Junk DNA and Genetic Comparisons of Chimps and Humans

(And this post spawned a “SISTER POST” of sorts. Enjoy.)

UPDATED MEDIA

TIMELINE CHAPTERS

  • 0:35 ‘They’re 99% the same’
  • 1:56 70% aligned and verified
  • 3:55 Time needed for evolution
  • 5:29 Chromosomes don’t add up
  • 6:57 What else is similar?
  • 9:07 More than merely DNA
  • 10:27 Useful in witnessing
  • 11:52 These facts convince scientists

Here I want to offer a somewhat short refutation [NOT] of the perpetual myth about human and chimpanzee DNA being 99% similar. One friend included it in a comment to me:

  • A cat shares 85 percent of our DNA along with dogs. Plants 15-20 percent . We share 90% of the genome with a banana. Chimpanzees 99% nearly

Here is my short response:

Not only that, but your idea of 99% is not a real stat as well. Many things have changed since that 1975 claim.* One example is that junk DNA is roundly refuted, and 2001 and 2005 Nature and Science Journal articles make clear that we share from 81% to 87% of DNA with chimps. That shouldn’t be a surprise since we both have eyes to see, stomachs to digest food, etc. So again, when I see you make claims above, rarely are they rooted in anything either current or true. 

* (CREATION.COM) The original 1% claim goes back to 1975.2 This was a long time before a direct comparison of the individual ‘letters’ (base pairs) of human and chimp DNA was possible—the first draft of the human DNA was not published until 2001 and for the chimp it was 2005. The 1975 figure came from crude comparisons of very limited stretches of human and chimp DNA that had been pre-selected for similarity. The chimp and human DNA strands were then checked for how much they stuck to each other—a method called DNA hybridization. (2. Cohen, J., Relative differences: the myth of 1%, Science 316(5833):1836, 2007; doi: 10.1126/science.316.5833.1836)

Even a recent 2006 TIME article continues the mantra when they say, “Scientists figured out decades ago that chimps are our nearest evolutionary cousins, roughly 98% to 99% identical to humans at the genetic level.” So while science moves on and corrects itself, our culture is stuck in what was said to be a proof, and reject what ACTUALLY an evidence against the evolutionary proposition. Similar refutations of evolutionary positions that Richard Dawkins and “Junk DNA.”

What do I mean by that? I mean that if something is said to be evidence and is used to promote [FOR] the evolutionary paradigm… and then it is shown not to be the case… wouldn’t it then logically be an evidence AGAINST this said paradigm? I think so.

MOVING ON… SORTA

Before zeroing in on the Chimp issue, one other quick note regarding a recent discovery that undermines this “similarity” idea. That is this study:

PJ MEDIA notes:

study published in the journal Human Evolution is causing quite the stir. In the words of Phys.org, “The study’s most startling result, perhaps, is that nine out of 10 species on Earth today, including humans, came into being 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.”

So startling, in fact, that according to David Thaler, one of the lead authors of the study, “This conclusion is very surprising, and I fought against it as hard as I could.”

The study’s very own author was so disturbed by how the conclusions challenged current scientific dogma that he “fought against it as hard as [he] could.” His “fight” gives credence to the study’s conclusions. His eventual acceptance, not to mention publication, of the conclusions speaks well of Thaler’s commitment to being a scientist first and an ideologue second.

[….]

This is no small matter for evolutionists because, as World Magazine helpfully summarizes:

According to traditional evolutionary thinking, all living things on Earth share common ancestry, with species evolving through a slow process of random mutation, natural selection, and adaptation over roughly 3.8 billion years. The idea that humans and most animals suddenly appeared at the same time a mere 200,000 years ago or less does not fit with that model.

(See more from my post, “Major DNA Study Undermines Evolution ‘In A Big Way’“) Obviously we differ on time-scalesbut it sure seems like they are getting closer to mine over said time. But if one wishes to keep it ecumenical, here is a quote I love: 

  • “While thoughtful investigators may disagree about the precise age of the universe, we can be confident about its finite nature”

>> J Warner Wallace, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2015), 37.

Okay, back to the refutation of the 99% similarity. Here, Dr. Thomas Seiler, Ph.D., Physics, Technical University of Munich refutes compellingly this outdated TIME magazine article… and my friend:

Most of you may have heard the statement that chimpanzees and humans are having 99% of their genes in common. However, what you are usually not told is that this result was not based on comparing the entire DNA of man and ape but only on comparing a very small fraction of it (ca. 3 %). The function of the other 97% of the genetic code was not understood. Therefore, it was concluded that this DNA had no function at all and it was considered “leftover junk from evolution” and not taken into consideration for the comparison between man and ape. Meanwhile, modern genetics has demonstrated for almost the entire DNA that there is functionality in every genetic letter. And this has led to the collapse of the claim that man and chimpanzee have 99% of their DNA in common.

In 2007, the leading scientific journal Science therefore called the suggested 1% difference “a myth.” And from a publication in Nature in 2010 comparing the genes of our so-called Y-chromosome with those of the chimpanzee Y-chromosome we know now that 60% of human Y-chromosome is not contained in that of the chimpanzee. This represents a difference of one billion genetic letters, known as nucleotides.

And modern genetics has recently made another important discovery which was very unexpected. Researchers found that all of the different groups of humans on earth, wherever they live and whatever they look like, have 99.9% of their genes in common. This leads to a problem for the hypothesis of evolution because if humans really were descended from the apes, then how could it be that we only have 40% of our Y-chromosome in common with the apes but at the same time there is almost a complete genetic identity among all humans? If there had been an evolution from ape to man then it should still go on among men and reveal significant genetic differences. These recent discoveries therefore drastically widen the gap between man and the animals. And they confirm that there are in reality no such things as human “races”. Asians, Europeans, Africans and Indigenous people from America and Australia only have superficial differences like color of skin or shape of the nose but they are all extremely similar on the genetic level.

And these recent breakthrough discoveries even go further. Today, because of the extreme similarity of the human genome, it is considered a well-established fact among geneticists, that all humans living on earth now are descended from one single man and from one single woman. In order to convince yourself of this you only have to search in the internet for the terms “mitochondrial Eve” or “Y-chromosome Adam”. These names were given by evolutionists in an ironic sense but now many regret that choice of name because this discovery perfectly confirms the Catholic Doctrine of Creation which has taught for 2000 years that all humans are brothers and sisters descended from one single human couple, the real historical persons Adam and Eve, not from a multitude of subhuman primates….

(Via LIFE SITE NEWS)

Here is a visual of the varying studies (click to enlarge in another window):

This video evaluates the claim that humans and chimps have 98% to 99% DNA similarity.

DR. JONATHAN SARFATI passed this on to me in conversation (click to enlarge as PDF):

Wow. Enough said? Or will this myth still infect the brains of people wishing something to be true that continue to lose evidences for? One other noteworthy exchange from that conversation I wish to note here.

THE BELOW IS DATED MAY 2010

See also: Pseudogenes Predicted To Fail by Creationists (Vestigial Response Added)

Bottom Line:

The failure to recognize the full implications of [non-protein–coding DNA] may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.

(cited in: Gibbs, W.W., The unseen genome: gems among the junk, Scientific American 289[5]:26–33, November 2003.)

…even the staunchest critics of creation theory recognize that “[i]t is impossible to prove absence of function for any region of DNA.”

Edward E. Max, “Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics,” Sec. 5.4 . From: A Critique of “29 Evidences for Macroevolution”

Talk Origins in its 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution (written between 199 and 2004) quotes a 1999 study that purportedly proves their stance:

Furthermore, all of these genes have accumulated mutations at the exact rate predicted (the background rate of mutation for neutral DNA regions like pseudogenes) (Ohta and Nishikimi 1999).


Well, the tables have turned on neo-Darminian claims yet once again and science (not “scientism”) advances:

It is worth mentioning that this supposed truth for evolutionary theory is further along the wrong prediction mark than the proof of “Junk DNA” was along this path when I was debating in 97′ with people over at the Discover site.  (In fact, this “proof” is connected to the “junk DNA” position.) In 1997 people — in debate situation — said that evolution predicts junk DNA and that they have known of junk DNA for quite some time, thus proving evolutionary explanatory power. IN 2003, one of the first articles to hit the mainstream scientific press that this long held assumption was in jeopardy hit Discover and Scientific American magazines, two subscriptions I receive out of the many mags I get. Pictured is the first Discover magazine (yes, I have kept them) ruminations that this “proof” was disintegrating, like the vestigial organs “proof” did, cytochrome C differences, bacterial evolution, etc.

So debating a topic like this supposed proof is funny because it is much further along the scientific path than it was when I first debated the issue. Not to mention all the “evolutionary tree” models that are supposed to be factual when in fact their order is a topic of much debate. For instance, I posted a bit earlier a layman’s article on the argument within the evolutionary camp about mankind coming from orangutans rather than a chimpanzee split in the family tree… (this earlier post mentions the belief within the evolutionary camp that man came from some aquatic ancestor rather than orangutans). A few people likewise believe that apes (Gorillas) are descended from mankind in some way. For instance, Dr. Aaron G. Filler:

Dr. Aaron G. Filler, M.D., Ph.D. studied evolutionary theory under some of the leading biologists and anthropologists of our time: Ernst Mayr, Stephen J. Gould, David Pilbeam, and Irven DeVore. A neurosurgeon at the Institute for Spinal Disorders at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and past associate director of the Comprehensive Spine Center at UCLA, Dr. Filler has been a leading innovator in medical imaging and neuroscience. He is the author of Do You Really Need Back Surgery? (Oxford University Press), as well as numerous scientific articles and patents.

He wrote a book entitled The Upright Ape: A New Origin of the Species, in which he follows the footsteps of another well respected scientist showing that apes are most likely a breakaway group from mankind. The other scientist I mention is Dr. Geoffrey H. Bourne:

He was Director of Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Emory University, England. Dr. Bourne is Oxford educated, and is an American cell biologist/anatomist who was considered by most to be the worlds leading primatologist.

He said that apes are descended from man. Why would men of science believe such a thing? Because science has never seen any information being added to the evolutionary upward “slant” that is required by its theory (Darwinism, e.g., “scientism”). So since apes are less than us, Dr. Bourne says that science [not “scientism”] proves his theory due to observable facts. (SEE APPENDIX) All this though, junk DNA being disproved and a differing order of our family tree are other impediments to the Vitamin C Pseudogene argument. In order for this argument to work (and the subsequent predictions made to be coherent), he [the evolutionist] has to have all his ducks in order, this is something he does not have the luxury of (see image at top). One of the papers linked above (GULO pseudogenes have been intensively investigated) and its in-depth research led it two authors to say the following:

When examined in detail, the full pseudogene dataset we collected does not lend itself to a reasonable neo-Darwinian interpretation. Using standard bioinformatics tools and principles, we present alternative designs for at least the exon X portion of the GULO gene. These may be plausible due to nucleotide patterns being relevant as regulatory signals or the favouring of some codons for various possible reasons. We do accept that some mutations have occurred in this exon. But these novel proposals imply that the ancestors of the organisms studied may well never have had the exact same GULO sequence.

That last sentence really shows the assumptions made in this “proof” that steps away from true science and into the realm of historical science. And the historical sciences are fraught with bickering, changing branches of human lineage, and naturalistic philosophies that make the vitamin C pseudogene argument pretty vacuous.

The following is a good round-up of the problems seen in this line of argument, by Sean D. Pitman MD:

in 2003, the same Japanese group published the complete sequence of the guinea pig GLO pseudogene, which is thought to have evolved independently, and compared it to that of humans [Inai et al, 2003]. 21 Surprisingly, they reported many shared mutations (deletions and substitutions) present in both humans and guinea pigs. Remember now that humans and guinea pigs are thought to have diverged at the time of the common ancestor with rodents. Therefore, a mutational difference between a guinea pig and a rat should not be shared by humans with better than random odds. But, this was not what was observed. Many mutational differences were shared by humans, including the one at position 97. According to Inai et al, this indicated some form of non-random bias that was independent of common descent or evolutionary ancestry. The probability of the same substitutions in both humans and guinea pigs occurring at the observed number of positions was calculated, by Inai et al, to be 1.84×10-12 – consistent with mutational hotspots.

What is interesting here is that the mutational hot spots found in guinea pigs and humans exactly match the mutations that set humans and primates apart from the rat (see figure below). 21,22 This particular feature has given rise to the obvious argument that Inai et al got it wrong. Reed Cartwright, a population geneticist, has noted a methodological flaw in the Inai paper:

“However, the sections quoted from Inai et al. (2003) suffer from a major methodological error; they failed to consider that substitutions could have occurred in the rat lineage after the splits from the other two. The researchers actually clustered substitutions that are specific to the rat lineage with separate substitutions shared by guinea pigs and humans. . .

If I performed the same analysis as Inai et al. (2003), I would conclude that there are ten positions where humans and guinea pigs experienced separate substitutions of the same nucleotide, otherwise known as shared, derived traits. These positions are 1, 22, 31, 58, 79, 81, 97, 100, 109, 157. However, most of these are shown to be substitutions in the rat lineage when we look at larger samples of species.

When we look at this larger data table, only one position of the ten, 81, stands out as a possible case of a shared derived trait, one position, 97, is inconclusive, and the other eight positions are more than likely shared ancestral sites. With this additional phylogenetic information, I have shown that the “hot spots” Inai et al. (2003) found are not well supported.” (see Link)

It does indeed seems like a number of the sequence differences noted by Cartwright are fairly unique to the rat – especially when one includes several other species in the comparison. However, I do have a question regarding this point.  It seems to me that there simply are too many loci where the rat is the only odd sequence out in Exon X (i.e., there are seven and arguably eight of these loci).  Given the published estimate on mutation rates (Drake) of about 2 x 10-10 per loci per generation, one should expect to see only 1 or 2 mutations in the 164 nucleotide exon in question (Exon X) over the course of the assumed time of some 30 Ma (million years).  Therefore, the argument of the mutational differences being due to mutations in the rat lineage pre-supposes a much greater mutation rate in the rat than in the guinea pig.  The same thing is true if one compares the rat with the mouse (i.e., the rat’s evident mutation rate is much higher than that of the mouse).

This is especially interesting since many of the DNA mutations are synonymous.  Why should essentially neutral mutations become fixed to a much greater extent in the rat gene pool as compared to the other gene pools? Wouldn’t this significant mutation rate difference, by itself, seem to suggest a mutationally “hot” region – at least in the rat?

Beyond this, several loci differences are not exclusive to the rat/mouse gene pools and therefore suggest mutational hotspots beyond the general overall “hotness” or propensity for mutations in this particular genetic sequence.

Some have noted that although the shared mutations may be the result of hotspots, there are many more mutational differences between humans and rats/guinea pigs as compared to apes.  Therefore, regardless of hotspots, humans and apes are clearly more closely related than are humans and rats/guinea pigs.

The problem with this argument is that the rate at which mutations occur is related to the average generation time.  Those creatures that have a shorter generation time have a correspondingly higher mutation rate over the same absolute period of time – like 100 years.  Therefore, it is only to be expected that those creatures with relatively long generation times, like humans and apes, would have fewer mutational differences relative to each other over the same period of time relative to those creatures with much shorter generation times, like rats and guinea pigs.

What is interesting about many of these mutational losses is that they often share the same mutational changes.  It is at least reasonably plausible then that the GULO mutation could also be the result of a similar genetic instability that is shared by similar creatures (such as humans and the great apes).

This same sort of thing is seen to a fairly significant degree in the GULO region.  Many of the same regional mutations are shared between humans and guinea pigs.  Consider the following illustration yet again:

Why would both humans and guinea pigs share major deletions of exons I, V and VI as well as four stop codons if these mutations were truly random?  In addition to this, a mutant group of Danish pigs have also been found to show a loss of GULO functionality.  And, guess what, the key mutation in these pigs was a loss of a sizable portion of exon VIII.  This loss also matches the loss of primate exon VIII.  In addition, there is a frame shift in intron 8 which results in a loss of correct coding for exons 9-12.  This also reflects a very similar loss in this region in primates (see Link).  That’s quite a few key similarities that were clearly not the result of common ancestry for the GULO region.  This seems to be very good evidence that many if not all of the mutations of the GULO region are indeed the result of similar genetic instabilities and that are prone to similar mutations – especially in similar animals.

As an aside, many other genetic mutations that result in functional losses are known to commonly affect the same genetic loci in the same or similar manner outside of common descent.  For example, achondroplasia is a spontaneous mutation in humans in about 85% of the cases. In humans achondroplasia is due to mutations in the FGFR2 gene. A remarkable observation on the FGFR2 gene is that the major part of the mutations are introduced at the same two spots (755 C->G and 755-757 CGC->TCT) independent of common descent. The short legs of the Dachshund are also due to the same mutation(s). The same allelic mutation has occurred in sheep as well.

(SOURCE)

All this is to say, yet again, that this “evidence” is anything but!

WIKI SECTION:

By definition, pseudogenes lack a function. However, the classification of pseudogenes generally relies on computational analysis of genomic sequences using complex algorithms. This has led to the incorrect identification of pseudogenes. For example the functional, chimeric gene jingwei in Drosophila was once thought to be a processed pseudogene.

It has been established that quite a few pseudogenes can go through the process of transcription, either if their own promoter is still intact or in some cases using the promoter of a nearby gene; this expression of pseudogenes also appears to be tissue-specific. In 2003, Hirotsune et al. identified a retrotransposed pseudogene whose transcript purportedly plays a trans-regulatory role in the expression of its homologous gene, Makorin1 (MKRN1) (see also RING finger domainubiquitin ligases), and suggested this as a general model under which pseudogenes may play an important biological role. Other researchers have since hypothesized similar roles for other pseudogenes. A bioinformatics analysis has shown that processed pseudogenes can be inserted into introns of annotated genes and be incorporated into alternatively spliced transcripts. Hirotsune’s report prompted two molecular biologists to carefully review scientific literature on the subject of pseudogenes. To the surprise of many, they found a number of examples in which pseudogenes play a role in gene regulation and expression, forcing Hirotsune’s group to rescind their claim that they were the first to identify pseudogene function. Furthermore, the original findings of Hirotsune et al. concerning Makorin1 have recently been strongly contested; thus, the possibility that some pseudogenes could have important biological functions was disputed. Additionally, University of Chicago and University of Cincinnati scientists reported in 2002 that a processed pseudogene called phosphoglycerate mutase 3 (PGAM3P) actually produces a functional protein and two 2008 publications in Nature discusses that some endogenous siRNAs are derived from pseudogenes, and thus some pseudogenes play a role in regulating protein-coding transcripts.

AIG & PDF Sources [PDF source near top]:

….Many of those mammals found unable to synthesize ascorbic acid have regions of their genome that are believed to correspond to parts of the functional GULO gene that is found in those mammals found capable to synthesizing GULO, and thus vitamin C. Evolutionists have cited these apparently vestigial remnants of GULO to make dysteleological arguments against an Intelligent Designer. In addition, they have argued that lesions found in common between the orthologous GULO pseudogenes of simian primates (‘shared mistakes’) argue strongly for their origins from a common ancestor, and all but rule out an independent inactivation of the GULO gene among different simian primates (including humans).

Previous studies of the orthologous primate GULO gene and pseudogene have focused on those parts of a few exons that appear to correspond between humans and rats. A more recent study1 is much more comprehensive. It is now believed that, relative to the 12 exons that comprise the functional rat GULO gene, the human GULO pseudogene is limited to counterparts of exons 4, 7, 9, 10, and 12. Owing to the fact that the guinea pig and the simian primates are obviously not sister groups [see figure near top], it is impossible for the guinea pig GULO pseudogene and the human GULO pseudogene to have both originated from the same ancestral pseudogene. Furthermore, not only are the inactivations of GULO in the guinea pig and primates clearly independent events based on phylogenetic analysis [see figure near top], but also on inferred evolutionistically believed times of inactivation….

Inai, Y., Ohta, Y. and Nishikimi, M., The whole structure of the human non-functional L-gulono-γ-lactone oxidase gene—the gene responsible for scurvy—and the evolution of repetitive sequences thereon, J. Nutritional Science and Vitaminology (Tokyo)49(5):315–319, 2003.

UPDATE:

The “pseudogene” argument (of which Vitamin C Pseudogene is part of) is being shown to not be a “vestige” as claimed and “predicted” by Darwinian theory. Much like the Haeckel’s list of over 100 vestigial organs, science shows that predictions made like this fail. If the predictions of design were assumed, more lives would have been saved and true science would have flourished. JBS Haldane however, said (predicted) that “natural selection cannot possibly select for millions of new mutations over the course of human evolution, Kimura developed the idea of “Neutral Evolution.” If “Haldane’s Dilemma”  was correct, the majority of DNA must be non-functional. Hence, the pseudogene argument. This is an argument that has failed due to recent science, no predictive power left in it. Which is no small issue, since, it is this “predictive value” that makes this argument valid.

Faulkner (in 2009) worked with mice and humans and showed clearly that this RNA/Retrotranposons relationship were not random, and thus transcription is shown to be influenced wholly or partly by this “junk DNA.” — “Therefore, more than one third of the mouse and human genomes, previously thought to be non-functional, may play some role in the regulation of gene expression” (scientists from Jackson Maine, USA laboratories). Creationists have long figured this “junk DNA” to be functional… making design predictions more accurate.

Thankfully, not everyone bought this idea. In the late 1980s, New Zealand–born Australian immunologist Malcolm Simons recognized patterns, or order, in the non-coding DNA that indicated to him that the code must have a function, but others ridiculed the idea. In the mid-1990s, he patented the non-coding DNA (95%) of all organisms on Earth. The company he founded, Genetic Technologies, now reaps license fees from all technologies being developed to cure disease that involve the non-coding DNA. It’s quite controversial, of course, paying such license fees. And since factors involved in all sorts of diseases, such as breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, ovarian and skin cancer, are being found in the ‘junk’, Genetic Technologies is doing quite well.

The “vitamin C gene” in question here (L-gulano-g-lactone oxidase gene) is only a valid argument if:

a) a non-functional version of the gene was shown to be functional at some point in our human lineage, it says nothing about ancestors (kinds, or species) who could have been created with an active gene.

b) If the lineage of man can truly be traced through evolutionary ancestors, which it cannot.

c) The same gene could have been inactivated by the same mutation occurring independently is said to be too improbable by strict neo-Darwinists. (Ironic) However, if there is, or was, a mechanism of mutation that favors certain locations in the gene (a hot spot), the odds against an independent occurrence of the mutation drop according to the strength of that bias. This, by-the-way, is more probable considering the fall of the pseudogene argument. In other words, this prediction would now be of a higher order and is an example of loss of function and a disordering of optimum ability. Something the creation model predicts, it is the opposite of what Darwinism requires.

d) Likewise, in order for this line of reasoning to work, a human genome must be compared to an organism with a functioning gene for synthesizing vitamin C. Of course we know they found it in rats (Nishikimi, 1994). Four of the 12 exons (Science Dictionary: A segment of a gene that contains information used in coding for protein synthesis; exons are the modular coding regions of the gene). Here is the downfall, two-thirds of the homologous rat gene is completely missing. Which is to say: “This DNA sequence, labeled as a pseudogene, might have an entirely different function than the rat gene.” This would be — with recent peer reviewed articles in Discover, Scientific American, Nature, Science Weekly, and other pubvlications — be of a higher order than merely saying it is a pseudogene. In other words, the previous predictions are mute and shows that the argument is from silence, or non-science.

Stating that only the last enzyme is missing for the pathway to convert glucose to vitamin C might imply to the untrained individual that there is a biochemical pathway that leads to a dead end. Actually, the biochemical pathway that leads to the synthesis of vitamin C in rats also leads to the formation of five-carbon sugars in the pentose phosphate pathway present in virtually all animals (Linster and Van Schaftingen 2007). There are several metabolic intermediates in this pathway illustrating that these substances can be used as precursors for many compounds in the cell. In the pentose phosphate pathway, five-carbon sugars are made from glucose (a six-carbon sugar) to be used in the synthesis of DNA, RNA, and many energy producing substances such as ATP and NADPH (Garrett 1999). Animals that synthesize vitamin C can use both pathways illustrated in the simplified diagram below. Humans and the other animals “less fortunate” than rats only use the pentose phosphate pathway.

There is no dead end or wasted metabolic intermediates, and there is no need to have the enzyme to make vitamin C since humans are able to get all of the vitamin C they need from food substances. Thousands of human pseudogenes have been catalogued, but in spite of the similarities to functional genes, the exact role of pseudogene sequences in the genome are not known by any scientist. It is not necessary to assume that pseudogenes are remnants of once functioning genes that have been lost and now clutter the genome like junk in a rubbish heap.

Criswell, D. 2007. Adam and Eve, Vitamin C, and Pseudogenes. Acts & Facts. 36 (5).

Conclusion Then

As was said before the known factors of the pentose phosphate pathways:

  • The failure to recognize the full implications of [non-protein–coding DNA] may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology. (cited in: Gibbs, W.W., The unseen genome: gems among the junk, Scientific American 289[5]:26–33, November 2003.)
  • even the staunchest critics of creation theory recognize that “[i]t is impossible to prove absence of function for any region of DNA.” (Edward E. Max, “Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics,” Sec. 5.4 . From: A Critique of “29 Evidences for Macroevolution”)

So, to sum up, at best this could be viewed as a theological argument: “what should have God done if he did create ‘A’.” At worst it is an argument that has not evolved with science correcting itself and is stuck in the 90’s science and not the mid-to-late part of the first decade of the beginning of the 21st century — science. Science has evolved, have the evolutionists?

This is an excerpt from the much hated book, Of Pandas and People, pp 34-40 (click to enlarge):

Here is the continuation of the devolving of primates:


APPENDIX


1. It takes 6 million years for one mutation to arise in a DNA binding site.
2. 6 million years is how long, historically, one has to get from primates to humans.
3. Humans differ from primates in hundreds of ways, requiring probably thousands of different gene mutations.
4. What’s more, many of the differences between primates and humans would require coordinated mutations. For example, the correct legs, feet, pelvis, spine, and neck to walk upright are differences which individually are useless by themselves.
5. Experiments with bacteria (i.e. with population sizes and mutation rates much higher than primates and humans) suggest that a single protein cannot mutate six or more times in a coordinated fashion in a timespan less than the known age of the universe.
6. Given these numbers, it is impossible for humans to have evolved from primates.

Racism and Evolutionary Thought

(The following was originally published in July 2010 as well as July 2020… and today) 

What exactly is the connection between Darwinian evolutionary theory and what is often called “social Darwinism” that emerged out of it—that includes eugenics and race based selection and preferences. Historian Richard Weikart has been with us before on the ideological roots of Naziism, and he extends his past work to connect the philosophy underlying Darwinian evolutionary theory and the race based implications coming out of it, both in Nazi Germany and the current white nationalist movement. Join Scott and Sean for this fascinating historical look at some of the ideas that came out of Darwin’s work on evolution.

Dr. Weikart’s latest book is Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism.

Dr. Richard Weikart is Professor Emeritus of History at California State University, Stanislaus. He is also Senior Fellow for the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. He is the author of several books including Hitler’s Religion.

Via: Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture

Darwinian Racism
with Richard Weikart
Sean McDowell, Scott Rae — June 16, 2022

Consider the following excerpt from a letter written by Charles Darwin in 1881:

“I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit…. The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”[1]

Lest this be considered merely an aberration, note that Darwin repeated this sentiment in his book The Descent of Man, he speculated, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes … will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”[2] In addition, he subtitled his magnum opus,The Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.”

  • “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they have increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory” Stephen Jay Gould[a]

And Darwin was not alone in his racist ideology. Thomas Huxley, who coined the term agnostic and was the man most responsible for advancing Darwinian doctrine, he argued that:

“No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. The highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest. But whatever the position of stable equilibrium into which the laws of social gravitation may bring the negro, all responsibility for the result will henceforward lie between Nature and him. The white man may wash his hands of it, and the Caucasian conscience be void of reproach for evermore. And this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the real justification for the abolition policy.”[3]

Huxley was not only militantly racist but also lectured frequently against the resurrection of Christ, in whom “[we] are all one” (Galatians 3:28). In sharp distinction to the writings of such noted evolutionists as Hrdlicka, Haeckel, and Hooton, biblical Christianity makes it crystal clear that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” (Galatians 3:28).  In Christianity we sing, “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” In the evolutionary hierarchy blacks are placed at the bottom, yellows and reds somewhere in the middle, and whites on top. As H. F. Osborn, director of the American Museum of National History and one of the most prominent American anthropologists of the first half of the twentieth century, put it:

“If an unbiased zoölogist were to descend upon the earth from Mars and study the races of man with the same impartiality as the races of fishes, birds and mammals, he would undoubtedly divide the existing races of man into several genera and into a very large number of species and subspecies. … This is the recognition that the genus Homo is subdivided into three absolutely distinct stocks, which in zoölogy would be given the rank of species, if not of genera, stocks popularly known as the Caucasian, the Mongolian and the Negroid. The spiritual, intellectual, moral, and physical characters which separate these three great human stocks are far more profound and ancient than those which divide the Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean races. In my opinion these three primary stocks diverged from each other before the beginning of the Pleistocene or Ice Age. The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters, such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens.”[4]

Think of the historical consequences that are the direct and logical results of the naturalist worldview.  For instance, Adolf Hitler, appealed to the people of his country to have a backbone to advance the logical outworking of their worldview.  Now mind you, not all naturalists are racists or killers of the less fortunate… however, this is a logical outworking of philosophical [or, metaphysical] naturalism.

“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature.  Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law [natural selection] did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all….  If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”[5]

Hitler referred to this dispensation of nature as “quite logical.” In fact, it was so logical to the Nazis that they built concentration camps to carry out their convictions about the human race as being “nothing but the product of heredity and environment” or as the Nazis liked to say, “of blood and soil.”[6]

It is significant to note that some of the Crusaders and others who used force to further their creeds in the name of God were acting in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ. [7]

The teachings of Osborn, Huxley, Hitler and others like them, however, are completely consistent with the teachings of Darwinian evolution. Indeed, social Darwinism has provided the scientific substructure for some of the most significant atrocities in human history. For evolution to succeed, it is as crucial that the unfit die as the fittest survive. Marvin Lubenow graphically portrays the ghastly consequences of such beliefs in his book Bones of Contention:

“If the unfit survived indefinitely, they would continue to ‘infect’ the fit with their less fit genes. The result is that the more fit genes would be diluted and compromised by the less fit genes, and evolution could not take place. The concept of evolution demands death. Death is thus as natural to evolution as it is foreign to biblical creation. The Bible teaches that death is a ‘foreigner,’ a condition superimposed upon humans and nature after creation.  Death is an enemy, Christ has conquered it, and he will eventually destroy it.  Their respective attitudes toward death reveal how many light years separate the concept of evolution from Biblical creation.”[8]

Adolph Hitler’s philosophy that Jews were subhuman and that Aryans were supermen (mirroring the beliefs Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood) led to the extermination of about six million Jews. In the words of Sir Arthur Keith, a militant anti-Christian physical anthropologist: “The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consistently sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.”[9]

Karl Marx, the father of communism, saw in Darwinism the scientific and sociological support for an economic experiment that eclipsed even the carnage of Hitler’s Germany. His hatred of Christ and Christianity led to the mass murder of multiplied millions worldwide. Karl Marx so revered Darwin that his desire was to dedicate a portion of Das Kapital to him.  In 1983, the dissident Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn had been awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize for religious progress.  In accepting the award, he gave a clear assessment of the tragedy that had been so devastating to his homeland:

“I have spent well-nigh fifty tears working on the history of our Revolution.  In the process, I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own towards the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval.  But if I were to asked today the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that has swallowed up some sixty-million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened’.”

It should be noted as well that Darwinian evolution (man evolving from lower creatures) is sexist as well. Under the subheading “Difference in the Mental Powers of the Two Sexes,” Darwin attempted to persuade followers that…

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can women – whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands…We may also infer…[that] the average of mental power in man must be above that of women.”

In sharp contrast to the evolutionary dogma, Scripture makes it clear that all humanity is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; Acts 17:29); that there is essential equality between the sexes (Galatians 3:28); and that slavery is as repugnant to God as murder and adultery (1 Timothy 1:10).

Appendix

Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1947).

p 15

“Meantime let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this: the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution … as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.”

p 28

“To see evolutionary measures and tribal morality being applied rigorously to the affairs of a great modern nation we must turn again to Germany of 1942. We see Hitler devoutly convinced that evolution produces the only real basis for a national policy.”

p 72

“Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect, the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce? May we not say, then, that Christianity is anti-evolutionary in its aim? This may be a merit, but if so it is one which has not been openly acknowledged by Christian philosophers.”

p 150

“The law of evolution, as formulated by Darwin, provides an explanation of wars between nations, the only reasonable explanation known to us. The law was in existence, and wars were waged, for aeons of time before Darwin was born; he did not invent the law, he only made it known to his fellow men.”

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, last paragraph.

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely the production of the higher animals, directly follows.”


Footnotes

[1] Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, I, Letter to W. Graham, July 3, 1881, p. 316; cited in Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, by Gertrude Himmelfarb (London: Chatto & Windus, 1959), p. 343.

[2] Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd ed. (New York: A. L. Burt Co., 1874), p.178.

[a] Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press, 1977), 127.

[3] Thomas Huxley, Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews (New York: Appleton, 1871), pp 20-1.

[4] Henry Fairfield Osborn, “The Evolution of Human Races,” Natural History (January/February 1926), reprinted in Natural History, vol. 89 (April 1980), p. 129.

[5] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translator/annotator, James Murphy (New York: Hurst and Blackett, 1942), pp. 161-162.

[6] “The SS Blood and Soul,” one of four videos in a video series entitled, The Occult History of the Third Reich (St. Lauret, Quebec: Madacy Entertainment Group, 1998); Now in DVD – ISBN: 0974319465).

[7] This is a side note for those who are of the Christian faith: The Bible does not teach the horrible practices that some have committed in its name. It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the details it produces evil because the individual people [“Christians”] are actually living in rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it [religion] can produce evil, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism (non-religious practices) actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of à God.  For example: the Inquisitions (2), Crusades (7), and the Salem Witch Trials killed about 40,000 persons combined (World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana).  A blight on Christianity? Certainty. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religious criminals have committed; the Chinese regime of Mao Tse Tung, 60 million [+] dead (1945-1965), Stalin and Khrushchev, 66 million dead (USSR 1917-1959), Khmer Rouge (Cambodia 1975-1979) and Pol Pot, one-third of their respective populations dead; etc, etc.  The difference here is that these non-God movements are merely living out their worldview, the struggle for power, survival of the fittest and all that, no natural law is being violated in other words (as atheists reduce everything to natural law – materialism).  However, when people have misused the Christian religion for personal gain, they are in direct violation to what Christ taught, as well as to Natural Law.

[8] Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1992), p. 47.

[9] Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1947), p. 230.  See appendix for more quotes by Keith.


PART ZOO


This is a not-too-well-known subtitle of Charles Darwin’s work. I have an introduction to this idea entitled, “Racism and Evolutionary Thought“. Stephen Jay Gould notes the affects of Darwinism on culture:

  • “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they have increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory”

Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press, 1977), 127.

Human Zoos tells the shocking story of how thousands of indigenous peoples were put on public display in America in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Above video description:

Often touted as “missing links” between man and apes, these native peoples were harassed and demeaned. Their public display was arranged with the enthusiastic support of the most elite members of the scientific community, and it was promoted uncritically by American’s leading newspapers. This award-winning documentary explores the heartbreaking story of what happened, shows how African-American ministers and other people of faith tried to push back, and reveals how some people today are still drawing on Social Darwinism in order to dehumanize others. The film also explores the tragic story of eugenics in America, the effort to breed human beings based on Darwinian principles.

Human Zoos was an official selection of the African World Documentary Film Festival and has won awards for Best Editing (Oregon Documentary Film Festival), Best in Show (Cinema WorldFest Awards) and Awards of Excellence from the Impact Docs Awards and the Hollywood Independent Documentary Awards.

Be sure to check out these other videos about social Darwinism.

Here is a small snippet from a larger audio of Carl Jackson making a point about race relations. The larger audio of Mr. Jackson filling in for Dennis Prager is here


Here Is An Older Post Originally Posted In July Of 2010


SEE MORE AT ANSWERS IN GENESIS

Skull-hunters killed Aborigines and legitimized this act asserting that they were doing it for science. The skulls of the hunted natives were sold to museums after some chemical reactions that would make them look old. The skulls with bullet holes were filled in with utmost attention. According to Creation Magazine published in Australia, a group of observers that came in from South Galler were shocked when they saw that dozens of women, children and men were killed by evolutionists. Forty five skulls were chosen among the killed Aborigines, the flesh of them were set aside and boiled. The best ten were packaged to be sent to England.

Today, thousands of skulls of Aborigines are still in the warehouse of Smithsonian Institution. Some of these skulls belong to the corpses dug from the graves where as some others are the skulls of innocent people killed to prove evolution.

There were also African victims of the evolutionist violence. The most famous one was the pigmy Ota Benga who was taken to the world of the white men to be displayed as a transitional form. Oto Benga was caught in 1904 by a researcher Samuel Verner in Kongo then a colony of Belgium. The native whose name meant friend in his native language, was married and had two kids. Yet he was chained, put into a cage and sent by a boat to the evolutionist scientists who within the same year displayed him in the St. Louis World Fair together with other monkey species as the closest transitional form to humankind. Two years later, he was taken to Bronx Zoo in New York where he was, this time displayed as one of the ancestors of human beings together with a few chimpanzees, a gorilla called Dinah and an orangutan called Dohung. Dr. William T. Hornaday, the director of the zoo who was also a fanatical evolutionist delivered long speeches about how he was proud of having such a precious transitional form. The guests, on the other hand, treated Ota Benga as an ordinary animal.  Ota Benga could not bear the treatment he received and committed suicide. (Here is a reggae song dedicated to Oto on A BITTA WORLD by BORROW SHANGO.)

From RAE:

….The many factors motivating Verner to bring Ota to the United States were complex, but he was evidently .much influenced by the theories of Charles Darwin” a theory which, as it developed, increasingly divided humankind into human contrived races (Rymer, 1992, p. 3). Darwin also believed that the blacks were an inferior race’ (Vemer, 1908a, p. 10717). Although biological racism did not begin with Darwinism, Darwin did more than any other man to popularize it among the masses. As early as 1699, English Physician Edward Tyson studied a skeleton which he believed belonged to a pygmy, concluding that this race was apes, although it was discovered that the skeleton on which this conclusion was based was actually a chimpanzee (Bradford and Blume, 1992, p. 20).

The conclusion in Vemer’s day accepted by most scientists was that after Darwin showed “that all humans descended from apes, the suspicion remained that some races had descended farther than others … [and that] some races, namely the white ones, had left the ape far behind, while other races, pygmies especially, had hardly matured at all” (Bradford and Blume, 1992, p. 20). Many scholars agreed with Sir Harry Johnson, a pygmy scholar who stated that the pygmies were “very apelike in appearance [and] their hairy skins, the length of their arms, the strength of their thickset frames, their furtive ways, all point to these people as representing man in one of his earlier forms’ (Keane 1907, p. 99). One of the most extensive early studies of the pygmies concluded that they were “queer little freaks” and

The low state of their mental development is shown by the following facts. They have no regard for time, nor have they any records or traditions of the past; no religion is known among them, nor have they any fetish rights; they do not seek to know the future by occult meansin short, they arethe closest link with the original Darwinian anthropoid ape extant” (Burrows, 1905, pp. 172, 182)….


EXTRA


Darwin’s body snatchers

by Ken Ham, Carl Wieland and Don Batten

First published in One Blood

Chapter 9

gruesome trade in ‘missing link’ specimens began with early evolutionary/racist ideas. But this trade really ‘took off’ with the advent of Darwinism.1

There is documented evidence that the remains of perhaps 10,000 of Australia’s Aboriginal people were shipped to British museums in a frenzied attempt to prove the widespread belief that they were the ‘missing link.’2 A major item in a leading Australian weekly, The Bulletin, revealed other shocking new facts. Some of the points covered in the article, written by Australian journalist David Monaghan, make up much of this chapter.

Evolutionists in the United States were also strongly involved in this flourishing ‘industry’ of gathering specimens of subhumans. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington holds the remains of 15,000 individuals of various races.

Along with museum curators from around the world, Monaghan says, some of the top names in British science were involved in this large-scale grave-robbing trade. These included anatomist Sir Richard Owen, anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith and Charles Darwin himself. Darwin wrote asking for Tasmanian skulls when only four of the island’s Aborigines were left alive, provided his request would not ‘upset’ their feelings. Museums were not only interested in bones, but in fresh skins as well. These would provide interesting evolutionary displays when stuffed.3

Pickled Aboriginal brains were also in demand to try to prove that they were inferior to those of whites. It was Darwin, after all, who wrote that the civilized races would inevitably wipe out such lesser-evolved ‘savage’ ones.

Good prices were being offered for such specimens. There is no doubt from written evidence that many of the ‘fresh’ specimens were obtained by simply going out and killing the Aboriginal people. The way in which the requests for specimens were announced was often a poorly disguised invitation to do just that. A deathbed memoir from Korah Wills, who became mayor of Bowen, Queensland, in 1866,4 graphically describes how he killed and dismembered a local tribesman in 1865 to provide a scientific specimen.5

Edward Ramsay, curator of the Australian Museum in Sydney for 20 years starting in 1874, was particularly heavily involved. He published a museum booklet, which appeared to include Aborigines under the designation of ‘Australian animals.’ It also gave instructions not only on how to rob graves, but also on how to plug up bullet wounds in freshly killed ‘specimens.’ Many freelance collectors worked under his guidance. Four weeks after he had requested skulls of Bungee (Russell River) blacks, a keen young science student sent him two, announcing that they, the last of their tribe, had just been shot.6 In the 1880s, Ramsay complained that laws recently passed in Queensland to stop Aborigines being slaughtered were affecting his supply.

Angel of Black Death

A German evolutionist, Amalie Dietrich (nicknamed the ‘Angel of Black Death’) came to Australia asking station (‘ranch’) owners for Aborigines to be shot for specimens, particularly skin for stuffing and mounting for her museum employers.7 Although evicted from at least one property, she shortly returned home with her specimens.

A New South Wales missionary was a horrified witness to the slaughter by mounted police of a group of dozens of Aboriginal men, women and children.8 Forty-five heads were then boiled down and the 10 best skulls were packed off for overseas.

Darwinist views about the racial inferiority of Aborigines (backed up by biased distortions of the evidence since shown to be false) drastically influenced their treatment. In 1908 an inspector from the Department of Aborigines in the West Kimberley region wrote that he was glad to have received an order to transport all half-castes away from their tribe to the mission. He said it was ‘the duty of the State’ to give these children (who, by evolutionary reasoning, were going to be intellectually superior) a ‘chance to lead a better life than their mothers.’ He wrote, ‘I would not hesitate for one moment to separate a half-caste from an Aboriginal mother, no matter how frantic her momentary grief.’9

Such separation policies continued until the 1960s.

The demand has not entirely abated. Aboriginal bones have still been sought by major institutions in quite modern times.

Men Of One Blood

And where was the Church in all this? It was much more influential back then, but it had already begun to be influenced itself by the ‘new thinking’ about origins and was not prepared to take a stand on creation issues. However, the apostle Paul’s ringing declaration, backed up by the facts of human history revealed in Genesis, was that God had ‘made all men of one blood’ (Acts 17:26). This is now reinforced by modern biology as well.

The issue of these pilfered remains is becoming politically sensitive in Australia. There is now much pressure from Aboriginal leaders and others for the remains to be returned.

Aboriginal rage at this desecration of their ancestors would also be appropriately directed at the anti-biblical thought patterns of evolution responsible for this outrage.

This phenomenon of mild-mannered museum officials, respected scientists and mayors, for example, casually going about their daily respectable lives while they were involved in monstrous acts justified by a scientific doctrine, was unparalleled in history to that point.

A similar horror reappeared in the 1930s, when the blatantly evolutionary doctrines of Nazism allowed the consciences of hundreds of doctors, scientists, psychiatrists and other officials to be seared as they set up the machinery to help nature eliminate the unfit. First, it was the genetically ‘inferior’—the mentally and physically disabled. Next, gypsies, Jews and others. The rest of the story is well known.

Today, evolutionary thinking enables ordinary, respectable professionals, otherwise dedicated to the saving of life, to justify their involvement in the slaughter of millions of unborn human beings, who, like the Aborigines of earlier Darwinian thinking, are also deemed ‘not yet fully human.’

References and notes

1) Originally published in Creation 14(2):16–18, March–May 1992.

2) Darwin’s Body Snatchers, Creation 12(3):21, June–August 1990.

3) David Monaghan, The Body-Snatchers, The Bulletin, 12 November 1991, p. 30–38. (The article states that journalist Monaghan spent 18 months researching this subject in London, culminating in a television documentary called Darwin’s Body-Ssnatchers, which was aired in Britain on 8 October 1990.)

4) According to the records of the Bowen Shire Council.

5) Monaghan, The Body-Snatchers, p. 33. In this article, Monaghan quotes two long paragraphs from Korah Will’s five-page manuscript.

6) Ibid., p. 34. Monaghan identifies the student as W.S. Day.

7) Ibid., p. 33. Monaghan is here quoting Dr Rae Sumner, a lecturer at the Queensland Institute of Technology’s School of Language and Literacy Education.

8) Ibid., p. 34. Monaghan identifies the missionary as Lancelot Threlkeld.

9) Ibid., p. 38.

David Berlinski – Artistic Fraud in Evolution

David Berlinski discusses the fraudulent methods in which evolutionary theory is taught in our schools.

A recommended resource is a recent book entitled, “Haeckel’s Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud” — here is Chicago University Press’ description:

Pictures from the past powerfully shape current views of the world. In books, television programs, and websites, new images appear alongside others that have survived from decades ago. Among the most famous are drawings of embryos by the Darwinist Ernst Haeckel in which humans and other vertebrates begin identical, then diverge toward their adult forms. But these icons of evolution are notorious, too: soon after their publication in 1868, a colleague alleged fraud, and Haeckel’s many enemies have repeated the charge ever since. His embryos nevertheless became a textbook staple until, in 1997, a biologist accused him again, and creationist advocates of intelligent design forced his figures out. How could the most controversial pictures in the history of science have become some of the most widely seen?
           
In Haeckel’s Embryos, Nick Hopwood tells this extraordinary story in full for the first time. He tracks the drawings and the charges against them from their genesis in the nineteenth century to their continuing involvement in innovation in the present day, and from Germany to Britain and the United States. Emphasizing the changes worked by circulation and copying, interpretation and debate, Hopwood uses the case to explore how pictures succeed and fail, gain acceptance and spark controversy. Along the way, he reveals how embryonic development was made a process that we can see, compare, and discuss, and how copying—usually dismissed as unoriginal—can be creative, contested, and consequential.
           
With a wealth of expertly contextualized illustrations, Haeckel’s Embryosrecaptures the shocking novelty of pictures that enthralled schoolchildren and outraged priests, and highlights the remarkable ways these images kept on shaping knowledge as they aged.

Another book with a more apolgetic verve is one by Jonathan Wells, “Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong,” especially chapter five, “Haeckel’s Embryo’s.” Here is the author speaking to it:

Other Examples of SO-SO-STORIES… but first… what is a so-so-story? Here is a quote, and really, a definition of the general theory of evolution (GTE) that G.A. Kerkut defines in his older text, Implication of Evolution (second quote). Here Spetner calls it the neo-Darwinian theory (NDT), it more common name today. Here is Spetner’s relevant quote:

Neo-Darwinian Theory (NDT) is counterintuitive, and is acknowledged as such even by its supporters. All present-day life is assumed to have evolved from some primitive cell, and that cell was supposed to have formed itself from simple chemicals. Nobody seems to know how that cell came to be, but almost all biologists think they understand fairly well how evolution proceeded from that cell to all the life we see today.

There appears to be a vast amount of information contained in trees, fish, elephants, and people. Where did this information come from? It is said to have come from random mutations and natural selection. How can that work? Natural selection is supposed to be the magic that makes evolution happen, but all natural selection does is eliminate the less adaptive organisms and allow the more adaptive ones to survive and proliferate. Where do those more adaptive ones come from? Ap­parently, that’s what random mutations are supposed to accomplish.

So the information buildup required by Common Descent can come only from random mutations. That means that the buildup of informa­tion is a matter of chance. At each step of the evolutionary process, a mutation has to have occurred that grants the organism an advan­tage. The big question is: Is that reasonable? To see if it is, some people (including me) have made calculations of the probability of mutations building information.

We really don’t have all the data we need to make this calculation. But even if we make some conservative assumptions and give the ben­efit of all doubts to the Darwinian side, such calculations demonstrate that Common Descent is not reasonable. The Darwin­ists, however, do not accept these calculations as conclusive — they suggest alternative scenarios that might make the probabilities larger.

In his book Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe addressed the un­reasonableness of Darwinian evolution. He described some biological systems as what he called “irreducibly complex.” By that he meant that these systems are composed of several critical components in such a way that the system cannot work unless all those components are in place. He then argued that the system could not evolve one small part at a time, because natural selection could not work on less than the whole system. Here, too, the Darwinians countered by suggesting scenarios in which natural selection might work, but again, the Dar­winian scenarios are purely hypothetical.

Because the Darwinians can invent scenarios to address any chal­lenge to their theory, they are not convinced by attempts to show that neo-Darwinian evolution cannot work. Therefore, I have concluded that it would be more productive to challenge them to show that it could work — challenge them to do more than just offer vague scenarios of how their theory might work, but to show by calculation that the prob­ability of it working is reasonably high. This is a challenge they must meet to establish their theory on a scientific basis. They have never met this challenge and they cannot. They cannot show that the events they claim to have produced Common Descent have a high enough prob­ability to justify their claim. Their inability to establish the theory of Common Descent means that Common Descent is not an established theory. This is one of the main points of this book.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of probability calculations. NDT is not like Newton’s theory of mechanics, whose equations de­scribe the motion of a physical body under a force. Nor is it like Max­well’s theory of electromagnetism, whose equations describe the effects of electric and magnetic fields on electric charges. These theories are checked against experiment by solving those equations. NDT describes evolution as the result of random mutations that may or may not yield an adaptive phenotype. These are chance events. The theory can be checked only by calculating the probabilities of the required events to see if they are reasonably large. The theory has not been shown to have passed this test and is therefore not a valid theory. Whatever evidence is given for Common Descent is circumstantial. Circumstantial evi­dence cannot stand alone. It needs to have a theory tying the evidence to the conclusion. But instead of a theory, imaginary scenarios are of­fered to suggest how evolution might work. No calculations of proba­bilities are made.

[….]

Common Descent is a key component of an agenda advocating a natural origin of life. The effort to demonstrate the possibility of such a natural origin is usually divided into two parts: (1) abiogenesis, the origin of a simple life form from naturally occurring chemicals, and (2) the evolution of all life from that single simple beginning. It turns out, however, there is no good evidence for either of these two parts.

Lee Spetner, The Evolution Revolution: Why Thinking People Are Rethinking the Theory of Evolution (Brooklyn, NY: Judaica Press, 2014), 7-9, 15.

(LINKS IN PICTURES)

EYE EVOLUTION IN DRAWINGS:

NEBRASKA MAN (Drawn from from a single — later to be known — pigs tooth)

WHALE EVOLUTION:

Etc., Etc., Etc….

 

Some “Orthodoxy” Quotes | G.K. Chsterton

I will add to this over time.

Dennis Prager always speaks to a whole generation being bored. This quote from Chesterton reminded me of that idea… that is, how one approaches/views life offers meaning or boredom:

…oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are always complaining of the dulness of life. This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1995), 20.

“But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about truth; this has been exactly reversed.”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1995), 36-37.

Take first the more obvious case of materialism. As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out. Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for instance, Mr. McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique sensation. He understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

It must be understood that I am not now discussing the relation of these creeds to truth; but, for the present, solely their relation to health. Later in the argument I hope to attack the question of objective verity; here I speak only of a phenomenon of psychology. I do not for the present attempt to prove to Haeckel[13] that materialism is untrue, any more than I attempted to prove to the man who thought he was Christ that he was labouring under an error. I merely remark here on the fact that both cases have the same kind of completeness and the same kind of incompleteness. You can explain a man’s detention at Hanwell by an indifferent public by saying that it is the crucifixion of a god of whom the world is not worthy. The explanation does explain. Similarly you may explain the order in the universe by saying that all things, even the souls of men, are leaves inevitably unfolding on an utterly unconscious tree— the blind destiny of matter. The explanation does explain, though not, of course, so completely as the madman’s. But the point here is that the normal human mind not only objects to both, but feels to both the same objection. Its approximate statement is that if the man in Hanwell is the real God, he is not much of a god. And, similarly, if the cosmos of the materialist is the real cosmos, it is not much of a cosmos. The thing has shrunk. The deity is less divine than many men; and (according to Haeckel) the whole of life is something much more grey, narrow, and trivial than many separate aspects of it. The parts seem greater than the whole.

For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr. McCabe thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not Allowed to believe in fairies. But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist’s world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.

Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut. But the case is even stronger, and the parallel with madness is yet more strange. For it was our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They may well call their law the “chain” of causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house…

[13] Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), a German biologist, monistic philosopher and evolutionary theorist who believed that he had proved that there was no immortal soul, free will or personal God.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1995), 27-30.

Not Out of Africa – Human Origins Updated

BTW, LANGUAGE WARNING for the following video (he is an atheist):

One must take note I am a creationist (in fact, a young earth creationist) and reject many of the artistic representations of entire clans and family units from a couple of teeth. I will merely assume “evolutionary” thinking to make my point[s]. Also note that the “out of Africa” and now, “out of Europe” theories have racial overtones and consequences if evolutionary naturalism is true.

If one throws all-in-to naturalistic evolution, you get an “ethnicity” [some call race] evolving before or after others ~ or ~ devolving from an ethnicity [or, species].

  • Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they have increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory

Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press, 1977), 127.

Several skeletons up end the sparse evidence for the human evolutionary tree (via TELEGRAPH).

  • “The history of human evolution has been rewritten after scientists discovered that Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa… two fossils of an ape-like creature which had human-like teeth have been found in Bulgaria and Greece, dating to 7.2 million years ago.”

“The Races Of Man – At the present time there exists upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent in structure.  These are the Ethiopian or Negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the Islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America”

George William Hunter, A Civic Biology Presented in Problems (New York, NY: The American Book Company,  1914) 196. (For those that do not know, this was a textbook used in classrooms in public schools.)

One comment from the UNCOMMON DESCENT post noted:

7.2 million BC is a HUGE jump back in time that negates MOST of the African fossils. If proto-humans were already living in Bulgaria, or in sites now sunk under the Mediterranean Sea, the ENTIRE collection of African fossils is meaningless.

That is, some Europeans wandered SOUTH around 1 million years ago instead of some Africans wandering NORTH. It would also explain why negroid features exist only in Africa: they’re mutations from the common European stock from which the rest of the world descends.

It should be interesting to see what else turns up in Europe.

Sorry Black Lives Matter, so sad that you are not the cradle of civilization (assuming naturalistic evolution). Two books that just got a boost:

An earlier story has thrown a monkey wrench into the old story of human ancestry:

The thighbone of the 400,000-year-old hominid from Sima de los Huesos, Spain.

Scientists have found the oldest DNA evidence yet of humans’ biological history. But instead of neatly clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries.

In a paper in the journal Nature, scientists reported Wednesday that they had retrieved ancient human DNA from a fossil dating back about 400,000 years, shattering the previous record of 100,000 years.

The fossil, a thigh bone found in Spain, had previously seemed to many experts to belong to a forerunner of Neanderthals. But its DNA tells a very different story. It most closely resembles DNA from an enigmatic lineage of humans known as Denisovans. Until now, Denisovans were known only from DNA retrieved from 80,000-year-old remains in Siberia, 4,000 miles east of where the new DNA was found.

The mismatch between the anatomical and genetic evidence surprised the scientists, who are now rethinking human evolution over the past few hundred thousand years….

(NEW YORK TIMES)


Racism and Evolutionary Thought


Consider the following excerpt from a letter written by Charles Darwin in 1881:

“I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit…. The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”[1]

Lest this be considered merely an aberration, note that Darwin repeated this sentiment in his book The Descent of Man, he speculated,

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes … will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”[2]   

In addition, he subtitled his magnum opus, The Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.

And Darwin was not alone in his racist ideology. Thomas Huxley, who coined the term agnostic and was the man most responsible for advancing Darwinian doctrine, he argued that:

“No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. The highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest. But whatever the position of stable equilibrium into which the laws of social gravitation may bring the negro, all responsibility for the result will henceforward lie between Nature and him. The white man may wash his hands of it, and the Caucasian conscience be void of reproach for evermore. And this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the real justification for the abolition policy.”[3]

Huxley was not only militantly racist but also lectured frequently against the resurrection of Christ, in whom “[we] are all one” (Galatians 3:28). In sharp distinction to the writings of such noted evolutionists as Hrdlicka, Haeckel, and Hooton, biblical Christianity makes it crystal clear that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” (Galatians 3:28).  In Christianity we sing, “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” In the evolutionary hierarchy blacks are placed at the bottom, yellows and reds somewhere in the middle, and whites on top. As H. F. Osborn, director of the American Museum of National History and one of the most prominent American anthropologists of the first half of the twentieth century, put it.

“If an unbiased zoölogist were to descend upon the earth from Mars and study the races of man with the same impartiality as the races of fishes, birds and mammals, he would undoubtedly divide the existing races of man into several genera and into a very large number of species and subspecies.

“ … This is the recognition that the genus Homo is subdivided into three absolutely distinct stocks, which in zoölogy would be given the rank of species, if not of genera, stocks popularly known as the Caucasian, the Mongolian and the Negroid.

“The spiritual, intellectual, moral, and physical characters which separate these three great human stocks are far more profound and ancient than those which divide the Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean races. In my opinion these three primary stocks diverged from each other before the beginning of the Pleistocene or Ice Age. The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characters, such as the teeth, the genitalia, the sense organs, but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo sapiens.”[4]

Think of the historical consequences that are the direct and logical results of the naturalist worldview.  For instance, Adolf Hitler, appealed to the people of his country to have a backbone to advance the logical outworking of their worldview.  Now mind you, not all naturalists are racists or killers of the less fortunate… however, this is a logical outworking of philosophical [or, metaphysical] naturalism.

“The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature.  Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law [natural selection] did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all….  If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”[5]

Hitler referred to this dispensation of nature as “quite logical.”  In fact, it was so logical to the Nazis that they built concentration camps to carry out their convictions about the human race as being “nothing but the product of heredity and environment” or as the Nazis liked to say, “of blood and soil.”[6]

It is significant to note that some of the Crusaders and others who used force to further their creeds in the name of God were acting in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ.[7]

The teachings of Osborn, Huxley, Hitler and others like them, however, are completely consistent with the teachings of Darwinian evolution. Indeed, social Darwinism has provided the scientific substructure for some of the most significant atrocities in human history. For evolution to succeed, it is as crucial that the unfit die as the fittest survive. Marvin Lubenow graphically portrays the ghastly consequences of such beliefs in his book Bones of Contention:

“If the unfit survived indefinitely, they would continue to ‘infect’ the fit with their less fit genes. The result is that the more fit genes would be diluted and compromised by the less fit genes, and evolution could not take place. The concept of evolution demands death. Death is thus as natural to evolution as it is foreign to biblical creation. The Bible teaches that death is a ‘foreigner,’ a condition superimposed upon humans and nature after creation.  Death is an enemy, Christ has conquered it, and he will eventually destroy it.  Their respective attitudes toward death reveal how many light years separate the concept of evolution from Biblical creation.”[8]

Adolph Hitler’s philosophy that Jews were subhuman and that Aryans were supermen (mirroring the beliefs Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood) led to the extermination of about six million Jews. In the words of Sir Arthur Keith, a militant anti-Christian physical anthropologist: “The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consistently sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.”[9]

Karl Marx, the father of communism, saw in Darwinism the scientific and sociological support for an economic experiment that eclipsed even the carnage of Hitler’s Germany. His hatred of Christ and Christianity led to the mass murder of multiplied millions worldwide. Karl Marx so revered Darwin that his desire was to dedicate a portion of Das Kapital to him.  In 1983, the dissident Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn had been awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize for religious progress.  In accepting the award, he gave a clear assessment of the tragedy that had been so devastating to his homeland:

“I have spent well-nigh fifty tears working on the history of our Revolution.  In the process, I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own towards the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval.  But if I were to asked today the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that has swallowed up some sixty-million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened’.”

It should be noted as well that Darwinian evolution (man evolving from lower creatures) is sexist as well. Under the subheading “Difference in the Mental Powers of the Two Sexes,” Darwin attempted to persuade followers that…

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by mans attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can women – whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands…We may also infer…[that] the average of mental power in man must be above that of women.”

In sharp contrast to the evolutionary dogma, Scripture makes it clear that all humanity is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; Acts 17:29); that there is essential equality between the sexes (Galatians 3:28); and that slavery is as repugnant to God as murder and adultery (1 Timothy 1:10).


Appendix


Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1947):

p 15 – “Meantime let me say that the conclusion I have come to is this: the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution … as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.”

p 28 – “To see evolutionary measures and tribal morality being applied rigorously to the affairs of a great modern nation we must turn again to Germany of 1942. We see Hitler devoutly convinced that evolution produces the only real basis for a national policy.”

p 72 – “Christianity makes no distinction of race or of color; it seeks to break down all racial barriers. In this respect, the hand of Christianity is against that of Nature, for are not the races of mankind the evolutionary harvest which Nature has toiled through long ages to produce? May we not say, then, that Christianity is anti-evolutionary in its aim? This may be a merit, but if so it is one which has not been openly acknowledged by Christian philosophers.”

p 150 – “The law of evolution, as formulated by Darwin, provides an explanation of wars between nations, the only reasonable explanation known to us. The law was in existence, and wars were waged, for aeons of time before Darwin was born; he did not invent the law, he only made it known to his fellow men.”

Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, last paragraph.

  • “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely the production of the higher animals, directly follows.”

Footnotes

[1] Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, I, Letter to W. Graham, July 3, 1881, p. 316; cited in Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, by Gertrude Himmelfarb (London: Chatto & Windus, 1959), p. 343.

[2] Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd ed. (New York: A. L. Burt Co., 1874), p.178.

[3] Thomas Huxley, Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews (New York: Appleton, 1871), pp 20-1.

[4] Henry Fairfield Osborn, “The Evolution of Human Races,”  Natural History (January/February 1926), reprinted in Natural History, vol. 89 (April 1980), p. 129.

[5] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translator/annotator, James Murphy (New York: Hurst and Blackett, 1942), pp. 161-162.

[6] “The SS Blood and Soul,” one of four videos in a video series entitled, The Occult History of the Third Reich (St. Lauret, Quebec: Madacy Entertainment Group, 1998); Now in DVD – ISBN: 0974319465).

[7] This is a side note for those who are of the Christian faith: The Bible does not teach the horrible practices that some have committed in its name. It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the details it produces evil because the individual people [“Christians”] are actually living in rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it [religion] can produce evil, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism (non-religious practices) actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of à God.  For example: the Inquisitions (2), Crusades (7), and the Salem Witch Trials killed about 40,000 persons combined (World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana).  A blight on Christianity? Certainty. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course. Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religious criminals have committed; the Chinese regime of Mao Tse Tung, 60 million [+] dead (1945-1965), Stalin and Khrushchev, 66 million dead (USSR 1917-1959), Khmer Rouge (Cambodia 1975-1979) and Pol Pot, one-third of their respective populations dead; etc, etc.  The difference here is that these non-God movements are merely living out their worldview, the struggle for power, survival of the fittest and all that, no natural law is being violated in other words (as atheists reduce everything to natural law – materialism).  However, when people have misused the Christian religion for personal gain, they are in direct violation to what Christ taught, as well as to Natural Law.

[8] Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1992), p. 47.

[9] Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1947), p. 230.  See appendix for more quotes by Keith.

Some of Hitlers Demonic Episodes Penned In a 1940 Book

(See also “The Secret Wartime Report on the Mind of Hitler.”) While reading another book, I came across some smaller excerpts, of which I include slightly larger swaths of (getting a used edition of the 1940 book, The Voice of Destruction, it has to do with an expansion of how Hitler viewed the Church as well as what could be understood as demonic episodes:

Our nocturnal conversation arose out of our anxieties regarding such a development. The two Bavarian Gauleiter, Streicher of Franconia and Wagner of Munich, had brought us the tale. It was Streicher who gave Hitler his cue in the conversation. I had not listened to the beginning of it and became attentive only when I heard Hitler’s voice behind me getting louder.

“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future—certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch, and annihilating it in Germany. The Italians are naïve; they’re quite capable of being heathens and Christians at the same time. The Italians and the French are essentially heathens. Their Christianity is only skin-deep. But the German is different. He is serious in everything he undertakes. He wants to be either a Christian or a heathen. He cannot be both. Besides, Mussolini will never make heroes of his Fascists. It doesn’t matter there whether they’re Christians or heathens. But for our people it is decisive whether they acknowledge the Jewish Christ-creed with its effeminate pity-ethics, or a strong, heroic belief in God in Nature, God in our own people, in our destiny, in our blood.”

After a pause, he resumed:

“Leave the hair-splitting to others. Whether it’s the Old Testament or the New, or simply the sayings of Jesus, according to Houston Stewart Chamberlain—it’s all the same old Jewish swindle. It will not make us free. A German Church, a German Christianity, is distortion. One is either a German or a Christian. You cannot be both. You can throw the epileptic Paul out of Christianity—others have done so before us. You can make Christ into a noble human being, and deny his divinity and his role as a savior. People have been doing it for centuries. I believe there are such Christians today in England and America—Unitarians they call themselves, or something like that. It’s no use, you cannot get rid of the mentality behind it. We don’t want people who keep one eye on the life in the hereafter. We need free men who feel and know that God is in themselves.”

Streicher or Goebbels made some remark which I did not catch—a question perhaps.

“You can’t make an Aryan of Jesus, that’s nonsense,” Hitler went on. “What Chamberlain wrote in his Principles is, to say the least, stupid. What’s to be done, you say? I will tell you: we must prevent the churches from doing anything but what they are doing now, that is, losing ground day by day. Do you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Non­sense! Never again. That tale is finished. No one will listen to it again. But we can hasten matters. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves. They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miser­able little jobs and incomes.

“What we can do? Just what the Catholic Church did when it forced its beliefs on the heathen: preserve what can be preserved, and change its meaning. We shall take the road back: Easter is no longer resurrection, but the eternal renewal of our people. Christmas is the birth of our savior: the spirit of heroism and the freedom of our people. Do you think these liberal priests, who have no longer a belief, only an office, will refuse to preach our God in their churches? I can guarantee that, just as they have made Haeckel and Darwin, Goethe and Stefan George the prophets of their Christianity, so they will replace the cross with our swastika. Instead of worshiping the blood of their quondam savior, they will worship the pure blood of our people. They will receive the fruits of the German soil as a divine gift, and will eat it as a symbol of the eternal communion of the people, as they have hitherto eaten of the body of their God. And when we have reached that point, Streicher, the churches will be crowded again. If we wish it, then it will be so—when it is our religion that is preached there. We need not hurry the process.”

[….]

I cannot judge whether Hitler is near madness in the clinical sense. My own experience of him and what I have learned from others indicate a lack of control amounting to total demoralization. His shrieking and frenzied shouting, his stamping, his tempests of rage—all this was grotesque and unpleasant, but it was not madness. When a grown-up man lashes out against the walls like a horse in its stall, or throws himself on the ground his conduct may be morbid, but it is more certainly rude and undisciplined.

Hitler, however, has states that approach persecution mania and dual personality. His sleeplessness is more than the mere result of excessive nervous strain. He often wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders restlessly to and fro. Then he must have light everywhere. Lately he has sent at these times for young men who have to keep him company during his hours of manifest anguish. At times these conditions must have become dreadful. A man in the closest daily association with him gave me this account: Hitler wakes at night with convulsive shrieks. He shouts for help. He sits on the edge of his bed, as if unable to stir. He shakes with fear, making the whole bed vibrate. He shouts confused, totally unintelligible phrases. He gasps, as if imagining himself to be suffocating.

My informant described to me in full detail a remarkable scene—I should not have credited the story if it had not come from such a source. Hitler stood swaying in his room, looking wildly about him. “He! He! He’s been here!” he gasped. His lips were blue. Sweat streamed down his face. Suddenly he began to reel off figures, and odd words and broken phrases, entirely devoid of sense. It sounded horrible. He used strangely composed and entirely un-German word-formations. Then he stood quite still, only his lips moving. He was massaged and offered something to drink. Then he suddenly broke out—

“There, there! In the corner! Who’s that?”

He stamped and shrieked in the familiar way. He was shown that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the room, and then he gradually grew calm. After that he lay asleep for many hours, and then for some time things were durable.

[….]

There is an instructive parallel—mediums. Most of these are ordinary, undistinguished persons; yet suddenly they ac­quire gifts that carry them far above the common crowd. These qualities have nothing to do with the medium’s own personality. They are conveyed to him from without. The medium is possessed by them. He, himself, however, is un­influenced by them. In the same way undeniable powers enter into Hitler, genuinely daemonic powers, which make men his instruments. The common united with the uncom-mon—that is what makes Hitler’s personality so desperate a puzzle to those who come into contact with him. Dostoevsky might well have invented him, with the morbid derangement and the pseudo-creativeness of his hysteria.

I have frequently heard men confess that they are afraid of him, that they, grown men though they are, cannot visit him without a beating heart. They have the feeling that the man will suddenly spring at them and strangle them, or throw the inkpot at them, or do something senseless.

Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940), 49-51, 255-257, 258.

NAZI Occultism

The reason for this post is to respond to the idea that the NAZIs were in any way Christian or were supported by the Church or that Hitler was friends with the church. This post should be connected with my updated post, “GOD vs. HITLER.” As well as a post discussing Luther’s anti-Semitism and the distinction between [conservative] Confessing Lutheran’s in Germany at the time and the more socially liberal socialist [state-run] Lutherans: Defending “Lutheranism” from Martin Luther’s Fall from Grace

Between these three posts one should be equipped to respond to this lack of knowledge in regards to history.

Here is a good compendium of NAZI symbols with their occult connections:The Pink Swastika Book Scott Lively NAZI Occultism - Copy

  • Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the NAZI Party (Sacemento, CA: Veritas Aeterna Press, 2002), adapted from chapter two.

Many of the Nazi emblems, such as the swastika, the double lightning bolt “SS” symbol, and even the inverted triangle symbol used to identify classes of prisoners in the concentration camps, originated among homosexual occultists in Germany (some, such as the swastika, are actually quite ancient symbols which were merely revived by these homosexual groups).  In 1907, Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfels (Lanz), a former Cistercian monk whom the church excommunicated because of his homosexual activities,[1] flew the swastika flag above his castle in Austria.[2]  After his expulsion from the church, Lanz founded the Ordo Novi Templi (“Order of the New Temple”), which merged occultism with violent anti-Semitism.  A 1958 study of Lanz called, “Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab” – or, “The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas” – by Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Daim, called Lanz the true “father” of National Socialism.

List, a close associate of Lanz, formed the Guido Von List Society in Vienna in 1904.  The Guido Von List Society was accused of practicing a form of Hindu Tantrism, which featured sexual perversions in its rituals (the swastika is originally from India).  A man named Aleister Crowley, who, according to Hitler biographer J. Sydney Jones, enjoyed “playing with black magic and little boys,” popularized this form of sexual perversion in occult circles.[3]  List was “accused of being the Aleister Crowley of Vienna”.[4]  Like Lanz, List was an occultist; he wrote several books on the magic principles of rune letters (from which he chose the “SS” symbol).  In 1908, List “was unmasked as the leader of a blood brotherhood which went in for sexual perversion and substituted the swastika for the cross”.[5]  The Nazis borrowed heavily from Lis’s occult theories and research.  List also formed an elitist occult priesthood called the Armanen Order, to which Hitler himself may have belonged.[6]


Thule Swastika Society Occult Cult - 330

[TO THE RIGHT] The first Swastika known to be displayed in pre-war Germany on a political poster by the Thule Society was in 1919.


The Nazi dream of an Aryan super-race was adopted from an occult group called the Thule Society, founded in 1917 by followers of Lanz and List.  The occult doctrine of the Thule Society held that the survivors of an ancient and highly developed lost civilization could endow Thule initiates with esoteric powers and wisdom.  The initiates would use these powers to create a new race of Aryan supermen  who would eliminate all “inferior” races. 

Hitler dedicated his book, Mein Kampf, to Dietrich Eckart, one of the Thule Society’s inner circle and a former leading figure in the German Worker’s Party (when they met at the gay bar mentioned earlier).[7] 

“…And among them I want also to count that man, one of the best, who devoted his life to the awakening of his, our people, in his writings and his thoughts…”[8]

After the above dedication, the notes in this edition of Mein Kampf read, “Dietrich Eckart was the spiritual founder of the National Socialist Party.”[9] The various occult groups mentioned above were outgrowths of the Theosophical Society, whose founder, Helen Petrovna Blavatsky, was a lesbian,[10] and whose “bishop” was a notorious pederast Charles Leadbeater.  Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was obsessed with Freemasonry,[11] which is full of occultic influences and practices.[12]


[1] Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult ,(New York, NY: Dorset Press, 1989), 19

[2] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1985) p. 109

[3] J. Sydney Jones Hitler in Vienna 1907-1913 (New York, NY: Stein & Day,1983), 123.

[4] ibid., 123

[5] Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult (New York, NY: Dorset Press,1989), 23.

[6] Robert G. L. Waite, The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler, Signet Books; New York [1977], p. 91

[7] Wulf Schwarzwaller, The Unknown Hitler: His Private Life and Fortune, National Press Book; Washington D. C. [1989], p. 67

[8] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (translated by Ralph Manheim: New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), 687.

[9] Ibid.

[10] James Webb, The Occult Underground (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Pub, 1974), 94.

[11] G. S. Graber, The History of the SS: A Chilling Look at the Most Terrifying Arm of the Nazi War Machine (New York, NY: David McKay Company, 1978), 81.

[12] see: Andre Nataf, The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Occult (France: Wordsworth Refernce, 1994), 58-60; Debra Lardie, Concise Dictionary of the Occult and New Age (Grand Rapids: MI: Kregal Publishers, 2000), 108; D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1998),  cf.“freemasonry, 604.


Here is another excerpt from another book discussing the occult symbols in the “SS”Flowers - Secret King NAZI OCCULTISM

  • Michael Moynihan and Stephen E. Flowers, The Secret King: Karl Maia Wiligut, Himmler’s Lord of the Runes: The Real Documents of NAZI Occultism (Waterbury Center, VT: Dominion Press, 2001), 22-31.

Important areas in which Wiligut worked for Himmler included his conceptualization of the Wewelsburg castle as the “center of the world”; the design of the SS-ring; creation of various rituals and design of ritual objects to be used in SS ceremonies; and a steady stream of reports on esoteric matters of theology, history and cosmology issued for the most part privately to Himmler.

The Wewelsburg castle is a 17th century structure located near Buren in Westphalia. Himmler first viewed the castle in 1933 while on a campaign trip of the Party. It is uncertain as to whether Wiligut accompanied him on this trip; however, it is certain that the colonel influenced him greatly on the conceptualization of the castle as a world­wide headquarters for an order of knights — the SS. (Hüsser 1982: 33, 40) Shortly after the Wewelsburg was transferred to the SS, it became the headquarters of the Gesellschaft zur Förderung and Pflege deutscher Kultur-denkmäler (Society for the Promotion and Care of German Cultural Monuments) and was subsequently transformed into a “Nordic academy” for the ideological education —or initiation — of SS leaders. It was increasingly conceptu­alized as an Order-Castle (Ordensburg) and was remodeled to become the ritual space for ceremonies particular to Himmler’s elite circle within the SS.

Central to this cult was the northern tower of the castle. The lowest space in this tower, the vault, came to be referred to as the “Walhalla” — the Hall of the Slain. Above this vault is the colonnade chamber, on the floor of which is emblazoned the most distinctive single symbol of the Wewelsburg:

The colonnade hall was to become the central ritual chamber of the order of SS knights which Himmler and Wiligut envisioned.Occult Symbol NAZI CLEAR

This castle was to be the ultimate command center for cultural as well as military campaigns for the spread of a new Aryan empire, and, in the conception of Himmler and Wiligut, a bulwark against the invading “subhumans” from the east — the Bolsheviks.

The Wewelsburg became a great repository for all kinds of SS traditions, rituals and objects. At the end of the war, as American troops approached the region, the castle was blown up on 31 March 1945 by SS-men acting on orders from Himmler. Three days later American troops moved in and secured the site. As to what happened to much of the material and documents originally housed in the Ordensburg, there are three answers: some of it must have been removed before the detonation of the building; some of it was looted by locals of the nearby village in the three days between the detonation and the arrival of the Americans; and the rest was looted by American soldiers.

The most important cult-object of the SS is the “death’s head ring” [Totenkopfring]. [PICTURED ABOVE ~ SEE MORE BELOW] Wiligut is widely cred­ited with its design. (Hunger 1985: 164) The text of a document which was presented the SS-men with the ring reads:

I bestow upon you the death’s head ring of the SS. It is:

A sign of our loyalty to the Führer, our unwavering obedience to our superiors and our unshakable solidarity and comradery.

The death’s head is an admonition to be prepared at any time to risk our own individual lives for the life of the collective whole.

The runes opposite the death’s head are holy signs from our past, with which we have been newly re­connected through the philosophy of National Socialism.

The two Sig-runes symbolize the name of our protection-squad [Schutzstaffel].

The Swastika and Hagall-rune are to keep our attention on our unshakable faith in the victory of our philosophy.

The ring is crowned all around with oak-leaves, the leaves of the old German tree.

This ring may not be sold, and is not allowed to be transferred to others.

Upon your withdrawal from the SS or from life, this ring is to be returned to the Reichsfiihrer-SS.

Copies and imitations are punishable by law and you are to protect it from same.

Wear the ring with honor!

~ Heinrich Himmler

According to Hüser (1982: 66-67), the rings of the SS-men who died in battle were stored in a special place in the Walhalla; those of SS-men who departed under other circumstances were generally melted down. Husker also reports that the store of “hundreds” of rings, which had resisted the explosion and fire, as well as local efforts to loot the castle, was eventually looted by American soldiers.

It also seems that Wiligut was instrumental in creating SS-rituals and designing ceremonial objects to be used in the performance of such rituals. A complete transcript has been uncovered in SS archives for a name-giving rite that Wiligut conducted for the newborn son of SS officer Karl Wolff, and at which Himmler himself was also present. A translation of the document appears as Appendix C in this book. Wiligut also presided over related rituals at the Wewelsburg. (Goodrick-Clarke 1985: 187) Much of the ritual design seems to have centered on marriage cere­monies for SS-men and their brides. There was a eugenic aspect to these ceremonies in that leading SS-men and their brides had to demonstrate their Aryan heritage by tracing it back at least to 1750. One object which Wiligut designed  was a bowl in which bread and salt were presented to the bride and groom — the cover of this vessel was decorated with a “word-sigil for Got” [TO THE RIGHT]:rune Flowers CLEAR

This is a bind-rune for rune Flowers GOT CLEAR (GOT). (Hunger 1984: 164) The commandant of the Wewelsburg, Manfred von Knobbelsdorff, was an enthusiastic follower of Wiligut and enacted many rituals of Wiligut’s tradition.One of the most important, and mysterious, aspects of Wiligut’s operative “magical” work came in the form of the aforementioned enigmatic Halgarita-Sprüche (Halgarita-Sayings), which were mantras from the Wiligut-tradition intended to enhance ancestral memory and facilitate the re­emergence of the Irminist faith. A complete collection of these, excerpted from archival material, is printed on pages 103-110 of this book.

Throughout the years 1933-1939, Wiligut produced a number of reports for Himmler on a variety of topics rele­vant to esoteric religion, theology, history, and even politi­cal policy. One document outlines Wiligut’s ideas on the necessity of re-confiscating properties appropriated by the Church from the indigenous followers of the ancient faith. (Hüser 1982: 205)

During these years of high activity, Wiligut was already an elderly man in his late sixties and early seventies. His health and general level of energy were apparently not well-suited to the hectic pace at the center of the German National Socialist bureaucracy, so he was “treated” with drugs by SS physicians. It seems that these drugs had the effect of causing certain personality changes, including the colonel’s increasing dependance on tobacco and alcohol.

In the course of Wiligut’s life he had encounters with a number of other well-known esoteric nationalists. Some of these appear to have been his teachers, many were his stu­dents and others his colleagues. It is uncertain as to how well Wiligut knew men such as Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels. His ties to the latter seem to have been stronger, as so many of his own contacts were members of the ONT. Of course, Wiligut’s chief students were Emil Rudiger and Friedrich Teltscher, who further developed and published ideas rooted in Wiligut’s system. But beyond these there are others whom Wiligut encountered during his SS years and who merit discussion.

One of the most enigmatic figures of the SS was Otto Rahn (1904-1939). As a young man, Rahn spent time in the late 1920s and early 1930s in the Pyrenees region of southern France conducting research on the Cathar sect and the possibility of the Holy Grail being a part of their still-hidden treasure. In 1933 he published his most impor­tant work: Kreuzzug gegen den Gral (The Crusade against the Grail). But toward the mid-1930s financial problems forced him back to Germany where, in April of 1936, swept up in the Movement, he joined the SS. Rahn had been in personal contact with Wiligut and was a civilian employee of the SS for about a year before this. He was immediately made part of the Reichsführer-SS personal staff, and so worked closely with Wiligut. Rahn, like “Weisthor,” entered the SS with a personal secret. Rahn was a homosexual, which could result in a death-sentence if discovered. While in the SS Rahn undertook research trips to locations in Germany and even to Iceland, although he was never on an official SS expedition to southern France as is sometimes reported. In 1937 Rahn published his second book: Luzifers Hofgesind: Eine Reise zu Europas guten Geistern (Lucifer’s Retinue: A Journey to the Good Spirits of Europe). This is a kind of esoteric travelogue in which Rahn recounts the significance of various landscapes and monuments from southern France, Italy, Germany and Iceland. Rahn lectured within SS-circles on the theme of Luzifers Hofgesind, i.e., that Lucifer is the bringer of enlightenment and the enemy of the Jewish God, and that the retinue of Lucifer includes all those “good spirits” who fight for this enlightenment. Rahn was very well-liked by both Wiligut and Himmler. Himmler tried to give Rahn every opportunity to survive in the SS in the face of persis­tent reports of his homosexual activity. It is most likely that Rahn came to believe he would meet a dishonorable end in the SS, so to prevent this he wandered into the mountains near Soil, Austria, drank a bottle of liquor and allowed the winter cold to take his life. Himmler personally mourned the loss of Rahn.

Another esotericist with whom Wiligut had positive relations was Gunther Kirchhoff (1892-1975). On the surface this might appear to be an unlikely alliance since Kirchhoff was a member of the Guido von List Society. Wiligut had begun to correspond with Kirchhoff in the spring of 1934, and reported enthusiastically to Himmler about Kirchhoff’s writings. With Wiligut’s good recom­mendation, Himmler supported Kirchhoff, but the Ahnenerbe, which had a higher level of scholarly standards, rejected Kirchhoff’s writings as “fanciful.” However, Himmler continued to support Kirchhoff, who wrote reports on esoteric matters for the Reichsführer-SS as late as 1944. Many of Kirchhoff’s ideas seem to have been drawn from List and/or Wiligut; however, his geomantic studies, which he blended with an esoteric geopolitics, are what make his works noteworthy. Toward the end of his life, Kirchhoff wrote an analysis of events based on his theories entitled “Das politische Ratsel Asien aus Ortung erschlossen” (The Political Riddle of Asia Solved through Location). (See Mund 1982: 260-274) Based on the idea that certain power-points on the surface of the earth are arranged in hexagonal patterns, those who know this secret could use it to their advantage. This theory explains the Austrian city of Vienna as the key to controlling Asia, and explains the secret relationship of Vienna to certain “power points” in central Asia.

Other esotericists of the day were not so well-received by Wiligut. It is said that it was the influence of Wiligut which had Ernst Lauterer arrested and interned in a con­centration camp. As observers have noted, Lauterer was a man with a personal mythology similar to that of Wiligut. In 1911 — under the name “Tarnhari” (the Hidden-High-One) — Lauterer wrote to the old master, Guido von List, and told him how he was the head of the secret Volsung-clan of the semi-divine hero Siegfried. This correspondence is outlined in J. Balzli’s official biography of Guido von List published in 1917. Lauterer-Tarnhari subsequently became a member of the Guido von List Society. One may speculate on the nature of the friction between Wiligut and Lauterer.

Here is another book speaking to what could be considered demonic forces at work in Hitler’s life. Earlier I posted an episode witnessed that also hints at that: Some of Hitlers Demonic Episodes Penned In a 1940 Book

  • Walter C. Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1972), 35-37.

Hitler’s guide is something different entirely. It seems certain that Hitler believes that he has been sent to Germany by Providence and that he has a particular mission to perform. He is probably not clear on the scope of this mission beyond the fact that he has been chosen to redeem the German people and reshape Europe. Just how this is to be accomplished is also rather vague in his mind, but this does not concern him greatly because an “inner voice” communicates to him the steps he is to take. This is the guide that leads him on his course with the precision and security of a sleepwalker.

I carry out the commands that Providence has laid upon me.langer-hitler-and-voices-330

No power on earth can shake the German Reich now, Divine Providence has willed it that I carry through the fulfillment of the Germanic task.

But if the voice speaks, then I know the time has come to act.

It is this firm conviction that he has a mission and is under the guidance and protection of Providence that is responsible in large part for the contagious effect he has had on the German people.

Many people believe that this feeling of destiny and mission have come to Hitler through his successes. This is probably false. Later in our study (Part V) we will try to show that Hitler has had this feeling for a great many years although it may not have become a conscious conviction until much later. In any case it was forcing its way into consciousness during the last war and has played a dominant role in his actions ever since. Mend (one of his comrades), for example, reports: “In this connection a strange prophecy comes to mind: Just before Christmas (1915) he commented that we would at sometime hear a lot from him. We had only to wait until his time had come.” Then, too, Hitler has reported several incidents during the war that proved to him that he was under Divine protection. The most startling of these is the following:

I was eating my dinner in a trench with several comrades. Sud­denly a voice seemed to be saying to me, “Get up and go over there.” It was so clear and insistent that I obeyed automatically, as if it had been a military order. I rose at once to my feet and walked twenty yards along the trench carrying my dinner in its tin can with me.

Then I sat down to go on eating, my mind being once more at rest. Hardly had I done so when a flash and deafening report came from the part of the trench I had just left. A stray shell had burst over the group in which I had been sitting, and every member of it was killed.

Then, also, there was the vision he had while in hospital at Pasewalk suffering from blindness allegedly caused by gas. “When I was confined to bed, the idea came to me that I would liberate Germany, that I would make it great. I knew immediately that it would be realized.”

These experiences must later have fit in beautifully with the views of the Munich astrologers, and it is possible that, under­neath, Hitler felt that if there was any truth in their predictions they probably referred to him.

(See also “The Secret Wartime Report on the Mind of Hitler.”) While reading another book, I came across some smaller excerpts, of which I include slightly larger swaths of (getting a used edition of the 1940 book, The Voice of Destruction, it has to do with an expansion of how Hitler viewed the Church as well as what could be understood as demonic episodes:

Our nocturnal conversation arose out of our anxieties regarding such a development. The two Bavarian Gauleiter, Streicher of Franconia and Wagner of Munich, had brought us the tale. It was Streicher who gave Hitler his cue in the conversation. I had not listened to the beginning of it and became attentive only when I heard Hitler’s voice behind me getting louder.

“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future—certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch, and annihilating it in Germany. The Italians are naïve; they’re quite capable of being heathens and Christians at the same time. The Italians and the French are essentially heathens. Their Christianity is only skin-deep. But the German is different. He is serious in everything he undertakes. He wants to be either a Christian or a heathen. He cannot be both. Besides, Mussolini will never make heroes of his Fascists. It doesn’t matter there whether they’re Christians or heathens. But for our people it is decisive whether they acknowledge the Jewish Christ-creed with its effeminate pity-ethics, or a strong, heroic belief in God in Nature, God in our own people, in our destiny, in our blood.”

After a pause, he resumed:

“Leave the hair-splitting to others. Whether it’s the Old Testament or the New, or simply the sayings of Jesus, according to Houston Stewart Chamberlain—it’s all the same old Jewish swindle. It will not make us free. A German Church, a German Christianity, is distortion. One is either a German or a Christian. You cannot be both. You can throw the epileptic Paul out of Christianity—others have done so before us. You can make Christ into a noble human being, and deny his divinity and his role as a savior. People have been doing it for centuries. I believe there are such Christians today in England and America—Unitarians they call themselves, or something like that. It’s no use, you cannot get rid of the mentality behind it. We don’t want people who keep one eye on the life in the hereafter. We need free men who feel and know that God is in themselves.”

Streicher or Goebbels made some remark which I did not catch—a question perhaps.

“You can’t make an Aryan of Jesus, that’s nonsense,” Hitler went on. “What Chamberlain wrote in his Principles is, to say the least, stupid. What’s to be done, you say? I will tell you: we must prevent the churches from doing anything but what they are doing now, that is, losing ground day by day. Do you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Non­sense! Never again. That tale is finished. No one will listen to it again. But we can hasten matters. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves. They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miser­able little jobs and incomes.

“What we can do? Just what the Catholic Church did when it forced its beliefs on the heathen: preserve what can be preserved, and change its meaning. We shall take the road back: Easter is no longer resurrection, but the eternal renewal of our people. Christmas is the birth of our savior: the spirit of heroism and the freedom of our people. Do you think these liberal priests, who have no longer a belief, only an office, will refuse to preach our God in their churches? I can guarantee that, just as they have made Haeckel and Darwin, Goethe and Stefan George the prophets of their Christianity, so they will replace the cross with our swastika. Instead of worshiping the blood of their quondam savior, they will worship the pure blood of our people. They will receive the fruits of the German soil as a divine gift, and will eat it as a symbol of the eternal communion of the people, as they have hitherto eaten of the body of their God. And when we have reached that point, Streicher, the churches will be crowded again. If we wish it, then it will be so—when it is our religion that is preached there. We need not hurry the process.”

[….]

I cannot judge whether Hitler is near madness in the clinical sense. My own experience of him and what I have learned from others indicate a lack of control amounting to total demoralization. His shrieking and frenzied shouting, his stamping, his tempests of rage—all this was grotesque and unpleasant, but it was not madness. When a grown-up man lashes out against the walls like a horse in its stall, or throws himself on the ground his conduct may be morbid, but it is more certainly rude and undisciplined.

Hitler, however, has states that approach persecution mania and dual personality. His sleeplessness is more than the mere result of excessive nervous strain. He often wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders restlessly to and fro. Then he must have light everywhere. Lately he has sent at these times for young men who have to keep him company during his hours of manifest anguish. At times these conditions must have become dreadful. A man in the closest daily association with him gave me this account: Hitler wakes at night with convulsive shrieks. He shouts for help. He sits on the edge of his bed, as if unable to stir. He shakes with fear, making the whole bed vibrate. He shouts confused, totally unintelligible phrases. He gasps, as if imagining himself to be suffocating.

My informant described to me in full detail a remarkable scene—I should not have credited the story if it had not come from such a source. Hitler stood swaying in his room, looking wildly about him. “He! He! He’s been here!” he gasped. His lips were blue. Sweat streamed down his face. Suddenly he began to reel off figures, and odd words and broken phrases, entirely devoid of sense. It sounded horrible. He used strangely composed and entirely un-German word-formations. Then he stood quite still, only his lips moving. He was massaged and offered something to drink. Then he suddenly broke out—

“There, there! In the corner! Who’s that?”

He stamped and shrieked in the familiar way. He was shown that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the room, and then he gradually grew calm. After that he lay asleep for many hours, and then for some time things were durable.

[….]

There is an instructive parallel—mediums. Most of these are ordinary, undistinguished persons; yet suddenly they ac­quire gifts that carry them far above the common crowd. These qualities have nothing to do with the medium’s own personality. They are conveyed to him from without. The medium is possessed by them. He, himself, however, is un­influenced by them. In the same way undeniable powers enter into Hitler, genuinely daemonic powers, which make men his instruments. The common united with the uncom-mon—that is what makes Hitler’s personality so desperate a puzzle to those who come into contact with him. Dostoevsky might well have invented him, with the morbid derangement and the pseudo-creativeness of his hysteria.

I have frequently heard men confess that they are afraid of him, that they, grown men though they are, cannot visit him without a beating heart. They have the feeling that the man will suddenly spring at them and strangle them, or throw the inkpot at them, or do something senseless.

Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940), 49-51, 255-257, 258.

Evolutionary Assumptions (Carl F.H. Henry and G.A. Kerkut)

  • The FIRST QUOTE is Carl Henry (a Christian) quoting Dr. Kerkut’s book (an evolutionist). The SECOND QUOTE [jump to] is the raw, long excerpted quote from G.A. Kerkut.

What I am going to do is post a quote from one of Carl F. H. Henry’s books, then follow that quote up a larger quote from his source he uses. Context is king and I love Dr. Henry’s source A LOT!

The numbers from Dr. Henry’s quote correspond to the same numbers in Kerkut’s concluding chapter (to follow… jump to now instead by clicking here).

[p. 182>] A. Kerkut emphasizes that all seven basic assumptions on which evolu­tionary theory rests are “by their nature… not capable of experimental verification” (Implications of Evolution, p. 7). (1) The assumption that “non­living things gave rise to living material… is still just an assumption” (ibid., p. 150). (2) The assumption that “biogenesis occurred only once… is a matter of belief rather than proof” (op. cit.). (3) The assumption that “Vi­ruses, Bacteria, Protozoa and the higher animals were all interrelated” biologically as an evolutionary phenomenon lacks definite evidence (ibid., p. 151). (4) The assumption that “the Protozoa gave rise to the Metazoa” has no basis in definite knowledge (ibid., pp. 151 ff.). (5) The assumption that “the various invertebrate phyla are interrelated” depends on “tenuous and cir­cumstantial” evidence and not on evidence that allows “a verdict of definite relationships” (ibid., pp. 152 f.). (6) The assumption that “the invertebrates gave rise to the vertebrates” turns on evidence gained by prior belief (ibid., p. 153). Although he finds “somewhat stronger ground” for assuming that “fish, amphibia, reptiles, birds and mammals are interrelated,” (7) Kerkut con­cedes that many key fossil transitions are “not well documented and we have as yet to obtain a satisfactory objective method of dating the fossils” (ibid., p. 153). “In effect, much of the evolution of the major groups of animals has to be taken on trust” (ibid., p. 154); “there are many discrete groups of animals and… we do not know how they have evolved nor how they are interrelated” (ibid., p. vii). In short, the theory that “all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form,” says Kerkut, has insufficiently strong evi­dential supports “to consider it as anything more than a working hypothe­sis” (ibid., p. 157). He thinks “premature and not satisfactorily supported by present-day evidence,” therefore, “the attempt to explain all living forms in terms of an evolution from a unique source,” that is, from a common ancestor (ibid., pp. vii f.)

[p. 183>] It is therefore understandable why commentators speak more and more of a crisis of evolutionary theory. Establishment science’s long regnant view that gradual development accounts for the solar system, earth, life and all else is in serious dispute. Not in many decades has so much doubt emerged among scientists about the so-called irrefutable evidence that evolution is what accounts for life on planet earth. Although it was still taught long thereafter in high schools, Ernst Haeckel’s “biogenetic law” that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” had collapsed already in the late 1920s. The absence in recent texts of evolutionary charts depicting the common descent even of trees from a single form is noteworthy. Darwin’s insistence that nature makes no leaps, and that natural selection and chance adequately account for change in species, has lost credibility. Pa­leontologists and biologists are at odds over the significance of the fossil record, while gradualists and episodists disagree over the supposed tempo of evolution or whether the origin of species is consistent with microevolution or only with sudden gaps in the forms of life.

Gould, for example, opts for natural selection and, remarkably, combines it with saltation. He grants that “the fossil record does not support” the belief “in slow evolutionary change preached by most paleontologists” (and projected by Darwin); instead, “mass extinction and abrupt origination reign.. . . Gradualism is not exclusively valid (in fact, I regard it as rather rare). Natural selection contains no statement about rates. It can encompass rapid (geologically instantaneous) change by speciation in small popula­tions as well as the conventional and immeasurably slow transformation of entire lineages” (Ever Since Darwin, p. 271). Natural selection here becomes an elastic phrase that can accommodate to everything while re­quiring no significant empirical attestation.

University of Glasgow scientists Chris Darnbrough, John Goddard and William S. Stevely indicate problem areas that beset evolutionary theory: “The experiments demonstrating the formation of a variety of organic molecules from presumptive prebiotic soups,” they write, “fall far short of providing a pathway for chemical evolution. Again, it is self-evident that the fossil record leaves much to be desired and few biologists recognize the dependence of the geological column on radiometric dating methods based on questionable assumptions about initial conditions. The whole his­tory of evolutionary thought is littered with the debris of dubious assump­tions and misinterpretations, especially in the area of fossil ‘hominids.’ To come up to date, protein and DNA sequence data, generally viewed as consistent with an evolutionary explanation of diversity, are invariably interpreted using methods which presuppose, but do not demonstrate evolu­tionary relationships, and which use criteria that are essentially functional and teleological. Finally, there is a collection of isolated fragmentary pieces of evidence which are usually dismissed as anecdotal because they are irreconcilable with the evolutionary model” (“American Creation” [corre­spondence], by Chris Darnbrough, John Goddard and William S. Stevely, Nature, pp. 95 f.).

From ongoing conflicts and readjustments it is apparent that there never [p. 184>] was nor is there now only one theory of evolution. Many nontheistic schol­ars, to be sure, insist that evolution is and has always been “a fact.” Laurie R. Godfrey affirms that “there is actually widespread agreement in scien­tific circles that the evidence overwhelmingly supports evolutionism” and quotes Gould as saying that “none of the current controversy within evolu­tionary theory should give any comfort, not the slightest iota, to any cre­ationists” (“The Flood of Antievolution,” pp. 5-10, p. 10). If, as Godfrey insists, even the most sweeping revisions and reversals of scientific theory ought to be viewed not as weaknesses in evolutionary claims but rather as reflections of ongoing differences that inhere in “doing science—posing, testing and debating alternative explanations,” then the emphasis is proper only if Godfrey refuses to attach finality and a universal validity-claim to anticreationist evolutionary theses.

The history of evolutionary theory is far from complete and its present status ambiguous. Hampton L. Carson notes the difficulty of integrating the dual lines of study pursued by biological evolutionists when on the one hand they project the course of evolution that is held to produce contem­porary organisms, and when on the other they analyze supposed evolution­ary causation. Carson notes, moreover, that presentation of new approaches even to student audiences now requires an understanding of sophisticated computer techniques and an awareness of complex and sometimes esoteric theory; he ventures the bold observation that “new mutations and recom­binations” of evolutionary theory will themselves “be subject to natural selection” (“Introduction to a Pivotal Subject” [review of Evolution by Theodosius Dobzhansky and others, and of Organismic Evolution by Verne Grant], pp. 1272 f.).

Yet most secular evolutionists continue to assume that evolution is a complex fact and therefore debate only its mechanism. Appealing to con­sensus rather than to demonstrative data, G. G. Simpson states that “no evolutionist since [Darwin has] seriously questioned that man did originate by evolution”; he insists, moreover, that “the problem [the origin of life] can be attacked scientifically” (“The World into Which Darwin Led Us.” pp. 966-974). Simpson’s advance confidence in naturalistic explanation ex­udes a strong bias against theistic premises.

But Thomas S. Kuhn considers the physical sciences to be grounded less on empirical facts that on academically defined assumptions about the nature of the universe, assumptions that are unprovable, questionable and reversible (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). His approach differs somewhat from Michael Polanyi’s assault on the objectivity of human knowledge (Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy), a view that Christian theism disputes on its own ground. Yet both Kuhn’s emphasis and Polanyi’s tend to put a question mark after absolutist evolu­tionary claims.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Vol VI: God Who Stands and Stays (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1983), 182-184.


Here is the extended quote from Dr. Henry’s source used,

G.A. Kerkut’s Implications of Evolution (pp. 150-157):


[p. 150>] WHAT conclusions, then, can one come to concerning the validity of the various implications of the theory of evolution? If we go back to our initial assumptions it will be seen that the evidence is still lacking for most of them.

(1) The first assumption was that non-living things gave rise to living material. This is still just an assumption. It is conceivable that living material might have suddenly appeared on this world in some peculiar manner, say from another planet, but this then raises the question, “Where did life originate on that planet?” We could say that life has always existed, but such an explanation is not a very satisfactory one. Instead, the explanation that non­living things could have given rise to complex systems having the properties of living things is generally more acceptable to most scientists. There is, however, little evidence in favour of biogenesis and as yet we have no indication that it can be per­formed. There are many schemes by which biogenesis could have occurred but these are still suggestive schemes and nothing more. They may indicate experiments that can be performed, but they tell us nothing about what actually happened some 1,000 million years ago. It is therefore a matter of faith on the part of the biologist that biogenesis did occur and he can choose whatever method of biogenesis happens to suit him personally; the evidence for what did happen is not available.

(2) The second assumption was that biogenesis occurred only once. This again is a matter for belief rather than proof. It is convenient to believe that all living systems have the same fundamental chemical processes at work within them, but as has already been mentioned, only a few representatives from the wide range of living forms have so far been examined and even [p. 151>] these have not been exhaustively analysed. From our limited experience it is clear that the biochemical systems within proto­plasm are not uniform, i.e. there is no established biochemical unity. Thus we are aware that there are systems other than the Embden—Meyerhof and the tricarboxylic cycles for the systematic degradation of carbohydrates; a total of six alternative methods being currently available. High-energy compounds other than those of phosphorus have been described; the number of vital amino-acids has gone up from twenty to over seventy; all these facts indicate that the biochemical systems may be very variable. The morphological systems in protoplasm, too, show consider­able variation. It is possible that some aspects of cell structure such as the mitochondria and the microsomes might have arisen independently on several distinct occasions. It is also probable that two or more independent systems have evolved for the separation of chromosomes during cell division.

It is a convenient assumption that life arose only once and that all present-day living things are derived from this unique experi­ence, but because a theory is convenient or simple it does not mean that it is necessarily correct. If the simplest theory was always correct we should still be with the four basic elements—earth, air, fire and water! The simplest explanation is not always the right one even in biology.

(3) The third assumption was that Viruses, Bacteria, Protozoa and the higher animals were all interrelated. It seems from the available evidence that Viruses and Bacteria are complex groups both of which contain a wide range of morphological and physio­logical forms. Both groups could have been formed from diverse sources so that the Viruses and Bacteria would then be an assembly of forms that contain both primitive and secondarily simplified units. They would each correspond to a Grade rather than a Subkingdom or Phylum. We have as yet no definite evidence about the way in which the Viruses, Bacteria or Protozoa are interrelated.

(4) The fourth assumption was that the Protozoa gave rise to the Metazoa. This is an interesting assumption and various schemes have been proposed to show just how the change could have taken place. On the other hand equally interesting schemes have been suggested to show the way in which the Metaphyta [p. 152>] could have given rise to both the Protozoa and the Metazoa. Here again nothing definite is known. We can believe that any one of these views is better than any other according to the relative importance that we accord to the various pieces of evidence.

(5) The fifth assumption was that the various invertebrate phyla are interrelated. If biogenesis occurred many times in the past and the Metazoa developed on several finite occasions then we might expect to find various isolated groups of invertebrates. If on the other hand biogenesis was a unique occurrence it should not be too difficult to show some relationship between all the various invertebrate phyla.

It should be remembered, for example, that though there are similarities between the cleavage patterns of the eggs of various invertebrates these might only reflect the action of physical laws acting on a restrained fluid system such as we see in the growth of soap bubbles and not necessarily indicate any fundamental phylogenetic relationship .

As has already been described, it is difficult to tell which are the most primitive from amongst the Porifera, Mesozoa, Coelenterata, Ctenophora or Platyhelminthia and it is not possible to decide the precise interrelationship of these groups. The higher invertebrates are equally difficult to relate. Though the concept of the Protostomia and the Deuterostomia is a useful one, the basic evidence that separates these two groups is not as clear cut as might be desired. Furthermore there are various groups such as the Brachiopoda, Chaetognatha, Ectoprocta and Phoronidea that have properties that lie between the Protostomia and the Deuterostomia. It is worth paying serious attention to the con­cept that the invertebrates are polyphyletic, there being more than one line coming up to the primitive metazoan condition. It is extremely likely that the Porifera are on one such side line and it is conceivable that there could have been others which have since died away leaving their progeny isolated; in this way one could explain the position of the nematodes. The number of ways of achieving a specific form or habit is limited and resemblances may be due to the course of convergence over the period of many millions of years. The evidence, then, for the affinities of the majority of the invertebrates is tenuous and circumstantial; not [p. 153>] the type of evidence that would allow one to form a verdict of definite relationships.

(6) The sixth assumption, that the invertebrates gave rise to the vertebrates, has not been discussed in this book. There are several good reviews on this subject. Thus Neal and Rand (1939) pro­vide a useful and interesting account of the various views that have been suggested to explain the relationship between the inverte­brates and the vertebrates. The vertebrates have been derived from the annelids, arthropods, nemerteans, hemichordates and the urochordates. More recently Berrill (1955) has given a detailed account of the mode of origin of the vertebrates from the urochord-ates in which the sessile ascidian is considered the basic form. On the other hand, almost as good a case can be made to show that the ascidian tadpole is the basic form and that it gave rise to the sessile ascidian on the one hand and the chordates on the other. Here again it is a matter of belief which way the evidence happens to point. As Berrill states, “in a sense this account is science fiction.”

(7) We are on somewhat stronger ground with the seventh assumption that the fish, amphibia, reptiles, birds and mammals are interrelated. There is the fossil evidence to help us here, though many of the key transitions are not well documented and we have as yet to obtain a satisfactory objective method of dating the fossils. The dating is of the utmost importance, for until we find a reliable method of dating the fossils we shall not be able to tell if the first amphibians arose after the first choanichthian or whether the first reptile arose from the first amphibian. The evidence that we have at present is insufficient to allow us to decide the answer to these problems.

One thing that does seem reasonably clear is that many of the groups such as the Amphibia (Save Soderberg 1934), Reptilia (Goodrich 1916) and Mammalia appear to be polyphyletic grades of organisation. Even within the mammals there is the suggestion that some of the orders might be polyphyletic. Thus Kleinenberg (1959) has suggested that the Cetacea are diphyletic, the Odontoceti and the Mysticeti being derived from separate terrestrial stocks. (Other groups that appear to be polyphyletic are the Viruses, Bacteria, Protozoa, Arthropoda (Tiegs and Manton 1958), and it is possible that close study will show that the Annelida and Protochordata are grades too.)

[p. 154>] In effect, much of the evolution of the major groups of animals has to be taken on trust. There is a certain amount of circum­stantial evidence but much of it can be argued either way. Where, then, can we find more definite evidence for evolution? Such evidence will be found in the study of modern living forms. It will be remembered that Darwin called his book The Origin of Species not The Origin of Phyla and it is in the origin and study of the species that we find the most definite evidence for the evolution and changing of form. Thus to take a specific example, the Herring Gull, Larus argentatus, does not interbreed with the Lesser Black-backed Gull, Larus fuscus, in Western Europe, the two being separate species. But if we trace L. argentatus across the northern hemisphere through North America, Eastern Siberia and Western Siberia we find that in Western Siberia there is a form of L. argentatus that will interbreed with L. fuscus. We have here an example of a ring species in which the members at the ends of the ring will not interbreed whilst those in the middle can. The separation of what was possibly one species has been going on for some time (in this case it is suggested since the Ice Age). We have of course to decide that this is a case of one species splitting into two and not of two species merging into one, but this decision is aided by the study of other examples such as those of small mammals isolated on islands, or the development of melanic forms in moths. Details of the various types of speciation can be found in the books by Mayr, Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942), and Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species (1951).

It might be suggested that if it is possible to show that the present-day forms are changing and the evolution is occurring at this level, why can’t one extrapolate and say that this in effect has led to the changes we have seen right from the Viruses to the Mammals? Of course one can say that the small observable changes in modern species may be the sort of thing that lead to all the major changes, but what right have we to make such an extrapolation? We may feel that this is the answer to the problem, but is it a satisfactory answer? A blind acceptance of such a view may in fact be the closing of our eyes to as yet undiscovered factors which may remain undiscovered for many years if we believe that the answer has already been found.

[p. 155>] It seems at times as if many of our modern writers on evolution have had their views by some sort of revelation and they base their opinions on the evolution of life, from the simplest form to the complex, entirely on the nature of specific and intra-specific evolution. It is possible that this type of evolution can explain many of the present-day phenomena, but it is possible and indeed probable that many as yet unknown systems remain to be dis­covered and it is premature, not to say arrogant, on our part if we make any dogmatic assertion as to the mode of evolution of the major branches of the animal kingdom.

Perhaps it is appropriate here to quote a remark made by D’Arcy Thompson in his book On Growth and Form. “If a tiny foraminiferan shell, a Lagena for instance, be found living today, and a shell indistinguishable from it to the eye be found fossil in the Chalk or some still more remote geological formation, the assumption is deemed legitimate that the species has ‘survived’ and has handed down its minute specific character or characters from generation to generation unchanged for untold millions of years. If the ancient forms be like rather than identical with the recent, we still assume an unbroken descent, accompanied by hereditary transmission of common characters and progressive variations. And if two identical forms be discovered at the ends of the earth, still (with slight reservation on the score of possible ‘homoplasy’) we build a hypothesis on this fact of identity, taking it for granted that the two appertain to a common stock, whose dispersal in space must somehow be accounted for, its route traced, its epoch determined and its causes discussed or discovered. In short, the Naturalist admits no exception to the rule that a natural classification can only be a genealogical one, nor ever doubts that ‘ ‘the fact that we are able to classify organ­isms at all in accordance with the structural characteristics which they present is due to their being related by descent.'”

What alternative system can we use if we are not to assume that all animals can be arranged in a genealogical manner? The alternative is to indicate that there are many gaps and failures in our present system and that we must realise their existence. It may be distressing for some readers to discover that so much in zoology is open to doubt, but this in effect indicates the vast amount of work that remains to be done. In many courses the [p. 156>] student is obliged to read, assimilate and remember a vast amount of factual information on the quite false assumption that know­ledge is the accumulation of facts. There seems so much to be learnt that the only consolation the student has is that those who come after him will have even more to learn, for more will be known. But this is not really so; much of what we learn today are only half truths or less and the students of tomorrow will not be bothered by many of the phlogistons that now torment our brains.

It is in the interpretation and understanding of the factual information and not the factual information itself that the true interest lies. Information must precede interpretation, and it is often difficult to see the factual data in perspective. If one reads an account of the history of biology such as that presented by Nordenskiold (1920) or Singer (1950) it sometimes appears that our predecessors had a much easier task to discover things than we do today. All that they had to do was realise, say, that oxygen was necessary for respiration, or that bacteria could cause septicaemia or that the pancreas was a ductless gland that secreted insulin. The ideas were simple; they just required the thought and the experimental evidence! Let us have no doubt in our minds that in twenty years or so time we shall look back on many of today’s problems and make similar observations. Everything will seem simple and straightforward once it has been explained. Why then cannot we see some of these solutions now? There are many partial answers to this question. One is that often an incorrect idea or fact is accepted and takes the place of the correct one. An incorrect view can in this way successfully displace the correct view for many years and it requires very careful analysis and much experimental data to overthrow an accepted but incorrect theory. Most students become acquainted with many of the current concepts in biology whilst still at school and at an age when most people are, on the whole, uncritical. Then when they come to study the subject in more detail, they have in their minds several half truths and misconceptions which tend to prevent them from coming to a fresh appraisal of the situation. In addition, with a uniform pattern of education most students tend to have the same sort of educational background and so in conversation and dis­cussion they accept common fallacies and agree on matters based on these fallacies.

[p. 157>] It would seem a good principle to encourage the study of “scientific heresies.” There is always the danger that a reader might be seduced by one of these heresies but the danger is neither as great nor as serious as the danger of having scientists brought up in a type of mental strait-jacket or of taking them so quickly through a subject that they have no time to analyse and digest the material they have “studied.” A careful perusal of the heresies will also indicate the facts in favour of the currently accepted doctrines, and if the evidence against a theory is over­whelming and if there is no other satisfactory theory to take its place we shall just have to say that we do not yet know the answer.

There is a theory which states that many living animals can be observed over the course of time to undergo changes so that new species are formed. This can be called the “Special Theory of Evolution” and can be demonstrated in certain cases by experi­ments. On the other hand there is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the “General Theory of Evolution” and the evidence that supports it is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis. It is not clear whether the changes that bring about speciation are of the same nature as those that brought about the development of new phyla. The answer will be found by future experimental work and not by dogmatic assertions that the General Theory of Evolution must be correct because there is nothing else that will satisfactorily take its place.

G.A. Kerkut, Implication of Evolution (International series of monographs on pure and applied biology. Division: Zoology) (New York, NY: Pergamon Press, 1960), 150-157.

Discussing Evidences for the General Theory of Evolution… Still Waiting

“Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction, whether it be in the field of ecology, ethology, sociology, demography (dynamics of populations), genetics (so-called evolutionary genetics), or paleontology. This intrusion of theories has unfortunate results: it deprives observations and experiments of their objectivity, makes them biased, and, moreover, creates false problems.” ~ P. P. Grasse

I posted a response to the above video on YouTube and have a bit of engagement going on. The first conversation was with a layman. The second is with a person who says he is a degreed biologist. He has a Google account, Prototype Atheist. I have yet to see a degree (what level of a degree) Prototype Atheist has, but, I have engaged with doctoral holding professors of biology in the past. (And may I say, there are similarities to how these two wish to co-opt language.) So, below will be the “evolving” engagement from this post. Enjoy real conversation:

Here is my original post regarding the video:

@Bill Walton “I believe in science” = Dumb. As if science has anything to do with history. These scientists believe in science AND ARE young earth creationists… showing that origin science (historical sciences) has no bearing on working science (the nuclear weight of something or the chemical make-up of another):

▼ Professor Dr Bernard Brandstater—pioneer in anesthetics. Amongst many other achievements, he pioneered assisted breathing for premature babies with prolonged incubation and developed an improved catheter for epidural anesthesia, both adopted around the world.
▼ Prof. Stuart Burgess—a world expert in biomimetics (imitating design in nature). He is Professor of Engineering Design, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol (UK) and leads the Design Engineering Research Group at the university. Dr Burgess is the author of over 40 papers published in science journals, and another 50 conference proceedings. He has also registered 7 patents and has received various awards, the Wessex Institute Scientific Medal being the most recent.
▼ Professor Dr Ben Carson—pioneer pediatric neurosurgeon. He was long-term director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He was the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins joined at the head and also pioneered surgery to cure epilepsy in young children, and much else. He has been awarded 51 honorary doctorates, including from Yale and Columbia universities in recognition of his outstanding achievements. He is a member of the Alpha Honor Medical Society, the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans, and sits on numerous business and education boards. In 2001, CNN and Time magazine named Ben Carson as one of the nation’s 20 foremost physicians and scientists. In that same year, the Library of Congress selected him as one of 89 ‘Living Legends’. In February 2008, President Bush awarded Carson the Ford’s Theater Lincoln Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honors.
▼ Dr Raymond Damadian—largely responsible for developing medical imaging using magnetic resonance (MRI). He has been honored with the United States’ National Medal of Technology, the Lincoln-Edison Medal, and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame alongside Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright brothers. In 2001 the Lemelson-MIT program bestowed its lifetime achievement award on Dr Damadian as “the man who invented the MRI scanner”. It is commonly recognized that he was discriminated against in not at least sharing a Nobel Prize for his work (two others shared the award), although Damadian was the discoverer that diseased tissue would have a different signal from healthy.’
▼ Dr John Hartnett—developed the world’s most precise atomic clocks, which are used in research and industry around the globe. He is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award (DORA) fellow at the University of Adelaide, where he is an Associate Professor. In his relatively short career, he has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings.
▼ Dr Raymond Jones—solved the major problem of the indigestibility of Leucaena (a tropical legume) for grazing cattle in Australia, among other achievements. This research has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian beef industry. He was honored with the CSIRO Gold Medal for Research Excellence, and the Urrbrae Award.
▼ Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu—many pioneering contributions, especially in sickle cell disease management. He is Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and Consultant Physician Genetic Counsellor in Sickle Cell and Other Haemoglobinopathies, Phoenix Hospital Group, London, UK. Ironically, sickle cell disease is often incorrectly held up as a ‘proof of evolution’ in science textbooks. Dr Konotey-Ahulu has received many awards in recognition of his work.
▼ Dr John Sanford—has been granted over 30 patents arising from his research in plant breeding and genetics. His most significant scientific contributions involve three inventions, the biolistic (`gene gun’) process, pathogen-derived resistance, and genetic immunization. A large fraction of the transgenic crops (in terms of both numbers and area planted) grown in the world today were genetically engineered using the gene gun technology developed by John and his collaborators. Dr Sanford was honoured with the Distinguished Inventor Award by the Central New York Patent Law Association in 1990 and 1995)
▼ Dr Wally (Siang Hwa) Tow—groundbreaking research in ‘molar pregnancy’, a poverty-related disease. He was invited to lecture in some fourteen top Obstetrics-Gynaecology departments in America in 1962-3, including leading universities such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, New York, UCLA, Cornell, and Stanford. He was awarded the William Blair Bell Lectureship by the RCOG in recognition of the importance of this work. He served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, National University of Singapore.

Here is the response TO ME by RoflMcCopter:

@PapaGiorgio So a handful of people (several in completely unrelated fields) believe fantasy over reality. Look up appeal to authority.

(You will note the “strong armed patriotic guy” will always stand for me) I respond:

@RoflMcCopter I am not concluding creation to be true because scientists believe in it. You miss the point, and I do not need to go to my home library to get a definition from my many philosophy dictionaries, philosophy textbooks, or books on logic. I will again post the above:

▼ “As if science has anything to do with history. These scientists believe in science AND ARE young earth creationists… showing that origin science (historical sciences) has no bearing on working science (the nuclear weight of something or the chemical make-up of another).”

Another example. Wernher von Braun, he is the guy who is most credited in getting us to the moon. He worked side-by-side with people at NASA who were ardent evolutionists. Both he and they could operate at high levels of science that is applicable to the real world. Evolution is not this. That is, it is not “science” but historical science. With historical science there are lots of presuppositions, guesses, interpretation, and the like. Most of which are based on a starting premise. I will give an example of one such starting (metaphysical) starting point:

▼ “…because we have a priori commitment, a commitment — a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” ~ Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin.

This is not a scientific starting point. It is a metaphysical one. I will allow the past senior paleontologist at the prestigious British Museum of Natural History (which houses the world’s largest fossil collection – sixty million specimens) make a point:

▼ “For almost 20 years I thought I was working on evolution…. But there was not one thing I knew about it…. So for the last few weeks I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. Question is: ‘Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true?’ I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all i got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, ‘Yes, I do know one thing -–it ought not to be taught in high school.’ … During the past few years… you have experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith…. Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge.” ~ Colin Patterson

Much thought, SeanG [AKA, Papa Giorgio], author of the book, “Worldviews: A Click Away from Binary Collisions (Religio-Political Apologetics)

@PapaGiorgio Surely. Why else would you post a list of scientists who agree with you, if not for argument from authority?

Make up what points you wish, but it feels like thou doth protest too much.

@RoflMcCopter Why else”? I clearly explained why. Very clearly.

You see, when Bill Walton said he believes in “science,” so do all the Nobel winning scientists and current stack of thousands of young earth professors and research scientists and medical doctors; as well as the thousands of ID’ers (professors and scientists and medical doctors). They ALL believe in science. Darwinism is not science.

Come up with all the points y o u wish, wrong points at that: saying I am appealing to authority when in fact I am not. My appeal shows Walton’s category mistake between working and origin science. He may believe in both, science proper, and Darwinism. But he would still be driving a car and shaving with an electric razor if we — as a world/country — believed in any of the following:

a) Punctuationist
b) Macromutationist
c) Neutral Selectionist
d) Structuralist
e) Natural Order Systematics
f) Transformed Cladist
g) Panspermia
h) Discontinuitist
i) Special Creation
j) Theistic Evolutionism
k) Design Theorist
l) Darwinism
m) Neo-Darwinism

Science works independent of the above metaphysical positions.

This is where Prototype Atheist hops into the conversation. The “A” with the swirl is kinda the universal [one of them] symbol for atheism:

@PapaGiorgio No, this attempt to separate science into “observational” and “historical” is 100% bullshit creationist propaganda. There is no such differentiation. Or are you attempting to tell me that we should never convict murderers based upon the physical evidence, only if a witness was there and observed what occurred?

First of all, we can and do observe evolution all the time. Every day. Evolution is simply the change in allele frequencies in a population over time. What you call “macroevolution” is just the result of this process over longer periods of time, and the evidence from the fossil record and phylogenetics and molecular biology and many other fields confirm this. Asking us to observe “macroevolution” is like me telling you boil an egg in a nanosecond, and then when you can’t, telling you that it’s impossible to boil an egg. The process requires time. Period.

The fact that scientists can be religious is wholly irrelevant. I was still a Christian even after having earned an advanced degree in molecular biology and having studied evolution extensively. I simply never bothered to reconcile my beliefs with my knowledge. It’s very easy to compartmentalize or fail to scrutinize your beliefs, especially if they are comforting or have been with you since a young age. You just have to be honest with yourself. Besides, knowing how to put a rocket into space has little bearing on understanding why the god of the Bible doesn’t exist. However, understanding the cosmological timeline, evolution, genetics, etc. will definitely bring any Christian to the point of cognitive dissonance.

@PrototypeAtheist (Just to note… my original point stands, because, science is about the observable and repeatable… you just said [as Dawkins does], macro evolution is not observable in our lifetime. So by definition then, it is interpretive.)

No. Allele change is not macro-evolution. All creationists, intelligent design theorists, and the like believe in micro change. We are not talking about change in eye color, long, short, or medium hair in dogs, etc. We are talking about an odorless and colorless gas ending up with a B.O. ridden South East Asian man coming home from an engineering job.

In fact, Dr. Melendy proffered evidence of macro evolution early in a conversation. It ended up being a fish bred to be smaller in size (PART 1 of our discussion; PART 2). Dr. Melendy, like yourself, are making semantic errors. For the purposes of the above and below discussion, “evolution” is defined as the “General Theory of Evolution” (GTE): “the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.”

Maybe this mock conversation will help:

Creationist: Before we get started, we’ve got to clear up some terms. Words can be used a lot of different ways.
Evolutionist: That’s what we have dictionaries for.
Creationist: This is a little trickier than that. like, how would you define the word “adult?”
Evolutionist: Mature. Responsible. Grown up. Why?
Creationist: So, when you (as a mature, responsible grown-up) want something to read, do you shop at an adult bookstore?… I don’t think so. We have the same problem here. “Evolution” and “creationism” are both wagon words. “
Evolutionist: Wagon words?
Creationist: Yeah, you know, loaded with other stuff that comes along when you pull the handle [of a wagon].
Evolutionist: How do you mean?
Creationist: Well, take “evolution.” Some people talk as though all it means is “change over time.” If that were all it meant, I’d buy it.
Evolutionist: You mean I win already?
Creationist: No, of course not. All I’m saying is that nobody in their right mind questions that some animals have changed some through the course of their existence on earth. What I find, though, is that when I grab the [wagon] handle, all sorts of other things come along with it. Things like a belief that an unguided, purposeless process can cause the accumulation of minor changes and cascade them into major complex innovations.
Evolutionist: What about “creationism?”
Creationist: Well, I prefer to be called a design theorist. My major point is that some things in the natural world are so complex that it seems more likely that they were designed rather than arose by chance. Unfortunately, when I pull this handle… you find that you’re also stuck with defending a geologically young earth… and the idea that everything we see on earth was created in six calendar days.
Evolutionist: So you’re saying that the terms are too broad?
Creationist: Yeah. I’ve seen people use “evolution” to refer to something as simple as minor changes in bird beaks. I’ve also seen people use the term to mean the sponatanious appearance of life… its unguided creation of major innovations (like the birds themselves)… and its purposeless progression into incredible complexity (like the human brain).
Evolutionist: And I’ve seen people use the term “creationism” for everything from a strict literal reading of Genesis… all the way to the idea that God started the ball rolling and then let nature take its course. Yeah, I guess you’re right – the terms are too broad.
Creationist: May I suggest that we use these terms so that we don’t end up pulling more than we want?

  1. Creation or Creation-science: The belief that the earth is no more than 10,0000 years old, and that all biological life forms were created in six calendar days and have remained relatively stable throughout their existence.
  2. Intelligent Design or Design Theory: The belief that the earth and biological life owe their existence to a purposeful, intelligent creation.
  3. Darwinism: The belief that undirected mechanistic processes (primarily random mutation and natural selection) can account for all the diverse and complex living organisms that exist. Insists that there is no long range plan or purpose in the history of life (i.e., that changes happen without intent).
  4. Micro-evolution: Refers to minor variations that occur in populations over time. Examples include variation in moth population and finch beaks, and the emergence of different breeds of dogs.
  5. Macro-evolution: Refers to the emergence of major innovations or the unguided development of new structures (like wings), new organs (like lungs), and body plans (like the origin of insects and birds). Includes changes above the species level, especially new phyla or classes. [species and classes are a hot – debatable – topic.]
  6. Common Descent: The theory that all currently living organisms are descended from a common [or a few common] ancestor[s].

And, as already note:

General Theory of Evolution (GTE): “the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.”([icon name=”bookmark-o” class=””] See Below)

Even with Theodosius Dobzhansky increasing mutation rates in fruit flies by 15,000-percent. All he got were inferior fruit flies. Ernst Mayr described one such experiment which set out to increase the number of bristles in one group, but with both groups starting from the same stock with an average of 36 bristles. By selecting for lower-than-normal number of bristles over thirty generations, the experimenters were able to reduce the average carried by the offspring to 25 bristles. After thirty generations, however, the line became sterile and died out. The second group was selected for higher than average number of bristles and over twenty generations the average rose from 36 to 56. Again, however, sterility became so common that the experiment was wound up.

▼ “Obviously,” says Mayr, “any drastic improvement under selection must seriously deplete the store of genetic variability.”. “The most frequent correlated response of one-sided selection is a drop in general fitness. This plagues virtually every breeding experiment.”

This limit to the amount of genetic variability in species, Mayr termed “genetic homeostasis.” So stop the semantics. I am talking about the BIG theory… the “life coming from cooling rocks” scenario.

(To skip this aside, press here)


Extended Aside…


Here is the definition I used for the GTC above. I will dig out Kerkut’s book when I have the time to put into context HIS definition [here is Kerkut’s quote if you wish]:

...Evolution Discussed...

[icon name=”bookmark-o” class=””] A. Kerkut emphasizes that all seven basic assumptions on which evolu­tionary theory rests are “by their nature… not capable of experimental verification” (Implications of Evolution, p. 7). [1] The assumption that “non­living things gave rise to living material… is still just an assumption” (ibid., p. 150). [2] The assumption that “biogenesis occurred only once… is a matter of belief rather than proof” (op. cit.). [3] The assumption that “Vi­ruses, Bacteria, Protozoa and the higher animals were all interrelated” biologically as an evolutionary phenomenon lacks definite evidence (ibid., p. 151). [4] The assumption that “the Protozoa gave rise to the Metazoa” has no basis in definite knowledge (ibid., pp. 151 ff.). [5] The assumption that “the various invertebrate phyla are interrelated” depends on “tenuous and cir­cumstantial” evidence and not on evidence that allows “a verdict of definite relationships” (ibid., pp. 152 f.). [6] The assumption that “the invertebrates gave rise to the vertebrates” turns on evidence gained by prior belief (ibid., p. 153). Although he finds “somewhat stronger ground” for assuming that “fish, amphibia, reptiles, birds and mammals are interrelated,” [7] Kerkut con­cedes that many key fossil transitions are “not well documented and we have as yet to obtain a satisfactory objective method of dating the fossils” (ibid., p. 153). “In effect, much of the evolution of the major groups of animals has to be taken on trust” (ibid., p. 154); “there are many discrete groups of animals and… we do not know how they have evolved nor how they are interrelated” (ibid., p. vii). In short, the theory that “all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form,” says Kerkut, has insufficiently strong evi­dential supports “to consider it as anything more than a working hypothe­sis” (ibid., p. 157). He thinks “premature and not satisfactorily supported by present-day evidence,” therefore, “the attempt to explain all living forms in terms of an evolution from a unique source,” that is, from a common ancestor (ibid., pp. vii f.)

It is therefore understandable why commentators speak more and more of a crisis of evolutionary theory. Establishment science’s long regnant view that gradual development accounts for the solar system, earth, life and all else is in serious dispute. Not in many decades has so much doubt emerged among scientists about the so-called irrefutable evidence that evolution is what accounts for life on planet earth. Although it was still taught long thereafter in high schools, Ernst Haeckel’s “biogenetic law” that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” had collapsed already in the late 1920s. The absence in recent texts of evolutionary charts depicting the common descent even of trees from a single form is noteworthy. Darwin’s insistence that nature makes no leaps, and that natural selection and chance adequately account for change in species, has lost credibility. Pa­leontologists and biologists are at odds over the significance of the fossil record, while gradualists and episodists disagree over the supposed tempo of evolution or whether the origin of species is consistent with microevolution or only with sudden gaps in the forms of life.

Gould, for example, opts for natural selection and, remarkably, combines it with saltation. He grants that “the fossil record does not support” the belief “in slow evolutionary change preached by most paleontologists” (and projected by Darwin); instead, “mass extinction and abrupt origination reign.. . . Gradualism is not exclusively valid (in fact, I regard it as rather rare). Natural selection contains no statement about rates. It can encompass rapid (geologically instantaneous) change by speciation in small popula­tions as well as the conventional and immeasurably slow transformation of entire lineages” (Ever Since Darwin, p. 271). Natural selection here becomes an elastic phrase that can accommodate to everything while re­quiring no significant empirical attestation.

University of Glasgow scientists Chris Darnbrough, John Goddard and William S. Stevely indicate problem areas that beset evolutionary theory: “The experiments demonstrating the formation of a variety of organic molecules from presumptive prebiotic soups,” they write, “fall far short of providing a pathway for chemical evolution. Again, it is self-evident that the fossil record leaves much to be desired and few biologists recognize the dependence of the geological column on radiometric dating methods based on questionable assumptions about initial conditions. The whole his­tory of evolutionary thought is littered with the debris of dubious assump­tions and misinterpretations, especially in the area of fossil ‘hominids.’ To come up to date, protein and DNA sequence data, generally viewed as consistent with an evolutionary explanation of diversity, are invariably interpreted using methods which presuppose, but do not demonstrate evolu­tionary relationships, and which use criteria that are essentially functional and teleological. Finally, there is a collection of isolated fragmentary pieces of evidence which are usually dismissed as anecdotal because they are irreconcilable with the evolutionary model” (“American Creation” [corre­spondence], by Chris Darnbrough, John Goddard and William S. Stevely, Nature, pp. 95 f.).

From ongoing conflicts and readjustments it is apparent that there never was nor is there now only one theory of evolution. Many nontheistic schol­ars, to be sure, insist that evolution is and has always been “a fact.” Laurie R. Godfrey affirms that “there is actually widespread agreement in scien­tific circles that the evidence overwhelmingly supports evolutionism” and quotes Gould as saying that “none of the current controversy within evolu­tionary theory should give any comfort, not the slightest iota, to any cre­ationists” (“The Flood of Antievolution,” pp. 5-10, p. 10). If, as Godfrey insists, even the most sweeping revisions and reversals of scientific theory ought to be viewed not as weaknesses in evolutionary claims but rather as reflections of ongoing differences that inhere in “doing science—posing, testing and debating alternative explanations,” then the emphasis is proper only if Godfrey refuses to attach finality and a universal validity-claim to anticreationist evolutionary theses.

The history of evolutionary theory is far from complete and its present status ambiguous. Hampton L. Carson notes the difficulty of integrating the dual lines of study pursued by biological evolutionists when on the one hand they project the course of evolution that is held to produce contem­porary organisms, and when on the other they analyze supposed evolution­ary causation. Carson notes, moreover, that presentation of new approaches even to student audiences now requires an understanding of sophisticated computer techniques and an awareness of complex and sometimes esoteric theory; he ventures the bold observation that “new mutations and recom­binations” of evolutionary theory will themselves “be subject to natural selection” (“Introduction to a Pivotal Subject” [review of Evolution by Theodosius Dobzhansky and others, and of Organismic Evolution by Verne Grant], pp. 1272 f.).

Yet most secular evolutionists continue to assume that evolution is a complex fact and therefore debate only its mechanism. Appealing to con­sensus rather than to demonstrative data, G. G. Simpson states that “no evolutionist since [Darwin has] seriously questioned that man did originate by evolution”; he insists, moreover, that “the problem [the origin of life] can be attacked scientifically” (“The World into Which Darwin Led Us.” pp. 966-974). Simpson’s advance confidence in naturalistic explanation ex­udes a strong bias against theistic premises.

But Thomas S. Kuhn considers the physical sciences to be grounded less on empirical facts that on academically defined assumptions about the nature of the universe, assumptions that are unprovable, questionable and reversible (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). His approach differs somewhat from Michael Polanyi’s assault on the objectivity of human knowledge (Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy), a view that Christian theism disputes on its own ground. Yet both Kuhn’s emphasis and Polanyi’s tend to put a question mark after absolutist evolu­tionary claims.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Vol VI: God Who Stands and Stays (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1983), 182-184.

[back to text]

A couple other definitions to support my use:

This descent with modification might involve only a slight change in the proportion of different alleles (that is, different forms of a gene), or it might involve substantial changes in the genome that eventually cause the divergences that form the phylogenetic tree of life.

Robert T. Pennock, Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationists (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 98. (emphasis added)

Evolution by natural selection and the various other mechanisms mentioned above may lead, over time, to slight changes or very large changes in the descendants of the original organisms. Biologists sometimes divide evolution into two processes: micro-evolution, or change in gene frequency within a population, which may lead to the formation of new species; and macroevolution, which involves evolutionary change above the species level

Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: A Basic Guide to the Facts in the Evolutionary Debate (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 11-12. (emphasis added)

I just wish to note that American Heritage Science Dictionary defines macroevolution as evolution that results in the formation of a new taxonomic group above the level of a species. Philip Kitcher notes evolutionary bilogist’s, Stephen J. Gould, rejection of micromutational changes stacking up to equal a macro-change. (Side-note: knowing Dr. Gould’s worldview (Marxism), one can attribute a Hegelian dialectic involved in his metaphysical view of origins. Thus, this is another hint at how assumptions interpret the evidence.):

Some biologists, notably Gould, think that the further arguments can be given and that gradualists are wrong about both the tempo and the mode of evolution. Gould denies that the well-understood cases of allelic replacement in fruit flies or peppered moths provide a basis for extrapolation. He maintains that large-scale morphological shifts [macromutation/macroevolution] need not result from a succession of genetic changes, each producing a small phenotypic effect.

Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982), 148.

To better define Dr. Gould’s and other views on this gradual versus large leaps in evolution that lead to new taxonomic groups, here is the Oxford Dictionary of Biology’s definition of punctuated equilibrium:

A theory proposing that plant and animal species usually arise very quickly in terms of geological time (in less than 100 000 years) and seldom through a process of gradual change. It thus questions the traditional Darwinian theory of evolution, citing as evidence the discontinuities observed in the fossil records of certain animal groups (e.g. the ammonites).


Biotic-Message 300

For extended quotes, click books.

GA Kerkut 300

This is an issue, macro versus micro, species versus genus or order, and the like… are mixed up by some of the smartest people. For instance, Michael Shermer in his Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, he notes as an example of macroevolutoin an inter-species adaptation that was already innate in the E. Coli baterium already (pp. 75-76). In fact, the founding scientist of this program at the University of Michigan grew so frustrated with the idea that he was getting nowhere, he turned to a computer simulation to get his desired data:

According to biology professor Dr Scott Minnich, the evolutionist researcher Dr Richard Lenski bred bacteria for more than 20,000 generations with all sorts of selective environments in the hope of getting a spontaneous increase in complexity—i.e. real evolution in the lab. He showed that they adapted to their environment, but the experiment failed to demonstrate the emergence of true novelty or spontaneous complexity. The bacteria were not only still bacteria, they were the same types of bacteria. So, says Minnich, he decided to work on digital organisms instead—computer simulations, which gave him the result he wanted in 15,000 generations. The lesson is clear: the real world of biology is very different from the carefully set up and manipulated world of electronic on-screen simulations. (Blast from the Past)

Similarly, in my discussion with Dr. Melendy, he as well mixes up this distinction. Early in the discussion Dr. Melendy says macroevolution is observable in the laboratory. I ask multiple times to give me an example: @TomMelendy, I missed the observation MACRO evolutionary proof. Please explain what this observation has been. Is there a peer reviewed article you can refer me to.” Here is the portion that triggered my interest in this strain (I will emphasize what caught my eye):

Tom Melendy Gravity is called a law and can be and has been observed. Macro-Evolution has never been observed…

Dr. Melendy responds, and I will emphasize the point that concerned me:

Jim, Macro evolution has been observed in the laboratory under controlled conditions – within just a few generations you can “breed” fish to be miniature fish, which reproduce and “grow” up while never getting bigger than the size they were bred for. And Jim, I NEVER said that belief in evolution in inconsistent with a belief in God. I am merely saying that the case for evolution is overwhelming and cannot be denied by any rational person who bothers to examine the evidence. Belief in God is based on faith, not evidence; and it would be entirely appropriate to believe that evolution, like the other laws of the universe, are merely the hands of God shaping the world we live in. As for referring to evolution as “intelligent design”, I would have to agree – there can be no more intelligent a design program than the evolution that created the amazing diversity of life on this planet including mankind himself.

After pressing the point, I prodded him some more…

@Dr.Melendy, you said:

1) Macro evolution has been observed in the laboratory under controlled conditions – within just a few generations you can “breed” fish to be miniature fish, which reproduce and “grow” up while never getting bigger than the size they were bred for.

Second Statement:

2) I pointed out how a macroevolutionary experiment cannot be done in the laboratory because of the time frame required for cytogenetic changes to occur.

Miniaturizing a fish is not macro-evolution!? You have a Ph.D. alright — in obfuscating terms.

American Heritage Science Dictionary: “Evolution that results in the formation of a new taxonomic group above the level of a species.”
★ From an old 1962 textbook (Holt, Rinehart, Winston, [1962]… probably when you were going through school?) Evolution and Genetics: “The Modern Theory of Evolution:Quantum evolution, also known as mega- and macroevolution, is the term applied to the rapid shift of a population to a new equilibrium distinctly unlike the ancestral condition, thus leading to the origin of higher taxonomic categories such as new orders and classes.”
What Is Evolution, Ernst Mayr: “Evolution above the species level; the evolution of higher taxa and the production of evolutionary novelties, such as new structures.”

Species is the key… you seem to be conflating it a bit.

So are you positing that this “smaller fish,” which in one breath you say is evidence of “Quantum evolution” a new taxonomy? Or is it [Quantum evolution] not able to be done in the laboratory because of the time frame required for cytogenetic changes to occur is not long enough in human terms?

So, Macroevolution is not observable, correct?

re-read!!! – I never said “macro” evolution could be observed. I was referring to the microevolutionary changes…

I didn’t take kind to this obfuscation of the conversation. I continued:

Let us get into the nitty-gritty later, I want to define terms first.

SPECIES and MACROEVOLUTION:

Species is not well defined. Example: Canis Domesticus (say, a, German Shepherd) and Canis Lupus (wolf) are classified as two separate species. But they can interbreed (i.e. a Wolf and a German Shepherd). But a Chihuahua and a Great Dane cannot breed, but they are both Canis Domesticus (the same species). The arctic hair cannot breed with the Florida hair, but both breed with the Dakota hair. Evolutionists recognize certain bowerbirds as distinct species even though they often interbreed.

Or consider the case of two different kinds of squirrels separated by the Grand Canyon. The Kaibab squirrel inhabits the north side of the canyon, while the Abert squirrel inhabits the south side. It seems evident the two descended from one original population. Rarely, however, can squirrels from both populations come together, and thus there is no interbreeding between them. And, for some time biologists have disagreed as to whether the squirrels had reached the level of two separate species.

Look, you could go to Galapagos Islands and get a pair of finches and bring them back to a laboratory and just let them have sex. After a few generations you will have small beaked, medium beaked, large beaked finches. The information is already in there genome, nothing new was created, specificity was lost if anything. Now if you simulate a drought, like on Galapagos, so that the seeds become hard and more beak strength is needed to open them, then of course the larger beaked finch will survive. A creationist came up with the survival of the fittest twenty-four years prior to Darwin. After all the other “parent” finches die off, you are left with only large beaked finches in the laboratory. This is not evolution; no new information was gained in the process. There are limits to its change, strep-throat may change into a flesh eating virus, but it loss specificity to get to that point or already had the information in its genome. It’s still strep-throat.

That finch didn’t turn into a dinosaur; that dog didn’t turn into a cat; that ape didn’t turn into a man, etc.. The genetic barriers wont and don’t allow it. You can post all the sites in the world, but you will never be able to find one proof of macroevolution in the fossil record or in the living world. All we have ever seen is what evolutionists’ call “subspeciation” (variation within a type), never “transpeciation” (change from one type to others). The primrose is a prime example of my point. The alleged new species of primrose that de Vries thought he had “discovered” were not new species at all but rather mere variations of the same species.

This “sport” (a certain primrose that de Vries created), with it’s doubled chromosome [no new information was added, it merely doubled the information that was already there], is still a primrose. Stickleback fish may diversify into fresh-water dwellers and salt–water dwellers, but both remain sticklebacks. One fruit fly may breed on apple trees and another on hawthorn trees, but both remain fruit flies. Speciation is a means of creating diversity within types of living things, but macroevolution is much more than diversity.

Macroevolution requires an increase of the gene pool, the addition of new genetic information, whereas the means to speciation discussed above represent the loss of genetic information (how so?). Both physical and ecological isolation produce varieties by cutting a small population off from its parent population and building a new group from the more limited genetic information contained in the small population. A large population carries genetic reserve, a wealth of concealed recessive genes. In a small group cut off from the parent population, some of these recessive traits may be expressed more often. This makes for interesting diversity, but it should not blind us to the fact that the total genetic variability in the small group is reduced!.

The appearance of reproductively isolated populations represents microevolution, not macro-evolution. Vertical change – to a new level of complexity – requires the input of additional genetic information. Can that information – the ensembles of new genes to make wrens, rabbits, and Hawthorne trees be gleaned from random mutations?

Thus far, there appears to be good evidence that the roles mutations are able to play are severely restricted by and within the existing higher-level blueprint of the organism’s whole genome.

To go from one-celled organisms to a human being means that information must be added to the genetic messages at each step of the way. Mechanisms for the loss of genetic information cannot be used as support for a theory requiring vast increases of genetic information.

Speciation is actually akin to what breeders do. They isolate a small group of plants or animals and force them to interbreed, cutting them off from the larger gene pool to which they belong. A century of breeding testifies to the fact that this produces limited change only. It does produce the open-ended change required by Darwinian evolution. Some think, as do I, that the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred because they didn’t have the genetic diversity to adapt to environmental changes.

Percival Davis & Dean H. Kenyon, with Charles B. Thaxton as Academic Editor, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, 2nd Edition (Dallas, TX: Haughton Publishing Co., 1993), 19-20.

After disagreeing with my point, he mentioned that, “Macroevolution does NOT require an “increase in the gene pool” – the gene pool of the horse and donkey are virtually identical, yet they are separate species (yet closely related enough to produce sterile offspring). The reason they are different species is due to the cytogenetic changes (note that does NOT involve additional genetic material or a greater gene pool).”

To which I again respond: 

You are telling me that a donkey and a horse are a donkey ARE proof of macroevolution? You are telling me as well that Cats (Felidae) are a diverse group of carnivores that includes domestic cats, lions, tigers, ocelots, jaguars, caracals, leopards, mountain lions, lynx and many other groups of cats are not the same kind?

Let me restate that, wolves and a few other dog kind (Canidae) have all the genetic information in them that breeders are then able to change through intelligent input. So a Chihuahuas is still a Canidae, but with much less specified complexity — the bottom of the gene pool so-to-speak. [Left to its own devices with no help from man, the wolf, coyote, etc would survive, but the Chihuahuas would probably die out.]

You seem to be conflating “species” with other classification titles (http://tinyurl.com/3npkel8) [*SEE YOUR OWN STATEMENT BELOW* ~ not capitalized to yell, merely to emphasize]. I want you to be clear and concise so a high school student from L.A. Unified can understand you: “are you saying small changes in specie level adaptation (centimeter beak change in birds, or Brussels sprouts to hit a bit closer to home to your point [http://creation.com/eat-your-brussels-sprouts]) are more than that, they are evidence of macroevolution?

…. I still think this statement by you @Tom Melendy is a bit of an overreach:

Jim, Macro evolution has been observed in the laboratory under controlled conditions – within just a few generations you can “breed” fish to be miniature fish, which reproduce and “grow” up while never getting bigger than the size they were bred for.

Please give me the name of the fish you referenced… and through observed “quantum evolution, also known as mega- and macroevolutionary” what other Order this fish became under observation. You see Tom, we are still at one of your opening statements, which you have not clearly, eruditely, and concisely explained. So you lied to Jim? Or you were mistaken in your wording? What.

Dr. Melendy walks back his previous statements a bit, as well as FINALLY giving the fish’s name in the discussion leading up to this point (I will note by emphasis some items that caught my eye. The most egregious being the admitted “bait-and-switch” of definitions regarding “macroevolution”):

My apologies for the lack of clarity on my part. When this thread first started we were talking about common evolution in the lab. This is commonly seen with microorganisms. Someone asked what about non-microorganisms. I responded that you could see macro evolution in the lab in fish (macro just to differentiate from micro-organisms). Once you began defining your terms as micro and macro evolution as being the small changes due to variation and selection, versus the larger changes that produce different species that of course made my previous point unclear – I was referring to micro-evolution (variation and selection) being studied in a macroorganism (fish). It wasn’t an over-reach, it was a miscommunication due to us not having established an accepted nomenclature prior to that statement. Often different branches of science will utilize the same term to mean different things in different fields. As to your question of which fish – Atlantic silversides. Here’s the website showing you the surprising result that within just a handful of generations the fish size could be decreased dramatically. (Berkeley, Evolution in the Lab)

I will jump to my response to the Baccacio rockfish example, via a creationist site:

…For some years now, many fisheries management authorities around the world have instituted legal minimum size requirements for various fish species. Thus anglers must return ‘undersized’ fish to the water unharmed. Similarly, commercial fishermen use large-meshed nets to spare the smaller fish—with the aim of ensuring the long-term viability of the fishery.

However, the fish that are genetically predisposed to mature at larger sizes are the ones most likely to be caught before they can reproduce. Thus there has been a strong selection pressure favouring scrawny fish that never reach the minimum legal size. Hence the genes for late-maturing larger-sized fish have been progressively lost from many fish populations, leaving early-maturing smaller-sized ones to dominate the gene pool. (So, ironically, by catching only the biggest fish and letting the others go, humans have unintentionally selected against that which they desire most!)

Note that this is not evolution because the selection pressure—which is essentially an artificially-imposed version of ‘natural selection’—simply favours certain genes over others; it cannot generate any new genetic information. Neither such ‘artificial’ nor ‘natural’ selection can turn plaice into people; it can only operate on (i.e. cull out) genetic information that already exists.

Fisheries scientists David Conover and Stephan Munch, of the State University of New York, observed that size-specific culling of Atlantic silversides rapidly changes the genetic makeup of the population.7 After just four generations, fish populations from which the largest 90% of silversides were removed before breeding averaged just half the size of fish in populations from which the smallest 90% had been culled. In other words, removing big fish soon results in a population of little fish (and vice versa).

This is not evolution, as the genes for big or little fish were already present in the population beforehand. Note that the limits to how big or little the fish can be in the final population are determined by the amount of pre-existing genetic variety. Conover and Munch wrote: ‘Management tools that preserve natural genetic variation [i.e. pre-existing variety] are necessary for long-term sustainable yield.’ In other words, we need to leave at least some of the big fish in the water, so that their desirable genes (from a human perspective) remain in the fish population.

Despite this anti-evolutionary insight, their research paper refers to fish demonstrating ‘evolutionary effects’ and having ‘evolved rapidly’. That last claim took many of their fellow evolutionists by surprise. David Conover reported: ‘Even some fisheries’ scientists have been unwilling to accept that evolution is happening within a few fish generations.’…

http://creation.com/smaller-fish-to-fry

I make this point in my earliest debate with a neo-Darwinist, in which I end with Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the twentieth centuries leading Darwinists, acknowledged this:

“And yet, a majority of mutations, both those arising in laboratories and those stored in natural populations, produce deteriorations of viability, hereditary diseases, and monstrosities. Such changes, it would seem, can hardly serve as evolutionary building blocks.”

Mr. Hitchings: “On the face of it, then, the prime function of the genetic system would seem to be to resist change: to perpetuate the species in a minimally adapted form of response to altered conditions, and if at all possible to get things back to normal. The role of natural selection is usually a negative one; to destroy the few mutant individuals that threaten the stability of the species.”

Goldschmidt said: “It is true that nobody thus far has produced a new species or genus, etc., by macromutation. It is equally true that nobody has ever produced even a species by selection of micromutaions.”

Goldschmidt would have known – he bread gypsy moths for twenty years and a million generations in various environments. All he ever got was more gypsy moths. Anyone who thinks that an accumulation of mutations (information-losing processes) can lead to Macroevolution (a massive net gain of information) “is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume.” (Spetner)

(From one of my first debates on this subject.)

So the example of the fish is something that if defined properly doesn’t support the grand changes that Darwinism implies. Nor, if properly defined, no creationist finds anything wrong with it… other than someone takes this loss of information and applies it to the past spuriously [stepping out of science and using a meta-narrative to state something that is unobservable] to say, “see, I am related to a banana in the tree of life.”

THAT, is, well… bananas!

What you have here is similar to what Leftist do in politics, what anthropogenic global warming advocates do, as well as evolutionists. That is, co-opt language and offer an alternative definition to obfuscate the issue. Just fair warning to my fellow apologists. See my post Evolutionary Illusions for an in-depth look at how terminology is being misused.

…continuing with my aside.

@TomMelendy I still think you were passing false information on in this regard to Jim:

Jim, Macro evolution has been observed in the laboratory under controlled conditions – within just a few generations you can “breed” fish to be miniature fish, which reproduce and “grow” up while never getting bigger than the size they were bred for.

As well as continuing to do so with me:

Macroevolution does NOT require an “increase in the gene pool” – the gene pool of the horse and donkey are virtually identical, yet they are separate species (yet closely related enough to produce sterile offspring). The reason they are different species is due to the cytogenetic changes (note that does NOT involve additional genetic material or a greater gene pool). 

You should know what the other side believes before asking a question, its 101, you asked: “If God created all the SPECIES currently on the Earth either 6000 years ago, or through intelligent design, why is there so much evidence that supports Evolution?” He didn’t, God created the “Kinds,” which is more like Order (Felidae, Canidae, etc). You have a doctorate, right? Do you get it yet? Order… species… different.

In every Oxford dictionary and companion book to biology, physics, and the like, textbooks (I have many university level texts)… macroevolution has the same definition. I think you telling people on this site that special change is evidence of macro-evolution is deplorable. But maybe you thought no one would catch this because you were degreed. You did back away from this though… in many more words though than just saying “I was wrong.” I even had to throw in an elementary picture to make the point.

[I will now quote a creationists understanding of this that is more in line with the standard definitions]:

It is very important not to confuse the “created kind” with the modern use of the word species. Although animals like the fox and coyote might be considered different taxonomic species, they are still parts of the same “kind” of animal. The created kind is thought to be more often synonymous with the “Family” level of classification in the taxonomic hierarchy; at least in mammals; and occasionally it can extend as high as the order level. Here are some examples:

Felidae — Scientists from Creation Ministries International and the Institute for Creation Research have proposed that the original feline kind was comparable to the Liger and the Tigon.
Canidae — Including Wolves, Foxes, Jackals, Coyotes, and Domestic dogs.

Camelidae — Including both the Camel and the Llama, which are reproductively compatible, their hybrid offspring being known as “Camas.”
Bovidae — Including Cattle, Buffalo, Bison, and Yaks.
Equidae — Including Horses, Zebras, and Asses.
Caprinae — Including Sheep, Goats, and Ibex.
Crocodilia — Including all the varieties of Alligators, Crocodiles, and Gharials.
Elephantidae — Including African and Asian elephants, Mammoths, Mastodons, and Gomphotheres.

Thus the created kind corresponds roughly to the family level of taxonomic classification, and possibly even the order, with the notable exception of humanity wherein the genus is representative. Humanity — Dr. Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer of the University of Munich concluded that H. erectus/H. ergaster, Neanderthals and H. sapiens were members of the same basic type (which corresponds to a monobaramin) genus Homo.

 (Via Creation Wiki; see also, “Refuting Evolution 2,” by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati — free online.)


…Aside Over


Simple enough. Continuing now with Prototype.

@PapaGiorgio I’m not making semantical arguments, that’s what creationists do to falsely equivocate evolution as a “religion” which requires “faith” to believe.

I’m a molecular biologist. I can tell you that evolution is a fact. It is undeniable if you actually understand it and have studied the evidence. I can also tell you that the god of the Bible is irreconcilable with the historical and scientific evidence, and this is coming from a Christian of 30 years who is still married to a Christian. I have no reason to lie about this. I have no reason to be an atheist other than the fact that I can’t lie to myself. You, on the other hand, have been indoctrinated with all of this propaganda and will parrot back all of the fallacious arguments as you completely ignore the evidence and arguments against your position.

Yes, “macroevolution” is allele change over a longer period of time (along with other ways that genetic information can be added, removed, altered, etc.). Are you a biologist? Have you studied this subject at all from an objective standpoint, or do you just have a cursory understanding based upon what creationists have told you? Be honest with yourself.

I try to narrow the conversation:

@PrototypeAtheist Please, give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome.

@PapaGiorgio What do you mean “increase the information”? Mutations do “increase the information” because they are different configurations which can be passed on to future generations. Changes can occur to genetic sequences in a variety of ways…but I bet you’re going to try to argue that mutations are only deletions?

@PrototypeAtheist Since you did not choose one, and I asked for a specific example, I will give a few examples to try and get this [you] biologist to dive in and defend a position instead of being “vague” as you have so far. Rats have developed resistance to the poison warfain. Many hundreds of insect species and other agricultural pests have evolved resistance to the pesticides used to combat them – even to chemical defenses genetically engineered into plants. The continual evolution of human pathogens has come to pose one of the most serious health problems facing human societies. Many strains of bacteria have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics as natural selection has amplified resistant strains that arose through naturally occurring genetic variation. On-and-on.

What about this example of bacteria resisting antibiotics? Actually, some bacteria possess a natural genetic capacity to resist certain antibiotics; mutations are not involved in these (*postscript in fallowing comment after this one). Mutations cause a structural defect in ribosomes – the cellular constituents that antibiotics like streptomycin attach to. Since the antibiotic doesn’t connect with the misshapen ribosome, the bacterium is resistant.

SPETNER: “We see then that the mutation reduces the specificity of the ribosome protein, and that means losing genetic information… Rather than say the bacterium gained resistance to the antibiotic, we would be more correct to say it lost its sensitivity to it. It lost information. The …[‘General Theory of Evolution’ (GTE)]… is suppose to explain how the information of life has been built up by evolution… Information cannot be built up by mutations that lose it. A business can’t make money by losing it a little at a time.”

In other cases, some mutant bacteria, because they have defective membranes, don’t absorb nutrients well. Fortuitously for them, that inefficiency also prevents their absorbing antibiotics. And so, in this instance also, they survive better than their normal cousins. But the mutation did not make them stronger or create new information, or “evolve” to a higher state. Likewise, if the world’s light suddenly disappeared, blind people might have an advantage over others, since they were already accustomed to operating in darkness. Nevertheless, we cannot then interpret blindness as positive, or representing new information or evolutionary advance.

C.P. MARTIN, writing in American Scientist, made a similar point when he compared x-rays’ effects on the body to being kicked and beaten:

▼ “It is quite possible that violent knocking about might dislocate a man’s shoulder, and that continued knocking about might actually reduce the previous dislocation… no sane person would cite such a case as this to prove that the results of knocking a man about are not injuries; nor would anyone refer to the result as evidence that knocking a man about can produce an improvement over the normal man. For a truly progressive or evolutionary-apt mutation must result in an improvement over the normal condition. The truth is that there is no clear evidence of the existence of such helpful mutations. In natural populations endless millions of small and great genic differences exist, but there is no evidence that any arose by mutation.”

Remember, if we are talking about “micro-evolution,” you should supply examples that can lead to MACRO changes. Even in “gene duplication” (pictured here: http://tinyurl.com/n9m4fwd) in every instance is a decrease in specificity: Down’s syndrome for example. Again, there is a copy of the same info… but nothing new. And this same info causes ALWAYS a detrimental (arm dislocating) event — a… loss of specificity (or a fit version/copy of itself) for survivability.

Another way to look at this is to say [assume] anthropogenic global warming predictions are true. Coupled with that a disease (or mankind) kills all the wild canines in the world. So all the exists are Chihuahuas. (I know, a stretch, but I have a point). You would never to selectively breed back to a wolf (Arctic, Red, Ethiopian, or the like). The genic information of the parent population is lost. AND, the “fitness” of this loss (specificity) is lost as well. So, if a new ice-age came upon us after the above fictitious event, and mankind did not shelter these “rodent dogs,” all canid population could feasibly disappear.

So, have I knocked your head enough for you to proffer an example and defend it?

[The promised postscript will follow]

This intro was geared at Prototype Atheist: This postscript comes from a previous debate I had — and you can see a bit of it in the above). I have written over 6,000 responses to items of politics, religion, science, history, philosophy, economics, and the like for a time-period expanding about 20-years. My home library includes many texts that are pro as well as con to all my views [well over 5,000 books and 600DVD documentary style subjects similar to the above list of topics… but much more formal debates at universities are in this DVD collection]. For my bio, you are welcome to see it here.

▼ It has been proven that resistance to many modern antibiotics was present decades before their [the antibiotics] discovery. In 1845, sailors on an ill-fated Arctic expedition were buried in the permafrost and remained deeply frozen until their bodies were exhumed in 1986. Preservation was so complete that six strains of nineteenth-century bacteria found dormant in the contents of the sailors’ intestines were able to be revived! When tested, these bacteria were found to possess resistance to several modern-day antibiotics, including penicillin. Such traits were obviously present prior to penicillin’s discovery, and thus could not be an evolutionary development. (Medical Tribune, December 29, 1988, p. 1, 23.)

In 1998, the National Academy of Sciences published and distributed a book to public schools and other institutions entitled Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D., F.M., wrote a book, Refuting Evolution, which is a topic by topic rebuttal to this Academy of Sciences publication. Under the evidence for evolution in the evolutionist text is the following quote:

▼ Similar episodes of rapid evolution are occurring in many different organisms. Rats have developed resistance to the poison warfain. Many hundreds of insect species and other agricultural pests have evolved resistance to the pesticides used to combat them – even to chemical defenses genetically engineered into plants.

(Sarfati’s reply – any words in the [boxes] are mine):

▼ However, what has this to do with the evolution of new kinds with new genetic information? Precisely nothing. What has happened in many cases is that some bacteria already had the genes for resistance to the antibiotics. In fact, some bacteria obtained by thawing sources which had been frozen before man developed antibiotics have shown to be antibiotic-resistant [6 different antibiotics in fact, penicillin in modern doses – which is way beyond the strength of natural penicillin found in nature]. When antibiotics are applied to a population of bacteria, those lacking resistance are killed, and any genetic information they carry is eliminated. The survivors carry less information [or specificity], but they are all resistant. The same principle applies to rats and insects “evolving” resistance to pesticides. Again, the resistance was already there, and creatures without resistance are eliminated.

[Much like if we killed all dogs (including Canis Domesticus and Canis Lupus) except for Chihuahuas, we would permanently lose the information of the parent population. You could then breed Chihuahuas for a millennium and not get an Irish Wolfhound]

▼ …In other cases, antibiotic resistance is the result of a mutation, but in all known cases, this mutation has destroyed information. It may seem surprising that destruction of information can sometimes help. But one example is resistance to the antibiotic penicillin. Bacteria normally produce an enzyme, penicillinase, which destroys penicillin. The amount of penicillinase is controlled by a gene. There is normally enough produced to handle any penicillin encountered in the wild, but the bacterium is overwhelmed by the amount given to patients. A mutation disabling this controlling gene results in much more penicillinase being produced.

[Thus, the bacteria found frozen in 1845 already had the mutation to overcome modern medical doses of penicillin. So the mutation wasn’t the result of the penicillin in modern doses, thus seemingly becoming resistant… it already had the resistant mutation – informational or specificity losing – in the population. In other words, no new information was added to the parent population!]

I wish to note he doesn’t respond with a) evidence, and b) with appeals to authority, as well as a response that has c) nothing to do with modern science… which is the drive of the conversation.

@PapaGiorgio You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. You’re parroting back creationist arguments that you’re heard from some charlatan somewhere, probably a Ken Ham or Ray Comfort-type, if not those guys themselves, which is obvious by your reference to “observational” and “historical” science.

Do you really think that you know more about biology than a molecular biologist and the overwhelming consensus of biologists? Because a demonstrably false, unreliable, and contradictory tome of Bronze Age Middle Eastern mythology says otherwise?

You went to school to learn about an ancient superstition. I earned a degree which allows me to understand the evidence which makes evolution one of the most highly supported theories in all of science. It’s essential to biology. Our entire understanding of biology comes from evolution.

Your understanding of the universe comes from people trying to make up reasons behind natural phenomena they didn’t understand.

Remember, I am talking about modern science and not a mythological position from the Bronze Age. I wish to note as well that Prototype Atheist has his history woefully wrong. I will quote Building Old School Churches in regards to a response:

1) It’s Grossly Inaccurate: The vast majority of the Old Testament was written during the Iron Age (1200 BC – 500 BC) and the entire New Testament was written in the 1st Century AD and entirely postdates both the periods referred to as the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. If you want to use a snarky chronologically arrogant term to imply you are smarter than the people who preceded you merely because you were born after them, the correct term would be “Ancient Book.”

2) It’s Doesn’t Even Prove What it’s Supposed to Prove: Apart from the foolishness of asserting that people like Moses, Solomon and Aristotle were clearly idiots because they were around a long time ago and didn’t have things like Google, Microwaves, or Cup O’ Noodles, age doesn’t nullify truth or the factual nature of a record any more than the fact that something was generated recently makes it true.

For instance, “I, Rigoberta Menchu,” an autobiography that won Menchu the Nobel Prize, was written in the late 20th century, and became wildly popular and was considered by American academics to be “the gospel truth” about oppression in Central America. Subsequent investigations however revealed that Rigoberta Menchu had made up much of her life story.

In the case of the bible, if the events it records happened, the fact that they were written down a long time ago doesn’t change that factual nature of the record, and to date, every historical event the bible records that can be confirmed by archaeologyand other histories has been confirmed.

…read it all…

And for the more serious apologist, here is an excellent summation of two overlooked verses that SMACK of foundational apologetics (h/t to Poached Egg):

The Two Most Overlooked Apologetics Verses In the Bible

Hardly anybody ever mentions it, but two of the most well-known verses in the Old Testament have significant apologetic implications, lending support to the Bible’s supernatural origins. One of them I’m sure will be a surprise to many readers here; the other might also.

I will preview the argument before telling you which verses they are. In brief form it goes like this.

The ancient Hebrews’ conception of God and his relation to his creation was vastly different from that of others in the Ancient Near East. From a philosophical perspective it has been exceedingly successful for millennia since then: it was, in that sense, very highly advanced philosophy. Such uniquely prescient and enduringly successful thinking is not explained by any prior tradition, for there is no indication of advanced thought leading up to it either among the Hebrews or in any neighboring culture. Did it come from nowhere at all? Or did it come by revelation from God?

Or:

The ancient Hebrews were astonishingly advanced metaphysical thinkers. They produced a monotheism that stood in complete contrast to all other systems of thought at the time, that still works philosophically, and that today remains coherent within its own framework. How did these Bronze Age nomads and farmers accomplish that?

I have often heard it asked, “why should we look to ancient Bronze Age or Iron Age nomads/sheepherders/farmers for wisdom? What could they possibly say to us who have the advantage of so much more knowledge and science?” Good question. How could they have known anything at all that would stand the test of centuries of inquiry? But our two “overlooked apologetics verses” have done that. They are, as I said, very familiar:

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Exodus 3:13-14a “Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”

The creation account in Genesis is astonishingly different from all other creation stories. Quoting from page 32 and following of Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration:

Genesis is quite unlike the Mesopotamian cosmogonies [accounts of the origin of the cosmos], for instance, which are intertwined with theogonies—accounts of the origins of the gods. In them, we are not told so much about how the universe came about—the origin of the worlds is really accidental or secondary in ANE [Ancient Near East] accounts—but how the gods emerged. And in addition to the fact that these Mesopotamian cosmogonies are really concerned with the ancestors of the gods and how they got themselves organized, they do not even identify these gods as creators. So when it comes to the elements of the universe (the waters/deep, darkness), a deity either controls one or is one….

Further, Yahweh simply speaks, thereby creating; in other ANE cosmogonies, deities struggle to divide the waters. Also in Genesis 1, the astral bodies are not gods (as in ANE accounts) but are creations.…

Gerhard von Rad makes the powerful point that Israel’s worldview, as reflected in Genesis, drew a sharp demarcating line between God and the world. The material world is purged of any quality of the divine or the demonic….

In Genesis, we read of something marvelously different than in [Ugaritic cosmogony], with its gods and hostile powers (darkness, the waters/the deep): “These cosmic monsters are no longer primordial forces opposed to the Israelite God at the beginning of creation. Instead, they are creatures like other creatures rendered in this story.” Genesis 1 depicts a “divine mastery” over these forces….

In contrast to ANE myths, there are no rivals to the Creator in Genesis [chapter] 1—let alone preexistent matter…. There is no cosmic dualism or struggle at all.

There is more but I think you can see the point: the Genesis view of God and creation is starkly different from all other views of cosmic origins and of deity…

…read it all…

 After all this, Prototype Atheist Tweeted this about lil’~ol’~me:

I am flattered. To think, me, sitting in a two bedroom condo… SeanG (AKA Papa Giorgio), has such an influence as to “hold back science” as well as “humanity.” Or.. Prototype Atheist (call me when the production model is shipped) got bested in an area where he has a degree in. In his Tweet he tries to make this a moral issue by saying I am holding back humanity. Who would want to even talk with such a person that is “holding back science and humanity… it is akin to the labels thrown around in the political world: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted (S.I.X.H.I.R.B.). Going to ad hominem attacks and mislabeling LARGE swaths of history (the Bronze Age thingy). That’s what he is really good at, that is, lashing out on via Twitter account.

Debates About Homosexuality

This is simply a transfer to here of some debates I was in over the years on the topic of homosexuality. Like I said I am transferring some of my larger writings/debates/topics to this .com. Here are 5 minor debates (responses) I had on the subject – and keep in mind they are old. I was not referencing well then and some of the links listed may be long dead. Likewise, there really is no bells or whistles… just an import from my Microsoft Word:

DEBATE 1

Urobolus, you said,

“Curiously, you chose to leave out the fact that none of the founders meant to include women in their original declaration of equal rights.”

What, my posts aren’t long enough as it is??

New Jersey’s 1790 revision of its voting law dutifully implemented the Constitution’s literal “all inhabitants” by referring to voters as he or she.” A 1796 law governing voting in federal elections, used the same language: “No person shall be entitled to vote in any township or precinct, than that in which he or she doth both reside…. Every voter shall openly, and in full view, deliver his or her ballot….”

Neither of these laws aroused any particular opposition or controversy.

Let us pause and reflect on what was just put down on the dinner table in front of us. For the first time in history, the women of a political community shared with men the right, stated in public law, to select their rulers. There can be only one explanation of why it happened in the United States at this particular time, and in no other country at any previous time. Most Americans, including the members of the New Jersey legislature, believed in the fundamental principle of the Revolution, that all men [i.e. humankind] are created equal. No other government had ever been grounded on this idea. Women, in fact, voted in the year of the Constitutional Convention. Historian Richard McCormick writes, “A Burlington poll list of 1787 contained the names Iona Curtis and Selveria Lilvey, presumably women.”

The first newspaper discussion of female voting in New Jersey did not occur until 1797, when the Federalist candidate in a hotly contested election to the state legislature was supported (unsuccessfully) by the women of Elizabethtown. In the Adams – Jefferson presidential election of 1800, and in other subsequent elections, women voted in large numbers throughout the state.

The land owning law requirements in some states were so loosely followed that almost all could vote (as we shall see). Still concentrating on Jersey and their Assembly of 1800 which considered a law that would have stated, “the inspectors of elections shall not refuse the vote of any widow or unmarried women of full age [holding no land in other words].” One representative wrote:

“The House unanimously agreed that this section would be clearly within the meaning of the [New Jersey] Constitution, and as the Constitution is the guide of inspectors, it would be entirely useless to insert it into law. The motion was negatived.  Our Constitution gives this right to maids or widows, black or white.”

It was later said that the votes of two or three women of color swung the election of a state legislator in 1802.

A close electoral battle between Newark and Elizabeth over location of a new courthouse inspired massive voting fraud on both sides. Women (and of course men) were in the thick of it. “Women and girls, black and white, married and single, with and without qualifications, voted again and again.” This is the episode which became the excuse for an 1807 law that restricted the franchise to free white males. This law directly violated the New Jersey’s constitution, which the courts thereafter dishonestly refused to acknowledge. Ironically, the representative who promoted the new law was the one and only Jeffersonian Republican who had nearly been defeated in 1797 by the federalist women of Elizabeth. This legislator, and the courts, threw out God’s law [created equal] and implemented man’s law.

Women also voted in other states during the founding era as well. Robert Dinkin, a historian of early American voting documents women in Massachusetts towns voting. A New York newspaper reported that “two old widows, tendered, and were admitted to vote.” That was in 1737. Records are sparse, so it is likely that other incidents of female voting occurred in these and other states, both before the Revolution and after. By the time the “amendment” was made to allow all sexes and races to vote, almost all were… without changing or adding a single word to the constitution. Even Wyoming granted the right to vote to women in 1869, again, without an amendment.

Frederick Douglass considered himself to be free?  Are you putting words into this great abolitionists mouth?  Larry Elder comments in some recent articles that may add to this discussion:

Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist, born a slave, once offered a lesson in patriotism. In 1859, he fled for his life, accused erroneously of participating in the raid on Harper’s Ferry, along with John Brown.

Director-producer-writer Ron Maxwell (“Gettysburg” and “Gods and Generals”) notes that, in 1860, Douglass spoke in Glasgow, Scotland, where, prior to his address, a radical antislavery leader delivered a scathing attack not just on slavery, but on all things American.

Despite his experience of brutality and dehumanization, Douglass, nevertheless, criticized the previous speaker. “He who stands before a British audience to denounce anything peculiarly American in connection with slavery,” said Douglass, “has a very marked and decided advantage. It is not hard to believe the very worst of any country where a system like slavery has existed for centuries. This feeling towards everything American is very natural and very useful. I refer to it now not to condemn it, but to remind you that it is just possible that this feeling may be carried to too great length.” He gave a detailed analysis of the American Constitution. Despite America’s flaws, Douglass said, America stands unique in comparison to all other nations with its Constitution even with America’s failure to live up to it.

ref: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/elder032703.asp

Founding Father Ben Franklin established the first abolitionist society in Philadelphia in 1787. Speaking to the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, on Nov. 9, 1789, Benjamin Franklin said, “Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.” In 1790, Franklin petitioned Congress, scolding them about the festering scar of slavery.

William Lloyd Garrison, a white slavery abolitionist, and the editor of the only abolitionist paper to survive 34 years of continuous publication, predicted that “the destiny of the slaves is in the hands of the American women, and complete emancipation can never take place without their cooperation.”

Did the women’s suffragette movement bar men from supporting it? The Declaration of Sentiments, the foundation document of the women’s rights movement, was signed shortly after the first Women’s Rights Convention on July 19 and 20, 1848. Despite the request that only women attend that first day, at least 40 men showed up. Organizers allowed men to vote because, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s History of Woman Suffrage suggests, this provided an opportunity for men to make themselves useful. And one man, indeed, proved very useful. All the resolutions were approved until the controversial ninth, calling for women to secure the right to vote. Many attendees — both male and female — denounced it as an outrageous demand that would cheapen the entire cause. Then abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke, making clear that freedom was not divisible according to sex or color. The resolution passed. One hundred finally signed the Declaration, including 32 men.

ref: http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=18321

 

You said,

“The 19th century is far behind us, and believe me, the face of America has changed. Just as I said, the founders knew they had to create an open-ended document, because they knew that politics would change and what was applicable in their time would no longer be applicable in two hundred years.”

John Adam’s said the following in an address to the military on Oct. 11, 1798:

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

You see, the Founders were very intelligent men, and when they created the Constitution, they did so on the hind sight and study of every government up to that point.  And they realized one contributing factor that they all agreed on.  Man is reprobate.  So they configured the Constitution for a people and their worldview (I will post about this after this post).  For this republic to survive, they realized that man had to be restrained within this document.  Since man doesn’t change, neither should the document that much.  And to change it the federal and state governments have a specific process to go through… not the federal judiciary stepping in and reinterpreting the documents intent.  This is poli-sci 101.

You speak of “women’s rights,” or “minority rights,” and the like.  To which do you refer?  The movements today are driven by radicals that have deeper goals in mind, for instance, I did a paper for a friend on feminism, I will post a portion of it here.

Defining Terms

To better understand what modern, or gender feminism means, we must understand what liberal feminism represents.  The liberal feminist is not out to second guess what women want; if most women enjoy families, if they enjoy “la difference,” this is of no concern for them.  On the other hand, the gender feminist “believes that women constitute an oppressed class within an oppressive system: what ails women cannot be cured by merely achieving equal opportunity.  As a class women are seen to be politically at odds with the patriarchy that oppresses them.”[1] Consequently, the gender feminist will never accept the testimonies of ordinary women, since the gender feminist believes that ordinary women have unconsciously bought into a system that oppresses them [2].  Thus, the gender – modern – feminist simply presupposes her worldview [3] and reinterprets all contrary facts as examples of false consciousness.  This worldview [4] permeates all that the modern feminist comes into contact with, including such things as history and religion.  The gender feminist, then, has a radical perspective.  She views social reality in terms of patriarchal “sex/gender system” that, in the words of Sandra Harding, “organizes social life throughout most of recorded history and in every culture today.”[5]

The liberal feminist, on the other hand, merely seeks legal equality for women and equality of opportunity in education and in the work place.  It is this type of woman who wants what any classical liberal wants for anyone who suffers bias: fair treatment.  The more extreme modern view of feminism is what has been institutionalized, unfortunately, in most of the Women’s Studies programs at the university level.

What’s Going On?

While Concerned Women for America have about 600,000 members, the National Organization of Women (NOW) has dwindled to less than 56,000 members.  One of the reasons, I believe, for the resultant loss of a nationally known organization such as NOW, is to be found in the current movements direction.  As an example, in the January 1988 National NOW Times, the newsletter for the organization, said: “The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist.” This may sound extreme, but in fact, this type of radical thinking has more to do with politics than with civil rights and equality.  This political movement looks forward to the overthrow of the family unit as well as capitalism.  Well-known feminist author and co-founder/editor of Ms Magazine, Gloria Steinem, said the following about feminisms “end game” (if you will): “Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole… patriarch!” [6]

How, though, can a civil rights movement be interested in capitalism?  According to Tammy Bruce, who was the former president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW as well as being a former member of NOW’s national board of directors puts it: “What Gloria Steinem, Molly Yard, Patricia Ireland and all the rest have presented to you over the last 15 years (at least) has not been feminist theory.” [7]

Ms. Bruce goes on to show that Betty Friedan and Patricia Ireland, ex-president of NOW, (and others) are members of the Communist Party.  In fact, Gloria Steinem is honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, which boasts of being the largest socialist organization in the United States and is the principle U. S. affiliate of the Socialist International.  Now the political goals become clearer as we understand the intent of these “posers,” as Tammy Bruce calls them [8].  One of the signs of an over oppressive movement is well illustrated in The Animal Farm, by George Orwell.  Napoleon, one of the main characters, concerns himself with the education of the young, and forcefully takes two litters of puppies away as soon as they’re weaned, saying he’ll educate them. In effect, the “State,” or those who are in charge raise them.

Now compare this to a statement made by feminist Mary Jo Bane (assistant professor of education at Wellesley College and associate director of the school’s Center for Research on Woman) and the lesson taught in Animal Farm, “In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them.” Alternatively, In The Saturday Review of Education [9], Gloria Steinem declared: “By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.” NEA president/feminist Catherine Barrett wrote in the same issue:

“Dramatic changes in the way we will raise our children in the year 2000 are indicated, particularly in terms of schooling…We will need to recognize that the so-called basic skills, which currently represent nearly the total effort in elementary schools, will be taught in one-quarter of the present school day…When this happens- and it’s near- the teacher can rise to his true calling. More than a dispenser of information, the teacher will be a conveyor of values…We will be agents of change.” [9a]

Comparisons

A true feminist is a woman who fulfills her potential, like Brenda Feigen, co-founder of Ms Magazine, who exemplifies what the movement had been, with all its promise and enthusiasm.  She became the kind of woman the modern feminist couldn’t keep up with!  A lawyer, wife and mother, civil-rights activist, politician, Hollywood movie producer, and author… she is a feminist in the true sense of the word.  This feminist sounds surprisingly like the one in Proverbs 31:10-31.  These sayings are likely a woman writing what the woman’s role is (Lemuel’s mother).  The New King James Version opens up verse 10 with, Who can find a virtuous wife?” A better rendering of this verse is “the truly capable woman.” It portrays her exercising responsibility for the provision of food and clothing for the household, and also being involved in managing financial and business affairs outside the house itself.  She also cares for the needy, and fulfils a wise teaching ministry.  This element of the portrait suggests that, as an authoritative teacher at the end of Proverbs (like Lemuel’s mother in v. 1), she parallels Ms. Wisdom in the opening chapters (i.e., corresponding expressions in 3:13-18; 9:1-6).  Woman’s teaching role in the book alongside man’s (e.g., 1:8; 6:20) fulfils part of the vision in Genesis 1-2 of man and woman together representing the image of God and called to exercise authority in the world on God’s behalf.

This is in stark contrast to A Feminist Dictionary [10], whose definitions are self-explanatory:

Male: … represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants… the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.”

Man: “… an obsolete life form… an ordinary creature who needs to be watched … a contradictory baby-man.”

Testosterone Poisoning:  “Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’”

Feminist author Ti-Grace Atkinson shows her true autonomy when stating, “the institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist” [11]. Marilyn French, feminist author calls all men rapists: “All men are rapists and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes”[12]. Gloria Steinen, feminist extraordinaire, wrote the following about Andrea Dwarkin, a contemporary, “Every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them.”[12a] Wow, such high accolades from one of the most well-known activists in the feminist movement, so what does this Andrea Dworkin have to say about us men?  “Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies.” [12b]

Creating Victims

One must keep in mind that when studying comparative theologies through the lenses (e.g., worldview) of modern feminism, that time honored hermeneutics [13] will be subjugated by gender influenced politics.  This revisionist goal will not only affect the Bible, and hence Christianity, but also other holy books and religious beliefs.   Other presuppositions that drive the modern feminist movement include philosophical naturalism (atheism), and what I call metaphysical naturalism (neo-paganism).  Metaphysical naturalism is merely the spiritual movement based partly on the reawakening of “goddess consciousness,” and its real goal is matriarchy, not equality!

The Christian tradition is rich with examples of feminism [14].  The feminism that truly empowers women, not the feminism that makes victicrats [15] out of well meaning woman that wish to make a difference.  Christina Hoff Sommers, a liberal feminist and formerly professor of philosophy at Clark University, comments on the current condition of modern feminism:

“The orthodox feminists are so carried away with victimology, with a rhetoric of male-bashing that it’s full of female chauvinists, if you will. Also, women are quite eager to censor, to silence. And what concerns me most as a philosopher is it’s become very anti-intellectual, and I think it poses a serious risk to young women in the universities. Women’s studies classes are increasingly a kind of initiation into the most radical wing, the most intolerant wing, of the feminist movement” [16].

Many true feminists, like Christina, do away with the many myths that are meant to “scare” woman into becoming radicals [17].  Books by feminist Christina Hoff Sommers [18] are good books to refute such myths.  Alternatively, the Independent Women’s Forum can be accessed via the Internet [19, 20].  This “backlash” by women against modern feminism is well summed up in a review of the book Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life: How Today’s Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch With the Real Concerns of Women, by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese:

According to historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (who describes herself as a feminist), is that most women perceive “official” feminism as indifferent to their deepest concerns. In particular, they are put off by the movement’s negative attitude toward marriage and motherhood, its intolerance for dissent from its most controversial positions, its attacks on men, and its inattention to the practical problems of balancing work and family on a day-to-day basis. Hence the title, echoing a refrain running through the author’s conversations with a diverse sample of women: “Feminism is not the story of my life” [21]

To Conclude

Social commentator and radio show host, Dennis Prager, takes note that males tend to be “rule oriented.” The implication being that Western culture is heavily influenced in the Judeo-Christian standards of moral code.  This, he says, is ironic, that, in the name of feminism, women are attempting to emasculate the God of Western religious morality.  “For if their goal is achieved, it is women who will suffer most from lawless males” [22]

So long as feminism seeks to adjust the legal position of women to that of man. So long as it seeks to offer her legal and economic freedom to develop and act in accordance with her inclinations, desires, and economic circumstances – so long as it is nothing more than a branch of the great liberal movement, which advocates peaceful and free evolution.  When, going beyond this, it attacks the institutions of social life under the impression that it will thus be able to remove natural barriers, it is a spiritual child of socialism.  For it is a characteristic of socialism to discover in social institutions the origin of unalterable facts of nature, and to endeavor, by reforming these institutions, to reform nature [22].  No one can deny that, in the course of history, women often found themselves in a subordinate position – though by no means always or in every society.  But at the same time, women were protected, and in many an epoch, placed on a pedestal.  In any event, the complex and varied role of women through the ages cannot be reduced to a simplistic slogan describing one half of all human beings as “the victims of history.” Those who say so have a quarrel with God, or with nature, or simply with the facts [24].

FootNotes

[1]  Christina Hoff Sommers, “Feminism and Philosophy,” APA (American Philosophical Association) Newsletter, 91, no. 1 (Spring 1992), p. 85.

[2]  Francis J. Beckwith, Ed., Do the Right Thing: A Philosophical Dialogue on the Moral and Social Issues of Our Time, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Boston: MA [1996], p. 587.

[3]  worldview: People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves may realize.  By “presuppositions” we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic worldview, the grid through which he sees the world.  Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists.  People’s presuppositions lay a grid for all they bring forth into the external world.  Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their decisions.  “As a man thinketh, so he is,” is really profound.  An individual is not just the product of the forces around him.  He has a mind, an inner world.  Then, having thought, a person can bring forth actions into the external world and thus influence it.  People are apt to look at the outer theater of action, forgetting the actor who “lives in the mind” and who therefore is the true actor in the external world.  The inner thought world determines the outward action.  Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles.  But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what worldview is true.  When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, “not many men are in the room” – that is, although worldviews have many variations, there are not many basic worldviews or presuppositions – Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, Crossway Books, Wheaton [1976], pp. 19-20.

[4]  Ronald H. Nash, Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas, Zondervan, Grand Rapids: MI [1992].

[5]  Sandra Harding & Merrill Hintikka, Ed., Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Science, p. 312 – excerpted from Do the Right Thing, see footnote #55.

[6]  http://www.conservapedia.com/Feminism

[7]  Tammy Bruce, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, Random House Inc, New York: NY [2001], p. 123

[8]  Ibid., p. 142

[9]  February 1973

[9a] http://www.changingworldviews.com/quotes/show/12

[10]  Edited by Cheris Kramarae & Paula A. Treichler.  Feminist Dictionary, University of Illinois Press, Champaign: IL [1986].

[11]  Amazon Odyssey p. 86 – http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/LGB.asp

[12]  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marilynfre108276.html

[12a] http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1951

[12b] http://www.conservapedia.com/Feminism

[13]  “Traditionally the sub-discipline of theology concerned with the proper interpretation of scriptural texts” C. Stephen Evans, Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove: IL [2002].

[14]  Helen Kooiman Hosier, 100 Christian Woman Who Changed the 20th Century, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids: MI [2000]; and Rebecca Price Janney, Great Woman in American History, Horizon Books, Camp Hill: PA [1996].

[15]  “A victicrat is one who blames all ills, problems, concerns, and unhappiness on others” (Larry Elder, Ten Things You Can’t Say in America, St. Martins, New York: NY [2000], p. 22-33)

[16]  Unpublished paper from Clark University

[17]  These include some of the following: 1) Myth of the Extent of Anorexia Nervosa; 2) Myth of Amount of Domestic Violence; 3) Myth of Increased Domestic Battery on Super Bowl Sunday; 4) Myth Concerning Percent of Women Raped; 5) Myth Concerning Female Self-esteem; 6) Myth of Discrimination Against Females in School; 7) Myth of Huge Gender Wage Gap, Etc.

[18]  Who Stole Feminism: How Woman Have Betrayed Woman, Simon & Schuster, New York: NY [1995]; The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men

[19]  http://www.iwf.org/news/010417.shtml

[20]  http://www.iwf.org/

[21]  http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9603/reviews/feminism.html

[22]  Dennis Prager, Think a Second Time Regan Books, New York: NY [1995], p. 249.

[23]  Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis: IN [1981], p.87.

[24]  Balint Vazsonyi, America’s 30 Years War: Who Is Winning? Regnery Publishing, Washington: D. C. [1998], p. 214

My point is that women’s rights today are not rights at all, but radicalism made politically-correct.

Urobolus, I have never said pluralism shouldn’t be allowed, however, mainstreaming the gay lifestyle isn’t pluralism.  Allowing people to do what they wish in the privacy of their home is.  When you said, “And believe me, friend, that a state based solely off the laws and values presented in the Bible and allowing no room for change would destroy that,” you are mischaracterizing my argument (straw-man).

Our culture, laws, and societal norms are based in the Judeo-Christian norms.  Most of Western civilization is.  Our laws [b]are already[/b] based on the Christian norm, for the most part.  It isn’t, “what if.”  Your example of the KKK is a bad one:

“The KKK will never agree–justifying themselves by certain passages in the Bible–that blacks should be given rights, but in order to live in a stable America, they must accept a median which they do not totally approve of but understand must be kept for the sake of stability in the nation.”

The Bible does not support the contention that the religious movement of the KKK (Christian Identity) give it.  In addition, skin color verses whether someone prefers male on male sex, male on multiple people sex, male on animal sex, or a combination of the above, have nothing to do with the civil rights battle of black people.  There is no way to prove someone is gay, there is a way to prove a person is black:

Average Household Income:

Homosexuals – $55,430      /      African Americans – $12,166

Percentage of College Graduates:

Homosexuals – 60%      /      African Americans – 5%

Holding Professional Positions:

Homosexuals – 49%      /      African Americans – 1%

Taken Overseas Vacations:

Homosexuals – 66%      /      African Americans – 1%

Ever Denied the Right to Vote:

Homosexuals – No      /      African Americans – Yes

Ever Faced Legal Segregation:

Homosexuals – No      /      African Americans – Yes

Ever Denied Access to Public Restrooms:

Homosexuals – No      /      African Americans – Yes

Ever Denied Access to Businesses and Restaurants:

Homosexuals – No      /      African Americans – Yes

I am going to change speeds a bit and post here a debate I am having elsewhere.  So the following posts will be many, but I have already answered most of the inquiries here.

Your comparison of Christian ideals, the one’s the founders used, and that of Islam is like comparing apples and oranges.  It comes from a mind that gives equal credence to the vastly different moral systems espoused to the two religious texts.  A fault of radical pluralism.

==================================================

DEBATE 1a

Illusion, what I said:

no, I think smoking is foolish but not immoral!

Please re-write your response in lieu of that.  Two of my favorite radio talk show hosts are a gay man and the other a gay woman.  Al Rantel is on KABC ( http://www.kabc.com/home.asp ) Monday – Friday, 11:00AM – 11:45AM / 6:00PM – 9:00PM, hop on their site and give him a listen.  Or how about Tammy Bruce, she’s on Saturday, June 19, 2004 4:00 – 7:00 PM.  She also is a prolific author as this bio explains:

Ms. Bruce’s first book, The New Thought Police, was published in October 2001. An analysis of freedom of expression and the culture wars, it explores the importance of freedom of expression and personal liberty and how that liberty is under attack by the dangerous rise of Left-wing McCarthyism. Her current book, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values, addresses the rise of moral relativism in society and quickly became a New York Times Best Seller.

Two years after joining the National Organization for Women, introducing a brand of feminism that places her somewhere between Donna Reed and Thelma and Louise, Ms. Bruce was elected president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW at the age of 27. The youngest ever to achieve that position, she doubled the chapter’s membership from 2,000 to 4,000 within a year with issue campaigns that introduced a fresh view of feminist activism. In her seven years as president (1990-1996, the longest continuous tenure in the chapter’s 30 year history) she mobilized activists locally and nationally on a whole range of issues, including women’s image in media, childcare, health care, violence against women, economics, and domestic violence. Ms. Bruce also served two years as a member of the National NOW board of directors.

The funny thing is that these two are telling the homosexual activists to stay out of their bedroom!

Society makes a moral decision to force people who smoke to pay high taxes in order to curb and fund its abuse.  In case you didn’t get that, this is a moral decision.  All legislation is one group legislating their morality over others.  Those who support legalization of homosexual acts or homosexual marriage claim that the rest of society should not impose their morality on them.  In effect, and this is key, homosexuals are claiming that it’s morally wrong to impose a code of behavior on them.  But as is the case, all laws legislate morality.  All laws impose a moral code.  In fact, the homosexual activists are trying to do the same thing they say heterosexuals shouldn’t be able to do – impose a morality (or immorality).  The difference is that homosexual activists want to impose their morality:

  • The implications of homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered curriculum at all levels of education.
  • The lowering of the age [12 years old to be exact] of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sex.
  • The legalization of homosexual marriages.
  • Custody, adoption, and foster-care rights for homosexuals, lesbians, and transgendered people.
  • The redefinition of the family to include the full diversity of all family structures.
  • The access to all programs of the Boy Scouts of America.
  • Affirmative action for homosexuals.
  • The inclusion of sex-change operations under a universal health-care plan.

(These goals are taken from the 62 platform demands of the 1993 march on Washington.)

It is ironic that the homosexual activists who tell society to “stay out of the bedroom” are the very ones militantly bringing the bedroom to society.  As we can see, homosexuals want much more than tolerance – they want endorsement.  Clearly, a position of neutrality (“live and let live”) cannot be taken here.  The real question is, “Whose morality should we legislate?”  Should we legislate the morality that kills people around the age of forty, or the one that preserves them until seventy-five or eighty?  Which is what taxing cigarettes does, it imposes a moral choice that if one smokes they will pay the price.

==================================================

DEBATE 2

John, you said:

This argument is also contradictory. If people have a right to choose then why are you against them choosing homosexuality?

This is the main point.  It is a choice… and the reason I am against it is because it is against what nature (and/or God, whichever you prefer) has established as natural.  Again, I do not want the government to have the kind of power to regulate the bedroom.  However, special interest groups (e.g., homosexuals, polygamists, or people who enjoy sex with animals, etc) should not have “special rights.”  A homosexual man has the same civil, and natural law that I do.  And if it were genetic, which it isn’t, then this genetic disposition should be resisted.  As, it would still be in the best interest of society (every society throughout history – whether secular or religious).  And I have shown that debauchery – homosexuality included – was part of the downfall of the Roman Empire, specifically.  A society that you rightly pointed out was a model (one of the many the Founders used) for our society.  So you should take seriously these points I have made.

Homosexuality will always be in the minority, because the gay person does not reproduce like the heterosexual couple.  A very funny point was made at a debate between John Massimo Pigliucci, an atheist debating William Lane Craig, a theist.  The student asked this of the atheist:

“Since women that believe in God are less likely to have abortions, does that mean that natural selection will result in a greater number of believers than non-believers.”

Your response to my concerns about the health in general is a bad one John.  For instance, you response to my smoking analogy missed the point.  The schools should also talk of the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle with the students.  Which I showed is very drastically shorter than the heterosexual lifestyle, or, for that matter, the smoker’s life expectancy.  And sodomy is equally illegal for both the homosexual as well as the heterosexual in those states that have sodomy laws.  again, the government should not have this power over a persons private life.  We are agreed on this.

John you said, “This argument is also a fallacy: Argument of Authority. Just because the founding fathers disproved of it does not make it wrong.”  I agree, this is an argument from authority.  I am a firm believer that the founders understood the meaning and application better than any of the law professors who haggle over this or that.  Original Intent is the standard I live by.  And with the plethora of writings by the founders, we can easily understand this original intent.  It is illegal because the normalization of the act of sodomy was well known as one of the reasons for many governments turn towards dissolution.  The founders were students of history and Natural Law as founded in the Judeo-Christian ethic.

Homosexuals have the same marriage rights, as do my wife or I.  Not only that, but also many homosexuals do not want the spotlight put on their lifestyle.  They were doing just fine in their respective privacy of their own home.  A very small – radical – minority is the voice for this change.

When you said:

“Democracies are not just about the right to affect politics and the economy, they are also about the right of freedom to spirituality and personal freedoms. Homosexuals may not get married. That infringes on their right to personal freedoms.”

Thank God we are not a democracy!  And that a moral ethic is implied in our social order via laws.  All your arguments you are using for gay-marriages can be used for polygamous marriages and bestiality.

Same-sex marriage proponents defend their position by arguing that government neutrality is violated when the state allows only people of different genders to marry one another. Yet the same-sex marriage position is far from neutral. It asserts that government ought to prefer a view of human nature that sees human institutions, such as marriage and the family, as artificial social constructions ruled by personal subjective preference. Because proponents of this view try to establish marriage on the basis of adult consent and desire rather than on marriage’s intrinsic value and the natural teleology (purpose) of the body (or person), numerous counterintuitive and irrational consequences result.

Although the original mission of the homosexual rights movement called for social tolerance rather than social approval, it is now demanding the latter.

From: http://www.equip.org/articles/the-same-sex-marriage-debate

==================================================

DEBATE 3

John (and others), you said:

I have stated over again that homosexuality is found in animals. You have said that homosexuality can only be chosen by rational beings. So, either homosexuality is rational, or animals are rational beings equal to humans. Which one?

This Is an area that I wish to focus on for now.  We have plenty of time to deal with the other issue herein.  Sodomy in nature is the subject, and the comparing of our human species to other species in the animal kingdom.  This deals with inherent, existential meaning to humanness, as you will see, I cover this part in-depth… somewhat.

Firstly, the term homosexuality should be limited to the human species, for in animals the investigator can ascertain only motor behavior. As soon as he interprets the animal’s motivation he is applying human psychodynamics–a risky, if not foolhardy scientific approach.

Secondly, assumptions as to the origin of human homosexuality cannot be based on the study of genes, hypothalamus, anterior commissure, or the lower brain structures, or species such as the drosophila fly, or even lower primates; because in man the enormous evolutionary development of the cerebral cortex has made motivation–both conscious and unconscious–of overwhelming central significance in sexual patterning and sexual-object choice. Below the level of chimpanzee, sexual arousal patterns are completely automatic and reflexive.

One of the most outstanding experts in animal behavior, Beach (1942, 1947), the eminent ethologist, made comparative studies of sexual development during the evolution of the vertebrates and made a stunning discovery. He found that in lower vertebrates, sex is an almost automatic activity, a self-regulatory sequence of events.

In the course of development, the stereotyped pattern breaks down during encephalization; that is, the machinery of copulation becomes less and less automatic and depends more and more on the individual animal’s experience. At the level of the chimpanzee, he found only three automatic mechanisms remaining–erection, pelvic thrust, and orgasm. With these three items, man builds a sexual pattern with his own cerebral cortex.

What follows from this discovery is: (1) that there is no innate desire for the same or opposite sex partner; (2) that the answer to the question of modified sexual arousal patterns, i.e., sexual orientation, is a question of man’s ontogenetic development; (3) that in the training of children we could undoubtedly teach them to respond orgastically to any kind of stimulus, but for obvious reasons this is neither feasible nor desirable, and (4) that wish-fulfillment, memory, and fantasy play a large role in the formation of sexual patterns in man.

In man, therefore, the development of the cerebral cortex and the lessening of the role played by spinal reflexes, hypothalamic structures, and automatic mechanisms leave motivation at center stage for the development of both standard sexual patterns and their disturbances and/or modified sexual patterns (the sexual deviations, i.e., homosexuality, fetishism, transvestitism, etc.).

In man, heterosexual object choice is neither innate nor instinctual; neither is homosexual object choice or any other perverse behavior–all are learned. The choice of sexual object is not predetermined by chromosomal tagging or hypothalamic functioning. However, most significantly, heterosexual functioning is outlined from birth by anatomy and then reinforced by cultural and environmental indoctrination and buttressed–until recently–by a social system of rewards and punishments. It is supported by universal human concepts of mating and the tradition of the family unit, together with a complementarity between the two sexes. The term anatomically outlined does not mean that it is instinctual to choose a person of the opposite sex. The human being, however, is a biologically emerged entity derived from evolution, favoring survival.

Those who stress a basic innate, biological tendency toward heterosexuality can make the same error as advocates of the theory of constitutional bisexuality or homosexuality. As the noted psychoanalyst Rado (1956), former professor of psychoanalysis (Columbia University P. and S.) stated: “In both lines of experimental study, the empirical evidence points to the same conclusion: the human male and female do not inherit an organized neurohormonal machinery of courtship and mating. Nor do they inherit any organized component mechanism that would–or could–deliver them to such goals as mating or choice of mate… Each of the sexes has an innate capacity for learning, and is equipped with a specific power plant and tools. But in sharp contrast to the lower vertebrates and as a consequence of the encephalization of certain functions first organized at lower evolutionary levels in the central nervous system, they inherit no organized information.”

As psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, we are treating obligatory homosexuality successfully, changing sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Such a change would be unthinkable if there were any truth at all to the organic or biological or hereditary causation of homosexuality. Lastly, it is not a kindness to homosexuals and their families to attribute their serious disturbance in psychosexual development to organicity. It dooms them to a life which is extraterritorial to the biological and social realities which surround them.

  • Charles W. Socarides, M.D. — Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine — Author of, The Overt Homosexual (1968), Homosexuality (1978), The Preoedipal Origins and Psychoanalytic Therapy of Sexual Perversions (1988), A Freedom Too Far (1995)

Does that clear up choice in humans versus erection and ejaculation in animals?  With humans, it is a choice, and is against Natural Law.  If you understand natural law (I recommend In Defense of Natural Law, by Robert P. George; and, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law, by J. Budziszewski), you will understand that comparing animal erection and ejaculation is quite different than human choice… as the above article clearly shows.  It is a category mistake.  Not to mention that nowhere in nature does homosexuality reach the “five” level on the Kinsey scale.

Not only that, but you are in some sense of the thought saying:

  1. Corruption of reason by evil disposition of nature:  A defect in my chromosomes predisposes me to violence, abuse of alcohol or homosexual acts.  Although I am still capable of restraint, it is more difficult for me than it might be for someone else.
  2. Corruption of reason by vicious custom:  I have grown up around people who do not regard bribery as wrong, and so I take it for granted.

These are alluded to by you.  Other lines of arguments that appear to come up is that if homosexuality is found naturally in nature, hence, in the human population it should be considered “natural,” the this should apply to all animal / human behavior.  The “dog-eat-dog” world, if you will.  I don’t believe you would consider killing a 6-month old baby as natural, would you?

You keep bringing up religion, so I will hit this head on.  Natural Law only is effective if there is an Ultimate, personal Being that has created us.  This is how the founders could write and sign the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  They knew that everyone deserved these freedoms.  However, if you reject this Ultimate, who’s to say that infanticide is morally wrong, or homosexuality, for example:

Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Psychology and a leading popularizer of evolutionary psychology, says it is a genetic imperative. Writing in the New York Times, Pinker argued that what he termed neonaticide is not attributable to mental illness because “it has been practiced and acceptable in most cultures throughout history.” Rather, he went on to say, a capacity for neonaticide is hard-wired into the maternal genes by our evolutionary history.

Or take these excerpts from the book, Writings on an Ethical Life, by Peter Singer (the Ira W. De Camp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University’s Center for Human Value).  I am curious if you agree with him or not?:

“We have already seen that the strength of the conservative position lies in the difficulty liberals have in pointing to a morally significant line of demarcation between an embryo and a newborn baby.  The standard liberal position needs to be able to point to some such line, because liberals usually hold that it is permissible to kill an embryo or fetus [all nine-months an abortion is legal] but not a baby.  I have argued that the life of a fetus (and even more plainly, of an embryo) is of no greater value than the life of a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, etc., and that since no fetus is a person no fetus has the same claim to life as a person.  Now it must be admitted that these arguments apply to the newborn baby as much as to the fetus.  A week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week or month old.  If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to a nonhuman animal.  Thus while my position on the status of fetal life may be acceptable to many, the implications of this position for the status of newborn life are at odds with the virtually unchallenged assumption that the life of a newborn baby is as sacrosanct as that of an adult.” (p. 160-161)

“In our book Should the Baby Live? my colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggested that a period of twenty-eight days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others.  This is clearly well before the infant could have a sense of its own existence over time, and would allow a couple to decide that it is better not to continue with a life that has begun very badly.” (p. 231)

Would you agree with Pinker’s and Singer’s statements?  Is infanticide morally wrong?  Or just culturally wrong, and nor really morally wrong?  You are equating animal sexual behavior to that of human, much like Pinker and Singer.

Another conundrum is this one pointed out by a political science analyst, “If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it.  Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?” (The Liberal Contradiction, by Dale Berryhill). Don’t you see how this whole enterprise you have leapt into actually cheapens the homosexual’s life?  It creates a science of eugenics, and the homosexual will actively feel as if he or she is a genetic mutation rather than a human.  Christianity and psychology offers a human (and humane) response to today’s cultural hedonism, not eugenics.

I have argued that homosexual acts cause many health problems, providing proof that it is against what nature has intended for the human species, hence, against natural law, and Natural Law.  Again, anal intercourse is harmful to the receptive partner.  The rectal sphincter is designed to stretch only minimally, penile-anal thrusting can and does damage it severely.  “fisting” is also a common practice in the homosexual community (and a smaller part of the heterosexual community), this causes worse damage.  Thus, gay males have a disproportionate incidence of acute rectal trauma as well as of rectal incontinence (the inability to control the passing of feces) (A.J. Miles, T. G. Allen-Mersh, and C. Wastell, “Effect of Anoreceptive Intercourse on Anorectal Function,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 86, no. 3 [March 1993), pp. 144-147),  and anal cancer (C. Fenger, “Anal Neoplasia and Its Precursors: Facts and Controversies,” Seminars in Diagnostic Pathology 8, no. 3 (August 1991), pp. 190-201; J. R. Dalling , “Sexual Practices, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and the Incidence of Anal Cancer,” New England Journal of Medicine 317, no. 16 (15 October 1987), pp. 973-977; I could list more if you wish).

“Anal tissue is traumatized because it is designed for relatively soft fecal mass as it is prepared for expulsion by the slow contractions of the bowel and are nowhere near as sturdy as vaginal tissue.   As a consequence, the lining of the rectum is almost always traumatized to some degree by any act of anal intercourse.  Even in the absence of major trauma, minor or microscopic tears in the rectal lining allow for immediate contamination and entry of germs into the bloodstream.  Although relatively monogamous gay couples are at lower risk for AIDS, the tend to engage in unprotected anal intercourse more frequently than do highly polygamous single homosexuals.  As a result, they are at a higher risk for non-AIDS conditions – if all other factors are equal, which is usually not the case because of the clustering of risk factors.  Because receptive anal intercourse is so much more frequent among homosexual men than among women, the dangers of this kind of sex are amplified among homosexuals.  Furthermore, comparable tears in the vagina are not only less frequent because of the relative toughness of the vaginal lining, but the environment of the vagina is vastly cleaner than that of the rectum.  Indeed, we are designed with a nearly impenetrable barrier between the bloodstream and the extraordinary toxic and infectious contents of the bowel.  Anal intercourse creates a breach in this barrier for the receptive partner, whether or not the insertive partner is wearing a condom.” (Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, pp.66-67)

The above quote is from the book that the Congressional Record called, “The best book on homosexuality written in our lifetime…”

Nature tells us in very succinct ways that the act of sodomy should not be “normalized” – in that the homosexual lifestyle should be accepted as a normal and healthy alternative.  It puts an undue strain on our health care system now, but if same sex-marriages are allowed, more of our tax dollars will go to curbing health issues that are easily solved by abstaining from them.  Death, as I pointed out earlier, between these monogamous non-AIDS couples are in their early forties.  Whereas the heterosexual couple lives into their seventies.  This is a powerful example of nature benefiting the “normal” acts between human species.  If a monkey from Southeast-Asia practices sodomy, thus shortening his lifespan by almost half, what is it to us?  If a human shortens his lifespan by almost half, and that first half is lived by constantly having to deal with taxpayer funded health issues, then it is of importance to us.  Not to mention the quality endowed in the human life that is existential, and not merely determined by nature.  If you take away the intrinsic value of human life as part of your argument John, you are stuck with defending all sorts of paradigms that are ultimately opinion, and based in only that (as Pinker and Singer showed quite eloquently).

==================================================

DEBATE 4

John,

You brought up an interesting point about how one could satisfy their partner.  Probably your best point made… I think (and the action that would show true love if two men were truly in love with each other and wanted their life-partner to have a long and healthy life).  I am a believer in conservatism, not just the political ideology, but in how we should make choices about moral issues.  For instance – and I only use this as an example, not for debate – in 1973 the Supreme Court made abortion legal (Roe v. Wade) in all nine-months (Doe v. Bolton).  They did so for a few specific reasons.  One was that Roe (Norma McCorvey) was gang-raped, this turned out to be a lie.  Another reason was the belief that the embryo goes through evolutionary “stages” during growth in its earlier stages (from a salamander, through a pig, and chicken type stage – for example).  This idea was based on Ernst Haeckel’s “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” whose fraud is documented (with photo’s) in the attached paper.  The below quote is from a debate between a creation scientist and an evolutionary professor/scientist.

Dr. Duane Gish made this point in a debate with famous anthropologist professor Ashley Montagu (April 12, 1980) at Princeton University:

  • Dr. Gish said: “Years and years of embryological research was essentially wasted because people, convinced of the theory of evolution and that embryos recapitulated their evolutionary ancestry, spent much of their time in embryological research trying to develop phylogenies based on the data of embryology. As I mentioned earlier, embryologists have abandoned the theory of embryological recapitulation. They don’t believe it. They know its not true…. It produced bad research rather than the good research that should have been done.”
  • Dr. Montagu replied: “The theory of recapitulation was destroyed in 1921 by Professor Walter Garstand in a famous paper, since when no respectable biologist has ever used the theory of recapitulation, because it was utterly unsound, created by a Nazi-like preacher named Haeckel.”
  • Dr. Gish: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have travelled all over the world. I have debated and lectured on many, many major university campuses, and it is hardly a single university campus that I appear on that some student does not tell me that he is taught the theory of embryological recapitulation right there at that university. I’ve had many evolutionists argue the evidence for evolution from embryological recapitulation. Unfortunately, as Dr. Montagu has said, it is a thoroughly discredited theory, but it is still taught in most biology textbooks and in most universities and school as evidence for evolution.”
  • Dr. Montagu: “Well ladies and gentlemen, that only goes to show that many so-called educational institutions, called universities, are not educational institutions at all or universities; they are institutes for mis-education.”Princeton, at this time (where this debate took place in 1980), taught and used textbooks that showed recapitulation to be true (even though more than a hundred years earlier it was shown to be a fraud).  Which I’m sure was very comforting for parents who were forking out multiple thousands for their sons or daughters education only to find that Princeton is an institute for mis-education.

This important, specific reference by the Supreme Court was also wrong.  The third are where the Court practiced the long lost art form of CYA (cover your ass) was when they said that no one knows for sure when life begins, therefore, they left it up to the mother to decide.  This is where I would personally practice conservatism.

If a hunter is uncertain whether a movement in the brush is caused by a person, does his uncertainty lead him to fire or not to fire?  If you’re driving at night and you think the dark figure ahead on the road may be a child, but it may be just a shadow of a tree, do you drive into it or do you put on the brakes?  If we find someone who may be dead or alive, but we’re not sure, what is the best policy?  To assume he is alive and try to save him, or to assume he is dead and walk away?

Shouldn’t we give the benefit of the doubt to life?  Otherwise we are saying, “This may or may not be a child, therefore it’s all right to destroy it.”

I would say that even though Clinton says he never penetrated Miss Lewinksey, he none-the-less performed oral sex with her, and stuck a Cuban cigar up her sphincter area, I would say, on a moral plain for the norms of society, that this was below what our society should shoot for.

Applying this to your example is tough.  If homosexuals could only do oral sex, or the like, so be it… I would still be against legalizing gay marriage, however, the impact on society would be greatly reduced, and I am sure that the gay lifestyle would be less frequented in our headlines and medical journals.  This is a plus for the privacy issue of the gay man or woman.

This being said, the gay lifestyle is the epitome of hedonism.  The nature of men and sex, unrestrained, is one of unbridled “passion.”  in fact, women, via courting and marriage, are one of the biggest factors in raining in our passions.  Not only that, but Western civilization adopted the Judeo-Christian ethic of one woman and one man making a marriage for life.  This is where my conservatism comes out again.

Homosexuality is one of the most crucial issues we all must consider.  At the personal level most of us know at least one of our friends, colleagues, or fellow-Americans who is dying the terrible death of AIDS.  At a cultural level one most revealing indexes of a civilization is the way it orders human sexuality.

  • (Before I continue with this quote, I must respond to anyone who believes I am uncompassionate towards any who suffer any genetic or choice lifestyles.  When a philosopher speaks of whether rape is morally wrong or not morally wrong, he is of course compassionate towards the victim of the act.  However, the philosopher or politician is discussing the issue itself, asking deeper questions that if the individual him or herself is hurt, but rather if the act is wrong.  Thus the philosopher may sound uncompassionate, but is merely dealing with the raw facts of the situation.)

When left to itself, human sexuality appears unconstrained and to the innocent mind shockingly polymorphous (meaning: having, assuming, or passing through many or various forms, stages, or the like).  But the hallmark of a society in which all sexual constraints have been set aside is that finally it sanctions homosexuality as well.  This point is hotly disputed today, but is reflected in the wisdom of the ages.  Plutarch, the first-century Greek moralist, saw libertinism to be the third and the next-to-last stage in the life-cycle of a free republic before its final descent into tyranny. Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire)in eighteenth century England understood this principle with respect to ancient Rome, but from a historians point of view.  Sigmund Freud emphasized the same principle with respect to many cultures in the West – – although from a radically secular psychoanalytic perspective.  For him, universal sexual repression was the price of civilization.  Without constraints civilization would lose its discipline and vitality.  And of course, the Bible repeatedly shows the effects of unconstrained sexuality, such as its stories of the rise and fall of Sodom, Gomorrah, and indeed Israel itself.

Dennis Prager, a reform Jewish cultural commentator, writes:

“Man’s nature, undisciplined by values, will allow sex to dominate his life and the life of society….  It is not overstated to say that the Torah’s prohibition of non-marital sex made the creation of Western civilization possible.  Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development.  The subsequent dominance of the Western world can, to a significant extent, be attributed to the to the sexual revolution, initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.”

In sum, it is a simple and sobering fact that no society that has sanctioned unconstrained sexuality has long survived.

The typical homosexual is a man who has frequent episodes of anal intercourse with other men, often with many different men.  These episodes are 13 times more frequent than heterosexuals’ acts of anal intercourse (which is still showing disregard and unconstrained hedonism towards a mans wife or girlfriend), with twelve times as many different partners as heterosexuals.  These statistics are quite conservative.  The most rigorous single study – the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study – recruited nearly five thousand homosexual men and found that about 80 percent had over 50 sexual partners in their lifetime.  The book, The Male Couple, was researched and written by a homosexual couple, out of the 156 couples they studied, only seven maintained sexual fidelity.  Of the hundred couples that had been together five years, none had been able to maintain sexual fidelity.  The authors noted that “The expectation for outside sexual activity was the rule for male couples and the exception for heterosexuals” (p. 3).  A 1981 study revealed that only two percent of homosexuals were monogamous or semi-monogamous – generously defined as ten or fewer lifetime partners.  And a 1978 study found that 43 percent of male homosexuals estimated having sex with five hundred or more different partners (A. P. Bell, Sexual Preference [Indiana University Press]).  Seventy-nine percent said that more than half of these partners were strangers and 70 percent said that more than half were men with whom they had sex only once (A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity among Men and Woman [Simon & Schuster]).

So while I would agree with you that the homosexual man could satisfy his partner without penetration, this just doesn’t happen.  Nor would I support the normalization of even these acts in our society, as my conservative values seep out for keeping our society bent towards the family unit, which is the backbone of a healthy society.  I don’t just say this; history proves my point for me.

Much thought, SeanG

P.S. – You said: “None other than religion. Religion is the only definitive argument against it.”  This is not true.  I have already shown the health hazards of this lifestyle; the result is an unduly large strain on society.  I have pointed you to some books by historians that show unconstrained sexual activity becoming the norm as a major factor in the last stage ringing in the fall of a republic (societies that reject this unrestrained sexuality live long and prosper; one’s that accept die an untimely death).  And the homosexual lifestyle is not genetic, but a psychological malady, as I have just shown their sexual drive to indicate.  Not only that, but if the homosexual wants rights as commonly understood, theism (as I have clearly shown) is the only worldview that can give any meaning to the word rights.  Especially unalienable.

==================================================

DEBATE 5

Steve, Gordon, and John,

May I suggest you go to your local book store and read a chapter each out of Tammy Bruce’s books, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds (chapter 3, “Pot. Kettle. Black: The Hypocrisy of the Gay Establishment”); and, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (chapter 4, “First the Culture, Then the Children: The Agenda of the Radical Gay Elite”).

I believe everyone here would benefit from these two chapters about a subject that has developed into a love / hate relationship here. When I was speaking of thee amount of sexual partners of homosexuals, I was being conservative.  One historian in his book Modern Times (a New York Times Book of the Year), says that there have been studies that show male homosexuals with 300 or more partners in a year.  This occurred in the bathhouses, which are starting back up in full force again.  In 1981, the first 151 cases of AIDS emerged, chiefly in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.  One case was due to intravenous drug use, the other 150 were homosexual contact.

John, when I mention hedonism, I implicate all sex outside of the male-and-female monogamous marriage.  In Africa, AIDS is spread mostly by heterosexual acts (unlike here in the West), because it is passé for the African man to be with one partner, or to stay monogamous to that one partner.  And the amount of partners in homosexuality here in the U. S. is comparable to that of Africa (in the hundreds).  This unrestrained (un-bounded) hedonism, is one of the main causes for the spread of STD’s and HIV/AIDS.  Only one African country has taken to a standard ingrained in the West – which is rejected by the Gay Elite, the “sexual revolution” of the 60’s, and the modern liberal.  This is a great story:

We are told ad nauseam by the Condom Lobby that people, especially youngsters, cannot possibly control themselves when it comes to their sexual appetites, even in the face of AIDS infection and death. We are also told that condoms are the panacea for this dread disease. The Condom Lobby is loath to speak about sexual abstinence and marital fidelity. There is one country, however, that has mostly ignored the Condom Lobby and instituted widespread abstinence and fidelity programs and this country is so far beating AIDS. Uganda should be congratulated for fighting back against the very powerful Condom Lobby. We report today on their success.

Condom Lobby Drives AIDS Debate Besides Abstinence Success in Africa

As AIDS sweeps across Africa, Uganda remains a lone success story, as millions of Ugandans have embraced traditional sexual morality, including sexual abstinence outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage, in order to avoid infection. But the international AIDS community has been reluctant to promote this strategy elsewhere, continuing, instead, to place its faith in condoms.

According to a US Agency for International Development (USAID) study of Uganda, “HIV prevalence peaked at around 15 percent in 1991, and had fallen to 5 percent as of 2001.This dramatic decline in prevalence is unique worldwide.” USAID believes “The most important determinant of the reduction in HIV incidence in Uganda appears to be a decrease in multiple sexual partnerships and networks.”

In comparison to other African nations, “Ugandan males in 1995 were less likely to have ever had sex., more likely to be married and keep sex within the marriage, and less likely to have multiple partners.” USAID concludes that “the effect of HIV prevention in Uganda (particularly partner reduction) during the past decade appears to have had a similar impact as a potential medical vaccine of 80 percent efficacy. A comprehensive behavior change-based strategy may be the most effective prevention approach.”

However, the Ugandan experience is not being promoted elsewhere, which leads some observers to conclude that ideology may be playing a role. In fact, as news of the Ugandan success has spread, the defense of condoms has grown more insistent.

Specifically, international AIDS activist have increased their attacks on the Bush administration, which now seeks to incorporate abstinence training into the US international AIDS program. Amy Coen, president of Population Action International, recently stated that “the importance of condoms cannot be overstated..Yet here in the United States, we are witnessing a retreat on the part of the government and a wall of silence descending around condom use..The case for condoms is indisputable.” And, according to a column by Marie Cocco in Newsday, “President George W. Bush has begun appointing critics of condoms to a presidential advisory panel on AIDS. They include social conservatives who question the international scientific consensus that condoms are highly effective in AIDS prevention.”

This promotion of condoms continues, despite the mounting evidence that they have failed to stem the spread of the disease. For instance, led by Nelson Mandela, South Africa has firmly embraced the “safe sex” strategy, and condom use has increased. But South Africa remains the world leader in AIDS infection, with 11.4 percent of its population currently infected.

The international AIDS community appears determined to find a technological solution to the epidemic, rather than to suggest the types of behavior-change that have succeeded in Uganda. On Tuesday, the Mercury News of Miami reported that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will spend $28 million to study the potential of birth control diaphragms to combat AIDS in Africa. The Mercury News cautions, however, that “the scientific basis for diaphragms preventing AIDS is more theoretical than clinically proven.”

http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.271/pub_detail.asp

Tammy Bruce makes mention of a SIECUS/Planned Parenthood add that attacks abstinence programs as “dangerous fear- and shame-based curricula, prescribing abstinence as the only solution to preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS.”  Tammy jests in response, “And?  Did I miss some other new miracle solution that absolutely prevents those things?  Of course not.  Abstinence is the only way to be sure of preventing pregnancy and STD’s, and Planned Parenthood knows it” (The Death of Right and Wrong, p. 214).

So my criticism can be used towards heterosexuality as well.  And Planned Parenthood would be out of business if abstinence took hold again in this country.  Sex within marriage for pleasure is not so much hedonism as it is a healthy bond for society.  Any other “bond” is risking monetary, socially acceptable behavior that helps keep our country and culture healthy, strong, and the best environment to raise a family in.

The stats on polygamy were done by either gay people themselves, or centers that assist the gay man or woman in their communities.  There is no axe to grind, or conservative bias behind the scenes, just the facts.  And the facts are that the bathhouses that were so frequently visited in the 70’s and 80’s are popping up in full swing.  And there is a large movement called “bare-backing” that is grasping a large majority of the homosexual culture in the large cities.  So the 100’s of partners is now becoming another norm for the gay community, again ref. Tammy Bruce).

Your “‘marriage is illegal’, and this is why they practice such things,” theory is bad.  I have showed that monogamous relationships are very, very rare in the gay community.  Come on, you know the sex drive of a man.  Put two of us together?!

You have not shown that my points are in contention.

  • Bathhouses are the norm again;
  • “Bare-backing” is the cultural “thing-to-do” in the gay community;
  • Rectal gonorrhea is very common in the gay community; as are:
  • Syphilis;
  • Hepititus B;
  • AIDS/HIV;
  • Rectal cancer (also, multiple partners between heterosexuals has been linked to cancer, also abortion);

These levels – per-capita – far outweigh those of the heterosexual.  This all has a strain on society’s cohesion.  It is evidence that natural law is against such acts.  And it is evidence that Natural Law is against such acts.  The homosexual – monogamous – male on average dies more than three decades sooner than the heterosexual – monogamous – male.  Again, evidence of the Laws I spoke of.

And to say that China gives more “rights” to its people than the United States is astounding… to say the least.  I really believe you should pick up Tammy Bruce’s new book and read chapter 4 John…  before our reading group begins, I mean.  You will get a eye opening look into the gay world, by a hay person.

“… and now all manner of sexual perversion enjoys the protection and support of once what was a legitimate civil-rights effort for decent people.  The real slippery slope has been the one leading into the Left’s moral vacuum.  it is a singular attitude that prohibits any judgment about obvious moral decay because of the paranoid belief that judgment of any sort would destroy the gay lifestyle, whatever that is.

Tammy goes on to say, “I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite represents the most serious problem facing our culture today.”  The section in her chapter 4 about the Red Cross blood supply is scary!!  Also, and a point I made a long while back:

“Here come the elephant again: Almost without exception, the gay men I know (and that’s too many to count) have a story of some kind of sexual trauma or abuse in their childhood – molestation by a parent or an authority figure, or seduction as an adolescent at the hands of an adult.  The gay community must face the truth and see sexual molestation of an adolescent for the abuse it is, instead of the ‘coming-of-age’ experience many [gays] regard it as being.  Until then, the Gay Elite will continue to promote a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and suicide by AIDS.”

You see, it is two cultures fighting, one has been historically shown to assist in the topple of republics, the other has been historically shown to hold republics together.  In fact, if you would rather Dr., we could make this book I just quoted (Death of Right and Wrong) from, our first project together (or at least chapter 4)?  If you would rather, that is, have the input of an openly gay woman who is pro-choice as well.  Its up to you.  The other book (Legislating Morality) deals with Natural Law, whereas this does not.

I also contend, and have shown, that theism is the only worldview that even allows for the discussion of “rights” as we are both understanding them here:

Every one has heard people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like: “How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?” – “That’s my seat, I was there first” – “leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm” – “Why should you shove in first?” – “Come on, you promised” – “Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine.”  People say things like that every day, from educated grown-ups to little children.

Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of behavior that he expects the other man to know about. And the other man seldom replies: “To hell with your standard!” nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard [thus proving the standard], or that if it does there are some “special” excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off from keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much like both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they REALLY agreed. And they had. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of understanding or agreement as to what Right or Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a hockey player had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of hockey.

Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the “laws of nature” we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong “the Law of Nature,” they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law – with great difference, that a body could choose to disobey or obey this Law of Nature.

Tony, you should read more closely what has been said.  and there are stages of societies that have happened in each.  And the legalizing of unconstrained sexual acts outside of the traditional family is an indicator of the falling stage, homosexuality being the most extreme of this “unconstrainment.”  A good book that documents this is, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  keep in mind I explicitly stated that there were other factors involved, but the inner workings of the Roman Empire (and other empires as well) was effected deeply by the debauchery they allowed.  One gay author calls the current homosexual movement “fascist,” and after you read her book, you may agree somewhat.

==================================================