lepsters and lepers

Patrick Foley patfoley at csus.edu
Wed Oct 23 01:27:46 EDT 2002


Lepsters one and all,

I have been lurking without comment the last couple of months since I am
extremely busy and because everyone has been right and didn't need
argument.

I am sorry to see anyone who love leps leave a list which does in some
way represent the Lepidopterists Society.

Please lurk, lick your wounds and post again Ron, ... even if you are
able to believe 3 impossible things before breakfast. (sure to be corrected
by a Carroll fan. Incidentally Lewis Carroll was at Oxford at the time
of the famous Huxley-Wilberforce  Darwinism  debate. Did the Reverend
Dodgeson attend the debate? Did he ever comment on the
debate? He owned one book of Darwin's. The Expression of Emotions in MAn
and the Animals, which has pictures of facial expressions of galvanized
people. But his library at death shows no other interest in Darwin.)

(And in related news, the Universe may well be headed for a Big Crunch
(the Big Bang in Reverse) due to dark energy which may be the scientists
way of describing Satanic Influence! Is there any way to get out this fix?)

As a scientist Ron, I assure you my unhappiness at being called an
atheist or an agnostic, is probably similar to you being called a Zorastrian
or a
Muslim? I mean aren't all those Middle Eastern religions about the same?
Aren't all
scientists reductionist materialists ready to hook the Pope up with electrodes
to
diagnosis his neurological condition?

Most scientists are scientists because they feel a strong need (as all people
do)
to figure out what is going on. Some people get scared by the implications of
the
real world, some people settle for less.  Scientists keep trying. That is our
one virtue.
Don't deny us that. "Religious" people often have many virtues. Faith may be
one,
but it is not a virtue for scientists.

Are scientists intolerant of religious ideas? Mostly not. We are intolerant of
arguments
that can't be settled, indoctrination of children with mistaken ideas (such as
creationism),
and the undue influence religious fundamentalism has on domestic and foreign
policy,
an influence that is largely pernicious. As a citizen, I respect your right to
say anything you want.
But as a citizen, I want the world to be run by people who know what is going
on, rather than
by Jerry Falwell, Osama bin Laden, Dubya Bush and cronies.

I respect Ron's knowledge of Butterfly subspecies in the American SE, and most
scientists,
even if they argued with his ideas, would pay them some attention. But
creationism and evolution
is my area of expertise and the expertise of science not religion. I have a
PhD in evolutionary genetics.
Paleontologists, molecular biologists, geologists and many others have studied
the
problem. We speak almost with one voice to say "Creationism is not science it
is religion."
We do not say there is no God. We do not say God did not create the world. We
say that the
attempt to show that intelligent design is needed to get the world we have is
not science or
it is bad science. It is either untestable (in its more grandiose claims) or
in its clear cut claims it is wrong.
Complexity can arise spontaneously and has often in the course of geological
time. Models show
that complexity does not require design. Does this mean God could not be
tinkering around with things?
No. What Gof can or cannot do is pretty hard to test. So preach what you want.
It soed not offend me.
But don't tell me it is science. That does. But not enough to want a lepster
off the list.

Patrick
patfoley at csus.edu






 
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