One Man's Quest to Leave This Rock

Once again, we start with AIG trying to be clever.

A conclusion does not prove the premises are true. That is, if the answer is “four,” we could arrive at that any number of ways: 2 + 2, 5 - 1, etc. In the same way, evolutionists often assume that since certain species or traits exist, this is proof of evolution because that’s how it must have happened. This argument, however, is self-reflexive and useless. The Bible offers another (and more sound) framework for how those traits and species came to be.

On the face of it, I generally agree with their reasoning.  But as with the other "arguments" they present, it only serves to highlight a parallel fallacious argument one often hears from creationists (e.g., Ray Comfort): "A creation requires a Creator."  So, naturally, I disagree with this statement as well; as stated, this argument is circular.

However, they then launch into awfully strange territory.  How do you determine that the Bible's framework is more sound?  How, exactly, does the Bible describe God's creation method (other than to point out that He said it and it was so)?  This seems like the absence of a framework, since there's no statement about God's creative method that we can verify or falsify.

It's also worth noting that we have plenty of evidence for how certain species or traits did evolve; this evidence is frequently ignored so that creationists can continue to cling to their non-framework.  Evidence for something does not go away merely because you ignore it, either.

Ironically, the Bible describes the earth as round and hanging in space—long before this could have been directly observed (Job 26:10; Isaiah 40:22). The appeal of this claim is that it stereotypes creationists as stuck in the past, since the common assumption is that people once universally believed the earth was flat before science “proved” otherwise (which wasn’t the case—only a few bought into the idea that the earth was flat). But even if this were true (it’s not), direct, repeatable observation shows us the earth is round and orbiting the sun. Evolutionary stories about fossils are not direct observations; they’re assumption-based beliefs.

If you've never debated a creationist before, this argument may seem audacious to you.  The creationist is not only telling you what you're arguing, but why you're arguing it.  This goes beyond merely attempting to demonstrate that the other side is wrong and ventures into guessing motives -- hoping to show that once the supposed motive is wrong, the argument that (according to them) must have sprung from it must also be false.

You can't debate creationists for long without having them inform you -- as if they know you better than you know you -- what you really think, believe, understand, and trust; where your faith lies, what your hope is in, and countless other things.  It's pernicious, it's presumptive, and it's wrong.

I've never used the "believing the earth is flat" argument myself (except as a tool to show how science refines its understanding over time, and not as an accusation against the creationist position).  However, were I to use it, all I would mean by it is that creationism is as demonstrably false as the notion that the Earth is flat -- that adherents are behaving much like the members of the Flat Earth Society; there is much that they must either be ignorant of, or must willingly ignore, or must be deliberately deceptive about, in order to maintain their position in light of the facts that a careful, systematic inquiry into the matter has been able to uncover.

But, as a Christian, I've learned that the first thing one must do when a philosophical opponent throws Scripture at you in defense of their point is to look at the Scripture itself and see what it has to say on the matter.  Let's look at the first reference, Job 26:10 (NASB):

He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness.

Okay.  I have no idea how this is supposed to demonstrate a spherical shape of the Earth or that it hangs in space.  I do note with some amusement that the only word that might be argued to describe the Earth's shape is the Hebrew word for "circle" (chug, which comes from a primitive root meaning "to inscribe a circle"; how does one inscribe a sphere with ancient Hebrew drawing tools?), not any Hebrew word for "sphere" (say, dur, as in Isaiah 22:18) -- a rather glaring omission in light of Biblical Hebrew's limited vocabulary.  If God was trying to describe scientific truth, why was He not more careful?

It seems a bit disingenuous to quote Job in any case.  There are passages in that book, for example, that teach that the sky is supported by pillars; language like this abounds throughout the text, and the status of the individual passages as metaphors and similes is not clear from the language alone.  I have not heard from a creationist how we are supposed to divine when a passage in Job is poetic and when it is meant to teach its readers scientific truth.

Maybe the second reference will be more helpful.  Here's Isaiah 40:22 in the NASB:

It is He Who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

Now, perhaps, we're getting somewhere!  Except, well, no.  This passage does not make it clear that the Earth hangs in space; and the word for "circle" is exactly the same one used in the passage from Job above (chug).

In order to make their position seem more scientifically sound, therefore, the creationists have stooped to claiming that the Bible says things that it does not.  This would seem to undermine one of the pillars of their stance (that creationism is a Biblically responsible understanding).

But this misses the main point.  "Evolutionary stories" can be tested to see whether or not they are consistent with the facts.  So can statements like "the Earth is round and orbiting the Sun".  This is nothing more than another veiled assertion that evolution cannot be falsified -- which, as pointed out before, speaks against the very efforts the creationists claim to be making.

Frankly, were I still a creationist, I'd find it hard not to be insulted by how idiotic the teachers seem to think adherents are.

Why does this argument fail? We’ll show you. Take a pencil or pen. Hold it in the air. Then drop it to the floor. That’s gravity. Next, make a single-celled organism—like an amoeba—turn into a goat. Go ahead. We’ll wait. . . . No? As you can see, there’s a fundamental difference between operational science, which can be tested through repeatable experimentation, and historical science, which cannot.

The idea that evolution cannot be tested is one of the most oft-repeated arguments against evolution -- and also one of the most wrong.

Evolution can be tested and has been tested.  Many times.  The idea that it cannot is one of those things creationists expect you to take at face value even though it's blatantly false -- like their claims that there are no transitional fossils, or their claims that the geologic column does not exist in its entirety in any one place on Earth.  Not only could it quickly be falsified if any molecule, gene, organ, or organism proved to be inconsistent with the laws of heredity applied to common descent(*), or if the fossil record proved to be static throughout its history, or if some mechanism were found that prevented mutations from accumulating; but also, every mechanism that evolution requires has been directly observed -- increased genetic material, increased genetic variety, brand-new genetic material, and brand-new genetically-regulated abilities.  These are all the kinds of changes evolution requires to be viable, and all have been directly witnessed.  What exactly is it that evolution is missing?

I expect that they're trying to slip in a hoary old argument: "Were you there?"  This naive question ignores the fact that there is here, and all we have to do is find out whether the evidence left behind is consistent with proposed explanations.  (Or is all forensic science suspect?)  The evidence is remarkably consistent with evolution; more to the point, it rather starkly contradicts the idea of special creation.

Besides, this argument is rather dishonest of creationists to use in any case.  Their entire argument for accepting creationism is that evolution can be tested and shown to be false (and, more to the point, in their imaginations, it has).  They can't have it both ways.  Either evolution can be tested and corroborated and known -- with a confidence even rivalling gravity -- or it cannot be tested, in which case, creationists are wasting their breath trying to argue against the position.

(*) No, seriously.  If the idea of common descent is true, then there is one, and only one, position for every organism in the tree of life.  There are lots of patterns that don't fit any kind of tree, and which would cast common descent into serious trouble if they were ever found; just find an organism with characteristics of a different group, ones that it could only have gotten "laterally" and not through descent.  More to the point, a tree of life is consistent with a model that includes heredity with variation.  Specially and separately designed things are not amenable to being sorted in trees.

I find it interesting that creationists have, thus far, not put their money where their mouths are.  They would rather spend their funds going on lecture tours among a public with little educational background in the subject and make books and DVDs than do actual research and find facts that would falsify evolution once and for all.

Errata: I mentioned a 1991 Gallup poll earlier, and summarized its findings by stating that 5% of people believe in creationism.  I meant to say that the poll shows that 5% of engineers and scientists believe in creationism; the belief amongst the general public is, regrettably, substantially higher.

Once again, I'll start with AIG's take on the issue.

The irony, of course, is that for centuries prior to Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species, the majority of scientists found the opposite to be true: the “evidence” supported creation. What changed? Not the evidence. Rather, the starting point changed (i.e., moving from the Bible, God’s Word, to humanism, man’s word). Creationists continue to see everything in light of God’s Word and all evidence as supporting the biblical account. In reality, there is no “neutral” starting point; everyone—whether they acknowledge it or not—interprets the “facts” according to a particular way of thinking (i.e., worldview).

The fact of the matter is that we've learned a lot over the past century and a half.  This is especially true in light of things that Darwin got wrong.  For example, he had no idea what mechanism existed for heredity; he hypothesized a system he called "pangenesis" that turned out to be incorrect.  Since Darwin's time, we've learned about genetics, molecular biology, and a host of other fields that -- against all odds -- turn out to corroborate elements of Darwin's ideas.  If evolution were wrong, we would expect these ideas to match reality less and less as more and more is discovered.

A working knowledge of evolution and how it works is necessary for developing better vaccines and better antibiotics; figuring out where to dig for fossil fuels; understanding the virulence of parasites; helping us use natural resources wisely through its predictions concerning biogeography; unifying biology under a central theory (removing it from being a useless collection of facts, and suggesting productive new areas of research); providing a basis for bioinformatics, a billion-dollar industry, with its assumption of descent with modification; managing fisheries for greater yields; inducing beneficial mutations in plant stock; creating better pesticides, removing pests and producing greater yield in our agriculture; retrieving species from the brink of extinction (e.g., the kakapo bird); shaping public health policy; predicting unknown gene function, which aids in pharmaceutical development; idenitifying disease reservoirs; predicting the step-by-step transmission of disease, permitting greater control over its spread and treatment; identifying micro-organisms that cannot be cultured or recognized except through phylogenetic analysis; creating and enhancing flavors; creating and enhancing strains of bacteria to break down biohazards; creating and enhancing enzymes; creating and enhancing biopigments; discerning the function and folding of proteins and enzymes; creating genetic algorithms, which have applications in architecture, data mining, electrical engineering, finance, geophysics, astrophysics, aerospace engineering, pattern recognition, military strategy, robotics, materials engineering, and systems engineering; creating countless statistical analysis techniques, including linear regression analysis and analysis of variance, which are used in innumerable ways to study many other things -- its analysis techniques can be applied to determining the history of manuscripts (including Biblical ones!) and languages (including Biblical ones!); and, in a non-trivial sense, it satisfies some kinds of curiosity and inspires others.

All of these fields would fail to work properly if the tenets of evolution were false.  Is it just coincidence that all these fields work properly in spite of evolution being wrong?

There are also findings in science that one must reject if one accepts young-Earth creationism.  These include, but are not limited to, general physics, cosmology, materials science, mechanics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, fluid mechanics, reaction kinetics, physical chemistry, cellular automata (in programming), biochemistry, zoology, genetics, immunology, pharmacology, morphology, plate tectonics, botany, meteorology, paleontology, vulcanology, anthropology, archaeology, history, stratigraphy, geomorphology, and linguistics.  It seems ridiculous to claim that God does not lie, that the Earth really is young and all these different investigational fields are simply wrong.

Perhaps more saliently, there is no field of study that requires young-Earth creationism to be true in order to function properly.  Creationism produces no viable scientific work or line of research; the only practical application seems to be keeping young-Earth creationist teachers employed.

This has nothing to do with "worldview".  Even from a strictly pragmatic point of view, if evolution were false, then there are countless other disciplines that would not work at all.  The fact that they do is a powerful testament to the idea that evolution is substantially correct.

Besides the arrogance of such statements, this argument has no footing and should be cast off. Mainly, those who make this claim usually define “educated people” as those who accept evolution. Anyone who disagrees fails the test, no matter what their background (e.g., if we follow this ideology, Isaac Newton must have been uneducated). There are many lists of well-educated scholars who look to the Bible for answers (here’s one)—and we could point out Darwin’s own deficit of formal education (he earned a bachelor’s in theology). But the bigger issue is that education—or lack—does not guarantee the validity of a person’s position.

It is true that, generally speaking, creationists are not idiots.  I was one for many years -- more than half my life -- and the family who raised me is full of creationists, and not one of them is someone I'd call stupid or "uneducated".  It's also the case that one's education, or lack thereof, is no indication of the truth of their position.

However, it is also interesting to note that a 2009 Gallup poll showed that the more education a person has, the more likely they are to accept evolution.  If creationism is just as valid as evolution, why would this be so?  Insisting that there's something pernicious about the educational process that forces or encourages people to embrace evolution smacks more of a conspiracy theory than a well-thought-out analysis of the situation.  This also does not explain people like me, who remained a creationist throughout their formal education and only embraced evolution years after that formal education was complete.

I can also speak from direct experience and point out that there is a tremendous amount of miseducation about evolution going on in the creationist camp.  The most common tactic is to employ the so-called "strawman argument", in which the creationist creates a parody of his opponent's position, shows how ridiculous the parody is, and then pretends that by showing the laughable nature of the parody, he has shown the laughable nature of evolution itself.  For example, no one who understands evolution believes that it is a random process, or thinks that life started from a rock, or believes that the weak members of the population ought to be removed.  You'll also run into arguments that are simply made up in order to make the evidence for evolution seem shaky -- for example, that there are no transitional fossils (there are), or that the entire geologic column does not exist in one place (it does), or that we've never seen one species become another (we have), or that we've never observed a beneficial mutation (we have).  In that sense, there certainly is a way that creationists are "uneducated"; they've been told a litany of things that simply do not correspond to reality.

Finally, Answers In Genesis' list of scholars certainly appears to be a list of well-educated people.  But it's useful to take a few moments to notice a few things about this list, if you'll permit me.

Firs of all, it's informative to note how many on the list have anything to do with biology.  Not very many.  This is curious in light of the fact that evolution is a biological theory.  If creationism were just as valid, one might expect the list to be bursting with biologists.  Why isn't it?

It's also interesting to note that a list of individuals gives one a very poor idea of how widely accepted a theory is.  Even if a list has several hundred members, this means little unless we know what the community in general thinks.  After we take this step back, the facts are stark.

In the United States -- the industrialized nation with more creationists than any other -- only about five percent (5%) believe in creationism, according to a 1991 Gallup poll.  Once you reduce the people being asked to the relevant life and earth sciences, Newsweek found that only about 700 out of roughly 480,000 individuals believe in creationism -- only about 0.15%, or barely more than one in a thousand.  There are more historians who believe that the Holocaust of Nazi Germany was a hoax than relevantly educated people who believe in creationism (taken as a percentage or a raw number).  If the numbers really are large enough to consider creationism viable, are they also large enough to consider that the idea of a hoaxed Holocaust might be worth considering?

(It's also interesting to note the results of the NCSE's "Project Steve", in which only the scientists with the first name "Steve", or a derivative of that name, were permitted to sign in in support of evolution.  As I type, this list is more than 1100 individuals strong -- dwarfing AIG's list all by itself -- and growing.)

What is important is not who believes in something, but what evidence exists to support or contradict a particular position.  The evidence far and away comes down in support of evolution; personal authority is completely irrelevant.

It's also the case that AIG's list has enormous gaping holes in its logic.  For example, listing people as creationists who, based on the time they lived, had no proposed alternative in order to pad one's list out is a bit disingenuous.  In addition, some of the individuals listed weren't exactly creationists in the sense that AIG supports -- that is, that the Noachian flood was global, the Earth and the Universe are only a few thousand years old, and so on.  In addition, many of the list's constituents are not as solid as the list seems to want to pretend.  A few quick examples:

James Dana hold out for a while, but by 1874, fully accepted evolution -- he made a particular point out of accepting the descent of man from other, earlier species.  Why would AIG be trying to put him in this list?

Louis Aggasiz was a notable bigot who preached that different human "races" had different origins; some, like the Negroes, did not come from Adam and Eve.  He was, to our shame, very popular in the American Christian lecture circuit.

John William Dawson may have been a creationist until the day he died, but he also took pains to point out that evolution is not inconsistent with design -- hardly the creationist viewpoint.

Richard Owen accepted evolution, though he rejected Darwin's proposed mechanism for it.  He certainly shouldn't be listed as a creationist.

Philip H. Gosse believed in young-Earth creationism, but he taught that the Earth was created with every appearance of great age.  This was unpopular at the time, since it made God out to be something of a liar or a trickster.  It's also rather different from AIG's stance, which is that the evidence available really reveals a young Earth, and that "evolutionists" are simply blinded to this evidence.

Dr. Harold Slusher got his "doctorate" from a diploma mill.  He's a fraud.

Dr. Duane Gish might ostensibly be called a biochemist, but he has not practiced any biochemistry in many years.  More to the point, he's gotten a well-deserved reputation for dishonesty in his arguments.  For example, he insists that a human's cytochrome c is closer to that of a bullfrog than any other animal -- a claim that is patently false, since a chimp's cytochrome c is identical to that of a human, and a bullfrog's differs from a human's in length of amino acids alone (never mind the placement of those acids).

I could go on, but it's worth noting that not only is AIG's list inaccurate, it's deliberately misleading.  As with the larger point of which this list is a part, it falls flat on its face.

Here's what AIG has to say on the subject:

When our core beliefs are attacked, it’s often easy for humans to retreat to statements such as this: “My belief is a fact, and yours is wrong.” That’s exactly why we cannot trust mere human understanding to explain the unobservable past—emotion and pride get in the way. Evolution is not a fact, no matter how many times evolutionists say it is. It’s a framework built on assumptions about the past—assumptions that will never have direct, first-hand, observational proof.

First of all, we don't claim that evolution is a fact because other people attack it.  We claim it's a fact for the same reason we can claim that any other well-corroborated theory is a fact; it's so well-tested that it is simply perverse to withhold acceptance.  First of all, it's been directly observed; we have watched as one species has turned into another (dozens of times), and even directly observed sweeping changes that cross the broadest taxonomic categories that we have (e.g., Helacyton gartleri and Sticker's sarcoma).  We've tested it countless times, and every new discovery continues to test it, with every molecule, every gene, every organ, and every species posing a potential falsification; all we've ever seen are powerful corroborations of the theory.

It is pedagogically true that everything in science is uncertain.  However, evolution is more firmly corroborated than just about any other theory science employs; to claim that evolution is untrustworthy in its claims on this basis is to cast atomic theory into doubt, or germ theory, or the heliocentric theory of the Solar System, or (as we'll see later) gravitational theory.  If you believe that it is a fact that the Sun will rise tomorrow, or that a rock released from rest a meter above the ground will fall towards the Earth's surface, then evolution is a fact.

Answers In Genesis harps on a largely irrelevant philosophical objection.  The very fact that you're reading this blog is a testament to the predictive power of science, even if no conclusion can really be treated as final.  Even though we obviously don't have an absolutely complete picture of evolution, it's so well substantiated that we can feel completely comfortable treating it as established.

A lot has happened since my last post... moving my family to a different part of the country, tangling for a while with some creationists on a local radio talk show's forum, and a mess of other things.  I've been trying to figure out an appropriate way to return to posting.

A conversation with an old friend reminded me of a recent article by Answers In Genesis that requires addressing.

A long time ago, the posted a list of arguments creationists shouldn't use -- statements that were more scientifically egregious than usual, and which might be relatively easily refuted by those who know a little science.  Much more recently, they turned their usual long-debunked arguments against evolution into a list of arguments "evolutionists" shouldn't use, which only illustrates how deeply they don't get science.  I'll be taking on each of these arguments and showing in detail why they're bogus.

You can mention this story whenever someone insists that creationists are being silenced by the scientific establishment:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2008/10/24/emory_evolution_teach.html

Some students burst into tears when a high school biology told them they'd be studying evolution. Another teacher said some students repeatedly screamed "no" when he began talking about it.

Other teachers said students demanded to know whether they pray and questioned why the had to learn about evolution if it was just a theory.

Gosh, this sure sounds like well-reasoned debate and allowing the fair exchange of ideas, doesn't it?  I know I could debate better than this in high school.  (It's an educational article generally.  I invite you to go read it.)

This is why I think more history of science needs to be taught.  Evolution was proposed before Darwin -- all he did was provide a testable mechanism -- because geologists found that certain fossils were always found at or above certain strata, which was a useful thing to find because it allowed the railroad and canal makers to accurately determine where to put their conveyances so that they wuld be well-supported by the underlying material.  Turns out that ideology had nothing to do with it, unless you count greed and curiosity as ideologies.

Gene Myers was one of the people in charge of sequencing the human genome.  He was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle by Tom Abate:

What really astounds me is the architecture of life…The system is extremely complex. It's like it was designed… There's a huge intelligence there.

Of course, the creationists pounced on this like it was relevant or something.

Well, he was asked flatly whether or not he is a supporter of Intelligent Design, and here's his answer:

I am not. I am being taken out of context and upset about this. Abate [SF Chronicle reporter] interviewed me shortly after we had completed the genome and for a moment I waxed poetic about the complexity of what was there and the elegance of the 'design'. Evolution is very real - it is directly observable in the time frames of mutating bacteria, e.g. the acquisition of antibiotic resistance.

http://www.tonkafocus.org/Amicus%20brief%20info.htm

You think the creationists will stop quoting him now?  Yeah, me neither.

Here's part of an exam issued to the members of the Kansas State Board of Education:

1. As a State Board of Education member, which of the following organizations would you trust to inform your decision-making in regards to science? Check all that apply.

a. American Association for the Advancement of Science _____
b. The Intelligent Design Network ____
c. The National Academies of Science _____
d. The Discovery Institute ____
e. The American Institute of Biological Sciences _____
f. Answers in Genesis ____
g. The National Science Teachers Association _____
h. The Institute for Creation Research _____

 

Don't rush, now.

Did you get a, c, e, and g?

Good for you.  Thankfully, no one chose only b, d, f, and h... but I'd think twice about Kathy Martin and Dennis Hedke.

 

http://www.kcfs.org/kcfsnews/?p=245#more-245