[aclug-L] Re: Linux and Creationism...

[Jonathan Hall <jonhall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not going to write a case-by-case reply to your message here.  I'll try
to read the articles you refered to as I have time (which may be soon, or
may be never, we'll see how work turns out :).

You say you "live and breathe" this stuff--for me it's a hobby.  For most,
it's just barely a slight facination.

At any rate, it sounds like we may be coming from the same place here. 
Perhaps you're just 'farther along' than I am.

I think it is a bit presumptuious to say that simply because science is
asking "how" did evolution happen, not whether it happened, that this means
evolution is a fact.  I think it is also important to note that science
_does_ tend to have a strong bias _against_ religion (and not necissarily
without good reason).  Likewise, many religious people, as already
discussed, have a bias against science.  Regardless of which side of the
debate you're on, you have to admit that both sides have a strong bias
against the other.

Science has a long history of asking the wrong questions.  (And along the
lines of science, the church has an even worse history of making the wrong
assumptions.)

Evolution, as a matter of random, natural mutations, is something I dismiss
in my mind as a non-option.  If you want to argue some form of "intelligent
evolution"--which it sounds you're hinting at with the arch analogy (am I
correct?), then that may be pheasable.  That seems a fine line between
evolution and creationism, though.  Perhaps it's a marriage of the
two--a theory that is not entirely uncommon, although one I am hesitant to
ebrace personally--that's not to say I've embraced any other theory, though. 
I'm still "undecided" when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of "how"--and
perhaps always will be.

-- Jonathan


On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 06:51:15PM -0500, Burt Humburg wrote:
> 
> Now we are going very far afield of Linux...
> 
> >>The "evidence" you mention below points to the age of the universe, but
> says absolutely nothing about genetic mutations leading to the evolution of
> new species.
> 
> I agree with what you have said: a method of creationism that acknowledges a
> very old earth might still fit the data. When I wrote that blurb about the
> sun and fusion power, I implied - and will here state - that it was but one
> of the evidences in favor of evolution. As far as genetic mutations, that is
> a much different thing than talking about the age of the earth.
> 
> >>This is also where evolutionists make their error--they assume that
> because some/most (young-earth) creatonists dispute their ideas of the age
> of the earth with "silly science" that it means anyone who believes in a
> creator is scientifically inept.
> 
> I agree. Not all creationists are scientifically inept. There are many ways
> to support creationism, only some of them involve ignorance or stupidity.
> (These are also reasons to support evolution. As a member of KCFS, I assure
> you that I have met people who support our cause who wouldn't know an allele
> from a hole in their ass. It is enough for them to fight things "Christian."
> So, too, is it enough for some creationists to know that creationism is
> "Christian" to get them to support it. Neither situation is optimal and
> ignorance/stupidity remain situations to rebuke.)
> 
> However, it is also straightforward that evolution is supported by the
> evidence. I know that you don't agree, but we can talk about it. The point I
> want to get to is how creationism survives despite a scientific consensus
> that overwhelmingly supports evolution, if not through ignorance or
> stupidity.
> 
> I believe that creationism can also be supported by people or practices that
> do not share the epistemological beliefs as scientists. Alternative values
> can be political (politicians voting for creationism despite data from
> science), religious (examples are intuitive), philosophical (at least one
> critic of evolution argues from a sort of intellectual nihilism, where since
> we never *prove* anything in science, we therefore don't really know
> anything and therefore his truth - creationism - is just as good as anyone
> else's), etc.
> 
> Long story short, there are many ways to support creationism and only a few
> of them involve appeals to ignorance or stupidity. All of them, however, are
> in spite of - and not because of - scientific data.
> 
> >>Moving along, there is practically no solid evidence to suggest that one
> species has ever evolved into another independant species.  The logic behind
> the argument against darwinian evolution is very simple, and could be
> explained to any grade school student.  In the book "Darwin's Black Box"
> (the author's name I don't recall at the moment, but can find it if anyone
> is interested), evolution is approached from a purely scientific (i.e.
> non-religious) biological standpoint.  The complexity of even some of the
> simplest biological beings is great enough that Darwin's theory falls apart
> rather quickly.
> 
> Au contraire, there is much "solid" evidence to support evolution. Humans
> and chimpanzees, for one relevant example, share over 98% homology in their
> genes. That's not just the same genes, BTW. That's the same genes in the
> exact same order on nearly the exact same chromosomes. (Two of the human
> chromosomes have to be combined and then they would be exact: chimpanzees
> have 22 pair and humans have 23.) That's just one line of evidence. Look
> here for more. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
> 
> In any case, the book you mention I know well. The book is _Darwin's Black
> Box_ and the author is Michael Behe, a biochemistry teacher who teaches at
> Lehigh College in PA. We can discuss the faults of his notion of
> "irreducible complexity" in a minute, but for now I think it is important to
> point out that Behe has often stated that he is no enemy of common descent,
> which is to say that he endorses evolution generally. Specifically, he has
> stated directly and unequivocally that he has no reason to doubt the claim
> that humans and great apes shared a recent common ancestor. For him to be
> touted as an example of anti-evolutionary thought, then, concedes a great
> deal to evolution, which you may or may not know.
> 
> Of course Behe objects to proponents of evolution who draw metaphysical
> claims from science. People like Richard Dawkins argue that since science
> hasn't shown there is a God, there is no God. I also object to these claims,
> so that's no news.
> 
> Where Behe parts company with modern proponents of evolution is in the
> workings of the cell. He doubts whether "unguided" natural selection is
> enough to account for the formation of the intricate mechanical/chemical
> workings of the cell. Once a cell has such a feature, Behe argues that
> evolution takes over and the rest happens as "Darwinists" see it happening.
> Essentially, then, Behe's argument contradicts not evolution but gradualism:
> he thinks design interventions occur every so often which pump up the genes
> in an animal or plant. He then sees examples of "irreducible complexity" in
> organisms and consider them as evidence for design and evidence against
> evolutionary gradualism for that structure or gene.
> 
> There are many problems with irreducible complexity. At a very low level, it
> doesn't fit the data we find in nature. (See, e.g.,
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html , and the complement cascade and
> others, wherein Behe's idea of "irreducible complexity" is shown to exist in
> things that are known to have evolved.) Another example is the existence of
> bacteria which breakdown PCP, a xenobiotic that man made first in the early
> part of this century. This detoxification system is shown to be the result
> of co-option of other enzymes and, though it be irreducibly complex, is not
> easily explained by "design," unless the designer has intervened since the
> early part of this century. Hence, Behe's "irreducible complexity" fails
> *the* test for scientific theories: they have limited usefulness in the
> observable and measurable "natural" world for the prediction of new
> findings.
> 
> The main problem I would mention, here in this not-necessarily-scientific
> listserv, is the problem that Behe's logic is a restatement of William
> Paley's "Argument from Design." (The Linux and creationism website I
> referred everyone to was written, suspiciously, by a "Paley." William Paley
> died several years before Darwin was born.) While Paley never said so much,
> the argument from design boils down to an argument from ignorance: if
> science hasn't yet figured out how something arose via natural processes,
> then it must not have arose through natural processes and only God could
> have done it.
> 
> Here's another good site for would-be Behe fans.
> http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Darwin/DI/Design.html Kenneth Miller, BTW, is
> a committed Catholic and his book "Finding Darwin's God" is recommended
> reading for anyone who is worried about evolution as an attack on
> Christianity. It's also a good primer on why "intelligent design"
> creationism sucks theologically.
> 
> (If you can't tell, I live, eat, and breathe this stuff.)
> 
> >>For Darwin's theory to stand the test of logic, every mutation between
> Species A and Species B must yield a "workable" or "usable" body. It is easy
> to see this is not biologically possible if you take a known organ,
> cell, or other biological entity, and try to 'step backwards' to a simpler,
> yet functional, version.
> 
> This argument kinda makes sense, till you dissect it. One of the easy ways
> for evolution to give rise to "irreducible complexity" is through the
> process of co-option. IOW, a protein that will eventually be used to
> (whatever) may not necessarily have (whatever) function all through its
> phylogeny: the function can change while a gene is evolving. By "co-opting"
> genes that do other functions, evolution can "create" (English is such a
> clumsy language) structures that are irreducibly complex.
> 
> Another way that irreducible complexity can arise from evolution is through
> the process of optimization. Consider the St. Louis arch, which was built by
> human hands "brick by brick," if you will. But knowing that the arch was not
> capable of supporting itself during construction (one arm cannot hold itself
> up until it is completely made) is not an argument that it was plopped down
> fully functional in one piece. Rather, scaffolding was used to support the
> weight during construction. At some point during the development, both the
> arms of the arch and the scaffolding were accomplishing the same function of
> support. When the scaffolding was removed and the structure was "optimized,"
> the support of the arch was no longer redundant and it became irreducibly
> complex, such that a removal of a single brick would result in the
> structure's collapse.
> 
> With explanations like these, and because irreducible complexity does not
> adequately explain data from the natural world, Behe's idea of irreducible
> complexity has been discarded by the scientific community. Again, evolution
> remains not because of any philosophical bias, but because the data have
> robustly supported its maintenance.
> 
> >>Using the example of an eye, there are other, simpler "seeing" instruments
> found in animals.  Flatworms, for instance, can detect intensity and
> direction of light, although they cannot make out color or clarity of images
> as we can. The problem is in the fact that to get from a flatworm's eye to a
> sheep's eye, you must add mechanisms that serve no useful puprose until the
> product is "complete." Now, if a person can find for me some scientific
> evidence that it is possible to go incrimentally from a flatworm's eye to a
> sheep's eye, within Darwin's theory, then I'd be more than happy to listen.
> 
> If you are interested in eye evolution, swing by
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/publish.html and have a look at the
> relevant literature. A more narrative form is here
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/vision.html . A user-friendly essay on PBS's
> _Evolution_ website is here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/change/grand/
> (I also recommend putting "eye" into the search field above and seeing the
> other results.)
> 
> >>But the fact of the matter is, Darwin proposed his theory at a time when
> the sort knowledge of biology we have now was not available to disprove his
> theory.  In fact, Darwin himself said (paraphrased) that if it were ever
> possible to demonstrate that it is not possible to go from one distinct
> species to another by way of incrimental changes, that his theory would not
> hold.
> 
> Darwin also couldn't account for recessive traits. The fact that some trait
> would hide itself in one generation, which would then not manifest itself to
> be selected for or against, only to reappear in the next generation was a
> great bugaboo to him. Since the publication of _Origin_, we've learned all
> about Mendelian genetics and they have been integrated into Darwin's work.
> (Which, incidentally, is why "Darwinism" is not a useful word, unless you
> mean evolution as Darwin described it without such modernizations. The
> "Modern Synthesis" also called "Neodarwinism" is most aptly described as
> "evolution.") So Darwin had other problems to overcome than just the
> evolution of the eye.
> 
> In any case, Darwin's dictum remains accurate and if any structure cannot be
> explained by his theory in the fullness of time, then evolution will have
> effectively been refuted. Note, please, that you cannot substitute our
> waning scientific ignorance in here and pronounce evolution dead: simply
> because we don't yet know how the eye evolved cannot reasonably be taken to
> mean that the eye *could not* have evolved. There must be reliable evidence
> to show that the eye did not evolve, and not simply an appeal to ignorance.
> 
> In any case, data exist to support the evolution of eyes. Notably, the
> proteins that make up fish lenses (I think it was fish) have been found to
> be modified from other proteins (digestive or something). (Put "crystallin
> evolution" in a google search and see what comes up.) While co-option is not
> impossible for an act of special creation or creator, it certainly lends
> itself to an explanation involving co-option.
> 
> >>He himself realized his theory was __just a theory__, and that, at its
> time of conseption, it could not be proven nor disproven.  It now, by his
> own standard, _can_ be disproven.
> 
> Nonsense. Recall, please, the Hoyle quote from above. When Darwin was
> living, it was thought that the sun would have burned itself out long before
> the time that Darwin needed for his theory to work would have happened.
> Enter fusion chemistry into our story and Darwin had more than enough time
> to work.
> 
> >>Why then are we, as a society and a world, so afraid to accept it as
> disproven?  Probably because most Darwinists think the only alternative is
> illogical "creatonism."  Whether you believe in a god or not, though, there
> are many other theories of creation--both religious and secular.  Perhaps we
> should all take a look at some of them, instead of this stupid
> trench-warfare between the two most common theories--neither of which holds
> any water.
> 
> Not to be a broken record, but evolution has not been disproven, hence why
> abandon it. Frankly, it hasn't even been challenged, unless you consider the
> political rhetoric of modern creationists a scientific challenge. (It's not;
> it's postmodernist tripe.) There is no controversy about the validity of
> evolution in science: scientists today are asking *how* evolution happened,
> not *whether.* There is a controversy in the religious, political, and
> non-scientific realms, however, and it is here where creationism develops
> its support base.
> 
> In any case, as a theist (Christian), I assure you that I have no qualms
> against creationism, per se. It's just that the data do not support it and,
> as a personal viewpoint, my Christianity needs to sync with the scientific
> understanding that I have.
> 
> Recognizing that I'm pushing the patience of many on this list who don't
> have a rat's ass about this issue, :)
> 
> BCH
> 
> 
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