Refuting a refutation of supposed attacks on evolution

On my joint-owned blog, The Truth About Macroevolution, we had a comment left by a John Connolly that, instead of giving evidence for evolutionism, gave 15 rebuttals of what he considered to be creationist attacks on evolution.

As far as we can tell, he copied the article verbatim from The Scientific American. John Rennie, the editor in chief of the Scientific American, wrote the article in early 2002. The full editorial can be viewed here.

Since this article is rather long, I won’t post the entire thing here. Instead, I’ll respond point-by-point, email style, significantly cutting down the original.

When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution’s truth beyond reasonable doubt.

“Massing evidence.”. Isn’t it strange that no matter how much I beg them, evolutionists have yet to present one valid point of evidence that can even come close to holding water?

Some anti-evolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a “wedge” for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God.

Schools are supposed to teach objective truth. If it is obvious to the reasonable person (scientist, layman, etc.) that it is objectively true that God created the universe, shouldn’t it be taught in schools?

Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism.

It is of interest that the majority of cases concerning this issue deal with teachers that are “besieged” by the government and by secular science in an attempt to stop them from teaching the truth of Creation.

Next, The Scientific American lists 15 common arguments against evolution and their summary “refutations”.

1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.

He goes on to give a long analysis explaining that when scientists call something a “theory”, it doesn’t mean that it is a theory along the lines of the scientific method or that they distrust it; it is a theory just like the Theory of General Relativity. I understand that. However, we contend that evolution never even made it past hypothesis level; it is a theory along the lines of the scientific method only if you give it quite a bit of slack (see my article for further explanation). In subsequent defense against the allegation that evolution relies on indirect evidence:

All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in
cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make
physicists’ conclusions less certain.

This fails to realize that the so-called “evidences” for evolution are much more indirect than subatomic particle theory. The difference is this: subatomic particles exist in the present. Evolutionism is a speculation that states that, in the past, natural selection and mutations combined to turn molecules into monkeys into men. Since we don’t see this happening today, this is an unobservable speculation about the past; it has nothing to do with repeatable natural processes that we see around us (like subatomic particles).

2. Natural selection. . . . (read the rest of this article)

Postedin Uncategorized at 10:25 pm on 09.12.05 by David S. MacMillan III