What would it take to make you believe in evolution?

Great Debates
102

Excuse me for saying so, Palm Cove, but you’re just proving capacitor’s point.

It’s more constructive, I think, to allow evolution-denialists the “out” of Evolution As God’s Work.

In other words, I see capacitor’s point (up to a point): he refuses to consider the evidence supporting evolution because he’s been given the unfortunate impression that do so is to deny god’s existence (and your insistence that he “prove god did it” is probably feeding that misapprehension). I’m much more impressed by those religious people who understand that they don’t have to choose one or the other: they can understand evolution as the science for which Genesis is a metaphor. (It’s my understanding that this is the Catholic church’s official take on it.)

(I am, however, equally frustrated, Palm Cove, that the denialists on this board seem somehow incapable of carefully reading and considering the information volunteered in these many threads and demand to be individually convinced, one by freakin’ one; each one wants to trot out the same lame nonsense time after time after time–cycled through twice in this thread alone, I believe.)

Capacitor seems to be willing to consider the question sincerely; too bad the same can’t be said for IzzyR.

103

Ben:

Just because I don’t have the ability to study the issues to the extent of having the level of knowledghe necessary to conclusively decide on a scientific basis about the subject, does not mean that it is impossible to say anything meaningful by confining myself to specific points about things that I can understand.

The reason for my original post was to point out that the OP seemed to assuming that in order to disbelieve in a theory one must have an idea of what would be proof of the theory. (This is also a point made by hardcore). I don’t agree with this.

I have some degree of interest. But it seems to me that in order to understand the science of evolution it would require an enormous investment of time.

If my conclusion was based on a scientific basis, I would agree with you.

Well, I don’t think I am being silly. But if I am indeed making myself look silly, than I guess you are right that there’s not much point in it. I shall try to stay away from the topic in the future.

Not really. To use another example: I am skeptical of chiropracters. I am also convinced that if a knowledgeable chiropractor would debate the issue with me I would be totally unable to defend my position. I simply don’t know enough about the relevant subjects. If there was a debate between supporters and opponents of chiropractors, I would try to avoid making definitive statements about the science, but would not feel that I cannot express my overall skepticism.

I was not acrimonious towards anyone, but I was dismissive of posts that are only attempts to ridicule.

What I said at the time was that if it is indeed true that creatures are externally dissimilar are similar on a molecular level and have a relationship suggested by the fossil record than that would suggest that the internal similarity weas the result of descent. But there was also alot of evidence that struck me as circular reasoning, and led me to suspect that the evidence (in general) was weaker than people would have you believe.

hardcore

This has been accepted as the biblical interpretation. The six days of creation have been a central part of Judaism.

You might ocasionaly accept a new interpretation of something that has not been paid much attention to. Say some relatively obscure language of some law. But if someone suggested that the words “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independance are a reference to some other word “equal” that means something completely different I don’t think you’d buy it.

But suppose you couldn’t come up with a proof that would make you accept these things, would you therefore feel compelled to accept them?

104

I guess you’re arguing this means that the Earth was deliberately placed in its orbit. That’s like arguing that a naturally-growing tree was deliberately planted in such a place so as not to interfere with the building of a road. In that case, it was just the road-builders’ luck that they didn’t have to knock down that tree. And it was just our luck (and that of every other living thing) that the Earth orbits and rotates as it does.

Argument: It is highly unlikely that random chance would result in the evolution of human beings. Therefore, God created humans.

That is similar to: It was highly unlikely that Joe Blow would win the California Lottery last week, but since he did win, it must be because God wanted him to.

And besides: Evolution did not happen randomly. “Randomly” implies that all possibilities are equally likely to happen. But In Real Life, some possibilities are more likely to occur than others. Some biological processes are more likely to evolve than others. (Eyes that can detect sunlight are more likely to evolve than some kind of organ which can detect radio waves, for example, even though visible light and radio waves are both forms of the same thing, electromagnetic radiation. Why? It wouldn’t be a useful adaptation. And I’m not sure such an organ is even possible.) Those that happen more often are more likely to succeed, as long as they help the life-form survive. For example, it would do no good for an organism that lives in total darkness to have eyes, which is why we have blind cave fish. Those blind cave fish have ancestors which could see, but eyes are a burden when they are not useful. Freak, mutant fish which hatched without eyes succeeded where their sighted brethren failed and they had blind descendents. This is the explanation given by biologists for cave fish. It’s accepted because it’s the simplest explanation that fits all the available evidence; it satisfies Occam’s Razor.

105

That’s odd.

My friend’s child is enrolled in Hebrew and Bar/Bat Mitzvah classes. Their book explicitly states that there is no conflict between Judaism and evolution because many parts of the Torah are understood to be metaphorical. I believe they are Reform.

The Conservatives also seem to disagree:

‘For Conservative Jews, the Torah is no less sacred, if less central, than it was for their pre-modern ancestors. I use the word “sacred” advisedly. The Torah is the foundation text of Judaism, the apex of an inverted pyramid of infinite commentary, not because it is divine, but because it is sacred, that is, adopted by the Jewish people as its spiritual font. The term skirts the divisive and futile question of origins, the fetid swamp of heresy. The sense of individual obligation, of being commanded, does not derive from divine authorship, but communal consent. The Written Torah, no less than the Oral Torah, reverberates with the divine-human encounter, with “a minimum of revelation and a maximum of interpretation.”’
http://www.jtsa.edu/pubs/schorsch/core.html(emphasis mine)

‘Conservative Judaism hold that the laws of the Torah and Talmud are of divine origin, and thus mandates the following of Halakha (Jewish law). At the same time, the Conservative movement recognizes the human element in the Torah and Talmud, and accepts modern scholarship which shows that Jewish writings also show the influence of other cultures, and in general can be treated as historical documents.’
http://www.landfield.com/faqs/judaism/FAQ/02-Who-We-Are/section-4.html (emphasis mine)
In fact, even the Orthodox don’t present a united front on this issue:

'Orthodox Jews believe that Creation occurred over 5700 years ago and that it took precisely six days. However, today many Orthodox Jews believe that it is an open question as to how long each of those “days” and “years” were, relative to today’s time intervals (considering that time itself is one of G-d’s creations). One can find an array of Orthodox views on the age of the universe, the age of the earth, and views on evolution, in “Challenge: Torah Views on Science and Its Problems” edited by Aryeh Carmell and Cyril Domb, and in Gerald Schroeder’s “Genesis and the Big Bang”. These works attempt to reconcile traditional Jewish texts with modern scientific findings concerning evolution, the age of the earth and the age of the Universe. Prominent Orthodox rabbis who affirm the veracity of scientific findings in these areas include Aryeh Kaplan, Israel Lipschitz, Sholom Mordechai Schwadron (the MaHaRSHaM), Zvi H. Chajes, and Abraham Isaac Kook. However, many other Orthodox Jews disagree with these views, and believe that the text of Genesis must be read literally on this subject, and so believe that the Earth literally is 5760 years old, and that that modern scientific evolutionary and cosmological theories are wrong. ’
http://www.landfield.com/faqs/judaism/FAQ/06-Jewish-Thought/(emphasis mine)
All in all, I think this sums it up rather well:

'Judaism neither accepts nor rejects the theory of evolution. There are several schools of thought within Judaism regarding evolution. They are basically divided into the following categories:
<snip details>
In any case, all of these approaches are acceptable within Judaism. While there are differences of opinion as to which of these approaches is the most correct, there is no question that all of these approaches accept the truth and Divine origin of the Torah, which is the most basic belief of Judaism. ’
http://members.aol.com/LazerA/archive/belief.html
Would you like to try that again?

Please note, I don’t care about your personal beliefs on this issue, as they don’t affect me much. But please don’t claim a wider scope for them then they actually merit.

106

Reading through a few threads on similar topics, I noticed the odd fact that many of them seem to dwindle into a particular individual blindly and rather ridiculously defending his right to remain ignorant. He seems almost to take the position that to embrace one’s ignorance is to make a strength of it.

The oddest thing, of course, is how many people in these threads continue to join him in examining and even refining his solipsistic foolishness.

107

IzzyR:

When I asked about conflicts between biblical events and evolution, you replied:

I assume you are stating that you consider the six days of creation to be six literal days, and the creation account to be a literal depiction of events. If so, does this mean you believe the earth to be about 10,000 years old? Why don’t you have problems with geology, which indicates a 4.5 billion year old earth? Or astronomy, which requires billions of years for light from distant galaxies to reach us? Or the fact that the geological record shows no evidence of a global flood? How about dinosaurs – do you think they existed? Do you think the sun revolves around the earth? It seems to me you should have a lot more problems with science than just evolution.

I do not mean to impugn your faith. If you desire to believe these ideas simply because of your religion, and you feel no need to defend your position on a logical basis, I’ll stop asking so many questions (well…maybe). But please, don’t try to have it both ways.

While discussing acceptable evidence for ghosts and goblins, you stated:

No. But I also would not feel qualified to characterize any evidence as “weak”. What reference frame would I have? Without knowing what constitutes “strong” evidence, I cannot pass judgement on the quality of any non-trivial evidence. How can I classify something as “Hot” if I don’t know what defines it as “Cold”?

Let me try an analogy (ugh!) Assume that I do not understand physics well enough to determine what might be acceptable evidence for the existence of quarks. Without knowing what would convince me, how can anyone hope to do so? I can simply dismiss all the evidence presented to me as “weak” and claim quarks do not exist. But I would appear to have a different agenda if I continued to critique the Standard Model without understanding it.

Perhaps we could discuss what you are characterizing as circular reasoning if you could expound on this issue slightly. However, you might also examine your own motivations and determine if your objections are grounded in science or religion.

108

It seems to me that most of the issues you raise presuppose that rocks were formed from some process that takes eons, etc. If one assumes that they were created as rocks then the standard methods of dating might not apply.

I think there was actually a guy by the name of Gosse who proposed, about a hundred years ago, that the world could have been created with al the evidence for evolution already in place. This was widely ridiculed - as others pointed out, the world could have been created last week by this logic. So if the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, I would say this doesn’t hold water. But if it is more ambigous, than it is conceivable to apply a similar logic to geological dating, and the like.

(BTW, how does the sun revolving around the earth come into play?)

I don’t think your analogy holds. Either evidence is persuasive or its not. It has nothing to do with whether you know what else would be persuasive.

I have never started a thread challenging anyone to convince me about evolution. All I’ve done is to bring up specific points about evolution, and in some cases (as in this one) responded to questions from others. I have dealt with all these issues in a straightforward manner. I did not just say “that’s weak” in response to specific points raised.

I think it is evident from the last thread in which it was discussed. It seems to me that much of science that “proves” evolution is of the “if not for evolution why would God have done such and such?” variety. In most instances, it actually seems like the logical thing to do in any event. So I think these are accepted as “proof” of evolution because scientists have gotten so used to describing these phenomena in evolutionary terms that they take for granted that they are connected to evolution. In this regard they represent circular reasoning. The same would also apear to be true about claims that rejection of evolution results in the rejection of much of science. This is true from the perspective of an evolutionist, who believes that these other areas of science tie in to evolution. From the perpective of a non-evolutionist, it does not follow.

Is there some doubt about this? I thought I made it clear that my objections are grounded in religion. I am no scientist. If I did not have religious reasons for disbelieving evolution, than, knowing as little about the stuff as I do, I would accept the opinion of the overwhelming percentage of the scientific community. But I think my religious beliefs are correct. And if a religion requires belief in something that can be conclusively shown to be false, than that religion should be rejected. So there has to be some plausibility on a scientific level. And for this reason I have some interest in knowing how conclusive the theory is.

109

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by IzzyR *
**

I’m not entirely sure I follow you here. However, I would like to present a few clarifications:

  1. Science is not in the business of ‘proving’ anything. This has been pointed out repeatedly in these evolution vs. creation threads, but no one seems to be listening. Science attempts to understand, not prove. It is the creationists who feel they need to prove something.

  2. Evolutionists do not invoke the “if not for evolution why would God have done such and such?” argument unless arguing with creationists. The actual day-to-day science of evolution has nothing to do with God’s existence or non-existence or what He may or may not have done; it deals with interpetration of facts to form a theory, or testing current theories to see if they hold. Just like any other science.

  3. It is not the case that evolutionists believe “that these other areas of science tie in to evolution.” at least not in the way that it appears you mean. It is the case that all areas of science start from the same basic premises and use a standardized mode of analysis to determine the best theory that fits the observed phenomena. It is about consistency - if we find evidence in geology that contradicts what we see in biology, then we need to re-examine our findings / interpretations. But, we don’t see this inconsistency.
    This is why it is often claimed that if you reject evolution, you must reject all other sciences. The conclusions are reached via the same methods. And surely you don’t believe that Physics got all the smart scientists, while Evolution got all the not-so-smart ones! The conclusions reached in each field are just as valid.

As for how all this ties into circular reasoning, I’m not sure what you mean.

110

This is also known, somewhat disparagingly, as “Last-Thursdayism.” For all we know, we, the Earth, and the Universe might have been created, in situ, last Thursday. We’d never know, as our memories of events prior to last Thursday would be suspect–it’s all stored in our wetware, which was after all created only last Thursday.

It’s an idea that IMO defies intelligent design. Why, oh why, would God create so much evidence and give us the brains to interpret it, except as a cosmic joke? Sorry, but my god doesn’t screw with people’s heads.

111

I don’t think I dealt with this misperception adequately before, so I’ll do it now:

Capacitor has said that similarities between organisms aren’t necessarily the result of common descent; they may instead be the result of creation by a single deity. I replied that this explanation is not detailed enough to be sufficient, because it doesn’t answer a number of questions:

  1. If God used the same materials for everything, then why didn’t he use exactly the same materials? Why are there changes when one compares proteins from different species?

  2. Why do parsimonious phylogenetic trees based on genetics agree with the fossil record? What sort of phylogenetic tree does “God did it” suggest, and why?

  3. Why did your supposedly perfect designer do so much jerry-rigging? Why are there proteins with completely different functions and sequences which are encoded by such similar genes?

  4. What about processed pseudogenes? Why did God stick them in?

  5. Why does the fossil record show transitions from one taxon to another over time, rather than all organisms appearing at once in the lowest strata?

The only point where I discuss the “efficiency” of God at all is in #3, and it is not meant to indicate that God is imperfect, or that evolution is incompatible with theism, or any such thing. None of the points I raise are incompatible with theistic evolution. For that matter, none of them are necessarily incompatible with special creation, if capacitor can flesh out his explanation sufficiently to account for them.

That’s all I’m looking for here, capacitor: a detailed exposition of your original point. I’m not looking for a bunch of froofra about how unlikely evolution would be if atoms were little solar systems. I am asking for a detailed account of the model that you feel fits the evidence better than evolution does.

-Ben

112

Palm Cove, and others, I do not believe in creationism as defined as the fundamentalists. What I was trying to prove is that probability does not favor randomness.

The likelihood that any unique being can be made at random based on a 3000 protein chain that DNA is appoximately 10 to the 1078.9 power (1 of 4 proteins used factored to the 3000the power). Since humans and animals share about 80-90% of the similar DNA patterns, the likelihood that a human can be created at random, using similar DNA from other animals is 10 to the 270th power. Using a computer that can process 100 quadrillion of the possible combinations per second, it would take approximately 10 to the 238th power years, just to make a human. This is just from DNA alone.

113

Really? How?
I just wanted to address this. Here is a conversation between me and, say, Jack Chick (who I choose as an extreme example of idiocy - I in no way mean to imply that anyone in this thread is on the same level as Jack. I just figure if I’m going to make someone look bad, it might as well be someone we all can agree is an idiot.)

Jack: Show me that this sapling came from that tree.
Me: OK. Notice that it is growing nearby, thus indicating the seed fell from the tree and germinated.
J: Nonsense. You can’t prove that any seed was involved. It could be coincidence.
Me: OK. Notice how there are seeds growing on the tree. We know from other experiments with other plants that seeds tend to grow into plants.
J: So? Those are totally different organisms. And besides, what happens today has no bearing on what happened to produce this sapling.
Me: OK. Let’s try another way. Notice that the sapling’s leaves look just like the tree’s leaves.
J: Bah! Similarity in form has nothing to do with descent. Obviously the leaf shape performs some function needed by both the tree and sapling. If the shape works well, God could have given it to both.
Me: OK, how about this. Look at this data that shows that the tree and sapling are genetically identical.
J: I don’t understand that kind of experiment. Don’t try and confuse me. Besides, even if they were genetically identical, that proves nothing. God could have made them that way.
Me: OK. Here I have a video tape. I just happened to have filmed the entire process of seed growth, germination, and maturation into the very sapling you see before you.
J: Oh, please! That tape could have been faked in any number of ways. Here, I’ll get on my computer and make the same thing.
Etc, etc, etc.

Please don’t get offended that I took the argument to an absurd extreme - as I said, I don’t mean to imply that anyone on this board is that closeminded. My point is that somewhere along the line when you choose to believe anything, be it evolution or that air is a good thing, you have to willingly make a connection in your mind between the evidence and the conclusions drawn from that evidence. Sure, if you want, you can deny every piece of evidence presented. There is nothing that can be so convincing as to force you to believe in it. I guess what it comes down to is a decision as to where you’re willing to apply common sense.

I hope this is taken in the sense in which it was given.

114

Using the 300–protein model of the DNA double-helix from Ben, and the 85% of similarity of human DNA to other DNA, the probability of creating a human becomes 1 in 1.24 * 10 to the 27th power (1 in 4 to the 45th power).

I am willing to believe in evolution as the process that new life is created and developed. I am not willing to leave it entirely to chance.

115

You are focusing on the wrong end of things, capacitor. Calculate the odds that an organism will evolve into something viable but different. Given mutation rates this is almost inevitable. Now the list of possible different organisms it could evolve in to is almost limitless. But the fact that it must change remains. We shouldn’t be surprised that it does.

In case you haven’t had enough analogies, here’s another one. Let’s say you had a hand full of pebbles. You toss the pebbles in the air over a large area and they fall more or less randomly. Then you go over to one of the pebbles that has landed, draw a circle around it, and proclaim that the odds that the that particular pebble would have landed in that particular circle are so astronomical that the test could not have been random. This is contrary to common sense. Just because the odds are very low that a pebble will land in one particular spot are low, doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that they must land somewhere.

116

Capacitor…do you understand that evolutionists agree that human beings are not created by chance?

Yes, if you create a DNA strand at random the odds that that DNA strand could create a human being are astronomical. But evolution is NOT a random process although it contains some random elements, that is what you are missing. We can easily see that human beings are not spontaneously created out of random mixes of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, such things do not happen.

But this is not a fatal problem for evolution. We know that life has existed on earth for billions of years, even though we don’t fully understand how it got here. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Evolutionary theory is not about biogenesis (although it is probably important for understanding biogenesis since the first non-living replicators obeyed some of the same rules), it is about how and why organisms change.

Given the bacterium, it is not a big stretch to imagine them forming symbiotic eukaryotic cells. Given eukaryotic protozoans, it is easy to imagine that some of them stuck together after cell division, forming colonies. Given colonial protozoans, it is easy to imagine cellular specialization creating the first metazoan animals. Given the first metazoans, it is easy to imagine segmentation creating complex worms out of simple worms. Given wormy things, it is easy to imagine the first wormy thing with a stiffening rod near its nerve cord, the first chordate. Given the first amphioxus-like chordate, we can easily imagine the first fish. Given fish, it is easy to imagine mudskipper-like creatures. Given air-tolerant muskipperoids, it is easy to imagine amphibians. Given amphibians, it is easy to imagine them developing protective skin and eggshells to become reptiles. Given reptiles, it is easy to imagine some becoming more active and acquiring specialized long thin hair-like scales and becoming the first mammal-like reptiles. And given the incredible fossil diversity of mammal-like reptiles, it is easy to imagine some surviving the Permian extinction to become monotremes, marsupials and placental mammals. Given placental mammals like shrews, it is easy to imagine some of them living in trees and becoming more omnivorous like the living tree shrews. Given tree shrews it is easy to imagine them getting larger and brainer like (ahem) lemurs. Given lemurs, a few changes makes monkeys. Given monkeys and a few changes gives the first apes. Given the first apes, add in a semi-bipedal posture and a few changed teeth and you’ve got Australopithecus. Given bipedal Australopithecines and add in slightly larger brains and you’ve got Homo habilis. A few tweakings and your Homo habilis becomes Homo erectus. And Homo erectus is only a few gene sequences away from archaic Homo sapiens. And really, archaic Homo sapiens (like neanderthals) are very very similar to fully modern humans.

Do you see that we don’t have to imagine humans appearing out of thin air? All we have to imagine is the heritable variation and differential reproduction of replicators, which even creationists can do. Don’t you see that these creatures which seem so different from each other are really very similar? Even if you believe that evolution can only create different varieties of the same “kind”, don’t you see that the difference between one of these creatures and the creatures directly before and after them is very slight? Perhaps even as small as “one rat giving birth to another kind of rat”. Even if you don’t see it that way, I could give more species and finer detail, and eventually you would see that it really is merely one kind of creature giving birth to another slightly different creature.

Or you may argue that you don’t believe in my hypotheical first bacterium. But even if you think that that first little guy MUST have been created by some divine power, we’re still a long, long, long, long, long way away from Genesis.

If you argue that life must have been first sparked by some divine power, most biologists would say that they don’t agree but there is no way to disprove your assertion. The only warning I’d give is that we haven’t yet needed to invoke God to explain any other physical phenomenon. We can explain thunder and lightning without recourse to divine intervention. We can explain how galaxies and suns and planets and rocks can form without recourse to divine intervention. We can explain how atoms and electrons and molecules and photons and neutrinos work without invoking divine intervention.

So, it may be that we will need divine intervention to explain how life began. Since we don’t understand yet how life began, it must be admitted that divine intervention is one possible hypothesis. But given that everything else can be explained without divine intervention, perhaps we can be permitted to work a bit more on the problem before giving up and deciding that divine intervention is the only possible explanation.

117

I’d like to mention, that’s a tautology, as the working definition of species is animals differentiated by their inability to produce fertile offspring.

At any rate, if your point is that such wonders could not be produced by pure random chance, you’re right. evolution is not based on chance. it’s based on what works. And continuing what works as long as it works. I don’t think it necessitates God. I don’t think it denies him either. Unlesss you presume to know something about how he thinks.

118

Well, I am not attempting to prove anything, in this or the other thread that I commented on. I was responding to questions and challenges by evolutionists. Also, I asked a few questions of my own.

But perhaps you might elaborate on this theme (I don’t recall seeing it pointed out before). It seems to me that scientists are in the business of proving things. Though you might prefer to characterize it as proving that a certain understanding of nature is the true one.

In any event, regardless of what “science” is attempting to do, there are certainly alot of posters to this board who are interested in proving evolution.

I’m not sure what you mean with this. It seems that any consideration of any scientific theory must consider whether alternative scenarios also fit the facts. If creation is to be considerd an alternative scenario, than it too must be considered in this light. If it not even being considered, than there is no point of discussing one versus the other. In any event, in the discussion that I had, it went along the lines that I’ve described. (I linked to a post from that thread in one of my posts on page one of this thread).

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen otherwise. But perhaps I am mistaken, or maybe such claims were made by overzealous evolutionists.

Surely you cannot believe that the conclusions of every field of science are equally valid. There are some fields that lend themselves to verification more than others.

119

I was not implying that you were trying to prove anything. I was contradicting these statements:

It seems to me that you were implying that evolutionists are trying to prove something, when, in general, they are not (there may well be some individuals who attempt to offer ‘proof’ that evolution is ‘true’, but in my opinion, such individuals are misguided).

No, science is not about proof. It is about providing the best explanation for how the universe works, based upon the information at hand. When more information comes to light, the explanation can, and does, change. There is no ‘truth’ in science, only in philosophy.

Which may well be true, but that doesn’t invalidate my earlier points.

**

Again, I was addressing this point in your previous post:

My point was that virtually none of the science that validates evolution is of the variety you mentioned. For the most part, evolutionists only bring up the “Why did God do it this way?” argument when dealing with Creationists. But, this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a scientific argument. It is meant as a rebuttal to the idea that life was created by a perfect being.

Also note that only alternative scientific scenarios need be addressed. If the alternative is neither testable nor verifiable, then it has no place in a scientific discussion. Creation is neither testable nor verifiable (being a matter of faith), so scientists are not obligated to give it any real consideration. At least not in a scientific context. However, keep in mind the point of this thread was not to compare the two as competing theories, but to ascertain what evidence creationists might agree would actually support evolution to their liking. The evolutionists of the board would then be more than happy to point out that such evidence probably already exists…

I certainly do believe that. Why shouldn’t I? Just because some fields lend themselves more easily to verification does not make the conclusions reached by the other fields invalid. Scientists who study historical sciences have the disadvantage that they are unable to observe firsthand many of the phenomena they are studying. However, this still does not invalidate their conclusions. The scientific method still works; hypotheses can be created and tested, and theories created. How does this make their conclusions less valid than those of, say, physics?

120

**

Nonetheless, you have made rather strong statements in opposition to the idea of common descent. Namely, that a) in order to convince you of the truth of “evolution”, you would have to see one species give rise to another, and b) that the evidence for common descent can be interpreted as evidence for a common creator. In order to put the latter idea on a solid footing, you must explain the following:

1.If God used the same materials for everything, then why didn’t he use exactly the same materials? Why are there changes when one compares proteins from different species?

  1. Why do parsimonious phylogenetic trees based on genetics agree with the fossil record? What sort of phylogenetic tree does “God did it” suggest, and why?

  2. Why did your supposedly perfect designer do so much jerry-rigging? Why are there proteins with completely different functions and sequences which are encoded by such similar genes?

  3. What about processed pseudogenes? Why did God stick them in?

  4. Why does the fossil record show transitions from one taxon to another over time, rather than all organisms appearing at once in the lowest strata?

Let’s get something straight: do you believe that humans and apes share a common ancestor? If so, when and why did you change your mind?

Others have already corrected your misperception that evolution involves a blast of cosmic rays randomly transforming a chimp into a human at one step. Think of it this way: what is the probability of something jumping from sea level to the top of Mt. Everest? Pretty unlikely? Well, I guess no one has ever reached the summit of Mt. Everest!

There are a few other problems here:

  1. “1 of 4 proteins”? You’ve confused proteins with nucleotides. How can you calculate the probability of evolution when you don’t even know the most basic facts of biology? I’m not trying to put you down here. I’m just saying that there’s a time to talk, and a time to listen.

  2. The similarity of humans and chimps is much higher than 90%- you have instead decided to compare humans to “animals,” to cook your (already deeply flawed) numbers. The real number you need is the number of differences between modern humans and their immediate ancestors- which is 1.

  3. “1 of 4” isn’t the right number to use, even if evolution were the random blast that you mistakenly assume it to be. If you’re only concentrating on the DNA. If a particular DNA base is present, and it needs to be changed to the human base, then the probability is 1 in 3. Don’t worry- it’s a common mistake among creationists.

  4. Even if your comparison of humans and “animals” were at all relevant, you would still have to know what % of those mutations actually contributed to humanness. The vast majority of those mutations will, in fact, be silent.

  5. “That’s just from DNA alone”? Capacitor, what other biological materials would be involved? Could you show us the relevant calculations for them, too?

-Ben

121

While you’re calculating, capacitor, let me ask you this:

suppose a frameshift mutation completely randomizes the sequence of a protein in a bacterium. What is the probability that the resulting protein will serve a useful function for the bacterium? Could one rationally expect such a useful mutation to occur within the lifetime of the universe?

-Ben