RichardSRussell (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} richardsrussell) wrote,@ 2008-02-26 13:12:00 |
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Evolution vs. Wishful Thinking
Kurt Williamsen is not merely an ordinary Christian bashing atheism. No, he’s a fundamentalist Christian who also has to bash evolution. He’s a proponent of so-called “intelligent design” (ID), which is creationism gussied up with a veneer of scientific-sounding jargon designed specifically to conceal its theocratic underpinnings.
I pulled back the covers as I took on
Here’s the next of Kurt Williamsen’s paragraphs on evolution:
= = = = = =
Evolution does not, in fact, refute the Bible. At its worst, evolution merely demonstrates the method by which God populated the Earth; at its best, it reinforces intelligent design.
= = = = = =
Let me remind you of something I wrote a couple of days ago:
= = = = = =
No, no. You don’t get to try to pull that fast one. The burden of proof is on whoever’s making the claim. You claim that there are such things as angels, demons, heaven, hell, ghosts, ghoulies, goblins, etc. (I’ll spot you things that go bump in the night), you come up with the evidence to support your claim.
= = = = = =
Charles Darwin met his burden of proof. He came up with a hypothesis and, after literally decades of painstaking research, showed how it explained observations that had theretofore seemed like mere unrelated oddities. His hypothesis — about how natural selection provided certain variants within a species with a reproductive advantage that led, over the long term, to their becoming entirely different species — was fiercely challenged at the time of its introduction. It survived that challenge by being successful at the very sort of thing that science values most: reliability. The theory of natural selection made predictions that turned out to be true.
Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, so science has had the intervening century and a half to improve upon it, and it has. Darwin, for example, knew nothing about genetics and DNA, but we’ve subsequently discovered quite a lot about it. And everything we’ve discovered reinforces Darwin’s basic idea of descent from common ancestors by means of natural selection.
Scientists differ among themselves about the rate and frequency of major evolutionary changes, and about some of the details of the process, but there’s no dissent within the scientific community about the basic ideas:
(1) It is an observed fact that species evolve.
(2) The best explanation for why they evolve is natural selection based on innate variations in existing species in response to environmental conditions.
(3) Sciences as diverse as molecular biology, geology, genetics, medicine, anthropology, and chemistry all reinforce each other’s findings and conclusions about evolution. The science is completely coherent.
When a hypothesis has been repeatedly and relentlessly tested and found to be (a) highly reliable at explaining existing conditions, (b) extremely effective at making predictions about future conditions, and (c) capable of explaining a great many things with a few extremely basic and profound principles, scientists reward it with the 2nd highest accolade available to them. They call it a “theory”. Other theories you may be familiar with are the Theory of Optics, the Germ Theory of Disease, Plate Tectonic Theory to explain continental drift, the Atomic Theory of matter, Quantum Theory, and the Theory of Relativity. The only label that conveys even higher respectability is “law”, as in the Laws of Motion or the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Let there be no mistake about it. Evolutionary theory is as widely tested and as widely accepted as anything known to science. A teeny, tiny fraction of scientists — well less than 0.01% of anyone with published papers in biology — contests this attitude. It is unmistakably clear that they do so for religious reasons, not for scientific ones.
Standing against this virtual unanimity of scientists about the value of evolutionary theory is the idea of “intelligent design”, or “ID” for short. Proponents of ID have done no research and published no papers. They can cite no positive evidence whatsoever in favor of their hypothesis. All they’ve ever been able to do is come up with negative evidence about evolution — observations about nature that (they claim) cannot be explained by evolutionary principles. One by one, every such claim has been refuted by showing the underlying evolution-based mechanisms, mechanisms which could have been discovered equally well by the ID proponents had they been at all interested in pursuing their research open-mindedly.
Let there be no mistake about this, either. The approach of the Bible (and of the Bible-inspired ID movement) is diametrically opposed to the scientific method. The scientific method starts with observations and uses them to arrive at conclusions. The Bible and ID start with a pre-ordained conclusion and search (with increasing desperation) for observations that will support that conclusion. One is an open-minded quest for knowledge; the other is a close-minded insistence that everything must conform to dogma.
Science and religion are total antagonists when it comes to how we learn about the real world.
In that light, it is totally fatuous to claim, as Williamsen does, that evolution in any way supports ID. It does not. Period. Not even ID proponents would try to claim it does.
Williamsen continues:
= = = = = =
Christians know that people are "animals," but we also know that we differ from other species in that we have an immaterial soul — made in God's image. Evolution actually helps reinforce this point.
= = = = = =
This is — need I point out? — yet another instance of Williamsen’s idiosyncratic use of the word “know”. He is using it here as if it meant “believe without the remotest shred of any reason for doing so”. Using his definition, I “know” there’s a sea serpent in Lake Michigan.
How can you possibly know that you, or anyone else, has a soul? What is a soul, anyway? You can’t even define it, let alone detect it.
It’s also an example of Williamsen’s idiosyncratic method of “proof”, which comprises the basic technique “You should believe it because I say it’s so, not because I’ve given you any evidence.”.
Why should anyone believe that evolution reinforces the idea that human beings have a soul or are made in God’s image? Evolutionary theory confines itself strictly to the real world of real living beings. It says nothing whatsoever about fictional beings like souls or gods.
Williamsen may believe this nonsense himself, but he’s given nobody else any reason to jump off the cliff alongside him.
Tomoro: The God of the Gaps
Kurt Williamsen is not merely an ordinary Christian bashing atheism. No, he’s a fundamentalist Christian who also has to bash evolution. He’s a proponent of so-called “intelligent design” (ID), which is creationism gussied up with a veneer of scientific-sounding jargon designed specifically to conceal its theocratic underpinnings.
I pulled back the covers as I took on
Here’s the next of Kurt Williamsen’s paragraphs on evolution:
= = = = = =
Evolution does not, in fact, refute the Bible. At its worst, evolution merely demonstrates the method by which God populated the Earth; at its best, it reinforces intelligent design.
= = = = = =
Let me remind you of something I wrote a couple of days ago:
= = = = = =
No, no. You don’t get to try to pull that fast one. The burden of proof is on whoever’s making the claim. You claim that there are such things as angels, demons, heaven, hell, ghosts, ghoulies, goblins, etc. (I’ll spot you things that go bump in the night), you come up with the evidence to support your claim.
= = = = = =
Charles Darwin met his burden of proof. He came up with a hypothesis and, after literally decades of painstaking research, showed how it explained observations that had theretofore seemed like mere unrelated oddities. His hypothesis — about how natural selection provided certain variants within a species with a reproductive advantage that led, over the long term, to their becoming entirely different species — was fiercely challenged at the time of its introduction. It survived that challenge by being successful at the very sort of thing that science values most: reliability. The theory of natural selection made predictions that turned out to be true.
Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, so science has had the intervening century and a half to improve upon it, and it has. Darwin, for example, knew nothing about genetics and DNA, but we’ve subsequently discovered quite a lot about it. And everything we’ve discovered reinforces Darwin’s basic idea of descent from common ancestors by means of natural selection.
Scientists differ among themselves about the rate and frequency of major evolutionary changes, and about some of the details of the process, but there’s no dissent within the scientific community about the basic ideas:
(1) It is an observed fact that species evolve.
(2) The best explanation for why they evolve is natural selection based on innate variations in existing species in response to environmental conditions.
(3) Sciences as diverse as molecular biology, geology, genetics, medicine, anthropology, and chemistry all reinforce each other’s findings and conclusions about evolution. The science is completely coherent.
When a hypothesis has been repeatedly and relentlessly tested and found to be (a) highly reliable at explaining existing conditions, (b) extremely effective at making predictions about future conditions, and (c) capable of explaining a great many things with a few extremely basic and profound principles, scientists reward it with the 2nd highest accolade available to them. They call it a “theory”. Other theories you may be familiar with are the Theory of Optics, the Germ Theory of Disease, Plate Tectonic Theory to explain continental drift, the Atomic Theory of matter, Quantum Theory, and the Theory of Relativity. The only label that conveys even higher respectability is “law”, as in the Laws of Motion or the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Let there be no mistake about it. Evolutionary theory is as widely tested and as widely accepted as anything known to science. A teeny, tiny fraction of scientists — well less than 0.01% of anyone with published papers in biology — contests this attitude. It is unmistakably clear that they do so for religious reasons, not for scientific ones.
Standing against this virtual unanimity of scientists about the value of evolutionary theory is the idea of “intelligent design”, or “ID” for short. Proponents of ID have done no research and published no papers. They can cite no positive evidence whatsoever in favor of their hypothesis. All they’ve ever been able to do is come up with negative evidence about evolution — observations about nature that (they claim) cannot be explained by evolutionary principles. One by one, every such claim has been refuted by showing the underlying evolution-based mechanisms, mechanisms which could have been discovered equally well by the ID proponents had they been at all interested in pursuing their research open-mindedly.
Let there be no mistake about this, either. The approach of the Bible (and of the Bible-inspired ID movement) is diametrically opposed to the scientific method. The scientific method starts with observations and uses them to arrive at conclusions. The Bible and ID start with a pre-ordained conclusion and search (with increasing desperation) for observations that will support that conclusion. One is an open-minded quest for knowledge; the other is a close-minded insistence that everything must conform to dogma.
Science and religion are total antagonists when it comes to how we learn about the real world.
In that light, it is totally fatuous to claim, as Williamsen does, that evolution in any way supports ID. It does not. Period. Not even ID proponents would try to claim it does.
Williamsen continues:
= = = = = =
Christians know that people are "animals," but we also know that we differ from other species in that we have an immaterial soul — made in God's image. Evolution actually helps reinforce this point.
= = = = = =
This is — need I point out? — yet another instance of Williamsen’s idiosyncratic use of the word “know”. He is using it here as if it meant “believe without the remotest shred of any reason for doing so”. Using his definition, I “know” there’s a sea serpent in Lake Michigan.
How can you possibly know that you, or anyone else, has a soul? What is a soul, anyway? You can’t even define it, let alone detect it.
It’s also an example of Williamsen’s idiosyncratic method of “proof”, which comprises the basic technique “You should believe it because I say it’s so, not because I’ve given you any evidence.”.
Why should anyone believe that evolution reinforces the idea that human beings have a soul or are made in God’s image? Evolutionary theory confines itself strictly to the real world of real living beings. It says nothing whatsoever about fictional beings like souls or gods.
Williamsen may believe this nonsense himself, but he’s given nobody else any reason to jump off the cliff alongside him.
Tomoro: The God of the Gaps
