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.
OOBFOO. What else is there to say?
This is a cop out Andrew. You dont have to take my word for it....examine the primary data yourself and come up with an alternate explanation. Take some responsibility.
Care to propose a function(s) for all of the copies of this post in all of their various forms on all of the computers between me and you?
So people can read them (and possibly be mildly amused?) Eschew obfuscation Andrew.
Don't hold back now, tell us how you really feel. Until death doesn't mean until death to a politician.
I never mentioned a single result. I just pointed out that "randomness" doesn't imply complete unpredictability. For that matter, "determinist" doesn't necessarily imply any predictability at all if there are errors in measurement.
Ah, yes it does, actually, but the eastern part that I like to call the Commonwealth of East Washington.
Too close to Spokane (and it's primary nuclear warhead target) for comfort, I'm presently trying to rectify that situation, and a little property across the line in Idaho that I call Constitutionalist's Corner (no ZIP code yet though).
Perhaps we can undertake a conspiracy to clean all the Liberals out of Seattle ..."
Oh boy, now there's a real tough row to hoe. Perhaps a reasonable course of action would be to lay bait in the Portland area, and then, once all the liberals had gone down and swallowed it, quickly erect some sort of wall ....
"I need more neighbors such as yourself."
Ever get the feeling like you were about to become extinct? Yes, it's nice to meet another friend.
1422 posted on 6/20/02 9:58 AM Pacific by PatrickHenry
You think--believe evolution will explain the Creator God?
I agree, BMCDA.
More likely it was something else which through a minor change was capable of catching mice.
Exactly. He dismisses this option (co-option!) on the basis of incredulity.
An other point is gene duplication. Of course he doesn't deny that gene duplication occurrs ... his concern is that a duplicated gene can mutate in such a way that it produces a protein that is harmful to the organism.
This is really a red herring. Organisms generally die from mutations via loss of function.
The ID business is a strange phenomenon to me. If it's possible to tell if or how things are designed, there should be no way to say, look, here, the flagella is obviously designed because that seems so complex, (irriducibly so), but that snowflake over there is not obviously designed because that follows laws of physics that are already known. One can't be evidence of design while the other isn't.
When did he say this? I can't remember if it was before he dumped his ailing wife like a chunk of rancid pork or afterwards when he had taken what was, to him, a trophy wife
We live in a relativistic world and Gingrich had been a politician for 20 some years. I assume if he'd been an evolutionist he'd have cooked his former wife and invited the neighbors ( ala Tom Lehrer's song) in.
Consider the wise words of the famous evolutionist, Jeffrey Dahmer:
"If a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all came from slime. When we died, you know , that was it, there is nothing..."
I suppose you feel people are somehow compelled to answer your questions in the manner you want. I answered your question. I answered(in another fashion with hopes you will understand this form)-- I don't know and I don't make up just so stories.
"I don't know" happens to be an acceptable answer to other people.
Obfuscation was not my aim. Elucidation was my aim. All copies are not "readable" but they have a purpose.
Ever wonder why the evos like to talk about the little freak-show items like the archaeopteryx and platypus the way they do? Basically, it's because so little is known about those things that they can talk about them all day long and not look or sound anywhere near as STUPID as they do when talking about ordinary things like flying birds (which I have explained) or modern man. In the case of modern man, there is not only zero evidence of our evolving, there is provably nothing on the planet we could have conceivably evolved FROM. Neanderthal DNA has been shown to be "about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee" thus eliminating him altogether as a plausible ancestor of ours, and all other hominids are much further removed from us THAN the neanderthal. You'd need some other hominid closer to us both in time and morphology, and the works and remains of such a thing would be all over the place if he had ever existed; they aren't, and he didn't.
Logically, you only have to think about it a little bit to realize how stupid it really is.
You are starting out with apes ten million years ago, in a world of fang and claw with 1000+ lb. carnivores running amok all over the place, and trying to evolve your way towards a more refined creature in modern man. Like:
HEY! Ya know, I'll betcha if I put on these lace sleeves and this powdered wig, them dire-wolves an sabertooth cats'll start to show me a little bitta RESPECT!!!"
What's wrong with that?
The problem gets worse when you try to imagine known human behavorial constants interacting with the requirements of having the extremely rare to imaginary beneficial mutation always prevail:
Let's start from about ten million years back and assume we have our ape ancestor, and two platonic ideals towards which this ape ancestor (call him "Oop") can evolve: One is a sort of a composite of Mozart, Beethoven, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare, i.e. your archetypal dead white man, and the other platonic ideal, or evolutionary target, is going to be a sort of an "apier" ape, fuzzier, smellier, meaner, bigger Johnson, smaller brain, chews tobacco, drinks, gambles, gets into knife fights...
Further, let's be generous and assume that for every one chance mutation which is beneficial and leads towards the gentleman, you only have 1000 adverse mutations which lead towards the other guy. None of these mutations are going to be instantly fatal or anything like that at all; Darwinism posits change by insensible degree, hence all of these 1000 guys are fully functional.
The assumption which is being made is that these 1000 guys (with the bad mutation) are going to get together and decide something like:
"Hey, you know, the more I look at this thing, we're really messed-up, so what we need to do is to all get on our motorcycles and pack all our ole-ladies over to Dr. Jeckyll over there (the guy with the beneficial mutation), and try to arrange for the next generation of our kids to be in better genetic shape than we are..."Now, it would be amazing enough if that were ever to happen once; Darwinism, however, requires that this happen EVERY GENERATION from Oop to us. What could possibly be stupider than that?
1422 posted on 6/20/02 9:58 AM Pacific by PatrickHenry
You think--believe evolution will explain the Creator God?
Do you think a lame theory---evolution can explain God/Creator?
You seemed to strongly disagree with my interpretation of the data. Typically in science when this happens we are required to present an alternative model(s) to fit the data (in a clear and straightfoward manner if you wish to be taken seriously).
True, the golden rule had been expounded previously. But that is only one part of Christian morality. You will not find any Christ before Christ.
I said I believe in God. I did not say I'm a Christian. As for your point. If I were a fundamentalist Christian, I would certainly find it dismaying.
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