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There is nothing innacurate about the summary. It is a summary of an argument that is dumb.

"Well, I'm outa here. It doesn't seem profitable to argue evolution with somebody who......proclaims with an apparently straight face that 'The real problem is that there is nothing there to understand except the consistent misunderstanding of those who begin their reasoning without a rationale for rationality.'"

George Washington put it this way:

"It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe,
without the agency of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to
govern the universe without the aid of a Supreme Being. It is
impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being.

Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion. The
one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would
lose his reason in attempting to account for the great
phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to."
--George Washington

So Nature both "directs" and "selects" things now? It seems to me that there is some deification of Nature going on.

"So all you are really saying is that evolution is a perversion, and that arguing for evolution is just like arguing for perversion?"

I am saying more than that but yes I am saying that the ideology of evolutionism is based on debasing of natural categories and perverting the clear typology of Nature. There is a reason that Dawkins projected that onto others. It is a universal sense that all is not as it should be. A theory that not only does not admit to this basic human sense as a self evident truth but also denies it is probably not going to lead to correct conclusions. One of Darwin's reasons for his theory was that he believed that it explained suffering better than theism could. (An ironic theological argument.)

But his theory still doesn't explain the universal sense that all is not as it should be in Nature.

This is the type of belief in natural law common to religions bearing the "Jewish influence":

"Most of the [Judaic] rules of the law of holiness relate to the basic categories of the natural world and of human experience. Such categories as the living and the dead; mortal and divine; human and animal; air, sea, and land; male and female; past, present and future are common to most peoples. They provide a framework of basic 'natural'
categories that render the universe meaningful.
......
anything that is ambiguous or threatens to blur the boundaries of
these categories is treated as abominable. Hence
the ban on the consumption of shellfish, which are not fully sea
creatures or land creatures but live on the littoral margin of each, or
on the eating of flightless birds, which do no belong properly to the
air as birds should yet are not proper land animals either (Douglas
1970, pp. 54-72) [. . .]

We can see also why sorcery, necromancy, and witchcraft are forbidden
(Ex. 22:18; Lev. 12:26-27, 20:6-7; Deut. 18:9-15; I Sam. 15;23, 28:7-20;
2 Chron. 33:6) and why 'any man or woman among you who calls up ghosts
and spirits shall be put to death' (Lev. 20: 27). Such people are
dangerous because they bread down the division between the living and
the dead or between the present and future (Is. 8:19-22, 47: 13-15).
......
It is now possible to provide a complete explanation for the harsh
treatment of homosexuality, bestiality, and transvestism in the
scriptures. These are all forms of sexual behavior which break down the
boundaries between some of the most fundamental categories of human
experience--the cateogories of male and female and human and animal.
This is why homosexuality and bestiality are condemned in Leviticus and
why in Deuteronomy God tells the people of Israel through his prophet
Moses: 'No woman shall wear and article of man's clothing, nor shall a
man put on a woman's dress; for those who do these things are abominable
to the Lord your God." (Deut. 22:5)

It is easy to see how transvestites break down the categories of male
and female, but the situation is slightly more complicated in the case
of homosexuality. The essential point to grasp is that 'male' and
'female' are complementary categories, each defined in relation to the
other. The male is by definition complementary to the female and only
remains male so long as his sexual behavior relates exclusively to
females. Any sexual behavior directed by a biological male toward
another male will (at any rate so far as the scriptures are concerned)
automatically place him in the same category as a female, for whom this
is the normal sexual orientation.

Because homosexual behavior involves a person placing himself or herself
in the wrong sex category it erodes the boundary between these
categories. This is why homosexual behavior is linked in Leviticus with
bestiality, a sexual practice which breaks down the division between the
equally fundamental categories of the human and the animal (see also
Epstein 1948, p. 135).
(Sexual Taboos and Social
Boundaries. Christie Davies. American
Journal of Sociology, Vol. 87, No.
5, Mar., 1982 :1032-1063)

In contrast, the Nazis who were fervent advocates of the ideology of evolutionism sought to break down the distinction between humans and animals, etc., (The breaking of that distinction has been typical to genocides throughout history.) also broke down natural law distinctions in their private lives.

E.g.

"Why was it then, since we were completely non-party, that our purely scientific Institute was the first victim which fell to the new regime? "Fell" is, perhaps, an understatement for it was totally destroyed; the books from the big library, my irreplaceable documents, all the pictures and files everything, in fact, that was not nailed down or a permanent fixture was dragged outside and burned. What explanation is there for the fact that the trades union buildings of the socialists, the communist clubs and the synagogues were only destroyed at a much later date and never so thoroughly as our pacific Institute? Whence this hatred, and, what was even more strange, this haste and thoroughness?

The answer to this is simple and straightforward enough—we knew too much.

It would be against medical principles to provide a list of the Nazi leaders and their perversions. One thing, however, is certain—not ten percent of those men who, in 1933, took the fate of Germany into their hands, were sexually normal.... Many of these personages were known to us directly through consultations; we heard about others from their comrades in the party who boasted of their exalted friends...; and of others we saw the tragic results: I refer here especially to a young girl whose abdomen was covered with pin scratches caused through the sadism of an eminent Nuernberg Nazi; I refer also to a thirteen year old boy who suffered from a serious lesion of the anal muscle brought about by a senior party official in Breslau and to a youth from Berlin with severe rectal gonorrhea, etc. etc.... Our knowledge of such intimate secrets regarding members of the Nazi Party and our other documentary material—we possessed about forty thousand confessions and biographical letters—was the cause of the complete and utter destruction of the Institute for Sexology."
(LUDWIG L. LENZ, The Memoirs of a Sexologist (New York: 1954) pp. 429 ff)

This was as I recall the first infamous book burning. A symbolic end of civilization and the natural law it rests on. Would I go so far as to say the majority of the advocates of the ideology of evolutionism are sexual perverts who also break down the distinctions of typology in their private lives? No, I think that is a pattern of only the most radical sorts whose belief in it goes beyond the rest of the weak-minded: "This is what I got taught in school." But it's the weak-minded that are lead by the radicals.

"I can't presently recall the classically understood sexual perversions. Can you provide a list?"

Homophilia, zoophilia, pedophilia are some of the main ones. There is quite a list right on down to gerontophilia and most deal with incorrect/confused categorical discriminations being made. I.e. confusing the categories child and adult, etc.

"The fact that evolution is driven by natural selection, not mere random chance, is one of the points of science that is simple enough to be understood..."

And what is qualifies as a "selection" of Nature, does Nature "select" things randomly or are you relying on some sort of deification of Nature in which it "selects" things rationally, purposefully, etc.?

In neoDarwinism it is *random* mutation that creates everything that Nature supposedly "selects" from. So the new biological creator, is at heart, random. This is not the philosophy of the Stoics who found purpose, rationality, etc., revealed in Nature. This is the philosophy of the fundamentally irrational. There is a lot of sniveling about how anyone who disagrees with this type of irrational nonsense "just doesn't understand evolution." or is ignorant, etc. As if continual condescension is supposed to be an argument. The real problem is that there is nothing there to understand except the consistent misunderstanding of those who begin their reasoning without a rationale for rationality.

"What would you prefer I do to "demonstrate" any inaccuracy?"

Simply say how my summary of certain hypotheses of evolutionists are inaccurate. You made the assertion.

"Trees Down Scenario: Given an arboreal ancestor of a flying lineage, flight must have proceeded from the trees into the air. A semi-bipedal leaping and gliding animal could have evolved flight -- leaping off of trees would provide the acceleration and speed necessary for flight.
Gliding is most useful in the trees, so if that ancestor was a glider, then it must have co- opted its gliding structures into wings; it must have started to flap its gliding membrane. If the ancestor was not a glider, then its wings must have developed from another function of
the arms. These two hypotheses have been discussed since the 1880's."
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/flight/evolve.html

My summary of this notion: "Once upon a time a population of avian ancestors jumped out of trees and killed themselves enough times that they eventually grew wings and flew away."

What is innacurate? Why did you suspect that I invented this notion of things jumping from trees eventually growing wings and flying away? Do you sense that it is fairly inane?

"'... or the other explanations proferred to explain differences between kingdoms?'

Such as?"

Another similar explanation, "Once upon a time a population of fish that were mammalian ancestors threw themselves onto the land enough times, killing themselves, that they eventually grew legs, the mammalian lung, the mammalian heart, etc.etc..... and walked away."

Yes I know that those who believe in the ideology of evolutionism arrange a sequence of aquatic, semi-aquatic to land here. Not surprisng that placing the environment in sequence that way makes it easier to conjure images of sequence in the face of observation of Nature as typological. Also of note, going in reverse is more difficult with the mythological narrative of, "Once upon a time, a group of mammals that were whale ancestors threw themselves into the sea enough times, killing themselves, that they eventually grew all of the soft anatomy typical to aquatic mammals and swam away.")


"People insist on attaching normative arguments to a descriptive theory."

There is a universal sense that all is not as it should be. This statement is self evident and evident in the self. Also anyone with any common sense also believes in the basic categorical discriminations of civilization and ought to be concerned with the impact of "descriptive" mythological narratives that go against civilization. Especially when such narratives are made up to suit a conclusion that's already been decided on a priori.

How do you get it to italicize quotes of the other person?

"Well, stranger, you certainly know how to jump in here and incite a full-blown flame-war. I strongly suggest that even if you think the advocates of evolution are queer, you ought to keep that to yourself. If you persist in posting that accusation, things will degenerate swiftly....."

I didn't say that. What believers in an ideology of evolutionism are doing is breaking down and merging basic natural law categories such as animal and human, male and female, etc. I mention the fact that it is little wonder that when even conservatives believe such things that civilization is on the decline as represented by acceptance of sexual perversion. All of the classically understood sexual perversions were only defined so on the basis of natural law. All of the distinctions which define them so are broken down in the ideology of evolutionism: male and female (breaking down this distinction is the basis of the perversion homophilia)
life and death (breaking down this distinction is the basis of the perversion necrophilia)
animal and human (breaking down this distinction is the basis of the perversion zoophilia). And so on.

It was a side note to mention the fact that when even conservatives do not believe in the distinct categories that define perversion that social acceptance of perversion is more common.

"Science certainly can never be a pursuit of THE truth..."

It's no wonder that people who argue this do not get to the truth of matters. E.g., if systematic thought applied to observation indicates a non-naturalistic explanation such as design/purpose they will still say it does not no matter how irrational they have to be to do so. People with common sense call a willful misreprentation of the facts a lie. That those who have no interest in the truth might be led into lying about what conclusions systematic thought and observation lead to is not surprising, though.

"Science must assume naturalistic explanations..."

Only it doesn't. And that is a fascist notion of science which leads to pseudo-science. True science began based on the notion of cause and effect. This was based on Aristotle's notion of an unmoved Mover. Saying that all is just Nature and there is no necessity for transcendent cause and effect puts one in the position of denying the cause and effect that science is a study of because you're saying that there are uncaused phenomena in Nature. If you begin with a rationale for rationality, instead of just rationalizations about it, you will be more rational.

"Oh yeah! Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge really knew how to party!"

It's interesting that you associate animality with being ruled by feelings or passions. If you think that's not what is going on in Americana today you're incorrect.

As far as the scientists who willfully bend their intellect to support an ideology of sequence in the face of the typology of Nature, they are only living off the intellectual capital established by others. You can only continue so long sans a rationale for rationality and remain any pretense of rationality. E.g. the Nazi scientists who adhered pseudo-science based on philosophic naturalism.

Other animals.

I've never been here before. I thought it was a conservative forum. If even conservatives believe in something like evolutionism then it is little wonder that homosexuality is such an issue in Americana. Evolutionism is merely the modern version of the breaking down of distinctions which runs throughout human history. Many ancient pagans used to make their gods half human and half beast.

But before going on a tangent to the disagreement, then what is your summary of the Tree Down Theory or the other explanations proferred to explain differences between kingdoms? You didn't back up your assertion by demonstrating any inaccuracy.

Perhaps you can explain sexual dimorphism as well and break down the categories of male and female? If you can do that then the natural law type of categorical discriminations that make up marriage can be broken down. And if you can also break down the distinction between human and animal then perhaps other natural law categorical discriminations can be broken down. These outcomes are not really the issue but I believe concern about these normative outcomes is what motivates people in descriptive debate.

"There is nothing currently scientific about intelligent design."

The notion that everything must be made to fit a naturalistic explanation is false. There are many (pseudo)scientists whose version of science is to make all observations fit a naturalistic explanation, no matter what systematic thought applied to observations actually show.

True scientists believe that science is the pursuit of the truth, not just the pursuit of naturalistic explanation. Failing to admit this leads some to a pseudo-science like evolutionism. It is especially ironic when those who believe that science is the pursuit of naturalistic explanations rather than pursuit of the truth make the argument: "Science shows us that everything has a naturalistic explanation!" And they act as if it surprising that they have found all that they are willing to look for or see. There are none so blind as those who will not see, as they say. They had already defined science to show what they wanted to see a priori to actually practicing science.

Note:

Fascist scholarship's "weakness is
due not to inferior training but to
the mendacity inherent in any
scholarship that overlooks or openly
repudiated all moral and spiritual values."
(Max Weinreich, Hitler's Proffessors: The
Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes
against the Jewish People. (New York:
The Yiddish Scientific Institute, 1946) :7)

The Founders on philosophic naturalism:
"And what was their Phylosophy? Atheism; pure unadulterated
Atheism . . . . The Univer[s]e was Matter only and eternal;
Spirit was a Word Without a meaning; Liberty was a Word
Without a Meaning. There was no Liberty in the Universe; Liberty was a Word void of Sense. Every thought Word Passion Sentiment Feeling, all Motion and Action was necessary. All Beings and Attributes were of eternal Necessity. Conscience, Morality, were all nothing but Fate."
(John Adams on the French revolution
Letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson (Mar. 2, 1816),
in The Adams-Jefferson Letters)

The pseudo-science of evolutionism (which did not really begin with Darwin) acts as a solvent to civilization. Instead it promotes a sort of "animalization." There is nothing very scientific about it because real science is systematic thought and observation applied in the pursuit of the truth. It is not gathering together every observation which can vaguely be made to fit or making every observation fit with an ideology like evolutionism. That is pseudo-science.

"I've got my popcorn. Let's see all the scientific criticism of evolution."

Systematic thought and observation should lead you to question a hypothesis which can be summarized: "Once upon a time, a group of avian ancestors jumped out of trees and killed themselves enough times that they eventually grew wings and flew away." Aka "The Tree Down Theory." Or another little narrative: "Once upon a time, a group of mammalian ancestors killed themselves on land enough times that eventually they grew legs and walked away." (Not only did they evolve one leg by naturalistic processes but the other leg evolved in a pair just the same way, maybe this "proves" the legs are ancestral to each other??) One has to question the intelligence of anyone who believe this type of mythological narrative. If you're going to believe a mythological narrative this has got to be one of the dumbest. One has to question their knowledge as well, Nature shows a patter of vast typology, not sequence. A bird has a whole different *type* of heart, lungs, etc. than other mammals. There are vast differences of anatomy between animal kingdoms that cannot be overcome by "Nature did it." storytelling ability, i.e. naturalistic mythological narrative.