> On Jan 12, 2008, at 6:40 PM, B. wrote:
> >
> > The piece has the embedded video where Paul announces
> > he doesn't believe in evolution:
> >
> > http://suicidegirls.com/news/politics/22859/
>
> I checked the video. Ron Paul definitely did *not* say he didn't
> believe in evolution. He said that evolution is a *scientific* question
> about which he lacked qualification, but that he did not accept
> "the theory of evolution." So what did he mean by "the theory of
> evolution?"
> Presumably the standard textbook "NeoDarwinian" explanation of the
> *fact* of evolution by gradual mechanical/ecological/statistical
> processes to the explicit exclusion of any factors implying
> consciousness or teleology.
That isn't the textbook definition of the "theory of evolution".
Evolutionary theory holds that the diversity of species of life on this planet is attributable to various adaptations that have enhanced survivability. To wit, this method of change - speciation - is consistent with observable attributes; species that share a common anscestor will share common attributes, which for extinct species are observable through the fossil records.
The theory predicts that species that share common atributes likely shared a common anscestor. The predictive value of the theory has been nothing short of excellent; various species have been discovered as fossils that match the previously undiscovered common anscestors missing from the catalog.
It is not possible to "not accept the theory of evolution" without rejecting the most successful theory in the history of biology (and one of the most successful theories in all of science), and hand-waving away the entire biological classification system.
Frankly, not accepting the theory of evolution (even if one attempts to distract with the canard of "design" and theism) is as ridiculous as rejecting Relativity and the Standard Model in physics. I just don't understand it - do these people ever use medicine? Antibiotics? Then what's the problem?
If they need a "goddidit" gap then there is the RNA/protein sequencing dilemma and quantum gravity, two areas where we don't have successful theories.
> He
> rejects that theory, he says, because he believes that there was a
> Creator of
> the universe (and surely belief in a Big Banger is at least as
> reasonable a belief as belief in the Big Bang), with the argument
> implicit that such a
> Creator would continue to exert a meaningful influence over its
> Creation.
> So Ron Paul is--who'd a thunk it-- a theist.
I know penty of theists who are content to go about their theism while living on a spherical planet with antibiotics and tunneling diodes and the warping of space-time and all sorts of other physical things which are explained by modern scientific theories.
This "not accepting the theory of evolution" is code for some kind of old-school Bible-believin', or at least Bible appealin', which stinks either way. And yeah I've liked Ron Paul for being anti-war on the right for a while, but it still stinks.
[snip]
Matt
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