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.
Apollo replied, "Well, Prometheus created you, but I think you really want to talk to Zeus. Wait here and I'll get him."
Thanks for the misplaced concern. It does show humanity, but does nothing for your argument. I too have pity. It pains me to know that you are referred by "A mind is a terrible thing to waste". Someday you will crack that book on logic and actually learn something.
This---
. they were worthless because they were hypocritical.
will not be found in your logic book. You also "subtled" yourself into delusion.
they were worthless because they were hypocritical.
will not be found in your logic book. You also "subtled" yourself into delusion.
You have my condolences. Look up the fallacy of special pleading sometime.
Ahhhh science humor.
So we're actually devolving. Monkees should still be realizing the benefits of walking straight on two legs and punching the time clock instead of swinging around and stuffing themselves with bananas. I can appreciate the survival of the fitist but changing species is quite another proposition.
If I understand your argument, it goes like this:
1. People use intelligence to conduct experiments.Have I left out any steps?
2. Therefore, life on earth is the result of the Intelligent Designer.
Actually Prometheus, being a titan and presumably somewhat literate would have said, "You're fired!"
Me neither.
Ecclesiastes 9:12
For man also does not know his time:
Luke 13:1-9
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'
" 'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.' "
Romans 7:4
So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
Romans 10:4
Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
Dude... You have a cool job!
You answer the question of why bacteria can adapt. The question which the above does not answer is why if these, the first organisms, were able to adapt, were able to fit themselves into just about every ecological niche there was any reason for them to 'evolve' into something else by transforming themselves into different more complex creatures. Also let's note that because these simplest life forms were so adaptable (and indeed are more adaptable than any other creature after it) don't we have a case here of creatures becoming less fit? Don't we have here a case of deevolution instead of evolution?
Creation is finished, and we were not there at the time to see it, so how could we see such a thing? A falsification criteria that depends on the ability to actually SEE historical events is absurd. But if evolution is a fact, and it is still occurring, then we should be able to see it occurring. By your criteria we should be able to actually see a species evolve into existence, and we should be able to use the laws of evolution to predict what biological evolution will occur. The usual answers are that it happens so slowly that we can't see it, or it happened so fast that we missed it, a link to TalkOrigins, or a computer algorithm designed and programmed by an intelligent evolutionist.
Cordially,
This is a statment of opinion, based upon what your believe to be facts, nothing more, just as medved's statements are opinion, based upon what he believes to be facts.
"indefensible lunacies", "his junk", "psychic parrots", "his crap", "he's a nutcase", " critical faculties of a bivalve mollusc", "long spew"
Am I to believe that the above represents how the learned and educated view dissent? If not, then you do your fellows a severe injustice with your lack of restraint.
"What tactics? If you mean the word "final, ..."
"15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense", is the title of the article. Equating nonsense and Creationist is simply a propaganda technique designed to marginalize, in the mind of the reader, anyone who disagrees with the author and his thesis. So also is the graph which seeks to demonstrate the lack of education of those who believe in a recently created Mankind. All this graph indicates is the power of evolutionary thought in the education establishment. As it has been said, if one wallows with pigs, one should expect to get dirty. If one spends years being told that evolution is true and that the earth is billions of years old, it is bound to have an effect on how that person believes. It is, no doubt, discomforting to see that almost 30% of the postgraduates/professionals surveyed, believe G-d has something to do with us, and quite recently.
"The article cites facts. It's not the results of an opinion poll."
So, it would seem that there was a poll of sorts involved.
"In all your long spew, you have not answered a single point raised by Rennie in his article."
My spew wasn't all that long, and it was not intended to answer specific points but to, rather, point out that there is a concerted effort in the evolutionist community to silence anyone who does not tow the line.
Rennie's article, which I read in it's entirity, doesn't say anything other than creationists misunderstand physical laws and their relationship to evolution, and cites specific cases of this misunderstanding. Creationists will do likewise, and cite in a similar manner. Thermodynamics, is a prime example where both sides accuse the other of misunderstanding the law. Evolutionists tend to say the creationists twist the law. It basically boils down to to a "I'm right and you're wrong" argument.
His closing statement is, yet again, a fine example of propaganda: "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." He might as well have written: "Disagree with evolution, and mark yourself as ignorant.
The problem with evolutionist-science is that it presupposes that evolution is true. All inquiries performed and results derived are done so assuming that evolution is a fact. Few, if any evolutionists will look outside that framework. For example, answer 13 states in part: "A sequence of fossils spans the evolution of modern horses from the tiny Eohippus." Is it beyond the realm of possibility that tiny Eohippus is just an extinct small horse? Why must it be an ancestor of the modern horse? The answer is simple. The assumption of evolution must be enforced, even though it is not called for.
For what it is worth, I find the Intelligent Design movement somewhat disingenous, but no more so than the Punctuated Equilibrium adherants, each in their respective attempts to overcome obsticles encountered. The first, a legal obsticle represented by the so-called seperation of church and state, while the second, a technical obsticle, represented by the failure to produce either transitional fossil forms (Rennie's case for Eohippus and Archaeopteryx, not withstanding), or a world-wide unconformity in the geologic column.
I am a Creationist and I believe in Fiat Creation. I also believe that the evidence of my own eyes supports that belief. I will not camouflage my belief behind the initials "ID". G-d created, Mankind corrupted. Science could do much towards overcoming a great deal of that corruption, making our lives and the world around us better for the effort, were it not so obsessed with relegating G-d into nonexistance through it's sophistry.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.