news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060713/ap_ … _evolution
May we please finally close the chapter on intelligent design… and all agree that Darwin was right ?
Who on here disputes the basic tenets of evolution? I imagine you’re preaching to the converted.
lol phawkins… you obviously have no ideea of how many ID/creationism supporters we have here 
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Just ask SIATD…
Once again Carpathian, I’m not a creationist, or an ID theorist. That you’d persist with this crap (about my position, which you’ve still to work out) for weeks after I’d made it clear that I don’t hold to either of those beliefs (though I’m willing to consider them as possibilities) just proves once more how one-dimensional your appreciation of this is.
That you’d still be peddling Darwinism fully 60 years after the theory of evolution was reformed into neoDarwinism shows that you don’t even know what theory you are trying to support.
Carry on. I’m sure some other ‘bright’ people are reading your every word and just lapping it up…
SIATD doesn’t strike me as a creationist. Unless “not a disciple (deliberate word use there) of Richard Dawkins” is the new definition of creationist. In whcih case, I suppose I’m a creationist too. 
oops~ i didn’t mean that i know SIATD is pretty much “undecided” on every aspect of existance sinse he’s a “fundamentalist agnostic”; i only meant that he should know because he and i and many others talked a great deal on the matter.
In the end in think i’ve managed to show that ID/creationists supporters are no better than conspiracy theorists, showing nothing but lack of trust and lack of abillity to distinguish between genuine authority in the field of natural sciences and politically/religiously motivated groups.
And btw SIATD!
Vatican astronomer says creationism is superstition
indcatholicnews.com/vatastro259.html
And you said:
"So, when the Vatican say stuff you don’t agree with, they are religious morons who don’t understand anything and so on and so forth, but when they say something you do agree with, you highlight it. "
Now i know you’re not a stupid person so should i assume this post was made just for the sake of argument ?
I believe you know very well what my reply to that post would have been… so why did you post it ?
I can only see one answer; you take every change you got to either dissagree with me or twist my words around.
Now should i give a reply to that post or do you acknowledge that you already know what i’m about to say ?
I was so angry with you for posting that that i felt no reply was in order because you’re smart enough to think for yourself why i posted that so i just said “nevermind”; “nevermind” to which you concluded that i’ve no interest in talking about real science.
…interesting…
But Alvin Plantinga, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame is an IDer of sorts (he accepts the basic tenets of evolution, yet “God’s hand” is behind it all). I don’t think that Plantinga is “no better than a conspiracy theorist” - I sure know he’d destroy me in any argument.
Caricaturing non-Dawkinsites as somehow irrational is pretty childish, in my view.
For a summation of Plantinga’s views on evolution (which I am undecided on), go here:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga1.html
You see… my dear Hawking i dislike it when people postulate god to explain something.
You need to see a very thin line between fact and fiction.
Postulating god is like quoting Einstein; everyone does it because the vast majority will not dissagree with you and that gives you some assurance of being always right.
You see my point ?
I don’t know if Mr. Platinga would ruin my line of thought in a face to face conversation but i’d really like to have one.
You see, i feel that my ideeas and arguments rise above all arguments about god (SIATD will no doubt attack me on this claim but it’s worth the risk). Why ? Well the answer is simple.
No matter how far human intelligence and knowlegde streches religious people will always put god one step further.
For example:
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People thought the earth was flat… and god made it… flat.
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People then found out the earth was a sphere… but still god made it.
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People found out the earth was not at the centre of our solar system… but nevertheless god made it so.
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People found out that god didn’t create man our of dirt and woman from a man’s rib but that evolution “did it”… but god helped evolution along.
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People learned that mutations are random and that 97% of all mutations are deleterious and that they’re 50% caused by cosmic radiation (from the big bang and death of stars)… but still god helped it along (although at this point there’s nothing left for him to do)
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People then found out that the Universe wasn’t always around but is expanding as a result of the Big Bang and a very newly discovered force found in complete void between galaxies which tends to push all galaxies appart… but people still think the universe was created ex nihilo by god.
I could go on and on… and this process will most likely go on for hundres of years after my death.
The fact of the matter is you can always move god one step further in the argument.
Carl Sagan and Colin McGinn saw this and said we should save a step and not postulate god everytime.
And finnaly consider this.
If you would invite Baruch Spinoza, Augustine and all the christian philosophers from the middle ages into the 21st century and you’d show them how we’ve explained everything that they thought was the meddling of god would they lose their faith or do as theologians do today, take a step further to postulate god ?
So you see, to say that god helped evolution along is to say nothing at all.
Why would all-mighty god want to help evolution along when he could have created everything as it is, ex nihilo. ?
Saying that god helped evolution along is no different than saying god created the world in 6 days. The only difference is it kind of helps religion survive in the mind of the belivers and sort of “makes peace” between science and religion.
Because evolution is fact, but if evolution is fact then god didn’t create man… so the middle way would be to say that god helped evolution along.
Again this has only been said because religious people are threatend by science and rationality.
The fact of the matter is there are only a few things left completly unexplained by science and i have no doubt they will eventually be explained.
I’d be happy to point them out for everyone here.
This is how the man starts his essay…
I’d like to put a strong emphasis on “WE CHRISTIANS”.
Wouldn’t “WE BELIVERS IN GOD” sound better than “we christians”?
I’ve read about 30 lines from the essay and i need read no further than that.
This is simply a christian man trying to come to terms with science and trying to put belief in bed with science.
Can you not see beyond this man’s arguments ?
The whole essay is then completly subjective and pron to irrational and emotional arguements.
There are so many holes in the christian religion and in all other religions that i can’t see how everyday folks get over them.
And you know what… I’m going to create a thread in the Religion section demanding answers to those questions.
Lets move the discussion there and see where it leads shall we ?
He says “We Christians” because he’s a Christian, and he’s writing for the Christian Scholar’s Review, for heaven’s sake. It would look quite odd if he were to say “We Christians, and all our Muslim chums who for some reason are reading the Christian Scholars Review”.
You evidently cannot even see this man’s arguments, let alone “past them”, since you haven’t tried in any way to refute them. If disputing the first two words amounts to a resounding critique, then I imagine I could quite easily take Kant, Hume or any other great philosopher you wish to mention to task.
I haven’t even said I agree with Plantinga. Just that I respect him, and that calling him a “conspiracy theorist” would make you a moron.
C’est la vie, I suppose.
I didn’t call him a conspiracy theoris because he doens’t belive in ID/creationism… am i right ?
And i did’t refute his every argument… but i’ve tried to refute all arguments in which he postulates god to explain anything.
Please read all my posts. 
And also that essay was clearly not meant for me; other wise it would have start with “all you atheists out there”. Thus when he writes the article he presumes the reader is a believer which i’m not.
So not only is the article not directed at me… but it would fail to convince me of anything since i don’t start from the premise that god exists.
He should write an article proving that god helped evolution along to an atheist not to someone who already believes in god and WANTS god to have helped in some way or another.
Precisely.
Do you see why you made that mistake?
Agnostic fundamentalist, not fundamentalist agnostic. It isn’t indecision, it’s more that I’m prepared to accept that I’m speculating and that my speculations about stuff that is not in evidence and never will be in evidence (one cannot observe speciation directly, one cannot observe the origin of the matter in the universe directly) are no better than anyone else’s, including religious whackos and scientific dogmatists.
Conveniently overlooking the work of the atheist Nobel Prize-winning Francis Crick, even though I’ve explicitly brought him up, twice. He’s a scientist. He’s contributed more to science than ANY scientist that you’ve mentioned on ‘your’ side of the argument, yet you ignore him because it doesn’t fit in with your extremely childish understanding of these issues. Thus I conclude: you have no interest in science beyond using it to ‘bash’ religion.
How about genuine scientists like the late Dr Colin Patterson (a senior paleontologist at the British Natural History museum and not a Christian or a creationist, as far as I can tell) who have voiced scepticism about the theory? You can read a speech he gave some years ago here
This chap doesn’t appear to fit into your scheme either. And he was clearly a much more respected scientist than you’ll ever be, though he didn’t win the Nobel Prize…
No, it was made to highlight how utterly one-sided your view of things is, and how you only read things that support your position. That you’ve completely ignored Crick, and I’m sure you’ll do the same with Patterson, only proves this point.
It isn’t about twisting words (classic accusation of someone who cannot support their claims when they are actually held to account), it’s about you claiming evolution to be indisputable when it’s anything but…
I haven’t a clue what you’ll say, other than it’ll be opposed to creationism in a moronic fashion that has nothing to do with science.
You manifestly haven’t - you only talk about science as a means to bash religious people. This is totally unscientific and utterly childish.
That’s like asking why God, a supposedly all-good and omnipotent being, lets evil things happen. There’s a very basic theological answer, but you haven’t any interest in theology beyond using to bash religious people so there’s little point explaining any of this to you.
As I understand it, evolutionary theory doesn’t seek to explain the origin of life (as Darwin believed it could, but the theory has changed since then) but seeks to explain how the diversity of species came about and how mutations and adaptations take place and are passed on through generations. I could be wrong about this, but I’ve come across very, very few scientists who genuinely believe that evolution is a viable theory of the origin of life, though most believe it explains how life adapts, changes and diversifies.
Why is there something rather than nothing?
That’s a question that by all rights should precede all scientific exploration, yet scientists can’t answer it any better than philosophers can. Science isn’t even close to answering all the questions, it can’t even produce a logical argument for its own method.
But please, if you feel you can then explain how science has answered almost every question ever posed. I’d be particularly interested in how science has managed to prove that tomorrow will even happen, let alone what processes and laws will govern the individual events of tomorrow.
Anomalous phenomena refute natural laws (scientific, religious or otherwise), time and again. Until you have a counterargument to this position (my own, for the record) then your claims are moronic bunkum.
“Anomalous phenomena” my ass… show me proof dear SIATD.
I’ve posted the link to the Vatican only to show that EVEN religious authority agrees with the fact of evolution. I still condemnt them for almost everything they do.
You miss the point completly.
I’ve left a hole in that argument and you exploited it; however my goal was not to show that god didn’t create man because evolution happened because as well all know we cannot disproove such things so easily.
My ideea was to show that in the time of Hume for example the best argument for the existance of god was the fact that there was no other way in which life and human existance could be explained.
Now that we’ve explained those things through evolution that argument should be dead.
However this only goes to prove what i’ve said that religious people only go 1 step further. Do you still not see my point ?
I believe i was the one who brought that question here; Denys Turner, a theologian asked it and i’m still contemplating it. I’m happy to announce that i have a partial answer… but i need more time.
You’ve confirmed absolutely everything that I said. Any intelligent person can see that. Don’t get angry. Get even.
Well, he’s certainly not as enthusiastic about evolution as you are, and his call for “theistic science” seems similar to ID to me. Or if it isn’t, it’s ID’s sister.
Moreover, I’m sure his (very, very good work) in the realms of epistemology and philosophy of religion wouldn’t fit into your world-view. But never-mind, eh?
I’m reading your posts, but I don’t see any refutations. Particularly since you haven’t quoted any of Plantinga’s ideas.
Plantinga doesn’t operate within the proof paradigm, nor ought he. Plantinga is primarily interested in the relationship between faith and reason, and whether or not religous belief is irrational (the answer’s “no”, by the way). I don’t imagine he cares particularly much if he doesn’t convert any atheists - his more than adequate defences of faith will do.
But whatever man - I’m not even sure what we’re arguing about.
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Evolutionists are more dogmatic and insane then theists.
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The beek size of the finch increased by less then 1 milimeter for a short time period.
Sure they are Dan, sure they are.
And btw hawkins… it wouldd not suit his belief to reach a conclusion that religion is irrational.
However its funny to see that the majority of atheists we’re once religious, or were raised in religious families… and they decided religion was irrational.
I don’t need to quote him… my arguments were against postulating god to explain the world which is what every religious person does.
One minor nitpick, SIATD, if I may:
We have observed speciation events. There are strains of Drosophila that can no longer produce fertile offspring with other, different strains of Drosophila. We’ve observed the same thing with dogs, ask any breeder which breeds can mate and which can’t.
Now, this isn’t generally recognized as a speciation event because it goes against people’s common sense (and you know, errrr, ummm, induct . . . ahhh, errr . . . and you can agree with my premise that ‘common sense’ does not necessarily reflect reality). A dog is still a dog, because we’ve defined dogs as dogs. It doesn’t matter whether there has been a speciation event within them (as defined by the reproductive definition of species, and whether that always holds up is a different discussion), they are still dogs because a dog is a dog.
So, should we just skip the chaff and start debating Plato’s legacy as it plays out in modern culture?