Comments on: The Case for a Creator: Ancient Wings

By: Steve Bowen

Steve Bowen — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:54:09 +0000

RBH

Challenges to the prevailing interpretation of the modern synthesis are pounced on by creationists as evidence against evolution per se, and are sometimes stifled by established science for this very reason. (italics added) I'd be real interested to see some evidence for that last claim

I should have been more precise perhaps. I don't think these debates are stifled within the scientific community, but there is a reluctance to present them in the popular liturature and the science press. Quite a good case for this is made in The Selfish Genius by Fern Elsdon-Baker. Which as the title suggests is a (very respectful) swipe at Richard Dawkins who she believes to be over defensive of his particular brand of Darwinism.

By: RBH

RBH — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:42:17 +0000

Steve Bowen wrote

Challenges to the prevailing interpretation of the modern synthesis are pounced on by creationists as evidence against evolution per se, and are sometimes stifled by established science for this very reason. (italics added)

I'd be real interested to see some evidence for that last claim. I'm not aware of any such occurrences in the professional literature. Citations? Links?

By: Thumpalumpacus

Thumpalumpacus — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:28:33 +0000

The Creationist difficulty with Darwin is that if you take him literally....

Actually, their difficulty is that they insist on taking most things literally without understanding the deeper subtleties inherent to any complex subject.

By: Scotlyn

Scotlyn — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:40:15 +0000

AC -

Is it just me, or have cl's arguments in the comments thread of this series consistently been straw men or otherwise fallacious?

Not just you. You are describing a commenter who IMO never adds anything useful to any debate here. Personally I usually skip over them completely.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:20:30 +0000

The Creationist difficulty with Darwin is that if you take him literally, there should be nothing but transitional fossils. Under his system of slow evolutionary pressure making tiny changes over long periods of time, it should be impossible to identify particular species at all: Such identification can only happen because a species' shape stays constant for a long time. Instead of identifying particular species and then finding transitional forms as an exception, we should be finding 'branches' or 'progressions' of forms down through the fossil record, like in the diagram Darwin includes in the Origin of Species. (Although I don't know if that diagram is in the original, or if it's in all editions. It's in my copy of the book.)

By: AC

AC — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:01:25 +0000

Is it just me, or have cl's arguments in the comments thread of this series consistently been straw men or otherwise fallacious? The argument here seems to particularly miss the mark. Not just a straw man in regards to this particular post, but in regards to the entire purpose of this series. In fact, his "two sides of the story" remark actually seems to resemble the same kind of "deception" that Wells is engaging in. Steve Bowen's link does tell two sides of a story, just not one that's particularly relevant to Ebonmuse' argument. Perhaps he's wrong on Archaeopteryx, etc. but Wells isn't arguing that birds evolved earlier. As Ritchie points out, in this series, Ebon is making a rebuttal to Strobel's book. Obviously this means he can only deal with the arguments put forward in the book, this seems lost on cl. Will cl soon be claiming that typographical errors by Ebonmuse refute the arguments he puts forward?

By: vel

vel — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:29:53 +0000

I'm always amused at how easily theists lie. For people who supposedly believe that their "immortal soul" is in constant danger of being tortured for eternity, they certainly sin as much as they can. Just what kind of a being would accept apologies for sin when it knows, being omniscient, that the creature will intentionally sin again?

By: Virginia

Virginia — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:36:31 +0000

Friends, I and my friend is also at a battle with hidden Creationism/ID proponents here in Hong Kong -- somebody put a loophole in our biology curriculum
Adrian is the creator of this site, and I also helped in some of the content and promotion.
This site is Chinese and English, and you all can read about the story (every page has an English translation, except the Article and File Archives)

http://sites.google.com/site/hkscienceeducation/

Our Facebook group mentioned in this site was formed back in Feb 2009, with me as the spokesperson. We already submitted a series of papers to our local legislature (LegCo, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Panel on Education)

The Creationism/ID proponents remained hidden from the radar screen until they responded with this must read: http://sites.google.com/site/hkscienceeducation/file-archive/edcb2-1499-1-e.pdf?attredirects=0

Good news is that the Education Bureau here in Hong Kong announced that Creationism/ID are rejected as part of the curriculum (see our Timeline in the site and the news)

By: Steve Bowen

Steve Bowen — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:44:01 +0000

or evolution created us for its

Ouchee!! I know what you mean but ...

By: Alex Weaver

Alex Weaver — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:22:57 +0000

Either God created us for his purpose, or evolution created us for its; it can't be both.

It's been argued that evolution could have been the mechanism a god used to create us...though even that implies things about evolution (directionality, etc.) that we do not observe and it's at best an ad-hoc just-so story...

By: Yahzi

Yahzi — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:15:02 +0000

nothing in the concepts of evolution or LUCA excludes theism, " Ebon might not be making this argument, but I will. Evolution, as an explanation for why humans have self-consciousness, is diametrically opposed to all theisms, which themselves are fundamentally explanations of the human condition. Either God created us for his purpose, or evolution created us for its; it can't be both. The theists understand this, which is why they fight Darwin so much. Evolution really is the death of theology, because it explains now only how we came to be but why we came to be what we are. (Note: it is possible to construct theisms that do not include teleology or purpose, but nobody actually believes in those theisms - not even the people constructing them.)

By: Ritchie

Ritchie — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:52:58 +0000

Sigh... nothing in the concepts of evolution or LUCA excludes theism, but as usual, Ebonmuse conveniently excludes information that conflicts with his arguments.

You have totally missed the point of the article. Ebonmuse is not making a case for atheism here. He is critically reviewing a book which claims to be able to make a case FOR God.

Whilst it is true that the theory of evolution does not exclude theism per say, it is Strobel and Wells who need to be reminded of this, not Ebonmuse. They are attacking the theory of evolution in an attempt to make creationism (whether young or old) seem plausible. Ebonmuse is clearly demonstrating that their arguments are totally inaccurate and rather dishonest, besides being completely irrelevant to the issue of whether God exists.