Posted on 04/15/2006 11:44:16 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Posted: April 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
I suggested here last week that the established authorities of every age act consistently. They become vigilantly militant against non-conforming dissidents who challenge their assumptions.
Thus when the dissident Galileo challenged the assumptions of the 17th century papacy, it shut him up. Now when the advocates of "intelligent design" challenge the scientific establishment's assumptions about "natural selection," it moves aggressively to shut them up. So the I.D. people have this in common with Galileo.
I received a dozen letters on this, three in mild agreement, the rest in scorn and outrage. This calls for a response.
Where, one reader demanded, did I get the information that 10 percent of scientists accept intelligent design? I got it from a National Post (newspaper) article published two years ago, which said that 90 percent of the members of the National Academy of Science "consider themselves atheists." Since if you're not an atheist, you allow for the possibility of a Mind or Intelligence behind nature, this puts 10 percent in the I.D. camp.
I could have gone further. A survey last year by Rice University, financed by the Templeton Foundation, found that about two-thirds of scientists believed in God. A poll published by Gallup in 1997 asked: Do you believe that "man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation?" – essentially the I.D. position. Just under 40 percent of scientists said yes. So perhaps my 10 percent was far too low.
Two readers called my attention to a discovery last week on an Arctic island of something which may be the fossil remains of the mysteriously missing "transitional species." Or then maybe it isn't transitional. Maybe it's a hitherto undetected species on its own.
But the very exuberance with which such a discovery is announced argues the I.D. case. If Darwin was right, and the change from one species to another through natural selection occurred constantly in millions of instances over millions of years, then the fossil record should be teaming with transitional species. It isn't. That's why even one possibility, after many years of searching, becomes front-page news.
Another letter complains that I.D. cannot be advanced as even a theory unless evidence of the nature of this "Divine" element is presented. But the evidence is in nature itself. The single cell shows such extraordinary complexity that to suggest it came about by sheer accident taxes credulity. If you see a footprint in the sand, that surely evidences human activity. The demand – "Yes, but whose footprint is it?"– does not disqualify the contention that somebody was there. "Nope," says the establishment, "not until you can tell us who it was will we let you raise this question in schools."
Another reader argues that Galileo stood for freedom of inquiry, whereas I.D. advocates want to suppress inquiry. This writer apparently did not notice what caused me to write the column. It was the rejection by a government agency for a $40,000 grant to a McGill University anti-I.D. lobby to suppress the presentation and discussion of I.D. theory in the Canadian schools. Suppressing discussion is an odd way of encouraging "freedom of inquiry." Anyway, the I.D. movement doesn't want to suppress evolution. It merely wants it presented as a theory, alongside the I.D. theory.
Why, asked another reader, did I not identify the gutsy woman who stated the reason for the rejection, bringing upon herself the scorn of scientific authority. That's fair. Her name is Janet Halliwell, a chemist and executive vice president of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. She said that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and the McGill application offered no evidence to support it.
The McGill applicant was furious. Evolution, he said, needs no evidence. It's fact. Apparently Harvard University doesn't quite agree with him. The Boston Globe reports that Harvard has begun an expensive project to discover how life emerged from the chemical soup of early earth. In the 150 years since Darwin, says the Globe, "scientists cannot explain how the process began."
The most sensible letter came from a research scientist. "I think that the current paradigm of evolution by natural selection acting on random variation will change," he writes. "I think that evidence will accumulate to suggest that much of the genetic variation leading to the evolution of life on earth was not random, but was generated by biochemical processes that exhibit intelligent behavior."
Then he urges me not to disclose his identity. Saying this publicly would threaten his getting tenure, he fears. Galileo would understand.
You are trying to mathematically model the real world.
Easy! All you need to do is accurately identify the variables, and their correct interrelationships. (The rest is left as an exercise for the student.)
ps. If you can't do this, perhaps it is more a reflection on you and your method than the real world itself. Your failures are certainly not evidence that the theory of evolution is incorrect.
If evolution by definition entails no limits on what matter can or cannot do I reckon it is no more scientific than Joe Christian who comes along and says "God did it."
There is no way to define a *kind* scientifically, as it has no real world meaning.
The language of biology categorizes life in to kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The real world meaning of "kind" might be gathered from the biblical texts if you care to take a look. Hint: Trees and humans are not of the same kind.
I didn't say construed, I said is.
Fine. God is the Creator of all life. Therefore all life is of common descent.
Why would hominid evolution be in written records when writing is a recent human invention?
Why should I consider something as "scientific" if it has no human records to attest to the accuracy of its assertions?
But the evidence for [a 4.5 billion year old earth] is overwhelming.
BS. You're just a parrot. You don't even know for sure the earth rotates, let alone how old it is. Moreover, you haven't taken time to study time and compare it with quantum mechanics. The evidence in that regard points to an intersection between time and eternity which in turn, is reason to believe anything goes when it comes to history.
Why is your assertion any better?
Because it is based upon a source outside of myself, namely a text which has enjoyed wide acceptance for thousands of years and attests quite pointedly to God's involvement in creation, and preservation of this creation. All you have for a source is your own opinion and the opinion of those who happen to agree with you.
The answer is yes and no. Every species has to have individuals that are physically fit enough to survive. But if you look at parts of the world where the food supply is abundant, and predators few, guess what? You get birds with ten foot long tail feathers and such.
Sexual selection is an interesting phenomenon. It can't override factors that cause early death, but it can shape species as rapidly as human animal breeders. The underlying factors are sometimes a mystery, but when they are investigated in detail, it sometimes happens that the girls choosing their mates by plumage are actually picking healthier, stronger individuals.
He could be a pre-Darwinian theistic evolutionist. Darwin credited twenty or more writers on the subject. There was something called the great chain of being. Multiple, sequential creations. Many to pick from.
There are written records attesting to a global flood. Does this make this claim "scientific?"
Which essentially means a molecule may poof into a human, given however many billions of years we care to cobble up as needed. Or not. No limit means no limit, and life is made of matter, matter of fact.
The biological species concept automatically excludes populations that cannot interbreed.
I trust that means you accept the biblical concept that humans do not share common ancestry with trees. Or maybe you do. That's okay. The best guitar necks are made from trees.
By your logic, forensic methods to solve a murder cannot be scientific unless the murderer left a confession note at the scene.
By your logic intelligent design cannot be scientific unless God leaves His signature on every molecule. What's your point? The level of certitude for evolutionism as it posits a 4.5 billion year old earth and a gradual increase in biological complexity from molecule to man is hardly akin to the science of forensic crime, and even that science leaves much to be desired in terms of accuracy.
Because there are many, many more lines of evidence than written records?
And for some reason those lines of evidence always seem to be intelligible. How is that, if not by design? Please answer on the basis of science as opposed to your opinions.
You mean hearsay evidence?
No. The texts were not written on the basis of hearsay, but on the basis of direct observation. That's more than I can say for your faith in ***poof*** molecules ***poof** somehow causing themselves to be arranged into ***poof*** scientists.
The evidence I have is also outside myself, and is from multiple lines of evidence and has been tested and verified by the most precise physical examinations.
It is not the evidence we are talking about, but the source for interpreting the evidence. You are correct in asserting physical reality resides largely outside of yourself. But the guide for interpreting that physical reality is only yourself, and those with whom you agree, who themselves have no anchor except their own opinions. The biblical text contains information from a single source.
I've set a daily limit of Fester posts.
Only if the account gives enough detail to fill several volumes, occupy a university library, and contain sufficient Latin terminology.
4,500,000,000 or so years.
Only if the account gives enough detail to fill several volumes, occupy a university library, and contain sufficient Latin terminology.
Glad you still have your sense of humor.
But its late, and I haven't shaved. I will have to call it quits for the night.
Night all!
Are all oak trees of the same kind? Oaks in the US? Oaks in Texas?
Fester, Fester, Fester. You are so funny.
From my understanding of the dna code and all that it is responsible for in our bodies; the complexity is incredible. I mean a computer code doesn't have to put in motion cells that are like little mini factories that do the billions of functions to keep us alive. You have to admit that someone had to design that. I'm not being argumentative, it's just that it's only logical.
Yes, it's like watching too many episodes of Gilligan's Island in one day: one is funny, two is vaguely amusing, more than that and you feel like the stupidity is rubbing off on you...
Your post isn't logical, it's a demonstration of the argument from personal incredulity.
Your attempt to redefine words is not convincing anybody.
Apparently Fester has written his own dictionary. He should provide his definitions up front. That way the discussion, such as it is, can swiftly move on to what the definition of the terms is, which is where it usually ends up with Fester. All of time wasted verbally circling into that point can be saved.
Coming from one who would rewrite history to refute the words, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," I take your words with a grain of salt.
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