Fact is, this theory is under attack (Evolution Revolution Alert)

Baltimoresun.com ^ | 5 Feb 2005 | Arthur Hirsch

[gobucks]

ELKTON - Charles Darwin and his intellectual descendants have taken a lashing here lately.

With the Cecil County Board of Education about to vote on a new high school biology textbook, some school board members are asking whether students should be taught that the theory of evolution, a fundamental tenet of modern science, falls short of explaining how life on Earth took shape.

*snip*

The politically conservative county of about 90,000 people bordering Pennsylvania and Delaware is joining communities around the country that are publicly stirring this stew of science, education and faith.

*snip*

At the Board of Education's regular monthly meeting Feb. 14, the five voting board members are scheduled to decide whether to accept the new edition of the book and might discuss Herold's call for new anti-evolution materials in addition to the book.

*snip*

The consensus in mainstream science, represented in such organizations as the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History, was, in effect, captured in 31 pages of text and illustrations published in November in National Geographic magazine. In big red letters, the magazine cover asks: "WAS DARWIN WRONG?" In bigger letters inside, the answer is: "NO. The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming."

*snip*

Joel Cracraft, immediate past president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, compared the scientific agreement on evolutionary theory to "the Earth revolving around the sun."

*snip*

Then there's the matter of teaching the meaning and method of good science.

"The issue is science," Roberts said. "What is science, and, if there's a conflicting view, does it meet the rigor of science we're seeking?"

[FastCoyote]

In fact, I've never heard of one confirmed atheistic evolutionist attack abortion on demand.

But I (for example) am a non-atheistic evolutionist who believes abortion is an abomination. So I have just put the lie to your generalization.

[ValenB4]

"No, the Word was with God in the beginning, before Creation"

What good did the Word serve before the existance of humans, before anyone was around to appreciate it? The Word exists because of the human mind's ability to either perceive it (as one would believe if religious) or create it (as one who is irreligious would believe).

[festus]

Smallpox was around way longer than Pasteur, but the Germ Theory of Disease has displaced previous explanations for microbe-caused disease.

True but you don't want to go around displacing God. He's a might big guy and you don't want to get him mad at ya.

[gobucks]

..."but most notably from the imperative toward preservation and advancement of humanity (i.e., the species)."

Human rights are entitled to us from this? By what exactly?

[gobucks]

Emma was the wife. Annie, died at 10 years of age, his daughter.

Evidently, it was that event that turned him away from God. She was 10. Virtually no one writes about this aspect of what 'drove' him.

[pharmamom]

The moral nature of people doesn't change. You didn't read very carefully what I wrote. The nature of human inquiry does change--for instance, we are not nearly so concerned with the minutiae of theology as were theologians in the 14th and 15th centuries. Just as none of them wondered about how someone got either brown or blue eyes.

The Torah does not attempt to explain how God created--it just says he made it and there it is.

And you, in turn, attack those who do not conflate science and theology.

[FastCoyote]

"Thus, usable energy is irretrievably lost in the form of unusable energy.
Am I and numerous others reading it wrong?? "

Yes, you are reading it wrong because you don't believe in educating yourself. The second law applies to closed systems, not open systems with outside sources of energy (the sun) and a heat sink (the universe at 4 degrees).

The second law is extremely useful in experimental situations where you are trying to measure the changes in state. But an automobile engine would melt down in a closed system, it needs a radiator, a replenished O2 source, a replensihed fuel source, an exhaust pipe. Cut those things off and you've got NOTHING.

Nothing, sort of like your theory than evolution is happening in a closed bottle. This is such a major error on your part that it makes you look like a fool to people who know thermodynamics.

[Fester Chugabrew]

The important thing is to show the lurking world that conservatism isn't the same thing as belonging to the Flat Earth Society . . .

Seems to me people who adhere to the notion that all of creation is guided by little, if nothing, more than natural selection are the current "flat earthers." Give it another 150 years and maybe the ahderents of the philosophy of evolution will catch up with a few ancient Greeks who knew better.

Otherwise, it may not make sense to stick to a philosophy when evidence points to a contrary reality, but all ideas are welcome in this great country, even those of "flat earthers." If they could just learn to keep their philosophy where it belongs, then life would be more tolerable for all of us.

Furthermore there is nothing progressive, or useful, about the philosophy of evolution, no matter how much it would like to dress itself up as a "theory." Conservatism, like pure science, can get along just fine without it.

[Smartaleck]

"This thread looks pretty hopeless so far to me, but good luck!"

Aren't they all? LOL

Reminds me of when my kids were small and childish....is too, is not, is too, is not...

[js1138]

That is why Emma Darwin's death at a young age is never, ever discussed, nor its impact on Charles. Lies of omission are far worse than lies comission.

You posted on this thread, so why are you lying about this? You simply have no moral integrity at all, and don't even mind getting caught. For the record, Darwin's daughter is mentioned in all major biographies, and was the subject of quite a bit of back and forth on the Escape From God thread.

[LionsDaughter]

First off, the fact that there were dinosaurs is hardly a hole in Creation Theory.

Second, the existence of fossils is hardly a hole in Creation Theory.

Third, the Bible doesn't go into a lot of details about what was going to happen to certain animals(like, say, dinosaurs) after they were created. That a bunch of lizards got themselves fossilized just didn't affect history enough for it to need to be written down.

[FastCoyote]

"So, the poor creature would have limbs too long for running and too short for flying. It would flop helplessly and soon become extinct."

Could you then explain to me why whales have vestigial hips and legs, and there are fossils of whales with more fully formed limbs? I'll wait patiently.

[ValenB4]

More interesting, by far, is the story of Darwin's daughter, Emma. The role of her life, and death at a very young age, in the formation of the natural selection part of Darwin's theory is little discussed.

In school, little Emma wasn't worthy of discussion when I was young. Little wonder why ...

That doesn't make any sense. What possible role would the aspects of any particular person's life have in the formation of a scientific theory?

But your reasoning is flawed in another way. Natural Selection works in the raw state of nature. Human beings have the intelligence and ability to make tools and the ability to master the environment. Because humans are frail things that could not survive in nature alone as individuals, altruism and cooperation are traits that are selected for. Furthermore, because we do not have to dedicate our entire existance towards feeding and mating, we have the capacity to create a culture. We have the capacity to think abstractly and develop ethical systems.

So although human beings are animals that evolved biologically in nature, we stand apart from nature. We transcend nature. We are glad to care for the poor and the handicapped - because we have evolved the capacity and will to do so. The benefits of altruism and compassion outweigh whatever problems stem from retaining bad genes in the gene pool. Thank God. That is why people viscerally react in a negative manner to genocide and eugenics.

Darwin's daughter isn't brought up because to do so is irrelevant to the theory. To make such a complaint is foolish. It would be similar, in a discussion of Einstein's theories, to note that he had married a cousin.

[Dimensio]

You referred to an 'incurable dishonesty'.

I speculated upon an 'incurable dishonesty', in reference to the 'dishonest' subset of the total group 'creationists'. I also posited another possibility.

As if folks who believe that Christ rose from the dead are diseased.

I never suggested any such thing, you liar.

[js1138]

GOBUCKS: "That is why Emma Darwin's death at a young age is never, ever discussed, nor its impact on Charles. Lies of omission are far worse than lies comission."

Sorry, but the daughter was discussed on this thread, and one of the posts was YOU.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1333962/posts?page=9#9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1333962/posts?page=12#12
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1333962/posts?page=40#40
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1333962/posts?page=41#41

I started that series of posts. Where do you think I got the information? Not from a creationist website, certainly. It was from the standard, most widely read biography. This biography, by the way, is the source of some really great fabrications posted on many creationist websites, including one famous "quote" cronstructed from sentence fragments from two separate letters by Darwin.

[mlc9852]

Why would you thank me?

[NDGG]

So are you claiming that whales have evolved into a higher organism than those that have vestigial hips and legs? Will we some day become whales?
The overwhelming pattern is that organisms appear fully fuormed in fossil records, with variations clustered around a mean, and without transitional stages leading up to them. The fossil record as a whole gives persuasive evidence against Darwinism.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Third, the Bible doesn't go into a lot of details about what was going to happen to certain animals(like, say, dinosaurs) after they were created.

OK. So the Jews did not know about dinosaurs, so they didn't include them in the Bible. Well, they thought it important to list all sorts of animals local to the Mideast that boarded Noah's Ark. Why didn't they list all the animals from the Americas, Australia, and the far reaches of Africa, Europe, and Africa? Certainly, if the world was flooded in the Mideast, it must have been so for the rest of the world. How did these animals survive as well as aboriginals

I find Creation logic on par with that of Heroin addicts, incomprehensible.

[ValenB4]

Morals. That's the answer to understanding this whole picture. Most die hard evolutionists know that at root, ToE, gives a free pass for all 'immoral' acts, especially sexual ones. How? By using 'science' to prove via ToE, that the origin of morals themselves must be mythical. The 'Origin of the Species' should be retitled to the 'Origin of the Amoralists'.

Not at all. Evolutionists understand that humans, in the environment in which they evolved, that of the primate and that of the caveman, did not have the luxury of wasting their time and energy on immoral acts.

There is a principle in biology called "form equals function". Homsosexuality and promiscuity tend not to be traits that are favored. Sure, there are the occasional modern day isolated stone age tribes that engage in ritual homosexuality and favor promiscuity. But note that they are still in the stone age, and that fact indicates such behavior isn't evolutionarily positive. To suggest that evolutionists are a bunch of social nihilists and libertines is ludicrous.

Immorality and perversion is the result of settled civilizations, of people with the free time and material luxuries to contemplate performing such acts. It is social Darwinists that we need to be wary of - those who would advocate a society consciously decided to select out certain traits in a population.

It is what you never see them yelling about that gives away what they support. Evolutions never scream 'Abortion is wrong' in any significant numbers. In fact, I've never heard of one confirmed atheistic evolutionist attack abortion on demand.

I am not an atheist but here is an atheistic argument against abortion.

The average lifespan of a human being in the Western world is around 77 years old. A pregnancy only lasts 9 months. Because this life is the only chance we receive to experience consciousness, we should give every human being the opportunity to experience it. We are very good at asking people to make sacrifices destructive things for taxes, for material things, and for war. But we are hesitant to ask women to sacrifice 9 months in order to allow an individual to live 77 years.

[AntiGuv]

By us, or more precisely by human value-judgment, which is a product of human nature, which has been determined by human evolution. Less abstractly, your human rights are entitled to you by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.