#34118: — 08/07  at  06:47 AM
I find it intersting how so many are railing against these two quotes.

The repugnance expressed and the criticisms offered are justified.

But...

People on this forum can't honestly believe that these two quotes represent all Creationists. In my expereince, those individuals and organizations that most prominently represent the various creation perspectives are universally opposed to racism and would likewise join you to denounce the racism expressed in the first quote and correct the poor science expressed in the seond statement.

It seems to me that the most idiotic creationist position has been selected from the History Channel discussion forum, and then an implicit, sweeping, and unwarranted generalization has been made such that it is now concluded that these two statements represent the view of all creationists. Having erected a pathetic strawman, everyone delights in knocking him down, and feels good doing so.

There is no legitimate connection between creationism and racism because there is no connection between the biblical view on human origins and racism.

#34119: Alon Levy — 08/07  at  06:53 AM
The first poster might be interested to know that while we were all black once, there is also a good chance that we were all white before that. Do you think that makes him slightly happier that white might have come first, or even more enraged that we might actually be related to black people?

Since white people have become white as an adaptation to Europe's cold climate after white-skinned apes evolved into dark-skinned humans, this shouldn't be much consolation to white racists.

#34121: PZ Myers — 08/07  at  07:08 AM
You've never heard of Henry Morris? The Hamite "theory"? It was also used to justify slavery, you know. The Biblical explanation for the origins of the races is right there in the story of Noah, and the flood myth is one of the centerpieces of so-called "scientific" creationism.

And no, you're wrong. I picked two representative examples of the creationist nonsense being spouted in that forum. If you want, you can try and find an example of intelligent disagreement with evolution there—good luck.

#34124: — 08/07  at  07:46 AM
Arrgh I didn't need to know about that forum.

Something inside me just can't let anti-evolutionist BS go. I read some ignorant statement like "Lucy has been proven to be just a chimpanzee" and I just have to reply. It's the sheer arrogance of the anti-evolutionist that drives me up the wall. Unless I reply I will be pissed off all day. Perhaps I really do have no free-will on this matter.

#34125: — 08/07  at  07:55 AM
The same Creationist quasi-neo-Nazism can be found with Kent Hovind, who notoriuosly pimps "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in his lectures.

The Answers in Genesis folks have distanced themselves from the traditional racist interpretations of the Bible*, and IDers have no reason to talk about the subject at all.

*http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/AnswersBook/races18.asp

#34131: — 08/07  at  08:28 AM
PZ, that would be based on <a href="http://www.thebricktestament.com//genesis/noahs_insobriety/gn09_18-19.html"> this </a href>story from The Bible, wouldn't it? Always been a personal wtf Bible story.

(Word for submission: gonad!)

#34146: — 08/07  at  10:18 AM
Arse.
This is the link. (Cheers to hotrockhopper for sorting it out for me)

#34154: — 08/07  at  11:19 AM
" "a degree too close to the sun, we fry, a degree too far away, we freeze."

WTF?"

Jamie, steve, in all fairness I think the poster was refering to the habitable zone around the Sun, and that 'degree' was loosely meant as 'a tad' - the poster was rather loose in thinking and language otherwise too. :-(

It is an anthropic argument, ie based on our existence. There are all sorts of these from truistic to strong. I consider most of them worthless for differing reasons.

This is a truistic one - that the habited Earth is situated within our suns habitable zone is a truism. You can't infer much from that. Certainly not enough to conclude that it was not 'an accident'.

#34155: — 08/07  at  11:41 AM
"Newtonian mechanics"

Alon, great commentary. But I think you mean 'Newtonian gravitation' here. He added that theory to his mechanics to explain gravity, as you say.

#34156: — 08/07  at  11:46 AM
Oops. "differing reasons" - different reasons. I guess my english evolved from ape grunts...

#34172: — 08/07  at  01:06 PM
I have heard of Henry Morris (by the way I vehemently disagree with his brand of creationism). While I have not read most of what Henry Morris has written, I doubt that you can show me in his writings any racist tendencies on his part.

As for the Hamite theory as a justification for racism...
There is a difference between using scripture to justify an idealogy (which is what the Hamite theory does) and properly extracting the intended teaching from the text. The doctrine of creation in general, and the doctrine of human origins derived from the biblical text in no way concludes or teaches racism.

#34176: — 08/07  at  01:18 PM
I just checked my library copies of the Genesis Flood and Scientific Creationism, both written by Henry Morris. He does not espouse the Hammite theory, in fact states that it is impossible from the biblical text to know from which of Noah's three sons African population groups descended.

He does believe that the racial difference among people stemmed from microevolutionary changes after their spread from the Mesopotamia after the Flood.

In essence Morris' explanation for racial differences is the same as that espoused by the Out of Africa hypothesis. The only difference is that Morris demands that the microevolutionary changes accure in a few thousands of years.

In fact Morris takes evolutionary biologists to task for using race as a classification for humans. He believes that humans are all of one kind.

Trackback: "Ape to Man" Documentary Tracked on: Nomadic Thoughts (67.138.240.12) at 2005 08 07 15:21:22
As you may have seen, The History Channel is presenting a two-hour documentary tonight (9pm ET) called "Ape to Man": APE TO MAN examines the major discoveries that have led us to the understanding we have today, including theories that...

#34211: — 08/07  at  04:36 PM
yep i think that's one forum purged of ignorance. Now the worst that can happen is more ignorance overflowing after the program has aired.

#34225: Via — 08/07  at  08:39 PM
The Sky Father,
The Earth Mother,
The Dying Son.....

and then just variations on the theme

via

#34255: — 08/08  at  04:43 AM
Seems like the first comment has been removed. Reading teh posting guidelines I saw that racism would get your posts removed, so that's probably the explanaition.

#34257: — 08/08  at  06:33 AM
Does anyone know how you report a quote mining to TalkOrigins? Through the normal feedback? One of the commentors over at History Channel did a bit of quote mining I couldn't find in the archives.
He wrote this:

Okay, how about this. The present state of evolutionary theory has for the most part discarded the "survival of the fittest" .


STEPHEN JAY GOULD: THE PATTERN OF LIFE'S HISTORY [5.23.01]

"There is no progress in evolution. The fact of evolutionary change through time doesn't represent progress as we know it. Progress isn't inevitable. Much of evolution is downward in terms of morphological complexity, rather than upward. We're not marching toward some greater thing."

"Since you always have mutations, why don't things continue changing? You either have to say that the particular form is highly adapted, optimal, and exists in a stable environment, or you have to be very puzzled."

Since that seemed rather unlike Gould to say such things unless it was in a context, I did a little digging, and made this reply:

Is there something about bearing false witness? The first paragraph is is in full:

There is no progress in evolution. The fact of evolutionary change through time doesn't represent progress as we know it. Progress is not inevitable. Much of evolution is downward in terms of morphological complexity, rather than upward. We're not marching toward some greater thing. The actual history of life is awfully damn curious in the light of our usual expectation that there's some predictable drive toward a generally increasing complexity in time. If that's so, life certainly took its time about it: five-sixths of the history of life is the story of single-celled creatures only.

And it continues:

I would like to propose that the modal complexity of life has never changed and it never will, that right from the beginning of life's history it has been what it is; and that our view of complexity is shaped by our warped decision to focus on only one small aspect of life's history; and that the small bit of the history of life that we can legitimately see as involved in progress arises for an odd structural reason and has nothing to do with any predictable drive toward it.

I'm working on an incubus of a project on the structure of evolutionary theory, an attempt to show what has to be altered and expanded from the strict Darwinian model to make a more adequate evolutionary theory.

Basically, there are three themes. The first is the hierarchical theory of natural selection--selection operating on so many levels, both above and below. Richard Dawkins, who still wishes to explain virtually everything at the level of genic selection, is right about one thing; gene selection does operate. He's wrong in saying that it's the source of evolution; it's a source. I don't know what the relative strength and power of the levels are - it depends on the particular problem - but gene selection is not the dominant one, by any means. It certainly happens; it may be responsible for the increase in the number of multiple copies of some kinds of DNA within evolutionary lineages, for example; it's responsible for some things

The second theme is the extent to which strict adaptationism has to be compromised by considering the developmental and genetic restraints at work upon organisms, when you start considering the organism as a figure that pushes back against the force of natural selection. The best way to explain it is metaphorically. Under really strict Darwinism (Darwin is not a strict Darwinian), a population is like a billiard ball: you get a lot of variability, but the variability is random, in all directions. Natural selection is like a pool cue. Natural selection hits the ball, and the ball goes wherever selection pushes it. It's an externalist, functionalist, adaptationist theory. In the nineteenth century, Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin, developed an interesting metaphor: he said an organism is a polyhedron; it rests on one of the facets, one of the surfaces of a polyhedron. You may still need the pool cue of natural selection to hit it - it doesn't move unless there is a pushing force - but it's a polyhedron, meaning that an internal constitution shapes its form and the pathways of change are limited. There are certain pathways that are more probable, and there are certain ones that aren't accessible, even though they might be adaptively advantageous. It really behooves us to study the influence of these structural constraints upon Darwinian and functional adaptation; these are very different views.

The third theme is the extent to which a crucial argument in Darwinism - namely, that you can look at what's happening to pigeons on a generational scale and extrapolate that into the immensity of geological time - really doesn't work, that when you enter geological time there are a whole set of other processes and principles, like what happens in mass extinctions, that make the extrapolationist model not universal.

I'm attempting to marry those three themes - hierarchical selection, internal constraint, and the immensity of geological time - into a more adequate general view of evolutionary theory.

So in other words, Gould did believe in natural selection, which is what "survival of the fittest" refers to.

The second paragraph was not written by Gould at all, but by Stuart Kauffman as a comment.

For those interested in reading the article in question, it can be found here. My quotes are from the start, while the Kauffman comment is on the last page.

What is it with (ID) Creationists and quotes?

#34323: — 08/08  at  04:34 PM
"What is it with (ID) Creationists and quotes?"

Instead of natural selection they use Intelligent Design on quotes. (It probably used to be Creationism out of thin air, but that didn't work at all...)