The Skeptics Society is Pleased to Present 25 CREATIONISTS' ARGUMENTS + 25 EVOLUTIONIS
The Skeptics Society is Pleased to Present
25 CREATIONISTS' ARGUMENTS
& 25 EVOLUTIONISTS' ANSWERS
A Primer For Science Educators
On The Evolution-Creationism Debate
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Dear Reader:
The following article originally appeared in Volume 2, #2 of
_Skeptic_ magazine, the quarterly publication of the
Skeptics Society, an organization of scholars, scientists,
historians, magicians, science educators, and the general
public interested in investigating extraordinary claims,
promoting science and critical thinking, and disseminating
information on science, magic, superstition, and skepticism.
This reprint is part of our campus outreach program to
promote science and critical thinking in the classroom, in
an effort to stem the tide of irrationality, superstition,
and pseudoscience being presented to students, parents, and
teachers through the print and electronic media. We have
defeated the creationists in the courtroom--the Scopes trial
in 1925, the Arkansas trial in 1981 and the U.S. Supreme
Court Louisiana case in 1987. But now we must meet them in
the classroom, as they have turned to a grassroots strategy
of providing students, teachers, and parents with literature
promoting their pseudoscientific views claiming that
evolutionary biologists, geologists, paleontologists,
cosmologists, physicists, and many other scientists are
completely wrong, and that modern science must be reworked
to fit their interpretation of the Bible.
It is important to note that skeptics and scientists have no
quarrel with genuinely religious people and religious
organizations who make no claims of scientific proof for
their religious beliefs. It is when groups like the so-
called "scientific creationists" distort the methods and
conclusions of science for religious and political ends, and
then demand "equal time" in the classroom, that we must take
a stand.
It is our goal to make this reprint available to every
science educator and student in America. Please feel free to
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For an actual reprint of this article, please contact the
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For further information on the Skeptics Society and Skeptic
magazine, please write to the address below. Skeptic is
available at many bookstores, or you can subscribe. The
Skeptics Society also sponsors a monthly lecture series at
CALTECH on a variety of subjects including James "The
Amazing" Randi on pseudoscience, Steve Allen on critical
thinking, Dr. Carol Tavris on the misdiagnosis of the mind,
Dr. Jared Diamond on the evolution of human creativity, Dr.
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I hope you find the following useful in your teaching and we
would be interested in hearing from you about your
experiences in teaching evolution and/or creationism in your
classroom, any pressures you may have had to teach
creationism from students, parents, or administrators, and
your thoughts on how the Skeptics Society can better promote
science and critical thinking through schools.
Michael Shermer, Ph.D.
Director and Publisher
Adjunct Assistant Professor, History of Science, Occidental
College
Skeptics Society
2761 North Marengo Avenue
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25 CREATIONISTS' ARGUMENTS
& 25 EVOLUTIONISTS' ANSWERS
By Michael Shermer
Executive Editor, Skeptic Magazine
Adjunct Assistant Professor, History of Science, Occidental
College
The following is a list of arguments put forth by
creationists primarily directed toward problems with
evolutionary theory, and secondarily (in a minor way)
positive statements of their beliefs. The arguments and
answers are simplified for space purposes but constitute the
principle terms of the debate. They were developed for my
semester-long seminar on the subject and thus an important
caveat is needed: These explanations are not meant to be a
substitute for critical reading. While these answers might
be adequate for a casual conversation, they would not be
suitable for a formal debate with a well-prepared
creationist. Fuller explanations can be found in numerous
books, such as the following ones I used in preparing this
list, and would be a good place to begin: _Evolution: The
History of an Idea_ (1989) by Peter Bowler (University of
California Press); _Science on Trial: The Case for
Evolution_ (1982) by Douglas Futuyma (Pantheon);
_Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock_
(1985) by Langdon Gilkey (Harper & Row); _Scientists
Confront Creationism_ (1983) by Laurie Godfrey (ed.)
(Norton); _Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes_ (1983) and _Bully
for Brontosaurus_ (1991) by Stephen Jay Gould (Norton); _The
Creationists_ (1992) by Ronald Numbers (Knopf); _Darwinism
Defended_ (1982) by Michael Ruse (Addison-Wesley). Thanks to
_Skeptic_ editorial board members Donald Prothero and Tom
McIver for reviewing the list.
A second caveat: skeptics often find themselves in
debates, some formal, mostly informal, so we would be wise
to heed the words of Stephen Jay Gould, who has confronted
the creationists on many an occasion (taken from a 1985
lecture at CALTECH):
Debate is an artform. It is about the winning of
arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth.
There are certain rules and procedures to debate that
really have nothing to do with establishing fact _
which they are very good at. Some of those rules are:
never say anything positive about your own position
because it can be attacked, but chip away at what
appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's
position. They are good at that. I don't think I could
beat the Creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in
courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you
cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer
direct questions about the positive status of your
belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second
day of the two week trial we had our victory party!
PHILOSOPHICAL BASED ARGUMENTS AND RESPONSES
1. Creation-science is scientific and therefore should
be taught in public school science courses.
Creation-science is scientific in name only. It is a
thinly disguised religious position espousing the doctrine
of special creation, and therefore is not appropriate for
public school science courses, any more than calling
something Muslim-science or Buddha-science or Christian-
science would require equal time. The following statement
from the Institute for Creation Research, the "research" arm
of Christian Heritage College and to which all faculty
members and researchers adhere, is proof of their true
beliefs. There is nothing scientific about "creation-
science":
We believe in the absolute integrity of Holy Scripture
and its plenary verbal inspiration by the Holy Spirit
as originally written by men prepared for God for this
purpose. The scriptures, both Old and New Testaments,
are inerrant in relation to any subject with which they
deal, and are to be accepted in their natural and
intended sense . . . all things in the universe were
created and made by God in the six days of special
creation described in Genesis. The creationist account
is accepted as factual, historical and perspicuous and
is thus fundamental in the understanding of every fact
and phenomenon in the created universe.
2. Neither creationism nor evolutionary theory are
scientific because "science only deals with the here-and-now
and cannot answer historical questions about the creation of
the universe and the origins of life and man."
This, of course, undermines the entire superstructure of
"creation-science" and argument #1, but is untrue anyway
because science does deal with past phenomena, as found in
the historical sciences of cosmology, geology, paleontology,
paleoanthropology, and archaeology. There are experimental
sciences and historical sciences, using different
methodologies but equal in their ability to understand
causality, and evolutionary biology is a valid and
legitimate historical science. If this statement were true,
much of science, not just evolutionary theory, would be
sterile.
3. Since education is a process of learning both sides
of an issue, it is appropriate for both creationism and
evolution to be taught side-by-side in public school
classrooms. Not to do so is a violation of the philosophy of
education, and of the civil liberties of creationists. I.e.,
we have a "right" to be heard. Besides, what is the harm in
hearing both sides?
The multiple sides of issues is indeed a part of the
general educational process, and it might be appropriate to
discuss creationism in courses on religion, history, or even
philosophy, but most certainly not science, any more than
biology courses should include lectures on American Indian
creation-myths. Not to do so violates no rights, since
nowhere in nature or the Constitution does it say everyone
has a right to teach creationism in public schools. Rights
do not exist in nature. Rights are a concept constructed by
man to protect certain freedoms, but have degenerated into
pleas for special privilege by nearly every group and
individual in America who wants something they do not have.
Finally, there is considerable harm in teaching "creation-
science" as science because it is an attack on all the
sciences, not just evolutionary biology. If the universe and
Earth are only about 10,000 years old, cosmology, astronomy,
physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology, et al. would be
invalidated. Creationism cannot even be partially correct.
As soon as supernatural causation is allowed in the creation
of even one species, they could all be created this way, and
the assumption of natural laws in nature is voided and
science becomes meaningless.
4. The amazing correlation between the "facts" of
nature and the "acts" of the Bible is purely coincidental,
but it is therefore appropriate to cross-reference creation-
science books with the Bible.
The true stripes of the creationists can be seen in the
following quote from Henry Morris, head of the Institute for
Creation Research, that reveals his preference for faith in
authority over any possible contradictory empirical evidence
(and thus demonstrating their lack of scientific
methodology):
The main reason for insisting on the universal Flood as
a fact of history and as the primary vehicle for
geological interpretation is that God's Word plainly
teaches it! No geological difficulties, real or
imagined, can be allowed to take precedence over the
clear statements and necessary inferences of Scripture.
It would be ludicrous to imagine professors at CALTECH,
for example, making a similar statement of belief in
Darwin's Origin or Newton's Principia, such that no
difficulties could take precendence over the authority of
the book.
5. The theory of natural selection is tautological, or
a form of circular reasoning. Those that survive are the
best adapted. Who are the best adapted? Those that survive.
Tautologies do not make a science.
Creationists have a very simplistic and naive
understanding of the workings of natural selection. First of
all, natural selection is by no means the only mechanism of
organic change (e.g., Darwin wrote an entire book about
sexual selection). Second, population genetics demonstrates
quite clearly, and with mathematical prediction, when
natural selection will and will not effect change on a
population. Third, one can make predictions based on the
theory of natural selection, and then test them, as the
geneticist does in the example above, or the paleontologist
does in interpreting the fossil record.
6. There are "only two explanations for the origins of
life and existence of man, plants and animals: It was either
the work of a creator or it was not." Since evolution theory
is unsupported by the evidence (i.e., it is wrong),
creationism must be correct. Any evidence "which fails to
support the theory of evolution is necessarily scientific
evidence in support of creationism."
Beware of anyone who says "there are only two . . . ." It
is the classic mistake of logic known as the either-or
fallacy, or the fallacy of false alternatives. If A is
false, B must be true. Oh? Why? Plus, should not B stand on
its own regardless of A? Of course. So even if evolutionary
theory turns out to be completely wrong and the whole thing
was a big mistake, that does not mean that, ergo,
creationism is right. There may be alternatives C, D, and E
we have yet to consider.
7. Evolutionary theory is the basis of Marxism,
communism, atheism, immorality, and the general decline of
the morals and culture of America, and therefore is bad for
our children.
In this argument we begin to see the cultural background
of creationism as a social and political movement, not a
scientific one. This is, in part, why they have turned to
the legal system to try to get the state to force their
"science" on students. But legislation cannot make a belief
system scientific; only science and scientists can do so.
The theory of evolution in particular, and science in
general, is no more the basis of these "isms" than the
printing press is responsible for Hitler's Mein Kampf. The
fact that the science of genetics has been used to buttress
racial theories of the innate inferiority of certain groups
does not mean we should abandon the study of genes. There
may well be Marxist, communist, atheist, and even immoral
(however defined) evolutionists, but there are probably just
as many capitalist, theist (or agnostic), and moral
evolutionists. As for the theory itself, it can be used to
support Marxist, communist, and atheist ideologies, and it
has; but so has it been used (especially in America), to
lend scientific credence to laissez-faire capitalism.
Linking scientific theories to political ideologies is
tricky business and we must be cautious of making
connections that do not necessarily follow.
8. Evolutionary theory, along with its bed-partner
secular humanism, is really a religion, so it is not
appropriate to teach it in public schools.
To call the science of evolutionary biology a religion is
to so broaden the definition of religion as to make it
totally meaningless. Science is a set of cognitive and
behavioral methods designed to describe and interpret
observed or inferred phenomenon, past or present, aimed at
building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or
confirmation. Religion - whatever it is - is certainly not
"testable," nor is it "open to rejection or confirmation."
Similarly, the "secular" of secular humanism expressly means
"not religious," and therefore cannot be considered a
religion. In their methodologies science and religion are
180 degrees out of phase.
9. Many leading evolutionists are skeptical of the
theory and find it problematic. E.g., Stephen Jay Gould and
Niles Eldredge have proven that Darwin was wrong through
their theory of punctuated equilibrium. If the world's
leading evolutionists cannot agree on the theory, the whole
thing must be a wash.
It is particularly ironic that the creationists would
quote the leading spokesman against creationism - Gould - in
their attempts to marshal the forces of science on their
side. Creationists have misunderstood, either naively or
intentionally, the healthy scientific debate amongst
evolutionists about the causal agents of organic change.
They apparently perceive this normal exchange of ideas and
self-correcting nature of science as evidence that the field
is coming apart at the seams. Of the many things
evolutionists argue and debate about within the field, one
thing they are certain of and all agree upon is that
evolution has occurred. Exactly how it happened, and what
the relative strengths of the various causal mechanisms are,
continues to be discussed. Eldredge and Gould's theory of
punctuated equilibrium is a refinement of and improvement
upon Darwin's larger theory of evolution. It no more proves
Darwin wrong than Einsteinian relativity proves Newton
wrong.
10. The whole history of evolutionary theory in
particular, and science in general, is the history of
mistaken theories and overthrown ideas. Nebraska Man,
Piltdown Man, Calaveras Man and Hesperopithecus are just a
few of the blunders scientists have made. Clearly science
cannot be trusted and modern theories are no better than
past ones.
Again, this is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of
science, which is constantly building upon the ideas of the
past. Science does not just change, it builds and
progresses. It does make mistakes aplenty, but the self-
correcting feature of the scientific method is one of its
most beautiful aspects. Hoaxes like Piltdown Man and
Calaveras Man, and honest mistakes like Nebraska Man and
Hesperopithecus, are, in time, exposed. Science picks itself
up, shakes itself off, and moves on. As Einstein said,
science may be "primitive and childlike," but "it is the
most precious thing we have." (It is especially paradoxical
for creation "scientists" to cloak themselves in the
rhetoric of science, and simultaneously attack the very
virtues it claims to possess.)
11. All causes have effects. The cause of "X" must be
"X-like." That is, the cause of intelligence must be
intelligent. Also, regress all causes in time and you must
conclude that there was a first cause _ God. Likewise with
motion (all things in motion proves that there must have
been a prime mover, a mover who needs no other mover to be
moved _ God); and purpose (all things in the universe have a
purpose, therefore there must be an intelligent designer).
For starters, causes of "X" do not have to be "X-like."
The "cause" of green paint is blue and yellow paint, neither
one of which is green-like. Animal manure makes fruit trees
grow better. Fruit is delicious to eat and is, therefore,
very unmanure-like! The first-cause and prime-mover
argument, brilliantly proffered by St. Thomas Aquinas in the
14th century and still more brilliantly refuted by David
Hume in the 18th century, is easily answered with just one
more question: who or what caused and moved God? Finally, as
Hume demonstrated, "purposefulness" is often illusory and
subjective. "The early bird gets the worm" is a clever
design if you are the bird, not so good if you are the worm.
Two eyes may seem like the ideal number, but, as Richard
Hardison notes with levity, "wouldn't it be desirable to
have an additional eye in the back of one's head, and
certainly an eye attached to our forefinger would be helpful
when we're working behind the instrument panels of
automobiles." Purpose is, in part, what we are accustomed to
perceiving. Finally, not everything is so purposeful and
beautifully designed. In addition to the problems of evil,
disease, and deformities that creationists conveniently
overlook, nature is filled with the bizarre and seemingly
unpurposeful. Male nipples and the Panda's thumb are just
two examples that Gould is fond of flaunting as purposeless
and poorly designed structures. If God so graciously
designed life to fit neatly together like a jig saw puzzle,
then how do you explain these oddities?
12. Something cannot be created out of nothing, say
scientists. Therefore, from where did the material for the
Big Bang come? And, from where did the first life forms
originate that provided the raw material for evolution? And
the Stanley Miller experiment of creating amino acids out of
an organic "soup" is not the creation of life.
Science is not equipped to answer certain "ultimate"
type questions, such as "what was there before the beginning
of the universe?," "what time was it before time began?,"
and "where did the matter come from for the Big Bang?" These
are philosophical or religious questions, not scientific
ones, and therefore are not part of science. Evolutionary
theory attempts to understand the causality of change after
time and matter were "created" (whatever that means). As for
the origins of life, biochemists do have a very rational and
scientific explanation for the evolution from inorganic to
organic compounds, the creation of amino acids and the
construction of protein chains, the first crude cells, and
so on. (And Miller never claimed to have created life, just
the building blocks of life.) While these theories are by no
means robust and still subject to lively scientific debate,
there is a reasonable explanation for how you get from the
Big Bang to the Big Brain.
"SCIENTIFICALLY" BASED ARGUMENTS AND RESPONSES
13. Population statistics demonstrate that at the
present population and rate of growth, there were only two
people living approximately 6,300 years before present, or
4,300 B.C. This proves that humans and civilization are
quite young. If the Earth were old, say one million years,
over the course of 25,000 generations at 1/2% rate of
population growth and an average of 2.5 children per family,
the present population would be 10 to the power of 2100
people, which is impossible since there are only 10 to the
power of 130 electrons in the known universe.
As Disraeli observed (and Mark Twain reiterated), there
are three types of lies: "lies, damn lies, and statistics."
But if you want to play the numbers game, here are a few: by
this analysis, in 2,600 B.C. there would have been a total
population on Earth of around 600 people. We know with a
high degree of certainty that in 2,600 B.C. there were
flourishing civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus
River Valley, China, etc. Giving Egypt an extremely generous
1/6th of the world's population, for 60 people to have built
the pyramids, not to mention all the other architectural
monuments, they most certainly would have needed a miracle
or two, or perhaps the assistance of ancient astronauts! The
fact is, populations do not grow in a steady manner. There
are booms and busts, and the history of the human population
before the Industrial Revolution is one of prosperity and
growth, followed by famine and decline. As humans struggled
for millennia to fend off extinction, the population curve
was one of peaks and valleys as it climbed steadily, though
uncertainly upward. It is only since the 19th century that
the rate of increase has been accelerating.
14. Natural selection can never account for anything
other than minor changes within species _ microevolution.
Mutations used by evolutionists to explain macroevolution
are always harmful, rare, and random, and cannot be the
driving force of evolutionary change.
I shall never forget the four words pounded into the
brains of us students of evolutionary biologist Bayard
Bratstram at California State University, Fullerton _
"Mutants are not monsters." His point was that the public
perception of mutations at the county fair _ two-headed cows
and the like _ is not the sort of mutations evolutionists
are discussing. Clearly it would be unreasonable to argue
that these sorts of mutations are beneficial. But most
mutations are small genetic or chromosomal abberations that
have small effects. Some of these small effects may provide
benefits to an organism in an ever-changing environment.
Also, the modern theory of "allopatric speciation," first
proffered by Ernst Mayr and integrated into paleontology by
Eldredge and Gould, demonstrates precisely how natural
selection, in conjunction with other forces and
contingencies of nature, can and does produce new species.
15. There are no transitional forms in the fossil
record, anywhere, including and especially humans. The whole
fossil record is an embarrassment to evolutionists. What
about Neanderthals? These are all diseased skeletons _
arthritis, rickets, etc., that create the bowed legs, brow
ridge, and larger skeletal structure. Homo erectus, and
Australopithecus, are just apes.
Creationists always quote Darwin's famous passage in
the Origin of Species in which he asks: "Why then is not
every geological formation and every stratum full of such
intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any
such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is
the gravest objection which can be urged against my theory."
One answer is that there are plenty of examples of
transitional forms that have been discovered since Darwin's
time. Just look in any paleontology text. A second answer
was provided in 1972 by Eldredge and Gould when they
demonstrated that gaps in the fossil record does not
indicate missing data of slow and stately change; rather, it
is evidence of rapid and episodic change. Using Mayr's
"allopatric speciation," where small and unstable "founder"
populations are isolated at the periphery of the larger
population's range, they show that the relatively rapid
change in this smaller gene pool creates new species but
leaves behind few, if any, fossils. The process of
fossilization is rare and infrequent anyway. It is almost
nonexistent during these times of rapid speciation. A lack
of fossils is evidence for rapid change, not missing
evidence for gradual evolution.
16. The Second Law of Thermodynamics proves that
evolution cannot be true since evolutionists state that the
universe and life moves from chaos to order and simple to
complex, the exact opposite of the entropy predicted by the
Second Law.
First of all, on any scale other than the grandest of
all _ 600 million years of life on Earth _ species do not
evolve from simple to complex, and life does not simply move
from chaos to order. The history of life is checkered with
false starts, failed experiments, small and mass
extinctions, and chaotic restarts. It is anything but the
Time/Life-book foldout from single cells to humans. But even
in the big picture, the Second Law allows for such change
because the Earth is enveloped within an open system of a
constant input of energy from the sun. As long as the sun is
burning, life may continue thriving and evolving, just like
automobiles may be prevented from rusting, burgers can be
heated in ovens, and all manner of things in apparent
violation of the Second Law's rule of entropy may continue.
But as soon as the sun burns out this open system would then
become closed, entropy would take its course, and life would
cease. In addition, recent research in chaos theory is
demonstrating that order can and does spontaneously generate
out of apparent chaos, all without violating the Second Law
of Thermodynamics. Evolution does not break the law!
17. Even the simplest of life forms are too complex to
have come together by random chance. Take a simple organism
consisting of merely 100 parts. Mathematically there are 10
to the power of 158 possible ways for the parts to link up.
There are not enough molecules in the universe or time since
the beginning to account for these possible ways to come
together in even this simple life form, let alone human
beings. The human eye alone defies explanation by the
randomness of evolution. It is the equivalent of the monkey
typing Hamlet, or even "to be or not to be." It will not
happen by random chance.
Natural selection is not "random" nor does it operate
by "chance." Natural selection preserves the gains and
eradicates the mistakes. The eye evolved from a single,
light-sensitive cell into the complex eye of today through
hundreds if not thousands of intermediate steps, many of
which still exist in nature. In order for the monkey to type
the first 13 letters of Hamlet's soliloquy by chance, it
would take 26 to the power of 13 number of trials for
success. This is 16 times as great as the total number of
seconds that have elapsed in the lifetime of the solar
system. But if each correct letter is preserved and each
incorrect letter eradicated, the process operates much
faster. How much faster? Richard Hardison constructed a
computer program in which letters were "selected" for or
against, and it took an average of only 335.2 trials to
produce the sequence of letters TOBEORNOTTOBE. This takes
the computer less than 90 seconds. The entire play can be
done in about 4.5 days!
18. Hydrodynamic sorting during the Flood explains the
apparent progression of fossils in geological strata. The
simple, ignorant organisms died in the sea and are on the
bottom layers, while more complex, smarter, and faster
organisms died higher up.
Not one trilobite floated upward to a higher strata?
Not one dumb horse was on the beach and drowned in a lower
strata? Not one flying pterodactyl made it above the
Cretaceous layer? Not one moronic human did not come in out
of the rain? Speaking of absurd arguments, consider how a
ship 450 feet long by 75 feet wide by 45 feet high could
house two each of the 10 to 100 million species on Earth.
Even creationists have trouble with this one, so they claim
it was only 30,000 species, the rest "developing" from this
intitial stock, making creationists the greatest proponents
of rapid evolution! In addition, how do you feed 60,000
animals for 371 days? Still more complicated, how do you
keep 60,000 animals from feeding on each other? Worst of
all, who was in charge of clean up?
19. The dating techniques of evolutionists are
inconsistent, unreliable, and wrong. They give false
impressions of an old Earth, when in fact it is no older
than 10,000 years, which is proven by Dr. Thomas Barnes from
the University of Texas at El Paso, who demonstrates that
the half-life of the Earth's magnetic field is 1,400 years.
First of all, Barnes' magnetic field argument falsely
assumes that the decay of the magnetic field is linear when
in fact geophysics demonstrates that it fluctuates through
time. In addition, it is amusing that creationists dismiss
all dating techniques with the sweep of the hand, except for
those that purportedly support their position. The various
dating techniques, however, are found not only to be quite
reliable, but there is considerable independent
corroboration between them.
20. Classification of organisms above the species level
is arbitrary and man-made. Taxonomy proves nothing.
The science of classification is indeed, man-made, like
all the sciences. But its grouping of organisms is anything
but arbitrary, even though there is an element of
subjectivity to it. There is nothing arbitrary about a
separate classification of humans and chimpanzees. No one
gets them confused. An interesting cross-cultural test of
this claim is the fact that western-trained biologists and
native peoples from New Guinea identify the same types of
birds as separate species. Such groupings really do exist in
nature.
21. If evolution is gradual, there should be no gaps
between species, and classification (taxonomy) is
impossible.
Evolution is not always gradual. It is quite sporadic.
And evolutionists never said there should not be gaps. Gaps
do not prove creation any more than blank spots in human
history prove that all civilizations were spontaneously
created.
22. "Living fossils" like the coelacanth and horseshoe
crab prove that all life was created at once.
Then what about all the extinct species? Are these
God's mistakes? Living fossils (organisms that have not
changed for millions of years) simply means that they
evolved an ideal structure for a relatively static and
unchanging environment.
23. The incipient structure problem completely refutes
natural selection: a new structure that evolves slowly over
time would not provide an advantage to the organism in its
beginning or intermediate stages, only when it is completely
developed, which can only happen by special creation. E.g.,
what good is 5% of a wing, or 55%? You need all or nothing.
A poorly developed wing may have been a well-developed
something else, like a thermoregulator for ectothermic
reptiles. And, it is not true that incipient stages are
completely useless. It is better to have partial sight
versus complete blindness, or the ability to glide, even if
you cannot sustain controlled flight.
24. Homologous structures (the wing of the bat, flipper
of a whale, the arm of man) are proof of intelligent design.
By invoking miracles and special providence, of course,
the creationist can pick and choose anything in nature as
proof of God's work, and then ignore the rest. Homologous
structures, on the other hand, make no sense from a special
creation paradigm. Why should a whale have the same bones in
its flipper as a human has in its arm and a bat has in its
wing? The answer is: none whatsoever. Surely an intelligent
designer could have done better than that. These structures
are indicative of descent with modification, not divine
creation.
25. "The Bible is the written Word of God . . . all of
its assertions are historically and scientifically true. The
great Flood described in Genesis was an historical event,
worldwide in its extent and effect. We are an organization
of Christian men of science, who accept Jesus Christ as our
Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam
and Eve as one man and one woman, and their subsequent Fall
into sin, is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a
Savior for all mankind."
Such a statement of belief is clearly religious and not
scientific. This does not make it wrong, only that creation-
science is really creation-religion, and to this extent
breaches the wall separating church and state. In private
schools funded and/or controlled by creationists, it is
their freedom to teach whatever they like to their children.
But to ask the state to coerce teachers into teaching a
religious doctrine as scientific is unreasonable and
onerous.
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank