Why do so many people feel so threatened by evolution? I posted a blog entry yesterday about evolution entitled “God Created Evolution”. I got a response to it on Facebook from a good friend of mine. Here are her and my e-mail threads. I think these are a great source for spirited discussion about evolution in particular and skepticism and rational thought in general. Her responses are in red and mine are in blue.
“You know that creationists are not all stupid people. EVERYONE believes in Microevolution, which explains inheritance and agrees with Mendel’s laws of genetics. What most “scientific creationists” have a problem with is Macroevolution – the idea that DNA evolved merely by chance when all life contains DNA. It is simply TOO complex to be explained even by billions and billions of years. Also they tend to disagree with species becoming other species like dinosaurs becoming birds and that sort of hoo ha. Not all creationists believe in the Bible’s story being the only explanation. I don’t Orthodox Jews are also creationists often, as are many Muslims AND scientists. My link below is to an out of print book that i read that looks at the mathematical improbablity of a single protein evolving from chance even given trillions of years. The chance works out to be something like 1 in 10 126 or something of that nature, don’t ask me to tell you how he came up with that but that again is a 10 with 126 zeros after it.
www.amazon.com/Evolution-Possible-Impossible-James-Coppedge/dp/0310224918
http://www.facebook.com/l/6f712;www.amazon.com/Evolution-Possible-Impossible-James-Coppedge/dp/0310224918”
I never said that creationist are stupid people. I don’t think I even implied it. I certainly don’t believe that they are. I was raised Catholic too, so I am very familiar with Catholicism. I’ve also belonged to a Orthodox Christian church and I was a Muslim later on as well so I completely understand other world views on creation.
There are plenty of valid scientific arguments against creationists’ view of Macroevolution. Also, there is no such thing as scientific creationists. They may call themselves scientific, but for the most part, they do not follow the scientific method, or if they do, they don’t follow it through to completion. They tend to fall into the trap of confirmation bias where they jump on any results that seems to support their beliefs and ignore or explain away those that don’t.
I heard a very persuasive argument against creationism being scientific. For a scientific theory to be valid, it must make accurate, provable predictions. Creationism “science” does not provide these proven predictions. Also, why aren’t corporations and universities hiring any creationist scientists? If their theories are valid and able to be proven, then they should also provide a basis for technologies that have some kind of uses. But we don’t see anything like that at all.
All of the technologies that give us good things in our society are based on predictive, provable science. The foods we eat, the power that comes into our homes, TV’s, phones, computers, the Internet, medicine, clean water, transportation, etc. Not one of the current technologies are based in anyway on creationist “science”. None of the emerging technologies are based on creationist “science”, and there are no corporations, businesses, research institutes, or educational institutes that are investing time and money into using and making something out of creationist “science”.
Until creationist “science” can make accurate and provable predictions and provide the basis for valid technologies and uses, it is merely pseudoscience.
“evolution is just as unprovable. Again, the law of biogensis is a law precisely because it is proven. Anyways, i didn’t mean to imply that you thought i was stupid. Sorry about that. Universities probably employ many creationists, corporations not so much because they’re only about making money not truth. “
“”This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” – Isaac Newton “
“Isaac Newton was a creationist. Possibly because Darwin wasn’t around yet, but still
” Evolution is provable because it has had accurate, provable predictions. In the article you responded to, I used the example of the Tiktaalik and how it’s existence was accurately predicted by evolutionary theory and it was found where it was predicted to be and in a strata of soil from the time period that evolutionary theory said it should be. This is what I mean by accurate predictions and proof.
The quote from Sir Isaac Newton is merely an Argument From Authority. Since he is a famous and well regarded scientist, and he believed in divine creation, you want us to assume that this proves that creationism is true. All it proves is that, as you said, Darwin and his theory wasn’t around yet. My guess is that if it had Newton, being the scientist he was, probably would have embraced it.
Newton also believed in alchemy, which has since been proven by the atomic theory, among others, to be impossible. So his beliefs that are based on his ignorance mean nothing more than the fact that he believed as he did because he didn’t know any better. I can say the same about pretty much everyone who lived at the time of Galileo who believed that the earth was the center of the universe, but their belief in an earth centered universe didn’t make it true and their disbelief in a sun centered solar system didn’t make that truth false.
If you have comments for my friend, you can reach her at her E-mail: cLndi@yahoo.com . She has let me know she would love feedback. Also, she wanted me to say that she’s single and available. 🙂
Twas Brillig 