Evolution of creationism: Pseudoscience doesn't stand up to natural selection

Daytona Beach News-Journal ^ | 29 November 2004 | Editorial (unsigned)

[PatrickHenry]

In a poll released last week, two-thirds of Americans said they wanted to see creationism taught to public-school science pupils alongside evolution. Thirty-seven percent said they wanted to see creationism taught instead of evolution.

So why shouldn't majority rule? That's democracy, right?

Wrong. Science isn't a matter of votes -- or beliefs. It's a system of verifiable facts, an approach that must be preserved and fought for if American pupils are going to get the kind of education they need to complete in an increasingly global techno-economy.

Unfortunately, the debate over evolution and creationism is back, with a spiffy new look and a mass of plausible-sounding talking points, traveling under the seemingly secular name of "intelligent design."

This "theory" doesn't spend much time pondering which intelligence did the designing. Instead, it backwards-engineers its way into a complicated rationale, capitalizing on a few biological oddities to "prove" life could not have evolved by natural selection.

On the strength of this redesigned premise -- what Wired Magazine dubbed "creationism in a lab coat" -- school districts across the country are being bombarded by activists seeking to have their version given equal footing with established evolutionary theory in biology textbooks. School boards in Ohio, Georgia and most recently Dover, Pa., have all succumbed.

There's no problem with letting pupils know that debate exists over the origin of man, along with other animal and plant life. But peddling junk science in the name of "furthering the discussion" won't help their search for knowledge. Instead, pupils should be given a framework for understanding the gaps in evidence and credibility between the two camps.

A lot of the confusion springs from use of the word "theory" itself. Used in science, it signifies a maxim that is believed to be true, but has not been directly observed. Since evolution takes place over millions of years, it would be inaccurate to say that man has directly observed it -- but it is reasonable to say that evolution is thoroughly supported by a vast weight of scientific evidence and research.

That's not to say it's irrefutable. Some day, scientists may find enough evidence to mount a credible challenge to evolutionary theory -- in fact, some of Charles Darwin's original suppositions have been successfully challenged.

But that day has not come. As a theory, intelligent design is not ready to steal, or even share, the spotlight, and it's unfair to burden children with pseudoscience to further an agenda that is more political than academic.

[GarySpFc]

“Of course, it is still possible to believe in both modern evolutionary biology and a purposive force, even the Judaeo-Christian God. One can suppose that God started the whole universe or works through the laws of nature (or both). There is no contradiction between this or similar views of God and natural selection. But this view of God is also worthless…. [Such a God] has nothing to do with human morals, answers no prayers, gives no life everlasting, in fact does nothing whatsoever that is detectable. In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and, indeed, all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.
“My observation is that the great majority of modern evolutionary biologists now are atheists or something very close to that. Yet prominent atheistic or agnostic scientists publicly deny that there is any conflict between science and religion. Rather than simple intellectual dishonesty, this position is pragmatic. In the United States, elected members of Congress all proclaim to be religious. Many scientists believe that funding for science might suffer if the atheistic implications of modern science were widely understood.”

William B. Provine, review of Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution, by Edward J. Larson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, 224 pp.), Academe, vol. 73 (January/February 1987), pp. 51-52 Provine was Professor of History of Biology, Cornell University

[Alkhin]

"Some of us are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good."

Anonymous, my posterboard, college, 1986

[PatrickHenry]

Why are you putting all those bogus quotes up one post at a time. There are fraudulent websites with the whole silly list of them, like this one: The Theory Of Evolution: The Great Myth . Is that the one you're using?

[GarySpFc]

"It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."

Personal letter (written 10 April 1979) from Dr Collin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, to Luther D. Sunderland; as quoted in Darwin's Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, USA, 1984, p. 89.

[GarySpFc]

"Biologists are simply naive when they talk about experiments designed to test the theory of evolution. It is not testable. They may happen to stumble across facts which would seem to conflict with its predictions. These facts will invariably be ignored and their discoverers will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants."

Professor Whitten (Professor of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Australia), 1980 Assembly Week address.

[VadeRetro]

The Quote Mine Project.

Quotations and Misquotations.

[GarySpFc]

"In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in with it."

H.S. Lipson, FRS (Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK), 'A physicist looks at evolution'. Physics Bulletin, vol. 31, 1980, p. 138.

[PatrickHenry]

WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE SCIENTISTS QUOTED AS OPPOSING EVOLUTION?Quotations and Misquotations.What Anti-evolutionists Quote is Not Valid Evidence Against Evolution
Online resources documenting anti-evolutionist misquotations. Dishonest, bogus, and out-of-context quotes.
The Quote Mine Project. Or, Lies, Damned Lies and Quote Mines.
The Revised Quote Book. Looking at how Creationists Quote Evolutionists.

[Alkhin]

ALL written by subjective beings who are typically wrong more often than right and who use less than 10% of their brains to understand very nearly nothing about the universe.

seems to me this could be directed at the creationists as well...or are they somehow 'exempt.'??????

[GarySpFc]

"It is apparent that Darwin lost his faith in the years 1836-39, much of it clearly prior to the reading of Malthus. In order not to hurt the feelings of his friends and of his wife, Darwin often used deistic language in his publications, but much in his Notebooks indicates that by this time he had become a ‘materialist’ (more or less = atheist)."

Ernst Mayr, "Darwin and Natural Selection," American Scientist, vol. 65 (May/June, 1977), pp. 323

[Aquinasfan]

Science isn't a matter of votes -- or beliefs. It's a system of verifiable facts,

Ahem. This is the problem with evolutionary theory. There is little to no evidence to verify the "facts," or theory.

[Blzbba]

" But you cannot apply such a theory to life on Earth."


Your post makes valid points, but ultimately ID & Creationism both rely on a 'God' (an Intelligent Designer). To date, proving the existence of such a super being is impossible. Thus, unprovable.

Personally, I tend to lean in the 'assisted evolution' direction.

I wish that more anti-evolutionaries would forgo all vaccinations and other medical responses to the rapidly-evolving flu viruses, etc that pop up each year.

[PatrickHenry]

Just give us a link to the mother lode of all the junk you're posting. It will save a lot of time.

[GarySpFc]

“Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with deterministic principles or chance. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces that are rationally detectable. The frequently made assertion that modern biology and the assumptions of the Judaeo-Christian tradition are fully compatible is false.”

William B. Provine, “Progress in Evolution and Meaning in Life,” in Evolutionary Progress, ed. Matthew H. Nitecki (University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 65

[newgeezer]

What can you possibly be afraid of?

Not a thing.

Anyone who looks at creation and fails to acknowledge the Creator would do well to be afraid.

By the way, natural selection is not a religious theory. Even the curly-stemmed, shorter-than-the-mower-blade dandelions in my lawn provide evidence for natural selection. However, "Evolution" is at least as much unprovable religious theory as anything else you mentioned.

[PatrickHenry]

You're just going to keep pumping out that trash one post at a time, aren't you? Really, one link to the fraudulent website you're using as a source will be more than sufficient.

[KTpig]

When does something need to be written for you to consider it valid?

The Bible was written thousands of years ago. Yet, it was written with the knowledge that: the earth is a sphere- and hangs on nothing, stars numbered in the billions, light is in motion, the evaporation cycle, paths in the sea, winds blow in cyclones, air has weight, etc.

[GarySpFc]

Galileo, the most profound philosopher of his age, when questioned by the Roman Inquisition as to his belief in the existence of God, replied, pointing to a straw on the floor of his dungeon, that from the structure of that object alone he would infer with certainty the existence of an intelligent Creator. —Walter Baxendale

[VadeRetro]

Well, it keeps the boy busy. And those guys are always explaining how only their fear of divine retribution holds them back from being serial killers.

[GreenFreeper]

ping