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I take that as a hypothesis. And I am more interested in the nature of proof for that hypothesis than I am interested in whether your hypothesis is right or wrong. First, I would look for counter-examples--because why waste time proving A when there is a simple counter-example to A? :) So suppose I could show you in Darwin's own letters that the Creationists around him so terrified him that for years he could not bring himself to publish his Origin of Species. Would that be a counter-example to your above hypothesis?
Are you sure you want to say that?--because it seems to me that you are saying there was a very active Creationism movement going before Darwin ever drew his first breath, a very active Creationism movement that had Darwin in such hesitation that he postponed publishing his own theories in opposition to the Creationism movement--even when he knew he was right--because of the outcry he feared that would erupt from the very active, very organized, and long-established Creationism movement that had him under control--until he got the courage to stand up to the Creationist movement that held him back. --- Rednblu 23:18, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Let me introduce you to the Creationism page from which I quote the first sentence: "Creationism is the belief that the universe and all life were created by the deliberate act of God as described in the Bible." I have carefully Wikified links to the nouns in that sentence so that you can point out to me which of the nouns in that definition did not exist before Darwin. Maybe you want to write a new page Creationism (movement)? But your whole conception is as wrong and as myopic as saying that there wasn't a Christianity movement before محمد; "the Christianity movement is a group specifically devoted to obfuscating Muslim science and philosophy." --- Rednblu 00:13, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Surely, you don't really think Old-Earth creationism and all of those other pretenses are "massive changes." They are just preacher homiletic tricks to package the same old faith. Do they look like science to you? Heaven help you if they do. They were around long before Darwin got into the act. These are all ancient ideas; they go back at least to the Greeks. But let's just take "modern" examples before Darwin. For example, around 1824 the Reverand William Buckland in introducing the first dinosaur fossil Megalosaurus already was interpreting the "days" of creation as "ages" in order to explain that there had been giant beasts around long before men appeared.
The idea that there had to be an Intelligent Designer was argued by William Paley as early as 1809. on-line text And Theistic Evolution was argued at least as early as an 1845 London Times article where a reviewer says about Reverand Buckland's 1836 Bridgewater Treatise that "his general conclusion being, that the present world was constructed out of the materials of a former one; that former one from the wreck of its predecessor; and so upwards, ad infinitum." (The London Times Monday, Jun 23, 1845; pg. 6; Issue 18957; col A) Darwin no more changed "creationism" than Lavoisier changed phlogiston theory; Darwin may have disproved "creationism" but he had negligible effect on the content of the "creationism" theory that he disproved. --- Rednblu 08:42, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
<<Let me introduce you to the Creationism page from which I quote the first sentence: "Creationism is the belief that the universe and all life were created by the deliberate act of God as described in the Bible." .... Maybe you want to write a new page Creationism (movement)?>>
Actually, after logging off last night, I had the thought that instead of "belief", "view", "doctrine", or similar, perhaps the best wording is Creationism is the movement... I agree with Steinsky in that creationism as a movement only began as a response to Darwinism, and even though before that there were creationists, and debate about creation vs. something else, the word creationism was not used in that context. (Rednblu, did you look at these links-- [1] [2] [3]-- that I previously included?)
So I guess the question is, should this article be about the creationism movement, that has existed for less than 200 years, or should it cover the entire history of debate about creation? I suggest that we concentrate on the creationism movement that was a response to Darwinism, but include a bit of "background" in the form of documenting some of the earlier debate.
Philip J. Rayment 12:10, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Perhaps the communism page is a good template. That is, as with the word "communism," once you have the definition for the " -ism," to be accurate, you will have to look back through history to the Greeks to see whether the "-ism" existed even back then. Your three links are interesting, but I don't see anything beginning just because someone put an English word on it. The mechanics of Magnetism are unchanged whether you apply the English word to the phenomenon or not--likewise for "creationism" or "communism." The English word is merely a label that you put on the phenomenon.
Perhaps. But the driving force even in "creationism as movement" is not the movement. The driving force is the common sense appeal of the theory within "creationism." For example, the "theory" of "creationism" makes the best sense to people who are unconvinced by the facts that suggest evolution; 2000 years ago the "theory" of "creationism" made more sense to some people than the facts that supported the "theory" of " atomism". They look into their "heart of hearts," and they say "God did it" -- facts be damned. It is the same theory and it is the same appeal that has worked at least for the last 2000 years. --- Rednblu 16:48, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Nobody is denying that, you know, we are allowed to cover both pre- and post-Darwin Creationism in the article! You seem to be set on removing the section on the effects of Darwin's idea from the article, but only because the creationism philosophy existed before Darwin? -- Steinsky 17:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Yes--because Darwin's idea had negligible effect on the "belief," "controversy," or "theory" of creationism. One of the predominant features of "creationism" is that it does not evolve in the face of the threats from the competition. Instead of evolving, "creationism" responds to science--not with science--but with repackages of the old faith and common sense arguments--churning through the same old set of 2000 year-old interpretations and fudges of Biblical text packaged in modern language.
Do you still contend that Old-Earth creationism, Theistic Evolution, and Intelligent Design grew out of Darwin's idea? In my opinion, it would be accurate to pull all of the Darwin material into a section "Creationism disproved." But it is a disservice to the reader to embed the Creationism page with the current infestation of pop-up ads for Darwin's idea. The reader comes to Creationism in the hope of reading a clear exposition of "creationism." Why isn't the Evolution page a sufficient advertisement for "evolution"? --- Rednblu 18:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You think these pages are advertising Darwin's ideas? I still contend that the OEC, TE and ID exist as reponses to Darwinism, why would I change my mind, you have provided no evidence to the contrary? -- Steinsky 18:36, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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What in Intelligent Design is not just homiletic repackaging of William Paley's 1809 book Natural Theology? Notice, I am giving you an on-line link to the actual text. In my understanding, homiletics is the kind of repackaging of the Bible lesson that a good pastor does in giving modern stories and examples to elucidate the underlying dogma of what he or she is trying to get across to those sitting in the Sunday church pews. --- Rednblu 19:06, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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I don't think I've come across the word before, you appear right that ID is homiletics, but my point is that it is a significant example of homiletics because:
Steinsky 19:28, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Would you agree with the following?
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<<For example, the "theory" of "creationism" makes the best sense to people who are unconvinced by the facts that suggest evolution; 2000 years ago the "theory" of "creationism" made more sense to some people ...>>
This may be just semantics, perhaps, but maybe it illustrates some of the disagreement. I would have written that sentence (without the quotes) as "For example, the theory of creation makes the best sense to people who are unconvinced by the facts that suggest evolution; 2000 years ago the theory of creation made more sense to some people...". Creation is the idea/theory/model, creationism is the movement. By the way Rednblu, thanks for fixing those links.
<<Darwin's idea had negligible effect on the "belief," "controversy," or "theory" of creationism.>>
It, along with uniformitarian geology, had quite a big effect. They gave rise to various compromise ideas (day-age, gap theory, theistic evolution, etc.) and changed creation from being the dominant paradigm to almost wiping it out, before it started to claw its way back.
<<One of the predominant features of "creationism" is that it does not evolve in the face of the threats from the competition. Instead of evolving, "creationism" responds to science--not with science--but with repackages of the old faith and common sense arguments--churning through the same old set of 2000 year-old interpretations and fudges of Biblical text packaged in modern language.>>
It didn't evolve because it didn't believe in evolution! (sorry). It did change, and it does respond with science (as well as Scripture). They are certainly not the same old arguments (some may be), but there are a whole lot of new argument used.
Philip J. Rayment 16:54, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Can you get a copy of Reverand William Buckland's 1836 Bridgewater Treatise? I once had a link to an on-line copy; I would give you the link, but the site disappeared. In my opinion, Buckland sketched out the logic of day-age, gap theory, and theistic evolution before he ever read Darwin. And Buckland published those pieces of creationism theory before Darwin returned from his Beagle voyages. Of course, Buckland did not talk about how God guided natural selection, but he talked about how God guided a series of extinctions of life and how God built the next set of creatures from the fragments of the prior creatures, starting with an earth that had no creatures, then microscopic creatures, then vast dinosaurs--like the Megalosaurus that Reverand Buckland himself introduced to the science world--and finally, according to Buckland's 1836 treatise, God built man from the fragments of the creatures of the world in which no man existed. And Buckland wrote about all of that day-age, gap theory, and theistic evolution before Darwin got back from his Beagle voyages--so, in my opinion, Darwin had little effect on day-age, gap theory, and theistic evolution--except maybe give a trivial label--"natural selection"--to what it was that God guided. --- Rednblu 17:47, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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So were Darwin's ideas popularizers of "creationism"? Or were the writings of "creationists," such as Reverand Schofield popularisers of "evolutionism"? In any case, it seems to me that the creationism theory was firmly in place before Darwin. Perhaps, all of the references to Darwin should be moved to a section "People influential in popularizing the Gap Theory." --- Rednblu 19:03, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Let's keep the debate focused and on topic. The original question and purpose of this Talk is the question: Should Darwin be Darwin be mentioned in the Creationism article? Remember wikipedia policy: "The Talk pages are not a place to debate which views are right or wrong or better. If you want to do that, there are venues such as Usenet, public weblogs and other wikis."
--- My position is yes, mention of Darwin needs to remain as part of the creationism article.
A Creationism article without Darwin is like a Goliath article without David.-- FeloniousMonk 09:59, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sorry about this. The best way about this would be to increase its size, reasonably easily, mention pre-Darwinian ideas through to ID from the 1990s. Some of its tone is wrong, comparing Mendel to Darwin for example is wrong. Mendel had read Darwin, but didn't understand the significance of his own work. Darwin didn't know about Mendel, and it was then until 1901 that Mendel's work was rediscovered, and then until 1918 that Fisher worked out how it could apply to continuous variation, thus kick-starting the modern synthesis. The first stage would be to split it up into sections by era. Dunc| ☺ 12:58, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
And on Mendel...
Mendel did his work on plant hybridisation in 1865. It seems he had read Darwin and was probably familiar with the theories of orthogenesis around at the time. It seems that he did not realise what his findings meant and that perhaps he did believe that it supported the unmutability of species. However, his work was then cited three times in the next 35 years — No-one read it, so it did not and could not have influenced anyone. To go to the true roots of orthogenesis you need to look to earlier works (as explained in the article). Drop out Mendel, it sounds so much like a misguided plea to authority.
When Mendelian genetics was rediscovered in 1901, it was recognised as giving a method of heredity, not orthogenesis and which discounted orthogenesis. A feud between the Mendelians and the Biometricians would take until 1918 before it was realised that continuous variation could arise from Mendelian inheritance, but from then on it was plain sailing for the modern synthesis. This period really is the eclipse of Darwinism.
The modern synthesis came initially from three population geneticists, Ronald Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane and Sewall Wright in the 1920s. Gradually other areas of biology such as palaeontology realised what these mathematical treatises meant and came aboard. Dobzhansky's principle work was studing the genetics of fruit flies on Hawaii; he only left Russia in 1927 and it would be until 1937 that he published Genetics and the Origin of Species. Dobzhansky was important but he wasn't the father of the modern synthesis; Fisher is more important. Dunc| ☺ 17:04, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
alright, let's get an analytical issue straighted out. define protoscience. the wikipedia article defines it as "the term protoscience is used to describe a new area of scientific endeavor in the process of becoming established."
So what's your definition of protoscience, so we can stay consistent? Ungtss 01:17, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
<<science proper would be purely naturalistic. ... Scientists can and do believe in the supernatural, but if their work is purely natural, then it is science.>>
Why?
<<...work only becomes science through acceptance by the scientific community...>>
And here's me thinking that it was science because it followed the scientific method, not because of a popularity vote among scientists!
Philip J. Rayment 12:12, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
i think uniformitarianism is better described as a presumption, rather than an assumption. pre implies deliberation -- a implies no thought at all. uniformitarianism is chosen by the mainstream geologists because they consider it most parsimonious -- it's deliberate, although they don't like to talk about it very much:). Ungtss 13:58, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I cut the humanist manifesto, the reason being (1) that it's too early, theists were complaining about Godlessness way before then, and (2) atheism has traditionally been a rather unorganised church-less movement, perhaps it's something to do with rebellion. Anyway, what is important and is difficult starting from event driven basis is to get the social history right, i.e. subtle changes over time rather than significant publications or trials. Dunc| ☺ 20:48, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
One of the problems we are going to hit is that there are a variety of flavours of creationism and often the most vocal are the YECs, and inevitively they will get their space. I'm a bit concerned about you pushing your pov, btw. Unfortunately we don't have a history of atheism. see here for a good review of interwar period. Likewise, post-war the Cold War is hugely more important that the humanist manifesto. The HM is simply far too unsubtle to convey those nuances.
If you insist on keeping it let's try to get those subtleties in before removing the paragraph. Dunc| ☺ 23:11, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't think so. :) Where is the article? Gould, as far as I know, did not write about gene pools so small that there would be deleterious effects from inbreeding. Besides, as far as I know, Gould was not talking about speciations that take place in a hundred years. The span is more like a million years, is it not? --- Rednblu | Talk 08:34, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
citable ones:
Wetermeirer, R.L., J.D. Brawn, S.A. Simpson, T.L. Esker, R.W. Jansen, J.W. Walk, E.L.
creationist ones: one article. two article. Ungtss 18:29, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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In my opinion, that implies that there is a normal-sized gene pool surrounding the mutant that would include all of the "parental species" that survive in the niche. :) Would you agree? We can see the equivalent phenomenon occur repeatedly in our lifetime--in bacteria that mutate to become immune to antibiotics. Bacteria also reproduce within a gene pool, you know. And once the three billion year activities of bacterial random experiments with variations on tested and proven snippets of DNA code produce a mutation that is immune to antibiotics, that mutation quickly diffuses through the gene pool of the surviving bacteria--without ever a deleterious shrinkage of the bacterial gene pool. Again, I say, where is the article :)) that states that punctuated equilibrium ever is associated with a deleterious shrinkage of the gene pool? --- Rednblu | Talk 19:20, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
it seems that hume died before paley wrote his book ... so i've got paley responding to hume, as requested:). Ungtss 20:35, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"some creationists later incorporated some of his arguments."
Mostly YECs, generally used as a last resort argument if their pseudoscience fails, e.g. on the supposed decay of the speed of light, it must have come from somewhere, it must be a trick by God to weed out the evilutionists. Sometimes the Devil is invoked to explain the observations instead. Dunc| ☺ 22:35, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH220.html cites Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Arkansas: Master Books, pp. 209-210. Dunc| ☺ 10:48, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Orthogenesis is part of Lamarckism; it is the differential needed. Thus it is covered in the eclipse of Darwinism, but further elaboration is not required, and Ugtgss's edits are in disagreement with orthogenesis. Dunc| ☺ 22:16, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
in which case the orthogenesisarticle is wrong, and the mentions of special creation by Darwin's contemporaries is more appropriate than you pushing your own ideas about macroevolution. Dunc| ☺ 22:32, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
YECism is a reaction against science, and although the science of that day was wrong, there is no need to go into details. The YECs would have reacted against anything. Dunc| ☺ 10:56, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What are you doing? why are you removing factual information without justification? Ungtss 16:18, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As I originally reverted Irate, I'll add my comments, even though much of it has already been covered by Ungtss. The original introductory wording didn't say that Genesis was original, just that Genesis is where Christians and others get the story from. Many people don't agree that Genesis was derived from other sources, so putting that is was is POV.
I removed the reference to AiG in the UK being "a very minor organisation and concept" because (a) it is an organisation, not a 'concept', and (b) I didn't think that it being minor in the UK was relevant. AiG itself is not a minor organisation, it being one of the largest, if not the largest, creationist organisations in the world. I believe that the statement said more about AiG as an international organisation than it did about its size in each of those countries.
Philip J. Rayment 01:18, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The introduction currently says:
First, I reckon the previous wording was cleaner and better.
The bit about no systematic enquiry I don't think is fair. It effectively says that no systematic enquiry was done because everybody accepted it, rather, as I suspect is the case, that in those days no systematic enquiry was done on any historical accounts. And whilst it is true that subsequently various movements did challenge the accepted viewpoint, that was, on the whole at least, not until after the rise of science and many scientists did investigate creation as scientifically as they were able. In other words, the paragraph as it stands gives the impression that no-one questioned creation until science etc. came along and did so, rather than saying that nobody questioned it because nobody questioned history in those days, and questioning it was not a result of the rise of science but subsequent to that.
And lastly, it could be read as saying that as well as Muslims, (Christian) Europeans and Americans, and Jews, based their views on Genesis and the Qu'ran.
What do others think?
Philip J. Rayment 01:38, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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I agree that the previous shorter lead section was clearer. The current lead section make me think that the page is about how long God is going to live. :)) Where is the "creationism"? It kind of flashes by as if it is just a roadsign that blips by as I am looking at the awesome scenery of how long God lived. :) --- Rednblu | Talk 05:43, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
History of creationism article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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I take that as a hypothesis. And I am more interested in the nature of proof for that hypothesis than I am interested in whether your hypothesis is right or wrong. First, I would look for counter-examples--because why waste time proving A when there is a simple counter-example to A? :) So suppose I could show you in Darwin's own letters that the Creationists around him so terrified him that for years he could not bring himself to publish his Origin of Species. Would that be a counter-example to your above hypothesis?
Are you sure you want to say that?--because it seems to me that you are saying there was a very active Creationism movement going before Darwin ever drew his first breath, a very active Creationism movement that had Darwin in such hesitation that he postponed publishing his own theories in opposition to the Creationism movement--even when he knew he was right--because of the outcry he feared that would erupt from the very active, very organized, and long-established Creationism movement that had him under control--until he got the courage to stand up to the Creationist movement that held him back. --- Rednblu 23:18, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Let me introduce you to the Creationism page from which I quote the first sentence: "Creationism is the belief that the universe and all life were created by the deliberate act of God as described in the Bible." I have carefully Wikified links to the nouns in that sentence so that you can point out to me which of the nouns in that definition did not exist before Darwin. Maybe you want to write a new page Creationism (movement)? But your whole conception is as wrong and as myopic as saying that there wasn't a Christianity movement before محمد; "the Christianity movement is a group specifically devoted to obfuscating Muslim science and philosophy." --- Rednblu 00:13, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Surely, you don't really think Old-Earth creationism and all of those other pretenses are "massive changes." They are just preacher homiletic tricks to package the same old faith. Do they look like science to you? Heaven help you if they do. They were around long before Darwin got into the act. These are all ancient ideas; they go back at least to the Greeks. But let's just take "modern" examples before Darwin. For example, around 1824 the Reverand William Buckland in introducing the first dinosaur fossil Megalosaurus already was interpreting the "days" of creation as "ages" in order to explain that there had been giant beasts around long before men appeared.
The idea that there had to be an Intelligent Designer was argued by William Paley as early as 1809. on-line text And Theistic Evolution was argued at least as early as an 1845 London Times article where a reviewer says about Reverand Buckland's 1836 Bridgewater Treatise that "his general conclusion being, that the present world was constructed out of the materials of a former one; that former one from the wreck of its predecessor; and so upwards, ad infinitum." (The London Times Monday, Jun 23, 1845; pg. 6; Issue 18957; col A) Darwin no more changed "creationism" than Lavoisier changed phlogiston theory; Darwin may have disproved "creationism" but he had negligible effect on the content of the "creationism" theory that he disproved. --- Rednblu 08:42, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
<<Let me introduce you to the Creationism page from which I quote the first sentence: "Creationism is the belief that the universe and all life were created by the deliberate act of God as described in the Bible." .... Maybe you want to write a new page Creationism (movement)?>>
Actually, after logging off last night, I had the thought that instead of "belief", "view", "doctrine", or similar, perhaps the best wording is Creationism is the movement... I agree with Steinsky in that creationism as a movement only began as a response to Darwinism, and even though before that there were creationists, and debate about creation vs. something else, the word creationism was not used in that context. (Rednblu, did you look at these links-- [1] [2] [3]-- that I previously included?)
So I guess the question is, should this article be about the creationism movement, that has existed for less than 200 years, or should it cover the entire history of debate about creation? I suggest that we concentrate on the creationism movement that was a response to Darwinism, but include a bit of "background" in the form of documenting some of the earlier debate.
Philip J. Rayment 12:10, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Perhaps the communism page is a good template. That is, as with the word "communism," once you have the definition for the " -ism," to be accurate, you will have to look back through history to the Greeks to see whether the "-ism" existed even back then. Your three links are interesting, but I don't see anything beginning just because someone put an English word on it. The mechanics of Magnetism are unchanged whether you apply the English word to the phenomenon or not--likewise for "creationism" or "communism." The English word is merely a label that you put on the phenomenon.
Perhaps. But the driving force even in "creationism as movement" is not the movement. The driving force is the common sense appeal of the theory within "creationism." For example, the "theory" of "creationism" makes the best sense to people who are unconvinced by the facts that suggest evolution; 2000 years ago the "theory" of "creationism" made more sense to some people than the facts that supported the "theory" of " atomism". They look into their "heart of hearts," and they say "God did it" -- facts be damned. It is the same theory and it is the same appeal that has worked at least for the last 2000 years. --- Rednblu 16:48, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Nobody is denying that, you know, we are allowed to cover both pre- and post-Darwin Creationism in the article! You seem to be set on removing the section on the effects of Darwin's idea from the article, but only because the creationism philosophy existed before Darwin? -- Steinsky 17:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Yes--because Darwin's idea had negligible effect on the "belief," "controversy," or "theory" of creationism. One of the predominant features of "creationism" is that it does not evolve in the face of the threats from the competition. Instead of evolving, "creationism" responds to science--not with science--but with repackages of the old faith and common sense arguments--churning through the same old set of 2000 year-old interpretations and fudges of Biblical text packaged in modern language.
Do you still contend that Old-Earth creationism, Theistic Evolution, and Intelligent Design grew out of Darwin's idea? In my opinion, it would be accurate to pull all of the Darwin material into a section "Creationism disproved." But it is a disservice to the reader to embed the Creationism page with the current infestation of pop-up ads for Darwin's idea. The reader comes to Creationism in the hope of reading a clear exposition of "creationism." Why isn't the Evolution page a sufficient advertisement for "evolution"? --- Rednblu 18:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You think these pages are advertising Darwin's ideas? I still contend that the OEC, TE and ID exist as reponses to Darwinism, why would I change my mind, you have provided no evidence to the contrary? -- Steinsky 18:36, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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What in Intelligent Design is not just homiletic repackaging of William Paley's 1809 book Natural Theology? Notice, I am giving you an on-line link to the actual text. In my understanding, homiletics is the kind of repackaging of the Bible lesson that a good pastor does in giving modern stories and examples to elucidate the underlying dogma of what he or she is trying to get across to those sitting in the Sunday church pews. --- Rednblu 19:06, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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I don't think I've come across the word before, you appear right that ID is homiletics, but my point is that it is a significant example of homiletics because:
Steinsky 19:28, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Would you agree with the following?
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<<For example, the "theory" of "creationism" makes the best sense to people who are unconvinced by the facts that suggest evolution; 2000 years ago the "theory" of "creationism" made more sense to some people ...>>
This may be just semantics, perhaps, but maybe it illustrates some of the disagreement. I would have written that sentence (without the quotes) as "For example, the theory of creation makes the best sense to people who are unconvinced by the facts that suggest evolution; 2000 years ago the theory of creation made more sense to some people...". Creation is the idea/theory/model, creationism is the movement. By the way Rednblu, thanks for fixing those links.
<<Darwin's idea had negligible effect on the "belief," "controversy," or "theory" of creationism.>>
It, along with uniformitarian geology, had quite a big effect. They gave rise to various compromise ideas (day-age, gap theory, theistic evolution, etc.) and changed creation from being the dominant paradigm to almost wiping it out, before it started to claw its way back.
<<One of the predominant features of "creationism" is that it does not evolve in the face of the threats from the competition. Instead of evolving, "creationism" responds to science--not with science--but with repackages of the old faith and common sense arguments--churning through the same old set of 2000 year-old interpretations and fudges of Biblical text packaged in modern language.>>
It didn't evolve because it didn't believe in evolution! (sorry). It did change, and it does respond with science (as well as Scripture). They are certainly not the same old arguments (some may be), but there are a whole lot of new argument used.
Philip J. Rayment 16:54, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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Can you get a copy of Reverand William Buckland's 1836 Bridgewater Treatise? I once had a link to an on-line copy; I would give you the link, but the site disappeared. In my opinion, Buckland sketched out the logic of day-age, gap theory, and theistic evolution before he ever read Darwin. And Buckland published those pieces of creationism theory before Darwin returned from his Beagle voyages. Of course, Buckland did not talk about how God guided natural selection, but he talked about how God guided a series of extinctions of life and how God built the next set of creatures from the fragments of the prior creatures, starting with an earth that had no creatures, then microscopic creatures, then vast dinosaurs--like the Megalosaurus that Reverand Buckland himself introduced to the science world--and finally, according to Buckland's 1836 treatise, God built man from the fragments of the creatures of the world in which no man existed. And Buckland wrote about all of that day-age, gap theory, and theistic evolution before Darwin got back from his Beagle voyages--so, in my opinion, Darwin had little effect on day-age, gap theory, and theistic evolution--except maybe give a trivial label--"natural selection"--to what it was that God guided. --- Rednblu 17:47, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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So were Darwin's ideas popularizers of "creationism"? Or were the writings of "creationists," such as Reverand Schofield popularisers of "evolutionism"? In any case, it seems to me that the creationism theory was firmly in place before Darwin. Perhaps, all of the references to Darwin should be moved to a section "People influential in popularizing the Gap Theory." --- Rednblu 19:03, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Let's keep the debate focused and on topic. The original question and purpose of this Talk is the question: Should Darwin be Darwin be mentioned in the Creationism article? Remember wikipedia policy: "The Talk pages are not a place to debate which views are right or wrong or better. If you want to do that, there are venues such as Usenet, public weblogs and other wikis."
--- My position is yes, mention of Darwin needs to remain as part of the creationism article.
A Creationism article without Darwin is like a Goliath article without David.-- FeloniousMonk 09:59, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sorry about this. The best way about this would be to increase its size, reasonably easily, mention pre-Darwinian ideas through to ID from the 1990s. Some of its tone is wrong, comparing Mendel to Darwin for example is wrong. Mendel had read Darwin, but didn't understand the significance of his own work. Darwin didn't know about Mendel, and it was then until 1901 that Mendel's work was rediscovered, and then until 1918 that Fisher worked out how it could apply to continuous variation, thus kick-starting the modern synthesis. The first stage would be to split it up into sections by era. Dunc| ☺ 12:58, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
And on Mendel...
Mendel did his work on plant hybridisation in 1865. It seems he had read Darwin and was probably familiar with the theories of orthogenesis around at the time. It seems that he did not realise what his findings meant and that perhaps he did believe that it supported the unmutability of species. However, his work was then cited three times in the next 35 years — No-one read it, so it did not and could not have influenced anyone. To go to the true roots of orthogenesis you need to look to earlier works (as explained in the article). Drop out Mendel, it sounds so much like a misguided plea to authority.
When Mendelian genetics was rediscovered in 1901, it was recognised as giving a method of heredity, not orthogenesis and which discounted orthogenesis. A feud between the Mendelians and the Biometricians would take until 1918 before it was realised that continuous variation could arise from Mendelian inheritance, but from then on it was plain sailing for the modern synthesis. This period really is the eclipse of Darwinism.
The modern synthesis came initially from three population geneticists, Ronald Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane and Sewall Wright in the 1920s. Gradually other areas of biology such as palaeontology realised what these mathematical treatises meant and came aboard. Dobzhansky's principle work was studing the genetics of fruit flies on Hawaii; he only left Russia in 1927 and it would be until 1937 that he published Genetics and the Origin of Species. Dobzhansky was important but he wasn't the father of the modern synthesis; Fisher is more important. Dunc| ☺ 17:04, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
alright, let's get an analytical issue straighted out. define protoscience. the wikipedia article defines it as "the term protoscience is used to describe a new area of scientific endeavor in the process of becoming established."
So what's your definition of protoscience, so we can stay consistent? Ungtss 01:17, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
<<science proper would be purely naturalistic. ... Scientists can and do believe in the supernatural, but if their work is purely natural, then it is science.>>
Why?
<<...work only becomes science through acceptance by the scientific community...>>
And here's me thinking that it was science because it followed the scientific method, not because of a popularity vote among scientists!
Philip J. Rayment 12:12, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
i think uniformitarianism is better described as a presumption, rather than an assumption. pre implies deliberation -- a implies no thought at all. uniformitarianism is chosen by the mainstream geologists because they consider it most parsimonious -- it's deliberate, although they don't like to talk about it very much:). Ungtss 13:58, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I cut the humanist manifesto, the reason being (1) that it's too early, theists were complaining about Godlessness way before then, and (2) atheism has traditionally been a rather unorganised church-less movement, perhaps it's something to do with rebellion. Anyway, what is important and is difficult starting from event driven basis is to get the social history right, i.e. subtle changes over time rather than significant publications or trials. Dunc| ☺ 20:48, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
One of the problems we are going to hit is that there are a variety of flavours of creationism and often the most vocal are the YECs, and inevitively they will get their space. I'm a bit concerned about you pushing your pov, btw. Unfortunately we don't have a history of atheism. see here for a good review of interwar period. Likewise, post-war the Cold War is hugely more important that the humanist manifesto. The HM is simply far too unsubtle to convey those nuances.
If you insist on keeping it let's try to get those subtleties in before removing the paragraph. Dunc| ☺ 23:11, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't think so. :) Where is the article? Gould, as far as I know, did not write about gene pools so small that there would be deleterious effects from inbreeding. Besides, as far as I know, Gould was not talking about speciations that take place in a hundred years. The span is more like a million years, is it not? --- Rednblu | Talk 08:34, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
citable ones:
Wetermeirer, R.L., J.D. Brawn, S.A. Simpson, T.L. Esker, R.W. Jansen, J.W. Walk, E.L.
creationist ones: one article. two article. Ungtss 18:29, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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In my opinion, that implies that there is a normal-sized gene pool surrounding the mutant that would include all of the "parental species" that survive in the niche. :) Would you agree? We can see the equivalent phenomenon occur repeatedly in our lifetime--in bacteria that mutate to become immune to antibiotics. Bacteria also reproduce within a gene pool, you know. And once the three billion year activities of bacterial random experiments with variations on tested and proven snippets of DNA code produce a mutation that is immune to antibiotics, that mutation quickly diffuses through the gene pool of the surviving bacteria--without ever a deleterious shrinkage of the bacterial gene pool. Again, I say, where is the article :)) that states that punctuated equilibrium ever is associated with a deleterious shrinkage of the gene pool? --- Rednblu | Talk 19:20, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
it seems that hume died before paley wrote his book ... so i've got paley responding to hume, as requested:). Ungtss 20:35, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"some creationists later incorporated some of his arguments."
Mostly YECs, generally used as a last resort argument if their pseudoscience fails, e.g. on the supposed decay of the speed of light, it must have come from somewhere, it must be a trick by God to weed out the evilutionists. Sometimes the Devil is invoked to explain the observations instead. Dunc| ☺ 22:35, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH220.html cites Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Arkansas: Master Books, pp. 209-210. Dunc| ☺ 10:48, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Orthogenesis is part of Lamarckism; it is the differential needed. Thus it is covered in the eclipse of Darwinism, but further elaboration is not required, and Ugtgss's edits are in disagreement with orthogenesis. Dunc| ☺ 22:16, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
in which case the orthogenesisarticle is wrong, and the mentions of special creation by Darwin's contemporaries is more appropriate than you pushing your own ideas about macroevolution. Dunc| ☺ 22:32, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
YECism is a reaction against science, and although the science of that day was wrong, there is no need to go into details. The YECs would have reacted against anything. Dunc| ☺ 10:56, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What are you doing? why are you removing factual information without justification? Ungtss 16:18, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As I originally reverted Irate, I'll add my comments, even though much of it has already been covered by Ungtss. The original introductory wording didn't say that Genesis was original, just that Genesis is where Christians and others get the story from. Many people don't agree that Genesis was derived from other sources, so putting that is was is POV.
I removed the reference to AiG in the UK being "a very minor organisation and concept" because (a) it is an organisation, not a 'concept', and (b) I didn't think that it being minor in the UK was relevant. AiG itself is not a minor organisation, it being one of the largest, if not the largest, creationist organisations in the world. I believe that the statement said more about AiG as an international organisation than it did about its size in each of those countries.
Philip J. Rayment 01:18, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The introduction currently says:
First, I reckon the previous wording was cleaner and better.
The bit about no systematic enquiry I don't think is fair. It effectively says that no systematic enquiry was done because everybody accepted it, rather, as I suspect is the case, that in those days no systematic enquiry was done on any historical accounts. And whilst it is true that subsequently various movements did challenge the accepted viewpoint, that was, on the whole at least, not until after the rise of science and many scientists did investigate creation as scientifically as they were able. In other words, the paragraph as it stands gives the impression that no-one questioned creation until science etc. came along and did so, rather than saying that nobody questioned it because nobody questioned history in those days, and questioning it was not a result of the rise of science but subsequent to that.
And lastly, it could be read as saying that as well as Muslims, (Christian) Europeans and Americans, and Jews, based their views on Genesis and the Qu'ran.
What do others think?
Philip J. Rayment 01:38, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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I agree that the previous shorter lead section was clearer. The current lead section make me think that the page is about how long God is going to live. :)) Where is the "creationism"? It kind of flashes by as if it is just a roadsign that blips by as I am looking at the awesome scenery of how long God lived. :) --- Rednblu | Talk 05:43, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)