Christian Colleges and Evolution

I graduated from a Christian college. However, they weren’t a Bible college – they were scientifically literate. While I don’t believe in Christianity, I do have to give them credit for getting the science right. Of course, that earned them the ire of certain Christian groups which accused them of being too liberal. About the time that I was there, a minor controversy was sparked when one of the professors wrote a book saying that the universe was old, and man evolved. I don’t think his ideas weren’t controversial among the faculty, but it was with the parents. (It must be rough trying to be a scientifically literate Christian professor, with so many Christians being touchy about evolution.) I generally got the feeling that professors had to do a balancing act – teach the real science, but don’t piss off the parents.

Anyway, I was looking through a mailing I received from my old college tonight. I noticed a short excerpt about book created by two professors at the college titled “Origins: A Reformed Look at Creation, Design & Evolution”. Curious about what they might say, I googled it and found the website for the book. Much of the discussion was couched in very tame, conciliatory language to reconcile science and religion. (Of course, it might still spark controversy with the parents, because many people are unwilling to budge on the issue.) I’m sure Ken Miller would agree with virtually everything they say. It’s good to see Christian institutions avoid dogmatic insistence on creationism or intelligent design. They even talk about evidence for common descent of all life, including whale evolution and human evolution from apes. On the common descent of cats:

Psuedogenes are broken or non-functional genes. Mammals have sweet receptor genes that allow them to taste that certain foods are sweet. It was recently discovered that in cats one of these sweet receptor genes is a pseudogene. Because cats have a pseudogene instead of a functioning gene, cats cannot taste sweet flavors. For most mammals the inability to taste sweets would be a bad thing because foods that taste sweet are high in energy. But since different cat species mainly eat meat, they are not particularly harmed by the inability to taste sweets. Scientists believe that long ago a common ancestor of lions, tigers, house cats, and other cat species had a mutation that turned their sweet receptor gene into a pseudogene, but this did not harm them because they were already eating mostly meat. This pseudogene was then passed down to all their offspring. If cats were created separately, without common ancestry with other mammals, there would be no particular reason for cats to have a sweet receptor pseudogene. But if God created cats using the mechanisms of evolution and common ancestry with other mammals, then it makes sense that they might have such a pseudogene.

All of this is strong evidence for common ancestry and is consistent with the theory of evolution. When scientists construct family trees of different species based on similarities of genomic organization, introns, and pseudogenes, they get a tree that matches the family tree built by comparing similarities in ordinary genes, and this in turn matches the family tree built by studying fossils.

Here’s an excerpt from the section on abiogenesis:

Supporters of Intelligent Design argue that even the simplest living organism is far too complex to self-assemble. They argue that it is very improbable that a living cell could form simply out of chemicals interacting with each other without the aid of some sort of intelligent being to guide the process.

What are the chances that a simple living cell might self-assemble on the early earth? Again, the answer to that question depends on the assumptions made. We could imagine a warm pond of water with various simple organic molecules dissolved in it and then calculate the probability that millions of the right molecules will randomly collide together to spontaneously form a living cell. The probability of that happening is extremely low. (This scenario is sometimes compared to the probability that a tornado will go through a junkyard and spontaneously assemble an airplane.) Scientists long ago rejected the idea.

Today scientists have different theories about how the first cell might self-assemble, step-by-step, out of simpler pieces. For example, organic molecules could have been concentrated by geographical features such as ponds that repeatedly evaporate and then refill. Mineral clays could have helped form long chain molecules and held them in place long enough to assemble into larger structures. Deep underground fissures, regions near volcanoes, or deep ocean hydrothermal vents might have provided more likely environments for life to form. Given our current state of knowledge, these scientists conclude that we don’t know enough yet to calculate whether abiogenesis is probable or improbable. Once again, the problem is too difficult. We hope that scientific research over the next several decades will provide a better answer.

WHAT SHOULD WE SAY WHILE WE ARE UNCERTAIN?
As long as science does not have a definite conclusion, it would be best to exercise some humility and caution. It would be reasonable for supporters of Intelligent Design theory to say,
* “Scientists at present do not have a good, detailed explanation for how first life could self-organize without outside intelligent intervention.”
* “We believe that abiogenesis is very improbable and that future scientific research will convincingly show that it is very improbable.”

However, it seems like a bad idea for supporters of Intelligent Design to say,
* “We are certain that scientists will never find a good explanation for how first life could self-organize.”
* “We have proven that it is very improbable.”

It would be reasonable for critics of Intelligent Design theory to say,
* “Scientists at present do not have a detailed explanation for how first life could self-organize, but they have some theories that might be true and are worth investigating.”
* “We believe that future scientific research will convincingly show how it happened.”

However, it seems like a bad idea for them to say,
* “We are certain that scientists will find a good explanation for how first life could self-organize.”
* “We have proven that it happened.”

In another article on our website (“Are Planetary Orbits Stable?”) we told a story that comes from the time of Isaac Newton and Pierre de Laplace. During those decades it was scientifically uncertain whether the orbits of the planets in our solar system were stable over very long periods of time or whether the orbits were unstable and needed to be corrected (perhaps by some sort of divine intervention) every few centuries or so. Not very many people alive at the time would have been aware that this was an unanswered scientific question. But if they had been aware, some Christians at the time might have preferred that scientists prove that the planetary orbits were stable because it seems like “better design.” Other Christians might have preferred that scientists prove that the planetary orbits were unstable because it gives more direct evidence for God’s existence and governance of nature.

Today it is scientifically uncertain whether or not abiogenesis is possible. That would seem to be proof of God’s existence and intervention in the natural world. If God is going to miraculously intervene at some point in the history of life, the very beginning of life would be an obvious place. God could do a miracle once to get life started and then use the natural mechanisms of evolution to develop all the species. But other Christians would prefer that scientists eventually prove that abiogenesis and the evolution of complexity are possible because it would show that God designed an incredibly clever system of finely tuned natural laws.

While it’s reasonable for Christians to have preferences one way or the other, it’s important to remember that our belief in God does not rest on how the science turns out. If the scientific claim of Intelligent Design theory turns out to be true and abiogenesis is impossible, then we can stand in awe that God intervened to organize simple molecules into complex creatures. If the scientific claim of Intelligent Design theory turns out to be false, we can be equally in awe that God designed an astonishing system of natural laws in which living organisms can self-organize out of simpler pieces.

I suppose someone could point out that they are really playing it safe by praising God for the outcome no matter what happens, at least they’re not being dogmatic about the science and they are keeping Christians’ minds open to other possibilities. I also happen to agree with virtually everything they said (minus the parts about God), and think it’s a reasonable position for theists to take. It’s also an interesting contrast with the kinds of rhetoric we see coming out of groups like AIG and the Discovery Institute, and a reminder that this is a three-way battle within Christian circles.

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YouTube videos: Why do people laugh at creationists?

PZ Myers’ recent post, which included a creationist mangling whale evolution, reminded me of this series of videos:

Parts 1-3:

The author of these videos has made a lot more. Right now, there are seventeen videos in the series.

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VNR for the Creationist Museum

[Via Pharyngula] AnswersInGenesis has been sending out press releases for their new Creationist museum which includes a VNR (video news release) which is essentially a pre-packaged “news segment” with news reporter-esque voice-overs that TV stations can air with little effort. Here’s the clip:

The man in beginning of this video is Ken Ham, and he says:

“You see, we live in a scientific age, an era of history in which science supposedly contradicts the Bible. We are showing people that creationists are real scientists, and that real observational science actually confirms the Bible’s history. And so if its history is true, then the rest of the Bible is true.”

Ignoring the obvious non-sequitur (“if its history is true, then the rest of the Bible is true”), Ken Ham is the same man I quoted a few days ago in “The Platypus is not a Chimera” making this ridiculous comment:

[T]he platypus is a real problem for the evolutionists. You see, they believe animals have evolved into other animals over millions of years. So, the question is: now which animal did the platypus evolve from? It would have to be just about everything. I think that every time an evolutionist looks at the platypus, I believe God must smile. Maybe He created it just for them.

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The Platypus is not a Chimera

One of the things evolution rules out is chimeras – animals that are mixes of two or more different animals. Evolution is a theory of descent with modification, and since animals can only mate if they are the same species, it means the offspring will have the genome of its (nearly identical) parents plus a few mutational changes (i.e. the modification). There are plenty of chimeras in mythology though: mermaids, centaurs, minotaur, pegasus, and the greek lion/dragon/goat chimera.

I’ve heard a number of creationists counter this by claiming that the platypus is a chimera – it has hair like a mammal, lays eggs like a reptile, and a bill like a duck.

For example, AnswersInGenesis says:

The platypus is an animal with a bill like a duck, and a beaver-like tail, it has hair like a bear, webbed feet like an otter, claws like a reptile, lays eggs like a turtle, and has spurs like a rooster, and poison like a snake. You can see why scientists first thought it was a fraud. But, the platypus is a real problem for the evolutionists. You see, they believe animals have evolved into other animals over millions of years. So, the question is: now which animal did the platypus evolve from? It would have to be just about everything. I think that every time an evolutionist looks at the platypus, I believe God must smile. Maybe He created it just for them. (Link)

Or here:

Monotremes are a scientific puzzle if you are an evolutionist. They are clearly mammals because they have milk glands, hair, a large brain, and a complete diaphragm. Yet they also resemble reptiles and birds in that they lay eggs, their blood temperature is influenced to some extent by their surroundings (as is reptiles’), and the platypus’s bill is like a duck’s. (Link)

Kent Hovind also makes the platypus argument here.

(1) The platypus’ bill is not like a duck’s bill. It “resembles a duck’s bill but is actually an elongated snout covered with soft, moist, leathery skin and sensitive nerve endings.” (Link) Further, the platypus bill is covered with electroreceptors, enabling them to detect prey hidden in the mud (something ducks are not known to do).

(2) The platypus has poison spurs, but that doesn’t mean its venom is anything like snake venom. Lots of animals – including spiders, scorpions – have venom, but that doesn’t mean they all gained their venom from a common ancestor. Rather, they all evolved it independently, which is why, biochemically, the platypus venom does not resemble venom in any other animals: “platypus venom is a cocktail of toxins, most of which is a mixture of proteins which resemble no other to date.” (Link) On the other hand, genetic studies of snake venom shows that their venom is just modified versions of an original venom that appeared millions of years ago. (And, interestingly, they share this venom with a few legged reptiles – revealing that venom first evolved while snakes’ ancestors still had legs.)

(3) The Platypus lays eggs, “like a reptile”. Actually, the platypus is part of a family of animals called monotremes. The only other living animals which belong to this group are spiny anteaters. Monotremes existed before placental mammals or marsupials. Those branches of mammals appeared later, and became the dominant mammals. A diagram of their relationship through time would look like this:

Giving birth to live young is something that placentals and marsupials do, but the laying of eggs is something that mammalian ancestors (i.e. reptiles) did. What’s interesting, then, is that monotremes resemble the patterns of earlier, reptilian ancestors. They have retained the traits we would expect of an early mammal. This isn’t the only similarity monotremes have with reptiles:

(4) Monotremes’ urinary, defecatory, and reproductive systems all open into a single duct (the cloaca). This is similar to reptiles, but in placental and marsupial mammals, these ducts have separate openings. (Pharyngula also has an article touching on the monotreme / placental / marsupial reproductive system variations, which also shows the early branching of monotremes from placentals and marsupials – and the monotreme female anatomy resembles the reptilian version.)

(5) Monotremes have their limbs on the sides of their bodies, which is similar to reptiles (think of turtles, alligators, and lizards). Mammals typically have their limbs directly below their bodies.

(6) Monotremes produce milk for their young, but unlike placentals and marsupials, they don’t have nipples. Instead, they simply have patches of skin that produce milk. Again, this resembles what we might expect of an early mammal.

(7) The platypus maintains a lower average body temperature (32’C) than marsupials (35’C) and placentals (38’C). The spiny anteater can even turn off it’s temperature regulation in cold weather. Reptiles are cold-blooded, so their body temperature varies.

So, the platypus seems like a mixture of reptilian and mammalian traits because it branched from the mammalian tree very early, but retained many of the ‘early mammal’ traits. Other features – like the venom, bill, electrolocation, and flat tail were evolved after the branching occurred, and this is backed up by the fact that their physical and genetic structure is very different from similar structures in snakes (venom) and ducks (bill).

Here’s how the diagram might look:

Now, you might be thinking – gee, that looks like the nested hierarchy one would expect from an evolutionary process. You’re right. Not only does it show the gradual accumulation of “mammalian” traits, but it is similar to the tree produced in Talk Origin’s 29 Evidences for Macroevolution. Creationists, like AnswersInGenesis and Kent Hovind get all the facts wrong and play on people’s ignorance by claiming that the platypus is somehow a problem for evolution. It isn’t. It fits with evolutionary theory.

Update: Here’s an article on the evolution of mammary glands.

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Larry Moran, Dembski, and Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea

Larry Moran and The Pandas Thumb has some comments on a video of one of Dembski’s speeches.

It’s kind of hard to watch him speak because he just seems so uncomfortable and nervous. Maybe some of it is just the fact that he can’t talk about evolutionists without getting angry. His ID revolution never came, flaws in the ID theory keep getting pointed out, he never became the “Isaac Newton of Information Theory”, and now he just seems like a wounded animal who wants to lash out at “the evolutionists”. But regarding the actual content of his speech: he brings up a lot of misinformation that he wants people to believe, but simply isn’t true.

He uses the phrase “Darwinian idol” three times in 5 minutes – so many times, that you get the feeling that it was an actual talking point. Larry Moran makes the point that:

The goal of the Intelligent Design Creationists is not to promote God but to discredit evolution. Jonathan Wells published a book called “Icons of Evolution” in which he claimed that the ten main evidences for evolution are wrong.

Wells says that scientists believe in evolution because they have faith in materialism and not because of scientific evidence. This is something that Dembski believes as well. That’s why they refer to the main lines of evidence for evolution as “idols.” It’s something we worship and not something that can stand up to close scrutiny.

Throw in liberal doses of “Darwinism” and you’ve successfully conveyed the notion of a group that’s fixated on the words of a man who lived 150 years ago. Isn’t this beginning to sound like a cult?

I’m quite used to creationists and IDists referring to evolution as a religion or a cult. But, I think part of the reason he uses the word “idol” is because he wants to divide Christians into “true Christians” and “idol worshiping Christians” (i.e. evolutionists, not *real* Christians). The Old Testament comes down hard on idol worshiping Jews. In fact, it’s even encoded in the Ten Commandments: “You shall not make for yourself an idol”. I’ve also seen IDists question the sincerity of Ken Miller’s faith (Ken Miller is a Catholic and evolution advocate). By labeling evolution an “idol”, he gets to impugn the validity of Christian evolutionist’s Christianity as well as label evolution a religion.

Dembski:

I think what darwinists have done is really hidden behind the complexities of living systems.

It’s rather ironic that they would accuse the evolutionists of ‘hiding behind the complexities’, when it’s been a staple of the ID movement to talk about the complexities of living systems and (almost always) deny the existence or possibility of intermediate systems. In many cases, it seems like IDists/creationists simply talk about a complex system, and then simply act like their work is done – they try to lead the audience to the idea that ‘if it’s complex, it must be designed’. Which just plain odd from an evolutionary perspective, since evolution is quite capable of creating complex systems. Although, it does play on people’s misconception that ‘complex’ = ‘must be explicitly designed’.

Living systems are so complex that Darwinists do not really have a clue how these things could’ve formed by gradual, detailed, step-by-step Darwinian pathways. So, in a sense, what they do is gesture at various intermediate systems that might’ve existed and then basically say, ‘prove me wrong show me that it didn’t happen that way’. And so they put the burden of evidence on the design people when, in fact, the burden of evidence should be on them. Because these systems, by any standards, are – look like designed systems. And so, if they look designed, maybe, indeed, they are designed.

There are plenty of systems that are well understood and do have step-by-step evolutionary pathways. IDists have argued that blood-clotting represents something that could not have evolved. The evolutionists tracked down the information to show that, yes, it could’ve evolved. Even further, invertebrates’ blood-clotting systems still contain the low-level building blocks of our blood-clotting system. In contrast to Demsbki’s claim that evolutionists merely ‘gesture at various intermediate systems’ and say ‘prove me wrong’, the evolutionists seem to be the ones doing the detailed work. IDists want to believe that biological systems are irreducibly complex, and seem to be afraid to actually explore the possibility that a system could’ve evolved, so they seem to avoid researching that possibility and their reward is that they get to tell people it couldn’t have evolved (which, of course, sells well).

Now, Dembski is a mathematician/theologian/philosopher, and I think part of the problem in Dembski talking about this is that he knows all his biology from IDist biologists, and they aren’t explaining anything other than the pro-ID descriptions of biology.

In William Paley’s day, the eye – the mammalian eye – was as good an example of design as you could find. And he made a design argument based on the eye. Along comes Darwin, along come his successors and they say, ‘look, there are all these different eyeballs out there in organisms. Slap them down on a table, draw arrows between them – those that are less complex to more complex. It evolved. End of story. That’s it.

It’s funny sometimes to hear people misrepresent your own ideas – they leave out details, rewrite the argument, and make changes in an attempt to attack the idea. The problem is this: IDists like to claim that the eye (and they always want to talk about the complex, mammalian eye – which is what the average person always thinks of when you say ‘eye’) is irreducibly complex. Take away the spherical shape, and it doesn’t work. Take away the lens, and it doesn’t work. Take away the light-sensitive cells, and it doesn’t work. The idea that they want you to believe is that the eye is valuable when all components exist and precisely fit together, or it is almost completely useless. That description might be true for mammals and they way we use our eyes. However, it completely ignores the role that eyes play in other organisms.

Evolutionists say that the primitive eye didn’t need to do all the tasks that we use our eye for. In fact, there are simpler eyes that work quite well for creatures — which conflicts with the IDist’s desire that people believe the mammalian eye is somehow the only eye that is valuable. For example, jellyfish have eyes that don’t allow it to perceive clear images – because of the optical properties of their eyes, they can only perceive blurry images. But, then, jellyfish lack a complex brain to make sense of clear images, so it probably wouldn’t be useful anyway. The stepwise progression from a simple eye in primitive creatures could’ve evolved through blurry intermediates into the complex system that is the mammalian eye. That doesn’t mean ‘prove me wrong’, it simply means that IDists are wrong when they assert that only the full, modern, complex eye is useful.

And you see this, actually, there’s a book that was derived from the PBS’ evolution series that came out in 2001 – Carl Zimmer, “The Triumph of Evolution”. That triumph is not going to be around too much longer. If you look at the cover, there are all these different eyeballs there, and the implication is: obviously, the eye evolved. Now the eye is so complex – I mean, multicellular layers and layers of complexity. How are you going to get a handle on that evolutionarily?

It’s funny how Dembski always has to lash out at evolutionists with little “that triumph is not going to be around too much longer” comments. I really think he’s angry that ID hasn’t been embraced like he hoped. This started years ago – most notably when he took pictures of a Darwin doll in a vise and put them on his website. He says, “If you look at the cover, there are all these different eyeballs there, and the implication is: obviously, the eye evolved.” The image is an illustration of the idea that the eye evolved into many different forms, but the message is not “obviously, the eye evolved.” No evolutionist looks at the image and thinks it represents some obvious proof that the eye evolved – this is just Dembski falsely attributing a view to evolutionists to try to make them look clueless.

Well, the Darwinian mechanism it’s a divide and conquer strategy. You take a system – if you can find a subsystem of that system, which performs some function – hey you’ve divided the problem. Clearly it evolved – the more complex global system involved from that system which is embedded in it. End of story. No need to do any engineering work, or any design work or anything. That’s enough. It’s enough to point to these intermediate systems. But not give any detailed, testable, step-by-step scenario for how point A could’ve evolved by gradual means into point B.

Well, that’s simply false. Evolutionists do plenty of work trying to find how these systems could’ve evolved stepwise. For example, it was evolutionists who discovered and detailed the formation of an anti-freeze gene in fish. IDists are afraid of these explanations, they like to make claims that this or that system couldn’t have evolved, they don’t seem to do any work trying to figure out how they could evolve – because they want more and more arguments for theism. Pointing out the existence of intermediate systems are an important step in that eroding bombastic IDist’ claims about a system’s irreducibility.

From their perspective, design is a non-starter — it’s unthinkable, so this is the only way it could’ve happened.

Dembski brings up the canard that science has illegitimately barred the possibility of design, so scientists cannot see all the wonderful evidence for design all around them.

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Dinosaur Denialist

There is a tension between straight-forward reading of the Bible and the Old-Earth, Evolutionary, Naturalistic explanations of life. Because of this, lots of religious people have gravitated towards explanations of the world which discredit evolution and support Biblical Literalism or God-Intervened-Here. Over time, religious people have tended to attach themselves to the more plausible creationist explanations. Sixty years ago, when my grandmother was growing up, she was taught that dinosaur bones were put into the ground to deceive people. (To her credit, she said that explanation didn’t make much sense to her.) The majority of the Creationist movement has since moved away from that ‘explanation’. However, one creationist gives a similar explanation with a new twist: scientists faked all the dinosaur bones. (Which puts scientists in the devil-like role in this new version.) I understand that many Christians are willing to stretch their minds to believe things that discredit evolution and support their religion, but – wow. Here’s what he says in his essay, “Dinosaurs: Science Or Science Fiction“:

When children go to a dinosaur museum, are the displays they see displays of science or displays of art and science fiction? Are we being deceived and brainwashed at an early age into believing a dinosaur myth? Deep probing questions need to be asked of the entire dinosaur business.

This article will discuss the possibility that there may have been an ongoing effort since the earliest dinosaur “discoveries” to plant, mix and match bones of various animals, such as crocodiles, alligators, iguanas, giraffes, elephants, cattle, kangaroos, ostriches, emus, dolphins, whales, rhinoceroses, etc. to construct and create a new man-made concept prehistoric animal called the dinosaur.
…
What would be the motivation for such a deceptive endeavor? Obvious motivations include trying to prove evolution, trying to disprove or cast doubt on the Christian Bible and the existence of the Christian God, and trying to disprove the “young-earth theory”. Yes, there are major political and religious ramifications.

The dinosaur concept implies that if God exists, He tinkered with His idea of dinosaurs for awhile, then probably discarded or became tired of this creation and then went on to create man. The presented dinosaur historical timeline suggests an imperfect God who came up with the idea of man as an afterthought, thus demoting the biblical idea that God created man in His own image. Dinosaurs are not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.

Highly rewarding financial and economic benefits to museums, educational and research organizations, university departments of paleontology, discoverers and owners of dinosaur bones, and the book, television, movie and media industries may cause sufficient motivation for ridiculing of open questioning and for suppression of honest investigation.

He talks about supposed anomalies, how only paleontologists were the only people to find the fossils (saying that they were all in on the hoax), and raises scientific questions, like:

[Fossilization] is supposed to involve calcium in skeletal material being replaced, atom by atom, by silica, calcite, pyrite, dolomite, etc., over a long period of time. This goes against the natural law of increasing disorder, entropy. How are all these dead atoms intelligent enough to know what to do and where to go to produce the finished fossil?

The second law of thermodynamics prevents the formation of fossils? I’ve heard of the second law of thermodynamics being misused by creationists, but this is a novel misapplication.

He even attacks the old Creationist argument that Job 40 was referring to dinosaurs (take that run-of-the-mill Creationists!)

And talks about the damaging effects of “dinosaurs are real” education:

State funding of organizations that promote the dinosaur concept could be considered strategic psychological warfare against a state that uses a Christian doctrinal basis for government since the Christian Bible comes complete with the account of God’s creation in the book of Genesis and the genealogy of Jesus.

Then he finishes up with this conclusion:

The possibility exists that living dinosaurs never existed. “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23).

The dinosaur industry should be investigated and questions need to be asked. I am unaware of any evidence or reason for absolutely believing dinosaurs ever were alive on earth. The possibility exists that the concept of prehistoric living dinosaurs has been a fabrication of nineteenth and twentieth century people possibly pursuing an evolutionary and anti-Bible and anti-Christian agenda.

The past existence of living dinosaurs has not yet been proven. Questioning what is being told instead is a better choice rather than blindly believing the dinosaur story. Issues should be carefully considered for the sake of good science. “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20).

The choice between believing the word of man, the evolutionists, or the word of God, the Bible, is a matter of faith.

I had to wonder if this was some sort of parody of Creationist literature in general. Complaining about how dinosaurs undermine the Bible, and phrases, “The dinosaur industry should be investigated and questions need to be asked.” and “The past existence of living dinosaurs has not yet been proven.” just sounds a little too much like complaints that evolution is undermining the Bible/morality, “evolutionary theory should be investigated and questions need to be asked”, “evolution has never been proven”, or “teach the controversy”. But, it just doesn’t look like a parody to me. Additionally, the same author has a “moon hoax” page where he uses similar rhetoric: “I do not claim that men have not landed on the moon; I was not personally involved in the Apollo space program. I do claim, however, that Apollo moon mission anomalies and inconsistencies exist which have not yet been adequately explained.”

.

Update: I just noticed that Pharyngula has a short post on Kent Hovind and dinosaurs, wherein Satan confronts Kent Hovind and says exactly what Hovind wants to believe (I thought the devil was supposed to undermine you, not confirm every crazy creationist thought you’ve had). Satan to Hovind (allegedly):

You have also dared to try to take dinosaurs away from me. I have used dinosaurs for nearly 200 years to teach billions of people that the earth is billions of years old and that God’s Word is not true. Your seminar on dinosaurs strikes at the heart of my kingdom. I intend to destroy both your ministry and your reputation for good. Dinosaurs are especially effective for me to deceive children. You are taking children away from me, so I took yours away from you!

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Harun Yahya = Iraqi Information Minister of Creationism

I was talking to a Muslim recently, and she tried to dispute evolution with Harun Yahya’s material. Wow. I’m beginning to think of Harun Yahya as the Iraqi Information Minister of Creationism.

A few quotes from the links she provided:

Poll results in France show that 92% of people do not believe in evolution

After the big impact of the distribution of the 1st volume of “Atlas of Creation” in France, the French science website Science Actualités, made an interview with Patrick Tort of Charles Darwin International Institute and put a poll about evolution on line.

The results of the poll showed that Darwinism has come to an end also in France. 92% of people believe that “Humans are not the fruit of an evolution”

%5 of people believe that “the humans and the apes have common ancestors” and only 1% of people believe that “the humans descended from apes”. (Link)

Here’s the Science Actualites webpage in French, and a translated version of the same page here.

The first problem is that this poll was an online poll – which means it’s very easy to spike the poll by sending lots of people there, or create scripts that skew the results (a little fooling around showed that closing your brower and re-opening it allows you to vote again – showing that the poll is obviously vulnerable to scripts). In contrast, the evolution poll results done by Science magazine, have 80% of the French saying that evolution is true, and only 12-13% saying it is false. Some of this discrepancy is due to the questions themselves (some people who would say that evolution is true suddenly get nervous when they are asked whether humans are the result of evolution). I think it’s obvious the majority of the discrepancy is because the online poll is non-representative of French views. Even further, it’s pretty funny that Harun Yahya is attempting to credit it’s “Atlas of Creation” for these imaginary poll results. (It’s so powerful, it converted France’s 12-13% into 92% within a few months!) “Darwinism has come to an end also in France” says Harun Yahya. Sure, it has. And, “Atlas of Creation” gets all the credit. Baghdad Bob says: “There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!”

Update: According to this link, when the poll had 4274 votes, the poll said 64% of the French believed humans and apes had a common ancestor, and only 11% said humans are not a product of evolution. This is reasonably close to the Science poll. To switch dramatically to 5% and 92% with 72166 votes (as Harun Yahya’s image shows) would require that the next 67892 votes fell out this way: 1.3% (870 votes) “humans and apes had a common ancestor”, 97% (65,920 votes) “not a product of evolution”. That seems like a highly unlikely reversal of the poll. Additionally, that particular poll has far more votes cast than any other poll on the site. Sounds like someone’s tweaking the poll results – probably with a script. It’s rather funny that Harun Yahya would use an obviously manipulated poll to claim “Darwinism has come to an end also in France”. Take your victories where you can, I guess.

There are plenty of other ridiculous “news releases” on Harun Yahya’s website:
The Atlas of Creation and Fossil Exhibitions Cause Panic in France and Turkey:

The fossil exhibitions that are continuing at full speed all over Turkey seem to be causing intense alarm and panic among certain media circles. Unable to offer any evidence to the contrary and in a state of panic in the face of these developments, these circles are resorting instead to prohibition and obstruction. Issuing reports aimed at halting the fossil exhibitions and banning the Atlas of Creation cannot stop the collapse of Darwinism, however.
…
Yet not one single intermediate form has been discovered to date, and neither is it possible that any will be found in the future. Indeed, all our calls to evolutionists for them to put any intermediate forms they may have in their possession on show have gone unanswered, and Darwinists have retreated into silence in the face of the fossil findings that prove the fact of Creation.

Sure, there are no transitional fossils. And still more non-existent transitionals. And Baghdad Bob says, “Their casualties and bodies are many.”

The Harun Yahya press release: The Impact Abroad of the “Atlas of Creation”, has all kinds of information about the power of the Atlas of Creation, with little clips from the media:

The 24 June, 2007, edition of The Washington Times carried a report about the Fact of Creation, which is growing increasingly powerful in European countries. The report quoted Hervé Le Guyader, a biologist from Paris University, who called the challenge from Islamic thinkers “much more dangerous than the previous creationist initiatives, which were often of Anglo-Saxon origin.”

Wow. That must make Muslims feel good – those pesky Anglo-Saxon creationists are nothing compared to the *power* of Turkish creationists. They’re like some kind of Muslim Rambo – crushing the Western evolutionists with one hand, far more powerful than those wimpy Christian creationists! Harun Yahya and those Islamic thinkers are truly an intellectual force to be reckon with. The West has no defense! We must submit to their intellectual superiority, and submit to Allah…. Wait, a minute. This all sounds like some big, collective Middle-Eastern fantasy. Isn’t the Washington Times owned by the Moonies? And isn’t the God-incarnate of that church (Sun Myung Moon) the one who told Jonathan Wells to get a PhD so he could “devote [his] life to destroying Darwinism”? Hmmm, could The Washington Times article be leaving something out? Maybe? Oh, (thanks google!) here’s more on what Hervé Le Guyader thinks:

French biologist Hervé Le Guyader, professor at the University of Paris VI, carried out a preliminary analysis of the [Atlas of Creation] for the education minister, reported Le Monde (February 3, 2007). Le Guyader called the book “much more dangerous than previous creationist initiatives,” noting that the book’s lavish production “could convince someone who didn’t know any biology.” But, he added, its scientific content was “appallingly poor.” (Link)

Curse you creationists! You almost had me fooled. The power of your quote mine was almost too much!

As ridiculous and disconnected-from-reality as these Harun Yahya claims are, the group is still an important force in the creationism debate because they’ve got money, churn out propaganda at an amazing rate, and have a large pool of scientifically ignorant people to target. I’m sure they’ll be around a long time since no creationist has ever died from embarrassment (despite their valiant efforts). Harun Yahya has been doing lots and lots of propaganda work all over the internet. YouTube, for example, has 2,010 results for “Harun Yahya”. Many of those are critical of Harun Yahya, but plenty of them are material put out by the group. That’s even more hits than you get by searching for Kent Hovind on YouTube (1,510).

Update: Since I keep getting creationist readers reading this article and commenting that there is no evidence for evolution, I should direct you to my Creationism|Evolution page, where I’m continually adding information supporting evolution.

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Sherri Sheperd, Warrior against Scientific Groupthink

[Via BadAstronomy.] Hooray! More and more intelligent people are questioning the intellectual know-it-alls who call themselves scientists. Here’s a clip of one more person who should be praised for her courage. We need to teach our children to be more like her — willing to question authority and their fascist desire to make us all think like them. Sherri Shepherd – what an appropriate last name for someone who will lead us to the promised land!

My only concern is that Sherri isn’t stating the flat earth more forcefully, like as Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz: “The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim is an atheist who deserves to be punished.” [Muslim religious edict, 1993, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia]

————

Sherri Sheperd resembles some other creationists that I know: a mixture of scientific ignorance and belief that the Bible is the literal truth (sometimes mixed with a disinterest in learning anything more about it). These are the most difficult people to reach. It reminds me of one time when I mentioned some evidence that supported evolution to a family member, and they simply replied, “That’s not what the Bible says”. End of discussion. As far as I can tell, they are in a nice, little comfortable spot where everything fits together neatly (all the Bible stories starting with Genesis 1 are literally true, everyone just needs to believe in Jesus), and their ignorance enables them to avoid experiencing cognitive dissonance.

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10^262 is an unwritable number

While looking up some quotes on the D. James Kennedy book, I stumbled on a Christian grad school’s webpage (for Education 543, which looks to be a graduate level course) containing teaching materials for children. The author used Kennedy’s book for some of his “facts”. I just couldn’t help but laugh at this claim:

scientists have computed that to provide a single protein molecule by chance combination would take 10^262 years. Take thins pieces of paper and write “1” and then zeros after them – you would fill up the entire known universe with paper before you could write that number.

Wow. An amazing new fact I could only learn from a creationist! 10^262 cannot even be written! But, thanks to the *real-ultimate power* of the internets, we can actually see what this number looks like! (Warning, don’t print this webpage on your printer – it will use all the paper in the universe and still won’t be done printing!)

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000

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D. James Kennedy’s: Why I Believe

A number of years ago, I happened to notice a book on my parent’s bookshelf: Why I Believe, written in 1980 by D. James Kennedy (the televangelist who founded and then grew his Florida church into a megachurch and television program: “The Coral Ridge Hour”). Now, I was curious to see what he would say, but I’m left with one piece of advice for theists: you should more throughly checkout the basis for belief, because obviously, some of you have accepted a lot of flimsy evidence as support for your beliefs. No doubt, Kennedy thought he’d come in and put together a cognizant argument in defense of the Christian faith, driving fear and embarrassment into the hearts of the unbelievers. Instead, he made Christian beliefs look weak. What always amazes me, though, is how often poor Christian apologetic books get good ratings – on Amazon, 10 of the 18 reviewers gave it 5 stars, and one reviewer actually starts his review with “”Why I Believe” is a masterpiece of Christian apologetics.” (Christians: you look weak-minded when you give this book five stars).

One small chapter is titled: “Why I believe in Creation”, and is mostly composed quote mining, the unlikelihood of abiogenesis, the idea that Nazism was a natural outgrowth of evolutionary theory, Karl Marx asked Darwin to write the introduction to Das Kapital, the Cambrian explosion, etc. He begins the chapter:

We live in a time when there are only two religions competing for the minds, hearts and loyalties of intelligent Western man. The future of this world will be determined, humanly speaking, by intelligent Western man. One of those religions is Christianity; the other religion is evolution.

More idiotic “evolution is a religion” crap. Yup, it’s a “religion”, just like solar-centrism and atomic theory are religions. Apparently, if some people believe an idea, and he disagrees with it, but is incapable of actually convincing them otherwise, then it is “a religion”. How else to explain their unwillingness to “deconvert” from evolution?

Anyone who does not realize that evolution is a religion does not know much about evolution.

Funny, it seems like the people who know the least about evolution are the most willing to brand it a religion.

It is a religion that is passionately held to by its devotees.

There seems to be a hidden variable here that Kennedy seems blissfully unaware of: evidence. Scientific theories, like atomic theory, the theory of relativity, and the theory of evolution, have evidence to support them. If you are blissfully unaware of that evidence, you will perceive scientists as being irrationally devoted to their ideas.

Listen to what some well-known evolutionists, all highly placed scientists in the world, have to say. Professor Louis T. More, one of the most vocal evolutionists: “The more one studies paleontology [the fossil record], the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone.”

Professor Louis T More: a Physicist, dean at the University of Cincinnati, an advocate of Lamarkianism (and against Darwinian evolution) wrote this in 1925 – and there’s a lot of new information discovered since 1925. He was not liked by either the evolutionists or the creationists. My guess is that he was trying to tear down ideas of Darwinian evolution in an attempt to build up his own Lamarkian views. (Link)

Professor D.M.S. Watson, a famous evolutionist, made the remarkable observation that evolution itself is a theory universally accepted, “not because it has been observed to occur or can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the alternative – special creation – is clearly incredible” To the reprobate mind, the unregenerate mind, creation is incredible because it requires belief in a creator, and that is totally unacceptable to such men as these.

The date on that quote? 1929. A lot has been discovered since then. What Watson says, earlier in the same article: “Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or is supported by logically coherent arguments, but because it does fit all the facts of taxonomy, of paleontology, and geographical distribution, and because no alternative explanation is credible. Whilst the fact of evolution is accepted by every biologist, the mode in which it has occurred and the mechanism by which it has been brought about are still disputable…” (Link) In other words, he says (in 1929) that the idea of natural selection as the mechanism behind evolution was questionable, but calls evolution a “fact” because it fits the facts of “taxonomy, of paleontology, and geographical distribution”.

A famous British evolutionist, Sir Arthur Keith, is just as frank in his admission. He says, “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable.”

Some creationist literature attributes that to Sir Arthur Keith in the forward of the 1959 edition of Origin of Species (apparently taken posthumously, since Keith died in 1955). It’s unclear whether this quote is accurate or not – it seems like a bizarre quote to put in the forward to Origin of the Species. People attempting to track down this quote have been unable to even find a copy of the 1959 edition. (Link)

So, where does that leave us? One quote from the 1920s from a Lamarkian Evolutionist. One quote from the 1920s questioning the validity of natural selection as the mechanism behind evolution, but it made to look like he was questioning the validity of evolution in general. And one posthumous quote that hasn’t been verified.

What would happen if I were to stand up before my congregation and say, “My friends, Christianity is unproved and unprovable, but you still ought to believe it”? They would get up and walk out, and rightly so. But that is the way men accept evolution.

This one surprised me quite a bit. If Kennedy ever did that in his church, no one would walk out. They would declare that they had faith, and would be proud of it. They’d be quoting Bible verses: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17), “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29). Besides, isn’t Pascal’s Wager regularly trotted out by believers to convince people that they should believe in God even though God’s existence isn’t proven? They “ought to believe it” because the consequences of not believing in God and being wrong is eternal damnation, but the consequences of believing in God and being wrong are nothing.

I particularly liked this brief statement in the next paragraph:

Dr. Duane Gish, noted biologist, says, “Evolution is a fairy tale for adults.”

Wow, a “noted biologist”. Kennedy provides no more information about this “Duane Gish” fellow – he just moves on. But, I’ve seen that name before. I just can’t place it. Oh, right, he’s the former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research. I don’t think Gish is noted for being a biologist. He is known for debating tactics such as the “Gish Gallop“, however. Nice to see that Kennedy can quote people who agree with him.

It goes on like this for another nine pages – touching on Communism, Nazism, an so on. It even includes claims such as:

Evolution is the religion of modern unbelieving man, and it has been the pseudoscientific foundation of every false and anti-Christian “ism” that has come down the pike in the last hundred years.

Or maybe Christians have blamed every bad “ism” on evolutionary theory. It’s particularly funny when Christians try to blame things like socialism on evolutionary theory, since capitalism is the economic equivalent of evolution’s survival of the fittest. No doubt, there are Christian socialists blaming the existence of capitalism on evolutionary theory, and complaining how evolution is the cause of the evils of capitalism. Evolution is the whipping boy, the convenient scapegoat for every problem in the world. You get the feeling that Kennedy would blame the Spanish Inquisition on evolutionists (it’s just “survival of the fittest” applied to a religious context), if it wasn’t for the problem of chronology. Here’s what Kennedy says about the Spanish Inquisition (page 119):

Second, we must remember that Christianity has often been blamed for things that true Christians did not do, and that everyone who professes does not necessarily possess what he professes. For example, perhaps the darkest blotch and accusation that could be brought against Christianity would be the Spanish Inquisition. I would not endeavor to defend it. It was deplorably in the highest degree, a monstrous epic of brutality and barbarity. It was diabolical in its nature.

Was this Christians persecuting non-Christians? It was the very opposite. I am quite convinced that the members of the Inquisitorial Party were not Christians. They lived in the Dark Ages when the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been all but totally forgotten and the faith so perverted that it bore little resemblance to that which had been given by Christ. In many cases the victims of the Inquisition were evangelical Protestant Christians who had come to realize that the historic Gospel of Christ was and who had rejected the papal superstitions of that time. These were the people who were exposed to these tremendous tortures.
…
I am quite certain that no Christian would ever torture anyone.

See? The Inquisition was the non-Christians persecuting the Christians. Those Catholics claiming to be Christians were actually from the Dark Ages – they time-travelled from 1000 AD into the 1500s to kill the “evangelical protestants” (who time-travelled back from the 1800s and 1900s). Admittedly, the Inquisition did kill about 100 protestants (Link). The Catholic church doesn’t like competition. There are also cases of protestant reformers torturing Christians (e.g. lookup John Calvin and Michael Servetus), and based on the writings of Martin Luther, one gets the feeling that he wouldn’t have a problem with torture or execution (“We are at fault in not slaying [the Jews].”)

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