Re: Neither Intelligent nor Designed

Your accusations of intellectual dishonesty are laughable.  The dishonesty is entirely yours; you treat evolution differently from other sciences because in conflicts with your believes; you hold believes for which are absent of any supporting evidence and worse you hold believes for which there is clear evidences to the contrary.  You are all about intellectual dishonesty;

Imre Lakatos defined intellectual honesty as specifying the conditions under one would be willing to abandon their position.   By this standard I have an absolute commitment to intellectual honesty.  I have, on several occasions given long lists of suggestion for those interested in proving evolution false; or at least cast some serious doubt on it.  

You misunderstand evolution that is your problem.  Evolution does not depend on abiogenesis.  John, you keep making the same mistake of confusing evolution and abiogenesis.  I will write it again; evolution is not dependent on abiogenesis; it is quite independent of it.  Even if you had some supernatural event that led to the formation of life (it would still be abiogenesis), evolution would still hold true.  The reason evolution would hold true would be on the weight of the evidence, evidence that comes from people of all races, all religions, all nationalities, all political affiliations.  Scientific support for evolution comes from all fields of science, across 150 years, and in every continent.  

The difference is simple.  Evolution has been scientifically proven.  An explanation for abiogenesis can never be proven; it will forever remain speculative discipline - unless we develop a time machine or at least one that can see into the past.  Abiogenesis is a fact.  And articles like the one below give credence to the idea that is has a natural explanation, an idea that is supported by other experiments as well.

Scientists propose the kind of chemistry that led to life  

You have a naïve and superficial understanding of science.   You are waiting for the one big fossil / experiment that has “Evolution Happened” written on it; big, simple easy to understand – and unrealistic.  The Theory of Evolution (recalling that Theory has a scientific definition different from common use) was developed by Darwin by examining evidence from multiple sources, it wasn’t just one thing.  Nothing in science is proven by just one thing.   In those 150 years nothing has ever appeared to discredit this idea.Layers of complexity have been added, others explanations adjusted to our modern understanding, yet the idea is even more solid today than it ever was.  

In your ignorance you keep asking many questions which have long been answered, though you claim that they haven’t.  You also want to throw out the whole jig-saw because for now there are a few pieces missing disregarding the million other pieces that have been filled in.   In this evolution is no different than any other science, they all have unanswered questions.  Your hypocrisy is palpable.  We may be ignorant about several aspects of evolution, in this evolution is just like any other science. There is one undeniable fact.  Every piece of evidence, every experiment, and every discovery supports the Theory of Evolution.  Our inability to answer some questions is not reason enough to discard it.

As I have said before, the resistance to Evolution is an emotional one and not based on reason; though the justifications for the opposition can sound remarkably rational.   This is why, even though science marches ever forward and the mountains of evidence fill bigger and bigger libraries; the percentage of people opposing evolution remains the same for over 100 years.  The development of radiometric dating, the accurate measure of the planet's age, continental drift, the discovery of DNA, the various species genome mapping, proteomics - it has all been for naught as far as the opposition to evolution is concerned.  It is because when it comes to opposing evolution the science is irrelevant,  it is all about  emotion.