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.
Look in the mirror. You're the one damning yourself to hell--He's giving you the opportunity to escape.
If you as a parent did that to your kids, you'd be one creepy guy. Someone who would condemn another to eternal hell fires for such trivialities is not a god of "love" but a god of "hate." A really sick and twisted deity.
The only reason religions come up with vengeful gods is to scare the h*ll out of people who might otherwise start to think for themselves.
What a nightmare world you must live in to accept such a petty god.
No, not at all. A loving God, who wishes and hopes for every man and woman to embrace ultimate good, is forced to reject those who have rejected forcefully and unrepentantly such an invitation. Unrepentant murderers of men, women and children, unrepentant child molesters, unrepentant ruiners of peoples' lives (i.e., evil people) get thrown into eternal fire not because God has forced them to go. Rather, it is because they have put themselves there of their own free will. God (for Christians and Jews, anyway), wants very badly not to have people reject total goodness, and offers any person who has committed atrocious acts a path back to goodness (through forgiveness and redemption). Those who go to hell have turned their back on goodness. That is not God's doing.
Exactly. They are two different sets of arguments.
Let's see, who to believe, who to believe? A guy who's spent his entire adult life studying and testing the underlying premises of evolution in a scientific manner, or you, who probably had just enough biology courses to fulfill your degree obligations? Tough call ...
I believe God created evolution to serve His ends. That means the absolute hard core on both sides despise me (I have been accused of "theological Satanism" by one creationist, and a hard-core evolutionist likened me to a bone-in-the-nostril bushman who'd been taught how to wear a suit. IIRC, both of these folks are "No current Freeper by that name."
The development of life on Earth falls squarely into that category.
As for the other topics, I've expounded upon them at length in these threads before, and I don't have the time to reproduce them here. I'll give the short answers:
"Before the Big Bang": geometrically, there is no "before the Big Bang", for the same reason there is no "south of the South Pole".
Quantum Mechanics: it is logically impossible to describe QM in terms of quotidian phenomena like particles and waves, because quantum objects are more fundamental than the quotidian phenomena. Those phenomena are made up of quantum objects. You cannot describe the more fundamental in terms of the less fundamental; this is basic philosophy.
Extra dimensions: these are experimentally testable. Most of my research in physics over the last two years has been to design a machine that can perform these tests.
Mathematics: I agree with you. As a deist, I believe in "God the Geometer". God is the sum of all possible mathematical Truth. However, I have never seen any scientist attempt to make an argument against this (except in defense of a different religious faith).
Any source of knowledge that predicts a real world outcome is testable by "science." For instance, if prayers can change outcomes, that power can be statistically determined.
From what I can tell of all scientific studies, if God is involved with the day to day workings of the universe -- his fingerprint is indistinquishable from that of random events that exist within the range normally ascribed to nature.
So your assertion that there are alternate routes to knowledge about the real world is questionable -- since all testable routes end up having materialistic explanations.
But I'll ask, do you have an example of an alternate route to knowledge that came to us through intuition or divine revelation and not through scientific discovery?
I thought this prophesy was directed at the coming evolutionary assault, but what do I know? I have never claimed to be very wise.
It is best if you can use both mind and faith. It is bad to choose one over the other as a means to define all there is.
In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.
The above is false. The fossil record, and in particular the Cambrian explosion, disproves evolution. That 90%of the phyla ever known should appear within a mere 5 million years without trace of any descent from any previously known species is a hammer blow to evolution. That no new phyla have appeared in the last 600 million years is another hammer blow to evolution. One also must take into account the numerous scientists who have denied that gradual evolution takes place due to the tremendous gaps in the fossil record still existent after 150 years of digging including evo heros Gould and Eldredge.
It is not really science per se that fundies fear -- it is that science is diverging from literal interpretation of the Bible. It is a "literalist" issue from start to finish.
If the Bible isn't literal in toto, then where is it literal and where is it allegorical? Can you imagine the mental panic of those who just lost the safety of their certainty???
Because the theory of evolution actually says that only failures evolve. Why would a successful fish crawl up onto land? Why would a successful monkey leave the trees that make up his home? The failures are driven out of their eco-systems and forced to adapt to new ones.
We are thus the product of millions of years of failure--not success.
By rejecting reason? Morally impossible.
A more likely scenario is that, if I reject science for faith, and the two of us stand together in judgment before God, you may (although I can't promise it) be admitted to heaven for having stuck to your principles, but I will certainly be cast into hell for having violated mine.
Evolution necessarly has to debunk Biblical literalist interpretations. That's just unavoidable. They are in conflict. However, nothing in science can disprove the existance of a God.
You are quite correct. Scientific American is totally prostituting itself by publishing such drivel. It is also proof of the desperation of evolutionists when, as in the Clinton WH, they need to destroy the credibility of their most credible institutions in order to try to stem the tide of truth arrayed against it.
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