Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I suggest that we as a people fight too much, arguing about one thing or another, in order to prove a point and uphold our ego. As people, independence in thoughts may vary and so we must realize every theory in controversy today is the direct results of a person's own biases and presuppositions. Therefore, as people with the capacity to think for ourselves, we can make our own discoveries of Truth. Truth once said, "You will search for me and you will find me, when you search for Me with all of your heart." There is only one truth and it does not change to our likes or dislikes, but has remained the same, for all eternity, despite what we believe about it. |
Responses | |
From: | |
Response: | This is not
a "fight" about ego or proving a point. This controversy
carries some very serious public education repercussions,
and is a direct reflection of public trust and
comprehension of science. It is important that the debate
continues.
Whatever you consider the "capital T" truth, you are entitled to your opinion-- it makes no difference to science in any way. It doesn't change the evidence. |
From: | |
Response: | In my own
profession as a litigation attorney, "truth" is the result
of the adversarial process. It is precisely because people
are fallible that we try to put in place a process
by which their biases and presuppositions are deemphasized
where possible.
The same thing is true of science. Scientific theories aren't the result of one individual according to their own biases and presuppositions. They are the result of the scientific process, which includes peer review. A hypothesis does not become a scientific theory without rigorous examination by the community of scientists specialized in that area. Speak with some professional scientists, and they will tell you of heated arguments at conferences, papers savaging the work of others, and exchanges of correspondence to and fro between those with opposing viewpoints. Perhaps these arguments do uphold the egos of the individuals involved, but that's only a secondary effect. The primary function of these arguments is to determine the truth, taking into account the flawed nature of humankind. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Engr. ERNEE LAWAGAN |
Comment: | I have read some of the articles in your site. I find it amusing but not scientific. There are so many missing parameters in Darwin's Theory. I believed that it is a theory that has already elapsed. The "missing links" are still missing. Why is it so hard for people like you to believe the reality of Creation. I am an engineer and I also founded my belief on science. Many times, science has proven that the things written in the Bible are all true:A single Mother Eve, Noah's Ark, mountains under the sea, a missing day, etc. You base your belief on Darwin's Theory that mankind evolved from apes. I don't believe that. Now, if you and your colleagues believe that your ancestora are apes, you people certainly have some screws loose, scientifically speaking that is. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | I find it
amusing that so many engineers think that their profession
gives them a scientific edge. Designing things all day long
may even be an impediment when considering the origins of
biological systems, if you think about it.
Here we have the old mantra of creationist falsehoods: Missing links that aren't missing-- Noah's Ark as a historical reality-- Mitochondrial Eve supporting the idea of the Garden of Eden-- the idea that all evolutionists are atheists-- that plate techtonics creating sub-oceanic mountain ranges supports creationism in any way-- I have formatted three very recent news stories that document fossil discoveries that fill 'gaps'. Click HERE to read them. The statement that "there are so many missing parameters in Darwin's theory" suggests that you need to update yourself as to the modern theory, a synthesis of many different disciplines (far beyond what Charles Darwin was capable of knowing), and learn why there are no missing parameters. The reason why "people like me" have a hard time believing creationism is that there is not one shred of evidence to support it, and above that it is an irrational concept dealing completely in speculation. What we have here is a person who refuses to accept the idea that humans could have evolved from primitive hominids, because the idea is repugnant to him, not because the science is bad... and he is willing to abstain from all critical thinking in order to reject this idea. I'm sure he is good at employing rational thought in his engineering field, but refuses to allow this skill to force it's way into the areas of his intellect that have been shielded by the armor of faith. He should step back and look at the evidence objectively. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Paul Farrar's comment on the flood is well taken, although it's probably worth pointing out that flood waters 9 km deep means that the ark would have been floating on top of a 9 km elevation and that the atmospheric conditions would have been correspondingly more harsh than the atmosphere on top of Everest -- perhaps the "water vapor canopy" somehow protected, oxygenated, and warmed the ark... |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
As much as I disagree with those who insist on a literal global Noachic flood, I find that the reader's criticism does not hold water. If a 9 Km flood occurred, the atmospheric pressure resulting would only be a minuscule amount smaller. The reason is that all the atmosphere would be displaced. Thus, the total air column at any given spot on the earth's surface during a global flood would be only minimally changed from the usual. There are plenty of valid criticisms of a postulated global flood. Let's stick with those. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | What does Philosophy have to do with science? It is not science and shouldn't be in your website. Philosophy deals with world views not evolution. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Precisely our point, though a number of people--not necessarily creationists--have advanced the view that the theory of evolution is not a science but a philosophy. Those views are misguided--the sciences underlying evolution have the same characteristics as a number of other sciences, including astronomy, seismology, and vulcanology. That is why John Wilkins, the University of Ediacara's Professor of Heavy Thoughts and Light Opera, has contributed the Evolution and Philosophy article. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | A very good description of what I believe the theory of evolution to be. The developemental processes which occur in the human mind projected onto the physical reality. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Philosophy |
Response: | If by this
you mean that evolution is a psychological projection of
the way the mind itself is built, you are either completely
wrong or horribly right, not just about evolution but about
all knowledge in science. Either evolution is a
scientifically understood physical and biological process,
or nothing we know is anything but fantasy, since biology
uses the same canons of evidence as any science. If you are
prepared to admit that there is no sun, moon or stars, then
you can consistently hold this view.
There are some forms of evolutionary thinking that are projections. One of these is the idea that things progress in evolution, or that evolution is guided by a goal in the same way that we are when we set out for a destination. Neither of these things are scientifically verifiable. Early versions of evolution such as Lamarck's are projections of this kind. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | In Vol.6 No.
4 of Speptic magazine, there was an article in which a
creationist asks this question:
Could you give any example of an evolutionary process or mechanism which can be seen to create new functional information at a genetic level? I'm not a biologist, so I can't answer this question myself. Is this even a relevant question? I would appreciate a response. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
That, of course, refers to the Gillian Brown interview of Richard Dawkins. Dawkins made a detailed reply to that very question. Is it relevant to ask about the processes by which genetic information changes in content and in distribution? Certainly. However, anti-evolutionists like Gillian Brown are not involved in a search for enlightenment, but rather for magic bullets to use in their campaigns to discredit the last one hundred and forty years of biology. Brown appears to have thought that she might have had one such in the referenced question about genetic information, but for the usual definition of information and a "common sense" definition of information it is easily shown that such is not only possible, but has been observed. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | First of
all, I want to congratulate you on presenting your case
very well. I compare your site and your defense of
evolution to Geraldo Rivera's defense of President Clinton.
It makes me very angry primarily because you do a very good
job of presenting your case.
But I don't agree with hardly any of your points you make. They are all successfully refuted by many creation scientists and they make much better cases for the explaining the world around us than the evolutionist propogandists such as yourself. If I were to refute any of your points in particular, you would easily counter and get the last word on your web site. These things are best presented in an open debate format between two speakers and also in the form of publications and books, each presenting their own side. The public can compare each side with an open mind. However, as an engineer, I will say that your explanation of the second law of thermodynamics is very shallow and you are ones using cliches to duck facts. This law IS proof of energy decay in all circumstances. You claim that this law is only mathematical, but math is the basis for about all true science that we have. And there is virually no math involved in evolution because it is mostly smoke and mirrors. Your examples of the second law not applying, such as a seed growing into a plant, are merely proof of the amount of information that is stored in the DNA molecule. That information which determines the potential attributes of a life is in the genetic code at the instant of conception. Environment does not add to this potential in the DNA, but will merely make some information dominant and recede others. There has never been any evidence that new and functionally complex information is randomly or "naturally" attained by the DNA molecule. If this has happened, where is the proof and what is the reorganizational mechanism involved? If this were to accidentally happen, it would conflict with the second law of thermodynamics, but it doesn't. Keep trying... |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | We look
forward then to your equally well presented case against
it, perhaps in the newsgroup talk.origins or even better in
the peer reviewed scientific literature. For years now, we
and others have been desperately begging the creation
science community for even a firm model of creation, let
alone evidence in its favor. We hope that you can donate
this to us, so we can do some proper scientific
investigation. But simply asserting its existence is not
enough, and many of the so-called "refutations" will be
found already on this and linked sites.
The The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability is not claiming that the law is only mathematical. What it actually states is
Entropy is a concept that has an exact definition that cannot be ignored by those like Gish and Morris who use rough and ready (and wrong) definitions to "disprove" evolution. Yes, the law states that in a given and isolated system energy decays, but not in all circumstances, as the FAQ goes on to show. One set of circumstances is where living systems gather and dissipate energy in order to grow, with various degrees of efficiency. Evolution occurs through a sorting of those efficiencies over generations. There is a great degree of mathematical rigor applied to evolutionary modelling, as a cursory glance at any edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, or Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, or Evolution, and so forth, will show you, if you but look. Modern statistics was in large part developed in order to extend evolutionary biology. Before making grand claims about the science, perhaps you might look at the primary literature. Also, you might have a look at a text on information theory before stating that information cannot be created. Genes are duplicated and mutated all the time, and we can in many cases actually induce changes seen in the wild. And your blanket claim there has never been any evidence that new functional information has been "attained" is just false. I quote from a comment by Ian Musgrave on his favorite (out of many) cases of novel functions attained by genes:
All these examples are in the primary literature, and you're free to go into a library and look them up. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | If this is a site on the discussion of the origin of man, why are there only comments for evolution and against creation. What about for creation and against evolution. If you want to explain the differences both sides need to be given equal time. Otherwise, how does one honestly determine their beliefs. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
One honestly determines beliefs by examining the evidence. Some conjectures do not deserve the same consideration as others. Conjectures which generate claims in conflict with observed physical evidence can be summarily discarded. Young-earth creationism is a conjecture which is in conflict with the available evidence. As such, it does not deserve equal consideration or time with robust and well-tested theories from science. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Science: observable, repeatable truth. Show me a scientist that will tell you evolution is fact or truth and I show you a lier. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | By your own admission, any creation scientist is also a "lier". Special creation is neither observable or repeatable (nor is it the truth). So please go post this message to the Center for Scientific Creationism. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | I think you should open up a debate board, because I haven't seen any good ones. Truefully I would enjoy because we teach people head-on. Not that many will believe science, but there is always a chance, and will be entertaining. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | This site
serves as the archive from the Usenet newsgroup talk.origins, thus the zippy
name "Talk.Origins Archive." You'll find plenty of debate
in talk.origins; see the Talk.Origins Archive Welcome
FAQ and the talk.origins Welcome FAQ
for more details.
We also have links to debating areas on the World Wide Web, which can be found in our Other Links section. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | If evolution is true, then what the world are we doing on this earth and why should there be any order to society at all? Who wrote the "law" of conviction in our hearts? I haven't seen ONE piece of evidence to prove evolution true. If there is, then maybe you should check out the 10,000 dollar reward on the internet. Perhaps that if you haven't been notified yet; humans aren't perfect. Point? Biological dating has proven to fail in any way shape or form. So if you think the earth is a billion years old perhaps you didn't hear about the flood in Genises. The flood has caused this aging affect on the earth. I won't continue any longer but you can find many interesting FACTS at www.raycomfort.com. Thankyou for reading these comments and God bless. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Evolution is
a fully supported scientific theory that explains in detail
"what the world we are doing on this earth". It explains it
absolutely. There is order to society because the
majority of humans want there to be. It's that simple.
I don't know what you mean by "law of conviction." My conviction is to the empirical truth. I can believe that no amount of proof, one piece or a thousand, could convince you. Hovind's 10,000 challenge is addressed here. Your grasp of science is really rather poor. You might try to improve it. Radiometric dating is reliable, and the Flood never happened. Try my Evolution for Beginners page. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Great site,
keep up the good work!
Just a comment on the way that "probability" and "chance" arguments by creationists are refuted: surely a simple example of an extremely improbable and undisputed event is enough to show that this line of reasoning by creationists is invalid. One such example might be to line up all of the winners of lotteries in the last ten years and ask what the probability is that these particular people would win. This shouldn't be too difficult to quantify approximately and the odds, of course, would be astronomical. For example, take a lottery that offers a 1 in a million chance of winning the major prize (most major lotteries offer far less chance than this, orders of magnitude less in some cases). Now take the last 500 winners (approximately 1 per week for 10 years) and do the math: = 1/1^6^500 in other words - very unlikely! You could of course add in every other lottery from around the world to make for bigger numbers but the point I am sure is not lost. Does this mean then that such an unlikely chain of events could not possibly have occurred? Of course not, and surely even the most die-hard of creationists can see this. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Chance |
Response: | In fact,
this argument proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these
lottery wins never occurred, and that gambling is a tool of
the Devil.
[This site needs a standard smiley to link to ;-)] |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | ken lochhead |
Comment: | I pose this question, If one looks at the number of changes needed for evolution how can you say that it is a probable theory. We know that there are 10's of millions of different life forms on this earth. This means all life on this earth now and in the past. I would not be suprised to see if not 100 millon life forms have been on this earth. Now if look at the number of changes needed over the time the earth is old, then the probablity of all these changes hit odds against that no one can accept. In my findings it is in the order of 10 tho the 30th power thank you for your time. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | I sure hope
you didn't spend a large amount of time working on your
"calculations". Evolution does not "need" changes.
Evolution is not a thing. Changes are evolution. The
great diversity of life is explained by evolution.
Here is an experiment for you. All you need is a die (one half of a pair of dice). Take the die and shake it around in your hand, and call a number from 1 to 6. You say 6. Roll the die. It comes up 6. You can calculate that the odds were 6 to 1 against that you would roll the 6. Now, your calculation would mean something if evolution worked this way. But it doesn't. Roll the die again. But this time, don't call out any numbers. It comes up 4. Now, what are the chances of it coming up 4? One to one-- even odds-- because you didn't specify a number in advance, and no specific number was required. So what if it rolled 4? That's the way it works. No one can predict the course of evolution, due to the random nature of selective pressures. Things are as they happen to be. The fact that we are here proves nothing (except that we are here). All talk of the probability of evolution is meaningless, unless you can provide evidence to support the notion that we are the goal of the process, and not just the result of the process. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I want to subscribe to talk.origins, my net browser won't let me, what should I try next? Thx. |
Response | |
From: | Chris Stassen |
Author of: | The Age of the Earth |
Response: | Your internet service provider should be able to tell you what setup is required for you to access their USEnet server. As an alternative you could use a web-based USEnet service such as reference.com [defunct -- editor] (Deja News is more popular in general, but last I checked it did not support posting to moderated newsgroups like talk.origins.) |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | You are
pretty good at presenting fiction as fact.
First,you have no transitional species as there are no transitional species. None, not one. During the "Scopes" trial the pro-evolution crowd claimed to have found "Piltdown Man", and so evolution is a fact. All they had to make their claim was one tooth. Which later turned out to be a tooth from a pig. Many claims of of transitional species exist, but for the theory of evolution to be correct the transitional species would have to out number the rest. The claims of transitional species are generly based on one tooth, or some bone fragments. Sure you have listed what seems to be transitional species, in the same way they refered to the Piltdown Man. It is nice, that you have shown the Pope's veiw on evolution, but evolution has not been shown to be a fact. If you approach it with an open mind, you will find that there is more evidence against evolution than for it. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
The vast majority of reasonable people when shown the evidence of the various sequences presented here as representing transitions do find them convincing. Unfortunately, some people have an almost infinite capability to ignore the evidence. During the Scopes' trial, Piltdown man was mentioned in a couple of the experts' affidavits, but in no case was considered a central piece of evidence. It was explicitly considered anomalous in one of those affidavits. The reader confuses "Piltdown man" and "Nebraska man". "Nebraska man" was classified on the basis of two teeth, but when additional research turned up more fossils, it was re-classified as an extinct peccary. "Nebraska man" does not appear in the Scopes' trial transcript. It is possible that it was commented upon outside the courtroom, but I have no references to such. The reader's assertion about the proportion of transitional fossils is also incorrect. Even Darwin knew that. I've spent considerable time examining both biological literature and data, and also anti-evolutionary literature. I find that my conclusion is that there is plenty of evidence of historical and observable evolutionary change, and no evidence whatever of a recent six-day creation event and later global deluge. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | justin cocco |
Comment: | i guess its jim? well idont uderstand for the life in me why people are so obsessed with EVOLUTION?the only theory i have is that if any thing we know about this earth and about the passed and what cant really be explained is that evolution is an idea or theory which dose make sence unlike say the science of say earthquaks.and is something that everyone has somthing to write home about.justin cocco |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Well, I'm
not Jim, but I'll take a stab at decifering this one...
I would not say people here are obsessed with evolution. For some of them, it's there job- they work in related scientific fields. For others, like me, it's a facinating interest. One thing I am obsessed about, and that is reality. Creationism is anti-reality and anti-science, and I'll work against it as long as I am able. You can call that an obsession, if it makes you happy. I'm glad you think evolution makes sense. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I'm writing
to commend those who maintain this website and respond to
the repeated, irrational comments of those who apparently
do not even read the FAQs before submitting their negative
comments.
Good job, |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Philosophy |
Response: | Thanks for
the comment. Although it gets wearisome, we answer as best
we can any query that appears to be bona fide, because
often these comments are honest, if ignorant, and they may
need to be referred to the correct FAQ.
Which, by the way, begin at The FAQ, the Must Read FAQs, the Evolution FAQs and the general navigation page. How's that for a segue? |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | i wont waste my time to complain, or belittle your writings but...there is more scientific fact supporting creation than denying it so get your facts straight |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Name one "scientific fact supporting creation", please. Just one. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I'm sorry, this is not a comment. I'm just interested in Richard Lewontin but I can't find any information about his life for my thesis. I wonder if you have any advice about the way of getting it. Thanking you in advance, an italian student |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Try his page and this page |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I was
reading the "Definition of Evolution" and just wanted to
let the author know that his comments were uncalled for.
The last paragraph in particular assumes that Creationists
are illiterate people who cannot comprehend science. I
would beg to differ. Creationists look at the facts a
little different, but that does not change them into
something other than scientists. What the author needs to
do is maybe look at himself a little bit more closely and
see whether he is giving their theory as much "scientific"
thought as his own. Maybe he would see something different
than Evolution also.
Thank you for your time, Robert Woods |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
Dr. Laurence Moran has extensive experience in discussing these topics with various kinds of anti-evolutionists in the talk.origins newsgroup. I can assure you that Dr. Moran has examined the merits of arguments from people on both sides of the debate, and is not reticent to tell people on either side when they are in error. In my own experience in dealing with anti-evolutionary creationists, I'd say that Dr. Moran is far too restrained in suggesting that such people could benefit from getting a clue. Young-earth creationism is religious doctrine which is anti-scientific at basis. YEC adherents doing science do so in spite of rather than because of their YEC beliefs. In case the reader might mistakenly believe that I come to this point through ignorance of YEC, I will note that I have read many different books offered by the big names of the ICR, and a wide variety of other anti-evolutionary material. It confirms to a high degree of confidence the essential rightness of Dr. Moran's request that YEC anti-evolutionists should endeavor to understand what they presume to criticize. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | As a science teacher with a particular interest in evolution and a horrified fascination with the creation/evolution controversy I was delighted to find your website. the wealth of data is mouthwatering. So far I've just scratched the surface but I'll be back. Keep up the good work. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
Thank you for your kind comments. Let me invite you to do more than just appreciate our resources, though. If you teach concepts of biological evolution, consider sharing your most effective means of getting the ideas across. This archive could use some lesson plans or study units prepared by educators for use by other educators. If you or other teachers you know would spend a little time sharing these kinds of resources, then perhaps we could look forward to future students having better general knowledge of biology and evolution. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | What is the Oklo natural fission reactor that went online in Gabon 2000 mya? My students were exploring your timeline for geological and biological development and asked me about this item. I never heard of it, can you explain, please. Thank you. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | The
reference is to a natural uranium deposit, discovered in
1972 in the African nation of Gabon. Its name is the name
of the Oklo Uranium Mine, where the deposit was discovered.
The density of uranium in the deposit was sufficient for
the uranium to act much like a man made reactor, but at a
much lower power level. See the article Where Fiction
Became Ancient Fact, in the June 1998 issue of Scientific American
magazine.
|
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | I heard of a creationist named Dr. Kent Hovind. From what I have heard he has been in numerous debates and has never lost one. He also has a $10,000 reward for evidence proving evolution! You guys have all of this evidence in your web page and yet this guy can win debates! Who's right? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Please go to the Wild, Wild World of Kent Hovind to find the answers to all your questions. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | John Sacco |
Comment: | Thank you for providing an invaluable service. I praise your work for sticking to scientific truth without "Christian bashing." Keep up the tremendous work! |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | I know many
intelligent, honest and fair Christians, who have the
intellectual integrity to not take the bible literally on
scientific matters. I think the ones "bashing" the
reputation of all Christians are the creationists. They do
more harm to Christianity than anything I could say or do.
They should take the hint from Pope John Paul, who said 1992 (speaking of the persecution of Galileo): "The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was in some way imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture." In other words, it's a mistake to base your understanding of the physical world from a literal reading of the bible. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | Does an evolutionary biologist subscribe to the belief in the theory that states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one? |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Philosophy |
Response: | Yes, mostly.
This is known as the Principle of Parsimony (sometimes also
called Ockham's Razor) but it is not an easy method to
apply. In reconstructing phylogenetic histories, the
principle can lead to many equally well-supported trees,
and there are many other methods applied to narrow down the
field.
In more general terms, parsimonious explanations are generally preferred by all scientists, but sometimes what is the more simple depends very much on how the subject is characterised. Simplicity is usually the deciding factor only in restricted hypotheses (such as "this fish taxon evolved from that taxon") not in the more general area of theories ("diversity of living forms evolved"), which tend to be preferred on the grounds of their generality - how much and how well they explain phenomena. For example, "God created all things as they are" explains everything, but gives us no way to proceed - how to explain why the leopard has its spots, for instance. It is overgeneral and a bad form of explanation (unless we can infer why God so chose to create leopards with spots). Choosing between "leopards have spots because it camouflages them" and "leopards have spots because they have a certain developmental pattern" is usually harder than choosing between "leopards have spots because <insert biological explanation>" and "leopards have spots because God chose to given them spots", which means that a perference for one of the first two alternatives has a lot more information and explanatory power. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | Is this website against Creation?!? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | This website
is against passing off the literal interpretation of
biblical scripture, involving untestable miracles and
incomprehensible methods (about which no theory can be
proposed), as valid science.
Science is a method, not a body of knowledge. Science is a method of discovering the way the universe works. If the evidence indicates that the world works differently than we had hoped, the scientific method is to not ignore or alter the evidence. Sometimes, science uncovers information that is uncomfortable, disquieting... demoting humans from their imagined centrality. Creationism represents an attempt at resisting this knowledge. Creationism, designed to protect a specific religious dogma, is a construction of scientific-sounding rhetoric that satisfies the faithful, confuses the undecided, and wastes the time of scientists. That is what this website is against. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Bob |
Comment: | Wouldn't the tides of the earth's waters eventually slow the earth's inertia after a long time? Is there any evidence of the earth slowing down? |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | Absolutely.
The definitive reference on such matters is Kurt Lambeck's
book The Earth's Variable Rotation (Cambridge University
Press, 1980). At the moment the Earth is slowing down
its spin at a rate that causes the sidereal day to increase
by about 0.0015 seconds per day per century (if today is
eactly 24 hours long, in 100 years it will be 24 hours plus
0.0015 seconds long). But that rate of slowing is not
constant, and depends on the variable tidal interaction
between the Earth and Moon. Tidal rhythmites preserve the
tidal cycles and allow one to determine the length of day
in the distant past.
G.E. Williams of the University of
Adelaide, Australia, reports that the length of day
approximately 620,000,000 years ago was approximately 21.9
hours [
Precambrian Length of Day and the Validity of Tidal
Rhythmite Paleotidal Values, G.E. Williams; Geophysical Research
Letters, v24(4):
pp421-424 (1997 Feb 15)].
Also see Irregularities of the Earth's Rotation, a brief guide from the International Earth Rotation Service. Here is a set of 36 questions and answers about the rotation of the Earth, from the pages of NASA's Ask the Space Scientist. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Mark woodward |
Comment: | Whoever gets this message, please go to this website that I have provided for you. read it with an open mind, and you will be amazed. There are over 4000quotes, documented with page #'s,where evolutionist scientists and creationist scientists give their thoughts on evolution. You will find more than enough info about the orgin of life. www.pathlights.com, once you reach this, click on the evolution vs creation encyclopedia. then start scrolling down and you will feel like the biggest hypocrite that ever walked the planet. your friend, Mark woodward |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
I've been to that URL before. I don't feel like a hypocrite at all, and don't see why I should. I just checked, and the URL given by Mark is already in the list of other web sites that are maintained here at the archive. It is interesting to compare the extensive list of links here at the talk.origins archive to those provided at Pathlights' link page. Both in number and willingness to link to sites with opposing views, the talk.origins link page is clearly superior. We who have contributed to this archive feel that those who research the issues are far more likely to agree with our viewpoint, and we encourage people to have a look for themselves what the anti-evolutionists put forward for arguments. This means that we link to those anti-evolutionary sites. Go to the anti-evolutionary sites, and see how many provide a link back to here or to any other site which provides the mainstream science view of evolutionary biology. Hypocrisy? I don't see it in what we have in this archive. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I think you have done a excellent job presenting numerous lines of scientific evidence supporting evolution, as well as presenting rebuttals to the innaccurate and often incorrect assertions of various "creation scientists." However, I have noticed that behavioural sciences don't seem to be utilized much. Evolutionary psychology, ethology, etc. have also provided evidence supporting the evolutionary view and I was wondering if you would consider adding such information to your page as an addition to the biological and geological perspectives. After all, Darwin's, "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" did have an influence on the field of psychology. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
That's a very good point. I think that a FAQ on ethology that shows the various evidences that behavioral traits are just as reliable for the analysis of interrelationships between species as morphological characters would make a fine addition to the archive. I would encourage you to try your hand at it. Put together a draft and then post it to the talk.origins newsgroup for commentary and revision. Eventually, it should wind up here. Darwin's "Origin of Species" and "Descent of Man" also influenced the development of psychology. Darwin's outlook that the human mind generally differed quantitatively rather than qualitatively from other animals was a crucial step in placing psychology in the empirical sciences rather than as a branch of mysticism. There is no dearth of people who will claim otherwise concerning how the "uniqueness" of human thought is established, though, even today. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | William Frank |
Comment: | Not sure if this is relevant to this topic or not. I found this site by accident.(and please excuse any typeing errors, I am a lousy speller) I've browsed through a few of the articals and it apears this whole thing is whether or not the bible is correct or if science is correct. Now I've read the bible, to an extent and the bible and science do not disagree on what happened. The only difference is bible says 6 days to create everything, science says aprx. 4.5 billion yrs. Discounting time frames, creation and evalution say the exact same thing. I may be wrong here but i do believe the order in which each say everything occurs is also the same. Who is right, is it, or could it be possible, that evelution and creation are both equally right? Evelution does not answer every question, and Creation leaves just as many holes, but if you combine the two...many if not most of the holes get filled. For the record...I am Christian by birth but would consider myself agnostic...in that the existance of God can niether be proved nor disproved. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Can evolution and creation co-exist in terms of scientific accuracy? The closest you are going to get to that is Theistic (or Directed) Evolution. It is not possible to adhere to a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis and maintain any scientific integrity. A lot more than just the time scales disagree. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Jim Steel |
Comment: | Has a fossilized tree ever been found growing through multiple strata layers? Have there been any DNA tests done to the "links" that have proved to be 100% man? |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | For the fossilized trees, see the Polystrate Fossils FAQ here in the talk.origins archive. As for the DNA tests, I doubt it; DNA does not survive in fossils so far as I know, unless they are completely isolated, like a bug trapped in amber or resin. But a human fossil in the ground (or any other fossil in similar circumstances) should be made DNA-less fairly quickly. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Dear Sir, We
are a group of grade 8 students taking part in ThinkQuest web page
creation contest where teams are supposed to make education
based web sites. We have chosen our topic as evolution.
Could we use the articles on evolution on the Talk Origins
site in ours? Could you please give us your consent and
permission to use the articles? ThinkQuest allows
participants to use materials on the Net only if permission
is given. I hope you will respond soon.
Thanking you, Yours sincerely, Karthik Raveendran and Srikanth |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | I tried to respond to your E-mail address, but the message bounced after 5 days as "undeliverable". We get several requests like this, but the only answer is to ask the authors of the articles you want to use. Each article has the author's name and E-mail address at the top. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | Dear Sirs,
We are a group of 8th class students and we are taking part
in the ThinkQuest contest where teams have to create
websites on education. We have chosen our topic as
evolution. Could you kindly give us your permission to use
the articles on your page in ours and could you provide us
with the ctation required to be put on the page? Thanking
you,
Yours sincerely, Karthik Raveendran |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The articles
found on this Web site are not "owned" by the Talk.Origins
Archive. Each article is copyrighted by its author and
appears on this site by that author's permission. If you
wish to copy, modify, or redistribute an individual article
on this site, you should contact the author of that
article. We've made that easy for you to do; at the top of
each article under the title should be a link to the
author's email address.
That's if you want to copy the text of the article, in other words, cut it out and paste it onto your own Web site. If all you wish to do is link to an article from your Web site, you may do so without further permission. Just copy the text from the "Location" box on your browser into an HTML link on your page. All we ask is that if you link to any of our pages, you also link to our home page, like so: <A HREF="/">The Talk.Origins Archive</A> Good luck with your project. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Has light ever been proven to be affected by gravity? |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | Yes. Sir Arthur Eddington made an expedition to Africa in 1919 to test the prediction made by Albert Einstein, and measure the deflection of light by the sun's gravity. The measurement confirmed Einstein's prediction. See Putting Relativity to the Test, which includes an example image of gravitational lensing, an effect predicted by the gravitational bending of light. The image they give is a simple but clear Einstein Cross. The Hubble Space Telescope has produced a number of lensing images, from other examples of Einstein's Cross to lensing by galaxy clusters (examples Abell 2218 and CL0024+1654). Both theory & observation clearly show that light is affected by gravity. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | In The Isochron Dating FAQ, Figure 5, the blue arrow-lines should be curved to show a radial hinging of the slope over time, not a linear proportional movement over time. |
Response | |
From: | Chris Stassen |
Author of: | Isochron Dating |
Response: | Thank you
for taking the time to read the FAQ and write about it.
Your interest is appreciated. Consider a mineral which
starts with X atoms of 87Rb,
Y atoms of 87Sr, and Z atoms of
86Sr. Its data point on
the isochron plot will be ( X/Z , Y/Z ). Later, when
w atoms of 87Rb have decayed to
87Sr, the mineral's data point
position will then be ( [X-w]/Z ,
[Y+w]/Z ). This equation (with
constant X, Y, Z, and variable
w) describes a straight
line.
As the FAQ notes, the individual isochron data points
travel along a straight line of slope "-1" as decay
occurs. The isochron rotates with time not because the data
points travel on curved paths, but instead because the data
points furthest from the origin on the |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | John Boggan |
Comment: | I think Talk.Origins is a fantastic site, but as a botanist I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of discussion of plant evolution. I believe plants are prime exemplars of evolution, both past and present, in action. I have yet to see a creationistic explanation of "kinds" of plants. In reality, it would be next to impossible. A creationist would be at a complete loss to explain the actual hybridization, potential hybridization (not to mention degree of fertility of the hybrids), and the wide range of morphological variation (showing many intermediates), that are observed in plant populations today. Systematic botanists struggle every day with the definitions of such basic concepts as "genus" and "species", demonstrating that the real world is not as neatly compartmentalized into biological units as the creationists would have us believe. Meanwhile, recent discoveries are filling in many of the gaps in the origin of major plants groups, and "transitional forms" abound. In fact, many of the "transitional forms" are alive today. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The reader's comments are all too true. We do have some discussion of plant speciation in the Observed Instances of Speciation and More Observed Instances of Speciation FAQs, and some of the discussion in the Introduction to Evolutionary Biology FAQ relates specifically to plants, but the Archive would welcome a fuller discussion. Perhaps the reader could contribute an article on the topic, or some additional examples to the Speciation FAQs? Just look at our Submission Guidelines for more details. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | M.B. |
Comment: | I have good evidence to believe the earth is much older than 6,000 years old - the age the young-creationists claim it to be. I have good evidence to support microevolution. But, one of your web pages claimed that microevolution is the same as macroevolution without any justfying logic. The page is not truly scientific. A scientist presents all sides of an argument and then shows how each is right and/or wrong. That page was NOT of the sort and presented a high lopsided study. Investigate all theories. Macroevolution has never been performed in a laboratory. Unless that is done there is no point in saying macroevolution ever happened. Can macroevolution explain animal instincts that are very logical where the animals couldn't have had the brain power EVER to develop the whole lot? And if macroevolution is possible do you know what the statistics are of it ever happening? I will give you a hint. Macroevolutionary ideas were not propagated in the name of science and that is what that web page negatively critiqued showed. It was not scientific, rather it was a biased, religous type of argument. Explain this evolutionists! Why don't we see definite evidence of monkeys setting up idols to worship if they're our close kin or any other animal doing that for that matter? There is only definite evidence that man has a worshipping organ. Some SCIENTISTS have reasonable evidence to support this worshipping organ is in the brain. So to top off your religious-type argument I present a creationist/microevolutionist view. Why does man have the capability to worship something? Second, why are evolutionists so closed minded, and aggressive on disproving creationism? I ask you, is it in the name of science or religion? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | I must
apologize to the reader, for I really don't know what he
means by "macroevolution." Biologists have one meaning for
the word, but I've seen it used in other ways by
creationists and others. See the Macroevolution FAQ.
If, however, the reader thinks that speciation has not been
observed, he should examine the Observed Instances of
Speciation FAQ and the Some More Observed Instances
of Speciation FAQ.
I'm not sure what the reader means when he speaks of the "worshipping organ" in humans, but the reader should be aware that the theory of evolution concerns itself with biology, not with the societal and cultural influences that may affect a person's behavior. Not everything in a person's life is determined by biology, after all. I don't know why the reader thinks we should see idolatrous monkeys; other primates also don't light fires, drive cars, or bake at 350 degress for twenty-five minutes or until the fork comes out clean. "Evolutionists" aren't "aggressive on disproving creationism." Evolutionary biologists, for the most part, ignore the creationists and concern themselves instead with doing good science, as they should. Even those of us who participate in the debate don't do so because we want to see creationism necessarily disproved. I, for one, would be perfectly happy to accept the scientific conclusions of the creationists if they were arrived at according to the methods of science. What we are concerned about is not the ends, but the means that creationists use to reach those ends. For the most part, creationism consists of out-of-context quotation, distortion or avoidance of evidence, predetermined conclusions, and some flat-out lies, all masquerading in the guise of science. I wouldn't care if people were deluding themselves, but students (and decision-making citizens) deserve better than to have pseudoscience passed off as real science. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I have been carefully researching the Creation/Evolution debate. In one of my books that I have read, it mentioned the complexity of thehuman eye. I was wondering how and why did the human eye evolve. In other words, "what good is 5% of an eye?" Why would 5% of an eye be beneficial enough for a species to pass it on to its decendents? This person also mentioned that developing an eye and developing the ability to see are two completly different things. What is the evolutionists answer to the development of the human eye? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The first
thing to understand is that the human eye did not come
about in a single stroke of evolution. Such an event is a
near impossibility. The human eye actually came from a
pre-human hominid eye, which came from a non-primate
mammalian eye, which in turn came from a reptillian eye,
which came from an amphibian eye, which came from a fish
eye. Each change carried with it variations suited to the
environments and habits of the species in question. This is
the real question: how did that first eye evolve?
There are other types of eyes which evolved independently, such as insect and arachnid eyes, which are obviously very different from the types mentioned above.... 5% of an eye is exactly 1% better than 4% of an eye. Once a light sensitive cell, by chance, evolved on top of a fish's head, there is then selective pressure to evolve a better "eye". With a little thought, you can realize that a partial eye will offer some benefit to a species. Consider that it would be beneficial for sea-going creatures to be able to distinguish where the surface of the water is. Therefore, light sensitive cells on the head would be very useful, wouldn't they? Would a predatory fish that had light-sensitive cells benefit if those cells were able to distinguish movement and shapes? Would prey fish have a better survival rate if they could see the predators? Every slight improvement on a light sensitive cell would serve a purpose. An optical "arms race" had begun, and the selective pressure must have been enormous, until an optically perfect eye evolved. You do not need to see perfectly for eyes to serve a purpose. Even people with 10% vision can make out objects and avoid colliding with them. They certainly would not want to lose whatever vision they have, would they? If you had a choice between one eye or no eye, you would of course choose one. Color vision is better than color blindness, which is better than nothing. Any slight benefit could have offered a survival advantage. According to Richard Dawkins, the eye evolved independently about 40 times during the history of life on earth, and a 'camera eye' could evolve "rapidly" from a light sensitive cell. Now, certain biological events, such as the evolution of the eye, leave few physcial traces. One reason is that the eye is soft tissue, and does not preserve well as a fossil. The second is that the time period in which the first eye evolved is extremely ancient, and precious few fossils are discovered from those levels in any case. But these are not reasons to conclude that the eye could not have evolved naturally. We can suggest how the eye might have evolved, because scientists understand some of the processes, but we cannot say "This is absolutely, positively the only way the eye could have evolved". We can't say that, and I don't think we need to. Just because we cannot state the exact circumstances of the evolution of the eye does not mean that the theory of evolution will be overturned. We have clear evidence that evolution occured... the fossil record speaks to us unambiguously of the rising complexity of living organisms over millions of years, including humans. The fossil record mirrors the genetic record. The appearence of major groups in the fossil record is substantiated by relationships later shown by DNA comparison testing. There is no other explanation for this relationship between DNA and fossils besides evolution. Although my explanation given above is hypothetical, there is nothing unreasonable about it. But to avoid the question and suppress science because of uncomfortable implications is wrong. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | C. Dobson |
Comment: | >>>
Is faith required to believe how life began from the
inanimate to the animate. ? <<<
A lot really. Take for example evolution says that 3.8 billion years ago the living cell came from the inanimate to the animate by way of an " accident ". Based on the high technology displayed by the living cell it certainly appears to me that the birth of the living cell is a lot closer to a miracle than an accident. One of evolution's most respected supporters Richard Dawkins submits the following accident theory. [opinions and inferences snipped] I am not trying to hurl missles because of the foregoing but I think that it is fair to reason on all aspects when discussing "Life and how it began" and the foregoing most certainly shows a great deal of faith is required to believe that the "Living Cell" came by way of an accident. Note what a biologist and others say about the living cell. [more opinions about "how complex life is" snipped] Who is there that can state, the above complex cell popped into existence as decribed by Richard Dawkins ? >>> what evidence is there for Creation? <<< Very good question. But then again God Almighty expects man to listen because of faith. By the things we observe around us that could not be in existence without the active participation of conscious intelligent design. Please note my thoughts and quotes are not meant to put down anyone's belief but rather to discuss it openly. I am more than willing to listen to your thoughts in return. When I think of Evolution being taught in schools as fact, it gives me a bad feeling. Think for a minute about children being taught that 3.8 billion years ago the living cell came from the inanimate to the animate by accident. Take a look again at what the living cell is. And let me submit to you, the living cell is a lot closer to a miracle than it is an accident. So if evolution were true then we evolved from an accident. Life is a result of accidents. Your brain is a result of accidents. Your thoughts are a result of accidents. Your love, loyalty and affection for family is an accident. Your appreciation for our beautiful planet and it's contents is an accident. Your desire for prosperity, health and happiness is all a result of accidents. We would be much better off letting accidents do everything for us rather than use our brains. For example: It took man thousands of years to fly but an accident gave us birds years and years ago. It took man thousands of years to make a helicopter but an accident gave us the hummingbird years ago. It took man thousands of years to give us radar but an accident gave us the flying bat years ago. It took man thousands of years to give us jet propulsion but an accident gave us the octopus years ago. It took man thousands of years to learn to navigate with precision on a global scale but an accident gave us the homing pigeon years ago. Etc, Etc, Etc. In conclusion. How much faith is required to believe that life sprang from the inanimate to the animate ? A universe full. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | If every
scientist had absolute faith in everything that was told to
him or her, then there would be no discoveries. Science
proceeds by a lack of faith, and a desire to discover what
we do not know.
It does not take faith to accept geology, paleontology, genetics, chemistry. Hundreds of transitional fossils have been discovered since Darwin's day. Evolution has been witnessed in short-lived species both in the lab and in the wild, and the fossil record is extremely well documented. The fossil record demonstrates unambiguously the continuous evolution of life. You NEVER find people with dinosaurs, or dinosaurs with trilobites. It is very clear. There are NO fossils found out of order. There are no paleontology discoveries that conflict with our understanding of how life evolved over the ages. The appearance of major groups in the fossil record is substantiated by relationships later shown by DNA comparison testing. There is no other explanation for this relationship between DNA and fossils besides evolution. Your main argument seems to be that you cannot accept evolution because you cannot believe that it could have occurred. That's not much of an argument. Yet you opt for another solution which offers no evidence whatsoever to support it. You hold on fast to the idea that what is unknown now will be forever unknown. Your continual use of the word "accident" leads me to believe you need to read up how how evolution really works. You might try Evolution for Beginners or Introduction to Evolutionary Biology. Personally, I do not accept things that are UNPROVABLE. Every discovery in the history of science has been based on processes that are natural. No discovery has ever supported a supernatural explanation of ANYTHING. Why should the scientific study of the origin of life prove any different? I think scientists will eventually find all the answers. You seem to think that that which is unknown is forever unknowable. It think, based on the history of science and the rapid development of technology, that what is unknown today will be known tomorrow. For some strange reason, you and other creationists insist on calling that faith. Well, if that makes you happy... If one has faith, why search any further for the answers which one supposedly has? To quote Benjamin Franklin: "In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it." |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | "Your
comments "evolved from chimps or out of pond scum
190,000,000 years ago" leads me to suspect the sincerity of
your acceptance of evolution. Where did you get your
degree? "
this is from one of Ken Harding's feedbacks. I hope you realize your own words can apply to you also? Your comment asking her where she got the degree shows your shallow arguement you cannot attack her statements, but her herself. Can you get any lower in a debate? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | My point is
a very valid one, Mr. Anonymous.
If an individual received a degree in biology, and still can make comments like "evolved from chimps or out of pond scum 190,000,000 years ago", either he/she: 1) is untruthful about the degree, A person who makes those kinds of statements isn't prepared for any sort of debate. You should know something of the topic you're supposed to be debating beforehand. This person apparently does not understand evolutionary biology, and certainly made no valid arguments. My answer to her, you, and anyone else who would come here to "debate", is as follows: Please describe, in as much detail as you can, how evolution takes place. I realize you don't believe in it, but in order to take an adversarial position, you must have an accurate representation of the opposing side. Okay? So let's hear it... I think it would go something like this: Me: "How does evolution work?" |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | How about instead of using the word "fact", try using " the evidence is"... I know when your bias gets in the way it's hard, but you really can't "know" because you can't go back in time. All we have today is evidence. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Philosophy |
Response: | And evidence, at least in science, is what determines the facts. If you have the evidence, then it's a fact. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Please explain how speciation, being a reduction of the gene pool available to a species, promotes genetic strength. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Philosophy |
Response: | Please
explain what "genetic strength" is, and why you think that
speciation is a reduction in the gene pool (one assumes you
mean genetic diversity).
New species will often have roughly the same genetic diversity as isolated and quite functional populations of the parental species, since that is what they usually are at first. More genetic diversity arises from mutation (slowly) and from recombination of existing variants that may not have tended to recombine in the larger group of populations of the parent species. You need to read a good text on population genetics. In the meantime, read Chris Colby's excellent Introduction to Evolutionary Biology or look up Coyne, J. A. 1992. Genetics and speciation. Nature 355:511-515 |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I read with
interest the article on creation "science" and the
geomagnetic field. Having done my doctoral dissertation on
dynamo theory, I can assure creationists that the Earth's
magnetic field does not display a simple exponential decay
on the diffusive time scale of 14K years. Further,
Cowling's Theorem as noted does NOT rule out dynamo action
within the liquid core; fluid motions are convective, not
simply axisymmetric. Also, I wish to note that for those
interested, there are several excellent texts on the
subject - Moffatt (1978), Parker (1979), and of course the
newest edition of Merrill and McElhinny.
Dr. J.F.McMillan, Hawaii Pacific Univ. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | I appreciate the vote of confidence. My article was written before the new edition of Merrill & McElhinney's book came out; "The Magnetic Field of the Earth: Paleomagnetism, the Core, and the Deep Mantle"; Merrill, McElhinney and McFadden; Academic Press, 1996. It's a major expansion of the 1983 1st edition, and includes the 1995 Glatzmaier & Roberts model field reversals. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Hello.
Great website, it's been a source a good reading for years. Question: I got sort of stumped with a questions from a critic of abiogenesis and evolution. He demanded to name at least one (if not more) nonbiological process that creates complex organic compounds that has been observed in nature, and not necessarily in the lab. I've been perusing through the FAQs, but I couldn't find anything that really addresses that. Thanks for the help, and keep up the great site! |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: |
Unfortunately, I don't think a good answer to that question
can be given, as the term "complex organic compounds" is
ill-defined. "Organic compounds" are, of course, compounds
containing carbon. But how does one measure their
"complexity"? By the number of carbon atoms? By the number
of atoms total? By the number of different sorts of atoms?
By their molecular weight? By their energy of formation?
Moreover, it's not even a relevant question. Chemical reactions depend solely upon the starting materials and the conditions they take place in. Given the same combination of inputs, heat, pressure, concentration, catalysts, etc., the same products will result. The chemicals couldn't care less whether they are somewhere "in nature" or in an Erlenmeyer flask, so long as the conditions are identical. The question (for abiogenesis, at least) is really (1) whether a particular reaction takes place, given certain conditions, and (2) whether those conditions were present on Earth at some point in its history. Part (1) can be investigated in the lab; part (2) requires investigation of other geological, chemical, and physical evidence. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | You said that the evolution of man is well documented. But I was reading through articles in National Geographic, Science, and Nature from many different years and I saw in all of them that most pictures showed entire "reconstructions" of "hominids," yet the only bones they actually had were teeth, skullcaps, and legbones. One skeleton that showed a complete reconstruction had actually only the previously mentioned bones. How can scientists recreate ape-men from partial evidence? Aren't they following the faulty interprentation that the discoverer of the Iguanadon did? He found a partial skeleton and assembled it as a lizard with a horn on it's head (which was actually its "thumb"). Many of these skeletons have turned out to be pig's teeth and ape bones. How do you explain this? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | "Many" of
these skeletons have not turned out to be
"pig's teeth and ape bones." The reader is referring to
"Nebraska Man," which was never given much weight in the
study of human evolution and which was ultimately clarified
by the operations of science. Read more about Nebraska Man
here and here.
As for the hominid fossils that we do have, readers can see some of them here. A completely intact (or even mostly intact) fossil find of any sort is an extremely rare occurrence in paleontology; consequently, paleontologists have become extremely skilled at reconstruction from fragmentary evidence. They don't do so simply by guessing; they do so against a backdrop of millions of observations of other fossil remains and existing creatures. It's detective work, not sheer speculation, and good scientists try not to overstep the bounds of what they can demonstrate. But sometimes they get lucky and find a mostly complete fossil. See, for example, the "Turkana Boy" specimen of homo erectus. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Ronnie Bernardi |
Comment: | Firstly I have to say Ken Harding's reply to John Black was very devestating. Great work Ken. I'am an atheist and came to that conclusion as a result of searching for evidence, with which to rationaly validate my faith. Evolution was not even needed So why the controversy? even now after 24 years of atheism I fail to see the issue. Unless it's because creationists are seeking to increase their numbers through converts gained by entery in our schools. I have one question though where did the matter for the big bang come from? |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | The matter
that makes up the universe as we now know it condensed out
of the energy of the big
bang, in a manner analogous to the condensation of
liquid water from vapor, or the freezing of solid ice from
liquid water. In the parlance of physics it's called a
"phase transition", with "gas", "liquid", and "solid" being
"phases" of matter.
You probably intended to ask where the energy of the big bang came from, but that nobody knows, nor are we in a position to theorize much about it either. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | I came upon your site while studying the 2nd Law of Thermo- I want to look at all of the issues with an open mind and then decide what seems reasonable based on the facts- I believe in parts of both creationism and evolution- and I thought that I would get some good discussion from both sides as your headline reads "Exploring Creation/Evolution Controversy"- it seems like you are just another self-serving group as well. What ever happened to searching out all of the possibilities and REALLY looking at them and trying to learn something. Perhaps there's a little truth that can be gained from each side. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The reader
assumes, without basis, that we haven't
explored "all of the possibilities." I assure the reader
that we most certainly have--many of us who
have written the articles here and who write this feedback
have been participating in the creation/evolution debate
for many years and are more versed in the tenets, claims,
and variations of creationism than most
creationists are.
Take a look at our Other Links page, for example; we have more links to creationist Web sites than I've ever seen collected on another site. Look at the references attached to a number of the articles on this site; one is likely to find more references to "standard" creationist texts than I'd bet most readers (including myself) have perused. Some of the contributors to this site are fundamentalist Christians and even were formerly creationists. We reject the claims of creationists not because we haven't examined them. We reject the claims of creationists because we have. As for "self-serving," everyone who has contributed to this Web site has done so without compensation, merely for the concern that we have about the advance of pseudoscience, poor argumentation, and wishful thinking at the expense of rigorous scientific examination. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | I think this web page was a big help in helping me for my term paper and I thank the creators, also, I would like to know if anyone knows where I might could possibly find a pamphlet on evolution? You can e-mail me at rachel_03@chickmail.com and thank you all!! Talk to you later! Rachel |
Response | |
From: | Chris Stassen |
Author of: | The Age of the Earth |
Response: | You can get pamphlets from NCSE (the National Center for Science Education). |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | First, I would like to commmend you for providing such a thorough knowledgebase for debunking creation psuedoscience. I wanted to suggest that another useful organizational approach to your website would be to provide a listing of creationism literature along with chapter by chapter analysis. I'm not suggesting that you adopt the additional burden of creating customized refutations, but instead invite contributors to submit their own. I realize that this would still require an editorial effort on your part, but I for one would find such a project compelling enough to lend my time. Currently, I am reading a pro-creationism book by Gish given to me by a creationist friend and have found it to be full of all the standard strawman arguments. I hope to provide my friend with a step by step analysis utilizing the information provided at talk.origns which is why the idea of customized critiques occured to me. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The main
problem with creating customized refutations of individual
works of creationist literature is the massive duplication
of effort that would entail. For the most part, creationist
literature is highly repetitive, with the same arguments
being advanced in numerous publications. That is why,
oftentimes, we find it simpler to provide refutations of
particular creationist arguments which are, with any luck,
extensive enough to apply to any work that argument may
appear in.
However, I personally think that such point-by-point refutations can be immensely informative and valuable. See, for example, our discussions of Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box, Michael Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, and the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication Life: How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or Creation? I know that the Archive would welcome the contribution of additional reviews, critiques, or point-by-point analyses of any other works. If we collect enough such reviews, the reader's suggestion to collect them all under one link seems eminently sensible to me. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | By including the phrase, "exploring the creation/evolution controversy", the name of your web site is misleading since you obviously are not unbiased in this "exploration". A perusal of your articles makes it abundantly clear that your real intent is to promote evolutionary theory and debunk creationism. I haven't read every article you have listed, but none that I have seen offers anything close to a supportive view of creationism. A little more even-handedness would be appreciated. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | On the very first page of the archive it says:
"This archive is a collection of articles and essays,
most of which have appeared in talk.origins at one time or
another. The primary reason for this archive's existence is
to provide mainstream scientific responses to the
many frequently asked questions (FAQs) and frequently
rebutted assertions that appear in talk.origins."
That's on the very same page as "exploring the
creation/evolution controversy".
And on the welcome page it says: "The Talk.Origins Archive is a collection of articles and essays that explore the creationism/evolution controversy from a mainstream scientific perspective. In other words, the authors of most of the articles in this archive accept the prevailing scientific view that the earth is ancient, that there was no global flood, and that evolution is responsible for the earth's present biodiversity." And on the feedback page from which you posted this message it says: "Please note: Before sending feedback to comment on a perceived bias of the Talk.Origins Archive, please read the archive's Welcome page." So evidently you did not read the title page, or the welcome page, or the note on the feedback page. The archive makes no false pretense at "even-handedness" (why would anybody want to be "even-handed" about stupidity anyway??). This archive is clearly and plainly marked in italic and bold face as a repository for mainstream science. Thank you for reading the archive so carefully. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Read this first: Evolution is a joke, and your lame excuses for this want-a-be idea of how life formed it a joke. Life is very complex, you know I'm sure that the "simple cell" hasn't been completely figured out yet. Something living can just appear right?, then why don't we see things that aren't so complex appear? Ridiculous right? Getting the point? Oh, I forgot, things millions or billions of years ago were different. How many people over the years said that the Bible won't stand the test of time? I not seeing people pointing out why the Bible can't be the word of God. Where's the focus on that? Ancient Manuscripts prove it, Archaeology proves it, it's predictions and statistics prove it. I can't wait to here your well thought out response! Thanks for your time. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | My well
thought out response? To what? I really didn't see
any well thought out questions or statements in your
message. I think you need to do some basic research into
what you're trying to criticize. Try
Evolution for Beginners.
This website is not concerned with attacking the theological teachings of the bible. However, certain specific statements within the bible must be taken allegorically or metaphorically in the light of real scientific findings... such as the total lack of evidence of a worldwide flood. This site is not about theology, it is about science, in particular, biology and geology. There are many Christian evolutionists. Why do you think they accept the findings of science? Have they all been tricked by wicked evolutionists? Here is a list of religious organizations that have publically come out in support of evolution:
You might re-examine your basis for rejecting the compatability of science with your religious beliefs. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I do enjoy
reading through the pages here. But I have a question, that
Science (As we know it) has not answered.
Let us say that lightning, striking the early earth, does produce some amino acids.....and they happen to meet before either sinking to the bottom of the ocean, or floating to the top, where they would be oxidized be the earth's atmosphere. How does one explain the posibility, of getting that first cell? Given that it manages to find (and combine) all 20 amino acids (In the right order)....and just happens to come across lipids to form a Double lipid layer to keep all it's insides put, and happens to find RNA also (among other things which I won't go into). How do you explain this? I believe it was Einstein that said........."Science without religion is lame, and Religion without science is blind" he later said. And above all, if evolution doesn't care HOW the first cell got here, then why is it so hard for one to believe in God? Why are most Evolutionists so hell-bent on "there is NO God". An explanation of any kind would be helpful. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Philosophy |
Response: |
The scenario you describe is known as the Oparin hypothesis and was for a time the leading view of the origins of life. It is no longer. Please check out the publications below for a more up to date view. Lipids were probably generated as a byproduct of early biological processes, and we know they tend to form cellular-like structures spontaneously, so they'd very probably incorporate the molecules that produce them. It is not necessary to think that the first organisms were cells, nor that they had a double lipid layer, nor even that they included RNA (they might have used a protein-based molecule set at first). Life is thought these days to have arisen not in the open ocean but underground, in a hot and chemical rich environment, perhaps on a silicate foundation to enable the first molecules of life to form. There is a lot of work being done. You can review it by reading some of these papers:
The theory of evolution applies only when there are already structures that are copied and which use energy to do so and to persist. It therefore is entirely neutral as to whether God or some prebiotic process is the reason why life arose - since then it has been an evolutionary process. As it happens, I think that Darwinian evolution phased in along with reproduction of chemical cycles, and so there will not be a sharp divide between them, but the theory is designed to deal with life, not the arrival of life. You might also check out the abiogenesis links at this archive. There is no reason why an evolutionist must reject God, and a good many are believing Christians, Jews and members of other faiths. I hope this helps. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | Does the Big Bang break the Law of Angular Momentum? I mean, how can two planets in our solar system be spinning in different directions? Also, I have found a lot more creationists arguements than you guys have listed in your website. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | The big
bang is a theory of the creation of the universe, which
happened about 15,000,000,000 years ago. The solar system,
on the other hand, is probably only about 4,500,000,000
years old. The big bang is therefore not directly related
to the origin of the solar system.
Now, does the origin of the solar system violate the "law of angular momentum"? No. All of the planets go around the sun in the same direction, as you would expect for any physically reasonable scenario. Only two planets ( Venus and Uranus) spin on their axes in the retrograde sense. The spin of Venus is only slightly retrograde, and it probably migrated from a prograde to a retrograde spin, because the angle of the spin axis is chaotic over large time scales (Venus' Free Obliquity; C.F. Yoder; Icarus 117(2): 250-286, October 1995 and The Chaotic Obliquity of the Planets; J. Laskar & P. Robutel; Nature 361(6413): 608-612, February 18 1993). The spin of Uranus is almost certainly an artifact of a large collision late in the stochastic process of planet formation by accretion of planetesimals (Planet Formation; Jack J. Lissauer; Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 31: 129-174, 1993 and A Possible Constraint to Uranus' Great Collision; A. Brunini; Planetary and Space Science 43(8): 1019- 1021, August 1995). As for creationist arguments, you aren't supposed to find a lot on our site, because our site emphasizes mainstream science, as is clearly spelled out in the Welcome FAQ. However, you will find a considerable list of pro-creation web sites in the Other Web Sites index. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Benjamin |
Comment: | "If life
only comes from life, in your words, then where did the
eternal creator come from? How could a sentient being have
no beginning? Is that reasonable?"
This is from one of your responses. Well, please define eternal. You and I cannot comprehend eternality because everything (on earth) dies. If God is eternal then He had NO beginning. Is that reasonable? How can you be sure it's not reasonable, if according to you, the chemicals in your brain are just a cosmic accident? I could easier believe that in the beginning God... over "in the beginning this . exploded and here I am." God is also far beyond our understanding. We can only glimpse a little about him. I would like to make a point that after you die you will know for sure if there is a God or not. The choice is yours, so far you have chosen to reject God. Better be really sure because eternity is a lot longer than you will ever live on the earth |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | This is going way off topic for the Talk.Origins Archive. If you are comfortable with those ideas, good for you. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Brad |
Comment: | Are ice cores a fool-proof way to prove evolution? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Ice cores have nothing to do with evolution. But they are a fool-proof way to show that Earth is a great deal older than 10,000 years. See Ice Core Dating, right here in the talk.origins archive. Ice layers reach back well over 100,000 years, but other similar features, such as tidal rhythmites or varves extend back hundreds of millions of years. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | A comment on "Introductory to Evolutionary Biology" From the paper: "The process of evolution can be summarized in three sentences: Genes mutate. [gene: a hereditary unit] Individuals are selected. Populations evolve." Your example of the the English moth, Biston betularia, as you state is a common example of evolution, but is rejected by Creationists as such because it does not fit your own definition. To reject the "evolution" of the moth population, would be paramount to rejecting the concept of breeding. (Thus the gene pool change seen in the dalmations over the past 100 years would also be an example of evolution.) This "example" is seen as being used to play a shell-game with the definition. Can you replace that example in your article with an example that has all three aspects of evolution? There have been many generations of fruit flies in the laboratory, there must be at least one example of documented evolution. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Breeding
is an example of evolution, if it changes the
gene pool of the population being bred. That creationists
get confused and believe "evolution" to mean "speciation,"
or "common descent," or "naturalism," or even something
else, is neither the fault nor responsibility of
biologists.
As for documented examples of speciation, see the Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ and the Some More Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | We have three different editons of Origin of the Species in our library and all three have a different last sentence than the one published in your online version. Is there some question as to what that last line should be? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | There were
six editions of the Origin, and Darwin did change the final
sentence a couple of times. I think that the phrase "by the
Creator" was inserted in the third edition.
There was a discussion of this point in talk.origins earlier this year. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | Hi, one thing got me real mad. In the topic about evolution of a horse, the author should of read the Bible before saying smth. He said that did God kill the mesohippus and than create the blah, blah...NO! He created the normal horse at once and all the fossils you found are not real, they are just the bones of some old ponies or something like that. Can't you see that evolution is nonesence? Why do you guys close your eyes at the truth? I think the truth (Bible) is much better then to think that you came from stinkin' monkeys. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | What is
needed here is to set aside your emotion and take an
objective look at this evidence. You must ask yourself:
"How have scientists come to this conclusion?" Are those
fossils truly just the bones of "some old ponies"? No. Look
at them very closely.
I think what's going on is that you just don't like the idea that your ancestors were non-human primates, are you are willing to "close your eyes" to the evidence and the conclusions of trained professionals, no matter what. Should all research into the evolution of life be halted, because the bible doesn't mention it? Should science be suppressed because you don't like the idea that at some point in the history of life, your predecessors were not human? |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Regarding the Genesis Interpretations, and a posting I saw somewhere else on these pages: I do not believe you spend enough time on the most plausible answer. The Bible is completely true in its original texts. (Different groups have the habit of misinterpreting it.) The earth was created in exactly seven 24-hour days. But now let's suppose for a moment that you are God. And you created everything. Would you create all the birds in their eggs? Would you create Adam and Eve as babies? Of course not. How could they care for themselves? You would create them full grown. Or at least in their adolescence. In the same way the earth was created full grown, with a past already existing. There was a coment in one of the FAQs that said if it was created with a past it should be treated as if it had been made that way and not created out of nothing. This particular theory allows for both creationists and evolutionists to exist. Just think of it. No more fanatical creationists banging their heads against a wall trying to get you to say evolution is all lies. Creationists can go on about believing that God made it all, and evolutionists can go and find out how it would have happened naturally if God had chosen to do it that way. This "theory" seems to be overlooked and could help avoid a lot of pain. |
Responses | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
Adam has succinctly described Gosse's thesis from the 1857 book, Omphalos. This work was the subject of an essay by Stephen Jay Gould some time ago, but Adam should look it up. Omphalos means "navel", and asks and answers the question, "If Adam and Eve were created instead of born, did they have navels?" Gosse's answer was, "Yes". The argument is that the right and correct way to create things is with the appearance of age. One reason that this work is not as widely known as it might be is that it received a large helping of criticism, and not just from secular sources. Theists despised it in droves, for if the Creator made things such that they would mislead humans into error concerning their origins, then a necessary conclusion is that that Creator is, at basis, being deceptive. Theists mostly discard Omphalism as an apologetic in preference for retaining the theological theme that the Creator is not deceptive. Some modern anti-evolutionary creationists prefer to accept the theological theme of deception and retain the Omphalos apologetic. It is not an unalloyed positive, though. Wesley |
From: | |
Response: | Wesley puts it well. Moreover, consider this from a Christian viewpoint: who in the Bible is described as the "Lord of Lies"? |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Bob |
Comment: | few questions: So you think the world is flat? Why do we still have a moon? So you think nothing turned into something? Have you ever seen a rock come alife? Have you ever seen a mutated frog turn into something else? So you have explored the Congo Swamp? So you are worth nothing; is that what you are saying? How come you have not found any transitional forms? Are you a macro or micro evolutionist? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Wow, so many
difficult questions... let me see... No, I don't think the
world is flat. We still have a moon because there is no
reason why we should not. No, nothing does not turn into
something. No, I have never seen a rock come alive, nor do
I know of anyone who says rocks do. I have never seen a
mutated frog "turn into something else", nor does evolution
require that animals turn into other animals, if that's
what you mean. No, I've never explored the Congo Swamp, but
it sounds interesting! Are you offering to take me? I am
not worth nothing... I am worth a lot,
especially to my wife, kids and friends. There are loads
of transitional fossils that have been found... how
come YOU don't know about them? Macro or Micro? Sounds like
you've visited
Kent Hovind's goofy website. There are NO Micro
evolutionists and there are NO macro evolutionists.
Evolution is just evolution. Micro/macro is a smokescreen
to divert your attention from the fact that evolution is
solid.
You need to learn a few things before you go embarrasing yourself like this again. Evolution does not say that life came from nothing, or from a rock. Animals don't mutate into other animals. Individuals do not evolve, species do. The flat earth thing is not worth commenting on. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Having been raised in a strict Christian home, I was brain washed into believing the THEORY of creation. I knew in my heart that the things I had been taught could not possibly be true. Thank you for exposing these so-called scientists as the frauds that they are. They really need to sit back, smoke a big joint, and re-evaluate their views regarding the origins of life on this planet. Granted, finding the puzzle is easy. Putting it together is difficult. But the more pieces that are discovered, the easier it gets to assemble! |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | One thing: creationism isn't a theory. It is the dream of creationists that their jumble of pseudoscience will someday be elevated to the level of a scientific theory. But a theory must be testable in some way, and make some predictions, and be supported by physical evidence. It must also, from a philosophical viewpoint, be falsifiable. For example, no creationist has ever answered the question: What observation or evidence, hypothetically, would disprove the creation hypothesis? So far, the only answer has been "nothing could". |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | I got this
from your feedback: "But 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 geologic difficulties, real or
imagined, can be allowed to take precedence over the clear
statements and necessary inferences of Scripture." Henry
Morris, _Biblical Cosmology and Modern Science_ (1970)
p.32-33
Amen!!! I do believe at one time archeaologists scoffed at the Bible because they talked about Hittites. Well, when the Hittite civilizations in Turkey were found, OOPS, hee hee, we made a big mistake, the Bible was right! There are many more stories like this of people believing the Bible for what it says. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The
statement of Henry Morris is the most damaging thing to
creationism he could have said.
The main reason for insisting on any event as a historical fact must always be the evidence that substantiates it. That is so in history, and even more so in science. Morris' statement absolutely disqualifies creationism as any sort of science, and places it firmly in the realm of theology. He said "No geological difficulty, real or imagined..." He is saying that if the evidence shows that events occurred differently than how it appears in the bible, the evidence should be rejected out of hand. In other words, don't bother questioning the bible, because it's right-- period. When reality conflicts with scripture, it's reality that is wrong, not the book. So creationists go out in search of only what supports their theology, while childishly ignoring every observation that contradicts it. It is said that: "When the evidence contradicts the theory, the scientist rejects the theory. The theologian rejects the evidence." This is certainly the case with creationism. Regarding the universal flood, you should read this page that I just finished, What Would We Expect to Find if the Earth had Flooded? |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Bill Harper |
Comment: | Where did all the matter in the universe come from? This creationists keeps asking me to tell him where it all came from and why is it all spread out if it did come from the big ban. He also used the Law of Angular Momentum and that all of the planets should be spinning in the same direction. I also want to complement you on your well put together site. A lot of hard work has gone into it. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The answer to this question is found earlier in this month's feedback, written by Timothy Thompson in response to a Mr. Carl Wall. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | You have
many interesting and falsifying problems with the Noah
Story, however, there is one more which I came up with.
Unless you consider the "flatter earth" hypothesis, where there were many fewer high mountains in the ante-diluvian era, the height of the water would have to be at least comparable the height of very high mountains, up to the height of Mt. Everest (29,029 feet). The air is MUCH thinner at this height! That means that not only would the temperature of the air surrounding the floating ark be extremely cold, but also extremely low in partial oxygen pressure. This means the environment inside the ark would be very cold, and low in oxygen. That might be OK for the ibexes and bighorn sheep, as well as many birds, but not good for most other animals. Now, I am not certain that these conditions would necessarily occur, but it is definitely something to think about! |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
This is the second time that this criticism of a global Noachic flood has been entered in commentary here. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Water displaces air. If there were a global flood, all the air at current sea level would be displaced. It has to go somewhere. This means that during a global flood, the total air column at any given point on the earth's surface would not be appreciably altered from the normal amount. Please note that a large number of valid criticisms of a global flood exist. Let's use those. Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | BJ |
Comment: | Somebody asked me what evolved first, the insect or the plant it pollinates; the heart, the brain, or the lung; the leaf or the root; the bone, ligament, muscle, or tendon? I didn't know what to say. To say they all happened at once would be too much for an evolving species to accomplish at one time. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | No it
wouldn't. This is called "coevolution". As one feature
evolves, the organism modifies all other structures through
its growth patterns, which are enormously plastic, and as
one species evolves, other species that depend or are in
competition with it also evolve.
Evolution is massively parallel, and does not happen like a chess game, one move at a time. A species consists of thousands to millions of organisms, all reproducing and existing in different ways, no two instances alike. If there's a better combination, it will probably occur within a short period. It's not like a species has to "strive" to evolve. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Very
Interesting Site!
After reading four different articles I began to notice a rather unsettling trend in the way authors were making their point. While this site proposes to be a bastion of mainstream scientific opinion, the authors that I read were using either poor science or poor logic in asserting their points. The most glaring fallacy I saw was the penchant for setting up a "strawman" as the opposition, and then blowing them away. Of course mainstream science is appealing and superior to creation arguments that ignore scientific facts and basic reasoning skills. If scientists were interested in debunking creation/theism theories they should engage the theories that are the most plausable, like the work of design theorists Michael Behe and William Dempski. No credible debator picks the idiot to prove his point on, it only makes him look stupid. Let's be honest in our approach to knowledge! Also, the controversy is between the philosophies of theism and naturalism, and/or between the facts of creation and evolution. It decidedly isn't between philosophy of creationism and the fact of evolution. C. Daniel Rock |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Hello,
I do wish that, instead of making unsupported accusations, you specifically listed the strawmen that you claim to have read, as well as the poor logic and poor science. They are so "glaring" to you, yet you cannot recall a single one long enough to type it out? It seems that a lot of upset readers have this problem. Your criticism that this website only deals with the more ignorant and absurd of the creationist claims needs to be answered. All of the rebuttals on this website are to real arguments of creationists, silly as they seem. The fact is that the common, young-earth creationist is more heavily engaged in attacks on biology and geology, and therefore have a greater volume of material that must be rebutted than does the Old-Earth Creationist or the Intelligent Design Advocate. The "Intelligent Design" advocates (not theorists: there is no ID theory) simply have not advanced any testable science yet... even less than the "idiot" (to use your term) Young Earth Creationists. I.D'ers can't even tell us what a "designed" organism should look like, and what an "undesigned" organism should look like. Basically, their arguments are: "Life is just too complex to have originated on it's own... we can't prove that, but it sure looks that way to us." A common theme among them is: if something is currently unknown, that means it is forever unknowable. I am going to help out all the Intelligent Design advocates: Here is a way to phrase your assertion. Please fill in the [blanks].
The fact is that Behe and Dembski are thoroughly dealt with on this site. You can find that information here and here, and here. |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | I just read
some of your beliefs on supposed evolutionary realities and
you leave out a couple very important considerations. You
give give examples and creedence as to how tornados, and
lightening can go from order to disorder in violation of
the general understanding of the 2nd law of
thermo-dynamics. You fail to consider that "IF" there is a
Creator, His spirit/life-force determines the forces of ALL
of His creation.
Further, you don't mention a thing (that I've seen) about how all the variations of vegatation/plant-life came into existance! How about the various plants that cannot repoduce without fire? A little hard to reconcile with your thesis about "natural selection" don't you think? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | That
"general understanding" of the Second Law of Thermodynamics
is incorrect. Order can and does arise spontaneously from
disorder in many, many situations. See the Thermodynamics FAQs for
details.
Variation in plants comes about through the same mechanisms (mutation, selection, genetic drift, etc.) that it does in other forms of life. Contrary to the reader's assertion, plant evolution is discussed on this archive. See the Introduction to Evolutionary Biology, January 1999 Post of the Month, Observed Instances of Speciation, Some More Observed Speciation Events, and On the Origin of Species, just for starters. True, plant evolution isn't discussed as much here as animal evolution, but that is mostly because creationists tend to ignore plants in their critiques of evolution. As for the reader's comment about fire, few other natural events are likely to be as selective as fire. Imagine a region with a set of plants, some of which are more resistent to fire than others. That resistence can take the form of a quick regrow time, windborne seeds that spread far in the large updrafts of a fire, the ability to survive substantial exterior charring, or whatever the resistence may be. Over time, if the region has frequent wildfires, the plants that have some resistence are more likely to survive and reproduce than those that do not. Many iterations later, you get plant populations that not only survive in frequent wildfires, but actually come to depend on them . |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | All I have
to say is I'm a Christian. I believe in what I was taught
and trust it. What I don't understand is how can you be
cruel about creationism? I understand many give you
attitude about this and All I have to say is I believe in
what I believe you believe in what you believe and as long
as we don't try 'preaching' or 'arguing' we'll be just
fine. thanks!
sincerely, Steph? |
Responses | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
I cannot speak for everyone here, but for myself I could care less about personally held beliefs of whatever type. But when certain theistically motivated anti-evolutionists attempt to have their prsonal beliefs taught in science classrooms as if those beliefs were scientific in nature, I take both umbrage and action. Wesley |
From: | |
Response: | I agree with
Wesley completely. Believe what you will, I do not care. I
do have one additional point for you to ponder.
It is: the suppression of valid science due to the conflict with religious dogma. Valid science was suppressed in the case of heliocentrism, and the theologians of the day succeeded (through threats of violence against scientists) in postponing the sun taking its rightful place at the center of our solar system for about two hundred years. One may make a case that the burning of the Library of Alexandria in 415 A.D., by the followers of Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, was a similar case of the suppression of knowledge due to religious conflict. No case has been more prominent, of course, than when Charles Darwin let the cat out of the bag. Today, we see organized conspiracies to supress the teaching of evolution in public schools-- not because it is bad science, as some creationists assert, but because it represents a threat to the literal intrepretation of Genesis-- and no other reason. They are willing to fabricate any story to make it appear otherwise... clearly a case of the ends justifying the means. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Creationist
theory does not always dispute the facts of evolution, but
more often how they are interpreted. Just because radiation
from the sun and other environmental factors affect the DNA
of an organism to produce changes in it's lineage, doesn't
mean that God did not create life on the Earth. After all
he is God. I'm sure that when he wrote the rules that
govern the universe, Evolution was one of them. The debate
becomes heated when the evolution of man is discussed. The
fossil record is spotty on this subject at best. To say we
evolved from primates is logical, but not certain beyond
the shadow of a doubt. It is a leap of faith (in Darwin).
Recent genetic scans on past humanoid remains refute the
"facts" as presented in the current text book for my
Anthropology class. The fact is; no-one yet knows for sure
what we evolved from, when, how, or even if at all. Another
theory (albiet hard to swallow) is that a race of advanced
beings visited here and performed some genetic engineering
on primate type beings that produced human offspring. While
that theory may be "out there", there is no evidence to
refute it, and some evidence to support it. Therefore it is
as valid as classic Darwinism untill it is refuted by
concrete evidence to the contrary, and if it were to be
true then it is not evolution at all.
I do have a question for the Darwinist though. Why is it you will say that evolution and survival of the fittest is an absolute law of nature (and I'm not saying it isn't), yet at the same time say that it does not apply to man? You encourage "diversity" among humans, yet the Theory of Evolution states that in order for us to be all that we can be (to evolve further as it were) we must carry on the struggle and destroy or drive out the weaker humans. Political hypocracey perhaps? Or perhaps you are bent on destroying us by breaking these laws? Which ever it is you can't have it both ways. That makes your premise invalid, and so therefore are your conclusions. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Evolution and Philosophy |
Response: | Science does
not say or deny that God is involved in any process
whatsoever. Many scientists do believe that God is the
author of the rules that govern the universe. Others do
not. It is a matter of faith not science. See
To say we evolved from primates is not a leap of faith but a reasonable inference from the evidence. There is no reason to infer from the evidence that aliens engineered us (and plenty to refute it - why did these superior beings leave vestigial organs like the caeceum/appendix, and why did they not change structures that are not useful to us such as wisdom teeth?). See Certainty in science is restricted to logical formal implication - that is, maths. All else has the possibility (that is, the logical possibility) that it is wrong. Science is about making the best explanation with the fewest leaps on the best available evidence. Anything else is revelation. See Evolution and Philosophy - Is Evolution Science, and What Does 'Science' Mean? Darwinian theory does not say that selection (and drift and various other mechanisms of biology) does not apply to humans. Some think that selection is relaxed in some human societies (but not, for example, in stressed societies or societies subjected to endemic diseases), but that is also true in some circumstances for non-human organisms. Humans are as evolving now as ever they were, but that doesn't mean they are changing. See |
Feedback Letter | |
Comment: | Ken Harding
said:
"I have a suggestion. To illustrate that Noah's Ark is not a complete and utter fabrication, creationists should duplicate the construction of the vessel- 450 feet long, using comparable materials and similar primitive techniques, with the same amount of manpower, under similar conditions and time frames. Then load it with two of everything." Go climb Mt. Arat!!! |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | The
"discovery" of Noah's Ark was a deliberate hoax. It
was revealed years ago. I'm surprised you still believed
that there was a real Noah's Ark sitting on a mountain in
Turkey. You can read all
about it. It's quite amusing.
You should also read this very revealing paper about why the Global Flood never happened. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | Based on your collective experiences that you have applied to the study of entropy,I am wondering how it may be applied in a production environment. For example if I have a known number of tasks assigned to a known number employees that run within a defined range of productivity and I know what their average time lines are for a specific task (say 4 separate tasks) what would this mathamatical expression look like? In theory given this tool I hope to predict the time=effort to accomplish the stated business objective in the event the number of employees,tasks,average time line/task, or goals changes. This could be used to convey expectations early in a month and allow the participants to prepare better mentally and physically to the needs of the department. I hope. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
Read Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month". Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I guess this a question rather than a comment. I have a fellow teacher on the staff who is a creationist. He is telling students that the creation of the universe came about through something called "quantum fluctuation". What is that about? I have little doubt that this is just another ruse to confuse the real issue but it would be nice to get some details. Thanks |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Punctuated Equilibria |
Response: |
I was hoping our local physics guru would handle this one, but I guess I'll give it a try. Caveat: I do whole animal biology. I've had some physics courses a long time ago. Everything that follows is "if I recall correctly". One of the consequences of quantum physics is a phenomenon which yields particle/anti-particle pairs which exist for a brief time and then annihilate each other. There is no net gain or loss of matter in this case. These are sometimes called "virtual particles", and the reality of their existence is confirmed by such things as the Casimir effect. This is also the basis of Hawking's hypothesis concerning how a black hole may reduce in size over time due to continual anti-particle absorption as these "fluctuations" occur near the event horizon. Your colleague is apparently extrapolating this small-scale quantum phenomenon into a likely means of producing the Big Bang. Yes, we do see fluctuations at the particle/anti-particle pair size. But I don't think anyone has produced evidence for larger-scale "fluctuations". OK, do any of my colleagues have corrections/additions to make? Wesley |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I hope
questions are OK.
If chimpanzees and humans have a common ancestor, but they both have a different number of chromosomal pairs, how could an evolutionary process create extra chromasomes, and if it did, wouldn't there be signs of under-developed vestigal chromosomes in some species? |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Questions
are fine. I hope you find the answers to be OK, too.
The short answer to your question is that one of the chromosome pairs in humans lines up with two pairs of chromosomes in chimpanzees and other great apes. Where humans have one long piece, the other apes have two short ones. See my answer to Linjun Xu in the July 1998 Feedback for a more complete discussion. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | |
Comment: | I found your website to be intriguing, but as I browsed through the archives I found many misrepresented statements. Yes, some appeared bias, but that is the right of the creators of this site, and everyone, creationists and evolutionists are bias to some extent when it comes to their beliefs. To make this as short as possible, the "conventional" scientific beliefs, as you describe them, are all contradictory of each other because they are not science at all, by the definition of science itself. What cannot be observed cannot be considered science, and therefore can't be considered fact, as conventional scientists would wish!!!! I wish to get any kind of feedback possible and will continue to give my feedback in the future. |
Response | |
From: | |
Response: | Finally,
someone who read our statement about bias before
responding.
Perhaps the reader could explain more fully what it is about the theory of evolution that he feels cannot be observed, and moreover, why other indirect evidence cannot take the place of direct observations. Scientists are pretty good about finding evidence to take the place of direct observation when direct observation is not possible or practical due to human limitations. For example, no one has directly observed the nucleus of an atom, but we can investigate the properties of nuclei through other means, such as by banging them together. And some things we have observed. See, for example, the Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ. |
Feedback Letter | |
From: | Carl Wall |
Comment: | Where did all of the matter and energy in the world come from? I know the Big Bang is an idea, but by that idea the universe would be slowing down by now. Then again, according to the theory of Relativity the universe had a starting point. |
Response | |
From: | |
Author of: | Creation Science and the Earth's Magnetic Field |
Response: | Nobody knows
where the energy that made up the initial event we call the
"big
bang" came from. However, we can know how that energy
turned into the matter and energy we see in the universe
today, in principle. In practice, it's not quite so easy,
as there are a lot of questions to answer. However, the
very successful COBE
mission has expanded our understanding of the universe a
great deal, and follow-on missions such as NASA's upcoming
Microwave Aniosotropy Probe (MAP), and the European Space Agency's
PLANCK mission
will probably nail down the definitive link between cosmic
background radiation and the big bang, and that in turn
will establish the conditions needed to understand
big bang nucleosynthesis, the process whereby the
initial light nuclei of the universe (H, He, Li, Be) were
formed.
The big bang theory in general does not imply that the universe should be slowing its expansion. Whether the universal expansion continues constant forever, or slows asymptotically to zero at infinity, or stops and reverses into a contraction, or continues to accelerate and expand more rapidly as time goes on, depends entirely on the details of specific models. The big bang as a general theory allows for any of these to happen, but which is in reality the case can only be settled by observation. Current observation suggests that the universe will expand forever and never stop, and there is growing evidence that the universe is actually speeding up its expansion with time and now expands faster than it did in the past. General relativity does not imply that the universe had a starting point. The theory only implies that the universe cannot be static, but must be dynamic, either expanding or contracting; and either could be part of an eternal cycle (such as the alternative quasi-steady state cosmology of Fred Hoyle and others; see A Different Approach to Cosmology, by Burbidge, Hoyle & Narlikar; Physics Today, v52(4): pp38-44 (April 1999); and Reply to A Different Approach to Cosmology, by Andreas Albrecht, pp 44-46 in the same issue of Physics Today). It is the big bang interpretation of observational cosmology that implies the universe has a starting point. That big bang interpretation is necessarily consistent with general relativity, but it is from the big bang and not general relativity that we derive the implication of a starting point. |