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There are valid criticisms of evolution
Wichita Eagle ^ | 3/9/2005 | David berlinski

Posted on 03/09/2005 1:46:32 PM PST by metacognative

Opinions

There are valid criticisms of evolution

BY DAVID BERLINSKI

"If scientists do not oppose anti-evolutionism," said Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Council on Science Education, "it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak."

Scott's understanding of "opposition" had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates."

Everyone else had better shut up.

In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin's theory retains an almost lunatic vitality. Consider:

• The suggestion that Darwin's theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences -- quantum electrodynamics, say -- is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to 13 unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.

• Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak-to-nonexistent selection effects.

• Darwin's theory is open at one end, because there is no plausible account for the origins of life.

• The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.

• A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors, and depart leaving no obvious descendants.

• Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful.

• Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing.

• The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives -- differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?

If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory, since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?

These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested.

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TOPICS: Philosophy
KEYWORDS: crevolist; darwinism; science
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To: Mongeaux; Alamo-Girl

The people he created WERE younger than the rocks.

And who knows what time means at the early stages of creation after all matter/energy/pulse/photon/etc. was flung out at enormous speeds and distances.


101 posted on 03/09/2005 3:06:24 PM PST by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of it!)
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To: VadeRetro

Are you smarter than a blind, deaf and dumb dude with a zero IQ?


102 posted on 03/09/2005 3:06:46 PM PST by bondserv (Sincerity with God is the most powerful instigator for change! † [Check out my profile page])
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To: metacognative

but you see, dear metacognitive, he is their God


103 posted on 03/09/2005 3:07:54 PM PST by D Edmund Joaquin (Mayor of Jesusland)
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To: metacognative
His name is John Marburger and he was speaking at a conference of some sort. Patrick Henry posted a link to it a month or so ago. I'll try to find it.

Don't pin your hopes on ID, it is doomed to fail. I'm not saying that with glee or malice. If ID begins to get a few judicial victories under its belt, the scientific community will wake up and squash it. The reason they will squash it is because ID has no basis in science. To force through the courts, something that scientists and biology instructors do not accept goes against academic freedom. In no other academic field would it be acceptable for untrained outsiders to force the professional insiders how to teach their field of study. The inmates cannot run the asylum.

There is no conflict between evolution and a belief in God. There are more effective way's to combat the moral and cultural relativism of the left than through ID.

104 posted on 03/09/2005 3:08:23 PM PST by ValenB4
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To: bondserv

Speaking of which - who's watching Rather in a few minutes? I got TEN BUCKS says he starts crying or foaming at the mouth! Any takers?


105 posted on 03/09/2005 3:08:40 PM PST by Mongeaux
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To: xzins; Mongeaux; Alamo-Girl

For God, stretching light across billions of light years of space, is like us stroking a brush across a paint canvas.


106 posted on 03/09/2005 3:09:48 PM PST by bondserv (Sincerity with God is the most powerful instigator for change! † [Check out my profile page])
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To: bondserv

I can't tell if you mean Gish, Morris, Sarfati, Hovind, or that sneering jerk who writes Creation/Evolution Headlines.


107 posted on 03/09/2005 3:10:34 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: antiRepublicrat

Your definition of a 'scientific theory' includes a theory that can't be proved false and explains everything!
Darwinism is a philosophy developed to push God out and continues to attract adherents from a small minority with fantasies of magical alchemy.


108 posted on 03/09/2005 3:10:58 PM PST by metacognative (eschew obfuscation)
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To: bondserv

Does he sure play a mean pinball?


109 posted on 03/09/2005 3:11:11 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Conspiracy Guy
So, the fact that scientists can't make an elephant out of a one celled organism is evidence that evolution is bunk. Gotcha.
They're not alchemists or magicians.

Your equation of randomness = evolution is false too. Natural selection is anti-random; if it were random than it wouldn't matter what the organism's genes were, each individual would have an equal chance of survival.
Natural selection says that that is not true. Given that it is a fact that populations in a species vary from individual to individual, and that this variation is inherited from generation to generation to a large degree (some of the variation is due to the environment and is not inherited), and granted that it is also a fact that there is a struggle for existence and a scarcity of resource's(some individuals in a population are better adapted to that population's environment than others) and therefore the individuals better adapted to their environment will have a better chance (not certainty mind you, but chance) of passing their genes on to the next generation; granted this(and I don't see how anybody can really deny these points) the only logical conclusion is that these populations will change over time.
How fast they change is what evolutionists are debating; ID isn't necessary.
110 posted on 03/09/2005 3:11:59 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman
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To: bondserv

"For God, stretching light across billions of light years of space, is like us stroking a brush across a paint canvas."

Yeah but can he make a brush so big he can't paint with it?

LOGIC - gets em every time!


111 posted on 03/09/2005 3:12:07 PM PST by Mongeaux
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To: shubi

Don't miss the march of the pinheads!


112 posted on 03/09/2005 3:12:55 PM PST by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: metacognative

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1348598/posts

Found it.


113 posted on 03/09/2005 3:13:40 PM PST by ValenB4
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To: dirtboy

Couldn't piles of mud heap thousands of feet in a year of catastrophe?


114 posted on 03/09/2005 3:13:50 PM PST by metacognative (eschew obfuscation)
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To: VadeRetro
Does he sure play a mean pinball?

HAH, HAH.....

Good one! Your to quick my friend.

115 posted on 03/09/2005 3:13:50 PM PST by bondserv (Sincerity with God is the most powerful instigator for change! † [Check out my profile page])
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To: Conspiracy Guy

Maybe some day. Humans have only been practicing science for a very short time.


116 posted on 03/09/2005 3:16:18 PM PST by mellyK
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To: bondserv
Are you smarter than a blind, deaf and dumb dude with a zero IQ?

Is that you, Tommy?

117 posted on 03/09/2005 3:17:07 PM PST by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: D Edmund Joaquin

Weren't these evo-cultists warned not to have other gods?


118 posted on 03/09/2005 3:17:07 PM PST by metacognative (eschew obfuscation)
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To: Mongeaux
LOGIC - gets em every time!

I will answer your question with a question.

Where did matter come from?

The answer to your question must wait until you can ask God directly. He didn't cover that topic in His message to us.

119 posted on 03/09/2005 3:17:10 PM PST by bondserv (Sincerity with God is the most powerful instigator for change! † [Check out my profile page])
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To: VadeRetro
You are quite mistaken. I have never doubted that evolution takes place. What you are ignorant of is that science has NOT found a mechanism for evolution. It happens, whole species change or branch off from the sea to land and vica versa. But the mechanism? Absolutely unknown. You think that all the sea otters that didn't go in the water had all their litters and just by random births the ones that went on and survived better became water adapted. Why? You think there is no why, it is just "mutations." Something goes wrong genetically, this otter has three heads and no eyes and dies, but this one's feet are webbed and it goes on to become a great success. Why would nature cause mutations that lead to ever more complex and survivable and intelligent forms of nature? You want to believe it's just random stuff happening in cells with no plan behind it. Life itself makes no sense from this perspective. Why should nature even produce life? This all leads to the scientist's view taht living things are just randomly constructed hunks of inanimate mechanical matter. And likewise their ability to observe and think about the World is just a randomly arrived at construct. Why? Why does nature care if species survive and adapt? If nature doesn't "care" then why does it happen?

There is an inate plan or design being carried out. That is as obvious as your observations of evolutionary change. Science does not understand the mechanism, much less the reason for these changes.

120 posted on 03/09/2005 3:17:46 PM PST by Williams
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