The Myths of Darwinism

Access Research Network ^ | 7/31/03 | William Dembski

[Heartlander]

The DesignInference.com

The Myths of Darwinism
Introduction to Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals who find Darwinism unconvincing

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by William Dembski

Big ideas have a way of gathering mythologies, and Darwinism is no exception. Darwinism's primary myth is the myth of invincibility. All of Darwinism's other myths follow in its train. Darwinism, its proponents assure us, has been overwhelmingly vindicated. Any resistance to it is futile and indicates bad faith or worse. Thus, Richard Dawkins charges those who resist Darwin's grand evolutionary story with being "ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." Nor has Dawkins mitigated his position over time. Several years later he added: "I don't withdraw a word of my initial statement. But I do now think it may have been incomplete. There is perhaps a fifth category, which may belong under 'insane' but which can be more sympathetically characterized by a word like tormented, bullied, or brainwashed."

The rest of the paper is in PDF form:
The Myths of Darwinism

[wideawake]

Good article.

[Physicist]

Clean up, aisle 3.

[BMCDA]

Give us your pinglist or give us death ;)

[jlogajan]

Any resistance to it is futile and indicates bad faith or worse.

No, any contrary ideas have to stand the test of review. Established theories in any field are hard to crack because they have generations of evidence and validation.

In this case evolution has tons of confirming geological, biological and fossil evidence. With the advent of DNA analysis, the relationship between all the living animals is being mapped.

At best the ID'ers have come up with a misclassification here or there. Nothing really gets to the heart of evolution.

Bring on real significant evidence to prove ID and quit your whinning.

[js1138]

placemarker

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[Phaedrus]

Bump

[js1138]

In this case evolution has tons of confirming geological, biological and fossil evidence. With the advent of DNA analysis, the relationship between all the living animals is being mapped.

At least one freper is now on record asserting that this mapping will disprove evolution. Don't have time to bring in the link right now, but he asserts that scientists already have this data and are sitting on it.

I thought this was particularly interesting, because other creationists and IDers have asserted that the apparent "Tree of Life" is just the result of the designer using common components, rather than evidence for common descent.

For ID to be treated as science, it will need to make some predictions that can't be accounted for by common descent, then go out and collect the data to demonstrate this falsification.

[balrog666]

For ID to be treated as science, it will need to make some predictions ...

For all practical purposes, you could have stopped there.

[ZULU]

These "Creationists" are unbelievable. I believe in a God and I find that belief in no way is in conflict with Evolution. This is NOT a religious issue, depsite what how some of these fanatic fruitcakes would attempt to portray it.

Only somebody with the mind of a mental pygmy or an Ayatollah-ized religious zombie can possible view the MOUNTAINS of IRREFUTABLE scientific proof for the reality of Evolution and deny it.

[dmz]

stick around, friend, as you're sure to be flamed by them.

[Right Wing Professor]

The crux of this article, which has minimal scientific content, lies in the following sentence

Why does Darwinism's back need to be broken? Because it is no longer mrely a scientific theory but an ideology.

This is untrue. Darwinism is nothing more than a scientific theory. There are those who would make it into an ideology, and they need to be resisted. But if you resist the ideology based on the falsity of the scientific theory, then you are in serious trouble if the scientific theory happens to be true; and it is true.

However, Dembski is at least frank in admitting his beef with Darwinism is ideological and not scientific, and the two sentences above need to be quoted every time it is publicly claimed that ID is merely an alternative scientific theory.

[VadeRetro]

Never ends! I bet we've seen this Dembski article before. Sure looks familiar!

[Lysander]

... Bring on real significant evidence to prove ID and quit your whinning.

Ba ba but what about heritage and culture y'all?

[js1138]

...fanatic fruitcakes would attempt to portray it. Only somebody with the mind of a mental pygmy or an Ayatollah-ized religious zombie ...

Just for informational purposes, most of us who regularly haunt evolution threads have voluntarily agreed to cease with name-calling.

[js1138]

I hate pdfs. Does google have an archived html version?

[Hunble]

I agree....

But dang, it does get difficult at times.

[VadeRetro]

Think I confused Dembski's title with some other guy's book. Never mind!

[AdmSmith]

A study of a common wild mouse by two University of Illinois at Chicago biologists has found evidence of dramatic evolutionary change in a span of just 150 years, suggesting genetic evolution can occur a lot faster than many had thought possible. The findings are the first report of such quick evolution in a mammal and appear in the May 22 issue of the journal Nature.

Pergams' study began as a comparison of the genetics of two mice common to the Chicago region -- the white-footed mouse and the prairie deer mouse. But the search for historical samples quickly showed the white-footed mouse had squeezed out the prairie deer mouse from its dominant position, diminishing the samples needed to do a comparative study, so Pergams and Nyberg focused attention on the white-footed mouse.

"This intensified focus resulted in our discovery of rapid evolution," said Pergams. "It was a great surprise. We were simply trying to quantify the amount of genetic variation over time, not show evolution."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-05/uoia-mss051903.php

Its seems reality kicks!