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Those Defensive Darwinists
The Seattle Times ^ | 11/21/05 | Jonathon Witt

Posted on 11/22/2005 12:44:07 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo

THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.

In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.

The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.

For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."

University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."

This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.

The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.

The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."

Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.

One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."

And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.

How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.

Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.

Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.

Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.


TOPICS: Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: darwin; evolutionism; intelligentdesign
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To: Ichneumon
Until then stop whining. Are we clear now?

Indeed, you are very clear. Darwinists want a total monopoly and don't want to permit anyone hear about anything else. Exactly the point I was making.

141 posted on 11/22/2005 5:12:27 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Ichneumon
Added to: The List-O-Links:

NEW The "Clergy Letter Project". 10,000 clergymen endorse evolution.

142 posted on 11/22/2005 5:13:41 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Expect no response if you're a troll, lunatic, retard, or incurable ignoramus.)
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To: Heartlander; Right Wing Professor; TN4Liberty; Liberal Classic; PatrickHenry
Thank you for providing a handy list of useful rebuttals for the times when the AECreationists exhibit "Ignorance & Lies", "Stupidity & Lunacy", "Topic Switches", or "Cluelessness & Misc."

For example, when the AECreationists indulge in the common habit of dishonestly using outdated, out-of-context or doctored quotes in order to dishonestly pretend that some expert agrees with them, it will be *much* handier to simply refer them to "A6!" instead of having to tediously point out their dishonesty.

Similarly, when an AECreationist tries the dishonest "Topic Switch" ploy by trying to discredit evolutionary biology pointing out that there are many gaps in abiogenesis research, it is much easier to respond "C7!" than it is to, yet again, try to explain to them that these are independent fields of study, and that one in no way depends upon the other.

And so on.

But your "Tool Kit" is only preliminary and leaves out many forms of AECreationist ignorance, fallacies, lies, lunacy, tangents, cluelessness, etc. Perhaps you could save yourself more work and simply refer people to this catalog of AECreationist flawed claims instead:

Index to Creationist Claims

edited by Mark Isaak
Copyright © 2005
[Last update: 19 Aug 2005]

Introduction

CA: Philosophy and Theology

CB: Biology

CC: Paleontology

CD: Geology

CE: Astronomy and Cosmology

CF: Physics and Mathematics

CG: Miscellaneous Anti-Evolution

CH: Biblical Creationism

CI: Intelligent Design

CJ: Other Creationism

Authors

143 posted on 11/22/2005 5:20:03 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Modern evolutionary theory has grave weaknesses, the most grave being its inability to account for the creative, transformative role of intelligence in the development of life forms. Intelligent design dares honestly to confront this compelling and vital evidence. Because Darwinism has no credible response based in science, its supporters resort to ad hominem attacks.

Darwinists have become an embarrassment to thinking people.

144 posted on 11/22/2005 5:23:42 PM PST by JCEccles
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To: Ichneumon
OOOOOH, Ichny dumped the big nuke on 'em.

That's a lot of reading. But, most likely, none of 'em will read a word of it, let alone check out the links. (We don't need no stinking data, whadda you think we are, scientists?)

145 posted on 11/22/2005 5:26:20 PM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: Cicero; Michael_Michaelangelo; Baby Driver; PatrickHenry
[Until then stop whining. [HUGE AMOUNT OF DISCUSSION BETWEEN THESE TWO SENTENCES DISHONESTLY CLIPPED BY CICERO WITHOUT "..." MARKER] Are we clear now?]

Indeed, you are very clear. Darwinists want a total monopoly and don't want to permit anyone hear about anything else. Exactly the point I was making.

An AECreationist tells another falsehood about someone, so what else is new?

The astute reader is invited to go back and read my post, and see for himself just how laughably bad Cicero's misrepresentation of my position is -- *and* note how much he snipped out between the two sentences of mine he quoted, including:

"Go ahead and discuss it all you like. Just stop lying about it, and stop trying to dishonestly push religion into schools in a Trojan Horse with "science" scribbled on the side, when it isn't."
Whether his gross distortion of what I actually wrote is due to his gross dishonesty, or a reading comprehension so poor that it would embarrass a gradeschooler, is left as an exercise for the reader.

In any case, this sort of thing is unfortunately extremely common when having discussions with AECreationists. I invite lurkers to ponder the reason why.

146 posted on 11/22/2005 5:28:35 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: JCEccles
Darwinists have become an embarrassment to thinking people.

The anti-science movement is an embarrassment to conservatism and Republicanism.

147 posted on 11/22/2005 5:33:11 PM PST by Liberal Classic (No better friend, no worse enemy. Semper Fi.)
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To: JCEccles
Modern evolutionary theory has grave weaknesses, the most grave being its inability to account for the creative, transformative role of intelligence in the development of life forms.

Evolutionary theory has no such "inability". The problem is that IDers have been unable to provide any evidence for their presumption.

Intelligent design dares honestly to confront this compelling and vital evidence.

IDers keep alluding to this "compelling and vital evidence", but keep "forgetting" to show it to anyone, even when asked repeatedly.

Because Darwinism has no credible response based in science,

...other than the very to-the-point and very credible response that if the IDers want to be taken seriously *as* science, they're going to have to follow the "rules" of science. To date, IDers have failed to do so, they just want to bitch and moan about how "unfair" and "exclusive" the methods and practices of science are, and try to force their stuff into science classrooms and science journals *without* actually having to bother with that pesky "evidence and research" stuff.

its supporters resort to ad hominem attacks.

IDers call it "ad hominem attacks" when people point out the truth about the IDers behavior, and point out the vast number of times that IDers have been caught lying, engaging in dishonest propaganda, trying to rewrite history, committing perjury, and other behavior that makes them very much like Michael Moore.

Darwinists have become an embarrassment to thinking people.

"ID" has become such an embarrassment that even ~10,000 Christian clergy have endorsed evolutionary biology and stated that ID has no place being taught as science.

Deal with it, and stop making further misrepresentations about science, scientists, and the facts of the issue.

148 posted on 11/22/2005 5:35:25 PM PST by Ichneumon
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Comment #149 Removed by Moderator

To: JQA12345

Hey, that's right! I've seen evolutionists hang ten creationist partisans who were just walking down the street in retaliation for every one evo that was killed. It's the 3rd Reich all over again!

You were an eyewitness to this?

150 posted on 11/22/2005 5:37:01 PM PST by ml1954 (NOT the disruptive troll seen frequently on CREVO threads)
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To: Ichneumon

Please don't post to me anymore. You have some issues and I don't want all your crap in my ping list. Thanks!


151 posted on 11/22/2005 5:41:17 PM PST by TN4Liberty (American... conservative... southern.... It doesn't get any better than this.)
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To: Cicero

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/12/godless_pride.html

Why have so many fundamentalist religious leaders formed politically-active organizations? Who are they, and how successful have they been? To begin, consider the Reconstructionists, arguably the most fanatical of the Christian Right groups. According to them, says William Martin, author of With God on Our Side, “Christians have a mandate to rebuild . . . all of human society,” and “they contend that the Bible . . . offers the perfect blueprint for the shape a reconstructed world should take.”

Reconstructionists are also known as Dominionists, as in Genesis 1:28, which calls on them to: “Fill the Earth and subdue it and have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the Earth.” As “agents of God’s unfolding plan,” they are working to establish a theonomy, or “rule of God,” which leaves no room for toleration of other points of view. According to Martin, “a theonomic order would make homosexuality, adultery, blasphemy, propagation of false doctrine, and incorrigible behavior by disobedient children subject to the death penalty, preferably administered by stoning.” Since these ethical principles reflect the will of an immutable God, Reconstructionists reason, they apply to all people, in every era. R.J. Rushdoony, the founding father of Reconstructionism, regards pluralism as a heresy, since “in the name of toleration, the believer is asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions.”

Frankly, it is highly unlikely that Reconstructionists will suddenly seize political power. Their ideas are simply too extreme. Leaders of the religious right have been cautious about showing any interest in this radical movement. Still, Reconstructionists have clearly been influential. Fundamentalist ministers Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy have endorsed Reconstructionist books. An anonymous member of the religious right undoubtedly spoke for many when he confessed, “Though we hide their books under the bed, we read them just the same.” While most religious right activists have discarded the more unpalatable aims of Reconstructionists, they have embraced their underlying theory that the Bible provides a blueprint for running government. Jay Grimstead, leader of the Coalition on Revival, expressed the sentiment of many conservative Christian leaders when he argued that while they may not be in full support of a theonomy, it is still their desire to rebuild a Bible-based America.

An opposing view is at
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/12/a_nation_under_god.html


152 posted on 11/22/2005 5:42:02 PM PST by thomaswest (Just Curious)
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To: Ichneumon

What I find myself contemplating are the
qualities and weaknesses of both 'the Visionary'
and 'the Plodder'. the 'Doer' and the 'thinker;

"...and the poet sheathes his pen,
and the soldier lifts his sword.."


153 posted on 11/22/2005 5:42:08 PM PST by Baby Driver
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Comment #154 Removed by Moderator

Comment #155 Removed by Moderator

To: vpintheak
If you believe that all clergy actually BELIEVE and preach the word of God, you are sadly mistaken. I prefer to place my faith in the unshakable word of God than to a bunch of educated idiots.

If you believe that this lame response is the best you can do, instead of some sort of substantive rebuttal (or better yet, a grasp of the point being made), go for it.

And personally, I prefer to learn directly from God's *actual* work (the world itself, and the evidence it provides) than from misunderstandings about the "unshakable word of God" from someone who uses "educated" as an insult.

Here, get a clue:

"The doctrine of the movements of the earth and the fixity of the sun is condemned [by Biblical literalists] on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still… I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations." -- Galileo Galilei
Pop quiz: Who was right -- Galileo, learning from observation and evidence, or the Pope and his entire Church, relying on their reading of the text of the Bible?

Does the Sun actually revolve around the fixed Earth, as the Church was convinced the Bible clearly said?

"And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. [...] I add that the words 'the sun also riseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he ariseth, etc.' were those of Solomon, who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned in human sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God."
-- Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, April 12, 1615 letter to Foscarini concerning Galileo's "heresy".
And:
"Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it [i.e. for disagreeing with Bible-based criticisms - Ich.] [...] This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, [...] The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. [...] Furthermore, in order to completely eliminate such a pernicious doctrine, and not let it creep any further to the great detriment of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation of the Index issued a decree which prohibited books which treat of this and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture. [...] We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you, Galileo, by reason of these things which have been detailed in the trial and which you have confessed already, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspect of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine that is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: namely that Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. [...] Consequently, you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents.
-- Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo (June 22, 1633)
If the Vatican get get Scripture so freaking wrong when they read it, I have even less confidence in the textual interpretations of amateurs. And I'll take 10,000 Christian clergy over *your* impression of whether evolution is compatible with scripture.

Why don't you leave the 1600's and come join the rest of us in the 21st Century?

156 posted on 11/22/2005 5:48:18 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: thomaswest

Why post all that silly boilerplate?

I'm perfectly happy to read Darwin and to let the theory be taught in schools, as long as it doesn't pretend to have a total monopoly on the truth.

Why aren't Darwinists willing to entertain other possibilities in a similar way? Why do they refuse to let anyone even open their mouths about them? Why do they fire professors who dare to question Darwin? Why do they take school districts to court if they dare to question Darwin or even order an ID book for the school library?

Is Darwin so delicate he can't stand up to questioning?


157 posted on 11/22/2005 5:48:40 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Stingy Dog
Evolutionistoids are fanatics who have lost their direction, but redouble their futile efforts. Evolution is of the devil's propagation.

Admit it -- you're just a troll working to make the AECreationists look crazy, aren't you?

158 posted on 11/22/2005 5:49:16 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Ichneumon
And if you check carefully you will discover a large number of these same clergy do not believe in the Diety of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, or the Second Coming of Christ, but do believe in same sex marriage, abortion [oops, excuse me, a woman's right to chose to murder her baby], ordination of homosexuals - they are definitely not in the orthodox, evangelical camp. And many of us have a hard time giving any credibility to what they sign on to.

But hey, that's why Baskin-Robbins makes 31 flavors - we all like something different!

159 posted on 11/22/2005 5:50:42 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware the secularization of America)
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To: Stingy Dog
Have you owned up to that Sam Francis quote yet?
160 posted on 11/22/2005 5:51:40 PM PST by Liberal Classic (No better friend, no worse enemy. Semper Fi.)
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