NEWSFLASH: Schools In Georgia (US) Are Allowed To Teach About Creation

Hello again, Delshad!I haven't forgotten my promise to you. It appears, however, that for the moment neither of us has lots of time to engage in a detailed debate concerning religion and modern society. You have schoolwork, and I unfortunately have to make a living occasionally ( ), as well as being tied up in a rather lengthy discussion with Peter Borger, among others. However, I am willing to "make a go of it" if you wish - or we can hold it in abeyance for a bit, with the intention of coming back to the subject later.In any event, best wishes to you during Ramadan.

Here's a link to Doolittle's full essay, A Delicate Balance. It's more of a rebuttal of Behe, but he references several articles at the bottom.

In a sort of late, irrelevant, off-topic way, I'd like to add a bit of information to one of Ahmad's earlier posts (#34), where he presented a list of alleged scientists supportive of creationism, with the question about whether they could be considered "fundamentalists". In point of fact, most of them ARE fundamentalists. It was actually a mixed bag, but for those who don't know some of the players:1. fundamentalists:J.D. Thomas, author of "Evolution and Faith", wherein he quite forcefully argues that "goddidit" is a MUCH more realistic "religion" than evolutionWilliam Dembski, the man who needs no introduction, is an accomplished Christian apologist with many articles in the Princeton Theological Review. One nice example of the way our ID leading light thinks of the subject can be found in his article The Act of Creation: Bridging Transcendence and Immanence, which is filled with gems like "An act of creation is always a divine gift and cannot be reduced to purely naturalistic categories." Wonder why the IDists keep insisting it doesn't have anything to do with God?Peter Russell is another theist pretending to be non-religious. His book From Science to God is pretty explicit - you can read a few chapters at that link. Admittedly, he's more of a anthropic principle type of person rather than a literalist, but still...Walter Bradley is most definitely a fundamentalist and a literalist. A nice article Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God can leave little doubt in anyone's mind as to where he stands.Philip Johnson, one of creationism's leading lights, is about as fundy as they get. Here's a nice biography The Evolution of a Creationist2. sort-of or mostly Anti-Darwin, but not necessarily religious:Robert Shapiro is a biochemist - a real scientist. He is a proponent of the XT origin of life (a la Hoyle). Interestingly, although quoted several times in Johnson's "Darwin on Trial" as a witness for the prosecution as it were, Shapiro actually vehemently opposes creationism, devoting an entire chapter in "Origin's. A Skeptic's Guide To The Creation Of Life On Earth" to bashing the fundamentalists. Johnson strangely neglects to mention that...Sir Fred Hoyle, an astronomer who developed a rather idiosyncratic view of the extraterrestrial origin of life, "panspermia". Again, not really anti-darwin, but had his own idea on OOL (like Shapiro).3. Michael Behe. He gets a separate category. Roman Catholic, believes in a personal creator, etc. But you can't say he's a fundamentalist, nor even really anti-Darwin, since he accepts nearly everything else in the ToE, including common descent, RM&NS, etc. Again, it's only OOL and an ill-defined "designer". Probably the only true "IDist" on the list. A "god of the gaps" argument from incredulity, IMO, but he reminds me a lot of Denton. Other than that, he's slipperier than an eel when it comes to the nature of the Designer.Two other people mentioned in the post, Pierre de Grasse and Norman Macbeth, are a bit different. Macbeth is a retired lawyer, who has a very weird sort of anti-darwinism. Published one book condemning evolution as a religion (projection?), but I haven't found anything about his personal beliefs. Pierre de Grasse is one of my favorite anti-darwinists - primarily because he's so often misunderstood by creationists. de Grasse is the last of the great French lamarckians. He's definitely anti-Darwin (but I bet it's 'cause Darwin was a Brit ). However, he is very much an evolutionist. Consider this quote from the same book Ahmad quoted: "Zoologists and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position and base it primarily on documents provided by paleontology, i.e., the history of the living world ... [Also,] Embryogenesis provides valuable data [concerning evolutionary relationships] ... Chemistry, through it's analytical data, directs biologists and provides guidance in their search for affinities between groups of animals or plants, and ... plays an important part in the approach to genuine evolution." (Pierre de Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, pp. 3-7). Evolution - Yes. NS - No.Creationists thrive on misquotes and misrepresentation. Unfortunately, all it takes is a bit of effort to uncover their "perfidy".

Hi Ahmad:

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How does this gametic incompatibility give rise to new species? How does genetic isolation explain the existence of more than 2 million species worldwide and with what evidence? How does this account for an evolutionary process?

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In a nutshell, divergent populations accumulate genetic changes over time. The longer populations have been isolated — for whatever reason — the more they diverge from the parent stock because the more mutations and random genetic recombinations occur — and are thrown up to the tender mercies of natural selection. In the case cited, gametic incompatibility is the isolating mechanism. There are a lot of others, including behavioral ones. It's a lot more complex when you start talking full biodiversity, but that's the basic mechanism of speciation. It quite easily explains the 10 million+ species on Earth today.