Angelina said:
Not really appalled at all. It's kinda like the proverbial evolutionary pot calling this particular theory kettle, black. :) How many times has dishonesty been found in evolutionary theories that have turned out to be false.
I don't know....I can only think of a handful of deliberate frauds or hoaxes in the 160 year history of evolutionary biology. Piltdown Man, Haeckel's drawings, and archeoraptor (which never was accepted by paleontologists) are the only ones that come to mind.
Now contrast that with the falsehoods just on this one creationist website! If there's more dishonesty on a single creationist website than in the entire history of evolutionary biology, that should tell you something.
Darwin himself admitted that no transitional species had been uncovered at the time he came up this his theory.
"Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory."[/size](Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, pp. 172, 280)
Bless ya! ;)
Well, here's the thing.....my guess is you didn't pull that quote from your personal copy of
On the Origin of Species. Instead, my bet is you got this from some creationist source who presented it in much the same way you have, i.e., kinda like "See? Even Darwin admitted there aren't any transitional fossils!". The problem is (if I'm correct about you copying the quote), your source is deceiving you, in much the same way as your source in the OP. You see, Darwin liked to write in a particular way; specifically he'd write what he thought were objections to his proposals, and then he would address them one by one. The creationist source you copied this from told you about Darwin describing an objection someone might make about the fossil record, but they didn't tell you about his subsequent answers to it!
Now to me, that makes me pretty angry. Why would a supposed Christian be so deliberately dishonest? Not only that, why would they then make their dishonesty public and encourage unwitting Christians to propagate it further? Do they not care about honesty? Do they think lying is acceptable as long as it's done in the name of The Lord? I honestly have no idea.
I mean, let's just look at this part of what you quoted: "
But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?…" See that "..." at the end? That means Darwin wrote something there, but the person you copied this from cut that part out. Sometimes that's just fine, e.g., if the part being cut out isn't relevant to the point. But in this case, here is the very next sentence that your source cut out: "
It will be more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been imperfectly made, and only at long intervals of time."
So in that sentence, Darwin does two things. First he says "I'll answer this more fully in a later Chapter" (which he did), and then he says "But here's a brief summary of my answer". But your source cut that part out. Why? It's clearly relevant to the point your source was trying to make, right? To me, the answer is obvious; your source didn't want you to see that part, or know that Darwin only posed the challenge so he could address it. Not only that, but I'd bet your source is also counting on you to give them the benefit of the doubt and never bother to fact-check anything they tell you.
That's horrible, and can't be chalked up to ignorance or some other good-faith error. It's clearly deliberate and dishonest, and it's the exact sort of thing the commentor at the OP site chastised Christian creationists for (spreading falsehoods). It's also the very sort of thing I was talking about when I said, "As Christians, we are to be honest and truthful in all we do and say. This article most certainly is not."
Christians should not be engaging in such blatant dishonesty in the cause of advocating for Christ (and just so we're clear, I'm not saying you're being dishonest....I think you've just been duped a bit). I'd advise you to be much more careful before trusting creationist websites. Don't be afraid to go look for yourself, and if you see dishonesty like this, call them on it and most certainly don't trust them again.
