See my short article in the Michigan Tech Lode (week of 2007-09-19): click here
Comments
Wakefield: Thanks for correction - it was Miss Teen USA from Lexington SC - I'm in Australia - and the joke has obviously mutated on its transpacific journey.
But your joke is far funnier -"give credit to a certain kind of gene flow".Tell you friend he should be praising Richard Dawkins for the survival of Selfish Genes.Tina
September 26, 2007
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Give credit to certain kind of gene flow where applicable I said.
:lol: good oneDaveScot
September 25, 2007
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Markus, I think your last paragraph was perhaps the best of all:
On the other hand, human rights get easily threatened by people who want to stifle dissenting viewpoints and dictate their own opinion to others. This sort of tyranny is too well known throughout history. Very often ideological tyrants pretend to “protect” their fellow humans from “dangers” spreading into their cultural niches… Such fear mongering clouds the great questions humans ask in every culture and in every millennium. One such question concerns the purpose and design in nature.
All too true. And it is THIS kind of attitude, more than some specifics about origins, that some of us fear the most. Science is only as "neutral" (as many of its adherents claim) for only so long as they wish to be. Which historically has never been very long: In reality many Darwinists have had MUCH to say about society and culture. Religion/faith and other "unscientific" input is relegated to the "backwaters" and alleys and private sphere and the attempt in trying to cast it out of public life altogether is akin to the disappearing smile of the Cheshire Cat. The ID/Creation/Darwin Wars are part of the program to not so much fuss over particulars in bird evoloution or whether dinos had some feathery down, but rather to purge religion out of the cultural matrix and have unopposed certain cultural assumptions by claiming that "nothing" and "no one" can escape the "realities" of what Darwinism means for not just human origins, but human DESTINY and morals as well.S Wakefield Tolbert
September 25, 2007
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Tina said: There is a joke going aroud based on Miss Calafornia’s recent gaff re answer to “Why large percentage of Americans cannot locate America on the map of world?”.The correct answer is: “Most Americans think America is the world.” (Well I thought it was funny!)
Tina were you thinking of Miss Teen USA's from Lexington SC?
She bungled that one up also! Someone no doubt coached her on the war in Iraq, geography, and other areas and she launched this with a dreadfully mangled tale of "education in Iraq" and geography and having the Iraqis "built us up." Rather than answering the question posed about why Americans can't find things on a map. Poor thing. Or is it really a matter of "poor teaching."
I passed this along to a one Stever Reuland, a hard core Darwinist blogger and former South Carolina resident (as am I) and since he was complaining about the need from yet more money/better standards in education, the dismal "lack of science standards"(citing "creationst/ID" pushes, as you know) and the general state of disrepair in our public schools, I told him to relax. This girl, is, after all, drop dead gorgeous and will have a high powered BMW by her 18th birthday. Give credit to certain kind of gene flow where applicable I said. SO I told him mother nature knows better than the NEA what to do with some gals.
He didn't like that quip.S Wakefield Tolbert
September 25, 2007
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Yes--The Euros certainly think it a menace. See today's updated version of this "threat to human rights" at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070925/sc_nm/europe_creationism_dc
And it IS interesting that despite the VAST differences in the literal version of the Genesis account as commonly told and the ID proponants' investigations into "design parameters", that the twain wold be lumped together. The Euros will give no quarter on this one, and I fear that eventually this edict will move from public schools to those few homeschooled and private schooled children to avoid the "problem" of "creationism." Germany already all but put a halt to some kinds of religious schooling just this year out of fear of LACK of "multicultural diversity" and other slogans and nationalistic buzzwords. Sounds more like an ideological agenda than a scientific one. Over and over Darwinists tell us that science and faith are "separate magisteria" and that science has nothing to say on morals and goals but the hard "facts" of biology. We make the decisions from there. How so? To what degree? Via what means? These are moral and political and philosphical issues. Now we see some laying claim that NOW only science can make these. In Western tradition it is the VERY belief in transcendent power of a deity that gave rise to the notion of a rational universe and an order of men not above law, answerable to God and not themselves in the final analysis, and thus all "rights" were not bequeathed by legislative fiat or edict but rather merely RECOGNIZED as "God given", "endowed by the Creator" and the like.
Funny now that this broad brush called "creationism" (now to include ID and all other forms in one lump sum) are considered by our pals across the pond as being inimical to "human rights."
But then, much of what Western Europe has gotten into in recent decades has done far more of the same in the name of political correctness and radical policies.S Wakefield Tolbert
September 25, 2007
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...but on more serious note "no need to be terrified" is true in part - but for many respected scientists their reputations and credability will be challenged and undermined. I'd like to see Richard Dawkins ever can say "Sorry old chaps: I've been wrong all this time!"Tina
September 25, 2007
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There is a joke going aroud based on Miss Calafornia's recent gaff re answer to "Why large percentage of Americans cannot locate America on the map of world?".The correct answer is: "Most Americans think America is the world." (Well I thought it was funny!)Tina
September 25, 2007
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I am a six-day creationist. The difference between ID and my particular religious creation myth is quite big. I would never say I was a proponent of ID, even though it certainly helps my faith.
The inability for critics to see the difference between Creationism and Id is amusing and sad. In essence, I think by their argument that ID has great philosophical implications and is therefore religion, they suggest that Darwinism is religion, because Darwinism also has great philosophical implications. (Is it irony that atheists are the biggest religious hypocrites?)faithandshadow
September 24, 2007
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I liked the letter, too! However, diehard liberals are going to see things their own way. Such is life.apollo230
September 23, 2007
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What I like most about this letter is the ease with which he makes the CS/ID distinction. More evidence that Barbara Forrest is truly dishonest and Judge Jones is truly stupid.StephenB
September 23, 2007
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Great letter.
I tried posting this at your site but comments were disabled.
Intelligent design is, according to the committee report, a “form of creationism.” As such it could become a “threat to human rights.”
Those who fear this need a new declaration of purpose. How about: We hold these truths to be group determined, that all pesons are evolved from random processes, that they are endowed by self-proclaimed elites with certain conditional privileges.
That seems to be what they want.
Western civilization is based on God-given rights.tribune7