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 believe we don't get anything but "rotting" chemicals.
In objecting to something, you usually have to state it.
Isn't DNA ascribed as defining the whole person. If we take mouse DNA and put it in a human egg, don't we get a mouse? I'm not sure if there is any structure to the egg.
The point I'm trying to make is that somewhere in that egg, probably mostly in the DNA, is the information to make a brain and eyes and a skeketon etc. Surely we agree on that.
I would think the result would be non-viable. There are things in the egg besides DNA that help the mouse develop. This is why, when scientists seriously consider cloning extinct animals they look for the closest living relatives of those animals to supply the eggs and act as surrogates.
Evolution says nothing of the sort.
In agreeing with something, you usually have to state it. So what?
You mean about organized religion? Observation and study of its tenets, advocates, and adherents. The general lack of verifiable information; the endless and shameless appeal to- and manipulation of emotions; the requirement for maintaining a state of ignorance about the world, the religion itself, and the history of both; the hypocrites in charge; the conflicting versions of "truth" based on literally nothing; behavior of (including actual conflict) of related sects of "loving" adherents; the vast number of whack-job sects built with the same methods/foundations; a complete lack of discussion of the religion/church/temple's purposes (that are usually murky at best and hypocritical always); and the observed mental state of screaming idiocy of the "true believers". That's probably the top bits over my morning coffee.
How do you know that what is true for ‘you’ is, in fact, true?
A pointless question from earlier discussions. Shall we now debate definitions of "true", "you", and "is" for another go-around on the ontological express?
Although I think his criticism is not very convincing. He again uses the mousetrap analogy where every part is required for it to function as intended. That's true but the error is to assume that it always was a mousetrap. More likely it was something else which through a minor change was capable of catching mice. Now this mechanism may have some redundant parts, but if one of these redundant parts breaks the whole mechanism still works but the remaining part becomes essential. Therefore it is highly unlikely that an evolved mousetrap looks in any way similar to the moustraps we know.
An other point is gene duplication. Of course he doesn't deny that gene duplication occurrs (like some other people who claim that no new information can be added to the genome) but his concern is that a duplicated gene can mutate in such a way that it produces a protein that is harmful to the organism. Well, what can I say but that this is true. It can indeed happen but it doesn't have to. If the newly mutated gene is detrimental then it is unlikely that this copy will be inherited.
Similarly some have difficulties with this whole gene duplication issue. They ask what mechanism prevents one copy of the gene to mutate and the other one to stay the same. Well, there is no mechanism that prevents one copy of the gene to mutate. It may mutate how ever it wants. The problem is whether it gets inherited or not if a change of this gene is detrimental. So as a result only those individuals live long enough to procreate (or are more succesful) who have an unchanged version of this gene.
The last paragraph of his essay also caught my attention. There he claims that:
There is another flaw with the "we never saw this" statement. Just because one has never seen a divine designer, doesn't automatically mean one does not exist. Unless there is reason to rule out the possibility of a designer for living species, then one is possible.As far as I know, no scientist claims this. Also I'm sure that no evolutionist or even atheist on FreeRepublic made this claim (Stultis also mentioned it). But this is the problem with a devine designer: there is nothing that can falsify this hypothesis. So the only thing that can be ruled out by some evidence is the necessity of a devine designer but not its existence.
I admit, I'm no biochemist but if someone who is more knowledgeable in this field may feel free to criticize my points or those of DiSilvestro.
The only thing that this proves is that under certain conditions you get certain results. So it doesn't matter how these conditions came to be. That means you should get the same results whether the conditions were created or whether they occurred naturally.
So just because you carry a rock up a hill and it rolls down if you release it doesn't meant that this could only happen if some intelligent agent carried it to the top of the hill.
Well, that's life. It's hard but unfair. Just like the intelligent designer willed it.
Good point, and I like your wording of my comment better!
| MOST OF THE genetic disorders featured on this web site are the direct result of a mutation in one gene. However, one of the most difficult problems ahead is to find out how genes contribute to diseases that have a complex pattern of inheritance, such as in the cases of diabetes, asthma, cancer and mental illness. In all these cases, no one gene has the yes/no power to say whether a person has a disease or not. It is likely that more than one mutation is required before the disease is manifest, and a number of genes may each make a subtle contribution to a person's susceptibility to a disease; genes may also affect how a person reacts to environmental factors. Unraveling these networks of events will undoubtedly be a challenge for some time to come, and will be amply assisted by the availability of the draft (and complete) sequence of the human genome. |
He attacks the scaffolding effect as "conjecture." Conjecture? Given that he also disallows a major line of evidence (interspecies comparative studies) as "begging the question," that's pretty cheap.
This is true.
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 wise interpreter will employ proper hermenutical principles, taking into account the importance of context, the importance of historical considerations, making a correct genre assessment, letting Scripture interpret Scripture, etc.
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.
Even though the Bible contains various literary genres and figures of speech, the biblical authors still very often employed literal statements to convey their ideas. And where they use a literal means to express their ideas, the proper method of interpretation is to employ a corresponding means of a literal methodology. A literal method of interpreting Scripture simply means giving to each word in the text the same basic meaning it would have in normal, ordinary, customary usage.
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.
Yet we know that Jesus, who most certainly did not lack the parallel knowledge base of hermenuetic principle, consistently interpreted the Old Testament quite literally. If Jesus is the model for interpreting Scripture, we can see that He treated the historical narratives as factual accounts, including such things as the creation account of Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark and the flood, and so on. When he quoted the Old Testament, he used the normal, rather than allegorical meaning, of the passage. In short, he took a literal approach to interpretation which took into account the literary type of the passage. Moreover, that the "average person" can understand Scripture is demonstrated by the fact that Jesus, whether speaking to highly educated Scribes and Pharisees or just the average joe, expected his hearers to understand his meaning as certainly as he would hold them accountable to the message. It is an accountablity to the Word of God that is evident throughout Scripture.
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.
Alvin Plantinga has written a very interesting three-part article on this subject:
"...It would be of great interest to explore this area further, to try to say precisely what I mean in saying that science isn't religiously neutral, to see in exactly what ways Christianity bears on the understanding and practice of the many relevantly different sciences and parts of science. The first is not the focus of this paper, however; and the second question (of course) requires vastly more knowledge of science than I can muster. That is a question not just for philosophers, but for the Christian community of scientists and philosophers working together. What I shall do instead is vastly more programmatic. First, I shall point to three examples of the religious non-neutrality of scientific claims or hypotheses. I shall then argue that a Christian academic and scientific community ought to pursue science in its own way, starting from and taking for granted what we know as Christians. (This suggestion suffers from the considerable disadvantage of being at present both unpopular and heretical; I shall argue, however, that it also has the considerable advantage of being correct.) Now one objection to this suggestion is enshrined in the dictum that science done properly necessarily involves "methodological naturalism" or (as Basil Willey calls it) "provisional atheism."[3] This is the idea that science, properly so-called, cannot involve religious belief or commitment. My main aim in this paper is to explore, understand, discuss, and evaluate this claim and the arguments for it. I am painfully aware that what I have to say is tentative and incomplete, no more than a series of suggestions for research programs in Christian philosophy..."
I. Is Science Religiously Neutral? Three Examples
Cordially,
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