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Author | Topic: DarkStar's Collection of Quotations - Number 1 | |||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1727 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
quote: Just one little question here. I note that, pointedly, many of the authors of these quotes are or were evolutionists. My question is: 'Why is that?' If they are/were so convinced of the fallacy of evolution then why are/were they evolutionists?
quote: In some cases, yes. Gould, for instance was known to be outraged at how his words were used as authoritative evidence against evolution.
quote: Possibly.
quote: Ummm, not sure what your point is here.
quote: Some may, others not. Some are simply opinions.
quote: Have at it.
quote: So, you are saying that microevolution explains the origin of life?
quote: No. First of all, it is not nonsense, it is merely unknown. Second, there is no attempt to violate natural laws. That would be contrary to naturalism. Abiognesis actually attempts to explain the origin by natural methods.
quote: Not at all. Many evolutionists acknowledge the possibility of a supernatural origin. And I know of none who are afraid to address it. They only say that it isn't necessary and the discussion is fruitless, which is an honest position.
quote: THen I assume that you don't believe that your computer works since you do not know the ultimate origin of its parts.
quote: For an absolutist this is a valid position. Now, just what is your explanation since you are so adamant against evolution and abiogenesis? What theory do you accept? All we have heard is your rant against evolution. Surely, you have some alternative? Since you are a microevolutionist, it must explain origins, right?
quote: And your is ... well, ... er, just what?
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
You have not yet been able to support your first supposed quote. Why are you still including what you have been unable to confirm?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Rand Al'Thor Inactive Member |
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.
Why should the Evolutionists care how life got started? That is the realm of chemistry, not biology. Surely by now you know that Evolution and Abiogenesis are two completely different subjects.
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. Evolution cannot take place without life. Why are you trying to combine Evolution with Abiogenesis when they are when they are clearly two separate things? Also, how many people that you quoted work in fields that are related evolution or even Biology?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1488 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
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. Ah, but I did provide a considerable portion of the letter - perhaps even its entirity, and certainly enough to substantiate Talkorigin's interpretation of the letter. But saying that you can't know what he meant without the letter in its entirity is like saying you can't know what the jigsaw picture is until you put in the last piece. There's more than enough pieces here to refute your inital interpretation of Darwin's quote, and moreover, you havene't even told us what led you to believe he was speaking of evolution in the first place. If you knew you were unable to make that assertion, why did you make it? Percy seems to be doing a pretty good job here, so I'll bow out with this: Does anyone else think it's pretty weird that DS would point out that you can't know what someone is saying absent the entire context of their statement, but then, in the very same post, present a list of quotes absent their entire context? DarkStar, why do you think a search for truth would involve talking out of both sides of your mouth?
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
DarkStar writes: 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. I suggest you go back and read Message 123, because not only is it on topic, it directly addresses the questions you raise further on in your post.
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,... If you don't want the myth of macroevolution misperceived as your main emphasis in this thread, then I suggest you stop repeating it in each and every message.
...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?" Message 123 directly addresses this issue. It was maybe the fifth message from me addressing this issue, and I haven't seen an answer yet. These posts pointed out the fundamental contradiction in believing that people enter fields of study they think are without foundation. They also called attention to the unlikelihood of scientists denigrating their own science, and pointed out that if scientists actually rejected macroevolution then the Creationist battle is already won and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
In my very first post, http://< !--UB EvC Forum: DarkStar's Collection of Quotations - Number 1 -->http://EvC Forum: DarkStar's Collection of Quotations - Number 1 -->EvC Forum: DarkStar's Collection of Quotations - Number 1< !--UE--> 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. Yet instead doing any investigation you once again merely issue a a list of quotes. As I've been saying, the more significant issue is why you're allowing these quotes to lead you to believe that evolutionary scientists don't accept evolution.
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 quotes are intended to give you a false picture. Once again I ask you to think about this. Does it really make sense to you that people would enter fields they think are bogus and remain in those fields all their lives? Does it really make sense to you that with all these scientists rejecting evolution, evolutionary theory remains as firmly ensconced in the halls of science as ever?
The purpose of this thread is to investigate these things in an honest and open-minded manner. And asserting that macroevolution is a myth in every post is your honest and open-minded approach?
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. The original peppered moth experiments were performed by Kettlewell. The results of his experiments, that bird predation is the selection factor causing the color changes, have not stood the test of time. But Kettlewell fully believed his findings, and he never staged any photos, so there was no scientific fraud or deception. I think you must be talking about pictures appearing in textbooks and popular science magazine articles illustrating the principle of natural selection using the peppered moth example of bird predation that has been called into question. You might want to read my review of a book about this: Book Review: Of Moths and Men.
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. And once again we're back to your main theme, macroevolution. It might work better to just focus on quotes in this thread, and if you really want to discuss the myth of macroevolution to open a new thread. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
In this post I examine the quotes DarkStar provided in Message 135. I'll put each one in one of these categories:
"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 Geogre G. Simpon was a scientist and evolutionist, and I think all scientists would agree with this statement. So why is it here? Because Creationists know this will be interpreted as "events that weren't observed taking place at the time they happened can't be established scientifically."
"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 Michael Denton is a Creationist. He wrote Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
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 Darwin wrote this, but his question is intended rhetorically because he explains in the following paragraphs about the rarity of fossilization and the likelihood that the record will always be spotty. Nonetheless, he expresses optimism that many missing details will be filled in by future fossil finds, which is precisely what happens.
"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 quote is from a 1950's copy of the Encyclopedie Francaise. Paul Lemoine was famous French scientist who served as the director of the French National Centre of Scientific Research and was at one time director of the Natural History Museum in Paris. He was a geologist, not a biologist, who accepted that evolution had occurred but rejected the explanations advanced by the theory of evolution. The quote is misleading because, though a scientist, evolution is not his field. You can find more about his quote at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/part12.html.
"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 I can find no information about 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 Stephen (not Steven) Jay Gould has complained loud and often about Creationist misquotes. In this case, the original writing goes on to argue that it is gradualism that should be discarded, not evolution (see Quote Mine Project: Gould, Eldredge and Punctuated
Equilibria Quotes). He was, of course, arguing for his theory of punctuated equilibrium.
"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 One can imagine a scientist not accepting the evidence for evolution, but to not even be aware of the evidence is hard to believe. Mentioned only at Creationist websites and nowhere else, Dr. Albert Fleischman is supposedly a professor of zoology at Erlengen in Germany. I could find no confirming information.
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 James Perloff is a Creationist author, not an evolutionary scientist.
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 David M. Raup is a professor of geophysical science at the University of Chicago. I didn't attempt a check of the authenticity because I think most people on both sides would agree with it. I could use an army of consultants just to help me check this list of quotes.
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 Tom Bethell is a Creationist at the Discovery Institute, but the quote (somewhat inaccurate since when a single-celled organism divides, which is the parent?) doesn't seem anti-evolution.
"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 Austin Clark was a curator, not a scientist, at the Smithsonian in the first half of the 20th century.
"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 Written a half century ago, this is from the introduction to the 1956 edition of The Origin of Species, and it combines sentences commenting on different topics. The full context for the first sentence:
"I admire, as all biologists must, the immense scientific labours of Charles Darwin and his lifelong, single-hearted devotion to his theory of evolution. I agree that although, as he himself readily admitted, he did not invent the doctrine of organic evolution, or even the idea of natural selection, his arguments, and especially the arguments in The Origin of Species, convinced the world that he had discovered the true explanation of biological diversity, and had shown how the intricate adaptations of living things develop by a simple, inevitable process which even the most simple minded and unlearned can understand. But I am not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific and public thinking has been beneficial." The full context for the second sentence:
"The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity. This is already evident in the reckless statements of Haeckel and in the shifty, devious and histrionic argumentation of T. H. Huxley... "To establish the continuity required by the theory, historical arguments are invoked even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypotheses based on hypotheses, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion [Thompson]." It can now be seen that Thompson was not accusing Darwin of causing a decline of scientific integrity. If you look around the Internet for more of Thompson's introduction you'll actually find more scathing characterizations saying that Origins provided only speculations and not evidence, and that the situation is much unchanged today (that would be 50 years ago, of course). It doesn't make sense that a staunch anti-evolutionist would be recruited to write an introduction to Origins, but I wasn't able to find out anything much about W. R. Thompson. Some websites say he was a Canadian entomologist.
"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 This quote was actually preceded by a critical qualifier. Here's the full context from Quote Mine Project: "Miscellaneous":
"If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being? 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.J. Lipson, F.R.S. Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK, "A physicist looks at evolution" Physics Bulletin, 1980, vol 31, p. 138) He is merely projecting what it would mean were life not a result of matter, radiation and natural forces. Clearly this passage was misunderstood by many, because he was forced to make clear he supports evolution in a later issue:
Several people have given clear indications that they do not understand Darwin's theory. The Theory does not merely say that species have slowly evolved: that is obvious from the fossil record. - H. J. Lipson, "A physicist looks at evolution - a rejoinder", Physics Bulletin, December 1980, pg 337. I'm just plum out of time and will have to stop here. This is why the Forum Guidelines requires you offer your own arguments rather than cut-n-paste. People can cut-n-paste arguments far faster than someone else can type in counter-arguments from scratch. The score at this point:
--Percy
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NosyNed Member Posts: 9003 From: Canada Joined: |
Darn good job, Percy. Thanks
I think we could do with a particular approach to quote mining. One thing that should be asked for from the miner is their own interpretation of what the quote is saying and of what the expanded context is (even if it is not there). Once that is established then the full context should be asked for. I feel that only be establishing what the quote "means" to the miner can you more clearly show the errors.
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DBlevins Member (Idle past 3797 days) Posts: 652 From: Puyallup, WA. Joined: |
I have replied to this post to addend some of Percy’s work in his post. I may or may not continue depending on your ability to comprehend. I was planning on finding each quotes context and author information, but Percy’s post makes it a little redundant in rebutting your quote mine project. I will attempt to addend or find those items which Percy may have missed or been unable to find.
As far as quotes, DS, I hope you have begun to realize how silly you make yourself look.
Darkstar writes: "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 With the above quote, I won’t play the game of Guess where you screwed up mining this? I’ll just give you some of the context of the Science journal article in which this quote resides. The most I guess I can credit you with is that you misunderstood the context of the quote. The bold is mine.
Not so for any planetary systems that may exist outside our own. Statements in both the scientific and the popular literature that there are millions of such systems suitable for life and probably inhabited may give the impression that we know that they do exist. In fact we know no such thing in any way acceptable as sober science. There are no direct observational data whatever. It is inherent in any acceptable definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really about anything —or at the very least they are not science. As long as we do not confuse what we are saying with reality, there is no reason why we should not discuss what we hope or expect to observe, but it is all too easy to take conjecture and extrapolation too seriously. It is not impossible that our descendents may some day make pertinent direct observations on other planetary systems, but that is far beyond our present capabilities or any reasonable extrapolation from them. The above is the actual context of that quote. Obviously he isn’t talking about evolution but the suitability of other planetary systems for life. I recommend strongly that you apply context to your quotes. Otherwise you just look like a horse’s ass. George Gaylord Simpson, "The Nonprevalence of Humanoids", Science Vol. 143, No. 3608, February 21, 1964, p. 770 The page in which the quote is mined from is also shown. I wonder when you will do the same amount of work as others have done in rebutting the flaws in your argument. Here is a quote from George Simpson in which he expresses his regard for the validity of the Theory of Evolution. Hard to reconcile this with your idea that he had a problem with evolution. Is your intent to deceive? Isn’t the devil called a deceiver, the father of lies? From his article One Hundred Years without Darwin are Enough.
Suppose that the most fundamental and general principle of a science had been known for over a century and had long since become a main basis for understanding and research by scientists in that field. You would surely assume that the principle would be taken as a matter of course by everyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the science. It would obviously be taught everywhere as basic to the science at any level of education. If you think that about biology, however, you are wrong. Evolution is such a principle in biology. Although almost everyone has heard of it, most Americans have only the scantest and most distorted idea of its real nature and significance. I know of no poll, but I suspect that a majority doubt, disbelieve, or violently oppose its clear truth without a hearing and on no basis more rational than prejudice, dogma, or superstition. Many school and not a few college teachers either share that irrationality or evade teaching the truth of evolution from other motives. That is a main reason whyonly a minority of us have fully entered the world into which Darwin led us. On the subject of the peppered moths. Darkstar when will you take the time to do some of your own homework instead of mining quotes from creationist literature and websites. If you care to take a look at the following website you might learn something.
Moonshine: Why the Peppered Moth Remains an Icon of Evolution Young, M. (2003). Moonshine: Why the Peppered Moth Remains an Icon of Evolution If you can’t supply the context, you shouldn’t bother mining the quote.
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: I think this investigation has come to a close. If you read Percy's list refuting many of your quotes (some are misleading, others are made by creationists) it becomes obvious that you are out to mislead and to disguise the true intent of those you are quoting. When I went to church they called this being a "false witness". If this is the best of the intellectual discourse that creationists are able to muster then it is no wonder that many christians disavow their actions.
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Hi, DBlevins!
Thanks for the link to the analysis of Kettlewell's research. It focuses on an area I never found too problematic. I remember Hooper focused on the dates and the capture rates to raise suspicions that perhaps the data had been manipulated, but I never put very much stock in that. For me, the biggest problem raised by Hooper is the same one Creationists focus on: there is no established link between bird predation and melanism. The moths frequent the tree canopy, not barked tree trunks. While few evolutionists doubt the link between polution and melanism, and most still accept it as the best example of natural selection in the wild, my understanding is that bird predation as a selection factor is still only a hypothesis, and that with the exception of a small British community, scientists now understood that Kettlewell's work failed to settle this. Creationists, of course, miss this subtle distinction, and believe that since moths don't light on tree trunks that natural selection wasn't at work, and they're also far too ready to accept charges of fraud. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Why is the issue of the moths resting in the canopy a problem for the bird-predation hypothesis ? I would have thought that it weakly supported it because the canopy seems to me to be less accessible to other potential predators - but birds certainly do hunt there.
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
The proposed hypothesis is that melanism provides camouflage for moths resting on dark tree trunks, thereby protecting them from bird predation. If moths don't actually rest on tree trunks then the hypothesis falls apart. As I said in my review of Hopper's book, it doesn't mean that bird predation isn't responsible, but this hasn't yet been established in any objective manner. If it *is* bird predation, then how color is a factor is no longer clear.
We also shouldn't assume that birds perceive moths the same way we do. Perhaps the color change isn't apparent to birds and other factors are responsible. Just a random thought. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
What's that basis for claiming that the hypothesis is restricted to the tree trunks ? So far as I know the main reason for talking about the trunks is that that was the focus of Kettlewell's experiments and his staged photographs - and because the moths usually rest elsewhere (although they do sometimes rest on the trunks). In other words it seems to be little more than a pretext for personal attacks (since Wells has no objection to "microevolution" it makes no real difference if the peppered moth story is exactly as Kettlewell proposed it or even completely wrong).
It is irrelevant to the basic idea of soot pollution, camouflage and selective predation. This message has been edited by PaulK, 08-24-2004 11:43 AM
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
I don't think a link between bird predation and melanism has been established. Evolutionists are paying the price for claiming something had been established that wasn't.
But being wrong is not the same thing as committing fraud, and I agree with you about the personal attacks. Unfortunately, the Creationist side is usually confused on this issue, concluding that staged photographs for purposes of illustration in textbooks means not only fraud but also that there's no such thing as natural selection. And some are like DarkStar, confusing it with macroevolution. --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
So far as I know the question is the degree to which bird predation is the selective factor. The appearance and spread of the melanic form - and its disappearance after pollution was reduced - are known facts. So is the genetic basis for the colouration. So there seems to be a very good case for it being an example of natural selection even if the details are not fully established. Bird predation is very likely an important factor and applies even in the canopies.
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