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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Pathetic?
Message-ID: <817@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 11:40:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.817
Posted: Mon Apr 29 11:40:49 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Apr-85 05:39:45 EDT
References: <1852@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 39

> Padraig Houlahan says it's 'pathetic' to point out the error of past
> evolutionary arguments (he references mention of embryo development as
> an argument for evolution is no longer used and to point that out is
> to en effect to beat a dead horse) since no one believes them any longer.
> 
> But this is merely the same kind of argument religious people us to point
> out to non believers when they, the non believers hold up silly notions
> of what the believers really believe!

      That kind of arguement is quite valid, and religious people are allowed
to use it too, as far as I'm concerned.

> Such as the utterly stupid idea 
> that God has to be explained - who/what caused God?

      Just how is this an example of an outdated religious belief which 
nonbelievers hold up to ridicule?  <answer: it's not.>  
> 
> Many uninformed believers in evolution, just like the uniformed unbelievers
> in God, still hold to outmoded or bogus ideas to bolster their convictions.
> WHAT MANY EVOLUTIONISTS ON THIS NET SEEM TO FAIL TO REALIZE IS THE THE
> 'ENVIRONMENT' IN WHICH THE 'DEBATE' ABOUT EVOLUTION IS TAKING PLACE IN OUR
> SOCIETY TODAY IS ONE IN WHICH EVOLUTION IS SEEN TO HAVE CARRIED THE DAY,
> AND SO IT IS RIGHT, AS A TECHNIQUE, TO CRITICISE EVOLUTION POINT BY POINT
> IN MAKING A CASE FOR CREATIONISM.

    Wow!  It's in capital letters, so it must be TRUE!  Notice that if it
were true, it would be valid for people to criticize modern physics since
newtonian mechanics doesn't work for v->c.  Physicists would say: 'But we've
got a new theory that takes care of that!'.  And aristotelians could then
make *exactly* the same arguement that Arndt just has.
    Nuff said.
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
    "This here's a story 'bout Minnie the Moocher.
     She was a low-down hoo-oochy koocher.
     She was the roughest, meanest frail.
     But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale." - idunno (mail me if you do!)