The Religious Cult of Evolution Fights Back

I predict this thread will exceed 800 posts.

~~You're on!~~

OK, never mind!

VadeRetro wrote:

I have been posting refutations of creo nonsense on this forum since early 1999. The regulars just come back again with the same crap, trolling for suckers and feigning amnesia of previous threads. They are regularly bombarded with detailed refutations of everything they say every time they go out recruiting. They not only don't accept this material, they somehow do a great imitation of being unfamiliar with same.

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If creation versus evolution really were an issue in science, I wouldn't be as interested in the controversy or so appalled by Creation Science. Science quietly accepted evolution long ago, sometime in the late 19th century. Supposedly Darwin lived long enough (d. 1881) to see much of the shift in professional opinion after 1859. It is the aberrant nature of the evolution deniers that is like the bloody accident scene you can't look at and can't NOT look at.

RussP replies:

And whenever I get into an online discussion of evolution, some evolutionist inevitably pulls this one. He imagines that all the objections to evolution have been thoroughly refuted and that the "dissenters" are just wacky "creatioinists" who believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts. What delusional nonsense.

Oh, and how about this little zinger:

"Science quietly accepted evolution long ago, sometime in the late 19th century."

And you think you know the history? Amazing.

I suggest you read chapter 20 of "Tornado in a Junkyard" by James Perloff. It is called "Good Company," and it lists a truly impressive roster off great scientists who rejected Darwin's naturalistic theory of evolution. It includes names like Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, James Clerk Maxwell, John Ambrose Fleming (inventor of the vacuum tube, and author of a book disputing evolution), Joseph Lister, Samuel Morse, Michael Faraday, Wernher von Braun, Joseph Henry, etc.

Read that chapter and find out what those great scientists said. Learn a little bit about the real history of the theory of evolution and its supposed acceptance by the scientific community.

Is this an "appeal to authority"? I suppose you could call it that, but then so was your arrogant and ignorant assertion that "Science quietly accepted evolution long ago, sometime in the late 19th century."

What is more survivable than micro-organisms?

It's not a matter of something being MORE survivable. Survival is sufficient. It is survival of the fit; not survival of the fittest. Popular and sloppy science writing has burdened evolution with all kinds of baggage.

James Clerk Maxwell was the one who objected based on his calculated maximum age of the sun. He had a pretty good calculation going -- almost as valid as the probability estimates being touted by creationists today.

The math is correct, but the assumptions are wrong.

"James Clerk Maxwell was the one who objected based on his calculated maximum age of the sun. He had a pretty good calculation going -- almost as valid as the probability estimates being touted by creationists today."

Then I guess you could say he was right, but for the wrong reason.

If you are going to "appeal to authority," you can't do much better than James Clerk Maxwell. I suspect that everyone here has heard of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetics.

I suggest you read chapter 20 of "Tornado in a Junkyard" by James Perloff.

If you're getting your science from Perloff, you ain't gettin' any.

Read that chapter and find out what those great scientists said. Learn a little bit about the real history of the theory of evolution and its supposed acceptance by the scientific community.

The theory is what Darwin said, not what Dawkins or Perloff said. You have it wrong, and you're just brazening on the history.

The preponderance of relevant authority flipped in the late 19th century, just when I said. More importantly, the trend only continued as crusty old creationists died in the early 20th century. There has been no comeback for creationism except in pamphleteering and other propaganda.

And don't bother to tell me that there's a secular movement within science called "ID." There's a political movement among creationists called, "Let's lie about who we are and demand to get 'ID' into the classroom."

Then I guess you could say he was right, but for the wrong reason.

You could say that, but you would be wrong.

Then I guess you could say he was right, but for the wrong reason.

All the evidence is that he was wrong.

I predict this thread will exceed 800 posts.

Actully not. The real number of posts is about 6. All the rest are false clues given to us to indicate that the thread is older than it actually is.

If you are going to "appeal to authority," you can't do much better than James Clerk Maxwell. I suspect that everyone here has heard of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetics.

Has everyone here heard that electromagnetism isn't biology or geology?

Learning about evolution from creationist authors and their websites is like learning about history from Oliver Stone.

Picking out the first 3 names on your list of scientists who rejected evolution:

Louis Pasteur rejected abiogenesis which is something different from evolution, on the basis of him being unable to duplicate it experimentally himself. Hardly a conclusive argument since no-one at the time at any idea of the likely early-earth conditions in which abiogenesis might occur.

Lord Kelvin thought that the earth could not be more than 100million years old and therefore there was not enough time for evolution. He was in error because he knew nothing of nuclear processes that keep the earth hot (nuclear fission was not properly understood until Kelvin was an old man. Geologists at the time could not argue with his physics but could see from the physicial evidence of the rocks that he must be wrong.

James Clerk Maxwell, see explanation for Lord Kelvin, but substitute nuclear fusion in the sun for fission in the earth.

Anyone who names these scientists in an anti-evolutionary appeal to authority is either ignorant or a liar. I'll assume ignorance in your case and lies in Perloff's. Keep using those names again every time this argument comes up as they confirm the intellectual poverty of the anti-evolutionary position.

Louis Pasteur rejected abiogenesis which is something different from evolution, on the basis of him being unable to duplicate it experimentally himself.

When creationists cite Pasteur, it's an example of extreme ignorance. Pasteur was dealing with what was then called "spontaneous generation" of mold, maggots, etc. in food. He demonstrated that if the food is kept in airtight containers, these things don't appear, thus demonstrating that such things were airborne contaminants.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the first appearance of life on earth. The creationoid websites that perpetuate this fraud are really low-end scammers.
The Slow Death of Spontaneous Generation.

Do you think there's any analogy between how most scientists came to support evolution and how most professors at major universities came to be leftists?

A professor at UNC recently argued that most profs at prestige universities are leftist because conservatives are too stupid to reach such lofty positions. This was in response to conservative complaints that over 90% of profs at such schools are left-wing.

Is that the case? Or is the leftist dominance of academia the result of years of leftist herding/hiving behavior in which they entrenched themselves? While conservative departmen chairmen were using non-political criteria when it came time to hire or grant tenure, leftists hired and promoted only other leftists. Likewise, leftist journal editors and peer reviewers only approved publication by other leftists. Any remaining conservatives are silenced by howls of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

I mentioned in another thread the recent revolution in psychology, where it has become extremely difficult to argue that homosexuality is abnormal, not because it isn't, but because the homosexual lobby has gained increasing power in the profession. Imagine that you're a young prof trying to get tenure in the psychology field, or trying to get published in a peer reviewed journal. What are your chances if you argue that homosexuality is abnormal and detrimental? Imagine that you're a grad student trying to get your thesis or dissertation approved at Harvard or Yale.

Isn't there an analogy here with how evolution is treated in the academic world? It fits, even right down to many of the same leftist political groups (ACLU, People for the American Way, Barry Lynn's American's United group) being involved.

Could it be that the shift you describe as occurring in the scientific community in the 19th century was more a purging and suppression of dissent by evolutionist scientists during an era in which materialist philosophy was riding high among the elite and educated classes? Over time, it became dogma. Want to graduate? Want to earn your PhD? Want to get hired? Get published? Get tenured? Well, you know what to say, don't you?

People with doubts either keep them to themselves or say something like, "I believe in evolution, but I believe it's guided by God." Is that possibly a way many scientists quietly dissent? The assertion that evolution requires divine intervention is a tangential way of saying that it naturalistically doesn't work.

None of this is a conspiracy. It's just the typical herding/hiving behavior of the left. It's how the left controls all kinds of things, ranging from the National Education Association (NEA) to the National Endowment for the Arts (the other NEA). Leftist control is further propped up by a host of activist groups (ACLU, etc.), a predominately leftist media, and a leftist judiciary. The battles we see over evolution involve classic leftist power plays: Leftist groups demanding a monopoly on dissemination of info. Leftist media backing them up and painting the conservative opposition as a bunch of idiots or extremists. Leftist judges interfering to suppress majority votes by elected officials. Rigged rules of debate (science defined in such a way that only evolution meets the criteria).

So over time leftism becomes entrenched in any area where politics plays any role at all. Scientists are no less subject to this pressure than anyone else. Fifty years ago it would have been hard to find a psychologist who thought homosexuality was normal. Today, one who doesn't will whisper it to you and hope you don't tell his colleagues.

If leftists found that a particular theory about black holes had enormous political consequences benefitting leftism, then within a couple of decades you'd be hard pressed to find a scientist who would openly dispute that theory, no matter how sound it was, if the same effort was put into enshrining it that has been put into protecting evolutionary theory. Scientists are human like the rest of us, and are just as intimidated on average by political correctness.

But in fairness you have to admit that no one has ever observed life emerging from its absence. Evolutionists go out of their way to deny that that issue is relevant to evolutionary theory at all. They avoid a major problem in doing so.

Do you think there's any analogy between how most scientists came to support evolution and how most professors at major universities came to be leftists?

No. Political science ain't science.

A professor at UNC recently argued that most profs at prestige universities are leftist because conservatives are too stupid to reach such lofty positions.

Creationists give people like this ammunition to use against conservatism. Creationists bludgeon with a stream of lies and fallacies. Looks very bad from outside the delusional system. I wish you could see it.

By the way, rather than plow the rest of your obfuscations, do you think the history of life on Earth is subject to your convenience? That if you would prefer it to have been somehow different, your version has a right to be taught?

But in fairness you have to admit that no one has ever observed life emerging from its absence. Evolutionists go out of their way to deny that that issue is relevant to evolutionary theory at all. They avoid a major problem in doing so.

And just what is this "major problem" that biologists are avoiding? And if they stopped avoiding it, what would be better because this "major problem" was no longer around? If biologists devoted all their time and resources to this "problem," and solved it, what then? (Aside from the obvious consequences of halting all medical, agricultural, and pharmaceutical research while the "major problem" was being worked on -- which is research that only biologists do, because creationists never do anything with their "science" except to sell tapes and comic books.) The creationists would look at the solution to the "problem" and do nothing but squawk that the artifical creation of life "proves" intelligent design. I've never yet seen a creationist ask a question that -- when answered -- made any difference in his committment to creationism.

No obfuscations at all. I simply noted how leftism operates and how it's deeply entrenched in the "crevo" wars.

No, I don't think the history of life on earth is subject to my convenience. It's why I'm willing to allow more than one theory to be taught. I've even stated that evolution may be true. I doubt it, but I can't say it's untrue with anything near 100% certainty.

Are you willing to say that there's a chance evolution isn't true?

It's interesting that many of the great scientists of the past, including Newton & Darwin, believed in God but put forth concepts which unintentionally feuled atheism (clockwork universe, evolution...). Today we have a lot of scientists who may not be particularly religious, or may even be atheists, who are putting forth ideas in quantum theory and other fields that are feuling a belief in God. Kind of interesting how science is always moving. That's why it may not be wise to latch on to any theory as dogma and declare it to be inviolable.

I simply noted how leftism operates and how it's deeply entrenched in the "crevo" wars.

It is deeply entrenched indeed! When a creationist has nothing substantive to say, he babbles something about all evolutionists being leftists. (But sometimes it's Nazis.) This knee-jerk lie seems to be "deeply entrenched" in the creationiod brain.