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're defending this:
Science deceives itself if it pretends the 5th dimension spiritual world of God doesn't exist because they can't bottle it. And please pardon some of us if we can "see" that HIS "proof" of 'Intelligent Design' is clearly and overwhelmingly evident...Perhaps you'll tell us what's "interesting" about it.
That Subliminal Kid member since June 11th, 2002
Darwinian-science desperately INSISTS on contriving a scenerio whence life was NOT spontaneous, but ever evolving in order to dispel Creationism...
To relinquish Evolutionism even ad nauseum, is to surrender to God and of course Creationism. "Proof" for a Darwinian Warrior is just an inconvenient detail to be worked out "tomorrow" when E.T. and ALF arrive to clear up this whole mess.
Do you believe in guilt by association? I feel a little uncomfortable by those who tell others what they can and can't say. And that is not from association.
1. OBSERVATION
2. EXPERIMENTATION
3. REPRODUCTION
4. FALSIFICATION
Since you subscribe to the Scientific Method you cannot take Old Earth/Macroevolution as fact.
To believe Old Earth/Macroevolution is to have faith in Science and Scientist. To overlook all the flaws and to ignore evidence that opposes the "facts" you want. It is to have faith in the powers of man to know all, though he does not know what he does not know.
Apparently, you believe that science should accomodate you if you want to disagree with it about anything: Archimedes's Law of the Lever, perhaps. It can't be that flexible because there's such a thing as a firm observational fact. If there were no such, there wouldn't be any science as we know it and we'd still be sitting in caves and quarreling over the last scrap of woodchuck.
The nature of Rennie's criticism is that creationism cannot be reconciled with fact. The criticisms of medved are similarly grounded. He describes a game of planetary pinball that absolutely positively cannot have created the solar system we see. Most of his eyewitness "dinosaur" drawings could be anything. (And there's a stunning lack of other evidence--evidence that should be there if he's right--for the conclusion he tries to draw from them.) Then there's his funny compression of recorded history, his microwave element transmuter, his instantaneous light, his psychic parrot . . . You don't make all that stuff defensible by crying, "Opinion! You have your opinion, he has his!"
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.
Not at all, as I've explained. Let's take an example, Rennie's rebuttal of a specific and often-encountered creationist claim.
This is not ridicule. This is not attack. This is pointing out that a statement is flat false.10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.
On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism's DNA)--bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example.
Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses.
Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism's DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features. Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years.
So, it would seem that there was a poll of sorts involved.
Conservatives supposedly abhor the cultural relativism of liberals, but in creationists such as yourself we see a curious variant. Call it factual relativism. Any facts that prove you wrong are just a matter of opinion.
There is no poll, unless you call the preponderance of hard evidence a poll of reality. If that's the poll, then it counts and you lose.
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.
Not a trivial complaint, if that were all there was. But he also says creationist claims are simply false, as in the example I chose.
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.
Mainstream science can point to an existing literature of thermodynamics backing its description of the Second Law. Creationism can point to some ingeniously crafted out-of-context quotes designed to what it hopes is the same effect. Which one reflects a real physical law?
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."
His statement reflects badly on creationism, yes. That doesn't make it propaganda. You don't refute it by pointing out that it makes you look bad. A thing can reflect poorly upon you and still be true. This would seem to be one of those cases.
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.
You seem to think everything is some kind of a political movement with a set of propaganda points and the right to lie, cheat, and steal to win. You're right about ID, but that's as far as it goes. Punctuated Equilibrium is a theory with supporting evidence.
You really haven't followed me at all right from the start, have you? You so desperately want to tar me with that brush that you just can't see that it's all about your arguments, and not you personally.
Here it is, and I only regret that I can't think of a way to phrase this monosyllabically - you are engaging in the fallacy of special pleading every time you wade in to bash the legitimacy of the scientific method, and intersperse it with posts wherein you look to some article of scientific research to bolster your own position. This is classic special pleading, insofar as your argument is nothing more than you attempting to construct a case that the scientific method is flawed and invalid, except where it produces results that jibe with your personal notions of how the universe ought to be.
The colloquial term for such argumentation is a double-standard, or hypocrisy. You arguments on that thread were hypocritical, because they employed a double-standard with respect to the legitimacy of the scientific method. This is the fallacy of special pleading, where you make some argument that the general principle in operation should not apply to you for some reason.
Either you are right, and the scientific method is flawed and worthless, in which case every single scientific article you have ever disingenuously posted in support of your position is equally worthless. Or, you are wrong, and the scientific method is not flawed, in which case your arguments attempting to attack evolution by attacking the scientific method are invalid and worthless. Take your pick.
The geologic column in its final version consists of eleven basic layers. According to the evolutionary theory these layers were laid down over a period of millions of years.
Billions of years.
However, several problems arise when the geologic column is looked at through the theory of evolution. First, if the geologic column were to be compacted together, layer upon layer, its height would exceed 100 miles. This is a problem because one must consider the earth's crust is no greater than 30 miles thick and sedimenlary [sic] rocks are never found exceeding 15 miles in depth.
Why would the column have to be 100 miles thick? Because you said so? Have you taken into account compression over time (for example, sandstone is compressed to make it sandstone). Not all rock is sedimentary. Some is igneous and some metamorphic.
The Grand Canyon also presents a problem to the evolutionary geologic column because several sedimentary layers, such as the Cenozoic and Mesozoic strata, are absent. Such absences directly correspond with the many observations that the theorized transitional species between virtually every major group of animals is also missing.
You might check out The Geology of the Grand Canyon before proceeding along this line of thought.
One of the most stunning evidences against the supposed vast ages of the earth and the geologic column is the presence of human footprints in layers dated older than the Quaternary Period.
The only reporting of human footprints being found are the Paluxy River Man Tracks. Unfortunately for creationists these have been shown to be nothing more than eroded dinosaur tracks. If you have a list of others, please post it here. I'd like to track them down and read about them for myself.
In addition to footprints, human fossils have also been found in areas of the geologic column which represent time periods supposedly millions of years prior to modern man.
Really. Show us.
This is addressed in point three of the lead article for this thread:
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.I suggest you read the article's rebuttal.
The fossil record doesn't SAY anything, period. There are various interpretations of the apparent "order" of the fossil record. There is nothing in the fossil record that necessarily disproves or contradicts a creation of six days. There is nothing in the fossil record itself that tells how old the fossils are. Fossils do not have date stamps.
Cordially,
That was dealt with in the original post.
The short answer is that a subset of the "ancient monkeys" (primates, actually, our ancestor was neither man nor monkey, exactly) took one evolutionary path (to modern monkeys), and another subset took the path that leads to modern man.
Your question is as nonsensical as if you had asked, "if I descended from my great grandfather, why does my cousin exist?"
It's elementary, first week biology. And yet, ardent creationists ask this year after year, making it clear that they haven't bothered to learn the very first thing about evolution before dismissing it.
459 posted on 6/17/02 12:34 PM Pacific by That Subliminal Kid
I have to say that I am embarrased and ashamed to have someone like you speaking on the side of those who find problems with current Darwinian theory. Please stop posting on these threads.
What are these subliminals are you coming up with...oh below consciousness---stealth!
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