percy writes:
Did you miss Re: Last warning! (Message 123)?
No, did you miss the original intent of this thread? If so, let me remind you and anyone else who has either forgotten or was unaware.
In my very first post, http://
EvC Forum: DarkStar's Collection of Quotations - Number 1 I stated
In the pages that follow, we should attempt to address these issues regarding true science vs. myth, expand on the positions of both the evolution and creation scientists, and bring to light as much data as is necessary to provide everyone with the most up to date information available from all sides, while acknowledging all viewpoints.
The first quote posted,
"I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science."
, was supposedly contained in a letter from Darwin to Gray. It was my initial contention that Darwin was referring to his own theory, a point I have been unable to confirm, even from the talkorigins site, due to the letter never being presented in full.
Your initial contention, stated as follows:
percy writes:
My first reaction upon seeing your Darwin quote was, "I bet Darwin wasn't talking about evolution." Turns out I was right, and then Crash uncovers that he wasn't measuring his "speculations" against modern scientific practice, but against Baconian standards.
was that Darwin was not referring to his own theory, something you have been unable to confirm due to the exact same problem that I was faced with, the inability to locate the full text of the letter in question. Until the letter is produced in full, neither of our contentions can be fully supported.
percy writes:
Your main assertion in this thread is that even scientists don't accept macroevolution, and that they actually say so.
No, actually my assertion in this thread is not an assertion at all, but rather it is a quest to find and understand the truth to the question
"Why do so many scientists supporting the theory of evolution make so many seemingly condemnatory statements regarding Darwinian evolutionary theory?"
Statements such as this small sampling,
"It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anythingor at least they are not science."
George G. Simpson
"The fact is that the evidence was so patchy one hundred years ago that even Darwin himself had increasing doubts as to the validity of his views, and the only aspect of his theory which has received any support over the past century is where it applies to microevolutionary phenomena. His general theory, that all life on earth had originated and evolved by a gradual successive accumulation of fortuitous mutations, is still, as it was in Darwin's time, a highly speculative hypothesis entirely without direct factual support and very far from that self-evident axiom some of its more aggressive advocates would have us believe."
Michael Denton
As by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not find them embedded in the crust of the earth? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of being, as we see them, well-defined species?Charles Darwin
"The theories of evolution, with which our studious youth have been deceived, constitute actually a dogma that all the world continues to teach; but each, in his specialty, the zoologist or the botanist, ascertains that none of the explanations furnished is adequate . . It results from this summary, that the theory of evolution is impossible."P. Lemoine
"The problem of the origin of species has not advanced in the last 150 years. One hundred and fifty years have already passed during which it has been said that the evolution of the species is a fact but, without giving real proofs of it and without even a principle of explaining it.
During the last one hundred and fifty years of research that has been carried out along this line [in order to prove the theory], there has been no discovery of anything. It is simply a repetition in different ways of what Darwin said in 1859. This lack of results is unforgivable in a day when molecular biology has really opened the veil covering the mystery of reproduction and heredity.....
Finally, there is only one attitude which is possible as I have just shown: It consists in affirming that intelligence comes before life. Many people will say this is not science, it is philosophy. The only thing I am interested in is fact, and this conclusion comes out of an analysis and observation of the facts."G. Salet
"Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study."Steven Jay Gould
"The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of imagination."Dr. Fleischman
The evolutionary establishment fears creation science, because evolution itself crumbles when challenged by evidence. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of public debates were arranged between evolutionary scientists and creation scientists. The latter scored resounding victories, with the result that, today, few evolutionists will debate. Isaac Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould, and the late Carl Sagan, while highly critical of creationism, all declined to debate.James Perloff
I doubt if there is any single individual within the scientific community who could cope with the full range of [creationist] arguments without the help of an army of consultants in special fields.David M. Raup
No one has ever found an organism that is known not to have parents, or a parent. This is the strongest evidence on behalf of evolution.Tom Bethell
"It is almost invariably assumed that animals with bodies composed of a single cell represent the primitive animals from which all others derived. They are commonly supposed to have preceded all other animal types in their appearance. There is not the slightest basis for this assumption."Austin Clark
"I am not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific and public thinking has been beneficial . . the success of Darwinism was accomplished by a decline in scientific integrity."W.R. Thompson
"I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it."H. Lipson
"The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils."D.B. Gower
"I feel that the effect of hypotheses of common ancestry in systematics has not been merely boring, not just a lack of knowledge; I think it has been positively anti-knowledge . . Well, what about evolution? It certainly has the function of knowledge, but does it convey any? Well, we are back to the question I have been putting to people, `Is there one thing you can tell me about?' The absence of answers seems to suggest that it is true, evolution does not convey any knowledge."Colin Patterson
"What is it based upon? Upon nothing whatever but faith, upon belief in the reality of the unseenbelief in the fossils that cannot be produced, belief in the embryological experiments that refuse to come off. It is faith unjustified by works."Arthur N. Field
"We still do not know the mechanics of evolution in spite of the over-confident claims in some quarters, nor are we likely to make further progress in this by the classical methods of paleontology or biology; and we shall certainly not advance matters by jumping up and down shrilling, `Darwin is god and I, So-and-so, am his prophet.'"Errol White
"From the almost total absence of fossil evidence relative to the origin of the phyla, it follows that any explanation of the mechanism in the creative evolution of the fundamental structural plans is heavily burdened with hypothesis. This should appear as an epigraph to every book on evolution. The lack of direct evidence leads to the formulation of pure conjecture as to the genesis of the phyla; we do not even have a basis to determine the extent to which these opinions are correct."Pierre-Paul de Grasse
This is but a very small sampling of the thousands of quotes from which we could choose. Are they all taken out of context, giving the reader a false understanding of what was actually said? Are they mere fabrications, designed to confuse and give misdirection to the reader? Are creationists waging a smear campaign that makes politicians seem docile? Or do the men and women who utter these words mean exactly what they say?
The purpose of this thread is to investigate these things in an honest and open-minded manner. As I stated in my initial post,
In the pages that follow, we should attempt to address these issues regarding true science vs. myth, expand on the positions of both the evolution and creation scientists, and bring to light as much data as is necessary to provide everyone with the most up to date information available from all sides, while acknowledging all viewpoints.
This investigation must necessarily include an attempt to discover whether or not these thousands of quotes are "myths" created in the minds of creationists, or if they are indeed actual quotes and, if so, are they so far out of context that a misunderstanding is guaranteed or are they confirmation that far more scientists question the validity of Darwinian evolutionary theory then is made know in science writings, journals, and publications. The truth is out there, we need only to conduct an honest and open-minded search to find it. I'm game, how about you?
percy writes:
Here's an example, to stick with the war analogy, of you throwing rocks at tanks:
Percy writes:
The Peppered Moth experiments had flaws that probably mean that predation can not be considered as positively identified as the cause of the color changes, but the correlation of color changes with environmental changes is not in doubt.
DarkStar writes:
However, the peppered moth was an obvious attempt at deception.
percy writes:
You're not responding to my argument, you're just repeating your original assertion.
I take it by that statement that you deny that there was any attempt at deception. Perhaps you could then explain to me why individuals would take staged photos of said moths, dead ones at that, attached to tree trunks knowing full well that said moths did not normally rest on tree trunks. Maybe where you come from that would be considered a "flaw" but in my necks of the woods this is known as a blantant attempt to mislead an audience, hence the fraud claim. The obvious intended inference was unquestionably an attempt at fraud, in my opinion. Would you now ask me to back up this statement. What then? Shall I attempt to interview the individuals involved and ask them if they intended to deceive anyone by their staged photos? How sure can you be that there was no attempt at deception?
percy writes:
You can classify Australopithicus afarensis as an ape if you prefer, but it still has characteristics unique to humans and not to apes, such as bipedality and upright stance.
I am not convinced by your argument here. Far too little of the lower half of lucy was available, and some parts were in such a condition that proper reconstruction was impossible absent preconceived ideas and assumptions of what it should look like if it were normal and whole. It is merely guesswork, supported by a presupposition of what lucy's hip, in an undamaged state, and her feet would actually look like. Something like this may be able to convince you but I am a bit more skeptical when it comes to serious reconstruction and missing key pieces of the puzzle, such as lucy's feet. So, after reading numerous opinions on the matter, and examining the available evidence, I arrived at what I view is the only logical conclusion. Lucy was nothing more than an extinct species of ape and did not walk upright but was a knuckle walker just like modern apes. I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one.
And in conclusion you offered:
DarkStar writes:
I will however, agree with you about what christians believe when it comes to the various stories in the bible. The bible is full of stories that violate natural laws, but I guess if you are going to believe in a god that made those natural laws then it is no stretch to believe that this same god can control and manipulate those laws as he wills. I would gather that he can do whatever the hell he feels like doing with the laws that he made, I mean, after all, he is god, right? Who is going to argue with him?
percy writes:
I agree with you. But when a person operates in this way he is practicing religion, not science. Creationists somehow think they can practice religion and call it science.
Now this is where I find the macroevolutionists argument most disingenuous. For me, as a microevolutionist, the study must begin at that instant when non-life became life. How did life get here? Was it through abiogenesis? Was it from unknown microbes traveling through the vastness of space until becoming trapped by earth's gravitational force? If so, how did these microbes survive the plunge through our atmosphere? Or, did some as yet unknown entity somehow create life specifically for this planet? Was there a plan? Was there a purpose? These are questions that I can not answer, not for the creationists, not for the macroevolutionist, but only for myself as I continue on this adventure in pursuit of knowledge and truth. I do know this much however, macroevolution can not answer these questions for me because it can not start at the beginning.
For the creationist, the beginning of their theory is at the beginning, before there was life, and then explaining how life appeared. The creationist acknowledges that several aspects of their belief system necessitates a violation of known natural laws. They are comfortable with the supernatural content of their beliefs and I give them credit for that.
To the macroevolutionist, this theory of creation, which necessitates a god of some sort, is nonsense. However, the macroevolutionists realize that their explanation of how life arrived in the first place is also nonsense, and it too violates known natural laws. Macroevolutionists are not comfortable with any acknowledgement of the supernatural and this is why those who support macroevolution must avoid beginning at the beginning, knowing that life somehow springing from non-life through purely natural means is an absolute absurdity, and thereby choose instead to acknowledge that their theory does not deal with how life appeared, but only what happened afterward.
That too may be fine for you but, for me, if one can not start at the very beginning, then their position is already too weak for me to give it much credence. In order for me to ever accept macroevolution, I would have to study it from the very beginning, at that precise moment when non-life became life and then moved on through the span of time until finally arriving at the present day. Macroevolution does not begin early enough for me and can not offer that to me, and that is just another reason why I am convinced macroevolution is nothing more than a myth that is as ancient as is man himself.
The theory of evolution is a viable theory, absent the myth of macroevolution.
Once the myth of macroevolution is included, the viability of the theory of evolution vanishes as it slowly evolves into just another example of an implausible story,
nestled amongst the numerous fairytale's of our youth.-----DarkStar
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