Yeeshhh......anyone dares to criticize Scientology and they face all kinds of abuse, up to and including finding a rattlesnake in their mailbox!
Perhaps not to that extent....but dare to criticize evolution theory and the vituperation and verbal abuse....including slander and lies.....is but a moment away!
Why?
Do real folks engaged in and dedicated to 'science' behave that way?
1. The irrationality here is that any who suggest lapses, or errors in Darwinian evolutionary theory, gets attacked as...well, like this:
a. Emile Zuckerkandl, one of the founders of the field of molecular evolution, writing in the journal "Gene," found it difficult to contain his indignation:
"The intellectual virus named 'intelligent design'...the 'creationists'...have decided some years ago...to dress up in academic gear and to present themselves as scholars...laugh off this disguise...Naive members of the public...the wrong-foot...the only foot on which the promoters of intelligent design can get around...guided by a little angel...medieval concept...and intellectually dangerous condition...the divine jumping disease...humanity dug itself into 'faiths' like a blind leech into flesh and won't let go....Feeding like leeches on irrational beliefs....offensive little swarms of insects...."
Wow....that sure wasn't very nice.
b. Then there is Richard Dawkins, an Oxford zoologist, author, and media commentator, famous for his popular science books on evolution and his views on religion, " It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
Richard Dawkins - Wikiquote
2. Calm down!...what are these guys so incensed about?
If one is thoroughly convinced of their rectitude....why be so upset if some folks disagree? Especially if what they say is undeniably true.....or maybe that's the reason for the anger.
a. This is what mathematician Dr. David Berlinski says:
"So, it seems that in our time, much of science is involved in an attack on traditional religious thought, and rational men and women must place their faith, and devotion, in this system of belief [i.e., in science alone]. And, like any militant church, science places a familiar demand before all others:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”'
3. Berlinski had a recent best-seller, "The Devil's Delusion."
But, it's not just contemporary criticism....during, and even before Darwin, the problem was discussed. In fact, there were scientists who thought that the fossil evidence presented a significant obstacle to the kind of thinking that produced "On The Origin of Species."
There was Roderick Murchison, a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system, which he named after a Welsh tribe....he studied the lowest strata of fossils, which was in Wales. Some five years before the publication of Darwin's signature work, he pointed out the sudden appearance of complex organs, the compound eyes of the first trilobites. So, he said, trilobites could not have evolved gradually from some primitive, simple form:
"The earliest signs of living things, announcing as they do a high complexity of organization, entirely exclude the hypothesis of a transmutation from lower to higher grades of being."
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, "Siluria," p.469.
Gee....that sounds like science: take a demonstrable fact, and draw a conclusion from same.
a. Uh, oh.....if these organisms sprang, fully formed.....what can be the explanation? Can't be the kind of gradual change due to the compilation of random mutations, Darwin's theory.....
If that were the case, there would be fossils of transitional forms.....and there are not.
What should Zuckerkanl say?? Or Richard Dawkins??
Like..."Murchison is a little intellectual insect....or Murchison is ignorant, stupid or insane or wicked,..."
"Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet KCB DCL FRS FRSE FLS PRGS PBA MRIA (22 February 1792[1] – 22 October 1871) was a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system." Roderick Murchison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now...Darwin, he accepted the criticism...and faced the problem.
b. "The difficulty of understanding the absence of vast pile of fossiliferous strata, which on my theory were no doubt somewhere accumulated before the [Cambrian] epoch, is very great. I allude to the manner in which numbers of species of the same group suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rock."
Darwin, "On The Origin of Species," p. 306-307.
4. Even the other great geologist of the era, the one who named the Cambrian, that is, Adam Sedgwick...."For one summer of his work in Wales which was to lead to this controversy, Sedgwick made a fateful choice of field assistant: a young Cambridge graduate named Charles Darwin."( Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873))
But this didn't stop Sedgewick from spanking Darwin in 1859, upon reading his masterpiece: "You have deserted- after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth- the true method of induction."
CRITICS OF DARWINISM
So, what if Darwin's theory has holes in it.....big gaping holes.
Shouldn't conjecture....hypothesis...be inserted to fill those holes?
No matter where said conjecture leads us?
Why not simply say 'I have no idea of how the events could have produced trilobites.....and brachiopods, so prevalent in the Cambrian....without previous attempts, and failures, documented by transitional fossils.'
That would be the truth.
Why no truth?
'Cause it might lead to where most folks, including most scientists believe it would lead.
"According to a survey of members of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June this year, a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power, while 41% say they do not."
What do scientists think about religion? - Los Angeles Times
Is that what the fanatics so afraid of??
Perhaps not to that extent....but dare to criticize evolution theory and the vituperation and verbal abuse....including slander and lies.....is but a moment away!
Why?
Do real folks engaged in and dedicated to 'science' behave that way?
1. The irrationality here is that any who suggest lapses, or errors in Darwinian evolutionary theory, gets attacked as...well, like this:
a. Emile Zuckerkandl, one of the founders of the field of molecular evolution, writing in the journal "Gene," found it difficult to contain his indignation:
"The intellectual virus named 'intelligent design'...the 'creationists'...have decided some years ago...to dress up in academic gear and to present themselves as scholars...laugh off this disguise...Naive members of the public...the wrong-foot...the only foot on which the promoters of intelligent design can get around...guided by a little angel...medieval concept...and intellectually dangerous condition...the divine jumping disease...humanity dug itself into 'faiths' like a blind leech into flesh and won't let go....Feeding like leeches on irrational beliefs....offensive little swarms of insects...."
Wow....that sure wasn't very nice.
b. Then there is Richard Dawkins, an Oxford zoologist, author, and media commentator, famous for his popular science books on evolution and his views on religion, " It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
Richard Dawkins - Wikiquote
2. Calm down!...what are these guys so incensed about?
If one is thoroughly convinced of their rectitude....why be so upset if some folks disagree? Especially if what they say is undeniably true.....or maybe that's the reason for the anger.
a. This is what mathematician Dr. David Berlinski says:
"So, it seems that in our time, much of science is involved in an attack on traditional religious thought, and rational men and women must place their faith, and devotion, in this system of belief [i.e., in science alone]. And, like any militant church, science places a familiar demand before all others:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”'
3. Berlinski had a recent best-seller, "The Devil's Delusion."
But, it's not just contemporary criticism....during, and even before Darwin, the problem was discussed. In fact, there were scientists who thought that the fossil evidence presented a significant obstacle to the kind of thinking that produced "On The Origin of Species."
There was Roderick Murchison, a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system, which he named after a Welsh tribe....he studied the lowest strata of fossils, which was in Wales. Some five years before the publication of Darwin's signature work, he pointed out the sudden appearance of complex organs, the compound eyes of the first trilobites. So, he said, trilobites could not have evolved gradually from some primitive, simple form:
"The earliest signs of living things, announcing as they do a high complexity of organization, entirely exclude the hypothesis of a transmutation from lower to higher grades of being."
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, "Siluria," p.469.
Gee....that sounds like science: take a demonstrable fact, and draw a conclusion from same.
a. Uh, oh.....if these organisms sprang, fully formed.....what can be the explanation? Can't be the kind of gradual change due to the compilation of random mutations, Darwin's theory.....
If that were the case, there would be fossils of transitional forms.....and there are not.
What should Zuckerkanl say?? Or Richard Dawkins??
Like..."Murchison is a little intellectual insect....or Murchison is ignorant, stupid or insane or wicked,..."
"Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet KCB DCL FRS FRSE FLS PRGS PBA MRIA (22 February 1792[1] – 22 October 1871) was a Scottish geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian system." Roderick Murchison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now...Darwin, he accepted the criticism...and faced the problem.
b. "The difficulty of understanding the absence of vast pile of fossiliferous strata, which on my theory were no doubt somewhere accumulated before the [Cambrian] epoch, is very great. I allude to the manner in which numbers of species of the same group suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rock."
Darwin, "On The Origin of Species," p. 306-307.
4. Even the other great geologist of the era, the one who named the Cambrian, that is, Adam Sedgwick...."For one summer of his work in Wales which was to lead to this controversy, Sedgwick made a fateful choice of field assistant: a young Cambridge graduate named Charles Darwin."( Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873))
But this didn't stop Sedgewick from spanking Darwin in 1859, upon reading his masterpiece: "You have deserted- after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth- the true method of induction."
CRITICS OF DARWINISM
So, what if Darwin's theory has holes in it.....big gaping holes.
Shouldn't conjecture....hypothesis...be inserted to fill those holes?
No matter where said conjecture leads us?
Why not simply say 'I have no idea of how the events could have produced trilobites.....and brachiopods, so prevalent in the Cambrian....without previous attempts, and failures, documented by transitional fossils.'
That would be the truth.
Why no truth?
'Cause it might lead to where most folks, including most scientists believe it would lead.
"According to a survey of members of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June this year, a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power, while 41% say they do not."
What do scientists think about religion? - Los Angeles Times
Is that what the fanatics so afraid of??
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