well, except for all that pesky evidence.
>Materialism against all other philosophies. There is nothing
>wrong with someone promoting a philosophy of materialism.
you don't believe that for a moment, why are you saying it?
>It is wrong to try
>to impose it upon society as "scientific truth". All the facts about
>evolution known at this time could be compatible with many philosophies.
such as?
>We
>don't know how major variations and increased complexity arose.
replication errors and mutations have been observed and documented. We know
how they arise.
>They could
>have occurred by some materialist mechanism, without purpose, plan or design.
> Or they could have occurred in accordance with some unknown design and
>purpose.
"a god did it" or Little Green Guys from outer space. First we must
establish the existence of gods or LGGs.
>Most Darwinists in this debate don't seem capable of such
>tolerance.
I don't tolerate lies, that's true.
>They insist evolution be defined as something which contradicts
>everything except a materialist philosophy. No one denies life might be
>explained by naturalistic theories. However, at this point naturalistic
>explanations have no claim to absolute "truth".
actually only you claim that it does. Religious truth is not the same as
scientific truth.
>Darwinists seem hung up on
>the possibility of the existence of a "designer".
nope. We are hung up on having religion taught in science class. We are
against it. The design thing is really pretty recent in the
creation/evolution debate.
> I suspect many scientists are not committed
>materialists, but they have been intimidated by those who are. They
>probably fear being called a YEC if they voice any public skepticism of
>orthodox Darwinism.
Scientists who are intimidated by "orthodoxy" or "materialists" should be
shoe salesmen. If they have anything against evolution they should start
collecting and presenting *evidence* because anything else will not be
accepted.
One of the reasons Gould is so easy to be quoted out of context is because
he refuted strict gradualism. All Stephen or whoever, has to do is say
"gradualism" is *exactly* the same thing as natural selection and see here?
Gould says "there are problems" with it. Gradualism is *not* evolution.
Gould went against orthodoxy and won because he had evidence to back him up.
But all he was saying is that evolution does not always proceed at the same
rate. Why should it? He *never* said that he was skeptical of *evolution.*
All quotes from Gould or Eldredge are talking about rates of change, not
evolution. You can bet good mony that when either of them are quoted by an
anti-evolutionist, the quote is dishonest.
Susan
--------
Peace is not the absence of conflict--it is the presence of justice.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
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http://www.telepath.com/susanb