Is Evolution a Dangerous Idea? If so, why?

I do not know what more there is to "working" with fossils. Pissing the taxpayer's money up against a wall or keeping Ladies Garments going I would call it rather than working.

Enlighten me Ed as to what more there is. I'm eager to know.

I had no intention of clouding people's judgement. I laid it out as I understand it. You could try refuting it and decloud them.

And don't call me sir. I'm a squaddie.

Farmerman and others have gone over this endlessly on the other threads. If you don't acknowledge it now you never will.

fm and others have not gone over it at all never mind endlessly. The others have no idea anyway. At least fm knows a bit about the subject.

And from your answer to my request to your bad mannered post I can only surmise that you know nothing about the matter as well.

Which begs the question of why you seek to promote the teaching of evolution, which means promoting evolution theory to the whole of the next generation, without you knowing anything about the matter. I suspect that most of the teachers who would be asked to teach it won't know much about it either and will be simply regurgitating what they have gleaned from books which themselves won't have addressed the points I raised. And giving kids rewards for re-regurgitating it. Which is the precise charge levelled against teaching religion but with teaching evolution we are in uncharted territory which we are not in teaching religion.

There is another matter as well. Darwin was a bloke to me. Not some abstract icon. I've read a lot about him as well as the stuff he wrote.

He was English at a time when the idea of mechanical causality was in the ascendent. He was familiar with the mechanical shaping of pottery from clay in the Wedgewood factories and the failure to reach breeding age of large numbers of the employees: the unfit. It was easy, indeed glib, to imagine everything was shaped in a similar mechanical-utility causality. Satisfyingly easy. Too easy.

And easy enough for his mind to understand and become infatuated with enough for him to not consider other possible explanations deriving from events exterior to the earth's crust, which is all he studies. Cosmological events I am referring to. Sudden bursts of radiation from the sun. Pulses of radiation arriving from a long ago event out in the wide blue yonder. Shifts in the earth's axis and orbital positions due to comets or relocation of the oceans in tectonic movements. The storing of water behind dams in the northern hemisphere is supposed to have realigned the earth a little. If Africa was once joined to the Americas where was the Atlantic. The recent earthquake in Chile is said to have shifted things a bit.

And what can we learn about living beings from their bones let alone fossils of them. The war graves in France contain the bones of men from all over the world and descended from most races?

There is also the difficulty of what our instruments can measure. It is another glib assumption that they measure all there is to measure. We can never measure the sensations the living animals experienced from studying their fossilised bones. And the living animals would have their behaviour conditioned by their sensations.

And I'm skirting these issues to keep the post short and simple.

Evolution theory is just too good to be true. That is the main reason why it is popular. It's simple as it is presented and it lends itself to scientific terminology and the chance to pose as experts. No wonder it is popular.

Life isn't simple. And teaching the kids that it is is doing them a dis-service.

Nobody asserts that scientists have all the answers. They just have more information than you are willing to admit. Anyway, that is for other threads. I don't intend to follow a long diversion such as that on this thread. - You? Offended by a lack of civility? He he he he he he he he he he. Okaybyenow.

I didn't say I was offended Ed. I simply pointed out, in passing, that you were offensive.

I am going to read Desmond and Moore's biography of Darwin again from the point of view of a psychiatrist. I already have some views on his character from previous readings of the book but they might easily be superficial.

Scientists have more information than they are willing to admit never mind what I am.

I take into account every point of view and every opinion. That was the basis of my criticism. I can only respond to what is put forward, and he was dismissive at best.
I have never claimed to be God.

In your opinion. But you could contribute, I am sure.

No matter what you may learn about Darwin through a psychiatrist- so many decades after the fact, for criminy's sake - it cannot alter evolution science, because his knowledge has been expanded and refined upon, the theory now in cement. If Darwin could be discovered to be a Jehovah's Witness in secret, a child molester, Jack the Ripper - it would have no effect on the science. Only on the perception of it by those seeking to derail it.

The book that spendi is referring to is a large piece of work that looks at the mans warts. Its a good book but with a limited scope.. It specializes in focusing Darwins years of torment over several areas of his existence, not the least of which is his own personal attack on hios religious foundations.

Its a loooong but necessary read to understand Darwin. Its like a lot of Goulds later work, wordy and introspective. I think its a sign that everything thats finally been said about Darwin has just been said finally

I don't object to the work. I don't believe in censorship anyway. I only question the use some persons (spendi) would want to put it to, on threads like this.

Some of the people on these threads have hinted that Setannta is one of the most brilliant and well informed persons on these threads. When I read his posts, I almost come to believe that. He is so assured, so prolix, so authoritative. That is why I must ask him a question( I am sure he knows the answer) that has been, to the best of my knowledge, yet unanswered satisfactorily.

Since the prevailing science posits a "Big Bang" or, more precisely, a singularity.
From where did this "singularity" arise? I have looked for an answer but cannot find one that is satisfactory.

But, the all knowing wise man, Setenta, surely has an answer!

I think it is vital to answer this question so that we may proceed from the answer to the phenomenon called Evolution---a process that must necessarily come later than the expansion of the "singularity".

Fair enough, Saab . . . i wouldn't have known that because i never read posts by that clown. Do please forgive the tone of my response to you.

Spendius and Ionus--My Universe is shattered. All ideals gone! I believed that Setanta was the great guru who would be able to answer my question. When I go back to read some of his pronoucements, it seems as if I am reading Herodotus or Gibbon--His tone is so self-assured. he does not hedge but gives one the full and direct answer. I am hurt because I, like some of the searchers for knowledge in the past, I have not been allowed to hear the voice of wisdom.

Would either of you try to respond to my question?

There is no answer Massa. There never will be. The answer is blowin' in the wind. The essentials of evolution theory was known to the ancient Greeks. I refer you to Prof. Basil Willey's Darwin and Butler.

There is not the slightest similarity between Setanta's writings, if one may be allowed to call them that, and the writings of Herodotus and Gibbon. I have Gibbon right here beside me open at Chap 15 and Herodotus' Histories is in the pile on my coffee table. Your comparison is ridiculous or possibly sarcastic.

Hang on a minute Ed. The thread is an invitation by you for those questioning evolution theory to offer their reasons. Setanta is more a derailer than I am. He has just made a post the purpose of which is to call me a clown. Again. And that is despite his not having read my posts.

I have taken some trouble to respond to your invitation. And my intention was to show that Darwin's theory is not set in cement at all. It is shallow and limits itself to mechanical-utility causality, of the type to be found in the English factory system, of events on the earth's crust as if the earth is isolated from the rest of the universe. It is also limited by the crudity of Darwin's powers of observation as if any effects he was unaware of did not exist.

And I think the theory is false in its essence because it gives a too simple picture of what is a very complex phenomena: life. It does not, and could not, explain human response to music and yet almost every science programme uses music in exactly the same way Church music is used. To move emotions. As birdsong does. Suppose, for example, that tunes out of a long beak, say, charmed hen birds better than short ones. Like Barry Manilow. (Sorry--I couldn't resist. Somebody claimed he gave up counting Shakespeare's nose jokes when he got to 600.)

Nor could the theory offer any explanation of the differences the art of various cultures so obviously exhibits. It is well known that Darwin lost all appreciation of art in his later years and his principle leisure activity was trying to beat people at cards. Even his long suffering wife. The sort of man who would take pleasure in beating his wife at backgammon is exactly the sort of man who would try to play down the contributions of others to his theory. Which he did.

I think his theory was skewed by his character and thus I think his character is relevant to your thread and the invitation you put out. I reject the charge that I am derailing the thread. The theory is derived from his character. Could Einstein have produced his theories if he hadn't been so absent minded and "out of it"? Could Freud have--I better not--there is censorship Ed.

He is clever enough to recognise the inter-relation problem, he just attributes the problem to others...they are ipsi dixit as he likes to say. This is the problem with learning a word a day...some use them all the time to the point of ad nauseum like with quantum and paradigm (they dont know what they mean, but they sound important).

I doff my hat to you. I didnt think I would ever hear you say that to anyone. Perhaps I have been hasty in my assessment of you...

It is the nature of peer-reviewing that the object is taken down off the pedestal and the underside examined. Surely you accept that fm?

When Darwin's underside has been scrutinised as much as Bob Dylan's you might have just cause for your complaint.

A singularity is really a hypothetical entity from a mathematical model of a black hole. It has been proposed that the universe started with a singularity, but it is most likely this was not in this universe. As soon as it became the smallest bit less than a singularity the universe popped into reality. So from physics, the universe was created by forces outside this universe.

I prefer the Seven Days idea. It's not as difficult to get your head round. The idea of infinite mass crammed into infinitessimal space: i.e. infinite density is a principle only Setanta can understand.

I love talking about people behind their backs.