Posted on 05/20/2002 12:53:27 PM PDT by rpage3
See source for details....
Morality in a group is a form of cooperation. Human groups that cooperate are more likely to succeed, when compared to a group that is immoral. So, it is wrong to suggest that evolution selects against morality. Cooperation in a group is a non-zero sum game, similar to the prisoner's dilemma. I feel as though I am repeating myself, since I have made the same point again and again in these thread.
It gets rather tedious to have to refute the same silly ideas about evolution, again and again. Maybe it would be better if there wasn't any debate on FR about evolution. Some of the FR creationists do not believe in logic, or evidence. One guy on here even believes that the earth orbited Saturn. So, it would seem that these threads completely lack any instructional value.
Secondly, one rule of debate is to address the points raised by your opposition. Since creationists do not believe in evidence or logic, they resort to quotes from the bible. This is not evidence, since there isn't any evidence to support statements arising from that book. Belief is a matter of faith, and can't be used in an argument based on evidence and logic.
Third, some of the creationists engage in personal attacks, of either the posters on these threads, or on public individuals like Gould. This is distasteful, because it does not address the merits of the issue at hand.
Fourth, creationists do not address the strongest arguments for evolution, and resort to attacks on tangential issues. For example, one poster questioned the Big Bang theory in his criticism of evolution. The Big Bang has the same relevance to evolution as the theory of gravity. Disproof of either the Big Bang, or Einsteinian gravity, would not affect the fossil and genetic evidence for evolution.
The quality of the debate is so poor that perhaps it would be better if it is not discussed at all.
Karl says he concurs.
Evolutionist writers are such liars they can never tell the truth. He was a paleontologist, not a biologist, but I guess that one more lie for the cause is only fitting as an obituary to him. The Yahoo article at the top got it right though:"BOSTON (AP) - Stephen Jay Gould, the paleontologist and author who eloquently demystified science for the public and challenged his colleagues with revolutionary ideas about evolution, died Monday of cancer."
Does one play football ‘in order to score goals?’ That is not the reason for the game, it is the end result.
C.S. Lewis paraphrased
Besides Junior, you are a Christian, surely you believe God put it in our hearts.
Seems that your husband is smarter in his sleep than evolutionists when they are awake!
A pretty lame defense. "Nearly" does not cut it. Where does the rest come from? Where does conscience come from? Conscience has nothing to do with public perception, it has to do with one knows is correct when others are not looking. Conscience constantly clashes with what is most expedient, yet people ofted do listen to their conscience. Further, evolution, more than a struggle between species, is a struggle within the species. Your explanation has absolutely no relevance and is the opposite of what such a struggle would require.
A title is nearly meaningless.
It is pragmatic to be honest and selfless. It is pragmatic to refrain from killing your neighbor. It is pragmatic to not burn down his house.
Next ridiculous argument?
He was a wonderful fiction writer. Like Darwin, he was full of it! One thing I have noticed on these threads is that while many evolutionists claim to have read his swill, not one of them is ever to give an explanation of what great argument he gave in support of evolution. It is all gibberish and feel good nonsense, pablum for atheists.
It is in his nature to make personal attacks. You can't argue with him, any more than the frog can argue with the scorpion. To try to argue with him brings you down to his level.
Of course it does. That is what natural selection is all about - selecting amongst the most successful individuals so that the species would be more successful. That is why many call "selection" survival of the fittest. Selection is not about a struggle between species, it is about the struggle within a species to find the individuals who are the most successful and the ones most able to survive. It is about spreading the traits of the successful throughout the species.
But people continue to do bad things and good things by their own free will… Pragmaticality? Next silly answer.
He was adept at storytelling. He was a paleontologist and got out of it because it is a totally discredited profession. Paleontologists are no more scientists than bakers, and perhaps even less since bakers at least know how to do something useful - bake good bread. A good example of the total garbage that paleontology is, is the following true story:
On the second day of the symposium, William Garstka reported that he and a team of molecular biologists from Alabama had extracted DNA from the fossil bones of a 65-million-year-old dinosaur. Although DNA from other studies suggests that DNA older than about a million years cannot yield any useful sequence information, Garstka and his colleagues amplified and sequenced the DNA. compared, it with known DNA from other animals, and found that it was most similar to bird DNA . They concluded that they had found "the first direct genetic evidence to indicate that birds represent the closest living relatives of the dinosaurs". Their conclusion was reported the following week by Constance Holden in Science.
The details of the discovery, however, are revealing. First the dinosaur from which Garstka and his colleagues allegedly recovered the DNA was Triceratops. According to paleontologists there are two main branches in the dinosaur family tree. One branch included the three-horned rhinoceros-like Triceratops which millions of people have seen in museum exhibits and movies. But birds are thought to have evolved from the other branch. So according to evolutionary biologists, Triceratops and modern birds are not closely related, their ancestors having gone thier separate ways almost 250 million years ago.
Even more revealing, however, was that the DNA Garstka and his colleagues found was 100 percent identical to the DNA of living turkeys.. Not 99 percent, not 99.9 percent, but 100 percent. Not even DNA obtained from other birds is 100 percent identical to turkey DNA (the next closest match in their study was 94.5 percent with another species of bird). In other words, the DNA that had supposedly been extracted from the Triceratops bone was not just similar to turkey DNA - it was turkey DNA. Gartska said he and his colleagues considered the possibility that someone had been eating a turkey sandwich nearby, but they were unable to confirm that.
FROM: Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, page 130, 131.
Just comes to show the professionalism and dedication of paleontologists! And remember, your tax dollars paid for this wonderful discovery!
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