Darwinists' Blind Spot

Over at the 'Uncommon Descent' blog, 'idnet.com.au' has posted an article concerning the continued flogging by the 'modern evolutionary theorists' (aka Darwinists) of that favorite Dead Horse of theirs: "The vertebrate eye is wired 'backwards' ... therefore it isn't designed!" ( see The Blind Leading the Blind )

I wish to share with Gentle Reader a comment he made within the comments-section and my comment upon the comment.

'idnet.com.au' said:

Blind spots are never detected unless one eye is blacked out and even then the blind spot is “filled in” by the brain’s software.

The blind spot is not in the macula (the high visual acuity part of the retina) so where one is actually looking at something, there is no blind spot.

The only blind spot here is in the eyes of the Darwinists who keep insisting that they were right when they made claims based on their own flawed common sense. When they are proven wrong, they still refuse to see design in the eye.

Claiming that they could design the eye better, without backing it up experimentally, makes them look even more lame and pathetic.

My response:

Indeed. It is as though one were to point to the fact that if one were to cut off a man’s right arm, he can no longer write a letter (at any rate, not until he develops fine motor control over his left hand), or that if one cuts off a man’s leg, he can no longer run a race, as evidence of “bad design.”

As 'idnet.com.au' rightly points out:
1) the (in)famous "Blind Spot" resulting from the allegedly backwards wiring of the vertebrate eye is *not* in the field-of-focus of vision, but is rather in the peripheral field of vision. That is, it is in the portion of the field of vision where one cannot really see detail in any event ... when one looks at a thing, the blind-spot has no bearing with respect to what one is focused upon.
2) the blind-spot of one eye is compensated for by the peripheral field of vision of the other eye. Thus, in almost all cases (with two properly working eyes), there *is* no blind-spot at all in one's field of vision.

It's not as though these are previously unknown facts; yet the 'modern evolutionary theorists' continue to mercilessly flog that poor Dead Horse.

But, also read the full post at UD -- the article discusses a Darwinistic/materialistic admission that "... the strange, “backwards” structure of the vertebrate retina actually improves vision" ... which, being so opposite to the Dead Horse they've been flogging all these years, is *still* evidence that "Evolution Done It!"

Truely, "With "Evolution," all things are possible!"

========
edit:
This "Blind Spot" Dead Horse is on an intellectual par (and as intellectually dishonest) as a classroom exchange in the recent episode of the program 'FlashForward" (while this link is still valid, see from the 26:00 mark)

In this scene, the instructor tells his class of highschool students: "You can do what you will, but, at any given moment of your life, you can will only one definite thing; nothing other than that thing. What do you guys think that means?"

And a girl who has obviously been paying attention all semester answers, "That ... free-will is a lie?"

And he answers, "Exactly."

Examine the "reasoning" here -- that you are free to will either 'A' or 'B,' but not 'A' and 'B' simultaneously is "proof" that you never were free to will either 'A' or 'B' in the first place!

It's logically impossible -- which means it's utterly impossible -- to reason with persons who "reason" with such "logic." And that is why it's impossible to have a rational and civil converstaion with most Darwinists (or 'atheists' or "liberals") on any point of disagreement between their worldview and yours -- most members of the three groups "reason" using the same mode of anti-logic as the highschool instructor is using.

By Hook or Crook

Here is a news item concerning a recent "liberal" outrage against reason, decency and society: Ga. Seniors Told They Can't Pray Before Meals

And here is Lawrence Auster's analysis of it:

They have now, in principle, completed the revolution. It was done in three stages:

1. You turn the Constitution on its head by saying that the 14th amendment, which has power over the states, "incorporates" the Bill of Rights, which only has power over Congress. Thus the First Amendment's provision that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," is effectively translated into, "a state shall not establish a religion," changing the Constitution from a limitation on federal power over the states into a mandate for unlimited federal power over the states.

2. Then you redefine "establishment of religion" to mean, not a favored denomination which receives tax dollars and membership in which is required to hold political office, but ANY religious expression, period. With steps one and two in place, all religious expression under the auspices of state and local government is outlawed.

3. Finally, you progressively subsidize the entire society, so that everything in the society is funded by government, and therefore there is no area in the society where any religious expression is allowed. Remaining holdouts are eliminated as the grip of government funding and regulation keeps expanding.

It doesn't matter that most "liberals" are "good people" with "good intentions" -- all "liberals" act as social enablers for the mankind-hating, power-seeking, liberty-denying leftists who set their agendas.

"Liberals" are inconsistent leftists -- it is never leftism itself which they oppose, in principle, but only that they want sometimes to defer or escape some of the logical consequences of leftism. And so, since the "liberals" have no principled opposition to the demands which logically follow from the commitments of leftism, the "hard-core" leftists can always ratched them (and society) ever-leftward, and the "liberals" will always find a way to justify the new outrage.

For, after all, Gentle Reader, the *real* enemy is you and me. And those "wicked" "racist" "angry" "white" "hateful" "ignorant" "teaba-" ... Tea Partiers.

update:
In a bummer development for Waldo, Prayer restored at Port Wentworth Senior Center

Law By Hypertext

Hanns Kuttner on NRO: Another Constitutional Oddity

One other area of the constitution about which Obamacare raises new questions is the presentment clause: “Every Order, Resolution, or Vote . . . shall be presented to the President of the United States” (Article I, Section 7).

Hundreds of pages into the law comes a section about Indian health. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act has been up for reauthorization for some time. Section 10221 of the new law says:

. . . S. 1790, entitled “A bill to amend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to revise and extend that Act, and for other purposes,” as reported by the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate in December 2009, is enacted into law.

This legislation is 276 pages long. For whatever reason, the Senate did not include the full text in the legislation it passed that ultimately made it to President Obama’s desk.

This certainly is a more efficient way to do things. It allows legislation that the president signs to be short and pithy. It conserves paper. Fewer pages to print. If “enactment by reference” became the norm, laws would be ever so short. But does it square with the Constitution?

As the (ahem) lady said: "But, we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

Oktapodi

Oktapodi

Reppert on the Arizona Illegal Alien Law

This is yet another post about the recent Arizona law aimed at enforcing the sovereign borders of the United States (see here and here), in this case, trying to examine the perspective not of some (all-but unknown-to-me) "liberal" columnist in NYC, or some damned-fool Democratic or RINO apple-polisher in DC, but rather of a "liberal" philosopher I had wanted to respect.

As a side note, I finally lost interest in Victor Reppert's blog several months ago (*), and so I rarely even pop over there anymore. But, today, for the first time in weeks, I did pop over to Mr Reppert's blog, and saw this: Driving While Mexican, or it's no fun being an illegal alien (or looking like one either)

All eyes are on Arizona today because Governor Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070, and I feel like putting a paper bag over my virtual head. Police in our state have now been given the authority to demand papers on anyone of whom they have a reasonable suspicion that they are illegal aliens. The trouble is, about the only reason for suspicion that I can think of that someone is in the country illegally is if they have brown skin, or speak Spanish instead of English, or English with an Mexican accent. Last I checked, that was called racial profiling, which is illegal. Supposedly they are going to come up with some guidelines for deciding when there is reasonable suspicion. Good luck with that.

On every police force there are some Mark Fuhrmans. (One of them is our county sheriff). And what will they do if they get a call about loud music late at night, and that music turns out to be Spanish language music? Do you think they're going to resist the temptation to ask for papers?

Illegal immigration is a serious problem. This is a preposterous way to go about stopping it.

Mr Reppert's problem is that he's a "liberal" -- which is to say, he's a "soft," that is, an inconsistent, leftist -- and thus, on certain topics he causes himself to be unable to reason soundly; for his leftism dictates the "acceptable" conclusion, regardless of the premises from which he starts.

Consider his conclusion: "Illegal immigration is a serious problem. This is a preposterous way to go about stopping it." That is, according to Mr Reppert's (ahem) reasoning, while it is true (as we conservatives contend) that the presence of vast numbers of illegal aliens in the United States is a serious problem for the body politic, to actually attempt to enforce, and very mildly at that, existing law concerning an illegal presence in the US "is a preposterous way to go about stopping it."

How, pray tell, are we to control or, better yet, curtail, the vast numbers of illegal aliens within the borders of the US if we will not enforce either our sovereign borders or our laws against the illegal invasion of those borders? Are "liberals" trying to destroy the unity of the US?

Consider his assertion: "... Last I checked, that was called racial profiling, which is illegal." We *all* know that this assertion is false (and irrational, in any event). And, we all know that "liberals" are just fine with "racial profiling" ... just so long as it's the "po' white trash," you know, folk like me, who are paying the price of the racial preferences and set-asides "liberals" like and demand. We all know that "liberals" are just fine with "racial profiling" ... just so long as it doesn't serve the interests of the citizens of the US. You know, as would be the case to "racially profile" suspiciously-acting Moslems attempting to board airplanes.


(*) The final straw, for me, was this post -- the content is either self-oblivious beyond belief, or simply disingenuous. As I keep telling Gentle Reader, just because I *can* effectively eviscerate someone doesn't mean that I enjoy doing it; it's a chore and a psychic drain. So, I kept putting off responding to that post ... and, eventually, realized that I just didn't care anymore.


------------
Update --

In a comment, Mr Reppert says:

According to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, this law reverses the burden of evidence for people suspected of being here illegally. You have to prove that you are legal, they don't have to prove you are illegal.

I suppose that's the way the do it in Mexico. That is why people get stuck in the Tijuana jail unable to prove their innocence. But that's not the American way.

How like a "liberal" ... and how like the "liberal" stance on the Geneva Conventions.

Notice what Mr Reppert is doing here ... he's asserting that illegal alien non-citizens have the same civic rights as actual US citizens; he's asserting that in order to lay claim to the civic rights that only US citizens have, one should not be expected, and certainly cannot be required, to provide evidence that one is, in fact, a US citizen who does, indeed, possess those civic rights.

To continue Mr Reppert's logic, it is as though one were to assert that the police may not even arrest the suspect of a crime until they have first proven in a court of law not merely that they suspect him of having committed the specific crime, but that he did, in fact, commit it.

The practical result of Mr Reppert's "good intentions" is that there is no real-world difference between being a US citizen and not being a US citizen. How is it that Mr Reppert's "good intentions" differ substantively from the wicked intentions of those who actively seek to cheapen US citizenship and/or destroy the US?

It has never been good enough merely to have "good intentions" -- there must be a rational connection between one's "good intentions" and the good one intends and a reasonable expectation that one's intentions shall result in good, rather than harm.

When one stands in judgment before God, one cannot bleat, "But at least I was 'sincere'" -- God is not a modernist, much less a post-modernist.

'They All Look Alike, Anyway!'

Bob Parks: Bonehead of the day

I could be Cuban

This post is a follow-up to a previous post concerning "liberal" hypocrisy about the US Constitution and laws.

Many conservative bloggers (for instance, here) are analyzing (and/or mocking) a recently published example of "liberal" NYT hyperventilation about the newly enacted Arizona law concerning enforcement of the nation's laws about illegal so-called immigrants --

...
So what to do in the meantime? Here’s a modest proposal. Everyone remembers the wartime Danish king who drove through Copenhagen wearing a Star of David in support of his Jewish subjects. It’s an apocryphal story, actually, but an inspiring one. Let the good people of Arizona — and anyone passing through — walk the streets of Tucson and Phoenix wearing buttons that say: I Could Be Illegal.

My mockery -- and analysis -- of the "liberals" is this:

How about this as a response to the leftists and their "I could be illegal" pseudo-argument?

"I could be Cuban"

Would this not highlight their hypocrisy on the matter?

update --
Bob Parks: Pic Of The Day

Repeal the 17th, Part II

I believe that the 17th amendment to the US Constitution -- direct election of US senators -- was one of the "roads to hell, paved with good intentions." Though, I also question whether all the original proponents of the scheme really did have good intentions. They were "Progressives," after all.

Back in February, I posted my argument for repeal of the 17th.

Today, I read a smilar argument on the 'American Thinker' magazine that I wish to share with Gentle Reader -- John W. Truslow, III: It's the Constitution that's Radicalizing Our Politicians

...

In contrast to the above, 1) Conservatives understand that unchecked majority rule can be tyranny. 2) Conservatives distrust the coercive power of individual celebrity, putting their faith in just institutions. 3) Conservatives believe that a principled process is more valuable than an efficient practice. So, when analyzing the current political debacle as conservatives, there is a very different conclusion to be drawn: The system itself encourages radicalism (be they Republicans in 2003 or Democrats in 2010), and without systemic change, radicalism will continue to advance. Therefore, conservatives must work first to restore the integrity of the constitutional order.

The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1913) is a clear catalyst for American radicalism, bringing a century of immeasurable disorder to the original constitutional framework. Before the passage of the 17th Amendment, the Constitution provided moderate, temperate government primarily by limiting the federal government's power. It did this by a) establishing a political -- not judicial -- arena for the competition of unaligned self-interests, b) broadly diffusing power through a process of checks and balances existing between the federal and state governments, and also among the three branches of the federal government, and c) enumerating specific powers, such as the commerce clause (from which Congress justifies the bulk of its current activity). The 17th Amendment eviscerated all three parts of that structure, and in doing so created the context in which radicalism has flourished in both parties. Consider each of these in turn:

First, before the passage of the 17th Amendment, members of the Senate were chosen by state legislatures to be the agents of those sovereign governments in Washington, D.C., much like ambassadors today at the United Nations. While a member of the House would represent the intemperate passions of the people as citizens, a senator would represent the very different interests of the people's state governments. The interests of the two bodies were purposefully not aligned -- their constituencies were different. The 17th Amendment allowed for the direct election of senators by the citizens of each state. What the U.S. had prior to 1913 was a bicameral legislature competing bill-by-bill for the direction and scope of the federal government. Now that both representatives and senators have an identical interest (pandering to the citizenry), Congress is one herd of cattle in two pens.

Second, by removing the states' voice in the federal government, the 17th Amendment crippled the original meaning of both "separation of powers" and "checks and balances." As a direct result, the states are effectively powerless to stop the expansion of national government into their sovereign affairs. There is no other effective restraint. Put differently, given the structure of government under the 17th Amendment, there is no reliable way to stop the spread of national government power because the constitutional check against its expansion has been eliminated. Electing a majority of "better" candidates to high office will not solve this problem because -- as the Framers well knew -- a system in which political power is unchecked radicalizes the behavior of any man within it.

Third, mindful of their different constituencies, the Constitution gave the Senate functions different from those of the House, such as the confirmation of Supreme Court justices. There was a reasonable expectation that the emissaries of the states in the Senate would approve only of those nominees possessing a view of government that defended the state's sovereignty and right to govern responsively. With the Senate no longer populated with members appointed to represent the interests of the states, Supreme Court justices have allowed the original (and very limiting) meaning of the commerce clause to erode in favor of Congress's interests.

Congress -- now aligned with the majority's fanaticism -- has responded by taking as much power as possible. Consider the plight of states' Attorneys Generals as they file suit to halt the implementation of the health care reform law: The states are making their constitutional appeal to justices confirmed by senators who do not have the states' interests at heart. Prior to the 17th Amendment, there was virtually no chance that any legislative action filled with unfunded mandates to the states would ever clear a Senate composed of states' representatives. Today, all the states can do is pray that justices confirmed by the exact body that voted for the law in question will come to their aid. Good luck with that.

Conservatives view the current political structure as broken, not simply populated by the wrong group of scoundrels. Focusing first on large conservative majorities, better communicators, and merciless implementation is playing the short game. To set the country on a sustainable path, we must first embrace the old and tried and repeal the 17th Amendment.

Mr Truslow draws an even stronger inference than I did that it is direct election of US senators which has upset the US Constitutional order, which upset is working to destroy our liberties. I like that: "Now that both representatives and senators have an identical interest (pandering to the citizenry), Congress is one herd of cattle in two pens."

In the US Constitutional order, it is the Congress -- not the Presidency, and certainly not the Supreme Court (for it, like all the Federal Courts, is a Creature of Congress) -- which is the "supreme" branch of the Federal government. But, as they well knew from the history of the English Parliament, to say nothing of Rome and Athens in ancient times, that very supremacy of the legislature is dangerous to our liberties; and so the Framers divided the Congress against itself, with the two parts having conflicting interests and incentives, in much the same way that they divided any governmental sovereignty (for the US Constitutional order presupposes and asserts that sovereignty actually resides in The People, not in the governments) in the system between the Federal government and the State governments.

The US Constitution isn't about "efficiency" in government ... it's about the preservation of the liberties of the US Citizens against the universal imperative of all governments to gather power to themselves and eventually crush the human persons subject to them.

Always remember: the US Constitution intends for the Federal government to be "inefficient;" for it intends that that government be divided against itself so that it cannot be united against us.

Glenn Beck -- Free Speech Under Fire

Some video clips of a recent Glenn Beck program --









(hattip Kathy Shaidle)

Leftist Constitutional Concerns

Gentle Reader may recall this video we watched a few days ago, in which US Representative Phil Hare (D-Ill.), defending his vote for the "health" "care" "reform" bill which the Dems currently imagine they have imposed upon the nation, said:

"I don't worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest ..." (see from the :45 mark)


In my post concerning the video, I asked, "Is there really *any* Democrat, anywhere, who worries about the Constitution? On any matter?"

Comes this NYT editorial-disguised-as-objective-news-analysis concerning the recently enacted Arizona State law to require enforcement of the national laws concerning illegal "immigrants" (can an invader *really* be honestly call an immigrant?)

... When he hung up, Mr. Woods knew he had lost the case. “She really felt that the majority of Arizonans fall on the side of, Let’s solve the problem and not worry about the Constitution,” he said.

Now, Mr Woods (a Republican politician in Arizona who was against the law) may or may not have said that -- with newspapers in general, and certainly not with the NYT, one can never trust that a claimed direct quote was even uttered in the first place, much less that it was quoted accurately if it was even made.

Still, whether or not the quoted statement was ever actually uttered, grasp the sheer audacity of asserting that enforcement of actual Constitutionally-sound law is anti-Constitutional (and grasp the NYT's endorsement of the sentiment), and grasp this especially in light of the long-standing "liberal" disdain for the actual Constitution ... you know, the one that is written down; you know, the dead one!