[net.origins] misc. creationist topics

mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (09/19/84)

Re: Miller's arguments.

>     First, I'm surprised at the level of rhetoric on the net....
Me too.  I'm new to the net, but argued for years on the CDC PLATO network,
where a much less laissez-faire attitude was taken towards ad-hominem attacks
(partly because it was more easily enforceable.)  Bertrand Russell once wrote
that the opinions we hold most passionately are the ones we can least support.
As a rule of thumb, I feel that a passionate argument is a fallacious argument.

>Um, I think you have the basis for racism backwards.  Our Declaration of Inde-
>pendence states "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are
>created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
>Rights", a rather logical conclusion given the premise of a creator.  But what
>if we are nothing more than (very complex) self-replicating chemical reactions?
>What then is the basis for not stepping on our fellow man, given the power to
>do it? ...
     The second quoted sentence above is a prefect example of a non-sequiteur.
Historically, that "logical conclusion" has not been made, nor do we in
America give more than lip service to it (except for mainstream adult male 
citizens, though there has been a trend towards better compliance.)  Nor is
there clear biblical support for the proposition, as there are large numbers
of Christian sects that feel otherwise.
     There are rational, agnostic approaches for understanding and selecting
moral and religious ideas in terms of evolution.  Two excellent sources are
"On Human Nature" by E. O. Wilson, and "The Whisperings Within" by Barish
(or Barrat or sp?)  My understanding is that these ideas are heuristics for
optimizing reproductive success of themselves and of their human hosts.

     In response to creationists claiming Linneaus, Cuvier and others for
their own camp, I've got to call foul.  That's as silly as calling Jesus a
Catholic or a Protestant.  Nor did evolutionists borrow Linnaeus' work:
the majority of those who continued it became converted to evolution.

Mike Huybensz	(Carefully avoiding pompous quotes from sacred texts.)

mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (09/19/84)

>     Turning to others, we have Ray Mooney cheering on one sideline that evolu-
>tion is so good because we can pigeonhole plants/animals into nice species ca-
>tegories.  On the other sideline we have Phil Polli cheering that evolution is
>so good because it's "very hard" to do this.  Hmmmmmm.
     Evolution's classificatory difference over creationism is simply explained.
Evolution postulates a (roughly) tree shaped model of the descent of life,
stemming from a protobiological system, branching through the major kingdoms,
phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and finally species.  Creationism
postulates a short forest (grassy?) model of the descent of life, stemming from
an unknown number of kinds and branching into species.
     The advantage of evolution's difference is that it allows predictions to
be made that creationists cannot make.  Both evolutionary biologists and
creationists can say "Two species in genus/kind X have a characteristic Y.
Therefore it is likely that another species will have this characteristic.
However, evolutionary biologists can then predict that if two genera in family
X have characteristic Y, another genus in X will also have character Y.
And so on for order, class, etc.  Creationists have no theory on which to make
predictions on levels higher than "kind".
     Another advantage of evolution is the construction of hypothetical
ancestors.  Assume you thought birds evolved from reptiles (for a variety of
good reasons, mostly anatomical.  Two major differences between birds and
reptiles are feathers and teeth.  Thus we can construct several hypothetical
ancestors that show alternative  ways to arrive at birds from reptiles.  Say,
losing teeth then developing feathers, or developing feathers then losing
teeth.  We may even have a reason to prefer one of the hypotheses.  Then along
comes Archaeopteryx, and one of our hypotheses is confirmed.  (This is not an
actual example: it is more a thought experiment.)  A creationist, in similar
circumstances can only observe a new kind he had no inkling of before.  Or, if
a creationist chooses to hypothesize intermediate kinds, why shouldn't he
hypothesize fish-birds or worm-snakes?  Clearly evolutionary hypotheses have
more predictive value.

ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) (09/19/84)

[zot]

It may be too late already, but I have a suggestion for the rules
of discussion here.  Quite a lot of Ray Miller's most recent message
seem to boil down to this: "All of our mutually held highest ideals
about human beings are baseless if one believes in evolution."
Now personally, I think this is a crock of shit.  However, I also
think that it is irrelevant to this discussion group.  If creationism
has any scientific validity then it must be established by appealing
to the evidence at hand.  Ray seems to be suggesting here that because
he can't see any reason not to lead a life of rape and pillage if God
does not exist then the existence of God had better form the basis for
our understanding of the universe.  (I'm a little confused as to why
a belief in theistic evolution wouldn't do as well as creationism, but
that's beside the point).
    Let's try to discuss creationism and evolution in terms of the
physical evidence.  If we can't, then I submit that that simply shows
that creationism is not science.  If Ray really wants to categorize
non-believers as being divided into hypocrites and immoral monsters
then I suggest he take the argument to net.religion.
        
                         
"I can't help it if my     Ethan Vishniac
    knee jerks"         {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
                           Department of Astronomy
                           University of Texas
                           Austin, Texas 78712

rmooney@uicsl.UUCP (09/22/84)

>     Turning to others, we have Ray Mooney cheering on one sideline that evolu-
>tion is so good because we can pigeonhole plants/animals into nice species ca-
>tegories.  On the other sideline we have Phil Polli cheering that evolution is
>so good because it's "very hard" to do this.  Hmmmmmm.
 
Please! let's avoid setting up straw men, A. Ray.  I never said or even
alluded that the ease or difficulty  of classifying organisms into
species was evidence for or against evolution; however, I happen to agree
with Phil's arguement. My point was simply that the *definition* and examples
for the concept of species far outweighs that of "kind", adding the fact that
even species is not a sharply defined category. The only attempt at answering
the request for a definition of "kind" that I remember was Paul Dubois' which
was shown to be circular by Dick Dunn. I maintain that the concept of "kind"
is much weaker that that of species and if you disagree please post your
definition and classification of all organisms into "kinds" using evidence
from morphology, genetics, etc.

>    Ray Mooney also writes:
>>The current taxonomy has been in development since Linnaeus ...
>who, by the way, was a creationist and was trying to begin a delineation of the
>original created kinds.  Evolutionists simply "borrowed" his work

I am tired of hearing that many pre-Darwinian scientists (yes A. Ray I know
about Bacon,Pasteur...)  were "creationists."  *So what?*  Kepler believed
in astrology, does this give it credibility?  I fail to see how the
ignorance of the past has *anything* to do with the present.

>>creationists...are almost always in areas not directly related to the evolu-
>>tion-creationism debate.
>A false statement.

I maintain the validity of this statement in general.  Gish I believe is
an engineer, and there are other examples, of course.

> But I do wish to infer that given the *premise*
>that the bottom line of ALL is physics, there are no unalienable rights.  Why
>should I grant "rights" to some chemical reaction, even if its complexity
>equals that of my own?  Who cares about society as a whole and why on earth
>should I?  Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.  And why not?  It is a
>perfectly logical position, and one not to be criticized, given the stated
>premise.  Indeed, how can one call anything in physics "good" or "evil"? 

Supporters of creationism and prayer in schools seem to insist on the
inseperability of morality and religion.  Perhaps they should read some
literature on Humanism.  Of course its a "logical position," so is the
position of adding moral postulates to an atheistic belief system, the
important thing is not to confuse morality with both religion and science
as creationists insist on doing.  Science is neutral with respect to morality.
Certainly religion cannot make an exlusive claim to the idea of human equality
In fact religion has certainly been at least as frequently used to support
descrimination as science.  Were most of the people who rationalized the
owning of slaves athiests or Christians?  If it is relevant that Linneaus
was a creationist, perhaps it is relevant that Hitler was (perhaps I 
could use "claimed to be") a Christian.

       Ray Mooney
       ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!rmooney
       University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign

rch@brunix.UUCP (Rich Yampell) (09/30/84)

Actually, if we are no more than self-replicating chemical masses, then there
is, as yet, absolutely no basis for not stepping on our fellow man, with the
possible exception that it is frequently not in our own best interests.  And
yet, one intuitively feels that there *should be*.  Great philosophers have
wrestled repeatedly with this problem, and have drawn varying conclusions.
But the very fact that Kant, Nietche, or Sartre can come up with such
wildly differing answers suggests that there in fact is no answer.  Oh, sure,
you can come up with morals and reasons to choose them, but that will always
be a personal choice.  It is a key philosophical problem which has yet to
be satisfactorily resolved.\

Life is absurd.

bmt@we53.UUCP ( B. M. Thomas ) (10/03/84)

>Actually, if we are no more than self-replicating chemical masses, then there
>is, as yet, absolutely no basis for not stepping on our fellow man, with the
>possible exception that it is frequently not in our own best interests.  And
>yet, one intuitively feels that there *should be*.  Great philosophers have
>wrestled repeatedly with this problem, and have drawn varying conclusions.
>But the very fact that Kant, Nietche, or Sartre can come up with such
>wildly differing answers suggests that there in fact is no answer.  Oh, sure,
>you can come up with morals and reasons to choose them, but that will always
>be a personal choice.  It is a key philosophical problem which has yet to
>be satisfactorily resolved.\
>
>Life is absurd.

Indeed, the only possible solution to the question, if you categorically reject,
as all evolutionists do at the outset, what we Bible-thumpers arrogantly 
call divine revelation.  I can assure you that many of us in our 
unbelieving days wrestled with the same questions and lost, as have the 
aforementioned scholars and philosophers.  Only when confronted by the
Person himself... oh, I'm sorry, this group is supposed to stay away from
"religious" talk.  But you did it first, when you started to talk about
meaning.

_____________________________________
I will not apologize for breathing...

	we53!bmt(Brian M. Thomas @ AT&T Technologies, St. Louis, MO)