Re: Intelligent design, "irreducible complexity" and evolution [ Was: Re: [Marxism] "intelligent design"]

[Ken Ranney <kranney@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 05:28 PM 12/01/2005, Mike Friedman wrote:
> I apologize for taking so long to respond to this message, but other duties
> called. However, I did feel the need to respond, because when "creation
> science" rears its head on this list, something is amiss...
>
>
> Mike
> ----------------

The more I ruminate on linking me with "creation science" the more I take 
exception to it.  My dialogue is directed at what I see, rightly or 
wrongly, as the fallacies of Darwinism.  I do not seek to impose any 
version of science.  Further, I have looked at some of the material 
published on creationist web sites and have been just as unimpressed as I 
have been by the web sites of those who would shove evolution down our 
throats in the name of ?science?.

Jeremy Rifkin in his book Algeny p 113, says that
Dr. Cohn Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Natural History 
Museum, in London, author of the book Evolution, delivered a speech before 
a group of experts on evolutionary theory at the American Museum of Natural 
History on  November 5, 1981. He ?dared to suggest to his colleagues that 
the scientific theory that he and they had devoted a lifetime to was mere 
speculation, without any significant evidence to back it up.?  He said: ?I 
think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few 
years, if you had thought about it at all, you have experienced a shift 
from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith.?
Rifkin goes on to say p 117:
?In the introduction to a 1971 edition of Darwin*s Origin of Species 
British zoologist Leonard Matthews expressed the concern of many of his 
colleagues when he said: ?The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, 
and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on 
an unproved theory?is it then a science or faith???
And:
?To qualify as science, Darwin*s theory should be provable by means of the 
scientific method. In other words, its hypothesis should be capable of 
being tested experimentally.?
Further, p119,
?If not based on scientific observation, then evolution must be a matter of 
personal faith. About the best that can be said about the theory is that it 
represents a belief that many people share about how life developed, a 
belief that can be neither proved nor disproved. Of course, everyone is 
entitled to his own beliefs, speculations, and personal convictions, but 
evolution proponents profess that their theory represents much more than a 
simple article of faith. It is pure truth, they contend, even though 
unprovable, and in their zeal they are unwilling to brook any opposition to 
its central tenets. Writing in the introduction to still another 
publication of Darwin*s Origin, entomologist
W. R. Thompson reproached the ?defenders of the faith? for their 
unscientific conduct.?

Would you use the term "creation science" when describing the writing of 
Jeremy Rifkin? I hope to use more quotations from him in future 
exchanges.  He has produced a more comprehensive  compilation of the 
fallacies of Darwinism than Behe, and probably more effective for people 
with no biochemical background.

In any event, I think this is enough for now.
Ken




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