Quotes of the day
posted at 10:35 pm on February 12, 2009 by Allahpundit
“Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine and author of The Mind of the Market, rightly tells free-market conservatives that they should appreciate how understanding evolution boosts their case for liberty: Darwin is truly a liberator! And Shermer tells those on the political left who usually embrace discoveries of science such as evolution that they need to appreciate the implications of evolution for their own pet theories about government-run economies…
A fear, of course, can’t negate facts. But in any case, the fear is unfounded. Just as an explanation of our biological origins does not need to rely on myths and alleged divine revelations, neither does morality. Indeed, the origins of morality are found in our nature as rational creatures with free choice who must understand the world around us and within us and develop principles to guide our conduct—morality—in order to survive and flourish.
Darwin was one of the most revolutionary and right thinkers in human history, up there with Newton and Einstein in terms of the implications of his discoveries. When we compare him to Lincoln by saying that he has liberated us from the slavery of ignorance and freed us to see the truth, we speak by analogy but no less truthfully. So let us celebrate the birth two hundred years ago of these two liberators who did so much for humanity.”
*
Via LGF.
Blowback
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Interpreting Christ’s teaching as non-evil and then asserting that all who act according to that interpretation are non-evil seems rhetorically tautological.
dedalus on February 13, 2009 at 10:33 AM
There is no god and Allahpundit is his prophet…
OmegaPaladin on February 13, 2009 at 10:37 AM
In all probability, Christ was probably gay…and I’m pretty sure God would have wanted him to marry a chap and settle down.
LimeyGeek on February 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
I must confess that it is becoming a tad monotonous. There is a great divide that mere discussion will never bridge. One side tries to work on evidence, and the other on belief. Apples and Oranges.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Too many “probables”
LimeyGeek on February 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
I wish he had, it would have saved us a lot of bother.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 10:41 AM
But this is a Christian principle, not an atheist one. Atheism’s only principle is expediency. There is no transcendent authority for the atheist, only pain avoidance. For the atheist/Marxist, it is perfectly right and good to steal some cars, some churches and monestaries, the land of 6million kulaks, and so on and on.
God was around before the Bible, and revealed His will directly to people as recorded therein. Moses used God’s inspiration and extant written records to compile the history contained in Genesis.
I mean, it’s fine with me if people don’t believe this, but when they have read more or less nothing about the Bible from a believer’s perspective yet criticize it like it’s a bunch of nonsense, well, that doesn’t really shake my faith. It’s like a child who’s never studied Algebra saying, “Math is stupid.”
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 10:53 AM
My morality stems from my penis. Never failed me yet.
LimeyGeek on February 13, 2009 at 10:58 AM
The only observable facts concerning evolution are those in support of micro-evolution which is mere adaptation and not in dispute. Other than natural selection and mutations what new mechanisms have been discovered to drive macro-evolution in the last 150 years?
Exactly what “silly claims” are the “high priests” at Discover Institute pulling back from? Link please.
Exactly what were these “observable realities” St. Augustine believed were in conflicted with the Bible with the information he had available to him 17 centuries ago? Link Please.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Might he have revealed himself to tribes around the globe in ancient times or was it only to the Jews until the apostles began their work in the first century?
dedalus on February 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
The debate is over and has been for a long long time. How evolution operates is an ongoing study and it is what biologist(evolutionary) study. A scientific theory is a work in progress, it is the best explanation we have for the know data and facts. Scientists go to work each day and attempt to disprove what we think we know. A theory remains valid as long as it is supported by experimentation and observation. Our understanding of how evolution operates will change over time, but the mechanism of evolution is a FACT in the same way that the atomic weight of carbon (12) is also a fact. To deny that evolution exists at all, to ignore its mountains of evidence is not to simply reject evolution; it is an act which ignores and negates the entire scientific method and by extension, the intellectual accomplishments of western civilization during the past 5 centuries. If you reject evolutionary biology you also reject all advances in physics, chemistry, and geology. If the scientific method is wrong about biology it is also wrong about everything else. If you are going to reject evolutionary biology, be consistent and reject all scientific knowledge acquired by the same methodology.
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
First, you would be surprised at how well I know the Bible, but I shall leave that be. I am well aware that the Bible – a series of books- was written over a long period of time, and much of it before Christianity took hold. But that doesn’t matter.
What matters is the thought that morality did not exist – in any part of the world – before being spread around by some preachers, who frightened people into following a certain path for fear of eternal suffering. That would mean that morality did not exist in those places that, for centuries, never heard of Christianity.
Please don’t equate atheism with Marxism. One is a judgement, and the other is a political philosophy. As I’ve stated before, a true atheist minds his own affairs, because he knows that it is all there is. However, it does not mean that such a one will tread on the backs of others to achieve his aims. A Marxist, on the other hand, seeks to dominate from the bottom up, which is political in nature.
The fact that there are Marxists who also profess atheism, is indicative only of an abuse of a benign stance. Sartre used atheism to further his hatred of the status quo, much like many academics today.
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 11:20 AM
I didn’t say that zebras evolved into elephants, my point was to show WHY zebras can’t evolve into elephants. Its because the zebra DNA does not contain the information needed to develop like an elephant and there is no natural process to create that needed information.
That’s the line between micro and maco evolution, if the information for the change is already available withing the DNA then its doable and that’s micro-evolution (mere adaptation). If the change would require information NOT already contained withing the DNA, that would be macro-evolution, and it is not doable. It’s not doable because there is no natural process by which the required information can be generated.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 11:20 AM
Why can’t I write like that? I must be a throwback, or something. :)
OldEnglish on February 13, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Oh, that’s really cute. The “example” given for “spontaneous order” is evolution. Talk about circular reasoning!!
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 11:28 AM
For those of you who are willing to actually learn something get a basic biology textbook, it would suggest Campbell. The evidence for macro evolution is so vast only a fraction of it has been cataloged. Transitional forms (missing links) are too numerous to list. Go to your local science museum, they have draws and file cabinets full of the stuff.
The discovery institute is no longer peddling the ruse of ‘irreducible complexity’. The eye has been shown to have deveoped independently at least 40 times.
The following is a quote from St. Augustine taken from his commentary on Genesis:
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 11:29 AM
sigh… another dawkins fanboy
even if little richard is correct about the eye (which im not quite sure of), what about a jillion other things. what about a larger item like a multiple-chambered heart (glossing over the cilia/flagella examples so hotly debated). what’s the evolutionary ‘benefit’ of having 1/16 a ventricle and 1/32 of an atria next to some lump of circulatory blood vessels. how do you ‘grow’ a heart over generations without having a ‘plan’?
battleoflepanto1571 on February 13, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Dawkins is more of a chronicler than a research scientist. I’m older, wiser and smarter than he is. The development of the eye is written about in nearly every intro biology book I am familiar with. Complex systems do not start out aiming to be complex systems, they start out and develop meeting other needs. Complexity and varying uses change with time. This is also discussed in intro biology books.
To accept evolution is not to reject religious faith. Some practicing evolutionary biologist are also men and women of faith – some are even fundamentalist. They treat the two aspects of their lives, the corporeal and the spiritual, as two separate and non-overlapping majesteria. Fundamentalist, well, St. Augustine says it better than I ever could ( see earlier post).
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 11:49 AM
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 11:29 AM
There is not a single fossil in the record that holds up to scrutiny under the “transitional fossil” claim. Once again, link please.
Where is your link to Discovery Institute showing their alleged new position on ‘irreducible complexity’?
I agree with St. Augustine’s statement, but I don’t see anything in that statement that supports your contention that the Bible is in conflict with science.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 11:55 AM
Please enlighten us as to what those biology books have to say as to the function of eyes before they were eyes. What were those “other needs” that were met by the undeveloped eye? Do you even have a guess?
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 12:02 PM
The Jews didn’t arrive on the scene until c. 2000 BC, and then they were just one of the tribes of Israel. Prior to their ascendency as the dominant tribe God was dealing directly with lots of different people, but He made a people out of Abraham’s progeny.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 12:29 PM
Go to your local museum and ask to see evidence of transitional fossils – they will only be too happy to show you. St. Augustine’s statement strikes at the heart of everything wrong with the philosophy behind ID/creationism/ whatever you want to call it. If you are unable to see that it is yet more evidence of your intransigence to accept the obvious. It doesn’t matter what the facts are you will ignore them; You will spend hours absorbing endless creationist mumbo-jumbo but will not pick up a basic biology book or visit a good science museum. A good review of the fossil record is probably even available on the web. In the industrialized world, ID/creationism seems to be a peculiarity of the english speaking world. I haven’t come across a lot of this in France or Italy or Germany or Japan or elsewhere in the advanced industrialized world. Fundamentalism and opposition to evolution are fairly widespread in India, the Arab world, and South America where education has a strong religious strain or stops at the elementary level for many.
All mainstream religions: protestant, catholic, jewish, buddhist accept evolution as FACT. One of the largest conferences on evolutionary biology is held every other year at that hotbed of atheism, the Vatican. At everyone of these conferences there has been a small but vocal group of ID/creationist who are made up of some mixture of americans/brits/australians. Never a german or chinese or other. They become contentious with the avowed atheists and manage to insult their hosts and the representative of every other religion that doesn’t see things their way. I have seen, several times, men/women of the clothe who are also research scientists offered to go over the evidence with this group. All they receive are belittling insults for their offer. Yes, there are Weinbergs and Dawkins who bait and insult believers, but most scientists, though they may flirt with doubt and atheism at some point in their lives, have a deep abiding respect for religious faith and the importance of religion as a social institution linking us to our cultural past and our ancestors(something I learned from the japanese).
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 12:30 PM
There are plenty of scientists who reject evolution.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 12:33 PM
It seems to me if this evidence is so strong for transitional fossils that the scientific community would get it out to the public. Are you saying you can’t even point me to an article that provides the photographs of these transitionals? If that’s the case, then I can only assume they do not exist. Clearly the evolutionist would be quick to tout any new information that supports their theory, especially being that such evidence is somewhere between sparse to nonexistent.
All religions accept evolution as fact? You must have missed this poll Allah posted just a few days ago.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 12:50 PM
Apparently from the same site you got your quote from:
1. It is historically inaccurate to maintain that modern science alone forced the church to come up with ideas about Genesis 1-3 that differ from the allegedly traditional views. Many of Augustine’s interpretations are plainly at variance with what are commonly perceived in evangelicalism as traditional views of Genesis. And, I might add, he was never accused of heresy for his views. It is plain that we cannot accuse Augustine of departing from the plain meaning of Scripture in order to make peace with science as we know it. Obviously, Augustine was not looking over his shoulder at scientific geology or paleontology. It is therefore all the more remarkable and significant that he adopts positions generally not perceived as the traditional church positions.
2. Given that a theological thinker of Augustine’s genius arrived at the views he did after years of careful study of the text, it is incumbent upon us to approach the early chapters of Genesis with far less dogmatism and far more humility and caution than we often do. Augustine’s interpretations should help us guard against facile claims about the obvious meaning of these texts. The point here is not that we should adopt Augustine’s specific interpretations (I’ve got problems with some of them myself, but that we should recognize what Augustine recognized: namely, the early chapters of Genesis are in fact complex and do not tender easy, pat answers. Once the entire evangelical world comes to grips with that simple conclusion, we will have made some progress.
Of course, Austin wasn’t talking about evolution, just the difficulty of the text itself. Most church scholars in his day believed that the creation was instantaneous, neither seven day nor bzillions of years.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 12:52 PM
I guess if he can speak fo all religions, we can speak for all scientists… nah, let’s not.
If there were three-legged horses and whales with wings and blind falcons etc., they’d be touted from the housetops. They ain’t ’cause there weren’t.
Akzed on February 13, 2009 at 12:54 PM
Maxx, now I know why you are a fundamentalist: you’re lazy! Make an effort and do a little work.
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 12:55 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 12:55 PM
Really? Then I wonder why the Southern Baptist Convention calls evolution a Myth.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 1:02 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 12:55 PM
I see that your “Wiki” list (not the best source for any of information being that anyone can edit it)includes Archaeopteryx which has been debunked as a hoax (would you like the link)? I also see that the list is pushing horse evolution which has been debunked for quit some time, I believe on the order of a hundred years or so (would you like that link too).
With two obvious frauds in the list, why should I believe any of them. Beside the fact, these are all drawings… not photos, we all know how imaginative evolutionists can be with drawings. Piltdown man, was drawn from a single pigs tooth.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 1:09 PM
Baptists are fundamentalist. The South has only recently joined the modern world. Prior to the late ’70′s the South was culturally a separate civilization, very 19th century. This was told to me by Southerners.
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 1:11 PM
I’m the one that is lazy? I provide or offer the links to you. You are the one that wants to make all sorts of claims without backing it up.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 1:12 PM
Oh, here we go with the insults and condescension, this is what evolutionists always run to.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 1:15 PM
You eye is a perfect example of my scale and odds problem with how evolution works.
Let me try to ask it this way. We have our critter. It doesn’t matter how complex it is how big it is or anything like that. One day something happens and a cell on the critter can now detect light. Again it doesn’t matter how it happen because the important part is that there is now a cell that detects light. Wow the first step in the evolution of an eye which is very cool. What are the odds of the critter surviving? Let’s say some thing happens that kills the critter. Again don’t get side tracked by the what and how because it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the critter is dead. Well that is the end of the eye but we have eyes so again I ask. What about the scale of evolution? To beat the odds and evolve it could not have been a single critter or even a group of critters. The start of the eye had to be on a massive scale and not in just one part of the world. To beat the odds life must be the normal state of the universe but we do not find complex life anywhere else other then Earth. And we have been looking on Mars which is not that different for Earth.
I won’t even get into how or why this suddenly light sensitive cell passed on to other generation and why it got connected to the brain and the brain evolved to understand the signal even though it also concerns scale.
jmarcure on February 13, 2009 at 1:22 PM
A classic example:
RightOFLeft on February 13, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Do your own work!
The Archeopteryx is not a hoax; that whole episode was due to Hoyle’s lack of understanding of geological processes. He later accepted his error. The evolution of the horse is very well documented. Why not go to a local science museum and ask to see their collections. I’ll bet there is even a university near you with an excellent collection. Search further on the web. I’m sure some university biology department has an excellent web display.
http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Evolution/transitionalfossils.htm
http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Evolution.htm
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Biology/7-013Spring-2006/CourseHome/index.htm
oldvannes on February 13, 2009 at 1:29 PM
And if we go back to the Cambrian, will we not find that jellyfish had that same ability from the beginning?
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 1:46 PM
This is a typically ignorant comment — Carolus Linnaeus and Gregor Mendel were profoundly interested and influential in biology, and one wrote BEFORE Darwin and the other was a contemporary of him.
Evolution-only is doing such a good job in the public schools that people like justfinethanks are completely ignorant about science’s history. Sad.
Richard Romano on February 13, 2009 at 1:47 PM
You wont’ get into it because no such mechanism exists — you completely undermined your whole spiel of how an eye evolves. The faith you have in evolution is completely blind, pardon the pun.
Richard Romano on February 13, 2009 at 1:49 PM
I think you have a fair question, but you’re making a mathematical argument without doing any math.
This is a actual number. What is it?
You don’t know that without actually making a calculation.
RightOFLeft on February 13, 2009 at 1:58 PM
I never claimed that Christians never contributed to science. It’s well known that Newton, Francis Bacon, and Mendel, like you say, were Christians and creationists.(Unsurprsing, considering they were pre Darwin. His theory didn’t enjoy wide acceptance until very late in his life). Mendel’s work, however, wasn’t redicovered and applied to evolution until after Darwin died by Hugo de Vries. In fact, Newton considered Biblical Prophecy to be valid scientific evidence, as much as anything as you could find in nature. In fact, I will cheerfully say that the overwhelming majority of influencial sceintists after the renissance were either Jews or Christians.
What I’m talking about is 20th century and modern creationists. Thanks to Darwin, millions of fundies know what a “bacterial flagellum” is, something that wouldn’t have happened without him. It’s nice to see so many people get intersted in biology (even if its for the wrong reasons.)
justfinethanks on February 13, 2009 at 1:59 PM
still waiting on the master list of “transitional fossils” that are avaliable at every local museum……..
(hint: DONT EXIST)
kinda weird isn’t it…. we have mostly SMALL primates, with gorillas being the exception, and we have “Lucy”, who is human-like, but nothing in between.
oh well, maybe if we just spent 40 years digging up the Olvadai gorge in East AFrica we’d find some missing link
oh wait…. we have tried that…
hm… well….. well…. maybe the fossils aren’t there, just too old… i mean trilobites are 500MYA, and we don’t have any fossils of those!
oh, we do? hmm…. so where’s all the pre-pliestocene ‘missing links’?
well, well, maybe, um, our ‘common primate ancestor’ was actually closer to humans, and every gibbon or orangutang is actually a step in DEVOLUTION.
yeah, that MUST be it….. *sarc*
battleoflepanto1571 on February 13, 2009 at 2:01 PM
You have no clue what I’m saying.
Taken in context with the rest of my “spiel” it’s pretty obvious that I am questioning the viability of the evolution of the eye. How you can say I have blind faith in evolution really escapes me as the three posts I’ve made question evolution. I fully expected to be attacked by the pro evolution side for my lack of faith in evolution but never did I consider being attacked for my blind faith in it.
jmarcure on February 13, 2009 at 2:02 PM
What Cambrian? That’s 500 million years before you think the Earth even existed. There’s no jellyfish in the bible.
RightOFLeft on February 13, 2009 at 2:03 PM
OK, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that Archeopteryx was not an intentional hoax, nevertheless its been found to be a pure bird and not any kind of transitional. You do realize that Archeopteryx is not mentioned on any of the links you provide, don’t you?
As for horses, you realize the so called early horses had different numbers of ribs don’t you? That doesn’t fit any kind of evolution model. Furthermore, some of the animals said to be in the horse evolution chain are still around today. Of course they didn’t know this at the time the claims were made.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 2:04 PM
I’m talking what you believe not what I believe.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 2:05 PM
RightOFLeft on February 13, 2009 at 1:58 PM
In my opinion you are dodging my questions by arguing that it is important how the critter died.
jmarcure on February 13, 2009 at 2:07 PM
I don’t really know that much about jellyfish. I remembered something from a nature show about jellyfish and googled “jellyfish.” I used up just about everything I know about jellyfish in my last two replies to you. God bless ya’ Maxx, but you can do the same thing, and you’ll probably get a better answer than I can give you.
RightOFLeft on February 13, 2009 at 2:16 PM
Couldn’t that have just been a useless mutation that was carry to other generations? I don’t believe that evolution specifically states that all mutations are or have to be beneficial.
jmarcure on February 13, 2009 at 2:26 PM
Until you start abusing it that is.
Kokonut on February 13, 2009 at 2:31 PM
No, because the animals claimed to be in the chain had “X” number of ribs to begin, then “y” number of ribs, then it changes again, then back again. It’s nuts, I don’t have the links right now, if I find them later, I will post them.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 2:36 PM
Ok.
I don’t need links because I had problems with the horse line anyway.
jmarcure on February 13, 2009 at 3:41 PM
Isn’t Michael Shermer the atheist, evolutionist idiot who claims that “the sun is NOT a light”??
Pretty sure he is from the audio of this discussion he had a while back.
http://kgovarchives.com/bel/2003/20030828-BEL171.mp3
TheMightyQuinn on February 13, 2009 at 4:23 PM
What scientists/evolutionists have to say about so called “horse evolution”
Be sure to reference the bottom of the page were scientists/evolutionists settle the matter with no uncertain words.
To save you some time, horse evolution is horsepucky.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 6:11 PM
Thank you sir and God Bless you too. And yes, looking up all there is to know about jellyfish, that should be big fun, I’ll do that one day when I think my heart can stand the excitement. :-)
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 6:19 PM
Were the wolves on Noah’s ark carrying all of the genetic information that would generate the morphological changes to produce the dachshund and great dane?
dedalus on February 13, 2009 at 8:05 PM
I sure don’t know. Wolves and dogs are very similar, my guess is that they are the same kind, but I don’t know.
Maxx on February 13, 2009 at 8:13 PM
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