Posted on 02/21/2005 4:03:29 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Nineteenth-century English social scientist Herbert Spencer made this prescient observation: "Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all." Well over a century later nothing has changed. When I debate creationists, they present not one fact in favor of creation and instead demand "just one transitional fossil" that proves evolution. When I do offer evidence (for example, Ambulocetus natans, a transitional fossil between ancient land mammals and modern whales), they respond that there are now two gaps in the fossil record.
This is a clever debate retort, but it reveals a profound error that I call the Fossil Fallacy: the belief that a "single fossil"--one bit of data--constitutes proof of a multifarious process or historical sequence. In fact, proof is derived through a convergence of evidence from numerous lines of inquiry--multiple, independent inductions, all of which point to an unmistakable conclusion.
We know evolution happened not because of transitional fossils such as A. natans but because of the convergence of evidence from such diverse fields as geology, paleontology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, molecular biology, genetics, and many more. No single discovery from any of these fields denotes proof of evolution, but together they reveal that life evolved in a certain sequence by a particular process.
One of the finest compilations of evolutionary data and theory since Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is Richard Dawkins's magnum opus, The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (Houghton Mifflin, 2004)--688 pages of convergent science recounted with literary elegance. Dawkins traces numerous transitional fossils (what he calls "concestors," the last common ancestor shared by a set of species) from Homo sapiens back four billion years to the origin of heredity and the emergence of evolution. No single concestor proves that evolution happened, but together they reveal a majestic story of process over time.
Consider the tale of the dog. With so many breeds of dogs popular for so many thousands of years, one would think there would be an abundance of transitional fossils providing paleontologists with copious data from which to reconstruct their evolutionary ancestry. In fact, according to Jennifer A. Leonard, an evolutionary biologist then at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, "the fossil record from wolves to dogs is pretty sparse." Then how do we know whence dogs evolved? In the November 22, 2002, Science, Leonard and her colleagues report that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data from early dog remains "strongly support the hypothesis that ancient American and Eurasian domestic dogs share a common origin from Old World gray wolves."
In the same issue, molecular biologist Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and his colleagues note that even though the fossil record is problematic, their study of mtDNA sequence variation among 654 domestic dogs from around the world "points to an origin of the domestic dog in East Asia" about 15,000 years before the present from a single gene pool of wolves.
Finally, anthropologist Brian Hare of Harvard University and his colleagues describe in this same issue the results of a study showing that domestic dogs are more skillful than wolves at using human signals to indicate the location of hidden food. Yet "dogs and wolves do not perform differently in a nonsocial memory task, ruling out the possibility that dogs outperform wolves in all human-guided tasks," they write. Therefore, "dogs' social-communicative skills with humans were acquired during the process of domestication."
No single fossil proves that dogs came from wolves, but archaeological, morphological, genetic and behavioral "fossils" converge to reveal the concestor of all dogs to be the East Asian wolf. The tale of human evolution is divulged in a similar manner (although here we do have an abundance of fossils), as it is for all concestors in the history of life. We know evolution happened because innumerable bits of data from myriad fields of science conjoin to paint a rich portrait of life's pilgrimage.
PS. The thread itself with the polling was some silly nonsense about "Darwinists" hating democracy, and the title was something along those lines.
I'd appreciate that when you have time.
I don't care if the creationists leave, as long as their lies are not posted (especially after they have been refuted several times).
One way to tell if someone is really a Christian is by their honesty and character. Creationists don't exhibit honesty when they post know falsehoods.
Scientists who are known creationists are not allowed to have their articles published for the most part. It follows that their conclusions aren't published in those "science journals" you're referring to. Recall the furor over the scientist (who it was discovered doubted the claims of evolution) whose work was published....
The guided/unguided evolution breakdown was 37% v 12% of the total poll, adding up to 49% that accept at least the basic science of evolution.
There are no published scientists(on biological evolution) in creationism's stable, because they don't really do any research. They just argue, usually sophistry. The one article that slipped through peer review was bunk.
You said that better than I managed to. Thanks.
Uh. Of course that statement's true, since it's a tautology.
Nobody exhibits "honesty" when they knowingly make "falsehoods."
It really doesn't matter whether a bunch of misinterpreters of the Bible accept evolution or not. They don't know what they are talking about in either science or Christianity.
I have my doubts whether people who repeatedly lie and deceive could possibly be Christians. Just the arrogance alone that God needs to be defended with nonsense tells anyone who knows both Christian thought and science that these people are marginal at best.
Yeah, yeah, yeah... That's the excuse, anyway. Here's what I posted on another thread on this point:
Now I'll sit back and watch the spectacle of all the anti-evolutionists jumping out of the woodwork to explain that it's actually due to a vast worldwide conspiracy, wherein the editors of every single science journal in the world (there are thousands) are all part of an unbreakable cabal united in solidarity to prevent the "truth" of creationism from being published. These conspiracy tinfoil-hatters tend to "overlook" the more obvious, demonstratable, and consistent explanation that the real reason creationists have a hard time getting their stuff published is because a) most of them don't even try, and b) their work is almost without exception ludicrously flawed. I've seen more solid work from high school students.Recall the furor over the scientist (who it was discovered doubted the claims of evolution) whose work was published....
Actually, the "furor" was because the piece was flawed and didn't deserve to pass peer review, but by being published it *falsely* gave legitimacy to the invalid arguments it made (and as expected, creationists everywhere have been waving it around as gospel).
There would have been the same reaction to the publishing of any other bogus, fringe pseudoscience, like "crystal energies" or "pyramid power".
Would you like me to point out the problems with that article?
Biology doesn't care whether God exists or not and has no need to refute God's existence. But your point on young creationism is spot on.
Are you saying that if something "turns off" "seekers" then Christians shouldn't speak of it? The CROSS is an offense to those who don't believe. Goodness!
And I'd argue against your premise that people "seek" God before they're Christians. Scripture says that we were "dead" in our sins. Dead people don't "seek" anything. Dead people are "found," however....
"Are you saying that if something "turns off" "seekers" then Christians shouldn't speak of it?"
No.
I am saying Christians should not lie. Christians do not lie. Thus, liars are not Christians.
The above is logic, unlike the sophistry practiced by creationists.
"You can't meaningfully participate unless you buy a ticket."
And you must be this high to enter this ride. ------ LOL
"Well, after reading that, one gets the idea that ‘evolution’ is a nebulous thing; sort of like looking at a impressionist’s"
Somewhat like the math of fractals.
No two mountains are alike, yet we can stand back and readily see, they are indeed mountains.
"Don't you guys ever get tired of this silly debate? "
As long as one group or the other continues to fight for what shall be taught in schools, I suspect the debate will continue?
You don't know your Scripture very well (though you claim to be a minister). Paul throughout 1 Corinthians confesses that though he knows something to be right, he finds himself not doing it. And it's through Christ that he's saved. We Christians don't find our salvation through perfect obedience, but through Christ. Of course, we strive to do the right thing (and our actions reveal our hearts), but when we do something wrong, it doesn't mean we're not Christians. That's a faulty understanding, my friend.
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