Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
1 ▲ ▼
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
9a9b3dc Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect. causation kalam-cosmological-argument inspirational causality serendipity cause-and-effect necessity darwinism chance naturalism luck Ralph Waldo Emerson
e32d551 "[ :] Atheism by itself is, of course, not a moral position or a political one of any kind; it simply is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension. For you to say of Nazism that it was the implementation of the work of is a filthy slander, undeserving of you and an insult to this audience. 's thought was not taught in Germany; was so derided in Germany along with every other form of unbelief that all the great modern atheists, , and were alike despised by the National Socialist regime. Now, just to take the most notorious of the 20th century totalitarianisms - the most finished example, the most perfected one, the most ruthless and refined one: that of National Socialism, the one that fortunately allowed the escape of all these great atheists, thinkers and many others, to the United States, a country of separation of church and state, that gave them welcome - if it's an atheistic regime, then how come that in the first chapter of , that says that he's doing God's work and executing God's will in destroying the Jewish people? How come the fuhrer oath that every officer of the Party and the Army had to take, making evolution science albert-einstein barbaric fascistic fuhrer mein-kampf superstitious separation-of-church-and-state einstein nazi charles-darwin sigmund-freud freud pope vatican nazism catholicism united-states hitler darwinism darwin fascism jewish germany Christopher Hitchens
3679ddb "I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. evolution bisphenol-a bpa dr-jack-cohen-podiatrist excitotoxins fluoride man-made-global-warming manmade-global-warming minority-view monosodium-glutamate msg scientific-discovery scientific-inquiry scientific-process science scientific-research scientific-revolution majority scientific-theory minority consensus scientific-method global-warming majority-view september-11-attacks id macro-evolution macroevolution intelligent-design darwinism Michael Crichton
aafdaed With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage. planned-parenthood sterilisation sterilization population-control eugenics social-darwinism survival-of-the-fittest darwinism natural-selection Charles Darwin
a701edb If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case. evolution science macro-evolution macroevolution darwinism Charles Darwin
cac6115 "There is no indisputable proof for the big bang," said Hollus. "And there is none for evolution. And yet you accept those. Why hold the question of whether there is a creator to a higher standard?" science big-bang double-standards materialism id macro-evolution macroevolution intelligent-design religious-science-fiction darwinism theism theistic-science-fiction naturalism Robert J. Sawyer
eef3156 At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. racism negroes population-control racial-superiority negro darwinism Charles Darwin
6712e49 If theft is advantageous to everyone who succeeds at it, and adultery is a good strategy, at least for males, for increasing presence in the gene pool, why do we feel they are wrong? Shouldn't the only morality that evolution produces be the kind Bill Clinton had - being sorry you got caught? evolution morality infidelity macro-evolution macroevolution social-darwinism survival-of-the-fittest theft darwinism natural-selection stealing Robert J. Sawyer
71194de But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. evolution conclusion-before-evidence intermediate-forms missing-links fossils paleontology fossil-record macro-evolution macroevolution darwinism Charles Darwin
88c6339 "Even if we have a reliable criterion for detecting design, and even if that criterion tells us that biological systems are designed, it seems that determining a biological system to be designed is akin to shrugging our shoulders and saying God did it. The fear is that admitting design as an explanation will stifle scientific inquiry, that scientists will stop investigating difficult problems because they have a sufficient explanation already. But design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the , John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it. evolution science coccyx human-appendix human-coccyx junk-dna scientific-prediction vestigial-organs dna biology purpose id intelligent-design darwinism William A. Dembski
f09903e The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgeable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might-hope against hope-have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by hundreds of thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other field of knowledge. New discoveries may conceivably lead to dramatic, even 'revolutionary' shifts in the Darwinian theory, but the hope that it will be 'refuted' by some shattering breakthrough is about as reasonable as the hope that we will return to a geocentric vision and discard Copernicus. evolution science evolutionary-biology dennett scientific-theory evidence darwinism Daniel C. Dennett
3bd0efd Many investigators feel uneasy stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they admit they are baffled. evolution science chemical-evolution origin-of-information origin-of-life biology id intelligent-design darwinism Paul Davies
596d3e9 That natural selection can produce changes within a type is disputed by no one, not even the staunchest creationist. But that it can transform one species into another -- that, in fact, has never been observed. evolution science darwinism darwin natural-selection neo-darwinism speciation Robert J. Sawyer
6bcb85e "The missing link between animals and the real human being is most likely ourselves". Konrad Lorenz "Nothing exists except atoms and space; everything else is opinion". Democritus of Abdera "The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity". Edward de Bono." earth humanity extra-terrestrials great-flood trans-generational-memory-gene noah-s-ark pyramid homo-sapiens darwinism John Cowie
1 ▲ ▼