Robert T. Pennock, the scientist, philosopher and author of “Tower of Babel, The Evidence Against the New Creationism” speaks on the controversial movement to include intelligent design creationism in the curricula of public schools. Series: “Helen Edison Lecture Series” [12/2006] [Public Affairs] [Education] [Show ID: 12066]
By: UCtelevision
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By: UCtelevision
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#1 by Bereitwilligkeit on March 29, 2010 - 6:00 am
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I apologize for my ad hominem attack. However, I point out that he started it by deliberately twisting what I said, and elephant hurling. If he refrains from dissin me Ill happily reciprocate.
#2 by PatchesRips on March 31, 2010 - 11:42 pm
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“You need to seriously improve your reading skills before making further comments. Come to think of it, enroll in cognitive science 101″
I believe this retreat to ad hominem attacks constitutes a tacit admission that you have no real cogent arguments to make.
#3 by PatchesRips on April 1, 2010 - 10:52 am
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“What a pack of lies!”
On what grounds do you call them “lies”, other than your suppositions and your frantic theological need to deny them?
“a POISONOUS soup”
“Poisonous” being, of course, an entirely subjective term. To wit: you might eat a pound of dark chocolate this Xmas if you like… but I wouldn’t advise it for your dog. Also: molecular oxygen, produced by plants, presented a huge crisis for early life on Earth because it was “poisonous”… till some managed to tolerate it.
#4 by PatchesRips on April 3, 2010 - 8:11 am
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“Millions of years is not a mechanism; it is a smokescreen.”
Denying the passage of time outside of one’s own cultural experience simply because one is uncomfortable with the implications is not evidence. It’s wishful thinking.
But then again, so is religion in general… so no surprises here.
#5 by PatchesRips on April 5, 2010 - 4:47 am
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“they CANNOT RATIONALLY ASSUME that it COULD occur by CHANCE”
Good; because they don’t. Evolution doesn’t operate “by chance”. It’s simply the description of the process by which varieties in particular genes within a species are either selected for or against by how fit their expression makes those that carry them to survive in a given environment. It’s not chance, it’s not magic, it’s not God wiggling his nose and saying SHAZAM. It’s an easily-grasped, and demonstrable, natural process.
#6 by PatchesRips on April 6, 2010 - 9:35 am
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I think “they are UNABLE TO CREATE EVEN THE MOST PRIMITIVE LIFE with ALL the ingredients”
Last January, the Scripps Institute demonstrated that they had created self-replicating RNA in the lab; something creationists said science couldn’t do; hence, evolution was a fraud (not that abiogenesis is a requisite part of evolution). NOW the creationists have backdated it to, “Oh,well, sure, using the atoms GOD created!” Now science actually has to recreate the UNIVERSE, apparently, to prove itself.
Ho hum.
#7 by PatchesRips on April 7, 2010 - 1:55 pm
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“Psalm 14:1 Describes the depravity and corruption of human nature”
Why do you think I would care what Psalm 14 has to say in any case? For instance: are you in any way troubled to learn that Verse 4:171 of the Quran denies the divinity of Jesus? If not, then why would you imagine anyone else would be in any way impressed by some bland bit of doggerel out of your particular book?
Maybe our hearts aren’t “hardened in sin”… maybe your heads are just “softened in gullibility”.
#8 by Bereitwilligkeit on April 10, 2010 - 6:41 am
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You need to seriously improve your reading skills before making further comments. Come to think of it, enroll in cognitive science 101
#9 by N3m3cis on April 13, 2010 - 12:48 pm
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So you actually enjoyed watching a man get murdered then. Well there’s some high morality for us all to live by. Sorry to say, but I don’t find you funny in any possible way.
Macabre you say and then crack a joke about death.
I hope you live long enough.
#10 by Bereitwilligkeit on April 17, 2010 - 12:05 am
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I think Awake, and kicking at your traces. You are actually rather funny (in a macabre sort of way) except; I’ve already seen one man hanged in my life, and I didn’t enjoy it enough to care to watch a repeat performance.
#11 by N3m3cis on April 18, 2010 - 3:15 am
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And what do you care about rationality? Your proof of anything is one collection of man written two thousand year old texts that are translated and interpreted beyond their original form. People who wrote that awful piece of genocidal, selfcontradicting pile of dung, thought that the earth is flat and diseases caused by deamons. And if preposition that everything was (entire universe) made, it was made for Adam and Eve, every frikkin star and galaxy just for the sake of two humans?Yes, i’m awake
#12 by Bereitwilligkeit on April 20, 2010 - 4:29 pm
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WOW! You are actually awake enough to notice? WHOODATHUNKIT?
#13 by Bereitwilligkeit on April 22, 2010 - 5:08 pm
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What a pack of lies! NO ONE can take a perfectly good dead body with ALL the ASSEMBLED parts IN PLACE and bring it back to life.. Yet somehow; evolutionists insist the MECHANISM to produce life is: to place a few of the right and wrong ingredients into a POISONOUS soup, and add electricity with lots of time. If you think about it a moment; what does millions of years have to do with anything except as a smoke screen for naive people? Its an established fact only as a religious belief.
#14 by N3m3cis on April 23, 2010 - 11:43 pm
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I think Wow you writing in CAPS really convinces me!
#15 by Bereitwilligkeit on April 26, 2010 - 10:22 am
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I think Only evolutionists base their theories on pure conjecture. In order to be legitimate they must first establish, HOW DID LIFE TAKE PLACE? Primordial soup is unsupportable AS: they are UNABLE TO CREATE EVEN THE MOST PRIMITIVE LIFE with ALL the ingredients; they CANNOT RATIONALLY ASSUME that it COULD occur by CHANCE. That makes the very foundation of neodarwinism bogus as they have not shown any MECHANISM by which it is even possible. Millions of years is not a mechanism; it is a smokescreen.
#16 by Bereitwilligkeit on April 27, 2010 - 4:31 pm
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Psalm 14:1 Describes the depravity and corruption of human nature: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God- The sinner here described is an atheist, one that says there is no creator, judge, or Governor of the world. No man will say, There is no God, till he is so hardened in sin, that it is in his interest that there should be none to call him to account. They claim themselves to be very wise, and good, and safe, but are in their secret fear driven to protest Gods very existence.
#17 by PatchesRips on April 28, 2010 - 9:03 pm
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I think “How is living to face your maker a bad thing when you put have your trust in him?”
You might put this question to the thousands who died on 9/11 at the hands of people who firmly believed they were doing just exactly that.
#18 by PatchesRips on April 29, 2010 - 9:11 pm
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I think “evolutionism… is based only on the BELIEF that it happened millions of years ago”
No, it’s actually demonstrable, in any number of ways. There’s the fossil record, there are comparative anatomy and morphology, there’s observed speciation, there’s comparative gene sequencing… it’s not 1850 anymore. We understand and can demonstrate the mechanisms by which it occurs. It’s an established fact.
But I have yet to see evidence for the existence of a god, or souls, or backing most of the Bible.
#19 by Bereitwilligkeit on April 30, 2010 - 10:51 am
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I think The very people that say that, science and religion dont mix as: religion is not like science, defined as: systematized knowledge derived from testing, observation and demonstration, chose to ignore that evolutionism cannot survive these criteria and is based only on the BELIEF that it happened millions of years ago. On this basis evolutionism is a belief system, or religion. How is living to face your maker a bad thing when you put have your trust in him? Your point sir?
#20 by PatchesRips on May 2, 2010 - 4:41 am
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I think Some people don’t have a problem with a scientific explanation for the things around them, but they have a need for an absolute yardstick in morality and spirituality. There’s also the question of mortality. Believing in a god opens the door to the possibility of the personality surviving physical death.
#21 by Bereitwilligkeit on May 3, 2010 - 5:30 am
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In that case, why bother?
#22 by PatchesRips on May 4, 2010 - 12:34 pm
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It can be managed if one takes Genesis as merely allegorical rather than historical. If Adam and Eve merely stand in for humanity in general and act out the less desirable aspects of human nature that separate human beings from God and from one another, then the rest follows… at least arguably. Evolution is incompatible with a literal reading of the Bible, but not necessarily with a thematic understanding of it.
#23 by Bereitwilligkeit on May 6, 2010 - 10:01 pm
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I think COMPROMISING THE BIBLE WITH EVOLUTION:
When one attempts to compromise Christianity with evolution, it follows that Adam and Eve were never real people. Thus, if there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin, there is no need of salvation which negates the need for a savior, effectively putting Jesus out of a job. This flies directly into the face of compromising Christians who say there is no conflict between God and evolution.
#24 by HaMoNmYb0nEr on May 10, 2010 - 3:54 am
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@sriabu
Some people do. Evolution has nothing to do with any God. Neither does any science. Religion has always had a problem with science because science explains the world and becomes more clear as time goes on. Religion is always required to be interpreted and “never” changes.
#25 by gregrutz on May 11, 2010 - 11:33 pm
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Don’t worry, everyone had a mom and a dad, even in the Cambrian Period.