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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: misc. creationist topics - (nf)
Message-ID: <128@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Sep-84 12:33:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.128
Posted: Wed Sep 19 12:33:16 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 07:32:41 EDT
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Re: Miller's arguments.

>     First, I'm surprised at the level of rhetoric on the net....
Me too.  I'm new to the net, but argued for years on the CDC PLATO network,
where a much less laissez-faire attitude was taken towards ad-hominem attacks
(partly because it was more easily enforceable.)  Bertrand Russell once wrote
that the opinions we hold most passionately are the ones we can least support.
As a rule of thumb, I feel that a passionate argument is a fallacious argument.

>Um, I think you have the basis for racism backwards.  Our Declaration of Inde-
>pendence states "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are
>created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
>Rights", a rather logical conclusion given the premise of a creator.  But what
>if we are nothing more than (very complex) self-replicating chemical reactions?
>What then is the basis for not stepping on our fellow man, given the power to
>do it? ...
     The second quoted sentence above is a prefect example of a non-sequiteur.
Historically, that "logical conclusion" has not been made, nor do we in
America give more than lip service to it (except for mainstream adult male 
citizens, though there has been a trend towards better compliance.)  Nor is
there clear biblical support for the proposition, as there are large numbers
of Christian sects that feel otherwise.
     There are rational, agnostic approaches for understanding and selecting
moral and religious ideas in terms of evolution.  Two excellent sources are
"On Human Nature" by E. O. Wilson, and "The Whisperings Within" by Barish
(or Barrat or sp?)  My understanding is that these ideas are heuristics for
optimizing reproductive success of themselves and of their human hosts.

     In response to creationists claiming Linneaus, Cuvier and others for
their own camp, I've got to call foul.  That's as silly as calling Jesus a
Catholic or a Protestant.  Nor did evolutionists borrow Linnaeus' work:
the majority of those who continued it became converted to evolution.

Mike Huybensz	(Carefully avoiding pompous quotes from sacred texts.)