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.
Well Andrew, it seems to me that the creationists are the ones trying to apply the scientific method to support their religious views...and if you want to be taken seriously in the context of a scientific argument, then yes, in fact, this will require you to clearly and unambigously state your interpretation. Otherwise you will convince no one. Then again, maybe this is not your purpose given your statement below....
Finally, I hope that you as a scientist are not asserting that the happenings here are science.
So are you saying no one here takes scientific arguments seriously here on FR? What point are you trying to make here?
Really? That's interesting. It certainly helps the case for gene duplication.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.
Ugh, I'm moving!
Naah, we're still all conservatives here. Big tent. Happy happy comrades-in-arms. "Rebels are we, born to be free, just like the fish in the sea...". Kumbayaaa my Lord, Kumbayaaaaa...
Why would God - who created the cells in the first place - have to limit Himself in such a way?
Why did Ford have to limit themselves by painting all Model T's Black?
"Mysterious are the ways...." As I said, you two have painted yourselves into an unfalsifiable position.
Neither city populations nor company revenues are designed.
They are a consequence of design.
No they're not. They're not designed. Nobody, except in Communist countries, sits down with a plan and marks out how big cities or companies will be.
If you're arguing that the pattern is a side-effect of systems that are designed, then even there I think you're wrong. The pattern may be a side-effect of systems of interconnected parts, yes, but that still begs the question of whether biological systems were designed or not.
Which is exactly why I wrote direct role, as in the typical transcription factor-binding element route.
If I understood Gore3000 correctly, I believe he was extrapolating the data (which has existed for 20 years) demonstrating that some enhancer elements are located intronically. These sequences are very minor in comparison and generally not what is referred to as junk.
I do believe the genome harbors a substantial amount of pseudogenes, relics from our evolutionary history that are of no value now. Studies are emerging in other speices as well are showing that even when the gene function is no longer required the gene remains and is free to mutate and in several cases it is no longer expressed. This is basically what I am referring to as genetic "garbage". Why would a creator/ID force put those sequences there de-novo?
I feel for you. You've tied your religious faith to the belief that the universe behaves in a certain way, and now that you're faced with hard evidence that it does not, all you can do is to lash out at me personally. Or perhaps you're grasping at the straw that I really am on the take, and that by focusing on my motives you can avoid the necessity of swallowing the indigestible facts of the universe. But alas, anyone who knows my history here can tell you that I act on principle, and in any case the facts still remain.
If impugning me further will help you to get through what must be a difficult time, I won't hold it against you.
Now if you have been here there seems to be a rigorous definition of a scientific theory(or what you would consider science). None of the matters accomplished on this forum meet that definition. Therefore I do not conclude that we are doing science on this forum. You, however, in post 1437 make a statement which seems to compel me to come up with an alternative theory because of science.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).
That is why I asked you if you thought we were doing science here. Finally, you turn my question into a challenge of scientific arguments. No. My point is again stated, I am under no requirement to come up with an alternative to your interpretation of the data. I still note that you are certain and seemingly do not allow that luxury to others.
Random-text models have been proposed as an explanation for the power law relationship between word frequency and rank, the so-called Zipf's law. They are generally regarded as null hypotheses rather than models in the strict sense. In this context, recent theories of language emergence and evolution assume this law as a priori information with no need of explanation. Here, random texts and real texts are compared through (a) the so-called lexical spectrum and (b) the distribution of words having the same length. It is shown that real texts fill the lexical spectrum much more efficiently and regardless of the word length, suggesting that the meaningfulness of Zipf's law is high. ZIPF'S LAW AND RANDOM TEXTS
I repeat, they are a consequence of design.
Changing words now to help a dead argument. We are truly witnessing evolution. You must have acquired faith. Solitary statements aren't logical proofs.
You didn't answer the question.
Do you receive monetary benefit by perpetuating the scam?
You'll have to admit, the government provides a lot of funding for evolutionism and other disasters. Many in this land get involved with moral compromise in order to receive the monetary benefits from the government largess.
I am not suggesting you have obtained moneys illegally, though in the evolutionist scheme, that could be considered justifiable.
Then why bother posting to this thread? Are you trying to argue with yourself? I guess we cant argue with you since we don't have a clue what your position is on these matters. I hope you are enjoying your (free?) time Andrew.
Because I do promote some of my views. Its just that I don't allow others to tell me what they are and how to defend them. You seem to have a great blindness to your arrogating approach to discourse. You do have a clue to my view on these matters(or at least you should). I don't think the evidence shows that the human genome is 95% junk. I posted some evidence in post 1400.
You are virtually accusing Physicist of being a con artist. Your conduct is deplorable. Are you of the opinion that there are no con artists among creationists?
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