Posted on 12/18/2006 8:12:55 AM PST by SJackson
Reviewers have not been kind to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, professor of something called "the public understanding of science" at Oxford. Critics have found it to be the atheist's mirror image of Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism - long on in-your-face rhetoric and offensively dismissive of all those holding an opposing view.
Princeton University philosopher Thomas Nagel found Dawkins's "attempts at philosophy, along with a later chapter on religion and ethics, particularly weak." Prof. Terry Eagleton began his London Review of Books critique: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the British Book of Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."
Dawkins's "central argument" is that because every complex system must be created by an even more complex system, an intelligent designer would have had to be created by an even greater super-intellect.
New York Times reviewer Jim Holt described this argument as the equivalent of the child's question, "Mommy, who created God?"
Nagel provides the grounds for rejecting this supposed proof. People do not mean by God "a complex physical inhabitant of the natural world" but rather a Being outside the physical world - the "purpose or intention of a mind without a body, capable nevertheless of creating and forming the entire physical world."
He points out further that the same kind of problem Dawkins poses to the theory of design plagues evolutionary theory, of which Dawkins is the preeminent contemporary popularizer. Evolution depends on the existence of pre-existing genetic material - DNA - of incredible complexity, the existence of which cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.
So who created DNA? Dawkins's response to this problem, writes Nagel, is "pure hand-waving" - speculation about billions of alternative universes and the like.
As a charter member of the Church of Darwin, Dawkins not only subscribes to evolutionary theory as the explanation for the morphology of living creatures, but to the sociobiologists' claim that evolution explains all human behavior. For sociobiologists, human development, like that of all other species, is the result of a ruthless struggle for existence. Genes seek to reproduce themselves and compete with one another in this regard. In the words of the best-known sociobiologist, Harvard's E.O. Wilson, "An organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA."
THAT PICTURE of human existence, argues the late Australian philosopher of science David Stove in Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution, constitutes a massive slander against the human race, as well as a distortion of reality.
The Darwinian account, for instance, flounders on widespread altruistic impulses that have always characterized humans in all places and times. Nor can it explain why some men act as heroes even though by doing so they risk their own lives and therefore their capacity to reproduce, or why societies should idealize altruism and heroism. How, from an evolutionary perspective, could such traits have developed or survived?
The traditional Darwinian answer is that altruism is but an illusion, or a veneer of civilization imposed upon our real natures. That answer fails to explain how that veneer could have come about in the first place. How could the first appeal to higher moral values have ever found an author or an audience? David Stove offers perhaps the most compelling reason for rejecting the views of those who deny the very existence of human altruism: "I am not a lunatic."
IN 1964, biologist W.D. Hamilton first expounded a theory explaining how much of what appears to us as altruism is merely genes' clever way of assuring the propagation of their type via relatives sharing that gene pool. The preeminent defender of Darwin - Dawkins - popularized this theory in The Selfish Gene.
Among the predictions Hamilton made is: "We expect to find that no one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers [or offspring], or four half-brothers, or eight first cousins," because those choices result in a greater dissemination of a particular gene pool.
To which Stove responds: "Was an expectation more obviously false than this one ever held (let alone published) by any human being?" Throughout history, men have sacrificed themselves for those bearing no relationship to them, just as others have refused to do so for more than two brothers. Here is a supposedly scientific theory bearing no relationship to any empirical reality ever observed. Stove offers further commonsense objections: Parents act more altruistically toward their offspring than siblings toward one another, even though in each pair there is an overlap of half the genetic material. If Hamilton's theory were true, we should expect to find incest widespread. In fact, it is taboo. Finally, the theory is predicated on the dubious proposition that animals, or their genes, can tell a sibling from a cousin, and a cousin from other members of the same species.
SOCIOBIOLOGY, Stove demonstrates, is a religion and genes are its gods. In traditional religion, humans exist for the greater glory of God; in sociobiology, humans and all other living things exist for the benefit of their genes. "We are... robot-vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes," writes Dawkins. Like God, Dawkins's genes are purposeful agents, far smarter than man.
He describes how a certain cuckoo parasitically lays its eggs in the nest of the reed warbler, where the cuckoo young get more food by virtue of their wider mouths and brighter crests, as a process in which the cuckoo genes have tricked the reed warbler. Thus, for Dawkins, genes are capable of conceiving a strategy no man could have thought of and of putting into motion the complicated engineering necessary to execute that strategy.
Writing in 1979, Prof. R.D. Alexander made the bald assertion: "We are programmed to use all our effort, and in fact to use our lives, in production." And yet it is obvious that most of what we do has nothing to do with reproduction, and never more so than at the present, when large parts of the civilized world are becoming rapidly depopulated. Confronted with these obvious facts about human nature and behavior, sociobiologists respond by ascribing them to "errors of heredity."
As Stove tartly observes: "Because their theory of man is badly wrong, they say that man is badly wrong; that he incorporates many and grievous biological errors." But the one thing a scientific theory may never do, Stove observes, is "reprehend the facts."
It may observe them, or predict new facts to be discovered, but not criticize those before it. The only question that remains is: How could so many intelligent men say so many patently silly things? For Dawkins, the answer would no doubt be one of those evolutionary "misfires," such as that to which he attributes religious belief.
And gorillas, chimpanzees, and koala bears.
Why would unique finger prints "evolve"?..
What would be their purpose?..
So Jesus can decide who gets into heaven ?
(Do humans use all their DNA? Supposedly over 95% is *junk*. What if it weren't?)
No KNOWN function. But the genes dictating racial differences HAVE been identified.
And then there's another problem. Rampant inbreeding leads to LESS GENETIC DIVERSITY. A species simply cannot survive that much inbreeding. That is a scientific fact. Are you asking me to ignore that just because the bible says so?
It isn't possible to generate a sustainable population from two people.
(Wonder Why finger prints are Unique among humans?..
Why would unique finger prints "evolve"?..
What would be their purpose?..)
What does this have to do with anything?
LoL... a lot...
There are plenty of theistic evolutionists, and as you state in the same post, there is little conflict between Christians and Evolution. It makes no sense to reject Christianity if you held a non literal interpretation of Genesis.
I would hazard a guess that you already held a literal interpretation of Genesis, especially given your statement that you " studied in college with the intent of becoming a missionary."
You of all people know that Evolution and Christianity is not compatible, and that Theistic Evolution is an untenable position.
No, It is not this person you are angry with...it is God. You feel that he tricked you or lied to you, and betrayed your trust and loyalty. It is you who feel rejected.
I sympathize with you and wish I had some words of wisdom to offer, but all I can tell you is that someone is indeed lying to you, but it is not God.
Faith is not an easy thing sometimes, but as I said before, when I shake myself of all things influential, and I stop and look around, I know in my heart, and in my mind, and in my soul, that I was created above all else. It is just painfully obvious to me that we are profoundly different from every other creature on this planet, and whenever I get lost, I always come back to that one starting point, and the only thing that makes sense from there, is a literal interpretation of Genesis, regardless if it conflicts with what someone else may tell me....or what science would like to tell me.
Christ said blessed are those who believe without seeing. There's a reason he said that...and now, more than ever, should these words have meaning, and comfort us in our faith.
If you would place in science, the fate of humankind, then it is not man who is laughing...
Yes, so if they started with oodles of it and groups of people became isolated from each other, inbreeding would occur and with the less genetic diversity, people groups with different characteristics would appear depending on what got selected out. That's why no two humans of today could repopulate the earth and produce the diversity we now see, because they aren't starting with it; they'd be missing some genetic material.
And really, the basic pattern of humans is the same. There's differences in coloring, and blood components, size, both height and weight, hair type and amount, and probably others that I'm not familiar with.
If over 95% of the DNA humans contain is labeled *junk*, could not that +95% be capable of containing all the information necessary to account for the minor variations we see in humans, considering we're only utilizing <5% now to make and control and identify each individual on the planet? If so little of the DNA is required to produce a living being, each being capable of being distinguished from another, then you're saying that the other 95% isn't enough to account for simple variations in the model?
Then how could evolution occur if a mutation occured in a particular individual in a species and it bred so that the characteristic got passed on? Wouldn't that require a tremendous amount of inbreeding for that species to produce enough to become a different species altogether, one that was not capable of breeding with the others nearby that it branched off from? In effect, you'd have the same scenario in evolution, that you say can't work in creation; that is, a whole sustainable population from a very small number of *parent* individuals.
Also, if inbreeding produces less genetic diversity, why do evolutionists say that evolution results in INCREASED genetic information?
You just can't help wading into subjects you know absoutely nothing about, can you?
Edward de Vere (The Earl of Oxford), Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, all have been suggested as the true Bard of Avon. And all have very compelling reasons against them.
When Occam's Razor is applied, the Man from Stratford comes out way ahead.
Keep reading, I clarified my statements. The gospel of Mark was probably written around 60-65 CE but they don't have an actual hard copy from that era.
You really need to read up on Evolution because you obviously don't understand it.
The passing on of a mutated gene DOES NOT require inbreeding, it only requires that the particular gene be dominant. That dominant trait is passed on from parent to offspring.
For instance, let's say a male bird had a mutated gene that made it more brightly colored than the other males. Through sexual selection, he attracts more females. The mutated gene that caused his bright coloring is passed on. There is no need for inbreeding.
Inbreeding passes on negative recessive traits and leads to less genetic diversity and unfit individuals. This has been observed time and again, ask any animal breeder.
Why?
Why do you believe this?
The four gospels were written at least two hundred years after the death of Jesus.
Many scholars who have made the study of these things their life's work disagree.
What have you studied to come up with a different answer?
Along with the fact that the gospels don't even line up and all of the books on the life of Jesus that are not in the bible.
Duh!
"Dang!! The story in the New York Post doesn't agree with the one in the Washington Times or the Christian Science Monitor!
I guess they must have made it all up or it's just not worth my effort to dig out the Truth."
--SkepticDude
No, it doesn't. A recessive mutation can be passed on as well, even a harmful one; it happens all the time. If the dominant gene doesn't allow the recessive gene to express itself, then the recessive gene can spread throughout the population quite easily, especially if it takes both recessive to cause a condition that kills the individual. As long as the recessive is rendered non-harmful by the dominant gene, the individual will survive to reproduce and pass on the harmful mutation. Witness hemophilia and cystic fibrosis.
But that still doesn't answer the argument of why what you say can't work for creation, that a viable population cannot come from a small parent group, can work for evolution. If a mutation occurs in an individual and is passed on, then conditions occur that isolate that group so that it can no longer inbreed with the parent population, then the species will arise from a small parent group, which you say can't work. If the mutated species stays within the vicinity of the parent group, how can it diverge if it continues to breed with the parent group?
It was a Frenchman, Jacques-Pierre.
I haven't read Harold Bloom's last book, but he was a friend of mine, and I heard him give a couple of talks from chapters that were going into it. No serious Shakespearean scholar I know credits the Oxford or Bacon theories.
One origin of such theories is snobbery. How could an unknown who had to fake his own gentility, from the boondocks of Stratford on Avon, write such great plays? They are clearly the work of a gentleman or a nobleman, such as the Earl of Oxford (actually an unpleasant and snooty man best known for quarreling with Sir Philip Sidney over who got first dibs on the tennis court).
Bloom said that Freud had a thing about Shakespeare because his central theory, labeled the Oedipus Complex, actually was based mainly on Hamlet, but he didn't want to give Shakespeare credit. So Freud joined the Oxford crowd. Freud had similar problems about Moses, another hated authority figure, and so argued that he was not really a Jew.
Betty, I should have said that Spedding is still likely the best edition of Bacon's work, but that you probably now need to consult the Oxford edition too, or at least as much of it has come out. Spedding was the standard for a hundred years, and still has a very helpful collection of notes.
Oh, I get it:
"And the disciples were all together in one Accord."
Cheers!
...oh, and Merry Christmas.
O, sir, we quarrel in print by the book, as you have
books for good manners. I will name you the degrees. The first,
the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the
Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance;
the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie
Direct; and you may avoid that too with an If. I knew when seven
justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were
met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as: 'If you
said so, then I said so.' And they shook hands, and swore
brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.
Says Paul.
But the other 11 apostles don't seem to know him. In fact, other than a mention in (pseudepigraphical) II Peter, Paul is gone ...
...oh, and Merry Christmas.
And a Happy Chanukah to you too.
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