User:Severoon/Common Specious Arguments Against Evolution

Introduction

In the attempt to frame creationism as a form of science to be taught alongside evolution in public schools, creationists have put forth several specious arguments. This page addresses some of these.

The Bible as Absolute Truth

Creationists almost universally take issue with evolution because they believe evolution theory depicts a past that contradicts the Bible's account of how life on Earth came to be. Some creationists further claim that evolution simply cannot be a valid scientific theory because the Bible is a sacrosanct true account.

The problem with the Bible-as-absolute-truth argument is that it depends upon the notion that there is no human interpretation involved in comprehending the Bible's meaning whatsoever. Even if we assume that the Bible is the divine word, it is obviously true that different interpretations of the book exist. Often the very people that put forth this argument attend Bible study classes, the purpose of which is to puzzle out the underlying meaning of the book's words. So, even if we assume the Bible is absolutely true, no one person's reading of it can be taken as absolutely true. To put it a different way: no point of view derived from a reading of the Bible can be accepted as the truth, even if we assume the Bible itself are the words of an all-knowing being. Even though the words themselves may be the Truth, the interpretation of those words is carried out by fallible humans, meaning that any one person's viewpoint on what the Bible says cannot be taken as a valid argument against evolution—how can any one person's interpretation be verified as the correct one? There is always the possibility that the so-called correct interpretation, if it exists, belongs to the religious person that has reconciled evolution theory and religious doctrine.

It is indisputably true that the Bible has been misread by believers in the past. A misreading of the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church led to the imprisonment and persecution of Galileo, which now even the church itself acknowledges as a mistake. In that particular case, the Bible was interpreted to mean that the Earth was irrefutably the center of the universe, which directly conflicted with Galileo's claim that the Earth wasn't even the center of our solar system, much less the universe. Some people's interpretation of these Biblical passages is so fervently held that a minority of believers still cling to it today.

When discussing this point with creationist friends, they often question whether this argument makes sense. "Why," they ask, "would god provide us an inscrutable text? This doesn't make sense, so it cannot be right." And yet it is clearly true, as arguments over Biblical interpretation occur even within the most fundamentalist creationist groups.

Furthermore, there is much human interpretation built into modern Bibles even before we consider the reader. It is well-established that, before the advent of the printing press, scribes would routinely change passages as they transcribed them either willfully or in error. Even the mere act of translation forces humans to make word choices that potentially change the intended meaning of the original author. The modern Bible has experienced such a rich history that its current form is, at the very least, inexorably and inextricably intertwined with human interpretation at this point. So, even presuming that one could perceive the Bible's meaning exactly as its current written form intends, that perception would incorporate layer upon layer of fallible human interpretation.

"But," say my creationist friends, "isn't it possible that god directly or indirectly guides the process to result in an inerrant text, true to his word?" But, if this is the case, then the text must be assumed inerrant in all its manifestations throughout time, and no contradictions would appear between any two incarnations, much less within the same incarnation of the text. Yet, it is well-documented down to the level of specific, individual changes that directly contradict the previous manifestation's account. The only way to reconcile these contradictions is to accept that god's intention is to convey different meaning to people of different time periods. This directly countervails the Bible's stated purpose in establishing timeless moral absolutism within the religious worldview.

All in all, the Bible-as-absolute-truth argument has a fatal flaw: as long as believers do not agree on every last detail of interpretation, it is impossible to claim that the truth contained therein is fully graspable. Even if all believers did find a way to agree on a particular interpretation, i.e., even if we presuppose a world in which the claim could be reasonably made from a religious point of view, the mere potential existence of alternate interpretations makes this claim impossible to substantiate. Besides this, the very act of claiming to understand the full scope of god's intended meaning directly conflicts with the necessary foundation of all religious belief: the so-called leap of faith. To claim to understand god's intent with perfect clarity would seemingly elevate such a person to a divine level, which is disallowed by Judeochristian doctrine. (Even the Pope is not recognized within the Catholic Church to have this level of insight, though many people misunderstand the dogma of papal infallibility to mean this.)

Evolution is "Just a Theory"

This argument is very similar to the Bible-as-absolute-truth argument, except instead of promoting the creationist point of view, it attempts to diminish the evolutionist point of view by placing a negative value judgement on scientific theory in general. After all, a theory is not absolute truth, so why should one "believe" in it?

This is a valid question. Why should anyone hold a theory as a belief? I contend that no one should hold a scientific theory as a belief—believing in a theory in the same way one believes in a religion is bad science!

There is a difference between holding an idea and holding a belief. An idea is based on understanding, and as one's understanding changes, so do one's ideas. A belief is static; a belief is held in spite of changes in one's understanding—one's expectation of a belief is that, given the necessary investment of time and effort to form proper understanding, the belief would be verified. The ability to hold both beliefs and ideas is necessary; otherwise, no one could learn from the experience of others without a large investment of time and energy in forming understanding. Often, if a belief accords with our other beliefs and ideas, it is simply more expedient and practical to accept it on faith.

But the realm of beliefs and ideas are quite different. A belief is useful in terms of forming expectations without understanding, but it places faith in the notion that the belief originates from someone, at some point, having formed a correct understanding of the thing itself. Science is in the business of understanding things that are not yet understood by anyone. So, all scientific research places little value on belief, as no belief can apply to a problem domain under scientific study; the very fact that the problem domain in question is under scientific scrutiny implies that a complete understanding and its consequent beliefs have not yet formed.

Recognizing this has a profound impact on how one understands scientific theories. No scientist believes in a theory in the sense of believing in a religion or believing in a fact. If Albert Einstein had believed in Isaac Newton's theories of matter on the same level as the facts that contradict those theories, it would have been impossible to make progress towards a new theory of relativity. In science, a theory is recognized by scientists for what it is: a predictive model. Whether or not the internals of a model form a direct correspondence with underlying reality is unimportant to a scientist, and furthermore, this kind of correspondence is not, and does not have to be, assumed for the model to be useful. After Einstein's theory of relativity, for instance, we do not discard Newton's theories even though in a particular, limited sense they are "wrong." This is because it is nonsensical to use absolute terms like "bad," "good," "right," and "wrong" when discussing theories. A model, which is by definition an approximation of reality, cannot be any of these things.

In the end, evolution theory is a bona fide theory because it meets all of the criteria as does every other scientific theory. To disparage evolution because it is "just a theory," and therefore not worthy of belief, is to similarly disparage all scientific theories. Ironically, the creationist's admission that evolution theory is in fact a scientific theory puts it in very good company—certainly no one would disparage gravitation theory because it is "just a theory."

Furthermore, it is the goal of the creationist in this debate to legitimize creationism as a valid scientific theory. This raises the question: if the status of evolution theory as "just a theory" is somehow deficient, why seek to elevate creationism to the same decrepit state? What is the point of legitimizing creationism as "just another theory," not to be trusted?

Micro-Evolution Does Not Imply Macro-Evolution

Oftentimes in a debate with a creationist, after I establish the difference between the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution, the creationist is forced to admit that, yes, the fact of evolution is indeed indisputable scientific fact. At this point the debate takes a turn—the creationist has now allowed that evolution occurs, but is often still unwilling to allow for the kind of evolution proposed by evolution theory that conflicts with religious beliefs. It becomes necessary to split evolution into two: one kind that accounts for evolution we can observe directly and does not conflict with religious belief, and another kind that we have not observed directly and does conflict with religious belief. As this religious belief usually stems from interpretation of the Bible, the evolution is split into micro-evolution and macro-evolution. At this point in the debate the creationist will state that he accepts micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution.

There is a problem, however, with defining this split in terms of what does and does not conflict with religious belief—it is completely arbitrary. This argument is specifically against evolution theory; it admits the fact of evolution but claims that the theory based upon those facts is flawed because it has not been observed—in short, the theory should not be accepted because it is not fact itself.

The motivation for this split arises from an interpretation of the Bible that states no species can arise from another. It is important to note that the very definitions of the terms micro-evolution and macro-evolution used by creationists is rooted in Biblical interpretation, based upon what must be accepted as indisputable fact and not logic, reason, or scientific research of any kind. In any case, at this point everyone agrees that evolution within a species, so-called micro-evolution, exists. What about evolution that results in a new species?

First, how is species defined? If two organisms can produce fertile progeny, they are of the same species. My creationist opponent, on more than one occasion, has argued at this point that it is simply illogical to expect that one species could arise from another. This argument goes: let's assume two organisms produced a child of a different species. This new species could not propagate unless two other organisms somewhere also happened to produce a child of this new species, and of the opposite sex. The idea that two members of a new species would just happen to come into being at the same time strains credulity. Often accompanying this argument is a thought experiment that illustrates the absurdity of such an event: imagine that a whale were to somehow produce a bear. Even if we assume that this is possible, what are the chances that some other whale would also produce another bear so that this new species called bear could continue its existence beyond a single generation?

This is, of course, a straw man argument. Evolution theory does not require that a new species be introduced in a single generation. Rather, the theory contends that small genetic changes from one generation to the next accumulate over time, eventually giving rise to a new species. At every point, organisms from any given generation could produce fertile offspring with members of several previous and several subsequent generations. But, if you go far enough into the past or the future, at some point the accumulation of genetic differences would prevent fertile offspring, much like a horse and a donkey produce the infertile mule.

To address the micro- vs. macro-evolution argument as a whole can be done just as easily. The taxonomic categorization of organisms is a man-made construct. It is people that decided the criteria that separate animals into kingdom, phylum, genus, species, etc. Once one admits that evolution occurs within a species, it naturally follows that mutations could conceivably accumulate to any degree without regard for species or any other invented taxonomic boundary.

Discounting macro-evolution while accepting micro-evolution is tantamount to the belief that, inside every cell, there exists a mechanism which prevents mutations that would give rise to offspring if that offspring could not produce fertile progeny with not just its parents' generation, but its grandparents', great-grandparents', etc, all the way back to the beginning of life itself. Scientific research refutes this. In fact, all scientific research on genetics supports the exact opposite conclusion—that no such mechanism exists.

Evolution Theory Depicts a Past that Contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics

If this discussion of evolution with creationists goes on long enough, the Second Law of Thermodynamics almost always comes up. I have heard this argument stated in many forms; here are two:

1. Would you expect a hurricane to blow through a junkyard and build a car?
2. If you put all of the components of a watch into a bag and shook it, how long would you expect to have to shake the bag before the parts assembled themselves into a watch?

This argument attempts to deny evolution theory by claiming that abiogenesis, or life from non-life, could ever have occurred. Even the most basic form of DNA is highly complex and could never have formed randomly in the primordial soup. Furthermore, the argument goes on, the Second Law prohibits DNA from forming out of a primordial soup as such DNA formation would be an overall decrease in entropy for the particles comprising the DNA.

This attack on evolution is perhaps the easiest to refute, as it is flawed from the outset: the Second Law simply does not say entropy can never decrease. The Second Law states that all systems tend towards a state of lower energy. If the entire universe is taken to be the system, then the Second Law does indicate that the state of greatest entropy, which is the lowest energy state of the universe as a whole, is the final destination. However, this is not true for smaller systems. In fact, there are a lot of ways to define a system such that the state of lowest energy is the exact opposite of lower entropy.

For example, let's say I have an empty box. If I release a large number of individual oxygen atoms into the box, according to the creationist way of thinking, these oxygen atoms will not bond with each other because, on their own, the system of oxygen atoms in the box achieves a higher level of entropy than if they were to form molecules. However, because the Second Law says that it is the lowest energy state that governs behavior, and not anything to do with entropy, the oxygen atoms will form O₂, as each oxygen molecule allows both atoms to achieve a lower energy state despite also lowering entropy. As they are in a lower energy state after they combine, this means the reaction is exothermic and will release energy from the system, thereby increasing entropy to some extent outside the system. This amount will always be greater than or equal to the amount of entropy decrease inside the system, meaning that everything is still in order, physics-ly speaking. Another simple example is the molecular structure water adopts when freezing, causing it to slightly expand in volume and become less dense. This increase in volume is due to the fact that randomly oriented water molecules suddenly "decide" to get together and form highly ordered hexagonal structures at the freezing point. The order that is achieved by freezing water is evident even at the scale visible to the naked eye; wondrously complex snowflakes form simply by removing heat from water.

It is not only simple compounds that will form as a result of the Second Law, either. Extremely large, complex molecules can form—all you have to do to see if a particular compound can form is calculate the energy state of the compound and compare it to the energy states of its constituent parts. If the compound allows for a lower overall energy state, as in the case of oxygen, then the Second Law allows it to form. This does not mean, however, that such a reaction will occur spontaneously, merely that it is possible. For spontaeous formation to occur, the correct reaction pathways must be present, just as a powder keg is perfectly safe until a match provides the activation energy to get the (extremely) exothermic reaction under way by providing a reaction pathway.

Ok, but why hasn't this been done if it's a simple matter of providing the reaction pathways? The answer is: it nearly has! In a famous series of experiments dating back to the 1950s, scientists have formed amino acids, the precursors to DNA, in an environment we estimate was similar to the conditions on early earth. Things get a little more complicated after that, but there's no reason to think that we won't eventually understand it well enough to replicate the process of abiogenesis completely. Furthermore, we have already spontaneously formed in laboratories other complex molecules that make simpler—though by no means simple—forms of life possible, such as chlorophyll.

It is also important to point out when discussing abiogenesis that there is no clear dividing line between life and non-life, as the creationist argument often rests on this delineation. We can and do replicate experiments in labs all the time that show certain compounds replicating themselves. Furthermore, we know that viruses do the same thing, and these little buggers exist in that grey area between life and non-life. And, of course, we witness forms of life propagate themselves all the time from the simplest sea sponge to humans.

This particular attack on evolution is shameful in a way. It depends upon several basic misunderstandings of science. First, it gets the Second Law completely wrong. Second, it attempts to apply common sense about macroscopic objects to the world of atoms and molecules, and we've known since the early 20th Century that no such common sense correspondence exists. Indeed, on a molecular level, complex machines akin to molecular watches form from shaking atomic watch parts in a bag all the time. To draw a correspondence such as this is as intellectually bankrupt as saying that the results of performing a double-slit experiment with photons and a diffraction grating should yield the same result with Buicks and fast food drive-thrus.