From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Sep 6 15:35:29 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D00B937B400 for ; Fri, 6 Sep 2002 15:35:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jive.SoftHome.net (jive.SoftHome.net [66.54.152.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4DCE243E3B for ; Fri, 6 Sep 2002 15:35:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from yid@softhome.net) Received: (qmail 30287 invoked by uid 417); 6 Sep 2002 22:35:20 -0000 Received: from shunt-smtp-out-0 (HELO softhome.net) (172.16.3.12) by shunt-smtp-out-0 with SMTP; 6 Sep 2002 22:35:20 -0000 Received: from planb ([216.194.4.17]) (AUTH: LOGIN yid@softhome.net) by softhome.net with esmtp; Fri, 06 Sep 2002 16:35:18 -0600 Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 18:34:27 -0400 From: Joshua Lee To: "Neal E. Westfall" Cc: tlambert2@mindspring.com, dave@jetcafe.org, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-Id: <20020906183427.5aa10ec8.yid@softhome.net> In-Reply-To: <20020906122159.B94577-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> References: <20020905200849.7af95707.yid@softhome.net> <20020906122159.B94577-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> Organization: Plan B Software Labs X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.8.2claws (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri, 6 Sep 2002 12:43:51 -0700 (PDT) "Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > You are really naive. *Every* worldview has religious connotations. > The theory of evolution represents one such worldview. Why do you > think people cling to it so tenaciously, even though it has been, as > you yourself say, by Behe and others, "blown out of the water"? What > was the predominant theory before evolution? I'll give you a hint, it > too had very significant religious connotations. Lamarkianism, which is really not all that different than evolution other than it's mechanism not being the same. One would have to go back to before the Rennaisance, during periods where practically no scientific activity was being pursued in Northern Europe, to get to the point where you want to take science. Let science progress according to it's own process, a process that Behe respects, rather than trying to hurry it along with doctrines that cannot be used scientifically. Biology is a young science. Often when I read Maimonidies and how he reacted to the Aristotelian physics of his day (an intellegent comprimise rather than disagreeing with it's premises altogeather) I am astounded by how odd scientists of that early period in physics's history seemed in their theories. Physics eventually straightened itself out. (The eternity of matter, the last piece of Aristotle to be rejected, was an accepted theory a couple of decades into the 20th century!) Let biology straighten itself out too - using the scientific method. Second-guessing the scientific method is a recipie for scientific disaster, even in the hands of the best theologians. (If you really have objections to how it's being teached in public schools send your children to private ones - that's what we do, we don't expect Judaism to be taught in public schools - stop insisting your religious minority, and it is a minority, be given a place of privledge in the marketplace of ideas; against the constitution that made your brand of protestantism possible.) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message