Creationists to distribute Charles Darwin books for free. What’s the catch?
I’ve already covered this before, but here’s an update. What a fucking disgrace. They’re trying to discredit one of the greatest minds of all time. Disgusting.
Creationists to distribute Charles Darwin books for free. What’s the catch?
Evangelical Christians plan to distribute more than 100,000 free copies of Charles Darwin’s seminal work on the theory of evolution, “On the Origin of Species,” on college campuses this month. Are the evangelists affiliated with the religious organization Living Waters really spreading the word of Charles Darwin?
Yes — but.
“All we want to do is present the opposing and correct view,” says actor Kirk Cameron, a supporter, in a video on the website. That view, which both precedes and counters Darwin’s theory in the copies of the book they will distribute, has been penned by the organization’s leader, Ray Comfort. In a 50-page introduction, no less. An excerpt:
Keeping in mind that the most intelligent of human beings can’t create even a grain of sand from nothing, do you believe that the “something” that made everything was intelligent? It must have been, in order to make the flowers, the birds, the trees, the human eye, and the sun, the moon and the stars. If you believe that, then you believe there was an intelligent designer. You have just become an unscientific “knuckle-dragger” in the eyes of our learning institutions that embrace Darwinism. But you are not alone if you believe in God.
Which learning institutions may expect Living Waters representatives to show up on their campuses with boxes of the Comfort-introduction edition of “On the Origin of Species” hasn’t been announced, although Living Waters described the schools as “100 of America’s top universities” in an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times. According to the website, Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort will pass out copies of the book together on Nov. 19, perhaps here in Southern California.
Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was first published 150 years ago, on Nov. 24, 1859. It begins:
When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers.
The book, having been in the public domain for quite some time, is also available for free via Project Gutenberg. With no introduction but Darwin’s own.
Here’s the video that asshat Kirk Cameron posted a few months ago.
I can appreciate your point of view and you have the right to say what you want, but just like you have that right, so do these people..
The fact that they see something different doesn’t make them stupid. I think we need to remember that we do live in a place where people can voice their opinions.
I wasn’t there to see the world form and its lifeforms evolve so I can’t really say I know exactly how it happened. I don’t really care whether or not the earth was formed by an explosion, created by a god or aliens or whatever.. Every one sees things different and we need to give tolerance to all points of view.
Oh.. just one thing. The greatest minds of our time once “knew” that an atom resembled a ball of plum pudding… and in time they were proven wrong. I’m not saying Darwin was wrong.. i don’t care whether or not he was wrong. But It’s ok to be mistaken. No shame in that. And that goes for creationists as well. Nature is a pretty amazing thing and it’s only natural to believe that it was created intentionally by an intelligent higher power.
The people thought that to be that case, based their theory on very poor scientific means.
Except Darwin wasn’t/isn’t mistaken. There are mountains of evidence proving evolution and absolutely no evidence supporting the creationist claim.
It most certainly is not. Ignorance drives the belief in a high power. Knowledge and intelligence drives science.
Listen i just happened to stumble upon this website and not only am I glad that I did but i am overwhelmed with joy that somebody else out there thinks the same way I do. I am only 17 and live in a very christian area, I only really attend church because my parents make me go. It is incredibly hard finding someone who will agree that religion is the root of all evil. I don’t mean to be rude but if you look deep enough its either religion or superstition that fuels most of the worlds great tragedies (the crusades, the current war in Israel) and for me when i see pain and suffering and all of this caused because of religion, I find it hard to believe that a god would let this happen to the very thing he\she created. I also wished that at some point atheists would grow some balls and fight back. After seeing videos like this one it bothers me to no end that atheists and agnostics don’t have a viable means of rebuttal. But that is besides the point. I just want to say that i am not prejudice against anyone who believes in god or whatever i think its just hypocritical when the christian church preaches “tolerance” and the “door to the church is always open to anyone” policy. Then turns right around and bashes atheists and non believers. oh and p.s. Kirk Cameron is a duestch bag.
I also found it funny the only “scientists” he mentioned are all dead and long gone or. dead and long gone. and one thing for Kirk. the reason why so many of today’s youth are atheist or agnostic is because for the first time in the earths history, Atheism is an option.
Always nice to meet another non-believer. :)
I highly doubt that the whichever publishing house holds the printing rights to Origin of the Species allowed a new introduction to be inserted that goes against the entire book. I smell a lawsuit.
Furthermore, if people actually read the book as distributed it may convince a few of them that evolution is truth (assuming they haven’t altered the book itself).
I can only hope that they pay attention to the words…
Just because they have the right to free speech, doesn’t mean that their idea is a sound argument. If you’re going to throw your ideas out to the public, you better expect to get criticized. Creationism has NO scientific proof to back it up (no, the bible is not evidence) while evolution has mountains of data to back it up. In fact most biology does not make sense except in the light of evolution. What Ray Comfort is doing is pathetic. Since he fails to discredit evolution, he now has to move on to personally attacking Charles Darwin. I don’t understand why Christians can’t admit that they were mistaken about some things. Science is fully capable of admitting when it has made a mistake, when new contradictory evidence is found. I don’t believe in god but for those of you that do, ever think evolution was god’s way of making life on this planet? And that maybe 7 days to god is a couple billion of years to us?
michael Griffin “The fact that they see something different doesn’t make them stupid.”
Comfort’s not stupid. He’s willfully ignorant. A cursory glance at him being repeatedly corrected on his horrible blog (which I refuse to link), then coming back and saying the same thing later one, shows this.
“Every one sees things different and we need to give tolerance to all points of view.”
There’s a place for tolerance. That place is when the intolerable is kept private. These people want their ignorance in science class. That, I can’t tolerate. Comfort (and Ham…and the Discovery Institute, etc) has the right to be wrong. He doesn’t have the right to corrupt the sciences to enshrine it.
“I’m not saying Darwin was wrong.. i don’t care whether or not he was wrong.”
He was close enough considering what he had to work with. The 150 years after that have greatly expanded on his work.
“It’s ok to be mistaken.”
Darwin was wrong about some stuff. Sometimes he comes of a practically Lamarkian, if memory serves. Meanwhile, YECs aren’t just mistaken. They’re so far off that they aren’t even wrong. And they aren’t getting any less wrong.
“No shame in that.”
Lose the last two words and you’ve concisely summed up Comfort and his ilk . Comfort thinks he has the capital “T” Truth. Unfortunately, the facts keep getting in the way, so he ignores most of them and distorts or misinterprets the rest.
Brandon “I highly doubt that the whichever publishing house holds the printing rights to Origin of the Species allowed a new introduction to be inserted that goes against the entire book.”
It’s Public Domain.
“Furthermore, if people actually read the book as distributed it may convince a few of them that evolution is truth (assuming they haven’t altered the book itself).”
Especially if they read it in order. First, Comfort’s disembling, then Darwin’s refutation. Sadly, Darwin’s out of date. He did pretty good with what he had, though.
If I recall, didn’t Darwin recant everything he wrote just before he died?
Just an observation, that the hero of evolution thought his own ideas were refutable…
I’ve been searching for this mountain of evidence…where is it? I have yet to find it. I have yet to see all of the links between every species…not even in fossil records. Where can all of the evolutionary steps be I wonder?
I don’t understand why everyone gets so angry about this crap. It’s ridiculous. Faith should not be taught in public schools…at all. But with a theory that has not been proven, does it not take faith to believe in that as well? It’s still just a hypothesis so far, with a bit of evidence.
As far as alternate beings, far more advanced, Super String theory talks about such things being provable by math, escpecially in conjunction with the 10 dimensions of space and time which has the possibility of creatures on each dimension, yet this does not convince us to believe that they in fact exist. It’s still a theory and should not be claimed as fact.
I think, until Evolution is 100% proven, we shouldn’t teach it in schools, just as we shouldn’t teach religion. When kids want to know how it all happened, they can ask their parents.
Nope, he didn’t. That was a lie perpetrated by an evangelical at the time. Darwin was consistently opposed to the notion of Christianity. If anything, he was a Deist or an Agnostic, but he certainly never “accepted Jesus” or any of that crap.
You are clearly trying live a life of ignorance. You want to read about evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution get reading. There are countless books on the subject.
Wrong. Evolution is accepted as fact and has MOUNTAINS of evidence, not “some”. The vast majority of scientists (and any sane minded individual as well) in the world accept evolution as fact.
In that case.. I’m going to go call Harvard Medical School, Caltech, M.I.T. and…. well.. every other college/university/school and tell them all to stop teaching all forms of science; with exception of course.. they can continue to teach any/all math that has a verified proof. Theorems are no longer permitted to be taught in any way shape or form.
By your insane definition of what can/can’t be taught in schools, NOTHING can be taught.
Medicine is out, since it’s based on: cell theory, germ theory, metastasis theory, virus theory, toxin theory, genetic theory, etc..
Engineering is also out, since it’s based on: Structural engineering theory, Systems theory, Scientific modelling, Control theory, etc
Computers? Woah, that’s waaaay gone! Circuit Theory, Signal Theory, Poincaré conjecture (still no proof for this one yet, even though all internet security protocols are built on this one), computational complexity theory, programming language theory , Theory of computation, category theory, domain theory, order theory, concurrency theory, etc..
Should I go on? None of those theories have been proven.. yet you’re all to happy to accept all of them as fact. You then want to turn around and throw away evolution because it hasn’t been “100% proven”.
Guess what, gravity is still just a theory and hasn’t been proven yet.
“I can appreciate your point of view and you have the right to say what you want, but just like you have that right, so do these people..”
Nope, sorry, not true. The concept that all opinions are valid is one that’s spread only by people with invalid opinions. The opinion that the Earth is flat is not a valid one. The opinion that the sun revolves around the Earth is not a valid one. You wouldn’t even consider teaching these things in school, despite their being required in order for you to accept creationism as real.
Just because you believe Marduk cut Tiamat in twain to create the heavens and Earth does not either make it true or valid. Sorry, keep your creation myths in your church where they belong.