by Cassiline 49 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Hi Cassiline,
:Have we as men who believe in evolution allowed those who are mentally/physically impaired recreate thusly screwing up our own gene pool?
Interesting question. It remains to be seen if science can make enough advances in genetics to correct for the mistake of messing with the natural order of things.
Wg
Is it the case that as we humans become more adept at surviving in various environmental conditions, we are actually slowing down our own evolution?
A simple example: we can artificially heat or cool our environment. Temperature extremes do not threaten our survival like they would have thousands of years ago.
It just seems reasonable that the more we grow intellectually, the more likely we'll have technology to protect us from environmental changes that threaten our survival...the same environmental changes that would otherwise drive our own evolution.
Interesting point Watson. Indeed we stunted the evolution of our body as soon as we started to use tools and fire. Also the formation of culture changed a lot. We rely now on technology and culture for survival now and those are rapidly evolving. This could lead to more feeble humans: strength etc becomes irrelevant when we have machines to do it for us. We have taken a brand new road in the history of life... Greven
I know a brother who in the late '80s placed it with a householder in field service and returned the following week at a return visit. The householder had checked the original sources cited therein and angrily told my friend that he ripped the book in half and threw it away, even wanted his money back!Leolaia:
I don't blame him; I had more or less prepared myself to do "something" (lawd knows what) if the new replacement for the Evolution book didn't revise the creative day thing. It did, was still a hunk of syphilitic troll drool, but I didn't know that then, did I?
Alan F:
Interesting facts re. the development of Dubbie cretin science... oh dear, my spelling is soooo bad...
Cheers
Cassi: no worries
Alan,
The english soldiers in the second world war had different shaped helmets than the ones they make today so thats about 60 years. I guess it could be better nutrition my grandfather was born in england he was only 3lb at birth. Also during the world wars the poms would mistakenly salute Australians thinking they were officers as most officers in the pome army were of higher statue because they came from the upper classes. Australians and upper english classes both had good nutrition.
I also read over on adventists for tomorrow Price was only self taught. There is big problems with the faith science meetings the last one being next year. Many SDA scientists dont agree with the 7day 6 thousand year model. The main problem is with teachers in there institutions teaching young people evolution. The more fundamentalist ones have gone on record they beleive the bible in a literal way and they will only accept 7days, 6 thousand years and we will fight for every minute extra. Barry
Fascinating thread.
What if we had not intervened when we could have? Would that equal a world of smart, healthy people giving birth to mostly smart, healthy people not passing bad genes onto children?
What about our moral development? To my mind, the fact that humans are prepared to care for the weaker members of society is a sign that we are superior. Physical strength is not everything .
Interesting stuff about the WT and teachings . We once found a copy of "The Flood, In the Light of The Bible,Geology and Archeology" by AM Rehwinkel . That showed that The "Society" had picked up its teachings about the flood from outside sources. The development of argument was sometimes identical. Of course in those days it did not shake our faith in the Mother Organisation
The misatke creationists make when arguing evolution is they think in terms of human periods of time -- if you think in terms of 10 of thousands of years then yes we are still evolving -- learning about medicine etc.
yers then yes we are still evolving -- learning about medicine
Good point about not thinking in terms of a single human lifespan, but knowledge is not evolution for the simple reason that it is not heritable.
Cretin science is what it is, Abaddon!
Barry said:
: The english soldiers in the second world war had different shaped helmets than the ones they make today so thats about 60 years.
Ah! Well, this change in average head size has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. It has everything to do with nutrition and other environmental factors. A great many people in Europe prior to WWII were terribly malnourished and their physical (and probably mental) development was stunted. For example, I know a Polish couple who grew up in Poland in the early 20th century, and had a son about 1950 after they moved to the U.S. The son was virtually a carbon copy of the father, except the father was barely five feet tall and the son was about six feet four inches. Their head sizes were proportionate to their body sizes.
: I guess it could be better nutrition my grandfather was born in england he was only 3lb at birth. Also during the world wars the poms would mistakenly salute Australians thinking they were officers as most officers in the pome army were of higher statue because they came from the upper classes. Australians and upper english classes both had good nutrition.
Exactly my point.
: I also read over on adventists for tomorrow Price was only self taught.
Right. And being a combination of self taught and taught by God's prophetess Ellen White, he knew everything he needed to know.
: There is big problems with the faith science meetings the last one being next year. Many SDA scientists dont agree with the 7day 6 thousand year model. The main problem is with teachers in there institutions teaching young people evolution. The more fundamentalist ones have gone on record they beleive the bible in a literal way and they will only accept 7days, 6 thousand years and we will fight for every minute extra.
Fascinating. The JWs, being directly led by holy spirit, have no need to debate such questions.
BluesBrother, Rehwinkle's writings almost certainly influenced Watchtower writings. So did those of many others. I have little doubt that Watchtower writers were quite familiar with all of the major apologists' writings, being quite unable to formulate anything approaching a scientific train of thought on their own. Of course, there's no way in hell they'd admit to that, being "spirit-directed" and all.
More than 20 years ago, when I first looked up many of the Watchtower Society's source references on the Flood, I was astounded at the way they used crackpot authors to support their ideas. Long-time JWs will probably remember the Society's claim that "quick-frozen" mammoths in Siberia somehow prove the historicity of Noah's Flood. They often quoted one Ivan T. Sanderson writing in an early 1960's Saturday Evening Post article, giving the impression that Sanderson was a recognized scientist. By selective quoting they failed to tell readers that Sanderson's overall thesis was pure fantasy, and much the same as some of the ideas of the well-known crackpot Immanual Velikovsky. When someone with an ounce of scientific training reads Sanderson's article, and some of his other articles written in the 1950s, it's easy to see that he's a total crackpot. The sad thing is that Watchtower writers are unable to filter crackpot notions from good ones -- and then they promulgate crackpot nonsense as if God himself inspired them!
AlanF
We rely now on technology and culture for survival now and those are rapidly evolving. This could lead to more feeble humans: strength etc becomes irrelevant when we have machines to do it for us. We have taken a brand new road in the history of life...
Well, that is not necessarily the case. Technology may render strength irrelevant for survival, but you forget the importance of physical attractiveness. There may be reproductive barriers to the evolution of "more feeble" humans. Physical attractiveness does not always go the same way as survival fittedness. That's what probably did in the Irish Elk --- females kept selecting male elk with humongous antlers even when the changing climate necessitated smaller antlers.
Leolaia
