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.
I probably did get a little testy last night. My apologies. I shouldn't post to other people while I'm posting to AndrewC.
Yes, you can fold solid rock. You don't need catastrophism (and catastrophism produces wrong results anyway) because we can observe and measure the very tectonic forces that moved the continents around still moving and warping them today. The Himalayas are still measurably rising right now, just as fast as they ever were. The sea floors are measurably spreading, right now. Over geologic time scales, the rates of change we have now are enough to produce the history of continental drift and collision you see on pages like this one. The links on the left of the page give you a map series from the late Precambrian.
Well, are you able to look at a piece of evidence without viewing it through the eyes of an evolutionist? When you see a fossil, what to you see? Is your view of the existance of the fossil not affected by your presupposion of the truth of evolution?
I assume the fossil is the surviving physical trace of some ancient life form.
I've already said that I see the fossil differently. I do not deny it's existance. For me, I believe the fossil got that way differently than you say it did.
This seems rather cagily phrased. Are you saying the fossil was created in the ground--faked?--as opposed to being what it looks like? I've heard of the Omphalos hypothesis, frequently satirized as Last Thursdayism. You can go there if you want. It can't be disproven, but they'll teach it in science classes over my dead body.
True, but irrelevant to your error.
I'm sorry to inform you that identical and equivalent are 2 different words.
The question was
I have a question for you. Is acceleration mathematically equivalent to gravity?
If you don't like the General Relativity part, go dig up Einstein and argue with him.
Well, that's because in the minds of many, killing a wholly innocent partly or fully formed child is fundamentally different from killing a serial child rapist or a cop killer or a mass murderer. You may not be able to see the difference, but most people do. (I am against both, but I can clearly see the difference between the two!) What's harder to explain are those (liberals) who are up in arms about the death penalty (saving serial child rapists), while promoting and supporting things like partial birth abortion and even letting babies die after they're born, if they were born during an abortion procedure. For them, things like second hand smoke are more important.
Could you post a reference where Darwin says this is his starting point?
Hey Jlogjan - Christianity implores people to do good and be their best and most selfless in life. Why so much scorn for it?
Makes a lot of sense to me.
This looks a little like Arthur C. Clarke's statement, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Let's take a look at an intriguing parallel.
The Kevin Curry paraphrase: "The intervention of a sufficiently powerful, knowing, and widespread entity is indistinguishable from . . . no intervention at all."
What strikes me is that, while neither version can be easily disproven, old Arthur's statement had a certain intuitive quality to it. It looks true. People reading it for the first time tend to accept it at once as an insight to the situation.
Kevin's version, on the other hand, makes me scratch my head and say "Why would that be?"
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.