of truth requires the existence of God. With God dismissed, it became impossible to conceive of truth in any absolute sense. This has resulted in the humiliation of truth. Truth is now whatever you would like it to be.

Truth's demise has filtered down through the great centers of learning, the arts, and on into streets and homes. Everything is possible with truth gone. Everything is permissible. Musicians make music that doesn't sound musical. Painters paint pictures that are incomprehensible to normal folk. Playwrights write plays that are nonsense, and architects design buildings that no one can understand. All this is put forward as legitimate, but what does it all mean?

No matter how much popular culture is encouraged to believe in the relativity of truth, no one can build a decent life on such a notion. Inevitably proponents of freedom from God, and from absolute truth, are obliged to reach outside of their own system, and borrow something from theism in order to make their lives work. The person who believes that everything is valid, will soon find that he is condemned to meaninglessness. Christ is a standing offer of escape from such a hell as this To believe that truth is like Christ, is salvation indeed.

[longshadow]

I think I could replace medved with a small shell script and nobody would notice.

What makes you think that didn't happen long ago?

;-)

[medved]

f.Christian is basically right in his assessment of evolutionist "debate tactics". Evolutionists approach any sort of a debate over evolution on an online forum the way the Crips and Bloods approach a tag-team knife fight. The rules are about the same...

[Phaedrus]

f.Christian is basically right in his assessment of evolutionist "debate tactics".

Ridicule can cut two ways, as you well know, sophistry can be exposed as such and so on; i.e. questionable debate tactics can be shown to be just that and whenever they're used, whatever position is being promoted by their use will be discounted, at least by thinking and fair-minded people. I'm not interested in convincing anyone else.

[Phaedrus]

hahahahahaha...funny---faith in orcs!

Whatever, f.Christian. But please try to avoid putting me in a position where I feel the urge to push the Abuse button on one of your posts.

[SkyRat]

Some of us consider then our best allies. Own goal scoring, you know.

heh, yeah. With enemies like these who needs friends?

You might look at links to the program PARRY by K. Colby.

Yeah, I know Parry, thank you.

[PatrickHenry]

I filter every thread through a small script of mine.

There's a small, but very enthusiastic market for such a product. It fills a definite need. Both sides of the debate might benefit from it. Until such a utility is available, "virtual ignore" does the job.

[Iota]

For those not familiar with Colby and Parry (see interesting conversation at end):



NYT May 12, 2001
Kenneth Colby, 81, Expert in Artificial Intelligence, Is Dead
By WOLFGANG SAXON

Dr. Kenneth Mark Colby, a psychiatrist known for his work with
artificial intelligence, died on April 20 at his home in Malibu,
Calif. He was 81.

Dr. Colby, a founder and chairman of Malibu Artifactual Intelligence
Works, a software company, was an emeritus professor of psychiatry and
behavioral sciences at the University of California at Los Angeles.

He created one of the early software programs known as chatterbots,
which simulate conversations with people. His program, called Parry,
for paranoia, appeared in 1971 and is said to be the only one to have
passed the "Turing test," named for the British mathematician Alan M.
Turing, who in 1950 suggested that if a computer could successfully
impersonate a human by carrying on a typed conversation with a person,
it could be called intelligent.

With Parry, Dr. Colby established that a computer chip could be
programmed to imitate a paranoid schizophrenic. In test interviews,
psychiatrists communicating with Parry by Teletype were indeed unable
to distinguish its responses from those of real paranoiacs.

Kenneth Colby was born in Waterbury, Conn., and graduated from Yale in
1941 and from its School of Medicine two years later.

Early in his career, he was a professor of computer science at
Stanford, where he also did research for the National Institute of
Mental Health. He created Parry at the university's Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory.

In 1974, he went to U.C.L.A., where he was affiliated with the
department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences.

At 31, Dr. Colby published "A Primer for Psychotherapists." He wrote
or contributed to nine more books and over 100 articles on psychiatry,
psychology, psychotherapy and artificial intelligence.

He and his son, Peter, founded Malibu Artifactual Intelligence Works
in 1989. Among the software they produced is a therapy program called
Overcoming Depression, which features interactive plain language
designed to help a patient understand, overcome and prevent
depression.

Besides his son, of Malibu, Dr. Colby is survived by his wife of 43
years, Maxine Hansbold Colby; a daughter, Erin Johnson of Santa Maria,
Calif.; and two grandsons.

Dr. Colby adapted Parry from another program, Eliza, created in 1966
by Dr. Joseph Weizenbaum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eliza was developed more as a language-parsing tool than as an
exercise in human intelligence. Named for the Eliza Doolittle
character in "Pygmalion," it was the first conversational computer
program, designed to imitate a psychotherapist asking questions
instead of giving advice. It appeared to give conversational answers,
although it could be led to lapse into obtuse nonsense.

Eliza and the paranoid Parry eventually met for a "talk," executing
different programs. One exchange went something like this:

PARRY In my opinion, you have a one- track mind.

ELIZA What makes you think I have a one-track mind?

PARRY I used to go to the track every week.

ELIZA What does that suggest to you?

PARRY I avoid racetracks now because the races are fixed.

ELIZA Is that the real reason?

PARRY I'd rather not discuss it.

ELIZA What else would you like to discuss?

PARRY That's something I don't want to go into.

[f.Christian]

Were it not for the existence of sin in the world, says Calvin, human beings would believe in God to the same degree and with the same natural spontaneity displayed in our belief in the existence of other persons, or an external world, or the past.

This is the... natural human condition---it is because of our presently unnatural sinful condition that many of us find belief in God difficult or absurd.

The fact is, Calvin thinks, one who does not believe in God is in an epistemically defective position-rather like someone who does not believe that his wife exists, or thinks that she is a cleverly constructed robot that has no thoughts, feelings, or consciousness. Thus the believer reverses Freud and Marx, claiming that what they see as sickness(Truth) is really health and what they see as health(Atheism/evolution) is really sickness.

[f.Christian]

Science/reality is anti-possibilty(infinite/irrational)...

Science has to be predictable-probable-facts(finite/rational)---

Science must limit itself to the non-philosophical/spiritual higher world!

Science is LAWS...evolution is SCHLOCK!

[f.Christian]

Stay away from me. Logic and reason is lost to you. Adress your messages to someone who can tolerate it. I try to stay far away from idiots. I'm pretty sure there is a big, nasty suprise in store for all the idiots in the world. Imagine it as a big divine hammer from the sky. Think about your time on freerepublic when it happens.

Divine hammer via evolution...strange!

Another evo oxymoron I can add to my list!

[f.Christian]

Running joke is 'evo-science'...biggest cult of oxy-moonie-morons---art bells!

Like patrickhenry..."search for the creator via evolution"---

"total--only evolution" too---

The pope encyclical rightwingprofessor-whack thinks/interprets..."professes evolution"---

Nebullis..."preschool evolution---INTENSIVELY"---

donh..."if the sun can create crystals-snowflakes...human life would certainly follow"---

dominick harr..."just like a ball bouncing down the stairs----evolution created everything"---

jennyp..."anarchist evolutionary capitalism---Christianity is communism"---

and patrickhenry doesn't know..."if prior to darwin---if science existed"...

SkyRat...Divine hammer-retribution from above via evolution!

Running sores!

[gore3000]

Truly pathetic stuff. If the web site is more of the same, there's no need to read it.

Really? So can you refute any of the following points made in the article? Or are you insulting the article because it tells the truth? Are you going to tell us that the claims made by evolution below have not been refuted?:

-- Each evolutionary step moves ahead from a previous step. Go back far enough, and you run out of previous steps.
-- Spontaneous generation: Given the right environment, life just comes about from chemicals.
-- A cell so simple it could happen by chance.
-- The inheritance of acquired traits.
-- Normal variations between individuals chosen by natural selection were the principle mechanism of evolution.
-- Missing links exist. They will soon be found.
-- Evolution happens today. The peppered moths were dark colored and changed to light.
-- The many vestigial organs proved evolution to be true.
-- Comparative anatomy is evidence for evolution.
-- Embryology: The embryo in the womb retraces the stages of its previous evolution.
-- Uniformitarian Geology: Erosion, and sedimentation have always taken place at more or less the same rate as is average today. It was believed that great floods and other events that would deposit many layers of sediment in a short time had not happened.

[Iota]

What's to refute? Most of this guy's stuff is gibberish -- such as the "previous steps" thing, which makes no sense -- or an outright misrepresentation of what the ToE predicts -- for example, the ToE doesn't predict that a cell is "simple" or came about solely by chance, which is what this guy's blathering implies. "Inheritance of acquired traits" sounds like LaMarckianism rather than today's ToE -- unless by "acquired" you mean "acquired from the ancestors' genes", which fits with the ToE but hasn't been refuted that I've ever heard.

And some of his stuff is flatly wrong, rather than just nonsensical. For example, Kettlewell et al showed that the coloration of the peppered moth population did evolve in response to predation.

And what's this?: "It was believed that great floods and other events that would deposit many layers of sediment in a short time had not happened." If he's talking about any kind of flood at all, that's just stupid. Geologists have known about floods forever. If he's talking about the Noachian flood, though, he's right -- that it had not happened (as literally described in the Bible) is still the opinion of every reputable geologist.

I'm no expert at this stuff, but this guy's not even an amateur. It sounds like he's trying to do a low-rent version of "Icons of Evolution" -- redundant as that would be -- but doesn't understand Wells' arguments well enough even to plagiarize them.