George Bush illustrates the level of contradiction you must live with to be a conservative in America. First he says the "jury is out" on the theory of evolution, meaning he does not believe evolution is a "fact", then he warns the nation in a press conference that bird flu, heretofore only passed between birds, is poised to mutate and make the huge evolutionary leap to be able to be passed between humans.
Well the President is right about one thing - evolutionary theory is not a fact. On the contrary, it is a theory and a pretty solid one at that. In fact, evolutionary theory, along with gravitational theory, the theory that the earth is round, and the theory that the sun is at the center of the solar system, are some of the most solid theories man has ever devised.
They help explain the past, they help explain what we see today, they help predict the future, and most importantly, they are testable so that our children in science lab actually have some real scientific experimentation and learning to do - instead of just praying to the "intelligent designer" hoping he will make everything better.
Intrinsically Bush seems to understand all of this, even though he is loathe to admit it to his base. At a recent press conference Bush fear-mongered by warning that the H5N1 virus, known as bird flu or avian flu, might jump between humans soon, requiring drastic measures including imposition of a quasi-police state, which he outlined in his speech.
So lets get this straight Mr. President, you believe evolution is some fiction dreamed up by atheists, in order to make people doubt the existence of your minority-version of God? You further believe that the hypothetical possibility that bird flu will evolve and mutate so that it will be able to be passed between humans is virtually a sure thing - so much so that you devote an inordinate amount of time in a national press conference to the subject?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mark Schannon
Oh you silly liberal mushy-headed thinker of dark thoughts.
I mean, I can't believe you miss the difference between evolution and evolution. The first deals with changing stuff. The second deals with changing other stuff. That clear enough?
No? Well then, think of it this way. There scientific evolution, which is obviously a liberal plot of hearden American children's hearts against God. And then there's Bush's evolution which is a warm embrace of the divine spirit that inhabits everything--except the virus in those lousy chickens.
Get your science straight! You're just making it tough for us straight thinkers.
(Great post, by the way!)
In Jamesons Veritas.
2 - Nancy
Bush would be laughable if he weren't in a position to be so dangerous.
3 - balletshooz
Oh I see, if you put the word "evolution" in italics, then its permissible. Maybe Bush is evolving to realize that evolution is a "fact". that would be nice wouldn't it.
Then maybe we can train a generation of intelligent young scientists to really combat the virus when it evolves, without confusing them when they are 6 years old.
4 - gonzo marx
oh Mark, me boyo...
they still let you type?
and here i had thought that one they put you in the nice dinner jacket that ties up in the back, ya would have not been able ta manage it...
ah well.... {8^P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
as for the Post...nicely done pointing out the dichotomy in what passes for "thought" around 1600 Pennsylvania ave...
things are getting interesting, mug shots from Texas, Fitzgerald almost ready to set out some Fun...Insider trading with the Senate Majority leader..
"it's going to be a bumpy night" Mae West
Excelsior!
5 - Nancy
Hey Gonzo - missed your rapier wit. Where ya been? Welcome back.
6 - Gaurav
It is surprising that evolution threatens believers. For years together, they have followed a very simple rule - see anything fantastic - route it to God. Well the big J freaks may want to think about embracing evolution - its God's awesome power at display that we evolved and God's love .... Of course the material in Bible is a bit of a problem. But last time I heard, Church of Science was furiously number crunching predicing everything from Tsunami to 9/11.
7 - billy
quite true about evolution. if god is so powerful, why could he not have created evolution along with the universe?
why cant religious folk grasp that people 2-6000 years ago didnt know ebough about the world to write a bible that is accurate to the T?
heck, they didnt even know the earth was round and thought it was stationary at the center of the universe. cut them some slack.
If god can create the universe, certainly he can create an orderly process (evolution) whereby his creation is realized over time?
Maybe god is patient?
8 - Dr. Kurt
Bush is just drawing on the old Spanish proverb, "He who talks a lot will be right some of the time."
The Shrub really needs a wonder-drug himself, right now.
9 - Alethinos
I don't know WHY Bush denies evolution, he obviously was evolved in Cheney's lab, with Boriskarlroveoff assisting from a used CURIOUS GEORGE doll!
Alethinos
10 - Jim Bendewald
Balletshooz said, "Intrinsically Bush seems to understand all of this, even though he is loathe to admit it to his base."
Are you completely ignorant of your opposition or do you intentionally misrepresent the opposing view? Creationists and those who hold to an intelligent design point of view accept that natural selection exists and is a powerful explanation for changes within a kind and speciation. But natural selection is a subtraction process, it removes genetic information, it does not produce novel genetic information that did not exist previously. This includes the expected "evolutionary leap" of the bird flu to humans. It is generally the reduction of information that provides the environmental advantage for the organism’s survival.
It is the evolution from single celled bacteria to multicellular organisms to invertebrates to vertebrates type of evolution that is a huge extrapolation. So the evidence for evolution does not contradict creationism while evolutionists claim victory saying evolution is everywhere. This is a "bait and switch" trick and Balletshooz is enjoying the use of it. For evidence for creation I invite you to look at creationevidence.blogspot.com
11 - JR
Jim Bendewald: But natural selection is a subtraction process, it removes genetic information, it does not produce novel genetic information that did not exist previously.
Hmmm, seems to be a common misconception. Where are you getting your bogus information?
12 - Jim Bendewald
JR said, "Hmmm, seems to be a common misconception. Where are you getting your bogus information?"
This is basic genetics, it is not "bogus information". The phrase 'weeding out' is another way to refer to the subtraction process of natural selection. http://www.biology-online.org/2/10_natural_selection.htm states, "This 'weeding out' of less suited organisms and the reward of survival to those better suited led Darwin to deduce that organisms had evolved over time, where the most desirable characteristics of a species are favoured and those organisms who exhibit them survive to pass their genes on."
13 - Jim Bendewald
This quote speaks specifically to 'more exclusive' genes. "Natural selection will favour genes that are more suited to their environment and become more exclusive in the gene pool over time in such an environment. Different genes will become more exclusive when the environment changes, or the species migrate." From http://www.biology-online.org/2/14_gene_pool.htm
14 - Dr. Kurt
Ummm... what does that quote have to do with subtracting chromosomes? Not that Darwin had ever seen one; he theorized, and years of research have generally supported him. Now that we can sequence DNA, we know a bit more.
The "subtraction" claim is a dumb con used by the ID people; amazing how some people will believe it without evidence. Wait, that's ID itself...
15 - zingzing
id is a crock of butter beans, thought up by christians who figured out that evolution is correct and found out a way to connect it back to "their" god. of course, it's the god of the bible, if it's anyone! horse hooves! idiots...
16 - Luke
If god used evolution to create things, then even if it took a billion years, to god that's some work he did one afternoon, our time and gods time don't run on the same scale, and obviously, if he was going to inspire the bible, it wouln't make sense to tell people it took him 350 billion days to make this thing, and 275 billion days to make that, he simplified it for our tiny little minds.
17 - Baronius
Micro evolution versus macro evolution. The envelope.
18 - Jim Bendewald
Dr. Kurt said, "Now that we can sequence DNA, we know a bit more."
Let me remind you that I am from a pro evolutionary source which says about natural selection: "Different genes will become more exclusive when the environment changes"
But when you say we now know a bit more possibly you were referring to mutations. So the question arises, do mutations bring about novel information that did not exist previously? The answer again is no!
Lee Spetner, who holds a Ph.D. in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied the issue of new information extensively. In his book, Not By Chance (pp.131, 132 134), Spetner wrote,
"But in all the reading I’ve done in the life-sciences literature, I’ve never found a mutation that added information. The NDT [neo-Darwinian Theory] says, not only that such mutations must occur, they must also be probable enough for a long sequence of them to lead to macroevolution . . . All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it."
Spetner says that mutations reduce genetic information. In extremely rare circumstances mutations turn out to be an advantage to the creature in a particular environment; even so, it is from a loss of information. Evolutionists teach that microevolution occurs through small steps, with macroevolution the eventual result. But there appears to be no evidence for it, since macroevolution requires great amounts of new information.
Mutations may have the ability to do the equivalent of copying a paragraph of text and pasting it somewhere else but that is nothing like writing a complete, unique and intelligent paragraph of text. Evolutionists have no biological evidence that evolution creates novel information that has not existed before. If you disagree, provide us with the evidence, not your insults.
19 - JR
Jim Bendewald: Mutations may have the ability to do the equivalent of copying a paragraph of text and pasting it somewhere else but that is nothing like writing a complete, unique and intelligent paragraph of text.
A "paragraph of text" is copied; there are now two copies in the genome. Over time, random mutations accumulate in one the copy, while the other is conserved by virtue of the fact that individuals born with critical changes in both copies tend to die. So while one copy stays the same, the other accumulates changes, becoming essentially a new text. Among all the different mutations in all the different progeny, some happen to code for heritable traits. Voila! New information.
Evolutionists have no biological evidence that evolution creates novel information that has not existed before.
I doubt that you can credibly make that claim, as it involves auditing the entirety of the scientific literature. I haven't done that; have you?
20 - Brandon
stop this poitless bickering we all know George W. Bush's vocabulary is limited to that of forest gumps (no offence meant) there is only one scientificly sound theory of evolution and it is also complitly biblical the theory of adaption or the abilty for somthing to change to meet its needs natural selection also a solid theory says that those adapted organisms are going to survive longer and produce more any student in grade school can tell you that so please stop this pointless Arguing and start debating on somtihing more important like mabye the war in iraq or the death penalty your just wasting your time
21 - phil
The fact is, that if you have Jesus in your life, you have peace and don't really care what some (de-evolving) idiot believes. If Bush is truely an idiot, then those of us who believe are all idiots
22 - Nancy
Phil, by your own words are ye convicted, lol!
23 - Jim Bendewald
JR said, "Voila! New information."
That is great for the imagination but that does not make it science. Where is the overwhelming evidence that evolutionists' claim?
You also said, "I doubt that you can credibly make that claim, as it involves auditing the entirety of the scientific literature. I haven't done that; have you?"
No, but all you have to do is find any empirical evidence to demonstrate that I'm wrong. Since evolutionists claim that evolution is so well documented, that should not be too hard to find. Otherwise evolution as a well-founded established theory is all hype, isn't it?
24 - barry boob
yes it is time to get over there is no god...
we evloved from bactriea over about 2 billion years or so...
the you guys happy an answer with evidence
25 - Jim Bendewald
Correction:
I said, "Let me remind you that I am [quoting] from a pro evolutionary source which says about natural selection: "Different genes will become more exclusive when the environment changes"
The word "quoting" was left out in the original comment.