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.
Now we are getting somewhere. I never said, nor did I intend to imply that 95% of the genome is junk. Read through my posts and I think that should be clear. I apologize if I was not. I did write several posts back that studying these transposable elements and repeats is a semi-hot topic in the field now.
What I am refering to as "junk" are the numerous pseudogenes which pepper the human genome. Many of these guys are not even expressed, let alone have any function. These genetic mistakes, errors etc ( NOT 95% of the genome) are strong evidence for evolution in my opinion.
And also, I shouldnt have to guess from your posts for a "clue" as to what your position is. Is it so difficult to express your point of view in a straight foward manner?
Do you receive monetary benefit by perpetuating the scam?
Not a blessed dime in the world. But then, why would you take my word for it?
You'll have to admit, the government provides a lot of funding for evolutionism
I do not so admit. I hate to tell you this, but nobody goes into science for the money. Were I to quit my job right now after nine years at the Ph.D. level, become a public school teacher (were I "qualified") and teach kids how to get by as illiterates, I would see a significant pay increase.
But assume for the moment that I am getting rich on tainted Darwin Dollars. Suppose that I am unprincipled enough to accept money to teach something I don't personally believe in. Does that change the fact that there are several well-understood mechanisms by which base pairs are added to genomes, or the fact that the proponents of creationism (who NEVER have ulterior motives; scientific rigor is always their primary consideration) lied to you about it?
It turns out that jennyp is right. The majority of intervening sequences are intronic.
It is hard to be wrong when you stake out both sides of a two-sided question.
The "junk DNA" consists of the 95% of the genome after allowing for the exons, introns
<ahem> Mea culpa. IIRC I was paraphrasing this post by RightWingNilla at 1107:
Typically when you refer to a gene you are talking about not just the protein coding regions, but also the elements upstream which regulate its expression. Also introns break-up the protein coding region and may themselves regulate transcription. The stop codon is not where it ends though either, you have regions further transcribed downstream which will contain information which regulates how stable the mRNA is and how efficiently it will be translated. None of this is new to anyone and it is generally not what we are talking about when we are talking about Junk DNA. There are vast stretches of DNA in the genome which are nowhere near a gene or ceratinly not close enough to have any effect on gene expression via the mechanisms we know of. Perhaps there are indirect effects....?
OK, when they say that the genome is 95% "junk" ("valuable scrap" to Nebullis), what exactly are they referring to when they count it all up?
Meanwhile, I'll give all you C people the last word. I'm sure your arguments will be devastating and will be the final nail in that evil Darwin's coffin. :-)
Actually it's much worse. There's a huge conspiracy where scientists from all over the world use billions of dollars during millions of research hours to produce thousands of research papers only to prove to American highschool students that there is no God.
The reason for that, I suppose, is that you were looking in the wrong place. I first pointed out that you were certain and were not allowing someone else the same luxury. You then expected me to produce something I did not wish to produce because that was not my point. My points are made specific to my posts. I do not have to offer my position on the ability of the U.S. soccer team unless I bring up the subject.
I have no clue as to the relationship of pseudogenes to the total genome. Nor do I have a clue as to the adequate or relevant measure of that relationship. I suppose the quickest and easiest number to express a relationship would be some sort of base pair ratio. However, that could be practically meaningless. Does the weight of a book relate to its usefulness? Depends on the circumstances. Another measure could be the ratio to the coding regions only, etc. You may have a measure you like, but "peppered with", though colorful, is not very "scientifically" useful(remember we are not doing science here). Finally, I can only base my judgements and views on the information presented. So if you have a number for the pseudogene relationship, please let me know. Also, I do question and wonder about things. If the human body is composed of trillions of cells, most of which are fooling around with the DNA and quite often and if these big mistakes occur. Why is it that the DNA from different cells remains so close. Or am I wrong in that conclusion.
You're pulling an AndrewC there. Any genomic component which has an effect on regulation of transcription, even translation, is a useful component of DNA. Direct or indirect.
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.
Yes, there are those unexpressed pseudogenes (many pseudogenes are still expressed as mRNA only) but they make up a very small portion of what was commonly known as junk DNA.
Please help me out. I waded through the index looking for Zipf and the papers I found made no mention of the derivation.
Brain fart fragment. Join it with the words following. Punctuate accordingly.
Fine. Then consider this -- if you were a person with no scruples about lying for a living, which occupation would you choose for yourself:
1. Politician
2. Creationist preacher
3. Civil rights leader, or
4. Biologist who teaches evolution.
The big lie/con/scam/SWITCH...
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives who advocated growth and progess---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law/constitution--reality...the nature of man/govt. does not change. These were the classical liberals...founding fathers--principles...stable/sane scientific reality/society---industrial progress!
Then came the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin...atheist secular materialists INSANITY through evolution removed the foundations...made the absolutes relative and calling--RENAMING/CLAIMING all technology/science === evolution to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC!
Libbertearaliens---Liberals/Evolution BELIEVE they are the conservatives--guardians too!
Hypnotism--witchcraft ideology--politics--religion--BRAINWASHING--superstition--BIAS---EVOLUTION...
FAKE---imitation---HOAX...
all liberalism--evolution insanity/revisionism!
Ouch (just kidding Andrew). Seriously I put the word "directly" in there to make a distinction between enhancer elements and other unknown indirect epigenetic effects. It seemed to me that Gore3K was implying that all junk DNA was full of these intronic enhancers and the mystery is solved. Far from it.
Yes, there are those unexpressed pseudogenes (many pseudogenes are still expressed as mRNA only) but they make up a very small portion of what was commonly known as junk DNA.
There are enough of these unexpressed pseudogenes in the genome to make a powerful case against intelligent design. This is basically what I was trying to get across.
In Summary....
About 95% of DNA is non-coding and of relatively unknown function. Some of this may turn out to play an (indirect) role in regulation of transcription, (although much of this DNA is not located anywhere near coding sequences). There is enough of the junk DNA including dead (unexpressed) promoterless pseudogenes and other "mistakes" (in some cases the same exact errors can be found in closely related species) to lead one to believe that the genome was not made by design.
Understand that the money trail in this case does not lead to one or two super-rich robber-barons of evolution. It leads to a collection of academic second-raters who would have difficulty earning a living in the real world or in any realistic segment of academia and who see feeding at the public trough as a desirable alternative to anything resembling earning an honest living, guys like Carl Sagan, Isaac Assholimov, Dawkins, Gould et. al. These guys are all basically pandering to a sort of a market pool of losers selling evolutionist wares and conducting a sort of a racket involving the question of who all is permitted to feed at the government trough in such manner.
A normal person wishing to understand what has become of academia in recent years, has several starting points, including of course DeSouza's "Illiberal Education", Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind", and a far more intense and all-encompassing book which I've referred to a couple of times in the Quirck/Bridwell book "Abandoned: The Betrayal of the American Middle Class Since WW-II".
Martin Anderson's "Imposters in the Temple" is another item to add to that little list.
The basic job of colleges and universities should be teaching. There still are schools at which that holds true, but they are an exception at present. Anderson describes the trivial pursuits which have replaced teaching as the major objective of many if not most professors, in many if not most schools:
"For most professors, the surest route to scholarly fame (and some fortune) is to publish in the distinguished academic journals of their field. Not books, or treatises, for these are rare indeed, but short, densely packed articles of a dozen pages or so.Anderson, of course, is describing a sort of a ritualized and formalized version of what college frats sometimes refer to as a "circle jerk". The chance any sort of a new or different idea, much anything which breaks any sort of an accepted paradigm has of breaking through all that should be pretty obvious."The successful professor's resume will be littered with citations of short, scholarly articles, their value rising with the prestige of the journal. These studious articles are the coin of the realm in the academic world. They are the professor's ticker to promotion, higher salary, generous research grants, lower teaching loads, and even more opulent office space.
"...These are supposed to be scholarly pieces, at the cutting edge of new knowledge.
"But now I must confess something. Many years ago when I read these articles regularly as part of my academic training and during my early years as a professor, I was bothered by the fact that I often failed to find the point of these articles, even after wading through the web of jargon, mathematical equations, and turgid English. Perhaps when I get older and wiser I will appreciate them more, I thought. Well, I am now fifty-five years old, and the significance of most academic writing continues to elude me."
"In recent years, I have conducted an informal survey. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, I ask scholars about their academic journal reading habits. For example, I recently asked a colleague, a man with a solid reputation as a scholar, what he considered to be the most important academic journal in his field of study. An economist, he immediately replied "The American Economic Review".
"Let me ask you a question", I said. "Take, say, all of the issues of the last five years. What is your favorite article?"
"...Sure enough, he answered like all the rest. There was a silence of a few seconds, and then he cleared his throat a bit and, looking somewhat guilty and embarassed, said "Well, I haven't been reading it much lately." When pressed, he admitted that he could not name a single article which he had read during the last five years which he found memorable. In fact, he probably had not read any articles, but was loath to admit it.
"...There are exceptions of course, a handful of men and women in every field who do read these articles and try to comprehend any glimmers of meaning or significance they might contain. But, as a general rule, nobody reads the articles in academic journals anymore.
"...There is a mystery here. For while these academic publications pile up, largely unread, on the shelves of university libraries, their importance to a professor's career continues unabated. Scarcely anyone questions these proofs of erudition on a resume.
"...One reason why these research articles are automatically accepted as significant and important is that they have survived the criticism of "peer review" before being published.
"...Some of the manuscript reviews are done 'blind', with the author's name stripped off, while others are not and the reviwer knows exactly whom he or she is evaluating. Given what is at stake in peer reviewing... it would not be unreasonable to worry a little about corruption sneaking in.
"But these questions are not explored. The fact that some fields of study are small enough that the intellectuals involved in them are all known to eachother, or that friends review friends, or that reviewers repay those who reviewed their own writings favorably in the past -- all these potential problems are ignored...
Creationist Haiku?
Now you're irritating me. Give it a rest. Physicist is a stand-up guy. And very bright. We may not agree with him and we think he's sometimes wrong but we do learn from him.
Gosh, that's a tough one. It's between #2 and #3, but it depends. With a TV contract, I pick #2, hands down. No TV deal, I have to go with #3.
Have you checked the collection plate?
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