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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If I were right all the time I'd be you. Thank goodness for that
"LOL! Good Mongo. Knock any horses out lately?"
Nah I am getting older now so I mainly knock out hampsters and other rodents.
apology accepted.
Very easily done. Science has not successfully identified the mechanism of evolutionary change. Mutation and natural selection doesn't explain complex, seemingly purposeful adaptations. This is a scientific, not a religious observation. The problem scientists create for themselves is they wish to see no purpose or plan in nature beyond random occurrence. The scientists reject God, therefore they reject anything that sounds like planned movement in nature. It all just has to be happening because atoms randomly bounced into one another. But we see that nature, at least here on Earth, has evolved in a direction toward greater complexity and awareness. If evolution is merely leading to greater survival of the fittest, it could have stopped with sharks or with a shark that can defend against the few natural enemies a shark posseses. Instead, relatively fragile human beings are sitting around debating on the Internet - and still being eaten by sharks.
I'm not going to waste the time easily shooting down the points, just bring up one fact: It is the only scientific theory we have for what we've observed. Come up with a competing scientific theory, then we'll talk. Until then, scientists will keep working to further develop the current theory.
"Nicole is nice."
I agree - she and Charlize Theron are almost enough to swing me to the "Intelligent Design" side. Splendid creatures!
Well sorry to leave but I have to shut down the old PC and turn out the light. Meeting a customer on the way home. I'll be back around 6:00 am tomorrow when I get back to my office. Have fun.
I think they both had some science enhancements. Still nice though.
Later
Yep, they do real great on land, in shallow water, in fresh water, and in the air. They also survive well on plankton, shrimp, carrion and plants.
"Well sorry to leave but I have to shut down the old PC and turn out the light. Meeting a customer on the way home. I'll be back around 6:00 am tomorrow when I get back to my office. Have fun."
Goodbye CG! Good luck with the customer.
What has science got to do with the darwin myth?
Ongoing, all the time, yes.
He did not accurately explain how this happened in terms of a physical mechanism, because random mutations have not proven to give rise to sufficient sustainable changes.
Even most creationists accept something they call microevolution. I thus cannot even recognize what you think you're grandly proclaiming here. You are making an unsupported assertion which flies in the face of what most people on both sides of this debate know. I suggest you back it up.
In other words, by what mechanism does a species change from land dwelling to sea creatures?
Random variation and natural selection. When Darwin said that, the only evidence that land dwelling creatures become sea creatures was from comparative anatomy. That is, whales are mammals and sirenians are mammals and pinnipeds are mammals and sea otters are mammals, etc. Whales have almost a fish body plan, sirenians less so, seals less yet, and sea otters still look very terrestrial while spending much of their time in the water.
Darwin predicted evidence of actual transitions would be found. They were. Among the items in that preceding link may be found transitional sequences from land animals to whales. There's also a fossil legged sirenian. Virtually none of the items on that link were known to Darwin. They can all be regarded as successful predictions.
It isn't because one day a land creature happened to randomly give birth to a sea creature ...
It's useless to wave your wilfull ignorance of how a thing happens against evidence that it did and does. You don't know what Darwin said. You don't know what modern science is saying. You don't know what you're talking about.
If people would quit referring to each other as morons on evo threads, they would stay a lot more civil.
What's your single best evidence for an old earth?
The entire science of Geology.
Why hasn't science created life today? Why didn't science invent the airplane in 1803 instead of 1903? Was there a deadline?
You must have a tiny God if He has to hide in the gaps in our knowledge.
Not sure of your point, but why would a shark or natural selection care if it can survive on land or in the air? Sharks do just fine in the seawater, which is their environment and they are well adapted to it. I don't think it's purely accidental that life became complex and adapted to species in the air, land and water. Life seems very resilient, not random. It exists in all the most extreme environments on Earth. Why? Why didn't the first randomly created single cell organism just die, instead of spreading everywhere in greater complexity and eventually reading and writing these posts on the Internet? Science doesn't want to know why, they don't want there to be a why, because that explanation starts sounding like a God. But that aversion is not scientific any more than a creationist's aversion to an older Earth.
I would be really interested in your 'more developed' example.
Micro-evolution is widely accepted, even among creationists. That is a "mechanism of evolutionary change."
It does explain.
The problem scientists create for themselves is they wish to see no purpose or plan in nature beyond random occurrence. The scientists reject God, therefore they reject anything that sounds like planned movement in nature. It all just has to be happening because atoms randomly bounced into one another.
I don't think you have to reject God to accept that the natural world operates according to very simple laws, and that this means "random" situations will befall different members of a species.
But we see that nature, at least here on Earth, has evolved in a direction toward greater complexity and awareness.
This is not true. Some species have evolved towards greater complexity and intelligence (awareness). But other species have not. Some species merely evolve to become more adept at handling their environment. For new species of bacteria, they aren't any more or less intelligent than the species they evolved from. They aren't evolving greater intelligence. So only a small fraction of evolution involves species becoming more intelligent.
And the fact that intelligence has evolved is not contrary to evolutionary theory in any way.
If evolution is merely leading to greater survival of the fittest, it could have stopped with sharks or with a shark that can defend against the few natural enemies a shark posseses. Instead, relatively fragile human beings are sitting around debating on the Internet - and still being eaten by sharks.
Fragile??? Man is the ultimate predator, at least as far as the Earth has seen (Predators are the ultimate predator, but they only exist in comic books and movies and video games). Man is an awesome predator. We've killed a member of pretty much every species on Earth (certainly almost every land animal; there may be some ocean species that have escaped our violence by living deep enough under the Earth). Individually, man might be weak compared to lions, tigers, and bears, but that doesn't matter to evolutionists. If we work as a group, then that's how we should be measured (biologists measure how things function in the real world, not how things would function in artificial settings). And if, as a group, we kill anything we want to kill, then we're the ultimate.
"What has science got to do with the darwin myth?"
About the same as with:
-The Quantum Mechanics Myth
-The Microbial Cause for Disease Myth
-The Theory of Relativity Myth
-The Myth of Electromagnetism
-The Myth of Genetics
And so on....
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