Posted on 12/03/2005 6:18:54 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
What is it that Darwin is challenging in Locke's metaphysics, in your own words? What is the significance, in YOUR OWN WORDS, of the Darwin quote you like to keep posting from his notebooks?
If you are incapable of explaining it, don't be afraid to just say so.
No, you misquoted John. Ruse was referring to a number of pro-evos who treat the defense of the ToE as they would the defense of a religion. John made clear that Ruse was not talking about the science of evolution being a religion.
You however decided that little quote mine could be used to show that Ruse considered the process used to develop and defend the ToE as evidence that the ToE is a religion. The deceit is yours, not John's or Ruse's.
Anyone that reads John's full article will see the difference between your intention and what John actually says.
No, it wasn't teaching it "as dogma". It was simply teaching it. Just go look at the textbooks, from almost any era, and certainly over the last 70 or 80 years. Where evolution is taught it will generally be, and often by a dramatic margin, the LEAST "dogmatically" presented theory in the entire book. Dozens, hundreds of theories will be treated as entirely matter of fact, usually without even being identified as a "theory," but evolution, and evolution alone, will be something that "some scientists believe," or will be ensconced in a thick coat of similar qualifications.
The antievolution movement doesn't now, and never has, had a damn thing to do with how evolution is taught, only that it is taught.
So? We are not "Darwinists" as that word is understood by antievolutionists-who-claim-not-to-be-creationists-and-call-anyone-who-accepts-mainstream-science-a-"Darwinist".
Any intellectually honest person who reads my post #71 and then my post #180, won't fail to notice that all you're doing is blowing smoke, and attempting to change the subject. The opinions of the rest don't matter, except to you. Enjoy your fanclub. LOL
As I told you in the other thread, dragging red herrings across the trail only fools the easily distracted. You have your answer in #71. The fact that you either don't like it, or can't comprehend it, is not my problem.
" As I told you in the other thread, dragging red herrings across the trail only fools the easily distracted. "
How on earth is asking you to explain your post a *red herring*?
"You have your answer in #71. The fact that you either don't like it, or can't comprehend it, is not my problem."
No, I didn't get a response to my question in post 71. You completely evaded it.
So, again, in what way did Darwin challenge Locke's metaphysics? Why do you keep posting the quote from Darwin's notebooks if you can't even explain, IN YOUR OWN WORDS, what the significance of it is?
Why are you running from your own post?
I'm not going away. :)
Look, I think we've all resigned ourselves to the fact that you're going to make quibbling or enigmatic interjections that you never explain, but could you please do it WITHOUT 770772 byte graphics?
If I'm wrong could you please explain in exact simple language your understanding of both and how you feel I'm changing the subject. I am always willing to be educated.
I'd worry if you thought it had.
"So? We are not "Darwinists" as that word is understood by antievolutionists-who-claim-not-to-be-creationists-and-call-anyone-who-accepts-mainstream-science-a-"Darwinist"." ~ Stultis
Are you talking about those who embrace "consensus science"? LOL
"...I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therap6y…the list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
But back to our main subject. ... [snip]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1533285/posts?page=32#32
And on this we genuinely agree. With emphasis.
That'll work. Ohhh-Rahh!!!
Nope. Don't be feel bad, however; we all waste bandwidth from time to time.
I hadn't meant to insult.
The goal posts have always been there, most folks want concrete proofs not inferential proofs. Evolution as it is currently argued for still comes across as an abstract concept to most folks(religious or otherwise) demonstrable via inferences to observed data only.
A plane flies despite some questions concerning the nature of the theories of lift, to most folks the behaviour of the plane is proof of concept.
I personally think adaptations within a genus and the species that derive from them do happen over time, lest vast quantities of life get wiped out when climate changes occur, or new predators ect... The real contention lies in whether or not a divine God has anything to do with the process. I do recognize that the origin of life, ie. the emergence of the DNA helix is separate issue from evolution proper.
Then there is the problem of man, whose very consciousness acts in antithesis to the very process of evolution(for sake of the discussion) that alledgedly produced him.
Views of evolution not withstanding, I think where man is concerned, the processes that developed him have been tinkered with...take that how you will!
"As you are well aware, scientific theories are not "supposed," but rather just "are." And once again, for the billionth time, a religious person has used "religious" with a negative connotation. I love it every single time."
Man has worked tirelessly on evolution, a theory with no beginning, and no purpose. Hardly a state of just being else flesh man would not be in such extreme, sky is falling fear that anybody would challenge it. By it's very nature evolution is ever changing and subject to challenge.
Evolutionists challenge the very Creator of not only their flesh bodies but the Creator of their souls.
Religion by its very nature has a negative connotation because religion is what flesh man shapes and molds, little difference in the science of evolution and science of religion.
Furthermore flesh has a negative connotation as well it dies.
Except that that is all the ignorant quote-mining fundies ever do with their "finds".
But nobody is arguing against such beliefs (much). Only that they aren't based on science and shouldn't be taught in a science class.
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