Evolution? How?

Render you subjectivised you mean.

Now that's ego over intellect for sure.

farmerman,

They are not interpretations; they are completely different records from completely different records from completely different civilizations at completely different times.




The..................

TheUndonePoet wrote:

farmerman,

They are not interpretations; they are completely different records from completely different records from completely different civilizations at completely different times.




The..................

from completely different floods. Most early settlements were near a water source. They tend to flood. If everything as far as the eye can see is flooded, then ya tend to think that the whole world is flooded. Especially in the days before CNN news coverage. Some guy built a raft and floated out his family, cows and chickens. Everytime he told that story, the boat got bigger until he had two of every animal on it.
P

Have you ever experienced a flood, Pauligirl?

You generally don't have time to build a raft.

Floods appear quickly and with very little warning.

But I appreciate the humor break.

These days Richard Dawkins is so much a popular spokesman for enlightenment values, a voluable an unembarrassable critic of religious belief that it might be as well to remember what it was that gave him his public eminence in the the first place. Its 30 years sinc the first publication of that spledid book The Selfish Gene, now being reissued in a special edition, and one of the very surprising things about it is that in many ways it has become more controversial as time has gone on, and in ways which dont reflect at all well on the development of society.

Then to any intelligent reader, it simply seemed a statement of the truth of things; so well explained in fact, that it was almost in danger of looking like a statement of the perfectly obviou. Now of course it is still correct, and it would be a dangerous lie to pretend that cracks of any significance have appeared in Dawkins explanation of the mechanisms of evolution. Nevertheless since 1976 an increasing number of people have risen up to claim exactly tha, not all of them obviously stupid in other ways, and what must have seemed inconceivable in 1976 has come to pass. People in positions of political and intellectual authority have started to give official weight to arguments against Darwins ideas, and the value of the truth is under siege in a way which no one could have predicted.

Some recent examples. A 15 year old schoolgirl in Russia is mounting a court case to demand that creationism is taught as a part of the national biology curriculum. 44% of British adults agree that creationism should be taught 'as biology' in British schools. Indeed, at least one faith school, Emmanuel City Technology College, already does so, and in view of the rapid spread of faith schools, more may follow. Creationism is, as is well known, everywhere in American education, sometimes justified through hilarious means. A British born 'philosopher' - British-born philosophers have been comic presences throughout the whole story - has been reported as saying that if the teaching of evolution in school established atheism in American schools, it should be banned, since that would violate the constitutional separation of church and state. This fabulous piece of logic didnt seem to leave any consideration for the teaching of scientific truth.

We may laugh at such arguments as we laugh at say creationist theme parks in Kansas, but it grows harder and harder to refuse to engage as Dawkins quite rightly does, with creationism or 'intelligent design' as scientific theories. From September in English schools, biology pupils will be required to understand and discuss theories no scientist gives credence to. Jacqui Smith, the Schools Standards minister, said in a parliamentary reply that 'creationism is one of many beliefs which pupils might discuss and consider'. In reality, of course, it hardly belongs even to the history of science, let alone to science as we understand it now, and ther is no point in pretending that there is any merit in intellectual diversity in this area.

Already more extreme voices are being heard. Biology students and medical students in London have been very vocal in complaint about the fact that they are not being credited when they cite the Bible or the Koran as scientific fact. In 1976, it must have seemed that the argument is over in all essentials - but the apparent influence and confidence of voices eager to stress that it is only the 'theory' of evolution, some 30 years on, cannot have been something that Dawkins or anyone could have credited. It is only as much a theory, in reality as Newton's theory of gravity....


...What a splendid book The Selfish Gene is and remains!....

farmerman,

literal. I know you probably have tons of evidence to prove that it is fabricated and that the different legends were simply passed through oral tradition from one civilization to another all over the world. If it is really that important for you to try to convert me to atheism, which requires no belief in a god and therefor will result in everyone becoming nothing after death, then write what you want.

TheUndonePoet wrote:

farmerman,

They are not interpretations; they are completely different records from completely different records from completely different civilizations at completely different times.




The..................

from completely different floods. Most early settlements were near a water source. They tend to flood. If everything as far as the eye can see is flooded, then ya tend to think that the whole world is flooded. Especially in the days before CNN news coverage. Some guy built a raft and floated out his family, cows and chickens. Everytime he told that story, the boat got bigger until he had two of every animal on it.
P