In honor of Darwin Day this year, I wanted to take a little time to encourage those of you who haven't given creationism or evolution much thought to do so. Picking a side isn't the point. It's a bit like voting: both sides have a stance on something. The "winner" of the argument will go on to affect change in your world. Therefore, getting to know the stances of both sides helps you to make informed decisions about things that will effect you, and aid you in realizing in what context information in the future is being presented.
On A Lack of Substance
If you've never really thought much about the Evolution vs. Creation discussion before, I encourage you to take some time to look into each side in as much depth as you can. Maybe you're on the fence about which side you agree with. Maybe you're a Christian or a spiritual person and think that necessarily means you must be a Creationist.
Evolution has nothing do say about any God. To accept the fact that things change over time doesn't mean you have to not believe in a Supreme Being. Evolution doesn't talk about how life began, only how life changes.
The biggest arguments against it as an means of explaining life boils down into these fallacies:
#1: God of the Gaps
All throughout human history, there have been things we don't understand. Even still, there are lots and lots of things we don't yet fully understand, and even more things we have no clue about at all. The problem is that these gaps in our knowledge are a great fit for God. Any time we can say, "I don't know" or "I can't explain it", a believer in some kind of deity will answer with their god, even though that explains a mystery with an even bigger mystery. Where our knowledge ends, religion and god-belief begins.
2: Personal Incredulity
If you've never really thought about evolution before, you might be thinking, "I can't imagine how that works". This is a common starting point for a lot of Creationists, and indeed before Charles Darwin uncovered the method in 1800's, it was the starting point for all of humanity. But simply not being able to understand how something works doesn't make the thing nor its explanation any less valid. That's like saying, "I just can't believe people could build a rocket ship!" is a valid refutation of the 1961 orbit by Yuri Gagarin.
3: Not Enough Time
When it comes down to it, a lot of Creationists today accept evolution -- they realize things change over time. They just stop before one thing changes into another. That is, given enough time, an organism can evolve into a separate species. Yet Creationists claim that no one "kind" of animal changes into another "kind". The problem they have is simply with time. Evolution works given enough time, but due to a human's relatively short time to live, this idea makes it harder to put into perspective, because we don't see change occurring fast enough. And since the hard-core Creationists believe the literal interpretation of the Bible and only allow for 6,000 to 10,000 years, they don't allow for the millions or billions of years such a change needs.
The Parnell Building at the University of Queensland, Australia, houses the world's oldest continually running experiment: a funnel of tar pitch (bitumen) sits inside a glass case at room temperature. The pitch looks solid (and in fact it can be shattered with a hammer) but it actually flows at an extremely slow rate. It takes about a decade for it to drip. The experiment was set up by a physics professor in 1927, and it as dripped eight times, and is due to drop very soon. The rate is very slow in our perspective. The continental drift of Australia is ten times faster than the flow of this stuff.
A Creationist looks at the time it takes for evolution in much the same way as someone who, for example, could have taken the pitch-drop experiment home with them, lived with it, perhaps got a Ph.D in something along the way, and every day looked at it and concluded, "it doesn't drip".
We can't generally see evolution occurring because it takes generations to work. We do, however, see it occur in bacteria because they go through generations within a matter of hours. Following the evidence, we see that Earth is millions of years old, 4.5 billion in fact. Even without the evidence for evolution (fossil record, comparative biology, DNA, etc.), it should be easy to see that small changes over a time on that scale could result in great diversity.
Dig For Yourself
This blog post by no means should convince anyone of anything. Its purpose is to encourage you to start looking into things for yourself. Read and watch all that you can on both evolutionarily science and Creationist information. Ask critical questions of everything you find. Try to falsify, try to debunk, try to dismantle every argument you hear.
Think for yourself.
-STA
Showing posts with label darwin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label darwin. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Saturday, September 19, 2009
An Updated Origin
November 21, 2009 will mark the exact 150-year mark since the publication of Charles Darwin's book Origin of Species, and a group is actually going to provide over fifty college campuses with free -- yes, FREE -- copies of the book. Who is this group, and why would they go through all that trouble? Why, for God, of course!
That's right folks. The group is the 'Living Waters' ministry. But why would I care that a Christian evangelical collective is giving away Darwin's book? Because this is not the book Darwin wrote. This special-edition version includes a hidden 50-page introduction written by Ray Comfort. And therefore, as you should be able to guess, starts the book off by claiming evolution can't happen, and then proselytizing for Jesus. I say "hidden" because the book does mention Ray's name until after the introduction.
Ray's Fractal Wrongness
You can read Comfort's introduction at the Living Waters site. Here's some random lines from Ray's special introduction, to give you an idea into Ray's way of thinking:
"Here’s the argument: There was nothing. Then paper appeared, and ink fell from nowhere onto the flat sheets and shaped itself into perfectly formed letters of the English alphabet." -pg. 9
If you're familiar with Ray Comfort's style of argument, then this should be par for the course. Ray thinks that evolution is cosmology and abiogenesis all rolled into one. He thinks natural selection should explain the expansion of the universe, and that the traits of animals just popped into being.
"Do you think that DNA’s amazing structure could have come together by accident? Or does it point to an intelligent Designer?" -pg. 11
Ray thinks because Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project, thinks God made DNA (and he IS a scientist, after all!), then DNA = ID = Jesus. He also mentions Anthony Flew's conversion, as if it made a difference.
"There is a mountain in South Dakota that proves what evolutionists have been saying all along: if you just have enough time, wind, rain, erosion, and pure chance, you can get a mountain with the faces of four U.S. presidents on it!" -pg. 13
"Here are some interesting questions for the thinking evolutionist: Can you explain which came first—the blood or the heart—and why?" -pg 23
Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, and the like have never understood evolution, nor do I think they ever will.
After citing hoaxes of "missing links" (which were discovered using science!), Ray quotes Darwin out of context, and even uses the oldest trick: quoting the bit where Darwin admits that the evolution of the eye seems absurd, and then stopping before quoting the VERY NEXT LINE that shows how. Ray does however mention that next line, here:
"Even more incredible, though, is that Darwin went on to say that he believed the eye could nonetheless have been formed by natural selection. He was right on one point. If a Designer is left out of the equation, such a thought is absurd in the highest degree." -pg 28
The oldest Creationist canards are stuffed into these 50 pages of drivel. All the misunderstandings a religious person who is uninformed about science could make are in here.
"But even if an organ were no longer needed, wouldn’t it only prove devolution? This fits well with the Law of Entropy— that all things deteriorate over time." -pg 29
Ray not only fails to understand evolution, but he also fail to understand any tacit of science, it seems, including Thermodynamics. And after showing us he can't comprehend things such as biology, palentology, geology, cosmology, and physics, he goes on to show how racist and sexist Darwin was -- as if that has anything at all to do with his ideas.
The next logical (for him) tact is to claim that believing in evolution creates people like Adolf Hitler.
One of his funniest lies is this:
"If you find it hard to believe that there was an Intelligent Designer, give this some thought. Man, with all his genius, can’t make a grain of sand from nothing....Did you realize that if we could simply make one blade of grass without using existing materials, we could solve the world’s hunger problem?" -pg. 31
Remember, he's arguing for an intelligent creator god who CAN make things ex nihilo. So Ray, why doesn't your God solve the world's hunger problem?
"Richard Dawkins, arguably the most famous of atheists, can’t claim the title 'atheist,' because he understands that something must have created everything. He said, 'Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.' " -pg. 37
This comes after Ray redefines the term "atheist" to someone who doesn't accept an initial cause. Wrong again, Ray.
At the end of this special introduction, Ray gives us the meat of what he's really after: evangelizing for Jesus.
"Please think about your sins, then think about the Savior and what He did for guilty sinners such as us." -pg. 40
Ray offers a scenario of four choices (the Mona Lisa original, a car, a million dollars, a parachute), says you can pick just one, then tells you "but first you have to jump 10,000 feet out of an airplane". You're supposed to pick the parachute out of necessity. He then takes this same logic and offers the choice of all the world's religions, then goes into his have-you-ever-broken-the-Big-Ten spiel. You're supposed to pick Christianity, because it fixes the problems it creates.
The rest is pure proselytizing, spewing unfounded claims about God and Hell.
They're delivering this bastardized version of the Origin of Species to college campuses nationwide on November 19. They're also calling on people to buy copies and give them out at their schools and churches.
Might Be Okay?
As I was writing this, I was thinking about how scarily-ignorant America is when it comes to science -- BASIC science -- and how this will only continue to fuel the problem. But then I started thinking, maybe this isn't such a bad idea. I mean, they will be getting the copy of the book into people's hands for free. As far as anyone knows, the rest of the book is unchanged. That means that thousands copies of Darwin's work will be in churches all across America. Hopefully, some people will actually read it and realize how what they thought Darwin said and what he actually said were two totally different things.
Another side affect is getting the book to college kids, and hopefully people who know Ray Comfort is full of shit. I think a lot of college students are intelligent and can easily spot the flaws that a 9th grade science student could find. Plus, they won't have to pay for a copy of Darwin's book. They'll just have an easy reference to the "counter-arguments" that fundamentalists make.
-STA
That's right folks. The group is the 'Living Waters' ministry. But why would I care that a Christian evangelical collective is giving away Darwin's book? Because this is not the book Darwin wrote. This special-edition version includes a hidden 50-page introduction written by Ray Comfort. And therefore, as you should be able to guess, starts the book off by claiming evolution can't happen, and then proselytizing for Jesus. I say "hidden" because the book does mention Ray's name until after the introduction.
Ray's Fractal Wrongness
You can read Comfort's introduction at the Living Waters site. Here's some random lines from Ray's special introduction, to give you an idea into Ray's way of thinking:
"Here’s the argument: There was nothing. Then paper appeared, and ink fell from nowhere onto the flat sheets and shaped itself into perfectly formed letters of the English alphabet." -pg. 9
If you're familiar with Ray Comfort's style of argument, then this should be par for the course. Ray thinks that evolution is cosmology and abiogenesis all rolled into one. He thinks natural selection should explain the expansion of the universe, and that the traits of animals just popped into being.
"Do you think that DNA’s amazing structure could have come together by accident? Or does it point to an intelligent Designer?" -pg. 11
Ray thinks because Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project, thinks God made DNA (and he IS a scientist, after all!), then DNA = ID = Jesus. He also mentions Anthony Flew's conversion, as if it made a difference.
"There is a mountain in South Dakota that proves what evolutionists have been saying all along: if you just have enough time, wind, rain, erosion, and pure chance, you can get a mountain with the faces of four U.S. presidents on it!" -pg. 13
"Here are some interesting questions for the thinking evolutionist: Can you explain which came first—the blood or the heart—and why?" -pg 23
Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, and the like have never understood evolution, nor do I think they ever will.
After citing hoaxes of "missing links" (which were discovered using science!), Ray quotes Darwin out of context, and even uses the oldest trick: quoting the bit where Darwin admits that the evolution of the eye seems absurd, and then stopping before quoting the VERY NEXT LINE that shows how. Ray does however mention that next line, here:
"Even more incredible, though, is that Darwin went on to say that he believed the eye could nonetheless have been formed by natural selection. He was right on one point. If a Designer is left out of the equation, such a thought is absurd in the highest degree." -pg 28
The oldest Creationist canards are stuffed into these 50 pages of drivel. All the misunderstandings a religious person who is uninformed about science could make are in here.
"But even if an organ were no longer needed, wouldn’t it only prove devolution? This fits well with the Law of Entropy— that all things deteriorate over time." -pg 29
Ray not only fails to understand evolution, but he also fail to understand any tacit of science, it seems, including Thermodynamics. And after showing us he can't comprehend things such as biology, palentology, geology, cosmology, and physics, he goes on to show how racist and sexist Darwin was -- as if that has anything at all to do with his ideas.
The next logical (for him) tact is to claim that believing in evolution creates people like Adolf Hitler.
One of his funniest lies is this:
"If you find it hard to believe that there was an Intelligent Designer, give this some thought. Man, with all his genius, can’t make a grain of sand from nothing....Did you realize that if we could simply make one blade of grass without using existing materials, we could solve the world’s hunger problem?" -pg. 31
Remember, he's arguing for an intelligent creator god who CAN make things ex nihilo. So Ray, why doesn't your God solve the world's hunger problem?
"Richard Dawkins, arguably the most famous of atheists, can’t claim the title 'atheist,' because he understands that something must have created everything. He said, 'Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.' " -pg. 37
This comes after Ray redefines the term "atheist" to someone who doesn't accept an initial cause. Wrong again, Ray.
At the end of this special introduction, Ray gives us the meat of what he's really after: evangelizing for Jesus.
"Please think about your sins, then think about the Savior and what He did for guilty sinners such as us." -pg. 40
Ray offers a scenario of four choices (the Mona Lisa original, a car, a million dollars, a parachute), says you can pick just one, then tells you "but first you have to jump 10,000 feet out of an airplane". You're supposed to pick the parachute out of necessity. He then takes this same logic and offers the choice of all the world's religions, then goes into his have-you-ever-broken-the-Big-Ten spiel. You're supposed to pick Christianity, because it fixes the problems it creates.
The rest is pure proselytizing, spewing unfounded claims about God and Hell.
They're delivering this bastardized version of the Origin of Species to college campuses nationwide on November 19. They're also calling on people to buy copies and give them out at their schools and churches.
Might Be Okay?
As I was writing this, I was thinking about how scarily-ignorant America is when it comes to science -- BASIC science -- and how this will only continue to fuel the problem. But then I started thinking, maybe this isn't such a bad idea. I mean, they will be getting the copy of the book into people's hands for free. As far as anyone knows, the rest of the book is unchanged. That means that thousands copies of Darwin's work will be in churches all across America. Hopefully, some people will actually read it and realize how what they thought Darwin said and what he actually said were two totally different things.
Another side affect is getting the book to college kids, and hopefully people who know Ray Comfort is full of shit. I think a lot of college students are intelligent and can easily spot the flaws that a 9th grade science student could find. Plus, they won't have to pay for a copy of Darwin's book. They'll just have an easy reference to the "counter-arguments" that fundamentalists make.
-STA
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Happy Darwin Day '09
As most of you probably know, today marks Charles Darwin's two-hundredth birthday. Sharing his birthday with another great liberator, Darwin helped us to understand where the diversity of life came from: small changes over time.
Today, why not take some time to explore the world around you? Go visit a zoo or aquarium. Or sit in with a good book. Here's some of my favorite videos discussing Darwin's wonderful theory.
Those videos should help you get started if you don't know what evolution is (or if you think you do). There are many others -- visit my YouTube channel for more. Hit talkorigins.org for facts on how evolution works and what it does for us today.
-STA
Today, why not take some time to explore the world around you? Go visit a zoo or aquarium. Or sit in with a good book. Here's some of my favorite videos discussing Darwin's wonderful theory.
- Thunderf00t's Evolution vs. Creationism
- potholer54's Made Easy series
- cdk007's Evidence for Evolution
- AaronRa's 15th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism
- Michael Shermer's Evolution Rocks
- shanedk's How Evolution Is Scientific
- Zuke696's Massive Playlist
- C0nc0rdance's Uses for Evolution
Those videos should help you get started if you don't know what evolution is (or if you think you do). There are many others -- visit my YouTube channel for more. Hit talkorigins.org for facts on how evolution works and what it does for us today.
-STA
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
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