tgamble

I love that article. I used it dozens of tims to provide evidence for evolution. The most amazing answer I got was the claim that Dr. Max "admits" there's no evidence for human evolution! The basis for this?

One time, the period was put after the word "ruminants"!

the other response was that he used to many "weasal words" ie. maybe, possibly etc.

Amazing isn't it how the creationist mind works....

You Betcha

Non-Creationist view on Evolution's problems:

<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/locke/2001/locke08-20-01.htm" target="_blank">http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/locke/2001/locke08-20-01.htm</a>

theyeti

I've read that article before, and it's of extremely poor quality. First of all, the author starts out with the statement,

"But there has recently emerged a major trend in biology that has been suppressed in the mainstream media: evolution is in trouble."

Both of these statements are flat out false. In fact, in both cases the exact opposite is true. Anti-evolution/ID/Creationism is most certainly not a "major trend" in biology! The vast majority of biologists are not even aware of the ID movement, and those who are largely and rightly dismiss it as the ramblings of religiously and politically motivated crack-pots. Evolution is accepted now more than ever among biologists and doesn't look to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Secondly, there is no effort to "supress" ID in the major media. Just who would do this supression anyway? Do scientists own the media? ID has in fact gained far more media recognition than it deserves, especially in conservative mags like this one. This is because the maim promoter of ID, the Discovery Institute, is populated mostly by media connected ideologues. The president of the DI, Bruce Chapman, is a former speech writer for Ronald Regan and a master of media manipulation. They have no shortage of media connections; what they lack is legitimate scientists, and where ID fails to make any splash at all is in peer-reviewed science journals.

And the DI has made no secret that going after the science-ignorant public, rather than convincing scientists themselves, is their main strategy. Thus the constant presure put on the media to give them attention -- they have even gotten a front-page article in the New York Times, and several smaller pieces in many other major newspapers. Therefore the author, Robert Locke, is either extremely ignorant or is supportive of the ID movement's overt ideological goals and is thus being deceptive so as to put them in a better light. Given the other articles linked to from that page, I think the latter is at least partially true.

As for the meat of the article itself, the author spends most of his tiome referencing Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. This despite the fact that Denton wrote that book in 1986, and has since completely retracted his views since writing a more recent book, Nature's Destiny. Again, I simply can't believe that Robert Locke is so ill-informed as to have not known this. I conclude that he is being intellectually dishonest.

The only other person that Locke let's make his arguments for him is Micke Behe, the person who is the very subject of this thread! Guess what Mr. Betcha, Behe is an EVILUTIONIST. He believes in an old Earth, no global flood, and the common descent of all organisms. Somehow Mr. Locke fails to make a point of this.

The article is filled with so many blunders that I can safely write off Robert Locke as totally ignorant of the science of evolution and its history. For example, he claims that Karl Popper thought that evolution was non-falsifiable (this is right after the dumbass tries to falsify it!) This is wrong. Popper thought that evolution was indeed falsifiable; it was natural selection that he thought was non-falsifiable. And this is because he considered it a tautology -- something which must be true by logical definition! Futhermore, Popper late changed his opinion on this matter. Locke, whether an idiot or an liar, doesn't see fit to inform his readers of this not-so-minor detail.

theyeti

hedonologist

yeti, and ps418I made a new thread in reply to you (just the first part is also to ps4181). <a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=001615" target="_blank">http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=001615</a>