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.
I think you heard the sound of crickets, if you were listening for any criticism of you. I guess he was warned and didn't heed the warning. I'm sorry for him, but...
Right, but things like mutations & other contingent events are random events.
Look, Frumious' claim that there are no real random numbers is basically the same as someone saying it's a determined universe because every particle's position & velocity can be predicted from its position & velocity the moment before. It's a useless, moot point. It's another variation of the cobbler's elves theory of ID: It only looks random, but there's really a supernatural being meticulously flipping the bits in selected spots of selected genes of selected organisms at selected times. It's utterly impossible to falsify.
I thought all Freepers (not counting comsymp disruptors) were automatic members of the VRWC. I'm not a scientist, but I still do get a small stipend from the VESC for my godless evolutionary evangelism here.BTW, my check from the Scaife Foundation didn't arrive this month
Hey! How do I join?
Younger than Strom, OK? (Grumble! Grumble!)
-Thanks
BTW, my quote of Behe came waaay after yours -- I believe somewhere on pages 159-161. Had he changed his mind by then about Darwinism? ;-)
The salient point about hermenuetics is that it is a body of knowledge that is parallel to the Bible. It is carried forward in the writings and experience of Biblical scholars. The Bible is thus interpreted not "literally" standing on its own -- but in context to this developed knowledge and expertise -- not available to the fundamentalist individual locked in his bedroom Bible in hand.
A "literal" Bible, one written in plain speak, could be self-contained and any reader conversant in the particular language as that of the Bible ought to be able to decern its actual, hence "literal" meaning.
On the other hand hermenuetic knowledge and practice would allow someone to deduce that Genesis is allegorical rather than a "literal" description of the science of the creation of the universe and man himself.
The hermenuetics of the Catholic Church is particularly wise in finally divorcing ALL scientific pronouncements from matters of essential faith. The Catholic Church wisely opened the door for acceptence of the evolutionary explanation for the origin of species.
A simple "literalist" interpretation, lacking the parallel knowledge base of the hermenuetic, cannot be reconciled with evolutionary science.
Also, I read ‘your’ articles for the first time (ala junior on this thread)… impressed… but you did have a different demeanor at the time.
At least, looking at your responses.
To be a consistent conservative you most likely do. Somebody who believes that "survival of the fittest' is the only moral law in nature might call himself a conservative and behave in a manner consistent with his belief by being a robber baron like Andrew Carnegie, a criminal of some sort or a nazi (or a cannibal like Jeffrey Dahmer), but the word "conservative" igtself connotes some sort of an effort to preserve the values which have guided human society over the last couple of thousand years, and it's hard to picture an atheist making any sort of a serious effort to do that, as opposed to merely looking out for number one.
A couple URLS came to mind after reading your post. You might enjoy the reading, even if you don't agree with all the info therein. Following are some excerpts:
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Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism: The phrase "Social Darwinism" dates from the 1930's, but as an intellectual movement, it dates from 1859, the year Darwins Origin was published. The concept embraces all efforts to apply Darwinian biology and evolution to human society. Given the fact that Darwinism rapidly became the orthodox biology and evolutionary science, Social Darwinism underlies virtually all of the social sciences. One key premise is that "the masses are unprincipled, dangerous to themselves, society and the planet."
There are two basic schools of thought regarding an "appropriate" response to this condition: (1) Laissez faire,--do nothing for the masses except that which will accelerate their self-destruction; and (2) exercise complete control over the masses, and at the same time refine the scientific means to "handle the problem of the masses" at a fundamental level, e.g., the genetic level. Historically, laissez-faire did not work. The masses proved "far more cunning" than the elites supposed. Thus, option (2) became the standard policy; in political terms, this option translates into "state socialism." State socialism is not the bright-eyed optimistic socialism of those who invented socialism, the "utopian scientists" according to Marx. State socialism is a direct political expression of Social Darwinism.
Suppression of Knowledge of Symbiotic Evolution
Suppressed: Symbiotic Evolution, i.e., evolution through the establishment of cooperative [rather than competitive] relationships among organisms. See discussion in the main narrative of Petr "Prince" Kropotkin's Mutual Aid--A Factor of Evolution. In the 1880's and 1890's, Kropotkin published a number of excellent papers challenging the Hobbesian Darwinism of Huxley et al. Kropotkin was ignored.
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, by Peter Kropotkin.
Why should you disagree with that? Numbers are entirely conceptual.
Do I have to point out to you that we are humans and not lions nor Silverback gorillas? Human nature is fundamentally different than lion nature and gorilla nature. We can consider other ways of life, for starters.
Moreover, the societies you envision are those with which you are accustomed. They hold values that you identify and treasure. However, you can see throughout human history the values that you now hold were not always present in thriving societies. It is not a given that men will not tear out other mens hearts. It is not given that all men are equal. If you do not believe in an absolute moral code apart from mankind, then human behavior is entirely due to mankind's "defined" morality.
If it wasn't based on mankind's needs, then morality would be a meaningless, arbitrary floating abstraction.
We are just a few years away from the Hutus and the Tutsis.
Huh? Why?
Do you see China? Do you see Pakistan and India? Do you see Myanmar? Do you see Indonesia? etc. Now if the moral code is defined elsewhere why do these same things happen?
But do you see people flocking to live in Myanmar? I don't know about Indonesia, but even Pakistan & India have had brain drains to the West for decades. I read an article on the Dawn magazine site a month or so ago deploring the fact that so many young Pakistanis come to America & don't ever want to come back.
Everybody's different to some extent, but ultimately there is one human nature. And I think that history has shown that there is one general class of society that best serves mankind, given that one human nature.
YIKES! What the heck is this strange posting form???
I got something I have never seen before as a posting page! Oh well, lets see what we get.
This is an important point. We cannot program a ‘program’ to generate random numbers.
Is the picture on a TV tuned to an unused channel a random picture of dots?
A very bold statement and one I have never heard an evolutionist make. In fact, the only example I have heard of discussed is hemoglobin. I would think we need some reference for the above. If they are duplicated genes they need to be the same size and have a fairly similar sequence. Reference?
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A very silly comment which can only be considered true if one makes the a priori assumption that every action one engages in is pleasurable. Many people do unpleasant things for a large variety of reasons such as duty, honor, country, family and many more reasons.
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