I am lecturing in an empty auditorium. I have been for some time, here and elsewhere.

Could be because you don't like my name. Though I'm kinda fond of it. Probably because it's mine.

You haven't "proved" a thing, darlin'. If your papers are so convincing, we'd have them all on file, and you wouldn't be berating us for using our first, middle, last, maiden, nick or otherwise contrived names. Bye.

"Meine Zeit wird schon kommen!"
Gregor Mendel

"If you tell the truth, you can be certain, sooner or later, to be found out."
Oscar Wilde

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison

I love it so!

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. davison

I love it so!

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison

"How can natural selection be involved in a structure yet to appear?"

Long before Darwin, William Paley claimed-

"Where there is design there is a designer." All that can be established with certainty is that there WAS a deisgner. That is all that is required by the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis.

Pierre Grasse, the greatest French biologist of his generation, put it this way -

"Let us not invoke God in realities in which He NO LONGER HAS TO INTERVENE. The single absolute act of creation was enough for Him."
Evolution of Living Organisms, page 166, his emphasis, italicized in the original.

I am not at all certain that there was a single Creator or a single creation. A monophyletic evolution is far from established.

It is hard to believe isn't it?

I love it so!

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison

I have no reason to respond to Wedgehead, whoever that is, so I won't!

If he wants to engage me I recommend "brainstorms" forum, where most of the posters use their real names. He should do the same if he expects my respect.

Well, John A. Davison, how do I know that's your real name? My real name is Wedge A. Head. No, seriously. My parents have a weird sense of humor. Better than blockhead I suppose. My friends call me wedgy but I don't think you want to be my friend.

But my husband couldn't spell it, since he had an uncle with the same name, so my Navy ID came with the misspelling, and he never learned my middle initial either because he didn't want to spell it as 'given'. Different initial entirely…

Though I've been filing taxes for 40 years with the same SS number that's on the card, and for 38 of them I've used my husband's last name. Which I never 'officially' had my name changed to, since it wasn't necessary back then…

But after my mother and father divorced, my Mom began using her ex-married name as her middle name, making her middle initial different from the middle name she was 'given' when she was born. I decided it was okay to use my maiden name as a middle name, so that gives me yet another middle initial different from the one my parents gave me, and the one my husband gave me because he didn't know how to spell it…

Homeland Security said my checks must come to "Joy" because of that 40-year old SS card, but my 'given' first name is on that card too - along with the nick. And that's how I'm listed on the bank accounts, and how I've been signing tax returns all these years…

Of course, having been born in a god-foresaken hovel of a Navy hospital halfway around the world, my birth certificate comes courtesy of the Philippine government, which doesn't speak English. Try convincing a cheap NC DMV license examiner that such a document (yellowed and practically unreadable as it is) actually DOES establish that I'm a "natural born" citizen of the U.S. even though I wasn't born in the U.S., by virtue of that smudged check in the "citizenship" box for both of my parents…

Sometimes I think I'd be better off without a name. That way I could just go by what my friends and family call me, rather than what my Father called me. Which was "Hey, you." I would not have to justify myself to the Navy, the DMV, any outside employers, my banker, the IRS, or even my husband who can't spell.

Give us a break, John. I can use any name, initial, spelling or permutation of any/all of 'em I want.

Doug, whoever that is.

That is Timothy Lambert (born Manitowoc, WI)….. good enough for you?

What makes you think that humans are all capable of reason?

Isn't it good enough that some humans are capable of reason? If no humans were capable of reason then you might have a point…. however, you'd never be able to coherently make it - nor I coherently understand it.

you honestly assume that Richard Dawkins is capable of reason when he has generated a completely artificial world in which there is no room for anything other than what was conceived by his own bizarre imagination?

Yes, Richard Dawkins is capable of reason. I think many of his conclusions and assumptions seem to have the consequence of undermining reason - but that's another topic. Richard Dawkins is a realist, he believes that nature can be apprehended, he obviously trusts his faculties of cognition, he rationally tries to pursue a consistent (internally and externally) worldview. Some of the conclusions appear to be self-refuting, but I don't see how that is an argument for him being incapable of reason. Kind of like a good chess player that is not the best at anticipating future moves.

I will stick with Einstein's view that we are not free, thank you very much.

I'm not saying you can't have those views. But how do those views explain the tendency of one to change their position on a topic of scientific interest? Either you write that change into the deterministic fabric of existence, but then you undermine reality. Reality then, whether or not it is objective, certainly doesn't seem to be something that one could ever hope to apprehend.
The best bet still seems to be: accept that free will exists.

Einstein's understanding of human nature is every bit as significant as his physics, perhaps even more so.

If he denies the existence of free will, why be impressed with anything that he thinks? Become a pantheist and direct that admiration where it should logically be directed then, at the deterministic universe that spawned Einstein.

I accept without reservation his claim that EVERYTHING is determined.

Then you did nothing. You just let the deterministic conglomeration of atoms that comprise you, that are a deterministic product of a star's nuclear furnace, do what they would have done regardless.

Poor souls like Dawkins, Myers and Elsberry were "determined" to be losers just as were all their thousands of adoring followers.

Knock that off. Trust me, they are not losers. They are men that are very dedicated to their work, who are clearly driven, motivated and intelligent. I'm like you, I don't care for their conclusions or how they handle themselves (at times)…. but that doesn't make them 'losers'.