Professor John Gowlett – crazy about Darwin and Lucy
Atheists in Manchester are clinging on to Charles Darwin as if he were the fount of all wisdom.
Each year, says an email, ‘Greater Manchester Humanists put on a Darwin Day event as a major meeting where we invite noted academics to give lectures on cutting edge advances or new insights into the world of science that has been informed by Darwin’s discoveries.’
Two professors
They have found two professors to speak at the meeting. The meeting will be held on Monday 12th February, Darwin’s birthday, designated ‘Darwin Day’.
Guy Otten, a ‘humanist celebrant’, chairs the Manchester God-deniers. He is also a trustee of the British Humanist Association. He said: ‘Darwin’s insights are still (amazingly) being denied in the 21st century by people motivated by anti-science founded on religious belief. Supporting and promoting Darwin Day is thus an important step and statement.’
This is almost a self-parody of the atheist position. So shaky is their confidence, they have to denigrate their opponents as ‘anti-science’. Actually, it was religious belief that prompted science in the first place. Scientists from the fifteenth century to the present day were, and still are, Christians. (Although the term ‘scientist’ was not coined until 1833.) Here are just some of them. But there is a longer list here.
Where did ‘laws of nature’ come from?
Inquisitive believers wanted to know how God’s creation worked. We still do. What laws did the Almighty put in place to govern creation? In Proverbs chapter eight his law is characterised as ‘wisdom’. It declares:
Prov 8:23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
If the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, thermodynamics and so on were not put in place in the beginning, where did they come from? What wisdom created them? Because, make no mistake, they had to be there or the universe would blow apart.
One of those is the law of biogenesis: Life comes only from life. Indeed, scientists have only observed life coming from the same kind of life, just as the word of God states in the first chapter of the Bible:
Genesis 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Australopithecus
All that remains of ‘Lucy’ the extinct ape – still touted as the elusive ‘missing link’
One of the speakers at the Darwin Day event is scheduled to be Professor John Gowlett. Prof Gowlett holds the degrees of MA PhD FSA FRAI. He is Professor of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. The other speaker is zooarchaeologist Prof Keith Dobney BA; MSc; PhD.
The subject will be: ‘HUMAN EVOLUTION: from Australopithecus to Archaeological Science.’
‘Australopithecus’ refers to ‘Lucy’. Evolutionists have hailed her as the elusive ‘missing link’ between apes and men. However, others point out Lucy was actually a extinct ape. Moreover, they do this from a scientific mindset, evaluating the evidence.
Dr Gowlett says: ‘My research interests in human evolution focus especially on the middle times between the ape-like australopithecines and the appearance of Homo sapiens within the last half million years.’
Anyone with an evolutionary axe to grind must ignore the evidence that Lucy was really an ape. Above all, we see that evolutionism is a quasi-religious view. It’s a belief’. People ‘believe’ Darwin’s Theory, despite modern advances in DNA and molecular biology. Biologists defend evolution not because it is true, but because tens of thousands of jobs and reputations depend on it. This is blind faith, if anything is.
The witness of yeast
But what of Professor’s Gowlett’s idea that Lucy ‘evolved’ into people ‘within the last half million years’? Evolution depends on massive time-scales. Any baker or brewer knows about yeast. Yeast reproduces every fifteen minutes. In broad terms, it goes through 35,000 generations in a year. That is the equivalent of 1,000,000 years of human generations. But at the end of all that time, it is still yeast. It has shown no inclination to become anything else.
`
The Carlsberg Brewery in Denmark still uses the Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis which Emil Hansen purified in 1883. Yeast fits into God’s creation just fine as it is. In fact, ecologists are only now showing how inter-dependent is the whole of God’s eco-system. This BBC webpage shows some of the intricate links. It all had to be in place ‘in the beginning’.
Or as the Bible puts it:
Psalm 104:14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
Indeed, sometimes we just have to stand in awe of the whole of creation:
Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
And to those who purport to know it all, God still asks, as he demanded of Job:
Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Darwin knew nothing of DNA
Charles Darwin knew nothing of DNA or molecular biology
Darwin himself lived from 1809 to 1882. He puiblished ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’ in 1859.
In the same year, as this website shows, Louis Pasteur disproved the theory of ‘spontaneous generation’, popular during Darwin’s lifetime. But just-so stories endure. Eleven years later, in 1870, Thomas Huxley, ‘Darwin’s bulldog’, proclaimed the ability of life to come from non-life. Furthermore, evolutionists still believe in abiogenesis today. They seriously believe life arose from non-life.
Then ignoring Information Theory they maintain that more complex organisms ‘evolved’ from less complex ones. However, molecular biologists have shot down this idea at first post. Bacteria do not have the power to evolve into cells with a nucleus. And with 1,000 times the DNA of bacteria, those are the building blocks of life. We reported on this study here. Now then, how have evolutionists reacted to this evidence? They have ignored it.
Speaking of blind faith, Darwin not only knew nothing of DNA and molecular biology. He was also ignorant of microbes. Robert Kock only isolated them in 1881. He published his research on tuberculosis in the year of Darwin’s death. Before that, people believed the disease was inherited.
Evolutionists are anti-science
Humanist ‘celebrant’ Guy Otten
Despite their bluster, it is the evolutionists who are ‘anti-science’ if anyone is. They ignore real scientific advances post-1859. They try constantly to force annoying evidence into an evolutionary grid. We all do this, because we are fallible human beings. But at least we Christians admit it, and frankly, the evidence increasingly supports our position than theirs in any case.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is shaking. That’s why Mr Otten speaks despairingly of ‘the need to affirm evolutionary science among your family and friends by inviting them along. This is important in this day and age.’ In 2009, the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, a poll found half of all Britons do not believe his theory. Only 25% went wholeheartedly with Darwin. Just last year, according to another poll, despite 38% of Americans believing equally in creation and some form of God-guided evolution, a mere 19% accepted the atheist position. Nevertheless, that figure has doubled in thirty-five years.
Evangelism
Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
The event will be held from 7.30pm, with doors open at 5.30. The venue is Manchester Conference Centre, 78, Sackville Street, Manchester, M1 3BB. Tickets are priced on the eventbrite website at £8 and £5 for the unwaged. Christians are unlikely to attend and pour any money into atheist coffers. Nevertheless, we should pray. Holding prayer at the venue would be useful.
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Yeast fits into God’s creation just fine as it is. So you get the same beer every year.
What about flu ?
What about Escherichia coli ?
Why are we in danger of running out of useful antibiotics ?
Author
Yes, they all mutate a bit, but they stay as the same sort of thing, or ‘kind’ as says the Good Book.
But yeast doesn’t.
Author
No, apparently it does, slightly, which is why the big brewers retain biochemists to keep the strain pure. But it sure stays as yeast, you are dead right there!
So is your point that Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis has stayed unaltered since 1883, or that it hasn’t ? If they made a point of cultivating a pure sample of one of the mutations, it wouldn’t still be the same kind of yeast.
This is true of dogs, too. You can be careful to keep your cocker spaniels pure, or thanks to canine lust they will quickly become a different kind of dog. Still dogs, though.
If you mix horses and donkeys, lions and other big cats, things are not so clearcut. You could try zebras (with the horses, better not with the lions).
The word “kind” is so much vaguer than “species”.
Is a house-mouse the same “kind” of creature as a field-mouse ?
What about a rat ?
What about a water-rat ?
Is a polar bear the same “kind” of creature as a brown bear, or a panda, or a koala bear ?
How far are we allowed to get between different specimens and you still insist that they are the same “kind” of creature, so there has been no evolution ?
Why are marsupials confined to Australia ? Did the Ark stop there and drop them all off ? Just asking your opinion — this is a real concern to some people.
why if Darwin is so wonderful are his writings about the origin “black” people never mentioned?. Obviously it would blow a PC fuse.
Surely he believed that black people were descended from apes, the same as he believed that white people were descended from apes. If not, tell us more !
When you say he is “so wonderful”, it is you that are conferring some kind of sainthood on him. He was a dedicated scientist who did some original work and was the originator of a new theory (the survival of the fittest — evolution was NOT a new theory). He was not a holy man; he made no claim to being perfect and omniscient, and those who have admired his work do not claim that either .
Author
But they do!
Can you give us an example of somebody who believes that Darwin’s own original work is unchangeable, and is not liable to revision in the light of new knowledge gained from new experimentation ?
Author
Well, I’ve never heard any evolutionist pick holes in ‘Origin of Species …’. Have you any examples of evolutionists criticising Darwin?
“Criticising” probably isn’t the right word, because no scientist would expect a book written in the 19th century to be the final word on the matter. You wouldn’t expect this to be the case with a book on electricity, or on atoms. They escape Christian controversy because the Bible says so little about them.
However, every new work which introduces new material on subjects which interested Darwin is going to prove him “wrong” in a sense. One recent example is the exact behaviour of coral-reefs, which Darwin not surprisingly did not get exactly correct. He was put right by Reginald Daly, and more recently by Michael Toomey and others.
I suggest you read round the edge of the most common type of £2 coin.
I’m sure that everybody who “improves on” Darwin still has the greatest respect for him.
As soon as “Origin of Species” was published in 1859 it was beyond criticism!
Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of genetics by growing pea plants and published his results in 1866. His results were ignored by the scientific community for at least 35 years because they contradicted evolution.
He found that the Bible is true:
Living things can only reproduce according to their own kind.
Evolution teaches that living things reproduce outside their own kind when they produce new species.
The two theories could not be further apart.
Bioligists studying genetics realised that Mendel was right and pressurised their leaders to reconsider his work. In 1900 & 1937 evolutionists started to recognise Mendel’s work.
Neither Mendel nor Darwin were aware of genetic mutations which are now believed to drive evolution.
But there are no examples of species being improved or new species being formed by these mutations; they usually cause diseases.
It is not really surprising that an Augustinian friar experimenting with the normal family histories of pea plants would not discover that they had changed into a new species in his lifetime, and he was in no way trying to disprove the work of Darwin. He might have studied who has blue eyes and brown eyes in human families — that study would not result in a new species either.
However, Mendel knew very well that farmers could select desirable characteristics to give them better or different crops. Think of all the different varieties of apples ! In some cases, fruit breeders have indeed come up with what appear to be a different kind of fruit, most dramatically perhaps nectarines, but there are also loganberries and others. Incidentally, who could doubt that blackberries and raspberries have a common ancestor ?
It is intriguing how Chris hints at some sinister plot from the first !
” As soon as “Origin of Species” was published in 1859 it was beyond criticism! ”
Why ?
Biologists “pressurised their leaders to reconsider his work. “.
Who were these leaders ? What was their motive ?
Author
NO, blackberries and raspberries do not have a common ancestor, they have similar design. But they have differences as well. Brambles and strawberries (and spider plants) propagate by layering as well as by seed. Raspberries spread underground. Blackberries and most raspberries fruit on last year’s growth, strawberries on this year’s. Apples are always apples and oranges are always oranges.
And their motive? The same as yours. To deny God and think to live according to their own rules. But such a route ends in hell, for the individual, hell in eternity, for a society, hell on earth.
Blackberries are always blackberries and raspberries are always raspberries, unless they are loganberries, or dewberries, or youngberries, etc. Cider apples and Seville oranges are not really the same kind of fruit as apples and oranges generally. Try giving them to children.
Who were the “leaders” of biologists intent on hell on earth for society ? I have never noticed any hint of such a motive amongst biologists. You seem to be throwing in a lurid judgement of me here too, but never mind.
Author
Most are not remotely aware that the road they are travelling will end in destruction.
Deut 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Jer 21:8 And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.
Ezek 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Matt 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Every previous civilisation which has allowed its family base to crumble and has exalted sexual perversion and child sacrifice, worshiping things other than the Lord, has gone down the rubbush chute of history. There has been not one exception according to anthropologist J D Unwin.
Steady on ! I never advocated child sacrifice !
In fact, Stephen has committed me to hell because in my opinion blackberries and raspberries have a common ancestor, whereas, believing that they were created separately, he will go to heaven. There is something very mediæval about this. In those days, I would have started a sect of heretics who would have been persecuted and eventually exterminated.
We live in 21st century global civilisation. Whether it be the Aztecs, the Ancient Egyptians, the British Empire, Hitler’s Germany or Mediæval Christendom, every previous civilisation has gone down the rubbish chute of history, when you come to think about it.
Author
It is not true that Mediæval Christendom has vanished. It developed into Christian Europe, but is now being taken over by Secularism.
I have not condemned you to hell. That’s not in my power. But there is one in whose power it is, so you had better watch out!
And if you are in favour of legal access to abortion, you are advocating child sacrifice, our modern version of that abomination.
Well, I think that Mediæval Christendom has vanished, a system covering most of Europe and supervised by the Pope in Rome, in which something like half the useful land was in the hands of the Church, and in return for which abbeys and other monastic institutions handed out as best they could the kind of social services which are now mainly the concern of the State.
In England, Henry VIII and Edward VI kicked this version of Christian civilisation down the rubbish chute of history. If you are going to say that it “developed” into Christian Europe, you might as well say that mammoths are still with us, but they developed into elephants. And indeed, you would be telling J.D. Unwin that the old religions of South America still exist, but they have developed into popular Latin American Roman Catholicism .
Author
I think the impulse to contradict what the Christians are saying has rather run away with you, old boy.
None of the Christians I know seems to think that we are still living in a civilisation which is identifiable with mediaeval Christendom. We are living in 21st century global civilisation, different from mediaeval Christendom in hundreds of ways,. If you look back, you will see that this was my original point, which you have gone out of your way to contradict. Are you going to say that we are still living in Tudor England ? Of course not.
Thank you Stephen – a very interesting read. I do enjoy and benefit from reading your views on issues. God bless you – keep up the good work – ‘it does the brain God gave me good’….makes me think and that has to be good!
I wish I had retained the reference. But Darwin’s wife was, it sees, an evangelical Christian. As he lay dying he received a visitor. This man began to talk about evolution but Darwin stopped him. “Don’t mention that. I was a young man thinking aloud. They took it up like a religion. All that matters is Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
Author
Hi Jane. The story comes from a Lady Hope, wife of Admiral Sir James Hope. The link and a fair analysis are both here. the link will open automatically in a new tab. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
Hi Stephen
A great article,
Food for thought…In March 1861 Charles Darwin wrote that he believed the theory, but acknowledged that he could not prove in any single case that (natural selection) has changed one species into another.
That is why it is called “the theory of evolution ” IT IS ONLY A THEORY!!!
God Bless
Eddie T
I suppose that must be why Atomic Theory and Kinetic Theory are called theories too. Basically, it means that they aren’t really true. Thank you for explaining that. Edward.
What is your opinion of Hodge Theory ?
I quote :
“Hodge Theory, named after W. V. D. Hodge, uses partial differential equations to study the cohomology groups of a smooth manifold M. The key tool is the Laplacian operator associated to a Riemannian metric on M.
The theory was developed by Hodge in the 1930s as an extension of de Rham cohomology. It has major applications in three settings: Riemannian manifolds, Kähler manifolds, algebraic geometry of complex
projective varieties.
Hodge theory has been particularly powerful in algebraic geometry. For a long time, some of the deepest results of algebraic geometry were only accessible through analytic methods such as Hodge theory. Since the 1980s, some results of Hodge theory for algebraic varieties have also been proved by arithmetic methods, known as p-adic Hodge theory. ”
So what do you reckon, Edward ? Is Hodge Theory as fictitious as Evolution and the rest of them, or is it any good ?
WHAT ABOUT m a n! We often see the evolution shown by animated sketch of figures
from ape to Upright supposed to show this EVOLUTION ! I wonder what the ALMIGHTY ‘creator’ of MAN thinks of that !?
Religious people tend to think of Darwin as having written a Holy Book like the Bible or the Koran, and so their task is to prove the book incorrect. That is completely the wrong attitude. Darwin was only laying out a theory, which he had not proved and on which much more work needed to be done, much of which now has been done. It is perfectly normal for scientific advances to modify earlier theories.
What always surprises me is that very few people (although we have had one on Christian Voice, the Antarctica man) ever attack Newton’s Principia. This was a comparable book, containing outstanding new theories on which a future science was based. Perhaps it inspired awe just from being written in Latin, so that in the end even the Roman Catholic church embraced it ! But the truth, of course, lies in the difference between mathematical physics and biology —- it’s much easier to experiment with and prove the former than the latter. This means that to a very large extent Newton was “correct”, unless you throw in corrections made by Einstein, which are not usually necessary even if you are planning a trip to the moon.
We should be proud that both these men were English geniuses, and it’s a shame that neither of them appear on banknotes any more (remember the last £1 note ?) . Don’t knock poor old Darwin. He did the best he could, and he himself didn’t expect it to be perfect. You expect too much from him.
Author
I think it’s the secularists who believe his book is untouchable!
No they don’t.
SECULARISM ! The greatest danger to society
” The National Secular Society works for the separation of religion and state, and equal respect for everyone’s human rights, so that no one is either advantaged or disadvantaged on account of their beliefs.”
So this would include YOU not being disadvantaged by a majority of Muslims or Atheists that you encountered in some situation. It also includes, very much, the principle that if YOU happen not to be an Anglican, this will not be a disadvantage to you. Sounds good to me.
Author
There is a big difference between freedom of private thought and practice (which secularists would kindly allow), and the freedom to exercise religion or belief publicly, which they oppose.
The respected evangelical J.I. Packer recommends the book, “Creation or Evolution: do we have to choose” by the evangelical Dr. Denis Alexander. This sets out clearly why Christians should believe that there is no contradiction between the Bible and evolution. An attempt was made to counter a few of the arguments in, “Should Christians Embrace Evolution” edited by Norman C. Nevin. Dr. Alexander ably and clearly refuted these arguments in a second edition of his book. People who have been ardent “creationists” have changed their position through reading Dr. Alexander’s book.
Author
For me, the contradiction is not just between Evoilution and the Bible but between Evolution on the one hand and evidence and common sense on the other. The witness of yeast shows creatures do not macro-evolve into anything else, even after 4,000,000 generations. That’s 120,000,000 human years. Abiogenesis says life cannot arise from non-life. This study, published in Nature, showed bacteria, supposed to have ‘arisen’ in the early days, could not then evolve into the most basic building brick of life. How and why did bats evolve? How and why did swallows and other hirundinidae (and swifts) start to build nests out of mud and stick them to walls? Evolutionists have no answer. There is a critique of Dr. Denis Alexander’s book here.
But did God create swifts sticking mud nests to walls, or did proto-swifts evolve into birds which found it beneficial to do this, when there were walls ?
You admitted that Carlsberg employs biochemists (actually, I think they would be microbiologists) to prevent their Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis evolving into a different kind of yeast.
There are mammals with loose folds of skin which find it advantageous to glide a bit when they jump down from trees. It’s not difficult to see that the possibility of fluttering a bit and staying in the air longer might be an advantage, especially if you wanted to eat insects. There is a “missing link” fossil, called Onychonycteris finneryi .
The answer to your question “Why ?” is always “Because their descendants could survive better like that, and it just happened thus”. That is Darwin’s big contribution. The way in which different species were related had already been known for a long time.
Author
They always had those folds of skin. That’s how they were created.
But those with bigger folds of skin, and any which could flap their skin, would have an advantage, like Dumbo the Elephant. All elephants have big ears.
Author
Yes, Rox, that’s why they can fly.
All Christians need to know that there is very good SCIENTIFIC evidence for a young, 6,000 year old earth. We do not have to somehow fit our beliefs into what many consider is proven evolution/billions of years etc. A young earth explains the scientific phenomena/data much better than the evolution/billions of years paradigm. There are many creationist websites where you can get further information.
Yes, whenever I hear a news item referring to something which happened more than 6,000 years ago, I think “Of course, this is nonsense ! Mark J. knows better than these so-called ‘experts’ “.
They do keep raking the same old boring stuff up year after year. You’d have though professor means keeping up with the times. Indeed you’ll see the same with Freud, which is a right classic one in that everyone knows it is wrong but they still teach it and still worship the man.
The answer to life might not be at all where these backward professors think it is. The answer could be mathematical, but not 42. 110 might be a number to look at. Here’ a link for those interested in mathematics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110 It turns out some of the simplest of systems can exhibit infinitely complex behaviour. The system I link to can function as a computer and perform any computation. It indeed turns out the simpler the system the more general it is as it is less constrained. Your calculator is good at adding up numbers, but can’t do a lot else, despite it being pretty complicated, whereas Rule 110 is a very simple computer that can do anything. One will find these systems in nature. The complexity is too much for us to understand it. It does not prove or disprove the existence of God but shows you a little more of his creation.
Anyhow this kind of maths is new, as in the last 20 years or so. Again we learn that what we were told at school is not the end of it, as we peel another skin to see what that reveals.
Another interest of mine is quantum computing. It has been shown to solve problems that would take a supercomputer months to do, yet the computer could be a few atoms in size. I saw a lecture by the person who invented one version of it. Afterwards a student asked, just how does it get the answer. The reply was he didn’t know – he just did the maths and it worked. Another discovery is plants use quantum computing in the process of photosynthesis in order to calculate the most efficient path for the transport of molecules. You would not have thought that, but there you go. None of this would have been known to Darwin.
So looking at that and other things in modern science it really does make Darwin look dated. Perhaps the most interesting bit of maths yet devised in this god debate would be Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. Some say it comes close to proof that there is a god. No formal system can describe everything. There will always be something outside of that system.
Of course Darwin is dated !!!! What would you expect ? Nobody in his right mind has ever suspected that Darwin did any research after he died in 1882 .
This is again the extreme Christian view that Darwin should be omniscient, and all that they have to do is prove that he isn’t. No sensible person, Christian or Atheist, looks at Darwin or Faraday or Dalton or Newton in that way.
Oh dear ! Dalton’s idea of atoms was far from correct ! He must be rubbish ! That is complete nonsense, and nobody would ever express such an idea.
Author
No, Darwin is granted an exception by evolutionists. None of them ever says a word against him. Unless you can come up with one who does…
I have already met that challenge, although I am not a specialist in this field.
Reginald Daly, Michael Toomey and others have criticised Darwin’s work on corals.
You are going to say that isn’t enough. If you are asking me to find an “evolutionist” who does not agree with the basic theory of evolution, of course that is impossible. It’s almost like finding a Roman Catholic who does not agree with the basic tenets of Roman Catholicism (although they are not acquired by individuals in the same way, obviously, and they carry a strong penalty for going against them). OK, it’s like finding an Arsenal supporter who does not support Arsenal, for whatever reason. You ask too much.
This is a good summary of the situation, from the New York Times, 1982 .
[The complete scientific consensus in agreement with Darwin ]
“has broken down over the last decade or two with fierce professional debates over the precise mechanisms and rates of evolution. But virtually all participants in these battles wrap themselves in the mantle of Darwinism. They say they are battling over subsidiary issues, not challenging the grand structure of Darwinian evolution.
The theory has been strong enough and flexible enough to incorporate virtually all the major 20th century advances in molecular biology and genetics with only temporary shudders. As the British scientific journal, Nature, commented in an editorial last year: ‘The way in which the theory of evolution has been able to survive such a long succession of discoveries is striking evidence of its overwhelming consistency….’ “
Author
Ha ha. It’s more like striking evidence of human stubbornness and vested interests.
investigate “Irreducible Complexity” Rox. It disproves evolution (there are mnany other problems with evolutionary theory). Evolutionists avoid discussing it, or ANY problems with the theory, of which there are many. They just fall back on insulting and poking fun at critics, especially creationists. Menawhile, stupid “Christians”, convinced of the infallibility of evolutionary theory, go with “Theistic Evolution”. I saw John MacKay debate John Polkingbhorne, that darling of the secualrists (“a Christian they like”, and a theistic evolutionist), who basically believes everything the secualrists/evolutionists do anyway. Polkinghorne has a string of letters after his name, a real establsihment favourite “Christian”. Anyway, John MacKay made him look very foolish indeed.
Btw, have you ever looked at the evidence, for and against, FOR YOURSELF, Rox, or do you just fall back on what the “experts” tell you to believe?
Rox: “Reginald Daly, Michael Toomey and others have criticised Darwin’s work on corals.”
I’m not aware of any work that Darwin “did on corals”.
In 1842 Darwin published “The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836 “.
I’m not altogether surprised that Mark J. is not aware of this. But I don’t know how he thinks Daly and Toomey would have criticised it if it doesn’t exist.
Of course, although he uses the word “geology” to include coral reefs, they are living systems. The word “geology” is actually still used in connection with them.
I have made up my own mind on evolution. I’m not just believing what a minority of Christians tell me to believe. However, you must remember that until they cropped up relatively recently with American inspiration, evolution had not been considered controversial at all, and in most circles it still isn’t.
so you won’t be investigating “Irreducible Complexity”, then Rox?
Me: “Btw, have you ever looked at the evidence, for and against, FOR YOURSELF, Rox, or do you just fall back on what the “experts” tell you to believe?”
Rox: “I’m not just believing what a minority of Christians tell me to believe. However, you must remember that until they cropped up relatively recently with American inspiration, evolution had not been considered controversial at all, and in most circles it still isn’t.”
Hmmm, sounds to me like the answer to my original question is “no”.
Why so ? Do you believe that only this minority of Christians arrive bearing evidence ? And that they are the only “experts” ?
I have , in fact, recently been looking into the works of J. D. Unwin as recommended by Stephen, and I suggest you look at what Reginald Daly, Michael Toomey and others have to say about “The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836 “ .
I don’t suppose you have been to the USA any more than I have, but I have been to a lecture accompanied with slides about one of their leading “creation museums”, as well as seeing evolution-biased displays in natural history museums in England.
I also bought a copy of the Bible-based flat-earth book called “Antarctica” which was discussed on this website, and considered its arguments. Did you buy one ?
Author
Flat-earth is not ‘Bible-based’, it’s bonkers.
It is a Bible-based book insofar as the author bases the book very much on the Bible as he sees it. I was not entirely convinced by the book myself.
I would like to buy the second edition of it, but it’s purely a Kindle book, and if you have the first edition, it’s impossible to get the second edition owing to a flaw in how Amazon Kindle works, in my opinion. If anybody (including the author) knows a way round this, please let us know. It’s very interesting to read what he has to say, and one must be fair to all points of view.
what does it say in the Second Edition? “oh sorry, I was wrong: it IS round”?
I don’t know, I can’t buy one. But you could. It’s very cheap, if not free.
I think he said something about more evidence. I doubt very much if he has changed his views.
Of course, the earth could be flat AND round, which is how it seems to be (at first glance) when you have an unobstructed view from high up, or on the sea. But did people really believe that ? The earth is represented as an ORB, not only in the regalia of Christian kings, but also in connection with pagan emperors and their gods .
Yes, I have been to the USA a number of times, my brother lives in Texas.
“but I have been to a lecture accompanied with slides about one of their leading “creation museums”: so you have been to a lecture ABOUT a “creation museum”: was this lecture given by evolutionists? (if so, I dare say there was much smirking and ridiculing of creationists).
I ask you again: have you ever heard or read what the creationists say themselves? surely we should hear BOTH sides of the argument?
Many creationist scientists were fervent evolutionists before they got born-again: they then looked at the evidence with fresh eyes, and discovered that creationist explanations fitted the phenomena better. In the words of John Newton, they “were blind, but now they see”. Most evolutionists really believe their theory, others are taught it and don’t question it (you won’t get a research grant to question evolution, but you MAY lose your job). Many scientists have problems with evolution, they keep their heads down to avoid being hounded out of their jobs, we don’t hear from them. Some evolutionists are not above lying and manipulation to advance their theory (what’s wrong with lying etc if no punishment awaits, the ends justify the means!).
The truth is not dependent on the number of people who believe it: surely we have learnt THAT from history?
As Stephen says, the Bible does not, as far as I know, say the earth is flat: it says it is “round”, I’m not aware it says it is a sphere. So I suppose it could be a round, flat disc, as the flat-earthers say. I have not bought the book, I have a quite long video on YouTube I may get round to watching if and when I have time, about it: as I say, I like to hear both sides of the argument and judge for myself.
ps STILL not interested in “Irreducible Complexity”?
Again, I’m just about done with you again here, Rox, I have limited time to spend. Its like talking to a brick wall, nice when it stops. “There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT see”. I cannot open your eyes for you, only the Holy Spirit can do that, but you might like to investigate “Irreducible Complexity”: evolutionists have no answer to it at all.
“talking to you is like beating your head against a wall, nice when it stops”
Correction: well, perhaps I love it really!! (well, perhaps not “love”, not all the time anyway!!)
Well Mark, you may have been to the USA and I haven’t, but the best known creation museum is in Kentucky, not Florida. If you haven’t been to it, you are probably at a disadvantage compared to somebody who has seen a detailed photographic record of many of the exhibits there. This IS a canvass on which the Creationists have written what they want to say for themselves. (There are a lot more words and models than specimens, it has to be admitted).
“Irreducible Complexity” will have to wait until I’ve worked my way through the sexual habits of the eighty primitive tribes. I don’t suppose J.D. Unwin has made it all that boring.
Here we go :
“Pre-nuptial Regulations of the Loyalty Islanders and Tannese. In the
Loyalty Islands pre-nuptial children were regarded as evil portents. If a
girl became pregnant before marriage she employed some method of abortion. No social condemnation, however, was incurred either by the father or by the mother of the child, and promiscuous intercourse before marriage was permitted.
It was the same with the Tannese. ‘Promiscuous intercourse
between the sexes is allowed,’ says Cheyne. According to Mr.
Humphreys, ‘sexual laxity before marriage was not frowned upon’. He
adds that both infanticide and abortion were common, so it is possible that in Tanna also pre-nuptial children were condemned. ”
Times have changed a bit. The Loyalty Islands are in New Caledonia, and the people there are French citizens who helped to elect President Macron. Tanna is in Vanuatu, and the island is well-known for worshipping Prince Philip.
“There has been not one exception according to anthropologist J D Unwin.”
I think Stephen must have got this assertion secondhand from a source less reliable than he is himself. It isn’t something which Unwin himself would have recognised.
The fact is, that the work by Unwin in question seems undoubtedly to be “Sex and Culture”, Oxford University Press 1934. This carries perhaps a bit of a health warning: it was called “A work of the highest importance” by Aldous Huxley.
JD Unwin was an anthropologist, and accordingly the book covers the habits of EIGHTY “primitive tribes”, but only SIX “known civilisations”. He writes:
“My inductive survey of civilized societies is limited to the Sumerians, Babylonians (to twentieth century B.C.), Hellenes, Romans, Anglo-Saxons,and English.”
He apologises for this.
“As for the Venetians, Portuguese, and Spaniards, I have done no more than hint at the apparent reason for the uneven energy they displayed at different times ; and I have left the reader to judge for himself the relevancy
of my conclusions to the historical careers of the Prussians, Dutch, French, and other modern societies.”
Not to mention the rather familiar Ancient Egyptians, any Muslim civilisation, any South American civilisation, or anything in India or the Far East. So no matter how accurate his original material (collected from other researchers) or the conclusions he draws from it, you can hardly say “There has been not one exception”. The book simply does not study “Every previous civilisation “, or anything like it.
Also, even if one considers that phrase above:
“the uneven energy they have displayed at different times”,
it doesn’t seem to indicate that they have “exalted sexual perversion”, and been done for permanently as a result. After all, Venice was powerful, declined in power and offered sexual perversion as a tourist trade instead, but it is still there, and operates tourism now at a much more elevated level based largely on its churches and religious art.
I have not yet read the entire book, but you can download the Wellcome Institute Library copy free from the Internet Archive. Remember, however, that the book is about TWENTY-EIGHT American Indian tribes, and apart from that, mainly Pacific Islanders and African tribes. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea.
Chapter 169 is devoted to “Post-nuptial regulations of the Babylonians and Sumerians”. Chapters 170-173 are similarly entitled for the Athenians, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and English respectively. And that’s it. Chapter 174 Human Entropy, Chapter 175 Conclusion . Then 185 pages of notes and references. This is not for the faint-hearted.
These three paragraphs may be of interest, and I fear this may be about as exciting his study of Civilisations gets :
“So long as Athens remained an independent city, the native-born women were never legally emancipated. The immigration of the Outlander women (as Professor Zimmern calls them) seems to have alarmed the Athenian leaders; and by the Periclean decree of 451 B.C. a strict line of demarcation between native and alien women was created. The latter were already emancipated; and, although there seems to have been a movement to free the native-born married women, nothing definite was done. The laws of the epicleros also may have contributed to the success of the conservative policy.
Among the English, in spite of a consistent outcry by an excited minority,
divorce by mutual consent was not in operation; a semblance of the
Catholic tradition which the Protestant and Nonconformist English had
inherited prevented its legal enactment. If, however, the contracting
parties to an English marriage were rich, they could secure, in the twentieth
century, a divorce as and when they wished, by arranging to break the
letter of the existing law.
With these two exceptions the same changes were made successively
by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Athenians, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and
Protestant English. These societies lived in different geographical environments;
they belonged to different racial stocks; but the history of their marriage customs is the same. In the beginning each society had the same ideas in regard to sexual regulations. Then the same struggles took place ; the same sentiments were expressed ; the same changes were made; the same results ensued. Each society reduced its sexual opportunity to a minimum and, displaying great social energy, flourished greatly. Then it extended its sexual opportunity; its energy decreased, and faded away.
The one outstanding feature of the whole story is its unrelieved monotony. ”
This takes the English into the 20th century as far as 1934, and things have “declined” a lot since then, but really, you can hardly say that there has been a steep decline in “energy”, creativity and inventiveness, can you ?
good grief (quite apart from anything else, talk about changing the subject)
Not really !
It was Stephen who wrote
“Every previous civilisation which has allowed its family base to crumble and has exalted sexual perversion and child sacrifice, worshiping things other than the Lord, has gone down the rubbush chute of history. There has been not one exception according to anthropologist J D Unwin. ”
But I can’t find where J D Unwin has said anything like this, can you ? The book is obtainable here :
https://archive.org/details/b20442580
It’s a bit of a challenge.
Admittedly very few of these comments have got much to do with “Darwin Day” being celebrated by some “evolutionists”, but Stephen’s introduction of JD Unwin is more relevant than your brother living in Texas.
Coming back to (or for the first time to!) the actual subject, if you insist, few people except a minority of Christians see Evolution and hence Charles Darwin as the basis for a belief-system which rivals a religion. However, if Greater Manchester Humanists do so, it seems reasonable that they should celebrate Darwin’s birthday annually, just as Christians celebrate the nominal birthday of Jesus annually. We also celebrate the nominal birthday of the Queen annually, and some schools have a “founder’s day” which may be on the founder’s birthday if convenient. It isn’t, in fact, very remarkable, and so it isn’t surprising that the discussion has evolved in various other directions.
Here you are, then. My comment on what YOU insist is really the subject of this discussion, Irreducible Complexity.
You insisted that I was allowed to come to a decision FOR MYSELF on these things. I have investigated it, and my decision is that this is the most convincing reference to it.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/jan/10/2
It’s particularly interesting that Charles Darwin himself had a good shot at shooting down the “irreducible complexity” argument, especially with reference to the eye.
“punctuated equilibrium” does not explain irreducible complexity, despite the best attempts of your video.
I thought it explained it very well, for example a drystone archway IS an example of irreducible complexity, but a mousetrap is not. Can Mark explain it any better ?
the evolutionists see what they want to see, as indeed do creationists. The question is, which interpretation fits the data/phenomena better?
” a drystone archway IS an example of irreducible complexity, but a mousetrap is not. ”
Are you saying that this isn’t true ?
I think it was creationists who brought the question of “irreducible complexity” into this in the first place. What you should be doing is trying to persuade me that it applies to the human eye, but Darwin himself has persuaded me that it doesn’t. It does apply to the drystone archway, but even then there are ways round it (see video).
I think Mark may just be hearing what he wants to hear from creationists, and believing it because he wants to believe it
There are none so blind as those who will not see. I cannot open your eyes for you, Mark. You might like to investigate the creationist objection which they call “Irreducible Complexity”: evolutionists do have an answer to it, if you are prepared to think about it rationally .
what seems clear is that the West is declining, and in the same way, as past civilisations. One anthropologist, I forget who, said that “no civilisation survives the loss of its gods”, (in the West’s case, Christianity/YHWH) so the secularist/atheist takeover has a bad prognosis. Allah may take over, but it won’t be what most of us know as the West anymore: however, our “leaders” still promote and appease islam, stumbling blindly and, imo, stupidly on: it certainly seems to me to be a deliberate and concerted policy throughout the West: perhaps this is what they discuss and decide at all those closed-door Bilderberg and other meetings. What confuses me is their motive: do they deliberately seek to promote division/civil war in our societies?
Me “What confuses me is their motive: do they deliberately seek to promote division/civil war in our societies?”
Correction: I “mis-spoke”, as Hillary Clinton would say. I realise that this IS indeed the aim of the Marxists, especially the cultural ones, ie the destruction of Western society by any and all means.
Any anthropologist or historian or informed person can see that the Anglo-Saxon civilisation DID survive the loss of its gods. They were lost so thoroughly in favour of Christianity that the details of them are not exactly known, but they are assumed to be similar to the gods of Germany and Scandinavia.
You may argue that the Anglo-Saxons through from early days to 1066 were not a “civilisation”, but one anthropologist, whose name we have not forgotten, counts them as one of only six world civilisations which he includes in his important book. One piece of information which I find most interesting is that their pagan wedding ceremony contained the words (in the language of the time) “‘to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health . . . and thereto I plight thee my troth’.”
This was, of course, adopted by the Christian church in England, although they rejected an accompanying promise to be ‘buxom and bonny in bed”. However, by the time of Edward the Confessor, the Anglo-Saxon bride was (as Unwin remarks) in a very much better legal position than the English bride under Henry VII or later. The Anglo-Saxon bride never had to promise to honour and obey, yet Unwin was writing at a time when the suggested abolishing of this promise (in 1928) had been rejected.
Now what is it that separates “Anglo-Saxon civilisation” from “English civilisation” ? Was it a collapse caused by unspeakable orgies, or even a change in religion ? Well no, Unwin doesn’t mention this at all, and nor does anybody else. The Anglo-Saxons happen to have been beaten by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, mainly because their army had just had to march south from Yorkshire after beating the Norwegians there, whereas the Normans had been sitting on the beach feasting and sewing tapestries while they waited for them to turn up. Then the same island people carried on much as before at first, but with a small minority of Christians from Normandy in charge, instead of their own aristocracy.
So it was with the Greeks. They happened to be subdued by the superior force of the Romans, but their civilisation continued very much as before in practice, and was exported to the Romans for centuries. Their civilisation did not fall because of the occasional orgy, and the ruling Romans were more inclined to orgies at the same time, while being in charge and continuing to flourish.
” I realise that this IS indeed the aim of the Marxists, especially the cultural ones, ie the destruction of Western society by any and all means. ”
Mark gives the impression of believing that Eastern Europe, the old Russian Empire, and China, are Marxist economies. They are not. Almost all of Eastern Europe is in the European Union, Mark. Some former USSR countries actually use the euro ! Your computer was probably made in China, the components if not the whole thing.
Does he think that these plucky Marxists, working out of Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos I suppose, are going to bring down the whole rest of the “Western” orientated world ? I don’t think so. You might even find Vietnamese goods in Marks & Spencers.
cultural Marxism has not much to do with countries around the world that claim to be run along Marxist lines. Here is a link to an article about the Frankfurt School, who more or less started cultural Marxism, from INSIDE the West. Its quite a short article, once you get going, you may well find it riveting.
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=13588
You might also like to investigate Saul Alinsky, one of our friend Barry Obama’s favourite authors: Obama was seen clutching his book “Rules For Radicals”.
“Stone is heavy and sand a burden,
but provocation by a fool is heavier than both” (Prov 27v3)
“Provocation by a fool is heavier than both” .
I know what you mean.
hahahaha, yes indeed Rox, touche. My initial reaction of annoyance was melted by your repartee, leaving in its wake only mirth.
ps I hope this website doesn’t get full with all our comments (?)
Your Catholic article about the Frankfurt School is Reds under the Bed par excellence. But this is only a school of philosophy. Of course they spout nonsense. Look them up on Wikipedia.
” What radical music perceives is the untransfigured suffering of man […] The seismographic registration of traumatic shock becomes, at the same time, the technical structural law of music. It forbids continuity and development. Musical language is polarized according to its extreme; towards gestures of shock resembling bodily convulsions on the one hand, and on the other towards a crystalline standstill of a human being whom anxiety causes to freeze in her tracks […] Modern music sees absolute oblivion as its goal. It is the surviving message of despair from the shipwrecked.[39]
This view of modern art as producing truth only through the negation of traditional aesthetic form and traditional norms of beauty because they have become ideological is characteristic of Adorno and of the Frankfurt School generally. It has been criticized by those who do not share its conception of modern society as a false totality that renders obsolete traditional conceptions and images of beauty and harmony.
In particular, Adorno despised jazz and popular music, viewing it as part of the culture industry, that contributes to the present sustainability of capitalism by rendering it “aesthetically pleasing” and “agreeable”. The British philosopher Roger Scruton saw Adorno as producing ‘reams of turgid nonsense devoted to showing that the American people are just as alienated as Marxism requires them to be, and that their cheerful life-affirming music is a ‘fetishized’ commodity, expressive of their deep spiritual enslavement to the capitalist machine.’
I’m not too bothered what Adorno and the other Frankfurters thought. Music of all kinds has continued to thrive since 1949 .
Well, Mark, any world leader might very well study the Rules for Radicals. just as he would do well to study Machiavelli. That doesn’t mean that he will slavishly follow either of them. These are the rules :
1. “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
3. “Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
8. “Keep the pressure on.”
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside”
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Try applying them to Trump. He seems to wallow in 6. Should he pay attention to 7 (for example. perhaps it is time to drop Twitter). Does 9 apply to North Korea — or not ? It’s very important to be sure of 2 before deciding on that. He particularly needs guidance on 13. His attacks are personalised, but is he attacking Russia or China —- or most of the world with his trade policies ? He was going to attack the rich in the USA, but he seems to have forgotten that. Look at 1 — do we believe that Russia really has all these new weapons, or has Putin read this ? Lots of people are using 5 against Trump. 8. 9. Perhaps he isn’t too bad. But the opposition to him in America (both Democrat and Republican) must be paying a lot of attention to 12.
This doesn’t seem a bad set of “rules” for discussion to me !
Well, it may be “declining” in standards of traditional sexual morality, and if you take that point of view, it has been even since the 1950s. But surely with all these “scandals” being revealed in all walks of life and widely condemned, nobody dares to go against this current view, and there is dawning a new age of morality, on the surface at least ? (Victorian values were not actually all they seemed),
However, according to this leading authority on Sex and Culture, more sexual freedom should have led to a decline in “energy”, creativity and inventiveness. (This is Freud really), But the reverse was true. George Orwell for one makes a great point of emphasising how British people were not musical (in The Lion and the Unicorn). Since the 1960s, all kinds of music have flourished here , to the delight of the public. Not just the Beatles and suchlike. If you listen to a radio channel of classical music broadcast from a country like Switzerland (which you can do with internet radio), it is astonishing how many of the records they play were made by people like “The Academy of St Martin in the Fields”, and “The London Mozart Players”. When they play records with German or Italian orchestras it isn’t unusual for the conductor and/or soloists to be British. Opera and ballet with British performers are now much more widespread than they were in more puritanical times.
It would help if three of my comments written before yours were not still being moderated. You keep asking me to discuss Irreducible Complexity, and I have done so,
Let’s hope that all this artistic activity doesn’t decline as we enter into a new puritanical age, but I don’t really think that is going to happen.