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David Berlinski meets Eric Metaxas

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Neither David Berlinski nor Eric Metaxas is a forgettable character:

At Evolution News:

From a discussion of Berlinski’s latest book, Human Nature, they go on to some more theologically charged topics. The dramatic tension between the two is notable and interesting and unusual for the SITC forum, punctuated by laugh-out-loud moments of humor. It’s not just the very different personalities that make the conversation fascinating, but David’s steadfast refusal to agree with Eric that the design evidence that we discuss here points to an intelligent agent behind nature. – David Klinghoffer (February 27, 2023)

Comments
per Belfast,
"Metaxas referred to Berlinski’s point that, if you agree with Darwinian evolution, then you do away with human nature because the gradual changes incantation inevitably means that a human is not different in kind to animals. Berlinski elaborated by saying that Darwin thought that too, for he wondered aloud if whether there really was such a thing as species – an odd thing to put in a book called Origin of Species."
Specifically, Darwin stated, "I look at the term species, as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other,,"
"I look at the term species, as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, and for mere convenience' sake." Charles Darwin - Origin of Species - page 52
And as Logan Paul Gage pointed out, "Darwinism suggests that any matter can potentially morph into any other arrangement of matter without the aid of an organizing principle. He thought cells were like simple blobs of Jell-O, easily re-arrangeable. For Darwin, there is no immaterial, immutable form.,,",, and "if one does not believe in universals, there can be, by extension, no human nature—only a collection of somewhat similar individuals.",,,
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas The Mythical Conflict Between Thomism & Intelligent Design by Logan Paul Gage Excerpt:,,, In Aristotelian and Thomistic thought, each particular organism belongs to a certain universal class of things. Each individual shares a particular nature—or essence—and acts according to its nature. Squirrels act squirrelly and cats catty. We know with certainty that a squirrel is a squirrel because a crucial feature of human reason is its ability to abstract the universal nature from our sense experience of particular organisms. Denial of True Species Enter Darwinism. Recall that Darwin sought to explain the origin of “species.” Yet as he pondered his theory, he realized that it destroyed species as a reality altogether. For Darwinism suggests that any matter can potentially morph into any other arrangement of matter without the aid of an organizing principle. He thought cells were like simple blobs of Jell-O, easily re-arrangeable. For Darwin, there is no immaterial, immutable form. In The Origin of Species he writes: “I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, for convenience’s sake.” Statements like this should make card-carrying Thomists shudder.,,, The first conflict between Darwinism and Thomism, then, is the denial of true species or essences. For the Thomist, this denial is a grave error, because the essence of the individual (the species in the Aristotelian sense) is the true object of our knowledge. As philosopher Benjamin Wiker observes in Moral Darwinism, Darwin reduced species to “mere epiphenomena of matter in motion.” What we call a “dog,” in other words, is really just an arbitrary snapshot of the way things look at present. If we take the Darwinian view, Wiker suggests, there is no species “dog” but only a collection of individuals, connected in a long chain of changing shapes, which happen to resemble each other today but will not tomorrow. What About Man? Now we see Chesterton’s point. Man, the universal, does not really exist. According to the late Stanley Jaki, Chesterton detested Darwinism because “it abolishes forms and all that goes with them, including that deepest kind of ontological form which is the immortal human soul.” And if one does not believe in universals, there can be, by extension, no human nature—only a collection of somewhat similar individuals.,,, https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-06-037-f
And you don’t have to take Charles Darwin's and Logan Paul Gage’s, word for it. In 2019, a Darwinist honestly admitted that “The most important concept in all of biology, (i.e. species), is a complete mystery”
What is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mystery – July 16, 2019 https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-species-the-most-important-concept-in-all-of-biology-is-a-complete-mystery-119200
And as the following 2020 article pointed out, Darwinists simply have no way to ground the 'simple organizing principle' for what actually constitutes a species.
At New Scientist: Questioning The Idea Of Species – Nov. 2020 Excerpt: Take the apparently simple organising principle of a species. You might have learned at school that a species is a group of individuals that can breed to produce fertile offspring. But this is just one of at least 34 competing definitions concocted over the past century by researchers working in different fields.,,,, https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/at-new-scientist-questioning-the-idea-of-species/
The abstract concept of species simply can’t be reduced to materialistic explanations. How much does the concept of species weigh? Is the concept of species positively or negatively charged? Is the concept of species closer to Minnesota or Zimbabwe? or etc.. etc..? Those questions are all, obviously, nonsensical simply because the concept of Species is an abstract, immaterial, classification of the immaterial mind. Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no basis in which to be able to classify organisms into different 'immaterial' categories, whether it be categories of species, genus, clades, phylum, or etc… As Dr. Michael Egnor explains, the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution simply doesn’t do abstract, immaterial, 'universals'. And as a result, Darwinian materialists, (with their implicit denial of the immaterial realm altogether), simply have no basis to ground the 'organizing principle' of species, and thus Darwinists can't even recognize that human nature is, qualitatively speaking, "more different from apes than apes are from viruses."
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals – Michael Egnor – November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses. Our difference is a metaphysical chasm.,,, Systems of taxonomy that emphasize physical and genetic similarities and ignore the fact that human beings are partly immaterial beings who are capable of abstract thought and contemplation of moral law and eternity are pitifully inadequate to describe man. The assertion that man is an ape is self-refuting. We could not express such a concept, misguided as it is, if we were apes and not men. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2/
As should be needless to say, if your theory can’t even provide a rigid ‘scientific’ definition for what a ‘species’ actually is in the first place, (in your theory that adamantly claims to be the ‘be all/end all’ scientific explanation for the ‘origin of species’), well then, so much for your claim that you have scientifically explained the ‘origin of species’. i.e. Scientifically speaking, your claim is worse than useless, and as Wolfgang Pauli might have put it, your theory is, ‘Not even wrong’.
“I have tried to make this intentional plan in the organization of the animal kingdom evident, by showing that the differences between animals do not constitute a material chain, analogous to a series of physical phenomena, bound together by the same law, but present themselves rather as the phases of a thought, formulated according to a definite aim. I think we know enough of comparative anatomy to abandon forever the idea of the transformation of the organs of one type into those of another.” – Letter from Louis Agassiz To A. Sedgwick. Neuchatel, June, 1845. In Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (Ed.). 1885. Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence. Houghton, Mifflin and Co: Boston. P. 388 – 390 “There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly.,,” – Letter from Adam Sedgwick to Charles Darwin – 24 Nov 1859 1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
A few supplemental notes as to the abject failure that is inherent in the Darwinist's attempted 'bottom up' materialistic explanations of 'top-down' 'organizing principles'. Dr. Dennis Bonnette, at 37:51 minute mark of following video, in detailed examination of the philosophy of reductive materialism, shows that, according to Richard Dawkin's own philosophy, Richard Dawkins does not really exist as a real person: (the unity of Aristotelian Form is also discussed). Thus, in a sweet twist of poetic justice, in the reductive materialist denying that God really exists as a real person, the Darwinian atheist also ends up denying that he himself really exist as a real person.
Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: "It turns out that if every part of you, down to sub-atomic parts, are still what they were when they weren't in you, in other words every ion,,, every single atom that was in the universe,, that has now become part of your living body, is still what is was originally. It hasn't undergone what metaphysicians call a 'substantial change'. So you aren't Richard Dawkins. You are just carbon and neon and sulfur and oxygen and all these individual atoms still. You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren't any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That's why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, "You know, I'm not really here". - Dr. Dennis Bonnette https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s
In fact, computers themselves cannot be explained within the 'bottom-up' reductive materialistic framework of Darwinists.
How Does The World Work: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? - September 29, 2013 Excerpt: To get an handle on how top-down causation works, Ellis focuses on what's in front of all us so much of the time: the computer. Computers are structured systems. They are built as a hierarchy of layers, extending from the wires in the transistors all the way up to the fully assembled machine, gleaming metal case and all. Because of this layering, what happens at the uppermost levels — like you hitting the escape key — flows downward. This action determines the behavior of the lowest levels — like the flow of electrons through the wires — in ways that simply could not be predicted by just knowing the laws of electrons. As Ellis puts it: “Structured systems such as a computer constrain lower level interactions, and thereby paradoxically create new possibilities of complex behavior.” Ellis likes to emphasize how the hierarchy of structure — from fully assembled machine through logic gates, down to transistors — changes everything for the lowly electrons. In particular, it "breaks the symmetry" of their possible behavior since their movements in the computer hardware are very different from what would occur if they were just floating around in a plasma blob in space. But the hardware, of course, is just one piece of the puzzle. This is where things get interesting. As Ellis explains: “Hardware is only causally effective because of the software which animates it: by itself hardware can do nothing. Both hardware and software are hierarchically structured with the higher level logic driving the lower level events.” In other words, it's software at the top level of structure that determines how the electrons at the bottom level flow. Hitting escape while running Word moves the electrons in the wires in different ways than hitting escape does when running Photoshop. This is causation flowing from top to bottom. For Ellis, anything producing causes is real in the most basic sense of the word. Thus the software, which is not physical like the electrons, is just as real as those electrons. As Ellis puts it: “Hence, although they are the ultimate in algorithmic causation as characterized so precisely by Turing, digital computers embody and demonstrate the causal efficacy of non-physical entities. The physics allows this; it does not control what takes place. Computers exemplify the emergence of new kinds of causation out of the underlying physics, not implied by physics but rather by the logic of higher-level possibilities. ... A combination of bottom-up causation and contextual affects (top-down influences) enables their complex functioning.” The consequences of this perspective for our view of the mind are straightforward and radical: “The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone's plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities.” http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/09/29/225359504/how-does-the-world-work-top-down-or-bottom-up
Even Godel's incompleteness 'proves' that the Darwinist's 'bottom-up' reductive materialistic framework will never explain 'macroscopic behavior'. The following article entitled 'Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics', which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour”,,, The researchers further commented that their findings “challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description."
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-17 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
bornagain77
March 3, 2023
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Although the evidence from the fossil record, genetics, and population genetics, is far more damning to Darwinian ‘narratives’ of human evolution than Darwinists are willing to honestly admit to the general public, the one place that even leading Darwinists themselves honestly admit that they have no clue how a particularly unique human trait could have possibly evolved is with human language. In 2014, an impressive who’s who list of leading Darwinian scientists, who specialize in this area of language research, issued a paper in which they honestly admitted that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”
Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language – December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, “The mystery of language evolution,” Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) Luskin comments: “It’s difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html
The reason why this honest confession by leading Darwinian scientists is so interesting to look at is because language, in and of itself, is profoundly ‘abstract’, and immaterial, in its foundational essence, and which is what allows humans to communicate their ‘abstract’, immaterial, thoughts to one another. And abstract thought is what, in and of itself, demonstrates that, as Dr. Egnor puts it, “We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,,”
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals – Michael Egnor – November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2100661.html
Moreover, it is this unique human ability to understand, communicate, create, and more specifically, to infuse immaterial information into material substates, that has allowed humans, (directly contrary to the ‘red in tooth and claw’ thinking of Darwinists), to become ‘masters of the planet’.
“Speech is 95 percent plus of what lifts man above animal! Physically, man is a sad case. His teeth, including his incisors, which he calls eyeteeth, are baby-size and can barely penetrate the skin of a too-green apple. His claws can’t do anything but scratch him where he itches. His stringy-ligament body makes him a weakling compared to all the animals his size. Animals his size? In hand-to-paw, hand-to-claw, or hand-to-incisor combat, any animal his size would have him for lunch. Yet man owns or controls them all, every animal that exists, thanks to his superpower: speech.” —Tom Wolfe, in the introduction to his book, ‘The Kingdom of Speech’
That humans should master the planet due to his unique ability to communicate information is completely contrary to the ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that undergirds Darwinian thought. Although humans are fairly defenseless creatures in the wild compared to other creatures, such as lions, bears, sharks, etc.., nonetheless, humans have, completely contrary to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking, managed to become masters of the planet, not via brute force, but simply by our unique ability to create and communicate immaterial information and also to, more specifically, infuse immaterial information into material substrates in order to create, i.e. intelligently design, objects that are extremely useful for our defense, basic survival in procuring food, furtherance of our knowledge, and also merely for our pleasure. What is more interesting still about the fact that humans have a unique ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’ through the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial information into material substrates, is the fact that, due to advances in science, both the universe and life itself, are now found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis.
“The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena.” – Vlatko Vedral – Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College
It is hard to imagine a more convincing scientific proof that we are ‘made in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’, not via brute force as is presupposed in Darwinian thought, but precisely because of our ability to infuse immaterial information into material substrates.
Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Perhaps a more convincing proof that we are made in the image of God could be if God Himself became a man, walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, and then defeated death on a cross. And that just so happens to be precisely the proof that is claimed within Christianity.
Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Quantum Hologram – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis The evidence for the Shroud’s authenticity keeps growing stronger. (Timeline of facts) – November 08, 2019 What Is the Shroud of Turin? Facts & History Everyone Should Know – Myra Adams and Russ Breault https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
bornagain77
March 2, 2023
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@1
if you agree with Darwinian evolution, then you do away with human nature because the gradual changes incantation inevitably means that a human is not different in kind to animals. Berlinski elaborated by saying that Darwin thought that too, for he wondered aloud if whether there really was such a thing as species – an odd thing to put in a book called Origin of Species.
It's surely true that Darwin questioned the basis of the distinction between "species" and "variety", and that this was crucial to the rise of the populationist conception of species. I don't see why that would entail that there is no difference "in kind" between us and other animals. What does "in kind" mean? Is there a difference "in kind" between a cat and a dog? Is there a difference "in kind" between an oak tree and a maple tree?PyrrhoManiac1
March 2, 2023
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Everyone, thus far, seems to have missed the fact that I highlighted “fixed”…….chuckdarwin
March 2, 2023
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When you decide to write on a subject as amorphous as “human nature,” you are wading into a morass of inconsistencies and contradictions. However, one thing is clear: Folks need to be disabused of the notion that there is a fixed human nature and the myth of imago dei. No matter what tales we tell ourselves, we are simply not that far progressed from living in the trees
More inanity from the clown prince of nonsense. Human Nature has been studied in detail. Yes each person varies from each other. That does not mean there isn’t a basic nature that nearly everyone inherits. It is obvious and to be expected that while basically the same there will be differences. I have four siblings and three children and all differ dramatically but all have the same human nature. What is true is that there is a massive amount of similarity. Humans are not automatons but we all recognize one when we see one. There definitely is a natural law and human nature Appropriate for UD.
suffer fools gladly
jerry
March 2, 2023
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ChuckyD: "Folks need to be disabused of the notion that there is a fixed human nature and the myth of imago dei. No matter what tales we tell ourselves, we are simply not that far progressed from living in the trees….." Charles Darwin wholeheartedly agrees with his fanboy ChuckyD,
"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla" - Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1874, p. 178
Of related note, the systemic racism inherent to Darwin’s theory plays out in museum exhibits today:
Human Evolution as a “Path to Whiteness” - November 24, 2021 Excerpt: Do Your Own Google Search I had never thought of this before. In contemporary museum displays and other evolutionary depictions, just as in Darwin’s Descent of Man and in the notorious Civic Biology textbook that was at issue in the 1925 Scopes Trial, human origins are portrayed as an upward progress from dark to white. Neanderthals, however otherwise “primitive” (which is questionable in itself), are shown as light-skinned. And maybe they were, but modern man — Homo sapiens — is almost invariably white and European, not African or Asian. Check out some examples from around the Internet, here, here, here, here, and here. (links on site) Do a Google image search for the phrase “human evolution” and you’ll see many others. Just a coincidence? Or is Darwin’s racist legacy still with us today? You tell me. For a deeper exploration of that legacy, see John West’s documentary Human Zoos. https://evolutionnews.org/2021/11/human-evolution-as-a-path-to-whiteness/
Also of related note: the museum exhibits depicting human evolution in a systemically racist manner, are based far more on subjectively biased ‘artistic reconstructions’, i.e. on imagination, than they are based on any actual scientific evidence:
Ancestor bias - Museum depictions of ‘human ancestors’ challenged—by evolutionists by Philip Robinson - Nov. 2022 Excerpt: A team of researchers recently looked at artistic renderings of humans’ alleged ape-like ancestors. They openly discussed a wide range of issues of concern in how these are depicted.1 The team noted that there have been very few ‘hominin’ fossils ever found. In fact, they highlighted that the total number of finds is less than the number of anthropologists active today. So, comparing reconstructions of the small number of individual hominin finds is relatively easy. Lead researcher Ryan Campbell wrote, “I expected to find consistency in those reconstructions displayed in natural history museums, but the differences, even there, were so severe that I almost thought all previous practitioners had never encountered a single hominid reconstruction before commencing their own.”2 ,,, In addressing their original question about museums they suggested that while their artistic renditions are technically impressive, “There are potential educational harms in presenting unscientific reconstructions of hominins under the shroud of presumed validity.” They suggested that the reasons for museums doing so “can most likely be attributed to factors outside the control of science”.3 In wanting to appear to present a coherent and convincing story of evolution, a great deal of ‘scientific/artistic licence’ is inappropriately used in ‘hominin’ reconstructions.,,, In fact, australopithecines in many respects “clearly differ more from both humans and African apes, than do these two living groups from each other. The australopithecines are unique.”4 Also, they did not, as many believe, walk upright in the human manner.5 - per creation
In fact, the scientific evidence itself wholeheartedly disagrees with Charles Darwin, and his fanboy ChuckyD, and their imaginary 'artistic reconstructions',
Jan. 2022 Fossil Record refutes human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-fox-news-adam-and-eve-are-compatible-with-evolution/#comment-744141 Fossils and Human Evolution (full series) - Casey Luskin - Oct. 2022 https://evolutionnews.org/tag/fossils-and-human-evolution-series/ Sept: 2022 - Genetic Evidence falsifies the claim the humans evolved from apes-like creature. And falsifies it in a ‘hard’ manner. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-did-life-first-arise-by-purely-natural-means/#comment-765765 Darwinists simply have no evidence that morphology, and/or biological form, is reducible to mutations to DNA. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740247 Population Genetics falsifies, instead of confirms, Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/christian-darwinists-must-now-backtrack-re-adam-and-eve/#comment-741335 Human exceptionalism falsifies Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740249 Darwinists, (in what makes the ‘problem’ of explaining the origin of the human species pale in comparison), have no clue whatsoever why “I” should even come into existence as a “person” with a unique individual subjective conscious experience, but are instead reduced to arguing that my sense of self, my “I”, is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/casey-luskin-the-mytho-history-of-adam-eve-and-william-lane-craig/#comment-740568
bornagain77
March 2, 2023
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CD at 3, Have you stopped living in trees? When? :) Oh, by the way, how did you get water?relatd
March 2, 2023
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"we are simply not that far progressed from living in the trees….." I played in a treehouse a few times is as a kid. Seems like a while ago. Is that what you mean? Andrewasauber
March 2, 2023
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No more effective sleeping aid than Metaxas--worked perfectly last night. Berlinski is one of those hopelessly confused "public intellectuals" (a/k/a dilettantes) that can't make up his mind about much of anything. He claims to not buy intelligent design, yet he is a "Senior Fellow" at the Discovery Institute ID section, the "Center for Science and Culture," the most visible and political pro-ID organization. He claims to be either an atheist or agnostic (it's far from clear which), but yet the only debates he's been involved with are against atheists or skeptics, not religionists. When you decide to write on a subject as amorphous as "human nature," you are wading into a morass of inconsistencies and contradictions. However, one thing is clear: Folks need to be disabused of the notion that there is a fixed human nature and the myth of imago dei. No matter what tales we tell ourselves, we are simply not that far progressed from living in the trees.....chuckdarwin
March 2, 2023
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I thought that Metaxas did a good job of delicately probing him on why he's never become a theist, depite his many years of argument on how untenable the Darwinian account of life is. He's just non-committal, and that's got to be somewhat intentional.AnimatedDust
March 2, 2023
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I was disappointed in this - the best part, for me, came round about 10 minutes in when Metaxas referred to to Berlinski’s point that, if you agree with Darwinian evolution, then you do away with human nature because the gradual changes incantation inevitably means that a human is not different in kind to animals. Berlinski elaborated by saying that Darwin thought that too, for he wondered aloud if whether there really was such a thing as species - an odd thing to put in a book called Origin of Species. After this first class beginning we got a long list of incomplete questions and trite drift from Eric punctuated with ejaculations about how fascinated he was with something. I would appreciate to hear opinions from others.Belfast
March 1, 2023
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