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Thread ID: 19552 | Posts: 23 | Started: 2005-08-10
2005-08-10 19:52 | User Profile
[font=Arial, Arial, Helvetica][color=#990000]The Left Doesnââ¬â¢t Like Darwin Either[/color][/font]
**By [url="http://www.vdare.com/asp/index.htm"]Steve Sailer[/url]**
There was much scoffing this week at President Bush's brief [url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080200899_5.html"] endorsement[/url] of the idea that the theory of Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Darwinism in [url="http://www.vdare.com/pb/worm_review_23.htm"] public schools.[/url]
But somebody should ask liberal pundits if they believe in the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.
I bet not many would agree. Yet that's the [url="http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2005/08/_darwin_said_sc.html"] subtitle[/url] to Darwin's * [url="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/otoos11.txt"] The Origin of Species.[/url]*
Paradoxically, while the Religious Right engages in [url="http://www.isteve.com/Darwin-EnemiesonRight.htm"] attacks on Darwin's theory[/url] of what animals evolved *from*, the left and [url="http://web.archive.org/web/20010331175056/http:/www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_26_01/ferguson_bkart_6_26_01.asp"] center [/url]clamps down upon [url="http://www.isteve.com/Darwin-EnemiesonLeft.htm"] Darwin's theory of what humans evolved *to*.[/url]
Nor do many liberal commentators know that much of Darwin's second most important book, * [url="http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/descent/descent_front.html"] The Descent of Man,[/url] *consists of an evolutionary explanation of human racial differences.
In it, Darwin [url="http://www.vdare.com/Documents%20and%20Settings/Bob%20Martin/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/NIR6BTG4/Great,%20has%20features%20superbly%20European;%20whereas%20Knox,%20another%20firm%20believer%20in%20the%20specific%20distinctness%20of%20the%20races%20of%20man"] wrote[/url]:
**"... the various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other -- as in the texture of hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body, the capacity of the lungs, the form and capacity of the skull, and even the convolutions of the brain. But it would be an endless task to specify the numerous points of difference. The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotions, but partly in their intellectual faculties."**
This means that Darwinian science is on a collision course with [url="http://www.vdare.com/sailer/medicine_and_race.htm"] progressive egalitarians.[/url] Darwinism *requires* hereditary inequalities. What natural selection selects is genetic difference. In his famous * [url="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man/index.shtml"] The Descent of Man[/url]*, Darwin wrote, ** [url="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1871darwin-desc3.html"] "Variability is the necessary basis for the action of selection."[/url]** The left fears true Darwinian science because the politically correct dogma of our factual equality cannot survive the relentlessly accumulating evidence of our genetic variability.
Darwin did not dream up the Theory of Evolution. Many earlier thinkers, like his grandfather [url="http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/darwine.htm"] Erasmus Darwin[/url] and the great French naturalist [url="http://www.isteve.com/2001_Why_French_Ignore_Darwin.htm"] Jean Baptiste Lamarck,[/url] had proposed various schemes of gradual changes in organisms.
Darwin's great contribution was the precise engine of [url="http://www.vdare.com/sailer/nepotism.htm"] evolution: selection. [/url]
Lamarck, for example, had [url="http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/%7Esimmons/16cm05/1116/16evolut.htm"] believed[/url] that giraffes possess long necks because their ancestors had stretched their necks to reach higher leaves. This stretching somehow caused their offspring to be born with longer necks. Darwin, however, argued that the proto-giraffes who happened to be born with longer necks could eat more and thus left behind more of their longer-necked children than the proto-giraffes unlucky enough to be born with shorter necks.
Selection remains the most underexploited concept in American intellectual life. It has applications far beyond biology.
Conservatives intellectually disarm themselves when they let distaste for [url="http://www.vdare.com/letters/tl_092703.htm"] Darwinism[/url] cause them to ignore the explanatory power of selection.
Of course, what most people are interested in is the [url="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/07/10/EDGBBDKPB81.DTL"] religious controversy over Darwinism.[/url] I'm not going to end that dispute, but please allow me to explain why it's not as dire an issue as most of the participants on either side assume. Neither stance logically rules out thinking in selectionist terms.
Consider this: When your doctor prescribes a ten-day course of antibiotics to you, he insists you take all ten days worth of pills, even if you feel fine after two days.
This logic is derived directly from Darwin's theory of natural selection. If you only take two days of antibiotics, you are likely to kill just the bacteria most vulnerable to the medicine and leave alive the most [url="http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/ahp/LAD/C20/C20_Resistance.html"] antibiotic-resistant germs[/url]. If you keep doing that, you may accidentally create a new version of the bacteria that can't be killed by the antibiotic.
The good news is that there are no Creationists so dogmatic that they preach taking only two days worth of penicillin on the grounds that Darwin must have been wrong. Indeed, the logic of natural selection is widely recognized to be virtually tautological.
Darwin seems to lose out with the public primarily when his supporters force him into a mano-a-mano [url="http://www.isteve.com/Darwin-EnemiesonRight.htm"] Thunderdome[/url] death match against the Almighty. Most people seem willing to accept Darwinism as long as they don't have to believe in nothing but Darwinism. Thus, the [url="http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/dawkins3.htm"] strident tub-thumping[/url] for [url="http://www.e-n.org.uk/2000-04/1131-Does-God-Believe-in-Atheists.htm"] absolute atheism [/url]by evolutionary biologists like [url="http://www.vdare.com/sailer/dawkins.htm"] Richard Dawkins,[/url] whom the new issue of *Discover Magazine* rightly criticizes as ** [url="http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_dawkinsfallacies.htm"] "Darwin's Rottweiler,"[/url]** is self-defeating.
Instead, what excites vast controversy is the issue of whether Darwinian selection explains *everything*. Nobody doubts that selection explains the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and much else. But many doubt it can explain every single feature we see about us. Biologists, in contrast, typically assert that Darwinism can explain all of life, with no need for any miraculous interventions.
So is the natural selection glass 100 percent full or just 99.9 percent fullââ¬âwith the occasional miracle necessary to fully account for the wonder of life as we know it?
Strikingly, that question appears to be [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism"] fundamentally unanswerable[/url] by scientific methods. Although the theory of natural selection has been vastly useful in understanding the biological world, nobody has a time machine to go back and check every possible moment in the history of life on Earth.
The biologists' assumption that no miracles are needed to explain the universe is itself a form of faith.
Interestingly, the concept of a miracle is far less inimical to science than many biologists assume. As science fiction novelist [url="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/"] Jerry Pournelle[/url] pointed out to me, a miracle is, by definition, an exception that proves the rule. So, a belief in miracles, unlike a belief in magic, presupposes a belief in natural laws, which is a necessary condition for science.
Thus, Christendom could develop modern science, while China could not. Historian S.A.M. Adshead of New Zealand wrote a fascinating little book full of aphorisms called * [url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312005067/vdare"] China in World History.[/url]* He noted that the [url="http://www.vdare.com/pb/chinese.htm"] medieval Chinese[/url] focused on magic and technology while the Europeans concentrated on theology and science. Early on, the Chinese profited more from their seemingly [url="http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/pabacker/history/china.htm"] more practical approach,[/url] but in the long run, the Western approach proved best.
Yet what critics of Darwinism fail to understand is that this *a priori* dislike of miracles *is* the appropriate professional prejudice of biologists. The [url="http://www.fishlarvae.com/Humour/SidneyHarris_MiracleWeb.jpg"] Sidney Harris cartoon[/url] summed it up. A lab-coated researcher is filling the left and right sides of a black board with equations, but the only thing connecting the two clouds of symbols are the words, ** "Then a miracle occurs."** Another scientist suggests, **"I think you should be more explicit here in step two."** Relying on miracles in science is like relying on the lottery in retirement planning.
Different professions require different professional prejudices. If you should ever need a [url="http://www.vdare.com/roberts/lawyers.htm"] defense attorney,[/url] you would want him to follow his trade's ethic of battling to have you acquitted even if he assumed you were guilty. Judging you is not his job. Yet we wouldn't want [url="http://www.vdare.com/francis/retardation.htm"] judges[/url] to think that way.
Similarly, biologists will be more productive if they don't just throw their hands up and declare a miracle when faced with [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/asguru/generalstudies/sciencetechnology/18antibiotics/antibiotics02.shtml"] something they can't yet explain.[/url]
But the problem comes when biologists try to inflate this useful professional prejudice into the primary principle of the cosmos. Indeed, evolutionary biologistsââ¬â¢ views on religion tend to be positively sophomoric compared to those of physicists and astronomers.
This is because cosmologists have learned humility the hard way. They were twice burned badly in the 20th Century, when their smug atheistic assumptions about the nature of the universeââ¬âthat what we can see is all there is and all there ever wasââ¬âturned out to be radically wrong.
Consider two of the most scientifically fruitful theories in 20th Century cosmologyââ¬â[url="http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html"]the Big Bang[/url] and the[url="http://www.anthropic-principle.com/"] Anthropic Principle [/url]of Intelligent Design.
The first was developed in part by the Jesuit mathematician [url="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp27bi.html"] Father Georges Lemaitre,[/url] who certainly did not mind that its **"Let there be light"** narrative fit well with [url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/100203.htm"] St. Thomas Aquinas's Prime Mover proof[/url] for the existence of God.
The second, introduced by physicist Brandon Carter in 1974, resembles the [url="http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/paley.html"] Rev. Paley's Argument from Design[/url] for the existence of God by pointing out that our universe seems suspiciously fine-tuned for the evolution of intelligent life. For instance, if gravity were much stronger the Big Bang would have quickly collapsed back on itself; much weaker, and stars and planets couldn't have formed.
To avoid admitting a Designer, cosmologists had to postulate that beyond our natural world, there must exist a, shall we say, ** "supernatural"** world. Maybe, they say, there is a ** "superuniverse"** comprising an infinite number of universes, all with different natural laws.
Philosopher Robert C. Koons notes,
** "Originally, atheists prided themselves on being no-nonsense empiricists, who limited their beliefs to what could be seen and measured. Now, we find ourselves in a situation in which the only alternative to belief in God is belief in an infinite number of unobservable parallel universes! You've come along way, baby!"**
Still, no matter what the metaphysical implications, we can't forget Darwin's great insight about our world: selection matters. Life is not 100 percent Lamarckian. [url="http://vdare.com/sailer/050102_wolfe.htm"] People vary,[/url] and we can't always [url="http://www.vdare.com/sailer/unthinkable.htm"] mold them[/url] into whatever we want them to be.
The left has long hated this insight because it suggests that there are limits to the effectiveness of social engineering.
Ironically, the institutions that help the prestige of the left survive, the elite universities, are elite precisely because they carefully select applicants using the standardized test scores that leftists routinely denounce in other contexts.
On immigration policy, neoconservative intellectuals apparently assume that for the U.S. to adopt the [url="http://cis.org/articles/2001/blueprints/aleinikoff.html"] Canadian and Australian approach[/url] and select immigrants that most benefit current citizens would be [url="http://www.vdare.com/sailer/jacoby.htm"] deplorably discriminatory.[/url]
Instead, neoconservatives assert that a vaguely form of social engineering they laud as ** [url="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http://www.vdare.com/francis/no_assimilation.htm&ei=yqf2QtXoE8Kc4AHSmoCVDg"] "assimilation"[/url]** will assuredly [url="http://www.vdare.com/misc/izumi_assimilation.htm"] transform everyone[/url] into that highest form of humanity, the neocon intellectual.
Well, the world [url="http://www.vdare.com/fulford/airport.htm"] doesn't always work[/url] the way fashionable intellectuals say it does. It takes science to figure out how the world does work. We ignore it at our peril.
[url="http://www.vdare.com/asp/printPage.asp?url=http://vdare.com/sailer/050807_darwin.htm"]http://www.vdare.com/asp/printPage.asp?url=http://vdare.com/sailer/050807_darwin.htm[/url]
2005-08-13 14:59 | User Profile
Some comments on this article (which I found actually quite balanced and fair-minded to have been written by a committed evolutionist - kudos for Sailer)
[COLOR=DarkGreen][FONT=Arial] [I][B] - " Darwin's great contribution was the precise engine of evolution: selection. "[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
The concept of "natural selection" was actually discovered by a creationist! [FONT=Georgia][COLOR=Purple] "Natural selection is really a very straight-forward, commonsense insight. [B]A creationist, the chemist/zoologist Edward Blyth (1810ââ¬â1873), wrote about it in 1835ââ¬â7, before Darwin, who very likely borrowed the idea from Blyth[/B].1"[/COLOR][/FONT]
[url]http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v23/i3/muddywaters.asp[/url]
Natural selection is [B]not[/B] a pro-evolutionist concept, creating something totally new, but a very [B]conservative[/B] mechanism, weeding out unfit newcomers.
[COLOR=Purple][FONT=Georgia]"[B]Since natural selection can only cull, todayââ¬â¢s evolutionary theorists rely on mutations (random copying mistakes in the reproductive process) to create the raw material on which natural selection can then operate. But that is a separate issue[/B]. It has been shown convincingly that observed mutations do not add information, and that mutation is seriously hampered on theoretical grounds in this area.2 [B]One of the worldââ¬â¢s leading information scientists, Dr Werner Gitt from Germanyââ¬â¢s Federal Institute of Physics and Technology in Braunschweig, says, ââ¬ËThere is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.[/B]ââ¬â¢3"[/FONT] [/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkGreen][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "Conservatives intellectually disarm themselves when they let distaste for Darwinism cause them to ignore the explanatory power of selection."[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
And I would argue that right-wing Darwinists are too short-sighted to realize how easily evolutionism could be transformed into a principle of radically [I]tradition-despising [/I]revolution and tyrannical statism: [FONT=Georgia] [COLOR=Indigo]"[B]The importance of Darwinism, Hsü reports, was indicated by Theo Sumnerââ¬â¢s experience on a trip with German Chancellor Helmit Schmit to China. Theo was astonished to personally hear from Mao Tse-tung about the debt Mao felt to Darwinism, and especially to the man who also inspired Hitler, Darwinist Ernst Haeckel[/B].61 [B][U]Hsü concluded Mao was convinced that ââ¬Ëwithout the continual pressure of natural selectionââ¬â¢ humans would degenerate[/U]. This idea inspired Mao to advocate ââ¬Ëthe ceaseless revolution that brought my homeland to the brink of ruin[/B]ââ¬â¢.[/COLOR][/FONT]
[url]http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i1/communism.asp[/url]
And just like the Trotskyist-Maoist notion of "continuous revolution", the esoteric neocon (and fascist) idea of "perpetual warfare" to prevent internal decay is easy to justify on Darwinian grounds - any warfare being good warfare, just as long an overt defeat is avoided.
In fact, Darwinism is a lot closer to radical progressivism than any genuine "conservatism".
[COLOR=DarkGreen][B][I][FONT=Arial]- "Consider this: When your doctor prescribes a ten-day course of antibiotics to you, he insists you take all ten days worth of pills, even if you feel fine after two days. This logic is derived directly from Darwin's theory of natural selection. If you only take two days of antibiotics, you are likely to kill just the bacteria most vulnerable to the medicine and leave alive the most antibiotic-resistant germs. If you keep doing that, you may accidentally create a new version of the bacteria that can't be killed by the antibiotic." [/FONT][/I][/B][/COLOR]
Have you ever noticed how you meet always those one and the same sparse "proofs" for evolution, like peppered moths, [I]Archaeopteryx[/I] and then this antibiotics-thing?
I could justify taking my medicine till the end without subscribing to any evolutionary mythology: I would want to kill all the bacteria within my body instead of just part of them and leaving all the tough ones alive. This would not indicate that these die-hards would turn into some entirely new species, which is what Darwinism is all about, the "origin of species!"
[COLOR=DarkRed] [FONT=Trebuchet MS][SIZE=5]Example 2. Antibiotic resistance[/SIZE]
In a very interesting article in New Scientist, Jason Chin discussed antibiotic resistance, attributing such resistance to ââ¬Ëevolution.ââ¬â¢1 The whole tone of the paper was ââ¬Ëevolution does it.ââ¬â¢ This indoctrinates the uninformed reader in the belief that antibiotic resistance is evolution in action. But is it?
Evolution would need a mechanism for creating new genetic information. [B]Chin implies throughout the paper that the antibiotic resistance mechanisms have arisen as a result of exposure to antibioticsââ¬âthat is, evolution has created new complex functions. [/B]However, he unwittingly gives the game away in several places.
Amoxycillin resistance in bacteria has been overcome by adding a compound which blocks the bacterial enzyme which degrades the amoxycillin. The combination, known as Augmentin, the author says, ââ¬Ëis a better antibiotic than amoxycillin ever was [that is, even when bacteria had never been previously exposed to amoxycillin]: it is active against a wider range of bacteria ââ¬Â¦Ã¢â¬â¢ (my emphasis and addition).
So, reading between the lines ââ¬Â¦ when amoxycillin first came into use it could not kill some types of bacteria because these already had the enzyme that degrades amoxycillin. Addition of the enzyme blocker in Augmentin now allows amoxycillin to kill these bacteria as well.
But that means that there were certain bacteria that already had the resistance mechanism before amoxycillin was in use. It is well known that the genes for such resistance can be transferred between different types of bacteria. The bacteria which were not resistant, but now are, most probably got their resistance from the ones which had the resistance mechanism all along. [B]There is no new genetic information involved, just its transfer from one bacterium to another! [/B]In other words, all this has nothing to do with microbes-to-man evolution. There is no new complex information.
This is confirmed in the last paragraph of the article. Julian Davies of the University of British Columbia suggests that scientists should be able to predict the ways in which bacteria will foil new antibiotics. He is reported as saying, ââ¬ËI would go and get a handful of soil, I would expose the microbes in the soil to the antibiotic and pick out the ones that grow. And in a fortnight I could tell you the mechanism of resistance that would eventually be found in the clinic.ââ¬â¢
[B]Again, the resistance mechanisms are already present in some bacteria[/B]. Resistance arises in disease-causing bacteria by transfer of the genetic information from resistant types of bacteria which may not even cause disease. These may be ecologically beneficial bacteria that are involved in normal healthy soil, for example. Or they may be bacteria that normally live in the large intestines of healthy people, or on our skin. [B]A gene for resistance usually has some other role normally and it just happens also to confer resistance to an antibiotic[/B].[/FONT][/COLOR]
[url]http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i4/lines.asp[/url]
[COLOR=DarkGreen][B][FONT=Arial] [I] - "Thus, Christendom could develop modern science, while China could not. Historian S.A.M. Adshead of New Zealand wrote a fascinating little book full of aphorisms called China in World History. He noted that the medieval Chinese focused on magic and technology while the Europeans concentrated on theology and science."[/I][/FONT][/B][/COLOR]
It is nice to see that Sailer has caught on this more and more acknowledged fact - that Christian theology was an [U]indispensable ingredient[/U] (though not the sole cause) in the birth of modern scientific method (unknown to Greeks and Romans) at the hands of medieval scholastics.
See more on this thread:
[url]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14949&highlight=principia[/url]
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial] [I][B] - "Originally, atheists prided themselves on being no-nonsense empiricists, who limited their beliefs to what could be seen and measured. Now, we find ourselves in a situation in which the only alternative to belief in God is belief in an infinite number of unobservable parallel universes! You've come along way, baby!"[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
Once again, kudos for Sailer (and Koons) for pointing out how far anti-theists are ready to go to avoid admitting the obvious.
Petr
2005-08-13 16:07 | User Profile
As Sailer correctly points out, there are people on both the Left and the Right who dislike evolution. But of course, what we like has little bearing on what is. Far too many people have trouble accepting that. I don't like the fact that I'm one day going to die, but reality doesn't give a hoot. Reality is what it is.
There was much scoffing this week at President Bush's brief endorsement of the idea that the theory of Intelligent Design should be taught alongside Darwinism in public schools. Intelligent Design should be taught only once there's evidence to support it. So far, all the evidence points inexorably toward evolution. The experts are in near-unanimous agreement. The ONLY people who disagree are those who have an emotional need to believe that the Bible is literally true. But evolution isn't even needed to see that the Bible is obviously not literally true (for example, the "Great Flood" could NOT have happened -- it would have left unmistakable evidence that every geologist would know about). Even if evolution were proved false, that would NOT prove the Bible true. It wouldn't even prove the existence of God. Superintelligent yet entirely natural alien beings could have created all life on earth. We simply don't know, regardless of what anyone says. That's the painful truth that MUST be accepted over feel-good religious claims.
Selection remains the most underexploited concept in American intellectual life. It has applications far beyond biology. Very true. A good point.
Darwin seems to lose out with the public primarily when his supporters force him into a mano-a-mano Thunderdome death match against the Almighty. Most people seem willing to accept Darwinism as long as they don't have to believe in nothing but Darwinism. Thus, the strident tub-thumping for absolute atheism by evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins, whom the new issue of Discover Magazine rightly criticizes as "Darwin's Rottweiler," is self-defeating. It's true that evolution doesn't disprove God's existence. If someone wants to argue against God's existence, there are many far better arguments that can be used.
Nobody doubts that selection explains the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and much else. He's mistaken about that! :lol: Tell that to the circular reasoners at AnswersInGenesis. :rolleyes:
Let's just say no one who knows the slightest thing about science doubts it.
The biologists' assumption that no miracles are needed to explain the universe is itself a form of faith. Not really. I'd say it's more a conclusion based on inductive reasoning, in turn based on overwhelming evidence. Every single phenomenon that has been successfully explained by men so far -- even those things that were once thought unexplainable -- has been explained without the need to resort to miracles. That's a long, LONG track record of materialistic success and an excellent justification to never give up searching for naturalistic explanations for phenomena that aren't yet understood.
Yet what critics of Darwinism fail to understand is that this a priori dislike of miracles is the appropriate professional prejudice of biologists. The Sidney Harris cartoon summed it up. A lab-coated researcher is filling the left and right sides of a black board with equations, but the only thing connecting the two clouds of symbols are the words, "Then a miracle occurs." Another scientist suggests, "I think you should be more explicit here in step two." Relying on miracles in science is like relying on the lottery in retirement planning.
...
Similarly, biologists will be more productive if they don't just throw their hands up and declare a miracle when faced with something they can't yet explain. Exactly.
But the problem comes when biologists try to inflate this useful professional prejudice into the primary principle of the cosmos. Indeed, evolutionary biologistsââ¬â¢ views on religion tend to be positively sophomoric compared to those of physicists and astronomers. I think he's painting evolutionary biologists with overly broad a brush here. There are more than a few who believe in God, for example. And contrary to the implication above, I'm pretty sure physicists are less likely than any other kind of scientist to believe in God.
This is because cosmologists have learned humility the hard way. They were twice burned badly in the 20th Century, when their smug atheistic assumptions about the nature of the universeââ¬âthat what we can see is all there is and all there ever wasââ¬âturned out to be radically wrong. Since when was this proved wrong? This is still what most physicists believe -- especially eminent ones like Stephen Hawking.
Consider two of the most scientifically fruitful theories in 20th Century cosmologyââ¬âthe Big Bang and the Anthropic Principle of Intelligent Design.
The first was developed in part by the Jesuit mathematician Father Georges Lemaitre, who certainly did not mind that its "Let there be light" narrative fit well with St. Thomas Aquinas's Prime Mover proof for the existence of God. The Big Bang does not prove God's existence, though it makes it more plausible than the alternative "static universe." It is possible that the universe alternately expands and contracts in a neverending series of "big bangs" and "big crunches," though that's an open question.
The Big Bang certainly does NOT prove, or even provide evidence for, the existence of a personal God. That's one of many wildly illogical leaps Aquinas made. Something is clearly self-existent, but who says that self-existent thing has to be God? Maybe it's just the laws of physics that are self-existent.
The second, introduced by physicist Brandon Carter in 1974, resembles the Rev. Paley's Argument from Design for the existence of God by pointing out that our universe seems suspiciously fine-tuned for the evolution of intelligent life. For instance, if gravity were much stronger the Big Bang would have quickly collapsed back on itself; much weaker, and stars and planets couldn't have formed. The universe is not fine-tuned for life; life is fine-tuned for the universe.
To avoid admitting a Designer, cosmologists had to postulate that beyond our natural world, there must exist a, shall we say, "supernatural" world. Maybe, they say, there is a "superuniverse" comprising an infinite number of universes, all with different natural laws.
Philosopher Robert C. Koons notes,
"Originally, atheists prided themselves on being no-nonsense empiricists, who limited their beliefs to what could be seen and measured. Now, we find ourselves in a situation in which the only alternative to belief in God is belief in an infinite number of unobservable parallel universes! You've come along way, baby!" This is simply incorrect. There are many competing cosmological theories, none of which requires anything supernatural. Koons should stick to philosophy.
Still, no matter what the metaphysical implications, we can't forget Darwin's great insight about our world: selection matters. Life is not 100 percent Lamarckian. People vary, and we can't always mold them into whatever we want them to be.
The left has long hated this insight because it suggests that there are limits to the effectiveness of social engineering.
Ironically, the institutions that help the prestige of the left survive, the elite universities, are elite precisely because they carefully select applicants using the standardized test scores that leftists routinely denounce in other contexts.
On immigration policy, neoconservative intellectuals apparently assume that for the U.S. to adopt the Canadian and Australian approach and select immigrants that most benefit current citizens would be deplorably discriminatory.
Instead, neoconservatives assert that a vaguely form of social engineering they laud as "assimilation" will assuredly transform everyone into that highest form of humanity, the neocon intellectual.
Well, the world doesn't always work the way fashionable intellectuals say it does. It takes science to figure out how the world does work. We ignore it at our peril. Sailer ends on a strong note with some undeniably correct statements.
2005-08-13 16:15 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "He's mistaken about that! Tell that to the circular reasoners at AnswersInGenesis"[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
You are presenting false information. AIG folks do [B]not[/B] deny that natural selection is involved in the development of antibiotic resistance - they just deny that it, or the whole concept of natural selection, is involved in the origin of new species.
Fanatical evolutionists are often amazingly ignorant on just what creationist arguments are, preferring to attack strawmen of their own imaginations. Creationist do not have this luxury of being able to ignore what their opponents are really saying.
Petr
2005-08-13 16:17 | User Profile
[quote=AiG]"Since natural selection can only cull, todayââ¬â¢s evolutionary theorists rely on mutations (random copying mistakes in the reproductive process) to create the raw material on which natural selection can then operate. Of course. Mutations are precisely what cause new structures to be created.
But that is a separate issue. It has been shown convincingly that observed mutations do not add information, and that mutation is seriously hampered on theoretical grounds in this area.2 One of the worldââ¬â¢s leading information scientists, Dr Werner Gitt from Germanyââ¬â¢s Federal Institute of Physics and Technology in Braunschweig, says, ââ¬ËThere is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.ââ¬â¢3" I have a feeling Dr. Gitt's words are being twisted here, since the definition of "information" can vary depending on context. Suffice it to say that anything mutations can destroy, mutations can also create. That is a FACT. If it's conceivable that changing a gene from A to B can cause the loss of some bodily characteristic, then it's equally conceivable that changing a gene from B to A can cause the creation of that bodily characteristic (even if it never existed before!). Of course, real evolutionary additions to structures are generally much more subtle than that. It's the environment that does the "designing," working within the context of the mutations.
For example, a mutation can cause an organism to grow extra tissue in a certain region of its body. If that extra tissue is somehow more help than hindrance in its particular environment -- Voila! -- natural selection will tend to weed out all those who don't have that particular mutation. And the organism will have evolved.
I can't believe people don't find this perfectly obvious. It makes PERFECT sense, and it's not at all difficult to understand. But creationists deny it in the same way that people often deny it when a relative dies. Sometimes the truth is too painful to face head-on.
2005-08-13 16:21 | User Profile
[FONT=Arial][COLOR=Red][B][I] - "I can't believe people don't find this perfectly obvious. It makes PERFECT sense, and it's not at all difficult to understand."[/I][/B][/COLOR][/FONT]
It is also statistically [I]absurdly inprobable[/I] (if possible at all, for the sake of argument) that mutations (which usually have simply a negative effect) could have given birth to all life, even in 15 billion years.
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B] [I] - "But creationists deny it in the same way that people often deny it when a relative dies. Sometimes the truth is too painful to face head-on."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
Third-rate psycho-analysis and well-poisoning.
Petr
2005-08-13 16:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "He's mistaken about that! Tell that to the circular reasoners at AnswersInGenesis"[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
You are presenting false information. AIG folks do [B]not[/B] deny that natural selection is involved in the development of antibiotic resistance - they just deny that it, or the whole concept of natural selection, is involved in the origin of new species. Did you read your own "Example 2" posted above?
Fanatical evolutionists are often amazingly ignorant on just what creationist arguments are, preferring to attack strawmen of their own imaginations. Creationist do not have this luxury of being able to ignore what their opponents are really saying.[/QUOTE]LMAO. Of course creationists ignore what evolutionists say. Not only that, they ignore or twist ANY evidence that doesn't fit the Bible. Doesn't AiG even have a "statement of faith" on their site? Or was it one of those other laughable psuedoscience sites like CreationSafaris? Whomever it was, that "statement of faith" alone proves that they're not rational, that they've determined the conclusion they will arrive at from the very beginning. In other words: they can't be reasoned with by their own admission.
How faith poisons minds....
2005-08-13 16:30 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][FONT=Arial][COLOR=Red][B][I] - "I can't believe people don't find this perfectly obvious. It makes PERFECT sense, and it's not at all difficult to understand."[/I][/B][/COLOR][/FONT]
It is also statistically [I]absurdly inprobable[/I] (if possible at all, for the sake of argument) that mutations (which usually have simply a negative effect) could have given birth to all life, even in 15 billion years.[/QUOTE]No one claims that mutations gave birth to life. Life has to already exist in order for mutations to occur.
Petr, please learn about what you're debating before you debate it.
2005-08-13 16:35 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "Of course creationists ignore what evolutionists say."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
Now you are just babbling incoherently. Professional creationists are well aware of what the basic arguments of evolutionism are. Whether they agree with them is another matter altogether.
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B] [I] - "Not only that, they ignore or twist ANY evidence that doesn't fit the Bible."[/I] [/B][/FONT] [/COLOR] From the evo-debater handbook, basic strategy: when you cannot defend your own paradigm, start vaguely blathering about the Bible.
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][I] [B] - "Or was it one of those other laughable psuedoscience sites like CreationSafaris?"[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
Qute ivory-tower smugness. What exactly makes that site "laughable" or "pseudo-scientific"? Tell us.
Petr
2005-08-13 16:56 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B] [I] - "Not only that, they ignore or twist ANY evidence that doesn't fit the Bible."[/I] [/B][/FONT] [/COLOR] From the evo-debater handbook, basic strategy: when you cannot defend your own paradigm, start vaguely blathering about the Bible. Do you deny that the Bible is the SOLE reason why creationists oppose evolution?
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][I] [B] - "Or was it one of those other laughable psuedoscience sites like CreationSafaris?"[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
Qute ivory-tower smugness. What exactly makes that site "laughable" or "pseudo-scientific"? Tell us.[/QUOTE]Go get a degree in science. Then you'll understand.
2005-08-13 16:57 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "No one claims that mutations gave birth to life."[/B] [/I][/FONT][/COLOR] Evo-debater's handbook, rule n. 2: raise a big noise on some grammatical-semantical issue.
I'll re-phrase my point: it is absurdly improbable that mutations (that usually have distinctively negative effect) alone could have originated all the genetic material of all the species of flora and fauna, even if we grant the long ages needed for this supposed process.
Petr
2005-08-13 17:00 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "Do you deny that the Bible is the SOLE reason why creationists oppose evolution?"[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
Of course,. Many of these intelligent men have honest doubts on the probability of evolution on a purely intellectual basis, and Bible just gives them an alternative.
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "Go get a degree in science. Then you'll understand."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
So you chicken out of my challenge.
I seem to remember that you don't have a degree in sciences dealing with genetics, so why are you pontificating on mutations, hypocrite?
Petr
2005-08-13 17:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "Do you deny that the Bible is the SOLE reason why creationists oppose evolution?"[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
Of course,. Many of these intelligent men have honest doubts on the probability of evolution on a purely intellectual basis, and Bible just gives them an alternative. Why the Biblical creation myth? Why not, say, the Sumerian one? How about one of the other thousands of creation stories?
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "Go get a degree in science. Then you'll understand."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
So you chicken out of my challenge. Yeah, right. :rolleyes: It's more like that I've demolished creationist arguments so many times that I get tired of repeating myself. And every single thing on those websites is BS! They're so childish and simpleminded, it's painful to read.
But just to make you happy, I'll make this point: Any site or person that uses the Bible as "evidence" of anything is pseudoscientific. The Bible is a book written by men. Reading words in a Bible is NOT the same as observing things in nature. That should go without saying.
I seem to remember that you don't have a degree in sciences dealing with genetics, so why are you pontificating on mutations, hypocrite?[/QUOTE]Because, ignorant one, there are certain conceptual threads that run throughout all of science. Physics (my field) is the most basic of sciences; it underlies all the others. Physics also requires a strong command of mathematics, which is another common thread in science. For example, I've studied probability theory at the graduate level. It is clearly relevant to biology.
Furthemore, while I don't have a degree in biology, I have studied it at the university level (and I did well in it).
Above all, a degree in science imparts an understanding of the scientific method. Almost no creationists have that understanding. You're no exception if you think that those creationists websites constitute valid science by any stretch of the imagination.
CreationSafaris, AiG, and all other such sites are nothing but lah-dee-dah, feel-good, happy horsesh!t. If you want to learn science from qualified professionals who actually discover new medications and use genetic engineering to perform real miracles, get yourself some good textbooks and READ. Better yet, get a degree in biology or biochemistry, or at least in science. Pay your dues before jumping into the debate.
2005-08-13 18:45 | User Profile
You crack me up, Angler. :flex: :)
I always imagine your wife or family rolling their eyes in reaction to one of your tirades. :king:
2005-08-13 19:05 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "And every single thing on those websites is BS!"[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
No, you are [B]not[/B] a dogmatical, deeply biased fanatic who habitually dismisses stuff just because of his [I]a priori[/I] prejudices, no sir. What could ever make people think that way? [COLOR=DarkRed] [FONT=Arial] [B][I] - "They're so childish and simpleminded, it's painful to read."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
That's strange, for they comment in a learned manner (many having very relevant degrees from secular institutions) on the latest secular scholarship out there. Could it be that it is their [B]heretical conclusions[/B] on that material that enrages you (and possibly makes you weaker in your naturalist faith)? [COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial] [I] [B] - "Any site or person that uses the Bible as "evidence" of anything is pseudoscientific. "[/B][/I][/FONT] [/COLOR] Not even in historical issues? (and even the history of this planet is part of history)
That's a qute, self-serving cop-out, for this essentially means that anyone who literally believes in the Bible automatically becomes unable to practice "serious science".
All their allusions to the Bible could be removed, and their scientific, empirical criticisms of evolution would still be intact and tormenting you. Your scream that they are "Bible-believers" is just as meaningless as is the scream of a Jews: "anti-Semite!" when someone lists their dirty deeds and they cannot factually deny it. They are correct, and their personal beliefs and ideologies do not change that fact one bit.
Petr
2005-08-14 12:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]You crack me up, Angler. :flex: :)
I always imagine your wife or family rolling their eyes in reaction to one of your tirades. :king:[/QUOTE]You imagine quite a few things that have nothing to do with reality. My family are Catholic, and while none of them are scientists, they agree with me that creationism is absurd. I have spoken to Catholic priests who say the same thing. Only a small minority of Christians are so stubborn as to reject the plain evidence provided by scientists around the entire frigging planet.
The entire scientific community rolls their eyes at you people who think the earth is 6000 years old and that some guy once had a boat with two of every animal on it (all the millions of species). I find it frightening that you don't see how utterly laughable these notions are. Believing in such stuff really is like believing in the tooth fairy.
To put things in perspective, this is the intellectual company I'm keeping:
[img]http://www.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/gif/phys/solvay27.jpg[/img]
This is the intellectual company you, Petr, and the rest of the fire 'n' brimstone folks are keeping:
[img]http://lubbockonline.com/gallery/day_of_prayer/lbkprayer22.jpg[/img]
One of these communities is known for getting results, making discoveries, and making things happen in the real world. It consists of people who use reason and logic to improve mankind's fund of knowledge. The other one is known for talking a lot about truth when the "truth" exists mostly in their imaginations -- and they can't even agree among themselves about what it is. I'll leave it for you to make the distinction.
2005-08-14 16:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]To put things in perspective, this is the intellectual company I'm keeping: Not really since many of the scientists pictured are Jews and I doubt they would appreciate your company. In such circles you would be far from welcome. It's funny how you say the majority of scientists are on your side when in reality it's Culturally Marxist scientists that are on your side and only with regard to the creation/evolution issue. These are the same scientists who would go bonkers over your statements regarding race and Jews. If your beliefs were mainstream among those scientists they wouldn't keep quiet about it. At least not if those scientists were anywhere near as trustworthy as YOU claim they are.
Since you have contempt for the very basis of Western Civ (Christianity) I think your rants about race and Jews might just be another attempt to "rebel" on your part. You can't be too interested in saving a civilization whose very basis you despise.
2005-08-14 16:24 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "My family are Catholic, and while none of them are scientists, they agree with me that creationism is absurd. I have spoken to Catholic priests who say the same thing."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
The Vatican is notoriously backslidden on the evolution issue, as on many other things these days.
[COLOR=DarkRed] [FONT=Arial][I][B] - "To put things in perspective, this is the intellectual company I'm keeping:"[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
Self-serving conceit. To begin with, you are nowhere near the level of those scientists, this would be an equivalent of me comparing myself to Thomas Aquinas or John Clerk Maxwell.
Christianity is not some elitist club - only a small part of Christendom can spend time and energy on systematically challenging and refuting evolutionist falsehoods. As the Good Book says, different members in the Body of Christ have different duties.
Besides, I would argue that creationism, intelligent design or at least evo-skepticism is [B]a potent underground current[/B] within the scientific community - that many, many more scientists would loudly proclaim their disbelief in evolution if they just had more intestinal fortitude and would not fear of losing their grant money.
Just like many academicians would yearn to express politically incorrect opinions on race and politics, but instead choose to sulk quietly...
Petr
2005-08-14 16:44 | User Profile
[COLOR=Red][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "Go get a degree in science. Then you'll understand."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
And I [I]must[/I] add to this: the only degree Charles Darwin himself had was a Bachelor in [B]theology[/B]. I guess he was just an over-confident amateur who shouldn't have been allowed to comment on scientific issues.
Petr
2005-08-15 05:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Besides, I would argue that creationism, intelligent design or at least evo-skepticism is a potent underground current within the scientific community - that many, many more scientists would loudly proclaim their disbelief in evolution if they just had more intestinal fortitude and would not fear of losing their grant money.[/QUOTE]
And I would argue that creationism/intelligent design is the latest and most troubling manifestation of incipient religious fundamentalism in the First World - and that many, many more theologians and clergymen would loudly proclaim their disquiet at these trends if they just had more intestinal fortitude and would not fear the massed wrath of old ladies like Petr thus sparking even more religious fundamentalism.
You guys kill me...you insist on having it both ways (when "science" saves your life in a hospital or otherwise provides you aid or convenience in your own lives, then it's not "science" but the wunna'ful Hand o' God working through scientists and researchers....it's only "science" when you don't use it yourself and can't foresee the likelihood of ever needing to...or when it personally offends you) yet you simultaneously demand not to be seated at the children's table with great high dudgeon. At least Lindstedt would probably refuse medical treatment altogether - the rest of you aren't quite so dogmatic when it comes to your own personal well-being.
And this from people who will generally pore over texts devoted to race and genetics!
2005-08-15 05:46 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial][B][I] - " many, many more theologians and clergymen would loudly proclaim their disquiet at these trends if they just had more intestinal fortitude and would not fear the massed wrath of old ladies like Petr thus sparking even more religious fundamentalism."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
You demonstrate here only your [I]total ignorance[/I] of real conditions within the Christian community - in fact, compromise with evolution is rampant, and a vast majority of theologians and clergymen have [B]no risk whatsoever[/B] in accepting some modified form of evolution. In fact,[B] they [/B] present the [I]status quo[/I] among "respectable Christians."
Some of the most bitter and poisonous opponents of creationism have precisely been compromising Christians! [FONT=Book Antiqua][COLOR=Indigo][B] [SIZE=4]"Creation compromiseââ¬âmore widespread than most realize"[/SIZE][/B] [I] "More and more of Godââ¬â¢s people (as a result of creation ministry to churches) now understand that a major factor in this terrible slide has to do with churches and leaders who have been misled into major compromise."[/I][/COLOR][/FONT]
[url]http://www.answersingenesis.org/canada/newsletters/0704lead.asp[/url]
[FONT=Arial][COLOR=DarkRed] [I] [B] - "you insist on having it both ways"[/B][/I][/COLOR][/FONT]
No we don't, for unlike you, we do not make the simplistic equation "evolution = science".
It's actually the evolutionists like Dawkins who are parasites, using distinctively theistic paradigm of science to propound dogmatical atheism:
[FONT=Georgia][COLOR=Blue]"[I]With me[/I]," says Darwin, "[I]the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?[/I] [ 15 ]
[B]Modern science was conceived, and born, and flourished in the matrix of Christian theism. Only liberal doses of self-deception and double-think, I believe, will permit it to flourish in the context of Darwinian naturalism[/B]. [/COLOR] [/FONT]
[url]http://id-www.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/plantinga/dennett.html[/url]
Petr
2005-08-15 12:30 | User Profile
I posted the article because I thought it was fairly balanced, on the whole, and because it makes, indirectly, an interesting observation. Namely, that evolution (macroevolution and abiogenesis, specifically), leaving aside whether true or false, comprises not merely a scientific theory, but an alternate belief system which is used as a basis for claims of a godless universe. However (and this is the interesting point of the article), once evolution has served its purpose as an anti-religious or anti-Christian tool, it is largely cast aside and is not applied to other aspects of society. Thus, the widespread horror of social darwinism, eugenics, and racial differences, which are all things that any honest atheistic evolutionist should have no problem with.
2005-08-16 01:54 | User Profile
Good post, Quantrill.