Sunday, August 29, 2010

Quote of the Day: "What is at issue is not what reputable biologists believe, but whether it is true"

It is precisely the reputable biologists who are under attack. For the first time, they are being asked to defend the thesis that biological design is more apparent rather than real. The effort has left them breathless. They are, of course, not about to surrender their ideological allegiances. Their rhetoric fills the op-ed columns of every liberal newspaper and is conveyed additionally by academic allies whose welfare is contingent on theirs -- analytic philosophers, pop psychologists, and even newspaper columnists eager beyond measure to do anything but attentively study the evidence.

But what is at issue, of course, is not what reputable biologists believe, but whether it is true.
David Berlinksi, Academic Extinction.

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2 comments:

Joe said...

I think Jesus said it best when He said they "Strain at a gnat but swallow a camel".

They travel the world looking for some long lost fossil that they will instantly interpret as an ancestor of man yet refuse to see the evidence of design in living creatures that completely surround them.

They go to Africa and find the top of a skull and build a whole 'new species' that is 'probably the missing link' but refuse to acknowledge the intricate engineering of the most basic life form.

I wonder if, as they fly about looking for just one more fossil, if they ever thought about the engineering of the airplane they are flying in. I wonder if they know that even a small aircraft can only fly about 30 miles on a gallon of gas. Yet were a pigeon the same size as the small airplane it could use that same amount of energy and fly from Edmonton to Halifax.

BallBounces said...

Man -- the most intelligent agent known to atheists -- is playing catch-up to dumb-as-a-rock nature.

Which would seem to suggest, at a minimum, that intelligence is somehow embedded into the natural laws which they believe solely and exclusively govern the world and have the creative ability to create, nurture, refine, and optimize species.

But even this idea probably skates too dangerously close to the "God-idea".

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"