Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter from Justin DeFreitas in the Kaieteur News of June 6, 2009 captioned “The majority’s view can be a violation of natural law”, and Lutchman Gossai's "Fudging the Truth" in the KN of today June 8, and would appreciate the opportunity to rebut. Many of DeFreitas’ and Gossai's assertions against Pastor Singh are illogical, contrived, and cannot withstand careful analysis.
Pastor Singh will find comfort in the fact that, in the desperate search to salvage the remains of Darwinism, Defreitas’ and Gossai's sarcasm is a poor replacement for the stunning evidence that Darwinism or Darwinian evolution is dead as a scientific concept.
DeFreitas wants Singh to quote “scientists”, so we suggest he read established “pre-Ida” authority about the academic skullduggery that has hitherto informed Darwinian evolution in the article by Dr. Jonathan Wells “The Survival of the Fakest” ( http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/survivalOfTheFakest.pdf )
Then we should refer him to the statement “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” (http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/100ScientistsAd.pdf ), where hundreds of scientists have now politely disassociated themselves from Darwinism. While there has been nary a rebuttal of Wells’ 2001-report “The Survival of the Fakest”, this wholesale defection of 761 members of the scientific community in the 2008-update of the Discovery Institute’s “Scientific Dissent” statement has ensured that a desperate, even farcical, effort had to be launched to provide a rebuttal. Ida seems to be the designated scapegoat.
To get a sense of the desperation that drove this new “scientific effort” after Dr. Wells published his book “Icons of Evolution” (which illustrated that almost EVERY pillar of evolutionary science was standing on nothing else than hot air and criminal mischief) we should quote Dr. Wells in “Survival of the Fakest”:
“… As it happens, all of these examples, as well as many others purportedly standing as evidence of evolution, turn out to be incorrect. Not just slightly off. Not just slightly mistaken. On the subject of Darwinian evolution, the texts contained massive distortions and even some faked evidence. Nor are we only talking about high-school textbooks that some might excuse (but shouldn’t) for adhering to a lower standard. Also guilty are some of the most prestigious and widely used college texts, such as Douglas Futuyma’s Evolutionary Biology, and the latest edition of the graduate-level textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell, coauthored by the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Alberts. In fact, when the false “evidence” is taken away, the case for Darwinian evolution, in the textbooks at least, is so thin it’s almost invisible….”
Small wonder, then, that Science writer Brian Switek makes the following astonishing connection in the article “The Dangerous Link Between Science and Hype :
“… But what about the scientists who described Ida? Are they victims of the media machine? Some, such as the University of Michigan palaeontologist Philip Gingerich, have confided their discomfort with being rushed in their research by Atlantic Productions, but his co-author, Jørn Hurum, from the University of Oslo , has been enjoying the limelight. In interview after interview he has asserted that Ida truly is our ancestor and that her picture will be in every science textbook for the next 100 years….”
In summary, therefore, Pastor Singh’s skepticism is validated by the mounting suspicions of the sort in the Op-ed “Is Ida significant?“ (http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/science/2009/may/Hype-Over--Missing-Link--Fossil-Ida-Draws-Skeptics.html )
I refer to the letter from Justin DeFreitas in the Kaieteur News of June 6, 2009 captioned “The majority’s view can be a violation of natural law”, and Lutchman Gossai's "Fudging the Truth" in the KN of today June 8, and would appreciate the opportunity to rebut. Many of DeFreitas’ and Gossai's assertions against Pastor Singh are illogical, contrived, and cannot withstand careful analysis.
Pastor Singh will find comfort in the fact that, in the desperate search to salvage the remains of Darwinism, Defreitas’ and Gossai's sarcasm is a poor replacement for the stunning evidence that Darwinism or Darwinian evolution is dead as a scientific concept.
DeFreitas wants Singh to quote “scientists”, so we suggest he read established “pre-Ida” authority about the academic skullduggery that has hitherto informed Darwinian evolution in the article by Dr. Jonathan Wells “The Survival of the Fakest” ( http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/survivalOfTheFakest.pdf )
Then we should refer him to the statement “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” (http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/100ScientistsAd.pdf ), where hundreds of scientists have now politely disassociated themselves from Darwinism. While there has been nary a rebuttal of Wells’ 2001-report “The Survival of the Fakest”, this wholesale defection of 761 members of the scientific community in the 2008-update of the Discovery Institute’s “Scientific Dissent” statement has ensured that a desperate, even farcical, effort had to be launched to provide a rebuttal. Ida seems to be the designated scapegoat.
To get a sense of the desperation that drove this new “scientific effort” after Dr. Wells published his book “Icons of Evolution” (which illustrated that almost EVERY pillar of evolutionary science was standing on nothing else than hot air and criminal mischief) we should quote Dr. Wells in “Survival of the Fakest”:
“… As it happens, all of these examples, as well as many others purportedly standing as evidence of evolution, turn out to be incorrect. Not just slightly off. Not just slightly mistaken. On the subject of Darwinian evolution, the texts contained massive distortions and even some faked evidence. Nor are we only talking about high-school textbooks that some might excuse (but shouldn’t) for adhering to a lower standard. Also guilty are some of the most prestigious and widely used college texts, such as Douglas Futuyma’s Evolutionary Biology, and the latest edition of the graduate-level textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell, coauthored by the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Alberts. In fact, when the false “evidence” is taken away, the case for Darwinian evolution, in the textbooks at least, is so thin it’s almost invisible….”
Small wonder, then, that Science writer Brian Switek makes the following astonishing connection in the article “The Dangerous Link Between Science and Hype :
“… But what about the scientists who described Ida? Are they victims of the media machine? Some, such as the University of Michigan palaeontologist Philip Gingerich, have confided their discomfort with being rushed in their research by Atlantic Productions, but his co-author, Jørn Hurum, from the University of Oslo , has been enjoying the limelight. In interview after interview he has asserted that Ida truly is our ancestor and that her picture will be in every science textbook for the next 100 years….”
In summary, therefore, Pastor Singh’s skepticism is validated by the mounting suspicions of the sort in the Op-ed “Is Ida significant?“ (http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/science/2009/may/Hype-Over--Missing-Link--Fossil-Ida-Draws-Skeptics.html )
“… In Science magazine, paleoanthropologist Elwyn Simons of Duke University is quoted as saying, “It's an extraordinarily complete, wonderful specimen, but it's not telling us too much that we didn't know before.”
Science’s Ann Gibbons adds that other paleontologists are skeptical because “Hurum and [colleague Phillip] Gingerich's analysis compared 30 traits in the new fossil with primitive and higher primates when standard practice is to analyze 200 to 400 traits” and include comparisons to “anthropoids from Egypt and the newer fossils of Eosimias from Asia .”
Mark Henderson, the science editor of The Times of London, says in his analysis that there is simply “no such thing as the missing link” because “there is no fossil that can fully explain an evolutionary transition all on its own.”
Science writer Carl Zimmer berated the media coverage of Ida’s public debut. When the story was first gaining momentum in the press, Zimmer said in his Discover magazine blog The Loom that he waited for “experts who were not involved in the discovery and analysis of the fossil” to “corroborate that this was indeed the Holy Grail of paleontology. … I never found one….”
We will watch Ida's rise ... and demise ... without holding our breath. It’s small wonder that coverage has all but disappeared from the media in a hurry after Sir Attenborough’s media debacle.
Then, completely lost in a fog of intellectual mischief, DeFreitas offers a treatment on gay rights and gay marriage that is an affront to Blacks and the civil-rights movement everywhere. Suffice it to say that we have dealt with many of the issues he has raised in the article “Arguments Against PANCAP and the Decriminalization of Homosexuality” ( http://www.esnips.com/doc/39fabae8-ea47-4c46-bc26-d0ac00d6d1ab/Arguments-Against-Pancap-and-the-Decriminalization-of-Homosexuality ).
We will watch Ida's rise ... and demise ... without holding our breath. It’s small wonder that coverage has all but disappeared from the media in a hurry after Sir Attenborough’s media debacle.
Then, completely lost in a fog of intellectual mischief, DeFreitas offers a treatment on gay rights and gay marriage that is an affront to Blacks and the civil-rights movement everywhere. Suffice it to say that we have dealt with many of the issues he has raised in the article “Arguments Against PANCAP and the Decriminalization of Homosexuality” ( http://www.esnips.com/doc/39fabae8-ea47-4c46-bc26-d0ac00d6d1ab/Arguments-Against-Pancap-and-the-Decriminalization-of-Homosexuality ).
Thereafter, we should end all of his (DeFreitas’) arguments with a quotation from that script from lawyer and author Roger Magnuson (“Are Gay Rights Right? Making Sense of the Controversy”; Multnomah Press; 1992; Portland , Oregon 97266 ). The excerpt below is taken from his arguments at pgs. 67-107, specifically p. 82-89):
“…As we have already seen, proponents of gay rights laws rely heavily on an analogy to other human rights legislation. If human rights laws have provided protection to other minorities, why should society not add one more group to those protected from discrimination?
“…As we have already seen, proponents of gay rights laws rely heavily on an analogy to other human rights legislation. If human rights laws have provided protection to other minorities, why should society not add one more group to those protected from discrimination?
Hitching their wagon to the broadly based support Americans have traditionally given civil rights laws, gay rights advocates have made surprising progress in the past decade. The human rights analogy, though popular and politically understandable, cannot withstand careful analysis.
Adding homosexual behaviour to a list of classes that includes racial and religious minorities makes no sense. The tenuous balance of social interests represented by these laws is reflected in the few, and carefully chosen, classes they protect. Relief has been given only in extraordinary circumstances.
To add another protected class, at least five requirements have had to be shown: (1) A demonstrable pattern of discrimination … (2) … based on criteria that are arbitrary and irrational … (3) … causing substantial injury …(4) … to a class of people with an unchangeable or immutable status … (5) … which has no element of moral fault ….”
Gay militancy ... and its horrible hoax as outlined by DeFreitas ... fail on these criteria! The real tragedy may well be that PANCAP … and the DeFreitas’ of this world … never alert constituents to the public policy implications that their opinions would have.
Yours faithfully
Roger Williams
June 5, 2009
PS:
Gay militancy ... and its horrible hoax as outlined by DeFreitas ... fail on these criteria! The real tragedy may well be that PANCAP … and the DeFreitas’ of this world … never alert constituents to the public policy implications that their opinions would have.
Yours faithfully
Roger Williams
June 5, 2009
PS:
Some material persons should read as we confront the media hype regarding “Ida” (she’s about the size of a cat):
The Survival of the Fakest
The dangerous link between science and hype
Scientists divided on Ida as the missing link
Scientists: 'Missing Link' Fossil Not Worth Media Hype
Piltdown Finds All Planted
Piltdown Man Forgery
The Survival of the Fakest
Missing Link Coverage Goes AmissWhy Ida Fossil is Not the Missing Link
The dangerous link between science and hype
Scientists divided on Ida as the missing link
Scientists: 'Missing Link' Fossil Not Worth Media Hype
Piltdown Finds All Planted
Piltdown Man Forgery
The Survival of the Fakest
Missing Link Coverage Goes AmissWhy Ida Fossil is Not the Missing Link
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