Feedback for November 1998

Chris

Freedom of the press belongs to those who own the presses. In the case of the Internet, everyone owns the presses. If the reader disagrees with the opinions expressed on the Talk.Origins Archive, I suggest that she create her own Web pages containing her opinions. We even provide an area on the archive where other readers could easily access her views. Rather than mailbomb us, which is likely to be a criminal act, she might just submit her Web site for addition to our list.

1. I'm perplex (sic) on all the big fuss about creationism in schools. How could creationism ever be teached (sic) in schools ? It is obviously unscientific and thus has nothing to do with education.

I assume that you are perplexed by the repeated attempts by creationist organizations to inject creationism into public school science curricula around the country. It is not difficult to understand why they attempt to do so - public schools are teaching their children a theory that they consider to be antithetical in the extreme to their most deeply held beliefs. Frankly, if any of us were faced with a similar situation, we would probably react the same way. This doesn't mean they are right, of course, but I don't think their anger and resulting actions are in any way difficult to understand. My own personal opinion (certainly not shared by most of my "allies" in the creation/evolution debate) is that public schools should be phased out entirely, which would render that entire debate a moot point. In the meantime, I think the creationists are right - creationism should be discussed in public school science classrooms. I would caution the creationists, however, to be careful what they wish for; I view the inclusion of discussion of creationism in science classrooms to be a very powerful means of inoculating students against the influence of creationism. I suspect that those who are clamoring to have creationism included in science classrooms would be the first to scream bloody murder soon after that inclusion took place. If you are teaching students about the Grand Canyon, and you contrast the mainstream geological understanding with the young earth, global flood model, the "winner" is clear and the students will see it as such (if the teachers are at all adept at what they do).

2. I am appaled (sic) at reading (from the feedback section) that many contributors to the site are christians. I don't think theists should meddle in areas where religion is particularily (sic) "offended", or at least not talk about God. Evolution is a particularily (sic) hot topic in that matter, as we see with creationism.

I am, quite frankly, appalled that you are appalled. This site seeks to present the mainstream scientific view of the many subjects dealing with evolution. Are you suggesting that there are no Christians whose views are within the mainstream? Is Steve Shimmrich's excellent FAQ critiquing John Woodmorappe's claims concerning radiometric dating (Geochronology kata John Woodmorappe) any less convincing because Steve is a Christian? I would argue that it is thereby all the more convincing, because he cannot be easily dismissed by other Christians as being "biased" or "motivated by a desire to disprove the existence of God or to escape responsibility to God". Is Glen Kuban's work debunking the Paluxy mantrack claims (The Texas Dinosaur/"Man Track" Controversy) any less conclusive because he is a Christian? Absolutely not. I am convinced, completely and without reserve, that people like Davis Young, Ken Miller, Glenn Morton, and Howard Van Till can be much more effective in combatting creationism than non-Christians like myself can be, especially in convincing those who are "on the fence". Ironically, about the only thing that Duane Gish and Richard Dawkins agree on is that evolution is predominately, if not inherently, atheistic; the men named above, and those like them, put the lie to this idea. Evolutionary theory says no more about the existence of God than gravitation or the kinetic theory of gasses. There are Christians on both sides of the argument, and I think it would be foolish, and unethical, to disallow contributions by those who happen to be Christians. In fact, I believe that we should make pointing out that diversity of opinion a major priority. It is, I think, one of the most devestating arguments against young earth creationism that it is very nearly, if not entirely, exclusive to protestant Christians. I often ask creationists if they know of anyone who is not a fundamentalist Christian who has concluded, on the basis of evidence alone, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Inevitably, the answer is no. I think that is a powerful argument against that stance. I think that the notion that these fine scholars should be excluded from doing their part in combatting creationism because they are Christians is nothing short of bigotry, and is indefensible as a matter of ethics and as a matter of practicality.

Ed Brayton

You are also right about the process of evolution not being entirely random: natural selective pressures are very specific. To use your own example, bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics is not a random phenomena, is it? Those bacteria who have randomly developed a resistance are selected for survival by a specific external pressure (the application of antibiotic drugs), which causes the death of the bacteria that do not possess the resistant trait. Here we see a non-random, recognizable pattern. But such a process does not imply divine intervention.

As far as statistics, such calculations are only meaningful if you assume we humans are the goal of the evolutionary process, and not merely a result of that process. Your description, "random events, occurring independently, in the favorable direction" suggests to me that you might read up on evolution. This is a mischaracterization of the process. Clarification is in order. Try the Introduction to Biology FAQ.

Of course not. What do they do? They search for evidence left behind by the murderer. They dust for fingerprints. They search for hair and fiber samples. They look for blood or other remains that can give DNA evidence. They perform an autopsy and figure out how the person died. They discover what weapon was used.

People have been tried and convicted for murder on evidence just like this, without ever once confessing to the crime. Should we overturn those convictions simply because no eyewitness evidence is presented?

Sciences such as geology, paleontology, archeology, and astronomy operate in much the same fashion. Science doesn't depend on eyewitnesses; it depends on evidence. We've never formed a volcano, or visited other stars, or gone to the center of the Earth, yet we understand the processes that operate in all three situations from careful study of the evidence that we are able to see.

Evolution is empirically verifiable because it has left behind evidence that we can view today. Actually, we see evolution in action all the time. For example, speciation has been observed both in the lab and in the wild. See the Observed Instances of Speciation and the More Observed Instances of Speciation FAQs.

Common descent, the concept that all life on Earth is derived from common ancestors, is amply demonstrated by morphological, genetic, fossil, immunological, embryological, and other evidence. Several independent lines of evidence all yield the same results.

You raise some very good points.

They want THEIR version of creationism taught in public school. I would ask them exactly which "Creation" should be included in their public school scheme? Forgive my ignorance, but is there a law out there that says Protestant Christianity is the official American religion? Why not teach children that the Catholic Christian god created humanity through Directed Evolution, as the Catholic Church maintains?

There are plenty of Native Americans out there that may not want their children to be told some Middle Eastern Mountain God created the earth, when everyone knows that Raven tricked turtle into diving beneath the World Ocean, creating the continents grain by grain. Likewise, I know Hindus who would be very unhappy if their children came home claiming that school taught them it was Jehovah, not Indra, that was responsible for the first humans. How would they like it if their son or daughter was taught in school that the Shinto gods, not the Christian Gods, were real? Would they want their kids to go to a school like that?

Each of the religions I mentions is a real, living religion, with real, living people that believe in it. Many of them are Americans, who pay taxes and love their country just as much as you or me. When a kid learns evolution in school, he or she does not learn that there is no god(s). They learn that science believes evolution is the process that created all the living creatures on Earth, just like they learn that gravity makes the Earth orbit the Sun. If your religion disagrees with science, great. Your church/temple/etc. can teach your kids what parts of science don't agree with your relgion. Schools should never mention religion, either to justify it or to denounce it.

So long as America is a democracy, and not everyone in it follows the exact same relgion, then how can we teach the beliefs of one relgion in school? We would have to teach the beliefs of all relgions, and teach them equally. Do you really want your child being taught that the Bible is equal to the Vedas? Do you want a teacher to say the words "Some people believe in Jesus, but Buddha is just as real, and did just as many miracles, and came 500 years earlier." That's what we'd have to do, teach your kids that all other gods are equal to yours, and I don't think that you would want it that way. It is not the government's job to teach religion.

The 90% figure you mentioned should actually be about 98%, and I suspect it supplies to both species of chimp, not just bonobos.

Jim Foley

Origins makes for fascinating discussion material. However, it also can make for hurt feelings. Make sure that you know why you are arguing as well as what you are arguing. The archive makes a great resource for the second item, but doesn't help much with the first. Myself, I argue because I value having science taught in science classrooms, and oppose having science removed, dumbed down, or to have pseudoscience introduced into classrooms. This means that I know when to get worked up over the issue, and when to just chill. Relatives and holidays sound like a time to chill, mostly.

Of course, there is the adage that the best defense is a strong offense. If you get targeted by the relatives, here's hoping that the ammo you find here serves you well.

Happy holidays,

Wesley

Evolutionary theory and such historical sciences as astronomy, geology and cosmology are indeed in conflict at a very deep level with the views that collectively go by the name of "creation science", or creationism. They do not rule out the doctrine of creation in Christian, Jewish, Islamic or other theologies, but they do set a time scale and the mechanisms for the development of new forms of life.

The history of science is a continuing demonstration that the creationist view of the world is not only not inevitable, but is progressively less tenable, starting about 1790 through to the current day.

What's New

However, as you say, this is not a theology site, but a science site, and the only reason we address theological matters, or philosophical matters if it comes to that, is because these issues are introduced into the debate by those who oppose evolutionary theory for religious, or philosophical, reasons.

France, Anatole
1844-1924, French author, the most prominent French man of letters of his day. His early fiction displayed allusive charm and subtle irony, as in The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), Thaïs (1890), and At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque (1893). After the Dreyfus Affair (in which he supported Zola), he concentrated more on political satire, notably in the novel Penguin Island (1908), an allegory of French history. He was elected to the French Academy in 1896 and received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1921.

There's also a biography of him on the Nobel Prize Web site.

I have also seen the quotation attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, though I tend to think France is the more likely author.

What you are really suggesting is that we suspend our disbelief a little, set aside our skeptical scrutiny, and ignore what the evidence suggests. See the Creationist Statement of Belief and following FAQS please:

Also, this last verse is in contradiction with: John 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time." Exodus 33:20 "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." John 6:46 "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God [Jesus], he hath seen the Father." I John 4:12 "No man hath seen God at any time."

As far as the question of energy being created or destroyed, you might check out this information.

On the other hand, there are evolutionists who choose to view the theory as the method by which God placed life on this planet. As this is America, they have the right to believe such.

The decision on whether or not to incorporate God into evolution is a personal one, based on prior beliefs. There is nothing about evolution which requires a belief in God.

Apparently you did not come across the God and Evolution FAQ.

Verbs like "equip" "replicate faithfully" "sort" etc. are the most convenient way of expressing these natural, biological concepts in ways that ordinary people can understand. They do not imply an active, intelligent agent at work.

It is possible to completely avoid anthropomorphisms, through careful wording, but that would take extra effort. Most people write like they speak.

It should be noted that Trott and Gish were not engaged in a debate per se, but rather that their exchanges were missives to the Rutgers campus newspaper.

In examining both Richard Trott's initial article about Dr. Gish and his rebuttal to Gish's reply, I don't see the word "extreme" used by Trott to describe Gish, his views, or his debating tactics. The only use of the word "extreme" I can find is in Gish's reply where he talks about what Trott said. I also don't see the word "hyper" used by either.

Far from resorting to ad hominem attacks, Richard Trott points to several direct contradictions in Gish's own words and documents evidence, some cited by Gish himself, that falsifies several of Gish's statements. Perhaps the reader should focus less on the tone of either Dr. Gish's or Mr. Trott's writings and focus instead on the content and logical structure of what they are saying. I encourage the reader to examine carefully the logical consistency of each argument and to consult the references mentioned by both to see if they really do support one or the other viewpoint.

I would tend to think that vestigial systems in organisms are not a hedge against future readaptation for the simple reason that evolution is not a forward-looking or predictive system. Natural selection operates on environments and organisms in the here and now. Organisms that are well-suited to the current environment thrive and flourish; those that aren't, don't. It is easy for us to look at an organism from the outside and say, "Yes, that would make sense," but evolution only operates on the raw materials it has then available.

Undoubtedly, I will be corrected by a real biologist with several examples of just what the reader proposes, but I would imagine that any such examples would involve environments that changed back and forth fairly quickly. In that case, evolution wouldn't be "hedging"; rather, natural selection would not have time to eliminate the "vestigial" features before they became non-vestigial again.

I'm afraid I'll have to defer to someone else on the reader's second question, as I can't say one way or the other. (Thankfully!)

As for what is presented here: The information presented here is not intended to be a full presentation of evolutionary theory, as the amount of information available overwhelms the meager space available on a Web site. Rather, this site is intended to counter frequently asked creationist questions with a summary of the information resulting from the normal operation of mainstream science. That is why the authors here present references with their articles; the reader should steer himself towards a library to confirm and expand on the information contained in this archive.

If the reader has a specific point to make about the accuracy of the information here, rather than simply a general denial, we encourage him to post again or to address his concerns to the talk.origins newsgroup.

That said, the story by Lady Hope of Darwin's deathbed conversion was a clear hoax, as one of Darwin's own daughters stated that Lady Hope was not present at Darwin's death and had most likely not even met him. Moreover, Lady Hope's statement about what Darwin said makes little sense given the history of Origin of Species and Darwin's correspondence. See the Lady Hope FAQ and the July 1998 Feedback.

Leviticus 11:21 states: "There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat." There are no winged creatures that walk on all fours. Birds have 2 legs, and all insects have 6 legs.

For hundreds of biblical errors and contraditions, go to Internet Infides: Donald Morgan. There is something a little scary about someone who thinks they possess the word of God-- there is in that person no spirit of compromise, none of the humility born of human nature.

No evolutionists think mankind happened by mistake. There are no rewards or punishments in nature, only consequences. There is nothing about being a natural accident that deminishes my own personal importance on this planet. Your statements regarding evolution reveal how little you know of the subject- you should read up on it. Evolution does not state that something comes from nothing. (The bible does, in fact).

I did read the Gospel According to John. The revelation made to me is that it is a mythology.

Any decent university library contains millions of pages of data supporting the theory of evolution either directly or indirectly. The theory has proved itself so well that it is no longer at all in doubt in the mainstream scientific community. It didn't do that by "converting the masses"; it did so by proving its ability to make predictions and to provide a coherent explanation for the evidence we see.

Rather than making general assertions that evolution is a "religious dogma" or that "important scientific discoveries" "languish," perhaps the reader could supply some specific examples?

The problem with the Vapor Canopy Hypothesis is that there was no observational evidence which prompted it. It's fine to say that there are things about our world which we do not yet understand, but the vapor canopy is not among them. Scientists understand what the Vapor Canopy Hypothesis proposes, but it's just poor science.

With regards to evolution- observations were made (the fossil record, the diversity of life, the similarities between apparently related species), theories were formulated, and then those theories were compared against observational evidence.

With the vapor canopy hypothesis (and all of creationism) there was no observation which preceeded the hypothesis... the conclusion was known in advance (and creationists will not allow any evidence to contradict their conclusions). The so-called "theory" is merely a construction of creationists used in attempt to explain an impossible situation.

Myth #1: Lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs.

It seems that Walt Disney heard the myth of lemming suicide around 1957, and decided it would make a great episode of his nature documentary TV show. So White Wilderness was born.

But there was a problem: The cameraman had trouble locating any mass lemming suicides--or any lemmings at all, for that matter, since they weren't native to Alberta where he was filming. Instead, the Disney folks bought a few dozen lemmings from children in Manitoba, brought them to Alberta, and placed them on a rotating turntable covered with snow. The lemmings flashed by the camera again and again, making it appear as if there were thousands.

But then there was a problem: The lemmings showed no inclination to jump over cliffs to their doom. How did they solve that problem? By pushing them off, of course.

Myth #2: Scholars thought the Earth was flat until the voyage of Christopher Columbus.

Scholars have known at least since the days of the ancient Greeks that the Earth was a sphere. By about the time of the third century B.C., the sphericity of the Earth was not in question among educated Greeks and Romans. Eratosthenes of Alexandria even used geometry to estimate the circumference of the Earth, and came up with a value fairly close to the modern accepted value.

The reader might consider what other "common sense" things he knows about the universe just might not be so. He might also investigate how science comes to a consensus and how it has concluded that the theory of evolution is the best explanation we have for the current diversity of life on Earth.

Because something IS mainstream means that it most closely corresponds to what we know to be true. Mainstream theories have been tested against reality, and the evidence is so overwhelming that scientists no longer look for evidence to support them. The theory of evolution is so firmly established that we call it a fact.

What would be "much more helpful" is if creationists would stop trying to confuse the public with their pseudo-science.

You said "each life form is the end product of a successful mutation of a prior unsuccessful species". That is not right. There are no "end products" of evolution because evolution has not stopped. The whole idea of "end products" and a rising hierarchy of "higher" life forms is wrong. Species adapt to current environmental pressures, and from pressures from predators and/or competing species. With this is mind, one cannot speak about "end products", unless all such pressures reach an unchanging state. Also, unsuccessful mutations do not leave descendants. And- prior species are not necessarily "unsuccessful" just because they became superceded by a new variant. They might have been extremely successful for 99% of their duration.

Were the dinosaurs an unsuccessful species? They dominated the earth for 160 million years, far longer than humans. But things change- environments, competition, available resources, etc. What was successful yesterday might be unsuccessful tomorrow.

With these clarifications in mind, your question now needs rephrasing.

You also said that you thought it was almost impossible for life to have come from a one celled organism. Well, of course it will seem impossible if you don't clearly understand the process, and can't see the steps in between. You might consider reading the Introduction to Biology FAQ and the 5 Most Common Misconceptions FAQ.

Jim Foley

I have no idea what you're talking about in regards to "standpoints". This site is about mainstream science- about evidence, experiments and facts.

Should all scientific study be cast aside because you (and others like you) don't want to believe in it? That is what you seem to convey.

I won't address your misconceptions about evolution, because there are too many of them and they are so severe. I might suggest some of the FAQs on talk.origins: What is Evolution?, Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution, and Frequently Asked but Never Answered Questions.