Deniers of Science By Richard Sale

 

A critic of Evolution thundered recently: “Scientific observations do not support biological evolution! What about the icons of evolution that have been presented in textbooks for almost 50 years? Don’t these icons support biological evolution? Some of these do show microevolution within species. This type of evolution, even if it permanently points in one direction, is not evolution. It is no more evolution than dog breeding.”  (What???) “However, if a dog could be bred into a cat, that would be evolution. Even icons like the peppered moths that were only examples of microevolution, used pinned dead moths on black tree trunks that were not a natural resting place for the moths. Hackle’s embryos, ape-to-man drawings, the horse series, etc.” 

The above is taken from a site urging the teaching of Creationism as an alternative to Evolution. That these words are incoherent are not the worst of their faults. Unfortunately, these remarks leave the question of evolution validity or falsehood. Not only are they erroneous, they are misconceived.  

 

A fundamentalist reading of the Bible leads to all sorts of nonsense.  In the 19^th century, there occurs a belief in the spontaneous life. At one time, people maintained that the sun created crocodiles from the mud of the Nile. Mice were supposed to be created out of piles of old soiled rags.  Bluebottle flies had their origin in bad meat. Maggots were created in apples, which is why they at last appeared. U.S. fundamentalists believe this as well. They do think that the earth is only 6,000 years old. 

Alas, Louisiana, Tennessee and other states, clearly striving to be in the forefront of every backward movement, are increasing funding for the teaching of “Creationism” in schools there, demonstrating their support for this falsehood by  thumping their cave man’s clubs or perhaps enacting animal sacrifices. The problem is that the advocates of Creationism are spiritual and mental primitives. They haven’t evolved at all. 

The Creationist folks clearly don’t understand that Evolution is not really a controversy anymore. Evolution is no longer a theory because the debate has long ago moved from biology to chemical analysis. The building up of chemical molecules defines our Life’s beginning. What we have learned from scientists since Darwin is that the cycles of life have a chemical form. Scientists had to do much selfless work to learn how to express the cycles of life in a way that linked them to nature as a whole, and this meant studying chemistry. That’s what the Bible believers get wrong. 

In other words, scientific knowledge has moved way, way beyond Alfred Russel (sic) Wallace, and Darwin and Mendel. The blood that flows in our veins is millions and millions of years old. The history of the Earth is interesting to the point of fascination, but the man who solved the mystery of life’s earliest origins was the Frenchman Louis Pasteur who proved the chemical basis of all human life back in 1863, when the French Emperor asked him to solve the question of why wine went bad. Pasteur solved this in two years.  He discovered that the wine was a “sea of organisms.”  He said, “By some it lives, by some it decays.”  What was the most startling of his discoveries was that life could exist without oxygen. He found that no free oxygen existed before Life existed. 

After Pasteur, it was chemists, not biologists that began to look at amino acids as the building blocks of human life. When anyone of us moves his or her arm, we rely on something called myogiblin which consists of 120 amino acids. The difference in amino acids between a chimpanzee and a human is a small difference. But between a human and a sheep, the difference of amino acids is much greater. Yet the overwhelming conclusion about our life’s origins is that they have their base in chemistry, in molecules that can replicate. Basic molecules form DNA chains, etc. In fact, our life is controlled by four bases of DNA. 

The Earth’s Beginnings 

It is perhaps chastening to note that by 8 billion years ago, about two thirds of the history of our universe passed, and it had passed before the creation of the Earth which took place around 4.6 billion years ago. It was around 4.6 billion years ago that a mass the size of Mars crashed into the Earth at 25,000 miles per hour. There was a huge amount of dust that circled us, but our gravity held on to it and out of that dust the Moon was formed. I believe that it was the moon that gave us 24 hour days and seasons. (A lot of the above is still being refined and debated, so please be patient with my mistakes.)  So we humans were born out of chaos, collisions, ice ages, volcanic eruptions, and the like. No wonder we are so quarrelsome. 

Scientists returned to the beginning, asking, what was the surface of the Earth and what was our atmosphere like? From my own fitful reading, I discovered from reading was that the atmosphere of the Earth was originally a mixture of steam, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, but no free oxygen. A great step forward occurred in 1952 or thereabouts, thanks to a scientist named Steven Miller, who, with a colleague named Harold Urey, bottled up in a flask what they guessed was the Earth’s original atmosphere. Theirs was an experiment intended to simulate the conditions thought at the time to be present on the early Earth, and the experiment tested for the occurrence of our chemical origins of life. Specifically, the experiment tested Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that “synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors.”  (This language for me is a bit like tramping through a dense thicket in the woods and getting lost, but it is interesting nonetheless.) 

So Miller bottled up nitrogen, water, methane, ammonia, water, carbon dioxide, and other reducing gases. The mixture turned pink within a day. For days he and Urey subjected their flask to heat, to ultra-violet light, loud noises, trying to simulate the chaotic fury of the Earth’s original atmosphere. This went on for some time, maybe weeks. Suddenly as Miller and Urey looked on, they saw that the pink liquid had suddenly darkened. Their experiment had produced basic amino acids, rudimental protein.  The experiment was seen “as the classic experiment of the origin of life.(*)

A Wikipedia entry notes, “After Miller's death in 2007, scientists examining sealed vials preserved from the original experiments were able to show that there were actually well over 20 different amino acids produced in Miller's original experiments. That is considerably more than what Miller originally reported, and more than the 20 that naturally occur in life. Moreover, some evidence suggests that Earth's original atmosphere might have had a different composition from the gas used in the Miller–Urey experiment. There is abundant evidence of major volcanic eruptions 4 billion years ago, which would have released carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen (N₂), hydrogen sulfide (H₂S), and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) into the atmosphere. Experiments using these gases in addition to the ones in the original Miller–Urey experiment have produced more diverse molecules.^[8]

There was another man of genius, Leslie Orgel, who also worked with Miller. There is hardly anything about him on his Wikipedia site, but somewhere I had squirreled notes on him back in the 1980s. Orgel was a Brit, breathtakingly brilliant, and he used ice as a research tool to discover more about the basic elements of air. Freezing things was a way of concentrating them. He froze ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, methane, and some other elements of the atmosphere. He produced amino acids, but he produced something else too something much more important. He produced one of the four constituents of the genetic alphabet, which directs all life. He had in fact discovered adenine, one of the four bases of  DNA. He ended by forming organic molecules, a big advance of our understanding.

I did find note of other achievements of his. “During the 1970s, Orgel suggested reconsidering the panspermia hypothesis, according to which the earliest forms of life on earth did not originate here, but arrived from outer space with meteorites.

His name is popularly known because of Orgel's rules, credited to him, particularly Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are."

I am slowly realizing that the ability to analyze a batch of facts requires a certain kind of reasoning. It requires the talent of absorbing an abstraction.  To be astute means we have to be a good observer. J.S. Mill once said “The observer is not he who merely sees the thing which is before his eye, but he who sees that parts the thing is composed of.” Someone like me, sees a fact or make an observation, but I don’t realize its particularity. I get only a very general and inadequate view, a hazy gist of the thing. I don’t detect similarities to other observations. But the scientist breaks up the observation and notices the particular attributes of it. He suddenly sees what the rest of us don’t  – that the observation has properties which the original, basic observation didn’t have.

I really think that the dedication, the colossal capacity for focused effort, the self-effacing patience, the subordination of the appetite for glory in the service of solid achievement, the building of the powers of analysis in order to define a problem by breaking it down into its simplest elements, then testing a combination of them under different circumstances so something substantial can be proved -- that is and was – nothing short of a miracle to me.  And I cannot imagine that God could not help but feeling affection and admiration for the intelligence in the creatures He created.

In the end, science is a test of temperament and mind that underlies a culture. Creationism fails that test. 

(*) UPDATED KNOWLEDGE “Originally it was thought that the primitive secondary atmosphere contained mostly ammonia and methane. However, it is likely that most of the atmospheric carbon was CO₂ with perhaps some CO and the nitrogen mostly N₂. In practice gas mixtures containing CO, CO₂, N₂, etc. give much the same products as those containing CH₄ and NH₃ so long as there is no O₂. The hydrogen atoms come mostly from water vapor. In fact, in order to generate aromatic amino acids under primitive earth conditions it is necessary to use less hydrogen-rich gaseous mixtures. Most of the natural amino acids, hydroxyacids, purines, pyrimidines, and sugars have been made in variants of the Miller experiment.^{[citation needed]}

More recent results may question these conclusions. The University of Waterloo and University of Colorado conducted simulations in 2005 that indicated that the early atmosphere of Earth could have contained up to 40 percent hydrogen—implying a much more hospitable environment for the formation of prebiotic organic molecules. The escape of hydrogen from Earth's atmosphere into space may have occurred at only one percent of the rate previously believed based on revised estimates of the upper atmosphere's temperature.^[23] One of the authors, Owen Toon notes: "In this new scenario, organics can be produced efficiently in the early atmosphere, leading us back to the organic-rich soup-in-the-ocean concept... I think this study makes the experiments by Miller and others relevant again." Outgassing calculations using a chondritic model for the early earth complement the Waterloo/Colorado results in re-establishing the importance of the Miller–Urey experiment.^[24]”

 

Comments

[no one]

I had been meaning for a day or two to toss in the caveat to evolution theory is that speciation has never been demonstrated in the lab - nor conclusively from fossil records or any other evidence. In fact, theories explaining speciation are as whimsical as Genesis. A gene mutates in a single specimen and, instead of the organism dying - as most mutants we can observe do - you get giraffes from fish and vocals chords in humans. Quite a flight of fancy.

Incidentally, if speech is such a huge evolutionary advantage and if evolution is true, why are there not talking mongooses, cats and horses? It's these simple questions that strict evolutionists just can't seem to answer.

The big bang is another suspicious theory. A whole bunch of something out of nothing. How is that not the same as Genesis in quality of explanation?

Any how, it seems Tyler has beaten me to the drop. I'll just support then, I hope.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Fred said:

'Where did those supernova's come from?'

Dying stars. The facts are readily available to anyone who cares to educate themselves.

[GulfCoastPirate]

See my reply to Fred. Same answer.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Fred said:

'What other rights will you take away next?'

They have NO RIGHT to teach their version of religion in the public schools. Especially in science class.

[Alba Etie]

Thanks Tyler .
Lots to digest these days ." My neighbor over my nation" will be a vexing conumdrum for many years hence. Most of us I am sure are not wishing to have to make that choice - perhaps others already have .,,

[GulfCoastPirate]

Tell us that ark story again. That's a good one.

[GulfCoastPirate]

no one said:

'The big bang is another suspicious theory. A whole bunch of something out of nothing. How is that not the same as Genesis in quality of explanation?'

That's not how the theory goes but don't let that stop you.

[Cieran]

There are serious questions about any scientific theory, because that's the nature of the fruits of science. Science produces idealizations about the world, not mystical seamless truths. Idealizations are valued solely on their ability to predict the response of nature, and those predictions invariably have holes in their domains of understanding.

The harder it is to observe (and the origin of species is a tad hard to observe given our status as newcomers on this planet), the bigger the holes, and this is not a problem: it's a simple value-free fact.

So picking out evolution as not a valid science is like deciding not to value the law of gravity because there are some rough spots in the field theories that explain that all-too-obvious phenomenon. It's not the absence of holes in a theory that renders it useful: it's whether that theory can predict future events, and whether that theory can be validated by other independent observations.

And therein lies the problem with pseudo-sciences like creationism: they simply don't lead to predictions that can be tested for purposes of validation. Evolution can be validated, and in fact much of old-school biology from Linnaeaus to Darwin has been validated remarkably well by independent research in more modern fields such as molecular biology. The mechanisms that Darwin postulated have considerable utility in predicting biological outcomes, so they are valued as scientific theories. If they can predict important outcomes, we simply don't care about the presence of some holes. Those gaps just mean that we have more work to do.

And if someone wants to believe that God made man in his image, then that's great, because last time I checked, freedom of religion was a key part of the foundation of this nation. But belief occurs in the absence of validation, so the intellectual realm where science resides is completely disjoint from the venue of religion. It's never a good idea to confuse reproducible events in the physical world with irreproducible events in the spiritual realm. Good fences do indeed make good neighbors, and that applies to the intellectual landscape as well as to the field next door.

If you don't want to believe in evolution, then don't: that's your right. But your disbelief doesn't entitle you to demand rigorous technical proofs from others who are comfortable with the fact that there is no such thing as seamless scientific truth: there are only idealizations of the natural world, and over time, the refinement of those idealizations so the holes get smaller and fewer.

[William R. Cumming]

Babak! Gould lived in a time when knowledge of genetics snowballing! His problem? MUTATIONS-- MOST SPONTANEOUS AND SOME GOOD BUT MOST BAD!

MUTATIONS CANNOT BE PREDICTED THUS "PUNCUATED EQUILIBRIUM"!

[William R. Cumming]

YUP! No Louis Aggaisi! [sic]

[no one]

OK then GCP, Maybe I have it wrong. Please enlighten me. Where did all of the stuff that makes up the planets and stars come from in the beginning?

You probably didn't notice the section of my comment (or Tyler's or Babak's) concerning speciation, but, now that I draw your attention in that direction, maybe you could say something to clear my ignorance on that issue as well.

Thanks.

[The Twisted Genius]

Cieran,

"There are serious questions about any scientific theory, because that's the nature of the fruits of science. Science produces idealizations about the world, not mystical seamless truths."

Well said. My favorite course was "The Century of Darwin" in the history department of RPI. We looked at the long gradual process of assembling the theory of evolution in the 19th century. Darwin's "Origin of Species" contained some of the toughest critiques of the theory in the best tradition of the scientific methodology. This process attempts to discover the best explanation for a phenomena, but does not settle for an ultimate truth. It's always looking for the next best thing. Comparing this to any of the creation myths is absurd. A creation myth, whether it be Genesis or any other myth, is a truth that must be either accepted or not. It requires no proof, just faith. Darwin's faith changed over time. He began as an Anglican, then a Unitarian. Through doubt and examination he became a Theist and finally an Agnostic. Not all scientists go through this journey of faith. Gregor Mendel didn't. To me creation science is about doubt of faith and an attempt to dispel those doubts through science or a semblance of science.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Nonsense. The guy hadn't been paying his grazing bill since 1993. What does Obama or any law have to do with the fact the guy is nothing but a deadbeat and a lot of know-nothings (also probably deadbeats) were supporting him? Harry Reid is correct - it isn't over. Once they take his cattle they need to give him a bill for 150+ years of overdue taxes since he thinks his family has owned that land for that long.

[Cieran]

TTG:

You've hit the nail on the head with this: "To me creation science is about doubt of faith and an attempt to dispel those doubts through science or a semblance of science."

The beauty of faith is that it doesn't require external validation, and those folks seeking scientific justification for their religious beliefs are looking in all the wrong places.

Your "Century of Darwin" course sounds like a history of science dream come true. But then again, RPI is one of the finest schools of science and engineering in the world, so it's no surprise you got a great education there.

I just got home from a few days spent at RPI (well, at Watervliet for work, but whenever I get the chance to spend time near a great university, I always take it, so Troy is where I like to stay). We even had some snow there this week to remind me why I no longer live in the north!

[GulfCoastPirate]

no one asked a couple of questions:

1. Energy
2. Yes, I noticed your and Tyler's comments. Personally, I'm not that interested in the question. Scientists will work it out over time and there will be appropriate reworkings of the theory. I'm more interested in making sure that people like you and Tyler don't bring your religious dogma into science classes in the public schools. If you want to teach religion you can do it in private schools like the Catholics (where I sent my kids and grandkids) or you can do it at home. Your religious dogma has no place in public schools.

[Charles]

Life and vision are fuzzy.

These commonly perceptible established paradigms have irrefutably advanced both our store of knowledge, and our capacity to retain, utilize, preserve and manitain it. Anyone who believes in both Creation and the laws of physics etc, i.e., the planet is billions of years old, I cannot argue with per se. Unless their evidence, or system of analysis is as variable and as fuzzy as our sacred texts.

Its my understanding from Northrup Frye, the great Canadian biblical scholar, that we are currently on the 7th iteration of an ancient Sumerian account of Perfect Creation, human imperfection, wanton destruction, redemptive intervention and elevation to Grace.

Same story, but the details and accounts are fabulously varied, contradictory and open to many, many interpretations, applications and ends. To the point where there can be basic disagreement as to why the sky is blue in a way no prism subject to the, er Laws of physics would or could entertain.

Notwithstanding that, Frye also observed that with the passing of the Biblical universal codex our souls will be adrift in a hopelessly unstructured amalgam of truth, lies, power and human nature streaming at us 24 7 at the speed of light.

[Charles]

agreed, except I pity the Creationist foll who is a biblical literalist

[Charles]

Anybody watching You Inner Fish on PBS this week, its pretty fascinating.

I am a man of science. Prepared to put faith in the notion of a 13bn+ yea old universe, cause and effect and all that has unfolded as it apparently should have according to models we have built by reverse enginneering the available evidence, as we did with Enigma in WWII. E&Os Excepted.

Big bang, Creation, that Cause awaits, but accepting evolution from 3.4 billion years ago, mindful Creationism as expressed in our times cannot be, but by chance or Divinity, as set out in those human accounts stipulating temporal in-errancy of divine prescription generated in the past few thousand of years by humans.

Our Creation myths have yet to address many of these questions in a coherent manner that science has at least attempted to order and replicate to manifest universal human application and substantial material benefit. I pray for the continued success of their experiments.

So for life I go with science for now, although my science includes personal experience with physcotropically enhanced encounters with Nature demonstrating that something greater than I or my conscious apprehension is capable of anything more than believing it occurred, must underlie the phenomena observed and perceptions of the moment. Something in my mind and soul most seemingly incorporeal and non-temporal occurred though I in the same breath emphatically insist I FELT it. Whatever It is. I tend to electricity and biochemistry I am led to believe originated from distant stars.

I cannot explain them all. I would stake my life that the Purpose Creationists seek can not be found denying science without systematic explication, replication, and challenge of their own paradigms as best as they can manifest in this temporal world to explicitly support Creationist assertions. As science does on its way to the consumer and military markets.

[optimax]

A scientific theory can be proven false but not true. Evolution, like the general theory of relativity, has never been proven false, though it has been refined by modern fossil finds and genetic observations, experiments and applications. Because the origin of life and a species is not observable through experimentation and the fossil evidence is incomplete, there is a great diversity of hypothesis as to many of the inner workings of of evolution, the theory remains intact.

One of many facts I find persuasive of evolution is that the modern human is 98.4 percent indistinguishable from the modern chimpanzee. There is more difference between a zebra and a horse, or between a dolphin and porpoise, than between man and chimp. Calling someone a Monkey's Uncle (which I haven't heard since sixth grade) is more truthful than insulting.

[Tyler]

By the giant walls of text you built to assauge an argument I never made, you prove my point about evolution adherents acting more like cultists while smugly wrapping themselves in Sciencianity.

[Tyler]

Lol yeah Harry Reid also forgot to mention that his son lobbied hard for the land in order to benefit a Chinese company.

Again, you either enforce all the laws or you'll be able to enforce none of them.Keep defending your chocolate messiah though.

[Tyler]

Its said to see someone reduced to bitchy sniping when he knows he doesn't have an argument. : /

[Tyler]

Dude you could have just written "I can only parrot the words of other people and in reality have no clue how evolution works" and saved yourself some time.

[no one]

GCP, magical ever existing Energy?

"Personally, I'm not that interested in the question."

I can see that. Such a lack of interest seems unscientific to me.

"Scientists will work it out over time and there will be appropriate reworkings of the theory."

Ah, so you are given to faith after all.

"I'm more interested in making sure that people like you and Tyler don't bring your religious dogma into science classes in the public schools."

I don't think I said anything that suggests I adhere to a religious dogma. All I did is point to big holes in your pet theory - as did a few others.

How scientific is it to teach evolution dogma in schools, as if it were absolute truth, when even you admit that theories will have to be re-worked because they fall short? Why not present a range of beliefs and discuss their relative merits and shortcomings. This seems to me to be a better way of stimulating young minds.

[Richard Armstrong]

All, there is an old expression regarding wrestling with one of those video game players mentioned above but I'll jump into the mud anyway.

I do not understand why the onus is only on scientists to defend evolution and creationists are never expected to rationally defend their position. It also seems to me that science doesn't take the position that creationists are wrong, if they address the subject at all it is pointed out there is no scientific evidence to support it.

Creationists instead spend quite a lot if time formally instructing their children that the theory of evolution is incorrect using only anecdotes and derision.