Talk:Rejection of evolution by religious groups/Archive 18

message: The Arkansas law cannot be broken; the law states a "lower order" of animals, but there is no way to define what a "lower order" is. If the law said "lower intelligence" then that's fine, but that's not what it said. 60.240.85.65 08:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Arkansas law

message: Looking at the ID paragraph, it's a bit awkward in putting Bush after Kitzmiller out of historical sequence, and doesn't make clear the context of Kitzmiller. Adapting it to include Sternberg, here's a suggestion: 
Even without Sternberg, it's worth reviewing this paragraph. .. dave souza, talk 07:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Love to use the "cheap tuxedo" quote in the Intelligent design article.  That might send a couple of editors into apoplexy.  At any rate, if we removed some of the harsher POV, it's a good paragraph.  Orangemarlin 08:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ID paragraph

message: "While the controversy has a long history".
What constitutes long? This needs changing either to a verifyable specific or removing. Candy 17:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is necessarily vague, as there is no fixed start-date. The modern controversy can probably be dated to when the Theory of Evolution became the dominant scientific viewpoint (itself a vaguely defined point in time). The Numbers reference makes mention of both the late 19th century and 1920s as milestones, but anoints neither as the official start of the controversy. It thus supports a "long history" but no specific start date. Hrafn42 17:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vague 

message: "Kelly Segrave's sensational Sons of God Return" — ICR and the co-opting of the creationist label
Is this sensational as in fantastic?
Or is this meant to be sensationalist?
Thanks, Monkeyblue 12:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sensational? 

message: This is a recent report from the Culture, Science and Education Committee of the Council of Europe, entitled "The dangers of creationism in education". I consider it of critical importance to the debate, but do not possess the time to add it to the article. Perhaps someone can, in that case I'd be grateful. Link: 
83.36.253.123 11:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: this should be added. (Report from the Council of Europe) 

message: This section contains severe errors. It begins with "Philosopher of science Karl R. Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery set out the concept of falsifiability as a way to distinguish science and pseudoscience" Noone who has ever read the Logic can seriously claim that. The mere word pseudoscience in fact doesn't appear even once in the Logic. Popper's Logic distinguishes empirical from non-empirical theories. Science, he emphatically stresses, is not characterized in that it holds theories that satisfy the demarcation criterion, but in that it applies the scientific method, which is falsification! His criterion for pseudoscience, the reinforced dogmatisms, which he discussed only long after that, is completely different and has nothing to do with falsifiability. Then comes "However, creationists claimed that a key evolutionary concept, that all life on Earth is descended from a single common ancestor, was not mentioned as testable by Popper, and claimed it never would be." The truth is that Popper had much less of a problem to see common descent as a falsifiable theory than natural selection. (He separated these two strictly) He used an automobile in cambrian rock as an example that would falsifiy common descent. See Les chemins de la vérité. L'Express va plus loin avec Karl Popper. L'Express 1598 (1982, 26th February), 82–88. --rtc 15:45, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes I agree about the errors. I think you could correct it. Did he really say that about the automobile? It does not seem correct to me. Do you have a url? Octoplus 16:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

text: This section has long been in need of a rewrite. The sources for the first sentence, particularly Numbers, discuss Popper's views generally, but the only views that were solely attributed to The Logic of Scientific Discovery was this paragraph from John S. Wilkins: "Real Scientists Make Predictions. This was the True Scientific Method. A minor quibble should be dealt with - Popper knew that the Falsification Principle could not be falsified. It was openly metaphysical. In this context, it makes sense why a pro-evolutionist like Popper called Darwinism a metaphysical research program. It was no more falsifiable (he thought) than the view that mathematics describes the world, and it was just as basic to modern biology [Popper 1974: sect 37]." I do not think that this paragraph supports the claims made in the first sentence, therefore it would seem to be inaccurate to attribute them to this book. Hrafn42 17:46, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I find it odd that, after I agreed with rtc on one point (and excised the offending reference from the article) and suggested that this section needed a rewrite, they immediately lost interest in this article (as opposed to other articles where a disagreeing consensus yielded a flurry of comment from them). Hrafn42 06:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Creation-evolution_controversy#Falsifiability]] 

message: I'm eliminating this subsection, as being both mistitled and hopelessly internally garbled. I'll leave a copy here in case anybody wants to try to turn it into something intelligible.
Hrafn42 06:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that makes a lot more sense. Are you happy with the original section-title (which now has a reasonable degree of relevance), or would you like to propose a new one? Hrafn42 05:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

text: How about "Confusion about the meaning of evolution" or "Confusion about what evolution is" or "Misrepresentation of the controversy" or "Confusion about the nature of the controversy"? Something like that might be simpler and more accurate.--Filll 12:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflation of science and religion 

message: SA is back with a new login ID apparently and back to his old tricks again, now claiming that there is no controversy since there is no scientific controversy. While I appreciate his efforts, he basically works at cross purposes to doing anything constructive here. It is hard enough to write these articles without POV warriors from all sides causing chaos.--Filll 03:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: SA, a trusted editor of the community(tm), back with a sockpuppet, and supposedly maliciously editing? Sounds like just the sort of thing a....CREATIONIST WOULD SAY! :D Homestarmy 04:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As you know Homestarmy, I and OM do not like POV warriors from the creationist side OR the science side. We want to make NPOV articles. And pushing things too far either direction does not result in a reasonable, balanced, professional product.--Filll 04:19, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: SA?  I didn't know he was gone, and I didn't know he would use a sockpuppet.  Which one? OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not obvious? Look at the contributions of WTP on this article and level of support for evolution and tell me who that reminds you of. No wonder my number of Talk page edits is so high with this sort of nonsense to contend with.--Filll 04:37, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh Filll, you can't hide what's inside! (Creationist leanings, that is) Homestarmy 05:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The return of you know who 

message: KARL BARTH'S RESOLUTION OF THE EVOLUTION/CREATIONIST CONTROVERSY
This is posted on http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html
but was authored by Karl Barth. It would seem to be public domain.
It shows that the controversy is needless  because it assumes 
EITHER Bible OR Science, but the truth is that it is BOTH/AND,
since there is no conflict as long as you treat these as two different
accounts of the origin of man, both true in their own way.
One (the scientific) is factual, written in the language of biology and the
other (Genesis) a spiritual allegory. In other words, the Bible was
never intended to be a biology textbook, nor does science 
discuss or make a good vehicle for discussing spiritual issues. 
 
 
Rbclough 11:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Barth's position is one that is accepted by Theistic Evolutionists but rejected by Creationists. It is thus part of the controversy, not the end of it. See Karl Barth#Barth, Liberals and Conservatives. Hrafn42 12:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And atheists would argue that evolution points specifically to a lack of any god, certainly a Judea-Christian-Islamic God. This ends nothing. Wikipediatoperfection 15:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Karl Barth 

message: I would like to recommend to editors working on this article two books, not just to ass to the further reading list but as resources for editors to this article.  Both are books by Philip Kitcher: Living With Darwin: Evolution, Design and the Future of Faith and Abusing Science: the Case Against Creationism.  One was reviewed, and the other discussed, in an essay by H. Allen Orr in the most recent issue of The New York Review of Books.  Orr is an evolutionary geneticist in the Biology Department of the University of Rochester; he has published in Science and Nature as well as other top peer-reviewed journals in evolutionary biology, so his credentials as a scientist are impeccable - and he argues that both of these books, while specifically polemics against creationism and ID, are also superb and accessible inroductions to the philosophy of science and evolutionary theory.  Kitcher is himself the subjct of a Wikipedia article; he is a professor of philosophy (of science) who holds the Dewey Chair at Columbia University, and who has published on both creationism and sociobiology and has also published in a host of peer-reviewed journals.  I have to say, I am especially impressed when a pracicing scientist heaps praise on a philosopher of science.  Orr emphasizes that in addressing creationists Kitcher is really trying to lay out as clearly as possible the essence of scientific thought and the history of the development of evolutionary theory, as well as the history of creationist thought (including but not limited to ID).  I do not have these books, but if any editors here has access to them they might provide us with helpful ideas not just of themes we might want to develop, but of ideas about how better to express certain ideas.  I just read the review this week, and it really is an outstanding review, which is why I bring it up now. I would think that even advocates of creationism would want to consult these books - if they are interested in developing arguments to support creationism; a good argument for creationism would be strengthened if it could respond to the argumnts in these books. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:50, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  recommended reading 

message: I've been trying to work out where to put this section & what to do with it. I've finally come to the conclusion that it shouldn't be an independent section of its own. This is for a number of reasons:
#It is unfocused.
#It is unbalanced, in that it mostly covers the Creationist & Theistic Evolution positions, with nothing on the Naturalistic Evolution position.
#Most of its material would more reasonably belong in the Theistic Evolution & the various creationist sections.
#It is badly worded, and in some cases outright wrong. E.g. "They claim that there are two and only two positions that can possibly be correct" is not (as a matter of simple semantics and logic) "grounds" to "strenuously reject the theory of evolution". It is a (fallacious) argument why if evolution is wrong, creationism must be right.
So I'm pulling it over onto the talkpage, to be either cannibalise bits into other sections, or completely rewritten if somebody thinks its worth playing with. Hrafn42 14:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section on 'False dichotomy' 

message: The history section of this article should mention Hume, as he was one of the first modern philosophers to argue against creationism. His point of view is also quite interesting (and useful to the reader), mainly because of the aim of his argument. He is not promoting evolution (which, after all, did not exist as such in his time) but rather attacking creationism as an argument itself. 
As just about every edit to this page is controversial, I thought it to be wise to bring this suggestion up here first, rather than to be bold.
Discuss. User:Krator (t c) 17:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no problem with it. You might want to investigate History of creationism instead, since this is an article dedicated to the history more than this article. You might also want to look at Teleological argument as well.--Filll 18:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

text: The article currently only tracks things back to the time of Darwin (when the controversy started to hot up). If we take it back as far as Hume, we'd probably also have to cover Geology's rejection of the Genesis flood. HrafnTalkStalk 01:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hume