"Bennie,
You ask how much do we know about creationism? That is up to the individual. You could get a book written by a respected creationist and find out what it’s really about. Or you could base your opinions on misinformation from their detractors. It’s up to you."

That's a total cop-out Dan. Your 'misinformation' turns out to be millions of pages of collaborative text backed up by scientific enquiry and research. Perhaps you're like runner and think science is a 'paradigm'.

Again, a poor answer. Grow a spine and tell me what you yourself know about it.

Dan,

Your comment "As for evolutionists needing the US court system to defend their ‘theory’, this says a lot about the US educational and legal systems. It also says a lot about the fragility of the Darwinian view. A truly robust theory should be able to withstand public scrutiny on its own merit."

Is bluster at best, This is an example of creation not standing up to public scrutiny. The court cases were in reaction to ridiculous laws being promulgated to force public schools to teach creation as a science.

These laws along with other stupid or prejudical laws such segregation when tested against reason in the US court system failed miserably.

As for science being born in the Christian West the Arabs and ancient Greeks laid most of the foundations centuries ago, and I suppose the persecution of Gallileo was to "get the foundations right?"

Maybe you could point out a book by a creationist that is respected by his scientific peers and not only fellow creationists.

George,

The above are prime examples of the malignant nature of the christian fundementalists, where there are clear attempts to control how people think.

Dawkins is entitled to free speech where you can take it or leave it. The creationists are trying to force their mythology to be taught as science in public schools.

Sir Vivor,
There is no controversy with regard to those two passages. The main problem was that you didn’t read to the end of the Matthew paragraph. If you had, you would have seen that the Matthew passage and the Luke passage are essentially the same in content.

As for you bizarre interpretation, that is up to you. Those passages make no reference to violence. To read any violence into them requires much imagination on your part.

You also seem to have skipped over the main point in my last post, so I’ll repeat it. I was not critiquing the article. I asked why an article void of religious content has inspired a religious discussion. Why is that unless Darwin truly is filling a religious need and touching that part of our core being? As you suggest, the question does turns into who has the better creation story.

You defend Darwin, saying he didn’t ascribe creative tendencies to undirected matter. So when he wrote about how the eye came about from a light sensitive spot or nerve (Origin, 1859), did he say that the molecules around the eye were being directed by intelligence or a purposeful force? I think not. Rather, the functional eye was the result of numerous, successive, slight modifications. Did the process create something new that wasn’t there before? Yes, apparently it created something as complex as an eye. So I think we’ll have to conclude that undirected matter has been afforded creative tendencies.

That the process is rather mysterious is not surprising considering how ignorant Darwin was of the biochemical complexities involved in vision. In your post you say the process is no more mysterious than the God of Abraham. But is it any less mysterious?

You admit that you can’t offer any thermodynamic mechanism of molecular transition that describes the process. Neither could Darwin. So do we rest in the faith that another scientist will one day in the future uncover something? Or do we admit the possibility that Darwin’s reign might be approaching its end?

As I made clear, I know of no currently accepted thermodynamic mechanism to explain molecular evolution into self-replicating molecules. The question is hotly pursued. I am pessimistic about my fellow humans finding an answer and a method.

My reservations stem from my awareness of the consequences of technology in the service of both commercial and charitable organisations. Among the wonders of science and technology that get promoted and often subsidised by taxpaying mugs like myself are Atomic energy, genetic engineering, pesticides, chemical and biological weapons, all of them fruits of advanced technology.

Evolution science offers us the promise of an explanation mark after Einstein's observation that "The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."

Since 1945, life has grown more complicated in this regard, and related lapses in faith are the cause of growing struggle in the hearts of many people.

As I suggested in an earlier post, to deny the strength of the theory of organic evolution, and its current and developing application in a number of commercial technologies is to seriously put your head in some serious sand.

You are certainly welcome to your interpretation and accepted exegesis of the King James Bible. I honor your right to read it as you choose.

Likewise, I am happy for you to have the last word on our exchange of views.

In my previous post, I overlooked my substitution of the word exclamation with the word explanation. The lines should have read:

"Evolution science offers us the promise of an exclamation mark after Einstein's observation that "The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."

Sir Vivor wrote:

As I made clear, I know of no currently accepted thermodynamic mechanism to explain molecular evolution into self-replicating molecules.

Dear Sir Vivor,

Stuart Alan A. Kauffman (28 September 1939) is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well as for proposing the first models of Boolean networks.

Kauffman rose to prominence through his association with the Santa Fe Institute (a non-profit research institute dedicated to the study of complex systems), where he was faculty in residence from 1986 to 1997, and through his work on models in various areas of biology. These included autocatalytic sets in origin of life research, gene regulatory networks in developmental biology, and fitness landscapes in evolutionary biology.
Kauffman is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection.

Kauffman has written several books and articles. Books, a selection:
1993, Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, Oxford University Press, Technical monograph.
1995, At Home in the Universe. Oxford University Press.
2000, Investigations. Oxford University Press.
2008, Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. Basic Books - ISBN 0465003001 -
(Video Introduction)
Articles, a selection:
1969, "Metabolic stability and epigenesis in randomly constructed genetic nets," in: Journal of Theoretical Biology, 22:437-467, 1969.
1991, "Antichaos and Adaptation," in: Scientific American, August 1991.
2004, "Prolegomenon to a General Biology", in William A. Dembski, Michael Ruse, eds., Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, Cambridge University Press.
2004, "Autonomous Agents", in John D. Barrow, P.C.W. Davies, and C.L. Harper Jr., eds., Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology, and Complexity, Cambridge University Press