Darwinism the root of the culture of death: expert

LifeSiteNews ^ | 2/17/12 | Kathleen Gilbert

[wagglebee]

WASHINGTON, February 17, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - What do Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, “father of the sexual revolution” Alfred Kinsey, Lenin, and Hitler have in common?

All these pioneers of what some call the culture of death rooted their beliefs and actions in Darwinism - a little-known fact that one conservative leader says shouldn’t be ignored.

Hugh Owen of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation told an audience on Capitol Hill before the March for Life last month that the philosophical consequences of Darwinism has “totally destroyed many parts of our society.”

Owen pointed to Dr. Josef Mengele, who infamously experimented on Jews during the Holocaust, Hitler himself, and other Nazi leaders as devotees of Darwinism who saw Nazism and the extermination of peoples as nothing more than a way “to advance evolution.” Darwinism was also the “foundation” of Communist ideology in Russia through Vladimir Lenin, said Owen, who showed a photograph of the only decorative item found on Lenin’s desk: an ape sitting on a pile of books, including Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” and looking at a skull.

“Lenin sat at this desk and looked at this sculpture as he authorized the murder of millions of his fellow countrymen, because they stood in the way of evolutionary progress,” Owen said. He also said accounts from communist China report that the first lesson used by the new regime to indoctrinate religious Chinese citizens was “always the same: Darwin.”

In America, the fruit of Darwinism simply took the form of eugenics, the belief that the human race could be improved by controlling the breeding of a population.

Owen said that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a prominent eugenicist, promoted contraception on the principles of evolution. “She saw contraception as the sacrament of evolution, because with contraception we get rid of the less fit and we allow only the fit to breed,” he said. Sanger is well-known to have supported the spread of “birth control,” a term she coined, as “the process of weeding out the unfit.”

Alfred Kinsey, whose “experiments” in pedophilia, sadomasochism, and homosexuality opened wide the doors to sexual anarchy in the 20th century, also concluded from Darwinist principles that sexual deviations in humans were no more inappropriate than those found in the animal kingdom. Before beginning his sexual experiments, Kinsey, also a eugenicist, was a zoologist and author of a prominent biology textboook that promoted evolution.

Owen, a Roman Catholic, strongly rejected the notion that Christianity and the Biblical creation account could be reconciled with Darwinism. He recounted the story of his own father, who he said was brought up a devout Christian before losing his faith when exposed to Darwinism in college. He was to become the first ever Secretary General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

“The trajectory that led from Leeds and Manchester University to becoming Secretary General of one of the most evil organizations that’s ever existed on the face of the earth started with evolution,” said Owen.

[exDemMom]

I must ask, then, what you mean by evolution. If you mean that life adapts, yes, that is scientific, observed, irrefutable fact. If you mean that all life "evolved" from nothingness into a single cell, and then into the diversity we observe, that is not based on scientific observation because it has not and cannot be observed. If you are interested in knowing the facts, you might want to research:

I realize that it has been a while since this was posted, but it contains so many inaccuracies that I cannot let it stand unchallenged.

First of all, you cannot argue that "adaptation" occurs and is scientifically documented, while evolution, which takes place by the exact same processes is impossible. You might as well try to discuss why hotcakes are superior to pancakes. I find it amusing that proponents of literal creation often explain "adaptation" as a lightning fast process that occurs orders of magnitude more rapidly than evolution actually occurs, while claiming that evolution itself is such a slow process that it couldn't possibly have happened within the time the universe has been in existence.

• why Darwin "invented" the theory of evolution
• the fact that there has always been a dissident faction of highly distinguished scientists, of impeccable credentials and no religious motivations, who have declined to concede that evolution has been proven
• why the fossil record increasingly does not, honestly viewed, support evolution (there is still "the missing link", in fact, they're all missing)

The reason Darwin proposed his version of the theory of evolution is because of observations he made. He observed that fossils in the Americas are not like the fossils in Europe. He observed that many American fossils resembled extant American animals and did not resemble animals found on other continents. He observed that on the Galapagos Islands, finches filled many niches that are occupied by a variety of non-bird animals in other places. As a result of these observations, he, like many others dating back to ancient Greece, proposed a theory of evolution. As it turned out, his theory was far more useful to scientific exploration than competing theories, and thus, forms the origin of the theory that we use today. No amount of Bible reading would account for those observations, no matter how creative the interpretation--and once you enter the territory of creative interpretation of the Bible, you show that you don't think the Bible should be believed literally. (The "creation science" notion of "adaptation" is a non-biblical concept--might as well just acknowledge the scientific evidence as believe that.)

As for scientists who do not accept evolution as the framework of modern biology, I can say that I've never actually met one, nor seen credible evidence of one, at least among scientists who are in a position to actually use the theoretical framework in the course of their normal work. I am aware that often, advocates of literal creation misquote evolutionary scientists in such a way as to promote the impression that they do not actually accept the theory. This practice, known as quote-mining, has been discussed in some depth elsewhere. My suggestion is that if you see where an evolutionary scientist has been quoted saying something that does not support evolution, you attempt to find the quote in context to see what the scientist was really saying. Usually, such quotes are plucked from discussions about details of the theory, and are not meant to convey any doubt as to the scientist's confidence in the overall theory. This particular website has documented many of these quotes, both as they are quote-mined, and in their original context.

The argument of "missing links" in the fossil record is a red herring. Until such time as we achieve the impossible goal of finding a representative from every generation of every species throughout its evolutionary history, there will be "missing links". That said, it is quite possible to recognize that a 20,000 year old fossil is clearly human, despite the differences between humans 20,000 years ago and today, and to deduce that some process occurred to cause those differences.

Let me give you a test, but I'll provide the answers.

The human genome project has shown that man is 90%-99% chimpanzee - our closest "relative" (e.g., we share 90%-99% of the same DNA - let's assume 95% for the sake of this discussion).

Now, let's examine the rest of the story (answers follow, but don't cheat).

1. How many nucleotides are in the human genome?
2. So, then, how many nucleotides are different in the human genome versus that of a chimpanzee (hint: 95% are the same)?
3. How many DNA changes per generation are considered non-lethal?
4. How many years would it take (to make the math easy, let's assume a generation is 50 years) for a chimpanzee to evolve into a human if the changes were in the exact right sequence and there were no "dead ends"?
5. How many years ago did evolved man supposedly "branch off" from chimpanzees?
6. Using this analysis, has there been enough time for man to "evolve" from chimpanzees? Note: Answer not provided - you have to be smart enough to answer this one on your own.
7. How many fossil records show the 25 million year "evolution" of chimpanzees into man (again, you'll have to research this one on your own - hopefully you do so objectively).
8. Finally, to see if you're paying attention: 50% of our DNA is the same as a banana - why aren't we considered half banana and to have "evolved" from a banana (although I do know some whose intelligent matches that of a banana, so maybe we are and did)???

Answers

1. 3 billion
2. 120 million
3. Commonly accepted as 3, but let's use 4 to make the math easier
4. 1.875 billion years
5. 25 million (that's a gap of only 1.85 billion years - not even close enough for government work)

When I saw these questions and answers, my first thought was that you copied them out of one of the many anti-science literal creation advocacy sites. But when I copied and pasted one of those questions into Google, I couldn't find their source. My suggestion is that, before pasting such questions and answers, you search through the scientific literature for yourself to find which questions are relevant, and the correct answers for those that are. www.PubMed.org (actually goes to an NIH website) is a good source for finding scientific literature.

Your first question and answer are correct, there are ~3 x 10⁹ base pairs in our genome.

The second one is a simple math question.

The third question/answer, however, is so wildly inaccurate that it can only be an utter fabrication. Depending on context, one DNA change can be lethal--or thousands of DNA changes make little difference in survival at all. For research, we make "knock-out" mice all the time--in which we remove entire genes, thousands of DNA base-pairs--and the mice survive and reproduce. We make other survival and heritable genetic manipulations to animals all the time. (And I do apologize that the site has pop-up ads, but the pics are nice. Alternative, you can search Google images for "fluorescent animals.")

The fourth question is kind of meaningless. I do not know off the top of my head how long it took before humans and chimpanzees were, by definition, separate species, nor do I know how much genetic alteration was necessary for that to occur. Even if I knew those, I still wouldn't be able to answer that scientifically. The rate of heritable genetic change within a species is more or less constant, but there are a lot of factors influencing that rate--average animal size, population size and range, and environmental selective pressures, for example.

The fifth question can easily be confirmed by using Google: human and chimp lineages split about 2.5 million years ago (not 25 million as your answer states). That does not mean we became separate species then, only that the subpopulations that went on to become chimps and humans were physically isolated from each other at that time.

Your questions 6 and 7 are both rather meaningless, for the reasons I discussed above.

Finally, your last question doesn't make sense. Even to be answerable, you need to set some parameters. I do expect some genes between humans and bananas to have high similarity--all eukaryotic organisms, for instance, use oxygen as the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain that takes place across the mitochondrial membrane, so the genes involved are likely to be very similar. And, at some point, there was one kind of organism that was the progenitor of plants, animals, and fungi, and similarities do survive. The mitochondria itself is evidence of a common ancestor.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Contrasting Darwinian with Lamarkian evolution is a distinction without a difference.

Darwin firmly believed in the inheritance of acquired characters and he even developed a theory, Pangenesis, to explain why it happens. Darwin even believed that the effects of circumcision can be inherited. Lysenko wanted to return to this kind of theory of heredity. He, in fact, wanted to rescue Darwin from bourgeois perverters of the science of heredity such as Morgan and Mendel. Mendel in particular because he was a priest. Morgan because he was critical of Darwin.

JBS Haldane, one of the founding fathers of the modern synthesis of evolution, was stalinist and a shill for Lysenko.

[Agamemnon]

exDemMom: I suppose your extensive knowledge of the quality of scientific journals and the mechanics of the peer-review process comes from having read thousands of scientific articles published in dozens or hundreds of peer-review journals, and from having participated extensively in the peer-review process, either as an author or a reviewer?

Makes you wonder what "peer reviewed" journals she's been placing her "faith" in doesn't it?

Even atheists have to live by faith (in their "peer reviewed" journals one supposes) -- a faith that demands that there is no God, and as internally contradictory as the Darwinism is that they use to affirm their faith ...

"Darwinian Dissonance?" by Paul A. Dernavich (as published in "Internet Infidels" 2003)

... it must be disconcerting to see how often this "faith" finds it self to have been sorely mis-placed.

In cancer science, many "discoveries" don't hold up

Many Scientists Admit to Misconduct

Like exDemMom, I too am a professional biochemist. Unlike her though I have advanced in my career to a place well-beyond simply mixing the buffers, prepping the samples, running the gels, taking the Polaroids, and creating "poster sessions" for coffee break discussions at scientific gatherings.

Among doing things like seeing to it that the science supporting a regulatory marketing application is robust enough to support the label claims of the therapy, or resolving regulatory compliance issues in which pharma firms often find themselves, the firm which I own is called upon to sift through and identify what is reproducible science from that which is merely irreproducible wishful thinking and other one-off bench-top successes.

This service is performed on behalf of clients who are hedge funds and investment houses looking to place what are in most cases millions of dollars in what some calling themselves scientists have billed as therapeutic and technological advancements in health care. The technologies I evaluate span from novel biologics and vaccines, to pharmaceutical formulations of all kinds, to medical devices and drug-device combinations thereof

PhDs parade in front of me routinely and it astounds me to see how unpolished many of them are in their presentations, and so parochial in their interests that they are often unable to demonstrate a basic command of their scientific rationale.

Some theparies I have evaluated are truly promising medical advancements and worth my clients' financial investment. Many simply aren't. The science behind the claims all too often and as the article above describes just isn't all that robust.

Still, in all my years of reading thousands of published and non-published ostensibly "peer reviewed" studies and clinical studies involving a host of wonder-products and therapies, not one paper I have ever encountered or presentation I have ever heard made has tried to credit their findings on the basis of having anything to do with evolutionary premise or Darwinian dogma.

One may observe that what ever they think they know about their biochemistry, they certainly don't rely on Darwin-speak to prop it up.

One might suspect that the reason for this is because they actually hope to get their projects funded, and to do so one will have to actually stick with observable, testable, reproducible science!

FReegards!

[YHAOS]

exDemMom to Agamemnon: I suppose your extensive knowledge of the quality of scientific journals and the mechanics of the peer-review process comes from having read thousands of scientific articles published in dozens or hundreds of peer-review journals, and from having participated extensively in the peer-review process, either as an author or a reviewer?

Although you ( exDemMom) seem quick enough to assert the superiority of scientific knowledge over all of human experience, you’ve yet to explain what peer-review process, published in what scientific journal, has lead Mankind to conclude all men are created equal, that they are then endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that governments thereby derive their just power from the consent of the governed. These are questions that you seem unable to bring yourself to answer, while you continue to assert Science’s superiority and tout it as the only endeavour worthy of serious human pursuit.

Nor have you yet explained what part of the formula E=mc2 impelled the Truman Administration to go into an extensive internal ethical debate before the decision was made to drop the bomb that ended WWII. Further, you have been reminded that there was no scientific reason to not simply drop the bomb without a moment’s hesitation beyond the technical considerations involved in the bomb’s effective delivery. What, then, caused the Truman Administration to hesitate? 
Although you seem more than willing to preach the standard doctrine about what’s “testable” and what’s “falsifiable” you appear to have no reply to that elementary inquiry.

When reminded, you were quick to report that the Tuskegee Experiment had been terminated and that steps had been taken to assure that a repetition would not be allowed. Why? What breach of scientific process protocol or of scientific practice brought about the abrupt termination of that experiment? 
Again, no reply . . . just assurances that such mistakes will not be repeated. What mistakes? According to what peer-reviewed scientific publication?

Likewise, we might inquire what has been found “falsifiable” in any of the events described above that reduces them to mere “existentialist nonsense” or “thought meandering”? What of freedom of inquiry? What of freedom of association? Are they all to be simply dismissed as vain pursuits of no practical value?

0bama (and his many sycophants) would agree.

[metmom]

One may observe that what ever they think they know about their biochemistry, they certainly don't rely on Darwin-speak to prop it up.

One might suspect that the reason for this is because they actually hope to get their projects funded, and to do so one will have to actually stick with observable, testable, reproducible science!

Ouch....

[grey_whiskers]

I will point out that your link to the Popper bio bit goes to the Stanford philosophy department. That does not support the hypothesis that Popper is influential or well-known among scientists. Out of curiosity, I went back and checked the indices of various textbooks: Molecular Biology of the Cell, Genes IV, Cell, Physics, Genetics, Biochemistry, etc. In none of them did I find mention of Popper. True, not all of them mention names in the indices, but even among those textbooks that index scientists by name, I did not find Popper mentioned. Then I went to PubMed and did a search on popper, karl, which returned 72 items, of which 9 (12.5%) were articles having Popper, HH, as an author and were therefore unrelated to the subject of my search.

So much for the contention that Popper is either well-known or influential among scientists.

Gee, that was fun.

Let's play auto-authenticating Darwinist.

Popper is the missing link: but we wouldn't EXPECT to find any direct evidence of him in the literature, anymore than we would necessarily find the changes in the funding/regulatory environment which drive paradigm shifts in the sciences, within the intellectual "fossil record" which is the peer-review literature.

Or, to take the opposite tack:

How many of the peer-review articles mention Barack Hussein Obaama (whose predilictions and fancies drive the direction and scope of academic funding)?

So much for your theory that Obaama is well-known or influential among scientists.

QED

Cheers!

[spirited irish]

Agamemnon: “Makes you wonder what “peer reviewed” journals she’s been placing her “faith” in doesn’t it?”

Spirited: The differences between those on one hand who have actually done the hard work of digging into, unpacking, and analyzing the underlying meaning, logic, and purpose of philosophies, ideologies, and evolutionary scientism (what passes for ‘science’ these days) and those on the other hand who have not must not be understated.

The former seek truth, whether pleasant or unpleasant, while the latter most generally seek self-gratification, self-glorification, power, and/or entry to “inner circles.”

The latter affix labels to themselves such as Ph.d, scientist, and Progressive and sport them for the same reason as they wear designer label clothing, jewelry, etc.

Being high on conceit and hot-air but very low on real knowledge, they must pretend to know what they really do not know.

[grey_whiskers]

Again, scientists cannot test what isn't there. If you have a way to test, examine, or quantitate something of which there is no evidence, please share it.

Ever hear of the Drake equation?

Which has interesting implications for the oft-repeated Pecksniffian proclamation from evos that "evolution is NOT about abiogenesis, you stupid fundies; it's about observed changes to the allele over time in specified populations".

And, for the nonce, it'd be fun to do a "propagation of errors" analysis on the Drake equation to assign error bars to the final result.

Cheers!

[betty boop]

Although you ( exDemMom) seem quick enough to assert the superiority of scientific knowledge over all of human experience, you’ve yet to explain what peer-review process, published in what scientific journal, has lead Mankind to conclude all men are created equal, that they are then endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that governments thereby derive their just power from the consent of the governed. These are questions that you seem unable to bring yourself to answer, while you continue to assert Science’s superiority and tout it as the only endeavour worthy of serious human pursuit.

exDemMom cannot answer questions like this, because the scientific method cannot engage them. And thus as the reasoning goes, they really aren't valid questions at all, because the scientific method cannot engage them. These sorts of questions only refer to epiphenomena, ad hoc "penumbras" that arise purposelessly from physical/mechanical/chemical processes. As such, being intangible by-products of real processes in Nature, they are not to be regarded as "real" in themselves. They are only shadows of the real, having no inherent significance in themselves worthy of note by scientists and other enlightened folks.

Voilà! the "triumph" of post-modernist attitudes and thinking! Which seems to leave out a few important details about real human existence and its universal problems.

Ellis Sandoz has pointed out that

At the level of common sense, it is evident that human beings have experiences other than sensory perceptions, and it is equally evident that philosophers like Plato and Aristotle explored reality on the basis of experiences far removed from perception.... Moreover, it is evident that the primarily nonsensory modes of experience address dimensions of human existence superior in rank and worth to those sensory perception does: experiences of the good, beautiful, and just, of love, friendship, and truth [not to mention the profound insight undergirding our nation, that "all men are created equal, that they are ... endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that governments thereby derive their just power from the consent of the governed"], of all human virtue and vice, and of divine reality.... Experience of "things" is modeled on the subject–object dichotomy of perception in which the consciousness intends the object of cognition. But such a model of experience and knowing is ultimately insufficient to explain the operations of consciousness with respect to the nonphenomenal reality men approach in moral, aesthetic, and religious experiences. Inasmuch as such nonsensory experiences are constitutive of what is distinctive about human existence itself—and of what is most precious to mankind — a purported science of man unable to take account of them is egregiously defective....

...Since the human condition is preeminently existence in the In-Between of immanence and transcendence, morality and immorality, nature and the divine, and since it participates in all levels of reality, any account of man, society, or history that fails to take all the realms of being into account is defective by reason of a vitiating reductionism....

Yet it seems the promotion of a vitiating reductionism is the entire post-modernist project. All nonphenomenal reality is either denied or reconstituted in terms of principles abstracted from Nature (i.e., the scientific method itself). In the end, it is at once a flight from reality, and the very inversion of reality itself, in which what we can "measure" (directly observe) becomes the reality itself.

I am very sorry, but this is simply nutz to me. Talk about "flatlanders!" It's as if these people really do want to go live in a nice, safe cave somewhere, in preference to standing in the Light of what to them is evidently a "fearsome God" that they don't want to have anything to do with. [As if they really had a choice.]

Oh well, I'm ranting again....

Thank you ever so much, dear brother YHAOS, for your splendid essay/post!

[metmom]

At the level of common sense, .....

Common sense? What's that? Can it be tested scientifically? Observed? Reduced to a hypothesis? Peer reviewed?

Clearly that's why we so little of it in scientific circles.

[YHAOS]

“exDemMom cannot answer questions like this, because the scientific method cannot engage them.”

I know. That’s why I ask them.

“. . . the reasoning goes, they really aren't valid questions at all, because the scientific method cannot engage them.”

Isn’t that called self-referential exclusivity? Or have I just invented a term? (grin)

In any event, it’s a commonly observed phenomena. For instance, in Politics. A Black pontificates; no White may disagree; the White isn’t Black, therefore he has no knowledge of the Black Experience, and is disqualified from comment; any Black who disagrees is an Oreo, black only on the outside but white on the inside; a true Black, contrarily, possesses an all-encompassing experience that allows him to pontificate on all matters (so long as he remains true, a Progressive, in other words).

Thank you, betty, illuminating, as always.

[betty boop]

... the White isn’t Black, therefore he has no knowledge of the Black Experience, and is disqualified from comment.

Yeah, this is the identical "logical argument" lodged against Mrs. Romney: She has no right to mention a word to her husband about matters financial, fiscal, or economic — because, in the words of Bill Maher (and Hillary What's-Her-Name's), she "never got her *ss out of the house to do an honest day's work in her life." So, what could she possibly know about "money?"

Same "logic" involved in both cases.

So twisted, so very TWISTED. Indicating to me a total inversion of Reality....

When are We the People going to start complaining about this state of affairs? In a (hopefully) effective manner?

Whatever. It seems to me that Obama plans to be reelected on the basis of successful (rhetorical) promulgation of the mantras of class and racial division — as his Chicago-based (???) campaign defines such "divisions."

And so I very much like your neologism, "self-referential exclusivity." It seems to describe the situation which Obama must try to provoke in order to be successful in recruiting new people (against all logic and experience) to His (electoral, political) Cause.

First, he makes his "target" think of his own grievances; then he tries to make that person think/feel/believe that the source of his grievance, of his own personal suffering, is someone else. The "magical doctrine" reads: The source of your suffering is some rich white guy. [Who is probably also a Jew, in the turbid imaginations of the deranged persons responsible for such an interpretation of so-called "objective," historical "Reality"....]

If Obama succeeds in signing up a majority of such "cultivated" morons next November, then We the People of the Preamble are utterly doomed.

JMHO FWIW.

Meanwhile, it seems We the People of the United States are "fiddling" while our Constitution — the order of our free, just, and equal society — burns....

Thank you so much for your beautiful essay-post, dear brother in Christ!

[YHAOS]

"Thank you so much for your beautiful essay-post, dear brother in Christ!"

And thank you for the comeback.

Your posts are always a blessing dearest sister in Christ.

[spirited irish]

“Whatever. It seems to me that Obama plans to be reelected on the basis of successful (rhetorical) promulgation of the mantras of class and racial division....”

Spirited: Obama’s magic successfully mesmerizes because it speaks to what his listeners really want to believe about themselves and others.

Broadly speaking, Obama’s listeners fall into two categories: self-righteous do-gooders and victims, the patients and/or clients of the do-gooders.

Do-gooders (commissars in the Soviet Union) really want to believe that with enough power and money they can save the planet, save their clients (victims of social injustice), and perfect man and society. As they are impervious to their own capacity for wrongdoing, like stiff-necked bulls in a china shop, they trample, smash, bankrupt, and cause great suffering on behalf of their clients, saving the planet, etc.

Since clients—the victims— want to believe that they are in no way responsible for their suffering, real or imagined, do-gooders enable and perpetuate feelings of victimhood in order to empower themselves.

As the relationship between magician, do-gooders and clients is parasitic (enabler/enabled) it turns society upside-down in order to thrive. The upside-down society is the “total inversion of Reality” betty boop referred to.

In an upside-down society the covetous (envy-filled souls)are enabled to believe that they’ve been wrongly denied the property (i.e., status,wealth, success) of another. “Other” is evil-doer rather than the covetous ones.

The violence-filled soul is enabled to believe that the object of its’ hate deserves not only to be hated but likewise deserves whatever violence befalls the object.

The lazy, slovenly, and indolent (i.e. Occupiers) are applauded and financially and legally empowered rather than condemned.

Pathological liars are enabled to believe that their lies are ‘personal truth claims’ deserving of respect and consideration.

And of course “gays” are enabled to believe that state-and-school-sanctioned sodomy, bestiality, lesbianism, pedophillia, and pederasty really are valid expressions of ‘normal love.’

The magician is really just a more powerful mirror image of his self-deluded listeners hence he knows their darkest desires. He knows what they want to believe and his job consists in enabling and empowering self-delusion and fomenting disordered passions.

[betty boop]

He knows what they want to believe and his job consists in enabling and empowering self-delusion and fomenting disordered passions.

By which means Obama means to transform citizens into helpless, hapless victims of an overweening state....

His pitch to, and manipulation of, human weaknesses is hardly an appeal to "the better angels of our nature."

He is deliberately trying to destroy the "human capital" which created and sustains our strong and prosperous nation.... The entire culture of Liberty must be expunged in order for Obama to achieve his goals.

We can't call Obama the Father of Lies, because that title belongs to someone else already. But he is a chronic, pathological liar: Anything he says, believe the opposite. His rhetoric and the reality of what he is actually doing never match up.

Kinda reminds me of an old TV commercial for a perfume: "Promise her anything, but give her Arpège."

Thank you so very much, dear spirited, for your deeply insightful and illuminating essay/post!

[exDemMom]

Makes you wonder what "peer reviewed" journals she's been placing her "faith" in doesn't it?

Even atheists have to live by faith (in their "peer reviewed" journals one supposes) -- a faith that demands that there is no God, and as internally contradictory as the Darwinism is that they use to affirm their faith ...

Why do you assume to know something about my faith? All you know is that I'm a scientist. That tells you nothing about my religious beliefs.

Like exDemMom, I too am a professional biochemist. Unlike her though I have advanced in my career to a place well-beyond simply mixing the buffers, prepping the samples, running the gels, taking the Polaroids, and creating "poster sessions" for coffee break discussions at scientific gatherings.

Hmm, how do you know where I am in my career? I just checked my home page; as I thought, it says nothing about my current career status.

And taking Polaroids? We stopped doing that while I was in grad school, sometime in the 90s.

I also, despite what you try to imply, am quite aware of the current status and reliability of scientific research. No scientific study is perfect; some are utter trash--but that topic, although I am passionate about it, is best left to another discussion. So is the issue of scientific misconduct, which is a topic I care about deeply.

One may observe that what ever they think they know about their biochemistry, they certainly don't rely on Darwin-speak to prop it up.

Within the scientific community, there is no real debate over whether evolution is a real process or not. And the fact that our language isn't peppered with the words "evolution" or "Darwin" is not an indication that the principles of evolution are not being used. They are. It is difficult to even envision how life science research could advance without taking into consideration the many implications of the theory of evolution, because it forms such a fundamental basis of our science.

It appears from your post that you work in a legal firm of some sort, dealing with patent issues. I do not expect someone whose primary exposure to scientific research is at the level of clinical trials to be aware of the evolutionary considerations that guided the research before it entered the clinical trial state. The purpose of clinical trials is not to advance scientific knowledge; it is to procure regulatory approval for a product.

[exDemMom]

Oops, I know I already replied to this one, but I forgot to address this last night.

One may observe that what ever they think they know about their biochemistry, they certainly don't rely on Darwin-speak to prop it up.

One might suspect that the reason for this is because they actually hope to get their projects funded, and to do so one will have to actually stick with observable, testable, reproducible science!

One would assume that those sitting on the review committees are fully aware of the evolutionary relationships being exploited/explored as the basis for whatever research proposal they are considering. Someone, for example, studying a disease in mice as a model for the human disease does not have to resort to "Darwin-speak" in order for the review committee to understand that they are, in fact, utilizing the established evolutionary relationship between humans and mice for their research.

As for supposedly not explicitly mentioning evolution in grant proposals--well, it actually is mentioned by name in many proposals; scientists discuss it routinely. I'd like to see a scientist who tries to deny the process of evolution and still manage to get funded. They might as well try to get funding for the study of fairies and elves--there is just as much of a scientific basis for that as there is for young earth creationism.

[exDemMom]

Although you ( exDemMom) seem quick enough to assert the superiority of scientific knowledge over all of human experience, you’ve yet to explain what peer-review process, published in what scientific journal, has lead Mankind to conclude all men are created equal, that they are then endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that governments thereby derive their just power from the consent of the governed. These are questions that you seem unable to bring yourself to answer, while you continue to assert Science’s superiority and tout it as the only endeavour worthy of serious human pursuit.

I would ask, why do you expect science to function as a system of morality? How can describing a physical system (even in excruciating detail) inform one as to an ethical and moral way to live one's life? I have never said that science fulfils that role; why do you assume that I believe it does? On a larger scale, why do you assume that I believe that science is the "only endeavour worthy of serious human pursuit"? I do not recall ever saying or implying such a thing. In fact, much of my reason for engaging in these discussions is to try to get people to stop assuming that scientists hold such beliefs. I realize that most people don't know any scientists, and it is easy to dehumanize people one has never met--I'm here to say that we are just as human as anyone else; we don't form some dark conspiracy meant to devalue and discredit religion; our concerns in life are similar to the concerns of people in other professions. In short, I am trying to counter the outright lies that the charlatan promoters of young earth creationism (e.g. Gish, Bebe, Hovind) tell about members of my profession.

Nor have you yet explained what part of the formula E=mc2 impelled the Truman Administration to go into an extensive internal ethical debate before the decision was made to drop the bomb that ended WWII. Further, you have been reminded that there was no scientific reason to not simply drop the bomb without a moment’s hesitation beyond the technical considerations involved in the bomb’s effective delivery. What, then, caused the Truman Administration to hesitate? 
Although you seem more than willing to preach the standard doctrine about what’s “testable” and what’s “falsifiable” you appear to have no reply to that elementary inquiry.

As I have said above, and will continue to say, ethics and morality are not intrinsic to the scientific process. Science is a method used to measure and describe the physical world in as objective a manner as possible, no more and no less. What is to prevent someone like me from using scientific knowledge to create a killer disease capable of wiping out a large fraction of earth's population? Technically, it's not that difficult. I have a sense of morality that tells me it is wrong to try to kill millions of people, and it is that moral sense--not science--that keeps me from designing, even if merely as a thought experiment existing only on paper, a disease that could cause that kind of destruction. I would hope that the people being selected to enter PhD programs share my sense of values so that such a thing never occurs.

When reminded, you were quick to report that the Tuskegee Experiment had been terminated and that steps had been taken to assure that a repetition would not be allowed. Why? What breach of scientific process protocol or of scientific practice brought about the abrupt termination of that experiment? 
Again, no reply . . . just assurances that such mistakes will not be repeated. What mistakes? According to what peer-reviewed scientific publication?

Need I point out the history of Bad Things perpetrated by religious people? What about the Spanish Inquisition? The Crusades? The decades-long war in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants? Do I even need to mention Islam? Ethically questionable practices are not unique to science, and seem to be part of the "human condition." All we can do is try to develop and improve our sense of ethics and morality, and carry it with us no matter what activity we engage in.

[exDemMom]

Popper is the missing link: but we wouldn't EXPECT to find any direct evidence of him in the literature, anymore than we would necessarily find the changes in the funding/regulatory environment which drive paradigm shifts in the sciences, within the intellectual "fossil record" which is the peer-review literature.

Popper is the missing link of what, exactly?

I strongly suggest that, instead of trying to ascribe characteristics to a field that you do not know at all, you go and take a few introductory science classes. While you keep trying to assign to Popper a significance he does not have, you have yet to mention a single person who actually has impacted the field of life science in the way you imagine Popper has. People who are influential in science are actually discussed within the scientific literature. And that includes Obama and his policies--which you seem to think scientists are ignorant of, only because you know so little about the scientific community.

[exDemMom]

exDemMom cannot answer questions like this, because the scientific method cannot engage them. And thus as the reasoning goes, they really aren't valid questions at all, because the scientific method cannot engage them. These sorts of questions only refer to epiphenomena, ad hoc "penumbras" that arise purposelessly from physical/mechanical/chemical processes. As such, being intangible by-products of real processes in Nature, they are not to be regarded as "real" in themselves. They are only shadows of the real, having no inherent significance in themselves worthy of note by scientists and other enlightened folks.

*Sigh*

I already answered this to YHAOS; I do not answer such questions from the basis of science because science is a methodology and a knowledge base, not an ethical/moral framework. I have never said that ethics and morals aren't important--they are. But they are imposed onto the scientific method, not derived from it.