Philosophy and Evolution

I have been reading various authors over the years from Stephen Jay Gould to Richard Dawkins and many others. This is the first serious philosophy book on the subject I have tried. "Be prepared" is what I recommend, philosophy has never been my strong suite so this has been a learning process for this little black duck. Dennet has been at this game for a long time and taken this field with a level of intelligence that makes you think when he criticizes your favorite author (Steven Jay Gould) and clears up a question of difference when no difference exists ( Scientists tend to argue their own hypothesis against their most prominent opponent, also a scientist), thus allowing the Philosopher to sought out the debate, maybe. Of course, Gould is not the only specialist in Evolution to be taken to task, so I still need to add some books to my Library, like E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology

Giant Snake in the Amazon in our Hot and Humid Past

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/science/earth/05snake.html?ref=science

This is asking questions about the future for our nature with Global Warming.  Maybe they will all adapt to the changes in the environment quite satisfactory as long as Man species Homo Sapien Sapien does not interfere and wipe them out all together. Man's hunting has caused the physical size of phyla 's to trend down at the moment so there maybe two forces actiong on th enevironment concerning size.

Mysterious DNA Found to Survive Eons of Evolution - Yahoo! News

I wonder if the Anti-evolution Christian Fundamentalist Crowd will grab this story and use it by misquotes and false attributions etc., to establish the false claim that Evolution doesn't happen and all of science is wrong.

Maybe they will take Steve Jones talk at a UCL lunch-time talk in London on 7 Oct. to claim that evolution is over and it never happened?

We will have to wait and see I guess.  Perhaps you can understand my skepticism and prognostications as a factor of my experience reading and attending these creationist lectures and articles all around the place on the world wide web and here in Melbourne.

Mysterious DNA Found to Survive Eons of Evolution - Yahoo! News

Live and Let Live

Believe and let Believe, Worship and let Worship

Boundary Patrols of the Eschatological Type

I don’t understand the truth surrounding the world. All religions should be given freedom to worship, and all should leave science classes to science.

Hardly any of the right wing Christians understand the truth about the scriptures. Genesis and Deuteronomy for example have been taken out of context many times, particularly in the Creation vs. Evolution debate that seems to be quite serious in the US, they continually treat them literally, and where they are repeated elsewhere in the scriptures.

It is clear from the evidence of such authors as Margaret Barker¹ and Robert Dunn², that the Deuteronomists were responsible for many changes in the scriptures, including the monotheist beliefs that are promoted by creeds all over the Judeo-Christian world, not to mention Islam.

Science has proceeded since the ”The Enlightenment” on various levels to extend our knowledge of the natural world, and this has indicated an ancient Earth where all life is related, where many different fields of science have confirmed what Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace first proposed, represented by On the Origin of Species by Natural Select, published in 1859, it created a stir then and now. The Modern Synthesis, Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Development, Genetics, and many others confirm Evolutionary Theory as it is now understood and progresses to a better understanding of the natural World.

Yet we find a large number of the Western population hanging on an old interpretation of the Holy Scriptures that causes them to believe the account in Genesis is a literal interpretation of how the Earth and the Universe was put together rather than the Foundation Myth it seems to be. This also includes the idea of a Great Flood should be extended to a concept of a Universal Flood. Science has shown none of these events occurred as described and interpreted, not only that, there is no evidence to support a 7000 year Erath and a Universal Flood about 4000 years ago. Yet they continue with pseudo-science explanations for these events conducting various campaigns, writing books and lecturing, debating, etc. In all this they are seriously presenting these arguments, they believe them, and will go to many lengths not exactly honest to present them and get them accepted by society, particularly in the US.

The most recent is the Kitzmiller vs. Dover School District, Dover Pennsylvania Federal Case, Judge John E Jones III, presiding. Here the defendants were shown to be liars and motivated by religion in their attempt to introduce a non-science tract into the Year 8 Biology Class. The Science Teachers themselves had refused to participate and it appears the only conspirators were those on the school board, named in the court case and their supporters. They disgraced their cause, their religions and made the whole Intelligent Design movement appear to be liars and cheats and on top of that, cowards in battle (the Discovery Institute pulled out before the trial started).

Yet, despite this embarrassing loss, the guns are still firing as previously mentioned in an earlier posts, Never a Dull Moment 2, Never a Dull Moment 3, Florida, people are loosing their jobs for supporting science in a science education position, and Intelligent Design advocates are losing their jobs for refusing to do what they were contracted to do, conduct research into evolutionary effects. And a graduate Ms SA Smith found some serious plagiarism³ and unattributed material at a presentation by William Dembski, a scion of the Discovery Institute. I would have thought, that being honest and truthful in your dealings with your fellow humans is an essential part of Christianity and many other religions, as well as atheism as it is practiced. Why aren’t these fellows held accountable? I guess Ms SA Smith is right when she says she is not a Harvard lawyer, neither am I.

All we can do is point out these flaws in their arguments to anyone that will listen, some feel this is futile, indeed the great Stephen Jay Gould recommended that these creationist/ID proponents be not debated, because they always set up the environment in their favor, only when an outside forum (a federal court fro example) can the truth come out.

Meanwhile I heard Christopher Hitchens speculate that perhaps the concept of Noma has its benefits, referring the SJ Goulds, Non-overlapping Magisteria concept. So perhaps we should all confine ourselves to what we are representing and give up on misrepresenting subjects we know nothing about.

1.

1 Flock of Dodos by Randy Olson.

2. Judgment Day, Intelligent Design on Trial, PBS NOVA Special on the Kitzmiller vs. Dover School Board.

3. PBS Airs False Facts in it’s “Inherit The Wind” Version of the Kitzmiller Trial. A criticism of the PBS documentary above from the Discovery Institute.

4. Margaret Barker

5. Robert Dunn

6. Ms SA Smith posted to Panda’s Thumb in November a post DI Expelled for Plagiarism, showing false claims using plagiarized material which was unattributed to it’s original authors. It is well worth visiting to see the perfidy of the ID proponents, in this case William Dembski who didn’t appear at the Dover trial.

Evolution under the Long White Cloud

Christopher Taylor has written an excellent introduction about the enigmatic Moa, a flightless bird of New Zealand. Not only Flightless, but no wings. Christopher explained why this creature has always been a bird, and in his blog he explains the taxanomic issues surrounding this beastie. The biological and paleontological evidence varies as to reliability, and it does raise issues. At least we can preface why certain decisions are made and anyone can come along and with additional evidence and change it. This is something our creationist brothers can't offer, the animals (creatures) are set in concrete as to kind, what ever that means.

NO, Creationists haven't taken the hint.

It seems that the Judge was wrong, "an activist judge abusing his appointment by Saint George W Bush." Judge Jones applied the law as he understood it and made clear his reasons, nothing in his judgement could be misrepresented as being activist. What would be activist would be calling the imposition of Intelligent Design into the science curricullum of Dover High School as reasonable. Of course it is nothing of the sort. More and more the evidence is pointing to a continuation of the campaign against evolution in biology by the Discovery Institute and it's associates. Claims against respected scientific enquiry without any basis in fact are common. What they do claim is that the work being conducted doesn't fit into their definitions, the definitions only they hold. ON top of "Intelligent Design" and "Creationist" arguments, there are even the "UFO/Alien Abduction" crowd getting into the discussion with variations to "Panspermia" and Aleien intervention into the development of homo sapien sapien. The evolution was moved along by genetic engineering of some lower life form like "homo erectus", although why that paticular progenitor, I don't know. So why not analyse the evidence? Why not look at what the various claims from th evarious groups are. This will require some neccessary reading. It doesn't matter what field of enquiry one undertakes, reading is essential to look at the literature and find what has been said before and what the current thinking is. So we have 4 broad categories thus:

1. Creationism
2. Intelligent Design
3. Evolution
4. Alien Intervention.

We will analyse each and then do some comparative alalysis and logical analysis of the arguments. We need to be able to understnd some "Logical Fallacies" inorder to wheight the arguments. Just a point on reading. Read from the sources if you can, in other words, read a creationist on creation and an evolutionist on evolution. Use your own faculties of reason to come to a conclusion. Creationism By far the oldest of ideas concerning the origins of the Earth and Man is a literal interpretation of Genesis Chapter 1,vs 1-27 and Chapter 2, 1-7. Often this only is the reference except where the Bible itself refers to those same passages elsewhere. Archbishop Ussher whose "Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world"), which appeared in 1650 and its continuation, Annalium pars postierior in 1654. The English translation you can get by clicking on the above link. Considering the 17th century date I find it curious that it is still being touted as the last word on the Genesis debate and Evolution vs Creation. Of course we must remember the possibly pre-exilic date fro Genesis and even earlier if you include all the other cultural origins stories of the Middle East. Reference:

1. Fall in the House of Ussher by Stephen Jay Gould