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The fact that Gov. Palin did not affirm that science should be taught in science class is disturbing. Discussion of IDC should be held in comparative religion studies.
You clearly don't understand how science operates. Nothing in science is ever considered "proven" beyond all doubt but evolution is as well established as any theory. Theories are evaluated on their explanatory power and their ability to make accurate predictions about the nature of new evidence; the theory of evolution performs brilliantly. To give you just one obvious example of where evolution has predicted the nature of evidence that could not even be seen before, look at molecular sequence homology.
Evolutionary biologists had a phylogenetic tree -- a diagram showing which species likely evolved from which species, from bacteria all the way through modern humans -- established long before we had the ability to sequence proteins from different species and compare them to one another. When that technology was developed, they made an obvious inference: if evolution is true and our phylogenetic tree is accurate, when we compare proteins from different species we should find that they differ from one another in accord with their most recent common ancestor relative to other species. If humans and mice were hypothesized to have a more recent common ancestor than humans and chickens (which is true) then when we compare various proteins of those three animals, the human and mouse proteins must be more similar than the human and chicken proteins. Guess what? They are. And this holds true all the way through the phylogenetic tree. And when we construct a tree of life based upon the molecular data it looks almost identical to the one we built decades ago based on anatomical and fossil data.
Evolution makes all sorts of other predictions that turn out to be accurate. For instance, a couple years ago you might have heard of a fossil discovery that was named Tiktaalik roseae. This was one of the many species we've found that document the transition from lobe-finned fish to amphibian tetrapods. But there was a gap in the series of fossils and the scientists hypothesized what the transitional fossil that fills that gap must have looked like, the environment it must have lived in (shallow river or marine) and the time it must have lived in (late Devonian). Then they went and looked for such a fossil in the right kinds of rocks of the right age and, lo and behold, they found it. There are a virtually limitless number of examples like this. Evolution is accepted as valid because it continues to explain the data very well across a dozen fields of science.
Of course not. And as soon as the IDC folks have an actual theory that can be tested, there can be a discussion of their relative merits. But they don't have one and they can't have one as long as they are invoking supernatural causation. You cannot predict what a supernatural being does or did because no matter what the evidence says, you can merely explain it away with "well that's what the supernatural creator wanted to do." There is no possible set of data that could falsify a claim that a supernatural being bent the laws of nature to do something.
That's your first assertion without any evidence or even argument for why it's correct.
Nonsense. As soon as someone can present an actual theory of intelligent design from which we can derive testable hypotheses, then and only then does it make any sense to bother with the "is it possible" question. If you don't have a testable theory you have no way of answering the question of whether it's possible or not.
Meaning is something defined by human minds, it is not a "thing" that exists outside of our own perceptions. And "transcendent truth" is one of those wonderfully meaningless phrases that muddies the philosophical waters in such discussions. If one has the truth, what does the word "transcendant" add to the conversation? Nothing whatsoever.
This is almost perfect gibberish. Unless you define what you mean by "the intangible aspects of human experience" the question is, quite literally, meaningless. If you mean things like human emotions and thoughts, of course there is a relationship between those things and the material universe. Those things are artifacts of the human brain. Change the biochemistry of the brain in any number of ways and you change those "intangible" aspects of human experience. Cut our or damage the right segment of the brain and a person becomes entirely incapable of feeling compassion or any number of other emotions. Flood the brain with the right type of chemicals and you can make a person more violent, less violent, happier, angrier, sadder, more naive, less able to reason or to communicate with others. Of course there is a direct relationship between the brain and every other aspect of human perception and reaction.
I'm afraid you have me confused with someone else. I've persecuted no one. I am all for free inquiry. But until ID actually has a model or theory that can be tested, it does not deserve to be taken seriously.
The perfect inaccurate syllogism - "I label you a materialist, materialists believe X, therefore you believe X." But you are misusing the term materialist, missing the fact that there are different forms of materialism (assuming you are using the term materialism to mean the same thing as naturalism in this context). One does not have to rule out the existence of all non-natural entities in order to restrict the practice of science to natural entities. This is the difference between metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism.
I think it was quite on point. The only thing you mentioned that materialism allegedly does not explain are the "intangible aspects of human experience." Since you didn't actually define this incredibly vague phrase, I presumed that you meant things like human emotions, perceptions, thoughts and reactions to the outside world. And those things are all artifacts of the human brain, for the reasons I explained. If that isn't what you meant, then why not define your terms and make a coherent argument?
I don't do anything with him. Collins is a brilliant scientist. He is also an enthusiastic advocate of the truth of the theory of evolution. And he understands, as I do, that evolution says nothing at all about the existence of god. As a scientist, he absolutely holds to the practice of methodological naturalism. The fact that he believes in god has no relevance at all to the question of whether evolution is true or not. I'm not arguing against the existence of god, I am arguing for the truth of the theory of evolution - which is no more an argument against the existence of god than the theory of relativity is.
What I meant about the "intangibles" of human experiece where the sorts of things you presumed - perceptions, love, faith, hope, varieties of human experience involving the mind and affections. The point had to do with the nature of such experiences in the cosmos as it is, and the fact that human beings are questioning and meaning-hungry entities - since, as you say "evolution says nothing at all about the existence of God" - evolution cannot be the cause of human God-consciousness, and if it is, how and why? The answer to this question I have received from the "Richard Dawkins" school of thought has been dismissive and disappointing.
Well then you're wrong. I am not a metaphysical naturalist. I'm not even an atheist.
Can you propose any means of testing such ideas? I can't. Nor has anyone else ever done so. That's why science presumes naturalism, because there is no means of testing supernatural explanations.
I think you're conflating "ID advocate" with "Christian" and confusing "evolution" with "atheism." ID does not merely mean one who believes in God; ID is a laundry list of arguments against evolution and lots of people who believe in God reject those arguments - Francis Collins is one of them. The only thing that ID advocates have in common is the belief that evolution could not have produced the biodiversity we have on the planet and therefore God must have done....well, something. They never tell us what exactly, or when, or how. And that, again, is precisely the problem with supernatural explanations: once you invoke causes outside of the laws of nature you can no longer predict or evaluate their actions the way you can a natural cause.
Just as ID is not synonymous with theism, evolution is also not synonymous with atheism. One can be a Christian and accept evolution; Francis Collins is a good example of that, but there are millions more. Every mainline Christian denomination accepts evolution. I think your problem is not with evolution it is with atheism.
But as I explained, and you ignored, all of these things are artifacts of the brain. You cannot dispute the fact that by altering the physio-chemical brain you can alter all of those things in dramatic ways. The old notion of a mind/body dualism is nonsense; the mind is the brain.
Richard Dawkins is the last person I would look at for serious insight into the evolutionary nature of religious belief. I would suggest looking to those scholars who are actually working on that question (Dawkins is not). Like my friend Gretchen Koch, currently doing her PhD on that very question in Denmark. There are in fact many serious scholars who have developed theories on how religious belief evolved as a survival mechanism. I would recommend looking at folks like David Sloan Wilson, Armin Geertz, Stephen Sanderson, Ann Taves and many others. Or even Daniel Dennett, whose last book was on that very subject. Dawkins, for all his many talents, tends to lose perspective when the subject of religion comes up.
You're using the word "evolutionary" wrongly here. Evolution doesn't have anything to do with the "nature of the cosmos" or anything other than the origins of biodiversity on earth. That's why I said I think your problem is with atheism, not evolution - and those terms absolutely are not synonymous. Evolution is no more atheistic or naturalistic than any other theory in science. Every theory in science is naturalistic in precisely the same way; no theory allows for supernatural causation because we have no way of testing such causes. If you can't make any meaningful statements about a supernatural cause, you can't make any predictions based on it and you can't possibly discern whether it actually exists or not. It's the equivalent of talking about nothing.
It would be illogical to presume that natural phenomena we currently do not understand are therefore "beyond nature" or "above nature." The god of the gaps argument has never, ever been useful or true. There's no reason to believe it will suddenly be valid now.
I have no idea what this means, so I can't very well respond to it.
Yes he is. He's also one of the world's most respected philosophers. You said you weren't getting good answers on the evolution of religious belief from Dawkins; Dennett is a much better source on that issue. The others I mentioned are even better as that is pretty much all they do in their academic lives.
As to my first comment "evolutionary premise" means essentially a strictly naturalistic premise. Such a premise seems to me to be bound to its own limits as to conclusions. That means that my contention is more about epistemology than atheism. I think the epistemology of naturalism comes up short. That is why I mention the actual nature of human knowing and perceiving and relating, and questing for meaning. I think that the idea that our consciousness of God can be attributed to a survival adaptation is woefully lacking, since the concepts of theology which have been produced by our God talk are so much more profound than any mere instinct to live on.
I still think that if the naturalistic premise of evolution concerning the origin of the earth was accurate, we would never have conceived of god or a God at any time, nor would you and I be posting as we have.
Don't you recognize how pointless what you just said it? You think there might be something you can't define or explain coherently that might exist but we can't detect it or understand. Okay, I grant you that this is possible, but until it can at least be defined and detected to exist, there's little point in giving it any thought whatsoever.
And that is why I object to your use of the term, because evolution is no more naturalistic than any other theory in science. Every single theory in science is naturalistic to exactly the same degree. Every single scientist operates on the basis of methodological naturalism in their work, whether they are metaphysical naturalists or not. Francis Collins believes in God but in his work as a geneticist he can and must presume that nothing outside of the bounds of nature is messing with the results, altering the laws of nature or otherwise mucking up the system. This is not an a priori position it is an a posteriori one; it is that way because that way works and it always has, while doing the opposite renders the results of any experiment meaningless.
Since you haven't read any of the work done by the many scholars I offered to you, I'm not surprised that you find the idea lacking. Perhaps you might actually look at the arguments first before dismissing them, however; that is what an intellectually honest person would do.
*sigh* do you really have any idea what the theory of evolution actually says? It says nothing - absolutely nothing - about the origin of the earth. The origin of the earth is a matter for cosmology and geology, not evolutionary biology. You keep using these terms in highly anachronistic ways. It leaves me thinking you really have no idea what you're talking about and you just think that evolution = atheism and therefore MUST be wrong.
Methodological naturalism may be necessary to your field of investigation, but it seems to me that it arbitrarily lays claims to limits it cannot demonstrate to be final.
I have read enough of a synopsis of the general positions taken in works of philosophy and popular presentations of science (such as Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World - one book among others which I read carefully with underlining), to understand what is being claimed and why. I am not a PhD in Biology, but have read a great deal of history, theology, philosophy and treatments of debates among scientists (mainly physicists) about the nature of the cosmos, as well as discussions of development among biologists and debates about theistic evolution.
It is difficult to know what you mean by what evolution says, since I think that the theological implications of evolutionary theory have been frequently discussed in the 20th century and popularized by some prominent authors - leaving me with the distinct impression that, while evolution may just describe a process (one accepted by ID advocate Michael Behe - correct?) - it has been used to shut off discussion of the need to look into where the limits of natural investigation intersect with questions of purpose. I cannot even begin to understand how one can discuss the emergence of a teleological anything to anyone (as some accident or mere animal adaptation) using a system that repudiates teleology as a prior or post quality. To me that seems incoherent and a contradiction.
How can the sciences not intersect? If cosmology is concerned with the origin of the earth - then the processes at work in evolution would have some relationship to cosmology of importance.
What is disturbing to me is that both IDC and Evolutionary theories have their roots in the realm of philosophy/religion-not science. It is true the IDC is a matter of one's personal faith-but to be completely objective-which I believe your article is not-so is evolution. The theory of evolution started much further back into Greek mythology in ways that man would explain the existence of things. (Foolish as it is-most believe Darwin was the main founder of the theory) To believe IDC it takes faith in something people have not seen-a higher being (God) that created things for a specific purpose. To believe evolution it take faith as well since there has been no visual experimentation that we have seen evolution to be true-the last time I checked there are no man/monkey "evoluting" anywhere. I for one would say neither belongs in the classroom-they belong in a room that teaches philosophy/religon. That is where both of their roots are and that is what both of them are.religion/philosphies of life that people choose to believe.
This is all nonsense. There are some older ideas, including Greek ideas, that might fall under a very broad definition of the word "evolution," but that has little to do with the theory of evolution, which was stated by Darwin and Wallace pretty much simultaneously.
This is an absolutely silly argument. No one who knows anything about biology would expect to see this because man did not evolve from monkeys. But we have observed new species evolving both in the lab and in the wild so often that it has become pretty much routine.
This is even more silly. Evolution is a scientific theory and that is all it is. It is no more a "philosophy of life" than the kinetic theory of gasses is a philosophy of life. Evolution explains how biodiversity has developed on earth; it explains nothing else, nor does it tell us about any other subject. You can no more guide your life by evolution than you can guide your life by gravity or plate tectonics.
If this is so, please state the analogous laws to PN=nRT in evolutionary biology.
Until I find something like that clearly stated I find these analogies with physical theories very misleading to the ignorant masses.
I didn't mention (nor did I imply) simplicity anywhere on my post and certainly not just one formula. Please don't read things that I did not write in my post.
«The second is that I did not say that the two theories were alike in all ways, I said that neither one is a "philosophy of life." Both theories explain a
limited range of data and that is all they do. They don't tell us how to live our lives, how to treat others, what happens when we die or any other such qu
estions.»
I understood your point and agree with your main point. I just though (and think) your analogy is a poor one and due to the facts you mentioned misleading to outsiders.
Take for instance the recurrent analogy between Evolution by natural selection and Gravity theories (take GR "verified" in the weak limit to something like 1E-10). GR is quantifiably verifiable/refutable in very simple ways due in part to the fact that it's "phrased" in an unambiguous way. Evolution by natural selection cannot be verifiable/refutable in the same way due to the way it is phrased. Expressing oneself unambiguously (usually using mathematics) make
life in science a lot simpler.
But apparently you are not able to grasp that and so insist other people just want to waste your time. Guess what, you are not that important.
I understood perfectly -- you were sucking up bandwidth in an attempt to badger the author.
I though there was a policy of no ad hominem attacks or content free posts here.
You just proved me wrong.
What a joke!
To you, me and many others but not to the masses I assure you. That's my main point.
« I really have no idea why that set you off on this irrelevant line of criticism.»
Well, I have no idea why you consider this to be irrelevant. Different perspectives I guess.
Good luck running this site.
Aren't you being a little too generous? Certainly to the rational mind it isn't a surprise. However, for those scientifically ignorant advocates of ID, it is a very inconvenient surprise; one of which they must conjure up all manner of sophistry to deny.
It is a sad day when a beautiful theory can be weakened by an irrefutable fact.
...James E Gambrell
This is a lovely straw man you're beating up on. No one claims that evolution, or any other scientific theory, can be "weakened" by opposing views. The strength (I assume you mean truth) of a theory is based solely on that theory's ability to explain the data and continue to make accurate predictions as new data is found. But the teaching of science can be weakened, watered down with a limitless number of religious "alternatives" that are not scientific theories at all. If we're going to teach creationism as an alternative to biology, why stop there? Why not teach flat earthism as an alternative to conventional earth science? And geocentrism as an alternative to heliocentrism? And Christian Science theology as an alternative to the germ theory of disease? All of these are religious beliefs that are in conflict with well accepted scientific theories. If we have to teach one of them, we are logically required to do the same for all of them. As if teachers don't have enough to do already.
What a weird statement. Any theory that can't be weakened - i.e. disproven - by an "irrefutable fact" is not a theory at all. One of the basic requirements of a theory is that it be falsifiable. How else could a theory be falsified if not by its inability to explain irrefutable facts?
and I pray {hope, wish] we can get a SEARCH FOR WISDOM in all schools
I must say I never read an article so full of lies and hatred. I assume from your lack of honesty and from your misstatements of fact, that you are a loyal Darwinist and thus you are intolerant of free speech. I would say several things about the facts of evolution. First you must be be able to understand the difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Second you must be able to put aside your hatred for people who are not a member of your Darwinist faith.
While Breeding (microevolution) has been practiced for as long as man has raised domestic animals and demonstrates variation within a species, Darwinists have never been able to show that macroevolution (ex. changing from a mouse to a giraffe) has ever happened. No example, no proof has ever been shown that macroevolution is true. All we have from people like you are speculations or just so stories about how it might have happened. There has been a lot of dishonesty in the evolution text books over the years and maybe you are a victim of those books. However macroevolution has never been demonstrated to be true and after 150 years I would guess that it never will be proven. It is time to look for a better explanation as to how life began and how all the different species came to be on this earth. That story about water, dirt and lighting is not true and its time you got over these foolish ideas.
Michigan Messenger has a comment policy, which you can read here at this link.
Comments that are ad hominem and do not actively further the conversation will be deleted. Please address the issues contained within the article while refraining from insulting the author, and avoid deterring other readers from having a free and candid discussion on topic.
Thank you.
Which only causes me to wonder why you didn't manage to cite a single instance of a lie or any statement that was hateful.
Your assumptions reveal more about you than me. First of all, I am a virtual free speech absolutist. Second of all, the term "Darwinist" is a meaningless term; we would never refer to anyone who accepted the theory of relativity as an "Einsteinist" or someone who accepted gravity as a "Newtonist."
There is no distinction between them; macroevolution is merely cumulative microevolution. I notice, though, that you do not bother to define the distinction yourself. Where exactly do you think the distinction lies, at the species level? Genus level? Families?
More empty rhetoric. I've said nothing even remotely hateful and "Darwinism", even if it did mean something, certainly is not a faith.
This is one of those classic creationist strawmen. Of course no one has ever shown a mouse evolving into a giraffe. You know why? Because evolution does not claim that a mouse turned into a giraffe. We do have abundant evidence of many higher level transitions in the fossil record -- lobe-finned fish evolving into primitive amphibian tetrapods, therapsid reptiles evolving into primitive mammals, theropod dinosaurs evolving into primitive birds. We can also observe the subsequent patterns of appearance of each of those different types of creatures. The first birds to appear in the fossil record are all but indistinguishable from theropod dinosaurs (in fact, if not for the impressions of feathers, no one would have noticed anything unusual about them at all). As new species appear they are progressively less like dinosaurs and more like modern birds -- they lose their teeth, their vertebrae become fused, the wishbone gradually changes to accommodate flight and so forth. The same thing is true of every lineage you'd care to look at. There is no rational explanation for this other than evolution, unless you want to posit that God created in just the right manner to fool us by mimicking evolution.
and see this proof with your own eyes.
Perhaps it might be helpful if you would site one example of a series of microevolutionary mutations that resulted in a new species being created that has been verified using real science. Dr Michael Behe has written a wonderful book called "Edge of Evolution". A little excursion into his book might be helpful for you to understand the difference between microevolution and your fanciful thoughts about macroevolution. If Dr Behe's book is a little deep for you I can suggest another book "Understanding Intelligent Design" by William Dembski & Sean McDowell. This book is very readable and explains evolution clearly without all the speculative baggage found so often in a typical Darwinist book. I think you should forget about God and work on the science concerning evolution and the other theories that attempt to explain how life began on this planet. Now just relax and keep your blood pressure down and try not to be fearful of any religion not your own. The Muslim religion is the only religion to fear. I assume you are an infidel and thus not really worthy of living on this earth.
What stories? I haven't told any stories.
The word "proof" should not be used in any scientific discussion unless one is talking about mathematics. The evidence for evolution, however, is not found in a single "proof" it is found in thousand of academic journals. You have to actually read those journals, however, in order to view the evidence. The world just isn't as simple as you would like it to be.
This is amusing. You demand evidence for evolution leading to speciation, then you cite Behe. But even Behe does not claim that the limits on the ability of evolution to create new life forms is at the species level. He explicitly says that evolution can create new species, new genuses (genii?) and even new families. It is only at the level of classes that he places the "edge" of evolution, beyond which some supernatural intervention is necessary. He said in a recent interview that "random evolution works well up to the species level, perhaps to the genus and family level too. But at the level of vertebrate classes (birds, fish, etc), the molecular developmental programs needed would be beyond the edge of evolution." It would help if you'd at least bothered to read and understand the material you're citing. No one, not even young earth creationists, doubt that evolution can create new species. We've watched it happen right before our eyes both in the lab and in the wild.
By the way, Michael Behe, though he is a very nice man, is not exactly a credible source on this matter. His own research (Behe and Snoke, 2004) actually disproves the notion of irreducible complexity and he was forced to admit that on the stand in the Dover trial in 2005. His arguments have been rejected and continually debunked by his fellow biochemists. His testimony during the Dover trial was one of the major reasons the defendants lost that case because it showed that his arguments simply cannot stand up under scrutiny (I'd be happy to go into much more detail on that; I've documented it all before).
Thanks, but I've read pretty much everything Dembski has written on this subject. I don't need to read the oversimplified versions he writes for the masses.
There are no other theories. Theory does not mean what you think it means in a scientific context.
You must have me confused with someone else. I have no religion. And calling evolution a religion is a surefire way to earn the label of ignoramus.
I'm also going to point you to Luke 6:36-38, and remind you that if you are Christian you believe that judgment is God's alone.
Now knock it off.
2) Below is a credible hypothesis of intelligent design based on Dawkin's work
In The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins with irrefutable logic and clear examples thoroughly destroys, with one exception (mine), the pet hypotheses of intelligent design supporters.
He eloquently explains, coupled with easy to comprehend illustrations, how the evolutionary principle of non-random adaptation accounts for the planet’s bio-diversity. We know how it is possible for a four-legged animal to successfully evolve into a 2-legged 2-winged bird.
All the intermediate stages are demonstrated to be positively functional. Each an advantage on the preceding and how this is achieved in relatively few generations.
Fifty years ago, aged eight and a half, on a lazy summer day, laying in the grass, gazing up through a double flowering cherry tree in full blossom to the blue, cumulus laden sky above, pondering the existence of God, I had my first epiphany.
It didn’t matter whether there was or was not a God dude. If there wasn’t, problem solved. But if God existed, it didn’t matter because what I really wanted to know was, what made God! Philosophically, it is the burning desire to comprehend as best one can “From whence has all this come?”
Just as the creationists use intelligent design to support an irrational belief in a separate deity, Dawkins mistakenly believes the concept of intelligent design must mean a God-like designer.
Dawkins is stuck in the rationalist world of a disproved Descartean-Newtonian universe devoid of meaning and purpose. Evolution the mere ticking over of a mechanical clock.
A universe where consciousness is an incidental epiphenomenona. Human self-awareness an isolated outcome rather than sentient consciousness being an ineluctable result, a property of evolution, manifesting itself throughout the creation.
Both the Darwinians and creationists make the grievous error of ascribing intelligent design solely to a separate creator. This mistake forces Darwinians to use the word ‘non-random’ to describe how natural selection works.
Non-random means something not done or chosen by chance but according to a plan. Hmmmmmmm.
Sense the world around you. Emotionally feeling the creation reverberates intelligence.
For fourteen billion years, empirically observing the universe, we witness a continuous unfolding of the immanent to ever increasing complexity of form and higher consciousness of understanding. Evolution screams cumulative intelligence.
One does not need a designer to have intelligent design as part and parcel of the evolutionary principle.
Though one hundred percent an issue of semantics, all our lives are enriched by understanding evolution is natural selection with intelligent design using non-random adaptation.
As for purpose, the long –term goal of evolution, is for the is-ness, the Great Is, to play and know is-self.
The problem is that science has a special language. It is not "fair and balanced." That is, not everyone gets his say.
Sound unfair? Well. It sort of is, but science is not group therapy and it's not there to make you or your Sunday school teacher feel good. And it's your Sunday school teacher or minister who should teach you about God's creation of the universe.
Creationism does not belong in science because it cannot be tested. Your kids play kickball in gym, read poems in English, and learn about evolution in biology for good reasons. Don't let a mob from Moronia shout down good sense and scientific method.
You wouldn't want witch doctors designing the air craft you fly on based upon visions they had in a trance, right?
Same with your kids' science class. Just let someone who knows about science do it. If this message makes you angry, it's because you're running into something you don't understand, not because that something is trying to hurt you.
80+ % of Americans consider themselves Christian and Christian Conservatives will decide this election. Sarah Palin was the wisest choice John McCain could have made to draw them into the ever growing fold.
Holy cow. The trolls are getting weirder and weirder. Evolution doesn't have a damn thing to do with kabbalah, for crying out loud.
In the 1st century A.D., Kabbalist Nechunya ben HaKana wrote "...that if you knew how to use the 42 letter name for God you could decipher the time between the creation of the universe and of man. He estimated the age of the universe at 15.3 billion years...the very age modern astrophysics have just arrived at..."
In the 12th century A.D. the exalted Kabbalist Rabbam Maimonides described the kind of g’d that would fit with HaKana’s 15 billion year old universe. This g’d is not the God of the Bible. Maimonides "...claimed that only fools and children would believe that God rewarded or punished people; in fact, no such rewards or punishments exist...."
(Maimonides also outlined: a) the Zionist agenda for a Jewish homeland in Palestine; b) a millennial rule by Jews; c) resurrecting the rotating, orbiting earth concept of Aristarchus...)
In the 13th century A.D. the venerated Kabbalist Raban Nachmanides concluded from "hidden" knowledge that:
a) The Earth rotated on an axis and orbited the sun;
b) That the universe was Relativistic;
c) That the universe began with an explosion;
d) That the universe has been Expanding ever since that explosion "for 15.8 billion years" according to R Yitzchak of Akko, a student of Nachmanides.
Coupled with HaKana's 15 Billion Years, Those Are the Five Indispensable Components of the Evolution-Based Big Bang Cosmological Paradigm that Rule Origins Science Today!
Indeed, it is this Paradigm that has established as "scientifically confirmed", an evolved universe, earth, and mankind. Without this Paradigm there would be no basis for either terrestrial or extraterrestrial evolution "theories". "Time" is the hero of the Evolution plot. The Big Bang Paradigm of the Kabbalist Religion grants this plot an incomprehensible time frame within which evolutionists have multiplied and established their hypothetical claims. This "theoretical science" is the "science" that now supplies the textbook explanation for the Origin of all that exists. This ever-expanding mountain of factless "theory" has become the cornerstone upon which all that modern man calls "knowledge" has been built.
So, let it be fully understood: This Big Bang Paradigm spells out a "creation scenario" from the Religion of Pharisaic Judaism that is found in the Kabbala, the most holy book of the Zohar. That "creation scenario" is just as plainly Religious as the "creation scenario" from the Religion of Christianity as spelled out in the Bible. All arguments that have successfully been employed to stop all challenges to the Evolution Monopoly in schools--by claiming that one side is religion and can not be taught as "science"--are arguments that can now be seen as the apex of hypocrisy.
So, both "creation scenarios" are religious. Period. The Kabbalists, however, by surreptitiously controlling their arcane-math-based theoretical science establishment, have already succeeded in getting the evolutionary "creation account" of their Religion taught everywhere with tons of taxpayer’s money.
Of course evolutionists cannot allow true science to be taught. Virtually overnight such teaching would reveal that their "theory" is a contra-scientific myth that does not have the first piece of indisputable evidence to back up its claims. And on the heels of that revelation would come the exposure of the Pharisaic Religion that has used a pseudo-scientific priesthood in the schools and universities to establish that religion’s evolution-based "creation scenario", and thereby fulfill the millennia-long Talmud/Kabbala agenda of destroying the "creation scenario"--and hence the credibility and trustworthiness--of the Bible from the first page to the last .
If you don’t think all this is true, then demand that a purely scientific challenge to the evolution monopoly in your city, county, and state schools and universities be undertaken within 90 days...no longer! Don’t even mention the Bible; just stick to the factual science. The rest will take care of itself!
And it is. Just like any other place.
One of the assumptions of modern cosmology is that the cosmological expansion occurs about every point in the same way.
So i guess saying the Earth is at the center is not completely wrong, just incomplete. Every point is :)..
After nearly two centuries of searching feverishly, only a hand full of (highly suspect) intermediate forms exist, many of which have been proven frauds (i.e. Piltdown man, Java man, spotted moths). Even the notorious Lucy has been declared a giant gibbon by Lucy experts.
The idea of evolution is NOT non-religious. It originated in the Jewish Kabbala and therefore should be banned from public education if the Christian account of Creation is not allowed.
No, he didn't say that. He said that millions of transitional forms must have existed, not that we should find fossils of all of them. We only have fossils of a tiny percentage of all the species that have ever existed because fossilization is relatively rare and so is our ability to find them.
You seem to be having difficulty keeping the creationist talking points clear in your head. The creationist lie is that Eugene Dubois, who discovered Java Man, considered that fossil to be a large gibbon (that is a flat out lie, by the way, Dubois said no such thing). No creationist, much less a "Lucy expert" has ever claimed that Lucy was a gibbon. The only fraud you got right was Piltdown Man, a fraud perpetrated a century ago and discovered by scientists using new methods developed by science. Java Man is a perfectly legitimate set of Homo erectus specimens. The black and white moths of England really do provide a good example of natural selection in action despite Jonathan Wells' many lies on the subject.
And the fact is that, your ignorance notwithstanding, we have lots and lots of fossil series that show the transition from one taxa to another. The series of fossils demonstration the transition from lobe finned fishes to amphibians is excellent, as is the series of fossils showing the transition from therapsid reptiles to primitive mammals. But you would have to stop reading geocentrist websites to actually find such evidence.
Amanda, where to begin?
There are religious, even aesthetic influences on scientific thought. Individual scientists may believe they are "reading" a language or even a book written by God when they decipher natural laws. The philosopher Nietzsche was very adept at identifying the mysterious and irrational well-springs of reason in the human psyche.
However, the theory of evolution is not itself a religious teaching. First, as the piece above and some postings have attempted to explain to you, you are making about what the word "theory" means.
In our everyday lives, a "theory" is a sort of guess about something we have no way of understanding because of a lack of evidence.
In science, a theory is the best possible explanation for a great deal of evidence collected over time. It represents the highest level of scientific certainty (as opposed to the "hypothesis", which is what science sort of begins with).
Now, there is no dishonor in making this mistake. The same word is used in two different ways. Sometimes I think traditionalists and religious people are somewhat arrogant, however, when they assume they understand how science works.
Evolution does explain the world as we find it, but it cannot really tell us what we ought to do. It says what is, not what ought to be. It tells us how, but not why. It is science, not religion or philosophy or Kabbalah -- as much as I found that notion delicious to imagine. The language of evolution may have been in some way influenced by the sources you site (after all, scientists do use their imaginations at first), but it has since been repeatedly tested and verified.
The language of science sounds more like this: "We have observed these things, and we think thus and such and explains what we see."
The conditional terms of the language of science are their strength. Science teaches rational skepticism. Because creationism cannot be tested, and cannot be subjected to the routines of skepticism established by science.
This is actually another very understandable mistake that people make.
The claims of science are set up to be disprovable. Once you posit a supernatural being, you leave the realm of observable nature and establish something that cannot be disproved.
In the language of science, a claim that cannot be disproved is weak, not strong. (Unlike, say, in a creed of faith.)
Ed ,It is too bad your belief system does not embrace a wider scope. I can assume from your brush off that you reject the idea that you are composed of atoms [and very old ones at that], Both you and the biblical creationists should excuse themselves from science education.
You are right, I don't fit into your "science" package.
Two? You think there's only two? There are literally thousands of creation myths. And even if there were only two "explanations" they aren't the same kind of explanation. A scientific theory is an explanation that can be tested and that explains the data; a religious belief is an ad hoc "explanation." Your argument is akin to claiming that "leprechauns make it rain" is the only alternative "explanation" to modern meteorology; it isn't an explanation at all.
With that said, I'm not qualified to discuss in great detail the nuances of the thousands of different theories, explanations, myths (whatever label you would choose). In my limited view it just seems that you would have to believe (faith) that we were either created or we simply appeared somehow. I am somewhat familiar with the veracity of the documentation of the creation account and tend to believe (faith) that it is a much more reliable source than what seems to be a hodge-podge of missteps and trial and errors that make up the evolution theory. I know it is easy to say that you cannot disprove Creation and I would not suggest that as a defense. I simply believe that evolution as a theory has not really been around that long and yet (because it gives mankind a way out of being held responsible to a Creator) it has been largely accepted regardless of whatever evidence is or is not available. But like I said, I'm not a scientist or expert at really anything. But I still wonder what everyone is so scared of?
And what kind of evidence would you have to have to qualify Creationism? I would think if the documentation of an explanation could be reasonably verified, than the explanation could be also be accepted as a valid theory. Is this wrong? Ultimately is comes down to how everything got started, right? The Genesis account states that God did it. Some believe aliens did it. Some believe that something just appeared out of nowhere. It seems that evolutionist claim that their explanations are testable, yet when it comes to the actual beginnings of life they are as untestable as any explanation. At least that is how it seems to me.
So how does one distinguish between a "primary" explanation and one that isn't "primary" other than that the creation myth you believe in is primary and all others are not? Hundreds of millions of people accept the Hindu creation myth, which is entirely different from the Christian one. Whole civilizations have accepted hundreds of other creation myths that differ from yours. Science has a very effective way of distinguishing between the different types of explanations: those explanations that are testable, falsifiable and that explain a wide range of data are good theories and those that aren't are rightly ignored.
It is an "explanation" only in the sense that "leprechauns make it rain" is an explanation for rain. It makes no predictions at all that can be tested and therefore is scientifically useless.
The theory of evolution has been around far longer than all sorts of scientific theories that you likely do not doubt - the term theory of disease, the theory of relativity, plate tectonics, etc. Theories are not judged by how long they've been around they are judged on how well they explain the data. And evolution explains the data very well. If you haven't taken the time to do serious research into the various lines of evidence that evolution explains quite well, you simply aren't in any position to make any credible statements on the subject at all. You certainly are not justified in making the ridiculous claim that scientists believe it just because it allegedly gives us a way out of being responsible to God (especially in light of the existence of vast numbers of scientists who accept evolution and still believe that we are accountable to God).
It depends on what you mean by creationism. Some forms of creationism do make testable claims, especially young earth creationism. The claim that the bulk of the geologic record was deposited by a global flood is testable. In fact it has been tested and it fails to explain a vast range of evidence. It was thus rejected by scientists even before Darwin came along. But if you mean a vague "God did something" creationism, that is not at all testable because it makes no predictions about the nature of the evidence.
This is,quite literally, gibberish. It's word salad. Those words do not make for anything even approaching a coherent sentence. Explanations are not document. They are verified by their ability to explain existing evidence and accurately predict the nature of new evidence. Evolution does so quite well. Creationism does not, and in most forms cannot.
No, evolution does not depend on how life got started; evolution only explains how life, once started, leads to biodiversity. But even theories about the origin of life (abiogenesis) are entirely testable, whereas "god did it" is not testable.
Good point. Forgive me for generalizing. I've always had a hard time separating the origin of life and the process of life. Because I am not as qualified as you appear to be, I will not bother to argue about whether or not evolutionary processes are currently taking place. I know I change everyday in my thinking and my body adapts to different climates. So if that is what can be called evolution, count me in.
I would be curious as to what evidence could be given for the origin of life. I will have to look into that.
Now about my comment that you called word salad - nice phraseology. :) But you do seem a bit angry in all of your responses. I suppose that is a reflection of your passion about all of this. It is good to be passionate. Here was my point that was so poorly expressed that even you could not comprehend it. You stated that you feel that you are accountable to God. Who is the God you are accountable to? If it is the same God I am referring to (which I will take for granted since you did not correct the context), then it is the God of the Bible. This is where my statement fits in. The Bible's trustworthiness is beyond doubt at least in the sense that we are not given the option of taking bits a pieces of it as truth and tossing what we don't like. The evidence supporting it's accuracy and authenticity is as abundant as that supporting your ideas of evolution. So if a verifiable document gives an account of the beginning of life, why would that not be substantive. You claim that explanations are not document and yet you ask that we believe evidence documented by someone present during tests who observed the results, etc. Why do you doubt the God you claim to be held accountable to. Just think of Genesis as God's journal of the work He did and all you have to do is read His notes on how life began. And you won't find any notes on the evolutionary processes.
One question that want to ask is this: I know there must be benefits to proving life evolutionary, but I have not put thought to it. Could you please enlighten me as to why this process is so important? (This is a serious question.)
Now go ahead and tear it all apart! :)
No I didn't. I said that one can believe in evolution and also believe in a God to which we are accountable, as thousands and thousands of scientists who are also Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other religions believe. I said nothing about my own views. Personally, I am a deist, not a theist or an atheist. That means I suspect that something (and I do not try and define what that something is) created the universe but I see no reason to believe that whatever did so takes any interest in us whatsoever.
This statement is entirely false. If one is to take the Genesis account literally, it simply does not square with the evidence at all (but bear in mind that most Christian denominations do not take that account literally, only the most theologically conservative ones do). The earth was not created a few thousand years ago, it is 4.55 billion years old. And life on earth was not created in a week, it evolved gradually over the course of some 3.7 billion years. Even the order of appearance is wrong (fish and birds appear on the same day in the Bible; in the real world, birds do not appear for some 300 million years or more after fish do; whales appear before land mammals when the reality is the opposite). If you want to take that all as allegorical, as St. Augustine did and as most mainline denominations still do, then it is compatible with evolution in a very broad sense. But if you want to take it as literally true, the evidence clearly contradicts it.
One could as easily ask that question of any scientific theory. Rational people think there is always value in understanding reality and finding the truth. We don't need any practical benefit from understanding the natural history of life on earth in order to justify an honest search for the answers. But in fact we do have practical reasons anyway. Understanding how life evolves provides powerful insight into many issues that are important to our survival. For example, understanding how bacteria become immune to antibiotics, which is evolution at work, helps us develop new drugs to fight infections. Understanding how populations respond to environmental stresses helps us develop better ways to deal with damaged ecosystems and help maintain the balance of life in those situations. Understanding how certain traits developed and were selected for to aid in survival in one type of circumstance may actually be harmful in other circumstances (tribalism, for example) may help cultures evolve and leave malevolent behaviors behind. The truth is never useless. Understanding reality always aids us in one way or another.
I think if you are interested in fact, that you would find it interesting to do a thorough study of the origin of the Bible. You may not see the benefit of doing such a study, but from what I hear, rational people think there is always value in understanding reality and finding the truth. I hope your quest is ultimately successful. Thanks for the dialogue and for your time.
I'd encourage anyone who's posting on here to read "Letter to a Christian Nation". Maybe then you'll understand why those of use who don't hold your beliefs don't understand how you can think such rubbish is real.
Also, the teaching of all theory-like .. umm... stories that explain how we got here would take several years of high school science class. That's why we only explain the one that has a basis in science. The rest simply do not.
Mr Brayton, thanks for going to bat for the rest of us.