RE: Refuting Evolution
May 25, 2013 at 5:58 am
(This post was last modified: May 25, 2013 at 7:27 am by cneron.)
The numerous "refutations" of evolution I've heard over the years almost always share one common trait: misrepresentation of what evolution is. Sometimes the misrepresentation is the result of ignorance, willful or otherwise, sometimes it's intentional, but you inevitably hear the same tired crap about tossed coins, transitional forms, self-assembling 747s, the existence of modern apes, irreducibility, hair-splitting over the meaning of "theory" and the term "random chance," blah blah blah, etc., ad nauseam.
Some basics, because I confess I'm not going to bother reading the Quran, all the responses to the original post or the numbered installments that followed it, just to debate an idea that was embraced by educated people more than 150 years ago:
1) Atheism and evolution have nothing to do with one another. There are evolutionists who are not atheists. There are atheists who are not evolutionists.
2) Nobody who understands the theory of evolution ever said man came from apes. They said apes and man shared a common ancestor.
3) Darwin didn't recant on his deathbed, nor it would it have altered reality if he had. The Lady Hope story was a fabrication.
4) Saying that all animals but man have evolved is Human Supremacy, born---as all supremacy movements are---of that fertile couple, Insecurity and Ignorance.
5) Fossilization is the rare exception, not the rule. There have been many billions of plants and animals throughout time, but there are considerably fewer fossils.
6) Random chance is not at the core of the theory of evolution; a simple observable principle is: life forms are affected by outside factors. That's all.
7) Animal breeding and plant hybridizing differ from evolution only in the impetus for change. In the former two examples it's man, in the latter it's nature.
8) Impacted wisdom teeth, inflamed appendixes and spontaneous abortion are the results of either evolution or a stupid designer.
9) A theory is a statement that encompasses and is supported by accepted facts and withstands critical observation. The theory of gravity, for example.
10) Creationism is not a theory. It's an unsupportable prehistoric myth about a magic trick performed by fictional character.
Some basics, because I confess I'm not going to bother reading the Quran, all the responses to the original post or the numbered installments that followed it, just to debate an idea that was embraced by educated people more than 150 years ago:
1) Atheism and evolution have nothing to do with one another. There are evolutionists who are not atheists. There are atheists who are not evolutionists.
2) Nobody who understands the theory of evolution ever said man came from apes. They said apes and man shared a common ancestor.
3) Darwin didn't recant on his deathbed, nor it would it have altered reality if he had. The Lady Hope story was a fabrication.
4) Saying that all animals but man have evolved is Human Supremacy, born---as all supremacy movements are---of that fertile couple, Insecurity and Ignorance.
5) Fossilization is the rare exception, not the rule. There have been many billions of plants and animals throughout time, but there are considerably fewer fossils.
6) Random chance is not at the core of the theory of evolution; a simple observable principle is: life forms are affected by outside factors. That's all.
7) Animal breeding and plant hybridizing differ from evolution only in the impetus for change. In the former two examples it's man, in the latter it's nature.
8) Impacted wisdom teeth, inflamed appendixes and spontaneous abortion are the results of either evolution or a stupid designer.
9) A theory is a statement that encompasses and is supported by accepted facts and withstands critical observation. The theory of gravity, for example.
10) Creationism is not a theory. It's an unsupportable prehistoric myth about a magic trick performed by fictional character.
- C. Neron
