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.
You were responding to my posts without reading them? Were you writing in your sleep?
Are you calling that passage about Drosophila evidence?
Again I ask - how can you make a program more complex by random means?
The bacteria in xylose did it somehow.
I wish I could do that......
Do you consider two exact copies of the morning paper more informative than one copy of the morning paper?
I'm reminded of a prediction I made (about coyotes and whales) that Little Boy Blue fulfilled not long afterward ...
Who knows more about a given subject -- the guy and his friends who have spent their entire adult lives working in and studying it, or some poor slob off the street who maybe majored in business and thinks a gamete is a species of bird? Wouldn't the former group be more capable of determining the veracity of a given conclusion based upon the line of research undertaken? Do you want a plumber second-guessing your heart surgeon?
We havent gotten there yet. I can't even get Gore to comprehend that genes can duplicate.
Did you understand the connection between DNA repair and mutation?
You already saw it in post#1754. That post shows that the way a human develops from conception to birth is a program, a very complicated program. Since you (nor anybody) can insert new instructions randomly into a program, this is definite proof that evolution is false. You have been trying to talk your way around it for a hundred posts, trying to ignore it, trying to discuss irrelevancies. So yes indeed you have received irrefutable proof.
Let me also note that we discussed thoroughly some of the other points I made in post#1605 as to why evolution is impossible. We agreed that pretty much on 1 and 2. I showed clearly that #3 the problem of passing a mutation through a species is a very serious problem, which makes 4, the building up of a new gene by random mutations virtually impossible. We also discussed briefly #5 the unlikelihood of a new workable functional gene arising randomly. I showed with the example of men and apes that the assertion that there is a virtually unlimited amount of tries to produce such a gene is total nonsense. You may not agree with that, but still, you could not refute it and are also trying to ignore it. Therefore, I have given irrefutable proof. Your choosing to ignore it, your refusal to admit it, your saying that no proof has been given is just plain dishonest.
The evidence belongs to the world, not to the specialists. All the 'experts' denied Galileo's theory that the earth went around the sun. The experts were wrong. Till the 20th century, just about all the scientific breakthrougs were made by what we would call amateurs, so your proposition is wrong. In addition, the main reason why science was stuck with no advances for over a thousand years until the Rennaissance was the reliance on 'experts'. No one dared to challenge the ancient writers in the sciences and add to their statements or heaven forbid refute them. What you are talking about is anti-science.
Just a bit more.
Gee, ducking the question again.
Gee, deliberately misunderstanding the question again.
And, gee, trying to change the subject again.
What a surprise!
Are you really so frightened of admitting that you are wrong?
Will your world come crashing down if you admit you are not infallible?
Will your world come crashing down if you admit you are not infallible?
To be in reality...you have to know the difference between possibility and probability---
spontaneous--morphing matter--life...
no design--designer???
Effects poorly defining--denying cause/causes is a prescription for failure...
Yeah crash---the freefall is fun!
An evolutionarily conserved class of ligands and receptors regulates such interactions in C. elegans, Drosophila, and vertebrates.
What you gave me is a far cry from "irrefutable" evidence. It is your faulty interpretation of a passage you do not even comprehend since you lack even the most basic understanding of Biology. It basically boils down to your won Personal Incredulity. Been there done that Gore.
Mutations are repaired.
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