Darwin: "Moses Can Take Care Of Himself"

From today's New York Times:

The basic objections to evolution - the ones trumpeted by the proponents of so-called intelligent design - are essentially the ones Darwin described in the sixth chapter of "Origin." They have been given a new language, and new examples have been adduced. But Darwin did a surprisingly good job of forestalling his critics. He showed that most of the objections to his theory, then as now, were based on a misunderstanding of the evidence or the nature of his argument, or were owing simply to the fact that so much remains to be discovered about the workings of life on Earth.…

Darwin presented the strongest, most detailed argument and evidence for evolution that he could. He also carefully presented the strongest objections to his theory that he could. Under a century and a half of close examination, his theory has grown more and more solid - with refinements, of course. Under the kind of scrutiny that Darwin bestowed on himself, the notion of intelligent design vanishes in a puff of smoke like the bunkum it is.

"I do not attack Moses," Darwin once wrote, "and I think Moses can take care of himself."

He could, if the fundamentalists and the so-called 'gedolim' would let him.

Comments

[Scott]

Ironic that you should couch your arguement as you have as the central feature you pose here is exactly what the 'Intelligent Design' folks claim about THEIR detractors.

Evolutionists absolutely refuse to look at the arguments of Intelligent Design because it threatens their religion.

Personally I like the findings of late regarding DNA. If you could collect a spoonful of DNA it could contain an amount of complex information equal to all knowledge recorded and recorded since the beginning of time. DNA makes computers look stupid because computers are limited to just two digits. DNA uses four.

No singel cell could ever reproduce itself without DNA. Not now .... not a billion years ago.

That this unimaginably complex code system just accidently happened requires a much greater faith than Moses himself possessed.

Science's own theories tell us that we cannot, indeed never will, understand the origin of the universe. All we will ever have is a guess. The Jews on the other hand have a great great man who makes all these claims and tells us that he spoke to God and this God claims to have fashioned and created the known universe. I'll take Moses. YOU can have 'science'.

[Bruce Lokeinsky]

Scott, you are a complete idiot. Your comment that DNA is greater than a computer because DNA has four digits vs. a computer's binary digits (bits) shows your very limited knowledge. Actually, it's quite easy to show, in a mathematical proof, that two bits is all that's required for any computer - a multi-bit computer can be translated function for function, data for data, into binary digits.

Anyway, DNA is a chemical and biological process - nothing like a digital computer at all.

[Scott]

Bruce,

Do you deny that DNA is more complex than the binary processes of a computer? Do you deny that as a coded language it is exponentially more effecient? Can it not store the equivilent of thousands of bits in a few molecules? How many bits does it take to reproduce a human being? Several billion billion I'm sure. All that info is contained in one MICROSCOPIC double helix chain.

Of course this unfathomably complex code device just invented itself out of raw elemental chemicals.