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Are You Too Dumb to Understand Evolution?
CreationEvolutionHeadlines ^ | September 10, 2008

Posted on 09/11/2008 9:55:10 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts

Sept 10, 2008 — Astrobiologist David Deamer believes that life can spontaneously emerge without design, but he thinks lay people are too uneducated to understand how this is possible, so he gives them the watered-down version of Darwin’s natural selection instead, which he knows is inadequate to explain the complexity of life. That’s what he seemed to be telling reporter Susan Mazur in an interview for the Scoop (New Zealand). Is the lay public really too dense for the deeper knowledge of how evolution works?...

(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 2smart2fall4it; atheistagenda; creation; crevo; darwin; evolution; god; intelligentdesign; scientism
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To: Fichori

I haven’t been following the argument, since this is, or should be, an evolution thread.

The relative motion among planets can be mapped mathematically to any number of models, including an earth centered system in which the earth neither moves nor rotates.

Gravity is important because it is impossible to have a simple model of mechanics with an earth centered system. Orbital mechanics cannot be described by Newton’s simple equations.

The desire to find the simplest description of phenomena permeates science and is a prime motivator for things like string theory.

Whether the simplest description is truer than convoluted descriptions is a philosophical question, but utility lies with the simpler of two descriptions.


1,561 posted on 09/20/2008 5:33:06 PM PDT by js1138
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To: js1138
Very nice, once again showing the predictive power of evolutionary thought in the field of Biological analysis.

Both the genome and interdependent protein systems seem to be the result of ad hoc, patchwork, whatever seems like it would work at the time modifications of existing components, like patching together a propulsion system out of a port-a-john.

1,562 posted on 09/20/2008 6:30:16 PM PDT by allmendream (Sa-RAH! Sa-RAH! Sa-RAH! RAH RAH RAH! McCain/Palin2008)
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To: GodGunsGuts
(From the link...)


Self-replication opened the door for natural selection. Once a self-replicating molecule formed, some variants of these early replicators would have done a better job of copying themselves than others, producing more "offspring." These super-replicators would have become more common — that is, until one of them was accidentally built in a way that allowed it to be a super-super-replicator — and then, that variant would take over. Through this process of continuous natural selection, small changes in replicating molecules eventually accumulated until a stable, efficient replicating system evolved.

 

 

I just LOVE how the details are explained! 

Now I know how Obama plans to CHANGE Washington!

1,563 posted on 09/20/2008 7:06:39 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: LeGrande

You don't really know what Stellar Aberration is do you?

1,564 posted on 09/20/2008 7:11:54 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ColdWater; Fichori
I really don't take F seriously but I still haven't (for certain) figured out whether he is just playing around or is serious.

I think he is suffering from cognitive dissonance. He knows or suspects that much of what he believes is wrong and he just can't deal with it.

1,565 posted on 09/20/2008 9:20:48 PM PDT by LeGrande
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To: LeGrande
“I think he is suffering from cognitive dissonance. He knows or suspects that much of what he believes is wrong and he just can't deal with it.”
You really shouldn't be referring to yourself in the third person.

Its not good for your mental stability.

That, and people might think your crazy or something.

Oh, wait..... (never mind!)

To bad you utterly failed to back up your completely outrageous claims with any sort of scientific facts...
1,566 posted on 09/20/2008 9:28:02 PM PDT by Fichori (ironic: adj. 1 Characterized by or constituting irony. 2 Obamy getting beat up by a girl.)
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To: mrjesse
First off the Sun is orbiting the Milky way at about 150 miles per second ( something like half a million miles an hour) So the Sun is moving fast : )

I'd never thought about the speed at which our solar system is moving through space. I learn something every day! Thanks!

But in any case, I calculated the sun's angular displacement due to our universe's velocity through space to be about 0.04 degrees

Wow! I am impressed. You never thought about the speed that our solar system is moving through space and yet you were able to calculate the suns angular displacement due to the Universe's velocity. That might actually be worthy of the Nobel Prize : )

Do you have any idea of how fun this is : )

1,567 posted on 09/20/2008 9:47:45 PM PDT by LeGrande
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To: Fichori
To bad you utterly failed to back up your completely outrageous claims with any sort of scientific facts...

Hmm, lets see. I claimed that the apparent position was not the same as the actual position. Both you and MrJesse have now agreed with that proposition. Now we are only squabbling over the degree of separation.

Your Cognitive Dissonance must really be eating you up. Since you don't have a job, why don't you become a monk? Then you wouldn't have to deal with anything that contradicts your beliefs. Oh I forgot, you don't think Catholics are Christian. My, you get it coming and going, don't you? : )

Thinking back to an earlier comment you made about beating up cripples in wheel chairs. I once drove a couple of hours just to listen to a cripple in a wheel chair (Hawking) speak through a computer. Ironic isn't it? I like to learn from cripples in wheel chairs and you want to beat them up.

1,568 posted on 09/20/2008 10:05:56 PM PDT by LeGrande
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To: LeGrande

Its not that we can’t agree on the degree of separation, its that you cannot scientifically back up your pet number.

I haven’t posted anything new.

Everything I have been telling you is freely available on the internet and has been confirmed by many different people.

That is, however, not the case with your claim.


1,569 posted on 09/20/2008 10:13:55 PM PDT by Fichori (ironic: adj. 1 Characterized by or constituting irony. 2 Obamy getting beat up by a girl.)
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To: ColdWater; All
So I'm quoting lies?

Quote: Life at the molecular level, [Behe] concluded, “is a loud, clear, piercing cry of design.” Unquote, page 205 — Godless by Ann Coulter.

Quote: Richard Dawkins denounced Behe as “cowardly” for believing in God— before admitting he couldn't answer Behe’s argument. Unquote, page 205 — Godless by Ann Coulter. [Note that neither Coulter nor I ‘accuse Behe of believing in God, but I think there's a serious disconnect between your claims and her heavily footnoted book.]

I think rational people are ready to concede that Behe was not a Darwinian zealot who believes in random evolution when he made that conclusion.

Moving on to two more ‘dummies’ who don't quite understand random evolution: Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. They won impressive awards and honors that could fill half a page. Oh and they were also atheists. But they're like so many others, just ‘too dumb’ to get it.

Quote: Hoyle ran the numbers to determine the mathematical probability of the basic enzymes of life arising by random processes. They concluded that the odds were 1 to 1 followed by 40,000 zeroes, or “so utterly minuscule “ as to make Darwin's theory of evolution absurd.

Unquote — Godless page 211.

1,570 posted on 09/21/2008 1:07:07 AM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March (DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW! NO STRINGS! You guys are great! FReep on!)
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To: Arthur Wildfire! March
They won impressive awards and honors that could fill half a page. Oh and they were also atheists.

It happens more than we know...


 
 

Darwin's own words...

 
 

 

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,—and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,—that the Gospels cannot be proven to have been written simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye witnesses;—by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many fake religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wildfire had some weight with me. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct."

( Charles Darwin in his Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Dover Publications, 1992, p. 62. )


Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

( Quoted from Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991, p. 636. )

 
 
 
 

NIV 1 Timothy 1:20-21
 20.  Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge,
 21.  which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith.   Grace be with you.

 
NIV Proverbs 4:13
   Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.
 

NIV Hebrews 3:6
   But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
 

NIV Hebrews 3:14
   We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.
 

NIV Hebrews 6:11
   We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.
 
 
NIV Hebrews 12:3
   Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
 
 
NIV 2 Timothy 2:11-13
 11.  Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him;
 12.  if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us;
 13.  if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
 

NIV 2 Peter 2:20-21
 20.  If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
 21.  It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
 
 
 
NIV 2 John 1:8
  Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.
 

NIV Jude 1:21
   Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
 

NIV Revelation 2:25
   Only hold on to what you have until I come.
 

NIV Revelation 3:11
   I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.


1,571 posted on 09/21/2008 4:19:00 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: tpanther

According to the common language used by most people, the sun and moon go around the earth (sun/moon “comes up”/”goes down”), the sun moves north in summer and south in the winter, the sun moves behind clouds, the moon changes shape, etc.

I agree on the “waste of time” - that’s biblical. Don’t waste your time until the Holy Spirit convicts their heart to HONESTLY seek answers, instead of sniping.


1,572 posted on 09/21/2008 5:20:58 AM PDT by MrB (0bama supporters: What's the attraction? The Marxism or the Infanticide?)
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To: Elsie
I see nothing ‘dumb’ in the scriptures you quoted.

The most important scripture in this debate is: “Seek the Truth, for the Truth will set you free.”

I see a truth — our ancestral origins are not of great importance to the here and now, but freedom is.

Another truth — what matters most regarding evolution education is how the child turns out in later life.

One more truth — there are very smart people on both sides of the debate.

There is another scripture where Jesus praised our Heavenly Father for creating a world with truths that are easily grasped by a child and yet confound the learned and scholarly. [Please forgive the paraphrases.]

1,573 posted on 09/21/2008 6:07:17 AM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March (DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW! NO STRINGS! You guys are great! FReep on!)
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To: allmendream; metmom; MrB; GodGunsGuts

Scientist doesn’t equal godless. You show your prejudice and bias and blindness every time you equate the two.

http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

You truly haven’t noticed that I’ve posted this yet? You know...this site where SCIENTISTS disagree with you?

The only other possibility I can think of is you (too) are projecting when you made those comments about ME knowing the language...

theory

hypothesis

etc.

Or that final nagging possibility that you subscribe to the belief that ONLY scientists NOT on the above list constitue your idea of genuine “scientists”.


1,574 posted on 09/21/2008 6:07:50 AM PDT by tpanther (All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke)
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To: Arthur Wildfire! March; Quix

Hey Quix, regarding my post 1570, you might be interested to know that Chandra Wickramasinghe was the first to propose the theory that dust in interstellar space and comets was mostly organic, a theory now proved correct. A real ‘dummy’ I’d say.


1,575 posted on 09/21/2008 6:14:04 AM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March (DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW! NO STRINGS! You guys are great! FReep on!)
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To: tpanther
“For that matter show me where only the godless scientists know the definition of science” tpanther

Sorry, its our game and we get to decide on the terms. Do you also take umbrage that Football players have their own definition of “down”?

And most Scientists in the USA are people of faith. Both Scientists of faith and others define Theory and Hypothesis identically, so your “godless scientists” construction does nothing more than show your prejudice, bias and blindness to the truth.

1,576 posted on 09/21/2008 6:18:37 AM PDT by allmendream (Sa-RAH! Sa-RAH! Sa-RAH! RAH RAH RAH! McCain/Palin2008)
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To: tpanther

I added your link to my ‘evolution’ file. Thank you for reminding us. I think it is clear that some really smart people are ‘too dumb’ to understand evolution. That’s the main question the headline of this thread asks. We won hands down. And since smart people have smart objections, I think that parents should be free to decide how their kids are educated [unless the parents belong to some kind of mad murder cult, etc.]

[In the short run, vouchers. In the long run, just get the federal government out of the way.]


1,577 posted on 09/21/2008 6:20:36 AM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March (DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW! NO STRINGS! You guys are great! FReep on!)
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To: allmendream; tpanther

Scientists and colleges are closely related. I’m glad to hear that most scientists are people of faith.

But there are two big problems:

1. Junk science. The science community is hungry for government money. They need the democrat party to get grants [conservatives are more stingy]. That’s why science was so slow to turn against the global warming scam. Their reluctance to say the truth is now hurting their credibility.

2. Scientists are educated by college professors who are over 80% liberal and anti-Christian.

Our entire education system is being exposed as a sewer of moral relativism, anti-morals, anti-truth, pro junk science.


1,578 posted on 09/21/2008 6:30:13 AM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March (DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW! NO STRINGS! You guys are great! FReep on!)
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To: Arthur Wildfire! March
And since smart people have smart objections...

Are you ready to list some objections? Or do you think we haven't noticed that you have repeatedly been asked to discuss actual objetions?

1,579 posted on 09/21/2008 6:39:07 AM PDT by js1138
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To: js1138

OK. You’ve been spoiling for a scientific debate with a layman. I have a little time right now. So why not counter the objections I quoted?


1,580 posted on 09/21/2008 6:46:30 AM PDT by Arthur Wildfire! March (DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW! NO STRINGS! You guys are great! FReep on!)
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