Thom Hartmann challenges Dr John West - “Are faith and evolution compatible?

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 10:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlvGkEhabhk   Posted on YouTube: June 17, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 17, 2009 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 591

 
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[baldguy]

1. West is arguing against something he has no understanding of.

[GillesDeleuze]

2. hartman's args are pretty weak too.

two ships passing in the night. If you believe in a perfect creator, good luck with the cognitive dissonance between faith and scientific reasoning.

[Phred42]

3. K & R

[uberllama42]

4. The will to live and reproduce in animals is no evidence of design

At any given point in the history of life, an organism that "wanted it more"- one that tried harder, due to its innate tendencies and abilities, to survive or reproduce- is able to pass its genes and therefore all of its genetic characteristics on to the next generation. Those characteristics emerge at random. No one sat down and decided that any given animal would have a will to survive.

An animal that has an inborn, genetic propensity to fight for its own survival is more likely to survive than one that has no such tendency. An animal with a greater will to survive, assuming that will is appropriately expressed within the animal's environment, tends to survive at the expense of one with a milder will to survive. It's no surprise that animals all exhibit a will to survive, insofar as we can interpret their thoughts. There's absolutely no need to posit a design behind these characteristics, nor behind the nature of the physical universe in which this selection occurs.