In the first place, RL should be outlawed! Last week was the longest three weeks in recent memory.
There are too many places to start, and too many things to say, so I appologise in advance if this doesn't flow well or jumps around a little.
How about some quotes:
"Of course, evolution is scientific. Everybody says so.
It doesn't violate any scientific laws. Well... except the first and second laws of thermodynamics- getting matter from nothing (a vaccuum fluctuation without even a vaccuum (Big Bang) is a neat trick!) and spontaneous decreases in entropy and increases in Gibbs free energy.
Well, at least evolution doesn't demand that you believe in out-moded scientific theories like phlogiston or spontaneous generation... oops, bad example. You do have to believe in life coming from non-living matter all by itself.
Well there's certainly no superstition involved, like tea leaf reading. Imagine, getting information from a random process... oops, another bad example. You do have to believe that information can come from purely stochastic processes.
At least we can dispense with fairy tales like frogs turning into princes... oops again. Substitute long periods of time for the magic and you do indeed have frogs turning into princes - it's hard to see much difference.
Could someone tell me again how evolution is scientific?"
"It is absurd for the Evolutionists to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into anything."--- G.K. Chesterton
"Evolution. . .does not specifically deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man." -- G. K. Chesterton
In response to a comment of "I’m confused as to how this [ Creation ] can masquerade as 'Science'":
"For one thing, creation/evolution is more about history than science, or at least a matter for origins science as opposed to operational science. See
Naturalism, Origin and Operation Science . Actually, I’ve often wondered how evolution from goo to you via the zoo can masquerade as science. But I wonder no longer - materialists need evolution as a pseudo-intellectual justification for their atheistic faith. And hijacking the prestige of operational science by adopting the term ‘science’ for their belief system gives it a veneer of respectability."
Dr Jonathan Sarfati, AiG-Australia
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Evolution is a very slippery term. It can be used to mean anything from simply "change with time" to full "molecules to man with no outside help", and often changes meaning within a single conversation in a "bait and switch" kind of concept.
There is an important thing to remember about the nature of science: The question of what is and is not science is not itself a scientific question. It belongs to the realms of philosophy and metaphysics. It is not legitimate to simply define away the problem by an a-priori committment to metaphysical naturalism (ie. if it references anything but natural causes it isn't science). You have to
make that case.
I've been studying origins issues - along with philosophy and philosophy of science - in my spare time for 25+ years (everyone needs a hobby
). As a scientist, I've read the arguments and explainations and examined the evidence presented in the journals and books on both sides of the issue. I have yet to find any lines of argument for evolution (ones that use actual evidence, at least) which don't presuppose the reality evolution as part of the argument.
Most of the arguments, even from the highest profile evolution supporters, consist of little more than hand-waving, question-begging, just-so stories, ad-hominem and simple ridicule. Oponents are often dismissed out of hand without regard for the actual arguments, or disagreement is taken as a sign of idiocy,or worse, taken as a personal insult.
The best evidences they come up with are at best equivocal (like the peppered moth - it started with dark and light peppered moths and ended with dark and light peppered moths - by the way, they don't generaly rest on tree trunks anyway) , and at worst outright frauds (ie. Piltdown Man and Haekel's embryo drawings). Yes, I have examples - they're not hard to find. I'd be happy to refer anyone who is interested to more detailed information.
We could go into specifics like the problems of biogenisis, the origin of complex coded information, the nature of the fossil record -showing sudden appearance and stasis so much that S. J. Gould dusted off Goldschmidt's old "Hopeful Monster" ideas and reworked them into "Punctuated Equilibrium" because there is no evidence for gradualism - but this is getting too long already, and really, it is more an issue of presuppositons and worldview.
I recently picked up a book ("Darwin's God" - Cornelius G. Hunter) that makes a very persuasive case that Darwinism past and present is a mixture of Metaphysical dogma and biased scientific observation. The thesis is that evolution was developed and defended mostly as a solution to the problem of evil, and shows that most of the argumentation was (and is)
theological in nature.
There was mention of intelligent design in another thread.
The idea behind the intellegent design movement is fairly easy to illustrate: Picture two mountans - Say Half-Dome in Yosimite National Park and Mount Rushmore. Both are big, impressive hunks of rock. But any three year old can tell that there is a big difference. The current state of one could have come about without any but natural processes, the other couldn't. You can tell at a glance. The aim of ID is to formalize and quantify a general method to discern design from non-design. It isn't an easy research program. Anyone who is interested might want to read William Dembski's "The Design Inference".
Trying to identify intelligent design from accident is quite scientific. People do it all the time in forensic science. "Was this person murdered, or was the death accidental?" type questions are certainly legitimately scientific.
Well, since people tend to get angry when deeply-held and well indoctrinated beliefs are challenged, I guess I've angered enough people for now, even though causing anger is not my purpose. None of this is meant to insult or belittle anyone in particular or in general. I have support (references and examples) for everything I'm claiming here, so if anyone takes issue with something, I'll be happy to expand on it, but try not to take it too personally.
Frank (who can't seem to maintain adequate (blind) faith in (blind) chance to buy macroevolution - and I really did try)
