posted January 10, 2007 10:21 PM            

What Dr Patterson really said

I don't know where you get your facts from, but try reading something other than "Creationism for Dummies".

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Dave
I know the answer, but not the question...

posted January 10, 2007 10:39 PM            

What was that about 'Groundhog Day', Dave?

posted January 10, 2007 11:03 PM            

>I don't know where you get your facts from…

Right out of the transcript.

Your reference refers to something, “letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979”.
Don’t know what that’s about.

posted January 10, 2007 11:09 PM            

Must be getting near the end.
No logic, just a whining sound.

posted January 10, 2007 11:29 PM            

quote:

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The famous "keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group.
I had been asked to talk to them on "Evolutionism and creationism"; fired up by a paper by Ernst Mayr published in Science just the week before.
I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification).
Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder.
So much the worse for me.
But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else.

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posted January 11, 2007 12:00 AM            

That speech was directly to professional systematists.

He also asked the same questions to other fields of evolution.
“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, that is true? … I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence…”

This quote from that speech refers to evolution.
"So I think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years if you had thought about it at all, you've experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge, to evolution as faith."

From the start of the speech, “I'm speaking on two subjects evolutionism and creationism…”

I've been kicking around non-evolutionary or even anti-evolutionary ideas.

“One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, or let's call it a non- evolutionary view, was last year I had a sudden realization for over twenty years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That's quite a shock to learn that one can be so misled so long. Either there was something wrong with me or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory. Naturally, I know there is nothing wrong with me, so for the last few weeks I've tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people.”

posted January 11, 2007 12:10 AM            

Guess what the title of the speech is.

quote:

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My title is "Evolutionism and Creationism."

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Added: I might at well quote your quote;

quote:

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I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification).

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posted January 11, 2007 12:21 AM            

True faith is not blind credulity!

In the same way an honest scientist must look at all the facts
of a matter if he wants to find scientific truth, so to with
religion.

The real question is, are we willing to at least examine other
possibilities?

For those who are asking such questions, some excellent reading:

The Earth, is it a product of pure chance?
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2000/10/8/article_03.htm

Can we learn something about the creator from his creation?
http://www.watchtower.org/library/dg/article_03.htm
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2000/1/22/article_02.htm

Can a scientific person really believe in God?
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2004/6/22/article_02.htm

posted January 11, 2007 03:29 AM            

quote:

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Note that not only does Patterson confirm that the creationist representation of the quote is false ....

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posted January 11, 2007 03:39 AM            

He was referring to whatever this is:
Colin Patterson : "The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes."

"I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false."

He doesn't mention the speech until after that.

Of course, you already knew that.
Tricky Dave!

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posted January 11, 2007 07:04 AM            

quote:

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The Creationists like to say that evolutionists believe that all the different life-forms, including human beings, came about "purely by accident." But all this shows is that they don't understand that evolution comes about through a combination of both random and non-random factors: in the evolution of human beings or any other species, natural selection non-randomly "favored" certain step-by-step modifications (which happened to have emerged on the basis of random variation) whenever such a modification conferred a distinct reproductive advantage on individuals which had that new feature. This is the part of the evolutionary process which is not "accidental" (though it still doesn't involve any supernatural guidance or selection of any sort).

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posted January 11, 2007 07:33 AM            

From a review:

quote:

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Eugenie Scott explains the nature of science: Science is guided by natural law, is explanatory by reference to law, is testable against the empirical world, is always tentative and subject to revision and is falsifiable. Creationism is an act of faith without testing and fails the nature of science.

What many do not understand is that there is 1) no general all-purpose scientific method, 2) science is not only about experiments, 3) science is not invulnerable to fraud, 4) science can never provide final or absolute truth and 5) there are questions that science cannot answer. Science never proposes an irrefutable hypothesis such as "God did it!" Science accepts what cannot otherwise be disproven - and keeps testing, always looking for the defects and failures.

Following Garrett Hardin's method of taking the opposite view, Ms. Scott makes a concerted effort on behalf of "Intelligent Design" and creationism proponents. The ID folks refuse to allow Ms. Scott to quote from their published materials, contrary to the norms of open and democractic discussion.

The nature of science is that science is an act of nonfaith and is always subject to further testing. Science can never rely on the supernatural. There is no conflict between science and creationism. There is only a conflict in the minds of those who only rely upon the supernatural and faith.

Ms. Scott presents a credible, easy to read and understand discussion. This book belongs in the hands of every K-12 and university educator, minister, school board and the general public.

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posted January 11, 2007 07:58 AM            

I'm pretty sure you know yourself that your comparisions are flawed, but I'll pick one item to explain why:

quote:

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churches/mosques: schools (can only teach the religion of Evolution, any other belief system forbidden. )

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In Germany religion is a mandatory course at school. Not only that, but religion isn't just taught "for the sake of it", but you get school marks as well. Marks as much worth as marks in biology, chemistry and other courses. If you fail in religion you could end up in repeating that year. So it's not a "seat there, be bored, don't care" course, but you have to do something in order to be promoted for next higher grade

Now show me a church where atheism is a mandatory activity part and even has impacts on such an important matter such as a school report.

posted January 11, 2007 01:47 PM            

Everybody knows what the theory of evolution is.
1) Life, itself, happened by accident.
2) After that, it was a process of natural selection.

1) This is contested.
2) Nobody is debating natural selection, only that species can evolve by natural selection. Cattle breeding has been practiced for thousands of years, mentioned in the early chapters of the Bible.

So, what’s the point?
You say they said them said; what can anyone say to that?