Posted on 11/01/2003 4:13:59 AM PST by I Am Not A Mod
Evolution under fire? -- Part 2
By David F. Dawes
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CanadianChristianity.com: Does the general public realize the extent to which evolutionary theory is under attack by people with legitimate scientific and scholarly credentials?
Denyse O'Leary: Well, how could they? Darwinism is the orthodoxy of textbooks. It is the staple of TV science programs. In the United States, it is even protected by law.
I only discovered how much trouble Darwinism was in when I took a year out of my life -- late 2002 to late 2003 -- to study the situation. I was appalled. Darwinism has nothing like the support that we are accustomed to for theories in physics or chemistry.
CC.com: There is a crucial distinction between 'micro-evolution' (physical changes within a single species) and 'macro-evolution' (transformation from one species into another). Do you think there is sufficient awareness of the fact that there is no concrete evidence for macro-evolution?
D.O.: First, we need to distinguish between two ideas: Darwinism and macro-evolution. Darwinism says that evolution occurs as a result of the natural laws of physics and chemistry acting on purely random mutations in organisms. The origin and development of life is explained entirely in this way. The main driver (not necessarily the only one) is natural selection. Natural selection means that only those organisms that survive and breed leave offspring, so their traits are passed on. All other drivers -- for example, constraints on development -- are equally the outcome of law and chance.
Regarding macro-evolution: We know it happens. After all, there were trilobites in the Cambrian, but not horses. There are horses today but not trilobites. The unanswered question is -- how does it happen?
Theories of evolution have been proposed since the 18th century. Darwinism became the orthodoxy because it ruled out design. But it is not the only way of understanding evolution.
CC.com: The PBS special on evolution a few years ago was a clear demonstration that the theory is still deeply ingrained in scientific thought. Why does the scientific establishment (in a general sense) seem to be so determined to cling to evolutionary theory? How did this theory become so deeply entrenched as 'scientific' orthodoxy?
D.O.: Darwinism became entrenched because it eliminates design. Traditionally, three factors -- a sort of triangle -- accounted for creation and life: law -- what must happen; chance -- what might happen; and design -- art, engineering, intelligent design. Darwinism eliminated design from life forms. Design was merely an illusion. Life was really the outcome of law and chance.
Eliminating design enables a purely mechanistic world, which is easy for science to understand if -- and only if -- it is true. Is it true? Are the miracles of the cell and the eye, and the Cambrian Explosion really the result of blind chance, compelled by law? Of course not. Darwin knew nothing of these things. He was a clever man, but he had no idea what he was talking about. He lived and died before these wonders came to light.
CC.com: Are a significant number of scientists now open to alternatives to evolutionary theory?
D.O.: Yes and no. Many scientists are not happy with Darwinism. But Darwinism is more than a theory in science. It is the chief prop of an approach to science called methodological naturalism. Put simply, this approach means that law and chance are assumed to govern everything in the universe. In principle, design is ruled out.
The Big Bang theory and the discovery that Earth is a favoured planet -- not a mediocre one -- have dealt serious blows to this idea in physics and chemistry. When the COBE satellite confirmed the Big Bang, physicists were shouting that they had seen 'the face of God.' Stephen Hawking has nonetheless been trying to avoid God for decades, but does not appear to have succeeded.
Don't expect scientists to admit this. They don't like it, and are looking for a way to avoid it. It is a very unwelcome discovery.
CC.com: Are a lot of schools and school boards showing increasing willingness to give a platform to origins theories other than evolution?
D.O.: No. And they would be the last ones to do so. They have to please a variety of stakeholders, and the good union joes are still solidly behind Darwinism. To be fair, they have seldom had a chance to look at what is wrong with it. It won't be the establishment's fault if they do get a chance.
CC.com: To what extent has the Intelligent Design (ID) movement given added credibility to creationist views? Is ID making serious inroads into the scientific, educational and philosophical establishments? Specifically, do you know if much is happening in Canada, in this regard?
D.O.: Intelligent design is not a form of creationism. Creationism can be seen as a form of intelligent design, in that it identifies a designer. However, intelligent design simply argues that design is real, not apparent. Not everything that looks like design is in fact design. The frost patterns on the window are law and chance, not design. On the other hand, the origin of life forms continues to defy any explanation other than design.
I doubt that much is happening in Canada. Advocating intelligent design is costly even in the United States, where minority views are more easily tolerated. My book features lots of stories of people who have suffered career damage simply for saying that they believe that Darwinism is not true.
Ironically, one of Darwin's strongest supporters, Thomas Huxley, warned that Darwinism might become an ignorant superstition one day -- and it has.
CC.com: Is belief in evolutionary theory crumbling, in a general sense? Can you speculate whether it will finally be publically discredited -- and if so, whether you think that may happen in the near future?
D.O.: Actually, I very much doubt that belief in 'evolutionary theory' is crumbling. I certainly hope it isn't. After all, 31 phyla appeared in the Precambrian era . . . and of these, nine are extinct. Of the surviving ones, many have diversified remarkably -- vertebrates are a good example.
It is interesting to reflect that we humans have the same basic body plan as frogs, snakes, dinosaurs, and birds. We need some explanation for where we are today, that takes into account our planet's past.
On the other hand, the evidence from embryology shows that, while we have the same five-digit limb as they do, we do not get it by the same embryology path. That is not what Darwinism would lead us to expect. There are many remarkable puzzles waiting to be solved.
My prediction is that design will be restored as a normal part of our understanding of the universe, just as it was before Darwinism appeared in the 1850s. Thus, evolution will be seen as, in part, a function of design.
That, of course, leads inevitably to talk about God in biology. That's okay, really. Physicists have been doing it for decades. It didn't stop them from doing good science. It didn't stop Newton or Kelvin. It won't hurt biology either.
God does not tell us how he does things. He makes us find out all by ourselves.
CC.com: Can you share an anecdote involving an encounter you've had with someone who believes in the theory of evolution, and their response to creationist concepts and materials?
D.O.: Let's see . . . One Darwinist, encountering the Burgess Shale (where 31 phyla appeared suddenly) suggested that maybe it can all be explained by assuming that the Burgess creatures evolved eyes. Eyes explain all the complexity, he said. They enabled the complex evolution. The trouble with his idea is, what explains eyes?
Vision is a fantastically complex ability, quite apart from the eyes that enable vision cells to function. The eyes are complex too, but that is a separate story.
How did the complex vision cells start? Darwinism asks us to believe that, by accident, most of the Burgess creatures hit on this incredible series of steps at once, even though the creatures are so unrelated that they are put in different phyla by taxonomists. But some creatures never even developed vision and got on just fine. How is that?
After a while, I realized that the Darwinist simply needed to believe that there is no design. There is a huge investment in this sort of thing in our society. Many people simply cannot afford to see the design. They keep looking for chance, and it isn't there.
I'm curious though, how do you figure that someone who doesn't accept Darwin is ill-equipped to do vaccine immunology?His account seems to have been nuked since then. All posts deleted, big red "Nobody by that name" if you look for the profile. Nuking is the typical treatment for returning bannees. He was phony!You misspelled "immunologist." ["Immonologist."] I make misspellings, too, but there are words a budding immunologist shouldn't misspell and "immunologist" is one of them. You were profoundly ignorant of the relationship between theory and law in science. You only know the pig-ignorant "science" a YEC knows, which is not science at all. You are in fact militantly ignorant.
I think you're top-to-bottom bogus.
He's probably back again. They love us, and can't stay away.
Gotta keep "evolution under fire," you know!
I don't think "threaten" is the right word.
Christians have two sets of evidences.
One set comes from God whom they know and trust and whom they know to be much smarter than any and all of mankind put together. God tells us that He created the animals and man and if we understood him right, He did it in a very short timeframe. Christians typically believe God is so powerful that He wouldn't need to wait the eons that evolution requires.
The other set comes from evolutionists. The problem with evolutionist is that they have pursued their agenda with a zeal that remains unsupported by the evidences. There have been a number of "missing links" that have been discovered to be frauds. There are questions about the accuracy and validity of the dating methods. They select evidence to support their case and their dates but often ignore evidence that contracdicts their case, like the trees standing through multiple strata. Fame and fortune comes with discovering things much "older" as opposed to finding things that occured in the last few thousand years. Thus the typical Christian perceives the Evolutionist's case as biased and rebellious towards God. And perceives their "science" as suspect and as more imaginative story telling than true science.
It comes down to who are you going to trust. God or the evolutionist. God is infinitely more trustworthy. You could show me scientific evidence that appears to make a case and if it contradicts what God has said, then it is your evidence or your interpretation that must be wrong. God doesn't lie and of the two of you, God is the one with the answers.
Could we have misunderstood God? Could God have used evolution as a means of creation? Could the days of Genesis represented much longer timeframes? It's possible but it's not likely.
There are reasons to doubt the evolutionist claims. Some of which are pointed out in the article. There is more than one interpretation of the evidence. The zeal with which the evolutionist discounts the design theory and presents evolution as fact, when he can't possibly know with certainty, brands him as a liar. That he appears to be going against what God has said, just confirms it.
"What an arrogant statement. " - Dimensio
In as much as it depends on us being willing to listen, it might be an arrogant statement. But in as much as it depends on God not speaking clearly, it's not an arrogant statement.
No, it comes down to whether you trust some words written in a book, or the hard evidence written upon the rocks of the Earth and the cells of your body.
You could show me scientific evidence that appears to make a case and if it contradicts what God has said, then it is your evidence or your interpretation that must be wrong.
If that's really the way you feel, then why do you bother debating the evidence? Its quality should be irrelevant to your position.
This really isn't true; there are possible observations that would lead to a design inference. EG:
On one of the pulled threads (IIRC) a few weeks ago, one of the creationist/id-ers was going on and on about genetically-engineered hogs and sheep that contain human and spider genes, respectively. If this sort of thing were commonly observed in the natural world, (especially the interphylum gene transfer), *and* viruses were pretty much as they are now (they can do lateral gene transfers, but it's quite rare), then some sort of genetic engineeering would be a reasonable explanation.
Or, along similar lines, if genetic data didn't arrange itself into trees, or different genes made dfferent trees, or the genetic tree didn't match the already-known phylogeny, it would be reasonable to assume something other than common descent, mutation and selection was at work.
However, the overwhelming majority of genetic data very neatly fits with other genetic data and the already-known (or suspected) phylogeny.
To quote my favorite example for the N720-th time, where N is large: If a psuedogene, transposon, etc, is found (in the same place) in the genome of both chimps and orangutangs, it will also be found (in the same place) in gorillas and people. This sort of *fact* points to a common ancestor, not design (which is in principle arbitrary in the absence of any limits on the hypothetical designer)
Don't blame the biologists for being close-minded; blame the data
The quality may be irrelevant to my position. But that doesn't mean I have no interest in examining the evidence. I am very interested in creation and how it made. If the evidence challenges my preconceived notions, so be it.
But if evidence that challenges my preconceived notions include fakes and logic errors and bias, well that's evidence too.
If the evidence for evolution was not controversial, then I would simply wait for the Good Lord to explain why the evidence appears thusly. Because their is obviously something I don't understand between what He said and what the evidence is.
It is not merely trusting some words in a book. The bible is backed up by miracles which demonstrate God's power and prophecies which demonstrate God's foreknowledge. That makes this particular book a lot harder evidence than a mere book. Add to that answered prayer and you have a lot of hard evidence supporting that book.
Now compare that to the evidence presented by evolutionists. They presume to know what happened thousands and millions of years ago, but when you start looking at how many assumptions that have to make to come up with their conclusions, it doesn't appear to be "hard" evidence at all.
If you were shown a great deal of evidence of transitional species, would you change your mind?
What did I give you a whole bunch of in post 20? I answer you on there being no in-betweens and you just say the same thing. Hello?
Are you looking for something like movie frames? Here, try Smooth Change in the Fossil Record.
You seem upset here. It's no fun realizing that something you've had drilled into you isn't true. Calm down and write something clearer tomorrow, maybe.
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