Why does everyone think Evolution contradicts Creationism?

[The Cadet]

Darwinism is just a theory. You said that evolution has never been falsified -- only verified. Unfortunately, Popper himself noted that verification is worthless. He talked about how Marxists could open a newspaper and find a constant stream of verification and confirmations of Marxism in everything the paper said (or didn't say). What does this prove? It only proves that the theory is flexible enough to admit any data presented to it and nothing more.

Why should I give any greater status to Darwinism than to Marxism?

Fundamentally, you have just described one of the most significant differences between science and pseudoscience. The reason evolution - I have no idea why you would use the term "Darwinism" - deserves more credence than Marxism is because evolution states openly and publicly what it would take to disprove the claims made. (The blithe, sound-bite answer being "Fossil bunnies in cambrian strata" - something like that would cause a massive paradigm shift and force the reevaluation of numerous crucial parts of the theory, if not its complete abandonment.)

This concept, falsification, is the key. Yeah, a Marxist could open a newspaper and find a constant stream of verification. But does he know what a falsification would look like? Does he know what would prove him wrong? I don't think so. I think his theory was ill-defined and malleable enough that any evidence would confirm it. The same simply is not true of evolution.

Cancer is not part of the laws that God created. Atheists who do not believe God exists seem to like to blame him for everything negative whereas in fact we only have ourselves to blame.

When God created heaven and earth and everything in it you will see that he deemed it to be good. Adam and Eve were created by God and put into a world that was good (perfect). That means no cancer. The sin of man has slowly brought about the degradation of society so cancer is the product of our sin.

That is why we look forward to the new Jerusalem where their will be no sin or suffering.

Could god have created a world without sin, or where sin does not lead to degradation or suffering? How 'bout a world with less sin? Or, to use your analogy:

Third, I will try and explain it in simple terms for you. I buy a new car and the salesman tells me that with regular servicing and maintenance the car will last forever. I ignore the salesman's wisdom and fail to get it serviced. I drive it down the road and the engine seizes up. Who is to blame? The manufacturer of the car? No. The salesman? No. I and I alone am to blame because I ignored the obvious and allowed the car to degenerate.

But what if the manufacturer was capable of making it so it didn't require regular servicing? And what if the manufacturer knew that this "regular servicing" was completely outside the bounds of any reasonable human's capabilities? Would it be fair to blame the manufacturer then?

Evolution never falsified???? Of course we won't talk about the HOAX known as the Piltdown man.

Piltdown man was a hoax, yes. So what? Striking Piltdown man (and Nebraska man, and the handful of other hoaxes that were not widely accepted and are no longer accepted) from the fossil record, as was done decades ago, has very little effect on the overall evidence for the theory. Great, so Piltodwn man is a hoax. Okay, so how 'bout Java Man? How 'bout Lucy? How 'bout the entire austraulopithicine clade? How 'bout Homo Habilis? The fossil record is rich with fossils which aren't hoaxes that document a clear transitional path from humans to apes.

As for Richard Dawkins being insightful how about this bit of insight. He said on a TV programme that there is nothing wrong with sexual lust. Tell that to a woman who has been raped.

I also see nothing wrong with sexual lust. I do however see problems with violating a person's right to bodily autonomy and forcing them to undergo a traumatic, painful, violent experience against their will. Simply saying that there's nothing wrong with sexual lust in no way makes one an advocate of rape.

 

[Phenotype]

In your attempt to put one over belief in God, you have overstepped the mark in trying to impose your philosophy on others. I understand that it is inconceivable for you to even consider that belief in God brings a new dimension to life and death but them's the facts.

I was a Christian just as committed, zealous and blinkered as you are. If to aver that everything has a naturalistic explanation is a philosophy, then whatever. It will resonate as intuitive with people with common sense or Christians who still engage doubt, skepticism and who exercise intellectual and existential courage. I am simply right about my claim and you yourself know it. What you experience and drown out is called cognitive dissonance, when what you believe doesn't equate with reality and common sense.

I should have died in 1976 as I was involved in a head on collision in a car travelling at 100kph. Moments before collision I said "Jesus here I come." At that moment in time I felt a pair of hands take hold of my shoulders (I was not wearing a seat belt) and as a result I did not die. I walked away from the crash virtually untouched. Since that day I have no fear of death.

Nice that you survived that. Very lucky. It happens, obviously. To construe that it was God did it is called confirmation bias. I personally still wouldn't believe as I am not into superstition, or bragging for that matter. Did you get thrown out of the windscreen? What are the exact details of your escape from death or quadriplegia?

Add to that it says that the day of our death is appointed by God so what is there to be afraid of? In a word...nothing. Knowing what there is to know about cancer changes nothing. It won't help me live another day. There is such a thing as common grace which means that despite sin and its effects, God gives the ability for some to find what the problem is and to solve the problem. Without that common grace, man would be left to destroy themselves. Just shows you how caring God is. Man has said they don't want anything to do with him but he still does things to help them out of their suffering.

You may not care to live another day. That's your call. Others may care to, hence the humanist field of medicine, going back to ancient times, though now we have it on the right track with science, pharmacology, medical technology and knowhow in practice and nursing methods. To attribute human caring to God is quite insensible and soulless.

If God appoints our hour of death, why do we even bother with the medical endeavour, to alleviate suffering and save lives?

Are you kidding? God cares about human suffering?? That is a mindless thing to assert. Think that one through now you have had that repudiated possibly for the first time. Look around you.

But I know that atheists want to blame the God they don't believe exists for most of the things that the selfishness of mankind is responsible for.

Make sense. Look at what religion has done to you.

This is from another forum I engage on. I read this kind of stuff all the time. One of our members puts up science papers for the general information and edification of other members. He taught science, particularly evolutionary biology at uni for many years. Dig this,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150825115031.htm

 

[Phenotype]

How sad that you would say that.

I also wonder whether the claim "If it ain't substantive and empirically testable, most likely it is irrelevant" can be exposed to empirical testing. Personally, I doubt it. Accordingly, shouldn't we assume that your statement is most likely irrelevant according to its own standard?

You are woefully ignorant of the things you talk about. You need to read the book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. You can find it at http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf

I read that the other night, the guts of it in a uni philosophy textbook I'm revisiting. The following essay is Karl Popper Science: Conjectures and Refutations.

So how is what I said in error, and so profoundly, too? Are you just being contentious and combative for the sake of it?

 

[Zosimus]

I think we might both settle down. It is concerning to read your opinion on Marxists, or anyone in whose execution you would rejoice. It might apply to those who don't believe in God, gods or the supernatural, especially to those who will declare themselves atheists. Atheist the word has a militant sound to it. Christians and Muslims think we eat babies. It's OK not to believe in God, but atheist! My daughter is not marrying any damned atheist! I don't believe in the death penalty. We don't have it in Australia.

We don't have it in Peru either, but I wish we did. I'd like to see Abimael Guzmán get it.

Yes, I read The God Delusion, after I had read 5 Dawkins books explaining evolution. He sure can write. He has won literary awards. In my case I was ready to concentrate on what I was reading. I was receptive because I had already been thinking critically about religion for 20 years. I was thinking there were things he could have said. There are a myriad ways one can expose religion for what it is, a mass delusion, antithetical to science and reason. Independent, critical thinking is really the Unpardonable Sin.

Oh, I see. He's a good writer because he wrote things that you already agreed with. Well, that's impressive. What about the logical arguments contained in his book? Rubbish. He's a fair dinkum dill, and that's a generous assessment.

You can be a bit of a hothead. That line about Dawkins not having two brain cells is a waste of space and pixels. You do yourself a disservice talking like that. I could mock William Lane Craig, or Ken Ham. They are so tedious and ambitious to be prominent in their insular world. They are big time. They are heretics.

First of all, I think you've misjudged your audience. I don't even know who William Lane Craig is. Why should I care? Even if William Lane Crag is such a whacker that he makes Dawkins look somewhat lucid, who cares?

Dawkins is existentially authentic. He has applied his cognition and his integrity to what is true and important from his earliest days. He had a religious zeal for a while back in boarding school. He takes things seriously. He soon saw through religion as antagonistic to apprehending reality, as contrary to reason and free inquiry, science and ethics based in human reason.

I'm surprised that the universe didn't implode when you used the word reason and Dawkins in the same sentence. Have you really read his book? His central argument seems to be that since it's not completely impossible that life arose without supernatural help, it's certain that life arose without supernatural help. What kind of logic is that? That would be like me saying, "Since it's not completely impossible that I know Tony Abbott, it's certain that I know him."

 

[Zosimus]

I read that the other night, the guts of it in a uni philosophy textbook I'm revisiting. The following essay is Karl Popper Science: Conjectures and Refutations.

So how is what I said in error, and so profoundly, too? Are you just being contentious and combative for the sake of it?

You show a deep confusion between verificationism and falsificationism. If you believe that theories must be falsifiable, then that is the only standard because any falsifiable theory can be, at least theoretically, tested and proved false if it fails at some point in the future. This makes the theory a matter for scientific inquiry whereas things that are not empirically testable are not subjects for scientific inquiry (but not necessarily wrong or bad). Falsificationism was proposed by Karl Popper as a reaction to the logical positivism school, which insisted that things that could not be verified were inherently meaningless.

Ultimately, the two logical choices you have are either to claim that verification is important because it leads to an increase in the subjective probability of a theory, a percentage that can be calculated using Bayesian statistics or to claim that verification is unimportant but that falsification is there so that your working theories can, if false, eventually be falsified and eliminated from consideration.

 

[bhsmte]

You show a deep confusion between verificationism and falsificationism. If you believe that theories must be falsifiable, then that is the only standard because any falsifiable theory can be, at least theoretically, tested and proved false if it fails at some point in the future. This makes the theory a matter for scientific inquiry whereas things that are not empirically testable are not subjects for scientific inquiry (but not necessarily wrong or bad). Falsificationism was proposed by Karl Popper as a reaction to the logical positivism school, which insisted that things that could not be verified were inherently meaningless.

Ultimately, the two logical choices you have are either to claim that verification is important because it leads to an increase in the subjective probability of a theory, a percentage that can be calculated using Bayesian statistics or to claim that verification is unimportant but that falsification is there so that your working theories can, if false, eventually be falsified and eliminated from consideration.

Want a taste of some real confused logic?

Check out the previous thread; "its only an illusion" and specifically, post number 304.

 

[Zosimus]

Fundamentally, you have just described one of the most significant differences between science and pseudoscience. The reason evolution - I have no idea why you would use the term "Darwinism" - deserves more credence than Marxism is because evolution states openly and publicly what it would take to disprove the claims made. (The blithe, sound-bite answer being "Fossil bunnies in cambrian strata" - something like that would cause a massive paradigm shift and force the reevaluation of numerous crucial parts of the theory, if not its complete abandonment.)

This concept, falsification, is the key. Yeah, a Marxist could open a newspaper and find a constant stream of verification. But does he know what a falsification would look like? Does he know what would prove him wrong? I don't think so. I think his theory was ill-defined and malleable enough that any evidence would confirm it. The same simply is not true of evolution.

It took me a long time to find this post again. Don't you hate it when the computer spontaneously reboots for no reason while you're in the middle of typing something? It's enough to make you doubt science.

I have heard the claim bandied about quite frequently that finding a rabbit fossil in the Cambrian strata would falsify evolution. It's bupkiss, of course. Finding a rabbit fossil out of place would not fundamentally falsify the idea that the frequency of alleles changes from generation to generation. It similarly would not falsify the idea that the species that is fittest to survive survives, preserving genes that are fitter than others.

This is nothing more than a false claim of falsifiability. I can easily point out that Christianity is falsifiable too. All you have to do is find a grave of Jesus with a sign saying "Jesus of Nazareth -- crucified by order of Pontius Pilate." No one, however, pretends that Christianity is a subject for scientific study.

All you have done is to point out the problem of the tacking paradox. Take any unfalsifiable statement "Fairies make flowers grow" and tack it onto a falsifiable one "and grass is green." Voila! Instant scientific theory.

Supposedly there is a Bayesian solution to the problem at http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2289/1/Disjunction.pdf

 

[FredVB]

Those not believing in God being involved with everything being here may well believe in the process of evolution, with seeing the evidence being just for that, they don't have any other alternative for any sort of logical approach. But God's involvement is not disproved with that. Many of the evidences they use have an alternative understanding possible, if the perspective of history with God's involvement is not dismissed.

Sure God is capable of creation with use of such natural processes. God is perfect, and I see from revelation God is good and providing what is good for God's creatures as said and not ever lying or deceiving, and wouldn't have created in just such a fashion as is assumed with Darwinian evolution with natural processes without the divine work of God accomplishing all this creation.

If one as you says simply, I don't know if there is God, that wouldn't be a faith statement, but it doesn't cut off coming to any faith statement. If it is said that it cannot be known that there is God, that is a faith statement, and it would be agnostic. If it said there isn't God at all, that is a faith statement, whether it is said that this is believed or it is said that it is known, or proved from science, or whatever.

I had believed of what I had learned from the evolutionary theory, but coming to know it was not all proven and with many gaps, as I came to faith in the gospel with trusting God's word, I could trust the creation account, and see that other believers did too, and even more so now through what I find online.

 

[Loudmouth]

Your argument presupposes that the igneous rock really is 30 to 10 million years old.

The age of the rocks are determined by their isotope content. It isn't assumed, and it is independent of the fossils found in the layers above and below those rocks.

Personally I think it's a strange range... 30 to 10 million years old. Did you, perhaps, mean 3 to 10 million years old?

I meant 30 or 10 million years old. The important feature is an igneous rock layer that is significantly younger than the K/T boundary at 65 million years old.

 

[Loudmouth]

Those not believing in God being involved with everything being here may well believe in the process of evolution, with seeing the evidence being just for that, they don't have any other alternative for any sort of logical approach. But God's involvement is not disproved with that. Many of the evidences they use have an alternative understanding possible, if the perspective of history with God's involvement is not dismissed.

Sure God is capable of creation with use of such natural processes. God is perfect, and I see from revelation God is good and providing what is good for God's creatures as said and not ever lying or deceiving, and wouldn't have created in just such a fashion as is assumed with Darwinian evolution with natural processes without the divine work of God accomplishing all this creation.

If one as you says simply, I don't know if there is God, that wouldn't be a faith statement, but it doesn't cut off coming to any faith statement. If it is said that it cannot be known that there is God, that is a faith statement, and it would be agnostic. If it said there isn't God at all, that is a faith statement, whether it is said that this is believed or it is said that it is known, or proved from science, or whatever.

I had believed of what I had learned from the evolutionary theory, but coming to know it was not all proven and with many gaps, as I came to faith in the gospel with trusting God's word, I could trust the creation account, and see that other believers did too, and even more so now through what I find online.

Replace "evolution" with "gravity" in your argument, and see if it still works.

God could use natural processes, like gravity, to move the heavenly bodies about, but since gravity is just a theory, shouldn't we believe that God directly moves the planets about? After all, the theory of gravity is full of holes. They can't even decide if it is best described by quantum mechanics or special relativity.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

If I were an all powerful being who wanted to create something as big and beautiful as the ENTIRE UNIVERSE... I would NEVER do it all by hand. I'd be too smart for that. First, I'd create the Laws of Physics, chemistry, etc. Then I would design a mechanism by which life of all forms can flourish.... IE... Evolution.

To me, Evolution is proof of creationism. It is proof that there is an Omniscient, Omnipotent being out there.

Most people who don't believe in evolution say "it's just a theory, it hasn't been proven" Which is a blatant misunderstanding of the word "theory". In scientific terms, a theory is something that has been proven, but not quantified (As opposed to a Law which is always true in every instance and can be calculated). It happens folks. No amount of whining and moaning can un-prove or undo evolution. So instead of believing that it is some affront to God, why not realize that Evolution is actually God's work?

We've seen evolution in our lifetimes. On microbial scale, we see things like algae being coaxed into evolving into fuel producing species. As humans, we've had a hand in the evolution of Dogs. We chose the ones that are loyal and that look nice, and the rest were routinely killed off. Even an astute person can see how traits are passed down from human parent to human child. We see hundreds or thousands of versions of the same plants and animals in different regions of the world.

So lets look at this differently.

Evolution does not disprove creationism, it is the mechanism. Science is how were discover God's universe. It is not the unholy tool by which we unravel God. It is God's tool by which we discover HIM!

Everyone? In my personal life I've encountered one kid who didn't "believe" in evolution, and I've attended Christian schools and been been a regular attendee at thriving churches since I was a child. Most Christians I know believe in creationism in the sense that God is the Creator who created the universe and all life within it, and that doesn't contradict out acceptance of evolution. The Catholic church and the majority of mainline denominations accept evolution as a scientific truth that is in harmony with the truths of scripture. The Presbyterian's is something like "Neither scripture, our Confession of Faith, nor our Catechisms, teach the Creation of man by the direct and immediate acts of God so as to exclude the possibility of evolution as a scientific theory." This is from the Episcopalian church:

http://episcopalscience.org/creation-science/

 

[Zosimus]

The age of the rocks are determined by their isotope content. It isn't assumed, and it is independent of the fossils found in the layers above and below those rocks.

Your post is confusing. The age is determined or the rocks are determined?

I meant 30 or 10 million years old. The important feature is an igneous rock layer that is significantly younger than the K/T boundary at 65 million years old.

If I submitted the tombstone for my grandfather for radioactive dating, what number do you think I would come up with?

 

[Loudmouth]

Your post is confusing. The age is determined or the rocks are determined?

The age is determined by the ratio of isotopes in the rocks. This is entirely independent of the fossils found above and below the rocks. You could send the same rock to multiple labs and get the same date without ever telling them about where it was found or the fossils found above or below that rock.

If I submitted the tombstone for my grandfather for radioactive dating, what number do you think I would come up with?

Depends on the rock. Obviously, it would not be used to date the fossils below it because that rock did not form in situ with those deposits. If it is a slow cooling granite then you can measure the closure of different crystals during the cooling history of the rock, as an example.

Radiometric dating is primarily used on rocks that have formed from the quick cooling of molten lava, and have been undisturbed since their deposition and solidification. Finding a lava flow on top of topsoil (i.e. paleosol) where the paleosol shows melting at the interface is strong evidence that it is a real series of events. Volcanic ash deposits are often used. Tektites were used to date the K/T impact meteor since these are formed from melted rock that was thrown into the air and solidified on the way down.

If you don't know how radiometric dating works, then I would suggest this well written essay on the topic:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

 

[Zosimus]

The age is determined by the ratio of isotopes in the rocks. This is entirely independent of the fossils found above and below the rocks. You could send the same rock to multiple labs and get the same date without ever telling them about where it was found or the fossils found above or below that rock.

I personally doubt that, but I have no way of verifying whether it's true because there is insufficient information in the nearly-worthless article you sent me. I also note that it comes from a Christian basis and is, therefore, highly suspect.

Depends on the rock. Obviously, it would not be used to date the fossils below it because that rock did not form in situ with those deposits. If it is a slow cooling granite then you can measure the closure of different crystals during the cooling history of the rock, as an example.

So basically it would have no relationship to the things buried under it.

Radiometric dating is primarily used on rocks that have formed from the quick cooling of molten lava, and have been undisturbed since their deposition and solidification.

This information is unknowable.

Finding a lava flow on top of topsoil (i.e. paleosol) where the paleosol shows melting at the interface is strong evidence that it is a real series of events. Volcanic ash deposits are often used. Tektites were used to date the K/T impact meteor since these are formed from melted rock that was thrown into the air and solidified on the way down.

Ooh strong evidence. I love it when non-quantifiables are liberally tagged with subjective feelings about how valid they are.

If you don't know how radiometric dating works, then I would suggest this well written essay on the topic:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

It's not well written, and you should learn how to spell "well-written essay."

 

[Loudmouth]

I personally doubt that, but I have no way of verifying whether it's true because there is insufficient information in the nearly-worthless article you sent me. I also note that it comes from a Christian basis and is, therefore, highly suspect.

You can read geology papers, read the description and location of the rocks they date, collect those rocks, and then send them out for dating. It is entirely verifiable.

So basically it would have no relationship to the things buried under it.

Depends on the rock.

This information is unknowable.

If you want to continue with the absolutist sophistry where Last Thursdayism is on level with real history, then that is your choice. For the rest of us, past events leave evidence that we can examine in the present.

Ooh strong evidence. I love it when non-quantifiables are liberally tagged with subjective feelings about how valid they are.

I love it when you ignore all of the verifiable and repeatable empirical measurements for the thousandth time.

It's not well written, and you should learn how to spell "well-written essay."

You should learn how radiometric dating is done before proclaiming that it doesn't work.

 

[Zosimus]

You can read geology papers, read the description and location of the rocks they date, collect those rocks, and then send them out for dating. It is entirely verifiable.

No, it's not. There is no indication in any paper that I've read exactly how the different levels of lead isotopes are measured. In fact, I've never seen any of the popular papers online mention exactly how that's done. Do they melt the rock and centrifuge it? Do they use lasers? Do they use psychic energy?

Here's an example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-lead_dating

Scans for "measur" (which will cover both measured, measures, and measurement) show only:

1) the number of Uranium atoms measured now.
2) equal to the sum of Lead and Uranium atoms measured now.

Neither of these indicates how the lead is measured exactly.

Let's look at your link.

"The result is that one can obtain three independent estimates of the age of a rock by measuring the lead isotopes and their parent isotopes."
---------------
How is that done? It doesn't say. How can I determine whether such a method is repeatable? I cannot.

If you want to continue with the absolutist sophistry where Last Thursdayism is on level with real history, then that is your choice. For the rest of us, past events leave evidence that we can examine in the present.

Once again, we have a Loudmouth's trademark: The straw man argument. What I talk about is THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION. I know you don't want to admit it, but this is a major problem for scientific epistemology. The problem has its own entry in http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/ whereas "Last Thursdayism" does not. The problem of induction has been admitted as intractible by philosophers of science such as Karl Popper whereas Last Thursdayism has not even been given a second thought.

Karl Popper proposed falsificationism as the standard for science. Newer scientists propose Bayesian statistics. There are no major proponents of verificationism anywhere in the world. No scientist ever speaks of a theory being valid because it has been verified. Verificationism is dead, Loudmouth, deader than a doornail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verificationism
"...all three of verificationism's shared basic suppositions—verifiability criterion,analytic/synthetic distinction, and observation/theory gap[3]—were by the 1960s found irreparably untenable, signaling the demise of verificationism and, with it, of the entire movement launched by logical positivism."

I love it when you ignore all of the verifiable and repeatable empirical measurements for the thousandth time.

Who cares that they are verifiable? Verificationism is dead. Logical positivism is dead. No one thinks that verifiable and repeatable empirical measurements have anything to do with anything. You are the only one walking around with a dazed look on your face muttering, "It's verifiable... it's verifiable... why doesn't anyone listen? It's verifiable..."

You should learn how radiometric dating is done before proclaiming that it doesn't work.

Once again, Loudmouth's trademark -- Straw man arguments. I said, "[The article]'s not well written..." and your counter is that I should learn how radiometric dating is done before proclaiming that it doesn't work.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I'm aware that this delusion is widely believed by the pro-science crowd. I wonder, however, whether it is empirically falsifiable. If not, surely you must think that it is unworthy of thinking.

I always chuckle when you say such nonsense, pretending that any and every statement has to be / is subject to empirical testing in a worldview where one recognises that empirical science is a good methodology to find out how physical reality works.

Richard Dawkins is a complete moron.

lol, owkay then.
Professor Dawkins is a "complete moron". Haha.

Ow boy....

 

[AV1611VET]

Professor Dawkins is a "complete moron". Haha.

At least he admited Dawkins exists.

Unlike scientists who think John Mark didn't.

(Note I didn't put a comma in that last statement.)

 

[DogmaHunter]

Have you really read his book? His central argument seems to be that since it's not completely impossible that life arose without supernatural help, it's certain that life arose without supernatural help. What kind of logic is that?

What kind of logic that is? Not of the kind that I remember reading in the book, that's for sure.

Perhaps you could provide a citation / quote from the book to support your claims here?

 

[Zosimus]

What kind of logic that is? Not of the kind that I remember reading in the book, that's for sure.

Perhaps you could provide a citation / quote from the book to support your claims here?

First of all, I will mention that the entire book can be found at https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jks...ction/The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.pdf although I don't know whether that violates any kind of law.

Search for the phrase "the ultimate Boeing 747"
This will put you at the start of his long, rambling "proof." His proof consists of an argument against the argument of improbability. This is the modus operandi of his book. Since there are objections to the argument of improbability (objections that may or may not be valid – experts disagree), it is not absolutely necessary for someone to accept the argument of improbability. Therefore, Darwinism.

That's the logic of the entire book. The only part that kind of deviates from this theme is the "anthropic principle." Scan for the phrase "Gap theologians who may have given up on" and you will find yourself at the start of the section. You can read on, if you like, or skip ahead to the phrase:

"This objection can be answered by the suggestion, which Martin Rees himself supports, that there are many universes, co-existing like bubbles of foam, in a 'multiverse' (or 'megaverse', as Leonard Susskind prefers to call it).*"

What's the point of the argument? It is this: Even though it is quite improbable that any of what he postulates could have happened, if you postulate an infinite number of universes, why it must have happened in one of them. Then, therefore, it is not surprising that we would find ourselves in the universe where it did happen because (drumroll) the anthropic principle.

Of course this "proof" could easily be applied to anything, really. Yes, it's extremely unlikely that a young Joseph Smith ran into an angel who gave him golden plates written in an ancient language. It's also extremely unlikely that he was able to translate these writings into our modern language using little more than a few rocks and a hat. However, if we postulate an infinite number of universes, why it was certain to happen in one of them, and it's not surprising that we are in the universe where Mormonism is the one true religion because (drumroll) the anthropic principle!! If we hadn't been in the right universe, we never would have heard of old Joe Smith and his Book of Mormon.

Would you similarly like me to prove that Jesus really was God, that Mohammed really did talk to Allah, and that Bigfoot exists?

Again, the main point of Dawkins' argument seems to be that since you can postulate infinite numbers of universes, Darwinism is not completely falsified outright. Since it has not been proven completely false, it must be true.

Dawkins senses, in a certain naive way, that people might balk at his argument and so includes this doozy:

"It is tempting to think (and many have succumbed) that to postulate a plethora of universes is a profligate luxury which should not be allowed. If we are going to permit the extravagance of a multiverse, so the argument runs, we might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and allow a God. Aren't they both equally unparsimonious ad hoc hypotheses, and equally unsatisfactory? People who think that have not had their consciousness raised by natural selection. The key difference between the genuinely extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis is one of statistical improbability. The multiverse, for all that it is extravagant, is simple. God, or any intelligent, decision-taking, calculating agent, would have to be highly improbable in the very same statistical sense as the entities he is supposed to explain."

This is what we call special pleading. He is entitled to make completely unsupportable hypotheses that save his pet theory from falsification. However, his opponents are denied the same opportunity.