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| Author | Topic: UnPC guide to Evo and ID | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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dwise1 Member  Posts: 1933 Joined: Member Rating: 9.1 |
Ah, yes. Jonathan Wells. As I recall, he pursued his doctorate for the explicitly expressed purpose of fighting against evolution. I mean that he came right out and said as much. And his "Icons" book displayed that he would take the approach of setting up strawmen just so he could put on a big show of knocking them down. Just like most of the creation science writers. So, what strawmen does he set up in this book? "Intelligent Design is based on scientific evidence, not religious belief"? [guffaw!] Sorry, but that's of the same class as the "creation science" claim that it had nothing to do with the Bible. "Creation science" is the game of "Hide the Bible", whereas ID takes that one step further as the game of "Hide the Creationism". About the only thing that ID does right is to distance itself from young-earth claims, which are the weakest and most blatantly false (and falsified) part of "creation science." PS The one that really sticks in my mind as Dembski's "critique" of genetic algorithms in which he demonstrated that he doesn't understand what genetic algorithms are not how they work. And several members of the audience who should have been sympathetic to ID (one of them being a long-time YEC writer) informed him of that fact. Edited by dwise1, : Added postscript in re Morton's reports.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 1933 Joined: Member Rating: 9.1 |
However, what many public schools teach about Darwinism is wrong. But for very different reasons than Wells undoubtedly gives -- in fact, I know that many anti-evolutionists bank of the misinformation that's taught. What came out of the experience of biology textbook selection in late 80's California was that the textbooks were all written by professional textbook writers, not by scientists. Scientists were brought into the process to proof-read and make recommendations. They found that none of the textbooks were acceptable. All the books were filled with factual errors and misconceptions. One publisher made some of the recommended changes, but their book was still not acceptable. However, the State Board then went behind the scientists' backs and approved that unacceptable book anyway. Another problem is that many, if not most, public school science teachers lack the scientific knowledge and training and so end up relying on the book and on their own misunderstanding of science. One famous local case was John Peloza, a PE teacher who became a biology teacher; I heard him speak and everything he said about science and biology sounded like it came straight from the ICR. In another case, our younger son's 8th-grade biology teacher was the home-ec teacher; the other students kept going to him with their questions and got better answers than from her.
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Hyroglyphx Member (Idle past 116 days)  Posts: 5140 From: Austin, TX Joined: |
And what about those who specifically pursue a doctorate to explicitly defend evolutionary biology? I will give you a synoptic overview of Johnathan Wells written by an author by the name of Jack Cashill. In the chapter, "Darwin's Heirs, Cashill goes into a discourse on Wells that I will now quote that goes into how Wells found himself disenchanted with the prevailing theory of evolution: "Given this book's focus on America, Haeckel's continuing influence on the nation's academic culture demands his inclusion. The man who has made that continued inclusion immensely awkward for the science establishment is none other than Jonathan Wells. When 'Icons' was published, Wells expected a rough response. What he got was evern rougher than anticipated. Indeed, one review in the 'Quarterly Review of Biology' compared him to the Talented Mr. Ripley of movie fame, a charlatan and murderer. If, however, he Darwinists and their allies thought "The Talented Mr. Wells" would go away, they obviously hadn't taken full measure of Wells. "I spent year and a half in prison defending my principles, I wasn't about to back down now," says Wells. More like Forest Gump than Mr. Ripley, Wells has often found himself at the intersection of destiny and history. Born in New York City in 1942, Wells grew up in suburban New Jersey, excelled in high school, and narrowed the post-Sputnik space race by sending his homemade missles as much as a mile skyward. A go-as-you-please Protestant by upbringing, Wells majored in geology at Princeton where he found Darwin and lost whatever faith he had. A born rebel, Wells dropped out in his junior year while in the top 1% of his class. On August 28, 1963, he happened to be visiting friends in Washington when he all but stumbled on Martin Luther King's famed march on Washington. So inspired was Wells by the marcher's peaceful discipline that he began his own study of Ghandian pacifism. With the Vietnam War heating up and his draft imminent, he couldn't see to land a job beyond driving a cab in NYC. As Wells expected, his number came up quickly, and he spent the next two years in Germany as guest of the US Army. Encouraged by many leftist Germans with whom he came into contact, Wells began to question the war effort. After his discharge in 1966, he headed to Berkley both to finish his education and to advance the cause of pacifism. When the Army insisted he report for reserve duty, Wells, with tv camera's whirring, read a defiant letter of refusal on the steps of Berkley's Sproul Hall, the ultimate radical platform. Needless to say, the Army was not pleased. Shortly thereafter, Wells was grabbed off the Berkley streets by a pair of plainclothed MP's and imprisoned, still defiant, for four months of solitary confinement at the Presidio stockade and for another eight months at Leavenworth. Upon release form prison, Wells returned to Berkley and graduated in 1970 with a major in geology and physics and a minor in biology. Put off by the coldhearted drift to violence of the Berkley left, he fled the Bay area first for a commune and eventually to the California hills where he built a small, solitary cabin. There, he immersed himself in nature, much as Thoreau had done more than a centure earlier, and soon began to intuit a sense of design in the grandeur of it all. This discovery informed his spiritual reading, and he found himself coming back time and again to the Bible... He recieved a veritable calling to study Darwin. This calling took him to Yale where he got his doctorate in religious studies and wrote a book on nineteenth century Darwinian controversies. Not sufficiently armed for the battle that was to come, he took his mission a major step further. In 1989, now a husband and father, the forty-seven-yead-old Wells headed back to Berkley to get a Ph.D in molecular and cell biology. No mention of his doctorate being recieved in order to overthrow evolution. "Two years later a friend alerted Wells to a provacative new book called 'Darwin on Trial' by Phillip Johnson. Wells consumed the book in a gulp and, still in another Gumpian moment, discovered that Johnson was a law professor there at Berkley. Wells called Johnson immediately and invited him to lunch. Intellectual historians may one day trace the beginning of the influential anti-Darwian movement known as "Intelligent Design" to that very lunch, a coming together that Wells does not think was merely a chance meeting. If at Yale Wells grew to understand the philosophical holes in Darwinism, at Berkley, he began to see the scientific ones, none of which were blacker than the one opened by Earnst Haeckel." -Jack Cashill Anyway, i think that is a sufficient starting point to help you understand how Wells began his dissent from Darwinian evolution.
“"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." —G. K. Chesterton
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crashfrog Inactive Member |
Right - by becoming a fundamentalist Christian. Like the whole of the creationism movement, not a single one of them was convinced of it by the scientific evidence, but by a pre-existing need to assume the truth of the Bible and then cherry-pick the evidence to support it. Hey, prove me wrong. Show me an atheist who was convinced of intelligent design by the evidence, and then, once convinced of ID, was convinced by further evidence that the IDer was none other than the God of the Bible.
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Wounded King Member (Idle past 40 days)  Posts: 4149 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Joined: |
Sounds pretty explicitly as if he intended to recieve his doctorate in order to recieved in order to 'overthrow evolution' at the behest of Reverend Moon as part of an orchestrated effort. It seems that Mr Cashill is pretty unreliable, he doesn't write for the Washington post does he? I hope this helps you see that Well's foray into science was motivated by the unification church's explicitly anti-evolutionary agenda. TTFN, WK Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
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Clark Inactive Member |
You missed it. quote: http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Wells/DARWIN.htm
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Clark Inactive Member |
Do you mean the Washington Times? That paper is owned by Rev. Moon.
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Wounded King Member (Idle past 40 days) Posts: 4149 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Joined: |
That was the one. TTFN, WK
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Hyroglyphx Member (Idle past 116 days) Posts: 5140 From: Austin, TX Joined: |
As you can see by his history, Wells was in the field of science long before Moonies were ever around. In fact, he already had a double major, a minor, and a previous Ph.D before he went back to Berkley for his second. The dumbest thing he's ever done was to except a "love bomb" from the Moonies. "There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt
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NosyNed Member  Posts: 8480 From: Canada Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
Did he or did he not misquote here: quote: from: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/08/the_politically_16.html If he did he is a liar.
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Wounded King Member (Idle past 40 days) Posts: 4149 From: Edinburgh, Scotland Joined: |
He specifically says that Moon chose him in 1978 to enter the Ph.D program at Yale.
Wow! I can actually hear you steadily shifting the goalposts. How come this strong claim has been abandoned with no accession as to its falsity, but instead we have these protestations that you are still right because Wells already had a degree in which biology was a minor. Why not read what Wells himself wrote, admit that you were mislead by Cashill's account and move on from there. Or if you don't believe that Wells wrote it give us some reason why not. TTFN, WK Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
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Hyroglyphx Member (Idle past 116 days) Posts: 5140 From: Austin, TX Joined: |
I'm not sure who is even quoting here; Mark Perakh? Anyway, I don't know what is contained in the accusers book nor do I know what is contained in Wells book. From another excerpt, it reads: Wells alleged quoting: From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that … it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime” since they subject Darwinists to “continuous denunciations, verbal assaults, derision, and ultimately to dismissal from their positions.” Claimants alleged quoting: "From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that in the dispute between the Intelligent Design advocates and their opponents, including pro-evolution scientists, it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime." The claimant asserts that Wells deliberately placed the claimants words in such a manner so as to mislead readers, which would obviously be tantamount to deception. I can't say what's true or not true at this point, but if it were true it would certainly diminish Well's credibility. "There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt
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Dr Adequate Member  Posts: 11057 Joined: Member Rating: 8.8 |
"Once imbued by the Druid-master of evolution"? What a strange, strange phrase. Anyway, from wikipedia: quote: It sound to me that he was, ah, imbued with being a Moonie. Yet I notice that he claims on the cover of his book that ID is not based on religious beliefs. quote:
That is not the allegation which has been made against him. What was claimed is that he repeats the standard "evolution is an atheist theory" trash. Now the creationist in the street can be half-forgiven for reciting this rubbish, but Wells must surely know who his opponents are.
Well, may we at least say that what he teaches is "based on known falsehoods"? to quote the disgustingly mendacious phrase from the cover of his book.
Really? quote: Creation/ID folks are good at finding things "mystifying". I don't find it mystifying in the slightest. I am not a person of faith myself, but if I was, I too should object to people trying to paint a red clown nose on the face of my crucified savior. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Hyroglyphx Member (Idle past 116 days) Posts: 5140 From: Austin, TX Joined: |
No, what I'm telling you is that it doesn't matter to me whether he seeks to eradicate Darwinism at all, especially when Darwinists want to eradicate Intelligent Design. Both sides thinks the other is a destructive heresy and both sides feel that hearts and mnds are at risk. However, if Wells aleged misquote was intentionally manipulative, that is another matter entirely. But his opinion on evolution shouldn't shock anyone, least of evolutionists, who seek the exact same goal in reverse. And to clarify, my objection was that people claimed that Wells had no prior knowledge of evolution prior to becoming a Moonie. This is ridiculous. The man had already Ph.D's beforehand. Obviously, they want to paint this picture of a man who made a flippant decision based on little to no facts prior, even though he already held a Ph.D in biology. That would be absurd. "There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 11057 Joined: Member Rating: 8.8 |
Name one.
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