Posted on 06/17/2002 3:10:50 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change. Some antievolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a "wedge" for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God.
Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.
To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
14. Living things have fantastically intricate features--at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels--that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
15. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]
CONCLUSION
"Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Thus, physics describes the atomic nucleus with specific concepts governing matter and energy, and it tests those descriptions experimentally. Physicists introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena. The new particles do not have arbitrary properties, moreover--their definitions are tightly constrained, because the new particles must fit within the existing framework of physics.
In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)
Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life's history? By creating the first DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design. Instead they pursue argument by exclusion--that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain.
Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for scientific ideas.
Time and again, science has shown that methodological naturalism can push back ignorance, finding increasingly detailed and informative answers to mysteries that once seemed impenetrable: the nature of light, the causes of disease, how the brain works. Evolution is doing the same with the riddle of how the living world took shape. Creationism, by any name, adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort.
The Author(s):
John Rennie is editor in chief of Scientific American.
There are lots of deleterious mutations. The individual organisms that get them die, and don't reproduce. The one rare individual who gets a beneficial mutation survives, reproduces, and passes on that gene. There is no "target" (or at least none that science can observe; as a theistic evolutionist I believe that God planned this all out, but the scientific data can neither confirm or deny that); what fits the environment survives, what doesn't (or does, but is just unlucky) dies. Eventually, natural selection keeps weeding out the mutations that don't work and keeping the ones that do until we get something quite different from what we started with.
Actually, the only people here asserting such things are religionist creationists imputing it as strawman arguments.
I'm an atheist and therefore don't believe in any god, yet I've never asserted that science proves or disproves the existance of god. On the other hand creationists routinely claim that Darwin is inconsistent with there being a god. So it is a creationist claim, not an evolutionist claim.
I'll jump in here. Certainly there are some evolutionists who claim that evolution (and/or other scientific theories, conclusions or insights) provide postive grounds for denying the existence of God. (Richard Dawkins springs to mind as a prominent example.) Jlogajan, however, is absolutely correct in noting that the assertion that evolution somehow implies atheism is much, much, MUCH more commonly made by opponents of evolution than by its proponents.
In fact I have NEVER ONCE seen an evolutionist freeper flatly claim in any manner that evolution implies atheism. Furthermore many evolutionist freepers have explicitly denied that such an inference is valid (including some who are atheists and might otherwise be expected to further such arguments).
Notice, however, even in this very thread, all the complaints from creationists about freepers using evolution to promote atheism. This is largely a phenomena of "projection". It is the creationists much more than the evolutionists who have it in their heads that evolution = atheism -- in fact they are the ONLY ONES here on FreeRepublic making such assertions -- and they are doing doing much more to further the popular currency of this false (or at least highly questionable) "scientistic" equation than we evolutionists are (assuming we were even trying to advance such fallacies).
I once offered (I think it was something like a year ago) to donate something like 10 or 20 dollars up to a total of something like several hundred dollars to FreeRepublic for each instance from FR's extensive archives of an evolutionist freeper making any kind of clear argument or assertion that evolution implies atheism. Even though I made this offer repeatedly across two or three long threads, I never got a single taker. OTOH read back just through this thread and see how many instances you can find of creationists asserting that evolution implies atheism! Like I said... projection.
Right. Under objectivism we make moral laws purely for our own convenience. We agree not to kill each other because we don't want to be killed ourselves. But in that way, lots of what religious people would call pure evil can come about. For instance, if we all thought there were too many kids, we could all agree to kill our second born child. Farfetched? Peter Singer, Professor of 'Ethics' at Princeton University, believes we should be allowed to kill children under the age of 2 if we want since they don't have a 'sense of self' yet. Objectivists work to find the most convenient morality. Abortion rights is objectivism at work. (Well, I had sex with ten men, and no big deal that I got pregnant. Can't possibly have the baby, since I have to much of life to live. Glad that we all agree OK to terminate the baby (right up to its birth), since we all want that convenience.) What objectivists come up as convenient isn't what religious people are talking about when they think of morality.
The objectivist code (which is quite compatible with atheism) you're talking about exists only to make your life convenient.
Well, for the almost fully born healthy baby about to be aborted (murdered), the golden rule of Christianity would certainly seem more favorable than the objectivist decision made by society to allow doing away with that child. But of course, the baby doesn't have any say.
I think you have a major misconception here. Yes, humans are social critters who need each other. However, communities (in my experience) place very little emphasis on finding out who is doing good works and ostracizing those who don't. Madonna and Eminem are not popular because of their giving natures - and they're famous, not ostracized! I try to get along with people in my community, but have no idea whatsoever who does more good works with their time (and they have no idea how I spend my time). Lots of popular people get by just fine without doing much giving! Christianity (with which you may not be familiar) requires us to devote our entire lives to doing good (and giving up our own selfish desires), and not just with regard to those we need (but to our enemies and everyone else!). It is radically different in that respect (and many others) from the let's- just-get-along kind of thinking. Christianity demands that we try to do the maximum good in our lives (without selfish regard to ostracism). Atheists may decide they want to help others (though I don't think most worry about ostracism), but there is nothing compelling them to. They can feel perfectly content not helping a single soul in their lives. Christians cannot.
It would be self-contradicting in practice in any community. Self-serving applications of a moral code based in self-interest, in practice, is crime: theft, rape, even murder. A society filled with rampant theft, rape, & murder cannot even get started. It's not an evolutionarily stable strategy.No moral code can be self-serving.
Who says so?
I don't know if this is an analytic or a synthetic statement, but I can't see how such a society could ever survive, let alone thrive.
Can you?
I've been hanging out in these threads longer than you have, and I agree totally with what you say. All the alleged "linkage" or even "congruence" of evolution with atheism comes solely from claims made by the creationists, who are always complaining that their religion is under attack. The evolution side always denies these charges, and always denies any assault on Christianity. Yet the claims of "evolution = atheism" never stop coming -- from the creationists. I think some of them just enjoy the notion that they are involved in a great satanic struggle. But it's a struggle invented by them and waged only by them. Evolution seeks only to go on being a science, and has no religious ambitions at all.
But it can also be pointed out here, evolutionists ‘can’ claim that ID is definitely Creationism.
Anyway, I believe we a saying the same thing from different points…
I should also point out that atheism ‘needs’ evolution for validation, Christians do not.
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives who advocated growth and progess---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality...the nature of man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...stable scientific reality/society---industrial progress!
Then came the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin...Atheist secular materialists through evolution removed the foundations...made the absolutes relative and calling all technology/science === evolution to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC--RELIGION!
Liberals/Evolution BELIEVE they are the conservatives--guardians too!
Hypnotism--witchraft ideology--politics--religion--BRAINWASHING--superstition--BIAS---EVOLUTION
Good News For The Day
‘But I say to all of you: In the future, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty One.’ (Matthew 26:64)
"If the universe is moral, (and the fact that such a person as Christ existed, is strong evidence that it is), then what Jesus said about himself and the future, must come true. If morality has an infinite source, and backing, then the moral excellence of Christ will ultimately... triumph---over evil."
"I know some very agreeable people. I know some that I would call gentle giants. But their easygoing spirit is never a threat to greed and corruption. Kindness, patience, understanding, and love are not better than envy and bitterness, if they only ever exist as counterweights to their opposites. A good man who is content to coexist forever with badness, and wrong, cannot be a good man in any absolute sense."
"The goodness of Jesus is surpassing because he not only sorrowed over sin, and was outraged by it, he set himself against it, and warned his enemies that by suffering for it, he would rise above it, and eliminate it."
"If our universe is a moral one, then Jesus' values can never be viewed in any offhand way. Rather, he must be seen as a hazard to every act, motive, system, institution, or law, that is not in sympathy with him. A question that governments and their constituents ought to ask is: Are we making laws; invoking policies that clash with Christ and the direction of his Spirit? If so we are building badly. The universe itself will not back us. The future belongs to Christ-and to all who follow him."
Good News For The Day
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.’ (Luke 20:17)
"The most familiar, and the best-loved images of Jesus, are those that picture to us, his gentle, compassionate spirit. "Whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out"; "Come to me, all you who are weary"; "Let the little children come to me."
"But there are other images of Jesus in the Gospels, which show another aspect of his personality. They emphasize the steel in him. Sometimes Jesus was awesome; formidable."
"In the parable, Jesus presents himself as the landlord's Son; the rejected stone, that eventually becomes the most important stone in the superstructure of the kingdom of God. Jesus plainly thought that those who opposed him were in collision with God. He was warning nation's leaders: "It is unwise and unsafe to be against me." Tough talk from Jesus! He was signaling what was taken up by Peter at Pentecost, where, full of resurrection joy and authority, he preached saying: "This Jesus, you put him to death. . . . but God raised him from the dead. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:31-36).
"In the parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus teaches that those who discard him, will not thereby have gotten rid of him. Jesus was not, and is not now, a passing phenomenon. So truly does Jesus represent reality; so deeply entrenched in the ultimate truth of existence, is his life and teaching, that He, and not his opponents, will prevail. If the universe is a moral place (and Christ himself is the most convincing evidence that it is), then his prediction that he would triumph, even over those who killed him, must come true. Therefore let us treasure the august aspects of his personality, as much as his gentle features, for they signal a world order in which 'goodness', as Jesus taught it, will... reign---unopposed. The stone that was rejected, will become the capstone."
It does give merit to free will.
Again: “When its empirical resources are exhausted, science itself closes the door to naturalistic explanation. -William A. Dembski
How is it irrelevant that Darwin was biased towards atheism irrelevant to the truth of or falsity of evolution? Evolutionists constantly claim that their opponents are biased. You even call people who oppose evolution liars for Christ. Bias is certainly relevant especially since the Darwinist philosophy is very atheistic.
That's the first and second laws of thermodynamics. (TA DA!))
A compelling argument, on the surface. But you're forgetting something:
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
Yo ho, it's hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on Earth there'd be no life
Without the light it gives
We need its light
We need its heat
We need its energy
Without the sun, without a doubt
There'd be no you and me
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
The sun is hot
It is so hot that everything on it is a gas: iron, copper, aluminum, and many others.
The sun is large
If the sun were hollow, a million Earths could fit inside. And yet, the sun is only a middle-sized star.
The sun is far away
About 93 million miles away, and that's why it looks so small.
And even when it's out of sight
The sun shines night and day
The sun gives heat
The sun gives light
The sunlight that we see
The sunlight comes from our own sun's
Atomic energy
Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom-smashing machine. The heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reactions of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and helium.*
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
Any kind of process which results in an error of replication.
how can we ensure there are no deleterious effects (mutations are generally extremely deleterious),
Since the copied sequence is extraneous, mutations are not likely to be deleterious. The original sequence might not bear the same load of mutations.
... what determines a favorable direction
very little, if anything
and what target is there for a sequence to hit upon?
a fitness selection which is not determined ahead of time.
Do you see how these words "don't get us there" and are, at best, wishful thinking?
No.
Well, what does this mean, "the differential expression of genes" and what is the control mechanism?
The expression of genes is controlled by other molecules, usually proteins which bind to short sequences of DNA up- or down-stream from the protein coding region, and which affect the timing and concentration of protein production. Also, these control elements determine which protein product out of number of possibilities is produced.
You are again speculating. You surmise that differential gene expression results in differential phenotype, and while it would now seem logical, it is not established.
This is elementary material, well established in the literature, available for perusal by anyone with an interest.
Absolutely false. The evolutionists have been saying that the large amount of non-coding DNA is 'junk'. This is another instance, and perhaps the most important one in which evolutionism has been proven wrong. Only 5% of the genome codes for gene. The genes are merely the factories of the human organism all they do is produce proteins and RNA which become part of the structure of the organism or become catalysts for the chemical reactions needed for life. The important work goes on in the remaining 95% of the genome. It is that part of the genome which tells the genes what to do.
A question to prose
As enlightenment grows
Yet the riddle of life still exists.
Our being begs ‘why, we live and then die?’
Our soul existence must mean more than this
Can our sentence lie,
The how and the why,
In the writings and speeches of man?
And if the answer is maybe it can
It must now be juxtaposed
With a ‘just suppose’
And ‘I think and therefore I am’
Look how truth now exits the stage
Left with the hypothesis
Of the solitary sage
And his soliloquy
of what might be
Another man in another season
Who revels in revelations without reason
Lest this reason be
Mans’ own divinity
It’s a raffle of thoughts won by whatnots
Who cling to transcending verbs and nouns
Creating a literal mind with their bounds
Can it be that our own lexis
Sets limits, blinds,
And has verbally vexed us?
Gaze long and hard in one’s sacred heart
Forego the mind believed to be smart
Love exists there for you and for me
It’s where ‘our Author’ wrote it
To set us all free
-Heartlander
"Convenient" doesn't even begin to describe human flourishing. I'm surprised that you'd resort to such a strawman characterization of such a fundamental human goal. Do you really put the kind of human life that only an individual-rights based civilization can provide on the same trivial level as "convenience"???
He does?
From Behe's book, 'Darwin's Black Box': "There are...mountains and chasms that block a Darwinian explaination of life."
Do you receive monetary benefit by perpetuating the scam?
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