Posted on 01/14/2002 9:50:16 AM PST by Junior
...the evolution of the cosmos is more than just "compatible" with theism. Faith in a God of self-giving love...anticipates an evolving universe.* John F. Haught
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Theodosius Dobzhansky (1973)
We do not know how the Creator created, what processes He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. This is why we refer to creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigations anything about the creative processes used by the Creator. Duane Gish, Evolution? The Fossils Say No!
Creationism is a religious metaphysical theory which claims that a supernatural being created the universe. Creation Science is a pseudoscientific theory which claims that (a) the stories in Genesis are accurate accounts of the origin of the universe and life on Earth, and (b) Genesis is incompatible with the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution. “Creation Science” is an oxymoron since science is concerned only with naturalistic explanations of empirical phenomena and does not concern itself with supernatural explanations of metaphysical phenomena.
Creationism is not necessarily connected to any particular religion. Millions of Christians and non-Christians believe there is a Creator of the universe and that scientific theories such as the theory of evolution do not conflict with belief in a Creator. However, those Christians calling themselves ‘creation scientists’ have co-opted the term ‘creationism’, making it difficult to refer to creationism without being understood as referring to Scientific Creationism. Thus, it is commonly assumed that creationists are Christians who believe that the account of the creation of the universe as presented in Genesis is literally true in its basic claims about Adam and Eve, the six days of creation, making day and night on the first day even though He didn’t make the sun and moon until the fourth day, making whales and other animals that live in the water or have feathers and fly on the fifth day, and making cattle and things that creep on the earth on the sixth day, etc.
Creation scientists claim that Genesis is the word of God and thus infallibly true. They also claim that Genesis contradicts the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution. Thus, those theories are false and scientists who advocate such theories are ignorant of the truth about the origins of the universe and life on Earth. They also claim that creationism is a scientific theory and should be taught in our science curriculum as a competitor to the theory of evolution.
One of the main leaders of creation science is Duane T. Gish of the Institute for Creation Research, who puts forth his views mainly in the form of attacks on evolution. Gish is the author of Evolution, the Challenge of the Fossil Record (San Diego, Calif.: Creation-Life Publishers, 1985), Evolution, the Fossils Say No! (San Diego, Calif.: Creation-Life Publishers, 1978), and Evolution, the Fossils Still Say No! (Spring Arbor Distributors, 1985). Another leader of this movement is Walt Brown of the Center for Scientific Creationism. Despite the fact that 99.99% of the scientific community considers evolution of species from other species to be a fact, the creation scientists proclaim that evolution is not a fact but just a theory, and that it is false. The vast majority of scientists who disagree about evolution disagree as to how species evolved, not as to whether they evolved.
Scientific creationists are not impressed that they are in the minority. After all, they note, the entire scientific community has been wrong before. That is true. For example, at one time the geologists were all wrong about the origin of continents. They thought the earth was a solid object. Now they believe that the earth consists of plates. The theory of plate tectonics has replaced the old theory, which is now known to be false. However, when the entire scientific community has been proved to be wrong in the past it has been proved to be wrong by other scientists, not pseudoscientists. They have been proved wrong by others doing empirical investigation, not by others who begin with faith in a religious dogma and who see no need to do any empirical investigation to prove their theory. Erroneous scientific theories have been replaced by better theories, i.e., theories which explain more empirical phenomena and which increase our understanding of the natural world. Plate tectonics not only explained how continents can move, it also opened the door for a greater understanding of how mountain ranges form, how earthquakes are produced, how volcanoes are related to earthquakes, etc. Creationism is not a scientific alternative to natural selection or any other theory of evolution. The theory has not and is unlikely ever to lead to a serious understanding of biological phenomena in the natural world.
Darwin & Gish
Darwin’s theory of how evolution happened is called natural selection. That theory is quite distinct from the fact of evolution. Other scientists have different theories of evolution, but only a negligible few deny the fact of evolution. In the Origin of Species Darwin provided vast amounts of data about the natural world that he and others had collected or observed. Only after providing the data did he demonstrate how his theory accounted for the data much better than the theory of special creation. Gish, on the other hand, assumes that whatever data there is must be explained by special creation, because, he thinks, God said so in the Bible. Furthermore, Gish claims that it is impossible for us to understand special creation, since the Creator “used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe.” Thus, Gish, rather than gather data and demonstrate how special creation explains the data better than natural selection, must take another approach, the approach of apologetics. His approach, and that of all the other creation scientists, is to attack at every opportunity what they take to be the theory of evolution. Rather than show the strengths of their own theory, they rely on trying to find and expose weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Gish and the other creation scientists actually have no interest in scientific facts or theories. Their interest is in defending the faith against what they see as attacks on God’s Word.
For example, creation scientists, mistaking the uncertain in science for the unscientific, see the debate among evolutionists regarding how best to explain evolution as a sign of weakness. Scientists, on the other hand, see uncertainty as an inevitable element of scientific knowledge. They regard debates on fundamental theoretical issues as healthy and stimulating. Science, says evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, is “most fun when it plays with interesting ideas, examines their implications, and recognizes that old information may be explained in surprisingly new ways.” Thus, through all the debate over evolutionary mechanisms biologists have not been led to doubt that evolution has occurred. “We are debating how it happened,” says Gould (1983, 256).
"creation science" and pseudoscience
Creation science is not science but pseudoscience. It is religious dogma masquerading as scientific theory. Creation science is put forth as being absolutely certain and unchangeable. It assumes that the world must conform to its understanding of the Bible. Where creation science differs from creationism in general is in its notion that once it has interpreted the Bible to mean something, no evidence can be allowed to change that interpretation. Instead, the evidence must be refuted.
Compare this attitude to that of the leading European creationists of the 17th century who had to admit eventually that the Earth is not the center of the universe and that the sun does not revolve around our planet. They did not have to admit that the Bible was wrong, but they did have to admit that human interpretations of the Bible were in error. Today’s creationists seem incapable of admitting that their interpretation of the Bible could be wrong.
Creation scientists are not scientists because they assume that their interpretation of the Bible cannot be in error. They put forth their views as irrefutable. Hence, when the evidence contradicts their reading of the Bible, they assume that the evidence is false. The only scientific investigation they do is aimed at proving some evolutionary claim is false. Creation scientists see no need to test their theory, since God has revealed it. Infallible certainty is not the hallmark of science. Scientific theories are fallible. Claims of infallibility and the demand for absolute certainty characterize not science but pseudoscience.
What is most revealing about the creation scientists’ lack of any true scientific interest is the way they willingly and uncritically accept even the most preposterous of claims, if those claims seem to contradict traditional scientific beliefs about evolution. For example, any evidence that seems to support the notion that dinosaurs and humans lived together is welcomed by the creationists. And the way creation scientists treat the second law of thermodynamics indicates either gross scientific incompetence or deliberate dishonesty. They claim that evolution of life forms violates the second law of thermodynamics, which “specifies that, on the macroscopic scale of many-body processes, the entropy of a closed system cannot decrease (Stenger).”
Consider simply a black bucket of water initially at the same temperature as the air around it. If the bucket is placed in bright sunlight, it will absorb heat from the sun, as black things do. Now the water becomes warmer than the air around it, and the available energy has increased. Has entropy decreased? Has energy that was previously unavailable become available, in a closed system? No, this example is only an apparent violation of the second law. Because sunlight was admitted, the local system was not closed; the energy of sunlight was supplied from outside the local system. If we consider the larger system, including the sun, entropy has increased as required (Klyce).
Creation scientists treat the evolution of species as if it were like the bucket of water in the example above, which, they incorrectly claim, occurs in a closed system. If we consider the entire system of nature, there is no evidence that the second law of thermodynamics is violated by evolution.
Finally, although Karl Popper’s notion that falsifiability distinguishes scientific from metaphysical theories has been much attacked by philosophers of science (Kitcher), it seems undeniable that there is something profoundly different about such theories as creationism and natural selection. It also seems undeniable that one profound difference is that the metaphysical theory is consistent with every conceivable empirical state of affairs, while the scientific one is not. “I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know,” writes Gould, “but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science” (Gould, 1983).
Creationism can’t be refuted, even in principle, because everything is consistent with it, even apparent contradictions and contraries. Scientific theories allow definite predictions to be made from them; they can, in principle, be refuted. Theories such as the Big Bang theory, the steady state theory, and natural selection can be tested by experience and observation. Metaphysical theories such as creationism are “airtight” if they are self-consistent, i.e., contain no self-contradictory elements. No scientific theory is ever airtight.
What makes scientific creationism a pseudoscience is that it attempts to pass itself off as science even though it shares none of the essential characteristics of scientific theorizing. Creation science will remain forever unchanged as a theory. It will engender no debate among scientists about fundamental mechanisms of the universe. It generates no empirical predictions that can be used to test the theory. It is taken to be irrefutable. And it assumes a priori that there can be no evidence that will ever falsify it.
creationism as a scientific theory
Religious creationism could be scientific, however. For example, if a theory says that the world was created in 4004 B.C. but the evidence indicates that Earth is several billions of years old, then the theory is a scientific one if it is thereby taken to be refuted by the evidence. But if, for example, the ad hoc hypothesis is made that God created the world in 4004 B.C. complete with fossils that make the Earth look much older than it really is (to test our faith, perhaps, or to fulfill some mysterious divine plan), then the religious theory is metaphysical. Nothing could refute it; it is airtight. Philip Henry Gosse made this claim in Darwin’s time in a work entitled Creation (Omphalos): An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot, published in 1857.
If the age or scientific dating techniques of fossil evidence is disputed, but considered relevant to the truth of the religious theory and is prejudged to be consistent with the theory, then the theory is a metaphysical one. A scientific theory cannot prejudge what its investigative outcomes must be. If the religious cosmologist denies that the earth is billions of years old on the grounds that their own “scientific” tests prove the Earth is very young, then the burden of proof is on the religious cosmologist to demonstrate that the standard scientific methods and techniques of dating fossils, etc., are erroneous. Otherwise, no reasonable person should consider such an unsupported claim that would require us to believe that the entire scientific community is in error. Gish has tried this. The fact that he is unable to convert even a small segment of the scientific community to his way of thinking is a strong indication that his arguments have little merit. This is not because the majority must be right. The entire scientific community could be deluded. However, since the opposition issues from a religious dogmatist who is not doing scientific investigation but theological apologetics, it seems more probable that it is the creation scientists who are deluded rather than the evolutionary scientists.
metaphysical creationists
There are many believers in a religious cosmology such as that given in Genesis who do not claim that their beliefs are scientific. They do not believe that the Bible is to be taken as a science text. To them, the Bible contains teachings pertinent to their spiritual lives. It expresses spiritual ideas about the nature of God and the relationship of God to humans and the rest of the universe. Such people do not believe the Bible should be taken literally when the issue is a matter for scientific discovery. The Bible, they say, should be read for its spiritual messages, not it lessons in biology, physics or chemistry. This used to be the common view of religious scholars. Allegorical interpretations of the Bible go back at least as far as Philo Judaeus (b. 25 BCE). Philosophical analyses of the absurdity of popular conceptions of the gods were made by philosophers such as Epicurus (342-270). Creation scientists have no taste for allegorical interpretations.
creationism and politics
Advocates of creation science have campaigned to have their Biblical version of creation taught as science in U.S. public schools. One of their successes was in the state of Arkansas, which passed a law requiring the teaching of creationism in public schools. This accomplishment may seem significant but it must be remembered that until 1968 it was illegal to teach evolution in Arkansas! In 1981, however, the law was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge who declared creationism to be religious in nature (McLean v. Arkansas). A similar Louisiana law was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 1987 (Edwards v. Aguillard). In 1994, the Tangipahoa Parish school district passed a law, under the guise of promoting “critical thinking,” requiring teachers to read aloud a disclaimer before they taught evolution. This dishonest ruse was thrown out by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1999. Another tactic was tried by creationist biology teacher John Peloza in 1994. He sued his school district for forcing him to teach the “religion of evolutionism.” He lost and the the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that there is no such religion. In 1990 the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that school districts may forbid the teaching of creationism since it is a form of religious advocacy (Webster v. New Lenox School District). Many religious leaders support this ruling. They recognize that allowing school districts to teach creationism is to favor one group’s religious views over the religious views of others and has nothing to do with critical thinking or fairness in the science curriculum.
Creation scientists may have failed in their attempts to have evolution banned from the classroom and to have creationism taught alongside evolution. However, politically active creationists have not given up; they have just changed tactics. Creationists have been encouraged to run for local school boards to try to gain control of the teaching of evolution that way. School boards can determine what texts the schools may and may not use. Creationists who complain to school boards about the teaching of evolution are more likely to be successful in their efforts at censoring science texts if the school board has several creationists.
In Alabama, biology textbooks carry a warning that says that evolution is “a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. . . .No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered as theory, not fact.” In Alabama, it seems, if you wake up to snow on the ground, but no one saw it snowing, then you may only propose a theory as to the origin of the snow.
In August of 1999 the Kansas State Board of Education rejected evolution and the Big Bang theory as scientific principles. The 10-member board voted six to four to eliminate these topics from the science curricula. The Kansas Board did not ban the teaching of evolution or of the Big Bang Theory. The Board simply deleted any mention of evolution and the Big Bang theory from the science curriculum and from the materials used to test graduating students. Creationists, such as Board Member Steve Abrams, a former head of the state Republican Party, hailed the decision as a victory in the war against evolutionists. A new Board restored the scientific theories to their previous place in February 2001. Creationists want children to believe that God made them and every other species individually for a purpose. They do not want children to think that a divine power might be behind the Big Bang or evolution of species.
At the same time that militant creationists are trying to censor textbooks that treat evolution properly, they complain of censorship against creationist works.* This tactic of fighting fire with fire has led creationist Jerry Bergman to argue that evolution (unlike Genesis?) teaches that women are inferior to men. The goal of militant creationists is to debunk evolution wherever possible, not to forward scientific knowledge. (See Revolution Against Evolution.) One of their favorite tactics is to blame all sin and crime on lack of proper Bible study and the teaching of “godless” theories such as evolution and the Big Bang theory. Marc Looy of the group Answers in Genesis says that the 1999 Kansas vote was important because
students in public schools are being taught that evolution is a fact, that they're just products of survival of the fittest. . . .It creates a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness, which I think leads to things like pain, murder, and suicide.
That there is no scientific evidence to support these claims is a matter of indifference to those who believe them. When science does not support their beliefs, they attack science as the handmaiden of Satan. I wonder what Mr. Looy has to say about Christian Identity (Buford Furrow Jr.) or Erich Rudolph or Operation Rescue (Randal Terry) and other Bible-loving groups that preach hatred and inspire violence and murder. What would he say about Matthew and Tyler Williams who, in the words of their mother, "took out two homos" because that's what God's law [Leviticus 20:13] demands? (Sacramento Bee, "Expert: Racists often use Bible to justify attacks," by Gary Delsohn and Sam Stanton, Sept. 23, 1999.*) These killers have certainly found a purposeful existence, but there is clearly no connection between purposefulness and the end of pain, murder, or suicide. Had more people been forced to read Biblical quotations on their schoolroom walls or in their textbooks, for all we know, there would be more, not less pain, murder, and violence.
The desperation of many creationists is evident from the fact that despite numerous corrections by evolutionists, they still try to get the public to identify evolution with Social Darwinism. This straw man tactic is common and is exemplified in the following letter to the Sacramento Bee. The letter was in response to an article on an expert who claims that racists often use the Bible to justify their hate.
It is Darwinian evolution, not holy Scripture, that justifies racism.... evolution teaches survival of the fittest, including (as Hitler recognized) survival of the fittest "branch" of the human family tree. Genuine evolution has no place for true equality. This same evolutionist thinking underlies the hatred that racist groups display toward homosexuals. They view homosexuals as defective and thus inferior. (-------10/3/99)
The view that Darwin’s theory of natural selection implies racism or inequality is a claim made by one either ignorant of Darwin's theory or by one who knows the truth and thinks a lie spread in the name of religion is a morally justified lie.
militant creationism evolves
Creation science has developed a new concept, useful not to science but to polemics: the concept of microevolution. They invented a distinction between macroevolution and microevolution to allow them to account for development and changes within species, without requiring them to accept the concept of natural selection.
Macroevolution is the direct attempt to explain the origin of life from molecules to man in purely naturalistic terms. In doing so, it is an affront to Christians because it deliberately tries to get rid of God as the creator of life. The idea that man is a result of millions of happy accidents that mutated their way from slime through the food chain to monkeys should be offensive to every thinking person (Sharp).*
What should be an affront to many Christians and non-Christian creationists is the insinuation that if one does not adhere to this Christian’s interpretation of the Bible, one is offending God. Many creationists believe that God is behind the beautiful unfolding of evolution (Haught).* There is no contradiction in believing that what appears to be a mechanical, purposeless process from the human perspective, can be teleological and divinely controlled. Natural selection does not require that one “get rid of God as the creator of life” any more than heliocentrism requires one to get rid of God as the creator of the heavens.
See related entries on God, metaphysics, pseudoscience and science.
further reading
Cramer, J.A., “General Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” in Origins and Shape, D. L. Willis, ed., (American Scientific Affiliation, Elgin, IL, 1978).
Dawkins, Richard. River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995, BasicBooks).
Dawkins, Richard. Climbing Mount Improbable (1996 Viking Press).
Dobzhansky, Theodosius. Genetics and the Origin of Species (Columbia University Press, 1982).
Ferris, Timothy. The Whole Shebang : A State-Of-The-Universe's Report (Touchstone, 1998).
Gould, Stephen Jay, Ever Since Darwin, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1979).
Haught, John F. God After Darwin : A Theology of Evolution (Westview Press, 1999).
Haught, John F. Science and Religion : From Conflict to Conversation (Paulist Press, 1996).
Kitcher, Phillip. Abusing Science: the Case Against Creationism (MIT Press, 1983).
Pennock, Robert T. Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism (M.I.T. Press, 1999).
Pilmer, Ian. Telling Lies for God: Reason vs. Creationism (Random House, New South Wales, Australia: 1994).
(2002-01-01) Conservatives, Darwin & Design: An Exchange
(2002-01-01) Design Yes, Intelligent No
(2002-01-01) Intelligent Design As a Theory of Technological Evolution
(2002-01-07) Genetic Marker Tells Squash Domestication Story
(2002-01-07) SNPs as Windows on Evolution
(2002-01-07) Supreme Court Won't Hear Case on Teaching Evolution
(2002-01-07) Universe Of Life: Maybe Not, A
(2002-01-07) What Every Theologian Should Know about Creation, Evolution, and Design
(2002-01-08) Universe Might Last Forever, Astronomers Say, but Life Might Not, The
(2002-01-09) Life On Other Planets? Vatican Aide Ponders The Possibility
(2002-01-10) How STILL Not to Debate Intelligent Design (Liars for Evolution)
(2002-01-10) Study: Neanderthals, Modern Humans Same Species
(2002-01-10) Taking Wing: A New View of the Origin of Bird Flight Emerges
(2002-01-13) From scientist to saint: does Darwin deserve a day?
I don't think I have ever read anywhere but here that evolution is a fact, just as I have never seen a fossil that was clearly a bridge between species. It would certainly seem Gould is unwilling to make such a claim as well.
“but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science”
Can any one reading this imagine any argument or demonstration that would cause an "evolutionist" to doubt his sacred cow?
Silly scientists are always proving last weeks theories bogus. For now, Genesis, even as an Allegory or Metaphor, probably still has far more truth to it than supposing intelligent designs like kidneys, feathers and gills just accidentally occured and gave their brethren a surprising advantage.
v.
Silly scientists are always proving last weeks theories bogus. For now, Genesis, even as an Allegory or Metaphor, probably still has far more truth to it than supposing intelligent designs like kidneys, feathers and gills just accidentally occured and gave them a surprising advantage over their brethren.
v.
Archaeopteryx. Definitely has the characteristics of both therapod dinosaurs and birds.
... just as I have never seen a fossil that was clearly a bridge between species.
Archaeopteryx. Definitely has the characteristics of both therapod dinosaurs and birds.
</logic>
He's got you there, Junior. Archaeopteryx was a species, so you can't call it a bridge between species.
<logic>
Maybe you need some better sources.
X-ray resonance spectrograph tests performed on the British Museum specimen in 1986 showed the material containing the feathers was different from that containing the rest of the fossil.
Completely false. Somehow, the result of the investigation into Hoyle's bogus charge is changed in your report. Your work, or your sources?
Add to this that fossils of real birds have been found that are much older than this hoax and it is obvious it is not a link.
The logic would be silly here even if true. That Archae is probably somewhat off the main line leading to modern birds isn't a huge deal. It's still evidence of where birds came from. Here's a thread I did on the dino-bird sequence, the point of which is that some dinosaurs were rather birdlike to begin with and can be seen virtually morphing into birds in the fossil record.
This is an old, discredited, canard. From On Archaeopteryx, Astronomers, and Forgery:
If a layer of cement is present, then some sort of discontinuity should be visible between the true limestone and the cement, on the surface and/or in vertical section (a vertical section is a section cut through the slab, at 90 degrees to the fossil). No such discontinuity has been found, even in vertical section. There does appear to be a division in vertical section whereby an upper 500-850 micrometre (1 micrometre = 1/1000 millimetre) layer is separated from the lower layer by a dark band. However, the upper layer shows the same granular structure as the lower layer and the structure is continuous through gaps in the dark band (Charig et al.. 1986). Also the complete lack of air bubbles and the presence of calcite crystals indicate that the whole section is original. Besides, the upper layer is far too thin to receive any feather impressions (Charig et al.. 1986). A further point worth raising here is that any organic bonding material available to a forger in the 19th century for mixing cement would have shown some evidence of cracking or shrinking away. No such cracking or shrinkage has been observed.
And
The evidence claimed by Watkins et al. to indicate that the feather impressions are a forgery appear to be easily explainable by natural processes. Detailed study of the London specimen both across the surface and in vertical section have failed to provide any evidence to support the contention that a layer of cement is present. The method claimed to have been used to produce the forgery cannot explain the presence of fine lines crisscrossing the fossil, or the matching dendrites on the slab and counterslab, which occur on top of the feather imprints. The feather imprints on the Maxberg specimen, despite claims to the contrary, are clearly identifiable as such. In this case, forgery of the type envisaged by Watkins et al. can be discounted because of the fact that the impressions run underneath the bony elements of the skeleton.
This is one reason I created The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource -- so that these discussions could move beyond reinventing the wheel every time a new thread opens.
Find me a 100 million year old wheel of cheddar and i'll jump ship.
I know some cheese gets better with age, but you're a fanatic!
It does not even approach the question of how it began. Its the question of how the kidneys, gills and feathers "just happened" over time that I don't see in the record. Nor does an extrapolation of the record coupled with the current theory make clear to me how anything essential to the survival or function of the creature could have not have been with it from it's first moment of existance. I can imagine cells spontaneously deciding to band together and differentiate into a functioning whole, I just can't do it with a straight face.
Like I said, I'm not a Creationismalist, Evolution as an explanation of life on earth "sola scriptura" just does not seem to me to be as much rational science as a dogma seeking to find ways to trumpet the potential non-existence of God. I still vote for intelligent design and adaptive change over time.
Vaguely? A paleontologist going over the skeletons would enumerate point-for-point morphological similarities essentially all over the body. By the way, the incomplete parts of the skeletons are marked in dotted lines. There aren't that many. You're looking for dodges everywhere. Do you realize how obvious it is? When you ask for evidence of transitional forms, what do you think you're asking for?
Evolution as an explanation of life on earth "sola scriptura" just does not seem to me to be as much rational science as a dogma seeking to find ways to trumpet the potential non-existence of God.
I read things like this and realize the writer doesn't care about science but is (needlessly in my view) defending his religion against some vicious undermining attack from Godless Science. God is not the business of science.
I still vote for intelligent design and adaptive change over time.
The nature and history of the universe is not subject to your vote.
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