Define 'species'

[mark kennedy]

As usual, you are dead-wrong on every point. The modern synthesis is the blending of genetics and systematics; the unification of Mendel's theory of inheritence with Darwin's theory of evolution via natural selection, both of which you have already admitted you agree with.
As all your questions were as well. That's because that's when we're supposed to ask our questions! When else could we do it?
Not that they needed to be, but yes, they very definitely were. I know you like to pretend that I don't define my terms, but I consistently do, and in message #2, my first post to that debate, I defined taxonomy thus:

"taxonomy: a means of systematic classification of life-forms that reveals distinct relationships of descendant groups nested within ancestral groups that link everything alive today with other groups in the fossil record. This includes many transitional species which appear in the geologic column in a chronology that indicates a fluid sucession of subtle variations over many generations, so that everything that has ever lived is evidently related to everything else through a series of succession in common ancestry at various levels. Systematic taxonomy has been greatly refined and built upon in the last couple hundred years since its inception, and can now be cross-confirmed by DNA sequencing, making it a twin-nested hierarchy that is still one of the most profound proofs of macroevolution."

Ok, I know what taxonomy is and taxonomic relationships are a dialectic. I said before and have become increasingly convinced that you are unaware of the philosophical premise you are arguing for. That string of questions I asked you was to determine if you were aware of the central principles of the modern synthesis. I know what evolution is and how it works, it is rooted and grounded in naturalistic assumptions that are suspended by blind faith.

Then I elaborated on the profound significance of these questions:

You forget, I was there. You keep telling me the same things and its all based on how things are catagorized. You link me to a cladistics webpage that may or may not of had some signifigance in our debate. I had not seen most of those terms and you just told me to do a google search and look at the cladistic charts to learn their profound signifigance. I frankly am disappointed that that was all you had to support these supposed relationships. I don't know what I expected but it was a dead issue before the conversation started. You had allready made up your mind and the endless string of insults were due to a lack of substance. I don't know what you thought you were doing but it looked like excited fanaticism to me.

Yes they were. I repeated a few times that it didn't matter what names you gave to whatever group you chose to recognize, since the relationships wouldn't change with the name. So there was no criteria except your own in determining whether these examples were biologically-related (evolved) or magically-created as distinct Biblical "kinds".

Ok, so we can call them anything we like as long as we don't accept that God created them supernaturally. Then we form as many convoluted relationships as possible and run anyone who believes in special creations through a labyrinth of subjectivly chosen terms. Great plan, I am so glad that you went the trouble to teach me that.

This was the goal! It always has been, and still is the goal! I realized that no creationist I had ever met had any understanding of cladistics. And it is my belief that if you knew that as well as I do, it wouldn't even be possible for you to be a creationist anymore, regardless what your religious preferences are. So as I said, since creationists tend to ignore everything evolutionists tell them, dismissing it all out-of-hand and without consideration, then I resolved that I had to involve them in some way that would make them think about all this, by asking them to explain it back to me. But since they always snip and ignore the questions too, I had to set up a ground rule in a formal debate insuring that they would be answered. My goal posts never moved, but you're sure moving yours. After all, you yourself qualified my elaboration on these schemes in the last paragraph of message #15.

What you forgot to tell me was that this would be a debate about the veracity of evolutionary taxonomic relationships. You insisted that the central term, species, could be as subjective as you like. Do you really think that there has never been a creationist that was aware of cladistics and remained unconvinced? From the begining I focused on evolution as a philosophy of science and maintained that genetics is the result of the work of a creationist. If all we had was the naturalistic materialism of Darwin then you would have nothing but an obscure philosophical argument. I never strayed from my position or asked you a string of cryptic terms that lack any semanitcal meaning. You ran me a merry chase but ultimatly you are supposed to convince me that you have the best explanation of our origin. I am more convinced then ever that this is nothing more then rationalism giving rise to irrationalism (a real philosophical term BTW) like it did in Europe about the same time that Darwin's philosophy was being incorporated into the modern synthesis.


Theodosius Dobzhansky, was a humanitst. Rev. Robert Bakker doesn't represent Christian theism at large. Dr. Jill Buettner, is most likely a brilliant scientist but her theology leaves a lot to be desired. Gregory Mendel laid the foundation for a genuine investigation of how living systems work and was a creationist. Charles Darwin was not a Christian except in name only, on the rare occasions he makes this profession he expresses lingering doubls as to God's abilitiy to intervene in human affairs. This supposed professions never even mention redemptive history and I am convinced that he simply showed his colors when he saw an opportunity to make a name for himself. Upon realizing the implications of Darwin's book, the captain of the Beagle killed himself.

You are a hypocrite, and this last accusation is proof of that. I did answer your cleavage question, (multiple times in fact) and showing you substantial breakthroughs in genomic research which is peer-reviewed and validated by the global scientific community is very definitely a substantive retort, especially since you have to way to contest other than to pretend that it doesn't mean anything.

You're not only a hypocrite, and an emotionally-charged, prejudiced one, but you're also a sore loser and a dishonest person, and dismal example of a Christian.

You did nothing of the sort, you made a general statement that you agreed that the change must be in the cleavage stage. You agreed with a creationist and then later said that it happened during transcription and only appeared in the cleavage stage. What you have failed to realize is that this puts an awfull lot of weight on the mutations to produce the kind of macroevolutionary changes that you think are so much a part of nature. It is genetics, not taxonomy that is the heart of evolutionary biology.

How dare you call me a hypocite? You have denied the tenants of your own worldview, philosophy of science, and reduced the most important line of demonstration of you're postition to a subjective dialectic of meaning. Like I have been trying to tell you, semantics is what this is all about, the only real problem is that you refuse to define you're central terms. Just like Darwin you want to render the term species, undiscoverable, rendering the terms microevolution and macroevolution meaningless.

I really liked you're discussions about taxonomic relations but you keep going off into these rants. You don't have a demonstrated mechanism so you resort to name calling, you should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Physics_guy]

Because it is at the heart of the emphasis, let the strong live and the weak die. Did you ever read Darwin or realize the profound influence he had on the modern synthesis? For some reason the evolutionist doesn't like the connection of Darwinian evolution to Nazi and Communist political philosophy. It is never the less an obvious fact of history and history often repeats itself.

Well, I guess we should throw out Protestantism because Luther's work "The Jews and their Lies" was profoundly influential to Hitler and was a foundational piece anti-semitic literature which was used as a logical basis for the poor treatment of Jews throughout Europe for hundreds of years.

Probably none unless his personal demons became the foundation of evolutionary biology.

What personal demons? You have never demonstrated this.

Since we are speaking hypothetically I would want to see where all of these things are evident in their work. In Darwin's case it is the heart of the emphasis and has had a profound influence on modern thought. Oh wait, thats not hypothetical, its a fact.

What has had an influence - Natural Selection? Yes, it has, but it is also so evidently true that even you do not deny the fact that Natural Selection occurs. The only thing you deny is that Common Descent occurs because you are so domatically religiously biased to a particular interpretation of the Bible that you cannot and will not review any of the evidence objectively. Therefore, you are reduced to trying to connect Darwin and Hitler in a pathetic attempt to invalidate evolutionary theory by the emotional power of Nazism. This is laughable.

I attack the naturalistic assumptions of the evolutionist because they are wrong. I don't care if it's theistic evolution because there is no discernable difference between their views and the miltant Darwinian. I get the same condescending tone, the same naturalistic materialism, the same incessant insults.

All of science - whether it is meteorology, geology, physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, etc relies upon methodological naturalism. No scientific theory whatsoever invokes any action by a supernatural being. You have a problem admitting this because you know you will be considered a fool (or a bigger one) if you admit that ALL of science should be disregarded because of its "naturalistic materialism."

Also, ever think that those Christian theistic evolutionists use a condescending tone and insults with you because your lack of logic and objective thought deserve them?

Wrong again, Darwin's work was revived and is inextricably linked to modern evolutionary thought. Now I cannot say whether or not you are aware of this fact but one thing is sure, you are contradicting Mayr. Now if I have to choose between two possible authorities to speak for modern evolution, and the only choices are you and Mayr, I'm going to have to go with Mayr.

I am not contradicting Mayr - all I have argued here is that associating Darwin with racism will have no effect on the validity of the Theory of Evolution, as I am absolutely sure Mayr would agree with.

You will not score points with any rational poster by writing non-sequitors. You argument is stupid and I am pretty sure everyone can see that.

 

[Physics_guy]

Because it is at the heart of the emphasis, let the strong live and the weak die.

BTW all - here is where we see how dishonestly mark uses certain words to convey connotations that are not warranted. Natural Selection makes no moral judgements and does not ask for "active" involvement that is implied by mark's use of "let" in the above quote.

Furthermore, Natural Selection does not require such subjective terms as "weak" and "strong. " All Darwin posited is that those organisms with the traits most desirable to reproduce, will pass their traits at a faster rate and thus replace those without the traits. (I would like to point out that no creationist organization I know of actually disputes this overwhelmingly proven theory.) Evolution does not care about "strong" versus "weak" because sometimes it is the weaker, smaller organism that is better suited for the environment and thus survives.

Hitler and some Social Darwinists have perverted the meaning of natural selection in much the same way that mark is here. Both used connotations and the poetic language of "survival of the fittest" to support their unscientific arguments just as mark is. Neither Hitler nor mark were equipped to understand the science of the Theory, but they seemed to have grabbed on to the same misunderstanding of it. Funny.

 

[Vance]

"Now if I have to choose between two possible authorities to speak for modern evolution, and the only choices are you and Mayr, I'm going to have to go with Mayr."

But why? Mayr is an atheist and is using evolution to further atheism. You WANT Mayr to be the be-all and end-all of evolutionary theory so that you can use him as a tar-baby for whole theory. Besides, I have already conclusively falsified your proposition, but you continue on with it even though you have not addressed the falsification. This is intellectually dishonest, if you ask me.

You have also never yet addressed my historical example with the atheistic historian. If an atheist historian gathers historical evidence that the Church has done horrible things, and then goes forward from there to draw theological conclusions about validity of Chritianity, does that mean that the evidence he presented was false?

 

[Ondoher]

Maybe I shouldn't butt into a flame war, but what the hell.

Ok, I know what taxonomy is and taxonomic relationships are a dialectic. I said before and have become increasingly convinced that you are unaware of the philosophical premise you are arguing for. That string of questions I asked you was to determine if you were aware of the central principles of the modern synthesis. I know what evolution is and how it works, it is rooted and grounded in naturalistic assumptions that are suspended by blind faith.

Methodoligical naturalism is a requirement of the scientific method. If we cannot use science to address these questions, what method would you propose to replace it?

You forget, I was there. You keep telling me the same things and its all based on how things are catagorized. You link me to a cladistics webpage that may or may not of had some signifigance in our debate. I had not seen most of those terms and you just told me to do a google search and look at the cladistic charts to learn their profound signifigance. I frankly am disappointed that that was all you had to support these supposed relationships. I don't know what I expected but it was a dead issue before the conversation started. You had allready made up your mind and the endless string of insults were due to a lack of substance. I don't know what you thought you were doing but it looked like excited fanaticism to me.

Ok, so we can call them anything we like as long as we don't accept that God created them supernaturally. Then we form as many convoluted relationships as possible and run anyone who believes in special creations through a labyrinth of subjectivly chosen terms. Great plan, I am so glad that you went the trouble to teach me that.

The nested hierarchy of evolutionary relationships is not an arbitrary artifact of evolutionary assumptions. It is the result of objective, independant analysis of available data. Evolution demands a nested hierarchy, and independant analysis demonstrates this is so.

For example, anatomically, we know that humans are more closely related to chimpanzees than to gorillas. And more closely related to gorillas than to orangutans, than to gibbons, to old world monkeys and to new world monkeys. When an analysis is made of the molecular data, specifically to the endogenous retrovirus data, we find the same relationship holds.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/18/10254

This agreement between the molecular and the morphologic data is called the twin nested hierarchies. This is strong, independant confirmation that the nested hierarchy is not arbitrary, but real. Exactly as evolution demands.

What you forgot to tell me was that this would be a debate about the veracity of evolutionary taxonomic relationships. You insisted that the central term, species, could be as subjective as you like. Do you really think that there has never been a creationist that was aware of cladistics and remained unconvinced?

Some people are unconvinced the earth revolves around the sun. And some are unconvinced it is an oblate spheroid.

From the begining I focused on evolution as a philosophy of science and maintained that genetics is the result of the work of a creationist. If all we had was the naturalistic materialism of Darwin then you would have nothing but an obscure philosophical argument. I never strayed from my position or asked you a string of cryptic terms that lack any semanitcal meaning. You ran me a merry chase but ultimatly you are supposed to convince me that you have the best explanation of our origin. I am more convinced then ever that this is nothing more then rationalism giving rise to irrationalism (a real philosophical term BTW) like it did in Europe about the same time that Darwin's philosophy was being incorporated into the modern synthesis.

Theodosius Dobzhansky, was a humanitst. Rev. Robert Bakker doesn't represent Christian theism at large. Dr. Jill Buettner, is most likely a brilliant scientist but her theology leaves a lot to be desired. Gregory Mendel laid the foundation for a genuine investigation of how living systems work and was a creationist. Charles Darwin was not a Christian except in name only, on the rare occasions he makes this profession he expresses lingering doubls as to God's abilitiy to intervene in human affairs. This supposed professions never even mention redemptive history and I am convinced that he simply showed his colors when he saw an opportunity to make a name for himself. Upon realizing the implications of Darwin's book, the captain of the Beagle killed himself.

Your opinion of Darwin's motives is more or less irrelevent. Even if he were a satan-worshipping, heathen, his ideas would not be therefore falsified.

You did nothing of the sort, you made a general statement that you agreed that the change must be in the cleavage stage. You agreed with a creationist and then later said that it happened during transcription and only appeared in the cleavage stage. What you have failed to realize is that this puts an awfull lot of weight on the mutations to produce the kind of macroevolutionary changes that you think are so much a part of nature. It is genetics, not taxonomy that is the heart of evolutionary biology.

How dare you call me a hypocite? You have denied the tenants of your own worldview, philosophy of science, and reduced the most important line of demonstration of you're postition to a subjective dialectic of meaning. Like I have been trying to tell you, semantics is what this is all about, the only real problem is that you refuse to define you're central terms. Just like Darwin you want to render the term species, undiscoverable, rendering the terms microevolution and macroevolution meaningless.

Species is generally considered an interbreeding population. Howerver, because the genetic makeup of populations drift due to evolutionary mechansims, you would expect that not all populations fit so neatly into such an arrangement. Ring species are a good example of this difficulty.

I don't understand how the difficulty in applying the label species onto a population in any way renders the terms microevolution and macroevolution meaningless (except in the larger sense that they are just different degrees of the same process).

I really liked you're discussions about taxonomic relations but you keep going off into these rants. You don't have a demonstrated mechanism so you resort to name calling, you should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[mark kennedy]

"Now if I have to choose between two possible authorities to speak for modern evolution, and the only choices are you and Mayr, I'm going to have to go with Mayr."

But why? Mayr is an atheist and is using evolution to further atheism. You WANT Mayr to be the be-all and end-all of evolutionary theory so that you can use him as a tar-baby for whole theory. Besides, I have already conclusively falsified your proposition, but you continue on with it even though you have not addressed the falsification. This is intellectually dishonest, if you ask me.

You have also never yet addressed my historical example with the atheistic historian. If an atheist historian gathers historical evidence that the Church has done horrible things, and then goes forward from there to draw theological conclusions about validity of Chritianity, does that mean that the evidence he presented was false?

In case you don't realize it there has been no substantive dialogue as to whether or no Mayr is one of the leading thinkers in the modern synthesis. When he speaks, he speaks with authority, when you speak you express an opinion. You have falsified nothing, you simply argued at length and that is all I have to say about that.

 

[mark kennedy]

BTW all - here is where we see how dishonestly mark uses certain words to convey connotations that are not warranted. Natural Selection makes no moral judgements and does not ask for "active" involvement that is implied by mark's use of "let" in the above quote.

Furthermore, Natural Selection does not require such subjective terms as "weak" and "strong. " All Darwin posited is that those organisms with the traits most desirable to reproduce, will pass their traits at a faster rate and thus replace those without the traits. (I would like to point out that no creationist organization I know of actually disputes this overwhelmingly proven theory.) Evolution does not care about "strong" versus "weak" because sometimes it is the weaker, smaller organism that is better suited for the environment and thus survives.

Hitler and some Social Darwinists have perverted the meaning of natural selection in much the same way that mark is here. Both used connotations and the poetic language of "survival of the fittest" to support their unscientific arguments just as mark is. Neither Hitler nor mark were equipped to understand the science of the Theory, but they seemed to have grabbed on to the same misunderstanding of it. Funny.

Here is the quote from Darwin:

"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

Now here is Hitler:

"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."

Mein Kampf

Now here is Mayr:

"The discovery of natural selection, by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, must itself be counted as an extraordinary philosophical advance. The principle remained unknown throughout the more than 2,000-year history of philosophy ranging from the Greeks to Hume, Kant and the Victorian era. The concept of natural selection had remarkable power for explaining directional and adaptive changes. Its nature is simplicity itself. It is not a force like the forces described in the laws of physics; its mechanism is simply the elimination of inferior individuals. "

Now an intellectually honest person would actually present some kind of substance along with an allegation but being a Darwinian means never having to say you're sorry. Go ahead, show me how an intellectually honest man deals with the actual facts when they are in his face.

 

[Vance]

In case you don't realize it there has been no substantive dialogue as to whether or no Mayr is one of the leading thinkers in the modern synthesis. When he speaks, he speaks with authority, when you speak you express an opinion. You have falsified nothing, you simply argued at length and that is all I have to say about that.

He is definitely a leading writer and explainer of evolution, there is no doubt about that. And, when he is discussing the mechanics and scientific evidence for evolution, we should listen. When he goes beyond this and begins to make statements about God and theology, he is out of his field and he no longer "speaks with authority", but is just speaking his opinion. It really is that simple.

And, in case you have forgotten, here is the falsification I was talking about:

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 all those who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions could not, and would not, believe in evolution. Conversely, all those who believe in evolution would hold such naturalistic assumptions.

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]

He is definitely a leading writer and explainer of evolution, there is no doubt about that. And, when he is discussing the mechanics and scientific evidence for evolution, we should listen. When he goes beyond this and begins to make statements about God and theology, he is out of his field and he no longer "speaks with authority", but is just speaking his opinion. It really is that simple.

And, in case you have forgotten, here is the falsification I was talking about:

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 all those who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions could not, and would not, believe in evolution. Conversely, all those who believe in evolution would hold such naturalistic assumptions.

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.

A lot of people without naturalistic assumptions believe that life emerged from unicellular protoorganisms and still call themselves Christians. Oh yea, that really puts that matter to rest. Darwin rejected creation as being the result of an idea, an idea from the mind of God.

"On the Origin of Species was published on November 24, 1859. The word "evolution "barely appears in it. Many scientists by 1859 were evolutionists-that is, they believed that species had not been created once and for all, but had changed over time. The French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had advanced his theory of progressive adaptation in Philosophie Zoologique in 1809; the English philosopher Herbert Spencer had published his evolutionary thory of mind and behavior. Principles of Psychology, in 1855. Darwin's book decisively tipped the balance of educated opinion to evoltionism; but even after 1859, more nineteenth-century evolutionists were (whether they identified themselves as such or not) Lamarkins or Spencerians the Darwinians. The purpose of On the Origin of Species was not to introduce the concept of evolution; it was to debunk the concept of supernatural intelligence-the idea that the universe is the result of an idea. "

(The Metaphysical Club, by Louis Menand)

As usual you're arguments hang on you're own opinion, that is hardly proof.

 

[Ondoher]

A lot of people without naturalistic assumptions believe that life emerged from unicellular protoorganisms and still call themselves Christians. Oh yea, that really puts that matter to rest. Darwin rejected creation as being the result of an idea, an idea from the mind of God.

Darwin created a testable explanation for the diversity of life. Science has accepted that explanation due to its strengths. Speculating on his motivations is irrelevent to the issue.

 

[Vance]

A lot of people without naturalistic assumptions believe that life emerged from unicellular protoorganisms and still call themselves Christians. Oh yea, that really puts that matter to rest. Darwin rejected creation as being the result of an idea, an idea from the mind of God.

As usual you're arguments hang on you're own opinion, that is hardly proof.

It actually DOES put the matter to rest regarding your proposition.

You made a proposition and I falsified it. Now, unless you can show where my falsification is flawed, you will have to refrain from stating that proposition in all intellectual honesty.

Also your statement "call themselves Christian" comes awfully close to questioning the validity or sincerity of another's faith, which is strictly forbidden on these boards (not to mention incredibly presumptuous).

Again, it does not matter what Darwin thought about the metaphysics of the theory. The theory is equally valid no matter WHAT people use it for, how it changes or influences their world view, their view about religion, etc. A scientific proposition either stands or falls on its scientific and rational support, not on it sociological, theological or psychological effects.

Now, show me that my falsification is flawed. If it is not, then your proposition is falsified.

Again, here it is since this post rolled over to a new page:

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 all those who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions could not, and would not, believe in evolution. Conversely, all those who believe in evolution would hold such naturalistic assumptions.

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.

 

[Tomk80]

Mark, when it should have been clear to you that Aron-Ra was trying to use taxonomy/cladistics as evidence for a common ancestor, you went of in a tangent on evolutionary philosophy, in stead of questioning him on cladistics and trying to understand his position. You likely glanced at the web pages about this he mentioned, without ever really looking at what they said. Why?

Every time someone comes up with Luther's writings against Jews and it's connection with Nazism, you ignore it. Do you realize you do this? And if you do, why do you ignore it?

And every time someone comes up with a christian evolutionist you automatically ignore them? Why? What makes their word less authorative than that of Mayr's?

In short, why are you ignoring half of what is said to you, time and time again?

 

[USincognito]

Upon realizing the implications of Darwin's book, the captain of the Beagle killed himself.

Citation please. I've done some searching, but cannot verify this and it doesn't pass my smell test.

 

[Vance]

Citation please. I've done some searching, but cannot verify this and it doesn't pass my smell test.

And if you got it from a Creationist source, you lose 10 points.

 

[mark kennedy]

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 all those who do not hold such naturalistic assumptions could not, and would not, believe in evolution. Conversely, all those who believe in evolution would hold such naturalistic assumptions.

Let me just remind you that how you define evolution is the whole issue. This is not an either or proposition. I certainly don't intend to question the motives of Christians who hold to the naturalistic assumptions in modern thought. I accept the change in genes in populations over time so I do believe in evolution, its this single common ancestor model that is bogus. Now you can do a little victory dance if you like but its pointless.

Darwin was explicit in his reasons for writting Origin of Species and it was to argue against special creation. Now if you don't want to admitt that this is an antitheistic philosophy then be my guest. I know better and it is blantant in evolutionary thought.

 

[mark kennedy]

Citation please. I've done some searching, but cannot verify this and it doesn't pass my smell test.

"In naval terms, the voyage was a stunning scientific success. But FitzRoy, a fanatical Christian, was horrified by the heretical theories Darwin began to develop. As these began to influence the profoundest levels of religious and scientific thinking in the nineteenth century, FitzRoy's knowledge that he had provided Darwin with the vehicle for his sacrilegious ideas propelled him down an irrevocable path to suicide."

Evolution's Captain

It's not clear how much of a role his feelings about Origin of Species played in his suicide. He had suffered from depression and he had some really big disappointments.

 

[mark kennedy]

Mark, when it should have been clear to you that Aron-Ra was trying to use taxonomy/cladistics as evidence for a common ancestor, you went of in a tangent on evolutionary philosophy, in stead of questioning him on cladistics and trying to understand his position. You likely glanced at the web pages about this he mentioned, without ever really looking at what they said. Why?

I actually have dealt with the taxonomic questions as best I can but it is highly complex and frankly, subjective system. It was designed to emphasis the view of the observer and I dealt with this issue at length in the debate. Now this was introduced as 39 questions with dozens of terms that Aron-Ra just dumped on me. While I find this kind of a study interesting I don't see any demonstative science here because of the way they are organized into cladistics. This is vintage Darwin, he drew up a tree of life that led to one common ancestor and they are just following the model he popularized.

Every time someone comes up with Luther's writings against Jews and it's connection with Nazism, you ignore it. Do you realize you do this? And if you do, why do you ignore it?

Luther's writings against the Jews (that btw I have yet to see) bears no resemblence to Darwin's survival of the fittest the way Hitler's did. To be honest I know how a Darwinian would answer this, in fact, Mayr actually dealt with this problem with Darwinian logic quite admirably.

I haven't ignored anything, I am still waiting for someone to point out the substantive difference between the two. Now Aron-Ra did make an effort to do exactly that and his response was at least a good try. I don't like this about natural selection and sweeping it under the rug will not make it go away.

And every time someone comes up with a christian evolutionist you automatically ignore them? Why? What makes their word less authorative than that of Mayr's?

In short, why are you ignoring half of what is said to you, time and time again?

Maybe if I wasn't having to respond to multiple posts that just rail against me everytime I come on here I could focus a little more on the details. Instead I am trying to defend my views against allegations of willfull ignorance, stupidity, deceitfullness and it makes me a little less receptive to their criticisms. Did it ever occure to you guys that maybe I this is just an honest difference of opinion.

Now, as far as Mayr, he is one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 20th century. I have gotten tired of Mayr and Darwin being dismissed as beside the point. It's so absurd it almost laughable, its like saying that Peter and Paul have nothing to do with New Testament Christianity.

 

[yossarian]

Let me just remind you that how you define evolution is the whole issue. This is not an either or proposition. I certainly don't intend to question the motives of Christians who hold to the naturalistic assumptions in modern thought. I accept the change in genes in populations over time so I do believe in evolution, its this single common ancestor model that is bogus. Now you can do a little victory dance if you like but its pointless.

Darwin was explicit in his reasons for writting Origin of Species and it was to argue against special creation. Now if you don't want to admitt that this is an antitheistic philosophy then be my guest. I know better and it is blantant in evolutionary thought.

garbage mark, go find an article on evolution on pubmed and find the antitheistic philosophy in it

you might not be able to seperate the science from whatever implications people draw from it, but the rest of us aren't that impaired

 

[mark kennedy]

garbage mark, go find an article on evolution on pubmed and find the antitheistic philosophy in it

you might not be able to seperate the science from whatever implications people draw from it, but the rest of us aren't that impaired
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You don't even know the foundational tenants of you're own philosophy of science. It is also interesting that you don't know the difference between natural science and natural history or subjective objective duality. You are just making this too easy.

 

[TheUndeadFish]

Darwin was explicit in his reasons for writting Origin of Species and it was to argue against special creation. Now if you don't want to admitt that this is an antitheistic philosophy then be my guest. I know better and it is blantant in evolutionary thought.

So what you're saying is that Origin of Species says God didn't create in a certain way, and this somehow means that God does not exist?