(May 6, 2014 at 6:11 am)Chas Wrote:(May 1, 2014 at 5:11 pm)ManMachine Wrote: Following on from a recent post in another thread I decided to drop a few very interesting bombshells.
These can all be verified with a little effort (I'm not doing all the work for you).
1. Darwin never once uses either the word ‘ape’ or ‘apes’ in his work ‘On The Origin of Species’, so he could never have said Humans were descendants of or shared a common ancestor with apes.
2. Richard Dawkins has never called himself an atheist, he actually considers himself to be agnostic.
3. Early on in Dawkins’ book, ‘The God Delusion’, he points out that no one can have total certainty that God does or does not exist.
4. Darwin had little faith in fossil records ever proving his theory of Evolution, he considered them too incomplete.
5. Sir Isaac Newton had an interest in the occult, he studied alchemy and believed he would discover The Philosopher’s Stone, a material capable of turning base metal into gold. He also believed that metals ‘possessed a sort of life’.
Enjoy,
MM
Not one single bombshell. Is your thinking so shallow that you perceive any of those as more than mildly interesting?
(May 1, 2014 at 5:41 pm)ManMachine Wrote: I think you make a really valuable point here, and it was kind of what I hoped would get picked up from my original post.
When religious people throw ideas around such as 'Darwin said man descended from apes', we should challenge those misrepresentations. These are valuable ideas and I feel we need to be better informed in their defence. Plus they are quite fun facts.
Other interesting 'bombshells' are very welcome.
MM
I guess you don't know that Darwin wrote more than one book, for instance The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.
Another one misses the point, I suggest you read through my replies.
However...
I do know The Descent of Man etc.', and I've read it.
To be fair, the Descent of Man is only an essay, the bigger part of the book is given over to Selection in Relation to Sex. To quote Darwin from The Descent of Man:
"The main conclusion arrived at in this work, and now held by many naturalists who are well competent to form a sound judgment, is that man is descended from some less highly organized form."
Which is so general it might be used to infer Darwin said Humans and sea cucumbers share a common ancestor. I'm not suggesting that Darwin wasn't part of the bigger debate, he was, but the specific connection between apes and humans was primarily the work of Huxley and Owen. Darwin used animals (including dogs and apes) and what he termed 'savages' to draw analogies with 'civilized humans', this was his primary rhetorical strategy which has as much to say about his Victorian values as anything.
If you have a comment to make on the broader debate of Darwin's intent then we can start another thread, but I really can't be bothered with people who attempt to present an argument about a book they have no understanding of and probably haven't even read.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
