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 hope it was only due to server problems. When I came back on about an hour ago, my cookie was not recognized(it said it was stale) and I could not log on for about 10 minutes.
No, it was a real suspension. When I tried to post I got a screen that told me my posting priveleges had been revoked. And I was given a reason, but it made no sense. ("Defending the Taliban"). I suppose moderators need a justification for what they do.
I sympathize.
I had the real thing. Amazing insight into the moderator's way of doing things. Very revealing.
I guess we have very different ideas about what an ad hominem attack is. If I call someone an idiot, that's a personal attack. If I point out that someone's post is nonsense, that's an attack on the substance of what was said, not on the person, and it seems to be fair debate. Similarly, if I mention that I always find someone's posts to be worthless, that too is a fair comment on what is being said, and it is not a personal attack. (It would be different if I said the person was worthless.) Some people imagine that if you challenge their ideas you are making a personal attack, but that's just not true. We're supposed to discuss ideas here.
And I've discovered what may be the source of the reason given for my suspension: "Defending the Taliban." Back in post 1739, which hasn't been pulled, someone asked me if the Jack Chick comics were peer-reviewed, and I said ... well, I don't want to repeat it because it seems to be a sore point with one particular moderator. But it's still there for anyone who wants to check it out.
Using your own sense of what an ad hominem argument is, why don't you revisit your own post to me (which was posted at about the same time as my suspension):
The subject is a pathetic article that has drawn 1,800 posts. My theory is that this is so because the article is pathetic.Using your standards, I should have hit the abuse button and complained about an ad hominem attack. But I didn't (well, at that time I was suspended and I couldn't), but I wouldn't have anyway, because you were merely exprssing your opinion about the article. (Besides, complaining to the moderator about a post of yours would be ... well, never mind.)Begin with a supposed science magazine that bashes Creationists -- that's politics, atheist leftist politics. We don't have to look far for confirmaton -- the following from very early in the article:
...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.
This is just a series of bold and blatant lies. The evidence is missing, not massing. Failure of public imagination? Hardly. The public's got it right. The failure is with decades of evolutionist propaganda in our public schools. The biggest lie, though, is "truth beyond a reasonable doubt". Evolution would fail in any court of law in the land. It has not made its case.
The article, Patrick, is just garbage, and it will remain garbage whether it draws 1,800 posts or 180,000.
1792 posted on 6/25/02 10:06 AM Eastern by Phaedrus
Gore you are aware that all of these “legitimate” scientists all are evolutionists right?
Besides some (not ALL) of that DNA really is “junk” – errors that happened to get trapped in our DNA. Did you read my discussion with Andrew where I pointed out that perhaps 10,000 processed pseudogenes exist in the human genome?
What the scientist believes the evidence he discovered means is irrelevant. The evidence speaks for itself.
Listen to yourself Gore! I am gonna go out on a limb here and say the Chairman of the Department of Genetics at U. Penn is perhaps just a little bit more qualified to interpret the data on junk DNA than you are. You are a piece of work! (no creationist pun intended ;-) )
When Galileo was arguing that the earth went around the sun…
I find it more than a little ironic that you should use this example. The religious fundamentalists of his time bent over backwards to exclude scientific data which didn’t agree with their beliefs..…much like what modern day creationists are doing.
I never said such a thing in the context of this discussion. I wasn’t trying to refute ID here. I was simply trying to point out that certain changes can be made and the organism can often tolerate them. We hadnt gotten into ID yet.
You were speaking in absolutes before, and I found it irritating (there are few, if any, absolutes in biology). I am really not trying to give you a hard time Gore. I just want you to acknowledge that the genome (the “program” as you like to say) can handle some changes. There are many examples both in nature and in the lab which should make this abundantly clear and we can get into specifics if we can both agree on this principle. Are you with me so far?
Now I've got to stop you right there, Patrick. You are putting words into my mouth and you know that's not permitted, so why do you do it?
Using your standards, I should have hit the abuse button and complained about an ad hominem attack. But I didn't (well, at that time I was suspended and I couldn't), but I wouldn't have anyway, because you were merely exprssing your opinion about the article. (Besides, complaining to the moderator about a post of yours would be ... well, never mind.)
Now, Patrick, as you admit, your citation of my post underlines commentary directed at the article and unless you are the article, you have no basis for complaint.
But thank you for the repost of my commentary.
I have yet to hit the "Abuse" button but I suppose the day may come.
Silly moderator doesn't know defense from offense.
Sorry that got you in trouble Patrick. I took it to be an anti-Taliban remark myself.
Of course. It had nothing to do with you. The moderator was in a snit and was just looking for an excuse to suspend me.
So apparently, and you're not the first to argue in this manner, if an E-sider is getting flack from the C-side, he's guilty of ad hominem if he merely quotes the flack and does not also anticipate any justification the C-side might ultimately offer. Does it work the same way with C and E reversed?
Don't you know anything? No creationist would ever post an ad hominem attack. Only the eeevil-looo-shunists do that (because their "science" is all bogus). Which is why our fair-minded moderators do what they have to do.
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