(Another "Refute This Claim !") Evolution: Fact or Fantasy

[tmaromine]

I think a good TV show was just created in my mind.

 

I've gotten one of the common messages by a religious friend: a message by some religious fanatic (in this case, the 'father of the ID movement') that never knows what he's talking about.

 

I'm hoping someone will take their time and correctify this. I know there's probably numerous ludicrous claims (it thinks it refutes (macro)evolution, after all), but I'm only a biology student and am so unfortunately less scient than many of you !

 

So, here's the drama:

 

«Evolution: Fact or Fantasy?»

by Philip E Johnson

 

"Evolution is a fact only at a small scale. It is fantasy when it is used to explain how plants and animals came into existence or how human beings supposedly evolved from apelike ancestors. We might summarize the fantasy by saying that, where the theory of evolution is true, its not very interesting, and where it is most interesting, it is not true.

If "evolution" merely refers to a process of cyclical (back and forth) variation in response to changing enviromental conditions, then evolution is a fact that can be observed both in nature and in a laboratory experiments.

For exampla, when a population of insects is sprayed with a deadly chemical like DDT, the most susceptible insects die but the individuals most resistant to the poison survive to breed and leave offspring, which inherit the genes that provide resistance. After many generations of insects have been sprayed, the entire surviving population may be comprised of the DDT-resistant variety, and some new form of insect control will have to be applied. Such changes are not permanent, however, because the resistant mosquitoes are more fit than the others only for as long as the insecticide is applied. When the enviroment becomes free of the toxic chemical, the insect population tends to revert to what it was before.

A similiar effect explains how disease-causing bacteria become resistant to antibiotic drugs like penicillin, which then are no longer as effective in controlling the disease as they formerly were.

Almost all illustrations of "evolution in action" in textbooks or museum exhibits are similar to these examples. They involve no increase in complexity or appearance of new body parts or even permanent change of any kind. Small-scale, reversible population variations of this sort are usually called microevoltion, although "adaptive variation" would be a better term.

It is misleading to describe adaptive variation as "evolution," because the latter term commonly refers also to macroevolution. Macroevolution is the grand story of how life supposedly evolved by purely natural processes from very simple beginnings to become complex, multicelled plants and animals, and eventually human beings, without God's participation being needed any step along the way.

Charles Darwin assumed that macroevolution was merely microevolution extended over very long periods of time. Biology textbooks, museums, and television programs still teach people to make the same assumption, so that examples of microevolution are used as proof that complex animals and even humans beings evolved from simplar organisms by a similar process.

The primary flaw in the story of macroevolution is that all plants and animals are packed with information- the complicated instructions that coordinate the many processes enabling the body and brain to function. Even Richard Dawkins, the most famous living advocate of Darwin's theory, admits that every cell in a human body contains more information than all the volumes of an encyclopedia, and every one of us has trillions of cells in his or her body, which have to work together in marvelous harmony.

The greatest weakness of the theory of evolution is that science has not discovered a process that can create all the necessary information, which can be likened to the software that directs a computer. Without such a demonstrated creative process, evolution is merely a story, because its supposed mechanism can neither be duplicated in a laboratory nor observed in nature.

It is true that there are patterns of similarity among living creatures. For example, humans, apes, mice, worms, and even plants have many similar genes. The imprtant question is not whether there are similarities among all living things but whether those similarities came about through a natural process akin to the observable examples of adaptive variation that we find in textbooks and museum exhibits.

One mistake Christians often make in debating evolution is to take on too many issues at once, rather than starting with the most important problem and solving it first. For example, evolution requires a time scale of many millions of years, while many people understand the Bible to allow for an Earth history of only a few thousand years. The evolutionary time scale is debatable, but debating it involves several complex scientific disciplines and distracts attention from the most important defect of the theory of evolution. The only mechanism that evolutionists have is a commobination of random variation and natural selection, illustrated by the survival of the insects that happened to be resistant to an insecticide. This Darwinian mechanism has never been shown to be capable of creating new genetic information or new complex body parts such as wings, eyes, or brains. Without a mechanism that can be demostrated to be capable of the necessary creation, the theory of evolution is just a fantasy with no real scientific basis.

The Bible teaches, "In the beginning God created" and "In the beginning was the Word." A simple way of explaining this basic principle is to say that a divine intelligence existed before anything else and that intelligence was responsible for the origin of life and for the existance of all living things, including human beings. No matter how much time we might allow for evolution to do the necesarry creating the evidence shows that the process would never get started, because all evolution can do is to further minor variations in organisms that are already living, without any change in their basic classification. When the Bible says, "In the beginning God created" (Gn 1:1), it is presenting us with a fact, which we need to know to understand everything else, including what we were created for and how God wants us to live.

The Bible also says that God created men and women in His own image. That, too, is a fact. If it were not true, there would be no science, because no theory of evolution can demostrate how intelligence came into existence, including the intelligence of misguided people who misuse science to try to explain creation without allowing any role to God.

"In the beginning was the Word." The Bible says it and, properly understood, the evidence of science confirms it, Anyone who says otherwise is peddling fantasy, not fact."

 

I'd comment myself on evolution 'not adding' to genetic information (it basically just reärranges itself to have different combinations, such as wings vs hands, yes?, no?), and how (especially) the eye seems unevolvable, and a few other things I think my high school learning could note on, but I must go shower and watch some CSI !

 

EDIT: Well, TiVo decided to ignore CSI New York last night.

 

To the "This Darwinian mechanism has never been shown to be capable of creating new genetic information or new complex body parts such as wings, eyes, or brains" sentence, my take would be that, genetic material isn't added, nor does it need to be. Chromosomes, or rather the DNA that make them up, have different combinations. Isn't it that the order of DNA determines scales versus skin, for example ? I would assume that the same goes for wing versus arm. Perhaps it also has to do with the fact that different species have different amounts of chromosomes, 'adding' information that others haven't ?

 

In the case of mosquitos and DDT (just learned of this in Biology this week !), and immune bacteria, they can actually 'devolve', as to become susceptible to whatever used to kill it, to which it then became immune, yes ? In that case, couldn't it still be called 'evolution', since it's changing from one state to another, even if the state has already occurred ? (Maybe this is just wordplay...) If DDT kills mosquitos, and mosquitos become immune, that's (micro)evolution. If DDT's taken away, and there's no reason for the DDT immunity, wouldn't that still be a (micro)evolution, even if it's already occurred and even if it is nonbeneficial since DDT could be used again ? Or do DDT-immune mosquitos always stay immune to DDT, like a strand of the common cold with humans ?..

[Tormod]

I believe that absolutely each and every one of the claims in the post above have been discussed at Hypography since 2002. I recommend searching for other threads rather than ask us to refute (yet another) anti-evolutionist claim.

 

The text appears to be written by a religious person who denies evolution on religious grounds, and thus I se no reason to refute his beliefs. The only way for him to learn anything about evolution would be to read up on biology and make up his own mind rather than believe in religious Truths.

[Tormod]

BTW, I am moving this to theology since the post uses theological arguments.

[InfiniteNow]

[jedaisoul]

The text appears to be written by a religious person who denies evolution on religious grounds, and thus I se no reason to refute his beliefs. The only way for him to learn anything about evolution would be to read up on biology and make up his own mind rather than believe in religious Truths.

Hear, hear! It is pointless discussing the views of a person whose beliefs are based on religious teachings, rather than scientific evidence. They are what they are.

 

It is more interesting to question why someone should chose to believe ancient religious teachings over science? I have a few ideas on that, but I don't want to be accused of hijacking the thread. Also I'm not convinced that starting a thread on that subject is worth the effort. In the end what are we going to prove, and who are we going to prove it to? Certainly not the believers in the Almighty. So what's the point?

[Eclogite]

Philip E Johnson is a retired Professor of Law from Berkley (University of California). He is one of the more eloquent of the creationists, one of the most slippery, and one of the most extreme.

 

I believe he has argued against HIV as being the cause of AIDS, suggesting instead it is a consequence of the lifestyle of homosexuals and drug users and a reflection of the anger of God.

 

The best deconstruction of his arguments (and creationism in general) that I have seen is by philosopher Rober T. Pennock in The Tower of Babel.

 

It is pointless discussing the views of a person whose beliefs are based on religious teachings, rather than scientific evidence. They are what they are.

According to wikipedia he received an epiphany after he purchased and read Richard Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker and Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.

If this account is accurate, we can lay the blame for the birth of the Intelligent Design movement - of which Johnson is the father - at the door of Dawkins, for his overbearing, dogmatic style. :confused:

[tmaromine]

I was going to put it in the theology forum, but figured its point was the (non)science of it, not of the theological-based claims. I didn't want to know anything about his religious beliefs, just if all his science was correct. I know probably every point in it was discussed probably numerous times here, but they're simply all unrelated and have nothing to do with this piece by Johnson (unless there's a thread pertaining to it already, which I'll search for.)

 

I'll do some searching, and look up Robert T Pennock.

 

I'll run the HIV!>AIDS past my friend too.

 

It is more interesting to question why someone should chose to believe ancient religious teachings over science? I have a few ideas on that, but I don't want to be accused of hijacking the thread. Also I'm not convinced that starting a thread on that subject is worth the effort. In the end what are we going to prove, and who are we going to prove it to? Certainly not the believers in the Almighty. So what's the point?

 

It gives us an understanding of something we're not ? :confused: