Skip to comments.
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense [THE FINAL DEBUNKING]
Scientific American ^
| 17 June 2002
| John Rennie
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.
TOPICS: General Discusssion
KEYWORDS: crevolist
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 1,341-1,360, 1,361-1,380, 1,381-1,400 ... 2,461-2,474 next last
To: f.Christian
| Evolution, being science, requires no faith at all I am amazed that the contention is made. The just so stories are not logical proof, they are "well it cudda happened" explanations. Nor are they material evidence because they are stories. So how does evolution not meet the second definition?--- faith Pronunciation Key (f th)
n.
- Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
- Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
|
| . . , ,
| ____)/ \(____
| _,--''''',-'/( )\`-.`````--._
| ,-' ,' | \ _ _ / | `-. `-.
| ,' / | `._ /\\ //\ _,' | \ `.
| | | `. `-( ,\\_// )-' .' | |
| ,' _,----._ |_,----._\ ____`\o'_`o/'____ /_.----._ |_,----._ `.
| |/' \' `\( \(_)/ )/' `/ `\|
| ` ` V V ' '
Splifford the bat says: Always remember: A mind is a terrible thing to waste; especially on an evolutionist.
Just say no to narcotic drugs, alcohol abuse, and corrupt ideological
doctrines.
|
To: RightWingNilla
Scientists routinely take genes out and put foreign genes into mice. For many of the changes, the animals don't cease to develop but instead show a different phenotype than the wild type mouse.Experiments of inserting foreign genes into yeasts have been successful but yeasts do not have much non-coding DNA to bother with. The insertion of foreign genetic material into mice though is quite complicated:
Using recombinant DNA methods, build molecules of DNA containing
* the structural gene you desire (e.g., the insulin gene)
* vector DNA to enable the molecules to be inserted into host DNA molecules
* promoter and enhancer sequences to enable the gene to be expressed by host cells
From: Transgenic Animals
Not so easy and note that they have to take not just the gene, but other sequences from the genome in order to make it usable.
With current protocols for the creation of transgenic mice by embryo microinjection, the site of integration is not predetermined, and, for all practical purposes, should be considered random. Microinjection allows one to add, but not subtract genetic material in a directed manner; if a particular experiment leads to the insertion of an novel version of a mouse gene into the genome, this novel allele will be present in addition to the normal diploid pair. Consequently, only dominant, or co-dominant, forms of phenotypic expression will be detectable from the transgene....
... recessive phenotypes are most likely due to the disruption of some normal vital gene. In less frequent cases, a transgene may land at a site that is flanked by an endogenous enhancer which can stimulate gene activity at inappropriate stages or tissues. This can lead to the expression of dominant phenotypes that are not strictly a result of the transgene itself. 39 For all of these reasons, it is critical to analyze data from three or more founder lines with the same transgene construct before reaching conclusions concerning the effect, or lack thereof, on the mouse phenotype....
Unless a particular transgenic insertion causes an easily detectable, dominant phenotype, the presence of the transgene in an animal is most readily determined through DNA analysis....
In the vast majority of cases, however, homozygous Tg/Tg animals will be indistinguishable in phenotype from heterozygous Tg/+ animals, and without a recessive phenotype, the identification of homozygous animals will not be straightforward.
From: Transgenic Mouse
Note that the above shows the insertion of an additional gene. Note that the random insertion can cause death if is ends up in a vital part of the genome. Note that the inserted gene must be a dominant one. Note that even if all the above happens though - that it is hard to figure out if the gene is present in subsequent generations because most likely being an additional gene it does not get used! They have to basically search the genome to see if the gene was passed on!
To: Physicist
but I had to leave precipitously for Bethlehem, PA (medical emergency for my father). Please allow me to express my concern, and to exhibit that concern in my way. I also wish you, your father and family wellness and comfort.
To: RightWingNilla
I am as awed as you are at how nature works however I dont see anything random about evolution at all. Complexity which arises from a far simpler set of rules (or beginnings) is a rapidly emerging scientific paradigm. Surely you are not postulating directed transformation of one species into another are you? That is the only way that non-random evolution could arise. That would also imply almost a grand plan from the very beginning to achieve successfully a large group of transformations. I think you have not thought this out very thoroughly.
To: AndrewC
Leaky was on the front cover of Time twenty-five years ago with his lucy piece of scrap find. A few years ago...twenty years later he called a press conference in the calif. desert totally babbling incoherently he found cave man artifacts that were bits of stone...
madness-folly---evoodoolution!
Requiem---dirge--drum roll for fossil---chest thumpers.
The world years ago was fascinated by the King Kong phenomena. I think this is evolution jumping off the Empire Stae Building. The guy who was an electrical genius who discovered FM and had his patent stolen by RCA(did it to Phylo Fawnsworth over TV too) would get drunk and hang off buildings---eventually he fell---suicidal too???
To: jennyp
Oh my god. Are you really claiming that multiple entry points, and overlapping code that must be executed backwards to function is an example of good design???I did not say backwards. However, the rest is correct and indeed it is excellent design! It is just this kind of excellent design that allowed Visicalc, the first spreadsheet to work in just 64k of memory and which allowed Lotus to do just about everything a spreadsheet needs to do in a mere 256k. Reuse of code is an efficient and proper programming practice when resources are limited or one wants or needs concise code. Indeed, even the garbage code in MS products does reuse much code. Subroutines were created just for that purpose - to reuse code in different parts of a program. Assembly programmers took this one step further and not only reused subroutines but used different insertion points to get different operations from the same code. Some would even target entry into the middle of an instruction to get a different instruction. This is also done in the genetic code in some instances by reading the DNA codons out of phase (ie not starting at the first of the 3 bases but at the 2nd or 3rd base) thus producing a completely different instruction. To develop such a system of reusing code is completely impossible to do at random.
To: Physicist
You have mail
To: biblewonk
If we take mouse DNA and put it in a human egg, don't we get a mouse? Not so easy, remember there are two parents each of which contributes half the DNA. Mouse sperm and human egg would not produce anything. In addition even a human embryo inserted into another species would not result in a human - else it would have been done by now.
To: jlogajan
You realize there is the 8th commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor, right? Gee, a Bible reading atheist! Of course, your advocacy of the Bible is very limited. However, your virulent attack confirms my suspicion that you were the one that pushed the button on that fellow. Nothing hurts more than the truth and I can see I hit a very big nerve.
To: BMCDA
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. That is correct, however one must be sure that the conditions replicated in the experiment are the ones that occur in nature. This does not seem to be a problem with most non-genetic experiments but when one comes to experiments on living organisms I would say that the experimenter needs to show proof that the same conditions did indeed exist in nature.
To: Doctor Stochastic
Perhaps the pleasure from adhering to duty, honor, country, or family, outweighs the unpleasantness. Pleasure isn't all beer and skittles. Interesting that you should say that when the above was refuted in the part of my message which you did not copy: "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."
Seems you think that by repeating what has already been refuted you will make utter nonsense into wisdom. Also it needs to be noted that this is the truly irrational method used by many ideologies (such as evolutionism) they just insist that everything under the sun is due to one silly idea. Sorry, anyone who is out of diapers knows that everything we do is not pleasurable. Everyone knows that everything we do is not for pleasure.
To: Frumious Bandersnatch
Just because the totality is complex doesn't make it random.A very important point which is completely ignored by the evolutionists. They also seem quite bent on this discussion in saying that because we do not know all the variables of certain events the events are random. This is really an argument from ignorance - the kind of argument they accuse their opponents of making!
To: f.Christian
| Leaky was on the front cover of Time twenty-five years ago with his lucy piece of scrap find. A few years ago...twenty years later he called a press conference in the calif. desert totally babbling incoherently he found cave man artifacts that were bits of stone... Calico Early Man Random Junk Site Archaeologists have classified this site as a possible stone tool workshop, quarry, and camp site. Perhaps early nomadic hunters and gatherers stopped in this area to fashion the tools they used to survive. These tools may have included stone knives, scrapers, punches, picks, and chopping tools, as well as some saw-like tools called denticulates. Strange, that these guys are looking for anything. After all you can't discern intelligent design from random junk. And if you could, it "proves" nothing. |
To: AndrewC
yeah...bats in the bellfry---evolution!
King Kong 'science age' bites the dust!
To: Doctor Stochastic
No, this is false. No, in spite of your convoluted rhetoric to try to turn his words backwards, Frumious is correct. A repeatable experiment is by definition not random, else the results would not repeat. So yes, no event which can be repeated experimentally is random.
To: jennyp
At some point it's simply perverse to keep claiming that there's really a group of cobbler's elves that come out only at night and stealthily make lots of shoes, yet are so diabolically clever that they'll instantly hide even if you try to surprise them by bursting in the door of the cobbler's shop at 2am really really fast. It is you and BMCDA that are arguing for elves. You are arguing that because we do not know why something happens, such an event is random. Randomness is your elves.
To: AndrewC
Your simplified and designed argument against design does not consider effects and results out of your model. Your fairies are undocumented or are contrived by you to do your bidding, unless you have a link or source for the Ice Fairy believers. And your final contention of perversity in even considering an agency outside of randomness to explain the adaptation of life is a baseless charge against those that reject the just so stories you espouse. Not just that. The contention by evolutionists that you can randomly mutate was is essentially a program which is far more complex than any program man has ever developed is utterly ridiculous. For those who do not believe me, just go around randomly changing bits and bytes in any computer program you have and let me know what improvements you got!
To: VadeRetro
The problem? You're telling the kids we haven't learned anything since ancient times about what fossils are and what you can tell from them. You just don't like what we know so you reject it. Letting you teach would be a crime against education. No. Paleontology is absolute fakery, not science. Lucy's face is plaster, the oldest 'mammal' is a lower jaw, the oldest primate is a pair of ankle bones and a lower jaw found decades earlier a thousand miles away, the ancestor of the platypus is a pair of teeth found half a world away in South America. What makes it even more ridiculous is that the platypus has no teeth! So yes, paleontology is an absolute fake and its 'discoveries' should be banned from all schools. Leave them as fairy tales for atheists to enjoy at their leisure, but do not teach such garbage in school.
To: PatrickHenry
of observed or testable natural mechanisms ...our understanding of which has continually changed, mutated, and been disproven throughout human history....
If "we" should have learned ANYTHING AT ALL by now, it's that we don't "know" "anything at all" and what we think we know today will be changed by what we know tomorrow.
Guess that's why God says that the wisdom of man is foolishness to Him....
If we think we "know"...we are but fools!
To: AndrewC
Do you now believe the Earth once orbited Saturn, too?
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 1,341-1,360, 1,361-1,380, 1,381-1,400 ... 2,461-2,474 next last
Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson