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Evolution discussion from Time magazine

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  • Phony Theory, False Conflict
    'Intelligent Design' Foolishly Pits Evolution Against Faith

    By Charles Krauthammer
    Friday, November 18, 2005; A23



    Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.

    Newton's religion was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.

    Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," James Gleick wrote in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation -- understanding the workings of the universe -- as an attempt to understand the mind of God.

    Not a crude and willful God who pushes and pulls and does things according to whim. Newton was trying to supplant the view that first believed the sun's motion around the earth was the work of Apollo and his chariot, and later believed it was a complicated system of cycles and epicycles, one tacked upon the other every time some wobble in the orbit of a planet was found. Newton's God was not at all so crude. The laws of his universe were so simple, so elegant, so economical and therefore so beautiful that they could only be divine.

    Which brings us to Dover, Pa., Pat Robertson, the Kansas State Board of Education, and a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment.

    Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose "intelligent design" -- today's tarted-up version of creationism -- on the biology curriculum. Pat Robertson then called the wrath of God down upon the good people of Dover for voting "God out of your city." Meanwhile, in Kansas, the school board did a reverse Dover, mandating the teaching of skepticism about evolution and forcing intelligent design into the statewide biology curriculum.

    Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

    In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase " natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.

    The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?

    He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions -- arguably, the most important questions in life -- that lie beyond the material.

    How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.

    [email protected]

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Anonymouse
      So? What is your point?

      Trust in Science.

      Comment


      • This is awesome. I feel like I'm watching a performance of Inherit the Wind.

        Comment


        • I should have known - Geocentrists and flat earthers comprise part of the anti-evolutionary block! Your in good company Rat - as usual...

          Flat Earthers.-- Members of the Flat Earth Society believe that the shape of the Earth is flat because a literal reading of the Bible proclaims it (Schadewald, 1991). Charles K. Johnson is the head of the International Flat Earth Society, headquartered in Lancaster, CA, and he is very serious about the planet being as the ancients perceived it: circular and flat, not spherical. The Earth is shaped like a coin, not a ball. The International Flat Earth Society has only about 200 members (Schadewald, 1980) and is insignificant in the antievolution movement. It is an example, however, of extreme biblical literalist theology: the Earth is flat because the Bible says it is flat. The views of science are of secondary importance.

          Geocentrists.-- Geocentrists accept that the planet is a sphere, but deny that the sun is the center of the solar system. Like flat earthers, they reject virtually all of modern physics and chemistry as well as biology. Geocentrism is a somewhat larger, though still insignificant component of modern antievolutionism. At the Bible-Science Association creationism conference in 1985, the plenary session debate was held between two geocentrists and two heliocentrists (Bible-Science Association, 1985). Similarly, as recently as 1985, the secretary of the still-influential Creation Research Society was a published geocentrist (Kaufmann, 1985).



          Actually - a the above is from a very nice presentation of Scientific belief as opposed to religion and such as it pertains to belief in Evolution etc:


          Comment


          • LMAO!! Heheheh Anon you're funny

            The best thing about your post is the area where you imply that you're NOT a religious extremist and that we came to the fact that you are one only because you disagree with evolution or think it's theoretical at best.

            The thing is what else could you be? The ONLY ppl who oppose evolution as a truth evidenced by all of our worlds data are religious zealots. Who else is opposing evolution as a fact and a law? Nihilists?

            How about this why don't you just fill us in on your own idea of how we came to be the organic beings that we are today without using evolution or religion?

            I mean have you even stated your contrasting view point other than your "evolution isn't a law" diatribe? The world according to Anon ... oh and Armenian just to illustrate the company you keep. Geniuses abound here that's for sure.

            Comment


            • A confederacy of dunces!

              Comment


              • Originally posted by winoman
                Trust in Science.
                Evolution is not science, nor is all science, evolution. We've been through this before, like Alice in Wonderland.
                Achkerov kute.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by TomServo
                  The two halfies have found each other.
                  Nice Tom ... way to show your true colors.

                  You're like the side kick of that Red bully in A Christmas Story. I officially give you the honorable title of Anon's cheerleader fyi. Since the only reason you decided to troll through this thread was just to give Anon some tender loving support. It's not like you had anything to actually discuss about the topic, right?

                  If I were you I'd watch my "I'm in the highest Armenian caste" mouth. You like that don't you? Probably get up everyday and thank God for your genetic inheritance. Like anybody has a choice you brightest of all bulbs you!

                  You should seriously get off you genetic high horse. Like purity has gotten you anywhere. I guess you must be fond of inbreeding Haven't you ever heard of hybrid vigor?

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Lamb Boy
                    Nice Tom ... way to show your true colors.

                    You're like the side kick of that Red bully in A Christmas Story. I officially give you the honorable title of Anon's cheerleader fyi. Since the only reason you decided to troll through this thread was just to give Anon some tender loving support. It's not like you had anything to actually discuss about the topic, right?

                    If I were you I'd watch my "I'm in the highest Armenian caste" mouth. You like that don't you? Probably get up everyday and thank God for your genetic inheritance. Like anybody has a choice you brightest of all bulbs you!

                    You should seriously get off you genetic high horse. Like purity has gotten you anywhere. I guess you must be fond of inbreeding Haven't you ever heard of hybrid vigor?
                    Lamb Boy is perturbed.
                    Achkerov kute.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Lamb Boy
                      LMAO!! Heheheh Anon you're funny

                      The best thing about your post is the area where you imply that you're NOT a religious extremist and that we came to the fact that you are one only because you disagree with evolution or think it's theoretical at best.

                      The thing is what else could you be? The ONLY ppl who oppose evolution as a truth evidenced by all of our worlds data are religious zealots. Who else is opposing evolution as a fact and a law? Nihilists?

                      How about this why don't you just fill us in on your own idea of how we came to be the organic beings that we are today without using evolution or religion?

                      I mean have you even stated your contrasting view point other than your "evolution isn't a law" diatribe? The world according to Anon ... oh and Armenian just to illustrate the company you keep. Geniuses abound here that's for sure.

                      Despite your appeal to your ignorance, and your willingness to divide the lines of belief along Manichaean lines, I am not a religious zealot.
                      Achkerov kute.

                      Comment

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