# Evolution and science... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979 "2005-02-26T05:18:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/401 "2005-03-13T20:18:53Z")
If Universe is not expanding from some previous ‘tighter configuration’, how do you explain the red shift? ---
**Author:** ![Nolies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/45deac/32.png) [@Nolies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nolies)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/402 "2005-03-13T20:34:07Z")
> [@](#): > > **I’m doing what my Lord and Savior calls me to to – commands me to do – here on Earth,** Commands you? Are you hearing voices? Since you reject what is plain in the text that in six days God=Jesus created the heavens and the earth. That through him nothing that was made was made apart from him. Why is it that somehow you now see something in the bible as literal? Have you ever heard of Ala carte? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/403 "2005-03-13T20:35:08Z")
> [@Razorsharp](#): > > Black sub-Saharan Africans (say many evolutionists) have a mean IQ somewhere near 70,… Quoting a liar does not make the lie change to truth. There are no “many evolutionists” who make any such claim and the author of that claim is simply inventing stuff to make you feel good about your prejudices. > [@Nolies](#): > > You say reasonable person? > > When astronomers tested their theory and pointed the Hubble at one of the darkest places in space. If their theory on the Big Bang is correct then they should see the light that has taken Billions of years to get here and be able to literally look back in time and see Galaxies forming as they were billions of years ago when that light was first sent. You now what they found don’t you? Perfectly formed galaxies, so a reasonable person who say “We found nothing like what are premise dictated we would. Maybe our premise is wrong?” no instead they just added a few billion years to the age of the universe to account for what they found. So it shows that they are tied to the premise and science and investigation are irrelevant… More lies from the wrong side of the argument. There were conflicting theories regarding the creation of elliptical galaxies, with several theorists putting forth the idea that they formed relatively quickly and others holding that they took longer to form. When the Hubble scope found some ancient ones, they discovered evidence that those who had proposed a rapid formation were correct. So rather than your false claim that they ignored the evidence from “new” information and changed the age of the universe, what we really see is that the astronomers are working with models that are actually confirming their theories. Obviously, when some theories contradict each other, one or the other (or both) will be shown to have been in error, but your distortion of the actual event looks like more testimony from the Nine Commandment Christians. ---
**Author:** ![Nolies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/45deac/32.png) [@Nolies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nolies)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/404 "2005-03-13T20:56:10Z")
> [@](#): > > There were conflicting theories regarding the creation of elliptical galaxies, with several theorists putting forth the idea that they formed relatively quickly and others holding that they took longer to form. Oh I get it now :smack: How could I have been so foolish ? You start with the presupposition that the universe is the result of the Big Bang Theory. Then you postulate multiple secondary theories on the time and how they many have come to be as we see them now. In doing so, no matter what you find, you can use it to confirm your first premise. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/405 "2005-03-13T21:05:02Z")
> [@Nolies](#): > > Commands you? Are you hearing voices? Oh, let’s get nasty! Perhaps you may have heard of the Gospel according to Matthew, specifically 22:34-40? And its parallels in Mark and Luke? It doesn’t get more explicit than that. > [@Nolies](#): > > Since you reject what is plain in the text that in six days God=Jesus created the heavens and the earth. That through him nothing that was made was made apart from him. > > Why is it that somehow you now see something in the bible as literal? I presume that you don’t take literally the business about the mountains rising up and singing, and the hills dancing like sheep, when the Ark was brought to Jerusalem? Or that Jesus’s parables were actual accounts of the doings of real people? And the fable of the trees that Jotham told in Judges 9, that’s not a literal account, right? We agree that the Bible has figurative language and literary forms in it. All we disagree on is what parts are straight reportage. > [@](#): > > Have you ever heard of Ala carte? Yes. Are you familiar with libraries? How they have **different kinds of books** in them? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/406 "2005-03-13T23:49:32Z")
> [@Razorsharp](#): > > Furthermore, the author stated that, “many evolutionists say that the black sub-Saharan Africans have a mean IQ somewhere near 70.” (paraphrase) Quoting a liar does not turn the lie into the truth. There is no large body (or whatever quibble the author attempted to pass with the word “many”) of “evolutionists” who have ever made any such statement. > [@Nolies](#): > > How could I have been so foolish ? > You start with the presupposition that the universe is the result of the Big Bang Theory. Then you postulate multiple secondary theories on the time and how they many have come to be as we see them now. Not foolish, simply as dishonest as your Denver mentor. (Do you follow Bob Larson, as well?) No one “started” with any presupposition. A number of pieces of evidence were drawn together, indicating that the observable universe is expanding outward from a central point. When enough information had been gathered, a hypothesis was put forth that the universe is exploding outward as if from an original explosion. This hypothesis was given the popular name, “The Big Bang.” However, hypothesizing a starting point for the universe does not explain every aspect of every event in the universe. Those other events (such as the creations of different types of stars and galaxies) each need their own explanation. Scientists continue to put forth hypotheses for each of those events and test their hypotheses against observations. Your claim is simply a dishonest rhetorical trick that attempts to divert attention from the poverty of your own position. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/407 "2005-03-14T03:59:47Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > But the dinosaur wing has proven to be more successful than the mammal wing, although not as widespread as the insect wing. I see no signs of it passing away; out of all the creatures that inherited the dinosaur wing I believe it has only “passed from the scene” in the kiwi. > > What? This addition to my original idea about what I think will be the ultimate retreat of the dinosaurs took a long time because I was trying to figure out your metaphors. I failed. However, I’m hopeful, bordering on confident, that at some point the young-earth, literal-truth creationists will just fold their tents and change the subject to some other inanity. Scientific evidence for evolution and a natural, as opposed to a supernatural, origin for life will not go backwards. I think it can only increase and all evidence that I see are that living, self-replicating molecules are not miraculous creations. I think that evidence will eventually bercome so potent as to remove doubt about the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/408 "2005-03-14T04:43:49Z")
> [@Razorsharp](#): > > Ain’t no reason to go back and read the entire thread. [snip] > Oh, and you use the term “refuted” rather loosely. I’ve got news for you, **Razorsharp**. If you \*had \*bothered to read the thread, you would have found out that it started as an attempt to show that evolution was disproved by science. It has included statements very similar to your friend Fred’s. It has included explanations which show how such opinions are sadly lacking in any comprehension of how science actually works. It has included repeated requests for \*\*Nolies \*\*to provide some sort of supporting doucmentation when he’s made statements that he claims are based on science. Invariably, his response has been to move on to a new target without even bothering to respond. As far as I’m concerned, when one party posts a statement or opinion, a second party provides contradicting information or asks for supporting documentation for a disputed claim, and the first party fails to even acknowledge the challenge or request, “refute” is an entirely appropriate word. If you disagree with any of these refutations, feel free to offer a response to one or more of them. ---
**Author:** ![Nolies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/45deac/32.png) [@Nolies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nolies)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/409 "2005-03-14T05:56:35Z")
> [@](#): > > think it can only increase and all evidence that I see are that living, self-replicating molecules are not miraculous creations. I think that evidence will eventually bercome so potent as to remove doubt about the matter. Can you explain for me in the broadest simplest form how **self replicating molecules** can explain conscienceness. Here is a PHD in the history of Geology explaining how Geology isn’t really all that scientific [PHD](http://kgovarchives.com/bel/2004/24k/20040603-BEL111-24k.mp3) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/410 "2005-03-14T06:11:03Z")
> [@Razorsharp](#): > > I always find it quite amusing when liberals are presented a conundrum by their own ideology. > > Liberalism’s inherent hostility towards religion almost demands that Creationism be rejected, while its devotion to secularism leads to an embrace of evolution. (Now for the conundrum) > > When pointing out the inherent differences in culture, social behavior and intelligence of the different groups within the human species that can be attributed to the evolution process, liberals suddenly get religion and start preaching, “there are no inherent differences within the races, we’re all created equal”. Well I don’t think we’re created anything. And no two people are equal, so no two groups of people are equal. But liberalism (and any non-bigot for that matter) involves treating people as people, not as a representative of a class. Not that this has anything to do with creationism or this argument. BTW, when I was a conservative, I was not a bigot, and neither were any of the people I worked with in the Conservative Party of NY. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/411 "2005-03-14T06:42:59Z")
> [@Nolies](#): > > Can you explain for me in the broadest simplest form how **self replicating molecules** can explain conscienceness. Quit obfuscating. Sentience/consciousness is an entirely different situation. As for debating consciousness, I believe the best model is “the mind is what the brain does.” Consciousness like ours has not evolved before because our neural structure is pretty much unique in this biosphere. Besides, read up on protenoid microspheres. [“The results of hundreds of research projects over the last 30 years by scientists working in the field of protobiochemistry have established the following facts. Under very simple, straightforward circumstances, that must have been a common natural occurrence in the history of the earth, amino acids and nucleic acids do form from simpler common chemical compounds. The amino acids polymerize into peptides that in turn aggregate into larger, protein microspheres (protocell-like structures). All these steps occur by definite, deterministic (non-random) chemical processes (Fox, 1981b). Intensive study of the properties of the protein microspheres by many different protobiochemists have revealed that, while they are definitely not full-blown modern living cells, they exhibit many of the properties of living cells, including membrane structures with semipermeable properties, enzymatic activity associated with various metabolic reactions, synthesis of protein linkages as well as nucleic acid linkages, growth, excitability (neuro-electric phenomena similar to those in nerve cells), motility and conjugation (Fox, 1981a; 1984; Peterson, 1985).”](http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3922_52_sonleitner_what39s_wr_11_24_2004.asp) > [@Nolies](#): > > Here is a PHD in the history of Geology explaining how Geology isn’t really all that scientific [PHD](http://kgovarchives.com/bel/2004/24k/20040603-BEL111-24k.mp3) I have to thank you for that, I nearly had diet coke shoot out my nose listening to the beginning of that mp3. The refrain of “Bob” in the background… ah… indeed does Slack find many ways into one’s life. The mp3 is twenty-freaking-nine minutes long. Currently he’s railing about people being able to specialize in the history of one scientific discipline, and how ‘the more you know about any specific subject…’ “the less and less you know”. Mmmmm hmmmm. Now this guest is claiming that science came from the church. He should talk to Giordano Bruno of Nola. Something tells me that Bruno might just still be a bit, shall we say, hot under the collar as to his relationship with the Church? This guest just said “Modern science with it’s experimetal method was born in the assumptions of the Christian worldiew, and all, all historians of science today would agree to that…” Forget wasting time with this. Mind citing your sources in anything other than an almost half hour long rambling conversation with an ‘expert’ who is evidently unaware that the Greeks figured out the earth was round, via experimentation, far before Yoshua Ben Yoseph walked the world… ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/412 "2005-03-14T06:44:55Z")
> [@Razorsharp](#): > > Ain’t no reason to go back and read the entire thread. See, when one comes upon a post such as this:you can pretty much get the tone of the entire thread. > > Oh, and you use the term “refuted” rather loosely. So, why don’t you present a consistent theory of creationism, none of which has been scientifically disproven? And while you do it, make sure that you actually respond to the questions people give to you, and the refutations of whatever you post. You can visit [talkorigins.org](http://talkorigins.org) for a preview. And while we’re at it, why don’t you give the identities of all the “evolutionists” your cite claims said African IQs were low. I trust the quotes are from after, say, 1950. 100 years ago many on both sides were racist. It’s so nice of you to say that scientific literacy is a liberal thing, but it isn’t really true. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/413 "2005-03-14T07:21:58Z")
> [@Nolies](#): > > Can you explain for me in the broadest simplest form how **self replicating molecules** can explain conscienceness. No and that is beside the point. Just another of your smelly red herrings dragged across the path of any straightforward inquiry. No one claims that self-replication necessarily leads to consciousness. Bacteria are self replicated but I don’t think anyone claims they are conscious. And if I could sit down and explain how consciousness works in any manner, broad, narrow, simple, complex my reputation would be greatly enhanced. Can you explain in the broadest, simplest form exactly Yahveh’s breath changed the dust of the ground into Adam? > [@](#): > > Here is a PHD in the history of Geology explaining how Geology isn’t really all that scientific [PHD](http://kgovarchives.com/bel/2004/24k/20040603-BEL111-24k.mp3) What does an interview of Terry Mortenson by your hero have to do with this? And just for the record. In all of the cites about Terry Mortenson on the net I didn’t find a single one that showed any _geological_ study at all. It looks to me like he went to school and got a PhD in Geological HISTORY, not Geology, just so he could have the cachet of Doctor So and So and be an appologist for _Answers in Genesis._ ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/414 "2005-03-14T11:35:48Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Now this guest is claiming that science came from the church. He should talk to Giordano Bruno of Nola. In the interest of keeping to the Straight Dope, it should be pointed out that Bruno was executed for being a priest who denied the divinity of Jesus and that his dabblings in science never came under condemnation by the Church. > [@David Simmons](#): > > In all of the cites about Terry Mortenson on the net I didn’t find a single one that showed any geological study at all. It looks to me like he went to school and got a PhD in Geological HISTORY, not Geology,… Specifically, his thesis was based on an examination of the lives of the “scriptural” geologists of the early 19th century, so he never had to study or address actual geology as it has developed in the succeeding 200 years–he only needed to point out the manner that those who favored an account based on Genesis argued against their contemporaries with the limited information available to both sides at the time. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/415 "2005-03-14T12:33:07Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > In the interest of keeping to the Straight Dope, it should be pointed out that Bruno was executed for being a priest who denied the divinity of Jesus and that his dabblings in science never came under condemnation by the Church. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno) says that he was “…excommunicated for his adherence to Copernicanism” It also claims that his ‘final offense’ was teaching a science of mnemonics, " He briefly functioned as a tutor to Mocenigo, who may have been disappointed that Bruno was merely teaching him a complex system of mnemonics rather than some form of magic. When Bruno attempted to leave Venice, Mocenigo denounced him to the Inquisition" It goes on to conclude, “Although the actual charge against Bruno was docetism, adherence to the doctrine that Jesus did not actually have a physical body and that his physical presence was an illusion, the world of science has long claimed Bruno as a martyr. Like Galileo Galilei, his Copernicanism was a factor in his heresy trial. Unlike Galileo, some of his theological beliefs were also a factor. Also, unlike Galileo, he refused to renounce his beliefs.” Perhaps it is accurate to say that not only his (possibly hermetic) theology but also his scientific views contributed to his death? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/416 "2005-03-14T13:21:59Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Specifically, his thesis was based on an examination of the lives of the “scriptural” geologists of the early 19th century, so he never had to study or address actual geology as it has developed in the succeeding 200 years–he only needed to point out the manner that those who favored an account based on Genesis argued against their contemporaries with the limited information available to both sides at the time. In any event **Nolies** has already worn out the method that I predict will be that of all young-earth, literal-truth creationists. When someone asks him a question he changes the subject and responds with an irrelevancy. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/417 "2005-03-14T13:59:21Z")
[Mortenson’s biography](http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/t_mortenson.asp) contains the following passage: “In the first half of the 19th century, there were a number of Christian writers who raised Biblical, logical and geological objections to old-earth theories and **to the reinterpretations of Scripture to harmonize with them.** [bold added] These men became known as the ‘Scriptural geologists,’ …” Notice that even at that early date Scripture was being reinterpreted to harmonize with scientific discoveries, not the other way around. It looks to me like this process will continue with the increase in scientific discoveries. With a more and more extensive fossil record **Nolies** , _et al_, will eventually be harmonized right out of existence. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/418 "2005-03-14T15:14:29Z")
Still awaiting Nolies’ response to my question about whitetail deer, anhingas, and Adam N Eve freezing their butts off in the Garden of Eden. * * * Yesterday being a long Sunday afternoon, and me having nothing else to do, I went through [Fred’s column](http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm) that Razorsharp directed our attention to, and then got called away and didn’t get a chance to post it yesterday. 1. He discredits “science” because, he complains, scientists keep changing their minds. > [@](#): > > \*\*For a while, life was thought to have come about on clay in shallow water in seas of a particular composition, later in tidal pools with another chemical solution, then in the open ocean in another solution. This continues. Recently, geothermal vents have been offered as the home of the first life. Today (Feb 24, 2005) on the BBC website, I learn that life evolved below the oceanic floor. (“There is evidence that life evolved in the deep sediments," co-author John Parkes, of Cardiff University, UK, told the BBC News website.” Link at bottom.) > > The frequent shifting of ground bothered me. If we knew how life began, why did we have so many prospective mechanisms, none of which really worked?\*\* This shows that he does not understand the basic process of Science, with its willingness, when the data do not fit the theory, to change the theory. 1. Then he goes and gets the most ridiculous example of supposedly “scientific” thinking that he can find, and holds it up as an example of how silly Science is. > [@](#): > > **Starlings are said to have evolved to be the color of dirt so that hawks can’t see them to eat them. This is plausible. But guacamayos and cockatoos are gaudy enough to be seen from low-earth orbit. Is there a contradiction here? No, say evolutionists. Guacamayos are gaudy so they can find each other to mate. Always there is the pat explanation. But starlings seem to mate with great success, though invisible. If you have heard a guacamayo shriek, you can hardly doubt that another one could easily find it. Enthusiasts of evolution then told me that guacamayos were at the top of their food chain, and didn’t have predators. Or else that the predators were colorblind. On and on it goes. But…is any of this established?** As a birdwatcher, I had never heard this, and on the face of it, it’s ridiculous–there are tons of “dirt”-colored birds out there, and none of them are particularly less vulnerable to predation by hawks. This statement–“_Enthusiasts of evolution then told me that guacamayos were at the top of their food chain, and didn’t have predators_”–is also ridiculous on the face of it; no biologist would seriously have suggested that a macaw, no matter how “gaudy”, could be “at the top of the food chain”. Only predators get to be “at the top of the food chain”. Googling, I find the statement that the hyacinth macaw is “king of the food chain” and that it “has no predators” repeated on a few bird-lover websites–but not on serious biology websites, and _not by evolutionists_. All the serious biology/nature websites acknowledge that the hyacinth macaw “has **few** predators”, which isn’t the same thing as “no” predators, and that its predators include large snakes like boa constrictors, and birds of prey. Like [Harpy eagles](http://www.peregrinefund.org/Explore_Raptors/eagles/harpyeag.html). > [@](#): > > - The Harpy Eagle has a body length of 35 - 41 inches, a 6 1/2 -foot wingspan, and weighs 10 - 20 pounds. The female can be as much as twice as heavy as her mate. > > \< snip \> > > Harpy Eagles are considered to be one of the world’s largest and most powerful eagles. Although this eagle has hind talons up to the size of grizzly bear claws, they can only fly with prey weighing less than one half of their body weight. This is typical of most birds of prey. \* [Hyacinth macaws](http://www.thebigzoo.com/Animals/Hyacinth_Macaw.asp) generally weigh about 2-1/2 pounds. Making the harpy eagle one of the “few” predators of the hyacinth macaw. Therefore, I conclude that Fred’s “enthusiasts of evolution” that he quotes in order to make Science look stoopid were just a couple of idjit hyacinth macaw fanatics. 1. Then he makes sweeping generalizations: > [@](#): > > \*\* If you have ever debated a Marxist, or a serious liberal or conservative, or a feminist or Christian, you will have noticed that, although they can be exceedingly bright and well informed, they display a maddening imprecision. \*\* Funny, I’ve never noticed this, especially in Great Debates. 1. He gets hold of the wrong end of the stick. > [@](#): > > **Third, evolutionists are obsessed by Christianity and Creationism, with which they imagine themselves to be in mortal combat. This is peculiar to them.** No, it’s peculiar to **Creationists** that **they** imagine **themselves** in mortal combat with **evolutionists**. Who are the people who get up petitions to the local school boards? The Creationists. Who are the people who show up at school board meetings waving signs and demanding to speak? The Creationists. Who are the people who are convinced that the Other Side is the tool of Satan, and that nothing less than the souls of men is at stake? The Creationists. Not the Evolutionists. 1. And, once again, he gets it bass-ackwards. > [@](#): > > **Astronomers pay not the slightest attention to creationist ideas. Nobody does—except evolutionists.** No–it’s the **Creationists** who pay not the slightest attention to astronomers and their Big Bang, preferring to focus on the sciences of biology, geology, and paleontology. My theory is that this is because nobody except astrophysicists and a few high school geeks really “get” the Big Bang, but any sixth-grader can crack apart a geode or hunt for fossils on a field trip or dissect a frog, and then feel that he “gets” the science involved. 1. He’s not going to tell us exactly which “Ivy League” evolutionists he debated. > [@](#): > > **These men (almost all of them are) have frequently been very bright indeed, often Ivy League professors, some of them with names you would recognize.** Uh huh. :rolleyes: Now tell us, “I can’t tell you who they are, because then I’d have to kill you…” > [@](#): > > **This is the behavior not of scientists, but of advocates, of True Believers.** Well, if he’s not going to tell us who they were, I guess we just have to take his word for it, don’t we? :rolleyes: 1. This is just…stupid. > [@](#): > > **But what are the practical details? Do we have an unambiguous record of giraffes with longer and longer necks? (Maybe we do. I’m just asking.)** I mean, hanh? He can’t even be bothered to get his facts straight about giraffe vertebrae before tossing this into the mix? His whole bit about giraffe and snake vertebrae shows that he doesn’t really grasp how the “accretion of successful point mutations” thing works–he’s missing the point that it takes place species-wide over immense stretches of time. Then, yes, a proto-snake can slowly add extra vertebrae, over _millions of years_. He’s missing that. 1. He invokes the “how do you evolve an eye?” argument, betraying a lack of knowledge of the evolution of the eye. > [@](#): > > \*\* Some orchestrated jump seems necessary. How does an animal evolve color vision, given that doing so would require elaborate changes in eye chemistry, useless without simultaneous elaborate changes in the brain to interpret the incoming impulses, which changes would themselves be useless without the retinal changes?\*\* 1. The “butterfly metamorphosis could not have evolved” argument is a familiar one. Addressed [here.](http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Butterfly_metamorphosis_is_too_complex_to_have_evolved) 2. > [@](#): > > **It is interesting to note that evolutionists switch stories regarding the mechanism of transformation. The standard Neo-Darwinian view is that evolution proceeds very slowly. But when it proves impossible to find evidence of gradual evolution, some evolutionists turn to “punctuated equilibrium,”** He doesn’t understand that there is a difference between “switching stories” and the current level of brisk, many-layered theoretical discussion. Just because scientists don’t have something they can carve in stone as regards a “theory” doesn’t discredit the whole idea. 1. He invokes the “a mechanical watch could not have evolved” argument. 'Nuff said. 2. > [@](#): > > **n obvious question is why, if intelligence is adaptive—i.e., promotes survival–it didn’t evolve earlier** Earlier than what? It evolved when it evolved. Things happen when they happen. 1. He makes sweeping generalizations bordering on, well, lies. > [@](#): > > **Those who deal in human evolution usually hold The Bell Curve in high regard.** Um…no. They don’t. 1. He cites _The Bell Curve_. 'Nuff said. > [@](#): > > **A point the book makes is that in the United States the highly intelligent tend to go into fields requiring intelligence, as for example the sciences, computing, and law. They live together, work together, and marry each other, thus tending to concentrate intelligence instead of making it general in the population. They also produce children at below the level of replacement. Perhaps fitness leads to extinction.** 1. > [@](#): > > \*\*Black sub-Saharan Africans (say many evolutionists) have a mean IQ somewhere near 70, live in wretched poverty, and breed enthusiastically. \*\* Whoever, his mysterious “evolutionists” are, they’re wrong: sub-Saharan birth rates have been falling steadily since the late 1980s. [Cite.](http://www.pop.psu.edu/searchable/press/may0300.htm) 1. He can’t blame this one on mysterious evolutionists; it’s his very own thought…sorta. > [@](#): > > **Jews, very bright indeed at a mean IQ of 115 and very prosperous, are positively scarce, always have been, and seem to be losing ground.** No, they’re not. [Israel](http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=is&v=25) has experienced a statistically insignificant drop in their birth rate, but it hardly amounts to “losing ground”. This is just standard racist stuff here: “Blacks are taking over the world, the smart and rich Jews are nevertheless proving themselves unfit to survive [insert sotto voce “nyah” here].” 17. Annnnnd…then we get into the overt racism: > [@](#): > > **White and Asian women are more physically delicate than African women, as witness the lower rates of training injuries among black women in the American army.** Uh huh. 1. Then he blames evolutionists somehow for the fact that Science does not explain **why** _homo sapiens_ developed consciousness. Which is just dumb–that’s a question for philosophers and theologians, not biologists. 2. He misses the point: > [@](#): > > **Humans are said to have a poor sense of smell because they evolved to stand upright in the savanna where you can see forever and don’t need to smell things. This makes no sense: Anyone can see that the better your senses of smell and hearing, especially at night but even in daytime if you have lions that look like dirt and know how to sneak up on things, you are better off…** Humans didn’t _need_ a powerful sense of smell because they came to depend on vision, AND on fire, AND on a social group, AND on cooperative tool and weapon use, AND on shelter like caves, from which they could drive out larger animals using their cooperative weapon use and their fire use. If you’re sleeping with your back to a cave wall, with a fire burning at the mouth of the cave, you don’t need smell or hearing to protect you from predators. And during the day, moving in a group with many pairs of eyes watching, you don’t need smell or hearing. 20. Just plain wrong: > [@](#): > > **… I note that horses have good vision and eyes at about the same altitude as ours, but they have great noses** No, horses do not have particularly good vision. They have two blind spots, one directly in front and one directly behind; they have to move their head up and down to see up and down (all humans have to do to shift their focus is move their eyeballs–e.g. Beethoven looking up from under beetling brows); and they are mostly color-blind. Human vision beats 'em all hollow. [Equine vision.](http://www.nchorsenews.com/articles_pg8.htm)[Horse vision.](http://www.equinecentre.com.au/health_misc_vision.shtml)[Horse eyes.](http://www.horses-and-horse-information.com/articles/horse-eyes.shtml) 1. Misses the point, doesn’t understand the biology involved. > [@](#): > > **My favorite example, which does not reach the level of plausibility, is such artifacts as the tail of a peacock which obviously make the bird easier to see and eat. So help me, I have several times seen the assertion that females figure that any male who can survive such a horrendous disadvantage must really be tough, and therefore good mating material. The tail increases fitness by decreasing fitness. A Boy Named Sue.** It takes good nutrition to grow feathers. It takes big nutrition to grow big feathers. A male with big feathers is a male that has ingested much better food, and more of it, than a male that has puny feathers, and therefore a male with big feathers is a much tastier breeding prospect to a female–he’ll be more likely to have big healthy sperm cells. 22. He misses the point about disorders like rH factor and anaphylactic-shock bee-sting allergies. They don’t threaten the survival of the human population **as a whole** , just of individuals within the population. They aren’t that common that they threaten the entire population. 1. He misses the point about kidneys having nerves. Stephen Jay Gould says somewhere, “Not _everything_ is adaptive.” Humans do have things like tailbones and appendixes and vestigial male nipples; the reason we still have them is that sometimes Nature doesn’t _need_ to break down the machinery that it spent millions of years putting into place. It’s just more cost-effective to leave the leftover unnecessary bits in place. So at some point the organ that would become the human kidney had nerve endings, and it just never got around to being evolved out, because there would have been no reason. A human doesn’t die from kidney stone pain, so the genes for “nerves in kidneys” never got removed from the gene pool. But he doesn’t get that. 1. More sweeping generalizations. > [@](#): > > **the evolutionist’s hostility to Intelligent Design** I’ve never noticed this, outside of the occasional in-your-face I’m-an-Atheist-with-a-capital-A-you-got-a-problem-with-that? evolutionist. But evolutionists as a group are not intrinsically and automatically hostile to the idea of a Supreme Being personally tinkering with Planet Earth. 1. He doesn’t practice what he preaches. > [@](#): > > **I once told my daughters, “Whatever you most ardently believe, remember that there is another side. Try, however hard it may be, to put yourself in the shoes of those whose views you most dislike. Force yourself to make a reasoned argument for their position. Do that, think long and hard, and conclude as you will. You can do no better, and you may be surprised.”** I don’t see any indications that he has ever tried to make a reasoned argument for evolution. All he’s done is demand that the evolutionists show him “proof”, apparently by “creating life” in an Erlenmeyer flask. Which is silly. 1. > [@](#): > > **When I ask evolutionists whether the chance creation of life has been demonstrated in the laboratory, I get email offering Wimmer’s work as evidence that it has been done.** Again, he doesn’t tell us who the “evolutionists” were. 1. Standard creationist argument. Which doesn’t hold any more water this time around than the last million times a Creationist invoked it. > [@](#): > > **Someone is said to have said that a monkey banging at random on a typewriter would eventually type all the books in the British Museum.** ---
**Author:** ![Nolies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/45deac/32.png) [@Nolies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nolies)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/419 "2005-03-14T15:44:44Z")
> [@](#): > > Still awaiting Nolies’ response to my question about whitetail deer, anhingas, and Adam N Eve freezing their butts off in the Garden of Eden. You got to be kidding right I figured that these were rhetorical :smack: Whitetail deer is the one of the most adaptible aminals on North america. Thus found in all climates. A testimony to great design. The anhingas, what great design also if it was poor design how come it survies? Adam and Eve were give the brains to have fire and clothe themselves. Six days Baby, Six days! That other guy quit listening to the mp3 when it got to close to dismanteling his strawman… ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/420 "2005-03-14T15:56:18Z")
I’ll give Fred one thing … he manages to make \*\*Nolies \*\*look comparatively intelligent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979.md?page=22)