BS: Evolution as Heresy?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 07:55 AM

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Hopfolk
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 07:24 AM

Well, I'm an atheist, but we all have to live on the same planet. If the choice put before us is either:
a. Do not compromise, endure religious censure. Lose hundreds of years of science in the face of zealous "thought reforms".
b. Compromise, continue believing evolutionary theory but throw the creationists a bone that might just make evolution more acceptable to them.
I would choose... wait... b.

The seemingly rediculous evolutionary changes I referred to are stuff like the Takahe, a bird with no wings that has to walk, using it's beak to climb over obstacles. The damn thing looks disabled. And yes, before you say "Well it's due to the lack of requirement for flight/long legs" etc etc there are evolutionary dead-ends. Mistakes even. The Lobster people. Genetic aberrations, a by-product of the evolutionary process and some of them do not serve function, even though they may replace a more suitable design. Darwin gets hiccups!

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Stu
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 12:38 PM

Amen.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: John Hardly
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 10:52 AM

The notion of a "puppetmaster" is not provable using scientific method. Especially, perhaps, a specific "puppetmaster". Neither is it in the realm of the "duplicatable", though scientific experimentation, to empircally demonstrate that interdependent complexity can occur by random chance.

By faith, one faction accepts that, because they cannot prove it, they believe in a puppetmaster. By faith, the other faction accepts that, though they cannot prove it, they will continue to interpret data according to their best guess.

The ultimate stalemate.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Stu
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 08:20 AM

I'm sorry CamoJohn, but I don't think there is a mutually acceptable common ground (between scientists and creationists I assume) on the basis that "evolution happens, but maybe there's a puppetmaster". You are asking the scientists to take on board your personal belief in the puppetmaster, when you won't take on board their desire for empirical evidence of that puppetmaster. Of course, if observation and experiment began to show evidence for some supernatural entity controlling our existence, then that would be a different matter.

Scientists don't need some omniscient deity to help them because they don't understand exactly how evolution works, many are busy trying to find out themselves. When I find a dinosaur bone in the rock, my sense of wonder and awe at how it got from being a living, breathing animal to the fossil in my hands is not in anyway diminished because I don't think God, Allah or the Great Pixie was not involved in any way in it's getting there.

"some evolutionary changes seem quite rediculous (sic)"

Such as?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Hopfolk
Date: 14 Oct 05 - 07:19 AM

Stigweard: Nope, I was just suggesting that there IS a mutually acceptable common-ground in that evolution happens, but maybe there's a puppetmaster. Let's face it, some evolutionary changes seem quite rediculous (Even though we can trace them to reproductive grooming or other non-environmental factors.)

Quote of the day: Allah loves wonderous diversity. (The Qu'ran)

CamoJohn

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 06:42 PM

I think we are on to something.

Politicians have evolved from Jane and the Chimp who lived in the garden of Eden with their bi-pal, Tarzan.

That should settle most of the controversy and set things straight.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:21 PM

nawww...I was just kidding
(BTW...Cheetah, the chimp is still living at 67 or so_

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 05:18 PM

the chimp was named for a predator ...Cheetah!

This is him...http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/animals/assets/cheetahchimp.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 03:39 AM

Pinching the 200th post is heresy.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Oct 05 - 02:01 AM

In the movies I recall, it seemed even to my 8 or 9 year old mind that Tarzan wasn't exactly a great lover. Maybe Jane and the Chimp (can't remember his name?) had a thing going on the side.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 11:25 PM

I don't know, Peace, I'm getting a little confused. Didn't Tarzan and Jane have a baby that looked like an ape? Maybe it was an ape! Maybe apes evolved from Tarzan and Jane drinking too much Jungle Juice. Who knows?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 10:12 PM

So it wasn't Tarzan?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 07:42 PM

JohninKansas, I'm glad you straightened that out.

My idea that apes had evolved from politicians was . . . well . . . only a theory. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 07:35 PM

yep...it's a wonder he has survived in Kansas with those ideas! *grin*...Kansas raised up some purty smart folks, but some of us got out while the gettin' was good!

Once I got away from the University of Wichita and woke up and realized just what the prevailing attitudes in the city were, it sorta scared me. I can't tell you how often I had to bite my tongue in order to work in some places there.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 06:53 PM

JohninKansas is brilliant and witty.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 04:47 PM

No, Don -

Politicians are a devolved - not evolved - form, and it's the obvious result of excessive inbreeding, coupled with the physical destruction of mental capacity that results from rituals involving excessive exposure to addictive substances generically called "money".

It should be noted that Darwin and following theorists were quite clear that you can't "inherit" an injury, so the brain damage caused by access to addictive substances isn't, itself, passed on. The devolution of polititions does quite nicely illustrate the way in which those with a genetic susceptibility to a resource that is not, in itself, beneficial may sequester themselves into isolated "tribes" where social custom protects an otherwise harmful trait that would be visibly harmful in the wider environment.

It was the isolation of the individual populations in the Galapagos that gave Darwin clear insight into the persistence of traits having specific value. Conditions appear to have remained relatively unchanged over a long long period. Something that gave a group added survival value could persist, and would remain of value long enough to evolve unique characteristics in a small population.

In a more cosmopolitan environment, a feature that gives some advantage will often cease to be advantageous when other species intrude. Competing species may, in fact, learn to take advantage of a prosperous group and may learn to take advantage of the unique characteristic(s) possessedd by that group. Hunters may themselves evolve changes making them able to prey on - and sometimes extinguish - any uniquely adapted and sufficiently prosperous group. Hunter populations may, in short, use the unique adaptation of a prey group to enhance their own ability to capture and consume the prey. In this environment, it can be dangerous to be "too different," so evolution must proceed much more slowly.

Darwin clearly understood that the more species there are to interact, and to prey on each other, the less likely that a single trait will survive long enough to completely isolate an individual population, so where there are many competing species everything tends toward an "average."

The "politician group" has reached nearly the status of a distinct species, since interbreeding with other populations seems nearly impossible. Successful entry of an "outsider" into this group now quite obviously demands an extremely strong expression of the "greed gene," and/or some other adaptation that provides a unique ability to acquire the sacred ritual substance "money."

Interaction with other populations of similar individuals illustrates additionally the hunter/prey interaction, where particular evolved characteristics of a prey are used to advantage by the "hunting" group, as most sustenance for "politicians" is derived from the prey group within which the "idiot gene" is most strongly expressed.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 03:46 PM

Umm . . . apes are a more sophisticated and advanced form of their former state. They evolved from politicians.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 02:34 PM

Tarzan.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 12:30 AM

...but who created the apes? ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 12:30 PM

That's what happens when you confuse real territory with imaginary metaphorical maps. You end up making dramatic but cockeyed statements to the press as if you knew what you were talking about.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 11:21 AM

Christians in the twentieth century have been playing defense...What we're trying to do is something entirely different. We're trying to go into ennemy territory, their very center, and blow up the ammunition dump. What is their ammunition dump in this metaphor?. It is their version of creation. (Phillip Johnson, ID activist, Feb 6, 2000)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 10:50 PM

OK. Thanks, Don, Bunnahabhain and Bill. Dang. I always learn something when I visit the 'cat.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 07:53 PM

There is even reverse 'evolution' going on in places as some try to do 'selective breeding' to restore an ancient wild horse in Asia. Selective breeding is hardly more than speeding up natural selection by putting the genetic combinations you want together faster than Nature might.

And remember...of any given species, not all members evolve. "Some" changes happen in one line, and given the right circumstances, may eventually (a VERY long time, in many cases) become a different species. That's sorta why we still have apes and monkeys..etc...Humans seem to be just a chance offshoot of a few chance events in a few individuals a LONG time ago. Anthropologists are still debating which of the relatively few bones we find represent dead ends, and which might be our direct ancestors. There were not many individuals way back then, and very few died where they could be found by us....It's kinda amazing we have found any evidence, and it's a sure bet that details of the theories will change as a few more specimens fill in gaps.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 07:01 PM

Where are the new creatures?

All around us. We are used to the relativly rapid changes in animals from selective breeding.

Evolution is a process of far more gradual change. It will take thousands of generations for the diffrences between species to become obvious. Assuming, of course, we don't wipe them out first.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 06:57 PM

But perhaps something that should be of more concern to us is that they are also noticing the demise of species that fail to adapt to changing conditions. Nature (of which we are part) is an equal opportunity extincterizer. (Is that a word? Anyway, you get my point.)

Don Fith

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 06:50 PM

Well, actually new species are popping up all the time. I read that a few decades ago, a huge flock of arctic terns had reached some sort of critical mass and split up. One group migrated east around the northern edges of the continents, the other group migrated west. A sufficient enough number of alterations (random mutations, miscellaneous mixtures, etc.) had taken place in their DNA while they were apart that when they met up again, they could mate, but their mating produced no offspring. Also, some of their markings were slightly different. For mating to take place between substantial numbers of the two different flocks without producing offspring is one of the characteristics that indicated they have evolved into closely related but different species.

In the world's oceans, marine biologists are noting the emergence of new species all the time. Evolution is still going on. But it takes awhile for it to become noticeable by those other than the scientists who are keeping close track.

'Tain't that I'm so smart, I just watch a lot of science programs on television and read a fair amount. I'm sort of a science nut. Always have been.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 06:25 PM

Can someone tell me where the new species are? OK, evolution is the thing. BUT, why are there no new 'creatures' popping up? Did evolution just stop one day? Serious question.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 04:45 PM

DaveO -

Darwin never claimed that man was evolved from apes, but rather that man and apes were evolved from a common ancestor.

Your original statement stands as true for any rational test. Saying that man evolved from "european apes" does not say that man evolved from the present european apes. Darwin presumed that while man was evolving to his present state, the apes would also have been evolving, and are not now the same ones that were around when the two lines of change "separated."

Taken in context, his meaning is clear the both "modern" man and "modern" apes appear to have evolved from a common a ancestor which probably was "apelike." To say that man evolved, and apes did not, (as assumed by many anti-evolutionists) is simply another demonstration that they haven't understood Darwin.

Your clarification is apt to the discussion, since many of us here do have only vague knowledge of the complete contexts.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 04:37 PM

Mrr...I started reading them, but what with Getaway weekend, I have only skimmed 2-3....it looks like the .pdfs will be there awhile. It IS slow going in that format to catch up...

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 04:07 PM

Something that struck me though is that humans are getting stupider, which only makes sense. We evolved from a limited gene pool so we've been inbreeding for millenia.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 04:05 PM

Is anyone besides me reading the actual trial transcripts?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Stu
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 01:47 PM

"Total and utter lack of compromise seems to be the order of the day"

Er, do you suggest as a palaeontologist I half-agree with every religion and culture that has a creation myth that their deity/deities may be controlling the process of evolution, or did you have a particular dogma in mind?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 01:21 PM

Reading that quote in context makes one realize anew that the disingenuous are amongst us. What were they thinking??

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 12:48 PM

Part of that link is worth quoting here precisely because it summarily contradicts the "watchmaker" argument of complex organs which "must" have had a designer because of their complexity:

Darwin then went on to describe how some simple animals have only "aggregates of pigment-cells...without any nerves ... [which] serve only to distinguish light from darkness." Then, in animals a bit more complex, like "star-fish," there exist "small depressions in the layer of [light-sensitive cells] -- depressions which are "filled ... with transparent gelatinous matter and have a clear outer covering, "like the cornea in the higher animals." These eyes lack a lens, but the fact that the light sensitive pigment lies in a "depression" in the skin makes it possible for the animal to tell more precisely from what direction the light is coming. And the more cup-shaped the depression, the better it helps "focus" the image like a simple "box-camera" may do, even without a lens. Likewise in the human embryo, the eye is formed from a "sack-like fold in the skin."

George Gaylord Simpson in The Meaning of Evolution, points out that the different species of modern snail have every intermediate form of eye from a light-sensitive spot to a full lens-and-retina eye.



Ithink the anti-evolution crowd needs to review mathematics from the ground up in order to correctly appraise the situation.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Hopfolk
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 12:48 PM

OI, Ebbie, NO! :-P
(very funny btw)

Total and utter lack of compromise seems to be the order of the day. I mean, If God works in mysterious ways, then surely the divine can influence (or even control) natural selection.

CamoJohn

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 12:34 PM

OK. OK. I have to say it so I can get it out of my system:

'Evaluation as Hearsay"

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 12:10 PM

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. (08 Oct 05 - 02:37)

08 Oct 05 - 02:37 PM, you're good in quoting out of context in order to give a wrong impression.

The quote in the context

That's about as good as the neo creationist movement goes.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 11:23 AM

I have to shamefacedly apologize, for giving some wrong information, which I believed to be true at the time.

Earlier I stated as a fact that Darwin never claimed that man was evolved from apes, but rather that man and apes were evolved from a common ancestor.

It has come to my attention that in the epigraph to The Descent of Man he says (paraphrasing here) that after the separation of the primates into the new world and old world branches of apes (or monkeys, if you like), some of the old world ones evolved into mankind.

He may have said the same sort of thing elsewhere, but that's what's come to my attention.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:49 PM

How can evolution be heresy? Obviously we have evolved over time. Unfortunately, that evolution has not necessarily improved the quality of our lives. As a teacher, I would rather guide my students to the understanding that wealth does not necessarily mean the accumulation of money and goods.

I'm sure that most people would consider that heresay but to understand how this is the path to peace, you would have to read the writings of Satish Kumar:

http://www.resurgence.org/satish/

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:08 PM

There is a "Theory of Creation"?

My question of this week would be who would that question offend more, scientists or creationists?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 04:27 PM

Are you speaking rhetorically?

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 04:22 PM

I can't wait for the "Question of the week" to be..."Are rhetorical questions rubbish?"

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 04:07 PM

The media add their share of confusion. Each week one of the Anchorage Alaska tv stations posit a 'Question of the Week'. Last week's was: Do you agree more with the the theory of evolution or with the theory of creation?"

I didn't post an answer. If they don't realize that the question itself is flawed, any answer will be equally invalid.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 03:27 PM

That comes pretty close to the way it's defined in Pataphysics

"God is the tangential point between zero and infinity."

That narrows it down! :-p

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: John Hardly
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 12:41 PM

I disagree. Theology is not even close to limited to explaining the unexplainable. Not even close.

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 11:35 AM

That comes pretty close to the way it's defined in Pataphysics

"God is the tangential point between zero and infinity."

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 11:07 AM

GUEST (or one of them) said:


well, whatever the human race couldn't explain it called God, beginning with the Sun. So now we're down to the microscopically microscopic and we still call it God. But that's only because we don't yet fully understand it. When we do, we'll call something else God.

This is a pretty good statement of what is sometimes theologically called "The god of the margins".   The unexplained margins of the world are essentially dismissed, tagged with the word "god". As actual knowlege grows, the margins available to be so relegated grow smaller.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 09:53 AM

"None are so blind as those whose eyes have evolved further than their brains"

Subject: RE: BS: Evolution as Heresy?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:40 AM

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."- Darwin, my emphasis.

GUEST seems to think that Darwins word is regarded as some sort of bible-like pronouncement, that can never be argued with or denied, by those who belive in evolution. A mis-understanding of what a scietific theory is ,and of those who accept it as true is the problem here.

I'll join the chorus round here. Go read a Richard Dawkins book. For a very good explanation of the evolution of the eye, see 'Climbing Mount Improbable'

In a very brief summary, it shows how a complex eye can evolve from a simple one, in only gradual changes, all the way back to a cell or patch of cells that can differentiate between light and dark.
BTW, the eye has evolved more than 40, and probably more than 60 times, in nine different main designs