scigirl

Haw haw haw. Speaking from experience, sitting in the corner is no fun. You can't see all the godless atheistic heathen sacrifices that evilutionists do when they get together, and it's no fun at all.

scigirl

scigirl

Yeah there are a lot of bitter controversies in science. In my field, you have to be careful who you mention "Th0 immune responses" to!

scigirl

bluefugue

Well Darwin's basic mechanism was pretty simple, no? Variations + geometric reproduction + limited resources (after Malthus) = gradual alteration of morphology.

Darwin didn't know what the source of those variations was, but he could still hypothesize what their effect could be.

In fact the idea of "mutation" as being an important part of evolution wasn't even present in Darwin's day, was it? He wasn't thinking of "mutation" -- he was just thinking of the "normal" variation we see within a species, i.e. I am 3 inches taller than the next guy, who has blue eyes to my green, and then a third guy has a slightly darker shade of skin etc., while a fourth is more muscular, etc. He perceived evolution as a process of winnowing among variations that already existed, without really stopping to consider how those variations came to be. (Or, if he did consider it, obviously he was unable to answer that question at the time.)

What really is the difference between a "mutation" and "normal variation" anyway? And does "normal" variation only occur within sexually reproducing species? I must confess the elasticity of species (within certain bounds) astounds me. There is enough innate variation within the human genome that 6 billion different specimens can be unique, yet each one of those could (presumably) breed with one of the others and produce fertile offspring.

Starboy

Oolon,

The thing the creationists ignore is that even if from time to time science is in disarray, it is because it represents an honest effort by scientists to make it work even better than it already does. They ignore this because they lack the basic honesty to acknowledge that science has been far more successful at understanding the universe than Christianity. If they did acknowledge it they would have to make an honest attempt to reevaluate their religion. This is impossible for them because they would be forced to realize they have been hawking lies as the absolute truth for the last two thousand years. Doing so would be a disconfirming event.

Starboy

Quetzal

Or even worse, put a "group selectionist" and a "gene selectionist" in the same room and watch the fur fly. (I'm an "individual selectionist" so for me, obviously, they're BOTH wrong. )

GeoTheo

Well Starboy,
You are certianly entitled to your opinion, one I think you share with Dawkins. I look at it this way: Arguing against evolution is a waste of time for Christians because it actually has no bearing on Christian belief. I believe God made me. That is normal for a Christian to believe. That does not take away from the fact that I am a product of sexual reproduction, 23 chromosomes from my Dad and 23 from my Mom. I even think that it was pretty random that the particular sperm that carried the particular 23 met the egg that had the other particular 23 that equals me. There were also pretty big odds I would be natually aborted.
So I believe God made me from random natual proccesses. What's so hard about thinking that is how God made the Universe (through random natural processes not sexual reproduction)?
I am hoping more Christians will come to this conclusion. Unfortunately, most people are just too ignorant of Science. Including me, though I plan to learn. Morris, Ham, Gish and company sound really smart if you are uninformed. When they say "evolutionists say the Earth is 4.5 billion years old..."
You don't hear Christians say "Ehrm...Don't you mean astronomers or geologists?"
When they say "The second law of thermodynamics disproves evolution." They don't ask for the calculations. They just take it in. And when some enthusiastic atheist like Dawkins says stuff they shut their ears. Ken Ham says all evolutionists are atheists, so why listen.
Most of the Creation Science literature is for kids anyway. The only reason I studied it so much is because I want to study biology. If I wanted to be a car salesman I probably still would be a YEC.
Not that I would know what one is. But the Creation Science organizations are very active and visit lot's of churches so it is the dominant view. Before they cam along with their impressive words and credentials I believe many conservative Christians were trying to reconcile their interpretation of Genesis with evolution. If these Guys weren't so active it would be almost a non-issue. They get people fired up thinking evolution is a cult.

Dark Jedi

I like that. Very neat way to put it, Scigirl!

Dr Rick

What makes it hard is something called cognitive dissonance in which the faith-based portions of the belief contradict the objective, naturalistic, and logical portions.

The authoritative evidence we have of the Christian God is the Bible, and accepting evolution undermines any claim that it is reliable or to be trusted as a source of information. Without an inerrant Bible, everything about Christianity can be questioned and much of it will have no objective or verifiable support, making continued belief in its tenets irrational.

God-belief not only adds unnecessary entities to the naturalistic explanation, but much more complex ones than the cosmols we are trying to understand and explain in the first place; absent objective evidence, there is no rational reason to believe these superfluous entities exist.

Randomness cannot possibly play any role in the machinations and affairs of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenovolent supernatural deity. The Christian God is supposed to know everything, and everything includes everything that will happen. There is nothing random about such a state of foreknowledge, as each event and intervention will have an absolutely known outcome a priori. It is no more logical to assert an omniscient god utilizes random processes than it is to claim that his omnipotence could cause him to make a rock so heavy that even he could not lift it.

Rick

GeoTheo

Rick,
Basically you believe a big slippery slope fallacy .The same slippery slope fallacy believed by most Yec's "Oh, no! The Bible is not a science textbook! The only choice is to adopt atheism!
Or they like to phrase it that you must believe in YEC or else the Bible is meaningless.
It also has to be interpreted in the King James English with western patterns of logic, right?
I have a suspicion that some atheists are more comfortable with all Christians being YEC's so that everything is in a neat little package and they can refute the existence of God just by refuting young Earth Creationism. Just like YEC's like Genesis to have a nice neat interpretation:
The literal reading in the English. No need to mess around with the Hebrew and definate articles, and hebrew thought. Just the KJV baby! Good enuff for Paul, good enuff fer me!
I think you and Starboy are photo negatives of narrow fundamentalists. You buy every thing fundies say explicitly as well as implicitly (i.e. must be a God-fearin' Republican) and then take option two.

scigirl

Geo,
Nice post - I agree to a point with many of the things you said, especially this one:
Unfortunately I agree. This is why I don't really care if they kick out creationism in the schools - I would rather they simply bring in science and reason.

scigirl