Free Republic

20 February 2009 Is this Darwin’s legacy? A cartoon in an American paper, the New York Post, has brought fresh attention to the race problems in some sections of society. The cartoon shows a chimpanzee shot dead by police with a caption apparently referring to the new American President Obama - (edit: although later denied that Obama was the target).  Note from UD Admin:  As has been pointed out in the comments, the chimp in this cartoon was a pet chimp shot by police in Connecticut.  It was never intended to represent Obama or any other human.  The cartoonist was stunned...

Darwinism as Religion in a Holy War Feb 19, 2009 — It might be expected that media attention on Darwin would be exceptionally high this month because of his bicentennial, but some of it seems downright religious. The adulation he has been receiving is almost embarrassing sometimes. It is only exceeded by the righteous indignation frequently expressed against intelligent design. In any other context, the fighting words of the Darwinians would be described as hate speech. Here are some recent examples: 1. Shrine to Darwin:...

Darwinists Topple Darwin’s Tree of Life Darwin’s “Tree of Life” is a myth. It’s based on circular reasoning. It is a pattern imposed on the data, not a fact emerging from the evidence. We should give up the search for a single tree of life (TOL) as a record of the history of life on earth, because it is a “quixotic pursuit” unlikely to succeed – and the evidence is against it. Who said this? Not creationists, but a new member of the National Academy of Sciences in his inaugural paper for the academy’s Proceedings.1 W. Ford Doolittle and Eric...

Bicentennial of the Botanist by: Daniel Allen, February 20, 2009 Last week, Charles Darwin would have turned 200. To celebrate the occasion, the Center for American Progress (CAP) hosted a panel of experts to discuss the impact that Darwin has made on society and how to reconcile faith and evolution. The discussion was founded on the premise that in order for the U.S. to compete globally, we must teach our children science at home, including evolution. Susan Thistlethwaite, a senior fellow at CAP, opened the discussion by insisting, “Whether or not you believe in evolution…it is not a belief system....

The carnivorous nature and suffering of animals by Robert J. M. Gurney All evolutionists and virtually all old-earth creationists believe that animals were killing and eating one another for millions of years, long before the Fall of man. Young-earth creationists argue that this is incompatible with Scripture. Old-earthers dispute the young-earthers’ interpretation of Scripture and employ at least two other counterarguments. One is that carnivorous behaviour is actually very good, and the other is that animals in the wild do not suffer. There is very good reason to believe that they do suffer; but even if they do not, carnivorous...

Design and the Designer ‘Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God’ (Job 37:14) by Jonathan SarfatiThere is a famous analogy that compares God to the wind—we cannot see the wind, but we can feel and see the effects of the wind (cf. John 3:8). Similarly, since life originated in the past, neither its design nor its alleged evolution can be observed directly by experimental science. But creation could have left some effects that can be observed.We can see that living organisms were designed because of similarities to man-made objects that we know were designed. People...

The Galileo affair: history or heroic hagiography? by Thomas Schirrmacher Summary The 17th century controversy between Galileo and the Vatican is examined. Fifteen theses are advanced, with supporting evidence, to show that the Galileo affair cannot serve as an argument for any position on the relation of religion and science. Contrary to legend, both Galileo and the Copernican system were well regarded by church officials. Galileo was the victim of his own arrogance, the envy of his colleagues and the politics of Pope Urban VIII. He was not accused of criticising the Bible, but disobeying a papal decree...

Narrative Summary 4. Would you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that teachers and students should have the academic freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution as a scientific theory? (Click excerpt link for responses) 5. Charles Darwin wrote that when considering the evidence for his theory of evolution, “…a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree with Darwin’s statement? (Click excerpt link for responses) 6. I am going...

Message Theory is a testable scientific explanation of life’s major patterns. That claim should intrigue you. If I heard such a claim, I would nearly leap across the room to demand more details; else I couldn’t sleep that night. That is because I highly value testability, just as all scientists do, (in physics, chemistry, geology, medicine, engineering, etcetera) – and just as evolutionists do in all their court cases. Message Theory should even intrigue evolutionists, because it offers what they repeatedly demanded from their opponents – a testable, scientific alternative to evolution. Yes, that is exactly what they demanded. In...

What Is Science? "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic." —Dr. Scott Todd, Kansas State University, Nature 401(6752):423, Sept. 30, 1999 What You Will Learn Many people do not realize that science was actually developed in Christian Europe by men who assumed that God created an orderly universe. If the universe is a product of random chance or a group of gods that interfere in the universe, there is really no reason to expect order in nature. Many of the founders of the principle scientific...

Religion-Free Group Says to 'Praise Darwin' by Christine Dao* How much sense does this make? An organization that bills itself as a promoter of “freedom from religion” posted billboards bearing the words “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief” in several U.S. cities to coincide with the British naturalist’s 200th birthday. Cities where the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) placed the advertisements include Dayton, Tennessee, and Dover, Pennsylvania—homes of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial” and the highly politicized 2005 Dover Trial, respectively. The Wisconsin-based foundation, which put up a Grinch-like sign next to a nativity scene in the Washington State Capitol during...

The genetic puppeteer by David White Back in 2005 a group of researchers published a landmark study on a question that has long puzzled geneticists: why aren’t identical twins … identical? Considering that they have the same DNA sequence in each of their cells, it seems a bit strange that they often possess a number of physical differences, such as different fingerprints, and different susceptibilities to disease. This raises the question: if two people can have identical DNA sequences and yet be so different, is there more to our genetic blueprint than just DNA?...

For example, Dr Eugenie Scott of the staunchly anticreationist National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed their agenda when she said: “ … I would describe myself as a humanist or a nontheist. I have found that the most effective allies for evolution are people of the faith community. One clergyman with a backward collar is worth two biologists at a school board meeting any day! … What we [such clergy and atheists] have in common is that we want to see evolution taught in the public schools … .”4

Revelation, Speculation, and Science by Dr. Greg Bahnsen February 18, 2009 It is one of those embarrassing historical ironies that modern science could not have arisen except in the atmosphere of a Christian world-and-life view. Nevertheless, the scientific community today persists in playing the prodigal by assuming an antagonistic stance against the Christianity of divine revelation. Hypnotized by Darwin’s evolutionary scheme and enchanted with the products of scientific technology, modern man has granted science a secularized godship and bows before it in fetish idolatry. The pitting of science against revelation is certainly odd. For, a certain state of affairs is...

Darwin as Compassionate Buddhist Ape Descendant Feb 17, 2009 — It seems odd to call a secular scientific theory like Darwinism a Buddhist belief. That’s what National Geographic claimed today. “Darwin the Buddhist? Empathy Writings Reveal Parallels,” wrote Christine Dell’Amore...

Study Shows Our Minds Are Tuned to Believe by Brian Thomas, M.S.* “It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods,” according to a new report appearing in the journal New Scientist.1 A group of scientists undertook the task of studying the “science” of religion, which they suggested “probably evolved for survival.” Or did it? The researchers studied cognition patterns in children to test their capacity for belief in the supernatural. According to anthropologist Justin Barrett from the University of Oxford, children “have a strong natural receptivity to believing in gods because of the way their minds...

In one of the most remarkably frank and candid assessments of the whole subject and methodology of paleoanthropology, Dr. David Pilbeam (a distinguished professor of anthropology) suggested the following: "Perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleoanthropology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about. But that is heresy."...

Ant Algorithms Argue Against Evolutionary Origins by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Traffic jams are a frustrating part of modern life, and many dream of the kind of uncongested roadway systems shown in futuristic movies like Minority Report. But some researchers have suggested that ideal traffic management algorithms already exist—in ants...

Ken Ham is an ardent young-earth creationist. As president of Answers in Genesis, he generates a steady stream of articles critiquing the old-earth view. Although I disagree with most of his assertions, I respect his right to express them. However, Ham’s article, “The god of an old earth,”1. crosses the line of amicable debate. By declaring “the god of an old earth cannot be the God of the Bible” and “the god of an old earth destroys the Gospel,” he is accusing old-earth creationists of heresy. Disagreements in the body of Christ are inevitable. And history has shown debate in...

Where did the idea of “millions of years” come from? All of our media outlets push evolution and “millions of years” ideas on the public. Even children’s cartoons reflect evolutionary philosophy! In an episode of the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, entitled “SpongeBob B.C.,” the narrator begins: “Ah, dawn breaks over the primordial sea. It is here that millions of years ago, life began taking its first clumsy steps out of the darkness, opening its newly formed eyeballs to stare into the blinding light of intelligence.” Unfortunately, large segments of the church have swallowed the millions-of-years evolutionary history hook, line, and sinker....