WHAT FAITH, EVOLUTION? BURSTING FIVE BUBBLES

" From early days of infancy, through trembling years of youth,
long murky middle-age and final hours long in the tooth,
he is the hundred names of terror ---creature you love the least.
Picture his name before you and exorcise the beast.
He roved up and down through history --- spectre with tales to tell.
In the darkness when the campfire's dead --- to each his private hell.
If you look behind your shoulder as you feel his eyes to feast,
you can witness now the everchanging nature of the beast.

Beastie

If you wear a warmer sporran, you can keep the foe at bay. You can pop those pills and visit some psychiatrist who'll say ---
There's nothing I can do for you, everywhere's a danger zone.
I'd love to help get rid of it, but I've got one of my own.
There's a beast upon my shoulder and a fiend upon
my back.
Feel his burning breath a heaving, smoke oozing from his stack.
And he moves beneath the covers or he lies below the bed.
He's the beast upon your shoulder. He's the price upon your head.
He's the lonely fear of dying, and for some, of living too.
He's your private nightmare pricking.
He'd just love to turn the screw.
So stand as one defiant --- yes, and let your voices swell.
Stare that beastie in the face and really give him hell. "

Jethro Tull - "Beastie"


This is to address the same tired refrains we hear from ID’ers (Intelligent Design), aka the creationists.

First up, is this:”Evolution is a theory!”

Let’s get our facts straight, folks.

The word ‘theory’, from the dictionary, translates to:
“
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena. [This is the common usage in science.]
2. The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.
3. A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.
4. Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.
5. A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.
6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture. [This is the retrofitted translation for the anti-evolutionists]”

It’s blaringly obvious which definition is ‘cherry-picked’ to suit the purposes of the anti-evolutionists. Just in case you’re not paying attention, that’d be number 6.

'Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.' – Isaac Asimov

Second up, is this:”There’s too many holes in it!”

What an utterly ridiculous assertion. Of course there are holes in it. It’s not a recipe for stew. It’s a science that attempts to address the history of life on this earth. We’re talking about a field that makes a valiant effort to explain every single oddity we see in nature, provide empirical evidence from the lowly amoeba to the highest form of life here (I assume that’s us), covers a vast array of topics from biology to chemistry, anthropology to geology, a dizzying plethora of knowledge that boggles the imagination and staggers the mind with data overload.

But of course, it’s not perfect, and it doesn’t provide the nice, easy, concise explanation that ‘god’ as the ultimate source does. It’s imperfect, because it’s in a constant state of development. It is, if I may borrow a phrase from the Linux crowd, ‘Open source code.’ So criticize it when it delivers the final product (whenever that may occur). Until then, it will always be in flux, just as the subject it addresses is in flux: that of Life.

Third up, is this:”It takes more faith to believe in evolution!”As Kyle’s mom on South Park says, “Wha-wha-what?!?!?”

Despite mountains of forensic evidence, the supernaturalists seem to blind themselves willfully to the actual facts of the theory

Rather than lay out all the FACTS regarding evolution, the reader is invited to research for him/herself in regards to it, here.

Instead, we’ll go the route of falsification, as per usage in scientific circles:

(Snip) “In science and the philosophy of science, falsifiability, contingency, and defeasibility are roughly equivalent terms referring to the property of empirical statements that they must admit of logical counterexamples. This stands in contradistinction to formal and mathematical statements that may be tautologies, that is, universally true by dint of definitions, axioms, and proofs. No empirical hypothesis, proposition, or theory can be considered scientific if it does not admit the possibility of a contrary case.

“Falsifiable does not mean false. For a proposition to be falsifiable, it must be possible, at least in principle, to make an observation that would show the proposition to fall short of being a tautology, even if that observation is not actually made. The logical precondition of being able to observe something of a given description is that something of that description exists.”
(End snip)

I found this here, and found it to be of some value [the bold type is mine, for emphasis]:
“Jim Arvo.

On the other hand, evolution would be falsified (or at least put into extreme doubt) with the discovery of a reptilian or mammalian fossil in the pre-Cambrian strata, or by the discovery of a non-DNA-based reptile, or a mammal with no junk DNA or pseudo-genes, or two morphologically related species based on radically different proteins. There is a virtually limitless list of such things that could easily refute evolution; but these things are never found.”

Fourth up, is this:”Evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics!”

No it doesn’t.
“Complex systems and the Second Law
It is occasionally claimed that the Second Law is incompatible with autonomous self-organisation, or even the coming into existence of complex systems. The entry self-organisation explains how this claim is a misconception.
In fact, as hot systems cool down in accordance with the Second Law, it is not unusual for them to undergo spontaneous symmetry breaking, i.e. for structure to spontaneously appear as the temperature drops below a critical threshhold. Complex structures also spontaneously appear where there is a steady flow of energy from a high temperature input source to a low temperature external sink. It is conjectured that such systems tend to evolve into complex, structured, critically unstable "edge of chaos" arrangements, which very nearly maximise the rate of energy degradation (the rate of entropy production).
Some opponents of evolution claim that life exhibits complexity whose nature differs from the autonomous complexity and self-organisation, which the Second Law allows. The consensus of scientific opinion is that this claim is not well founded, and that no such distinction can be sustained. For further discussion see Creation-evolution controversy. “

Here is a concise discussion of said misperception:

“This shows more a misconception about thermodynamics than about evolution. The second law of thermodynamics says, "No process is possible in which the sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler to a hotter body." [Atkins, 1984, The Second Law, pg. 25] Now you may be scratching your head wondering what this has to do with evolution. The confusion arises when the 2nd law is phrased in another equivalent way, "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often (but not always!) corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness. Creationists thus misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably progress from order to disorder.
However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature? “

The link provided bursts a few of the other rather weak bubbles.

Fifth up:

“Look around you! The world itself is a sign of an Intelligent Designer!”

Well, I laid into the concept of designers and designs here. This is a thinly veiled effort at Irreducible Complexity – (snip)

“In 2001, Michael Behe admitted that his work had a "defect" and does not actually address "the task facing natural selection."[2] Furthermore, the concept of irreducible complexity is ignored or rejected by the majority of the scientific community. This rejection stems from the following: the concept utilises an argument from ignorance, Behe fails to provide a testable hypothesis, and there is a lack of evidence in support of the concept. As such, irreducible complexity is seen by the supporters of evolutionary theory as an example of creationist pseudoscience, amounting to a God of the gaps argument.”
(End snip)

I think five bubbles are sufficient for now. Any questions?

That's my nickel's worth: spend it freely, or sock it away for a rainy day.