Why Christians Attack Evolution

[Chas]

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You said that the T.E.N.S is evidence that the Bible is nonsense. So lets look at what you have written to see if it supports this assertion.

Genesis is an antiquarian account of the origin of the universe, specifically of the world and of mankind.

You say then that this account directly opposes the T.E.N.S.

So let us see if you have a good argument or evidence to support this assertion.

You then go on to say that Genesis was an "invention" of mankind, manufacturing truth as it were. Ok Deidre, this in itself is just a bald assertion. This is yet another claim to knowledge and as such you must substantiate it with some type of argument or evidence. What good reason(s) do we have to think that the Genesis account is just something completely made up willy nilly as an effort to "manufacture truth"? You have your work cut out for you in supporting such a statement.

Moving on...

You then state that Darwin discovered actual truth. But what truth was that? Now I am familiar with his diary writings which contained his thoughts regarding what he found on his exploration of the Galapagos Islands while aboard the HMS Beagle, but nothing he wrote therein leads to the conclusion that the Bible is nonsense. He simply observed, as any person with decent eyesight could observe, that certain types of birds had varying beak sizes. So once again it seems to me that you have just made a bald assertion that needs to be supported or evidenced by some type of argument.

You then state emphatically that:

So, it would stand to reason that discovering ACTUAL facts about the origin of man beats out making up falsehoods about it.

But Darwin's findings in the Galápagos Islands during the second voyage of the Beagle have nothing to do with the origin of man, but rather the variations in the physiology of certain birds.

So once again it seems you have made an unjustified assertion here. You say that Darwin has discovered actual facts about the origin of man based on his observations of some birds on the Galapagos Islands.

So I will just wait for you to explain how that leads us to the conclusion that he discovered actual truth regarding the origin of man.

You also have to demonstrate why the Genesis account is a falsehood as you label it. I will wait for this also.

All I see Deidre is you making bald assertions without any type of argument or evidence.

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This post of yours demonstrates that you do not understand what science is, what evidence is, what Darwin did, and what neo-Darwinism is.

And you do not understand what Darwin discovered on his nearly five-year voyage on the Beagle - it was much more than just the Galapagos and finches.

What he accomplished was a well-supported theory of evolution. It was a remarkable accomplishment.


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As a side note, while I wait for your response, it needs to be kept in mind that:

The term "evolution" can mean several things i.e the gradual development of something, esp. from a simple to a more complex form, or when used with the phrase "natural selection" it can refer specifically to the theory made popular by Darwin. Even the phrase natural selection can be used in different ways:

The term natural selection has slightly different definitions in different contexts. It is most often defined to operate on heritable traits, because these are the traits that directly participate in evolution. However, natural selection is "blind" in the sense that changes in phenotype (physical and behavioral characteristics) can give a reproductive advantage regardless of whether or not the trait is heritable (non heritable traits can be the result of environmental factors or the life experience of the organism).
Following Darwin's primary usage[1] the term is often used to refer to both the evolutionary consequence of blind selection and to its mechanisms.[3][4] It is sometimes helpful to explicitly distinguish between selection's mechanisms and its effects; when this distinction is important, scientists define "natural selection" specifically as "those mechanisms that contribute to the selection of individuals that reproduce", without regard to whether the basis of the selection is heritable. This is sometimes referred to as "phenotypic natural selection".[5]
Traits that cause greater reproductive success of an organism are said to be selected for, whereas those that reduce success are selected against. Selection for a trait may also result in the selection of other correlated traits that do not themselves directly influence reproductive advantage. This may occur as a result of pleiotropy or gene linkage. -Wikipedia

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Your side note is noted and discarded. It is, at best, disingenuous.

In this thread, and on this forum in general, we all know what we mean by 'evolution. It is the modern synthesis, neo-Darwinism.