InANNities, Part II
June 14th, 2006 Black Ops Posted in Commentary, Reviews |
THE EVOLUTIONISTS’ PROOF is their capacity to concoct a story. They say the whale “evolved” when a bear fell into the ocean. The bat “evolved” when squirrels developed flaps that helped them leap longer distances and fall to the ground more slowly. This isn’t a joke.
– Godless, pp. 228-229
Oh, it’s a joke alright. Unfortunately, the joke’s on Ann.
Typically, Coulter apologists — “Coulterbators” or “Coultergeists”, as they are variously known here at Darwin Central — will excuse her rhetorical excesses as merely over-the-top humor, a sort of literary equivalent to the Three Stooges’ eye-poking bit. “This isn’t a joke” is unlikely to dissuade them, but we plow ahead regardless, taking her at her word, in contrast to the apologists.
For the first claim, the nearest we can tell is that Coulter is referring to this passage in Darwin’s Origin of Species:
In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.
– Charles Darwin, Origin, ch. 6
Oh, my, Darwin proposed a hypothetical explanation for the evolution of whales. How shocking. And he got it wrong, which we now know due to the evidence arrayed before us, and which Darwin did not have available to him. We do not doubt that future generations will repay Coulter’s grace here, by mocking her mercilessly for what they perceive to be her abysmal ignorance, but we’re not one to put off a little mocking until tomorrow that we can accompllish today.
It is worth noting that, even in Darwin’s day, this hypothesis was heavily criticized, to the point that Darwin himself had it removed from later editions of Origin. And, of course, now we have much better evidence which suggests a likely path for the evolution of whales. Is it proof? Of course not. But it’s pretty good nonetheless, and it doesn’t even mention bears at all, except to note Darwin’s suggestion.
“They say”? We can’t find anyone who says any such thing since 1859, and even that guy wasn’t that serious about it. Oh, and Ann Coulter. She says that, except that she denies being an “evolutionist”, so she can’t possibly be part of “they” in “they say”. Who is “they”? It’s a mystery, we think, far more mysterious than any theory of whale evolution. “They” also say that the moon is made of green cheese, so take their pronouncements with a grain of salt. Would that Ann was so mildly skeptical of what “they say”.
As for the second, now that we ourselves are appropriately skeptical of Ann’s ability to relate what “they” say, let us begin by noting that one of the interesting things about the theory of evolution is the fact that there are multiple lines of evidence, all converging in support of the theory. Not that Coulter acknowledges any such thing, of course, but then that’s what you get when you set a lawyer loose to write about science — you might as well ask a blind man for his impressions of da Vinci’s work, insofar as he can, at best, only tell you what others have told him. Given that William Dembski is more or less claiming to have ghostwritten Coulter’s evolution material, in this case the effect is somewhat akin to a blind man relating what the village idiot has told him about Leonardo’s latest.
Be that as it may, as skimpy as the fossil record may be on bat evolution, that’s not all the evidence there is. One of the most recent and interesting hypotheses on bat evolution comes from the field of genetics. Does Coulter acknowledge this? Does she betray any hint of being even remotely familiar with the recent evidence on bat evolution? We tend to think not, seeing as how she prefers to concentrate on a ten-year old passage from Dawkins’ Climbing Mount Improbable. Hey, at least she was able to find something more recent than Victorian-era hypotheses. Unfortunately for Coulter, science is not religious dogma — it is supposed to change as new evidence comes in.
But then again, why should she acknowledge any such thing? Were she to investigate the actual, current state of the evidence, she might accidentally come to learn something, and then you can’t cash in on the rubes at the bookstore. Well, you can, but that would be rather cynical, so we’re inclined be charitable and chalk it up to abysmal, vacuum-like ignorance, rather than intentional distortion. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, recall, and sometimes that just might mean closing your eyes and covering your ears until the threat of knowledge passes.
June 15th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
We also refer to Coulter apologists as “Ann-droids.” However, the latter are those (mostly men) who believe that, if they defend Coulter vociferously enough she will deign to notice and/or fall madly in love with them. I guess it’s good for about five minutes in the lavatory…
June 18th, 2006 at 3:41 am
When I was in college, many developed something called Cornell Syndrome. This was due to the unique position of the school in that it was absolutely filled with ugly women, yet the men were about on par with every other university.
Hotness being relative, good looking guys who weren’t douchebags would end up with UGLY girls, due of course to the fact that among the gene pool up there, UGLY wasn’t all that bad.
Ms. Coulter is a graduate of Cornell, the syndrome seems to have followed her around.
Linked you at CAID btw. Also, a couple of you people need to start helping out over there. lazy bums.
June 18th, 2006 at 3:50 am
[...] InANNities, Part II (bears and whales and morons, oh my!) [...]
June 18th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
Ann happily conflates the origin of bats with that of flying squirrels. There she goes again, IOW. Such irony that someone who gets upset over godlessness displays a public behavior which is fast and loose!
June 29th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
“I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.”
This assertion by Darwin does not seem to me to be proposing an origin of whales, but simply proposing how, given a food rich aquatic environment, bears might evolve into a *whale-like* creature. So Darwin is not wrong.
October 10th, 2006 at 10:06 am
Ann happily conflates the origin of bats with that of flying squirrels.
And Darwinists happily conflate Darwinism with “evolution” and micro-evolution with macro-evolution, and do so with appalling regularity. Such equivocation is the norm among Darwinists, it appears.
We also refer to Coulter apologists as “Ann-droids.†However, the latter are those (mostly men) who believe that, if they defend Coulter vociferously enough she will deign to notice and/or fall madly in love with them. I guess it’s good for about five minutes in the lavatory…
Ahh, yes, the Sweeping Ad Hominem. Can’t convicingly argue the science? No problem, just call those who disagree with you childish names, (or make bathrooom innuendos about them) but do so cleverly, to show us how smart you are…
October 10th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
“And Darwinists happily conflate Darwinism with “evolution†and micro-evolution with macro-evolution, and do so with appalling regularity. Such equivocation is the norm among Darwinists, it appears.”
No, there is no difference between *micro* and *macro* evolution. There is no magic wall beyond which a genome can’t change. Such stupidity is the norm of creationists and their websites , it appears.
“Ahh, yes, the Sweeping Ad Hominem. Can’t convicingly argue the science? No problem, just call those who disagree with you childish names, (or make bathrooom innuendos about them) but do so cleverly, to show us how smart you are…”
So true. Ann Coulter should be ashamed of herself for making such stupid ad hominem arguments, if she had a conscience that is. She doesn’t.
Most creationists don’t.
October 14th, 2006 at 10:27 am
I thought you would have some thought provoking discussion here and we are all talking about ann, is she the topic? Like most creationists she is self righteous. My good ” friend ” a creationist gave me a evolution handbook and it is qutie startling. It has a lot of interesting facts and has me taking a second look at my faith in Charlie D. Use to be called the evolution cruncher. Anyone read it? When I was younger dismissed such books as drival but I am getting to be more open minded now, sexual dimorphism blows my mind as does distinct species face it we have some problems, Even Fred Hoyle one of us said that the likelihood a single cell could originate in a primitive environment , given 4 .6 billion years in which to do it was one chance in 10-40000, one chance in one with 40 thousand zeroes after it.Darwin is lucky to have just come up with a theory we have to prove it not him.
October 15th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
No, there is no difference between *micro* and *macro* evolution.
From Talk Origins:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html
“At least some macroevolution is the result of microevolutionary processes. So we are only asking now if all is. This is open to debate: the E (environmental) factors that affect macroevolution are not within-species (Mi) forces, but do microevolutionary processes like gene frequency changes necessarily mediate them? And this question is still unresolved amongst specialists. One thing we can say now, though, is that we cannot draw a simple equals sign between the two domains. It is an open question, one much argued within evolutionary biology and related disciplines, whether Mi = Ma in any sense.”
So, it appears that Talk Origins says you’re wrong.
“[T]here is no way toward an understanding of the mechanisms of macroevolutionary changes, which require time on a geological scale, other than through a full comprehension of the microevolutionary processes observable within the span of a human lifetime. For this reason, we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit.”
Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, Reprinted 1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), p12
It appears that one of the fathers of Modern Synthesis also says you’re wrong.
There is no magic wall beyond which a genome can’t change.
You are free to believe whatever floats your boat, but your assertion has not been proven. Granted, the existence of the “magic wall” also hasn’t been proven, but then, I’m not necessarily claiming one exists. I only claim that, all too often, Darwinian evolutionists conflate the two terms “macroevolution” and “microevolution”.
Also, whether true or not, your assertion is irrelevant to whether there is a difference between macroevolution and microevolution.
Such stupidity is the norm of creationists and their websites , it appears.
Such “stupidity” is also the norm for Darwinian evolutionists and their websites, as I have just shown.
Ann Coulter should be ashamed of herself for making such stupid ad hominem arguments, if she had a conscience that is. She doesn’t.
Most creationists don’t.
Interesting how you just now engage in sweeping ad hominem yourself. What do you know about “most creationists”? Nothing, as “most creationists” are outside your fields of perception, just quietly living out their lives. Yet you feel justified in claiming that they have no conscience, with no evidence or proof whatsoever.
And, speaking of ad hominem, where is the ad hominem in Coulter’s statements above? Her statements may be factually incorrect, and may simply be inflammatory rhetoric, but I fail to see any ad hominem in her statements above. Perhaps you can point them out for us. The ad hominem I was responding to was everything “Central Archivist” wrote in post #1 above.
You see, you Darwinists keep telling us that there is this “overwhelming mountain of scientific evidence” in support of your fairy tale hypothesis, and here was a golden opportunity for you guys to argue the science in order to refute Ann’s knuckle-dragging creationist ranting, and thereby demonstrate your alleged superiority. But, rather than a rational deconstructing of her statements, the first post simply engaged in juvenile ad hominem. Ironic, no?
October 15th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Species like “macro evolution” is an arbitrary category useful to humans in grasping concepts. There is really no such distinction in the wild. There are different individuals and some of them can mate and some can’t. Their offspring is sometime a little different and carries the difference to future generations.
Beyond that we just observe when the differences are sufficiently great to our liking and then we nominate a new species — a “macro evolution.”
At the level of the molecule, DNA could care less about our definitions.
October 22nd, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Lecturing at a Veritas Forum several years ago, Dallas Willard spoke
pointedly on the topic of “irresponsible disbelief.” That is, choosing to
disbelieve in something without a commitment to coming to that disbelief by
way of sound reasoning. The burden of proof, he argued, is equally
significant for both belief and disbelief. To ignore this is to address
reality irresponsibly and foolishly.
If belief is the readiness to act as if something is true, it follows that
unbelief, whether chosen consciously or unconsciously, still affects our
behavior. There are consequences to our non-answers in the same way that
there are consequences to our answers. And yet, in our society where
skepticism is almost encouraged, belief and unbelief are treated quite
differently. We do not feel compelled to justify our disbelief in the
same way we feel compelled to justify our belief. We expect a certain
reasonableness about belief that we don’t expect of disbelief, in
part because we’ve been conditioned to see skepticism and disbelief as
logical, and belief as emotional or irrational.
This is largely the case when it comes to belief or disbelief in God. As
Napoleon once quipped, “Religion is excellent for keeping the common
people quiet.” Belief in God is seen as a superstition reserved for
non-thinkers, while disbelief is thought scholarly. On the contrary, Paul
Vitz, a professor who has written extensively on the psychology of
religion, observes that quite often the decision to disbelieve in God is
largely made apart from logic and sound reasoning. He writes,
“The major barriers to belief in God are not rational but–in a general
sense–can be called psychological…. I am quite convinced that for every
person strongly swayed by rational argument, there are many, many more
affected by non-rational psychological factors.”(1) His words are
noteworthy; disbelief in God is more often a decision made by personal
biases and emotions, than it is a decision made by sound reasoning.
In fact, such was often the case in the crowd’s responses to Jesus.
Speaking to the religious leaders of his day, Jesus once observed, “You
diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess
eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me! Yet
you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39). Jesus points to their
irresponsible disbelief, their resolve that under no circumstances
could he be the one they read about, the one to whom Moses pointed and the
prophets announced. Therefore, Jesus concludes, “Your accuser is Moses, on
whom your hopes are set” (5:45). All too often, the question of Jesus’s
identity is answered by a determination not to see the one standing
before us.
Yet Jesus repeatedly voices the subtleties of our hearts, calling out our
false hopes and misguided determinations. He reveals how often our
expectations and biases establish our beliefs and disbeliefs instead of
sound reasoning and honest investigation. His words pierce our faulty
logic and the conclusions we have drawn irresponsibly, and he calls us to
account even as he calls us home. The burden of proof is a burden the
heavens have not overlooked; the God of all wisdom has not asked us to
believe in Him without extraordinary attempts to be known.