Feedback for July 1999

Kent Hovind's Creation Science Evangelism site is well-known to us at the Talk.Origins Archive. It is on our list of links to other sites. An exhaustive refutation of Hovind's claims by Dave Matson is also on this site. The general consensus from talk.origins regulars is that Hovind's site is of fairly low quality. Hovind does not advance any new arguments; he merely rehashes those of other creationists. The ICR is at least more creative than that.

Hovind thinks to score points by either ridiculing the notion that the universe came from "nothing" (which he wrongly thinks is a common belief amongst evolutionists), or forcing you to admit that you don't know. But I say so what? Are we all really expected to know the answer to every question? If we don't know the answer, does that automatically make any answer that Hovind puts forth just as good as any other answer? I think not.

As Kenneth Fair points out, the question in any case is not relevant to the Darwinian idea of biological evolution. However, creationists of the young Earth variety use the word evolution in a non-standard way, to mean all change of everything with time. in their view, biological evolution, cosmic evolution, stellar evolution, & etc. are all "evolution", and all equally wrong. it is for this reason that Hovind thinks the question relevant.

• Introduction to Cosmology
• Cosmology Tutorial

If we truly evolved, who created the first cell? If you are religious, then you can say that God did. If you are not religious, then no one did. The theory of evolution, and science in general, does not speak on the issue.

When was the beginning? To the best of our knowledge, between 12 and 15 billion years ago.

Space probably does come to an end, based on my limited understanding, but may be folded in on itself so as to have no boundary or edge.

Can I explain eternity? No. Can you? Is there such a thing? How do we know? It is possible that all things will come to an end, if the universe is "open".

If you want to believe in a creator, that is your right. But to attack real science, and call us liars, well that is rude and unfounded. Repent of what? Seeking the facts and honestly accepting what appears to be true? Why do you find that your theology and science are at odds? Are you aware that you appear smug and self-righteous?

If you cannot detect something, that means it is not observable. If it is not observable, it leaves no evidence, no clues, to it's existence. If it is not observable, it is not testable. If it is not testable, it is not falsifiable.

Science does involve things that are not detectable, such as the the gravitational waves predicted by General Relativity. But here is the difference: You said that "just because we can't detect it doesn't mean it's false". That "shifting" of the burden of proof is not what science is about. It's not enough to say that it's real because we can't disprove it. The party making the claim must substantiate it.

If we can't detect it, we can't prove it's true. If we can't detect it, we can't prove anything about it. If we start accepting such things as science, that would be the start of the new dark ages.

Just because we can't detect the teacup that is in orbit around Neptune, that's not proof that it's not there, right? Do you see the point now? You don't have to prove the teacup is NOT there, you have to prove that it IS there.

Chemical Etiology of Nucleic Acid Structure, Albert Eschenmoser. Science 1999 June 25; 284: 2118-2124.
and
  Chemical Etiology of Nucleic Acid Structure: Comparing Pentopyranosyl-(2'4') Oligonucleotides with RNA, M. Beier, F. Reck, T. Wagner, R. Krishnamurthy, and A. Eschenmoser. Science 1999 January 29; 283: 699-703.

At this stage it is preliminary, but the results show that not all nucleotides are as stable as each other. However, the likely reason why other forms of nucleotides are rare or non-existent is that they are polymers: that is, molecules made up of repeated units. Any units ('mers') that are naturally occurring will feed into to the processes of the most successful living systems based on one particular form of nucleotide. In other words, the successful life forms will eat the building blocks of other forms, so we won't see them in nature.

The issue of whether alien forms caused us to evolve (a notion sometimes called Panspermia) just puts the problem back a step - how did they evolve? It is unnecessary to invoke this cause unless there are good reasons to think that either evolution of life could not have begun on earth, or there is enough physical evidence to suggest that it first evolved elsewhere. I think it is likely it arose here, but that many of the prebiotic materials may have been created in space. See the article below for a summary:

Life's Far-Flung Raw Materials, Max P. Bernstein, Scott A. Sandford and Louis J. Allamandola. Scientific American, July 1999

For a short summary of research on the origins of life on earth, see

Life's First Scalding Steps, S. Simpson. Science News Online

Having said all that, there's nothing in principle that makes an alien creator impossible, but it is very unlikely.

He has no foundatation for any of his claims. He makes his statements to soothe his followers and confuse the scientifically illiterate. Dave Matson does a very thorough job in debunking Hovind's nonsense. I also have taken on the task. Enter the land of Hovindia.

You mentioned Hovind's "theories". The truth is that he has never actually introduced a scientific theory. All he as done is spewed out some anti-evolutionary, scientific-sounding jargon.

You might ask yourself WHY you don't trust scientific judgements. It cannot be because you have examined all the available scientific evidence and come to a contrary conclusion. Why then? I suspect it has to do exclusively with fact that you feel your religious beliefs are threatened. I have no Ph.D. to show you. In fact, I'm going to tell you that you should not take any one person's word for a scientific claim. Scientific theories stand or fall by the strength of the evidence that supports them, NOT on the credibility or prestige of any person. And the theory of evolution is standing very well at this time.

For you, the bible may be the standard of truth, in which everything else is to be judged. That is your right. However, you cannot insist that be so for anyone else. The bible should not be consulted in any scientific theory whatsoever. True science does indeed contradict the bible, in many, many ways. The origins of life are not out of thin air. Humans did not originate from the dust, and a rib. The world was never covered with a global flood- there is ample evidence against that outrageous claim. Languages did not originate from the Tower of Babel. The earth is not immoble: it rotates and moves through space. The stars are not for signs and seasons. The earth is not flat.

The roots of modern science can be traced back to the Greek Ionian tradition from the 6th Century B.C.

Your claim that Darwin was some sort of pagan occultist is complete nonsense. And, even if it were true, that would have no bearing AT ALL upon modern evolutionary theory. Most of the scientists who were responsible for modern scientific theories were not anti-christian, atheists or pagans: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. You are wrong, and I think you are a paranoid conspiracy nut as well.

You appear to have no knowledge of the mountain of evidence that supports evolution. You make false analogies between the human ability to create, and natural forces. Your arguments hold no weight whatever. Programs and paintings do not reproduce, have no DNA, and therefore have no method by which to evolve. Hence, your analogy is pitifully false.

If you feel that statistics or physics can debunk evolution, then please try to do so. No one from the creationist camp has yet been able to do so. Evolution will not be solved by math. It is understood through biology and geology.

Humans look out for the environment because some of us have the morality to realize that we humans are responsible for the unethical destruction of the environment, and have engaged in hunting species to extinction. From your point of view, if the end of the world is coming soon, why bother saving any animals at all? Armageddon is at hand...

When the evidence contradicts a theory, the scientist rejects the theory. The creationist rejects the evidence.

You are working from at least two false premises: one, that each individual trait is "stored" in the genes - in fact much of the "information" about traits is the result of interactions between and within cells. The presence of growth factors determines what cells will develop into digits or not, and how many digits will occur.

The other, more pernicious fallacy is that the vertebrate "body plan" is somehow the "default" for evolution. This is not true. There are many body plans just here on earth, and it is something of an accident that the vertebrate one is the one in whch intelligence evolved - many body plans could not have evolved intelligence because of the way their nervous systems are configured, but many others might have.

This means that intelligent aliens need not have digits at all - they need not be tetrapodal (four limbed) or even symmetrical. Let your imagination run riot a bit. Constraints on design will be dictated by the environment of the aliens' ancestors.

I hope this helps.

When people discuss "evolution," however, they are most often referring to biological evolution. Stars evolve in the sense that they change, but they do not evolve as biological systems evolve. They do not reproduce, for instance, nor do they pass on traits to their offspring.

Most of those who espouse a creationist viewpoint do not deny that things change. They do not disagree with the word "evolution" in a general sense; they disagree with it as it concerns biological systems. They oppose theories of evolution as explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. This web site is a response to that opposition.

We do, however, discuss the age of the Earth and the universe to some extent on this site. See the Age of the Earth FAQS.

Self-organization is an observed and widely studied fact in a range of fields, including chemistry, biology and physics. Whether you think it implies Mind or not is not at issue, but it happens naturally, whatever you think naturally is.

You are arguing out of ignorance of the topics concerned.

As for state-sponsored, yes, science is mostly state-funded in most nations. This is because it takes a lot of hard work, time and technical apparatus to do science. Of course, we could stop doing it and just watch TV or something, but the end result is not likely to be a well-ordered society, particularly if other nations decide they will keep doing science.

The bottom line, for me, is that Gentry's research is unconvincing. There are a number of short-lived Polonium isotopes, but the isotopes identified by Gentry are all part of the Uranium-Thorium decay chain, and all of the halos found by Gentry are in proximity to Uranium sources. Compared to the vast and thorough body of evidence that indicate an old Earth, Gentry's results are too soft and too easily criticized to be influential.

This archive is a collection of articles and essays, most of which have appeared in talk.origins at one time or another. The primary reason for this archive's existence is to provide mainstream scientific responses to the many frequently asked questions (FAQs) and frequently rebutted assertions that appear in talk.origins.

On the Welcome page we find this:

"Why doesn't the archive contain any articles that support creationism?"

The Talk.Origins Archive exists to provide mainstream scientific responses to the frequently asked questions and frequently rebutted assertions that appear in talk.origins. The archive's policy is that readers should be given easy access to alternative views, but those who espouse alternative views should speak for themselves. Hence, the archive supplies links to relevant creationist web sites within many of its articles. It also maintains a frequently updated and extensive list of creationist and catastrophist web sites so that readers may familiarize themselves with anti-evolutionary perspectives on scientific issues.

It seems to me that the purpose for the archive is stated plainly enough right up front. It is clearly stated that the purpose of the archive is to present the mainstream scientific response, and not to present an unbiased or equal-time format. This is not a secret, and is very clearly stated. Evidently you overlooked these introductory remarks.

One can find Gould and Eldredge describing transitional fossils in their first two papers on punctuated equilibria. Colin Patterson was fond of making statements in gadfly mode.

Isolated quotes are not the basis of scientific research, though. An examination of the evidence is what is needed, and Kathleen Hunt does an excellent job of summarizing some of that evidence.

Michael Behe's concept of "irreducible complexity" does not seem to have any particular effect upon the debate, for Behe himself notes that IC only means that a direct route from initial state to final system, all having the exact same function, is debarred, and indirect routes can indeed produce such IC systems. I don't know of any biologists who have insisted that systems in organisms must all have retained the same function from initial appearance to final form.

Wesley

First let me respond by saying that I am a "well-informed scientifically literate person", and not a professional scientist. In addition to volunteering my time responding to these letters, I have my own evolution website, designed specifically for the non-scientist-- the average person of normal intelligence. The Evolution Education Resource Center. It has been reviewed for accuracy by many of the real scientists involved in the production of this website.

I, like you, recognize that the real battle is not in the scientific journals and conferences... it is in the minds of the average person. I actually talk to people, especially young people (with whom I am in constant contact), and help educate them by sharing material and discussing it with them. I must admit, in contradiction to what the creationists always say, evolution is not being taught in all public schools. Many people know next to nothing about it.

You can join the National Center for Science Education, an organization set up specifically to counter the spread of creationism. You can also monitor what happens in your local school. Find out if they are teaching evolution at all, and if so, how much. Find out if they are (illegally) teaching creationism, and if they are, point out to the principal and/or schooboard that it is prohibited. If it does not cease, take the matter to your local ACLU office. They handle these sorts of things.

I am interested in hearing what others have to say on this important subject.

Faith is not required for evolutionary biology, because faith involves some sense of certainty not available to fallible human science. Faith in a literalistic interpretation of scripture is no foundation for science.

Richard Dawkins, in his Climbing Mount Improbable covers the evolution of the eye nicely.

In summary:

• Every step of the reconstructed evolution of the eye exists in some organism today, which shows that each step is viable.
• Partial vision is better than less vision at all stages of that process. Partially sighted people are able to avoid large objects and find light sources.
• Any light sensitive spot already has nerve connections, so the subsequent changes merely require changes in the wiring of those nerves. Since nerves "find" their neighbors during growth, there is no difficulty here.

Funnily enough, this is exactly the argument that Darwin speculatively gave, but now we have a much greater knowledge of heredity and development, as well as the examples of such intermediate steps in quite happy organisms

I do hope this helps you

The notion that single celled organisms had a "strong need to know" anything is INDEED ludicrous. It is a breakdown of logic to even conceive of such a thought.

I did have a great day!

"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably, some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he does not dare face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not real, he becomes furious when they are disputed." --Bertrand Russell

I find it surprising that you are offended by transitional fossils, radiometric dating, genetics and the like.

I have no faith in evolution whatsoever. It stands or falls on the strength of its evidence. Right now it is standing very well. Yes, the creationists will continue to have the bible. But a book, however worshipped by you, is not scientific evidence, and carries no weight whatsoever. To paraphrase Thomas Paine in the Age of Reason, a revelation is only a revelation to the first person who receives it. No matter how many people he tells of it, to all those other people it is not a revelation, it is hearsay.

Your definition of macroevolution is grossly incorrect. No wonder you cannot accept it. The idea that organisms take enormous steps is wrong; species evolve, not animals. The idea that they have no benefit during these transitions is, again, grossly wrong.

You need to browse the evolution FAQs before you make such statements again.

The Earth has a magnetic field and an atmosphere; together they allow for dust to settle calmly on the Earth's surface. But the moon has no such cushion; dust grains do not settle on the lunar surface, they slam into it at high impact speed. The micrometeorites you mentioned are in fact the very dust you are looking for. The dust grains themselves, and the surface they impact, are fragmented by the impact. Micromelting at impact sites prevents the formation of a nice, intuitive, fluffy dust layer. This makes the absence of an Earth style dust layer on the Moon not too surprising.

Another complication is that the lunar surface is exposed directly to the solar wind and ultraviolet radiation. The result is that there is a significant electric charge difference between dust and the underlying surface, resulting in electrostatic levitation of the dust above the surface. This can push dust as high as 10 kilometers, where it can be blown away from the Moon altogether by solar wind and radiation. See Charged Dust Dynamics in the Solar System; Mihaly Horanyi; Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 34: 383-418, 1996; specifically section 3. Plasma Interactions with Dusty Surfaces, pages 393-398. Also see Large Scale Lunar Horizon Glow and a High Altitude Lunar Dust Exosphere; H.A. Zook & J.E. McCoy; Geophysical Research Letters 18(11): 2117-2120, November 1991.

"It is by faith not by proof with scientific human methods that one comes to God" ...?

Please, please, go tell that to the creationists, and get them to knock it off!

Q: Creationists are qualified and honest scientists. How can they be wrong?

A: The quality of an argument is not determined by the credentials of its author. Even if it was, a number of well-known creationists have questionable credentials. Furthermore, many creationists have engaged in dishonest tactics like quoting out of context or making up references. See the Suspicious Creationist Credentials FAQ and the Talk.Origins Archive's Creationism FAQs.

I am afraid I don't understand why the reader thinks this is an emotional statement. A number of well-known creationists have lied about their credentials, as is documented in the above FAQs. They are frauds, and should be denounced as such, just as any other fraud ought to be denounced. Other creationists have legitimate and fully acceptable credentials; Kurt Wise, for example, studied paleontology at Harvard under Stephen Jay Gould. A person wih good credentials may or may not be convincing, but one with fraudulent credentials is certainly not to be trusted.

The contributors to this Web site agree that scientific hoaxes such as "Piltdown Man" should be exposed. But Piltdown Man was exposed by science, not by creationism. Moreover, even before its exposure as a hoax, Piltdown Man was considered by science to be an anomaly that didn't fit in with what we understood about anthropological development. See the Piltdown Man FAQ for the full story.

There are a few serious documents about the Flat Earth Society on the web. But these were not written or posted by the flat-Earthers themselves. For example, two papers (one and two) by Bob Schadewald may be helpful to you.

It is not the fault of those who maintain this Web site that certain interpretations of the Bible, such as those espoused by "scientific creationists," contradict the physical evidence seen in the world around us. It is also not our fault that the reader has been misled by those who would claim that acceptance of science and religious faith are contradictory.

Spreading the lies of the "scientific creationists" does more to help Satan than this Web site ever could.

Ed Brayton (with tongue firmly in cheek)

Big Bang cosmology does not say that "nothing exploded and slowly evolved into people and animals". So whoever you are arguing with on that point, it's not us. Where the matter came from, where the energy came from, where space came from, where the universe came from, are all open questions. However, the fact that the answers are not known to science does not automatically mean that the answer you offer must be right. It could be right, but it could also be wrong.

Finally, your last comment: "if evolution is true, there is no right and wrong, think about that". I thought about it and this is a dead wrong statement. It is a common ploy for creationists to argue that somehow evolution has a moral foundation of evil. But evolution has no moral foundation at all, because it has nothing to do even with the concept of morality. Whether or not evolution is true has no affect (or effect) on the validity of right and wrong.

• Cosmology Tutorial
• Introduction to Cosmology
• Radiometric Dating Resource List
• The Age of the Earth FAQS

Meanwhile, you may want to peruse my Radiometric Dating Resource List. I put the list together as a central clearing house, so to speak, for material relating radiometric dating to the creation/evolution controversy. There are articles there which show strong correlations with other dating methods that leave little doubt about the veracity of radiometric ages.

What would the geological record reveal if the world had flooded?

What does your good friend Jared have to say about that?

More to the point, although some fish can adapt to suboptimal salinity levels, many cannot. Many fish have a narrow range of salinity tolerance outside of which they do not survive, period. Those fish would have been wiped out by a global flood.

Some pointers to publications and the issues regarding the evolution of sex can be found Origin of Sex, Spatial Heterogeneity and the Maintenance of Sex, (1998) , and more risibly, Sex From FOLDOC.