Feedback for June 1999

You have summed up the two camps quite well, actually. But it isn't just evolutionists, but all of the scientific community that has given over to this absurd notion that physical evidence is the final authority. That's why science is science, and faith is faith. What's been proved? Much has, through mainstream scientific methodology.

"So? I've never seen a big bang, a monkey become a man, a world appear by spoken word, or Ken's brain. What does that prove? Nothing, really."

Actually, it proves a lot. When I said I have never heard of any authentic event that truly qualifies as supernatural, that is a broad statement. That includes all the claims of the paranormal and/or supernatural. There has never been any substantial evidence that there even ARE things that could be called supernatural. Think about that. All we know of the world is that it works by natural processes that we (for the most part) understand. The Big Bang has left substantial physical evidence, so much so that those academics who spend their lives studying the subject are of the concensus that it actually happened. A monkey never became a man, but humans did evolve from non-human primates, and there is more than enough evidence to accept that statement. You can hook up electrodes to my skull and see that I have brainwaves... or you can cut open my skull (after I'm dead, please) and see with your own eyes that I have a brain. But the other statement, a world appeared by a spoken word, is something that defies everything we know to be true about the universe, and contradicts a mountain of physical and theoretical evidence. We can never observe such a thing, it is not even suggested by any astronomical research, and we cannot even speculate about the processes by which it might have happened. Is it really a question worth pursuing?

I agree with you that in the end, creationists will not accept physical evidence as an authority over the Bible and evolutionists will not accept the authority of a book over physical evidence.

A very saddened commentator.

Generally, pages here address issues which come up a lot; when Noah's Ark comes up, proponents usually insist on a planetary deluge.

Not that a limited deluge is free of problems: why bother with the animals or the ark at all? Noah could have just moved to some nearby high mountain to wait out the flood and then return home. That'd have to be easier and faster than chopping down thousands of trees to build an ark.

Many students of the Bible (myself among them) would rather have a parable about a real planetary flood than a historical account of somebody who built a boat to no good purpose. But that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.

Beyond the staggeringly immoral and illogical implications of this horrific story, the alleged Great Flood would have been such a catastrophic event that it would have left unmistakable, unambiguous traces. But none of that evidence can be found. The Flood of Noah is a complete myth, and nothing more.

If you have accepted that the first man was created from dust, and the first woman was made from his rib, YOUR problems have only just begun. Time for a reality check! And it's none of your business what other Christians believe.

What if I am wrong, and everything you believe comes out to be true, and I am standing before some Day of Judgment? What would I do then? I would walk up with a clear conscious and say; "I was mistaken." And if God were about to pass judgment upon me, what would I say? I would say to Him: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Why not? I am told that I must do good for evil, that if I am struck upon one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must love my enemies-- and it is acceptable for this God, who tells me to love my enemies, to damn His? No, it will not do.

What is really important is WHY one rejects the bible. If it is clear that the bible contradicts observable evidence, then it should be rejected, at least as a literal history textbook.

All of this assumes that (a) there is a planet, and (b) there are living things on it. Where the planet came from is arguably a relevant tangent, but the development of matter itself isn't really our department.

The web site you refer to talks about "evolutionist's" ideas about the formation of the solar system -- but few of the biologists I'm aware of, and none of the evolutionary biologists I've spoken with, really to know a whole lot about astronomy.

What you may be misunderstanding is that the mainstream scientific view of Earth's history isn't just "evolution" out to get everybody. It's a bunch of largely unrelated fields: astronomy, geology, biology, physics, archaeology, and a few others. Even if you proved conclusively that the astronomers are wrong about the development of the solar system, that wouldn't have much of an effect on biology or geology. In order to upset the modern mainstream views, you'd have to systematically attack dozens of scientific fields, and undermine literally thousands of unrelated scientific results. I don't know any single person who could come close to being an expert on so many disparate topics: in fact, the responsible scientists I've known are generally unwilling to speak authoritatively out of their own field.

You might consider that few books on programming bother to explain how semiconductors work: programmers just need to use the computers. They don't have to worry too much about the physics which makes them possible. Similarly, once you have a geologically-active planet with living things on it, you can study the history of that planet's geology and biology. If it's the existence of matter you're concerned about, I think you probably want to find a debate with a theoretical physicist. We have an astronomer or two, and maybe one of them will get in touch. But most of the people who answer these bits of feedback, if I remember aright, tend toward biology and geology. So any flaws in theories about the solar system don't really have anything to do with us. 8-)

The trees come in with regards specifically to radiocarbon dating. Here, it is not the decay rate that is in question, but rather the relative abundance of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere. Radiocarbon dating is based on a measure of the ratio of Carbon-14 to its decay product Nitrogen-14, but requires a knowledge of the initial abundance in the sample of Carbon-14. The Carbon-14 comes from the atmosphere, and is known to be quite variable in abundance over time. Enter the trees. The short story is that the annual growth ring production of many kinds of tree is well understood. By measuring the relative abundance in the tree rings of Carbon-14, one calibrates the system by characterizing the change in abundance over time directly. This process is not limited to living trees, and so is not limited to 5000 years. There are known tree-ring chronologies that go back at least 11,000 years. But more recent research has extended the calibration of radiocarbon dating well beyond that range, by going beyond the limited tree-ring chronologies. See, for instance, "Atmospheric radiocarbon calibration to 45,000 yr BP: Late glacial fluctuations and cosmogenic isotope production", H. Kitagawa & J. van der Plicht; Science 279(5354): 1187-1190, FEB 20 1998). Kitagawa & van der Plicht, and others, have extended the calibration of radiocarbon dating over essentially its entire feasible range of about 50,000 years. While this is interesting, it does not much bear either on the question of the age of the Earth, nor on the radiometric ages of fossils in excess of about 50,000 years old.

Is it a "leap of faith" to assume that radioactive decay rates do not vary? Why? We know that radioactive decay rates do not in fact vary, with the exceptions already noted, under any observed or observable conditions. It seems to me that if we are going to get bothered about assumptions, it makes a lot more sense to assume that what we see is the norm, rather than what we don't see, and that's a big deal to me. Young-Earth creationists are required to assume that radioactive decay rates vary, even when they are in fact never known or observed to do so. Why is this a better and more scientific assumption than the alternative, the assumption that radioactive decay rates behave the way we observe them to behave?

Finally, I make reference to my own Radiometric Dating Resource List. I have put together a thorough listing of every web-accesible resource I could find on the matter of radiometric dating. You can peruse the various resources and learn about radiometric dating in as much mathematical & physical detail as you wish.

It is the sort of straw man argument that forms the basis of creationist propaganda. The more misinformation that they can disperse, the more people they can mislead to their side of the argument.

The correct statement is that humans and apes share a common ancestor.

It is unfortunate that your sensibilities were offended, but I'm afraid that cannot be helped. The bible makes statements that can be tested against reality, such as the Great Flood, and examination of the physical world makes it quite clear that the bible is wrong, plain and simple, once and for all. That is, if you take the story literally. Many take it metaphorically.

How can a man judge or question GOD? The same way I can judge or question anything else. With my reasoning mind.

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
   - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President and writer of the Declaration of Independence, in a letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787

You can rant all you want about blasphemy, but this is America. I will continue to question all I want, and discuss it with others. Hasn't God ever heard of the First Amendment, and the right of free speech?

If you want to believe you are made from Adam's rib, that is your choice. If you think the bible is without error, you need to read it more objectively. Watch the insults, Tammy. What about "Love thine enemies"? Have you read the bible from cover to cover this year? Well I have.

This struck me as odd:

"...for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever." -Jeremiah 3:12
"Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn forever." (God speaking) -Jeremiah 17:4

Have a nice day.

The study of evolutionary biology, like any other science, is technical and often complicated. Striking a balance between simplicity and completeness is difficult, and sometimes we fail. We welcome specific suggestions from readers on how to present the information here more clearly. In the meantime, I suggest readers examine the main talk.origins FAQ, the Five Major Misconceptions About Evolution FAQ, the Introduction to Evolutionary Biology FAQ, and the What is Evolution? FAQ.

Imagine for a moment, if you can, people looking at the issue of our origins with a very neutral mindset, accepting only what the evidence suggests, not allowing their personal beliefs to influence their theories. Imagine someone who has lain aside their pride long enough to examine both sides of the question in an unprejudiced manner.

You are now looking at the evolutionist, using methodological materialism. He or she can be a Christian of any variety, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or an atheist. There is no religous dogma to protect. He or she refuses to rely upon supernatural explanations, but only upon that which can be tested and examined, even if he or she believes in the supernatural. That is methodolgical materialism, and it is the only way to honestly proceed in science.

Scientific theories stand or fall by the strength of the evidence over time.

I'm glad you have gotten some benefit from these pages. Keep on questioning.

Your question would be better directed at Internet Infidels.

You have a hunger for facts, I can tell. But sadly, it is you who have been misled, away from science.

Evolution is NOT based completely on chance. Louis Pasteur's law of biogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. Your probability calculation is meaningless. There is much more to evolution than you have been told.

There are no real missing links. There are a few undiscovered fossils that will someday fill a few gaps. The theory is in no danger. The world is four and a half billion years old.

I wish I could sit down for a couple hours and have a good talk with you. It's a shame to see this happen.

The circle of the earth that you refer to in scripture is the disc-shaped flat world of the Babylonians. People 3500 years ago thought the world was flat, and made numerous claims of such.

There are many Christians who accept the truth of evolution, and who are not shaking their "puny little fists" at God. In fact, there are far more Christian evolutionists than atheistic ones. What would you say to them?

I hope someday you will be able to break out of your belief system long enough to get a grasp of the real world.

I must admit for myself that I have never quite understood why a person would require evidence to "prove" something that should be a matter of faith.

There are people out there successfully pointing out the problems of the bible because there are other people out there claiming that it is a book without error, and is historically and scientifically accurate. Some scholars estimate that there are at least one hundred thousand errors in the bible.

1) Why was the bible written? Probably to provide laws to the Jewish tribe. It's filled with over 400 Mosaic Laws and punishments.

2) We came from life. Where did that life come from? Read and find out. Where are we going? That's not really the subject of this website. You can still be a Christian and accept evolution.

3) Why can't we feed ourselves? Most importantly, there are too many of us. Y6B is approaching (the Year of Six Billion).

4) What kind of meaningless question is that? I have my own reasons, you have yours, as does everyone else. Is there some reason we should not? What are you trying to prove?

5) That is the same question as #1. Here is another answer: to provide an explanation to savage primitives as to the origins of the world they saw around them. They invented origin myths just like every other ancient culture.

I'm trying to save the $3.99 per minute...

It in my opinion would be inappropriate for this site to affiliate to any site or ring that has a strong position on matters that are religious, because we several times argue that views on religion are not a formal consequnce of scientific theories and investigations.

See the God and Evolution FAQ, the Interpretations of Genesis FAQ and the Evolution and Philosophy FAQ.

Since many are offended by rationalism, and not all of them are irrationalists or revelationists, it would send the wrong message to those who merely wish to learn what evolutionary biology is about and what it means.

Thanks anyway

You might want to direct it to the Internet Infidels website.

But note this: fitter for what? Why, to resist disease, predators, war, starvation and the conditions of slavery, and all the other selection coefficients to which they, but not other populations have been exposed. There is no sense of "absolutely better" that makes evolutionary sense.

The rate of the effects of selection varies according to the selection coefficient (that is, how "hard" the selection is for that trait) and the effective population size (how many are breeding). Smaller populations are more liable to have traits spread just because of chance than bigger ones, and so chance can overwhelm selection.

Speciation, or the divergence of one population from the configuration of the parent species, can take as few as a couple of generations or as many as 10,000. There's no set number. Statistically significant change is also variable, and depends, as I said, on a range of factors.

I suspect a motive for this question, although I cannot tell which way you are wanting to go, so let me say this: there is insufficient variation within the human species for any population to be classed as an incipient species. We are all the same sort of animal, and we vary less overall than a single chimpanzee troop, possibly because we went through a genetic bottleneck around 200,000 years ago.

Jared Diamond's excellent book Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years outlines how disease resistance may arise from close proximity to pathogen carrying domestic livestock such as pigs, and that populations that have not been exposed to these diseases are susceptible to epidemics that decimate them.

The feedback and responses are also copyrighted by their individual authors. The remainder of this Web site, unless otherwise stated, is the copyright of Brett Vickers, the site maintainer.

I have no authority to speak for everyone who has contributed to this site, but most have no problem with someone reprinting an article without modification, so long as they are given credit. Selected quotations, of course, fall under a "fair use" exception anyway.

You have been misinformed by those who would have you believe that there are no transitional fossils. There are. Plenty of them- more than enough to accept the fact of macroevolution.

Fossil Hominids.

Hundreds of Transitional Fossils.

The Archaeopteryx FAQS.

Please read these (and other) FAQS before again making such a wildly inaccurate and fallacious statement.

All this is to say that even if evolution were demonstrated to be 100% false, that wouldn't mean Christian-based "scientific creationism" would automatically be true. Why not Islamic Turkish creationism?

The following biography is listed for him:

John Warwick Montgomery is Professor of Law and Humanities at the University of Luton, England, and Director of its Human Rights Centre. He annually conducts the University's International Seminar in Jurisprudence and Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Professor Montgomery holds eight earned degrees besides the LL.B.: the A.B. with distinction in Philosophy (Cornell University; Phi Beta Kappa), B.L.S. and M.A. (University of California at Berkeley), B.D. and S.T.M. (Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio), M. Phil. in Law (University of Essex, England), Ph.D. (University of Chicago), and the Doctorat d'Université from Strasbourg, France. Before moving to the United Kingdom, he served on the faculty of the University of Chicago and was Chairman of the Department of History at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. He is a barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, England; member of the California, Virginia, Washington State, and District of Columbia Bars and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Dr. Montgomery is the author of over one hundred scholarly journal articles and more than forty books in English, French, Spanish and German.

The University of Luton does not seem to have any listing for him on its faculty pages, but they may just be out of date. A picture of him and a mailing list on his works can be found at John Warwick Montgomery.

Everyone who volunteers time to respond to feedback chooses the questions he or she wishes to address. Maybe they get tired of writing the same thing over and over...

Some of the "anti-bible" articles are written by Christians who view those parts of the bible, such as Noah's Ark, as metaphorical, not literal.

And that's not to even mention what astronomy and cosmology teaches us about the universe.

Borel died in 1956; 1962 is the date of the translation of his book into English. The original work is from 1943:

There also appears to have been a 1950 edition in French. I'll see if I can obtain a copy of the book.

Similarly, when I was in school (when there was still a USSR) we studied about Marx and Lenin and their ideas. Not that they were something we were supposed to adopt, but just that these were important and influential ideas.

Would some variation on that idea suffice?

If you do not have access to a newsserver that carries the talk.origins newsfeed, the second-best alternative is to access the newsgroup from a Web-based newsservice such as Deja or reference.com. At one time, DejaNews would not allow posting to moderated newsgroups such as talk.origins; I don't know if that is still the case, but reference.com did allow such postings.

Many people may use the term evolution in the fashion the reader describes. Many people also use the term incorrectly. We use the definition that biologists use: Evolution is a change in the genetic makeup of a population of organisms over time. I am sorry if the reader feels misled, but if so, he has been misled by those using the term incorrectly. See the What is Evolution? FAQ, the Introduction to Evolutionary Biology FAQ, and the Evolution is a Fact and a Theory FAQ.

Evolution most certainly is mainstream science. It forms the underpinning of biology; to quote the great naturalist Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Without evolution, biology is merely taxonomy; with evolution, biologists see trends, make predictions, and understand the reasons for the evidence we see. The facts upon which evolutionary theory is based have been known for longer than 150 years; relationships between living species and fossil remains were known before Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Even the reader's assertion that "creation"--i.e., Christian-based creationism--is the mainstream view worldwide is utterly false; the overwhelming majority of humans are not even Christians, let alone creationists.

Evolution is based on the physical evidence that we see. Scientists from around the world publish their results in peer-reviewed journals; discrepancies and errors usually don't survive long, and when they are found, it is through the uncovering of new evidence. It isn't just made up to make us "make sense of everything." In fact, it doesn't make sense of everything, nor is it intended to.

And I'd rather believe that I am completely bulletproof and won't die if I stick my head underwater for thirty minutes, but wishing just don't make it so. Both we humans and chimpanzees evolved from earlier simian ancestors; this much is clear from genetic evidence, morphological comparisons, and fossil finds. See this comparison of fossil skulls, for example.

One can accept evolution and still believe the Bible, as many of those who have contributed to this site can attest to and as the God and Evolution FAQ discusses. This isn't a theological site, but the reader might want to examine a site discussing Biblical errancy before making such blanket assertions.

The reader also assumes too much in thinking that we don't go to church. Many of those who contribute to this site do so, with regularity. Evolution is not atheism and never has been. For one, atheism has been around much, much longer.

Finally, if the reader had examined our Other Links page, he would have seen that we have links to both sites mentioned. Critiques of Kent Hovind's loopy claims and the slightly more coherent claims of Answers In Genesis can be found in numerous places on this site using the site's search facility. We do invite our readers to examine the claims made on those sites, compare them with ours, and most importantly, check them against the primary scientific literature.

According to the medical texts I have been able to examine, the modern scientific view of the creation of human beings is not unlike your summary of evolution: God may exist, but if so He does nothing we can identify in the formation of human beings. A sperm meets an egg, biological operations take place, and we're done.

Few if any theologians dispute the medical description of the physical operations involved in conception, gestation, and birth -- even though these medical descriptions have in them not one word of space for the actions of God.

Do you believe that you are the result of mechanistic, naturalistic gestation? Or do you reject all this medical "gestation" mumbo-jumbo and claim that you are a creation of God?

Or do you think that God can work through the natural world to achieve his ends?

And if God can create individual people through the biological processes described for us by modern science, why can't he also create entire species through biological processes?

It's all right here. How much more plain does it have to be before you will accept it? Or will you never accept any evidence, no matter how strong it is, because it conflicts with your interpretation of your religious beliefs?

I direct this question to creationists reading this: What would convince you? Anything at all? Or nothing? Are you really open to learning? Or do you pride yourself in your knee-jerk rejection of all things that even remotely conflict with a literalist view of the bible?

How about a half-reptile and half-bird? It really doesn't get any more plain than this.

You mention speculation and fraud. There is always some speculation in all areas of science. What of it? It is through speculation that the truth is obtained. But FRAUD? In the area of transitional fossils? Do you think that Archaeopteryx is a lizard with feathers glued on? Beyond "Piltdown Man" (which was exposed by evolutionists) I challenge you to name one fraud. Or did you just make that up, as I suspect?

If you are open, as you say, I might suggest my Evolution Education Resource Center. It is written for ordinary people with no previous scientific background.

Your "slavery analogy" is a false analogy. There are no court decisions preventing slavery from being discussed or debated in history class. Slavery advocates have not repeatedly attempted to bring their teachings into a prohibited environment. Creationism has been prohibited from being taught as science. It is NOT prohibited from being discussed in a comparative religion course. That's where it belongs.

Using debates about creationism vs. evolution IS INDEED a way to sneak creationism back into science class-- introducing its so-called "scientific" arguments against evolution. As far as infiltration... someone first came up with the idea of a debate... and I'll bet it wasn't an evolutionist. We nothing to gain from such an encounter-- our battle's already been won. In my opinion, it was an illegal infiltration. In such a debate, creationists get all their fallacious, religiously-based arguments presented as surely and completely as if they had read them from a textbook. They knew what they were doing.