you know what's intelligently designed? science!

[rone]

Fresh off sciam is a writeup on the World Summit on Evolution, held (where else?) at the Galápagos Islands (sure, cute, but shouldn't we try to curtail human activity there?  holding the conference there is, frankly, a matter of vanity).

I wonder how long it'll take to find a Creationist or ID response to the conference.  I suppose it wouldn't matter, since they're just a bunch of vapid twits... but now i'm just being gratuitously mean.

VAPID.  TWITS.

Anyway, where was i... ah yes.  Although i'm basically rehashing the final paragraph, i'll point out regardless that the fact that the writeup lists people who present off-kilter theories (such as Provine's White Whale) or pooh-pooh currently held ideas (such as Margulis's declaration of the death of neo-Darwinism [whatever that means]) should put the lie to anti-evolution (let's call a spade a fuckin' shovel, yes?) proponents who claim that the state of science today is one that is intolerant of deviation from "scientific dogma", although some nuts will probably cling with desperation to small things like the one anonymous person who felt it impolitic to criticize Margulis because she was going to be awarded an honorary degree.

I did take issue, however, with one Richard Fortey quote: "Evolution was experimenting with many wondrous varieties..."  Although it's only a figure of speech, it anthropomorphizes science, and (i repeat myself) it's the sort of thing that the nutbar fringe will seize as proof of science's elitist attitude that dares personify and equate Evolution with Our Creator™.

Despite a few things that were over my head (duh, i last took a biology class in high school), it was an enjoyable read.

Comments

Va-pid.

[alphajager.livejournal.com]

It does my heart good to see wourd like "vapid" used in regular speech. However, to comment on your post in a more general sense;

As a geologist, and as such at least a superficial scientist (as I do not yet work primarialy in the world of academia, and consitently spell words like "the" wrong in my conversational typing) I must conceed that evolution, and the planetary acretion theory for the creation of Earth do more than what is necessary to put my mind at ease as to how the world was created and how life on this planet started and has grown since. I have also, however, been in extremely heated arguments (and ones not so heated) with people over this very subject of evolution. In particular, I dated a girl, who was getting her degree in geology no less, who had been raised to believe the creationist view of the world. She had a lot of problems with what she was being taught in the college classroom, and what she had been brought up to believe. But, when it came down to it, she chose science over scripture, at least academically speaking.

Evolution as a theory has been proven time and again through observation, and labrotory testing. Come on people, evolution is THE reason why our overuse of antibiotics is creating more deadly illnesses in developed countries. To ignore all the evidence for the sake of what you were told by your parents, who were most likely no authroity in either biology, nor theology, is silly. Ignoring your senses is the root of ignorance.

VAPID!!!!

[talus21.livejournal.com]

Ok will admit up front haven't read the article yet. But I have always wondered what the big deal with creationist and science has been. Seems to me that evolution works would be pretty good proof of a higher power. I don't see where the two disagree. Unless you take every thing in that book written by a bunch of 3rd century(?) CE greeks to be absolute fact. But yeah I am sure Hercules really did all that stuff they wrote about him too.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that evolution works would be pretty good proof of a higher power.

Well, it's supposed to happen through the mechanical working out of natural processes, combined with chance. The point is that it doesn't require direct miraculous intervention, so the role of God (if you believe in one) gets reduced, or enlarged depending on how you look at it, to that of a creator-of-laws, at least where the development of species is concerned.

Now, this is perfectly compatible with the religion of many people, including most of the mainstream Christian churches. But it certainly doesn't demand a personalized creator God of the traditional responds-to-prayers-and-does-miracles variety. All that upsets a lot of people who seem to want to see miraculous signs.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The point is that it doesn't require direct miraculous intervention

It ain't necessarily so. Evolution could just be one drawn-out miracle. But people want instant gratification, i guess.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

It's true. Creating a working set of rules that can produce emergent awesomeness isn't as easy as it appears.
But NO, it's more fun to say that darwinists are cold cruel worshippers of the forces of selection, who root for unfit species to go extinct and rub their hands like General Grievous when people contract childhood diseases.