Amusing Anti-Evolution Arguments
Ed Brayton on Aug 9th 2005
One recurring argument that anyone involved in the evolution debate encounters frequently goes like this:
Darwinism is impossible. If Darwinism is true, then you have to believe that the big bang exploded and the result was the universe around us. That’s like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and building a 747. Explosions only destroy, they can’t create.
Leaving aside the fact that this isn’t even an accurate description of the big bang, any even modestly educated person must shake their head at what on earth this has to do with the theory of evolution. One searches the work of Darwin in vain to find any reference whatsoever to big bang cosmology. Lest you think that my example is fanciful, I give you Pat Buchanan in the Worldnutdaily, in an article entitled What are the Darwinists Afraid Of?
“Intelligent design” is the banner under which evolution is being put under siege, and the methodology of attack is the one Darrow used on Bryan: Prove to us that your theory is true, because it seems to contradict common sense…Our ordered universe was created out of chaos. Who or what created it? The latest theory of the evolutionists is the “Big Bang,” a gigantic explosion, eons ago, did it.
But from common sense and experience, when – ever – has an explosion created order? Explosions destroy. And if the Big Bang was due to an explosion, where did the chemicals come from? And who lit the firecracker that caused the Big Bang?
As a wag has put it, to believe an explosion created an ordered universe is like believing a hurricane roaring through a junkyard can create a fifth-generation computer.
Pat, Pat, Pat. Let me explain something to you. Evolution is the theory of common descent. It says that all modern life forms are derived from one or a few common ancestors through descent with modification. There’s a reason why Darwin’s book was called On the Origin of Species and not On the Origin of the Universe - because evolution has nothing to do with the origin of the universe, or of stars, or of the planet, or of anything other than biological diversity on this planet. Evolution doesn’t mean “every scientific theory you object to.” This just goes to support the argument I’ve been making for years. Most people who reject evolution do so not because they know anything about evolution, but because they have this vague notion that evolution means atheism. And they constantly conflate the two, attacking atheism when they think they’re attacking evolution.
Even more baffling than this is the fact that a Christian would attack big bang cosmology at all. The most educated and sophisticated Christian apologists, like William Lane Craig, make big bang cosmology the centerpiece of their argument. They would argue that the fact of the big bang strongly supports the Christian view because it proved that the universe had a beginning, an argument that has been made since the moment big bang cosmology first began to hold sway. I’m not really interested either way in debating that particular question, but I will point out that none of it has anything at all to do with evolution and even less so with “Darwinism” (the big bang was, of course, unheard of in Darwin’s day).
On the same day in the Worldnutdaily, David Limbaugh (Yes, Rush’s brother) has a similar column about evolution and ID, and it contains this amusing line:
Note that the president did not recommend that the teaching of Darwinism be banned in public schools, merely that the theory of intelligent design (ID) ought to be taught as well. Bush said, “I think part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought.”The main players in the ID movement are not even insisting on that much. Discovery Institute, for example, opposes the mandatory teaching of ID in public schools, but favors requiring students to be exposed to criticisms of Darwin’s theory.
This just in from the Department of Redundancy Department: ID is nothing but criticisms of evolution, so when you say “they don’t want to teach ID, only the criticisms of evolution”, you’re contradicting yourself. Every single claim made by ID advocates up to this point has been a purely negative argument against evolution, with the assumption being that if evolution can’t explain something then God must have done it. Behe’s “irreducible complexity” (IC) is not a theory of intelligent design, it is merely a criticism of the ability of evolution to explain certain biochemical systems (and a criticism that fails badly on multiple levels). Dembski’s “complex specified information” (CSI) is a not a theory of intelligent design, it is merely a criticism of evolution. His “explanatory filter” makes this quite obvious, requiring the failure of evolutionary explanations as a necessary condition to invoke “design”. And Jonathan Wells’ contribution to ID, his book Icons of Evolution is nothing more than a set of criticisms of ID, most of them highly distorted and highly dishonest.
So the notion that “I want to teach ID in schools” and “I want to teach the criticisms of evolution in schools” are different statements is simply false. All they have are criticisms of evolution, all of which have been thoroughly answered a hundred times over. And all one has to do to dispute this claim is to produce an actual ID model or theory that does not involve the failure of evolution as an explanation. Don’t hold your breath on that one.
Filed in The Biosphere
Sir, your thesis is that to teach criticisms of Evolution is no different than teaching Intelligent Design because:
“Every single claim made by ID advocates up to this point has been a purely negative argument against evolution, with the assumption being that if evolution can’t explain something then God must have done it. Behe’s “irreducible complexity” (IC) is not a theory of intelligent design, it is merely a criticism of the ability of evolution to explain certain biochemical systems (and a criticism that fails badly on multiple levels). Dembski’s “complex specified information” (CSI) is a not a theory of intelligent design, it is merely a criticism of evolution. His “explanatory filter” makes this quite obvious, requiring the failure of evolutionary explanations as a necessary condition to invoke “design”.”
Whilst it may be true that Intelligent Designers employ anti-evolutionary arguments to promote their own theory of how the world was created, it is clearly untenable to suggest that to teach these criticisms, IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY INFERENCES IN FAVOUR OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN, is to directly promote Intelligent Design.
If we were to have a debate about the relative merits of Tea vs. Coffee, and I (being British) argued a positive case for Tea, I should employ two forms of arguments. The first would be negative, and the second positive - the reasons against drinking Coffee, and the reasons for drinking Tea.
Now, if Coffee were (and yes, I realise the slight surrealism of what is to follow, please bear with me) to be presented in Home Economics classes in schools as a subject, and I insisted on the school teaching my criticisms of Coffee as a part of that, would the students thereby be being taught to be pro-Tea? Well of course not - all they would have is the anti-Coffee arguments (which they may, or may not, be convinced by) - they would not have the positive arguments in favour of Tea, and so could not therefore be convinced to be so in the classroom.
In the same way, though I have no anti-evolution opinions myself, I don’t, logically, think that teaching the (scientific) criticisms of evolution is to necessarily teach Intelligent Design, unless specifically pro-Design arguments are presented.
Cannot evolution as a theory be criticised and debated without the “necessary inference” that ‘if evolution is wrong then Design must be true’ being imported?
I think it can.
Pax tecum,
The Cavalier
“Pat, Pat, Pat. Let me explain something to you. Evolution is the theory of common descent. It says that all modern life forms are derived from one or a few common ancestors through descent with modification.”
Where did the “one or few common acestors” come from?
The Cavalier,
What are these scientific criticisms of evolution you speak of? The problem with saying let’s teach criticisms of the theory of evolution, is that people often are not thinking of scientific criticisms. If you have scientific criticisms, then do some research and publish it to be reviewed. If it has already been reviewed, then start working on disseminating that knowledge (possibly by teaching a class or writing a scientific book or textbook on the subject). This legislation from politicians advocating ‘teaching criticisms’ has nothing to do with science, and purposefully steps over the process of peer review in a scientific journal.
Kevin
“Pat, Pat, Pat. Let me explain something to you. Evolution is the theory of common descent. It says that all modern life forms are derived from one or a few common ancestors through descent with modification.”
Where did the “one or few common acestors” come from?
Well…
Many scientists believe that a comet brought proteins encased in ice to the early earth and the impact mashed them into amino acids. This situation has been successfully recreated in a lab environment. Those then evolved into other, more complex organisms
So does that explain where the “one or few common ancestors” came from?
As I understand it, evolution need not even explain the origin of life at all.
Evolution explains a large (really, phenomenally large) data set that we can observe, related to the diversity of life forms. That’s it’s job. That’s all it’s intended to do. It should not be faulted for not attempting an explanation of the origin of life, about which we can observe almost nothing.
If those who favor theistic explanations wanted to posit that God created the first primitive life forms, they would be able to do so and yet accept all evolutionary explanations for life thereafter. Non-theists would not find this explanation terribly parsimonious, but at the moment it’s actually rather hard to rule out, unless you want to resort to the proofs and disproofs of God from philosophy.