You helped change how the world thinks.

(Abe Lincoln, too. )

No award?

He wasn't an evolutionist to start, but he changed slowly over time.

Seven of his ten children with his wife, his 1st cousin, survived to adulthood.

Darwin: "Everything came from nothing."

Yes - it's utter nonsense. But it negates the existence of God so people in denial eat it up.

I’m not trying to get down in the trenches. I will say I think one needs to come to terms with the age of the earth. That’s also where many fall short, comprehending vast eons of millennia.


https://youtu.be/Q1OreyX0-fw?si=X4HxeG6tHLKtGYuz

Charles Darwin’s contribution to modern thought and rational inquiry was not a claim that “everything came from nothing.”

Charles Darwin’s most famous and probably most influential book was On the Origin of Species …. (The remainder of the title was by Means of Natural Selection, but that is commonly left off when the book it cited.) That, and many of his other works including The Descent of Man …, were about how evolutionary processes led to the diversification of life forms. One of his examples was that natural selection was why birds with different types of beaks arose to be able to feed more efficiently on different types of plant seeds.
Darwin was not, BTW, the only scientist at the time who came to that belief, only the one we’re most likely to think of when the topic is raised.

That was then, and now, a challenge to the other theory that birds with different beaks were all created by God that way at the same time along with all other different life forms. Anyone is of course free to believe that that was the origin of different species rather than what Darwin thought was the reason.

What Darwin did not claim was that everything just sprang into existence from nothing. He may have come to that conclusion in time (I don’t know), but that wasn’t his arguments and he certainly wasn’t why some people believe that today. Even the modern “Big Bang” theory doesn’t exactly argue that, but that concept was nothing he knew anything about. His works discussed how the variation among life forms was due to natural processes, and not about where everything started.

There are countless books, articles, and even Internet videos that explain all that, and that leads to the issue of why we believe what we think we know. The way President Reagan put it is that people know things that aren’t true. Most (all?) of us are susceptible to such thinking, and it’s something all of us should recognize, understand, and be prepared to deal with when we realize that something we thought we knew to be true turned out not to be. For example, after Chris Orndorff explained to me that what I knew about pistol extractors wasn’t true, I realized he was right and I’ve taught the truth to my students ever since.

If we make that effort to understand what Darwin wrote and come to realize that he wasn’t the originator of the idea that everything came from nothing, it should then prompt us to ask why we knew something that wasn’t true. I.e., where did we get that idea, and why? If, as was most likely, it was from someone else, why did they tell me that? The first thing I think when I read something written by a supposed expert about a topic and discover an error is, “If he got that wrong, what else is wrong?”

And that’s what we should be asking about everything we think we know—true and not true.

Once I understood what Darwin was explaining from Darwin himself, I knew it was being used to promote an agenda he wasn’t asserting. His credibility was hijacked.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
Darwin: "Everything came from nothing."

Yes - it's utter nonsense. But it negates the existence of God so people in denial eat it up.

I figured such a thing would happen in <5 replies. Such an obvious display of ignorance deserves a T-shirt.

When I was in university a proponent of evolution came and spoke to our class. He opened it up to questions and a student asked, "If the creature had washed up on the beach and ended up on its side, would we just have one leg and one arm?" The speaker answered, "Yes. We're lucky, indeed, that it washed up on the beach on its back."

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
"If the creature had washed up on the beach and ended up on its side, would we just have one leg and one arm?" The speaker answered, "Yes. We're lucky, indeed, that it washed up on the beach on its back."

I have no idea what you were trying to say with this post. Does it have something to do with the Darwinian theory of evolution?
Do you believe that the theory argues that land animals, including humans, evolved from a creature with arms and legs that washed up onto the shoreline from the ocean one day?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

You helped change how the world thinks.

(Abe Lincoln, too. )

Darwin changed Abe Lincoln's thought process? I did not know that.

It was then he became a vampire slayer.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
I did not know that.

Well, maybe.

I mean, after all, according to astrology just having the same Sun Sign means people have similar or overlapping personality tendencies, life themes, temperaments, etc. If that works for an entire month and completely different years, then how much more likely would the phenomena be true for people who have the exact same birth date (allowing for different time zones, of course)? Plus, there’s the whole idea of psychic linkage, so again we would expect a couple of old, so-called “white” guys with beards to “resonate” together—no?

“Hey, Mary, I had this dream about lizards and birds with different beaks, and you won’t believe the crazy idea that came to me. I better be careful whom I tell it to, though; it could get some folks upset.”

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
I have no idea what you were trying to say with this post.

The genius that addressed our class stated that a bit of flotsum and jetsum washed up on the beach and as it baked in the sun, it sprouted nubs that eventually turned into legs and arms with the passing of many years due to evolution.

The theory of evolution has always amused me. It's like if I said, "You see this wrist watch? Well, it just "happened." There was no intelligent designer - it just appeared one day with all its functions, etc. No intelligent designer - just happenstance." And, the human being is so extremely more complex than a wrist watch. Not to mention all the other contradictions associated with the whacky theory.

Many only see two positions, religious or evolution. I don’t think that’s the only 2 available.

I have a relative that says the earth is 6-12,000 years old. He has no answer if you ask about evidence that ‘seems’ to show the earth is much older.

I think there are various positions that can allow for some of each.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
I have a relative that says the earth is 6-12,000 years old. He has no answer if you ask about evidence that ‘seems’ to show the earth is much older.

You should do some research about "carbon dating." It's been proven to be false.

quote:

Originally posted by synthplayer:
The genius that addressed our class stated that a bit of flotsum and jetsum washed up on the beach and as it baked in the sun, it sprouted nubs that eventually turned into legs and arms with the passing of many years due to evolution.

Thank you.

That is one for my list of quotations. That is so bizarrely unrelated to the scientific theories of evolution that it doesn’t even deserve to be called wrong.
Expecting a rational discussion of that would be like asking a professional astronomer to debate whether the Moon is made of Stilton or Gorgonzola.

Just as Jeff Cooper pointed out that having a gun doesn’t make one armed any more than having a guitar makes one a musician, simply self-identifying as an evolution “proponent” doesn’t make one any sort of authority on the subject. He obviously wasn’t, and it’s as if I quoted a six-year-old’s interpretation of Scripture during a discussion about the effect of the First Council of Nicaea on the early Church.

FWIW for anyone who is interested, there are countless explanations of why the “watchmaker,” i.e., “first cause” argument doesn’t convince evolutionary scientists, even without the “A hired cab that we take only as far as we want to go, and no farther” analogy.*

But if you’re just trolling us with that amazing story, then you got me good.

* Schopenhauer: “...the Law of Causality is not so accommodating as to let itself be used like a hired cab, which we dismiss when we have reached our destination.”

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigfreund,

The bs started with Erasmus