Every time I read an article on the Straight Dope I can almost immediately discern if it is David writing the article because he will oftentimes make some offhand jab at intelligent design proponents, or creationists, while bolstering the (pitifully inadequate) theory of evolution.
I’m a Christian, but I am filled with doubt, conflict and wonder, but even despite questioning my own beliefs, I have no doubt that evolution is false, because the evidence is weak or contradicts known laws.
For instance, microevolution is true, but evolutionists like to say that macroevolution is true too, by extension, which is like saying that if I can walk across the street, then I can fly across the Atlantic, “by extension.”
The point is not to say that God exists, or creation or intelligent design is true, the point is that you gotta be really arrogant to insult a certain group of people who have one school of thought, when your own theory is so terrible.
(Oh, yeah, we know this creature existed because of two teeth the size of grains of rice. We know it’s habits and exactly how it looked. . . because of two teeth. Not possible.)
That seems a false analogy. It’s perhaps more like saying that if you can walk across the street you can walk across the US. Which you can; given enough time.
Totally understandable. Nobody likes being called irrational. Might I gently suggest that the easiest solution to minimize this problem is to stop being irrational.
While you’re working on that, you might want to acquaint yourself with the Straw Man Fallacy. Nothing you’re saying “evolutionists” say is something that actual scientists studying evolution say. So, yes, I agree with your points. Good thing they’re irrelevant to actual evolutionary theory.
Which would be true, except macroevolution does not say that one thing becomes “bigger,” it says that one thing becomes “different.”
Arms become wings, not stronger arms, you perceive.
You’ve been given incorrect knowledge. And since your “knowledge” is flawed, you are coming up with faulty conclusions.
If you had access to correct information your reasoning would stand a chance of success. So, I’d say you might not be irrational, but you’re misinformed, and still utterly wrong.
For instance, read this simple example to see why your understanding of macro vs. micro is wrong: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Now, if you can read that, and still cling to your position, yeah, you’re irrational. Because you’ll see for yourself that you’re wrong, but will decide to ignore it in favor of comfortable misinformation.
The fact is that evolution is so supported that no one who actually knows even a little about biology can doubt it. It is almost like saying you doubt gravity because you can throw a ball up in the air.
One thing I’ve never seen creationists even attempt to explain, when they say that microevolution is fine, but macroevolution is impossible:
How do you stop it? If you accept that microevolution happens, then you’re accepting that genes can change, mutate, adapt, etc, over time, leading to small-scale changes in a species. OK, so how do you then draw a line and say evolution can’t go farther than that? The most common definition of macroevolution is change at the species level or higher. Well, science says that speciation can occur when just a few mutations happen in genes involved in sexual reproduction (look up the Dobzhansky-Muller model of speciation or the work of Daniel Barbash for examples). So, if you accept that genes can mutate and change, what is the mechansim that prevents those things happening to the specific, special genes that lead to speciation?
Remember that at a fundamental level, the “species” grouping is artificial. It’s a dividing line we humans made up. So how is it that we prevent a natural process like evolution from crossing the line that WE drew in the sand?
I’ll happily leave the specifics to more knowledgeable folk such as GIGObuster, but I’d suggest that (leaving aside the lack of rigour around "macro-evolution), that it’s perhaps more like: heat exchangers that are larger are found to have some use extending jumps, these prove to be a survival advantage and get passed to descendants, eventually these become useful for gliding, and eventually become useful for flying.
Going back to the walking analogy, you walk across the street, then across town, eventually you cross into another State, and eventually reach the opposite sea-board… each walk is small, but overall you’ve walked across a continent.
Cool! Because I was thinking, that if by “contradicts known laws” you meant scientific laws – a common misconception is to state that evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics – then definitely go and read up on this. (Try talkorigins on thermodynamics).
If by “known laws” you meant something else… well you may not find the answers you want.
The following is a quote from a poster on the Fark forums which might interest you:
[QUOTE=Lizard_SF (Fark forums 6 July 2010)]
"Let me try this another way. Suppose, in the interest of debating Christianity, I said to you, “How is it that of God’s five sons, which he bore upon five different mothers at different times in history (See Aristotle 5:6-16), it was only Jesus who actually went into hell and fought Satan hand-to-hand (Cohen 14:2-45), while the others just sat around? Also, when Thor and Hercules meet Moses in the desert (Second Exodus, 17:1-12), why does the Bible have Thor wielding a sword, instead of his famous hammer?”
"You’d look at me slack-jawed for a second or two, then tell me that I clearly haven’t read the Bible, know nothing about Christianity, and you can’t answer these questions because they’re nonsensical – it’s like asking “If 2 and 2 makes oranges, how can you say pi=51?” The question shows such a fundamental level of ignorance that the only way to “answer” it is to go back to ground zero and start over, and, by the time you’ve learned enough to ask a sensible question, you’d know why your first question was nonsense.
“Based on your posts here, that’s the state you’re at with your “knowledge” of evolution. You’re speaking nonsense. Your questions can only be “answered” by starting you over in first grade and teaching you science. There are certainly many intelligent and interesting questions to be asked about evolution – this is why scientists keep filling up journals with new studies, new discoveries, etc – they ask the question and then they seek out the answers. You, however, do not yet possess enough knowledge to ask those questions. This doesn’t mean you’re stupid, just ill-informed. The main question for you, then, is are you willing to invest the time to learn what you need to learn to ask the right questions, or do you prefer ignorance? Your call.”
[/QUOTE]
I would say the broad framework of the theory of evolution is probably one of the best demonstrated (i.e. the most evidence exists for ) in the whole of science: there’s just so many independent lines of evidence for it. And that’s not just rhetoric either, not scientific theory is beyond question, but for me there’s so much evidence it’s difficult to think what kind of way you could reasonably question the theory (compare to say Einstein’s general relativity where I can think of so many reasonable lines of which you could question, despite it probably being the best gravitational theory we have).
Recommended reading for you: the (perhaps misleadingly-titled) book by Francis Collins: The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, especially the latter part of the book, where he, as a scientist and a Christian, explains the case for evolution, and what’s wrong with Creationism and Intelligent Design.
I trust our visitor has never been to a museum of natural history, where you are surrounded by the evidence that he says is lacking. I wonder also what he thinks the theory of evolution says. If one cannot express this, one can’t really refute it.
As for wings not being arms, he must never have eaten a chicken.
