The man himself said.....

I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science….It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.” Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991) pp. 456, 475.

Phillip E. Johnson, former law professor at Berkeley, very much in touch with the leading evolutionary thinkers today, claims in his new book The Wedge of Truth (IVP, 2000, p. 150): “If the situation is as I have described it, the intellectual bankruptcy of Darwinism cannot be concealed for very much longer. The Darwinists may delay the day of reckoning for a while by wielding the weapons of power, but more and more people are learning to press the right questions and to refuse to take bluff or evasion for an answer.”

Originally posted by Dasa
I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science….It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.” Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991) pp. 456, 475.

Phillip E. Johnson, former law professor at Berkeley, very much in ...[text shortened]... are learning to press the right questions and to refuse to take bluff or evasion for an answer.”

I took a look into the people referred to in this post:

a) Darwin, who presented a new theory in conflict with prevailing beliefs and at great risk to his reputation, speaking in all humility at the intimidating odds he faced in adopting a difficult new position based on many years of serious research and experiment. There are many arrogant "Darwinists" but Darwin was not one of them.

b) From Wikipedia: Phillip E. Johnson (born 18 June 1940) is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement. A critic of what he calls "Darwinism" and "scientific materialism", Johnson rejects evolution in favor of neocreationist views known as intelligent design.

c) Dasa's profile: Over time the religions of the world namely Islam Christianity and Judaism have made the word RELIGION synonymous with make believe and therefore most people are suspect of all religion. Whilst false religion should be made suspect there is true religion. The religion presented by the Vedas is the one and only original and eternal religion which stands alone and above the rest for its flawlessness and truth.

At the very least, I have trouble in Dasa citing as his support a born again Christian, whose beliefs are based on the absolute truth of the bible, which his profile argues to be flawed and false. If the bible supports intelligent design and if Dasa wants to accept this as his evidence, then surely he should accept the bible and edit his profile accordingly. If he does not accept the absolute truth of the bible then he should surely agree with most rational educated people (including rational, educated Christians) that it does not give an accurate, factual account of the origin of species. Which of course would rather destroy the point of his post.

Secondly he seems to ignore the fact that Darwin was perfectly aware of both the contents of the Bible and the argument from design, which indeed he took very seriously and therefore set out to see if the evidence supported that or not, finding no evidence of the need for design in evolution and plenty of contrary evidence.

If people actually took the trouble to read a half decent biography of Darwin they would save us all an awful lot of futile argument. It seems to me hard to understand Darwin without explaining intelligent design, since that was the very theory which Darwin took very seriously indeed and tested to destruction in a prolonged process of research and observation. As such, it provides the context for one of the very greatest pieces of scientific theory making. We should indeed set out the theory of intelligent design, explain how this is falsified by the evidence, and explain why Darwin's alternative theory fits the evidence so powerfully as to force us to abandon design as an account.

The trouble with failing to explain the history is that we are doomed to relive it, this time as farce.

And not to forget that modern evolutionary theory is not Darwinism and never really was.

Darwin's ideas have been modified and expanded on with subsequent discoveries from
Darwin's death onwards.

For starters Darwin never knew about DNA or genetics because although he was sent a
paper on the subject before he died it was written in German and he never read it.

Attacking evolution based on the ideas of Darwin is like attacking celestial dynamics based
on the idea's of Copernicus.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Attacking evolution based on the ideas of Darwin is like attacking celestial dynamics based on the idea's of Copernicus.

Or, indeed, like attacking Christianity based on the wafflings of "professor" Phil Johnson.

Richard

Yeah, that's what retired law professors do. They stay "very much in touch" with evolutionary biologists.

Originally posted by Dasa
I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science….It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaw[s] & holes as sound parts.” Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, cited by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991) pp. 456, 475.

Phillip E. Johnson, former law professor at Berkeley, very much in ...[text shortened]... are learning to press the right questions and to refuse to take bluff or evasion for an answer.”

Just like you to leap on ANY printed 'refutation' of Darwin specifically to bolster your own shaky foundations.

Well hang on here a second. Who has more virtue in understanding intelligent design anyway?
Engineers who consider it by the rope? Bioligists who consider it by the pipette? Or desperate
fools who really just pick it up and run with it?
If you ask me it's the latter.