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Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
The American Prowler ^ | 11/24/04 | Hunter Baker

Posted on 11/24/2004 11:20:27 AM PST by neoconsareright

WACO, Texas -- At one time, the debate over Darwin's theory existed as a cartoon in the modern imagination. Thanks to popular portrayals of the Scopes Trial, secularists regularly reviewed the happy image of Clarence Darrow goading William Jennings Bryan into agreeing to be examined as an expert witness on the Bible and then taking him apart on the stand.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: crevolist; darwin
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To: Junior

Why is it that no one is actually answering to the facts I post, instead, come up with some other "well what about this" issue?


201 posted on 11/24/2004 2:27:26 PM PST by go_W_go
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To: VadeRetro
You're doing a lawyer's game with the taxa, where everything in the bird bin is the same as everything else in that bin and everything else is different.

Typing too fast. So much ignorance, so little proof time. Out for a while.

202 posted on 11/24/2004 2:27:36 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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To: VadeRetro

I'm confronting you with the fossil record

Where?

Feduccia isn't a creationist, he just thinks birds diverged from reptiles farther back than do most paleontologists.

Well, at least you got one right. So, paleontologists can't agree... hmmm. SO, since you guys can't agree about anything, I'm to believe all of you???


203 posted on 11/24/2004 2:29:34 PM PST by go_W_go
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To: Labyrinthos

But if you try to present either view as a THEORY just watch the sh*t hit the fan.


204 posted on 11/24/2004 2:30:01 PM PST by GadareneDemoniac
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To: stormingthegatesofhell
Carbon dating is not accurate for things older than about 50,000 years. Scientists are aware of this - that is why your geologist friend probably doesn't use it. 50,000 years is a blink of the eye geologically. It's also what makes your statement misleading. A astronomer may not use a microscope but it doesn't mean that its not a great tool for the right purpose.

Here is a link describing your 27,000 year old snail. The problem is known and accounted for. Carbon dating is never used by itself and is always cross referenced with other dating techniques. link

205 posted on 11/24/2004 2:31:15 PM PST by JeffAtlanta
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To: VadeRetro

I'm out too...

Have a great Thanksgiving...

I've enjoyed the debate. Another time


206 posted on 11/24/2004 2:31:24 PM PST by go_W_go
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To: The Bard
You still don't understand the scientific meaning of the word "theory". Looking it up in a dictionary isn't going to help. Look it up in a science textbook and see what it really is.

Tell me this, can a scientific theory ever be proved? If so, what does it become?

207 posted on 11/24/2004 2:34:21 PM PST by JeffAtlanta
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To: go_W_go
I decided to Google "Alan Feduccia" and discovered you haven't been quite straightforward about his views.  To wit, he believes birds came from thecondonts and not therapods:
Alan Feduccia is a paleornithologist and S. K. Henniger Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His areas of research include avian phylogeny and origins, and the evolutionary history of the paleognathous palate.

Feduccia has authored two popular works, The Age of Birds (1980) and The Origin and Evolution of Birds (1996, 1999), detailing his advocacy of "thecodont" origin for Aves. Feduccia's work has been sharply criticized for its vitriolic and often unwarranted attacks on the theropod origin hypothesis, and Feduccia is held in little regard amongst dinosaur paleontologists. Nevertheless, Feduccia has carried out some fascinating and careful research, notable examples being his isolation of the structure of the stapes as a tool in deciphering the phylogeny of higher taxa within crown clade Aves, and his work on the early evolution of Neornithes. In recent years Feduccia has concentrated extensively on investigating the digital identity and manal homologies of birds and theropods, producing conclusive evidence that the manus of birds develops from the second, third and fourth anlagen, which Feduccia and several of his colleagues have argued equates the digits of birds to II, III, and IV as opposed to I, II, and III.

JGK


208 posted on 11/24/2004 2:34:51 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: JeffAtlanta

If Darwinism is true, then how can you explain these anomalies:
Michael Moore
Barbra Streisand
Alex Baldwin?

HuH? Got you there.

And if the eye evolved, howcome glasses didn't evolve with them? Why?

And if you see a turtle sitting on the top of a fence post, why do you have to assume that it climbed up there by itself?

The logic is unassailable.


209 posted on 11/24/2004 2:44:43 PM PST by JusPasenThru (Reality is for people who can't handle Free Republic.)
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To: JeffAtlanta
Tell me this, can a scientific theory ever be proved? If so, what does it become?

I am not a scientist, so again I defer to my old science teacher who said "A Scientific theory can be proven once it can be duplicated."

Pasteur's experiments can be duplicated, and if the same steps are followed, each time you will receive the same results (and his findings blow a hole in the idea of spontaneous generation).

210 posted on 11/24/2004 2:51:20 PM PST by The Bard (http://www.reflectupon.com/)
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To: go_W_go
"You don't want to prove your point, you just like to be on the opposing side of the argument. I used to be that way too."

So why don't YOU show how "intelligent design" has successfully predicted ANY scientific discovery or piece of data. Evolutionary theory has and continues to do so.

It's up to the "challenger" theory to prove itself. Evolution is accepted science.

211 posted on 11/24/2004 2:55:17 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: JusPasenThru
And if the eye evolved, howcome glasses didn't evolve with them?

Which evolved first, the penis or the vagina? Why was it retained until its counterpart evolved, no doubt thousands or millions of generations later?

212 posted on 11/24/2004 3:03:01 PM PST by Still Thinking
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To: Wonder Warthog

Um, belief in cration predated belief in evolution by, oh, I'd say, 5884 years. Evolution is in fact the challenger theory.


213 posted on 11/24/2004 3:05:33 PM PST by Still Thinking
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To: stormingthegatesofhell
DU is www.designeduniverse.com.

As to the prior question, please indulge me and cite you literal interpretation requirements in the bible.

214 posted on 11/24/2004 3:12:39 PM PST by Shryke
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To: Still Thinking
"Um, belief in cration predated belief in evolution by, oh, I'd say, 5884 years. Evolution is in fact the challenger theory."

Nope. One is scientific theory, the other is religious theory. That is the whole point---creationists continually try to infuse religion into science. Religion is OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS of science. The minute you say "creator", you have moved outside of science, from physics to metaphysics. You (and I) are free to believe anything we wish, but those beliefs are NOT science. My own personal "belief" is that God created the universe as it exists today, and evolution is one of the tools by which he did so. But that belief is NOT a valid scientific one.

And exactly WHICH "belief in creation" are you referring to?? The Chinese, Bablyonian, American Indian, Aztec??? They are all different.

215 posted on 11/24/2004 3:20:20 PM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: Wonder Warthog

Nevertheless, they are both systems of belief about how we got to where we are now, which are compatible to a degree and divergent to a degree. If you are suggesting that the existence of a creator is beyond the scope of rational reasoned debate, we will have to agree to disagree. What do you mean when you say that evolution is a tool used by God in the creation of the universe? If evolution proceeded as usually described, why would man have chanced to evolve into "God's image"?


216 posted on 11/24/2004 3:26:43 PM PST by Still Thinking
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To: dmz
Can you point me to chapter and verse in Darwin's "Origin of the Species" in which Darwin makes the claim that the species from which others evolve must necessarily die out?

No, but I can point you to his book and instruct you to actually read it. Darwin himself was not sure of his theory, and in fact Darwinism has been rejected by most scientists. Neo-Darwinism reigned for a short time and now there is the theory of Punctuated equilibrium. This is also known as the hopeful monster theory. They keep changing the rules for evolution because they can't prove it happened, so they change the theory and try to manufacture more "facts" to fit the theory. I am not religious, I am however a right wing conservative and I have strong doubts about evolution. As to peoples saying that a species doesn't have to die out to evolve, it only takes the IQ of a 2 year old to realize that all of a species must upgrade or they won't survive. "IF" evolution is true then there would be no apes or other species that supposedly upgraded to a better species. There are no transitional species, they have all been proven fake or mistakes, and this is why evolutionists ( the real ones, the scientists) are scrambling and changing the theory every 50 or so years to fit the fossils they find while at the same time still touting Darwinisim to the people. Get an open mind and look at both sides. Explain the cambrian explosian if you will, why all the life is such a short time, well developed and fully formed with no species behind them to explain their existence. This has never been explained by anyone and most evolutionists gave up trying because it makes them look bad. Also, no one has yet explained or proven how life actually started and this is the big kicker against darwinisim. The primordial soup crap has not proven out. Life did not start that way but of course evolutionists have chosen to ignore that too and set it aside because it doesn't fit with their theories. In short, evolutionists are much like liberals, they will lie, cheat and manufacture evidence to show that they are right, because they must be. There is just to much evidence against evolution and it keeps growing. I will keep an open mind until things change. I am not religious and don't attend church and have my doubts about an all powerful God, but at the same time I do not buy into evolution with the evidence that is available now, the real evidence not the stuff shoved onto us, by guess who?, the MSM and liberal scientists.

217 posted on 11/24/2004 4:24:04 PM PST by calex59
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To: Still Thinking

Doesn't have to do with belief, it has to do with evidence.


218 posted on 11/24/2004 4:49:01 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: Still Thinking
Which evolved first, the penis or the vagina? Why was it retained until its counterpart evolved, no doubt thousands or millions of generations later?

There is strong evidence the first multicellar sexual critters were hermaphroditic (some simple multicellulars still are). Over generations, some began to specialize, as it were.

219 posted on 11/24/2004 4:50:24 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: calex59
Darwin himself was not sure of his theory, and in fact Darwinism has been rejected by most scientists. Neo-Darwinism reigned for a short time and now there is the theory of Punctuated equilibrium.

"Darwinism" has not been rejected by most scientists. Punctuated eqilibrium was actually predicted by Darwin and does not refute evolution, but simply modifies it under certain circumstances. If you got your science from other than creationist sources you'd know this.

220 posted on 11/24/2004 4:53:35 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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