Posted on 08/17/2011 6:57:10 AM PDT by Todd Kinsey
For the better part of a century, socialists (Democrats) have been using science as a weapon to destroy the very fabric of American society. Today they propagate the global warming myth, forty years ago they were sounding the global cooling alarm, and they’ve used junk science to teach evolution in our nation’s schools.
To the socialist it is somehow easier to believe that aliens put us here or that we emerged from some primordial sludge than it is to believe in God. Socialist leadership, under the guise of “organizing”, use the environment, gay rights, immigration, or any number of causes as a form of religion to keep their unwitting masses in line. Their absence of God, and therefore morality, leaves these desperate souls longing to believe in something. How else can you explain a human being that is willing to risk their life to save a tree or a whale, yet they have no qualms about aborting a baby or assisted suicide?
(Excerpt) Read more at toddkinsey.com ...
Anyway, at least Ridley is honest in acknowledging the problem, although he doesn't exactly name it or draw out its full implications. But the problem is this: that there is a literally infinite gap between man and animal (even though there is an obvious continuity as well), just as there is an infinite gap between nothing and existence or matter and life.
One can say that this gap is infinite because man intuits the Absolute, or one can say that man intuits the Absolute because of this infinite gap. Either way, once man consciously enters the sensorium of time and space, he is implicitly aware of both Absolute and Infinite, and therefore Love, Truth, Justice, Beauty, Virtue, and Eternity. These are the things that define man, not his genome.
Just so. Thus I agree with John Paul II's observation: "Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter — are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person. ...” [Italics added]
To me, this statement draws attention to the fact that, at the root of Darwin's theory, there lies an undisclosed and unanalyzed initial presupposition: That all natural phenomena "supervene on the physical, or the material." That is, everything that exists reduces to "matter in its motions." This is hard-core materialism — a philosophical doctrine. Everything in Darwin's theory is premised on the idea that this doctrine is a valid, fully comprehensive model of universal reality.
Darwin's theory is wedded profoundly to the Newtonian view of the Universe: That all natural things ultimately "reduce" to "particles" and "mechanics." There is nothing "more" to be taken into account. This can give you a good description of a machine — but arguably not of a living organism, let alone a human being.
Of course, this begs the question of how life and intelligence can arise from inanimate matter. In fact, Darwin's theory not only has no plausible answers to questions of life and intelligence, but lacks a method by which they can be understood — "they" having been ruled out "from the beginning," in effect, precisely because they are "immaterial things" and therefore not "matter."
And they call Darwinism "biological science!" The very word "biology" means the study of life. Darwinism does not in any sense study "life" (or consciousness), only the historical transformations that already-existent life forms have undergone in the past. As supported by a very recalcitrant and spotty fossil record.
In short, Darwinism is only about how species change, not about what caused them to be living (and intelligent) creatures in the first place. Moreover, as the eminent biologist Stephen Jay Gould has suggested, what is truly remarkable about biological organisms/species is not that they undergo change; rather that there is so much "stasis" in their developed forms over hundreds of thousands of years (in many cases). There is no continuous "evolving" going on here, as Darwin's theory predicts....
Regarding this "remarkable stasis [which] has generally been ignored as no data," Gould quipped, "If they don't change, it's not evolution so you don't talk about it." Which just goes to show how the doctrinal tail wags the scientific dog....
I could go on.... The epistemological critique of Darwin's theory can easily be extended to include its resistance to the assimilation of new ideas from other parts of science, such as complex system theory and causal non-locality (e.g., there are no non-local causes in Newton) and centrality of the observer in quantum theory, etc. Darwin's theory is essentially "rigid" when it comes to assimilating new, breakthrough ideas from other disciplines of science....
But I've run on long enough for now.
In the end, to me, Darwin's theory looks more like a religious dogma than bona-fide science....
JMHO, FWIW.
Thanks ever so much, dear Matchett-PI, for your outstanding essay/post!
p.s.: And thanks ever so much for the outstanding link! (To the inimitable Gagdad Bob....)
Thanks for the post, Joe. I am reminded that Perry is being blasted because he gave credence to an education plan offered by Jeff (?) that said basically the same thing. He was saying universities are spending much more money on aimless research than on teaching students and the costs for tuition keep going up,up, up.
And of course, you make no bones about not being a creationist.
Aren't you just something special? Just so proud of that intellect of yours, aren't you?
Ping to post 43.
Nah, the headlines would simply read *Mammal evolution occurred earlier that previously thought* and the rabbit would be reclassified as a *living fossil*.
Nothing will ever disprove evolution to an evolutionist because they don't want it to be disproved. They'd find SOME way to explain it away.
Intellect isn’t education, but they do correlate such that the more intelligent are ALSO more likely to become better educated.
Thus someone who has attained a high level of education is much less likely to be a creationist and much more likely to be of above average intelligence.
Gutless.
I've found the opposite to be the case - the more educated someone truly is, as in they actually know things and have really learned to use logic, reason, etc., the more likely they are to doubt evolution.
Thanks for the ping, BB.
Just as I am not a biblical scholar, I am just as ‘Not a scientist.” As I was reading through your wonderful post and noting my agreement with it, I was sure it had to be you and I rushed to the bottom to verify it. You and Matchett-PI have done an outstanding job. I intend to bookmark this thread and send the URL to many people as a excellent discussion of Science/Evolution vs. Religion/Intelligent Design.
As for my own uneducated point of view, if you accept God as the Ultimate Being and the Creator of All, as I do, then science fits naturally under that tent. If not, then one falls back on science to prove things that are unprovable. That is where the God of Gaps concept comes from. Scientists accuse believers in using God to fill the gaps that science can’t. It seems more logical to me that the gaps are in the science rather than in the continuity of God. God is there for the whole ride, not just to bridge the gaps.
An example is the inability of evolution to scientifically prove the beginning of life or the universe. They postulate a Big Bang and a primordial soup struck by lightening. How is that more scientific than the story told in Genesis? Like Marxism, it attempts to describe things while avoiding God. Neither Marxism nor evolution correspond with reality.
The evolutionists are also undeterred by the evolutionary gaps in the fossil trail and the sudden appearance of a new species without a fossil trail. They look at what exists and proceed backward for their explanation making huge leaps of faith as they go. We believers start at the beginning and proceed forward with our own spiritual evolution while noting the correspondence of the physical world with scripture.
Scientists are also incapable of explaining abstracts other than that they just happened as an unexplained progression of evolution. Has science ever explained love, beauty, music, poetry, the feeling we get from a beautiful sunrise/sunset, a full moon or a cool breeze on a clear summer night? We clearly see it explained in the Garden of Eden and Original Sin which separated the purely spiritual into the physical/spiritual while giving man free will.
I agree with the idea that God set the parameters in the beginning and those parameters included all science from biology, to physics, to mathematics, etc. He also gave us an instruction book, the Bible, as He inspired it through His believers, some who became Prophets.
That makes Newtonian Mechanics and Physics an excellent description of the physical world, and Darwin’s theory based upon them, and Einstein’s quantum physics an excellent predictor of the unseen. As you, or someone, said, Darwin’s assumptions are strictly extensions of Newton and as a result incapable of describing the abstract.
I also think mutations leading to improved survivability is a leap. In most observable cases, mutations lead to increased deformity and death. Also, because of the time involved, it is impossible to prove evolution using the scientific method. When speeding up the process in petri dish research, the scientists introduce a mutation and watch to see what happens. Despite what any of these may seem to prove, they all fall back on the original assumption that such a mutation would have occurred naturally over time if not introduced artificially. Would they have? No one can know.
I see a uniformity in all we know and that uniformity is the forces of subatomic physics. They are operative in the micro and the macro, at low temperatures and high temperatures, etc. They are various forms of electromagnetism. Most set gravity apart as a separate, yet undefined, force but I think at the nub of it it is still a form of electromagnetism. That is the essence of the physical world.
Yet, that energy is also possibly the gateway into the spiritual world. That is God’s energy, created by Him and used by Him to keep all we know together. It is also the secret of the Nirvana. It is that place where the Buddhists, Hindus, Yogis, and others attempt to reach, a oneness with God’s energy. It is also what we feel when we are in direct contact with God, when we truly feel God’s Love, Truth, and Life. It is the essence of the Word. It is the avenue through which we reach God. It allows, through prayer, an intervention into the fixed world in order to shape things our way in seeking and following God’s will.
If there is evolution, it is through that rather than through random mutations and survival of the fittest.
Big deal. Even the demons believe.
James 2:19
Prior to this there was existence, but so what? There was life, but who cares? With no one to consciously experience it, what was the point? Without self-conscious observers, the whole cosmos could bang into being and contract into nothingness, and it would be no different than the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it.
One of the reasons why this is such a lonely and unpopular blog is that it takes both science and religion seriously. Most science and religion are unserious, but especially -- one might say intrinsically -- when they exclude each other.
A religion that cannot encompass science is not worthy the name, while a science that cannot be reconciled with religion is not fit for human beings. And I mean this literally, in that it will be a science that applies to a different species, not the one that is made to know love, truth, beauty, existence, and the Absolute. Science must begin and end in this principle -- which is to say, the Principle -- or it is just a diversion. ...."
Question: Why is Carl Sagan so lonely? (pick one)(a) Sagan is lonely because, as a true devotee of science, a noble and reliable method of attaining knowledge, he feels increasingly isolated in a world in which, as Bronowski has said, there is a failure of nerve and men seem willing to undertake anything other than the rigors of science and believe anything at all: in Velikovski, von Daniken, even in Mr. and Mrs. Barney Hill, who reported being captured and taken aboard a spaceship in Vermont.
(b) Sagan is lonely because, after great expectations, he has not discovered ETIs in the Cosmos, because chimpanzees don't talk, dolphins don't talk, humpback whales sing only to other humpback whales, and he has heard nothing but random noise from the Cosmos, and because Vikings 1 and 2 failed to discover evidence of even the most rudimentary organic life in the soil of Mars.
(c) Sagan is lonely because, once everything in the Cosmos, including man, is reduced to the sphere of immanence, matter in interaction, there is no one left to talk to except other transcending intelligences from other worlds.-- from Walker Percy's Lost In The Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
Yes, and scientists who believe are JUST like demons! ;)
Just like a creationists; the facts don’t fit - make up different facts!
That's because they actually THINK for themselves instead of just swallowing and parroting the party line to keep that peer review panel happy and the research grant dollars flowing.
Great post.
Evolution depends heavily assumptions and extrapolation. Without those, they have nothing to stand on.
When it was said that evolution is taught with an atheist spin I pointed out that most scientists are people of faith in God and that it was neither taught to me or by me in that fashion, and that (as one might expect based upon numbers) both I and my teacher are believers.
Ah but apparently it isn’t enough to be a believer, and thus to have no reason for putting a atheist spin on teaching biological evolution.
Because unless they believe in God in the exact same way you believe - they don’t count.
And how does this make them likely to teach biological evolution through natural selection of genetic variation with an atheist slant?
Sure. That explains the Piltdown man, archaeoraptor, and every failed *missing link* they have heralded only to have it fall flat a few months later, which they never announce to the world with the fanfare of the initial discovery.
Instead they just sweep it under the rug and hope it all fades away into oblivion.
Yup that kind of intellectual dishonesty by scientists is pretty demonic.
http://conservapedia.com/Theory_of_Evolution_and_Cases_of_Fraud,_Hoaxes_and_Speculation
"A five million-year-old piece of bone that was thought to be a collarbone of a humanlike creature is actually part of a dolphin rib...The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone." - Dr. Tim White (anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley). As quoted by Ian Anderson "Hominoid collarbone exposed as dolphin's rib", in New Scientist, 28 April 1983, p. 199[23]
Or they would claim that the rabbit had somehow dug down to a previous layer and died anomalously, or an evil creationist had done it.
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