Posted on 10/12/2009 8:52:26 AM PDT by topcat54
When evolutionists present their latest fossil finds as “evidence” of evolution, keep in mind that they could never find any bit of evidence that would disprove evolution. Their minds are made up before they ever dig up a single fossilized fragment. To be blunt about it, they are looking for evidence to prove what they already believe but can never prove. The facts are interpreted in terms of their necessary materialistic paradigm. This isn’t my opinion; it’s what evolutionists claim for themselves. Richard Lewontin is honest enough to admit that for an evolutionist, “materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”[1]
The discovery of facts has little to do with the building of the paradigm since creationists and evolutionists study the same evidence. Evolutionists evaluate the evidence in terms of a pre-conceived worldview based on (the impossibility) of naturalism. There’s nothing new in this. R. J. Rushdoony describes the faith-based character of evolution as it was operating 50 years ago in the work of Louis Leakey:
Louis Leakey, director of Kenya’s Centre for Prehistory and Paleontology in Nairobi, described his discovery, together with his wife Mary, of a bit of skull and two teeth, in these words: “We knelt together to examine the treasure . . . and almost cried with sheer joy. For years people had been telling us that we’d better stop looking, but I felt deep down that it had to be there. You must be patient about these things.” The time was July 17, 1959. This scene is a curious one on two counts. First, the scientist Leakey knew what he had found before he had examined it: he worked by faith, and viewed his findings by faith. He was finding “proof” for a theory already accepted, and he accepted his finding as “proof” on sight. Second, the intense emotionalism and joy sound more like a revival experience than a scientific analysis.[2]
In 1999, an article appeared that unquestioningly assured us that “A Baboon-sized ape that lived in East Africa 15 million years ago might have been among the first primates to leave the treetops and live on the ground, a key step in the evolutionary path that scientists say eventually led to humans.”[3] Fifteen million years ago!? Give me a break. Now we learn that a 4.4 million-year-old fossilized ape is one of our ancestors. An ABC News article was honest enough to write the following:
In the case of “Ardi,” the ape-like fossil recently discovered in Ethiopia and already being celebrated as the oldest found relative of modern human beings, the final determination depends on who is doing the talking.
Exactly! We have film of the JFK assassination, and people still aren’t sure if Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter and that one bullet did all that damage, but these evolutionists are sure that a few fossilized fragments are nearly 5 million years old and are in some way related to humans. They have to be. There is no other option because evolution must be, has to be, true. Non-evolutionists looking at the same bits of fossilized bone and teeth come to a different conclusion because there’s no way that life can spring from non-life. In order to be taken seriously, evolutionists must explain how life started in the first place. They can’t, so like a stage magician (also here) they trot out a few bits of bone and teeth to divert our attention from the evolutionist’s real problem of how to explain something out of nothing. The evolutionist will convince an ignorant public by presenting their fragments as an artist-rendered specimen when in reality “that all of these conclusions are inferred from digital reconstructions and fallible reconstructions of bones that were in very bad shape.” In fact, “Ardi is a partial skeleton put together based on the bone fragments of at least 35 sets of skeletons—many of which were in such bad shape that it took 15 years before the research team could fully analyze and publish its findings on the combined skeleton.”
For David Menton, who served as an anatomy professor for 20 years at Washington University School of Medicine , “all the fragments indicate is that Ardi is an ape, plain and simple—and not anywhere nearly as old as scientists would have you believe.”
In reality, evolution is a substitute religion. Time, chance, and necessity make up the evolutionary trinity. Evolutionists tell us that nothing can be understood unless interpreted through the corrective lens of the Darwinian worldview. Darwinism is comprehensive, acting as “a universal solvent” that cuts “right to the heart of everything in sight.”[4] The evolutionists have their popes (Stephen Jay Gould), priests (professors), seminaries (universities), and dogma. For example, Arthur C. Clarke expresses the evolutionary dogma in emphatic terms: “Though I am the last person to advocate laws against blasphemy, surely nothing could be more antireligious than to deny the evidence so clearly written in the rocks for all who have eyes to see!”[5] Daniel C. Dennett, author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, proposes that anyone who holds a theistic view of origins should be allowed to live in America but only in “cultural zoos,” otherwise they would be a danger to society:
If you insist on teaching your children falsehoods—that the Earth is flat,[6] that “Man” is not a product of evolution by natural selection—then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.[7]
When evolutionists cannot make their case using science, the next step is compulsion. You will believe this or else. Notice how Dennett appeals to “free speech” to cut off “free speech.” Also, if you insist on questioning the evolutionary paradigm, you might be charged with educational child abuse.
Endnotes:
[1] Richard Lewontin, “Billions and billions of demons,” The New York Review (January 9, 1997), 31. Here’s the full quotation: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
[2] Rousas J. Rushdoony, The Mythology of Science (Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1967), 85.
[3] Paul Recer, “Newly discovered ape fossil boosts evolution knowledge,” USA Today (August 27, 1999), 4A.
[4] Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 521.
[5] Arthur C. Clarke, Foreword, in James Randi, An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), xii–xiii.
[6] On the “flat-earth myth,” see Gary DeMar, America’s Christian History: The Untold Story (Atlanta, GA: American Vision, 1995), 221–34; Gary DeMar and Fred Douglas Young, To Pledge Allegiance: A New World in View (Atlanta, GA: American Vision, 1996), 75–82; Jeffrey Burton Russell, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians (New York: Praeger, 1991).
[7] Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 519. Quoted in Phillip E. Johnson, “Daniel Dennett’s Dangerous Idea,” The New Criterion (October 1995), 13.
The inverse could be said about Young Earth creationists - they will reject or warp any scientific evidence that is contrary to their belief system.
Just started reading “Signature in the Cell” by Stephen Meyer. The background and history of the people involved and the various discoveries related to DNA science is exceptional. Also the connections between DNA and digital information theory are clearly explained. A little tough going, but absolutely and completely spellbinding....due mainly to its having been written like a mystery novel. I’ve read a lot of books in my life and only a very few of them have left me in that “stunned daze” of thought when you put it down for a while. Regardless of whether you’re an evolutionist or an ID type, this is terrific writing. See you....I’m going back to the book.
2nd paragraph: This sentence should read:
Evolutionists evaluate the evidence in terms of a pre-conceived worldview based on (the impossibility) of SUPERNATURALISM.
I’ve enjoyed Signature In the Cell too. Not far along in it, only about 110 pages in a long book. Every school child, at least in high school and up, should read this book.
So go ahead, provide such evolution-disproving evidence. So far we get quackery mixed with ignorance.
“The facts are interpreted in terms of their necessary materialistic paradigm. This isn’t my opinion; it’s what evolutionists claim for themselves. Richard Lewontin is honest enough to admit that for an evolutionist, ‘materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.’”
C’mon, no scientist can allow a Divine Foot in the door when trying to interpret data. If they let in the possibility of supernatural influence, it’s no longer science. Science looks for natural explanations. They can’t allow for the possibility of witchcraft, sorcery or miracles. They might personally believe in the possibility of Divine intervention, but it can’t be part of their hypotheses, because it can’t be tested by others repeating the experiment.
Sounds sort of like Russell's celestial teapot in reverse.
“They might personally believe in the possibility of Divine intervention, but it can’t be part of their hypotheses, because it can’t be tested by others repeating the experiment.”
This can be said about a lot of the historical sciences where past events are assumed and evaluated based on their ability to explain what is observed. Hard to test and repeat the big bang. Yet they are still considered science. Is there an explanatory cause that has been observed to produce origin of information?
The problem with any historical, and especially, pre-historical science, is that nothing in the hypothesis of events can be DIRECTLY subject to repetitive experiment. History or time, by its nature, is unrepeatable—even if we can discern cycles and patterns within it.
This is one reason why the author of this article is so critical...as ardent evolutionists such as the Leakeys, embrace their hypotheses as much by faith, as the most religious creationist. Yes, the fossils are there—but we cannot prove what happened....except by interpreting the data...and the supposed mechanisms hypothesized of evolution in the distant past are unrepeatable—and unless you invent a time-machine—are not subject to direct observation.
Chemical interactions are—and hence chemistry is a direct science—paleantology and anthropology however are not—they do not have the ability to directly observe, and repeat experiments on their prime subject—events from unimaginably long periods of time ago.
Logically, its impossible to prove a negative....as that would require God-like comprehensive knowledge. (Prove for example “there is no gold in Alaska”—you couldn’t unless you examined every molecule of the state....). Similarly, it is impossible to disprove evolution....just as it is impossible to disprove intelligent design is behind it all.
It is true that once a divine foot in the door is allowed—scientific observation ends...or, more accurately, the lack of comprehensive knowledge must be admitted....and that requires a realistic common sense attitude of humility. Scientism won’t admit this, as scientism is a faith of religious, comprehensive, dimension every bit as much as Christianity is.
When it all comes down to it, faith in God, or faith in nothing...as Creator, the cause behind all causes, is a choice.
"An outright falsification of history." The genesis of Martin Luther’s alleged anti-CopernicanismMartin Luther has been severely criticized for an offhand remark about Copernicus. In the most frequently cited version of this statement, Luther is alledged to have branded Copernicus as a fool who will turn the whole science of Astronomy upside down. This disparaging judgment on Luther prevails in many publications by respected historians of science of the 20th century, although since the early thirties, it has been convincingly demonstrated that the famous citation from Luther's table talk is next to worthless as an historical source, that Luther never referred to Copernicus or to the heliocentric world system in all of his voluminous writings, and that there is no indication that Luther ever suppressed the Copernican viewpoint. His attitude towards Copernicus was indifference or ignorance, but not hostility. In this paper, it is shown that the story of Luther's anti-Copernicanism emerged in the second half of the 19th century. It was invented by Franz Beckmann and Franz Hipler, two Prussian Catholic historians who were engaged in the conflict between the German government under Bismarck and the Catholic Church (Kulturkampf), and it was disseminated by influential German and American historians like Leopold Prowe, Ernst Zinner, and Andrew D. White. In the second half of the 20th century, many historians of science relied on the authority of these authors, rather than studying the sources or the secondary literature in which it has been proved that Luther's anti- Copernicanism is an outright falsification of history.
So what evidence do you have that the earth is 4 billion years old?
Isotope dating along with stratigraphic analysis.
E.g. ???
http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/351/351-182.htm
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/Unit3/response.html
http://infao5501.ag5.mpi-sb.mpg.de:8080/topx/archive?link=Wikipedia-Lip6-2/244588.xml&style
How does repeating (three times) the same unverified and unsubstantiated quote (without attribution) confirm your opinion?
Speak for yourself, Cheeta.
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