Undeniable Proof That Darwin Was Right

_{Gil Dodgen

May 19, 2011

Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

I have an evolutionary theory which proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Darwin was right.

Natural selection created me upright so I could play the piano and sit on a piano bench. One day, while in college, I was playing the piano in a practice room at the university, and my soon-to-be-wife came in to listen to me practicing the piano.

We were both music and foreign language double majors, and had much in common, except that she was a Christian and I was an atheist. (This all worked out in the end, by the way.)

Eventually we produced two wonderful daughters who will pass on our selfish genes.

So, simple logic dictates that Darwinian evolution made me upright so I could play the piano and gave me an interest in classical music, which led to my wife being attracted to me so that we could produce offspring.

Who, in his right mind, could possibly argue with this line of reasoning concerning the creative powers of the Darwinian mechanism, and its role in the evolution of higher life forms?

Comments

This is the great irony of Darwinism. Darwinists accuse those who challenge obviously stupid and illogical Darwinian claims to be the enemies of science, when, in fact, the exact opposite is true.
And then they berate ID advocates for not engaging in similar story telling, about the designer, and how and why, and when, it acted.Mung_{May 21, 2011
May
05
May
21
21
2011
03:48 PM
3
03
48
PM
PDT}

OT: GilDodgen, you may appreciate this fascinating article; Why I believe again - A N Wilson --- A N Wilson writes on how his conversion to atheism may have been similar to a road to Damascus experience but his return to faith has been slow and doubting http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheismbornagain77_{May 21, 2011
May
05
May
21
21
2011
08:16 AM
8
08
16
AM
PDT}

Good idea, except for the fact that not enough ASCII characters are available on the Internet to accommodate an infinitude of nonsense.
But isn't that the beauty of ASCII? It can accommodate an infinity of nonsense?Mung_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
10:15 PM
10
10
15
PM
PDT}

Mung: Darwinism is story telling. Of course! Darwinism is completely out of contact with biological reality as we now know and understand it. The ID thesis is not difficult to figure out. In fact, it should be transparently obvious to anyone who has not parked his brain at the doors of the church of Darwin. This is the great irony of Darwinism. Darwinists accuse those who challenge obviously stupid and illogical Darwinian claims to be the enemies of science, when, in fact, the exact opposite is true. Mung: We need to add a category here at UD for Darwinian fairy tales. Good idea, except for the fact that not enough ASCII characters are available on the Internet to accommodate an infinitude of nonsense.GilDodgen_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
07:38 PM
7
07
38
PM
PDT}

DrREC, How many stories do you think we can come up with that "explain" bipedalism using a Darwinian mechanism? Is there any limit? What percentage of those would actually be testable? What is it that would distinguish the testable stories from the non-testable? I think Gil's story is probably disqualified because it relies upon a future state (his piano playing and eventual marriage) to explain what came before (his bipedalism), and is therefore a teleological theory of bipedalism. Here's the point. Darwinism is story telling. Some times it's very good story telling. Some of us are on to this fact. Some of us are no longer satisfied by the stories. We want fact, and evidence, and testable hypotheses. you know, real science. Gil:
The sarcasm is obvious, but this is the kind of transparent nonsense Darwinists expect us to accept without question.
Yeah, but that's only because they have accepted it for so long. We need to add a category here at UD for darwinian fairy tales.Mung_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
05:48 PM
5
05
48
PM
PDT}

"There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it. – Pierre Paul Grasse" On the contrary, I think there must be great creativity and daydreaming in science and invention. Hypothesis testing requires a hypothesis after all. Some of the greatest advances came from audacious proposals. What science can't do it latch onto each flight of fancy without merit. For music, I'd say it is a wash-proposals on its evolution aren't exactly rock-solid, and aren't considered support for evolution. On the other hand, saying music could not have evolved and is a problem for evolution seems equally baseless.DrREC_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
03:44 PM
3
03
44
PM
PDT}

There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it. - Pierre Paul Grasse
Mung_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
12:16 PM
12
12
16
PM
PDT}

Mung,
Storytelling should not be confused with science. The OP tells a story. It’s not science. But all one has to do is tell a good story and it’s accepted as science if it supports Darwinism. We can make up stories about how the giraffe got it’s long neck, but that’s all they are. Stories. That’s not science. One might even argue it’s an atheist creation story (myth). Heck, a story about how or why it might have happened doesn’t even tell us that it’s even possible for it to have happened that way.
Even in 1908 Chesterton referred to these story-tellers as "evolution's minor poets".Clive Hayden_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
09:50 AM
9
09
50
AM
PDT}

Why does humankind walk upright, unique among creatures in the animal kingdom? This is a question that has long puzzled researchers as they seek to unlock the secrets of the “ascent of man.” There can be little doubt that an upright posture conveys a significant evolutionary advantage, except of course when walking through low doorways. Such a posture is highly adapted to a hostile environment where far-sightedness and mobility provide an advantage in the struggle to survive. It is clear that selection pressures accounted for the emergence of the upright posture over time, as human beings gradually diverged from their hominid ancestors. New evidence now improves our understanding of those pressures and their role in human development. A remarkable discovery in the jungles of Tibet demonstrates that the upright posture was integral to development of play in human history. It is true that other animals also appear to play to some degree. One thinks of the frolic of the lion cub and other documented behaviors that bear a striking resemblance to human play. Indeed, a careful analysis reveals that humans are not so different from other animals as their upright posture might indicate. Animals know how to have fun, too; it is certainly naïve to assume that such an important aspect of existence is beyond their natural capabilities. Play in the human, however, is generally acknowledged to have achieved an unusual degree of distinction. It is a mark of being human that grown men are willing to sacrifice their weekends to travel to vast parks and ride around in little carts in order to strike a small white ball and attempt to get it to fall into a hole. Their singular devotion to this pursuit does set them apart from their animal cousins, for whom play appears to be of an accidental and purely spontaneous nature. (It also occurs to us that there is an important activity that occurs in the clubhouse after golf which also requires an upright posture, but this is a subject, perhaps, for a separate treatise). Beyond the essentials of food and shelter, play represents the highest investment of made by Americans in their well-being. Government statistics show that Californians, for example, spent a whopping $30 billion on play in 1988 alone, accounting for 12% of total personal expenditures. Contrary to popular lore, play in the Golden State is not restricted to chasing the housekeeper around the governor’s mansion or juggling two nuclear families on one estate without an explosion. No, typical expenditures for play, in addition to golf, include hiking, jogging, skiing, amusement parks, and cycling, although the grim expressions usually observed on the faces of those engaging in the latter activity, in spite of their pixyish outfits, show that “play,” for humans, is a complex designation. Playfulness is not an observed characteristic of lower creatures but developed gradually over time in response to evolutionary pressures. Medical research indicates that creatures who became adapted to play were better suited to long-term survival than those who failed to acquire this winsome characteristic, like Karl Rove. Play represents a significant advance in the robustness and adaptability of the animal kingdom, not only relieving tedium but improving objective measures of physical well-being such as blood pressure and arterial integrity. There can be little doubt that an advanced capacity for play represents a milestone in the development of civilization and the formation of the modern mind. Field research now lends support to this thesis through the discovery of human remains in a region considered by some theorists to be a cradle of civilization. Brunner et al. report their findings with regard to a well-preserved finger found in a cave in surprising proximity to a rather colorful bar called The Fountain. The finger and surrounding artifacts have been reliably dated at 20,000 years, give or take a few, by a lab that Brunner et al. absolutely swear by. This dating puts them (the findings, that is) at the crux of the historical transition from a primitive subsistence lifestyle of hunting and gathering to a more “advanced” civilization with its defining traits of active pursuit of leisure and not being so uptight all the time. The digit in question raised interest because of a peculiar and distinctive rounding of the bone not observed in the physiology of primates. This rounding is consistent with what is seen in modern humans, where it is caused by wearing rings over a long period of time. What caught the investigators’ attention, however, was the extent of the rounding, which included the entire finger. Through as series of novel and sophisticated computer modelling tests, they were able to determine that the uniform rounding was caused by repeated placement of the finger into a tight cylindrical space. This puzzled them for some time, and was the cause of many forays to The Fountain, until an unexpected discovery in the cave shed some much-needed light on the peculiar findings. A wooden object about ten inches high and tapered at the top was disclosed in a distant room in the cave, which, upon careful analysis, was revealed to have been struck repeatedly by a round object. To make a long story short, our intrepid researchers, to their amazement, eventually realized they were looking at an ancient and primitive bowling pin. The cause of the documented rounding of the bone was now clear. The seemingly primitive caveman had repeatedly placed his finger into a bowling ball in order to hurl it with more accuracy at his target. With this information in hand, they were finally able to reconstruct the unknown cave-dweller in full (see Figure 1). It is plain that a bipedal posture was necessary to optimal play in his otherwise dark and gruesome cave. Evidence converging on many fronts suggests that the posture developed as a means of facilitating play and contributing to the physical as well as mental well-being of the modern human and the development of civilization. The role of play in human survival is undeniable. Studies show that chicks dig guys with a sense of humor. Why should it have been any different for the Tibetan cave man with his Tibetan cave girl? Play makes women hot, and the result is playfulness of a different kind play, and then let’s face it, babies. So you can forget about the grim visage of people like Boehner and Ryan. Evolution favors the playful. Pop the cork and roll up your sleeves. We’ve got an election to win!allanius_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
07:46 AM
7
07
46
AM
PDT}

Nevertheless, there is little data to call them absurd, to rule music a thorn in the side of evolution.
I believe that is the point of the OP. Darwinism can explan anything at all, and it's exact opposite, by appeal to the same "mechanism." Storytelling should not be confused with science. The OP tells a story. It's not science. But all one has to do is tell a good story and it's accepted as science if it supports Darwinism. We can make up stories about how the giraffe got it's long neck, but that's all they are. Stories. That's not science. One might even argue it's an atheist creation story (myth). Heck, a story about how or why it might have happened doesn't even tell us that it's even possible for it to have happened that way. What we need are pathways. Proposed changes to nucleotide sequences. Proposed effects of those changes. Testable hypotheses.Mung_{May 20, 2011
May
05
May
20
20
2011
06:41 AM
6
06
41
AM
PDT}

"I suspect that, with appropriate evolutionary jargon, my absurd thesis might stand a reasonable chance of being published in Nature or another highly acclaimed “scientific” journal." You've been beat to the punch by half a decade- The evolution of music Nature 453, 287-288 (15 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/453287a "In the second of a nine-part essay series, Josh McDermott explores the origins of the human urge to make and hear music. We think we understand why we are driven to eat, drink, have sex, talk and so forth, based on the uncontroversial adaptive functions of these urges. The drive to engage in music, a compulsion that is arguably just as pervasive in our species, has no such ready explanation." Though the author himself admits there is little data to test the hypotheses he puts forward. Nevertheless, there is little data to call them absurd, to rule music a thorn in the side of evolution.DrREC_{May 19, 2011
May
05
May
19
19
2011
09:30 PM
9
09
30
PM
PDT}

The sarcasm is obvious, but this is the kind of transparent nonsense Darwinists expect us to accept without question. Worse than that, they expect us to believe that this stuff has the same "scientific" legitimacy as heliocentrism and the inverse square law of gravity. I suspect that, with appropriate evolutionary jargon, my absurd thesis might stand a reasonable chance of being published in Nature or another highly acclaimed "scientific" journal.GilDodgen_{May 19, 2011
May
05
May
19
19
2011
09:14 PM
9
09
14
PM
PDT}

Sounds like your musical skills led to some reproductive success.DrREC_{May 19, 2011
May
05
May
19
19
2011
07:56 PM
7
07
56
PM
PDT}

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply