Posted on 07/11/2002 9:44:50 AM PDT by ZGuy
The prominent magazine Scientific American thought it had finally discredited its nemesis—creationism—with a feature article listing ‘15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense’ (July 2002). Supposedly these were the fifteen best arguments that evolutionists could use to discredit the Bible’s account of Creation. (National Geographic TV also devoted a lengthy report to the article.)
Within 72 hours, Dr Jonathan Sarfati—a resident scientist at Answers in Genesis–Australia—had written a comprehensive, point-by-point critique of the magazine article and posted it on this Web site.
So Scientific American thought it would try to silence AiG with the threat of a lawsuit.
In an e-mail to Dr Sarfati, Scientific American accused him and AiG of infringing their copyright by reproducing the text of their article and an illustration. They said they were prepared to ‘settle the matter amicably’ provided that AiG immediately remove Dr Sarfati’s article from its Web site.
AiG’s international copyright attorney, however, informed Scientific American that their accusations are groundless and that AiG would not be removing the article. Dr Sarfati’s article had used an illustration of a bacterial flagellum, but it was drawn by an AiG artist years ago. AiG had also used the text of SA’s article, but in a way that is permissible under ‘fair use’ of copyrighted materials for public commentary. (AiG presented the text of the SA article, with Dr Sarfati’s comments interspersed in a different color, to avoid any accusations of misquoting or misrepresenting the author.)
Why the heavy-handed tactics? If AiG’s responses were not valid, why would Scientific American even care whether they remained in the public arena? One can only presume that Scientific American (and National Geographic) had the ‘wind taken out of their sails.’ Dr Sarfati convincingly showed that they offered nothing new to the debate and they displayed a glaring ignorance of creationist arguments. Their legal maneuver appears to be an act of desperation. (AiG is still awaiting SA’s response to the decision not to pull the Web rebuttal.)
LOL. Pretty good f.christian.
I mean, if it was just "schtick getting old", I can think of a few more candidates...
mr spike memorial bump.
GOTCHA!!!
That post made sense (even if it was nonsense)!
But I don't know if it validates the million monkey premise or the medication overdose theory. Your call ...
Consider that any major evolutionary event such as speciation or novel innovation is accomplished with the genetics available to the organism at that time. These events move the organism into a new adaptive state. From this state, the organism is free to adapt further, even back to the niche it came from, but it is now working with a new set of available genetics with different selective pressures. It can't go back along the path it came from because it's no longer available.
But 'macro' evolution's effects are reversible.
The more changes you stack one upon another, the less likely it is that an exact reversal will happen. But it is still possible.
Well, I'm afraid camping with my son takes precendence over countering nonsense on FR. As a matter of fact, last week in Montana we saw Columbian and Uinta ground squirrels, another pair of closely related species which probably drifted apart after the last glaciation.
You creationists have been a sad disappointment. You try to debate biology, but you don't have any first hand knowledge of biology. If, say, one of you was able to discuss the relationships of American passerines from a structural or plumage or behavioral standpoint, we would at least be able to discuss cold, hard indisputable facts, rather than tracts and straw men. But none of you seem to know even the rudiments of descriptive biology. Lands sakes man: you don't need to accept Darwin to have a working knowledge of American zoology; Audubon managed .
I've answered your questions, and in your heart you know that. The problem is, I've answered in terms of real, living facts about real living animals; you can't find 'rebuttals' in your anti-evolution tracts, and you don't have the knowledge or experience to argue from first principles.
One thing that Darwin and Wallace shared was an encyclopedic knowledge of nature. To be able to form an intelligent perspective on the natural world as a whole, you have to learn about the natural world as a whole. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of effort. And I don't mean college courses, I mean getting out and watching and studying birds and animals and plants and fungi and whatever. I've always found it a pleasure, so I don't claim credit for any particular virtue in doing so, but I don't have any respect for opinions that are not similarly educated. Same reason I despise most environmentalists; for all their supposed concern about nature, I doubt 90% of them could name 20 living native land animals. If they loved it as they say, they'd know more about it.
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