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.
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.
I pinged you for courtesy Fester.
And you'll have to provide your definition of history for me before I might address your assertion that I would rewrite it.
You said,
"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."
There is nothing else to say to you.
"You have to admit that someone had to design that."
No I don't.
"I'm not being argumentative, it's just that it's only logical."
Or not.
Your knickers are in a knot over semantics because you cannot bear to face the truth. Truth is beyond your capacity because your reject the authority and accuracy of the biblical texts. One does not have to write his own dictionary to find plenteous evidence of organized matter performing specific functions, and one does not have to redefine science to infer or assume that said organization might be a product of intelligent design.
That's what happens when you're faced with irrefutable arguments.
When that happens I'll let you know. Instead of an irrefutable argument , you said,
"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."
How do you argue with someone who says that any claim about the past is as good as any other? I could provide mountains of evidence and you could just wave it aside and say that anything goes when it comes to history. You're impervious to reason.
No, you're just an artful dodger.
Your knickers are in a knot over semantics because you cannot bear to face the truth. Truth is beyond your capacity because your reject the authority and accuracy of the biblical texts. One does not have to write his own dictionary to find plenteous evidence of organized matter performing specific functions, and one does not have to redefine science to infer or assume that said organization might be a product of intelligent design.
My knickers are not in a knot at all. But yours seem to be. Fester, you use definitions for terms that are different from common and/or scientific usage. When one has a discussion with you, it's best to cut to the chase and get your definitions up front. It saves a lot of time. What's wrong with that?
Are we going to get into a discussion on what the definition of 'definition' is? If that's what you want to do, I'm sorry but I don't have the time now. It's sunny, getting warm, and it's golf season....so off I go.
Well, you've managed to get them to prove devolution, Fester. You sent this one all the way back to the 2nd Grade :-)
The fact is that Galileo was received warmly in Rome. His work went on through several papacies without drawing comment from Rome. A cardinal and bishop were funding Copernicus' astronomical research, which included the idea of heliocentrism.
Galileo went too far when he demanded that the Church teach heliocentrism as dogmatic fact, when the contemporary science didn't support the theory. Moreover, Galileo demanded the Church teach that the Bible was wrong in passages stating that "the sun stood still."
Cardinal Bellarmine at the time stated that such passages would have to be seen as figurative, if astronomical studies proved heliocentrism to be true.
Like the "black legend" of the Inquisition, the black legend of Galileo has always been promoted by anti-Catholics.
Are you deeply saddened that the "scientific" ground you stand upon is shakier than you believed? You probably don't even give it a thought because you haven't taken time to look into the scientific study of time and compare it with quantum theory. You're so stuck on yourself and your opinions you think your grip on reality is more solid than rock.
From these two realities - time and quantum mechanics - what you call a miracle may simply be an unusal act of "nature." There is no miracle that could not be explained naturally, because all of nature, including its anomalies, was created and is sustained by an intelligent designer.
But you're right. You do not have an argument with which to seriously refute my point of view. Reality can be explained very well, even scientifically, in view of intelligent design and an Almighty Creator. That is why all you can do is tell yourself intelligent design "is not science." That's fine. Be convinced in your own mind. But don't kid yourself into thinking science has time dialed in and the essence of particle matter figured out.
Your description in #2 is only partially correct. Evolution describes the process but the original starting need not be a single cell nor even a cell.
The comments in #3 are wrong. Evolutionary theory makes no claim that "new" life has or has not occured. Genetic evidence does show strong relationships among all present day life. Fossil structures show strong evidences of relationships of past life (though not as strong as the genetic evidence, IMO.) There simply is no record of other "Trees Of Life." Current evolutionary theory (using data from geology) deduces that conditions are different now than in the pre-Cambrian.
Number 4 is also wrong. The predictions of evolutionary theory are falsifiable even if speciation occurs through drift.
Number 5 is also false. Speciation with bacteria were observed in the 1950s.
Genetic drift and sexual selection are absolutely constrained by natural selection, but traits that do not interfere with reproduction can change.
It's always good to hear someone defend the right of churches to conduct criminal trials based on people's writings and beliefs. I can't imagine why bringing up the inquisition would be considered anti-Catholic. It's common Christian Heritage.
Very impressive! Well done!
"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."
Anybody who says something as silly as this can't be argued with. No matter what evidence I provide you will just turn around and say, "Anything goes when it comes to history.".
"You probably don't even give it a thought because you haven't taken time to look into the scientific study of time and compare it with quantum theory."
This is just more Fester gobbledygook. Please tell us, how does quantum theory and the scientific study of time make it impossible to examine the past with any degree of confidence? Provide specifics. If what you say is true, then the Bible is just as subject to this uncertainty as anything else.
"But you're right. You do not have an argument with which to seriously refute my point of view."
Because you have set up your argument so ANY POSSIBLE evidence can be waved away with the phrase, "Anything goes when it comes to history.". You've moved beyond reason into a realm of Fester irrationality. Your *argument* is so amorphous that I don't think even you know what you are saying. You're impervious to reason.
What should church courts conduct trials of, aside from church members' writings and beliefs?
Nope, still not getting it properly.
Natural selection ("survival of the fittest") is one method of evolution (the change in frequency of alleles in a population). Genetic drift is another. Both genetic drift and natural selection act upon a population simultaneously. They may act upon different alleles, but there is no time when you can look at a species and say, "Now there is no natural selection, just genetic drift" or vice versa. The question is really which predominates in driving change. In the case of two populations of squirrels that have been geographically separated but which still live in similar habitats, it's likely to be genetic drift.
When you start talking about the evolution of a new phyla that's a different ball game. The genetic differences there are large enough that natural selection predominates.
Both genetic drift and natural selection are observable phenomena.
Your comparison to tornadoes is rather bizarre. If we're going to talk about thunderstorms it would make more sense to say natural selection is like the air circulation patterns that drive thunderstorms from the midwest to the eastern coast, and genetic drift is like the fluctuations that make it either cut north and miss your city or hit it directly and fry your computer. :-(
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