From: jloucks@uts.amdahl.com (Jim Loucks)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.culture.usenet,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Evolution and abortion: a polite refutation.
Date: 25 Aug 92 18:27:58 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:
> Wierd. Why didn't you mention these friends of yours in your original
> reply to me?  

If I remember correctly, my original post was something along the lines
of the problems science has created by not "getting the word out" 
in reference to discredited theories. Now please, everyone, let's not
start pulling sentences out of context or start new threads from 
anything said in this article. The only reason I'm posting these
days was to defend a friend of mine accused of tweaking the data,
I don't have the time or the interest to continue participating in
t.o.

Also, in my original post I didn't mention my pro-choice friends 
because it didn't appear necessary at the time, but I believe they
were mentioned in a followup article. 

>Why haven't I heard this argument from my dozens of pro-choice contacts
>and friends? 

Maybe the information was old but still available, similar to what the 
ICR has been found guilty of. This information could have been sitting
in a box somewhere and distributed without verifying the data.

> Why would the pro-choice movement, which contains a number of
>competent thinkers, use a bogus argument discredited decades ago?

Good question and I'm sure there's a logical answer for it.

>   To get to the heart of the matter, why should the inability of your
>pro-choice aquantences to think clearly be mentioned in an attack on evolution?

My friends are quite intelligent and have the ability to think clearly,
they were trying to convince me abortion was okay due to the recapitulation 
theory as they had been told. This was my concern, that abortion should
not be considered acceptable due to "a bogus argument discredited
decades ago." In case anyone is wondering, I'm not going to get 
into an abortion thread from this paragraph, please don't start one.

>Social Darwinism and other silly mis-applications of Darwin are no more the
>fault of evolutionary science than the Spanish Inquisition was the fault of
>Jesus Christ.

I concur. Can I call on you to speak up the next time Christianity is
bashed using similar arguments as we've recently seen in t.o? :-) 
My concern is educating those who justify certain behavior in the 
name of any number of causes when such a behavior conflicts with 
the roots of such causes.

>   The correctness of evolutionary theory does not depend on it's venal
>misapplications any more than Jesus nature as the Son of God depends on the
>atrocities committed in his name by misguided followers.

I agree.

>I'm fairly sure that the information dosen't exist 

>If you could actually get a pamphlet, etc. I would have to bow
>before your evidence. 

When I posted the information I received some mail from those who had
also heard that argument, and read the pamphlet. Anybody else ever 
heard this argument and like to speak up?  Got a pamphlet?

When I approached one of the head honchos at a local pro-choice
organizations and informed her of the defunct recapitulation theory,
I was accused of lying and proseltyzing. I recommended she read
Gould's comments on the matter but she refused what I said as lies
and wouldn't comment further. This made me a little suspicious that
the information was still being distributed.

> ...not that it matters much.  To reiterate: the correctness of evolution is
>independent of its misapplication by confused people.

This is true of anything, including Christianity.

-- 
Jim Loucks           jloucks@uts.amdahl.com 
{apple, pyramid, sun, uunet}!amdahl!jloucks
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic