Re: Evolution Deniers

On 12/14/05 7:38 AM, in article dnp3f7$ail$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "al"
<almond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> "Raymond Griffith" <tiffirgrReverse@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:BFC4F8DA.3002%tiffirgrReverse@xxxxxxxxxx
>> On 12/13/05 4:12 PM, in article dnndav$qu3$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "al"
>> <almond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> <jrsp8s@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>> news:FVFnf.37141$tV6.23247@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>
>>>> <sheldon@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>> news:1134504052.326012.88750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>
>>>>> CreateThis wrote:
>>>>>> sheldon@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>>>>>
>> My advice, if you care to hear it, is to start learning about the natural
>> world. If you are upset about the Theory of Evolution, learn about the TOE
>> -- what it says and why it says it -- from their own sources. The sources
>> you will get on this subject from Pathlights, Answers in Genesis, and any
>> other Creationist source will be perverted and distorted.
>>
>> Scientists are very well able to discuss what they believe and why they
>> believe it. We do not need our enemies to speak for us.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Raymond E. Griffith
>
> Hi again Raymond
> You seem put out by the fact that I think modern science is crap.
> I would like to remind you that I have every right to think this and some
> very good reasons for arriving at this conclusion.

I am pleased to tell you that I never said or thought that you did not have
the right to your opinion. You also have the right to believe that you have
some very good reasons for arriving at your conclusion.

That said, I also have the right to point out that you are arguing from
ignorance, and that from a point of actual knowledge, you don't know what
you are talking about.

You may have a right to your opinion. But you haven't got the resources to
make a reasoned judgment. And it is my right -- and duty as a Christian --
to point that out. You may indeed go along making a fool of yourself as so
many do. I would be remiss if I were to let you do so without a word of
rebuke or reproach. You see, I happen to believe that I am my brother's
keeper.

> One of the complaints proffered by the evolution scrotes and (whatever
> female scrotes are)

I am unsure what you mean by "scrotes". It sounds like an insult. Perhaps
both you mind and mouth are in the sewer? Or maybe you have a genitalia
complex? If so, that is unkind and unChristian. Grow up.

> is that they claim that some reasons for rejecting
> evolution are unscientific.

Some reasons for rejecting evolution are indeed unscientific. Science is
based on evidence. Rejecting evolution -- which has garnered a huge amount
of evidentiary support -- would be unscientific.

Now mind you, scientists do not always agree on the exact mechanisms and
meanings of what are found. But the evidence for evolution itself is
overwhelming.

Most people who reject evolution do so out of religious reasons, not out of
scientific ones. The religious reasons for rejecting evolution are
unscientific.

> As I have said to Dana, this is totally a
> illogical and unscientific statement.

Not at all. Dana's statement was a statement of fact. You might not have
liked it (as is your right), but Dana was correct.

> Scientists are very good at collecting data. What they are not good at is
> interpreting said data.

Oh Ho! Pardon me. That is perhaps one of the funniest statements I have
heard all year. And yet your life is permeated throughout by the results of
such data interpretation. Chemistry, physics, engineering, medicine -- it
boggles the mind!

Scientists are very good at interpreting the data they collect. And like
people, they are not always in agreement. But then, Christians are not
always in agreement about the Bible, either, are they? We Christians tend to
argue more about the meanings of things and interpretations than scientists
ever have.

> One of the posts in the thread about viral gene transfer laid out some
> perfectly good evidence and the accompanying data and then, at the end said
> something like "The sudden appearance is due to missing data and all that
> went before will be found".

I would be interested in your putting forward a URL for the post. I haven't
the time to read all of them. I am a busy man. I teach. I have a family. I
am spending more time on you than what you are probably worth. Yet here I
spend it. It would be good for you to help out a bit by doing a little more
work about documenting your assertions.

The fact is that such a thing as viral gene transfer actually does exist. We
have used it to cure certain diseases (with the unfortunate effect of
causing premature cancers!). One cannot always tell where the virus will
embed itself in the genetic code.

But science is correct when it talks about missing data. And guess what. We
go looking for the data! We don't just throw up our hands and quit. We take
matters into our own hands and start looking.

Now I'd bet quite a bit that your "something like" is probably
unrecognizable in the post you are not referencing, but let's suppose that
you hit the nail on the head, and the person was indulging in what you note
below as "pure speculation".

> This is pure speculation

So what? Is this person speaking for himself and his research, or for the
whole scientific community? Is this person seeing into the future? No. But
just as others do, he expects that further study will help make certain
things clear.

Guess what? He has history on his side on that one! For every, virtually
every area some Creationist said could not be understood naturally -- that
we had come up against the limits of knowability and stood before the mind
of God -- science has time and again produced physical evidence and extended
knowledge.

> but, however, is destined become consensus opinion.
> Most of the science of evolution is based on this consensus opinion. It's
> pure crap.

Hmmm. I doubt it. Let me ask you a question. What is your faith based on?
Your own personal research? Not at all. It is based on consensus opinion --
you were taught how to believe by someone who did. So is your faith pure
crap as well?

You'd best be careful how you characterize others! You can't stand close
enough to cast mudballs without getting the mud on yourself.

Science is willing to change its opinions based upon the weight of evidence.
That seems to me to much more secure than, say, to stubbornly believe
something despite the evidence against it!

> Let me, if I may, give another example.
> An article some time ago in Sci Am. and also in New Sci. was about "Dinosaur
> Cove" where there is a large cache of dino' bones. One specimen was said to
> be good evidence of evolution in action as it lived in Antarctica and had
> evolved large eyes to enable it to forage for food during the long dark
> arctic winter.
> What they omit to mention is that many *nocturnal* animals have large eyes
> and that bone caches are usually the result of a catastrophe. The animal
> could quite easily have been from Australia and been swept to its present
> position by a large tsunami.

Heh. You do know that nocturnal doesn't simply deal with a short night, but
also the long nights the arctic and antarctic possess?

But in any case, let me make a note here.

Bones, particularly dinosaur bones, would probably not float. A tsunami
probably would not wash a lot of bones from Australia to Antarctica, since a
tsunami would not push bones off of the continent of Australia, but would
wash them in further. Nor would the large wave keep the bones together over
the trip. A tsunami over large ocean is not remarkably violent, and a ship
will easily pass over it. It is where the wave encounters land that it's
amplitude is interrupted and actually pushes things.

In point of fact, a story came up from the last tsunami. One man, realizing
what was about to happen, swam out into the ocean toward the rising water.
Why? He had a much better chance of survival, and he did. He bobbed around
for several days, but he wasn't pushed.

Now then, don't you feel the least little bit silly? You just demonstrated
an appalling lack of knowledge about something you spoke rather
authoritatively about. But then, earth science is something you know next to
nothing about. Getting snippets here and there from dumbed-down sources as
Scientific American doesn't mean you get the big picture.

> This is one of the worst examples of cherry picking that I have seen. And
> I'm sure it's been written up as another first for evolution.

You are "sure"?

Young man, you are sure of nothing. You have your opinion, you have your
prejudices, and you have your lack of knowledge. And put together, you have
armored yourself against the facts.

Now as you so aptly put it, you have that right to do so. But I cannot be
pleased with your doing so. You make your faith look silly. As a Christian,
I am distressed that you use faith as a way to assert a wisdom you do not
possess. It makes Christ look bad.

> So you see, much of science is unscientific and evidence does not have to
> have the stamp of science on it to be valid.

Actually, scientists can behave badly at times, although you have not
demonstrated any place where they have done so as yet. What you have
demonstrated is your penchant for jumping to conclusions about things of
which you do not understand. Professing yourself to be wise, you have
demonstrated your foolishness.

> The fact that someone has made a statement and omitted to use the correct
> terms does not invalidate it.

Sure it does. You cannot communicate knowledge without communicating
knowledge. When you mix up your terms and use them incorrectly, it
demonstrates your lack of it.

My boy, I don't know who you have been listening to, but knowledge is not
yours by right or by absorption. You have to fight to earn it. And respect
is not yours by right. You have to demonstrate competence.

So then, would you allow yourself to be operated on by a surgeon who said
"scalpel" when he meant "suture"? Or go to a doctor who mixed up the names
of the drugs he was prescribing?

You had better believe that using the correct terminology matters!

And I don't care one whit what your opinion is on that particular point. If
you want to be listened to by anyone, you will decide to use the correct
terminology without whining. If you don't, you will have no audience except
to those who are more ignorant than yourself.

And that is my opinion. I happen to be a mathematics professor. You come
into my course and I don't care what you might want to call something. If
you don't say it right, you get it wrong. Got it?
>
> Science fails to give credence witness testimony for reasons that support
> science to the exclusion of all the uninitiated.

Ahh yes, the old whining about science being an exclusive club.

It's true. Get over it. You can't understand science if you won't learn
about it. Science isn't easy. If it were, we'd have had all we've got now
centuries ago. Learning how the world works is hard stuff, and it is
complicated. Just learning about wave motion takes a good chunk of time to
get the basics.

You want to understand science? Go learn it. Or at the least, ask questions
and be willing to admit you haven't an opinion worth a damn because you
don't have the knowledge necessary to form a valid one.

And when you do that, you will be demonstrating Christian humility. And
perhaps when you start to live your faith rather than just believing a set
of doctrines you will have a faith worth someone else's notice.

> And so on............
> al

Al, I wish you well -- but only if you come to the conclusion that opinions
borne from knowledge are better than those burped out by ignorance. Even in
the Scriptures the novices are not allowed to be rulers over the church, for
their pride makes them easy prey for the Adversary.

So learn! Opinions and rights of ignorance be damned. You don't need such
rights to be wrong, do you? Go forth and exercise your brain in a bit of
learning and see what it does for you. It won't hurt you, really!

And when you want to talk evidence, let's talk.

The fact is that I am not put out by your opinions as much as I am put out
by what you are doing to yourself and the faith by allowing yourself the
right to an uneducated opinion without the desire to get an educated one. I
happen to take my faith seriously. So should you.

Regards,

Raymond E. Griffith

.

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