This article is over ten years old, but it is still apropos. Creationists are still using the same empty arguments, and this article still neuters them. I know I have repeatedly had to endure these quibbles, put forward with such fervent confidence every time, and it would be nice to simply be able to refer them to these answers.
Here are a few examples of their challenges:
Evolution is only a theory.
If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils.
Follow the link below to see them deflated.
On that note, why do creationists always ask questions like these? They’re trying to replace a well-tested theory with something that they think is better. Why aren’t they defending their candidate with science instead of always muddying the water with these specious arguments?
Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don’t hold up
Source: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense – Scientific American
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Henry G. Wiebe sent me a message challenging evolution. I hope he will partake in an analysis of his writing here. I will address his points one at a time. I’ve already asked him to read the article mentioned in this post. I will assume he has done so, relieving me of needless repetition.
Henry, you start with this:
“Having studied both evolutionist and creationist literature, consulted websites on both perspectives plus pursued courses and discussions on both fields of thought, I have come to the conclusion that the following seven issues settle the matter. I would appreciate hearing from you as to the validity of my conclusion. This is not a trivial issue to be brushed aside. It has huge implications for life. I need you to give me proof of error if I am wrong. The majority of the media and academia simply accept the theory of evolution as fact. Is it really fact?”
You demand “proof of error,” but offer none in your criticism.
Of course evolution is a fact. Everything evolves, including the arguments of creationsts against it. What, exactly, do you think evolution is?
rjb
Mr Wiebe sent me another message reiterating what he said in the first one, complete with six assumptions about my “worldview” and how it differs from his. He attached a long, wandering essay full of assertions and quotations that apparently support his worldview and refute mine, but didn’t do anything to explain what he thinks evolution is. Stay tuned. I will see if I can get him to discuss it here where everyone can see it.
Mr Wiebe, what do you think evolution is?
rjb
Definition of evolution.
Evolution is generally defined as the process by which different kinds of living organisms have gradually developed and diversified from earlier simple forms to more complex ones over a very long time. These changes are due to natural selection acting upon adaptive random mutations.
You have asked for my definition. The above generally accepted version assumes the existence of space, time, energy and matter. It provides no explanation as to how these came into being. It is my conclusion that a more complete description of evolutionary theory would be: “Starting with nothing, somehow space, time, energy and matter came into being and somehow living organisms were formed. Thereafter, by the process of evolution, different kinds of living organisms gradually developed and diversified from earlier simple forms to more complex ones over a very long time. These changes were due to natural selection acting upon adaptive random mutations.
That is why the first thing that has to be determined is why there is something instead of nothing. If a totally naturalistic explanation can be given for that I need to rethink my position. If an eternally self-existent and all-powerful Being is the Creator then that needs to be vitally included in all discussions about the development of our universe and all living things, including our existence. It was the first item on the list I submitted for response.
I repeat my request for an explanation of how all that exists can come about on a purely naturalistic basis.
Henry Wiebe
The first definition is more accurate. Your definition is wrong, and obviously meant to divert us down the wrong path. Evolution, like gravity, is real, and the theory of evolution is our evolving model of how it works. Just as the theory of gravity is our evolving model of how gravity works. Your claim that the theory is meant to deal with a so-called “First Cause” is false. It doesn’t. It deals with evolution. You can’t falsify evolution by creating false requirements.
Your question of why there is something instead of nothing is a time-honored speculation which has been addressed by many people. It makes for interesting conversation and has produced many guesses. Even scientists are known to indulge on occasion, because speculation can stimulate the mind. It doesn’t change the fact that the theory of evolution is about evolution, not this kind of speculation.
Now that we have a working definition, let’s move on to the next thing in your essay.
Under “First Cause” you say “We can envision an eternally self-existing God,” which provokes the question of why you can’t envision eternal pre-existence for physical reality. You call it untenable, but you don’t explain why. You’ve simply chosen what you prefer to believe and tried to pass it off as logical. I quote: “The only logical choice is an eternally self-existent God capable of creation.” Then you imply that any other choice means that the universe is without a cause. This is weak logic that only holds if you start with the assumption that your conclusion is true. And it has no application to the theory of evolution.
Next time we’ll deal with your section on “Intelligent Design.”
rjb
Henry responded by email, so I’m posting it here for him. – rjb
Comment: First Cause
Jim, (if you want me to use Mr. Bowering I will do so but I’m just Henry) you are absolutely right that some physical, eternally self-existent matter is the alternative to postulating an eternally self-existent, all-powerful Creator. But if I were to adopt that conclusion there would be a problem. It would contradict the idea that everything obeys natural processes. An eternally self-existent, physical entity is a very supernatural item. Not only that, dismissing the idea of intelligent design would mean that would be attributing to this self-existent matter the potential to produce all the intricately complex, mind-boggling processes, organisms and laws of nature without having the ability to plan, choose or design anything. Nothing doesn’t produce something. Also, if nothing explodes (as in the Big Bang) you still have nothing. That is why I cannot avoid how it all originated when making my decision.
I shall wait also for your explanation on how evolution avoids intelligent design. Since you are inviting others to join our online discussion it would be best if I let them see the brief case I made for intelligent design.
Intelligent Design
Even an item as simple as an arrowhead is accepted as conclusive evidence of formation by design. It was made by someone for a purpose. Our universe from the tiniest cell to the outer galaxies is full of intricate systems and complicated organization that infinitely outweighs the simple facts we use as evidence for the design in an arrowhead. How can we then conclude there was no designer behind our universe? The idea has been proposed that there are an infinite number of parallel universes and our universe happened to be the one that by accident turned out designed. This is not a testable hypothesis and doesn’t explain how even one universe came into being.
If a few features in an arrowhead show design for a purpose how can we conclude infinitely more complex features in living things came about without a Designer?
First cause stuff:
How would eternally pre-existing physical reality contradict natural processes any more than eternally pre-existing gods do?
How would it be more supernatural?
Why are planning, choosing and designing necessary?
Once again, not germane to the theory of evolution.
ID next comment.
rjb
On to intelligent design (ID)
You criticize something (I think it’s the many worlds hypothesis coming out of String Theory) for being an untestable hypothesis, while apparently overlooking the fact that you’re describing your own god. Both, at present, are hypothetical and untestable.
You assert that since the universe is bigger and more complicated than an arrow head, that it must have been designed by something. This is an assertion only. That it is big and complicated is not enough to support this claim. It needs evidence such as clear marks of intent and manipulation. Unlike the arrow head, it doesn’t have such marks. The feeling that it must be so is not evidence.
Not applicable to the theory of evolution.
Next, your section on Mutations and DNA.
rjb
First Cause questions
How would eternally pre-existing physical reality contradict natural processes any more than eternally pre-existing gods do?
How would it be more supernatural?
Answer: Atheistic evolution denies the supernatural, creationism accepts it. Therefore an eternally pre-existent reality would contradict what evolutionists believe. An eternally pre-existent God does not contradict what creationists believe. Both require a supernatural event.
Why are planning, choosing and designing necessary?
The reality of life is that without planning, choosing and/or designing we simply don’t achieve anything or develop anything.
Once again, not germane to the theory of evolution.
On the contrary eternally pre-existent ‘something’ is assumed by evolutionists. It is an essential step otherwise there is nothing for natural selection to select from nor is there anything to mutate. Without the first step there are no other steps.
On to intelligent design (ID)
You criticize something (I think it’s the many worlds hypothesis coming out of String Theory) for being an untestable hypothesis, while apparently overlooking the fact that you’re describing your own god. Both, at present, are hypothetical and untestable.
The many worlds hypothesis demands unexplained pre-existence as in the dichotomy above. God is supernatural. Assumed existence of another world would also be supernatural. Yes, both are scientifically untestable.
You assert that since the universe is bigger and more complicated than an arrow head, that it must have been designed by something. This is an assertion only. That it is big and complicated is not enough to support this claim. It needs evidence such as clear marks of intent and manipulation. Unlike the arrow head, it doesn’t have such marks. The feeling that it must be so is not evidence.
Yes, the universe is more complex by far than an arrowhead. It is a valid deduction to state that if we accept that the arrowhead was designed by someone, anything more complex than the arrowhead must also have been designed. However, we can bring that down to the following practical example if that makes it clearer. Many thousands of similar examples could be used.
“Anatomy of a Worker Bee
1. Compound eyes able to analyze light for navigation and flower recognition.
2. Three additional eyes for navigation.
3. Two antennae for smell and touch.
4. Grooves on front legs to clean antennae.
5. Tube-like proboscis to suck in nectar and water. When not in use it curls back under the head.
6. Two mandibles to hold, crush, and form wax.
7. Honey tank for temporary storage of nectar.
8. Enzymes in honey tank which will ultimately change the nectar into honey.
9. Glands in abdomen produce beeswax, which is secreted as scales at the rear of the body.
10. Five-segmented legs which can turn in any direction.
The list could go on for many more features. I cannot see how anyone can come to the conclusion that this was not planned, chosen and designed. The same challenge exists for each of the multitude of plants and animals species that exist. None of that comes by chance or natural selection.
Not applicable to the theory of evolution.
No, it is a very crucial consideration for evolutionists.
In case there are others reading this I will paste the item I submitted originally about Intelligent Design.
Intelligent Design
Even an item as simple as an arrowhead is accepted as conclusive evidence of formation by design. It was made by someone for a purpose. Our universe from the tiniest cell to the outer galaxies is full of intricate systems and complicated organization that infinitely outweighs the simple facts we use as evidence for the design in an arrowhead. How can we then conclude there was no designer behind our universe? The idea has been proposed that there are an infinite number of parallel universes and our universe happened to be the one that by accident turned out designed. This is not a testable hypothesis and doesn’t explain how even one universe came into being.
If a few features in an arrowhead show design for a purpose how can we conclude infinitely more complex features in living things came about without a Designer?
Henry, you make a lot of assumptions about what other people think and believe. Not coincidentally, your assumptions (straw men) support your assertions.
You continue to try to saddle the theory of evolution with origin myths. That is another discussion. Here we’re discussing evolution.
You imply that evolution is trying to achieve something, when it’s not.
Contrary to your belief, it is possible to study evolution without positing any hypothetical “first step.”
Your examples of evolutionary adaptation are not evidence of design by an intelligent agent, unless you want them to be.
Contrary to your belief, it is possible to study evolution without positing a supernatural designer. It need not be a consideration, crucial or otherwise.
Many things come about by chance and natural selection. That’s what causes evolution.
Your section on mutations and DNA:
In this section you show an interesting take on it. Where did you learn that speciation requires the addition of DNA? Do you trust your source? Did you cross-check it?
A building is a poor analogy for evolution. If you want to use buildings, I suggest the evolution of building practises over time. Not a single building.
It is true that mutations often spell trouble for an organism. Sometimes, though, they are relatively benign. They might just give you blue eyes, for instance. Rarely, they can confer an advantage, such as the ability to metabolize the alcohol in fermenting fruit. This can all happen by changing the DNA without addition or subtraction.
Your confusion in this area calls for more study, with more reliable sources.
Next, the myth of irreducible complexity. In the meantime, re-read number fifteen in the article linked in this post.
rjb
Here’s Henry’s section on Irreducible Complexity:
The false argument of irreducible complexity has been exposed for a long time. That creationists continue to use it is embarrassing. Their argument always comes in the form of an example of something complex that they believe would be untenable if it were any less complex. They labor to phrase it in such a way that they think will allow no reasonable response. This iron-clad “logic” apparently blinds them to reality. The examples are routinely debunked by examples of less complex analogues, but they don’t listen. They cling to the false belief that one example of complexity acts to forbid similar examples of less complexity.
Please reread section fifteen in the linked Scientific American article where this empty argument is dismissed with facts yet again. For those too busy to do that, here’s a very short, simplified paraphrase.
Creationist (Behe) says bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex, needing all parts, which are only useful in a working flagellum, present and working. Biologists show that all the parts are used in other ways in other organisms, and that simpler flagella also exist, knocking support from under Behe’s argument. The same is true for other examples in other biological systems, including eyes.
The re-purposing of biological components is actually a good example of how evolution works.
rjb
I am puzzled that someone would conclude that the complexity of the multi-millions of living and inanimate entities all around us is an assumption of design and purpose, but to have the laws of nature, physical elements and many of the requirements for existence just appear in place without explanation is not an assumption. This is illogical and does not match reality. The purpose of the following paragraphs is to emphasize the huge challenge faced by mutations with natural selection.
I think you were a secondary school science teacher and would know that at conception you and I and everyone else was a zygote. This means that you and I were a one-celled fertilized egg in our mother’s womb. Inside that one cell was a six foot coiled strand, invisible to our eyes. It held the DNA code that controlled what we would become physically, intellectually and much of what our personality and natural abilities would be. That first cell was the size of a period at the end of a sentence and surpassed the potential of the most powerful computer we’ve ever known. The coded instructions on that DNA strand are indisputable evidence of a very, very intelligent Designer. Not even the simplest calculator would be thought of as appearing by chance and natural selection and mutations. You may object that it was not living. This just makes it more profound. Who could envision a living computer of any size that can live, grow and reproduce? The next paragraph describes additional reasons why I’m convinced an intelligent Designer created us.
A marvellous 9 month construction project got underway as the cells in the mother’s womb multiplied. The DNA supervised which cells would become a web of nerves, a skeleton of bones, a system of organs, a network of blood vessels, a brain control center, etc. All was done in just the right order and put in exactly the right place to create a functioning human being. A Designer is not an assumption!
You also made it clear a week or two ago that planning, choosing and purpose are not involved in evolution. Yet in the previous reply you spoke of the “re-purposing of biological componentsâ€!?!
You also asked about sources and cross-checking. Some of the following information comes from “The Evolution Handbook†by Vance Ferrell, 2001. It contains a collection of informational quotes from non-Christian and Christian scientists. I don’t know your address and I respect your desire for privacy. But you know mine and if you come I’ll lend it to you, plus a CD on “God and Science’.
“One of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century was the discovery of the DNA molecule. It has had a powerful effect on biological research. It has also brought quandary and confusion to evolutionist scientists. If they cared to admit the full implications of DNA, it would also bring total destruction of their theory.†(p.242) The DNA code and the components of protein are so utterly complicated as to defy any possibility that they could have been produced by random events.
“Because of the barrier of the multi-billion DNA code, not only was it impossible for life to form by accident, it could never thereafter evolve into new and different species. Each successive speciation change would require highly exacting code to be in place on the very first day of its existence as a unique new species.†P.243 (Note the account of our birth above.)
“The code within each DNA cell is complicated in the extreme! If you were to put all the coded DNA instructions from just ONE single human cell into English it would fill many large volumes, each volume the size of an unabridged dictionary!†p.245
You undoubtedly know the process that follows. Each DNA ‘ladder’ unhooks, splits down the middle and rehooks. This occurs at the rate of up to 1000 base pairs per second! “If DNA did not divide this quickly, it could take 10,000 years for you to grow from that first cell to a newborn infant. Human cells can divide more than fifty times before dying. When they do die, they are immediately replaced. Every minute 3 billion cells die in your body and are immediately replaced.†P. 246 All this by random mutations that are more than 99% injurious or lethal? Totally impossible!!
“In order to form a protein, the DNA molecule has to direct the placement of amino acids in a certain specific order in a molecule made up of hundreds of thousands of units. For each position it must choose the correct amino acid from some twenty different amino acids. DNA itself is made up of only four different building blocks (A,G,C and T). These are arranged in basic code units of three factors per unit (A-C-C, G-T-A, etc.) This provides 64 basic code units. With them, millions of separate codes can be sequentially constructed. Each code determines one of the many millions of factors in your body, organs, brain and all their functions. If just one code were omitted, you would be in serious trouble.†P. 247
I stand in awe of a Creator this powerful. Even more, it is amazing that He loves Jim and Henry and each one on this planet. His handiwork is astounding.
Enough for now. More on mutations next before we move to irreducible complexity.
Scientists do make assumptions, and they admit it. They assume that physics is the same everywhere, for instance. Your puzzlement is unnecessary.
DNA does not “control” what we become, although it does strongly affect it.
DNA is not “indisputable evidence” for your beliefs. You might think it is because of your beliefs.
You’ve misunderstood my use of the word “re-purposing.” Did you do it for rhetorical purposes? Evolution has no forethought. It does not plan. It does not choose. It does not have a purpose or a goal. It happens, sometimes as a result of an ORGANISM re-purposing something. Evolution is a result, not the cause, of change over time.
The DNA molecule was discovered in the 19th century. What is your evidence for the quandary, confusion and total destruction you mention? I’m skipping the other quotes. They’re full of exaggerations meant to support pre-held beliefs.
I’ve downloaded the PDF of “The Evolution Handbook.” If it’s the source of those quotes you pulled, then I dread reading it. But I will.
When you move to IC, please be sure to re-read the linked SA article to avoid repeating mistakes.
rjb
I’ve read chapter one of “The Evolution Handbook,†and here are the notes I made.
On the front page it says “annihilate evolutionary theory,” which makes me doubt its impartiality. I’m guessing it will be full of arguments for use by creationists.
714 pages!?! You have to read 714 pages of real science now, Henry.-)
An appeal to science by anti-scientists. Why?
Yup. It’s based on a series called “Evolution Disproved.” Bias alert!
The introduction to chapter one is a Straw Man.
It’s a screed. I worry for anyone who isn’t sceptical of its message.
This is hate speech. It demonizes.
The usual misuse of the 2nd law.
Guadeloupe Woman. Bunk.
Cherry-picked and slanted opinions attributed to scientists.
Calls unapproved scientists names.
Mud-slinging.
If they believe what they’re saying, can you call it lies?
It’s alarming both that people can say these things, and that people believe them.
Accusations of immorality. More hate speech. Very nasty tone.
This is one of the worst pieces of self-serving polemic I’ve ever read.
My guess is proving to be right. Should I force myself to read the rest of it, or can I assume that it will be more of the same?
rjb
Well, I read some more of The Evolution Handbook and I’m going to have to renege on finishing it. Not only is the nastiness too unpleasant for me, the factual errors and apparently deliberate misdirections are just too numerous for me to spend so much of my diminishing time on it.
Obviously this tract would be better called The Anti-Evolution Handbook. I strongly advise against any reasonable person wasting their time with it.
It looks like you’re off the hook for those 714 pages of real science, Henry. You only need to do about a hundred.
rjb
Henry, sorry t say this but you don’t really have a clue.
Henry won’t see this. He bailed out a long time ago. Thanks for your comment, though, Anonymous.
rjb
Comments on “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsenseâ€
Some time ago you urged me to make specific comments on the above article by Jayne Kennedy. I’ve gone through it three times during the course of our interactions. She claimed that the “battle has been everywhere – except in the public imagination.†She is very right about one aspect of this debate. The theory of evolution works in the imagination of evolutionists, and that is the only place where it works. Real life, real science and real logic does not support it. I am not a scientist even though chemistry and mathematics were my secondary majors in university. If you wish to focus on the science I would invite you to interact with Walt Brown.
Walt Brown received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. He has taught college courses in physics, mathematics, and computer science. Brown is a retired Air Force full colonel, West Point graduate, and former Army Ranger and paratrooper. Assignments during his 21 years of military service included: Director of Benét Laboratories (a major research, development, and engineering facility); tenured associate professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy; and Chief of Science and Technology Studies at the Air War College. For much of his life Walt Brown was an evolutionist, but after years of study, he became convinced of the scientific validity of creation and a global flood. Since retiring from the military, Dr. Brown has been the Director of the Center for Scientific Creation and has worked full time in research, writing, and teaching on creation and the flood.
Invitation to a written debate (visit Creation Ministries website to engage)
The issue is: Does the scientific evidence favor creation or evolution? Dr. Brown’s standing offer for a strictly scientific, written, and publishable debate is on page 547 (of his book In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood). Note that a few initially agreed to a strictly scientific debate, but later changed their minds, insisting they would only take part if the exchange included religion. One evolutionist is so upset that a written debate will not include religion that he now misleads by saying that Walt Brown has refused to debate him. (Correspondence in our files shows how he no longer wanted a strictly scientific debate after reading the 6th edition of this book.) Dr. Brown has consistently maintained his position for 31 years: the debate should be limited to scientific evidence. If someone says, “Walt Brown has refused to debate,†we suggest you ask to see that person’s signed debate agreement
The claim is made that teachers are besieged with pressure to include creationist views. The truth is the opposite. It is the nearly universal demand that evolution be presented as a fact in schools, universities, the media and some public sectors that badger creationists. Teaching positions in universities, opportunities for scientists and publication of articles are routinely denied to creationists, not evolutionists.
Kennedy presents evolution as true because it fulfills the criteria that observation has “repeatedly confirmed†it as true. Not so. The possibility of the origin of life is presented as perhaps appearing “in space and fallen to earthâ€. Or it may be that “aliens introduced the first cellsâ€. This is repeatedly confirmed observation?? It doesn’t explain how life formed in space or came to be with aliens any more than how it originated on earth. Is that science?
Kennedy makes the statement that “natural selection, the principal known mechanism of evolution, harnesses non-random change by preserving ‘desirable’ (adaptive) features and eliminating ‘undesirable’ (non-adaptive) ones†There is no such thing as a non-random mutation unless it is engineered in the lab. Furthermore this attributes intelligence to natural selection by postulating that it can discern between desirable and undesirable changes. Evolution denies the involvement of intelligent design until it is convenient to invoke it some other way. Not only that, it attributes to natural selection the envisioning of a goal or purpose to achieve. Evolution by its very nature eliminates the inclusion of meaning, purpose or goals. This is a contradiction. I’ll refer to some descriptive quotes from scientists, including those of evolutionary persuasion.
“Here are some basic hurdles that scientists must overcome in order to make mutations a success story for evolution: (1) mutations must occur quite frequently. (2) Mutations must be beneficial – at least sometimes. (3) They must effect a dramatic enough change (involving, actually, millions of specific, purposive changes so that one species will be changed into another. Small changes will only damage or destroy the organism. V. Ferrell The Evolution Handbook p. 320
“Mutation are very rare. This point is not a guess, but a scientific fact, observed by experts in the field. Their very rarity dooms the possibility of mutational evolution to oblivion.†Ibid, p.321
“It is probably fair to estimate the frequency of a majority of mutations in higher organisms as between one in ten thousand and one in a million per gene per generation.†F.J. Ayala ‘Teleological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology’ Philosophy of Science, March 1970 p.3
“Although mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, it is a relatively rare event.†F.J. Ayala, Mechanism of Evolution, Scientific American Sept.’78 p.63
“It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws.†Murray Eden, Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as Scientific Theory in Mathematical Challenges to Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution 1967 p. 109
“But mutations are found to be of a random nature, so far as their utility is concerned. Accordingly, the great majority of mutations, certainly well over 99%, are harmful in some way, as is to be expected of the effects of accidental occurrences.†H.J. Muller, radiation Damage to Genetic Material in American Scientist, Jan., 1950 p.35
The same book by Ferrell lists 28 reasons why it is not possible for mutations to produce species evolution.
I remember seeing the televised explosion of the Jan.28, 1986 Columbia Space Shuttle. After years of highly technical work by a huge team of skilled people with massive amounts of money, one mistake caused the whole project to end in disaster. The source of the explosion was an O-ring, a mechanical gasket. The ring weakened the external fuel tank, which ultimately brought the shuttle down. If ONE mistake brings down the Columbia Shuttle, how then can mutations, which are over 99% comprised of mistakes, produce a living organism that is vastly more complex than a space shuttle?
Richard Harrison’s computer program that “generated phrases randomly while preserving the positions of individual letters that happened to be correctly placed†proves the exact opposite of what was intended. It proves that it requires a very intelligent person to design a program that will select “correct†responses. That also relies on a specific pre-set goal the computer program is to achieve. This flies in the face of all that evolution is based on.
Then we have the statement that our planet can “grow more complex because the sun pours heat and light into itâ€. The sun’s heat and light does not create life or growth by itself. The potential for photosynthesis has to exist in plants first. The sun is only one essential factor in the process. The very existence of the sun at just the right distance from earth plus the right tilt of the earth’s axis plus its rotation and revolution are not the product of chance. They are designed. Sunlight alone on anything would not bring about life or growth of any kind. This proposal is anything but scientific.
I can understand why evolutionists would champion a proposed mechanism like evolution by mutations and natural selection because it is all that is available if a Creator is left out. Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment. It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation—regardless of whether or not the facts support it.
‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.’
We can move to irreducible complexity next.
It appears you’ve scanned the article for one thing you could turn to your purposes. Result? I quote: “The theory of evolution works in the imagination of evolutionists, and that is the only place where it works.” An opinion that denigrates your despised “evolutionists.”
Natural selection tends to preserve adaptive changes while tending to eliminate non-adaptive ones. What you say is true. Your conclusion that they must be non-random is false.
Evolution can not discern between desirable and non-desirable traits. The environment can select between them, resulting in evolution. You continue to falsely attribute agency to evolution. As I’ve told you, evolution is the result, not the cause. All your conclusions from this error are necessarily void.
Natural selection does not envision goals or purposes, any more than water can envision the river channel it will cut.
You quote The Evolution Handbook. I’ve already rejected it as a plausible source.
Your references to the rarity of mutations do not affect their presence in evolutionary change.
Your Murray Eden quote is an opinion of someone with an agenda.
The preponderance of harmful mutations is irrelevant.
No number of “reasons” found in The Evolution Handbook (Ferrel) will enhance their credence.
Comparing species comprising millions of individuals to a single machine (shuttle) is specious logic.
You’ve taken the reason why you can’t use the 2nd law of thermodynamics against evolution, and gone off on a tangent.
Henry, you must get past your false premise that evolution is aware of where it’s going. It is making you present bad arguments.
rjb
Jim, you are right that the book could also be called “The Anti-evolutionary Handbook†but then it would also be appropriate to call the ’15 Answers’ article the “Anti-creation Articleâ€. As to questions of attitude, assumptions, bias, nastiness, etc., if that is true of Ferrell it is certainly also true of your response. He provided loads of documented material, most of it not his own observation. A significant portion of it was the opinion of non-Creationist scientists. If you wish to enter into a dialogue with a creationist scientist I refer you to Walt Brown or Duane Gish. I am not a scientist. They can be contacted through Creation Ministries International website.
Jim, I am not against you. I care about you and God loves both of us. Now onto the next topic.
Irreducible Complexity
Not only are organs and features of living things complex, they have to be complete all at once in order to function. The idea of hanging on to the beginnings of an eye until after millions of years the optic nerves and receptor brain cells just happen to develop to match it, is preposterous. Similarly there are untold millions of complex systems and organs in the inanimate and animate world that must be in place in there totality or the organism will not survive nor will the physical universe continue to exist. The level of complexity is such that if anything is missing from the system it will not work.
Crucial components in non-living structures and critical organs in living organisms have to occur in completed form immediately to work. They cannot slowly develop over millions of years, one part at a time.
The illustrations of the eye or mousetrap are only two of the multitude of examples that make this point. There is no such thing as an eye simple enough to be ‘desirable’ unless it contains focal ability, sensor cells, a nerve leading to a brain that can make sense of what is seen as well as an organism that can respond. The world is full of similar challenges to the evolutionary process.
This shows that you haven’t read the section on IC in the article. If you had, you would hesitate to put forward the very arguments it neutralizes. See part fifteen.
You’re comparing my comments to that manual? You don’t need to be insulting. It is vituperative. I’ve been polite.
Your next section deals with “transitional forms” and “missing links.” Please define.
rjb
Jim, you say that your response to the Evolution Handbook was polite. Good, then Ferrell’s book is also polite.
Yes, I have read #15 three times. A simpler mousetrap, a simpler flagellum or a simpler eye still require a number of functional parts to all appear via random mutations all at the same time plus fitting into the design of the rest of the organism. Even the simplest eye structure needs nerves, a brain of some kind to decipher what is ‘seen’ and all the nerves that carry messages to enact an intelligent response.
An excerpt from #15 statesâ€
“The final evolution of the flagellum might then have involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. Similarly, the blood-clotting system seems to involve the modification and elaboration of proteins that were originally used in digestion, according to studies by Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California at San Diego.†How can you have novel recombination of sophisticated parts that came about by chance? If they are sophisticated they are designed. Also where did this ‘evolved for other purposes’ come from when the proposed mechanism of evolution allows for no purposes?
In #15 it states that ‘ “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.’ Why then do you exclude the question of how we got something out of nothing in the first place? How could methodological naturalism bring material out of nothing? You call the question of origins irrelevant – I say it is crucial.
You asked the question “…when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life’s history?†It didn’t just intervene in life’s history, it was there before there was any history. It created life and provided all the natural laws that govern and sustain life. The book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament summarizes it well: “You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.â€
Consider the following statement.
Famous British mathematician/astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, realized the improbability of life forming just by physics and chemistry on earth and so initially thought it could have formed somewhere else in the universe and been seeded on earth from there. However, he apparently later realized that even if the whole universe were an experiment for all its supposed evolutionary age, life would not form. He is quoted as saying,
“The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 naughts after it … It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.â€
—Sir Fred Hoyle, as quoted by Lee Elliot Major, “Big enough to bury Darwinâ€. Guardian (UK) education supplement, Thursday August 23, 2001; http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/physicalscience/story/0,9836,541468,00.html
You mention bias. How is this for a biased position?
Dr. Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University: ‘Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic’. Todd, S.C., correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999.
According to evolutionary theory, all matter came into existence by itself. At a later time on our planet, living creatures quite literally “made themselves.†Such views sound like Greek myths. But if these theories are true,—where did the laws of nature come from? Too often these are overlooked. There are a variety of very complicated natural laws. How did these come into existence? People assume that they too just sprung up spontaneously. But they are assuming too much. It is a movie that only works in the imagination.
Evolutionary theory is built on two foundational pillars. But there are two laws that crush those pillars. Let us look at the two evolutionary pillars and the two laws: (1) Evolution teaches that matter is not conservative but self-originating; it can arise from nothing and increase. The First Law of Thermodynamics annihilates this error. (2) Evolution teaches that matter and living things keep becoming more complex and continually evolve toward greater perfection. Just as inorganic matter becomes successively more ordered and perfect so living creatures are always evolving into higher planes of existence (via species evolution). The Second Law of Thermodynamics devastates this theory.
The human genome is the most complex computer operating system anywhere in the known universe. It controls a super-complex biochemistry that acts with single-molecule precision. It controls the interaction network of hundreds of thousands of proteins. It is a wonderful testament to the creative brilliance of God and an excellent example of the scientific bankruptcy of neo-Darwinian theory. Why? Because the more complex life is, the less tenable evolutionary theory becomes. Super-complex machines cannot be tinkered with haphazardly or they will break. And super-complex machines do not arise from random changes.
It is valid to compare the genome to a computer operating system. The only problem with this analogy is that we have no computers that can compare to the genome in terms of complexity or efficiency. It is only on the most base level that the analogy works, but that is what makes the comparison so powerful.
“The belief that life on earth arose spontaneously from non-living matter, is simply a matter of faith in strict reductionism and is based entirely on ideology.†Hubert P. Yockey, 1992 (a non-creationist). Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge University Press, UK, p. 284.
On to the next topic.
Transitional Forms
If evolution were true we should find, not just a missing link, but millions of them. Furthermore, since evolution is a very slow process we should have multitudes of transitional forms living on earth today. Instead we have well-defined species reproducing after their kind with variation within the species. By their own admission some prominent evolutionists have agreed that this issue is a major hurdle for them.
Some so-called transitional humanoid forms have been built up from a tooth or a jawbone or a collection of small bones and proved fraudulent but still used as evidence. There should be many millions of failed transitional forms if evolution were true.
Lack of fossils
‘Palaeoanthropologists seem to make up for a lack of fossils with an excess of fury, and this must now be the only science in which it is still possible to become famous just by having an opinion. As one cynic says, in human palaeontology [the study of fossils] the consensus depends on who shouts loudest.’
J.S. Jones, Department of Genetics and Biometry, University College, London, in a book review. Nature, Vol. 345, May 31, 1990, p. 395.
THERE SHOULD BE NO SPECIES—In fact, if evolution were true, there should not be any distinct species at all! There would only be innumerable transitions! Categories of plants and animals can be arranged in orderly systems only because of the separateness of the species. But if evolutionary theory is correct, there could be no distinct species. Instead, there would only be a confused blur of transitional forms, each one only slightly different from the others. This is a very significant and important point. “Why should we be able to classify plants and animals into types or species at all? In a fascinating editorial feature in Natural History, Stephen Gould writes that biologists have been quite successful in dividing up the living world into distinct and discrete species .. ‘But,’ says Gould, ‘how could the existence of distinct species be justified by a theory [evolution] that proclaimed ceaseless change as the most fundamental fact of nature?’ For an evolutionist, why should there be species at all? If all life forms have been produced by gradual expansion through selected mutations from a small beginning gene pool, organisms really should just grade into one another without distinct boundaries.â€â€”Henry Morris and Gary Parker, What is Creation Science? (1987), pp. 121-122.
Another leading evolutionist also wonders why distinct species exist. “If a line of organisms can steadily modify its structure in various directions, why are there any lines stable enough and distinct enough to be called species at all? Why is the world not full of intermediate forms of every conceivable kind?â€â€”*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery, (1983), p. 141.
“Many species and even whole families remain inexplicably constant. The shark of today, for instance, is hardly distinguishable from the shark of 150 million years ago . . “According to Professor W.H. Thorpe, Director of the Sub-department of Animal Behavior at Cambridge and a world authority, this is the problem in evolution. He said in 1968: ‘What is it that holds so many groups of animals to an astonishingly constant from over millions of years? This seems to me the problem [in evolution] now—the problem of constancy, rather than that of ‘change.’ †—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 141-142.
If evolution was a fact, we should find in present events and past records abundant evidence of one species changing into another species. All over the world millions of fossils have been collected and studied. What was discovered is: there is no evidence that one species has changed into another; modern species are the same there as we find now; there are no transitional or partway forms between species, only extinct ones and extinct forms like dinosaurs are not transitional forms. The lowest fossil –bearing strata is the Cambrian. In it are found complex plants and animals, many of them, with no evidence that they evolved from anything lower. They appeared suddenly completely formed.
“It remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families appear in the (fossil) records suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.†George G. Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution†p.360
Darwin admitted that the lack of fossil evidence was the strongest single evidence against his theory, but he ignored the problem thinking that future exploration would reverse that and prove his theory. After more than 100 years of searching and 100,000,000 fossils in museums the proof has not come. His theory is false. We are not looking for a missing link, we would need millions of them.
Fossils and the lack of transitional forms tell us that the theory of evolution is wrong.
Henry, you think accusing people of immorality is polite. Good. We know where we stand.
You didn’t define “transitional form.” You talked about it as if it were something, but you didn’t define it.
You said nothing about “missing links.”
We always go back to “first causes” when you encounter something you can’t answer. BTW, where in evolutionary theory does it say, “all matter came into existence by itself”? References please. Real ones.
You continue to try to impugn scientists with fragmentary quotes. See sections 4 and 5 of the article.
How small must the gap in the fossil record be before you will say it’s close enough? One generation? See section 13 of the article.
Henry, every individual of every species is a link in the chain. We’re all transitional forms. You and I are transitional forms, Henry.
On to your section on Entropy. Quoting you:
Confusing entropy with randomness shows that you don’t understand it. Then you fall back on first causes again. Let’s just forget this appeal to thermodynamics, while you see section 9 of the article.
As I said in my original post, I pointed out this article so I wouldn’t have to continue to repeatedly answer the same questions. So far, my plan isn’t working.-)
Your next section is on morality. I wonder who the moral ones will be.
rjb
Origins
You asked the question; “We always go back to “first causes†when you encounter something you can’t answer. BTW, where in evolutionary theory does it say, “all matter came into existence by itselfâ€? References please. Real ones.â€
If evolutionary theory does not teach that all matter came into existence by itself, where does the theory say it came from? Going back to creation is not the avoidance of a question, it is the answer.
Definition of Transitional Forms
Transitional forms are ‘in-between forms’ or ‘missing links’. These are organisms supposed to have existed during the ‘transition’ as one organism allegedly evolved into another quite different kind over millions of years. As such, they would be expected to show the stages of that transition.
Existence of Transitional Forms
First, the fact that the links (transitional forms) which the concept of evolution would prima facie cause its adherents to expect are definitely still missing is highlighted in Chapter 3 of Dr Sarfati’s classic book Refuting Evolution.
Like so many of these proposed or alleged ‘transitional forms’, the fossil reconstruction [of Pakicetus] … involved a great deal of evolutionary speculation, to put it mildly.
What makes the question complex is that in place of the countless thousands of transitional forms expected (as Darwin logically indicated should be found, and anticipated would be found in future), there exists at any point in time a handful of candidates, i.e. fossils put forward as transitional forms by evolutionary proponents. [Note: By ‘transitional forms’ is meant here fossils showing intermediate stages between major evolutionary transitions, i.e. from one kind of creature to a wholly different kind. For example, stages in the supposed transition of a walking reptile to a flying bird, nothing which creationists could regard as variation/speciation within a kind. Some evolutionists argue that we have countless thousands of transitional fossils, but they empty the term ‘transitional fossil’ of any content really meaningful for the creation-evolution debate. They define a fossil as ‘transitional’ in the same sense that a car is ‘transitional’ between a unicycle and a truck. That is not in view here.] Creationists by definition would argue that there are none, so to evolutionists this is seen as ‘proof’. From a creation perspective, though, consider the following:
Fig 1. This diagram graced the cover of Science magazine, making people believe that a ‘walking whale’ had really been found.
Imagine if one were to bury every one of the billions of creatures in the present world in a global flood to produce a fossil record. Let some imaginary aliens, who had no real idea of our world and its biology, discover that record thousands of years later. It is almost inevitable that by sheer chance a tiny handful of creatures’ remains would be found for which their structures, and their positioning in that record, were such as to allow speculation about their being ‘transitional’ between two types of creatures. The living platypus might be one such example. But the stress is on the fact that it would be very few. And the more that was found out by the aliens examining the record in more depth, the more likely it would be that they would eventually find out that the platypus, in fact, could not qualify as such a transitional form.
Returning to our current reality, the following makes sense, therefore. That is, that we find firstly that the numbers of such alleged ‘transitional forms’ are indeed very tiny. And they are changing over time, as one such ‘link’ is quietly dropped once another is available to take its place. In other words, the ‘links’ that one generation grows up with as ‘proving evolution’ (certain apemen are a prime example) are mostly not the same as the following generation is shown as ‘proof positive’ for evolution. In fact, candidates for transitional forms are sometimes ‘dumped’ rather rapidly as more evidence is found. In the case of the recent ‘Ida’ missing link, it started to recede embarrassingly within months—see this article.
Perhaps the most classic example of how links get shown over time to be untenable is Pakicetus, the so-called ‘walking whale’ found in Pakistan. Fig. 1 shows the picture on the cover of Science magazine. The fossil’s discoverer, paleontologist Dr Philip Gingrich, said about it that:
“In time and in its morphology, Pakicetus is perfectly intermediate, a missing link between earlier land mammals and later, full-fledged whales.â€1
Like so many of these proposed or alleged ‘transitional forms’, the fossil reconstruction (see Fig. 2) involved a great deal of evolutionary speculation, to put it mildly.
And, again like so often happens, years later it is quietly dropped as evidence mounts against it. Fig. 3 shows how Pakicetus turned out, upon the discovery of more bones, to be nothing like the ‘walking whale’ shown by Gingerich and his colleagues. But vast numbers of people had had their faith in evolution reinforced.
(The figures did not copy for some reason.)
Fig 2. What was actually found were the stippled portions of the skull bone. The rest of the picture was obviously based on sheer speculation.
Fig 3. A Pakicetus reconstruction 7 years later as featured in Nature. More bones had been found, which means that this creature had to be quietly dropped from the list of ‘transitional forms’.
Another example is Tiktaalik, the so-called perfect link between fish and amphibians, i.e. the first creature to allegedly crawl from the early oceans out onto the land. Although there were always reasons to doubt the claim, as CMI’s article from the time Tiktaalik roseae—a fishy ‘missing link’ showed, the nail in the coffin occurred when fossil footprints were found in Poland. This was because they were clearly footprints of four-legged animals walking on land, and thus had to be after land creatures had evolved in the evolutionary scheme. However, according to that scheme’s own assumptions, they had to be ‘dated’ some 18 million years earlier than Tiktaalik. Ergo, Tiktaalik could not be the ancestor of land creatures.
We can anticipate this sort of process to continue; a turnover of claimed transitional forms, such that committed evolutionists will always have something they think they can ‘hang their hat on’.
We can anticipate this sort of process to continue; a turnover of claimed transitional forms, such that committed evolutionists will always have something they think they can ‘hang their hat on’. But in the bigger picture, there remains firstly a severe paucity of fossil candidates that even committed evolutionists could put forward as candidates for transitional forms. The fossil record remains, as Gould and others pointed out long ago, characterized by sudden appearance and stasis (staying the same). The notion of punctuated equilibrium was developed precisely because of the remarkable scarcity of these expected chains of in-between forms—see this 1994 article by Dr Don Batten in CMI’s Journal of Creation.
Secondly, the handful of ones that are put forward as alleged transitional forms at any point in time are legitimately open to challenge in terms of their status as true transitional forms.
Thirdly, the repeated pattern is an on-going turnover of even that handful of candidates. I.e. in time, even evolutionists themselves acknowledge that a once-loved transitional form no longer qualifies.
Dr. Carl Wieland
In regards to your objection to appealing to creation origins and preferring to leave out discussion on thermodynamics, I can understand why you would want to do that. Both of them make the theory of evolution impossible.
In terms of #13 in the Kennedy article, I would refer you to Dr. J.D. Sarfati, Ph. D., F.M. in his book, “Refuting Evolutionâ€, especially chapters 3 and 4.
As for quotes out of context, show me one where the context negates the plain meaning of the quote. Even if that is the case for some, the “Evolution Handbook†contained hundreds where the author meant what he said and said what he meant.
Regarding #9, snowflakes are very varied. This is accomplished by laws of chemistry and physics, not spontaneously. God is not a cookie cutter creator. There is amazing variety found in animals and inanimate items without any transitional forms from one kind to another.
Now to the next issue.
Entropy
This is based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and spells out very clearly that left to itself any closed system randomizes. Without influence from outside itself the entity degenerates. The argument that earth is an open system gathering energy from the sun in the form of heat doesn’t solve the problem. Where did the sun come from or the laws governing its chemistry and physics? Heat alone will increase randomness. It requires something like a software program to convert the energy into organic structures. It is the origin of this software that is the issue. Neither animate nor inanimate entities produce new and improved versions all by themselves. I have frequently heard comments in the media of how “mother nature developed this†or how a particular animal took “millions of years to develop†whatever. Who is “mother nature†and what animal can redesign itself?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the opposite of what evolution requires. It is an issue atheistic evolutionists would prefer to bypass.
Regarding #4 of the 15 Answers, consider the following.
Genetic Entropy
Dr. J. C. Sanford has written a book by this title and with the sub-title “The Mystery of the Genomeâ€. He was a professor in genetics at Cornell University for over 25 years, has published over 80 scientific articles and registered over 30 patents. Three of the latter are his inventions of the biolistic process (gene guns), pathogen-driven resistance and genetic immunization. For many years as a professional geneticist he discerned no serious problems with the Primary Axiom that man is merely the product of random mutations plus natural selection. Later he began to question it with great fear and trepidation because he knew he would be at odds with modern academia. He was challenging aspects of theoretical genetics that he had always accepted by faith alone. He gradually realized that “the seemingly great and unassailable fortress which has been built up around the Primary Axiom is really a house of cards…an extremely vulnerable theory.â€
He writes further that to “…question the Primary Axiom required me to re-examine virtually everything I thought I knew about genetics. This was the most difficult intellectual endeavor of my life. Deeply entrenched thought patterns only change very slowly (and, I must add, painfully). What I eventually experienced was a complete overthrow of my previous understandings.â€
The main thrust is that genetic evidence tells us the human genome is deteriorating, always has and will continue to do so. This is the opposite of the theory of evolution.
His conclusion was that it had “…become my conviction that the Primary Axiom is insidious on the highest level, having a catastrophic impact on countless human lives. Furthermore, every form of objective analysis I have performed has convinced me that the Axiom is clearly false. So now, regardless of the consequences, I have to say it out loud: the Emperor has no clothes!â€
(The first two bold emphases are mine.) Dr. J.C. Sanford, “The Mystery of the Genomeâ€
The increase in entropy, or running down of the universe is a reminder that as time goes on things in the real world actually go from complex and organised to chaotic and disorganised.
Earliest amoebae live today, according to a report in Science, vol. 304, p44, 2 April 2004. Alexander Schmidt and colleagues at the Friedrich Schiller University, have studied amber chips believed to be 100 million years old and found they contained preserved amoebae – single celled organisms that live in water and are very rarely fossilised because they are mostly water themselves. The researchers comment: “They represent the earliest occurrence of four species of freshwater amoebae in the Phryganellidae and Centropyxidae families that live on today.”
“The second law of thermodynamics is one of the most universally applicable laws in science. There is no known exception to it. The second law of thermodynamics states that everything is becoming more and more disorganized; that everything tends to become simpler, more random, more disordered; that things are getting old and wearing out; that the universe is running down. The concept of evolution teaches that there is a universal tendency for things to become better organized, more complex, more specialized and adapted.
Thus the concept of evolution is in total opposition to one of the most reliable laws of science.â€
Lindsay, R.B., American Scientist, Vol. 56, 1968, p. 100; Asimov, I., Smithsonian, June, 1970, p. 6; Prigogine, I., Niclois, G., and Babloyantz, A., Physics Today, Nov., 1972, p.23)
The usual…answer given by some evolutionists to this dilemma is that the second law of thermodynamics applies only to closed systems. Thus they contend that in an open system such as our solar system, complexity can be generated and maintained within the system at the expense of the energy supplied to it from the sun. That this answer is false, and that an external source of energy is necessary but not sufficient condition for order to be generated and maintained, is pointed out by Simpson and Beck, who state ‘The simple expenditure of energy is not sufficient to develop and maintain order… The work needed is particular work; it must follow specification; it requires information on how to proceed.’ Simpson, G.G. and Beck, W.S., Life: An Introduction to Biology. 2nd Edition, Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. 1965 p.466
You need to proofread more closely. You repeated yourself more than once.
You answered my question with a question. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.
As I told you, we’re all transitional forms. We are not missing. Your idea of what is required to be a transitional form would be like me demanding to see your god’s fingerprints on its work. I mean real fingerprints, with whorls and everything. Do you see how weak that is?
You act as if changing the model upon receipt of new information were a bad thing. Just because creationists would never do it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Knowledge is always provisional. Scientists are honest enough to admit it. Creationists are cynical enough to exploit it. You won’t convince anyone else with this line of rhetoric.
I left thermodynamics because you showed you don’t understand it. Educate yourself. And use legitimate sources.
The use of fragmentary quotes is a common ploy by your sources. You can prove anything with such methods. It doesn’t make it right.
You repeat your erroneous appeal to thermodynamics.
Show me references to biological texts that teach that evolution won’t allow things to become less complex.
So much for the myth of transitional forms. Now your final section:
You presume to judge, and then arrogate the right to your god. You’re right that evolution is amoral, just as the rain is amoral. You’re also right that we humans have a moral instinct, then you claim that it was planted in us by your god. You follow with a mini-sermon which probably felt good to make, but which has no bearing on the evolution of our moral instinct. Once again you confuse what you believe must be so with proof of what you believe.
If the purpose of your essay was to demonstrate that evolution doesn’t happen, then you must accept that it failed. You don’t need to attack evolution, or science in general. I recommend that you embrace your beliefs and stop diminishing them by trying to justify them. Especially, stop trying to use science as either an authority or a scapegoat.
Of course evolution is a fact. Since evolution is nothing more than the result of change over time, it must be obvious even to creationists that everything evolves. Stop worrying. It’s not trying to replace your god or to destroy your beliefs. It’s not capable of noticing them, much less caring about them. Evolution is not aware.
Henry, here’s an argument you haven’t used yet. How about it? Does it sound good to you?
It’s just as clever as the arguments you get from your manual, isn’t it?
rjb
Morality
We’ve reached the seventh and last topic from the list I submitted. Thanks for the challenges you have given me. It has been a learning experience for me. Jim, I noted the statement you made about this last topic of morality: “I wonder who the moral ones will be.†If you are thinking that I will present myself as better than you, it is not the case. In myself I am not better than you. This debate is not about who is better, it’s a contrast between 2 belief systems, 2 worldviews. One is the worldview that everything is based on purely materialistic naturalism with no Creator. The other begins with a Creator of everything including all the laws of nature and science, His mastery over them, and His continuing love and care for all He has made and sustains. You say that I resort to preaching based on my 7 reasons for not believing in evolution. You are right. At the same time I get sermons from you on Creationist Nonsense based on the 15 reasons you present.
Two Worldviews – a summary
The Christian worldview of faith in a self-existent, all-powerful Creator explains how everything got here and why I am here. It tells me that I am valuable and loved by God, very complex and wonderfully made as are all the plants, animals and laws that govern our universe. The precision and design of each item plus the amazing interdependence and harmonious intricacy of each system in nature is mind boggling. Creationists contend that none of this came into being by random mutations, accidents or undirected actions. As the Creator of all He is also Master overall and can intervene supernaturally in nature and in the affairs of people, though He may rarely decide to do so. He is there for me throughout my life to instruct and guide me because He cares about me. At the end of life I can look forward to His promise that I will be with Him forever. This is a gift, not an earned award. It is available to all who acknowledge God for who He is, who admit that they are accountable to Him and are sinners, and who ask for forgiveness with the desire to turn from sin.
The materialistic naturalism of the atheistic evolutionist gives no explanation of how everything got here and why we are here. It assumes the existence of matter and all the laws of nature and science. The emergence of life is an unexplained cosmic accident or self-organizing event. All of that is supernatural, very supernatural, in a worldview that denies the supernatural. Further evolution from simple life forms to very complex ones happens without purpose, plan or design. Yet, in real life we constantly rely on purpose, plan or design for most of what we do. This does not match reality. Evolution claims that random mutations (which are mistakes, omissions or misspellings in the genetic code) and natural selection (selection implies an intelligence that chooses) over long periods of time will eventually result in the incredibly complex and fine-tuned, very balanced universe where all systems are interdependent and supportive of each other. Yet in real life designers have to work long and hard to produce workable equipment or systems. Evidence of such progress is presumed to support evolution from one kind of plant or animal via transitional forms. Scant are the proposed examples that are claimed to show this and many of these were proven fraudulent. If gradual transitions from one species or kind to another had been happening there would be no distinctions allowing us to identify species. The boundaries would all be a blur. Last, without purpose, plan or design there can be no such thing as right and wrong, good and bad, evil and kind. Evolution is amoral. This does not mean that evolutionists are automatically immoral. There many who believe in evolution that live morally upright lives but that is not caused by evolution but because they have been created with a conscience.
Change over time.
You stated that evolution is essentially change over time. Yes, change occurs over time but in the opposite direction that evolution requires. Entropy is for real. Without the intervention of an intelligent force it leads to randomness and chaos. Time is not the friend of evolution.
Human beings never have and never will gradually develop a fur coat. The human genome has built in capacity for adaptation but within limits. God already has polar bears. A sea mammal never has and never will become a land mammal. God already has whales and cows.
Quotes
As for ensuring quotations are in context, consider the following.
Blown away by design: Michael Denton and birds’ lungs
“Dr Michael Denton, M.D., Ph.D. is a molecular biologist at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is not a biblical creationist. However, his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis has exposed thousands to the overwhelming scientific problems of Darwinian belief. Though he now describes himself as an ‘evolutionist’, he is more open-minded than most. He thinks that the design of living things probably implies creative intelligence. He has always been, and still is, adamant that Darwinism ‘does not give a credible and comprehensive explanation of how the pattern of life on Earth emerged’.
Dr Denton agrees that natural (as well as artificial) selection is capable of generating some change in living things. But he says it is ‘completely incapable of accounting for the broad picture, the complex adaptations required by the tree of life’.
The two most serious objections he has are as follows:
First, the nature of mutation (accidental changes in the genetic material of living things). He says that the ‘essential bedrock of Darwinism’ is the belief that ‘all the organisms which have existed throughout history were generated by the accumulation of entirely undirected mutations’. In his professional opinion, ‘that is an entirely unsubstantiated belief for which there is not the slightest evidence whatsoever’.
The second problem he sees is that there is ‘a huge number of highly complex systems in nature which cannot be plausibly accounted for in terms of a gradual build-up of small random mutations’.
Indeed, he says, ‘in many cases there does not exist in the biological literature even an attempt to explain how these things have come about’. A classic example, he says, is the lung of the bird, which is ‘unique in being a circulatory lung rather than a bellows lung [see box]. I think it doesn’t require a great deal of profound knowledge of biology to see that for an organ which is so central to the physiology of any higher organism, its drastic modification in that way by a series of small events is almost inconceivable. This is something we can’t throw under the carpet again because, basically, as Darwin said, if any organ can be shown to be incapable of being achieved gradually in little steps, his theory would be totally overthrown.
‘The fact is that, in common-sense terms, if you have no axe to grind, there are a vast number of such cases in nature.’ Michael Denton, a recognised academic in his field, says that the claim that Darwinian gradualism ‘can generate the sorts of complex systems we see throughout the biosphere is not only unsubstantiated, but in many cases it is actually beyond the realm of common sense that such things would ever happen’.
The quotations in this article were extracted (with permission) from a video interview available on cassette (NTSC) from Access Research Network, PO Box 38069, Colorado Springs CO 80937–8069, USA. It was then re-checked with Dr Denton to ensure it fairly represented his current views.â€
Will I choose to believe in evolution? NO THANKS.
But, thank you for the challenge of this interaction. It has increased and strengthened my faith in creation and The Creator.
Why then do so many people believe in evolution? Some think it frees them from accountability to the Owner of our universe.
‘We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of pre-existing cosmic rules. It is our creation now. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer feel beholden to outside forces. We no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible to nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever.’ Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny, p. 244 (Viking Press, New York), 1983.
Thomas Nagel“ I hope there is no God!â€
“I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about human life, including everything about the human mind …. This is a somewhat ridiculous situation …. [I]t is just as irrational to be influenced in one’s beliefs by the hope that God does not exist as by the hope that God does exist.†1Nagel, Thomas, The Last Word, pp. 130–131, Oxford University Press, 1997. Dr Nagel (1937– ) is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University.
Leading evolutionists and atheists often concede that their worldview implies that life is meaningless. According to Professor Richard Dawkins, “The universe we observe has … no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.â€1 Similarly, Professor Susan Blackmore stated, “In the end nothing matters … If you really think about evolution and why we human beings are here, you have to come to the conclusion that we are here for absolutely no reason at all.â€
I will stand by my original claim.
Moral Accountability
By definition Darwinian evolution is amoral. There can be no purpose for something that develops by chance and natural selection. If there is no purpose there also cannot be such a thing as right and wrong because we decide on rightness or wrongness on the basis of progress in reaching our purpose. By contrast, the whole human race has a built-in sense of moral responsibility. This did not accidentally develop from an inanimate piece of matter but from the image of God planted in mankind by the Creator. He deals with us in love, compassion and patience but if that is rejected there is only judgment ahead. In the end we either count on the Bible to be true by faith or we count on the theory of evolution to be true, also by faith. Both are religions.
How can we depend on a vast justice system and law enforcement plan that we have developed ourselves but reject the idea of a Judge over all?
Is materialistic naturalism like magic?
Here are five major examples of materialists believing in magic (and there are more), or miraculous events without any sufficient explanation or cause for those events.
1. Origin of the Universe
Materialists (Atheists) once tried to believe that the universe was eternal, to erase the question of where it came from. The famous British Atheist Bertrand Russell, for example, took this position. However, this is not tenable. The progress of scientific knowledge about thermodynamics, for example, means that virtually everyone has been forced to acknowledge that the universe had a beginning, somewhere, sometime—the big bang idea acknowledges this (ideas like the multiverse only put the beginning more remotely, but do not get rid of the pesky problem).4
wikipedia.org
Man of faith and science, Sir Isaac Newton.
The big bang attempts to explain the beginning of the universe. However, what did it begin from and what caused it to begin? Ultimately, it could not have come from a matter/energy source, the same sort of stuff as our universe, because that matter/energy should also be subject to the same physical laws, and therefore decay, and it would have had a beginning too, just further back in time.
So, it had to come from? Nothing! Nothing became everything with no cause whatsoever. Magic!
“The universe burst into something from absolutely nothing—zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere. How is that possible? Ask Alan Guth. His theory of inflation helps explain everything.â€
So proclaimed the front cover of Discover magazine, April 2002.
Physicist Lawrence Krauss, one of the loud ‘new Atheists’, has tried to explain how everything came from nothing; he even wrote a book about it.5 However, his ‘nothing’ is a ‘quantum vacuum’, which is not actually nothing. Indeed, a matter/energy quantum something has exactly the same problem as eternal universes; it cannot have persisted for eternity in the past, so all their theorizing only applies after the universe (something) exists.6 Back to square one!
Materialists have no explanation for the origin of the universe, beyond ‘it happened because we are here!’ Magic: just like the rabbit out of the hat, but with the universe, a rather humungous ‘rabbit’! ‘Stuff happens!’
Materialists have no explanation for the origin of the universe, beyond ‘it happened because we are here!’
There are other aspects of the big bang, the ‘mainstream’ model of the universe’s origin, that are also miraculous. The ‘standard model’ has a period of very rapid expansion called ‘inflation’ (which Alan Guth, mentioned above, invented). There is no known cause for the initiation of this supposed expansion, no known cause for it to stop and no physical mechanism for the extremely rapid expansion (many orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light). However, these three associated miracles must have happened or the big bang does not work because of the ‘horizon problem’. More magic!
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth†(Genesis 1:1). This is not magic, because God, who is eternal and omnipotent, is a sufficient cause for the universe. And He can exist eternally (and therefore has no beginning) because He is a non-material entity (God is spirit, as the Bible says in many places).
2. Origin of stars
According to the big bang, the ‘only game in town’ to explain the origin of stars, there had to have been two phases of star formation. Phase 1 involved the formation of hydrogen/helium stars (which are called Population III stars7). Here is the first problem: how do you get gases formed in a rapidly expanding primordial universe to coalesce together to form a critical mass so that there is sufficient gravitational attraction to attract more gas to grow a star? Gases don’t tend to come together; they disperse, especially where there is a huge amount of energy (heat).8 Hey presto! Cosmologists invented ‘dark matter’, which is invisible undetectable ‘stuff’ that just happens to generate a lot of gravitational attraction just where it is needed. More magic!9
iStockphoto
The Bible tells us that God made the stars on the fourth day of Creation Week.
However, we have countless stars—like the sun—that are not just hydrogen and helium, but contain the heavier elements. Phase 2 supposedly comes in here. Exploding stars (supernovas) from phase 1 produced sufficient pressure to force hydrogen and helium together to make new stars that made all the heavier elements (which astronomers call ‘metals’), including the elements of which we are made. These stars are called Population I and II stars.
Now here is another problem: how do exploding stars, with matter flying at great speed in all directions, cause stars made of all those new elements to form? There has to be a coming together of the elements, not a flying apart. Pieces hitting one another would bounce off rather than coalesce. Most hypotheses involve multiple supernovas from phase 1 in close proximity, such that sufficient material collided together to form enough of a proto-star with sufficient gravity to overcome the tendency to fly apart and attract more matter and so grow a normal star. However, supernovas are not common events, especially multiple ones at the same time in close proximity. Thus, this scenario requires a huge number of very improbable events to account for the vast numbers of the heavier stars.
This is more magic; miracles without a miracle worker.
God made the sun and the stars on the fourth day of Creation Week. Again, this is not magic or superstition, because God is able to do such things.
3. Origin of life
Astrobiologist Professor Paul Davies said,
“How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software … ? Nobody knows … there is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing.â€10
Not only must the DNA code be explained (how can a coded information storage system come about without intelligent design?), but the incredible machinery that reads the information and creates the components of life from that information has to be explained as well.
Former hard-nosed English Atheist philosopher Antony Flew abandoned Atheism/materialism because of the growing evidence for such design in living things. He said,
Photo from researchintelligentdesign.org
The notorious Atheist who changed his mind, Antony Flew.
“It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.â€11
This research, “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involvedâ€.12
That is, only an incredibly intelligent designer could account for the information systems in living things.
Well-known American Atheist philosopher, Thomas Nagel said,
“What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story [of cosmic evolution] has a nonnegligible probability of being true. There are two questions. First, given what is known about the chemical basis of biology and genetics, what is the likelihood that self-reproducing life forms should have come into existence spontaneously on the early earth, solely through the operation of the laws of physics and chemistry?â€13 (See later for discussion of his second question.)
The scientific knowledge of life grows daily, and as it does the prospects of a naturalistic (materialistic/atheistic) explanation for its origin recede into the distance. The origin of life is another miracle.14 ‘Stuff happens’? More magic.
The origin of life demands a super-intelligent cause, such as the Creator-God revealed in the Bible.
4. Origin of the diversity of life (Design? What design?)
The origin of life is only the beginning of the problem for the materialist. Along with other atheistic biologists, Richard Dawkins has spent his life trying to deny that living things exhibit supernatural design. In the book that ‘put him on the map’, he wrote,
“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.â€15
… how do you get gases formed in a rapidly expanding primordial universe to coalesce together?
The diversity of life is a huge problem. How did a microbe change itself into every living thing on earth, ranging from earwigs to elephants, from mites to mango trees? For almost a hundred years, mutations and natural selection, the mechanisms of ‘neo-Darwinism’, or ‘the modern synthesis’, have been said to explain this diversity of life. However, with our modern knowledge of living things, this has proved useless as an explanation.
In July 2008, 16 high profile evolutionists met, by invitation, in Altenburg, Austria. They had come because they realized that mutations and natural selection did not explain the diversity of life, and they had come together to discuss this crisis in evolutionary biology. The only consensus was that there is a major problem, a crisis.16
Thomas Nagel (continuing from the earlier quote) put it this way:
“The second question is about the sources of variation in the evolutionary process that was set in motion once life began: In the available geological time since the first life forms appeared on earth, what is the likelihood that, as a result of physical accident, a sequence of viable genetic mutations should have occurred that was sufficient to permit natural selection to produce the organisms that actually exist?â€17
Think of the supposed origin of humans from a chimp-like ape in six million evolutionary years. Modern comparison of the genomes shows such large differences (of at least 20%) that this is just not feasible, even with highly unrealistic assumptions in favour of evolution.18Actually, it was not even feasible when the difference was incorrectly trumpeted to be about 1%.19
Materialists have no sufficient explanation (cause) for the diversity of life. There is a mind-boggling plethora of miracles here, not just one. Every basic type of life form is a miracle.
Genesis 1 tells us that God, the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator, made the various kinds of life to reproduce “after their kindâ€. Here is a sufficient cause, but even the description of the nature of living things to reproduce according to each kind has been confirmed with every witnessed reproductive event (billions of humans alone), and also in the fossil record where the transitional forms are missing20 and ‘living fossils’ testify to consistent reproduction ‘after their kind’ in thousands of species.21
5. Origin of mind and morality
The origin of mind and morality from energy and atoms has long been a problem for the materialist. It is a major theme of philosopher Thomas Nagel’s book, Mind and Cosmos, already referred to.
A fig tree produces figs, not apples. That seems obvious. Likewise, physics and chemistry produce physical and chemical outcomes. However, mind and morality are not just matters of physics and chemistry. Sure, creatures that are physical and chemical have mind and morality, but how did such non-material things arise from the material? This is a serious problem for materialism, and the Atheist Nagel candidly admits it, to the extreme annoyance of his atheistic colleagues.22
The famous (and reluctant) convert from Atheism to Christianity, C.S. Lewis, put it well when he wrote,
“If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.â€23
The origin of life is only the beginning of the problem for the materialist.
The Atheist has no sufficient cause to explain the existence of mind and morality. Magic happens!
Why do apparently intelligent people resort to believing in magic—uncaused events—at so many points? By not believing in God they have put themselves into an irrational philosophical corner. Romans 1:21 in the Bible says that when people deny that the Creator-God exists, they end up with ‘futile thinking’. We have seen plenty of that in this article. Richard Lewontin admitted that (leaving God out of the picture), “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs … †(he confuses ‘science’ with materialism).24
And so, thank you for the experience. I sense that I have not persuaded you, and you have not persuaded me. In a few years life will be over for both of us and then we will know the truth first hand.
So, you’re not saying that you’re better than me, just that your “worldview” is better than mine.
I have never given you a sermon. I have tried to help you understand evolution, which is what you wanted to talk about. If you think that is equivalent to preaching about your god, then you really are beyond reach.
I skimmed your Two Worldviews – a summary because it simply repeats your prejudices. It glorifies your choices while disparaging others, and offers nothing of value to the conversation about evolution.
You say that change occurs in the opposite direction that evolution requires. That is a meaningless statement which is not supported by your continued misunderstanding of entropy. You’ve been told, and you continue to ignore it, that organization in one place is purchased at the cost of entropy elsewhere. I despair that you willfully refuse to learn that.
I skimmed your quotes since they’re the same kind of self-serving, self-fulfilling things that are found in that terrible manual.
Are you really going to fabricate venal motives for people who disagree with you? Yes, apparently you are. You presume to attribute motives to people who “believe in evolution.”
Long section about how scientists don’t know everything. Again, not relevant to a discussion of evolution.
You talk of persuading each other. Did you really hope to persuade me? I had no intention of persuading you. I hoped you would be open enough to quit misrepresenting what evolution is. Once you understand it better, you might not despise scientists so.
In my next comment I hope to present a small list of the things you should have learned. I hope you have sufficient humility to at least entertain the possibility that you could learn something.
It appears that Henry has decided to leave us. It’s been two weeks since his last comment, and I think that’s enough time to assume he’s finished. I will post my small list in case he ever comes back for a look.
Henry, here are the things you need to learn about evolution:
1. Evolution does not have a goal.
2. Evolution can not see.
3. Evolution is not aware.
4. Evolution has no forethought.
5. Evolution does not plan.
6. Evolution can’t tell a good trait from a bad one.
7. Evolution is not trying to perfect anything.
8. Evolution is not trying to replace your god.
9. Evolution is not a force.
10. Everything continues to evolve.
If evolution were not a fact, then the riverbed would not change.
In addition, here are some more trouble areas:
Randomness is not bad.
Science is not based on belief.
Clever arguments are not evidence.
Believing that it could not be otherwise does not make it so.
Nothing in physical reality necessitates non-physical causation.
All species are transitional.
Believers are not more moral than non-believers.
As I’ve said before, Henry, I think you should embrace your beliefs and not worry about whether they’re supported by science. If they are as strong as you think they are, then it shouldn’t matter. You have the same respect for others, I’m sure. I don’t think you’d deny anyone else their beliefs, since they’re no different from you in that respect. Likewise, I think you can learn to respect scientists, if you honestly try.
rjb
I did check back to the website twice soon after our last exchange and found no further responses so I left it for a while before checking again. Thank you for your patience and consideration.
I agree with the first 7 points of this summary. And those are exactly the reasons why I don’t believe evolution is even possible.
(8. Evolution is not trying to replace your god.)
Thanks for the respect. However the theory has undermined the faith of many of our young people, as I have found by way of personal contact. God is not replaced, just ignored or deemed non-existent. Furthermore, He isn’t my god. I don’t own Him, He owns me and you and everyone else. I am heartily grateful for the day (over 60 years ago) when I acknowledged God as the Creator I was accountable to, admitted that as a sinner I fell far short of deserving to be in His presence and asked for, and received, forgiveness from the penalty of sin. He has been there for me ever since seeking to build in the victory over the power of sin. Life has meaning because God loves me and you and want s the very best for us.
(9. Evolution is not a force.
10. Everything continues to evolve.)
With these I heartily disagree. Evolution is a philosophical force in many lives even though it is a failed idea. It has convinced many that there is no God. The idea that everything continues to evolve is a belief only.
(If evolution were not a fact, then the riverbed would not change.)
A riverbed is formed according to the forces of nature and does not morph into something more complex. It will never become a living thing or a different ‘species’.
(In addition, here are some more trouble areas:
Randomness is not bad.)
Randomness is fine unless you are counting on it to produce an intricately complex and more advanced organism. Then it is a futile hope.
(Science is not based on belief.)
The laws of science and nature are created things. We count on them to be consistently and dependably there for us all the time. We have faith in them all the time. Many of the scientific discoveries and inventions were made by people who had a strong faith in an ordered and organized universe made that way by a Creator. All they were doing is finding out how was put together and what could be harnessed for useful purposes.
(Clever arguments are not evidence.)
That would be true of both arguments for evolution and for creation. However, when an argument combines sound logic, matches reality, is built on scientific principles and gives meaning to life then it is not just a clever argument, it is truth. The theory of evolution falls far short of these criteria.
(Believing that it could not be otherwise does not make it so.)
Believing that it could it could be otherwise doesn’t make it so either.
(Nothing in physical reality necessitates non-physical causation).
All that exists has a cause, whether physical or not.
(All species are transitional.)
There is variation within a ’kind’ which may encompass a number of species. There is no transition from one ‘kind’ to another.
(Believers are not more moral than non-believers.)
There are evolutionists with ethical guidelines that are as commendable as those that Christians have. Both are guided in that manner by the fact that they were created in the image of God with a conscience. Believers who act out of character from what their belief system expects are NOT living up to what their faith expects. Evolutionists who resort to unkind or even wicked practices are doing nothing to transgress against what the theory of evolution stands for. It is amoral. Evil dictators have justifiably claimed to be ‘helping’ evolution along by eliminating undesirables. This is not where most evolutionists are at.
(As I’ve said before, Henry, I think you should embrace your beliefs and not worry about whether they’re supported by science. If they are as strong as you think they are, then it shouldn’t matter. You have the same respect for others, I’m sure. I don’t think you’d deny anyone else their beliefs, since they’re no different from you in that respect. Likewise, I think you can learn to respect scientists, if you honestly try.)
There is no need for me to worry about scientific support. All truth is God’s truth and the tenets of creation are supported by both science and reason. Many of the giants of discovery and invention were scientists who were creationists. They depended on the universe to be orderly and organized by a super-intelligence. Yes, I respect science. The only scientists that you may feel I don’t respect are the ones who build on an indefensible foundation.
I don’t have all the answers by any means but I choose to go by answers I can’t question instead of questions I can’t answer. This will likely be my last submission to this website.
One last comment and Henry is done. Thanks, Henry. That was fun while it lasted.
rjb