Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) joined the ranks of leading Republicans condemning evolution last week. On Bill Maher’s show, Kingston was asked directly if he believed in evolution and announced “I believe I came from God not from a monkey so the answer is no.”
Kingston rejected the notion as absurd that a “creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day.” Well, this may be a problem with how he was taught evolution. That particular creature did not become a human, but I accept that he was generalizing. He does not, however, view the Bible (Genesis 1:27) as generalizing when it says “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
By the way, a recent study showed that there are still plenty of high school biology teachers who take the same view. Thirteen percent admitted in a study that they advocate creationism over evolution and a majority of high-school biology teachers avoid taking a position between the two.
Kingston is also in good company in his party. Three of the 10 candidates (Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, who later dropped out, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado) have even publicly proclaimed that they did not believe in evolution in the Republican Presidential Primary in 2004.
Source:TPM
You know what’s funny? I read Buddha’s “punctured” as “punctuated.” Thanks Gestalt-brain for filling in the missing pieces.
Alice Who Is Not Alice, bully for you.
I attribute the error to dining while typing.
Since the issue of the process at hand is a disruption of equilibrium though, your technical correction is a distinction without a difference.
Any other nits to pick or are you going to tell us how a raven is like a writing desk?
Wrong. Punctuated, not punctured, equilibrium.
You are most welcome, Zenith.
One lives to be of service.
Thank you Buddha!
Zenith,
The term you are looking for is “punctured equilibrium”.
Good post, btw.
I’ve been reading for a while now, but have not yet commented.
The issue with people calling evolution merely a theory is a mystifyingly simple error:
Evolution (that one species “evolves” into another) is a fact.
The method by which evolution takes place, namely, natural selection, is a theory.
The question is not whether one species evolves into another, but *how* that process occurs. Natural selection is one theory of how it happens, but it is not the only one. However, because Darwin espoused natural selection *and* evolution, the two are often (incorrectly) conflated. Whoops.
Indeed, from what I remember from high school, (sadly, I forgot the name for this model), evidence suggests that evolution does not proceed at a gradual, constant rate, but actually progresses rapidly, and then plateaus. Rinse and repeat.
What has no business being in science class–or any remotely academic discussion on evolution and natural selection–is religion. Thankfully my highly religious biology teacher knew the difference between science and religion, and kept religious beliefs at home and out of the classroom (where they belong).
Tootie:
“But the Christians were dragging down civilization. LOL”
******************
Christians drag down civilizations every time they convince another simple mind that what he is accomplishing here and now is less important that what he will receive as a prize in some ethereal after-life. It posits a direct incentive to forsake progress in this world in exchange for comfort and glory in the next. It is an historic ruse to get someone to pay for salvation in this world with delivery in the next, all the while assured of no earthly way to verify its receipt. Why not let this world burn if your eternal reward waits in the next?
Gibbon:
When the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind on condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the precepts, of the gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of every rank, and of every province in the Roman empire. The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any adequate notion. In the primitive church, the influence of truth was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion, which, however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has not been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed, that the end of the world, and the kingdom of heaven, were at hand. * The near approach of this wonderful event had been predicted by the apostles; the tradition of it was preserved by their earliest disciples, and those who understood in their literal senses the discourse of Christ himself, were obliged to expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the clouds, before that generation was totally extinguished, which had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and which might still be witness of the calamities of the Jews under Vespasian or Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error was permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment, when the globe itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their divine Judge.
(…)
The Christian, who founded his belief much less on the fallacious arguments of reason than on the authority of tradition and the interpretation of Scripture, expected it with terror and confidence as a certain and approaching event; and as his mind was perpetually filled with the solemn idea, he considered every disaster that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of an expiring world.
(…)
The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that on every side they were incessantly assaulted by daemons, comforted by visions, instructed by prophecy, and surprisingly delivered from danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of the church. The real or imaginary prodigies, of which they so frequently conceived themselves to be the objects, the instruments, or the spectators, very happily disposed them to adopt with the same ease, but with far greater justice, the authentic wonders of the evangelic history; and thus miracles that exceeded not the measure of their own experience, inspired them with the most lively assurance of mysteries which were acknowledged to surpass the limits of their understanding. It is this deep impression of supernatural truths, which has been so much celebrated under the name of faith; a state of mind described as the surest pledge of the divine favor and of future felicity, and recommended as the first, or perhaps the only merit of a Christian. According to the more rigid doctors, the moral virtues, which may be equally practised by infidels, are destitute of any value or efficacy in the work of our justification.
(…)
The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason or fancy, and the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation, may employ the leisure of a liberal mind. Such amusements, however, were rejected with abhorrence, or admitted with the utmost caution, by the severity of the fathers, who despised all knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and who considered all levity of discourse as a criminal abuse of the gift of speech.
(…)
The Christians felt and confessed that such institutions might be necessary for the present system of the world, and they cheerfully submitted to the authority of their Pagan governors. But while they inculcated the maxims of passive obedience, they refused to take any active part in the civil administration or the military defence of the empire. Some indulgence might, perhaps, be allowed to those persons who, before their conversion, were already engaged in such violent and sanguinary occupations; but it was impossible that the Christians, without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume the character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes. This indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public welfare, exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the Pagans who very frequently asked, what must be the fate of the empire, attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all mankind should adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect. To this insulting question the Christian apologists returned obscure and ambiguous answers, as they were unwilling to reveal the secret cause of their security; the expectation that, before the conversion of mankind was accomplished, war, government, the Roman empire, and the world itself, would be no more.,/b> It may be observed, that, in this instance likewise, the situation of the first Christians coincided very happily with their religious scruples, and that their aversion to an active life contributed rather to excuse them from the service, than to exclude them from the honors, of the state and army. [emphasis mine]
(Edward Gibbon, DAFTRE, Chapter 15)
Tootie,
“I was too naive and foolish to guess what might happen:
the talk was taped by a creationist who passed the tape
to Luther Sunderland… Since, in my view, the tape wasobtained unethically, I asked Sunderland to stop circulating
the transcipt, but of course to no effect. There is not much
point in my going through the article point by point. I was
putting a case for discussion, as I thought off the record,
and was speaking only about systematics, a specialized field.
I do not support the creationist movement in any way, and in
particular I am opposed to their efforts to modify school
curricula. In short the article does not fairly represent my views. But even if it did, so what? The issue should be
resolved by rational discussion, and not by quoting ‘authorities,’ which seems to be the creationists’ principal
mode of argument.” (Letter from Colin Patterson to Steven W.
Binkley, June 17, 1982).
Oops
To a group of geologists at the Field Museum of Natural History:
“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing, that is true?”
Answer: (silence)
To another group, the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar at the University of Chicago:
“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing, that is true?”
Answer: (after a long silence) “Yes, I do know one thing, that it ought not to be taught in high school.” LOL!
(Colin Patterson , Senior Paleontologist British Museum of Natural History.)
That goofy fairy tale called Evolution.
So many lies to slay, so little time.
“[Ramsay] MacMullen rather oddly claims, ‘Constantine had set the precedent, prescribing the burning of Arian tracts in 333.’ The precedent, in point of fact, was set by Augustine Ceasar, who according to Suetonius destroyed thousands of rival prophetic books before sealing the Sibylline books themselves away from public scrutiny in the Palatine temple of Apollo. A suspicion of oracular literature was quite pronounced in Roman society WELL BEFORE the Christian period. And certainly no Roman emperor can credibly be said to have demonstrated greater delight in the combustion of books he found obnoxious than did Diocletian.” (my emphasis) Atheist Delusions,pg.54 David Hart (hat-tip Harris)
Diocletian was a Roman emperor who read dead animal entrails to divine the future. But it is the Christians who are called anti-intellectual. LOL
“It was, for instance, fashionable in the time of Nero and after to make condemned criminals perform parts in plays written on mythic themes in the roles of certain doomed characters, so that the audience could enjoy the rare amusement of watching an actor actually killed on stage…” IBID, page 132
But the Christians were dragging down civilization. LOL
He may not believe in evolution, but he does believe in reelection
Re: “I’m not a monkey”
Oh yes he is!
Frank,
Actually since humans are Great Apes, I’d say that we are descended from apes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae
1) Apes the world over are relieved to not be related to that ass.
2) He is right, he is not descended from apes. Apes, moneys and men are descended from a common ancestor, not one form the other. There is ample fossil evidence showing this chain and science has never claimed men came from apes.
Jason,
What do the Germans have to do with evolution??
Jason,
What’s the nonsensical stuff you read about at that other thread?
The “conflict” of evolution and creationism should be taught no sooner than astronomy should be balanced by astrology.
And I can’t help but note people taking the side of science in this thread yet championing some of the most nonsensical pseudo-science in the “Walmart Pitches Woo” comments. Bill Maher, mentioned in this very story, loves to talk about science while denying germ theory.
tomdarch:
“May ye be touched by his noodly appendage!”
Ramen, brother!
hahahahaha! ……Pastafarians…..they’re so cheesy!