Posted on 01/13/2002 8:47:59 AM PST by aculeus
He was the originator of the most dangerous idea in history. He disenfranchised God as our creator and revealed the animal origins of humanity. Many believe his influence was pernicious and evil.
But now a campaign has been launched to establish an international day of celebration on 12 February: birthday of Charles Darwin, author of the theory of evolution by natural selection.
'Along with Shakespeare and Newton, Darwin is our greatest gift to the world,' said Richard Dawkins, honorary president of the Darwin Day Organisation. 'He was our greatest thinker. Any campaign to recognise his greatness should have a significant British contribution.'
The Darwin campaign was launched by US activists two years ago to resist the anti-evolution campaigning of fundamental Christians. Now the aim is to create global celebrations by 2009, the bicentennial of his birthday.
'We have little chance of getting a national holiday for Darwin in the US - there is far too much anti-science and pseudoscience,' said project organiser Amanda Chesworth.'We are more likely to get one established in Europe, particularly in Britain, his birthplace.'
Celebrations will include seminars and lectures, and the showing of films and plays on Darwin's life, though other ideas include an atheist giving Radio 4's Thought for the Day, and a lesson on evolution being preached at Westminster Abbey. 'I'd do it like a shot,' said Dawkins.
Darwin was originally religious. He saw nature's diversity as proof of God's existence. Only a divine creator could be responsible for such marvels, it was then thought. But, after travelling the world in the Beagle, and after years of thought and experiment at his Down House home in Kent, he concluded that natural selection offered a better explanation.
Life forms better suited to their environments live longer and so have more offspring, thus triggering an evolution of species moving into new ecological niches. As philosopher Daniel Dennett said, it was 'the single best idea anyone has ever had... ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else.'
It is also remarkably simple. 'You can explain natural selection to a teenager,' said UK biologist John Maynard Smith. 'You have difficulty with Newton and little chance with Einstein. Yet Darwin's idea is the most profound. It still haunts us.'
Nor is opposition to Darwin confined to religious figures. Sociologists, psychologists and others involved in social policy hate natural selection, said Maynard Smith. 'They deny human behaviour is influenced by genes and evolution. They want to believe we are isolated from the animal kingdom. It is damaging, intellectual laziness. That is why we need a Darwin Day.
This point was backed by biologist Steve Jones. 'If you look at Africa, US fundamentalism, and the Muslim world, you realise evolution supporters are outnumbered by creationists. Yet these are people who have deliberately chosen to be ignorant. They are flat-Earthers without the sophistication. We need a Darwin Day to counter that ignorance.'
Lots of them at NASA too. :(
Well, not to throw wrench in the tangled mess you regard as a "logic process" but:
Daniel Dennett is an atheist. (ie. moron)
7 posted on 1/13/02 10:01 AM Pacific by Exnihilo
...seems to me that YOU'RE the jerk that kicked off the snide remarks in this thread.
Yeah, and astrology is no more bogus than astronomy. Oh, wait ... one is based upon superstition and one is based upon empirical evidence. hmmm
Have to agree. Creationists are like Marxists. They can be very smart. But they are very wrong.
You've got them mixed up. Copernicus was first. He didn't get into trouble, because his work was merely mathematical, and was no threat to scripture. Galileo used a telescope, saw the actual evidence for the solar system, wrote De Revolutionibus, and then was locked up by the Inquisition for the remainder of his life.
Heresy charges against Galileo and Galileo's confession. For teaching about the solar system.
Faith can never conflict with reason. Pope John Paul II's statement on Galileo in 1992.
The Pope's 1996 statement on evolution (about 330 years after Galileo died under house arrest).
We're still waiting for all the intermediate species to be found in the fossile records. Better keep digging.
46 posted on 1/13/02 12:23 PM Pacific by jlogajan
Amazing...how so?
With only two slight differences. We weren't responsible for the murder of 100 million people over the past century and we don't don't believe in evolution.
Oh, but we did excommunicate a few people from the church 500 years ago. Oh, the horror, the inhumanity of it all. Will you ever forgive us? Please?
Two cups of milk, two scoops of monkey ...
Because the sun is shining. Perhaps you could tell us about the 1st and 3d laws of thermodynamics while you're at it.
Or why the evolutionist refuse to acknowledge intelligent design. Or better yet, just refute the math of intelligent design.
I can use better math to obtain an even more abusrd conclusion than ID. I shall now prove that I am Marilyn Monroe:
1. All humans are divided into two classes, Marilyn and all others.
2. The number of members of the class of Marilyn is ONE.
3. The number of members of the class of PatrickHenry is ONE.
4. Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. 5. One equals one.
6. Ergo ... I am Marilyn Monroe!
For my next trick, I'll prove Intelligent Design. Ain't math wonderful?
You are clearly like those ignorant third world people, who believe Americans are arrogant, simply because they are educated. If you truly believed God created the Universe, you would be using the intelligence God gave you to examine his creation, and thereby learn directly from the hand of God, instead of some man made book, no matter how divinely inspired. The truism "Actions speak louder than words" comes to mind when I think of all those Creationists out there, who can hear the words of bible, but not the hand of God in the world around them. If God had wanted us to be ignorant animals, he wouldn't have given us the intelligence with which to appretiate his wonderful creation. Those people out there who think they are close to God because they have studied some book are wrong. It's scientists who are the closest to God, who have studied his creation, and are continually struck with awe at it's elegance. It's scientists like Darwin, who realise how little we really know, and the arrogant Creationists who think they have all the answers. When you fail to use the intelligence God gave you, to question the world around you, you spit on God's creation.
This from someone who throws out bigoted one-liners and then flees when asked to defend his tripe.
He speculated man would reach the point of his destiny on a frozen field in the middle of winter---not the thaw---spring break...yeah April fools---DARWIN!
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