"People who continue to question the completeness of existing theories will continually uncover something new. No-one, including the man himself, has ever suggested that Darwin found the complete answer to life, the universe and everything."

Well said, Pericles. It might be added that people who continue to question the followers of rigid dogma can expect consequences in proportion the the power wielded by the dogmatists. Well, we don't really know what strings Dan de Merengue may be capable of pulling, but we can certainly see the consequences of pulling his chain, on this thread.

It's my opinion that folks like Dan can give the theistic faithful a bad name with the atheistic and agnostically minded folks who prefer their own fundamental (and equally, fundamentally irrational) premise.

-*-

Davidf, thank you for the citations. How many I will be able to access is yet to be determined.

You may be interested (if you don't already know of it) in the work of H.T Odum, who developed the "maximum power principle", which is an idea allowing evolution of natural systems within thermodynamic principles. It was originally suggested by A.J Lotka in the 1920's.

Easy enough to discover more by Googling ""maximum Power Principle". For example, see:
Hall, CAS. (2004). The continuing importance of maximum power. Ecol Modell 178 (107-113)
which can be downloaded from
http://www.emergysystems.org/pdfpubs.php
by email request.

Further, regarding HT Odum (not to be confused with his brother, the ecologist E.P. Odum), try Googling "Sholto Maud" Odum or retrieving
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/6224

A Eulogy of HT Odum can be found at:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2635129/Bull-99-template-copy

It describes his contribution to current thought, and (of course) tells a bit about him as a person.

Shadow Minister,
I didn’t say science was born in the Christian West; I said modern science (that which we have come to know and love) was born in the Christian West. Certainly other societies such as the Arabs and the Greeks and others made advances, but history shows how it developed to fruition in the West.

The ‘Galileo affair’ was largely a personal spat between him and the pope, two headstrong personalities. Most church authorities were happy with Galileo’s contributions. And it’s a good example of getting the foundations right. Before long, the church learned that it needed to replace the erroneous and inhibiting Ptolemaic view of the solar system, and its general reliance on Greek philosophy.

Pericles,
You accuse me of ‘hollow’ thinking. Let’s view what I said.

Of the two statements:
1) we rest in the faith that another scientist will one day uncover something (to affirm the Darwinian process),
2) we admit the possibility that Darwin’s reign might be approaching its end,

I prefer the 2nd. But you say we can do both!

So we’re in agreement about the 2nd statement. After all, it only speaks about the possibility of something, which as you say, underlines the value of keeping an open mind. However, we could be the only two who dare to admit this possibility. Most others here want to take a hard line on Darwin, radically insisting the impossibility that any wise person could challenge or critique the Good Gentleman.

Now it’s strange that you agree with the 1st statement. Strange because usually we don’t want to think that faith has anything to do with science. Isn’t it about cold hard facts? Certainly not about things that are hoped to be discovered.

You accuse me of ‘lazy’ thinking.

“If something cannot be easily and completely explained, then God must have done it.”

The problem here, Pericles, is that isn’t the creationist position. Those are your words not mine. Show me where I said anything approaching that.

Don’t you think it is ‘lazy’ to try and forward an argument by putting words in someone else’s mouth?

Bennie,
Did you say that millions of pages have been written in opposition to the creationist view? Wow! I didn’t realist that creationism was making such an impact.

You ask me to tell you what I know about creationism. I’ve read a few books on creationism. Do you want me to tell you everything I know about it in 350 words?

I think it would be more profitable if you got yourself an introductory book and read something more substantial on the matter than relying on my humble opinion.

However, I’ll say a couple of points.

The design concept is not, as certain accusations put it, based on ignorance. We are capable of recognising design when we see it. All of the posts above we know did not come from mice running across the keyboard. From finding a four-wheel vehicle on the far side of the moon to finding a simple arrowhead in an archeological dig, we can and already do decipher evidence of structural design. The more we understand of biological systems, the more we see such evidence of design.

With regard to natural history, creationists argue that the present data fits more readily the model of catastrophism (described as flood geology) than the current uniformitarian model.

Here are a few titles that challenge Darwinist thinking that I think would be enlightening:
‘Darwin’s Black Box’ by Michael Behe
‘Refuting Evolution’ by Jonathan Sarfati
‘The Genesis Flood’ by Morris and Whitcomb
And for a very quick (30 or so page) summary of the evidence for creation I suggest:
‘Stones and Bones’ by Carl Weiland.

Sir Vivor,
You offer me the last word. I would prefer if you answered this question. You’ve spoken only generally about commercial technologies supposedly brought about by evolutionary thinking. Can you name any one of these gainful activities in particular that owes its development more to Darwinian thinking than to a design/creationist based approach?

Dan,

You say "The ‘Galileo affair’ was largely a personal spat between him and the pope, two headstrong personalities. Most church authorities were happy with Galileo’s contributions. And it’s a good example of getting the foundations right."

Copernicus himself did not have his theories published until after his death because of the certainty of persecution by the church.

Campanella, seven times underwent torture. And Kepler was several times imprisoned for "throwing Christ's kingdom into confusion with his silly fancies."

So this was not a personal spat between the church and one individual, but the continuation of the oppression of free though through the dark ages, and the only foundations that were "got right" was that the church lost all credibility in scientific matters (and largely as a moral guide) and has hereto been seen as an obstruction.

Even now when the church makes pronouncements on issues such as stem cell research it is largely ignored.

Even 200 years later the church refused to remove either Gallileo's work or Copernicus's work from their "index" of banned heretical publications.

If this is your idea of "Before long," Then I am sure that Before long many of the questions unanswered today will be answered. Probably even how to create life.

"Can you name any one of these gainful activities in particular that owes its development more to Darwinian thinking than to a design/creationist based approach?"

http://thinkevolution.net/archives/85

Dan,I have already answered your question. You appear to have dismissed it as an example of selective breeding.

See my post of Thursday, 26 February 2009 9:42:23 AM (spelling since corrected)

"The article is from the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, a US periodical that publishes world-class experimental results.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/02/20/0813365106.abstract?etoc

Excoffona, K. et al (2009) Directed evolution of adeno-associated virus to an infectious respiratory virus"

Dan, your response included
"I’ll guess the church thinks genetic engineering, applying human ingenuity to modify genetic outcomes, as not much different to other forms of selective breeding practices occurring over thousands of years. God gave mankind brains and a mandate to responsibly and justly manage the world."

The PNAS article is based on a consilience of science-based inductions and evidence about organic evolution, and ways and means the theory can be further investigated and applied. The authors apply the theory in a technology, at bench scale, which demonstrates its power.

If you choose to argue that the experiment describes selective breeding of virus rather than directed organic evolution, then that is your choice. You have also chosen not to directly address questions which I earlier put to you. Simple yesses and noes are so much more convincing. In my humble opinion, we have nothing more to say to one another about organic evolution.