Posted on 03/09/2005 1:46:32 PM PST by metacognative
Opinions
There are valid criticisms of evolution
BY DAVID BERLINSKI
"If scientists do not oppose anti-evolutionism," said Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Council on Science Education, "it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak."
Scott's understanding of "opposition" had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates."
Everyone else had better shut up.
In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin's theory retains an almost lunatic vitality. Consider:
• The suggestion that Darwin's theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences -- quantum electrodynamics, say -- is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to 13 unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.
• Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak-to-nonexistent selection effects.
• Darwin's theory is open at one end, because there is no plausible account for the origins of life.
• The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.
• A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors, and depart leaving no obvious descendants.
• Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful.
• Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing.
• The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives -- differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?
If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory, since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?
These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested.
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P.S. Give my post #198 a try.
The chances of 200 amino acids just happening to get together in a way that could be considered life is 1 in 200! (read 200 factoral) and is calculated by multiplying 1 times 2 times 3 ... times 199 times 200. Yse your Windows calculator to verify the result. It is 1 chance in 7.886578e+374 (374 zeros after the decimal). And we know that to form even the most simple lifeform requires a much longer chain of amino acids and protiens. Any mathmetician will tell you that this chance is the equivalent of zero.Bad model. It's always the same bad model. It's not evolution, it's creation. Even God wouldn't make anything this way.
You're impossible under this model. The amino acids of your body would never jump together to make you. You cannot be.
Mainstream science models involve features the "little things jumping together all at once" creationist strawmen do not. Bootstrapping from stable and semi-stable sub-assemblies. Massive parallelism of experiment. Some kind of logical scenario identifying ingredients, environment, catalysts, etc.
The Amarillo Mountains are a buried granitic mountain range that is basically an extension of the Witchita Mountains in Oklahoma. You mentioned a book that claimed all mountains are the same age. We can look at several different mountain ranges within the United States to examine that premise. We have the Appalachians which are the remnants of at least three major mountain chains that have been eroded down to where the mountains are formational remants of the original range - the reistant formations form the mountain ridges. We have the Rockies, which, not even counting their previous incarnations, were uplifted during the Laramide Orogeny, eroded down to where they were buried up to their chins in debris, and then uplifed and exhumed - to where there is an old peneplain or erosional surface up about 8,000 feet in the Colorado and Wyoming Rockies. We have the Sierras, which are a young mountain range. We have a section of the Appalachians which are missing - from Alabama to SW Arkansas - which rifted off and have subsequently been found in South America due to plate techtonics. And then there are the Amarillo Mountains - which formed, eroded, and have been buried by younger sediments - all while other mountains still exist at the surface.
But somehow that assemblage of mountains is all of the same age? I don't think so.
"And here I thought you had rejected silly notions."
Oh no I LOVE silly notions! If it weren't for silly notions we wouldn't be having this amusing debate. Silly notions are the best!
Post #198:
"How did the galaxy manage to move 7 billion light years from the center of the "Big Bang" in only 1 billion years without violating Einstein's theory of relativity?"
God picked it up and ran with it?
The Appalachians, apparently all done by about the start of the Permian, contain no dinosaur or mammal fossils anywhere. The Himalayas contain proto-whale fossils and are still growing.
That new geology book must be by Duane Gish. The mountains of the world are of very, very different ages.
From the Institute of Creation Research. Thanks, but no thanks. Real science doesn't come from starting with a premise and then trying to shoehorn the facts into that theory.
One only needs to look at the wide variety of mountain ranges that I stated earlier to refute their vapid premise. And, like I said earlier, there are two stages to this debate. Since you and I are worlds apart on the young earth/old earth model, there really isn't much point debating you further, because of the fundamental differences in how we view both the world and the scientific method. So I won't bother debating you further, because it really isn't a debate - because you are not compelled to even attempt any kind of burden of proof for your positions. That is your perogative - but it is also my perogative to not waste any more time on you.
Breaking open one of those little pony bottles of merlot myself.
I thought when driving through that the Ozarks looked just like the Appalachians except for the armadillos.
"Joaquin told you not to mention nudity. He's not too cool with bodily functions and stuff.
Breaking open one of those little pony bottles of merlot myself."
yep - my jokes can't all be Gems. My mom thinks I am funny though.
It's actually the Ouchitas, not the Ozarks. They have the same valley and ridge structure as the Appalachians.
No names? No sneering? I might have to consider your thoughts.
Can't prove it, but I guessed that before I saw it. The idea is such nonsense that you have to be a YEC for someone to be able to lie to you about it.
The way I understand it, the accepted age of the universe is simply not long enough to provide for the complexity of the life forms we have here to have developed through Darwinian evolution. Not even a virus, let alone a human being.
Thus the theory of "Quantum Reality" which I understand as infinite, parallel realities existing side by side (A concept I find much harder to accept than that of a creator!). So with this theory we now have an infinite time span for life to develop out of a chemical pool or soup, and evolve into all the life forms we see today. A lot of top scientists accept this - Stephen Hawking, for one.
To me, frankly, it sounds like nonsense. If macro evolution really depends on this theory, then I think it should be taught along with macro evolution as soon as macro evolution is taught. If you are going to teach a kid, as fact, that life began from non-life, and all of the life forms that exist now and have ever existed evolved from that very first life that itself came from non-life, then also teach them that your explanation only works if you accept the concept of Quantum Reality. Then let them decide if after having that explained to them, they feel comfortable accepting Darwinian evolution without further consideration or not.
It seems to me that Quantum Reality is the dirty little secret of macro evolution. I do not understand why it is not the centerpiece of every discussion of evolution.
One of many sites on Quantum Reality: http://www.quantum.bowmain.com/Quantum_Reality.htm
Oh, I get it now..if we're darwinites, we don't have to look at opponents points. Kind of like the medieval church. I see.
If you wish to believe in a young Earth on faith alone, that is your business and I will not challenge your faith per se. But if you try and present scientific proof for a young Earth, I will challenge your assertions, based upon my study of Geology and geological processes. Fair enough?
That's OK. I'm not sure where I was except it was on I-40.
I don't believe anything on faith alone.
Do you really think a life support system can operate for a billion years with no maintenance?
Who said the rocks were a million years old?
After all, you weren't there, and there is no absolute method of measuring age of rocks, only theories of how old rocks are.
Just take lava, then ask a geologist how old it is, but make sure to NOT tell him where you got it.
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