[xenduck]

i realize that quoting darwin to a modern biolgist is like quoting newton to a quantamphysist. but after reading origin of the species i am at a loss as to how evolution ever caught-on. it is often the case with darwins postulates that his premises are laughable and his conclusions are non sequitur. he knowingly omits important contemporary discoveries. he punctuates every argument with childish, irrelevent invectives against creationism. and (through no fault of his own) flatly contradicts modern evolution.

in my humble opinion, the whole theory is bogus.
so who will champion darwin? who will explain to me how the theory of evolution can be reconciled with... RATIONALITY?

This post has been edited by xenduck: 16 September 2005 - 06:28 PM

[Wayne]

I suppose I'll speak for Darwin. What specifically are your questions about the theory?

[Laughlyn]

Been here before, seen where these threads always end up.

Existing thread.

God bashing for beginners.

Perhaps it might be better if you scanned through the old thread and provided some new arguements...

[floppydisk]

Makes sense to me. Mutations in DNA make certian species more able to survive, which makes them more likely to reproduce, which makes them populate the world as a new species...

[Slade]

I haven't read Darwin, but the reason he caught on was the concepts behind his theories. Most scientists these days don't hold that much of what he says as sound.

[Zatoichi]

Slade has the right idea. I finally learned about Darwin more in full in a class I have only started this semester. It's because most of his concepts are actually soiological ones. There was evolution, only the strongest survive, etc. Darwin had actually only applied these concepts to the animal kingdom, where for the most part they held true. Later on, they were applied to human beings by someone whose name escapes me. It was labeled as Social Darwinism and widely supported by the wealthy and powerful. Basically it said that you have risen to your rank in society because you are one of the fittest members of your society. Of coure this is totally bullshit. If the world were to go into complete and utter anarchy (no system of anything including religion), who would end up on top? Some of the "upper class" may remain were they are, but most would be replaced by other people. Sadly it resides in the subconcious of people, and actually used as an excuse and for reasoning. My professer had used a really great example to illustrate this idea that people do this subconciously, but I can't remember what it was. Unfortunately, because of this Darwin and much of his work was greatly discredited.

[xenduck]

well, glad to see some participants. i dont have time just now to start a formal darwin bashing. (cause his book sucks) but laughlyn, thats good advice, and i asure i did search the old topics, and i had read the thread you suggested-but i have know idea whats going on over there and i didnt want to interrupt.

the point of this thread is that darwin's 'origin of the species' is not well written, factual, nor persuasive. so frankly im just trying to understand why it was accepted in the first place.
ill go into detail later. one thing though, i dont want to here anything about god or creationism, i want to debunk evolution, based on evolution.

may the fittest argument survive and multiply!

[Slade]

Well, you need to remember the time period and audience it was written for. For a while, people thought leeches cured disease, you know.

[Otal Nimrodi]

And the first president of the US died from an excess of medical treatment.

[Dr Lecter]

You're not another right wing fundamentalist christian that thinks that even considering any of the bible as a metaphor is a good enough reason for hanging, are you?

This post has been edited by Dr Lecter: 18 September 2005 - 05:09 AM

[Wayne]

Social Darwinism and the idea of the homo economicus was pretty stupid. If anything, our society prevents natural selection from occuring. But Darwin's Origin of the Species (and this is the only one I've read) was incorrect on some points, sure, but so was Copernicus when he wrote his theory of a heliocentric solar sytem. Did he still have a huge and important impact on modern science? Of course.

[Zatoichi]

You're not another right wing fundamentalist christian that thinks that even considering any of the bible as a metaphor is a good enough reason for hanging, are you?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Who are you asking, and if it's me then the answer is no.

[xenduck]

You're not another right wing fundamentalist christian that thinks that even considering any of the bible as a metaphor is a good enough reason for hanging, are you?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

it just baffles my mind that thomas paine, arguably father and hero of both the french and amercian revolution, champion of human rights and freedom, was arrested and burned in effigy for writting the age of reason. then roughly fifty years later, charles darwin comes along and launches an attack on creationism, and thus christianity, but is lauded as a brilliant scientist. especially since, in my opinion, paine was a far more articulate, erudite, and accurate writer than darwin.

i promise, soon ill demonstrate why exactly i feel darwin's theories are ridiculous, even to the science of his day.

[Ninja Duck]

Some thoughts:

Creationism isn't Christianity. You can just as easily say that the pre-Copernican theory that the Earth is the center of the universe is Christianity. After all, the Bible says the Earth came first, right? So it must be most important and therefore in the center, right?

Paine said some pretty rude things about the Bible and Modern Christianity, which might explain why Christians were more hostile to him than Darwin, who didn't really mention religion.

You're welcome to tell us why you think evolution is crock, but just don't do so in the style of Lambuel.

[Kirby]

If they say they're so good and holy then why the hell do they have banner ads?


If they truely are one with the lord then they should ask bandwidth from Him instead of relying on heathen technology.