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Bluegoat
Guest
Precision in language is not dancing. But I don’t think it’s a lot more complicated than an internal combustion engine.
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edwest2
Guest
Thank you, reggieM. As celebrities and polticians sometimes say, I’ve been misquoted or what was written about me was inaccurate. I now see Michael Behe in a different light. The apologists for evolution painted him as a person who was largely “accepting” of the theory. I put accepting in quotes to highlight the number one problem I see here. The “evolution is a fact” propaganda campaign has convinced me that the science in evolutionary theory is a lot less credible than what is advertised. That what is happening here, and elsewhere, is nothing more than a power struggle. Atheists, whether they call themselves humanists, brights, free thinkers, or even those who claim ownership to the words “reason” and “reality,” are very worried that people will see through their vain imaginations to the truth, namely, that there is actual design in nature (as the Church already teaches) and that human beings can realize this by using natural (i.e. non-religious) reason, as the Church teaches.
On an atheist forum, I read one response that was summed by “we can still lose this.” And what is the “this”? The battle for the hearts, minds and even souls of people who have become hypnotized by elaborate stories that cannot be shown to be true by the data, as Behe states.
Evolution is one of the key pillars on which atheism rests. If that pillar is knocked away, the edifice comes down on the side of an intelligence who acted in creation (as the Church states).
Therefore, the pro-evolution propaganda campaign continues.
Thanks again,
Ed
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reggieM
Guest
Good points, again Ed. I’m glad you got a new insight about Michael Behe also.
You will appreciate this letter that Dr. Behe just wrote regarding his experience with that video. I find it truly amazing – but at the same time, not that surprising.
evolutionnews.org/2009/08/bloggingheads_tv_and_me.html
You will appreciate this letter that Dr. Behe just wrote regarding his experience with that video. I find it truly amazing – but at the same time, not that surprising.
evolutionnews.org/2009/08/bloggingheads_tv_and_me.html
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liquidpele
Guest
Ed,
Since you seem pretty sure that evolution is a load of bull, I’m curious what you do believe? Can you give me a run down of exactly what you believe in terms of animal and human development? I promise not to attack your response as I don’t think it would do any good, I’m actually just curious at this point. Anyone else is free to chime in to answer the same question too.
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edwest2
Guest
I have been interested in science since the 1960s. I believe God created individuals referred to as Adam and Eve. That Eve was literally made from Adam’s side. That both Adam and Eve were given a certain level of intelligence by God and that an actual event of disobedience caused them to be separated from God.
The effort to turn Genesis into something agreeable to present science ignores references in another part of the Bible that clearly states that through one man sin entered the world. This affected man spiritually and all of creation.
If evolution occurred, it could not have occurred without God’s direct, causal action. This is what the Church teaches. It is highly doubtful that an engine called evolution took random mutations and natural selection and simply spit out organisms. Man was willed by God as a planned result.
As evolution branches away from the purely physical to the psychological, evolutionary psychology assigns to the brain a self-programming capability that rivals the self-assembly of DNA and the aquisition of new genetic information to produce previously unseen features in an organism. The human brain is not simply an outgrowth of matter.
Peace,
Ed
The effort to turn Genesis into something agreeable to present science ignores references in another part of the Bible that clearly states that through one man sin entered the world. This affected man spiritually and all of creation.
If evolution occurred, it could not have occurred without God’s direct, causal action. This is what the Church teaches. It is highly doubtful that an engine called evolution took random mutations and natural selection and simply spit out organisms. Man was willed by God as a planned result.
As evolution branches away from the purely physical to the psychological, evolutionary psychology assigns to the brain a self-programming capability that rivals the self-assembly of DNA and the aquisition of new genetic information to produce previously unseen features in an organism. The human brain is not simply an outgrowth of matter.
Peace,
Ed
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tonyrey
Guest
Neither am I! The existence of Design does not imply that every event and situation is purposeful.
Please supply your blueprint of a universe in which nothing ever goes wrong.
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liquidpele
Guest
Hmm… I think you didn’t read the post I replied to… it was a tangent where someone claimed every single thing (including a falling human hair) was intended and controlled by God… that’s what I was refuting because it seems silly.Neither am I! The existence of Design does not imply that every event and situation is purposeful.
Please supply your blueprint of a universe in which nothing ever goes wrong.
Here is my blueprint: whathappensafteridie.com/
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liquidpele
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jpk1313
Guest
Evolution is still just a theory hence it being called “the theory of evolution”. for the sake of argument lets asume evolution is real it still needs someone to start every thing going so god therefore must be real. all the scientific mumbo jumbo it the world can not change the fact the Jesus Christ is THE way THE TRUTH and The life.
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rossum
Guest
Gravity is still just a theory hence it being called “the theory of Gravity”. You need to learn the difference between the usage of “theory” in science and “theory” in ordinary speech. Technical terms in science have their own meanings.
It is real, it is both a fact and a theory. The fact is observed - bacteria evolve immunity to drugs. The theory is our best explanation as to why the fact happens.
Allah is real? Vishnu is real? Osiris is real? There are a great many gods to choose from. Are all of them real?
rossum
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Bluegoat
Guest
Well, I would say the fact is that we see bacteria without immunity, and their offspring which have been exposed to said drugs have immunity. If we say they evolve it, then we are indeed bringing the theory into it, which we can never definitively attach to the observation.
But people do seem to confuse the technical meaning of the word theory, even people trained in the sciences.
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James_S_Saint
Guest
According to the story, Ahdam was the first Man, not the first human. A human is a subset of Man (the hue of Man). The Catholic Church does not know this???
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Ghoti
Guest
The who of the what now?
Human …
c.1250, from M.Fr. *humain *“of or belonging to man,” from L. humanus, probably related to *homo *(gen. hominis) “man,” and to *humus *“earth,” on notion of “earthly beings,” as opposed to the gods (cf. Heb. *adam *“man,” from *adamah *“ground”). Cognate with O.Lith. *zmuo *(acc. zmuni) “man, male person.” Displaced its O.E. cognate *guma (from P.Gmc. **guman-) which survives only in disguise in bridegroom. …
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
hue…
hue (1)
“color,” O.E. *hiw *“color, form, appearance, beauty,” earlier hiow, heow, from P.Gmc. *khiwjan(cf. O.N. *hy *“bird’s down,” Swed. *hy *“skin, complexion,” Goth. *hiwi *“form, appearance”), probably cognate with Skt. *chawi *“hide, skin, complexion, color, beauty, splendor.” A common word in O.E., squeezed into obscurity after c.1600 by color.
hue (2)
“a shouting,” c.1250, from O.Fr. *hue *“outcry, noise, war or hunting cry,” probably of imitative origin. Hue and cry is 1292 as an Anglo-Fr. legal term meaning “outcry calling for pursuit of a felon.” Extended sense of “cry of alarm” is 1584.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
man…
O.E. man, mann “human being, person,” from P.Gmc. *manwaz(cf. O.S., O.H.G. man, Ger. Mann, O.N. maðr, Goth. *manna *“man”), from PIE base *man- (cf. Skt. manuh, Avestan manu-, O.C.S. mozi, Rus. *muzh *“man, male”). Sometimes connected to root *men- “to think” (see mind), which would make the ground sense of man “one who has intelligence,” but not all linguists accept this. Plural *men *(Ger. Männer) shows effects of i-mutation. Sense of “adult male” is late (c.1000); O.E. used *wer *and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by man. Universal sense of the word remains in *mankind *(from O.E. mancynn, from cynn “kin”) and in manslaughter (q.v.). Similarly, L. had *homo *“human being” and *vir *“adult male human being,” but they merged in V.L., with *homo *extended to both senses. A like evolution took place in Slavic languages, and in some of them the word has narrowed to mean “husband.” PIE had two stems: **uiHro *“freeman” (cf. Skt. vira-, Lith. vyras, L. vir, O.Ir. fer, Goth. wair) and **hner *“man,” a title more of honor than **uiHro *(cf. Skt. nar-, Armenian ayr, Welsh ner, Gk. aner)…
human ≠ hue + man
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tonyrey
Guest
In that case we agree!liquidpele;5632439 [QUOTE said:
Although not everything is directly intended and controlled God is not simply a passive observer but the Creator Who sustains everything in existence and can suspend the laws of nature at any moment.
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liquidpele
Guest
The books were not written in English. You guys are arguing over which one of you is more misguided.The who of the what now?
Human …
c.1250, from M.Fr. *humain *“of or belonging to man,” from L. humanus, probably related to *homo *(gen. hominis) “man,” and to *humus *“earth,” on notion of “earthly beings,” as opposed to the gods (cf. Heb. *adam *“man,” from *adamah *“ground”). Cognate with O.Lith. *zmuo *(acc. zmuni) “man, male person.” Displaced its O.E. cognate *guma (from P.Gmc. **guman-) which survives only in disguise in bridegroom. …
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
hue…
hue (1)
“color,” O.E. *hiw *“color, form, appearance, beauty,” earlier hiow, heow, from P.Gmc. *khiwjan(cf. O.N. *hy *“bird’s down,” Swed. *hy *“skin, complexion,” Goth. *hiwi *“form, appearance”), probably cognate with Skt. *chawi *“hide, skin, complexion, color, beauty, splendor.” A common word in O.E., squeezed into obscurity after c.1600 by color.
hue (2)
“a shouting,” c.1250, from O.Fr. *hue *“outcry, noise, war or hunting cry,” probably of imitative origin. Hue and cry is 1292 as an Anglo-Fr. legal term meaning “outcry calling for pursuit of a felon.” Extended sense of “cry of alarm” is 1584.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
man…
O.E. man, mann “human being, person,” from P.Gmc. *manwaz(cf. O.S., O.H.G. man, Ger. Mann, O.N. maðr, Goth. *manna *“man”), from PIE base *man- (cf. Skt. manuh, Avestan manu-, O.C.S. mozi, Rus. *muzh *“man, male”). Sometimes connected to root *men- “to think” (see mind), which would make the ground sense of man “one who has intelligence,” but not all linguists accept this. Plural *men *(Ger. Männer) shows effects of i-mutation. Sense of “adult male” is late (c.1000); O.E. used *wer *and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by man. Universal sense of the word remains in *mankind *(from O.E. mancynn, from cynn “kin”) and in manslaughter (q.v.). Similarly, L. had *homo *“human being” and *vir *“adult male human being,” but they merged in V.L., with *homo *extended to both senses. A like evolution took place in Slavic languages, and in some of them the word has narrowed to mean “husband.” PIE had two stems: **uiHro *“freeman” (cf. Skt. vira-, Lith. vyras, L. vir, O.Ir. fer, Goth. wair) and **hner *“man,” a title more of honor than **uiHro *(cf. Skt. nar-, Armenian ayr, Welsh ner, Gk. aner)…
human ≠ hue + man
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Mystic_Banana
Guest
I agree with you, jpk1313- very much so!
I think the moment that science declared Evolution is a fact is the moment it tiptoed from positivism into dogmatism.
We do not have an ounce of the evidence neccesary to prove exactly what happened in the past. Postdiction is a tricky business. The remnants which remain are too few to give us any real claim to knowledge of what was actually there at any given time.
There are a whole slew of elements which are inconclusive. None of the dating methods are considered especially reliable. With the introduction of geomorphology, the Scientific establishment grants itself many an excuse to reinterpret any found fossil to be dated in any way it likes - largely by destabalising the authority of geological dating - which is usually according to the (un)holy scripture of Darwin. That Darwinistic evolution is fed into the understanding of the dating of fossils makes modern geological evidence inherently tautological in terms of proving evolution. I’d say.
Bacteria ‘evolve’? Or bacteria ‘adapt’? Adaptation is an older theory than evolution, and a vastly less presumptuous one. Adaptation is what has been proved (to a reasonable degree). Evolution is a somewhat more extensive theory which requires far more evidence than this - or what fossil evidence we have - especially to have happened in the order Darwin would have it occur.
And incidentally, Allah is the same God as the Christian (or for that matter, Jewish) God. We just disagree over details… past that, I’ve seen much to say that many religions may well be talking about the same God, ultimately - including, quite possibly, Buddhism, when it refers to the “unborn, uncreated” etc., which is more analogous, I should think, with the Christian God than the “big old man in the sky” a random Buddhist site just criticised us for believing in.
Oh, and just like Buddhism, inevitably we think our interpretation is by far the best
There is some spiritual evolution, I think, and that evolution is in our understanding of God. Of course, devolution is also possible
I’m not sure which Dogma to go for - Evolutionism? Creationism? Certainly intelligent design. The whole unlikelihood of inorganic ammino acids transforming into organic ammino acids, which then get in the mood to self-replicate furiously in a (theoretically) previously wholly inorganic universe makes the idea of it happening by accident (if it happened at all!) seem not just an act of faith, but faith through extreme tenacity!
But why bother? I could just admit I don’t really know… and change my mind according to mood between literal, semi-literal and essential belief in the Biblical account (or sacred text of your choice - or science textbook, for that matter).
Don’t know?!? The horror… THE HORROR!!!
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edwest2
Guest
Vagueness is not a good thing.
I am convinced bacteria remain bacteria even through millions of generations. But old, dead things evolution does not seem to have much to support it.
The Catholic view is that we are not haphazard mistakes. Evolution did not just spit out human beings.
Peace,
Ed
I am convinced bacteria remain bacteria even through millions of generations. But old, dead things evolution does not seem to have much to support it.
The Catholic view is that we are not haphazard mistakes. Evolution did not just spit out human beings.
Peace,
Ed
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liquidpele
Guest
Of course bacteria remain bacteria through millions of generations. Have you any idea how fast they reproduce?
Most scientists don’t believe “Evolution just spit out human beings” either.
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liquidpele
Guest
There truly is some dogmatism in science, but not nearly as much as in politics or religion in my opinion. Scientists are just people after all. Analytical evidence and peer review help to keep science more in check.I agree with you, jpk1313- very much so!
I think the moment that science declared Evolution is a fact is the moment it tiptoed from positivism into dogmatism.
We do not have an ounce of the evidence neccesary to prove exactly what happened in the past. Postdiction is a tricky business. The remnants which remain are too few to give us any real claim to knowledge of what was actually there at any given time.
There are a whole slew of elements which are inconclusive. None of the dating methods are considered especially reliable. With the introduction of geomorphology, the Scientific establishment grants itself many an excuse to reinterpret any found fossil to be dated in any way it likes - largely by destabalising the authority of geological dating - which is usually according to the (un)holy scripture of Darwin. That Darwinistic evolution is fed into the understanding of the dating of fossils makes modern geological evidence inherently tautological in terms of proving evolution. I’d say.
Bacteria ‘evolve’? Or bacteria ‘adapt’? Adaptation is an older theory than evolution, and a vastly less presumptuous one. Adaptation is what has been proved (to a reasonable degree). Evolution is a somewhat more extensive theory which requires far more evidence than this - or what fossil evidence we have - especially to have happened in the order Darwin would have it occur.
And incidentally, Allah is the same God as the Christian (or for that matter, Jewish) God. We just disagree over details… past that, I’ve seen much to say that many religions may well be talking about the same God, ultimately - including, quite possibly, Buddhism, when it refers to the “unborn, uncreated” etc., which is more analogous, I should think, with the Christian God than the “big old man in the sky” a random Buddhist site just criticised us for believing in.
Oh, and just like Buddhism, inevitably we think our interpretation is by far the best
There is some spiritual evolution, I think, and that evolution is in our understanding of God. Of course, devolution is also possible
I’m not sure which Dogma to go for - Evolutionism? Creationism? Certainly intelligent design. The whole unlikelihood of inorganic ammino acids transforming into organic ammino acids, which then get in the mood to self-replicate furiously in a (theoretically) previously wholly inorganic universe makes the idea of it happening by accident (if it happened at all!) seem not just an act of faith, but faith through extreme tenacity!
But why bother? I could just admit I don’t really know… and change my mind according to mood between literal, semi-literal and essential belief in the Biblical account (or sacred text of your choice - or science textbook, for that matter).
Don’t know?!? The horror… THE HORROR!!!
You are correct that the fossil record is not as numerous as we’d like, but it’s hardly lacking in evidence that supports current theory.
Dating mechanisms are actually quite reliable if you understand their limitations. Also, remember that some of them are within a few million years of accuracy, which sounds like a lot, but when it’s dated as 300 million years old, a few millions years give or take is not that big a deal.
Bacteria actually evolve, we’ve seen that in a lab. Adaptation is simply a word for evolving to meet new environmental changes, so you’re separation of the words is not really useful.
I agree that evolution can be spiritual. Evolution just means changing after all.
“inorganic ammino acids transforming into organic ammino acids” is not evolution. That would have been abiogenesis. Confusing the two means you need to do a little more research on the topic. Basic summary is that abiogenesis is the theory of how life started, evolution is how life changed once it was already going.
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edwest2
Guest
Stephen Jay Gould said that if evolution could be rewound things would have turned out differently. Right? Different variables, different results.
Peace,
Ed
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