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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 9:30:42 AM |
I think that if we choose to reject any hint of a possible creator of life it's quite easy to do.
While it is equally easy to claim there is a creator. Matter of opinion/interpretation, that's all.
He also found that at the atomic level behavior of matter was not predictable which led him to ask: "does God play dice with the universe..?"
How does the fact that a person with a preexisting religious conviction glibly meshed science and religion at one point constitute a "proof" in favor of the potential existence of a given deity?
Does our behavior affect what happens to us, ....around us?
Yes, it's called "magic."
Do we notice that what comes around goes around?
Yes, it's called "karma."
Near Death Experiencers return with stories from their otherworldly journeys and we discount them as just that; "stories". Yet, why do their accounts often have elements in common.
Yeah, and why does it seem to make sense that I understand how someone else feels when they stub their toe? That's just eerie.
True, all of creation may simply have evolved on it's own and the concept of our consciousness may be nothing more than a collection of neurons serving as a life support system for our reproductive organs. But this too, takes faith and surrender to accept.
While, for starters, I could argue as to whether or not anyone actually believes that the mind is just the brain, and is only concerned with survival for reproductive reasons, I'll stick to the salient point. How, exactly, do faith and surrender have anything to do with this?
As I meditated further I realized that the bible actually predicts that this will happen in the last days. People will have such a strong desire for God to be non-existent that He will send them a strong delusion so that they will believe the lie. 2Th2:11.
Coffee, this is a sensitive area, so I'll try to walk lightly. I'm God. But, being God, I know that there will be those who will try to "prove" that I'm not. Their attempts prove the truth, not only of my words, but of my deity. Do you see how this works? "There will be people who disagree" is not a proof for the assertion. It doesn't prove that I'm anti-Christ, nor that I want to bring Judeo-Christian beliefs down around anyone's ears, simply because I don't accept what a given person might propound based on those doctrines. Like some other folks might say, it's a logical fallacy. Moving on, are you saying God sent the "delusion?" So, we can thank the creator and disseminator of all truth for the existence of a lie that refutes him? I don't think I'm reading that right. Or, at least, I hope not.
--R your writings are self judgemental.
I keep seeing folks refer and respond to this. Could you elaborate on to whom you were addressing it, as well as what it is intended to signify?
wonkavision, sir i never take offense to anyone or anything and cryptic as you so perceive might be the opposite to those who can see.
Fish. Cucumber, plug sharpei, two extra pepperoni plush engine dancing truth. Wokka, wokka.
"there are no gains rejecting someones thoughts, do you agree?"
I certainly agree. Even positions of diametric opposition are important, even if only to help better solidify or formalize ones contrary notion.
I'm with Wonka on this. Groovy to have you with us, Charlie, but I'm definitely going to be asking for clarification.
nope... what I was trying to say is
IF ""Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."
AND IF God is everything
Therefore Give nothing to Caesar.
I think I see what you're saying; sort of using the subject to study itself. How does one study consciousness, when you've got to use it to do so? Something like that. Unfortunately, the logic in the foregoing quote, at least to me, is like saying that, when Jesus said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" he was really saying "let me go first."
The logical conclusion of my statement was to pray that eyes may be opened to see the truth. It's going to take a bigger miracle than I had anticipated.
I don't know about that. Don't you think a God willing to delude his own creation would consider having pulled that off miracle enough? | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 9:56:33 AM | "I could argue as to whether or not anyone actually believes that the mind is just the brain, and is only concerned with survival for reproductive reasons"
Actually, Feral, the first phrase of your statement is a stance I do take- the mind is simply the epiphenomenonal result of physiological processes. The second phrase is a stance I would not take, as human interests (and arguably those of other species) has, to a degree, transcended the one-dimensional objective of mere reproduction. In fact there are various causal influences in the process of evolution in general that act synergistically between levels in a hierarchical causal matrix if you will. Strict selectionism is somewhat of an archaic notion I think.
"Fish. Cucumber, plug sharpei, two extra pepperoni plush engine dancing truth. Wokka, wokka."
Finally someone is talking some sense. | |
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Enryk
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Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 2928 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 1:04:10 PM | You refer to two additional evolution scientists and i'd be more than please to review your references.
Right, you asked for it...
I found this two pieces of writing for those interested in the debate "within Evolution" science. No Creationism here.
First of all, the reason why I am putting them here is because they are in-depth analysis of Jay Gould's work in respect to other evolutionists, but beware, they are long and thorough. They are not the kind of "website" which you can flick through and "get it". No, these are much deeper than that.
Second, it does not mean that I completely agree with neither of them. As two pieces of "science communication", they bring ideas, concepts, analysis and of course, they are open to debate.
Third, hope you find (the late) Mayr's writing style enjoyable, as I do, and become interested in getting one of his *multiple* books.
The first one comes from a Cognitive Cultural Studies database from UCLA
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html
and this is Ernst Mayr deconstructing Gould
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/mayr_punctuated.html
As my supervisor normally says "I would not expect to discuss this with you before Monday". | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 1:53:56 PM | Gee, next thing you're tell us Dawkins and Gould disagreed. ;)
--R. | |
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Enryk
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Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 2930 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 2:36:18 PM | | I could, but it is irrelevant... Actually it is not, disagreements shall always be welcomed in Science, when well supported. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 3:13:39 PM | "Actually it is not, disagreements shall always be welcomed in Science, when well supported."
Actually, disagreements are crucial to science, lest theory digress into dogmatism. In fact the history of scientific inquiry can be metaphorically compared to Evolution- the struggle is fundamental to the process. It's a refining process and the method works as a sieve. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 4:34:01 PM | | i think that is what enryk is saying wonka. what is not irrelevant to enryk, is the gould / dawkins disagreement and they "shall always be welcomed in science" | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 5:02:08 PM | | I know that's what he was saying. I was only saying that I didn't think he placed enough emphasis on contention in his statement. It was merely a difference of degree and not kind, a quibbling point really- the choice of "crucial" over "welcomed." | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 6:40:28 PM | dear thisis2wierd,
I appreciate ones who do their homework even though it is a play on passportcharlie. congratulations. my referances come from the oxford dictionary. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 10:37:09 PM | I'm God. But, being God, I know that there will be those who will try to "prove" that I'm not. Their attempts prove the truth, not only of my words, but of my deity. Do you see how this works? "There will be people who disagree" is not a proof for the assertion.
The first two sentences are perhaps true for someone who is unbiased and objective. The assertion may not be true for all since there are always those who take on a belief simply because they are not familiar with any other and therefore take on whatever belief that everyone else is. For many others however that isn't the case. They knowingly choose their belief sytem for some particular reason that ultimately has little to do with evidence. In my researching I have seen seemingly sound arguments for either view. It can actually be downright confusing to anyone other than those who are very familiar with the material. Which side of the argument they weigh most heavily will have more to do with other factors than the actual argument itself.
Moving on, are you saying God sent the "delusion?" So, we can thank the creator and disseminator of all truth for the existence of a lie that refutes him? I don't think I'm reading that right. Or, at least, I hope not.
I loved my last girlfriend a lot. Unfortunately after 3 years of bliss she got it into her head that she was better off without me. I did whatever I could to win her back but wasn't succeeding. In fact, my attempts were making her feel guilty and ashamed of herself. It came to me that if I truly loved her than I want her to be happy even if it wasn't with me. So I deluded her into thinking that I didn't want her anymore and therefore she didn't have to feel bad. If I could have somehow convinced her that I didn't exist anymore it would have been an even more loving gesture.
Edit:Charlie- I found your line of questioning in recent posts enlightening, especially in regards to its results. Kudos. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/5/2006 11:39:41 PM | call me simple, but in the first quote above, how do "their attempts prove the truth, not only of my words, but of my deity"? that is, beyond the intangible.
your relationship analogy doesnt really fit either. the delusion was created by us, not the creator, bc in our corporeal form how could we possibly understand the incorporeal world, so we get confused being the simple beasts that we are and conjure up all sorts of conspiracies. i doubt the great spiritual oneness had it in mind to convince us that he/she/they/it doesnt exist as a loving gesture.
arent we supposed to eat the body of christ and drink his blood in an effort to be one with him? | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 9:51:56 AM |
your relationship analogy doesnt really fit either. the delusion was created by us, not the creator, bc in our corporeal form how could we possibly understand the incorporeal world, so we get confused being the simple beasts that we are and conjure up all sorts of conspiracies. i doubt the great spiritual oneness had it in mind to convince us that he/she/they/it doesnt exist as a loving gesture.
Human beings are made up of the mind, emotions and spirit. We can understand or believe something from one of those 3 areas. Emotions are governed by the mind but that is a topic for another thread. The mind is in our control but the spirit can be influenced by external forces both positive and negative. We determine which forces (principalities and powers) we open ourselves up to and to what degree, but then don't have much control of how we are influenced. Even those who do not believe in the spiritual realm open themselves up to something by default.
Spiritual influence manifests itself as a deep down "knowing" that can sometimes defy logic or reasoning unless one has made those their "god" in which case the influence simply enhances the supposed validity of their thinking.
I see by your pofile thisis2 that you have an appreciation for the spiritual by the fact that you have a religion and you are a pisces so you likely have some inkling of what I'm talking about.
The lie was created by humans, however the acceptance of the lie can be influenced by the positive and negative forces through the spiritual realm. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 10:44:08 AM | Ah coffeeholic, your statement is corect, I was confusing ID and Creationism. I would like to reasure you, that it was not intentional though.
The problem is, that although ID as you state it, is easily compatable with Evolution as both would not preclude the posibility of the other. The ID you sugest, is only a religious viewpoint and not testable, as such it has no place in science classroom, but would be an excelent subject for RME classes.
However the nice kind of ID you propose, is not the same one that is being put forwards as a contender for Evolution. It is just Creationism renamed, which is where the confusion comes from. I have no problem with ID as you propsed it, but that is not what is being pusshed for our school systems. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 11:14:23 AM | | true enough bright1 and coffee. the only real argument i see for learning aspects of ID or creationism in schools is to provide a comparison. our life experience is one of comparative analysis. provide a contrast to fully understand the discussion. perhaps the supporters of public school ID should be arguing that evolution shouldnt be taught in science class, but rather in a philosophy class. isnt all teaching supposed to be objective anyway? | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 11:51:17 AM | "perhaps the supporters of public school ID should be arguing that evolution shouldnt be taught in science class, but rather in a philosophy class. isnt all teaching supposed to be objective anyway?"
thisis2weird- Strange how you frame all knowledge as subjective in one comment, and then say all teaching is supposed to be objective in the next. Do you realize you did that? Let me explain. Evolution is a theory which strictly adheres to scientific methodology and is therefore appropriate within a science curriculum. To relegate it to only philosophy, and not science, is to declare all knowledge as subjective, not objective. The point is that what is appropriate to one methodology is not necessarily to another. Science fits under the larger rubric of philosophy, yes, but it also holds it's own unique and more stringent methodology, and Evolution belongs, by the dictates of the scientific method, in a Biology curriculum. As for all education being objective, that needs to be clarified. In regards to demarcation of subject, yes education should be objective (with recognition given to interdisciplinary co-action,) but not all subjects within the educational system are of an objective nature. That being said, I think, subsequent to a similar argument on another thread, that my opinion may have been altered on this issue. We already do, in Biology, counterpoise Evolution by natural selection with earlier forms of the theory like Lamarkism, and/or various structuralist approaches, as an educational tool. It helps the children to better understand the methodology and why Darwin's core idea was triumphant in natural philosophy. The point is that, within a science context, I.D. is summarily debunked, so perhaps the I.D. proponents should be careful what they wish for. Their wish, if realized, may have the opposite affect of their intentions. They themselves would be better served by demanding demarcation. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 1:14:50 PM | | just stirring the pot wonka. i knew someone with your background would be able to bring the key aspects of the discussion into clearer focus. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 2:31:39 PM | wonkavision, i differ from you to liken "lamarkism" narrowly confined as "structuralist appoaches" and to use him as an example "as an education tool"
"Lamarck's scientific theories were largely ignored or attacked during his lifetime; Lamarck never won the acceptance and esteem of his colleagues Buffon and Cuvier, and he died in poverty and obscurity. Today, the name of Lamarck is associated merely with a discredited theory of heredity, the "inheritance of acquired traits." However, Charles Darwin, Lyell, Haeckel, and other early evolutionists acknowledged him as a great zoologist and as a forerunner of evolution. Charles Darwin wrote in 1861:
"Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801. . . he first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all changes in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition."
today even though his work as an evolutionlist discredited him but giving him credit by his own group(ilk) as merely "establishing the fact of evolution" which i disagree. there are no facts in science they are probabilities, reference einstein's theory of relativity is based on energy and the speed of light, e=mcsq, so far us, in today world, ignorant in understandfing truth from probability. The simply idea in geometry of a straight line which goes through three points a, b and c is truth and fact for the moment whereas evolution never solved and wishing not to resolve either, it explains why evolution should not be taught under science or as a science itself as it yearns to do so.
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late™
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Joined: 1/9/2005
Msg: 2943 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 2:37:57 PM | No mention by you of exactly how Lamark is discredited*, just a name drop and a lot of nonsensical false logic.
Again the old argument of mixing terms of reference = the crux of the matter of the OP.
*hint - science
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 3:16:57 PM | Sorry Charlie (hey remember that old commercial?) but your knowledge of Evolution is spotty at best.
"the name of Lamarck is associated merely with a discredited theory of heredity, the "inheritance of acquired traits.""
Lamark championed a theory that included "the inheritance of acquired traits" as orthogonal and relatively insignificant to the impetus of internal forces. In other words, he believed that an inherent drive towards improved structure was the main causative agent in Evolution, while acquired traits operated as a tangential pull from the main thrust of Evolution. His example of the giraffe developing a long neck as it stretched for the topmost leaves and then passing this acquired trait to it's offspring was representational of this variance from the mean, but it is often misunderstood. He never intended to imply that if you cut off your toe, your son will be missing that same toe. His implication was that organs are lost or acquired through use and disuse through many generations. The reason Lamark is used as an example of a defunct theory is because, even though, in a vague sense, he may have been on the right track, the core of his theory- the mechanisms and causal loci were misguided. Darwin himself was misguided on certain details that have been better formalized since, but the core of Evolution by natural selection remains intact. By the way, you apparently didn't read the whole page on that Berkley website from which you quoted but did not cite, and even that is only a brief overview of his theory.
"there are no facts in science they are probabilities,"
This is untrue. You are confusing fact with theory. I just went through this on another thread. Facts are immediately testable two-dimensional relationships that remain invariant under multiple verifications, such as the relationship between pressure and temperature in a gas. Theories are much more complex constructs that are built from a multitude of facts, but, as a theoretical model, are open to refinement or even dethronement by a theory that is more explanatory or empirically verifiable. Now all theories are a matter of probability, but scientific theory holds the unique position of being far more probable than the vast majority of fanciful notions in the world by virtue of being subject to intersubjective verification or empirical testability, and rational coherence. Evolution is every bit as strong of a theory as Relativity, or Quantum Mechanics. If all that science dealt with were "facts," it would be nothing but impotent bookkeeping. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 4:03:41 PM | wonkavision, what ever site i used i quoted both sides of the issue lamarck, and his judge and juors being from any site i quoted honest and fully from is still from is his ilk. he is only accredited with his statements to inheritancy to bringing the subject of evolution back to an energeric life within the ilk and those in public whom feeds from their mouths, ref: gould which i placed on this or another board earlier.
i do understand persons from their opinions are moreso to accomadate themselves. My fact vs probably is taken from a forensic debate with an intelligent scientist in his own rights proving to me that probability is always the correct term and fact is nil. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 5:16:08 PM | coffeeholic
The logical conclusion of my statement was to pray that eyes may be opened to see the truth. It's going to take a bigger miracle than I had anticipated. reading The Word is the truth and those whom differiates from The Word has lack of their own confidences and their will power will block the real truth, in essence, disallowing themselves to soaring new heights. imho, it has nothing to do with God's miracles. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 7:06:28 PM | Exhibition Review | 'Darwin'
Enough to Make an Iguana Turn Green: Darwin's Ideas
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Published: November 18, 2005
DURING the years in which Charles Darwin was working on his revolutionary book, "On the Origin of Species," and later, with more intensity, in the 1860's, when controversy raged over his ideas, the naturalist was plagued with bouts of gastric trauma, sometimes accompanied by severe eczema. The illness was never diagnosed, and various hypotheses about a tropical parasite, picked up during Darwin's five years traversing the world aboard the HMS Beagle, have not been widely accepted.
The green iguana is one of the many live species included in "Darwin."
At the very least, though, one could guess from Darwin's suffering the toll it took to spend more than 20 years scrutinizing specimens of bone, feather and leaf, meticulously chronicling habitats and behaviors and creating a theory that tried to explain the entire development of the animal and plant kingdoms. That theory has become so familiar, it is easy to forget how bizarre and shocking it really is; it still inspires some with outrage and disbelief.
The strangeness of that theory also does not really emerge in the sweeping new exhibition devoted to Darwin's life and ideas at the American Museum of Natural History (which opens tomorrow and will be on view until May 29, before traveling to science museums in Boston, Chicago, Toronto and London). Instead, this show, with almost too much propriety, makes Darwin's theory of evolution seem - well, almost natural. That is both a virtue and a flaw: the theory becomes clear but not its revolutionary character. The exhibition is billed as the "broadest and most complete collection ever assembled of specimens, artifacts, original manuscripts and memorabilia related to Darwin." By the time one works through it, it has so successfully given a sense of the theory's explanatory power that the exhibition can seem too small for its subject rather than too large. But it should be seen.
Curated by Niles Eldredge, a Darwin scholar and curator of the museum's division of paleontology, the exhibition offers a habitat of Darwiniana. It is handsomely populated with animals (even live ones), orchids, fossils, films, interactive video screens and historical documents and objects, some on loan from Down House, Darwin's longtime home in England; the Natural History Museum in London (which will present the exhibition in 2008-9); and Cambridge University Library. And for the most part, the elements cohabit in extraordinary harmony, recounting the course of a life and the evolution of its ideas.
Two live Galápagos tortoises, each weighing nearly 50 pounds, welcome the viewers into the exhibition, which also includes live Argentinian horned frogs and a green iguana - all displayed in glass-enclosed habitats resembling the ones Darwin believed led to the animals' distinctive coloring and character. There is a cartoon a classmate drew of the aspiring naturalist mounted on a giant beetle waving a butterfly net; a letter to his father in which Darwin, at age 22, pleaded to be allowed to join the crew of the Beagle as the ship's naturalist; and scanned images of Darwin's herbarium sheets showing leaves and stems collected during that voyage. Notebooks in which Darwin's ideas about evolution began to coalesce are here, as is - in a sure sign of canonization - a replica of Darwin's studio, complete with his walking stick and microscope.
But the exhibition actually domesticates Darwin and his theory. Think, instead, of the theory's daring. Darwin was asserting that over the course of millenniums, miraculous bodily organs have taken shape out of prehistoric crudities, species have changed their characters and turned into completely different creatures, and human beings have come into existence, all because of accidental events and the brute forces of nature. Chance, in league with danger, created both the eye and the orchid, the ocelot and the man. Now imagine asserting these ideas when no one knew anything about genetic inheritance or mutation. Darwin's digestive discomfort makes sense; in a way, so do contemporary discomforts with his work.
In an 1844 letter on display, Darwin said that beginning to write about his ideas was "like confessing a murder." He did not publish them for well over a decade, until he was spurred by the prospect of competition, when a young novice naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, sent Darwin a letter that eerily echoed some of his long-gestating ideas. After generously sharing some credit and helping to arrange for simultaneous publication of their primary ideas in 1858, Darwin set to work on his magnum opus, "On the Origin of Species."
In its sheer accumulation of objects and displays, the exhibition gives a sense of the wealth of information and experience Darwin himself had to sift through. It is shaped chronologically, as a journey through Darwin's life, punctuated with clear texts that highlight the connection between the objects on display and the ideas taking shape. The voyage on the Beagle, for example, offered a panorama of the natural world, through which Darwin peered, prodding, probing, describing everything he saw. Why did some extinct species seem to resemble those that took their place? Why did similar environments sometimes include very different species? What relationship was there between a place and the animals that lived there?
The Galápagos Islands presented a kind of astounding laboratory. Creatures on one island developed isolated from those on another, the accidents of habitat somehow producing birds and tortoises with different colorations or shapes. Darwin surmised that such variation developed out of common ancestry, an idea that would, he said, "undermine the stability of Species," challenging the notion that species possessed eternal stability.
Darwin was indefatigable, obsessed and all too aware that his ideas were cutting close to the spiritual and cultural home that had been constructed by religious belief. His wife, Emma, worried that the Darwins might not, given their different religious perspectives, be spending eternity in the same place; Charles shed tears over their differences. But he also instructed Emma in another document, that if he were to die before finishing his work, 500 pounds could be set aside from his estate to ensure its compilation and continuation.
Both worlds were shaken when Annie, one of the 10 children they were to have, died when she was 10. A writing box, preserved by her parents, is filled with the girl's treasures; instead of fossils and beetles, there are neatly wound embroidery thread, a quill pen, and - added later - her father's chart chronicling her tuberculosis and a drawn map of her grave.
Darwin was shattered by the death of his "poor, dear, dear child," though in his universe, death had a very different meaning than it did in Emma's. But he must have hung on to aspects of her world. The term, "natural selection," after all, almost personifies nature, as if there were some force selectively working toward an end. The terminology had a religious cast, as Darwin well knew, but the implications of his ideas, as his illness attests, were far more unsettling.
The exhibition, in fact, falls short in not showing just how provocative and revolutionary Darwin's theory is. The introductory section, about the world before Darwin, shows an astonishing collection of skeletons from the museum's collection in a curiosity cabinet that displays each species with its own set of bones and shape - a collection of representative models. A counterpart reflecting Darwin's theory could have also been shown, reordering the creatures, or perhaps a Darwinian "tree" could have displayed the species branching out from each other as they evolved.
The theory is also made to seem too invulnerable, particularly toward the exhibition's end, where recent views about evolution are surveyed and recent evidence for the theory presented.
Perhaps in reaction to the various attempts to get notions of "intelligent design" taken seriously in science classrooms the exhibition ends up minimizing scientific questions about the theory as well. "For 150 years," the wall text states, "the theory of evolution by natural selection has not been seriously challenged by any other scientific explanation."
But the point would have been even stronger had the museum acknowledged that Darwin's theory has indeed been subject to scientific modification, and still is. The exhibition does not draw attention to these issues, though Mr. Eldredge's own biography on the museum's Web site points out that he was one of the scientists (including Stephen Jay Gould) "challenging Darwin's premise that evolution occurs gradually," asserting instead that it occurs in spurts with long periods of stasis. Doesn't this modify the idea of the "survival of the fittest" in an important way? It would have been worth pointing out, too, why this modification was proposed: the fossil record doesn't provide the plentiful examples of continuous evolution that Darwin's theory predicts.
If examples like that - about the evolution of Evolution - had been included with more discussion, one of the crucial aspects of a scientific theory would have been illustrated: that it is subject to change and modification, that the pressures of ever-increasing knowledge have the power to kill off some ideas while permitting others to flourish. Such a theory is continually evolving, rather than eternally comforting - which can itself induce vertigo.
Concluding, imho
Super Charged Power Thoughts tm passportcharlie
A fool who invests his greatest assets is still a fool and will lose his investment. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 8:04:50 PM | But the point would have been even stronger had the museum acknowledged that Darwin's theory has indeed been subject to scientific modification, and still is.
This author is seriously twisting what the museum (and modern proponents of evolution) say about evolution. The truth is that although in some ways the theory has been modified over the years, the essential premise does remain unchallenged, because it is sound, not because of a scientific conspiracy. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 8:52:04 PM | "that it is subject to change and modification, that the pressures of ever-increasing knowledge have the power to kill off some ideas while permitting others to flourish"
I'm not sure what you're point is in posting this article. The above statement, which seems to encapsulate the author's premise, is tantamount to what I said in my above post regarding theory. If you still don't understand how theories work, please reread my post. If you think this article is a refutation of Evolution then, one- you didn't understand the article, and two- you have no conception of how science operates, and three- you have woefully limited understanding of the theory of Evolution.
""challenging Darwin's premise that evolution occurs gradually," asserting instead that it occurs in spurts with long periods of stasis. Doesn't this modify the idea of the "survival of the fittest" in an important way?"
Yes. What don't you understand about that? Gould and his ilk, who's theories are supported by the fossil record, are arguing against strict gradualism. As I said above, certain details expounded by Darwin were misguided, mostly due to lack of the greater empirical evidence which exists today, but the central core of his logic remains sound. Do you understand that? Just to save you the trouble of posting more quotes that are irrelevant to a refutation of Evolution, I'll list some central points where Darwin was misguided-
1: Geological consistency and denial of mass extinction- Earth's history, we now know empirically, was punctuated by catastrophic events, from volcanic activity to meteor impacts, a fact which is resonant with punctuated equilibrium.
2: A crude genetic mechanism which allowed for protean Lamarkian Evolution, which, although he considered of insignificant relative frequency, he still allowed it as a small factor. Modern genetics has now proved such a mechanism false. Still, predicting a genetic mechanism at all was pretty brilliant, and his disciple, DeVries, some forty years later, and fifty years before the discovery of genetics, predicted a mechanism astonishingly close to actual genetics.
3: Competition to the exclusion of cooperation. Not much to say here, except that we know cooperative factors sometimes do play a role at various levels of selection.
4: Gradualism: I already commented on this.
5: A tenuous commitment to the philosophical concept of "progress." Such ideas as an upward arrow towards "better" organisms is now thought to be somewhat parochial.
Darwin's essential logic of evolution by selective pressures on the frequencies of inheritable materials remains the core of the theory. | |
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| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 1/6/2006 9:18:23 PM | mlr you are one ceertainly deserving a debate and i seriously mean so as to many of your words replied in this thread alone.
But the point would have been even stronger had the museum acknowledged that Darwin's theory has indeed been subject to scientific modification, and still is.
This author is seriously twisting what the museum (and modern proponents of evolution) say about evolution. The truth is that although in some ways the theory has been modified over the years, the essential premise does remain unchallenged, because it is sound, not because of a scientific conspiracy.
the essential premise does not remain unchanged and modern proponents of evolution say about evolution. as to both theories las vegas would give 1 billion to 1 odds these are correct and will give one their premise immediately upon ones wager. Naturally the reqirement to prove who is the winner will need to wait 4.3 billion years. There is no scientific conspiracy at least I haven't and will never support any such theories. I do support intelligence, intelligent quotients, and intelligence reasoning when intellectually argue their means to its end objectfully being conclusive in the though process whether or not each end in differiation. In other words it is difficult to believe in theories which jump from today back to the beginning of time in one step.
Someone said there are many scientists who believe in the miracle of creationism who themselves do not believe in the Miracle Maker. | |
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