Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

It seems to me that an evolutionist, if there are any here, has no option but to think of whatever happens as good. You might end up criticising a leopard for having spots otherwise.



I treat the Bible as an interesting book written by some posh geezers for reasons of their own. Which is not to say they were not good reasons from their point of view. Its longevity and fame is evidence that we agree that they were good reasons. Gilles de Retz's outpourings have not made the charts like the Bible has.

I do hate to say this and I do not by any means, "mean to be mean but I do think that man will evolve mentally to a point where they will think that our religious beliefs were a type of mental retardation or should I say, "a stage that humanity had to go threw in order to evolve mentally?

The later may seem kinder!

That's okay.

But what are we going to be like when we have evolved mentally to the point you envisage and which I assume meets with your personal approval? And which is good by the internal logic of the evolutionist.

If women are equal to men won't their special advantage give them the upper hand?

Not necessarily because even you have to admit that you are way more sexy than some of the women that you have seen throughout your life time and that will give you the upper hand because they will need the service that only Spendius can give them!

I do not have a clue how this will turn out! As far as I know our sun could explode tomorrow, I really do not know what the future holds for humanity I can only guess like everyone else does!

That's a very typical anti-ID half-assed piece of jejune sophistry rl.

The principle moral argument against evolution theories is that they surrender to a set of givens, determined by forces beyond human reach. In which case the future is "good" because it is the future. Whatever it is.

This thread, and other experience, proves that subscribers to evolution theories are not coherent and consistent in regard to such a belief. I have used the expression over the years, "half-baked", as shorthand for the incoherence and inconsistency. Full-baked anti-IDers must revere the future because it is the future.

In fact, anti-IDers are much less culpable morally and much less lucid logically than their belief enjoins them to be. Which means that they are not bad people really, not as bad as they make themselves out to be I mean. They are only misguided. They are, as fm claims, educable.

They do not revere the future because it is the future and do not have values simply because they are winners in the competition of values. Which they would have if they weren't so half-baked. They do not say, and certainly not to themselves, that the good is such because it wins out and that truth prevails because that which prevails is truth. Hitler, on that argument, was true and good for about 10 years. And now he is bad.

What they do is fantasise that good will win because it is good. Hence no need to fight for good.

Such doublethink is snowed over with various details, concepts, technical wizardry, brilliantine words and, as a last resort, insults.

Marx had a heart of gold beneath the severities of his social science. He needed to have to write so well. The heart of stone has no artistic conceptions.

I recognise that anti-IDers are all good blokes and ladies but in a debate I have to proceed as if they are logically clear-minded and consistent evolutionists, despite the rarity of such beasts, as I once was before I learned the error of my ways.

So the correct evolutionist answer to my question is to accept that if women are equal to men but come out on top due to their special advantage then that is the way of the world, and good by definition, and men will have to make what they can of it.

Retreating behind monastic walls being my preferred option.

The temperature of your oven was set too low rl and you were taken out before the recommended time.

Are you being silly?



You never did state WHY you did not like the comment "being intellectually honest with one's self"

What was silly about that? That's the direction we are drifting in.

I didn't care for the comment because it imputes I am not intellectually honest with myself and I always am. It's a snotty-nosed comment unworthy of a grown up person. It says nothing but suggests it does.

I will assert, on the basis of either/both of my posts about the logical and moral objections to evolution theory that you are not being intellectually honest and that the other anti-IDers on here are not as well. You are all playing little personal games with euphemisms and messing with the education of millions of kids about which important matter you show no sign of knowing anything about in terms of the process itself or its objectives.

Spendius If I could have only four minutes of your time I would be able show you how other intellectuals help me to be intellectually honest with myself!

Everything you know is Wrong!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IhhK-foddE&feature=related

I gave you the 4 mins. and it was a waste of my time. I don't know how Keeley got his figures. Even allowing them to be correct I don't know what those Amazonian tribes were fighting about or with what weapons or what sort of injuries caused death. Or the numbers involved. He must know that percentages can be deceptive and his charts might be useful for someone who wishes to demonstrate that they can.

I think it was an Enlightenment Good/ Bible Bad spiel. Odd he should quote the Bible selectively when he thinks it all rubbish.

How does "dying at the hands of another man" suddenly become "warfare"? How does "violence" with sticks and stones equate to carpet bombing of urban areas, gas attacks, weeks of constant shelling and A-bombing two cities from a safe distance?

How does that there "seems" to be a tipping point become there "was" a tipping point? What about the Dark Ages? What does " commonly thought to be a state of primordial harmony" mean? It never has entered my head that those situations were harmonious. I might have thought that the tribes hardly ever coming into competitive contact with each other was the normal state of affairs.

He quotes a verse from the Bible. Ye Gods. There's about 1,100 Chapters in the Bible. You can count the verses. 100,ooo maybe. That's a serious "fractal". And if the Bible is not the source of our moral values what on earth is?

If that shite is how you learn to become intellectually honest with yourself you have my deepest sympathy.

Nice hair though. Tinted and blow-waved in an expensive uni-sex salon no doubt. Total physiognomic dishonesty of the first rank is that.

OK you are correct at least I think you are, You are being intellectually honest with yourself!
I mean that in a kind way and not in a hateful way!

I do have a question for you though how is that any different than a Muslim which may have the same views about the Koran or as far as that goes how is it any different than any other religious person's view that it very sincere?

Even if this person worships the Sun God.

I'm not sure what you mean. How is what any different from a Muslim?

A verse, if it has verses, in the Koran enjoins the faithful to wash their rectal orifice a specific number of times when they have been doing No 2s. The original folk version of Oswald's Dilution Law. I can't remember whether it is four or five. I suppose the dogma is to prevent cleanliness freaks from being at it all day.

But Muslims hate evolution. I do know that. Venomously.

I do not mean this in a hateful way but I wonder if it could be that they share the same logic as Christians?

I refer you to my posts on the logical and moral objections to evolution. I daresay aboriginal tribes the world over had similar logic. Our anthropologists only see the results. They have no idea from what intellectual capacities such results sprang from.

It makes sense that the two most powerful empires of the West would have similar logic. It would be amazing if they didn't. Why would the great minds in each not come to similar conclusions? Everybody knows that great minds think alike. Different times and different geography accounts for variations.

Take your Pinker wind weaver. He lists some felonies for which death was the punishment. Humane methods being seen as ridiculous. Conditions were such that most of them would off themselves if a sweet way was available. Humane execution being seen as a sort of blessing. There are campaigns going now to make it legal. Hardly a punishment. If you have deterrents make them deter. It saves lives if it works. Try imagining no deterrents to adultery for example. As an evolutionist and with scientists having discovered sexual arousal sprays.

The tapestry loom operative you showed us does not allow that the reason for such draconian measures was survival of the tribe. He can't see that the rules were carved in stone for that very reason and for only that reason. The reason given for the treatment to Bradley Manning. If his reticence on the matter is conscious he is treating his audience like a prim New England schoolteacher does a class of 8 year olds demonstrating what sex is with a banana and a milkbottle. (witnessed event). If it is unconscious he's stupid. I would have booed either way and as I heard no booing I assume there was no audience or they were carefully selected for their stupidity. The rest being in the boozer with the sexual politics full on. If one of those asked one of the others what the guy had said last night at the Brainboxes Ball and was told with a serious mien that he proved that the human race was miles less violent 10,000 years ago than it is now it would be greeted with a range of responses depending on the temperment of the curious one and whether he was busy or not.

You've all, Pinker included, got your parochial heads on and that's not intellectual. The 18th and 19th century version with a range of delicate flavours. Like hundreds and thousands are mainly sugar and all the fantastic choice of booze is basically alcohol. Intellectual is like the sweet taste and the woozies. And fat. Combinations of the three can be seen in shop displays in the week preceeding St Valentine's day or the anniversary of the birth of Jesus. They conjure dancing girls, the other fundamental, out of all sorts of unpromising sources. They are very expensive and glitter like glass beads.

Honestly Spendius, "Are you a poet?

I made a very crucial error in my last post.

The sentence--



should have read--



But if he is right and we are less violent than primitives were then there must be some reason for it. In the segment, your genius hair-job doesn't offer any in his eagerness to bespatter the Bible and what is "commonly thought" . Both of which played a major role in the improvement. Assuming it is an improvement. A strawman detector would bang the needle into the red bit at the top of the scale picking that one up.

He certainly makes a mess out of those charging Christians with violence. Pulling the rug from under them, so to speak, while they are carrying all the Thanksgiving Dinner crockery back to the store-room.

I can get poetic rl.

Ok very good for you because you think that it possible for you to make mistakes. I like that! You are not alone in that process because I am right there with you and I am also guilty of thinking of things in absolute terms that I am mistaken about!

Could you also be guilty of this mental retardation that I have or is it only me?

It's just you rl. But you're catching on.

You know it does make me fell good somewhat but I do not like the idea that it is only me that is able to see this mental retardation because it does not give me much hope!

I sure wish that there were others that were not so confirmation bias that they also could see this truth!

I don't think in terms of mental retardation. I think people have their reasons for what they think. I might debate them but I wouldn't use the silly argument that they are retarded. It's an argument of last resort for somebody with nowhere else to go.

In my opinion you would be better off forgetting all about mental retardation. And a few more of your invidious catchphrases. That you think they are effective is an insult to your contacts.