Re: Pathetic attacks on Darwin

On 3/28/2025 4:05 PM, Kestrel Clayton wrote:

  On 26-Mar-25 10:23, RonO wrote:

https://evolutionnews.org/2025/03/west-heres-why-we-cant-just-make- peace-with-darwin/
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https://evolutionnews.org/2025/03/doug-axe-on-darwinian-evolution-one- of-the-weakest-most-pathetic-scientific-theories/
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The ID perps can't quit making stupid claims about Darwin and his observation of natural selection in nature.
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MarkE wants to continue to lie to himself about "Darwinism".  The simple fact is that natural selection has been known to not be the only factor in the evolution of the current diversity of life on earth for a very long time.  It is just one factor, and a factor that anyone with enough training can go out into nature and collect data consistent with it continuing to act in nature today.  ID perps like Dembski and Behe have admitted that natural selection could be the designer of examples of evolution that we have.  Behe's stupid argument about "devolution" actually claims that natural selection would be expected to be responsible for things like the evolution of whales where a lot of the genes that had evolved to work in creating terrestrial tetrapods for over 200 million years had to be broken for the whales to go back to an aquatic lifestyle.  The broken genes were still in the whale genomes and had obviously evolved from functional sequences of the close terrestrial relatives of whales, but Behe just claimed that it was a bad type of evolution in order to make negative claims of natural selection.  Behe actually shot himself in the head by claiming that whales evolved when his designer wasn't looking and the evolution was due to natural selection because natural selection would have been expected to select for the broken genes and the results of breaking them, while his designer would have done a better job of evolving whales.
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West's denial article cites Axe's denial article.  "(See, “Doug Axe on Darwinian Evolution: ‘One of the Weakest, Most Pathetic Scientific Theories.’”)"  This is obviously just stupid and dishonest denial because Phillip Johnson sat in court every day of testimony for the Dover IDiotic creationist fiasco and came to the conclusion that the ID perps had nothing equivalent to biological evolution to put forward.  He admitted that the ID science had never existed, and could not compete with the real science.  Axe's lie about what he is calling Darwinian evolution means that the ID scam is so much weaker and pathetic than the actual science that there isn't much doubt about why the ID perps decided to start running the bait and switch on creationist rubes instead of give them any of the weak and pathetic ID science.
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West claims that Darwinism is corrosive, but even though he never defines Darwinism he is just objecting to what science has to be in order to function in the real world.  Biological evolution in nature is just an affront to his religious beliefs.  Behe and Denton have been telling the other ID perps that biological evolution is just a fact of nature since the turn of the century, but ID perps like West and Axe have never been able to accept reality.
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Whining about Darwinism is just stupid at this point in the ID perp's bait and switch ID creationist scam.  The only supporter that the ID perps have left on TO is MarkE because MarkE has never been able to accept reality just like West and Axe.  All the other IDiots quit the ID scam because they realized that there wasn't any ID science that they wanted the ID perps to produce.  Any real science involving the Top Six best evidences for ID would just be more science for Biblical creationists to deny.  None of the long time IDiots had ever been interested in believing in any ID science.  They had all been IDiots due to the failure of scientific creationism and the fact that they could not give up on the denial like MarkE.

 The creationist obsession with Darwin is, I think, indicative of a deeper pathology: Creationists think science is essentially a sort of religion. Therefore, claims depend on the moral authority of those making them. Most creationists can't seem to wrap their brains around the idea that science neither respects nor requires moral authority. The character and habits of any given scientist are irrelevant; even if Charles Darwin had a side hustle burning down orphanages for fun and profit, it doesn't impact the veracity of evolutionary biology.
 That's also why creationists whine and lie about "Darwinism" being "corrosive" for societies: "If evolution is true, then the nazis were right, only temporal power matters, and there is no Jesus to save us from an eternity in Hell!" Even if all that were true, it wouldn't make evolution any less factual. True things are true whether we like them or not. (See also: Denialism of other unhappy truths like climate change and structural racism.)
 The only authority in science is the evidence, always and forever.
 

The original mission statement for the ID creationist scam.
http://web.archive.org/web/19980114111554/http:/discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html
They were more honest when they started out before they decided to start running the bait and switch scam.  You can see their depiction of God and Adam in their original logo.  This is pretty much the same mission statement that they had in the Wedge "fund raising" document.
They started out as an anti-science creationist organization.  They understood that science worked, and wanted to take that mantel for their religious beliefs, but they could not accept that Science didn't care about their religious beliefs.  They also had a beef with the way science had to work in order to understand nature.  They lied about materialism and or Darwinism as something that was bad for their religious beliefs.  They saw the success of science as a "triumph of materialism" and lied about what the materialism, that science had to abide by, meant to human culture.
QUOTE:
The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective standards binding on all cultures, claiming that environment dictates our moral beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics, political science, psychology and sociology.
Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions.
END QUOTE:
The simple fact that science works for understanding the physical universe does no such thing.  It was the abuses of religion that allowed materialistic philosophy to take hold and use the successes of science to bash the alternatives.  The ID perps were stupid and dishonest enough to think that donning the mantle of science while bashing real science could convince the creationist rubes to support their theocratic political goals.
As crazy as it may seem they claimed to be able to do the same science that they hated in order to support their religious beliefs.  They claimed to have developed a scientific theory that they knew would be restricted to what we understand about the physcial universe, and claimed that it supported their religious beliefs in a creator even though they refused to name any specific creator.
All they have left is the science denial and the stupid lies about Darwinism and materialism.
Most of the last IDiots on TO abandoned the ID scam back in 2018 because the ID perps were stupid enough to tell the rubes their Top Six best evidences for the ID scam in the order in which they must have occurred in this universe (published Nov. 2017).  It turned out that most of the IDiots had never wanted the ID perps to develop any real ID science because it would just be more science for Biblical creationists to deny.   The god responsible for the Top Six gaps is definitely not the Biblical god.  The Supreme court had been correct in telling the creationist rubes that the god-of-the-gaps creationist denial stupidity did not support their religious beliefs.  It turns out that these gaps mean that the Bible is wrong about creation and what the Biblical god is supposed to be responsible for.  Even the Reason to Believe old earth creationists stopped being IDiots and no longer claim to support any ID science.
The stupid lies about materialism and association with Darwinism is all that the ID perps have left.  They really never wanted to accomplish any real science with respect to any of the Top Six best evidences for the ID scam.  It would just be more science for their Biblical creationist political support base to deny.
Ron Okimoto