Posted on 02/12/2006 10:32:27 AM PST by PatrickHenry
MORE THAN A CENTURY and a half since Charles Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species," evolution remains a controversial concept among much of the population. The situation is quite different in the scientific community, where evolution is almost universally accepted. Still, attacks on the teaching of evolution continue.
The more recent criticism of evolution comes from proponents of intelligent design, a new label for creation "science." They claim ID is a valid scientific alternative to explaining life on Earth and demand it be taught in science classes in our schools along with evolution.
Although intelligent design is cloaked in the language of science and may appear at first glance to be a viable theory, it clearly is not. In fact, intelligent design is neither a theory nor even a testable hypothesis. It is a nonscientific philosophical conjecture that does not belong in any science curriculum in any school.
A theory in the scientific sense is quite different from how the word is often used in conversation.
Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. They are based on extensive data and their predictions are tested and verified time and again.
Biological evolution -- genetic change over time -- is both a theory and a fact, according to paleontologist Stephen Gould. Virtually all biologists consider the existence of evolution to be a fact. It can be demonstrated in the lab and in nature today, and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming.
However, biologists readily admit that they are less certain of the exact mechanism of evolution; there are several theories of the mechanics of evolution, which are supported by data and are constantly being refined by researchers whose work is subject to peer review.
But there are many established facts concerning evolution, according to R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University. He, as do virtually all biological scientists, agree that it is a fact that the Earth with liquid water has been around for more than 3.6 billion years and that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period.
We know for a fact that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old and that major life forms now on Earth did not exist in the past.
It is considered a fact by biologists that all living forms today come from previous living forms.
A fact is not the same as absolute certitude, which exists only in defined systems such as mathematics. Scientists consider a "fact" to be something that has been confirmed to such a degree of reliability and logic that it would be absurd to think otherwise.
Denying the facts of evolution is akin to denying that gravity exists. What is debatable, with both evolution and gravity, are the theories of the mechanics of how each operates.
Supporters of intelligent design vehemently disagree, but they do not offer alternative theories or verifiable data. Instead, intelligent design proponents attack evolution with misinformation, half-truths and outright falsehoods.
Intelligent design does not develop hypotheses nor does it test anything. As such, intelligent design is simply a conjecture that does not hold up to scrutiny.
False arguments
Unfortunately, intelligent design has considerable credibility outside the scientific community by making specious claims about evolution. Below are some of the leading charges made by intelligent design and creationist proponents in the past several years.
• Evolution has never been observed: But it has. Biologists define evolution as a change in the gene pool of a population of living organisms over time.
For example, insects develop resistance to pesticides. Bacteria mutate and become resistant to antibiotics. The origin of new species by evolution (speciation) has been observed both in the laboratory and in the wild.
Some intelligent design supporters admit this is true, but falsely say that such changes are not enough to account for the diversity of all living things. Logic and observation show that these small incremental changes are enough to account for evolution.
Even without direct observation, there is a mountain of evidence that confirms the existence of evolution.
Biologists make predictions based on evolution about the fossil record, anatomy, genetic sequences and geographical distribution of species. Such predictions have been verified many times, and the number of observations supporting evolution is overwhelming and growing, especially in the field of genetics.
Biologists have not observed one species of animal or plant changing quickly into a far different one. If they did, it would be evidence against evolution.
• Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics: It clearly does not. This law of physics states essentially that disorder increases in a closed system. Some intelligent design and creationist proponents say this means that the order required in the evolution of simple life forms to more complex ones cannot take place, at least not on a long-term basis.
What critics of evolution don't say is that the Earth's environment is not a closed system. It absorbs enormous heat energy from the sun, which is all that is required to supply fuel for the evolution of plants and animals.
Order arises from disorder in the physical world as well, in the formation of crystals and weather systems, for example. It is even more prevalent in dynamic living things.
• There are no transitional fossils: This argument is a flat-out falsehood. Transitional fossils are ones that lie between two lineages with characteristics of both a former and latter lineage. Even though transitional fossils are relatively rare, thousands of them have been found.
There are fossils showing transitions from reptile to mammal, from land animal to whale, the progression of animals leading to the modern horse, and from early apes to humans.
• Theory says that evolution proceeds by random chance: This is an example of a half-truth perpetuated by intelligent design and creation supporters.
Chance is an important element of evolution, but it is not the only thing involved.
This argument ignores other forces such as natural selection, which weeds out dysfunctional species, and is the opposite of chance.
Chance takes place in genetic mutations, which provide the raw material of evolutionary change, which is then modified and refined by natural selection. But even at the genetic level, mutations occur within the framework of the laws of physics and chemistry.
Opponents of evolution argue that chance, even enhanced by natural selection and the laws of physics, is not enough to account for the complexity of DNA, the basic building blocks of almost all life forms. (RNA is the foundation of some microbes). However, there literally were oceans of organic molecules that had hundreds of millions of years to interact to form the first self-replicating molecules that make life possible.
Irreducible complexity
The attack on evolution that intelligent design proponents use most often today is one based on "irreducible complexity." This has become the foundation of their attempts to cast doubt on evolution.
They argue that certain components of living organisms are so complex that they could not have evolved through natural processes without the direct intervention of an intelligent designer.
Michael Behe, a leading proponent of intelligent design, defined irreducibly complex as "a system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."
In other words, irreducible complexity refers to an organism that does something (a function) in such a way that a portion of the organism that performs the function (a system) has no more parts than are absolutely necessary.
The argument made is that the entire system with all its parts, such as an enzyme used in digestion or a flagellum used to propel a bacterium (an example Behe favors in his defense of irreducible complexity), would have to come into being at one time -- a virtual impossibility.
If one of the parts were missing, Behe argues, the system would not be able to function, and thus a simpler, earlier evolving system could not exist.
It is not as easy as it may appear at first glance to define irreducible complexity because there is not a good definition of what a part is. Is it a particular type of tissue, a cell, or segment of DNA? Behe is not clear. But even if he were able to define a true IC system, his argument would fail.
There are several ways an irreducible complexity system could evolve. An early version could have more parts than necessary for a particular function. The individual parts could evolve. Most likely, an earlier version of the system could have had a different function.
This is observed in nature. For example, take the tail-like flagellum of a bacteria, which Behe says supports irreducible complexity. It is used for functions other than motion. A flagellum can be used to attach a bacteria to a cell or to detect a food source.
Thus, a precursor to a more complex flagellum could have had a useful, but different, function with fewer parts. Its function would have changed as the system evolved.
Simply put, the irreducibly complex system argument doesn't work. Most, if not all, of the irreducible complexity systems mentioned by intelligent design adherents are not truly IC. Even if they were, they clearly could have evolved. That is the consensus of almost all biological scientists.
Intelligent design is not science
The theory of evolution and common descent were once controversial in scientific circles. This is no longer the case.
Debates continue about how various aspects of evolution work. However, evolution and common descent are considered fact by the scientific community.
Scientific creationism, or intelligent design, is not science. Believers of intelligent design do not base their objections on scientific reasoning or data.
Instead, it appears that their ideas are based on religious dogma. They create straw men like irreducible complexity or lack of transitional fossils, and shoot them down. They fabricate data, quote scientists out of context and appeal to emotions.
Intelligent design disciples do not conduct scientific experiments, nor do they seek publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Still, they have had an impact far beyond the merits of their arguments.
One of their most persuasive arguments is an appeal to fair play, pleading to present both sides of the argument. The answer is no. They do not present a valid scientific argument.
Within the scientific community, there is virtually no acceptance of intelligent design. It has no more place in a biology class than astrology in an astronomy class or alchemy in a chemistry class.
Stating one's belief is never a lie, so watch the personal attacks on this female Freeper and most definitely a non troll.
So, if I am misinformed about your Christian belief in a personal God, why don't you give us your testimony of such now?
Ready...
What about the actual dinosaurs? Were they on the ark? :)
BTW, if the world was covered in water, the salt in the oceans (most of the water) would have killed most freshwater animals and plants. The change in salinity plus the change in PH would have been devastating. Anybody who has ever kept tropical fish would know this intuitively.
Or 3) Parts of the Bible are right, and parts of it are wrong.
Or even more likely:
4) xzins and others are misreading parts of the Bible in a way which is wrong.
And personally, I prefer to learn directly from God's *actual* work (the world itself, and the evidence it provides) than from misunderstandings about the "unshakable word of God" from someone who keeps getting the easy stuff wrong.
Some folks need to get a clue from past mistakes of this same sort:
"The doctrine of the movements of the earth and the fixity of the sun is condemned [by Biblical literalists] on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still… I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations." -- Galileo GalileiPop quiz: Who was right -- Galileo, learning from observation and evidence, or the Pope and his entire Church, relying on their reading of the text of the Bible?
Does the Sun actually revolve around the fixed Earth, as the Church was convinced the Bible clearly said?
"And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. [...] I add that the words 'the sun also riseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he ariseth, etc.' were those of Solomon, who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned in human sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God."And:
-- Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, April 12, 1615 letter to Foscarini concerning Galileo's "heresy".
"Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it [i.e. for disagreeing with Bible-based criticisms - Ich.] [...] This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, [...] The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. [...] Furthermore, in order to completely eliminate such a pernicious doctrine, and not let it creep any further to the great detriment of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation of the Index issued a decree which prohibited books which treat of this and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture. [...] We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you, Galileo, by reason of these things which have been detailed in the trial and which you have confessed already, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspect of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine that is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: namely that Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. [...] Consequently, you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents.If the Vatican itself get get Scripture so freaking wrong when they read it, I have even less confidence in the textual interpretations of amateurs. And I'll take the considered opinion of 10,000 Christian clergy over xzins's impression of whether evolution is compatible with scripture.
-- Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo (June 22, 1633)
Stating one's belief is never a lie, so watch the personal attacks on this female Freeper and most definitely a non troll.
Okay, that leaves us with "stupid". Thanks for the clarification.
""BTW, if the world was covered in water, the salt in the oceans (most of the water) would have killed most freshwater animals and plants. The change in salinity plus the change in PH would have been devastating. Anybody who has ever kept tropical fish would know this intuitively.""
Makes sense to me.
Nope, Jesus is a religious figure. You are welcome to your belief in him, but that doesn't mean that your belief is true.
Try to prove He wasn't who He said He was.
First, it's impossible to prove a negative, especially regarding a supposed deity. Second, why should I? I have better things to do with my life than to try to prove something like that. You believe in him. Good for you. If you don't try to have that belief disseminated in violation of the law or force anyone else to believe it, and you probably won't have any problem from me.
Since you don't believe in a personal God who can see your heart and knows your inner thoughts, what's bugging you so much?
The attempt by some God-ish folk to force their beliefs into the public schools and lie to children. The assumption that because they believe it, that it's okay to make everybody to listen to it, even in violation of the law. Basically that. Plus, they tend to be closed minded, shallow thinkers without any interest in learning about the real world if it challenges their religious sensibilities.
I think I know.
I'm sure you think you know. I hear all the time about how, deep down inside, I "fear" God. I hope that's not where you're going with this because, trust me, I no more fear your God then I fear Darth Vader or Cap't Ahab. I'm not trying to be flippant (well, very flippant), but I think your God is fictional.
No, stupid is when you don't recognize there is a personal, loving God who loves us all enough to have created this marvelous thing called life -- without needing evolution to help Him.
If God is God, He doesn't need evolution. He needs us to take Him at His word and be an intellectual apologist for same.
And God doesn't call people who don't believe in Him stupid.
He calls them "fools".
As has been made quite clear on this thread, that's hardly the only variety of "stupid".
Nonetheless, you have yet to address the basic point of whether or not theistic evolution shows its face in the bible in the same way as Moses shows up, Jesus shows up, even trinitarianism shows up.
But....theistic evolution does not show up.
That's a fact.
Others might find an emanation or a penumbra to get them there, but in the same way that abortion does not show up in our US Constitution, so does theistic evolution not show up in the Bible.
I imagine that there are far more Christian theologians now and in history who side with me on this.
So, yes, I am "a stranger and a pilgrim in this land...seeking a city....whose builder and maker is God. " Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called my God.
Well, glad you are neither hot nor cold about faith.
Then why bother with conservatism?
Sentiment?
Years ago, I used to spend weeks at a time debating the evolutionists here on FR. I had the respect of a number of them, including Patrick Henry. I stopped for lack of time and weariness over going in circles: The same arguments came up every single time, with the same refutations and counter-refutations.
Re: Sternberg, the fact remains that his career has been crippled because he has dared allowed question of the ruling paradigm to have voice. The fact also remains that there was huge emotional outcry instead of scientific consideration for Meyer's article. Evolutionists have set up a situation where it is impossible for an IDer (let alone a Creationist) to get published and still have a career, and then turn around and deride their opponents for not having a whole lot of peer-reviewed articles and research. Well, duh. That's right up there with Democrats during the Clinton years asking why, if he really did sell our nuclear tech to the Chinese, the MSM wasn't all over the story.
It's a lie to say that evolution is portrayed as the *answer to everything*.
That's a bit of hyperbole on my part, true--but it's not far off. Evolution, the biological theory, has long since branched off into Evolution, the religion, in which everything, from the current forms of animals and plants to the first life to human morality to the universe itself all "evolved." It's become the catch-phrase answer for the non-theist, every bit as much a "god-of-the-gaps" as any Creationist could be accused of:
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.If Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, didn't think evolution explained "everything," including abiogenesis, then it would hardly serve to make him "an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Ergo, he really does think that evolution, in one manner or another, explains everything that the theist points to God for--and more.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 6
CG, it says that Christianity is MYTH.
Wake up.
Any interpretation that accepts that Christianity is MYTH is a story without substance.
That WILL catch up to it before too long.
"Faith is the substance of things HOPED for; the evidence of things NOT SEEN."
"CG, it says that Christianity is MYTH."
It says that your interpretation is wrong. It does not say Christianity is a myth.
And your equating your version of Christianity and theism is nonsense. Not believing your version of Christianity does not make one an atheist. YOU don't get to redefine the meanings of words.
Sentiment?
Because conservatism isn't just about faith. Conservatism, to me provides a way to promote, in basic, practical terms, those policies necessary for a prosperous economic system, a stable and healthy society, a legal system which respects the rights of the individual and a safe and defended United States of America.
Divorce your conservative values from the underlying Christian culture in the US and you get -- India. Why stay here?
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