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.
One example of "intuition" is Einstein's theory of relativity. It was theory, not proven until years later (parts of it are still being "proven").
There is a lot of creativity and intuition in persuing pure science. Theories are imagination, and then it takes imagination to test the theory.
The idea that things can be measured and that laws of nature are universal are assumptions based on "divine revealation".
The 12th century philosophers who began science assumed that the universe was logical because God was logical. Because God was logical, then man, using his logic, was doing the work of God when he explored the universe. So you could say that the entire field of science is based on a "divine revealation" that nature is not a mysterious god to be worshipped, but a creation of a logical creator. And science assumes there is a logical explanation behind nature, because the original philosophy behind science, i.e. Christianity, assumed a logical creator who created things logically.
You know this is ad hominem (to the man) and therefore irrelevent. Evolution stands or falls on its own merits, not the motivation of its proponents. The same is true for proponents of "Intelligent Design." Of course their agenda is to prove God. So? ID stands or falls on the evidence they bring to the table. In that department they have a lot of work to do.
Pattern recognition. It is one of the characteristics that evolved into most of the higher animals. Humans can take it to abstract levels.
However, pattern recognition fails as often as it succeeds. Even Einstein produced flawed theories that he later scrapped. The validation of such an extrapolation relies on physical observations. Until it is validated by the normal materialistic routes of knowledge, it is a guess, a speculation -- and reviewing the history of guesses -- usually flawed, incomplete, or just dead wrong.
| You can't fold a solid rock. You most certainly can. |
Lecture 11 Structural Geology |
| CRETIGO: B (Personal Incredulity) | |
But why do you lay this at Darwin's feet? It is the purpose of science to find quantifiable explanations for natural phenomena. Back in Newton's day, people honestly believed that the planets moved in their courses because angels were pushing them around by hand. Newton came along and demonstrated that gravity was sufficient to explain all planetary motion, and as a result, Newton "banished God from the heavens themselves", as has been said. Why don't I see you railing against him? The distinction is political.
So OK, maybe the development of life is a series of divine miracles. But please don't call that science, and don't whine if science nevertheless tries to find rational explanations. That's what science is for. That's what science is. Calling something a supernatural miracle is a refusal to search for a rational explanation. It is a last resort after every possible rational explanation has been tried and disproven. It is a throwing up of the hands and an abdication of the goals and purposes of science.
That may seem to you like an appropriate response to the daunting complexities of life on Earth, but you are way out of line in chiding scientists for not feeling the same way. Science is what we do. Other people's belief systems can't be permitted to influence our research. The fact that basic biology offends your political sensibilities is of no more consequence than the offense some tribal shaman might take at the atomic theory of matter.
What is the Bible's valuation of pi?
Cordially,
| And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: [it was] round all about, and his height [was] five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. |
1Ki 7:23 |
| CRETIGO: | |
They just hide their heads in the sand and ignore all evidence against their theory. As you will notice their posts are always 'factually deficient'.
Well, sort of shows the evolutionists outlook does it not? If the answer is God, even if it is true, it is false! I thought science was about discovering the truth of nature. If God is part of that nature then it is science, like it or not.
You know this is ad hominem (to the man) and therefore irrelevent.
No it is not irrelevant. It is imbued in the whole philosophy of evolution. Darwin was an atheist but deceitfully hid it from the world throughout his life. In other words, he was a liar. That may be an attack on his character, but it is not an ad hominem. It is a factually correct statement.
That's not always and everywhere true, but it's certainly true that being a Christian in a largely Christian society is easier than choosing some other path. It was easier to worship Jupiter in Rome around AD 100 than it was to be a Christian, and now the roles are reversed - it's easier to be a Christian than to be some other way in this society.That's not to say that people choose it because it's easier, but that most people never really choose it at all - it's simply handed to them by their parents and society, and the only conscious choice often comes in the form of a choice to reject it, rather than to embrace it.
The general leaves a lot out, i.e. all the people choosing Christianity to get away from the human sacrafice, cannibalism, headhunting, headshrinking, debauchery etc. etc. which went along with the older religions.
I saw an interview once with a Maori who noted that Christianity was the best thing that ever happened to Indonesia and Borneo. The guys grandfather had spent ten or twelve years in colonial prisons for taking heads, and he said nobody had ever gotten a decent night's sleep in the whole history of the place (either because they were out all night hunting neighbors heads or worrying about other people taking THEIR heads), and that after the area was Christianized, all of that stopped and it became possible to lead productive lives. Basically, a man had to take at least one human head before he was elligible for marriage.
I mean, who the hell wants to live that way? Why would anybody in ancient Rome want to live that way? The decision to become a Christian, once the opportunity presented itself, was probably the easiest decision anybody in Rome ever made.
Quite true, there are many things which science cannot know of. Materialism is one of the silliest philosophies around, it denies the possibility of intelligence, logic, art, mathematics, geometry, conscience and much more - just about everything which makes humans human.
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