Godless

[Captain Ray]

Bet you $10.00 that Rob has never read one of her books. Ignorant liberals.. they choose to be ignorant.. they are not born that way.


Raymond

[Son of Norway]

Originally Posted by SkyRat

And what is it you have become?

As I stated earlier, someone who ignores Ann Coulter. And I would never lob insults to someone who lost a loved one in a terrorist attack. If you like that kind of thing, knock yourself out. Grab a biscuit.

[Captain Ray]

Originally Posted by Son of Norway

As I stated earlier, someone who ignores Ann Coulter. And I would never lob insults to someone who lost a loved one in a terrorist attack. If you like that kind of thing, knock yourself out. Grab a biscuit.

Then don't read the GD book!! But don't comment because you have no idea what you are talking about. Ignorant people suck!!

I read Michael Moores book on a dare.. it sucked.. but I read it! Talk about a horrible author.. I wouldn't give that guy a job squeezing the farts out of dead chickens!! But I read it...

Raymond

[Son of Norway]

I've seen her, Ray. Sorry, I'm not impressed with her or any other extremist media whores. I don't need her to define my values. Here, have a biscuit.

[Captain Ray]

Read a book.. do you actually read any books?

I'll tell you what.. you buy one of Anne's books I will reimburse you the cost.. I think you will be surprised just how the liberals have fooled you into avoiding her material.

The focus on the "Jersey Girls" is insane.. talk about "whores"!!! I hope if I am ever killed in a catastrophe that my woman doesn't use my memory to support liberals and their hatred of the current POTUS... let me die in peace!!

But that is not the point... You haven't read her.. and you don't know what you are talking about.

Raymond

[SkyRat]

Originally Posted by Son of Norway

As I stated earlier, someone who ignores Ann Coulter. And I would never lob insults to someone who lost a loved one in a terrorist attack. If you like that kind of thing, knock yourself out. Grab a biscuit.

The kettle calls the pot black. What do you say about someone when you are paying attention to them?

I stated earlier that I would not use the same words she uses, but when you see a group of ladies that genuinely seem to be enjoying their new fame, sadly that it came from tragedy, I believe her conclusions are correct. I don't need a biscuit. I am not sopping up your brand of vile either. At least her point is correct. You insult AND you're wrong.

[bd1]

For your reading pleasure.


"A Battle of Titans: Charles Darwin versus Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter's latest book--Godless: The Church of Liberalism--became a best-selling book as soon as it was published this week. Although liberals might not think of themselves as religious, Coulter declares that liberalism is actually an anti-Christian religion that has become the state-sanctioned religion of the United States. Liberalism's "creation myth" is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which supports the atheistic materialism of liberalism. Far from being science, evolutionary biology is "just a crazy religious cult" (199, 217).

The popularity of this book might come from the deep wisdom and incisive wit of Coulter's writing. Or it might come from the sexy photograph of Coulter that fills up the cover of the book jacket. She stares at us with a sweet smile, blue eyes, long blong hair, a slender body in a low-cut black dress showing cleavage, and a necklace with a cross dangling over the cleavage. At her website, Coulter has a photo gallery. My favorites are the pictures of her in a black leather dress. This Christian conservative sexpot is going to seduce us away from Darwinian liberalism.

Ok, I won't challenge her in a beauty contest. But I might try to convince her conservative readers that her arguments against Darwinism as a liberal religion are shallow. She has never actually read any of Darwin's writings. But she has picked up all of her arguments against Darwinism from three proponents of "intelligent design theory" at the Discovery Institute--Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and William Dembski (303).

For example, she argues that Behe has "disproved evolution" by showing that Darwin's theory cannot explain the evolution of "irreducibly complex" mechanisms like the bacterial flagellum. But she ignores the criticisms of Behe's reasoning. It has been shown that some bacteria have a type III secretory system (TTSS) that allows them to inject protein toxins into the cells of host organisms. The similarity in the protein structures of the TTSS and those in the bacterial flagellum suggest that the flagellum could have evolved by incorporating the structures of TTSS, so that mechanisms originally serving one function could be taken up into new mechanisms serving new functions. In fact, Behe himself admits that such explanations could be possible (see his Darwin's Black Box, 40, 66, 111-13, 177).

Now actually showing the step-by-step evolutionary pathway that led to the bacterial flagellum or other complex biomolecular mechanisms is extremely difficult. But, of course, it's also extremely difficult to show the step-by-step pathway by which the Intelligent Designer created the bacterial flagellum! Comparing these alternative explanations, we can not conclusively prove one over the other, but we can at least weigh the evidence and arguments. Coulter doesn't do this.

Coulter also makes the famous argument about the "Cambrian explosion" refuting Darwin. About 540 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time, many forms of shelled invertebrate animals appeared over a period of 5 to 10 million years. Darwin assumed that there had to have been many animal species long before the Cambrian Period. But in his time, there was no fossil record to show this. He admitted in The Origin of Species that this was "the most obvious and gravest objection" to his theory. He offered a "hypothesis" that conditions prior to the Cambrian did not permit the formation of a fossil record. Coulter cites the "Cambrian explosion" as showing how "absurd" the "evolution fable" is.

But over the past 30 years, paleontologists have found an extensive fossil record of animal life prior to the Cambrian. Coulter dismisses this by saying: "instead of a glut of evolutionary ancestors, all we have at the outset of the Cambrian explosion are some sad little worms and sponges" (222). Here's the typical rhetorical strategy for Darwin's critics. First, they say that to prove Darwin's theory, there should be a fossil record of animal life prior to the Cambrian epoch. Then, when this fossil record is discovered, the critics say this not enough--"some sad little worms and sponges." What would satisfy them? "A glut of evolutionary ancestors"! And how many transitional fossils do we need to make a "glut"?

Here's how this works: as the evidence for evolution accumulates, just raise the standard higher and higher so that it can never be satisfied. And in a historical science like evolutionary biology, where demonstrative proof is unattainable, and where a preponderance of the evidence is the best we can hope for, setting an unrealistic standard of proof is an effective rhetorical move for denigrating the evidence.

And yet what really drives people like Coulter is not the scientific arguments over Darwinism, but the religious, moral, and political arguments. To prove her religious argument that Darwinism is necessarily atheistic, she quotes from Darwinian scientists like Richard Dawkins who are proud of their atheism. But one could just as easily prove that Christianity is necessarily anti-Semitic by quoting Martin Luther's brutally anti-Semitic writings.

Coulter admits the fallacy in her rhetoric when she says, "Of course it's possible to believe in God and in evolution," because "if evolution is true, then God created evolution" (265, 277). The point here is that evolutionary theory is about the natural causes of life, but whether those natural causes depend on some ultimate supernatural causes is beyond evolutionary theory as a natural science.

Coulter worries about atheism, because she believes that morality is impossible without belief in God's commands as the source of morality. "If God is dead, everything is permitted" (277). This completely ignores Darwin's account of the "moral sense" as rooted in the evolved nature of the human animal, which would suport a morality of natural law. Apparently, Coulter would reject this natural morality because it is not based on divine command. By contrast, she declares, "religious people have certain rules based on a book about faith with lots of witnesses to that faith" (281). She doesn't explain how religious people resolve disputes over the authority, clarity, or reliability of those "rules based on a book."

And yet, even as I find Coulter's scientific, religious, and moral arguments weak, I am more persuaded by her political argument. I agree with her that it is unreasonable and perhaps even undemocratic to prohibit high school biology students from studying the debates over Darwinian biology. There is no absolutely conclusive proof for Darwin's theory. Darwin himself admitted that there were many reasonable objections to his theory. The best we can do is to weigh the evidence and arguments for competing positions. So why shouldn't we allow high school students to study the debates? If they were to read some of Darwin's writings, some writings from recent evolutionary research, and some of the critical writing from the proponents of intelligent design such as Behe and Dembski, they could study the reasoning in this debate and decide for themselves which side seems more plausible. Wow! Students thinking through scientific arguments for themselves! What a novel idea.

Not long ago, at an academic conference, I made this proposal for an open discussion of evolutionary reasoning in public high school biology classes. Chris Mooney--the author of The Republican War on Science--was present, and he protested that high school students were not smart enough to read Darwin or to study the controversy over evolution. Instead, he insisted, they should only be presented with standard textbooks that summarize what the "experts" in biology believe. High school students should never be permitted to question these "experts."

I can't agree with this. Mindless memorization of what the scientific "experts" believe does not cultivate a serious intellectual ability to assess scientific evidence and arguments. This is especially important when it comes to something like Darwinian science, which has moral, religious, and political implications that citizens need to understand and debate. Here Coulter and the intelligent design folks have a good point: some of the proponents of Darwinian biology assume a stance of arrogant superiority and dogmatism that suggests fear of real debate and free inquiry.

Darwinian conservatism does not require a dogmatic commitment to Darwinism. It requires only a serious inquiry into the ways that Darwinian science might support the moral and political principles of conservative thought as rooted in human nature."

posted by Larry Arnhart @ Saturday, June 10, 2006

http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/

bd

[bd1]

Will someone please provide some references that show that the 9-11 widows are enjoying the deaths of their loved ones?


Thanks, bd

[Captain Ray]

Charles Darwin is dead... So he did not right any of that. It's bad enough that you have no point.. but to make up a point and attribute it to one of your demi-gods who himself does not agree with your liberal church is shamefull...


Raymond

[bd1]

Originally Posted by Captain Ray

Charles Darwin is dead... So he did not right any of that. It's bad enough that you have no point.. but to make up a point and attribute it to one of your demi-gods who himself does not agree with your liberal church is shamefull...


Raymond

Didn't understand the post, huh?


Well how about trying to provide some proof of the 9-11 widows' happiness that Coulter refers to....?

bd