Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd!decwrl!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh 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 References: <32500002@uiucdcsb.UUCP> Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 35 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.)