TalkOrigins Archive - Feedback for December 2004

Feedback Letter

From:

Comment:

The examples of "specified complexity," for instance Behe's mousetrap or the familiar watch, have been flogged to death. But it occurred to me the other day that the analogies to living systems are fundamentally flawed.

A mousetrap, for instance, is a set of objects that store potential energy and then release it. There is no feedback mechanism, no homeostasis, no reproduction—none of the things that are classically defining for life.

What's more, lifeforms basically take the form of a complex system in which the actual matter involved may change—amino acids may enter or leave a cell, water continually flows in and out, in metazoa cells die and are replaced--so what's imporant is not the matter itself but the way it continually (re)organizes itself. A mousetrap cannot do that. Neither can a watch.

So—finding a watch on a lonely beach might prompt me to suppose a human built it—but only because it's not complicated enough. All the other complex systems I can think of are natural, so coming upon a new complex system on an alien world (i.e., life), I would suppose a natural origin for it, as well.

Feedback Letter

From:

Forbes

Comment:

I teach Sunday School to 6th and 7th graders in a United Church of Christ Church. While teaching them the Bible, I also try to get them to think about their faith not just repeat stories they have heard over and over. I also let them know what I think.

A couple of students really have a hard time with evolution. They want to believe the Biblical stories of Creation.

They continually misrepresent Evolution (man from monkeys types of statements). It is obvious that they have never learned the facts and theories of Evolution. I try to tell them but they resist it.

The one student goes to a Fundamental Christian School. As I was trying to get them to understand the fundamentals of Evolution this kids shouts out "Science is Stupid!"

I was stunned. I continued with the class. But for a week now that statement has bothered me more than any other I have heard from the religious right. This kid's Fundamental Christian School has successfully poisoned his mind just so the Bible can be protected from any evidence that would threaten a literal interpretation of the text.

What would our world look like if we kept science subservient to the Bible? The earth would still be flat. The sun would still rotate around the earth. Heaven would be just above the canopy. I could go on.

"Science is stupid." Wow, where do we go from here?

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	Re: Claim CA002.2, that Darwin received an inscribed copy of Das Kapital from Marx and turned down a dedication -- Darwin did receive a copy of the book from Marx. It is still kept and sometimes on display at the Darwin Museum at Down House, England. The letter is marked as #9080 in the Cambridge Univ. Press printed Calendar of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin (1994, p. 392). The letter is not itself published yet, but a summary of the Oct. 1, 1873 missive states that Darwin thanks Marx for the gift of the latter's "great work". (It was a 2nd edition, in German, which Darwin could only read with great difficulty. Hence, only the first pages were cut and read. Darwin politely tells Marx that he wished he understood more about "the deep & important subject of political Economy". -- There is no use denying the fact of the book or the letter. Marx, himself, wrote to Engels about Darwin's ideas and evolution in general, with both some understanding and some error. Marx thought Darwin's work important for its scientific debunking of religious teleology in the sciences. -- However, this interesting bit of biographical information is not related to the evidence for or against natural selection. Let the creationists make what they wish of such an historical footnote.

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	Thank you for your wonderful site! Here in England we are witnessing a growth in special foundation schools (City Technology Colleges)largely funded by the state, but with a small - though controlloing - input from creationists. One, Emmanuel CTC in Gateshead, has had a lot of publicity, but it is only one of a string of such institutions supported by the millionare car-salesman, Sir Peter Vardy, an ardent young-earth creationist. We used to think that we in the UK were immune from the excesses of redneck fundamentalism more common in the US, but the evidence suggests that we are not. More than ever we need your excellent corrective to the bad science and bad theology peddled by creationists.

Feedback Letter
From:	cody
Comment:	where is the proof for your facts. Where you alive billions of years ago. put up or shut up.
Response
From:
Response:	Creationists seem to put much faith into eyewitness testimony. Well, I am here to tell you that I am an eyewitness to the fact of evolution. Yes, I was alive billions of years ago and am still alive today. I am the oldest being known to man. I saw when you were born, so I know that you were not alive billions of years ago and thus cannot disprove my existance or eyewitness testimony. You may not accept this Truth, but it is still true whether you believe it or not.

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	Regarding creationist claim CD221: Salt in the oceans. The article fails to mention that creationists use two different claims regarding salt in the oceans. One is Morris' use of the residence times for different minerals, and the other one is Austin's and Humphreys' calculations concerning sodium only. Austin and Humphrey have tried to estimate the input and removal rates of sodium and have come up with a maximum age of 62 million years. Now, the main part of the rebuttal of CD221 is aimed at the first claim, but the link in the references is a reply to the second claim (the article can be found here: http://tccsa.tc/articles/ocean_sodium.html ). I think that readers might be confused by this. I know that I was until I found the article at TCCSA.
Response
From:
Response:	Thank you for your comment. I have split off CD221.1 as a separate claim regarding sodium accumulation.

Feedback Letter
Comment:	So what did come first- the chicken or the egg?
Response
From:
Author of:	Dino Blood and the Young Earth
Response:	The egg. There were thousands of egglayers before the first feathered dinosaur, let alone a chicken.

Feedback Letter

From:

Comment:

William Paley's argument for the existence of God based on perceived design has two basic weaknesses that defeat his purpose (and the purpose, i.e., to prove the existence of one supreme being, of all who advance the ID argument).

The first weakness is that, when one looks at a watch, and perceives it to be made by design, one cannot conclude that it was the result of one, or of a multitude of designers. We do know, from empirical knowledge, that a watch is the result of many designers/inventors; the designer/inventor of the gear, the designer/inventor of the lever, the designer/inventor of the spring, the designer/inventor of the bearing, the designer/inventor of the means of producing the metals involved, the designer/inventor of the means of producing the parts of the watch, to name but a few. In short, the watch analogy does not prove that humans, even if the product of intelligent design, were designed by one supreme designer.

The second weakness is that Paley implies that since the watch was designed by a macro (human) intelligence, to serve the needs or desires of that intelligence, humans must have been designed by a macro intelligence superior to that of humans to serve the needs/desires of that intelligence. The weakness of this analogy is that even if one perceives intelligent design in a human, or other multi-cellular organism, one can reach no conclusion as to whether the human or other multi-cellular organism was designed by an intelligence higher than that of humans to serve its purpose, or was designed by the micro intelligence of the individual cells, tissues and/or organs comprising humans to serve their purpose.

There is no evidence, except verbal and written hearsay, of the existence of a macro intelligence superior to that of humans, while numerous arguments based on hard fact, as opposed to hearsay, can be made supporting the existence of micro intelligence, beginning with molecular intelligence and rising hierarchically to cellular, tissue and organ (the human brain is an organ) intelligence. Micro intelligence evolving to macro intelligence, just as micro life evolved to macro life.

Original design always proceeds from bottom up, only duplicate design proceeds from top down, as in reverse engineering. If ID proponents desire intellectual integrity, they must abandon their top down (super macro intelligence) approach and embrace the bottom up (micro to macro intelligence) approach, in which case, obviously, they would transmogrify to evolutionists.

Feedback Letter
From:	eigenvalue
Comment:	This page is a sham for the scientific community! there is not a shred of evidence in this page. Only personal attacks on Hovind and Baugh. I guess that it doesn't matter what degree you have. as long as you are creationist then you guys think we are automaticaly stupid. Fact is that most of scientific branches were establised by creationists! take this page down. You're personal attacks on various creationits only shows that you don't have good arguments. Stop making a fool of yourselfs !!!
Response
From:
Author of:	Ancient Molecules and Modern Myths
Response:	Hi there. Do you feel better now? I generally like to accept these little gifts from creationists without comment. But I must point out that nit is the small egg of a louse. How appropriate. Oh my. You seem to think that Mr. Hovind, and Mr. Baugh have some sort of advanced degree! How cute. I suggest you examine Some Questionable Creationist Credentials

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From:	krysha
Comment:	Just a comment: I found your site after stumbling upon Michael Suttkus' critique of "Dinosaurs and the Bible" by Ken Ham (which was great by the way). It's amazing what is floating around out there...There is actaully a book that suggests "the great 'comet' or 'meteor' which devastated Earth 65 million years ago and put an end to all dinosaurs was non other than Satan himself being thunderously hurled towards EArth, comfounding and destroying the whole escosystem of the planet!" (Did God Destroy the Dinosaurs? Royce&Zolot) HA! whatta hoot! anyhoo, fantastic site...and I especially admire your responses to the feedback. ~krysha~Toronto,ON, Canada

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	First, I want to say I think this web site is great, very articulate, and surprisingly full of very useful information. My only complaint is the consistent response to complaints about the very origins of life. Which consists of something like, ‘evolution is not concerned with origins but merely with the process after life begins.” I confess to being somewhat ignorant about evolution vis-à-vis the authors of this web site (My degree is a JD not a PH. D.). However, there must be at least some level at which people trained in evolutionary science involve themselves in the study of the origins of life. My question is do these people normally share office space with those that study direct evolution (in other words isn’t the academic training needed to study and discuss abiogenesis very similar to that needed to study and discuss standard evolution), or is it a completely separate field? If the reason the authors of this cite often choose not to directly address the question is because none of them are experts in that field (and I realize some responses do directly address the question), than perhaps not addressing the issue directly is the only intellectually honest thing to do, however as an intuitive matter it seems that one cannot study one (evolution) without also being quite interested in the mechanisms of the other (abiogenesis). I would appreciate any comments you might have. Keep up the good work.
Response
From:
Author of:	Ancient Molecules and Modern Myths
Response:	Thanks on behalf of TalkOrigins for your kind words. I can make two responces to your query about abiogensis, the first you have already heard and found unsatifying. But the fact is that evolutionary biology does not rest on the origin of life as it is expressly the theory of the diversity of life as we find it. Now at the same time, I agree with you (and Darwin) that the notion of common decent can logically imply a single "First Common Ancestor." Darwin had this to say about the origin of life in his Origin of Species. “ I believe that animals are descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lessor number. Analogy would lead me one step farther, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their cellular structure, their laws of growth, and their liability to injurious influences. ... Therefore, on the principle of natural selection with the divergence of character, it does not seem incredible that, from some such low and intermediate form, both animals and plants may have been developed; and, if we admit this, we must likewise admit that all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some one primordial form. But this inference is chiefly grounded on analogy, and it is immaterial whether or not it be accepted. No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G. H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so, we may conclude that only a very few have left modified descendants.” Since the 1970s, the majority of funding in this area has come from NASA as part of its exobiology program. In fact, very few individuals can devote their professional careers to research on the origin of life, and they are scattered in various sciences that do not always communicate well with one another. The Scripts Institute in La Joya, California is one locus of active research with three or four of the top names in the field. But, even with a relatively low level of funding there is a prodigious amount of relevant material published. This leads to the next response to your question. In order to be reasonably current with abiogensis research one must read the relevant geochemical, molecular biological, and astronomical research. And, to be particularly germane to TalkOrigins, one must also read the creatonists' "scholarship" on the topic. This includes their classics, such as C. B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, and R. L. Olsen, "The Mystery of Life’s Origin." (1984 New York: Philosophical Library) and more recent books such as, Fazale Rana, and Hugh Ross "Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off" (2004 Colorado Springs: NavPress). There are also dozens of creationist "research" publications that present their reactions the published science. The bibliography I have collected on this topic is running about 45 pages long, and represents 3 to 4 thousand pages read as of today. Now, this is minuscule compared to the amount published on any of the dozens of subdisciplines related to evolution per se. Actually, it is a minuscule part of the relevant research on abiogensis. I am toying with the idea that it is about time to stop reading and start writing. Your nudge might be enough, in which case thanks again. I think ... The most current book that presents origin of life research to the general reader that I recommend is Iris Fry, "The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview" (2000 Rutgers University Press).

Feedback Letter

From:

Comment:

I received an email from Mark Borders a few weeks ago that was in response to my October feedback email. He basically told me to "Wake Up" and see the Truth.

We had an email battle that went on for several days, but in the end I believe that I gained an understanding of the Creationist thought process....if I may [my opinion in brackets]:

1. The Word of God is perfect and inerrant [true premise]

2. The Bible is the Word of God [false premise]

3. The Bible is inerrant and literally true [incorrect conclusion/new false premise]

4. Science is fallible [true premise]

5. Scientists are humans and are therefore fallible [true premise]

6. Truths cannot be in conflict [true premise]

7. Conflicts between the Bible and science require that science be in error. [incorrect conclusion]

The Creationist logic flow requires that science be at fault whenever they perceive a conflict with their beliefs. They may not know where the fault lies, but they are convinced that science must be in error since God cannot be in error.

Their logic may be technically valid, but their arguments are based on the single [in my mind] false premise that equates the Bible with the literal Word of God. Remove that false premise and the whole Creation/science debate goes away.

Given that they will never accept that their version of "The Truth" can be flawed....no amount of evidence will be enough to sway them.

However....since they are bent on creating a society with a level of "enlightenment" akin to the 14th century....the fight must continue.

Feedback Letter
From:	Matt M.
Comment:	I just read the article entitled, 'God and evolution'. There is one simple reason that God would not use evolution as a vehicle to make us. Evolution is a wasteful process, that kills off the weak, the sick, and the underdog. Not to sound preachy, but God cares about everything He makes. Would He really kill off something that He had made? I don't think so. Also, if you will notice, God did not create the world all at once, which the article seems to think the Bible says. Seven of God's days may not be seven of our days, and there is no reason why He did not create the world just as if it had been there a lot longer. Perhaps He started the world with everything happening as if it had been happening all along.
Response
From:
Response:	Matt, From your comments I will hedge my bets and assume that you are most likely a Christian (pardon me if that is incorrect). In general, your comments exhibit a fundamentally non-scientific way of thinking. You have several a priori theological views: one is that God made everything and another is that God would not allow things He cares about to die, suffer, or be wasted. Then you go and judge evolutionary theory and biological data according to whether they are consistent with your assumptions. Since you believe your theological assumptions conflict with evolutionary theory and biological data, you refuse to accept the latter. Using your logic we could refuse to believe pretty much anything. You don't think that God would allow the Nazis to cruelly kill most of His "chosen people"? Then let's refuse to believe that it happened. You don't think a caring God would let evil people kill innocent children in Rwanda? Then it didn't really happen. You don't believe that God would create underwater volcanoes capable of erupting and killing 150,000 people, mostly children, in one fell swoop? Then seismic activity is a lie. That is not very good logic, and it is not how science works. In fact you have it somewhat backwards. With the scientific method, we have a hypothesis, which we compare with the data — in general, if they don't agree, then we change our assumptions, we don't refuse to believe the data. "Evolution is a wasteful process, that kills off the weak, the sick, and the underdog." Not necessarily. Viability is only one component of fitness, fertility is another. To evolve via natural selection, you don't have to kill anything off, you just need to leave more descendants than others. If you and your descendants consistently have more kids more often than your neighbors, then eventually you will inherit the earth, and nobody has to get the axe. "Perhaps He started the world with everything happening as if it had been happening all along." Perhaps He did. Perhaps He made it all last Thursday. And perhaps it's all really just in your head. All are possible, but none are scientific or testable. And you may want to reconsider the troubling theological implications of a God who intentionally makes things appear as something which they aren't. "Would He really kill off something that He had made? I don't think so." Um, you have read about the Genesis flood, right? You also know what happened to God's own son in the Bible? And have you ever read the book of Job? I say this only partly facetiously, because you have in fact touched upon one of the greatest and most infamous theological problems that exists: the problem of evil and suffering. This theological issue comes up frequently in the more philosophical aspects of evolutionary discussions for the very reasons you mention, and given the recent seismic events in the Indian ocean it has been thrust to the forefront of world consciousness. Every person that is born dies, many innocent people suffer terribly for no reason, and lots of bad things happen that are caused by both humans and by "nature". That is how the world is, and here I will just note that this theological problem still exists whether evolution is true or false. You won't make it go away by refusing to accept evolutionary biology. For a Christian who is struggling with reconciling faith and science, especially with regard to evolutionary biology, I recommend reading Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller, and for a deeper exploration of many subjects see the 21 essays in Perspectives on an Evolving Creation edited by Keith Miller (different guy).

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	The christian home-schooling community is building an enormous set of materials for creationist indoctrination. I encountered one online, the video "Raising The Allosaur", but can nowhere find a critical review of it. I suspect that talkorigins might need to provide critical reviews of these indoctrination tools. Doubtless they are making their way into schools as well: opponents will need specific ammunition detailing the falsehoods and errors of these materials. And it may be that at some point kids raised on that propaganda might want to read what is wrong with it.
Response
From:
Author of:	Dino Blood and the Young Earth
Response:	You could be correct. I suggest that you get started right away. The submission guidelines for TalkOrigins are found at: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-submit.html

Feedback Letter

From:

Comment:

Here is a link to my article about Kent Hovind's "Dinosaur Adventure Land," pusblihed in the Nov/Dec issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Thanks to the folks here at talk.origins for all the research assistance this site provided.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-11/hovind.html

Feedback Letter
From:	J. L. Brown
Comment:	I am an evolutionist, and philosophically opposed to the anathema which is often termed 'Nihilism'. I know several creationists, who are, for the most part, good hearted folk who have settled on their stance because they haven't been able to examine or understand what science - and evolutionary theory in particular - actually claims or stands for. One actually cited seashells on mountaintops as evidence that evolution was wrong, apparently not noticing that plate tectonics presents VERY few problems for descent with modification.. (Sigh). One of the creationist chestnuts which I have been contemplating recently has been the assertion that 'Believing in Evolution takes more faith than believing in Creation'. Utter rubbish, of course, but it got me thinking on two counts - first, creationists making this claim apparently think that a theory requiring faith is a bad thing (not what I would expect from them!); second, what are the minimum assumptions that science makes - what things does science ask you to accept on faith alone? So far I have just one - to reject nihilism: to believe that knowledge about the natural world is possible, that one can learn about nature by observing it. Are there any other articles of faith in science? I haven't been able to come up with any, but would love to read any insights which others have. Oh, yeah - great site by the way. I really appreciate all the work you folks put into it; you must have monumental patience. Keep up the good work, please!

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	I just wanted to see what you guys thought of this. Its one of my posts from christianforums.com (im Seventytwo)... and it sank to the bottom pretty quickly: "False Dicotomy: A dichotomy is a set of two mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive alternatives. Dichotomies are typically expressed with the words "either" and "or", like this: "Either the test is wrong or the program is wrong." A false dichotomy is a dichotomy that is not jointly exhaustive (there are other alternatives), or that is not mutually exclusive (the alternatives overlap), or that is possibly neither. In debates between creationists and evolutionists over the years, a pattern has emerged: The creation side will spend a large amount of time trying to "disprove" the Theory of Evolution. While at first glance, this seems to be a valid argumentative tactic, on a closer inspection of the circumstances, it is not. By attempting to refute the Theory of Evolution, what the creationists are doing for their audience is affectually narrowing down the options as to how life as we know it exists today. In other words, they are implying that because Evolution is incorrect, that the only other possible explanation (read, creationism) is correct. This argument is illogical. When this argument is applied by either side, (albiet largely applied by only the creationists) it rests on an already crubling assumption. This assumption is that Evoultion and Creationism are the only two possible explanations for life as we know it to be today. Here is where the entire argument breaks down. Because there may exist unknown mechanisms or explanations for the question of life, it is wrong to assume that this debate involves only Evolution and Creationism. Logic follows from here, that if there is the possibility of other explanations which have yet to be uncovered, that the process of elimination by attempting to refute the other side's claims is invalid. However, this is from a purely logical stand point. So, what we have now is the logical destruction of any argument which tries to provide evidence which would refute either of the two sides of the Creation/Evolution argument we are currently aware of. What does this leave us for the sake of arguments and forum debates, you might ask? Positive evidence. Positive evidence is evidence which does not aim to negate, but rather, to support. In other words, positive evidence will be used to say that any given side is correct. It is the opposite of the evidence given to refute any given side's claims. Positive evidence is what is needed for any argument to be logically valid in this debate, and in most debates."
Response
From:
Author of:	Evolution and Philosophy
Response:	That is pretty much what my logic texts define a false dichotomy as. However, it is a rhetorical or informal fallacy and not a fallacy of logic as such. Informal fallacies are designed to mislead the hearer into making a choice or conclusion that is false. They are much beloved of politicians, and this would explain why they are used so well by creationists (for creationism is a largely political movement).

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	John Wilkins' T.O. article on Darwin and Blyth indicates indicates Blyth supported Darwin's evolution, but I didn't see any specific reference for such a finding. Could you provide some support for that conclusion? I had asked for such on the newsgroup and in private e-mail to John, but I haven't yet noticed a reference (I could have missed it if it was sent or posted). I thought it might also be appropriate to cover the issue in the feedback pages. It would really be nice to have the specific reference supporting that conclusion of John's, if it was true and such references can be located. Sincerely, Robert Baty
Response
From:
Author of:	Darwin's precursors and influences
Response:	I did respond to this query on the newsgroup. Here is an edited version of that reply: I went to my books, which were remarkably uninformative. Eiseley's original book that claimed that Darwin had plagiarised from Blyth itself claims he had an evolutionary story, and a draft of a manuscript entitled "The Origination of Species", at the time of his death in 1873. Blyth was unable to get a pension in India, and returned to England where he had dinner with Darwin in 1868. They were on good terms, and Darwin remarked in one of his letters that Blyth was a clever man. As far back as de Beer's biography on Darwin (1963), it was observed against Eiseley that Blyth's version of natural selection was anti-transmutational. That is, he only allowed for stabilising selection in his papers from the 1830s. My sources are unclear about when he did adopt evolution, but I think it is likely to be after Darwin's book. Darwin's notebooks, says Mayr, show no evidence of being influenced by Blyth, although 50 pages were cut out to become (it is thought by Darwin scholars) the core of OoS, which Eiseley makes into evidence that Darwin was trying to hide something (as do other Darwin-plagiarism conspiracy theorists, each for their favoured candidate). Gould has a remark worth noting (p137) that all British biologists spoke of natural selection before Darwin as a non-evolutionary force, excepting Matthew and Wells. I checked and I included all this in the original FAQ cited, so I guess I can't offer any more than this. The Darwin Correspondence Project lists all Blyth's and Darwin's correspondence. If you really want to follow this up, you might see if they will copy them for you. They plan to place the images of all correspondence online anyway. de Beer, Gavin. 1963. Charles Darwin: evolution by natural selection. London: Nelson. Eiseley, Loren C. 1979. Darwin and the mysterious Mr. X: new light on the evolutionists. New York: Dutton. The original essay was first published in 1959. Gould, Stephen Jay. 2002. The structure of evolutionary theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The growth of biological thought: diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	I'd like to thank you tremendously for creating this site. I tend to visit a debate site, and have used information in this site to successfully "convert" several creationists into either intelligent designer's or at least people who accept evolution.

Feedback Letter
Comment:	The reason no dinosuars made it on to the ark is because they died out at the K/T boundary which was about 65 million years ago. Noahs ark occurred in the holocene which was only a fabout 7000 years ago. There were no dinosaurs to get onto the ark as they had already died out. How thick are you people.

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Comment:	I have a question no one has ever been able to scientifically explain to me. Scientist often have the origin of the universe taking place with the "Big Bang" theory. My question is; where did time, matter, energy, and space come from in order to have the big bang? If there is absolutely nothing, there is no time, space, energy, or space. How can these be "created" from nothing?
Response
From:
Response:	The evident absurdity of the entire universe being literally created from nothing is a common target. But this notion comes from reading the popular literature on cosmology, where it's easier to just talk about the universe beginning as a tiny dot, than it is to deal with the real complications. The idea of the Big Bang being born of nothing comes from an overly literal interpretation of general relativity (GR), wherein the universe necessarily begins as a "singularity". The popular interpretation of "singularity" is "nothing", but the correct interpretation of "singularity" is "undefined". We don't properly say, for instance, that 1/0 "is infinity", but rather that the limit of 1/x, as x approaches 0 is infinity, while 1/0 itself is undefined. If a/b = c, then a=bc, so if I let 1/0 = x, then x0 = 1, but there is no number which, when multiplied by 0, returns 1 (infinity is not a number and so is not allowed, but it is evident in any case that infinity*0 is equally undefined). So if we allow the universe to start with a volume of 0, but a mass/energy that is greater than 0, how can greater than 0 be nothing? But the volume is nothing, so how can it be something? The simple answer is that the universe in fact never had a volume of 0, and never really was "singular". Allowing that the universe was never really "singular" at once denies the validity of GR as a theory to describe the natal universe. But that's OK, GR is a classical theory, and it has been long known that a quantum mechanical theory is required to describe the universe adequately, when its age is something less than about 1 Planck-time. And quantum mechanical theories don't have singularities, and that eliminates the "undefined" origin of the universe, opening that way for pre Big Bang cosmology. One way of interpreting string theory, for instance, produces a cyclic universe. At present, the state of cosmology as regards the actual origin of the universe is that the singularity of GR is no longer a serious problem, there are plenty of quantum mechanical ways around it. And that is the real problem, there are too many ways around it, and we don't have enough knowledge to constrain them, so we really don't know in which direction the true cosmological origin of the universe is to be found. But we do know, as we have always known, that the universe was not literally born from nothing.

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	I hope that I am not offending when I suggest that an addition be made to your Index of Creationist Claims? Specifically, under the section CA005.1.: Darwin himself was racist, you do need to include the fact that Darwin was a staunch emancipationist in the tradition of the extended Darwin-Wedgewood clan. In fact several extracts from his Voyage of the Beagle illustrate just how much he hated slavery - even to the extent of nearly being thrown off the Beagle after an argument on the subject with the pro-slavery Captain Fitzroy. That said, I would like to thank and congratulate all of the Talk.Origins team for your continuing enthusiasm & quality of information. I would also like to specifically thank Mark Isaak for his wonderful Index which has been a great support to myself, friends & colleagues in being able to address specific claims made by creationists during discussions. Take care all of you. Have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas break and New Year.
Response
From:
Response:	I do mention Darwin's anti-slavery stance in one sentence of CA005.1. Thank you for expanding on it.

Feedback Letter
From:
Comment:	I loved your biased yet thought enriching article on Evolution and Philosophy. Though I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I suppose the author was trying to outcast evolution as a way of life or 'religion' as it does not have answers to everything. Evolution is merely a structured and sensible way of explaining how things are. When it comes to answering 'is there a universal purpose to life in general?' . . . . . . . well I don't think any 'religion' or 'theory' of evolution will fully satisfy this question as the answer lies in the eyes of the beholder. It is up to YOUR interpretation of the question, what life is, and if there is a purpose or not. No God or explanation of why we are here can answer such complex, moral questions.
Response
From:
Author of:	Evolution and Philosophy
Response:	The FAQ was more over a bird's eye overview of the issues as I saw them. I agree - evolution as a science cannot provide meaning of life or higher ethics, and so forth; as it is a factual theory, it has no way to deliver a value-based perspective. At best, it can tell you what is factual or not on which to employ your values. As to your views on religion; while I share them in some ways, a great many people I respect do not. I think at best you can assert that it is not something that works to provide you (or me) with the values we need to live.

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From:

Comment:

Hello again. I'm afraid I'm going to recommend a modification to an article.

My apologies to Mark Isaak, as I've chosen another of his works to critique. The essay is:

Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd Edition. Section 1.: Building the Ark.

Here Mr. Isaak suggests that the purported size of the Ark is too excessive to be real due to the stress imposed on the structure during ocean travel.

This is, I think a dangerous path of defense to tread because ships of 350+ feet in size are possible and so recorded in history. They include the Tessarakonteres of Ptolemy IV, and the Bao Chuan treasure ships of the Ming dynasty in China.

Both are much later experiments in seacraft technology though and arguably the result of at least a millenia or more of sea travel. The Ming Bao Chuan even had sealable bulkheads dividing up the ship so as to contain any leaks (like the much later 20th century liner Titanic).

One could certainly argue that a landlocked people without even a complex sedentary civilization could not have had the knowledge or expertise to build an ark, much less a single Semitic nomad & his extended family..

And then again there are the economics of constructing such a monolithic structure. The timber alone would have been enormously expensive to harvest, fashion and transport to the building site. Consider that the building of such large ships required all the infrastructure of large, sophisticated empires like Hellenic Egypt & Ming dynasty China. Consider also that a good sized forest would have to be destroyed in order to construct such a vessel.

But the argument based on size alone is not proof enough of the improbability of a Noachian ark.

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From:	Jeremy Mather
Comment:	Gotcha! The Homo floresiensis discovery is final scientific proof that we God-fearing intelligently-designed scientific creationists are right, and you God-hating unintelligently-designed pseudo-scientific evolutionists are wrong. Reason: Their tiny “hobbit” size, especially their sin-shrunken brain, proves that they were part of the degenerated antediluvian race that were wiped out by God by the raging Flood waters 4,000 years ago and were buried by God’s raging waters so that they could be exhumed in the last days. So Homo floresiensis also scientifically proves that the last days are finally upon us! Their wicked sins — they were probably pre-Flood evolutionists — caused both their minds and their bodies to atrophy. For they cohabited with animals, probably some kind of monkey — bestiality! — and their offspring were diminished in body, mind and soul. So God destroyed them. And God’s going to destroy you! “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an over; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 4:1, King James Version, the only true version.) Repent, evolutionists, before it is forever too late!
Response
From:
Response:	I smell a slight whiff of irony and sarcasm here. Just a hint...

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Comment:	I was wondering what you thought about this: “All living things contain in their cells the DNA molecule that carries the information (genetic instructions) for making all aspects of that creature and all this information is in the first fertilized cell of each kind of creature. Amoeba DNA has no information for making hooves, hair, tails and eyes, but horse DNA does." this is taken from: www.AswersInGenesis.com
Response
From:
Author of:	Evolution and Philosophy
Response:	There are many things I personally think is wrong about this - not the least is the idea that DNA is information about anything other than the making of short amino acid stretches. Changes in DNA will cause changes in the organism's phenotype (body structure), but it is simply false and misleading to say that DNA is information about the phenotype. But even if one does allow this, it cannot be true that the first cell had all the information to make each kind of creature - this would mean that Adam and Eve had cells with literally thousands of alternative genes, for blue, green, grey, and brown eyes; for thousands of immune alleles, and so on, not to mention the genes that cause diseases. This is my personal view. I think that using "information" talk for genes is mistaken and leads to all kinds of misapprehensions, although AiG ought to be informed enough not to make the rather simplistic ones they do. For example, in any system of information transmission and processing I am aware of, it is trivially easy to create new information - it is called "noise". The real problem is preventing it. Mutation is evolution's noise (one kind). Natural selection is one kind of filter that retains whatever is working better than the alternatives.

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From:
Comment:	YOU HAVE NOT answered ID. There will always need to be something to cause what is occurring to make lives possible. ANYONE who thinks the human body which is more complex than the modern computer is either ignorant and doesn't know it, or willingly ignorant of the Truth. YOU ALSO DID NOT answer Michael Behe's IC argument. Sure there may be 1 or 2 missing of flagellum in nature, but your still can't assume it started from scratch based on that either. Does it scare you to think of a God existing that made you? Hope you will see the evidence is crystal clear that we are not here by chance but that we are created.
Response
From:
Response:	Darwin answered ID over 100 years ago by describing the design process in biology. Consider how people do design. When you design something, you begin with an existing model as close as possible to what you want. Then you modify it. If it is anything but the most trivial design, you will make mistakes. You then throw out those mistakes and make other modifications instead. The changes work, you keep. That is how design works. That is also how evolution works. Sure, there are some differences between human design and evolution. In human design, new models can be tried and mistakes detected in mental models. This prevents the need to manufacture and test a prototype for every possible change and makes the process go much faster. Human design also allows old design features to be gathered from many different lineages, whereas evolution mostly allows access only to features from one lineage. But the fact remains that intelligent design is descent with modification, using mostly Darwinian processes. To the extent that life looks designed, it is because life and design use the same processes. Michael Behe has answered Michael Behe's IC argument when he admitted that evolution is not limited to adding single parts without changing function. In fact, since so much of genetics differs from Behe's premise (in particular, parts commonly have multiple functions, and entire sets of parts are often duplicated), IC has almost no relevence to biology at all.

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From:
Comment:	In your answer of the simple cell coming into being, you said, "have evolved from more primitive precursors," from a person who is seeking truth and not opinions, can you tell me where those precursors came from? (and please do not avoid the question by saying previous precursors).
Response
From:
Response:	If you do not want to know an answer, don't ask a question. Sure, the precursor cells evolved from some simpler reactions and entities, until we get back to something that can only be called chemistry rather than biochemistry. That is how evolution works. It plays merry hell with our terms and categories, but unfortunately the world cares little for what we might think about it.

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From:

Comment:

It sounds funny to say, but I've almost come to think of this website as a sort of "home away from home." I think it's the consistency in intelligence and calm disposition that haved established this domain as what many people would call "one of the best sites on the web." There are always those out there who will take things at face value, or those who simply do not possess the forsight to see what is being muddled by agenda-seeking outsiders. But there is also the group here at Talk Origins, who have not only the technically training, but most importantly, the forsight to be skeptical, take things rationally, and use techniques of investigation that have been shown for hundreds of years to be, while not flawless, the most reliable means of natural discovery the human race has ever invented.

It is easy to get depressed by what appears to be an abundance of ignorance, by many who simply do not have the ability nor willpower to take the time and dedication that is absolutely required for truly understanding the nature of the world we live in. However, and this is yet to fail me, this depression is always offset by the amazing qualities inherent to the contributers of this website and organization. You represent the scientific community more perfectly than any sort of paid organization ever could. Your ability to see the shades of gray between the black and white simplicity of which most people prefer continue to serve as a foundation of reason that inspire others, like myself, to hold intelligence and reason as perhaps two of the most dignifying qualities of humans.

You guys deserve a vacation =).

Thank you,

Jeffrey

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From:
Comment:	HAHAHAHAH, Your site is funny, bias and it's filled with jokes, it's like a stand up comic, they make you laugh but you can never take one serious. Thanks guys, I enjoy all the evidence you show for creation. P.S. Kill yourself you are worth nothing according to evolution.

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From:
Comment:	ok. There is SOOOO much proof that creation is true. God has used so much proof in our everyday lives. Like if we had 1% more or less oxygen we would all die. We have no missing link. There are always apes, we never see people half-apes, half-humans. You are pretty much saying that the whole Bible is a lie with evolution, that is one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard. The whole Bible is true, and if you don't believe in part of the Bible, then you don't believe in any of it. And if you don't believe in the Bible, then you don't believe in God. I know God is real because he is what keeps me going everyday, the reason I live, the reason I am the way I am. email me for more info, I will be glad to give you some. I am not here to bust your theory, but I have a lot of facts proven that is against your theory. Thank You.

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From:	Joel
Comment:	In the article 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution, Part 4, The Molecular Sequence Evidence, Figure 4.1.1 is mislabeled. The figure is described as: "Human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) insertions in identical chromosomal locations in various primates" In the original article this is the label: "Fig. 5. Subfamilies and branches of HERV-K LTRs. Arrows supplied with the corresponding branch names indicate estimated ages of propagation starts. Dotted squares and open circles at the ends of the arrows designate LTR-I and LTR-II subfamilies respectively. An evolutionary tree of the primate lineage is presented at the bottom of the figure. Arrows at the tree mark the times of the LTR insertions in the loci; loci names are added at the arrow tops; dark and light arrows designate LTRs belonging to the LTR-I and LTR-II subfamilies respectively." The source article never refers to "identical" chromosome locations, as this was not the intent of the original paper. This is a somewhat deceptive description not representing the data.
Response
From:
Response:	Dear Joel, I am afraid you are mistaken in your understanding of the original paper. Lebedev et al. 2000 is an analysis of great ape HERVs, and the authors sequenced numerous examples of HERVs that are shared between humans and other great apes in the exact chromosomal loci. For instance, in Figure 4.1.1 of the 29+ Evidences, the first two arrows at the left of the tree (labelled "0041" and "ltr12") represent two HERVs that are shared among humans, chimps, gorillas, orangutans, gibbons, and Old and New World monkeys, all in the same two chromosomal locations (loci). As the original figure legend you quoted explains, the label above the arrow indicates the homologous chromosomal locus in which that HERV is inserted. And what that means is that the specific HERV indicated is inserted in the same locus in all the primates descendant to that insertion point. Each arrow in that figure represents an HERV in the same, homologous chromosomal locus that is shared among all the primates on branches to the right of the arrow. Determining such shared HERVs and estimating the ages of the original insertions was, quite certainly, the primary intent (and result) of the original paper. Ref: Lebedev, Y. B., Belonovitch, O. S., Zybrova, N. V, Khil, P. P., Kurdyukov, S. G., Vinogradova, T. V., Hunsmann, G., and Sverdlov, E. D. (2000) "Differences in HERV-K LTR insertions in orthologous loci of humans and great apes." Gene 247: 265-277 [PubMed]

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From:	Narto
Comment:	Hi. I am Asian high school student. It says that a beneficial mutations (or variations?) will be hereditated to its descendants. How about those "not beneficial" mutations? Do they get lost? Or reproduced also? And why? by what mechanism? Thank you. Sorry if my english is not good
Response
From:
Author of:	Evolution and Philosophy
Response:	If a mutation is not helpful to the organism that carries it, and it gets passed on to the organism's progeny, then each one will have to bear the burden of that disadvantage. This means that when things are tight or difficult, those that do not carry that burden will be able to more frequently or more successfully raise their progeny. Over time, the number of organisms in a population that carry the burdensome mutation will increase more slowly than those that don't. In short, the ratio of mutation-bearers to non-bearers will decline. Eventually they will either reach an equilibrium point, where the burden is insufficiently heavy, as it were, to make it decline further, or it will be extinguished in that population. Either way, this is Natural Selection, and that is the name given to this process.

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From:
Comment:	You talk about there being some sort of "evidence" to support evolution. I hope you are not referring to a human skull with a pig's jaw that is passed off as a caveman. If the evidence you speak of is a book you read or a picture you saw, then you believe in evolution by faith. Did YOU ever see a fish that was trapped on land decide that he needed legs and grow them. No, you didn't. No one has. Simple facts support a young earth (<10,000 years) where evolution would not be possible. 1. The rotational speed of the earth is slowing. Billions of years ago, it would have spinning at an unbelievable speed where intertia would overpower gravity. 2. The sun (a finite source of energy) is getting smaller. Billions of years ago, it would have been so large that no life of any kind could survive on earth. The list goes on. It's just common sense. Think about it.
Response
From:
Response:	Ah, the eternal refrain of ignorance… No, the evidence of which we speak is not a human skull with a pig's jaw. And assuming you are referring to "Piltdown Man", it was an orangutan jaw not a pig jaw. No, the evidence is not just what we've read or seen in books (though there is plenty to see in them, you might want to take a look), and we don't need to "believe in evolution by faith." No, of course we've never seen a fish "trapped on land decide that he needed legs and grow them", but that is not how evolution works anyway. Finally, no, the "simple facts" do not support a young earth, something which was learned by (creationist) geologists prior to the general acceptance of evolutionary theory and is thus not a problem. As for your two specific arguments see the following links: "Earth's rotation is slowing down". "The sun is shrinking at such a rate that it would disappear completely in 100,000 years". See also " The Legend of the Shrinking Sun". You've been misled Mr. Bickel.

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From:	Ray
Comment:	I read a book recently called Refuting Evolution by Jonathon Sarfati claiming that evolution can only take place through mutations in which genetic information is gained. He says that no such mutations exist. Is this true, and if it is true, how is evolution possible?
Response
From:
Response:	It is not true. The rest fails because of it. Suppose you have a sequence of DNA: A-B-C-D-E A mutation can duplicate a subsequence: A-B-B-C-D-E or delete it A-C-D-E or insert a whole different one A-B-C-X-D-E or invert some part of it A-D-C-B-E and so on. All these changes will make the end product of the gene different, and a good many will add properties that make a difference to the organism's body, abilities and capacity to mate with other organisms. This is "information" that is generated by mutation. Whether or not it is useful information depends on the environment in which the organism finds itself. The ability to survive slightly greater temperatures, or eat a novel food source might be useful or it might not. The idea that information cannot be generated except by the intervention of intelligence is quite simply a mistake based on false intuition. There is no agreed sense in which genes even have information, apart from controlling what is called the primary sequence of amino acids. The functionality of these molecules depends on things outside the gene sequence.

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From:
Comment:	This is a great website and has opened my eyes even more on the thought of evolution. Unfortunately I live in a town that thinks god is the reason for everything, personally I never bought it and I'm happy to realize there are people out there that have the same ideas as myself. I have taken it upon myself to research about the thought of evolution on my christmas vacation from highschool. I hope only the future isn't as ignorant and I can only hope they accept new different ideas such as evolution. Thank you, Emily

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From:

Comment:

Regarding the Oct. 2004 Post of the Month, Honorable Mention section, the title reads: "Antibody Binding and Goal Sequences - MEC shows why a 'perfect fit' is not needed for the human immune system to rapidly evolve antibodies specific enough to bind with intruder molecules."

Did those at Talk.Origins fail to realize that this was a strawman version of my actual argument? I never argued that a perfect fit was necessary for antibodies to bind with intruder molecules (antigens) or for them to function in an adequate fashion - not at all. This is a strawman version of my argument initially put forward by MEC.

My actual argument was that the immune system was capable of evolving stronger and more specific antibody-antigen binding over time via improved sequence match to the invading sequence. This evolution of improved immune system function over time works exactly like Dawkins' "Methinks it is like a weasel" scenario worked. Evolution in both of these cases is extremely rapid, but not with other types of functions, such as bacterial motility, that do not have access to such a pre-established ideal pattern or template to follow each single point mutational step of the way. The immune system does actually work when it first encounters the antigen, and then improves its function over time by pattern matching. Other functions simply cannot evolve in this way because there is no pre-established pattern to follow and no function at all of that type (i.e., motility) until a minimum sequence length and specificity of the type and order of sequence characters is realized.

In any case, you should at least change the strawman title to this POTM or add a link to my rebuttal already posted in response to MEC's winning post.

Thank you.

Sean Pitman, M.D.

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From:
Comment:	I've just had a conversation with a creationist via a series of emails. It was a chilling experience, a contact with a form of non reasoning, or unthinking that I found unnerving. He had been involved in a heated debate with several pro-evolutionists, but neither he nor they appeared to have much understanding of Darwin’s theory of evolution. They had been locked in an argument over whether “Darwin’s claims that life had spontaneously arisen from inorganic matter was valid”. I pointed out to my new creationist friend that Darwin’s theory dealt with the evolution of one species into another species, and did not have anything to say about the first appearance of life. In the course of six email exchanges numerous arguments “proving” that life could not spontaneously arise were thrown at me, and my restatements of the simple fact in my original post was ignored over and over again. Is it possible for a meeting of minds to occur when one mind is permanently closed?
Response
From:
Response:	Unfortunately, no. But if you are interested, the Spontaneous Generation FAQ describes how th eidea of abiogenesis, spontaneous generation and evolution interact. Historically also, the person whose evolutionary theory required the spontaneous generation of life (constantly) was Lamarck.

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From:
Comment:	Reference: The misconceptions page contains this quote: "(One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least.)" I am a Creationist, but getting more interested in critical thinking, the Skeptics Society, etc., including returning to the issue of Evolution. Using the above reference in your own website, it seems to me to say that if Evolution happens regardless of any theory of abiogenesis (or autogenesis, or Creation), then am I correct in thus thinking that Creation and Evolution are not necessarily contradictory? Creation is not a theory, as talkorigins.org points out, but it is an explanation about the origin of species. Evolution could have happened thereafter. I figure this would give Noah fewer critters to save, but I also hypothesize that only the known world at the time was flooded (& I say hypothesize instead of theorize b/c I'm not familiar with any region in the Middle East which could have been flooded an unknown amount of time ago). I know I'm only analyzing this sentence "in a vacuum" so to sepak, but is my thinking on track (Creation/Evolution not contradictory)? And if so, why try to debunk Creation (even though I understand if Creationists are Evolutionists biggest thorn in their sides). This is why I want to learn more, becuase what your website says about Evolution is not compatable with what I learned in public school.
Response
From:
Author of:	Evolution and Philosophy
Response:	We do not try to debunk the idea that God may have created the universe, and/or life. There are those of us here who think that both are perfectly natural events, and some who think they needed a divine kick-off, so to speak. To defend the theory of evolution is not to deny that. The creationism we deny and reject to a person, whether theist or atheist is the claim that the notion of evolution by natural is insufficient to explain the diversity of living things. Creationism comes in many kinds (and is to be distinguished from the theistic doctrine of creation), and all kinds from young earth six-day creationism to intelligent design creationism attack the theory of evolution. Why do we do this? Because evolutionary theory is science, and they are not. Now I am not Christian or theist. But even if I were, I would still see that the origin of life needs no "design", as it is the outworking of the natural laws that God, if he exists, created. Many Christians I know think this also. It seems to me that to restrict God's creation to a few magical incantation events is to have a very small conception of the creator of the universe. But I will leave that to those who are believers to add their thoughts to.