Nonno
09-25-2009, 12:51 AM
"If you’ve been around the blogosphere of late, you’ll know that Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, those creationists of the-banana-proves-God fame, are issuing their own edition of On the Origin of Species, in a run of 50,000 copies, in time to “subvert” Darwin Day (their target date is Nov. 22, but Darwin’s book actually appeared on Nov. 24, 1859).
The book is apparently just a reprint of The Origin, which is out of copyright, with a 50-page copyrighted introduction by Ray Comfort. You can download the introduction on The Huffington Post page by clicking on the pdf link. Since we’ve all read Darwin, you don’t need to get the book; you can just read the free intro.
The introduction is notable for two things. First, its intellectual vacuity. That’s nothing new for creationist tracts, but this intro is a lot closer to Gish and Morris than to Dembski and Berlinski. Apparently Comfort and Cameron haven’t really absorbed all the “new” creationist arguments against evolution: they simply repeat the old canards about the lack of transitional forms (incuding — God help us — Piltdown Man), the irreducible complexity of complex organs (but of the eye, not biochemistry!), and the fact that “random chance” simply couldn’t produce organisms. There’s no mention of the “fine-tuning” of the universe.
And the introduction is rife with out-of-context quotations. Once again, Darwin’s quote on the difficulty of seeing how the eye evolved gradually is trotted out (with his response omitted, as usual), and Steve Gould’s punctuated equilibrium is used to imply that organisms appeared suddenly, without ancestors. Unsurprisingly, Francis Collins pops up, emphasizing his take on the DNA code of humans: “I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.” (Note: this quote is NOT out of context. You don’t need to selectively quote Collins to find words that give succor to creationists.)
If you’re looking for new creationist arguments, you won’t find them here."
More at source: A creationist edition of The Origin « Why Evolution Is True (http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/a-creationist-edition-of-the-origin/)
The book is apparently just a reprint of The Origin, which is out of copyright, with a 50-page copyrighted introduction by Ray Comfort. You can download the introduction on The Huffington Post page by clicking on the pdf link. Since we’ve all read Darwin, you don’t need to get the book; you can just read the free intro.
The introduction is notable for two things. First, its intellectual vacuity. That’s nothing new for creationist tracts, but this intro is a lot closer to Gish and Morris than to Dembski and Berlinski. Apparently Comfort and Cameron haven’t really absorbed all the “new” creationist arguments against evolution: they simply repeat the old canards about the lack of transitional forms (incuding — God help us — Piltdown Man), the irreducible complexity of complex organs (but of the eye, not biochemistry!), and the fact that “random chance” simply couldn’t produce organisms. There’s no mention of the “fine-tuning” of the universe.
And the introduction is rife with out-of-context quotations. Once again, Darwin’s quote on the difficulty of seeing how the eye evolved gradually is trotted out (with his response omitted, as usual), and Steve Gould’s punctuated equilibrium is used to imply that organisms appeared suddenly, without ancestors. Unsurprisingly, Francis Collins pops up, emphasizing his take on the DNA code of humans: “I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.” (Note: this quote is NOT out of context. You don’t need to selectively quote Collins to find words that give succor to creationists.)
If you’re looking for new creationist arguments, you won’t find them here."
More at source: A creationist edition of The Origin « Why Evolution Is True (http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/a-creationist-edition-of-the-origin/)