Marvin Olasky on theistic atheism – oops, I meant theistic evolution

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 19, 2010

theistic evolution}

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Today’s three great cultural flashpoints are abortion, same-sex marriage, and evolution. We can hedge on them and justify our hedging: Playing it cool here will help me gain for Christ people who would otherwise walk away.

I’m not knocking such considerations. Nor am I assuming that anyone who tries to meld eternal truth and contemporary trends lacks courage: Some do so on evangelistic principle, others because they believe what they’re saying is true. But attempts to unify antitheses generally defy logic.

Over the past 15 years I’ve tried to explain some of the problems of Darwinism. Last year I raised questions about the “theistic evolution” that Francis Collins espouses, but didn’t offer answers—and several WORLD readers have pressed me for more (see “Theistic evolutionist,” July 10, 2009).

Darn. He’s on to the story of the century, and I thought I had it all to myself. He continues,

To put it in terms of an equation, when atheists assure us that matter + evolution + 0 = all living things, and then theistic evolutionists answer, no, that matter + evolution + God = all living things, it will not take long for unbelievers to conclude that, therefore, God = 0.”

Right, exactly, that is the project of “theistic” evolution, so far as I can see. Helping theists get used to a world run by atheists and their values, while still hollering fer Jesus irrelevantly somewhere.

Comments

---"Of course, I didn’t ask for word counts." Anything that will give you a sense of proportion should be helpful. ---"I asked why else would O’leary quote the particular words where Olasky leverages this depiction as part of his conclusion." To show the mendacity of the TEs.StephenB_{June 23, 2010
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@Stephen B (#54) 599 words: Olasky paints an elaborate picture to depict Christians who accept TOE as "[schizophrenic]." 87 words: Olasky leverages this elaborate depiction to complain how "[schizophrenic] Christians" hurt his ability to coerce non-believers.
Should we hug evolution to further evangelism? Theologian Wayne Grudem has it right: "Theistic evolutionists tell us that Christians can surrender to this massive attack on the Christian faith and safely, inoffensively, tack on God... To put it in terms of an equation, when atheists assure us that matter + evolution + 0 = all living things, and then theistic evolutionists answer, no, that matter + evolution + God = all living things, it will not take long for unbelievers to conclude that, therefore, God = 0."
Of course, I didn't ask for word counts. I asked why else would O'leary quote the particular words where Olasky leverages this depiction as part of his conclusion. Perhaps you thought this was a rhetorical question as well?veilsofmaya_{June 23, 2010
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[Olasky is not writing about nonbelievers. He is writing about schizophrenic believers who think that a purposeful, mindful creator used a purposeless, mindless process.] ---veilsofmaya: "So the why did O’leary quote this specific part of his article? [Emphasis mine]" Well, let's analyze it for a moment. Number of words written about schizopheric Christian Darwinists = 667 Number of words written about non-believers = 12 Just for fun, which subject associated with which number would you say reflected the author's theme? Since this is a multiple choice question, you have a 50/50 chance of getting the answer right.StephenB_{June 22, 2010
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Cassandra: Ah, and the only argument I have ever seen from you is an argument from authority.gpuccio_{June 22, 2010
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Cassandra (#28-36-37): Even for a troll, you are boring: 1) The evidence for common descent with designed modification is overwhelming; the evidence for common descent with non designed modification is nil. 2) All evolutionary biologists over the past 150 years have not been accomplices in a conspiracy, but have worked under a big cognitive bias, and have been wrong on some fundamental points. Some of them, today, defend those wrong points through dogmatic and intolerant means. 3)ID is not an argument from incredulity, and never has been. ID is technically an inference from analogy. If you can't see the difference, you are epistemologically hopeless.gpuccio_{June 22, 2010
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@Clive Hayden (#42) Clive, So, what you meant to express was personal incredulity? Yes, it's it can seem counter intuitive. But so does the idea that solid block walls are 99.9999% empty space. It may seem like my fingers are actually touching the keys as I write this, but in reality they are repelled by the weak force before actually making contact. Theories such as Quantum mechanics and even Heliocentrism appeared to be absurd conclusions about reality. Yet they were eventually accepted, even when it contradicted interpretations of scripture at the time. While I greatly value human intuition, we must take into account the scale in which it is actually useful. Intuition breaks down as we move to the very small, the very large and the very complex. In these cases, intuition can become a significant liability to gaining knowledge. Again, as a critical rationalist, I realize intuition, observations and induction are insufficient on their own as any theory can make any prediction. Ultimately, It's the arguments and explanations behind them which makes one tenable over another. So, to repeat my earlier question, I'd ask how you explanation what we observe using ID? Example? Lets say we discover a new species and find another variation of an eye that exhibits some traits we've observed, but others we had yet to discover. In other words, it's still an functional eye, but it provides a specific level of functionality via some significantly different and unexpected means. How would you explain this? Evolution explains it by noting that eyes are so useful that they've evolved though multiple paths yet still perform roughly the same function. Evolution also predicts that we'd find examples where various optimizations were made to overcome obvious initial deficiencies such as a backwards retina. Our brain compensates for this deficiency by post-processing the image data, etc. How would ID's implicit theory actually explain this sort of discovery? The designer just so happens to design eyes so they appeared to have evolved in a hap hazard way, but in reality, they did not? Mutations that result in detrimental traits are truly random, but mutations that result in positive traits - including those that separately were neutral or possible even detrimental alone, but resulted in a beneficial traits when combined - were intentionally orchestrated by an intelligent designer? In case it's not clear, I'm suggesting that we can rightfully say ID's implied theory is a convoluted elaboration of and a response to TOE. Furthermore, it shares the following with The Inquisition's implied theory and even Solipsism: it draws an arbitrary boundary beyond which human reason and understanding has no access and problem solving can no longer increase knowledge. For Solipsists, this boundary is drawn at their brain/mind. For The Inquisition it was drawn around the earth. And for ID it's drawn at the development of biological complexity we observe. We we simply cannot understand why the designer intentionally made things appear to have evolved, and we never will. Who are we do say how or why God, oops … I mean the intelligent designer did it? This is why my question is a rhetorical one, as answering it would require to you cross this boundary, which you claim cannot be crossed.veilsofmaya_{June 22, 2010
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@Clive Hayden (#41) You wrote:
What is unreasonable is asking what “not true” means.
Clive, please see my earlier comment (#9) in which I've already illustrated how using the terms "evolution" and "not true" in conjunction could be ambiguous. Is Heliocentrism "not true" because Galileo was wrong when he suggested planets orbited around the sun in a circle rather than slightly elliptical paths? Would it be accurate to say the Bible is "not true" because textual critics uncontroversially accept the ending of Mark as an addition written by another author around the middle of the second century?veilsofmaya_{June 22, 2010
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---zeroseven: “I think what you are doing is indulging in the common fallacy that the theory of evolution is something more than a scientific theory. Just as we don’t look for moral prescriptions in germ theory, it is pointless to look for them in evolution.” Context, context, context. Inasmuch as I didn’t mention the theory of evolution in my argument, I can’t imagine what you are talking about? If you are going to comment on my argument, you really ought to read it. Here it is again: [If there is no God, then humans were not made to behave in any certain way or to pursue any meaningful end. That means that there can be no morality proper to human nature: Humans cannot pervert their created nature through bad behavior, because they have no created nature to pervert; they cannot frustrate the purpose of their existence with bad behavior, because there is no purpose for their existence. That makes all acts morally neutral. If there is no objective morality, there can be no universally binding standard for discerning good acts from bad acts. Indeed, there can be no such thing as a good act or a bad act. Thus, all things are permissible.] ---“As I have said before, I believe in no god. Most of my fellow citizens are the same. In my country, morals exist and not everything is permissible. In fact it is an extremely peaceful and law-abiding country. Therefore your statement is patently wrong.” Obviously, I am right. To say that everything is permissible is not to say that every conceivable immoral act is permitted at the same time. It is to say that nothing can be ruled out--that no act can be declared now and forever impermissible. Atheists cannot rule out anything because they have no basis for differentiating a just law from an unjust law. Thus, they cannot say, “this law is unjust, therefore, we will not permit it.” They can only say, this law doesn’t appeal to me personally, therefore I will not support it for the moment.” Or, they can say, “This law does appeal to me; I will support it and enforce it. Further, I will punish anyone who refuses to obey it, even if they labor under the illusion that there is any such thing as just laws and unjust laws. If you have no objective moral standard by which you can declare that a law is unjust, then any unjust law is possible. Are you now trying to tell me that you have no unjust laws in your country? We have plenty of unjust laws in my country? Further, I can tell you why the unjust laws in my country are unjust and why the unjust laws in your country are unjust [if you tell me which country and cite some of the laws]. That is because I have a standard by which I can make that assessment. You have no standard and cannot, therefore, make any assessment at all except to assume that all your laws are just—except, of course, that you don’t think there is any such thing as justice.StephenB_{June 22, 2010
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Clive; Yes, myself (I am a product of generations of learning and cultural development) and the goodwill of those around me. Clive, if morality is given to us by God, why does it evolve? Why was slavery considered ok when the new testament was written? Why was torture considered ok in 16th century England? God must have evolving standards of morality which seems odd. You would think He would get them right the first time. BA77, I really don't think about the probability. It just seems completely irrelevant to me. Regarding your argument above, I think steps 2 and 3 are problematic as well as 1. I don't think 2 follows from 1 or 3 from 2. I'm not an expert in logic but the whole thing feels tautological to me. The whole thing could be turned around.zeroseven_{June 22, 2010
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zeroseven, you state that you believe in no god, but would you be willing to put a probability on that unbelief as Richard Dawkins did for Ben Stein? Richard Dawkins Vs. Ben Stein - The UFO Interview http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4134259 Just how certain are you zeroseven that there is no God? 99% sure? 90% sure?, 49% sure? Well zeroseven no matter how small you put the probability of God existing the fact that there is a probability of God existing makes it 100% certain that God does indeed exist. Ontological Argument Against Many Worlds - William Lane Craig - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4784641 God Is Not Dead Yet - William Lane Craig Excerpt: The ontological argument. Anselm's famous argument has been reformulated and defended by Alvin Plantinga, Robert Maydole, Brian Leftow, and others. God, Anselm observes, is by definition the greatest being conceivable. If you could conceive of anything greater than God, then that would be God. Thus, God is the greatest conceivable being, a maximally great being. So what would such a being be like? He would be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, and he would exist in every logically possible world. But then we can argue: 1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists. 2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. 3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. 4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. 5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world. 6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists. 7. Therefore, God exists. Now it might be a surprise to learn that steps 2–7 of this argument are relatively uncontroversial. Most philosophers would agree that if God's existence is even possible, then he must exist. So the whole question is: Is God's existence possible? The atheist has to maintain that it's impossible that God exists. He has to say that the concept of God is incoherent, like the concept of a married bachelor or a round square. But the problem is that the concept of God just doesn't appear to be incoherent in that way. The idea of a being which is all-powerful, all knowing, and all-good in every possible world seems perfectly coherent. And so long as God's existence is even possible, it follows that God must exist. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/13.22.html?start=4bornagain77_{June 22, 2010
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The debate around morality has been done on here so many times, but I do not tire of it. It's funny to see how the atheist camp never gets it, relying on the same flimsy arguments. Unless it's one of the honest atheists, but they make me worried.Berceuse_{June 22, 2010
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veilsofmaya,
@StephenB (#21) You wrote: Olasky is not writing about nonbelievers. He is writing about schizophrenic believers who think that a purposeful, mindful creator used a purposeless, mindless process. No? So the why did O’leary quote this specific part of his article? [Emphasis mine] To put it in terms of an equation, when atheists assure us that matter + evolution + 0 = all living things, and then theistic evolutionists answer, no, that matter + evolution + God = all living things, it will not take long for unbelievers to conclude that, therefore, God = 0.”
Olasky was not writing about the word "that" either, though what he wrote included that word. Context is everything.Clive Hayden_{June 22, 2010
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zeroseven,
I think what you are doing is indulging in the common fallacy that the theory of evolution is something more than a scientific theory. Just as we don’t look for moral prescriptions in germ theory, it is pointless to look for them in evolution. As I have said before, I believe in no god. Most of my fellow citizens are the same. In my country, morals exist and not everything is permissible. In fact it is an extremely peaceful and law-abiding country. Therefore your statement is patently wrong.
Because they know better than their philosophy, and don't actually live it out. They take morality for granted, and go from there, not examining that, at the bottom, it is just "fobbed off" onto us by our genes, as evolutionists believe. What do you hang your morality on? Yourself?Clive Hayden_{June 22, 2010
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veilsofmaya,
Why is this the case in the absence of God?
The obvious answer is that without accountability and objective morality, man can make his own notions of everything right, including might, and who are you to claim that man to be wrong? Under what standard would you claim StephenB to be wrong in asserting it? Do you think there is an objective purpose or objective meaning between men that we can reference in the absence of God? Who or what would create this standard, and how would they make it objective?Clive Hayden_{June 22, 2010
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StephenB, No, nothing controversial about that statement. But its the next step in your argument I am talking about: "If there is no God, blowing up the planet is permissible just as arguing against such an act is permissible. Under those circumstances, anything at all is permissible because morality is reduced to the principle of “might makes right.”" I think what you are doing is indulging in the common fallacy that the theory of evolution is something more than a scientific theory. Just as we don't look for moral prescriptions in germ theory, it is pointless to look for them in evolution. As I have said before, I believe in no god. Most of my fellow citizens are the same. In my country, morals exist and not everything is permissible. In fact it is an extremely peaceful and law-abiding country. Therefore your statement is patently wrong.zeroseven_{June 22, 2010
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veilsofmaya,
When you over-simplify it like that, what did you expect? Opps, that is what you expected.
This is what I mean: Now, I will roughly arrange in order the facts of common knowledge that seem to me to support my conclusions as a matter of common-sense. First of all, there is something that will be very suggestive to anybody with a sense of human nature; I mean the tone of the Darwinians themselves. . . . the critic . . .added the very singular and significant phrase: that the Darwinian hypotheses was still “that most sound at bottom.” In short, this Darwinian is already on the defensive, . . . . . .I will take the instances selected in order to expound the hypothesis, . . .If you were explaining to a child, for instance, you would take things like the horn of the rhinoceros or the hump of the dromedary. In fact, you would give a correct and scientific version of the “Just-So Stories.” . . . But these horns and humps, these high outstanding features of variation, are exactly the things that are generally not chosen for examples, and not explained by this universal explanation. And the truth is that it is very often precisely these obvious things that the explanation cannot explain. . . . But if you will call up the Darwinian vision, of thousands of intermediary creatures with webbed feet that are not yet wings, their survival will seem incredible. A mouse can run, and survive; and a fitter-mouse can fly, and survive. But a creature that cannot yet fly, and can no longer run, ought obviously to have perished, by the very Darwinian doctrine which has to assume that he survived. . . . The Darwinians have this mark of fighters for a lost cause, that they are perpetually appealing to sentiment and to authority.. . .God condescended to argue with Job, but the last Darwinian will not condescend to argue with you. He will inform you of your ignorance; he will not enlighten your ignorance.. . .when men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude. G. K. Chesterton, Doubts about Darwin. I do not know the true reason for a bat not having feathers; I only know that Darwin gave a false reason for its having wings. And the more the Darwinians explain, the more certain I become that Darwinism was wrong. All their explanations ignore the fact that Darwinism supposes an animal feature to appear first, not merely in an incomplete stage, but in an almost imperceptible stage. The member of a sort of mouse family, destined to found the bat family, could only have differed from his brother mice by some minute trace of membrane; and why should that enable him to escape out of a natural massacre of mice? Or even if we suppose it did serve some other purpose, it could only be by a coincidence; and this is to imagine a million coincidences accounting for every creature. A special providence watching over a bat would be a far more realistic notion than such a run of luck as that. G.K. Chesterton, On Darwinism and Mystery It is that the Darwinian version of evolution is, in the most emphatic sense of the phrase, not like life. It is impossible to believe that life has been so completely separated from will as it is implied in the notion of natural selection producing all the varieties of nature. It is far too much of a fortuitous concourse of animals like a fortuitous concourse of atoms. In that sense, every chapter of the “Origin of Species” may be precisely described as a chapter of accidents. Natural selection is the most unnatural thing we can conceive. It is an eternal coincidence. But it is not only that the natural selection is not natural at all; it is the whole point of it that it is not selection at all. Nobody selects; and nothing cannot select. It seems to me in the largest and most luminous sense a matter of commonsense to say that, if there was not a clear design from above, then there was some sort of design from below; and it is quite possible, of course, that there was both. All this preliminary part of the preface and the argument is sound and on solid ground; because it is dealing with a definite theory and giving reasons for differing from the theory.” G.K. Chesterton, The Persecution of Religion Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’ even if you only mean ‘In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.’ For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species. G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting ManClive Hayden_{June 22, 2010
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veilsofmaya,
And, as Cassandra illustrates, it’s unclear if O’leary is revering to mechanisms that were uncontroversially falsified in the 1800’s or the core of the theory which has survived 150 years of criticism. Given the above it’s unclear how asking O’leary what she means by “evolution” is an unreasonable question.
What is unreasonable is asking what "not true" means.Clive Hayden_{June 22, 2010
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Cassandra,
If by “Darwinism” you mean modern evolutionary theory, you can only make a statement like that by willfully ignoring 150 years of research documented in thousands of books and hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed papers. On what basis do you reject not only the science of biology but all of the other supporting lines of evidence?
I'm not ignoring anything, I'm pointing out that a mountain of papers doesn't mean anything true or real or scientific just by virtue of it being a mountain. I'm sure there were plenty of papers on alchemy, and I know there are plenty of papers on astrology. Mere volume means less than nothing to me, what does mean something is actuality, reality, as such I would need the link between the shrimp and the banana tree sharing the same great great great grandparents. Since we cannot observe evolution in real-time, we must speculate, and some of us speculate for evolution, though any person has this ability, and the same "evidence" can count against evolution, just as Charles Darwin himself said in the Origin. Evolutionists retro-fit all evidence into its paradigm. What "evidence" is excluded? Can you, at least, tell me that?Clive Hayden_{June 22, 2010
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@StephenB (#21) You wrote:
Olasky is not writing about nonbelievers. He is writing about schizophrenic believers who think that a purposeful, mindful creator used a purposeless, mindless process.
No? So the why did O'leary quote this specific part of his article? [Emphasis mine]
To put it in terms of an equation, when atheists assure us that matter + evolution + 0 = all living things, and then theistic evolutionists answer, no, that matter + evolution + God = all living things, it will not take long for unbelievers to conclude that, therefore, God = 0.”
veilsofmaya_{June 22, 2010
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@StephenB (#20) You wrote:
Olasky is saying that Darwin’s idea of unguided evolution, which Christian Darwinists unwisely accept, cannot be reconciled with their alleged belief in the Biblical teaching that God created the earth. He is, of course, correct in his analysis..
In what time frame? For whom? As I've illustrated, history has shown once thought to be irreconcilable world views can and have be reconciled. As such, this seems to be merely a complaint that he's lost a significant nuclear card he can play to coerce non-believers.
The process [O’Leary] used is called abstract reasoning. You seem to have ignored the actually claim O'Leary made, which was "only survival in this world matters" in God's absence. I see nothing that explains this in your comment. Are you speaking for O'Leary?
Under those circumstances, anything at all is permissible because morality is reduced to the principle of “might makes right.”
I'll ask you the same question. Why is this the case in the absence of God? As with O'leary, it seems you've smuggled specific assumptions as a theist when reaching this conclusion.
veilsofmaya_{June 22, 2010
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gpuccio (32),
I believe Cassandra is the usual standard troll who comes here to repeat ad nauseam, parrot-like, his/her faith in the modern synthesis, strictly avoiding any real discusion. Maybe we should not take these people too seriously.
I note that you have failed to provide a reference to a scientific theory of intelligent design that explains the evidence and makes better predictions than modern evolutionary theory. Pointing out that the ID emperor has no clothes is not trolling.Cassandra_{June 22, 2010
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O'Leary (30),
Okay, now to business: The fact is that Darwinism has never demonstrated an ability to create huge transitions in life forms.
The evidence for common descent with modification is overwhelming, as anyone willing to look at the peer reviewed literature honestly must admit. The amount of change calculated from modern genomes, the rates of change, and the amount of time available all support modern evolutionary theory.
So far as I can see, the way Darwin racket works is to confuse “evolution” with “Darwinism”.
"Racket"? Are you seriously asserting that all evolutionary biologists over the past 150 years have been complicit in a conspiracy?
Few doubt “evolution”. Find a tyrannosaur and I will doubt evolution.
Provide an alternative scientific theory that explains the same observations and makes better predictions and I'll doubt modern evolutionary theory.
But evolutionary biology has, in my view, long functioned as a corrupt and idle racket, fronted by ridiculous popular science media
"Corrupt and idle" is a gross insult to generations of scientists who have worked very hard to improve our understanding of the natural world. What evidence do you have for your conspiracy theory?Cassandra_{June 22, 2010
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@Clive Hayden (#16)
If Darwinism cannot explain the simplest of things, it cannot explain anything else.
At the risk of further accusal of obfuscating needlessly, what do you mean by 'explain?' Perhaps you mean 'account for' instead? For example, when The Inquisition demeaned Galileo denounce Heliocentrism, it was not because they denied there was some definitive state of affairs that caused planetary movement. Both Galileo and The Inquisition were realists in that respect. What they objected to was the principle that we could understand the world in terms of universal, mathematical laws, which were accessible to human beings when rigorously applied. If successful, they realized his method would take precedence not only over intuition and common sense, but religious doctrine and revelation as well. As such, it was forbidden to use Heliocentrism as an explanation of why the night sky appeared the way it did. However, since predicting the motions of the planets was quite useful, the use of Heliocentrism's mathematical formulas to predict planetary movement was allowed. Since The Inquisition was perfectly willing to accept Galileo's predictions, further argument appeared meaningless. They could always point out that no-amount of observable evidence could ever prove one particular state of affairs was true or false. As they put it, God could produce the same observed effects in an infinite number of different ways. Who was Galileo to claim knowledge of how God did it? Furthermore, at the time, it was not yet clear that Heliocentrism made much better predictions that geocentrism, as the observations were not very accurate and ad-hoc modifications were proposed resolve discrepancies. Nor did Galileo enjoy the kind of radio telescopes and satellite observations we have at our disposal. But was the issue really beyond resolution in Galileo's time due to lack of observations? When The Inquisition demand Galileo denounce Heliocentrism, yet allowed it's use to make predictions, they implicitly presented a theory of their own: the earth is actually at rest, with the sun and planets in motion about it. These bodies move in a complex way that, when viewed from the earth, is also consistent with the sun being at rest and the earth and planets in motion. If this implicit theory was true, we should still expect Heliocentrism to predict planetary motion, yet still be false. This would also imply that observations that supported Heliocentrism supported The Inquisition's theory as well. Now that we actually have two theories - one explicit and on implicit - was there a way we could have differentiated between them at the time? I'm going to suggest that [A] there is such a thing as a bad explanation and [B] there really are ways we can identifying them. The Inquisition's implicit theory explains the appearance of a stationary earth by saying it actually is stationary, which appeals to out intuitions; while Galileo had to employ complex mathematics and contradict the ideas of force and inertia we commonly associate with a body in motion. But what about the motions of the planets in the sky? Heliocentrism explains them by saying the planets are observed to move in complicated loops in the sky because they are actually moving in simple circles in space in conduction with the earth's motion. This is in contrast to the Inquisition's explanation that the planets appear to move in completed loops because they actually are moving in complicated loops in space; but this complicated motion just so happens to be governed by a simple premise - when observed from the earth, they appear just as they would as if moving in simple orbits around the sun. In other words, to understand planetary motions via the Inquisition's implied theory it's essential to reference Heliocentrism. It's a cosmology that can be only understood in terms of a different cosmology which it contradicts but faithfully mimics. The result is that Inquisition's theory does not actually explain planetary motion without having to introduce the complication of Heliocentrism first. As such, we can rightfully say that the Inquisition's implied theory is a convoluted elaboration of Heliocentrism. Note that I did not reach this conclusion via appealing to observations of modern cosmology, but by taking the theory seriously, on it's own terms, as an explanation of the real world. So, in this context, I'd ask you to take the theory of Intelligent Design seriously and actually use it to explain what we observe. When I say 'seriously', I'm not referring to the use of a somber tone or without resorting to jest, I'm asking you to actually explain what we observe using the implicit theory ID constantly presents when making it's claims. Of course, this is a rhetorical question on my part, as I don't think such an explanation will actually be forthcoming.veilsofmaya_{June 22, 2010
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@Clive Hayden (#16)
I can’t speak for Denyse, but no evidence supports Darwinism,
As a critical rationalist, I'd agree on that specific point. No evidence supports any theory. As Karl Popper put it, all knowledge is theory laden, which starts out as conjecture and guesswork. Theories are collaborated by evidence, not justified by it.
I know this sounds simple, but it exactly this sort of thing that is used for evidence of evolution, and it doesn’t cut muster.
When you over-simplify it like that, what did you expect? Opps, that is what you expected.veilsofmaya_{June 22, 2010
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@Clive Hayden (#11) Clive, O'leary linked to someone who included what is clearly either ignorance to or a straw man of TOE as part of his argument. She then goes on to write…
Darn. He’s on to the story of the century, and I thought I had it all to myself.
She offers no response when I bring it up. Does her silence suggest a hope the problem will go away if she ignores it? Perhaps it represents approval? And, as Cassandra illustrates, it's unclear if O'leary is revering to mechanisms that were uncontroversially falsified in the 1800's or the core of the theory which has survived 150 years of criticism. Given the above it's unclear how asking O'leary what she means by "evolution" is an unreasonable question.veilsofmaya_{June 22, 2010
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Denyse: I believe Cassandra is the usual standard troll who comes here to repeat ad nauseam, parrot-like, his/her faith in the modern synthesis, strictly avoiding any real discusion. Maybe we should not take these people too seriously.gpuccio_{June 22, 2010
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Cassandra, though I surely am interested in your hundreds of thousands of proofs for evolution, for the sake of time, I would like for you to present just one proof. In fact I would like for you to present what you feel is your most clear rock solid undeniable proof for evolution that we would be absolutely nuts to deny. If it can withstand scrutiny and prove neo-Darwinism true with rigor, I will gladly join you in your fight to expose the frauds that we IDers are. As for confirmed ID prediction by peer review that would be ENCODE's finding that every nucleotide is transcribed in a regulated way thus undermining the Junk DNA postulation of neo-Darwinism.bornagain77_{June 22, 2010
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Cassandra, at 29: I should not, it must be admitted, speak before Clive, to whom you addressed your comments, but I plead the fact that my time zone is earlier than his, and he doubtless has pressing commitments. First, do you want to say who you are? Is your name really "Cassandra"?* Okay, now to business: The fact is that Darwinism has never demonstrated an ability to create huge transitions in life forms. So far as I can see, the way Darwin racket works is to confuse "evolution" with "Darwinism". Few doubt "evolution". Find a tyrannosaur and I will doubt evolution. But evolutionary biology has, in my view, long functioned as a corrupt and idle racket, fronted by ridiculous popular science media - and I think you know exactly what I mean: "chimps show altruism", due to some complex lab games that wouldn't get anywhere in real nature. Next, I am sure we will be hearing that groundhogs show advanced concepts in religion. What I want to know is, why are evolutionary biologists not ashamed of all this nonsense? Why not just get used to the fact that humans - however it happened - are different? Maybe we could get somewhere with something if we did? *For the record, I am Denyse O'Leary, a female Toronto-based Canadian journalist, oleary@sympatico.ca. There seems to be so much doubt about me that some have thought I was a man, so let me just take a moment to set the record straight. I mean, really. That is not a pseudonym. My parents baptized me at Holy Rosary Cathedral in Regina, Saskatchewan, shortly after my birth in 1950, under that exact name (required by the priest's question: "What do you name this child?") - and quite properly so. My father was "O'Leary" and my mother got to pick the Christian name, according to our local custom, when the birth papers were handed to her in the hospital. I have worked faithfully in media all my adult life, with no hint of scandal. I was a minor couple of pages in an anti-Christian screed published by Random House Canada, but could only address the major errors of fact that I knew of (the "marcis", as I call them) - such as that Phillip Johnson became a Catholic. Like yourself, I have other responsibilities, so did not address most of them. Now, what about you? Who are YOU?O'Leary_{June 22, 2010
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Clive Hayden (16),
I can’t speak for Denyse, but no evidence supports Darwinism, I reckon the folks claiming it does have the burden of evidence.
If by "Darwinism" you mean modern evolutionary theory, you can only make a statement like that by willfully ignoring 150 years of research documented in thousands of books and hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed papers. On what basis do you reject not only the science of biology but all of the other supporting lines of evidence?Cassandra_{June 22, 2010
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gpuccio (15),
Are you kidding? Have you suddenly forgotten where you are? In case, I will remind you that this is UD, the dark lair of those most evil people, the IDists. You know, maybe youy have not noticed, but here we do not believe in the mainstream interpretation of what you call “the findings of biology and other sciences”.
Objective, empirical evidence exists whether you believe in it or not.
We appreciate the findings, but we have our own ideas on how to interpret them
The only interpretation I've seen articulated with any consistency here, after lurking and occasionally participating for some months, is the argument from incredulity. If you can point to other interpretations of the evidence gathered over the past 150 years that explain it better than modern evolutionary theory and that make better predictions, I'd be very interested in hearing it, as would the peer-reviewed journals. Thus far, unfortunately, I have seen no real theory of intelligent design and no testable predictions. If I have somehow missed those, please provide references.
Or are you suggesting that each time one of us states, like Denise, that “there is abundant evidence that Darwinism is not true”, he should again repeat all the arguments that he has already detailed hundreds of times?
Just the once would be fine.Cassandra_{June 22, 2010
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