Disproving the Bible

[Esquilax]

Ah, so evolution is true because there is no scientific information to suggest otherwise.

Yes! If all the evidence points one way, and none of the evidence shows any other possibilities, then that way is the best current model to describe reality! What is so hard about this?

Oh, and by the way, if you have some scientific information that suggests a problem, it won't be considered because evolution is true. Sound reasoning. You have illustrated the bias that many scientist have--thank you.

Now, see, I find this really interesting, because a couple of pages back I told you that just finding "problems," that just poking holes in a legitimate theory, does not make a competing idea any more strong. In fact, you agreed with me when I said that. And yet now you're here, saying the exact opposite of that, telling us that if there's a problem with evolution then creationism must be true. I mean, that must be what you're saying, because if you aren't then this bullshit about problems not being considered doesn't even make sense. See, what you're actually whining about here, in that case, is that even thought 99 percent of the evidence points toward evolution, it's unfair that we don't consider the entire theory to be on shaky ground and possibly false because of the one percent of "problems" that ideologically driven hacks had tried to poke. Only it's worse in this case, because all your "problems" are are current unknowns, meaning that to use them as reasons why evolution isn't true is an argument from ignorance!

So tell me, Steve: are you really saying that 99 percent of the evidence should be disregarded the moment one point of doubt comes up? Or should we recognize that 99 percent of the evidence is still a huge majority of the facts pointing one way, and so therefore that single fact that has yet to be resolved will, on the balance of probability, fall into place as a part of the evolutionary reality? See, that's the problem with your position: you're arguing as if you exist in a world in which there's equal evidence for creationism as there is for evolution. But you don't live in that world, you live in the real one, where there's no evidence at all for creation, and tons and tons of evidence for evolution. Asking that we give equal credence to the idea that evolution isn't real, in the face of all the evidence for it when all you can produce against it is a single argument from ignorance hosted by non-peer reviewed sources is ludicrous.

To round things out, let's play the "what's wrong with the creationist's sources?" game!

So, the article Steve linked to was written by Casey Luskin, who is a lawyer, and hence has absolutely no training to be able to speak on this issue. Fun fact: when you search his name in google, you get the autocomplete "Casey Luskin liar." Fun, right? Luskin also works for an appendage of the Discovery Institute, specifically the one behind the infamous wedge strategy. It is therefore interesting how quick Steve was to bitch about the bias toward evolution in science, when he's happy to post links to people working for a group that has at its aim the "defeat of scientific materialism." One would think that having that as their goal from the outset is the biggest bias there is, but I guess it's only a problem if people Steve doesn't agree with are doing it.

Of the other source Steve cites, one of the writers of that paper is William Dembski, who also works for the same branch of the Discovery Institute as a senior fellow. The only reference I could find to Winston Ewert is a graduate student in computer sciences- such a pro on evolution!- talking to, again, Casey Luskin. Ann Gauger works for the Biologic Institute, the website of which looks like a wordpress blog and blatantly states on its "About" page that any scientist working for them is "working from the idea that life appears to have been designed because it really was designed." That's leading the evidence, not following it, and represents an enormous bias that cannot be excused. The final name, Robert Marks II, is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University, a private Baptist university that Ewert also seems to have attended.

In short, of the people writing this paper about evolution, not one has a degree in biology or any training in a relevant field that would give them any basis for which to be writing a paper on it. Several of the writers work for entities which have an inbuilt and immediate bias against evolution that makes any science they purport to do on the subject incredibly suspect to begin with. The other two have clear religious biases, and the paper itself was published without peer review in a non accredited source.

This is standard creationist fare: papers written with only the vaguest pretense of scientific respect, by people with no credentials in a relevant field, and published in such a way as to do an end run around fact checking, all in accordance with a pre-existing bias that they share. Steve, you've been suckered, and it only took me ten minutes on google to find out that, for all your crying about bias in the scientific community, there's an obvious, real bias in the sources you choose to represent yourself.