Need Some Education On EVOLUTION? Start Here! Perry & Axal take note!

by Seeker4 178 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Seeker4
    Seeker4

    Perry started a thread on evolution/atheism, which from his very first post showed an incredible ignorance of evolution and natural selection.

    Axal's comments on the thread were just asinine - how all the atheists in his area were at the strip clubs fighting over women and fornicating! What! I have to say that I live in a small town and have been here for half a century, and I couldn't name five people that I know here who are atheist. They might be, but it would sure be hard to say. Now the believers are a lot more obvious, and let me tell you, I'm sure they outnumber the atheists at any bar in town.

    Well, below is a link to a NY Times article on the brand new permenant Exhibit on Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/arts/design/09orig.html?th&emc=th

    One quote from the article: "The museum’s new permanent exhibition on human origins, which opens tomorrow, merges notable achievements in paleontology and genetics, sciences that have made their own robust evolutionary strides in recent years. Each introduces evidence supporting the other in establishing a genealogy extending back to protohuman species that arose in Africa from earlier primates some six to seven million years ago."

    For those ignorant few who still can't get a handle on the fact of evolution, perhaps this might be a good place to start, boys. It might help you to get the point that ALL of the sciences support one another in proving evolution, the work being done with DNA and the genome project are incontrovertible evidence for evolution, and this exhibit shows and explains all of that.

    Time to get educated!

    S4

  • tetrapod.sapien
    tetrapod.sapien

    ya, nice link.

    after that, they should head over to talkorigins.org, if they are really interested in learning about what they are trying to critique, that is.

    also, wikipedia.org has vast amounts of information on evolutionary biology, paleontology, anthropology and genetics, among other things.

    tetra

  • BluesBrother
    BluesBrother

    Well...speaking as one of those " ignorant few who still can't get a handle on the fact of evolution" , I find it all very interesting . A pity that it is a long way from here to Manhattan.

    I will however have a good look at the museum's website. Nothing has changed my belief in creation yet, but I will look with (hopefully) an objective mind

  • AllTimeJeff
    AllTimeJeff
    I said in another thread: "In the months since I have left JW's, and have started to educate myself, the one thing I have learned about myself is that I seemed to be fairly certain on issues that I have only a passing acquaintance with. Some call it "just enough knowledge to be a danger to yourself." I am starting to believe more and more that most people have opinions and standards for living, and they have no idea how they acquired them. So the question to me isn't whether or not that you believe in evolution, but rather, "Am I willing to be intellectually honest enough with myself and actually investigate what Science has found thus far about life? Natural selection?"

    I believe that if you don't believe in evolution because you were brought up in a religous tradition that rejects it out of hand, you owe it to yourself to learn more about it outside of the confines of your church/belief system. If god exisits, surely he wouldn't mind you examining evidence supposedly that god himself created?

    I am sure that a theiest might say "But I have examined the evidence." If you have only read what your church or thiestic apologists have put out on the subject, than I don't think you can make that claim, that you have considered all sides of the arguement.

  • Seeker4
    Seeker4

    Axal, I'm glad you're taking a look at things. But to say that you may believe certain "types of evolution" is like saying that you believe in certain types of electricty. Again, it simply indicates a lack of understanding about the subject.

    Evolution is essentially the overriding principal of all living things, and it was taking a good, long look at the evidence for it that was a huge factor in my leaving the Witnesses. I'm afraid that it also led to my losing all belief in a god. I came to see most religion, and belief in higher powers, as a way humans dealt with the fact that they had become conscious that they would die. Fear of death is the essential factor in all religions, it seems to me.

    There is just simply a total lack of evidence either for the existence of a god or for creation. It's the lack of evidence that made me feel that it was as much a waste of my time and life to concern myself with an invisible creator as it would be to concern myself with trying to prove that Santa Claus or Thor exist.

    The universe makes a hell of a lot more sense without god and religion in it.

    S4

  • AllTimeJeff
    AllTimeJeff
    There is certain types of evolution. Im not saying there is no evolution. If theres evolution God set it in motion. I go with creation and evolution :D

    It's these types of comments that caused me post my thread on faith, and why reasonable arguements as put forth by Dawkins and Harris among others deserve much attention and discussion.

    Putting aside the sincerity of your beliefs, and the extreme likelihood that you are a nice person, I am sure you can look at your own statement and see the dogmatism of your statement, as if it were a foregone conclusion. Whose god? The Christian god, the Muslim god, Buddhist, etc? While you are certainly not hostile, this statement simply closes the door for any further inquiry and discussion.

    Again, more education not only in Science, but in the reliability of the religious texts that we base our faith and beliefs is essential. Do we really know why we are so certain that god created this? Why such 100% certainty?

  • AllTimeJeff
    AllTimeJeff

    That isn't nec true. I recall a certain Galileo pointing out that the earth wasn't the center of the univerese and embracing the Copernican Theory that the earth actually revolved around the sun.

    In 1614 a Florentine priest denounced Galileists from the pulpit. Galileo wrote a long, open letter on the irrelevance of biblical passages in scientific arguments, holding that interpretation of the Bible should be adapted to increasing knowledge and that no scientific position should ever be made an article of Roman Catholic faith.

    Early in 1616, Copernican books were subjected to censorship by edict, and the Jesuit cardinal Robert Bellarmine instructed Galileo that he must no longer hold or defend the concept that the earth moves. Cardinal Bellarmine had previously advised him to treat this subject only hypothetically and for scientific purposes, without taking Copernican concepts as literally true or attempting to reconcile them with the Bible.

    Encarta ® Reference Library 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    As we all know, the Catholic Church got on it's getty up and apolgized a few hundred years later.

    Well, so much for the fact that Science doesn't get it. One scientist said the earth was flat. Fine. No scientist today believes this because of evidentiary discovery. In other words, it isn't a matter of faith or belief, it is a matter of fact! Science isn't married to a bad idea when the evidence doesn't support it. While Science has proven the earth is no longer flat and disacards theories when the evidence supports it, thiests in no way have the willingness to examine their own beliefs in the face of evidence and see if what they believe actually measures up with what is known. If anything, as Galileo's experience demonstrates, religion will do anything to prop up it's own superstitious ideas as opposed to admitting the most basic error. Again, how can one say they have "truth" when they can't even examine it to see if it is false?

  • Seeker4
    Seeker4

    Just because your brother couldn't convince you, it proves nothing. Living things evolve. That's a fact. Instead of asking your brother, who may or may not be qualified to discuss evolution, why don't you read and study the evidence. Get a good book about it, or several. Take the time to inofrm yourself before trying to argue it because you "feel" things should be a certain way.

    I'm sure the Museum of Natural History just spent a gazzillion dollars to create this exhibition on evolution because it's "bullhocky nonsense." Come on. You sound terribly ignorant making comments like that. I think your argument falls under the category of the new word "truthiness!"

    There is just simply NO EVIDENCE to back up your assertions, and bad ideas and ignorant thinking, no matter how strongly held or how much you want them to be true, are still just bad ideas and ignorant thinking.

    S4

  • skyking
    skyking

    Axel I was at one time in the same place you are. I tried to dismiss it, but I am not the type of person that can do that. One day I was reading some information about DNA and the Neanderthals then it hit me. What does DNA tell me about modern humans. After doing some reading on this subject it became clear I needed the change my thinking and give evolution a closer look.

    I personally have a hard time with evolution but that is me, I have over 30 years of brainwashing inside the BORG's HIVE that make me hang onto the thought of a GOD. I will make no bones about it the facts do not support a Creator God.

    I have a question for you Axel how can such a highly intelligent God come from nothing? What you believe is actually more improvable than the evolutionist because it took billions of years of evolution to create us. But your All intelligent GOD sprang into existence instantly, impossible. Think about that when you poke fun at evolutionist will you.

  • Apostate Kate
    Apostate Kate
    There is just simply NO EVIDENCE to back up your assertions, and bad ideas and ignorant thinking, no matter how strongly held or how much you want them to be true, are still just bad ideas and ignorant thinking.

    I find it disturbing that people who refuse to accept a theory as fact are treated as cults treat people. Signs of cult thinking;

    1) compliance with a group, 2) dependence on a leader, 3) avoiding dissent, and 4) devaluing the outsider.

    Comply with us evolutionists or we will devalue you as a person. Creepy. You depend on scientific evolutionists to define you. If we do not agree with you we have little value because we are too ignorant.

    Talk Origens is the most biased science related sites on the internet and will deliberatly deny inclusion of material that differs from their beliefs.

    Scientific hypothesis' have been wrong in the past many times. Theories are theories for a reason, they have yet to have been proven. There are 2 different aspects to evolution/adaptation and can not be lumped together but are by evolutionists.

    Sorry long list here but we "ignorant" ones are not alone but joined by some highly respected and highly educated scientists. We do not believe in creation because of having been JW's, but because we have evaluated the evidence.

    Are there scientists alive today who accept the biblical account of creation?

    Is there evidence of discrimination against creation scientists?

    Which scientists of the past believed in a Creator?

    Note: These scientists are sorted by birth year.

    Early

    The Age of Newton

    • Isaac Newton (1642–1727) (WOH) Dynamics; Calculus; Gravitation law; Reflecting telescope; Spectrum of light (wrote more about the Bible than science, and emphatically affirmed a Creator. Some have accused him of Arianism, but it’s likely he held to a heterodox form of the Trinity—See Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian? Journal of the History of Ideas68(1):57–80, 1997)
    • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716) Mathematician
    • John Flamsteed (1646–1719) Greenwich Observatory Founder; Astronomy
    • William Derham (1657–1735) Ecology
    • Cotton Mather (1662–1727) Physician
    • John Harris (1666–1719) Mathematician
    • John Woodward (1665–1728) Paleontology
    • William Whiston (1667–1752) Physics, Geology
    • John Hutchinson (1674–1737) Paleontology
    • Johathan Edwards (1703–1758) Physics, Meteorology
    • Carolus Linneaus (1707–1778) Taxonomy; Biological classification system
    • Jean Deluc (1727–1817) Geology
    • Richard Kirwan (1733–1812) Mineralogy
    • William Herschel (1738–1822) Galactic astronomy; Uranus (probably believed in an old-earth)
    • James Parkinson (1755–1824) Physician (old-earth compromiser*)
    • John Dalton (1766–1844) Atomic theory; Gas law
    • John Kidd, M.D. (1775–1851) Chemical synthetics (old-earth compromiser*)
    Just Before Darwin

    • The 19 th Century Scriptural Geologists, by Dr. Terry Mortenson
    • Timothy Dwight (1752–1817) Educator
    • William Kirby (1759–1850) Entomologist
    • Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826) Geographer
    • Benjamin Barton (1766–1815) Botanist; Zoologist
    • John Dalton (1766–1844) Father of the Modern Atomic Theory; Chemistry
    • Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) Comparative anatomy, paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
    • Samuel Miller (1770–1840) Clergy
    • Charles Bell (1774–1842) Anatomist
    • John Kidd (1775–1851) Chemistry
    • Humphrey Davy (1778–1829) Thermokinetics; Safety lamp
    • Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864) Mineralogist (old-earth compromiser*)
    • Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) Physician; Physiologist
    • Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Professor (old-earth compromiser*)
    • David Brewster (1781–1868) Optical mineralogy, Kaleidoscope (probably believed in an old-earth)
    • William Buckland (1784–1856) Geologist (old-earth compromiser*)
    • William Prout (1785–1850) Food chemistry (probably believed in an old-earth)
    • Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
    • Michael Faraday (1791–1867) (WOH) Electro magnetics; Field theory, Generator
    • Samuel F.B. Morse (1791–1872) Telegraph
    • John Herschel (1792–1871) Astronomy (old-earth compromiser*)
    • Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
    • William Whewell (1794–1866) Anemometer (old-earth compromiser*)
    • Joseph Henry (1797–1878) Electric motor; Galvanometer
    Just After Darwin

    • Richard Owen (1804–1892) Zoology; Paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
    • Matthew Maury (1806–1873) Oceanography, Hydrography (probably believed in an old-earth*)
    • Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) Glaciology, Ichthyology (old-earth compromiser, polygenist*)
    • Henry Rogers (1808–1866) Geology
    • James Glaisher (1809–1903) Meteorology
    • Philip H. Gosse (1810–1888) Ornithologist; Zoology
    • Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810–1895) Archeologist
    • James Simpson (1811–1870) Gynecology, Anesthesiology
    • James Dana (1813–1895) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
    • Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert (1817–1901) Agricultural Chemist
    • James Joule (1818–1889) Thermodynamics
    • Thomas Anderson (1819–1874) Chemist
    • Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900) Astronomy
    • George Stokes (1819–1903) Fluid Mechanics
    • John William Dawson (1820–1899) Geology (probably believed in an old-earth*)
    • Rudolph Virchow (1821–1902) Pathology
    • Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) (WOH) Genetics
    • Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) (WOH) Bacteriology, Biochemistry; Sterilization; Immunization
    • Henri Fabre (1823–1915) Entomology of living insects
    • William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) Energetics; Absolute temperatures; Atlantic cable (believed in an older earth than the Bible indicates, but far younger than the evolutionists wanted*)
    • William Huggins (1824–1910) Astral spectrometry
    • Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) Non-Euclidean geometries
    • Joseph Lister (1827–1912) Antiseptic surgery
    • Balfour Stewart (1828–1887) Ionospheric electricity
    • James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) (WOH) Electrodynamics; Statistical thermodynamics
    • P.G. Tait (1831–1901) Vector analysis
    • John Bell Pettigrew (1834–1908) Anatomist; Physiologist
    • John Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (1842–1919) Similitude; Model Analysis; Inert Gases
    • Sir William Abney (1843–1920) Astronomy
    • Alexander MacAlister (1844–1919) Anatomy
    • A.H. Sayce (1845–1933) Archeologist
    • John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945) Electronics; Electron tube; Thermionic valve
    The Modern Period

    • Dr. Clifford Burdick, Geologist
    • George Washington Carver (1864–1943) Inventor
    • L. Merson Davies (1890–1960) Geology; Paleontology
    • Douglas Dewar (1875–1957) Ornithologist
    • Howard A. Kelly (1858–1943) Gynecology
    • Paul Lemoine (1878–1940) Geology
    • Dr. Frank Marsh, Biology
    • Dr. John Mann, Agriculturist, biological control pioneer
    • Edward H. Maunder (1851–1928) Astronomy
    • William Mitchell Ramsay (1851–1939) Archeologist
    • William Ramsay (1852–1916) Isotopic chemistry, Element transmutation
    • Charles Stine (1882–1954) Organic Chemist
    • Dr. Arthur Rendle-Short (1885–1955) Surgeon
    • Sir Cecil P. G. Wakeley (1892–1979) Surgeon
    • Dr. Larry Butler, Biochemist
    • Prof. Verna Wright, Rheumatologist (deceased 1997)
    • Arthur E. Wilder-Smith (1915–1995) Three science doctorates; a creation science pioneer
    • Dr. Henry M. Morris (1918–2006), founder of the Institute for Creation Research.

    Is there a list of those who are against the biblical view of creation?

    Are there other biographies and interviews of interest?

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