What are Darwinists so afraid of?

worldnetdaily.com ^ | 07/27/2006 | Jonathan Witt

[BrandtMichaels]

What are Darwinists so afraid of?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jonathan Witt © 2006

As a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the '90s, I found that my professors came in all stripes, and that lazy ideas didn't get off easy. If some professor wanted to preach the virtues of communism after it had failed miserably in the Soviet Union, he was free to do so, but students were also free to hear from other professors who critically analyzed that position.

Conversely, students who believed capitalism and democracy were the great engines of human progress had to grapple with the best arguments against that view, meaning that in the end, they were better able to defend their beliefs.

Such a free marketplace of ideas is crucial to a solid education, and it's what the current Kansas science standards promote. These standards, like those adopted in other states and supported by a three-to-one margin among U.S. voters, don't call for teaching intelligent design. They call for schools to equip students to critically analyze modern evolutionary theory by teaching the evidence both for and against it.

The standards are good for students and good for science.

Some want to protect Darwinism from the competitive marketplace by overturning the critical-analysis standards. My hope is that these efforts will merely lead students to ask, What's the evidence they don't want us to see?

Under the new standards, they'll get an answer. For starters, many high-school biology textbooks have presented Haeckel's 19th century embryo drawings, the four-winged fruit fly, peppered moths hidden on tree trunks and the evolving beak of the Galapagos finch as knockdown evidence for Darwinian evolution. What they don't tell students is that these icons of evolution have been discredited, not by Christian fundamentalists but by mainstream evolutionists.

We now know that 1) Haeckel faked his embryo drawings; 2) Anatomically mutant fruit flies are always dysfunctional; 3) Peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks (the photographs were staged); and 4) the finch beaks returned to normal after the rains returned – no net evolution occurred. Like many species, the average size fluctuates within a given range.

This is microevolution, the age-old observation of change within species. Macroevolution refers to the evolution of fundamentally new body plans and anatomical parts. Biology textbooks use instances of microevolution such as the Galapagos finches to paper over the fact that biologists have never observed, or even described in theoretical terms, a detailed, continually functional pathway to fundamentally new forms like mammals, wings and bats. This is significant because modern Darwinism claims that all life evolved from a common ancestor by a series of tiny, useful genetic mutations.

Textbooks also trumpet a few "missing links" discovered between groups. What they don't mention is that Darwin's theory requires untold millions of missing links, evolving one tiny step at a time. Yes, the fossil record is incomplete, but even mainstream evolutionists have asked, why is it selectively incomplete in just those places where the need for evidence is most crucial?

Opponents of the new science standards don't want Kansas high-school students grappling with that question. They argue that such problems aren't worth bothering with because Darwinism is supported by "overwhelming evidence." But if the evidence is overwhelming, why shield the theory from informed critical analysis? Why the campaign to mischaracterize the current standards and replace them with a plan to spoon-feed students Darwinian pabulum strained of uncooperative evidence?

The truly confident Darwinist should be eager to tell students, "Hey, notice these crucial unsolved problems in modern evolutionary theory. Maybe one day you'll be one of the scientists who discovers a solution."

Confidence is as confidence does.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your outstanding post, YHAOS!

A-G, I've had the opportunity to discuss various of the practical aspects with some of those whom you call metaphysical naturalists (i.e. The Masters of the Universe). They exhibit an appalling disinterest in, or perhaps instead a lack of appreciation for, the most basic concepts of the consent of the governed. Do you suppose that to be a manifestation of their metaphysical naturalism? I think maybe so.

I agree with your assessment.

[Alamo-Girl]

No one can possibly know absolutely everything that is relevant to even a single simple problem. So we can just forget about having "certainty" in this world..

So very true. Thank you for all your wonderful posts!

[YHAOS]

"truth usually is a matter of all three.. At its highest level.."

At its highest level, yes. How often does that occur? Surely it does, but few would say it occurs often enough. As boop remarked just barely the other day, "No one can possibly know absolutely everything that is relevant to even a single simple problem." This is not an understanding unique to her, nor would she ever claim that it was. Boop was simply reminding us that truth is difficult to know even absent attempts to erect a barricade or to assert a monopoly. Your point, I think, is that knowing truth, even in the imperfect state we know it, demands a good will and a collaborative effort.

Necessarily so, I think . . . at its highest level. {8^)

[betty boop]

As boop remarked just barely the other day, "No one can possibly know absolutely everything that is relevant to even a single simple problem." This is not an understanding unique to her, nor would she ever claim that it was. Boop was simply reminding us that truth is difficult to know even absent attempts to erect a barricade or to assert a monopoly. Your point, I think, is that knowing truth, even in the imperfect state we know it, demands a good will and a collaborative effort.

LOL!!! Your interpretation of "boop" (you can call me "boopster" if you prefer) is right on the money, YHAOS!

But the problem of Truth goes much deeper than that. In an age of moral relativism -- and to me Truth has fundamental moral implications that cannot be evaded with impunity -- people cannot even agree what Truth "is."

This would be my own view FWIW:

"Truth is not a body of propositions about a world-immanent object; it is the world-transcendent summum bonum experienced as an orienting force in the soul, about which we can speak only in analogical symbols." [Eric Voegelin, in Order and History Vol. III]

You can instantly see the problem: With the denial of the soul, Truth loses its connection to reality. In our age, both God and soul are strenuously denied among the more fashionable intelligentsia: They insist God is a superstition held by primitive, ignorant, "unenlightened" people; and soul is a similar superstition, a "ghost in the machine," or an epiphenomenon of the neural activity of the physical brain.

The problem is you cannot get the two sides of this issue "together" in rational discourse because they do not share the same world view at all. What you end up with is people just "talking past each other," as we see so often here at FR: In the end, it's a battle between "first reality" and "second realities."

But of course the problem surfaces in far more devastating ways, socially and culturally speaking. Because people will not agree about what Truth "is," our society is divided and increasingly more disordered, with the result (for example) that in wartime, some significant fraction of the American people works for the benefit of an enemy that would destroy us in an instant, if they could but get the chance. Still, these self-same folks would take great umbrage if you were to suggest they were acting "unpatriotically," let alone treasonously....

The "common ground of human existence" is destroyed when we can no longer agree what Truth is.... This, to me, is the single most horrific problem of our time. FWIW.

In short, Truth is the source of the "good order" of the soul, and by extension of society -- and also of the universe itself: Ultimately, Truth is One. To say that it is merely an "opinion," and that one opinion is just as good as another, is to deny the fundamental structure of all reality.

Thank you so much, dear YHAOS, for your reply!

[MHGinTN]

Prior to the advent of Adam, the humankind living upon the Earth would have thought they could define truth based upon what worked best in their experiences and in their collective behaviors. And that was indeed all they were capable of attaining with a natural soul (a nephesh).

With the advent of Adam, God mixed the spirit dimension into the universe of physical and mental life, and with spirit in mankind there was a means by which the human mind could, even if fleeting and brief in nature, tap into the field of God Truth ... Adam possessed a sense of right and wrong sourced in his spirit component (the neshama), not his loins. There is a huge hint of this state in the fact that God planted a garden with only one entrance/exist, and placed His special creation, Adam, in it for protection ... the same protection Cain realized he would not have with the banishment sentence God issued after Cain slew his brother Abel.

With the fall, the process of regeneration (in Christ) is essential to regaining this sense of God Truth right and wrong, for to reflect the character of God (and that's what God Truth is, a wording of the character of God) requires the life of God in the human spirit, as the earnest of an inheritance to come in fullness at some later where/when of final regeneration.

Science seeks admirably to establish truth (as far it may measure and quantify it) in reality of how the universe actually works, but this is an exercise confined to the spacetime, 4D realm and thus incapable of touching that which lies beyond this 4D realm, as in the dimension of soul and spirit, the neshama of our human reality.

[MHGinTN]

In the physical realm, the universe is the observer, constantly taking measure of subatomic particles via the quantum field. This same QF allows the interactions of everything from quarks to galaxies via the ascending complexity from virtual particles and anti-particles to atoms, to molecules, to compounds, to planets, to solar systems, to galaxies, to super clusters. Understanding the fundamentals of the QF might someday allow Science to understand how time and space and soul and spirit are all intertwined and dangling from the God thread rather than resting upon physicality. But we're not there yet, however, with the concept of information theory, humanity is approaching the problem in a new way which may yield the fundamentals of the problem.

[MHGinTN]

BTW, boopster, thank you for the pingski.

[betty boop]

Science seeks admirably to establish truth (as far it may measure and quantify it) in reality of how the universe actually works, but this is an exercise confined to the spacetime, 4D realm and thus incapable of touching that which lies beyond this 4D realm, as in the dimension of soul and spirit, the neshama of our human reality.

Beautifully said, MHGinTN!

We can only directly observe phenomena that are taking place in time: Cause-and-effect ineluctibly involves a temporal process. The interesting thing is that once an observation has been made, it instantly becomes a part of "the past."

As you insightfully point out, humans live "in the dimension of soul and spirit, the neshama of our human reality" -- which do not belong to time proper, as conventionally understood. Science can't "go there"; but that doesn't mean that human participation in timelessness is an "illusion."

Thank you so very much for this beautiful essay/post!

[betty boop]

You're entirely welcome my friend!

[betty boop]

Understanding the fundamentals of the QF might someday allow Science to understand how time and space and soul and spirit are all intertwined and dangling from the God thread rather than resting upon physicality. But we're not there yet, however, with the concept of information theory, humanity is approaching the problem in a new way which may yield the fundamentals of the problem.

FWIW, I think that's ineluctibly the direction we're heading in, MHGinTN -- notwithstanding a certain amount of resistence from "classical" pysicists (and biologists)....

Thanks again for writing!

[Quix]

Thanks for the ping.

BTW, relative to all that . . . LOL . . . Where do the angels on pin heads come in?

[Quix]

Very excellent points. SO abundantly illustrated here on

redundantly redundantly again again.

[betty boop]

Where do the angels on pin heads come in?

I don't believe that angels dance on pins. :^)

[hosepipe]

[ The problem is you cannot get the two sides of this issue "together" in rational discourse because they do not share the same world view at all. What you end up with is people just "talking past each other," as we see so often here at FR: In the end, it's a battle between "first reality" and "second realities." ]

So true.. Truth decided by "the Observer" (of truth).. is what FR is all about.. But "engrams" of truth can be transacted.. in the process.. So these discussions have some merit to lurkers I think.. The "observer" problem has so many sidebars.. not the least of which God is an observer too.. Observing "US"... Wonder if prayer about the observer problem is in order.. One would think its extremely pertinent.. God might us even recognizing that.. ya think?..

[hosepipe]

[ Science seeks admirably to establish truth (as far it may measure and quantify it) in reality of how the universe actually works, but this is an exercise confined to the spacetime, 4D realm and thus incapable of touching that which lies beyond this 4D realm, as in the dimension of soul and spirit, the neshama of our human reality. ]

I buy the Spiritual Dimension.. But current science DNA and "Survival of the fittest" theory seems to war against the "Spirt/spirit", not God.. Seeming to "prove" the "ghost in the machine".. is a myth.. Which disproves God whom is a Spirit.. Evolution seems to "prove" that there is no such thing as a spirit/Spirit except as a literary operator..

My opinion is human kind are spirits riding Donkeys(human bodies) with the Donkey existing in one paradigm and the spirit existing in another(the Spiritual Dimension).. Human life being a Donkey Rodeo and human familys organized by Donkey Wranglers(parents).. The Donkey can die but the spirit lives on.. "somewhere".. If there is Not a Spiritual Dimension, well then, there ought to be..

[hosepipe]

[ We can only directly observe phenomena that are taking place in time: Cause-and-effect ineluctibly involves a temporal process. The interesting thing is that once an observation has been made, it instantly becomes a part of "the past." ]

True... timing is far more importasnt than time.. All past and future moments are composed of the present moment..

Jesus->> "Do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matt. 6:34)

[Quix]

Neither do I but I had to be tweaky about it. General principles. LOL.

[betty boop]

Neither do I but I had to be tweaky about it. General principles. LOL.

LOLOL!!!! "Tweaky" is okay with me Quix!!!

Still, I do believe in angels. Do you? :^)

[Quix]

Of course I believe in angels. They ARE Biblical.

Besides, the way I live my clumsy life . . . they are desperately needed 24/7!

[betty boop]

Besides, the way I live my clumsy life . . . they are desperately needed 24/7!

I KNOW the feeling, Quix! My life has been pretty "clumsy," too.... I gather that's a good way to meet up with angels.

Did you know that (according to Plato) even Socrates believed in angels? Only he called them daemons. He said (in the Apology) his daemon never told him what to do. What he claimed his daemon did do was to "point him" in helpful ways -- and to warn him when he was about to make a fatally bad decision.

Sounds about right to me. :^)

Thanks so much for writing, Quix!