Konceptual99 said:
"I for one wish the society would be far more open with seeking to harmonise established scientific theories (and I mean theory rather than hypothosis) with the Bible instead of ignoring the points raised and just appealing to blind faith."
That is the LAST thing the Society wants to do, as they've already gone down the road of denial and obsfucation: they know the evidence is SOOO strongly against their position that all they have left to fight with is a bag of rhetorical tricks, not facts.
The evidence of their dirty tricks is to be found by scrutinizing their literature (perhaps alongside some who knows evolution; that wasn't even needed, as much as an understanding of the basics of logic/rhetoric). I did that last year for a JW family member, using that WT-sized pamphlet attempting to disprove evolution (I can't remember it's name: sorry). The first thing I noticed was the rampant use of cherry-picking of quotes, which to their credit, they DID disclose in footnotes that the person they quoted believed in evolution.
However, that's still intellectually dishonest, using quotes from scientists who don't agree with the conclusion, in order to support their argument. It's a fraudulent appeal to authority. They're counting on the average reader to not look at the footnotes, let alone read them and understand the implications!
Richard Dawkins also pointed out in one of his books (God Delusion, i think?) of the WT's brazen use of quotes from naturalist Richard Attenborough, a renown naturalist who believes in evolution. Attenborough produces many shows for PBS, but the Society is counting on JWs not watching Worldly TV shows to see their quote-mining tricks. They tried to make him out as doubting evolution, when that is not the case. So he's good enough to use an an expert, but apparently not enough to listen to his conclusion....
The proof is out there, but they're betting on the laziness of R&F to dig (hence the discouraging of independent research), or having the strength to actually act on what they find out (under threat of shunning).
