Happy Birthday- Charles Darwin

bob_2 · 03-01-09 11:00 am

If it's accurate, I would call it news, maybe you can give us a lesson in quote mining.

neal · 03-01-09 11:07 am

Its also accurate that we haven't observed the earth rotating around the sun. Is that news? To those that are Biblical literalists I guess they could call it news and claim that, since it has not been OBSERVED otherwise, the sun could still revolve around the stationary earth like the Bible claims.

bob_2 · 03-01-09 11:10 am

Ryan, I think off subject.

neal · 03-01-09 11:19 am

Maybe you didn't bother to read the PBS link above? You know, the one written by the quote-mined author cited as an authority in your DI apologist's writing in the Washington Times?

bob_2 · 03-01-09 11:35 am

The quote from the Times is what it is.

john8verse32 · 03-01-09 12:12 pm

if the writer is from the Discovery Institute, he may not be an impartial seeker of truth...he may already have his mind made up for him despite any countering evidence. quote about the DI from <a href="http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5582&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=cs_" target=_top>http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5 582&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=cs_</a> The Discovery Institute Genesis Of 'Intelligent Design' By Steve Benen While supporters of church-state separation frequently consider groups such as the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council their principal adversaries, the Discovery Institute has quietly positioned itself as the most effective and politically savvy group pushing a religious agenda in America's public school science classes. Founded in 1991 by former Reagan administration official Bruce Chapman, the Seattle-based Institute has an operating budget of over $2 million. "Intelligent design" creationism has become such a central feature of the organization's work that it created a separate division, the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, to devote all of its time to that cause. The Institute enthusiastically endorses what law professor and ID champion Philip Johnson calls the "wedge" strategy. (See "Insidious Design," page 8.) The plan is straightforward: use intelligent design as a wedge to undermine evolution with scientific-sounding arguments and thereby advance a conservative religious-political agenda. To promote the concept, the Institute works with 48 fellows, directors and advisors who are responsible for producing research, publishing texts and hosting conferences. The Institute team includes some of the biggest names in the ID movement. Johnson serves as an advisor, while Michael Behe, David Berlinski, William Dembski and Jonathan Wells are senior fellows. All of them have advanced degrees from respected universities, giving the group a level of credibility generally denied to fundamentalist creationists at the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis Ministry. Legitimate scientists reject the validity of intelligent design concepts, however, and are unimpressed with Institute activists' credentials. "They're trying to make it appear like they're scientists who just disagree with other scientists," said Lawrence Krauss, professor at Case Western Reserve University. "A number of them have scientific credentials, which helps, but in no sense are they proceeding as scientists." Over the last decade, nearly every book used in the intelligent design movement has either been distributed by the Institute or was written directly by one of the group's scholars. Of Pandas And People, Icons Of Evolution and Darwin's Black Box are all staples on the Discovery bookshelf. Institute representatives are well aware of legal restrictions on religion in public schools, so they rarely use theological criticisms of evolution in their work. Behe, for example, is a Catholic with eight home-schooled children. When asked about creationism in a February interview on National Public Radio, he said it isn't his area of expertise. "To tell you the truth, I'm not real knowledgeable about creationism," Behe said. The strategy of making ID appear scientific, and not religious, is intentional. The Institute's Stephen Meyer co-authored an article in the Utah Law Review in 2000 critiquing the legal landscape. While Meyer noted that the Supreme Court prohibits traditional creationism from public schools because it is based on biblical literalism, he wrote that excluding intelligent design, with its "scientific" underpinnings, would be tantamount to "viewpoint discrimination." In order for that scheme to work, ID advocates at the Discovery Institute try desperately to hide a religious agenda. Occasionally, however, one of the Institute's fellows will slip and speak his mind. Two years ago, at a National Religious Broadcasters meeting, the Discovery Institute's Dembski framed the ID movement in the context of Christian apologetics, a theological defense of the authority of Christianity. "The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ," Dembski said. "And if there's anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ [and] the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.... It's important that we understand the world. God has created it; Jesus is incarnate in the world." The Institute's religious agenda has won it the backing of wealthy financiers and foundations. For example, California multi-millionaire Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., has singled out the Discovery Institute for big contributions. (Ahmanson is aligned with Christian Reconstructionism, an extreme faction of the Religious Right that seeks to replace democracy with a fundamentalist theocracy.) The Institute also has friends on Capitol Hill. In May 2000 the Institute held a briefing in the Rayburn House Office Building that attracted members of Congress and their staffs. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) spoke at the event. Though the Discovery Institute describes itself as a think tank "specializing in national and international affairs," the group's real purpose is to undercut church-state separation and turn public schools into religious indoctrination centers. That's unlikely to change anytime soon. As Institute President Bruce Chapman told The Washington Times, "[Intelligent design is] our number one project

bob_2 · 03-01-09 3:24 pm

My point isn't about the DI, it is about an evolunionist admitting no one had proved macroevolution. I believe that is the case today.

john8verse32 · 03-01-09 10:51 pm

Jonathon Wells, an avowed creationist/IDer writes an article for the New York Crimes. WELLS: Happy Darwin Day? Jonathan Wells Thursday, February 12, 2009 In which he maintains: Eighty years after "The Origin of Species," evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky acknowledged there was still no hard evidence connecting microevolution and macroevolution. but at least Wells admits the reason is that MACROevolution takes too long for humans to observe... Unfortunately, since only microevolution can be observed within a human lifetime,... and then Wells mines a quote from an avowed evolutionist/scientist which seems to confirm his thesis: Mr. Dobzhansky wrote, "We are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit." " the scientist quoted agrees that we do not have all the proof necessary to "prove" macroevolution, but since it is the best working hypothesis, he says we should push our investigations as far ahead as possible. nowhere does the scientist in the selected quote supportID or creationism. Yet, using the mined quote, Wells goes ahead to reach his chosen conclusion: No one has ever observed the origin of a new species by variation and selection well, duh!!!! humans do not live long enuf to observe these species altering changes. doesn't mean it never happened!!!! and increasingly the missing links between evolutionary steps in fossils are being found, confirming the theory. No evidence is currently being found to confirm an instant,fiat-lux creation by any deity over a 144 hr period, a mere 6000 yrs ago, after which the deity became sorry he had made them, and tried to kill everybody and everything with a massive, world-wide mountain topping flood for which there also is no good scientific evidence. so while you point out that no one has proven macroevolution, even tho there is increasing, modern scientific evidence being found all the time, ...the same logic requires that we agree that no one has proven Creation, for which the supposed evidence has been orally transmitted, from thousands of years ago. which is the definition of "hear-say evidence"....

bob_2 · 03-02-09 12:07 am

Look, John, if every one only wrote from an atheist stand point or wasn't allowed to speak in an OPed because he was a creationist pointing out an Evolutionist admitting what he knew and found out from his life of work, would that make you and Neal happy. It is what it is, eh. Let it mingle with all of life's truths or falsehoods and logic rule the day, not chance. (Message edited by Bob_2 on March 01, 2009)

neal · 06-23-09 2:36 pm

John Here's Francis Collins basically calling creationists closed-minded and undeniably wrong:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:Now looking at that, of course, that immediately suggests common ancestry for all three of these species – not only suggests it, but, it seems to me, demands it because if you’re going to try to argue that the human genome was somehow special, that God created us in a different way than these other organisms, you would also have to postulate that God intentionally put a defective gene in exactly the place where a common ancestry would say it should be. And that was done why? To test our faith? Does that sound like the action of a God of all truth? It doesn’t seem like it. I could give other examples. But it is – once you look at the details – I think inescapable for somebody with an open mind to conclude that descent from a common ancestor is true and we’re part of it.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> Also, Darwin was more right than even he imagined:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:First of all, let me say the evidence for Darwin’s theory of descent from a common ancestor by gradual change over long periods of time operated on by natural selection is absolutely overwhelming. It is not possible, I think, to look at that evidence accumulated, especially in the last few years on the basis of the study of DNA, and not come to the conclusion that Darwin was right. Darwin was right in ways that Darwin himself probably never could have imagined, not knowing about DNA, not knowing that we’d have a digital record of these events to study – but we do.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> And, on transitional fossils:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:The fossil record is expected to be incomplete and it is. Most organisms leave no trace of their having been on this planet. Only in exceptional circumstances is that something that we would find a record of. It is remarkable, though, how much we’ve learned about the fossil record in the course of the last 15 years, and a lot of comments about the incompleteness of the fossil record really need to be updated with new findings. It used to be said, for instance, that there’s no evidence of an intermediate between fish and land animals. Go and look at the Canadian outcroppings where this amazing organism now called Tiktaalik was discovered, which clearly would represent a very good example of that, with the kinds of forelimbs that could both support weight on land and could be used also for locomotion in water, and with a breathing apparatus that might also be successful in both environments. Similarly, people will cite, well, there’s no evidence for a fossil intermediate that led to whales. Not true. There’s some incredibly interesting stuff coming out of that. Just the same, I think it is not going to be the case that we find every possible connection between every possible species. Recognize, of course, most species became extinct before they gave rise to anything. So when you look at what’s alive today, you see the outcome of all the branches that actually survived, and most of the fossils you find are probably from branches that didn’t survive, just on the basis of the odds. I think for anyone to try to use the fossil record as an argument against evolution is not well-supported, just in terms of what the expectations would be anyway. I do think the study of DNA has taken this whole field over because of the digital evidence it provides in a way that you just can’t do by looking at anatomy of bones that have been in the ground for a long time. Certainly, that requires the greatest attention. If one is going to oppose macroevolution, then how can one come up with the explanation of these DNA relationships? In terms of macroevolution, it is hard to find examples that the skeptics will accept because macroevolution occurs over millions of years. We are not given the chance to observe it happening.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <blockquote><a href="http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=217" target=_top>http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=217</a></blockquote> But he believes in a god. Some 'thing' that started something billions of years ago. A god that the goat herders never knew a thing about due to a completely contradictory revelation from God about speaking Adam & EVE and every species into existence recent enough that the goat herders could remember the list of ancestors from the first unhappy couple. (Message edited by neal on June 23, 2009)

bob_2 · 06-23-09 11:42 pm

If one is going to oppose macroevolution, then how can one come up with the explanation of these DNA relationships? In terms of macroevolution, it is hard to find examples that the skeptics will accept because macroevolution occurs over millions of years. We are not given the chance to observe it happening. Amen

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