Ron Paul, Creationist

This is what rational atheist Richard Dawkin thinks: 'Jews monopolize American policy'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3457718,00.html

Daniel, I regret you might be surprised that someone disputes the "fact" of evolution since it is apparent that MOST people reject it and this despite the avalanche of sustained propaganda in favor of it.  I feel it is one of those issues that should not be part of a political campaign except for the fact that the government is so inappropriately involved in everything.

 Surveys demonstrate that a plurality of medical doctors disbelieve evolution and Paul is a medical doctor so there is no surprise.  As for the gnashing over what "proof", "Fact" and "theory" mean--our side of the debate hardly needs the lecture.  My response is for you to consider what "religion" means since it is apparent that the theory of evolution has become a key component of the religion of secularism.  It is not a working, functioning scientific theory which is able to make predictions and is the product of observable facts.  It is merely a philosophical construct and one might be free to accept it as philosophy, it does not belong in science as the alleged "explanation," a veritable dumping bag of answers for things which have no known answers.  A stopped watch is correct twice a day and some things, minor things, can be explained by evolutionary forces of natural selection and chance.  That is it.  Beyond the small stuff, the theory is not proven to be a working scientific model and instead, it is a hope, a faith-based system for people who require it.  Science has been harmed in the process since instead of looking for real answers, science shrugs its shoulders and says blandly "Nature did it" as if that is a detailed or substantial reply.

A friend of scientific inquiry would do well to believe in a Creator and science.  To falsely believe in a materialist philosophy which closes the door on inquiry damns mankind to continued scientific ignorance.

As for the comment of the fellow who previously complained that I called him French, if he cannot believe that Paul NEVER found an abortion to be necessary to save the life of a mother--why might this be questioned?  That is not a personal belief--it is his experience.  Abortions almost never are required to save the life of the mother--it is truly a very rare need--way below a tiny fraction of one percent of all abortions. 

Lastly, I would not vote for Ron Paul even if he agrees with almost all Republican voters about the limits of evolution.  The tactic of the left is to try to name-call all people who have enough common sense and scientific knowledge to disbelieve the power of natural selection as "creationists"--that is, those who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and that God made everything a special creation.  This is not a Jewish belief, or a scientific belief--it is a belief rather rare among certain Christians. It is a way to shame people and stop the conversation.

Daniel, Romney surely believes in God as Creator so you might go ahead right now and just cross him off your "list" --which seems to be down to Obama.

David--Given all the hyper-partisanship surrounding natural selection vs. creation, I can't blame you for equating evolution with a fundamentalist/atheist world-view that says all life arose with no divine involvement.

But that's not what Darwin said. All he said is that the mechanism by which all the complex and diverse life on the planet came to be is the adaptation of randomly selected favorable traits over millions of years. Like all science, natural selection does not attempt to explain why all this life was created or for what larger purpose, if any--that's a question the scientific method cannot possibly explain. Likewise, science can never tell us whether God, aliens, or some other ancient intelligence set this process in motion, or continues to create mutations that appears completely random to our perspective. But it does tell us that if God created life, He did so by natural selection.

Your conclusory statement that "science shrugs its shoulders and says blandly 'Nature did it'" might describe some lazy scientists (or non-scientists), but it has nothing to do with science. In the 100+ years since Darwin I don't see how you can say that science just accepted the fact that "nature did it." Look at all the research that's happened with microbiology and genetics--specialties that hardly existed in Darwin's time. The fact that we know about DNA shows that at least some scientists have not been content to accept that "nature did" evolution. Instead they've spent their careers figuring out the details of how nature did it.

Still, I have to disagree with Koffler's conclusion that you shouldn't vote for Ron Paul just because of his views on evolution. Although I don't support the guy, I have to admit I respect him for candidly stating that the Presidency should not be decided based on a scientific debate. I'd have issues if Paul tried to force Creation down other people's throats, but that's not what he is doing. He's giving his opinion for what it's worth, but then making it clear that it has nothing to do with how he'll run the federal government.

--Z

G. Mendel was a Monk.--- SEE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel

Darwin was a studied to be a Christian Reverend, and worked as a
member of the Anglican clergy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin ... abeit an unenthusiastic
one.

These folks weren't atheists. Gensis is not written in the
past tense in the HEBREW which is all we should be concerned about.

Let
the Christians worry about defending medevil mistranslations of
biblical texts. The RamBam, writing the the 12th Century,
established long before modern science that, where science appears to
conflict with the Bible, we have misunderstood the Bible. Anyone
familiar with how older antibiotics no longer work due to the evolution
of bacteria has to either be an idiot or accept evolution.

This
is not propaganda. This is what science is. The Theory of
Evolution, like the Theory of Gravity, has a few chinks in it, but they
are not chinks in whether the subject (Evolution, gravity) exist, but
merely in the mechanism of how they exist.

If you don't believe in science, fine. But don't blame it on
Judaism.  Or, while you are at it, Roman Catholicism or most other
major Christian groups.  The attack on science is not widespread,
but is limited to the fundimentalists among the Christians.

To clarify, everyone believes in the basic definition of evolution.  The scientific question is the HOW part--not the why part and concerns the controversial definitions of evolution.

The debate is not settled with tautologies.  What drives the process of change--is it the way in which the DNA is designed or is it by chance?  The fact that modern scientists with such sophisticated means can hardly make head or tail out of so many things is ample proof of a designing intelligence.  A process of random reactions, mutations and the natural interplay of species fails to explain the evolution of life processes.  There are too many laws with mathematical precision, so little trial and error in the fossil record, such sudden bursts of creative output, the outcome has all the appearance of design.

There is much to say here in the specifics and I think it is off topic.  The point that a political candidate should be considered off limits if he believes it just does not make sense from a medical perspective--is unfair and not reasonable. Ron Paul comes by his skepticism honestly and through his professional experience.  He is not a quack for denying that a random, natural, unaided process explains the evolution of life.

If the process is driven by a plan and a purpose, if the change is the planned result of how an organism flexibly reacts over time--its "Evolution" must be understood in a completely different way.

It is fine to have this kind of debate on this blog or anywhere else.  I am merely responding to the fact that most Americans doubt Darwin, a virtual plurality of medical doctors doubt that "evolution" in its most controversial definition--correctly explains the "how" of life processes and most Republicans, political conservatives and even many political moderates believe that something really vital is missing in the evolutionary party line.  This kind of political division makes the topic a politically charged debate.

I would like to keep it a scientific one.  Perhaps this is unrealistic.

Surely, there is ample scientific evidence to indicate that homosexuality is a choice and a pretty standard kind of psychological ailment.  Politics has made the discussion non-exisistant.  Politics dictates that we MUST consider all homosexuality as innate and unable to be changed.  The evidence presented in previous years must be thrown out in favor of the new politics of the situation.  This hardly does the topic justice and it is not science.

The fact that evolutionary dogma is so politically charged kills the science in a similar way.  If only we could agree to let the science go where ever it leads and let scientists pursue an unfettered agenda, we would all be the better for it. But if a well-trained scientist announces his skepticism for evolution--he is ostracized and scorned.  Where science allows for only one correct answer--the scientific method is tossed aside.

Note how quickly Francois says that Paul is a "moron" and lacks good faith if he simply says what is statistically a stone-cold obvious SCIENTIFIC point--abortions for the purpose of saving the life of the mother is very, very rare.

Thus, I can raise my hand with total confidence that when people approach these kind of questions--they are almost never speaking about what is truly scientific.  Rather, it is about emotion and political fervor. 

So who is this Paul Havilland imposter, eh?