The "damnable doctrine" of Charles Darwin

[Ryan]

Hey JBeukema, could any of these quotes qualify as a "damnable doctrine" in the "Darwinist" style? Why or why not.

"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical conclusion, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure."

"Man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius."


"Man must realize that a fundamental law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife . . .where the strong are always the masters of the weak and where those subject to such laws must obey them or be destroyed, one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings . . . let the strongest live and the weakest die."

 

[Ryan]

Darwin is a particular favorite among the "secular humanists" who cite his theories as proof that Theism is a false belief system.

Science reports factual evidence and logical conclusion. It is not meant to pass judgment on the religious - that's what religion is for.

Such overt racist de-humanization as well as sexism is common in Darwin's papers, particularly his book "The Decent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex." What is less clear are the qualities Darwin considers "civilized" and those which he consider "savage."

And despite all of that long post, no personal attacks disprove evolution. If you just want to make a random point about how someone from over 100 years ago was racist and sexist, I would point to the fact that we didn't have racial integration in this country until a few decades ago, and women didn't have equal voting privileges until 50 years after Darwin died.

Again, "The fossils date the rock, and the rock dates the fossils" "So what"?

Actually, the corrected version is: our tested and verified dating methods prove the dates of both the fossils and the rock, which correspond to one another.

I have B.S. degree

you have BS alright...

What "personal attacks" are you referring to?

I know the original post was long and it stands to reason that the longer the post the greater opportunity would exist to challenge one's view. Point out exactly what was the "personal attacks" are you attributing to me? What was not factual?

As far as the process of evolution goes, I was not attempting to challenge the merits of that topic throught nature. You have missed this distinction which was covered in more then one post.

My original post was to provide information on Darwin that is often omitted in the sanitized versions and to highlight the legacy of his views. What is your objection to my original post?

I also find it interesting how those that claim to be opened minded seem very closed minded when it comes to discussing the origin of modern man. In relation to that specific topic, evolution seems to be based more on unquestioning faith in evolution and a strong resistance to those that question the issue, kind of funny how that works.

Do you really believe that the field of science always "reports factual evidence and logical conclusion"? Could there be other factors that creep into the equation?

 

[Ryan]

“Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
—Biologist Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker.

 

[JBeukema]

Personally I think "Darwinist" is a meaningless word because it's a label that some people attach to others. Because it's a label it has meaning for the labeller and not the labelled.

It's another pathetic attempt to claim that science is a religion

Scientology is a religion. Like it or not, "secular humanism" is a religion.

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Noun

• S: (n) religion, faith, religious belief (a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny) "he lost his faith but not his morality"
• S: (n) religion, faith, organized religion (an institution to express belief in a divine power) "he was raised in the Baptist religion"; "a member of his own faith contradicted him"

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you fail
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[JBeukema]

Hey JBeukema, could any of these quotes qualify as a "damnable doctrine" in the "Darwinist" style? Why or why not.

"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical conclusion, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure."

1) There's no such thing as 'darwnism'; that's a moronic term Honvidists use to try to make polymerase into God

2)What is Christianity? in the words of Nietzsche,

Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in "another" or "better" life.
from Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, p.23, Walter Kaufmann transl.

Christianity is an escape for the weak of heart and feeble of mind. Nothing more.




3) Damnable? Who is to do the damning? To where shall any such doctrine be damned?

"Man must realize that a fundamental law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife . . .where the strong are always the masters of the weak and where those subject to such laws must obey them or be destroyed, one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings . . . let the strongest live and the weakest die."

Sounds like an accurate description of the world attached to a segment you've quotemined to show how dishonest you are


I wonder what went where those three little dots were...




and how any of this disproves the fact of evolution
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[geauxtohell]

Personally I think "Darwinist" is a meaningless word because it's a label that some people attach to others. Because it's a label it has meaning for the labeller and not the labelled.

It's another pathetic attempt to claim that science is a religion

Scientology is a religion. Like it or not, "secular humanism" is a religion.

Scientology is a religion. It adheres to a belief in a supernatural entity and relies on faith as a tenant.

Science is the anti-thesis of that. That is the fundamental difference between science and religion.

I have no idea why you consider "secular humanism" to be a religion, I would consider it more of a philosophy.

 

[geauxtohell]

“Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
—Biologist Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker.

So what?

 

[gcomeau]

Did you or did you not, try to establish a likeness between my original post and making the case of Newton being blamed because of his theory of gravity for any incidents of a person pushing another person off a cliff? That is essentially what I took your response to mean but please explain if I was somehow mistaken.

The problem, I found with that comparison that the theory of gravity is based on a laws of nature where as, eugenics is human manipulation of nature for a desired objective.

Ahem...

Theory of gravity = describes a natural physical process.
Theory of evolution = describes a natural physical process.

Pushing someone off a cliff = Using knowledge of that natural physical process in a way that brings harm to others.
Instituting as eugenics program = Using knowledge of that natural physical process in a way that brings harm to others.

Get it now?

Did Newton advocate pushing people off cliffs?

IRRELEVENT. As already explained.

 

[Diuretic]

Personally I think "Darwinist" is a meaningless word because it's a label that some people attach to others. Because it's a label it has meaning for the labeller and not the labelled.

It's another pathetic attempt to claim that science is a religion

Scientology is a religion. Like it or not, "secular humanism" is a religion.

It isn't but never mind, it's an old tactic that doesn't work.

 

[Diuretic]

Personally I think "Darwinist" is a meaningless word because it's a label that some people attach to others. Because it's a label it has meaning for the labeller and not the labelled.

People attach labels to themselves as well as others. Some maybe unfair but such a case does not make labels "meaningless" words and I wonder why "Darwinist" be considered such. Do you attach a inherent negative connotation to the term? Are there other terms you consider "meaningless words"? How does one communicate issues and pass along one's perception of events without some use of this type of adjectives or labels as you call them?

If I attach a label to myself then it's probably going to approximate who I am (perhaps who I want to be but for me I'm happy with who I am). If someone attaches a label to me it's going to represent what they think, not what I think.

The term "Darwinist" is a simple label, easily rejected.

 

[amrchaos]

"The partial or complete extinction of many races of man is historically known . . . Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race . . .the contest is soon settled by war, slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and absorption . . .When civilized nations come into contact with barbarians the struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives its aid to the native race."
Charles Darwin

I find this quote very interesting since on one hand Darwin as advocating an unnatural selection which the success of such a process is only threatened by a natural selection.

Competition between populations is part of the natural world

How is it unnatural in any way?

Competition between populations may very well be part of the natural world. However Extinction by war, slaughter, slavery, cannibalism et cetera is a form of unnatural selection. How is the death of societies most able population serve the advancement of a species? Where is the proof that "natural selection" results from cannibalism?

There is a problem with this concept of "natural selection" as in terms of what is "natural"

Is "natural" reffering only to the environment, or do we add in the actions and responses of other life forms in the shaping of the one of interests. If it is the formal, then natural selection may be stronger in some species than in others. On the the other hand, if it is the latter, then there is no such thing as an "unnatural selection" since wetake in both environmental and inter/extra-species interactions, leaving nothing else to influence the evolution of the organism in question.

To think about it this way, it is no wonder that evolution is preferred over creationism by leading biologists. Evolution leads to many more questions and mysteries--creationism leads to nothing but a repetition of an old belief--long milked for its worth by the theologian.

 

[JBeukema]

If I attach a label to myself then it's probably going to approximate who I am (perhaps who I want to be but for me I'm happy with who I am).

Given, of course, that the way one uses the term must be made clear

 

[Diuretic]

If I attach a label to myself then it's probably going to approximate who I am (perhaps who I want to be but for me I'm happy with who I am).

Given, of course, that the way one uses the term must be made clear

More important than ever nowadays. Newspeak abounds.

 

[Sunni Man]

Since you say you are familiar with what I've posted to date, and apart from repeating your 'saying' you have made no attempt to refute any of it, can I take that as acceptance of the accuracy of what has been presented so far and move on to the next stage?

Ahem... Sunni Man?

Unlike many on this board.

I have a life.; family, job, outside activities, community and religious obligations.

So I can't be on this board 24/7

If you want to keep posting your stages.

Please be my guest.

And yes, I will read them.

 

[SmarterThanHick]

Unlike many on this board.

I have a life.; family, job, outside activities, community and religious obligations.

source or it's not true.

 

[Father Time]

A special note to all creationists

We do not base modern evolutionary theory on what Darwin believed, please get that in your skull before you attack Darwin and act like you won.

 

[gcomeau]

Since you say you are familiar with what I've posted to date, and apart from repeating your 'saying' you have made no attempt to refute any of it, can I take that as acceptance of the accuracy of what has been presented so far and move on to the next stage?

Ahem... Sunni Man?

Unlike many on this board.

I have a life.; family, job, outside activities, community and religious obligations.

So I can't be on this board 24/7

If you want to keep posting your stages.

Please be my guest.

And yes, I will read them.

Alright then, and I trust that as you read them when I come to the part you declared was "pseudo-science and nonsense" you will speak up?

Moving on, next stage:

Fossil Sequencing

Having covered why radiometric dating is considered reliable, how the geologic column appears, and how the cross correlation of radiometric dates, fossil composition, and layer depth in the column all converge on expectations it’s time to take a closer look at some of the transitional sequences in the fossil record. I could just list some series of transitional fossils, but quite frankly there’s no way I could summarize that info in a manageable sized post and do it near as well or as comprehensively as the Transitional Vertbrate Fossils FAQ at talk.origins does so so I’ll leave the listing to them:

Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ

Instead, here I’ll focus on just a few example transitions with some detailed discussion.

Reptiles to Mammals

The list provided at the link above for this particular transition is extensive, covering a sequence of 30 fossil species… the early quite reptilian, then reptilian but with some somewhat mammalian features… then reptilian with some more than somewhat mammalian features… then a solid mix of reptilian and mammalian features… then decidedly mammalian with reptilian features… then mammalian with some somewhat reptilian features, and finally mammalian with few if any reptilian features.

One particularly well illustrated example of what was occurring during this process is the development of the mammalian ear from reptile jaw structures… illustrated here:

Starting at the far left side of the image we have the timescale of which periods each of the fossils are found from. As we move forward from the Carboniferous to the Jurassic we see the clear gradual change in the shape of the skeletal structure in each consecutive example. The left hand column of images if the view of the jaw from the inside. The right hand column is the view of the same jaw from the outside. The bone highlighted in yellow is the articular reptilian jaw bone, which eventually becomes the mammalian malleus (the “hammer” in the ear). The bone hignlighted in pink is the reptilian angular jaw bone, which eventually becomes the tympanic annulus in mammals. The bone highlighted in light blue is the reptilian quadrate jaw bone, which eventually becomes the mammalian incus (the “anvil” in the ear).

This particular sequence is also an excellent illustration of the gaping flaw in claims of “Irreducible Complexity”. Such arguments simply don’t understand how evolution progresses. Someone who held to the IC line of argument would look at something like the ear and say “Well, what good is an ear without the hammer? Huh? What good is half an ear? All those interconnecting bones would have to evolve all at the same time! That’s just silly... so the ear is Irreducibly Complex”.

On the surface of it, if you don’t really understand how evolution operates, that article has a certain compelling appeal to common sense. People who haven’t been exposed to the full weight of the evidence for evolution and how it operates think that is a perfectly reasonable statement. It is however dead wrong, as we can clearly see. They look at a modern human ear, which is the product of millions of years of refinement to optimize it for operating with the structures available to it… and then just because after all that fine tuning if you suddenly come along and yank a gear out of the mechanism it stops working it couldn’t have developed gradually? Nonsense. Nobody with any knowledge of evolution would ever say that at some point in the past there was some animal with an ear that was completely missing a malleus… but otherwise was an ear exactly like a modern human with all the same bones in the same shape for no apparent reason whatsoever… just waiting around for a fluke mutation to pop that bone right in there out of nowhere. That is an absurd representation of evolutionary progression and does not remotely resemble what is encompassed by evolutionary theory. It is nothing but a flimsy strawman.

On to the next example:

Reptiles to Birds

Another of the big ones, and also another of the favorites of the Irreducible complexity crowd. “What good is half a wing?” is a question you’ll see asked quite often in Evo/Creo discussions.

Well, let’s just see about that:

Here we have four images of different forelimbs. I know they're small, I used to have a larger image but I've lost track of it.

At the top we have Ornitholestes. A bipedal dinosaur found in the late Jurassic.

Below that we have the rather well known Archeopteryx, found at the very end of the Jurassic. Notice the forelimb skeletal structure is practically identical… the claws are a little more hooked, the second and third digits seem to have fused, the bones are just a slightly different shape… but Archaeopteryx is feathered. Apart from that it is clearly more reptilian than bird and there’s almost no chance it was capable of flight. At best it’s modified forelimbs provided it with some extra lift while leaping.

Below that we have Sinoris. An archaic bird from the Cretaceous. It had everything it needed anatomically to be fully flight capable. That’s right… that forelimb is a an early version of a wing…. which still has the claws from when it used to be a forelimb on the end of it. I don’t exactly see a useless “half a wing” stage between those first three forms.

Below that is a modern chicken wing… which serves to demonstrate just how much a wing can change given 60 million years of evolutionary adaptation... but that’s a change between wing and wing so there’s hardly a need for a “half a wing” stage between those two. Unless of course, considering the rather unimpressive flight capabilities of the chicken, you consider them to have "half a wing".

Hominid Evolution

And for the final example… us.

Entries are:

A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

With the exception of the first skull, a modern chimpanzee for comparison purposes, all the skulls are arranged in chronological order. The blue pieces in the skulls are reconstructions, everything else is original fossil material. The progression should be obvious. Decreasing upper jaw protrusion, increasing brain cavity size, the changing brow ridges… on some other skulls (examples below) where dental records are more intact changing size of the canines is also evident.

I should also mention that the consensus view today I that the Neanderthal were not direct ancestors to modern humans but more like cousins. A very recent branch off of the hominid line which subsequently went extinct.

Now, if we were only to display B and N directly next to each other I doubt that there’s an anti-evolutionist on the planet who wouldn’t immediately declare something very like “Well, one’s an ape and one’s a human. They’re obviously different. Don’t tell me you think we could have come from THAT”

But just put B and C next to each other and ask them if “microevolution” could change one into the other. I doubt they could deny it. And thus they would declare they were the same “kind” and this was only minor variation within kinds.

Only put C and D next to each other and ask.

Only put D and E next to each other and ask.

Etc…

This is clearly a transitional sequence between a modern human form and an early primate form… exactly the thing it is constantly being claimed doesn’t exist.

For a better of view of some of these fossils click this link then follow the instructions below it:

Human Evolution: The fossil evidence in 3D

-Click on “Enter the Gallery”. Don’t have pop-ups disabled.
-Along the bottom of the window that opens click on the seconf last image that looks like a gorilla (it’s actually a chimp).
-If you click and drag on the skull that comes up you can rotate it through a full 360 degrees. This lets you get a much better look at the overall shape of the skull. Also, if you hold down the shift key then click and drag you can measure the skull since they aren’t displayed to scale
-After that move on and click on the picture of the human, the bottom sequence will zoom in to show a progression of fossil hominids. You can click on each of them and manipulate them the same way. They are also arranged in chronological order as they are dated and found in the column.

To sum up... the claim that "there are no transitional fossils" has been around for a very long time... and it has been completely wrong for a very long time. Unfortunately I don't expect to stop hearing it any time soon. These fossils provide clear indication not only that gradual change of species occurs over time, but in what manner it has done so.


Have we come to the "pseudoscience and nonsense" yet? I'll wait a while before posting the next stage.

 

[rdean]

If you follow this line of reasoning for all existing species and still believe that "Noah's Ark" was a historical event, that would mean there were hundreds of millions of species on the Ark instead of only 8 million or so.

Oh wait, the "magical creationist conservative Republicans" have a "theory" for that. God sent one "kind" of cat. Then, after the flood, without evolution, the cat turned into lion, tiger, lepard, house cat, lynx, or anything that looked like a cat. And they want this "taught" as an alternative to science? Seriously?

 

[geauxtohell]

If you follow this line of reasoning for all existing species and still believe that "Noah's Ark" was a historical event, that would mean there were hundreds of millions of species on the Ark instead of only 8 million or so.

Oh wait, the "magical creationist conservative Republicans" have a "theory" for that. God sent one "kind" of cat. Then, after the flood, without evolution, the cat turned into lion, tiger, lepard, house cat, lynx, or anything that looked like a cat. And they want this "taught" as an alternative to science? Seriously?

For anyone that even thinks about it, the literal version of creation has been rejected. "creationist science" is a joke that is basically perpetuated by one man, Kent Hovind (who is currently sitting in federal prison for tax evasion - God told him he didn't have to pay his taxes either).

Most Christians embrace some form of "intelligent design" to fill in for "God in the gaps". That is their perrogative.

They just don't get to insert their personal religious beliefs into established scientific methodology.

 

[SmarterThanHick]

while we're on the topic, can someone please explain to me what "Christian Science" is exactly?