Mother Nature as a Talking Dummy

In 2005 the magazine 'Science' gave its award of 'Breakthrough of the year' to ''Evolution in Action,'' - a series of findings that ostensibly help us understand how evolution works.
(Elizabeth Culotta and Elizabeth Pennisi; Science/2005)

Some quotes, and some comments;

1. "Today evolution is the foundation of all biology, so basic and all-pervasive that scientists sometimes take its importance for granted. At some level every discovery in biology and medicine rests on it, in much the same way that all terrestrial vertebrates can trace their ancestry back to the first bold fishes to explore land. Each year, researchers worldwide discover enough extraordinary findings tied to evolutionary thinking to fill a book many times as thick as all of Darwin’s works put together."

- Oh my, it's the silly fairy tale about the 'bold' fishes who left the nice and friendly sea to explore the hostile land. Gee; that was a favorite of mine when I was 2 years old... I remember it with great fondness. It didn't have any words to it, but then again it didn't have to. (Such is the greatness of darwinianism :=)
- I don't believe this story for a second. No one was there to see this wild and incredible adventure take place, so it cannot be science, but can only be philosophical speculation. I regard it as a complete fantasy. This is Not something fish do; want to do, or can do. It is totally impossible.

2. Our authors say, ''evolution is the foundation of all biology...''

- I'm afraid not. What evolution is the foundation of, is all evolutionary biology. (But I guess that doesn't sound too impressive does it? No wonder people prefer to lie than tell the truth when they write :=) Actually E. isn't the foundation of anything. Reality is the foundation of biology. In fact it's god's creation that's the foundation of biology. All people are creationists whether they like it or not. There many levels involved in a statement this broad of course; we could say that language is the foundation of biology; we could say that world view is the foundation of biology.

- the pretense of this statement is the faith claim that there is only one way to look at things; that there's only one way to account for the living creatures that make pleasant (and challenging) our lives on this planet. This isn't true of course, but it doesn't stop people like this from trying to convince students that this is the case. (Hey; if we're just animals trying to outcompete each other why be honest?) I assume the authors know better. I assume they refuse to do their readers the honor of telling them the truth. (What sad bastards we are that we can't talk honestly and openly about origins. We'll all go to our graves clutching our petty little lies to our chest.)

3. ''... all terrestrial vertebrates can trace their ancestry back to the first bold fishes to explore land.''

- how any sane person can believe man's ancestors were fish is beyond me. (But heh, I believed it once myself. When I say I believed it, I mean I just accepted what I was told without really thinking about it.) Doesn't it matter that the thing is impossible? Doesn't that matter?

- it's a personification fallacy to call fish 'bold.' That makes no sense; but it happens so often in evolutionary writing that people just take it for granted I guess. Fish aren't bold; only persons are bold. (Like when they tell bald faced lies to people.... when they tell huge lies and hope desperately they'll get away with it... that people won't realize they're lying.)

4. As your average school teacher tells her first graders. ''You know if I try very, very hard I can imagine how all this happened. Once upon a time there was a little fish that was very, very bold. One day he told his parents (Mr. and Mrs. Timidfish) that he was going to explore the land. ''I jumped up very high and I saw it... and now I'm going to explore it, so please pack me a lunch.'' His parents begged him not to go. "It will be incredibly dangerous my bold son,'' said his father Casper Timidfish. But the son (Hercules Timidfish) went anyway. "He always was brave,'' said his mother, weeping a few tears. (In the process turning the sea salty... and that was how the sea evolved it's salt content... as the tears engaged in a fiercesome struggle for survival and the ocean evolved rapidly under the stimulus of this new competition. And that's why we now call the sea the ocean.) When he reached the shore the little fish huffed and puffed and made himself swell to twice his normal size. When the keeper of the sea/land boundary came over to look at him he looked him straight in the eye and said, ''I'm not afraid landkeeper. Let me pass.'' The keeper was so stunned by hearing all this that he fainted and the little fish walked out of the water and onto the land. The land was muddy and he wished he'd brought his boots with him... and this is how he evolved his feet."

5. I predict that one day people will laugh at Darwinian fairy tales (like the fish taking to land story) as the greatest source of humor on the planet. (And they accuse us creationists of not making predictions :=)

Notes;
1. the fact evolutionists become creationists, and creationists become evolutionists is all the evidence we need that there is more than one way to look at the data of biology or any other data. Data is mute. Data has 'words' attributed to it; the way a ventriloquist 'attributes' words to a dummy.
2. In the same issue editor Kennedy tells us;
''We have to put the pieces together, and it could not be a more important challenge: As the evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
- the light of evolution eh? I wonder if that's like the 'inner light' the Quakers talk about :=) This is a bit of blasphemy evolutionists like to quote; it's their equivalent of a bible verse. Of course this phrase is a 'take-off" on the bible, and the claim nothing makes sense except in the light of god's word. ("The fear of god is the beginning of wisdom,'' etc.)
- this is more personification. Evolution isn't a person; it sheds no light. Evolution is a theory, and a theory that makes all of life absurd. It's a theory that makes life impossible to understand; that creates puzzles for people that can't be solved because they're based on a fallacious idea. (e.g. there is no explanation for how life 'emerged' spontaneously on earth... because no such thing happened.)
4. 'Kennedy pointed to his favorite example of the new light: a case of microevolution in stickleback fish. The findings, however meager, are not as important as the process, Kennedy explained: “The exciting thing about evolution,” he said, “is not that our understanding is perfect or complete but that it is the foundation stone for the rest of biology.”
- We here this claim continually. (It goes out every day like a Islamic call for prayer.) But saying something doesn't make it so. What we see here is a kind of new age theology; that you can create any reality you want simply by repeatedly affirming it.
- it's bizarre for a materialist to refer to a foundation stone as there could be no such thing as truth in a m. universe. (Foundation stone is more biblical imagery of course. Christ was the corner stone that Israel's leaders rejected. Whether K. knows it or not he's compared Darwin (or at least Darwinism) to Jesus Christ. But man (or human theory) cannot be the foundation for truth; only God can be a foundation for truth. Darwinism has (since it's debut) a foundation for error. All the sciences (and arts) would have been much better off without this ancient bit of metaphysical speculation. It has contributed nothing of positive value; but has only thrust delusions and fallacies upon generations of students. It is utterly superfluous to true science. (True science is based on observation, testing, language, and logic; it has no need of the evolutionary hypothesis.)
5. I came across this story at Creation/Evolution headlines.