Making waves (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 05, 2013, 17:28 (4190 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I occasionally comment at the website Uncommon Descent but never expected this reply:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/darwinists-our-interpretation-of-the-...-As always, your comments are measured and informative, in contrast to those of Joealtle, and you did well to keep your cool. I do wish, though, that ID-ers (and you yourself) would keep Darwinism in perspective. From what I've read about Darwin, he was the most courteous of men, and was aware of many of the gaps in his theory. He did not draw the conclusions that others have drawn from his ideas (he was an agnostic, as you know), and what's more the name of this particular website begs certain fundamental questions. You yourself have never to my knowledge rejected the theory of common descent, and the wholesale theistic dismissal of "Darwinism" ... as opposed to focused rejection of gradualism and of random mutations as the driving force behind innovation ... is as blinkered as the wholesale atheistic dismissal of ID. There are enormous areas of both theories which need to be taken with the utmost seriousness and which are actually compatible with each other.-Having said that, I should add that reading the exchanges makes me all the more grateful for the fact that over the years the discussions on this forum have embraced a very wide variety of views while only rarely descending to Joealtle's level of personal abuse!