On Tue, 7 Sep 1999 22:30:04 -0500 (CDT), Susan B wrote:
[...]
SB>Behe is trying to convince his audience that there is no scientific basis
>for such a remark. There is, of course. That's why the statement was made.
>Fourty years ago abiogenesis was a mystery. Now it's not such a big mystery.
This is an *amazing* statement. I wonder what Susan *would* count as "a big mystery"?
It highlights Phil Johnson's observation that for Darwinists "evidence is not
really necessary". The problem is already solved in the definitions:
"Even such slight evidence is more than sufficient, however, because
evidence is not really necessary to prove something that is practically self-
evident. The existence of a potent blind watchmaker follows deductively
from the philosophical premise that nature had to do its own creating.
There can be argument about the details, but if God was not in the picture
something very much like Darwinism simply has to be true, regardless of
the evidence." (Johnson P.E., "What is Darwinism?" Lecture at a
symposium at Hillsdale College, in November 1992.
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/wid.htm).
If there is no God, then abiogenesis *must* have happened somehow, because
here we are. All that is needed then is to pick the best (or least worst!)
naturalistic possibility and put that in the textbooks as an illustration, and
don't tell the kids about all the failures and disagreements.
It doesn't matter that the example cited does not actually work. We don't want
to confuse the kids, and it is just a placeholder for the true fully materialistic-
naturalistic origin-of-life explanation that science will discover any day now.
And until that happens it is necessary to give the impression that everything's
OK in order to keep those creationists and their God at bay!
Steve
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"I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific
theory, but a metaphysical research programme-a possible framework for
testable scientific theories." (Popper K.R., "Unended Quest: An Intellectual
Autobiography", [1974], Open Court: La Salle, Ill., Revised Edition, 1982,
p168)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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