Why We Are Still Arguing About Darwin

TCS Daily ^ | 10 Jan 2008 | Lee Harris

[neverdem]

Today, almost one hundred and fifty years after the publication of The Origin of Species, we are still arguing about Darwin. How is this possible? If Darwin's theory of natural selection is a scientific theory, as its defenders claim, then why hasn't it been able to establish itself securely in the public mind? Why, in short, is Darwin still the subject of continuing controversy and acrimonious debate?

Contrast this on-going battle over Darwin with the fate of the other great scientific revolutions. The same Christian fundamentalists who argue that public school should teach creationism have no quarrel with the Copernican revolution. No one argues that public schools should be forced to teach the Ptolemaic system because it permits Joshua to make the sun stand still. Yet polls in the USA show that a large segment of American society continues to reject Darwin's scientific revolution.

Modern proponents of Darwin, like Richard Dawkins, have an elegant explanation for this puzzling phenomenon. Those who reject Darwin are ignorant boobs who take the Bible literally. The Bible says God created man in his own image, and so that is what they believe, despite the evidence that shows that human beings share more than 98% of their genes with chimpanzees. Therefore, in order to get people to accept Darwin, you must first destroy their adherence to Biblical fundamentalism. Once people see that the story of Adam and Eve is simply a fairy tale, they will be in a position to embrace the idea that we all descended from lower primates. But is this interpretation really psychologically plausible? Is it only the second chapter of Genesis that stands in the way of a universal acceptance of Darwin's theory that we descended from creatures far more monkey-like than us-like?

The stumbling block to an acceptance of Darwin, I would like to submit, has little to do with Christian fundamentalism, but a whole lot to do with our intense visceral revulsion at monkeys and apes. This revulsion, while certainly not universal, is widely shared, and it is a psychological phenomenon that is completely independent of our ideas about the literal truth of the Bible.

Our visceral revulsion at the mere sight of lower primates has been noted by the Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal. Observing the visitors to the chimpanzee colony at the Arnhem Zoo, de Waal noticed a frequent pattern among them. Many people would stare at the chimps for a few minutes, then, after saying, "Oh I could watch them all day," they would swiftly make their way to the nearest exit. They had had enough monkey business. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, another great naturalist, was equally aware of this deep-seated revulsion against monkeys. In his novel Elective Affinities, a character declares her feelings about monkeys in no uncertain terms: "How can anyone bring himself to expend such care on depicting horrid monkeys! It is debasing simply to regard them as animal [!], but it is really more malicious to succumb to the temptation of seeking in them the likeness of people you know."

This visceral revulsion against monkeys explains why so many people prefer to hold on to the far more flattering mythology of man's creation as it was presented in Genesis. It is not Genesis that turns them against Darwin; it is Darwin that makes them turn to Genesis.

Now the proponents of Darwin will argue that a visceral revulsion is not a logical argument, and the proponents of Darwin will of course be right. From the fact that most people are horrified to think of themselves as descending from the lower primates, it does not follow that they must have arisen from a more respectable ancestry.

At the same time, those who accept Darwin (as I do) need to understand the true origin of the revulsion so many people feel against his theory. For the basis of this revulsion is none other than "the civilizing process" that has been instilled into us from infancy. The civilizing process has taught us never to throw our feces at other people, not even in jest. It has taught us not to snatch food from other people, not even when they are much weaker than we. It has taught us not to play with our genitals in front of other people, not even when we are very bored. It has taught us not to mount the posterior of other people, not even when they have cute butts.

Those who are horrified by our resemblance to the lower primates are not wrong, because it is by means of this very horror of the primate-within that men have been able to transcend our original primate state of nature. It is by refusing to accept our embarrassing kinship with primates that men have been able to create societies that prohibit precisely the kind of monkey business that civilized men and women invariably find so revolting and disgusting. Thou shalt not act like a monkey - this is the essence of all the higher religions, and the summation of all ethical systems.

Those who continue to resist Darwin are not standing up for science, but they may well be standing up for something even more important - a Dawkinsian meme, if you will, that has been instrumental in permitting mankind to transcend the brutal level of our primate origins. Our lofty humanitarian ethical standards have been derived not by observing our primate kin, but by imagining that we were made in the image of God. It was only by assuming that we were expected to come up to heavenly standards that we did not lower our standards to those of our biological next of kin. The meme that asserts that we are the children of God, and not merely a bunch of wild monkeys may be an illusion; but it is the illusion upon which all humane civilizations have been constructed. Those who wish to eliminate this illusionary meme from our general meme pool may be acting in the name of science; but it is by no means obvious that they are acting in the name of civilization and humanity.

[js1138]

Flora and fauna are designed chemical machines. Therefore they create order because of their design.

I'm not arguing about the origin of living things. I'm merely pointing out that evolution is a process like metabolism. It is not magic and does not violate thermodynamics.

[CottShop]

It doesn’t violate thermodynamics? Lol- it violates it at every step of the process. I guess you refuse to read the link provided and will stubbornly stand by your assertion\ without providing ANY information as to how Macroevolution doesn’t violate the law. Whatever,- just don’t accuse us of ‘misunderstanding the law’ when it is you who refuse to understand it apparently.

[bvw]

Metabolism is design. Right -- it's not magic! No more than a good cat-cracker.

Two designed systems: a cat-cracker and a cat:

[js1138]

You are misreading me. I am not arguing the issue of design. I’m merely stating what would be obvious to any chemist or physicist — that evolution is a physical process like metabolism that can increase order in the presence of an energy gradient.

Your images, however, do point out some obvious differences between things known to be designed by human-like agencies, and things designed by evolutionary agencies.

[CottShop]

Yup- no law violations goign on with Macroevolution whatsoever:

“We have repeatedly emphasized the fundamental problems posed for the biologist by the fact of life’s complex organization. We have seen that organization requires work for its maintenance and that the universal quest for food is in part to provide the energy needed for this work. But the simple expenditure of energy is not sufficient to develop and maintain order. A bull in a china shop performs work but he neither creates nor maintains organization. The work needed is particular work; it must follow specifications; it requires information on how to proceed.”
[G.G. Simpson and W.S. Beck, Life: An Introduction to Biology, Harcourt, Brace, and World, New York, 1965, p. 465]

“The thermodynamicist immediately clarifies the latter question by pointing out that ... biological systems are open, and exchange both energy and matter. The explanation, however, is not completely satisfying, because it still leaves open the problem of how or why the ordering process has arisen (an apparent lowering of the entropy), and a number of scientists have wrestled with this issue. Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology.”
[C. J. Smith, Biosystems 1:259 (1975)]

Not “Apparent lowering of entropy” but a “Positively necessary lowering of entropy MUSt have happened” IF Macroevolution is true.

“As ice forms, energy (80 calories/gm) is liberated to the surroundings... The entropy change is negative because the thermal configuration entropy (or disorder) of water is greater than that of ice, which is a highly ordered crystal... It has often been argued by analogy to water crystallizing to ice that simple monomers may polymerize into complex molecules such as protein and DNA. The analogy is clearly inappropriate, however... The atomic bonding forces draw water molecules into an orderly crystalline array when the thermal agitation (or entropy driving force) is made sufficiently small by lowering the temperature. Organic monomers such as amino acids resist combining at all at any temperature, however, much less in some orderly arrangement.”
[C.B. Thaxton, W.L. Bradley, and R.L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, Philosophical Library, New York, 1984, pp. 119-120.]

And again:

“The point is that in a non-isolated [open] system there exists a possibility for formation of ordered, low-entropy structures at sufficiently low temperatures. This ordering principle is responsible for the appearance of ordered structures such as crystals as well as for the phenomena of phase transitions. Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures.”
[I. Prigogine, G. Nicolis and A. Babloyants, Physics Today 25(11):23 (1972)]

[metmom]

Why do evos consider that living things are exempt from the 2nd law?

Animals age and die; when they die, rot sets in. Obviously the 2nd law is at work even now. It’s obviously at work because of the aging process and the deterioration that sets in, even while the organism is alive.

There has to be some impetus to overcome the 2nd law for life to continue to grow and reproduce. Simply adding energy to a system is not enough to overcome entropy unless work is being done to use that energy. Just adding energy is going to increase entropy without some mechanism to harness it. What’s causing the work to be done? What’s bringing the order out of disorder at any level in any system?

For that matter, even if the 2nd law applies to only non living systems, tell me how the non-living systems overcame the 2nd law long enough for the primordial soup to produce life, the first single celled organism. This business of molecules becoming more and more complex all on their own is the stuff fairy tales are made of.

If the 2nd law only applies to non-living systems, then the universe could not have organized itself into stars and planets, galaxies and globular clusters. It could not have set up its own set of orderly laws by which it runs. It could not have resulted in life forming because of certain chemicals coming together with enough electrical charge, yada, yada, yada. I’d love to see an example of raw electrical discharges in nature producing anything orderly. I’ve seen what lightning can do to trees, houses, electrical systems, and people.

So the situation is either something deliberately overcame, and is still overcoming, the 2nd law even now; or if it’s so easy to overcome, it shouldn’t be a Law of Thermodynamics. There should be a Law of Orderliness where everything continually tends towards order on it’s own.

[metmom]

Looks like someone has gone bye-bye.

[bvw]

I’m merely stating what would be obvious to any chemist or physicist — that evolution is a physical process like metabolism that can increase order in the presence of an energy gradient.

I'm a trained physicist. It's not obvious to me, therefore your assertion is false. You said "any chemist or physicist" therefore it is sufficient to disprove your hypothesis with only one example to the contrary.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

When they dug down, they based their opinions on erosion rates and said “This is how old they ‘should be” - the ‘should be’ was STILL the criteria for their annalysis and determinations- preconcieved notions based on assumptions- nothign more.

That is simply not true. You have offered no evidence that they had any preconceived idea of how old the rocks "should be." Do you ever draw conclusions from observations in your own life? If you came across a rotting tree stump crawling with bugs, would you formulate some kind of idea of when the tree fell down? Would that mean you had a preconceived idea of when the tree "should have" fallen down? If I insisted to you that the tree had fallen down yesterday, and that your ridiculous theory that the rotting and the bugs indicated an older age was just based on your assumptions, wouldn't you think I was being a little dense at best?

[Coyoteman]

Another "minor" problem with that silly creationist link you provided us with:

http://evolution-facts.org/Evolution-handbook/E-H-6b.htm

I followed the argument up to page 13, and found this nonsense (all emphasis in the original):

MASS SPECTROMETER BREAKTHROUGH—A newly developed research tool, the mass spectrometer, provides dating that is more accurate than the other dating methods.

The following statement by Brown is highly significant. It tells us this: (1) The very expensive mass spectrometer machine actually counts C-14 atoms and gives more accurate totals. (2) Every organic specimen has some radiocarbon atoms, therefore none are more than a few thousand years old. (3) The earliest skeletal remains in the Western hemisphere have been dated by this method, and found to be only about 5,000 years old.

"Several laboratories in the world are now equipped to perform a much improved radiocarbon dating procedure. Using atomic accelerators, the carbon-14 atoms in a specimen can now be actually counted. This gives more precise radiocarbon dates with even smaller specimens. The standard, but less accurate, radiocarbon dating technique only attempts to count the rare disintegrations of carbon-14 atoms, which are sometimes confused with other types of disintegrations. This new atomic accelerator technique has consistently detected at least small amounts of carbon-14 in every organic specimen—even materials that evolutionists claim are millions of years old, such as coal. The minimum amount of carbon-14 is so consistent that contamination can probably be ruled out. If the specimens were millions of years old, there would be virtually no carbon-14 remaining in them.

"Eleven human skeletons, the earliest known human remains in the Western hemisphere, have recently been dated by this new accelerator mass spectrometer technique. All eleven were dated at about 5,000 radiocarbon years or less! If more of the claimed evolutionary ancestors of man are tested and are also found to contain carbon-14, a major scientific revolution will occur and thousands of textbooks will become obsolete."—Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 95.

The problem is that when orthodox science discovers that a new procedure will topple major evolutionary foundations, a cover-up occurs. It is likely that the mass spectrometer technique will never be permitted to be applied to major ancient archaeological or pre-archaeological materials, such as ancient hominid bones. To do so would reveal their recent age.

There is far more nonsense here than I care to expose. Just a few "minor" problems:

1) "Every organic specimen has some radiocarbon atoms, therefore none are more than a few thousand years old." False! A boldfaced lie! Enough of an error to flunk any science class. There are other ways for C14 to form than in the upper atmosphere. The AMS technique is so sensitive it can detect tiny amounts of C14. It could detect the C14 from your fingertips, or your breath. To claim that these tiny amounts of C14 prove a young earth are simply lies.

2) "The earliest skeletal remains in the Western hemisphere have been dated by this method, and found to be only about 5,000 years old." The major mistake made here is assuming that the original dates, all by amino acid racemization, were accurate, and the newer radiocarbon dates were wrong–probably out of a wish to show errors in the radiocarbon method. The opposite is true: the Taylor et al. article, by redating these specimens using the AMS method of radiocarbon dating, corrected the earlier, erroneous amino acid racemization age estimates. But creation "science" either misread that article or deliberately lied about the results. And this nonsense has been picked up by a lot of creationist websites. Sorry, the textbooks are not obsolete; the creation science folks are simply wrong once again.

3) "It is likely that the mass spectrometer technique will never be permitted to be applied to major ancient archaeological or pre-archaeological materials, such as ancient hominid bones. To do so would reveal their recent age. " Not permitted by who? Anyone can submit an AMS sample. I've done nearly 125 myself. If creationists have $700 they can do a radiocarbon date on bone, just like real scientists do. In fact, the RATE project did a whole bunch of dating. Then they just quietly faded away, having confirmed what scientists had been saying all along.

Got any more radiocarbon nonsense to post? Every time I rebut one of your silly articles it just makes you look foolish.

[GodGunsGuts]

Did you find out the reason why? Just curious :o)

[GodGunsGuts]

LOL...glad to see you in the Creation-Evolution threads. Keep up the good work!

[metmom]

No. Just noticed. I just was curious how the newb was doing.

[GodGunsGuts]

All EXCELLENT points, Metmom. Not only that, Biblical Creation actually predicts these laws and more. For instance, Biblical Creation predicts the Law of Mass Conservation, evolution must explain it as an add-on. Biblical Creation predicts the Law of Energy Conservation, evolution must explain it as an add-on. Biblical Creation predicts the Law of Energy Decay, evolution must explain it as an add-on. The list goes on and on. And they wonder why Creation science won’t go away! LOL.

Finally, you are quite right to point out that just having enough energy to sustain life is not enough. As pointed out above, the processes of life are chemical processes at their most fundamental level. These chemical processes are subject to the Second Law, or entropy. In order for these chemicals to defy the Second Law, the sun’s energy must first be harnessed by a mechanism that is capable of producing work that immediately contradicts the same in an orderly way, otherwise the chemicals must decay and tend toward disorder. Biblical creation actually demonstrates how this was done, while the Evos are still stuck in the primordial soup. Indeed, the predictions of Biblical Creation is so superior to evolution, you’d almost think God came up with it!

[GodGunsGuts]

“Demonstrates” in the last sentence was a bad choice of words. But you get my point ;o)

[GodGunsGuts]

Wiley goes scampering off for the tall grass yet again. Why am I not surprised?!?!? Evolution is dead. It has been disproven on almost every level, and even when some aspect of evolutionary religion has been confirmed, such as natural selection, it only shows how Creation had it right from the very beginning. Natural selection = conservation of the original CREATED kinds. LOL

[metmom]

As pointed out above, the processes of life are chemical processes at their most fundamental level. These chemical processes are subject to the Second Law, or entropy.

It's not like these basic chemical processes KNOW they are part of a biologic system and therefore exempt from the 2nd law.

If the law is a law and universal, it applies to everything.

[GodGunsGuts]

==It’s not like these basic chemical processes KNOW they are part of a biologic system and therefore exempt from the 2nd law.

Very true! But they act like they KNOW. I wonder why???

[metmom]

Somebody told them?

[GodGunsGuts]

I would say somebody ORDERED them!