science proves evolution is wrong, page-4

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Copperbod

8,407 Posts.

28/01/16

19:54

Post #: 16888942
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Originally posted by whereu ↑

I had a look at the website and the first thing that I saw was a favourite bit of quote mining by creationist websites.

This is the quote taken out of context
To suppose that the eye... could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.

If the partial quote is read in isolation and out of context then it appears that Darwin thought that the idea that the eye could have been formed through a process of natural selection is absurd.

Here is the extracted quote in the actual text of Darwin's work. Darwin went on to explain that the idea is not at all absurd.
Reference: The Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin
ORGANS OF EXTREME PERFECTION AND COMPLICATION.

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.

This is further expanded after this statement in the same document.

I wonder when the authors of creationist websites are going to stop this particular dishonest quote mining of Darwin's work. Creationists obviously rely on readers taking their work on face value without checking.

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"I wonder when the authors of creationist websites are going to stop this particular dishonest quote mining of Darwin's work. Creationists obviously rely on readers taking their work on face value without checking. "

I don't wonder. It's pretty clear that is the case.

Also, no mention of random mutation or even more interesting, environmental extreme "random" mutation.

Also a website that says "Humans Are Free" .. is in my book a wind up.
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