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.
Then I agree with you on that.
I don't fault science or scientists for this. I just wish more people recognized the inherant limitations to this way of thinking, especially when some use it as the foundation for their entire life's philosophy.
Maybe I'm just too old and familiar with my limitations, but I don't see any other ways to think being demonstrated. Nor that such will produce any superior results - call me when you have some.
No, I don't follow red herring. I just refuse to be distracted. I choose which way I go. We were arguing about the applicability of falsifiability. The argument was on Newton, who was selected by someone from a selection I offered.
If ID is a theory then you need to demonstrate such by presenting the theory, stating the predictions made by the theory, offering up a means of testing those predictions and setting up criteria -- test results -- that should never occur if the theory is valid.
I really doubt that Newton or many other scientists who explained a phenomenon met these rules you have established.
Newton's theories on gravitational attraction made specific predictions that could very well be tested.
You are requiring the person explaining something to come up with all of these things. Show me the package that Sir Isaac produced before investigations(experiments, calculations, etc) or any hypothesis was proposed.
ID was not mentioned except by the other side. And you can see I was not pleading for special consideration, I was asserting that the other side was making it special. At a certain point you attempted to discredit my arguments by Ad Hominem. When you all jumped on that point, and since I knew how Ad Hominem looked and smelled, having been the target of that Darwinian attack nearly every day, I decided to argue that point. You having lost that point suddenly spring the charge of special pleading even though you have never mentioned that previously. Your futile attempts to squirm out of your illogical and lost position are a wonder to behold. You plead wonderous logic from the beginning. What a hoot! I plead nothing special for anything. I plead the same treatment for ID as any other science. That is why I was showing how Newton did not meet all of the criteria prior to his theory's consideration as science. Physicist and RadioAstronomer assert the same footing for the science of SETI. You committed Ad Hominem as I have concretely and conclusively demonstrated. The best handwaving you could muster was that it was a self-serving definition. Another Ad Hominem. And yes, at this point I too am using Ad Hominem. After all, your logical arguments are in tatters and the only thing left standing is your inane ego.
Promise?
Absolutely, they were inspired, but then again, some would say that Oral Roberts was divinely inspired when he begged for eight million dollars (lest he be called Home) on national television a few years ago, too. It's all in the interpretation.
V/R
I thought the Gospel of Thomas was removed much earlier than the King James Bible - like during the 7'th century. Was it really still a part of the Biblical canon at that late date?
If the Creationists are correct (and I'm in this camp) then at the end of our physical lives we take on a new life via our Souls. Creationists and those who profess faith in God and accept the salvation that Jesus Christ purchased through his blood for us, will ascend to Heaven for a joyous afterlife. Evolutionists on the other hand, will not. They will go to a place with a much warmer "climate" to spend eternity.
If the Evolutionists are right, I believe in a bunch of nonsense but since I'll be dead and cease to exist in all forms anyway, it just won't matter. Heck, they won't even exist in such a form as to say "I told you so!"
But if the we Creationists and believers are right, Evolutionists will spend eternity in an extreme southern-most climate crying out for water. Why Evolutionists insist on taking such a risk with their souls is simply beyond me. I've felt God's love and forgiveness for myself. I would never want to turn away from him. Perhaps Evolutionists have never opened their hearts and spirits?
But what if, jlogjan, part of it is allegorical, yet therein still lies God's truth. Imagine what you would be thinking if you were discover that one day...
That's fine, but if you're talking about time, you are talking about the cause/effect chain in which we live, and that exists within our universe. Time exists in the universe; the universe does not exist in time. Things outside of our universe cannot be fit into our historical narrative, but when you use the word "before", you are attempting to do just that.
I'm sorry, but this is a non sequitur. Several of us "evolutionists" are quite comfortable with there being an afterlife. However, it should be noted, you physical body does become "food for worms."
But what if there is a God who has principles that He wants you to live by? In other words, what if your principles are irrelevant to Him?
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