Define 'species'

[h2whoa]

I never said that I couldn't be wrong because I have studied. What I said was that I could not be wrong by chance. If I'm wrong it is based on a choice I made because I studied and feel sufficently informed to defend my opinions. What is arrogant about that?

That is one of the most incoherent things I have ever read.

Who is wrong by chance??

What does that even mean???

H2

 

[mark kennedy]

Darwin was, however, relativity enlightened for his time when it comes to racial relations.

Now Martin Luther - there's a real anti-semitic racist monster!

Enlightened huh? Maybe you could tell me the substantive difference between these two statements.

What is the substantive difference between Hitler's völkisch and Darwin's survival of the fittest?

"Over against all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for mankind. In principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind. Therefore on the völkisch principle we cannot admit that one race is equal to another. By recognizing that they are different, the völkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality."

(Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf )

"Finally, it may not be a logical deduction, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the larvae of ichneumonidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars, not as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings--namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."

(Darwins Origin of Species, Ch. 8 Instinct)

The Scientific Revolution would not have happened had it not been for the Protestant Reformation so you have a nerve calling Martain Luther a monster. Talk about arrogant dogmatisim.

 

[mark kennedy]

That is one of the most incoherent things I have ever read.

Who is wrong by chance??

What does that even mean???

H2

Aron-Ra made the remark that I just happened to be wrong. I simply said that I could not have been wrong by chance, as the statement implied. It wasn't even a point of contention just pointed out that I had studied and made my mind up deliberatly. What is with these crazy tangents everyone wants to wonder off on?

This is the rest of the comment:

"I didn't just happen to choose the Bible as my primary source for epistomology, I made a conscious decision to reject the naturalistic assumptions you defend so vigorously. I have reseached as much of the evidence for the reliability of Scripture as I could, both as history and a philosophical foundation for science. I found it to be a far more reliable foundation then the transitory empircal rationalizatins of naturalistic materialism. You have done nothing to convince me that I am mistaken, in fact you have confirmed my suspicions that evolutionary thought is an attack on Christian theism."

 

[h2whoa]

Enlightened huh? Maybe you could tell me the substantive difference between these two statements.

What is the substantive difference between Hitler's völkisch and Darwin's survival of the fittest?

"Over against all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for mankind. In principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind. Therefore on the völkisch principle we cannot admit that one race is equal to another. By recognizing that they are different, the völkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality."

(Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf )

"Finally, it may not be a logical deduction, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the larvae of ichneumonidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars, not as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings--namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."

(Darwins Origin of Species, Ch. 8 Instinct)

The Scientific Revolution would not have happened had it not been for the Protestant Reformation so you have a nerve calling Martain Luther a monster. Talk about arrogant dogmatisim.

Are you mental or just challenged??

Mark, they are very different. Very. The only possible way you could interpret Darwin's quote as NAZIstic is if you had racist, NAZI-ish leaning that would make you see that. It's kind of like looking an ink-blot. One man sees a spider on a pipe (just an image I picked at random before you ask), the other sees Aryan supremacy...

H2

 

[mark kennedy]

Are you mental or just challenged??

Mark, they are very different. Very. The only possible way you could interpret Darwin's quote as NAZIstic is if you had racist, NAZI-ish leaning that would make you see that. It's kind of like looking an ink-blot. One man sees a spider on a pipe (just an image I picked at random before you ask), the other sees Aryan supremacy...

H2

“I don’t claim that Darwin and his theory of evolution brought on the holocaust; but I cannot deny that the theory of evolution, and the atheism it engendered, led to the moral climate that made a holocaust possible.”(Another Side to the Evolution Problem, Jewish Press, Jan. 7,1983, pp.248)

“Man has become great through struggle . . .Whatever goal man has reached is due to his originality plus his brutality . . .All life is bound up in three thesis: struggle is the father of all things, virtue lies in the blood, leadership is primary and decisive.” (Hitler, Mein Kampf)

"...a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

(Conclusion of Origin of Species, Charles Darwin)

Its interesting to note, not that anyone on here would entertain such a notion, that Darwin at least considered it possible that life emerged from multiple forms originally.

 

[USincognito]

Mark, are you ever going to get it?

Arguing methodological naturalism vs. philisophical naturalism doesn't make the evidence go away.

Quote mining doesn't make the evidence go away.

Endless meaningless discussions of Darwins writing doesn't make ERVs, Pseudogenes, the fossils, etc. etc. go away.

You can't argue away evdience with philosphy and quote mining.

 

[mark kennedy]

Mark, are you ever going to get it?

Arguing methodological naturalism vs. philisophical naturalism doesn't make the evidence go away.

Quote mining doesn't make the evidence go away.

Endless meaningless discussions of Darwins writing doesn't make ERVs, Pseudogenes, the fossils, etc. etc. go away.

You can't argue away evdience with philosphy and quote mining.

You tend to be civil with me so I'll just tell you straight. There is such a thing as a philosophy of science and Darwin is at the heart of the one evolutionary biology uses. Naturalisitic assumptions are, rightly are wrongly, inextricably linked to evolution. If you remove Darwin's attack on special creation and his obvious racist tendancies then I would have no problem with his natural selection being a part of biology. Darwin is the strongest influence on the substantive element of the modern synthesis and I don't know why this seems so insignifigant to you.

 

[Split Rock]

“I don’t claim that Darwin and his theory of evolution brought on the holocaust; but I cannot deny that the theory of evolution, and the atheism it engendered, led to the moral climate that made a holocaust possible.”(Another Side to the Evolution Problem, Jewish Press, Jan. 7,1983, pp.248)

You didn't even give an author for these garbage. I guess there were no atrocities before On the Origin of Species was written, huh? You forgot to mention that Hitler considered himself to be a Knight of Christ and killing the Jews was doing God's work.

“Man has become great through struggle . . .Whatever goal man has reached is due to his originality plus his brutality . . .All life is bound up in three thesis: struggle is the father of all things, virtue lies in the blood, leadership is primary and decisive.” (Hitler, Mein Kampf)

Maybe Hitler used the term "struggle," because the name of his book was "My Struggle." By the way, when did Darwin mention "virtue," or "leadership?"

Its interesting to note, not that anyone on here would entertain such a notion, that Darwin at least considered it possible that life emerged from multiple forms originally.

He also implied that life was originally created by God... strange for a naturalistic atheist who has encouraged the murder of babies.

 

[mark kennedy]

You didn't even give an author for these garbage. I guess there were no atrocities before On the Origin of Species was written, huh? You forgot to mention that Hitler considered himself to be a Knight of Christ and killing the Jews was doing God's work.

Edward Simon was the author of the quote I used. It is bizzare that you would call him a knight of Christ since he dispised and persecuted Christians as well as Jews.

Maybe Hitler used the term "struggle," because the name of his book was "My Struggle." By the way, when did Darwin mention "virtue," or "leadership?"

Maybe he used struggle because he loved war and identified with the war of nature as Darwin called it.

He also implied that life was originally created by God... strange for a naturalistic atheist who has encouraged the murder of babies.

Who encouraged the murder of babies? What in world are you talking about?

 

[Split Rock]

“I don’t claim that Darwin and his theory of evolution brought on the holocaust; but I cannot deny that the theory of evolution, and the atheism it engendered, led to the moral climate that made a holocaust possible.”(Another Side to the Evolution Problem, Jewish Press, Jan. 7,1983, pp.248)

I could make the equal claim that Christianity led Hitler to formulate the Holocaust.

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

 

[Vance]

You tend to be civil with me so I'll just tell you straight. There is such a thing as a philosophy of science and Darwin is at the heart of the one evolutionary biology uses. Naturalisitic assumptions are, rightly are wrongly, inextricably linked to evolution. If you remove Darwin's attack on special creation and his obvious racist tendancies then I would have no problem with his natural selection being a part of biology. Darwin is the strongest influence on the substantive element of the modern synthesis and I don't know why this seems so insignifigant to you.

But Mark, this is just wrong. It sounds good for the Creationist, but it is simply not correct. It is easily falsfied, which should end your constant reiterations of this falsehood.

Your premise: Naturalistic assumptions (the presumption that all things have a natural, rather than supernatural, explantion) are inextricably linked to evolution.

Prediction: if this premise was true, then those who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions could not, and would not, believe in evolution.

Evidence: An incredibly large number of people who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions DO believe in evolution.

This proves that your premise is false. So, I guess we can move on to something else, since repeating an assertion that you know has been falsified would be dishonest.

Now, here are the statements that you could say, since they have not been falsified:

1. Atheists have used evolutionary theory to attack theistic beliefs.

2. Evolution is contrary to the traditional reading of Scripture.

That is about it.

 

[mark kennedy]

I could make the equal claim that Christianity led Hitler to formulate the Holocaust.

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

Exactly what I was getting at, sometimes he sounds like Darwin, sometimes like a fundamentalist preacher. You see the racism in this right, all I asked when I posted the two quotes was to point out the substantive difference in the two quotes, Darwins and Hitlers. Hitler never seemed interested in the parts of the Bible where it talks about turning the other check, going the extra mile, or doing good for those who dispitfully use you. It is no problem for a Christian to point out the substantive differences between Hitler and New Testament Christianity. However, seeing those two quotes side by side it is hard to tell the difference, especially given the influence these ideas had in Europe.

 

[bevets]

Maybe Hitler used the term "struggle," because the name of his book was "My Struggle."

Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now, between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla. ~ Charles Darwin

The creed of Eugenics is founded upon the idea of evolution. ~ Francis Galton

Of all the problems which will have to be faced in the future, in my opinion, the most difficult will be those concerning the treatment of the inferior races of mankind. ~ Leonard Darwin

The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution. ~ Arthur Keith

If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile. ~ Adolf Hitler

National Socialism is nothing but applied biology. ~ Rudolph Hess

 

[Ondoher]

Enlightened huh? Maybe you could tell me the substantive difference between these two statements.

What is the substantive difference between Hitler's völkisch and Darwin's survival of the fittest?

"Over against all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for mankind. In principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind. Therefore on the völkisch principle we cannot admit that one race is equal to another. By recognizing that they are different, the völkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality."

(Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf )

"Finally, it may not be a logical deduction, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, ants making slaves, the larvae of ichneumonidae feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars, not as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings--namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."

(Darwins Origin of Species, Ch. 8 Instinct)

The Scientific Revolution would not have happened had it not been for the Protestant Reformation so you have a nerve calling Martain Luther a monster. Talk about arrogant dogmatisim.

The substantial difference is that Hitler is making a value judgement, whereas Darwin is simply explaining the consequence of a mechanism. Well, that and there is no similarity whatsoever in the two quotes.

 

[mark kennedy]

But Mark, this is just wrong. It sounds good for the Creationist, but it is simply not correct. It is easily falsfied, which should end your constant reiterations of this falsehood.

Your premise: Naturalistic assumptions (the presumption that all things have a natural, rather than supernatural, explantion) are inextricably linked to evolution.

Prediction: if this premise was true, then those who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions could not, and would not, believe in evolution.

Evidence: An incredibly large number of people who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions DO believe in evolution.

This proves that your premise is false. So, I guess we can move on to something else, since repeating an assertion that you know has been falsified would be dishonest.

Now, here are the statements that you could say, since they have not been falsified:

1. Atheists have used evolutionary theory to attack theistic beliefs.

2. Evolution is contrary to the traditional reading of Scripture.

That is about it.

Origin of Species is an attack on special creation from cover to cover and this same mentality is evident in the modern synthesis. I am a little dizzy from preparing my response to Aron-Ra so I am not really up to debating this point right now. Check out the formal debate forum and I will elaborate on this at length. Just one thing to add, evolution is not contrary to even the most literal reading of the Bible, it is the assumption that we descended from a single common ancestor that is antitheistic.

Thanks for the input and we will take this up again later, I know this because you keep bringing it up.

 

[mark kennedy]

The substantial difference is that Hitler is making a value judgement, whereas Darwin is simply explaining the consequence of a mechanism. Well, that and there is no similarity whatsoever in the two quotes.

"Over against all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for mankind... the völkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality."

(Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf )

"one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings--namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."

(Darwins Origin of Species, Ch. 8 Instinct)

You honestly don't see how these two statements are simular? Allright, thats all I really wanted to know.

 

[mark kennedy]

Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now, between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla. ~ Charles Darwin

The creed of Eugenics is founded upon the idea of evolution. ~ Francis Galton

Of all the problems which will have to be faced in the future, in my opinion, the most difficult will be those concerning the treatment of the inferior races of mankind. ~ Leonard Darwin

The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution. ~ Arthur Keith

If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile. ~ Adolf Hitler

National Socialism is nothing but applied biology. ~ Rudolph Hess

I was begining to wonder if I was the only one who saw this problem with evolution.

 

[Split Rock]

Exactly what I was getting at, sometimes he sounds like Darwin, sometimes like a fundamentalist preacher. You see the racism in this right, all I asked when I posted the two quotes was to point out the substantive difference in the two quotes, Darwins and Hitlers. Hitler never seemed interested in the parts of the Bible where it talks about turning the other check, going the extra mile, or doing good for those who dispitfully use you. It is no problem for a Christian to point out the substantive differences between Hitler and New Testament Christianity. However, seeing those two quotes side by side it is hard to tell the difference, especially given the influence these ideas had in Europe.

LOL!

So Darwin's writing encouraged Hitler, but the Gospels did not! What an interesting double standard you have!

Why don't we go back a few centuries to before On the Origin of Species.. How about the First Crusade! The "Holy War" fought for Christ to free the Holy Land from the Muslims. Let's look at the capture of the city of Jerusalem..

From http://historymedren.about.com/library/prm/bl6cfc.htm

Climax of the First Crusade
Page 6: Massacre

This article was written by J. Arthur McFall and originally published in Military History Magazine June 1999. J. Arthur McFall writes from Newark, Ill.

The Crusaders spent at least that night and the next day killing Muslims, including all of those in the al-Aqsa Mosque, where Tancred's banner should have protected them. Not even women and children were spared. The city's Jews sought refuge in their synagogue, only to be burned alive within it by the Crusaders. Raymond of Aquilers reported that he saw "piles of heads, hands and feet" on a walk through the holy city. Men trotted across the bodies and body fragments as if they were a carpet for their convenience. The Europeans also destroyed the monuments to Orthodox Christian saints and the tomb of Abraham.

There were no recorded instances of rape. The massacre was not insanity but policy, as stated by Fulcher of Chartres: "They desired that this place, so long contaminated by the superstition of the pagan inhabitants, should be cleansed from their contagion." The Crusaders intended Jerusalem to be a Christian city--and strictly a Latin Christian city. "This is a day the Lord made," wrote Raymond of Aguilers. "We shall rejoice and be glad in it."

The Crusaders cut open the stomachs of the dead because someone said that the Muslims sometimes swallowed their gold to hide it. Later, when the corpses were burned, Crusaders kept watch for the melted gold that they expected to see flowing onto the ground. While the slaughter was still going on, many churchmen and princes assembled for a holy procession. Barefoot, chanting and singing, they walked to the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre through the blood flowing around their feet. Reports that the blood was waist deep are believed to have come from a later misreading of a Bible passage. However, in the official letter "To Lord Paschal, Pope Of The Roman Church, to all the bishops and to the whole Christian people" from "the Archbishop of Pisa, Duke Godfrey, now by the grace of God Defender of the Holy Sepulchre, Raymond, Count of St. Gilles, and the whole army of God," the Crusaders recorded that "in Solomon's Portico and in his Temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracens [Muslims] up to the knees of their horses."

Sounds a lot more like Hitler's idea of fun than Darwin's...

 

[USincognito]

You tend to be civil with me so I'll just tell you straight. There is such a thing as a philosophy of science and Darwin is at the heart of the one evolutionary biology uses. Naturalisitic assumptions are, rightly are wrongly, inextricably linked to evolution. If you remove Darwin's attack on special creation and his obvious racist tendancies then I would have no problem with his natural selection being a part of biology. Darwin is the strongest influence on the substantive element of the modern synthesis and I don't know why this seems so insignifigant to you.

No, Darwin is not at the heart of the philosophy of science that biology uses - the Scientific Method is. Without methodological naturalism, then two key components of the Scientific Method are thrown out the window - repeatability and falsifiability. It was pointed out months ago that you don't have a problem with evolution or even Darwin (despite your obvious visceral hate of the man) but with Science and the the Scientific Method.

The reason why I don't find any real issue with naturalism in science or any of Darwin's writing is that:
a. the scientific method works
b. not only have we validated Darwin's predictions, but we've discovered mountains of new evidence, especially since the discovery of DNA
c. If the rub for you is a dismissal of special creation, well, sorry, but that's what the evidence is showing us, and no amount of quotes by Darwin from 150 years ago or Gould from 20 years ago will make that evidence go away.

The evidence points to common ancestry and common descent, and that can be argued away with quote mining and debate over the ontology of science.

 

[Ondoher]

"Over against all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for mankind... the völkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality."

(Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf )

"one general law leading to the advancement of all organic beings--namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."

(Darwins Origin of Species, Ch. 8 Instinct)

You honestly don't see how these two statements are simular? Allright, thats all I really wanted to know.

I see no similarity at all in those statements.