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.
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality...the nature of man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values GROWTH!
Then came the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin-DEFORMITY-cancer...Atheist secular materialists through evolution CHANGED-REMOVED the foundations(separation of state/religion)--TRUTH-GOD...made these absolutes relative and calling all the residuals---technology/science === evolution to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC--atheism...anti-God/Truth RELIGION--crusade!
Liberals/Evolution BELIEVE they are the conservatives--guardians too!
Hypnotism--witchcraft ideology--politics--religion--BRAINWASHING--superstition--BIAS---EVOLUTION
ps...evolutionism is the essence of liberalism/socialism!
pSh...thought/science czar!
(Alright enough of that, its out of my system)
Hmmmmm. atrophy, laziness.
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality...the nature of man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values GROWTH!
Then came the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin-DEFORMITY-cancer...Atheist secular materialists through evolution CHANGED-REMOVED the foundations(separation of state/religion)--TRUTH-GOD...made these absolutes relative and calling all the residuals---technology/science === evolution to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC--atheism...anti-God/Truth RELIGION--crusade!
Liberals/Evolution BELIEVE they are the conservatives--guardians too...the shield between state and religion(evolution) is gone---this is chernobyl---radiation poisoning!!
Hypnotism--witchcraft ideology--politics--religion--BRAINWASHING--superstition--BIAS---EVOLUTION
ps...evolutionism is the essence of liberalism/socialism!
Yikes! Relax Mr. Christian, everything is going to be OK. Just cover yourself with wet newspaper and lie on the ground.
1889 posted on 6/26/02 12:39 PM Pacific by medved
Read the history books...ussually the early battles are won by the losers---winners rise up to the challenge--victory!
LOL! (where'd I put that snare drum...)Do you consider two exact copies of the morning paper more informative than one copy of the morning paper?
Just a bit more.
You must have a very happy newsboy! The dream of every newspaper deliverer, a one house route!
{newspaper}
and
2{newspaper}You need more bits (1, to be exact, in the most efficient scheme possible) to describe 2 identical newspapers than you do for just the one copy.
Nope. I am sticking to the point which I started back in post#1605 as to why evolution is impossible. I have given proof that a human organism is far to complex and far too interrelated that it is totally impossible for it to have developed at random. RWN is now throwing a smoke screen because he cannot refute the fact that it is impossible for a program such as the one by which a human develops from conception to birth could have been modified at random through evolutionary means. Ballrog is just talking nonsense. He keeps arguing that random chance has a memory or some convoluted sophistry to that effect.
What you gave me is a far cry from "irrefutable" evidence.
Well towards the end the author says "to implement the developmental program induced.", and at the conclusion he says "Another common feature of developmental programs is the highly regulated death of certain cells." Somehow the man in some sort of Alice in Wonderland fashion is able to hold two mutually contradictory beliefs at the same time. Nevertheless the man agrees it is a program. You who believe in science so much, you who believe you are so smart, need to show how such a program could have been altered by random mutations or whatever to allow the new genes, new faculties, and totally new physical types. It is absurd to think the developmental program of organisms could have been altered in such a way.
Nonsense. Scientists do not give beans about evolution. The only outspoken proponents of evolution are not scientists at all but a bunch of paleontologists who prostitute themselves on a daily basis before the altar of evolution. They have to do that because their jobs depend on it. Aside from that, scientists totally ignore evolution that is why modern biology is based on the pillars that struck holes at the heart of evolution: Mendelian genetics, DNA, and Genome expression.
As I say, when evolutionists start losing they resort to ad hominems. I did not make this up at all. In fact it was not even Behe, or Dembski or anyone living who thought this up. It goes back continuously to just about every scientist in the field of natural sciences that lived before Darwin. It goes back as far to Aristotle at least. So the above is another evo lie, constantly repeated in an dishonest attempt to discredit the opposition. And why does evolution tell lies to discredit Intelligent Design opponents? For one simple reason - because Intelligent Design is true and evolution is false and the evolutionists have no defense against the scientific arguments made by Intelligent Designers.
I read it as sarcasm.
PS How long can you go without calling someone a liar? It really does get tiresome.
how about calling no-design/intelligence-evolution science---isn't that a lie-oxymoron?
Evolution is the anatomy of all lies--delusions--vanities!
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