Posted on 07/06/2007 11:37:41 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
When my youngest daughter was about three years old, I pulled a cheap trick on her, teaching her that whenever I asked “Who's the man?”, she should reply “Darwin!” She does this quite well now. It is hard to imagine any living biologist not thinking that Darwin IS the man, and I am certainly no different. But I have a different hero, and for a slightly different set of reasons. The man is Noam Chomsky. Like Darwin, Chomsky raised a set of questions that literally turned around a discipline, and opened the door to several new disciplines. In Chomsky's case, he turned around the field of linguistics, and gave birth to the cognitive sciences as we know them today...
(Excerpt) Read more at current-biology.com ...
More from the Church of Darwin:
Darwin’s House: A Religious Shrine?
“An article quoted Darwin scholar James Moore saying, ‘Muslims go to Mecca, Christians go to Jerusalem, Darwinians go to Downe.’ This seems to equate Darwinians with believers in a religion, but Nature quoted this proudly.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/^http://creationsafaris.com/crev200706.htm#20070628a
And let’s not forget Richard Dawkins, a scientists who speaks for millions of the Darwinist faithful:
“In 2005 online magazine ‘Edge The World Question Centre’ posed the following question to a number of scientific intellectuals: ‘What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?’ Dawkins revealingly answered: ‘I believe that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all ‘design’ anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection.’”
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Williams_GodDelusionReview_02012007.pdf
Sounds like religion to me-—GGG
Dawkins is another fool blinded by his own narrow beliefs who thinks life arose only in this universe, and not another one.
Did Chomsky actually do anything useful? I can’t imagine the field of linguistics is very fertile ground for contributing to society.
The Theory of Evolution (of Man) is just that - A Theory.
The Theory of Intelligent Design (of Man) is just that - A Theory.
Both theories have some facts that support them - and other facts that don’t support them.
It used to be that places of higher learning taught students to think for themselves based on scientific facts and evidence.
But what “facts” support intelligent design?
1. Evolution doesn’t explain anything on how it all began. As a theory, it is grossly incomplete. At least intelligent design has a theory on the “absolute beginning.”
2. Where did the laws of nature and physics come from? They shape nature and effect evolution. Do we ignore the “architect” and just focus on the designs? Would this make any sense in any field of science or engineering?
3. Esteemed mathematicians and scientists have put forward fully vetted and accepted theories that the complex life we see on earth could have no way “accidentally” evolved in the “short” accepted age of the universe. The time period is too small and the complexity of life is too advanced or that there is no scientific way a cell could have evolved over any period of time in the life of the universe and in stages (as evolution demands). If these scientifically based theories can just be ignored, why not other theories?
4. The millions of miracles that have occurred and the hundred of thousands that have been documented since written history. Are they all fakes and hoaxes? Just because we can’t explain them should we just ignore them? Does this remind you of the 14th century “the world is flat” belief system or the universe revolves around the earth closed mindedness?
5. The historical accuracy of the Bible. Nearly a year doesn’t go by where some archeologist finds a city/people/event/ruler exactly where the Bible said it was or medical/scientific breakthrough proves the validity of a Biblical historical point. So, if historically, the Bible can be trusted, why not on some spiritual level?
6. We have free will. We have morals and a conscience. We make ethical choices every day. Where did that come from? If we just “evolved” we should be just be following our natural DNA pre-programming as near robots (like flowers or wolves or fishes do - they do what they do because that is what they are - they can not choose to do different). Are we just blobs of DNA - and that is it? Then I/we are responsible for nothing - the DNA made me do it.
7. It is interesting that nearly all cultures and peoples in nearly every corner of the globe since the dawn of mankind have “invented” a God. Almost like we were preprogrammed to do so? If it was just a “random thing,” why is it so prevalent?
8. I can blow huge holes in the theory of evolution in explanation on how humans got here. For instance - evolution can not explain the “origin of life” from dead chemicals and the fossil evidence is unviable and dubious (at best) from animal to man. We know more on how the Brontosaurus evolved than man. Why is that? Is it because we have not looked hard enough or is it we are looking for something that doesn’t exist?
This is actually a very old argument: St Paul, the Apostle, once wrote of pagans: “Behold they have exchanged the Truth for a lie and worshipped the creation rather than the Creator.”
It doesn’t mean the theory of evolution is wrong - but it may mean that it needs to be updated and that it may only be a partial explanation (like micro-evolution of lizards on two separate islands over some time to adapt to their surroundings).
As I said - The Theory of Evolution is just that - a Theory. And when we let a Judge decide what theories are correct and what theories are incorrect (or can NOT even be mentioned) we have truly lost something.
It seems like “progressives” or “secular humanists” or “naturalists” want it both ways - they believe in a “philosophy” that puts man at the center of the universe. That all can be explained by science, that humankind is neither good or bad, neither right or wrong and that all bad things can be done away with if you have the right people in charge and the right laws. Their basic belief is that Man (or the state) is God.
They want what they “believe” to be taught in schools (at taxpayer expense, of course) and to the exclusion of any other philosophy.
For instance:
The Progressive agenda wants abortion on demand for any reason. If you believe in the opposite - that must be a “religious” belief and can/must banned from the schools, government or public grounds. Just look at the debates for the next Supreme Court justice.
The Progressive agenda wants only man at the center of morals and judgment. If you believe in the opposite - that must be a “religious” belief and can/must be banned from the schools, government or public grounds. Just look at the debates about gay marriage, drugs, pornography, divorce, adultery, cloning, prayer in school, vouchers, stem cell research, obscenity on the public airways, etc.
The Progressive agenda wants only “natural law and evolution” to explain how we got here. If you believe in the opposite - that must be a “religious” belief and can/must be banned from the schools, government or public grounds. Just look at the debate of evolution vs. creation.
And ETC. on nearly every issue.
See my point? One side gets all the benefits because they are only a “philosophy” and not a religion. The other side gets hammered because they are a “religion” and not a “philosophy.” In reality, there is not a bit of difference between the two - it is all how a person personally views life (worldviews and ideologies). But somehow we have allowed one at the total exclusion of the other and called it “Constitutional,” when it is about the furthest thing from the Constitution as the Founding Father wanted or desired.
Let’s face it, “Darwinism has become Naturalism” and it is just as much religion as Christianity, Judaism, etc. Naturalists “worship” the idea that matter is all there is. What you see is what you get. Humanity is a product of time, chance, and natural selection. There can be nothing else outside of the natural system. Period. Any other claim is nonsense and nothing but superstition.
Actually, when you think of it - quite an intolerant religion at that.
Regards,
2banana
lol
All excellent points. Thank you.
Chomsky hardly shows the open-minded self-critical attitudes Hauser claims, though. The reason Chomsky keeps changing his theories is, to all appearances, because he wants to claim the underlying idea behind “Cartesian Linguistics” is correct and only the details, which have been continually disproven, are wrong. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16352
The deal with Hauser’s “cheap trick” on his daughter is disturbing to say the least.
Chomsky is an over educated egghead making a career of playing the “I know you are but what am I?” game.
LOL! And don't forget Freud and Marx.
It was probably just an oversight. LOL
Well, that settles it then.
Chomsky offers another confirmation of Ann Coulter's hypothesis that everyone is a conservative in his own field. Chomsky is a Communist, but as a linguist (part of psychology), he had no patience for the Marxist pablum that was gumming up all areas of psychology in the first half of the 20th century.
In order to give credence to the Communists' claim that concern for family, self-interest, aggression, sexual identity, and private property were not hard-wired into us, but would "wither away" if the Reds were running the world, Behaviorism became the ruling assumption of psychology. Its job was to justify the dream of perfect socialism. With the right "teaching" by the state, we can be molded into anything.
Codified by B.F. Skinner, Behaviorism held that nothing is inborn, and we have to learn all of our tastes, thoughts, reactions, and affections by trial and error. It was the 20th-century assertion of the "blank slate" suggested by Rousseau.
Well, Chomsky saw that babies 1) learn language way too fast to have done so by trial-and-error, and that they don't make enough errors; 2) human languages are way too similar to each other in construction to be the result of random, independent development; and 3) the pattern of mistakes babies make when learning their native language always point in the same direction—the mistakes obey rules that seem to arise from an inborn grammar, to which their native language periodically makes exceptions, hence the errors. Specifically, the exceptions to universal grammatical patterns always seem to trip kids up in the same way. For instance, virtually every American-raised baby says "wented" for "went" at some point.
Chomsky has been proved right in a thousand ways, starting with common sense, of course. What Darwinian assumptions and Judeo-Christian theology share is the belief that the natural world universally displays evidence of design. Complexity is built into us. We are born waiting to speak—I would say, to the God who made us.
As recited later in his interview
Hauser “works with” - i.e, works FOR - Chomsky
... and hence is beholden to him
for professional advancement.
[i]Cherchez le homme.[/i]
Who, indeed, is The Man?
Good point-— however, I’ve seen so many ad hominem arguments against Dembski, Behe, et al, and aspersions without cause on these threads against them, that I’m wary of jumping to similar conclusions with respect to those I disagree with. I don’t want to be like National Review’s John Derbyshire (although it would be nice to be as smart as him), who simply labels everyone who isn’t some sort of IDer or Creationist and thinks there’s some limit on the power of natural selection a “left creationist” and thusly removes any of the ideas of, say, Chomsky or Stephen Jay Gould from consideration. Not saying that’s what you’re doing by any means, and I may be naive, but there it is.
Perhaps he just likes the sound of his own ....typing.
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