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Amused Muse

Inspiring dissent and debate and the love of dissonance

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Master's Degree holder, telecommuting from the hot tub, proud Darwinian Dawkobot, and pirate librarian belly-dancer bohemian secret agent scribe on a mission to rescue bloggers from the wholesome clutches of the pious backstabbing girl fridays of the world.



Monday, April 04, 2011

Oh, Dear Me, I Almost Forgot! Evo Dead in Five Years and All That...

My apologies, people! How could I forget such an important occasion as Teh Countdown to Waterloo? (Emphasis on loo.)

Evolution theory on last legs, says seminary teacher

By Dylan T. Lovan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
To William Dembski, all the debate in this country over evolution won't matter in a decade.
By then, he says, the theory of evolution put forth by Charles Darwin 150 years ago will be dead.
The mathematician turned Darwin critic says there is much to be learned about how life evolved on this planet. And he thinks the model of evolution accepted by the scientific community won't be able to supply the answers.
"I see this all disintegrating very quickly," he said."


Funny, the things you drop on the way up the Ladder of Teh Great Chain of Being so that you can climb faster. You forgot that you'll need them someday when you need to be a woman!

Hee, hee.

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Darwin predicted that life would be shown to have arisen by natural procesesses in some "warm little pond".

The demonstration of this has not been forthcoming.



Still Searching...

April 05, 2011 4:25 AM  
Blogger Kristine said...

Citation, Ninnymous?

Dembski predicted that evolutionary theory (which does not address abiogenesis, to which you are referring) will be dead in five years.

Who is going to laugh last, you or me? I predict me. That is why I have the confidence to sign my name to what I write! Too bad for you...

April 05, 2011 8:20 AM  
Blogger James F. McGrath said...

The question of the origin of life is a difficult one to answer. It is certainly true that the process that gave rise to it will be far more complex than Darwin is likely to have imagined. Because in Darwin's time, DNA and genetics were still in the future - and had yet to provide not only this additional information about the molecular level of biology, but also incredibly powerful confirmation of Darwin's main thesis. Because ultimately, evolution is not about how life arose, but how life once it exists developed. And there can be no serious doubt that the history of life on earth is an evolutionary one.

Darwin's reference in his 1871 letter to Joseph Hooker to a "warm little pond" is qualified by "ifs" and emphasis on the speculative nature of his thoughts on the matter. The origin of life question has yet to be given a satisfactory answer - which, it must be emphasized, does not mean that it cannot be at some point in the future, or that our inability to recreate a unique moment in the past provides a basis for appeal to the supernatural, or that Darwin's description of the development of life and the processes that are involved in it were not largely correct, simply because a separate issue about which he admitted he did not know the answer is one for which we still do not have the answer.

But I presume the reason you brought up this side issue was precisely to move focus away from all the things that Darwin got right. Is that what you are "still searching" for?!

April 05, 2011 9:28 AM  
Blogger Kristine said...

You nailed it as always, James. I hope that Ninnymous is not "searching" for a job in this same manner.

April 05, 2011 3:24 PM  
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