What should I think about Expelled?

[grandvizier1006]

I'm in a...difficult online class with some Christians who were all...raised on different theological persuasions than me. For more, see my thread in Christian Advice called "Disagreements with...Christians" (the ellipses were in the thread title).

http://www.christianforums.com/t7856617/

Basically, the time has come in our class in which we must condemn "Darwinism" (quotations added since I'll bet everybody here doesn't like a term like that being used so perjoratively).

My uncertainty of "what to believe" in regards to evolution had troubled me for years. I was a Christian, sure, but how was I supposed to spread the Good News if there were so many atheists that were just going to say, "Now hold on there. I can't read a book of myths!" and leave it at that. The Genesis narrative being the biggest offender, obviously.

But then I discovered Theistic Evolution and found that...surprise, surprise, it made perfect sense! Finally, the power of the Bible and the knowledge gleaned from science were blended together in a glorious compromise! Perhaps I exaggerate, actually. :o

Regardless, I'm happy with my views. I'll admit I haven't studied the topic extensively, but just knowing that my mind could be at ease on the subject and not ever have to be troubled about it again!

But over the Christmas break, the higher-ups want me to watch Expelled. Having grown up around YECs my whole life (I didn't know there was any other type of Christian for a while, having grown up in PCA churches, which admittedly didn't hammer this in much), I was fascinated by what Ben Stein said and believed him.

Fast-forward to the (slightly) wiser me that's an actual Christian, in the present. I haven't seen this documentary since, and now that I know how documentaries of this sort like to manipulate their opponents into giving information that unknowingly supports the documentary's view, I'm a bit cautious about watching something that might be really dishonest.

Furthermore, I don't want to get into a debate about evolution and such, but I don't just want to sit there and have YEC hammered into me (and yes, to some extent I am required to give THEIR answers on topics, but you'd have to see the other post for details).

Now, most likely we're only going to be discussing (re: complaining) about the moral implications of secular evolution, which I can get behind--although admittedly I don't know much about it and don't want to do what Expelled does and invoke what's known as Godwin's law (basically the idea that everything can be compared to Hitler and Nazism). Considering that Ben Stein was endorsing Intelligent Design and not YEC, I probably don't have too much to worry about.

But I'd like more perspectives on this. I'm going to have to watch Expelled again, and there's no way I can do what my well-meaning friend in the class suggests and "just believe what the Bible says" (it's kind of sad, almost, since she believes that her personal theological viewpoints that she was taught are actually derived from the Bible itself, and I really don't know if I should "correct" her).

So, what's the Theistic evolutionist perspective on Intelligent design? Are the two concepts compatible or incompatible? I know you might think it's a bit silly for me to ask "how should I view this", but I would like some feedback. Just some other opinions so I can see what to make of this.

 

[Papias]

Welcome to the forums! Blessings to you.

GV wrote:

But over the Christmas break, the higher-ups want me to watch Expelled.

Ugh. Of the many concerns I have with that movie, the biggest one is that Expelled is huge gift to the atheists, because it provides proof that Christians can be sinfully dishonest. Most of the movie is a lie. For instance:

The stories of the "expelled" people are made up of half-truths. Important information about them is hidden (usually the fact that they had a lot of other reasons for being fired - often because they simply didn't do their jobs). A little digging turns all that up - try googling their names.

Quote-mining. The "interviews" aren't really interviews to get a person's opinion so as to generate footage of them saying words and phrases, which were then cut and pasted to make the interviewee sound like they were saying something else. It's simply lying.

The other category of quote-mining is the slicing up of Darwin's text. As in the case above, the text is cut and pasted to make it sound like Darwin said something he didn't. Again, it simply lying.

One place to look is here, though there is a lot of other information to be found using google. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the many instances that fall into these three broad categories, and others, the movie is one lie after another. Knowing the story behind each part of the movie makes the movie into one cringe after another - each a case of video proof of Christians lying. So when the truth comes out, Expelled is an atheist triumph, something that any Christian should hope never sees the light of day.

So, what's the Theistic evolutionist perspective on Intelligent design? Are the two concepts compatible or incompatible?

That's tricky because "Intelligent Design" (ID) can mean different things.

In one definition, ID can simply mean that some things in biology had a little help from God. For instance Behe (a Catholic) himself fully agrees that humans descended from earlier apes over about 6 million years, and that all life is related through common descent. I doubt that's something that your friends are aware of. So in that form, if ID is seen as something where God provides tiny and hard to detect design help as everything evolves from a single cell to our current world over 4 billion years, then ID and TE are mostly compatible.

However, that's not how ID is usually seen nor portrayed. It's most often used by evolution deniers as "proof" that evolution can't work, and as such to imply the denial of common descent. In that form, it's no better than standard evolution denialism such as YEC. Also as such, it relies on the same lying that YEC does.

For instance, the examples chosen are portrayed only by hiding relevant information - such as information that shows that they could have evolved easily, and that biologist know this already. This is seen in the common examples of the bacterium flagellum and the blood clotting cascade, both of which are easily explained by evolution, as a little googling will show.

ID often relies on "Irreducible Complexity" (IC), trying to say that IC disproves evolution. In fact, based on evolution, the scientist Hermann Muller predicted IC (he called it “interlocking complexity&#8221 in 1939. He predicted that evolution would result in many IC systems, and that the fact that they would cease to function if one part were removed would be evidence that they evolved. The evolutionary origin of something that ceases to function if one part is removed is easy to understand. Hmmm, easy example…

Imagine a fishapod that gets it’s oxygen through gills. Now put that fishapod in low oxygen, stagnant waters, where it can get enough oxygen to live, but not enough to exercise strenuously. Then allow an internal sac to evolve into a lung, by which it can gasp air and get a little additional oxygen. The selective advantage of this is that even a poor lung gets the animal at least a little more oxygen than the gills alone supplied. As the lung evolves to be more efficient, soon the fishapod can venture onto land for short periods of time using the lung for oxygen. It (well, it’s descendants) evolve to get their oxygen from the lung, and the gills evolve away. Now its respiratory system is irreducibly complex, because removing the lung renders it unable to breathe. The simple way to remember this process is “add a part, then make that part necessary”. Because evolutionary routes can often easily be seen for interlocking complex systems, IC often provides evidence for evolution, not ID.

This works very well to explain the evolution of the blood clotting cascade or the Krebs cycle, and there are plenty of well established ways that evolution can result in something that is irreducibly complex or interlockingly complex (to use the original term). Some of these are duplication, dual use (use the same thing for two functions), the gradual perfection of a functioning part, deletion of a part, and so on. Some biological systems are indeed IC, and that does more to provide evidence for evolution than design, because after all, if one were to design a robust system, isn’t it a better design if it can survive the loss of one part (functional redundancy)? On a side note, the bacterial flagellum isn’t even an example of IC, because examples of bacterial flagellum exist with some of the parts missing, and they still work.

ID and IC are simply an error of logic, presented in a way to trick people into denying the reality of common descent. ID boils down to the argument from incredulity, which is “because I can’t see how (whatever) could have evolved, it must have been created". Simple reflection shows that this is the same as saying “because I don’t understand biology, you must accept that creationism is true.”.

From a Christian standpoint, so much of the ID/creationist camp flouts basic Christian morality, such as not lying. Just as we saw from reality that the earth is not flat (despite what our Bibles say when read literally), we can see that any scripture interpretation has to match reality. That's where literalist readings of Genesis fail.

Happy googling!

In Christ-

Papias

P. S. Also, here are some points that you may find useful.

One place to start with examining the evidence for evolution is at www.talkorigins.org. There are plenty of others - including any high-school or college level biology class.

Important things to realize (and check these out, don't just take my word for it) are:

• Practically all scientists support evolution, and have for decades. It's simply not a controversy. While there is disagreement about minor points (such as whether ambulocetus was 70% vs. 80% aquatic), the basics are agreed upon. Compare any creationist "list" with Project Steve, times 100.

• The evidence for evolution includes all kinds of stuff, not just fossils. DNA tests alone would be enough to prove evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt, even if there were no fossils. Others are phylogeny, biogeography, ontogeny, pathology, agriculture, and many others.

• There are tons of excellent series of clearly transitional fossils. The horse, whale, mammal, fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile and many others series are so clear that creationists generally just avoid them, and don't deny that they are clear.

• Creationists don't agree on their basics. You can see this from OEC websites. Those creationists say the earth is billions (>2,000,000,000) of years old, while most creationists say it is about 6,000 years old.
• Geologists (including thousands of Christians) worldwide overwhelmingly reject the idea of a young earth and a global flood, based on evidence. They have agreed on this for over 150 years, deciding this long before Darwin published his book.

• Creationists rely almost solely on a handful of deceptive tactics. These include moving the goalposts, being evasive/misleading (AiG does that alot), quote mining (which you’ve no doubt seen – google it), ignoring/hiding evidence (very common), and less often, outright fraud.

• The majority of Christians worldwide are in churches that accept evolution. Evolution is as firmly proven as the existence of the Civil War, and the harder fundamentalists fight against it, the more damage they will do to Christianity, by making people think the Christianity is deception.

Take your time. There is no time limit to decide on any of this, and it will take time to test all of the statements above.

 

[grandvizier1006]

Wow, you REALLY know a lot about this!

I already sort of "believe" (I know, it's kind of silly to word it like that after all of the evidence you've given) in theistic evolution, but with all of your resources I could probably make a good case for it. I'm hesitant to do so, though. Those others in my class may be sheltered homeschoolers, but they try their best to be good Christians. I'm kind of torn because on one hand if they go into a secular college with those beliefs they'll get torn apart, but on the other hand trying to convince them that their beliefs are actually just a fundamentalist slant (as opposed to being "from the Bible" as they have been taught to believe), then I'll just get that ostracized feeling I've already had to experience. Basically, I shouldn't have gotten into that program, and my parents admitted that they might have been too hasty. So all I can do is live with it (I can't drop out or anything).

Ironically, a well-meaning friend (yes, she is a friend, despite what she said) seemed to be accusing me of siding with theistic evolution--I'll admit it didn't take much to convince me--simply because it was "comforting" to me. She did have a point--I sided with it very quickly due to me finding, to my relief, that I could be a Christian and not have to deny scientific fact. But I could really just say the same thing about her beliefs--which, strangely enough, she claims she analyzed thoroughly and did not just decide her views on what her parents taught her.

I will try and check your stuff out, though. I watched the documentary yesterday and had the Wikipedia article handy--and like you said, everything was distorted. Unfortunately, I've heard a lot of documentaries do stuff like that, like Michael Moore's stuff, for example. Seeing Christians do it (well, Ben Stein is Jewish, but still) is just appalling.

And thanks for clearing up ID. If Expelled had looked at it from a scientific standpoint (which it most conveniently did not), then maybe there would have been some confusion.

Thankfully, however, we will mainly be arguing against "Darwinism" from a moral standpoint. That is to say, we'll be arguing against what I think is known as "Naturalistic evolution", which is just the basic secular evolution idea. So on most grounds I'll probably be in agreement with my classmates (to a certain extent, though--I can't say Darwin=Hitler with a straight face).

But thanks for your help. I'll be sure to check out all you've suggested should it come to a debate. The idea with the program is that while I'm free to have my opinion, the teachers and the students all share the same views, making me a devil's advocate. This is helpful sometimes, and no one outright hates me, but it certainly has been psychologically distressing at times.

 

[Papias]

Thanks for the compliment!


GV wrote:

Those others in my class may be sheltered homeschoolers, but they try their best to be good Christians. I'm kind of torn because on one hand if they go into a secular college with those beliefs they'll get torn apart, but on the other hand.....

Yes, it's a tough situation. What a tough choice! To let someone else prove them wrong later- who may perhaps be an atheist who won't clearly show them the TE path, versus getting into a difficult and likely pointless argument now.......I guess it's not your job to help every single person. God will hopefully help many of them over time.

seemed to be accusing me of siding with theistic evolution--...--simply because it was "comforting" to me.

I guess one could see it that way. In the same way it is "comforting" to accept a spherical earth, despite a literal reading clearly depicting a flat earth (verses given in post #836 here http://www.christianforums.com/t7849499-84/ ), or that it is "comforting" to accept that babies form by cell division despite a literal reading of Ps 139:13 saying that God used "knitting", etc.

Overall though, regardless of how quiet or not you are with those in your class, you are clearly far ahead of millions of people in getting past the creationism/evolution false controversy. Many of us here didn't get to where you are until our 30's, 40's or even 60's. Please do let us know how things turn out.



Best to you in your walk with our Lord-

Papias

P. S. you may also find biologos.org interesting.

 

[grandvizier1006]

Thanks. I have been looking around here and seeing how many people said that they gave their life to Christ in their 20s or 30s or something. And I thought doing so at 19 was "too late"!

As for the things with the spherical earth and the babies, they have no problem with that stuff. It's just the evolution issue that they side with pseudoscience on. They'd be free to admit that something like the Galileo issues of centuries past was just an error on the part of some Christians, and they agree that science doesn't invalidate God, but it's somewhat hypocritical when I remember that there's one thing they won't budge on. But I think it might have to do with a sort of confusion with evolution as a process versus naturalistic evolution--they would see something like a statement about transitional forms as an implication that God didn't do any creating or something. And I was worried about that, too, for a while. But there was no specific dichotomy about what we are "supposed to and not supposed to accept" in regards to evolution, and a number of people have just led to believe it wholeheartedly. I think the best weapon against YEC is its own history--that was what convinced me that it was false. Just hearing about Ellen White was all I needed to know.

But when school starts back up, I guess I'll just do what I can. At most I can explain what naturalism is.

 

[Johnnz]

There is some good material on bethinking.org that might help you. There are Christians who have addressed that matter sensibly and are wel informed both scientifically and biblically.

Also this talk gives a very different perspective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci-6ekUmQFE

John
NZ

 

[Papias]

GV, also, you wrote:

--I can't say Darwin=Hitler with a straight face

It still amazes me that evolution deniers bring up Hitler. Hitler hated Darwin, and even had books on evolution banned. Hitler was an outspoken creationist, who based his racism on the idea that humans were made by God, but had degraded over time so "imperfect" humans should be destroyed. On the other hand, you can see that Darwin didn't support racism by the fact that the Expelled movie had to butcher Darwin's quotes to make them say what they wanted them to say.

For a Christian evolution denier to bring up Hitler is to make themselves look bad, both because Hitler espoused their views, and because they often lie to deny that fact.

Here is some evidence.

First, a list of books that the Nazi's banned (see item #6).
When Books Burn: Lists of Banned Books, 1933-1939

Next, is Hitler's masterpiece book, Mein Kampf. He's clear in many places that he's a creationist who accepts micro evolution within species but not the formation of new species, and certainly not that of humans.

To check that, go to the book itself, and use the "find on this page" function.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt

Some of the sections you can find include:

It was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages war against God's Creation and God's Will.

iron law of Nature–which compels the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind.

The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.​

You can read these all in context to see what he meant.

There are other quotes in his "table talk", but those are unreliable because the "Table Talk" is a secondhand source. These above are in Mein Kampf itself.

Because he accepted variation within species, he was able to take his idea of a master race to terrible extremes, implementing a horrible form of eugenics. Though the eugenics ides did gain support from Darwin's work (especially from Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton), the basic idea of eugenics is much older than Darwin, and was practiced in ancient Rome and advocated by Plato. So eugenics isn't an idea that Darwin came up with, or even an idea that only came up after Darwin's evolution.

The main reason a Christian (creationist or not) shouldn't bring up Hitler is that a good case can be made for Hitler being Christian.

from Mein Kampf:

And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will
of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am
defending the handiwork of the Lord.​

Or this speech:

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
​

-12 April 1922 speech, Adolf Hitler, Oxford University Press, 1942

After all, Hitler had his nazi's wear a uniform which included a belt buckle that read "God is with us" in German "Gott mit uns" - he didn't make it up, it had been used previously in Germany.

As with the earlier information about evolution, I'm not sure you'll want to bring up all this information with the group.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[hedrick]

I'm glad the OP has come up with an understanding he's happy with. But part of the reason conservatives worry about evolution is that various traditional Christian ideas are tied together. Once you start looking at the evidence for evolution, you're going to find it hard to accept a literal Adam and Eve. That challenges many concepts of original sin. There's also the question of how you fit evolution into the creation account in Gen 1. There are approaches, such as understanding days as longer than 24 hours, but in the end those start looking a bit forced.

I have a question about whether in the long run you can really maintain theistic evolution together with inerrancy and other conservative Christian ideas. That's not a problem for me, but it might be for you.

On Intelligent Design, I read Bebe's book when it first came out. It was an interesting attempt to find a scientific way of showing God's hand as being present in evolution. Unfortunately it hasn't worked out well. The basic idea is that certain structures are complex in a way that Bebe thought meant they couldn't have evolved. His idea was that because evolution occurs incrementally, a complex structure must have evolved from simplest structures, and all of the intermediate steps must have made sense. He felt that certain structures made sense as they are now, but the intermediate steps would have been structures that didn't do anything, and thus couldn't have evolved.

But shortly after publication we started seeing other publications that proposed plausible paths by which his examples could have evolved, with each intermediate step being a viable structure (or set of structures). So I don't consider intelligent design a logic error. I just think it's a hypothesis that turned out not to be in accordance with the evidence. This is a more polite assessment of Bebe than some would make, since you can argue that Bebe knew enough to realize that there would be plausible paths by which his examples could have evolved, and you can speculate that he had other motivations for his work.

There was a political subtext. This was a period during which creationists were trying to find a way for schools to teach some alternative to evolution. Bebe's work was carefully designed so that it (1) indicated the need for something beyond the natural process, but (2) did it entirely via scientific arguments, and didn't specifically say that it called for God. Thus it was hoped that courts would find this a scientific thing rather than a religious thing and allow it to be taught in schools. It didn't work out. Courts have generally found that the argument doesn't make scientific sense, and thus the only motivation for it it religious.

As I recall, Bebe actually believed that evolution had occurred. However he thought he had showed that God had to intervene at certain keys points in it. So his idea was consistent with theistic evolution. Unfortunately it appears that it was also wrong.

 

[grandvizier1006]

Hitler was a creationist!??! I don't know what to say. So even the Darwin=Hitler claim is inaccurate. And he banned Darwin's work because he thought evolution was ridiculous. This is something that I NEED to bring up if push comes to shove.

I'm going to need you to keep all these links up, since I have a feeling I'm going to need them. What sucks is that the last time I tried arguing against something (it involved the Crusades) I cited some books, but the teacher seemed to be unconvinced even though she was the one that kindly asked if we could discuss the topic. But this is different. Here I think I have everything I need And hopefully I won't need to use any of it

Regardless, I can't consider Hitler a legitimate Christian. He was just a misguided, racist person, and if anything only a fake Christian. Just knowing that he dared to call himself one is aggravating I don't know if the Hitler thing specifically can be brought up, since I have this feeling that if I tried everyone just wouldn't believe me.

One issue I had with these people is that they would say something untrue or stupid--usually on a different topic--and I would "correct" them and come off as intolerant of their views. I guess my logic was always "I don't have to tolerate your opinion if it's wrong and you posit it as a fact", but maybe there's a better way to go about it.

And as for your post, Hedrick, that's very interesting. But I think there's an explanation.

Do other scientific processes, like stuff involving geological processes, the water cycle, the digestive system, etc. warrant occasional divine intervention? No (correct me if I'm wrong on this, though). The processes themselves, from the Christian point of view, are complex enough that they had to be established by God (and while some could call that circular reasoning I'm not good with apologetics ). So if evolution is just another scientific process, albeit a long-term one, then it makes sense for God to not need to intervene with it so much. I would assume that He guides it constantly, and so making man in His image was a process He deliberately took time on, perhaps to emphasize to the generations to discover it just how much love and effort He put into us

So it's not a problem for me. I trust that God is directing evolution--at least human evolution--in such a way that either we are benefitted or He is glorified in some way. I know that sounds unusual, but I wouldn't count it out. So just because evolution happens without direct "divine intervention" doesn't mean it isn't run by God in any sense. Who arranges the environment that compels the genes to go in a certain place? Who arranges the processes for the environment to alter itself? Who started the program? God.

Science is just sort of explains the "how" with God--here's how He maintains our universe. I don't see how science is supposed to take Him out of the picture. Like the Bible, science gives us a message, but depending on what you believe you will interpret it a certain way. One person can see science as proof of God, and the other sees it as proof of God not existing.

 

[hedrick]

And as for your post, Hedrick, that's very interesting. But I think there's an explanation.

Do other scientific processes, like stuff involving geological processes, the water cycle, the digestive system, etc. warrant occasional divine intervention? No (correct me if I'm wrong on this, though). The processes themselves, from the Christian point of view, are complex enough that they had to be established by God (and while some could call that circular reasoning I'm not good with apologetics ). So if evolution is just another scientific process, albeit a long-term one, then it makes sense for God to not need to intervene with it so much. I would assume that He guides it constantly, and so making man in His image was a process He deliberately took time on, perhaps to emphasize to the generations to discover it just how much love and effort He put into us

So it's not a problem for me. I trust that God is directing evolution--at least human evolution--in such a way that either we are benefitted or He is glorified in some way. I know that sounds unusual, but I wouldn't count it out. So just because evolution happens without direct "divine intervention" doesn't mean it isn't run by God in any sense. Who arranges the environment that compels the genes to go in a certain place? Who arranges the processes for the environment to alter itself? Who started the program? God.

Science is just sort of explains the "how" with God--here's how He maintains our universe. I don't see how science is supposed to take Him out of the picture. Like the Bible, science gives us a message, but depending on what you believe you will interpret it a certain way. One person can see science as proof of God, and the other sees it as proof of God not existing.

Yes, I think this is a typical position for Christians that accept evolution with an otherwise normal Christian view of God.

 

[Papias]

GV wrote:

Hitler was a creationist!??

Yes - much in the way many creationists are today. Specifically, Hitler saw the created kinds or species as fixed - one species could not evolve into another - while accepting microevolution - that variations within a species could happen by natural selection. Note also that Hitler may have been an "Old earth" creationist, not requiring a 6,000 year old earth. This is like some creationists today who see long times, but see God miraculously creating species (without one species evolving into another) after a long time.

This selection within a species was very important to him, as he saw it as the important way in which species stayed fixed - by killing the weak among them. Thus he used this view to justify killing people to keep the superior German race (Folk) strong.

Creationists today also reject change from one species to another and also (usually) accept microevolution - though thankfully this doesn't lead to them wanting to "kill the weak" as it did for Hitler.

And he banned Darwin's work because he thought evolution was ridiculous.

Yes. While he doesn't mention any titles by name, Darwin's book is the "most primitive" of the books on evolution, because it was the first one.

Regardless, I can't consider Hitler a legitimate Christian. He was just a misguided, racist person, and if anything only a fake Christian.

Right. There is a constant discussion over how "Christian" he was. He certainly said over and over he was Christian, as shown earlier - but of course that doesn't mean he's actually Christian. That's why I said it's not good to bring up Hitler among atheists - it leads to a discussion of how Christian he was, which is not fun with all Hitler's known "I am a Christian" public statements.

Historians also look at what was recorded in secret discussions (Hitler's "Table Talk"). However, that's tough because those are second hand, and the people who wrote them down often added things as they felt or left things out as they wrote - so historians know they can't be taken at face value. Be aware that any discussion of Hitler's views will likely soon bring up things rumored in this "Table Talk", which are suspect.

Science is just sort of explains the "how" with God.

Yes. After all, we all know as Christians that God made us, each of us, with love. Yet, someone could describe the process by which a baby forms, and say - look, it's all chemistry & biology, there is no room for God! Yet, you and I know that God is there at ever step.

So anyone who says that evolution pushes God out of our creation as a species has to logically think that God can't make each of us, since baby development is known as least as good, or better, than evolution.


In Christ Jesus-

Papias

 

[grandvizier1006]

The class for this was about a month ago now and irrelevant, and I don't think there will be time for a debate, but part of the assignment was to give 5 examples of things which supposedly worked against evolution (YEC/ID wasn't specified, and most likely it was deliberately vague). I, of course, had to just go to GotQuestions (which, while usually useful, takes a YEC view) and pretty much regurgitate their answers since I cannot obviously come up with arguments in favor of something that I don't agree with on a topic that I haven't studied in depth--and since I wasn't homeschooled like the rest of them I never had to take those sorts of classes, although the evidence was presented to me once...when I was in elementary school and couldn't refute it.

Anyway, the evidence people gave was...mixed. Some of it seemed like something I should look into, and others I was like "...Really? That's just you making bad logic and misunderstanding the other side's ideas!"

Here were their arguments:

1. Irreducible complexity
2. No heavy elements in stars
3. "Polystraight" fossils (I think all of this stuff is supposed to suggest a young earth)
4. The sun's diameter was too large for life to exist several hundred thousand years ago
5. Cells "need intelligence" (bad logic, I know, but I'm just putting down what they said)
6. Law of Thermodynamics says that the universe is becoming more chaotic, and evolution is creating new species in an orderly manner (or something)
7. Fossils out of order
8. Evolution should be doubted because it cannot be directly observed (I assume she meant on a grand scale like with "macro" evolution, meaning something like fish to amphibian
9. Not enough salt in the oceans...can't quite remember what this had to do with anything.
10. Mutations are "bad" (usually seen as negative), and so for evolution to operate this way means that it could not have led to complex life...I think.
11. Living things don't come from non-living things. The example was, "If my dog died, I couldn't simply make a new one with its remains (without technology like cloning, I presume is what she meant).

What do you guys think of all this? I probably won't be refuting these people to their faces, but if I do get into a debate about this I will probably be coming back here A LOT

 

[Papias]

Welcome back and thanks for the update!

The correct answers (with references and checked by actual scientists) for many of these can be found at the index for creationist claims.

An Index to Creationist Claims

That's also a great first place to check when other points are brought up.

For your specific questions:

Here were their arguments:
1. Irreducible complexity

This is a whole category, so here's a much longer answer than the others:


While that is the idea of “irreducible complexity” (that something is IC if removing any part makes it nonfunctional, and that IC proves that the thing was designed and could not evolve), it is worth noting that “irreducible complexity” is not evidence against evolution.

In fact, based on evolution, the scientist Hermann Muller predicted IC (he called it “interlocking complexity&#8221 in 1939. He predicted that evolution would result in many IC systems, and that the fact that they would cease to function if one part were removed would be evidence that they evolved. The evolutionary origin of something that ceases to function if one part is removed is easy to understand. Hmmm, easy example…

Imagine a fishapod that gets it’s oxygen through gills. Now put that fishapod in low oxygen, stagnant waters, where it can get enough oxygen to live, but not enough to exercise strenuously. Then allow an internal sac to evolve into a lung, by which it can gasp air and get a little additional oxygen. The selective advantage of this is that even a poor lung gets the animal at least a little more oxygen than the gills alone supplied. As the lung evolves to be more efficient, soon the fishapod can venture onto land for short periods of time using the lung for oxygen. It (well, it’s descendants) evolve to get their oxygen from the lung, and the gills evolve away. Now its respiratory system is irreducibly complex, because removing the lung renders it unable to breathe. The simple way to remember this process is “add a part, then make that part necessary”. Because evolutionary routes can often easily be seen for interlocking complex systems, IC often provides evidence for evolution, not ID.

This works very well to explain the evolution of the blood clotting cascade or the Krebs cycle, and there are plenty of well established ways that evolution can result in something that is irreducibly complex or interlockingly complex (to use the original term). Some of these are duplication, dual use (use the same thing for two functions), the gradual perfection of a functioning part, deletion of a part, and so on. Some biological systems are indeed IC, and that does more to provide evidence for evolution than design, because after all, if one were to design a robust system, isn’t it a better design if it can survive the loss of one part (functional redundancy)? On a side note, the bacterial flagellum isn’t even an example of IC, because examples of bacterial flagellum exist with some of the parts missing, and they still work.


ID boils down to the argument from incredulity, which is “because I can’t see how (whatever) could have evolved, it must have been created". Simple reflection shows that this is the same as saying “because I don’t understand biology, you must accept that creationism is true.”.

2.No heavy elements in stars

??? Heavy elements are indeed seen in stars. This one sounds like saying that "the lack of clouds on earth is proof of YEC." You can google to find examples of them.

3. "Polystraight" fossils (I think all of this stuff is supposed to suggest a young earth)

Polystrate fossils are the result of rapid erosion/deposition, which does happen from time to time. None pose a problem for geology. see CC331 in the link above.

The sun's diameter was too large for life to exist several hundred thousand years ago

False. This is based on some evidence suggesting a change in diameter of the sun, and extrapolating it back. However, it looks like it is likely an oscillation, making the above claim the same as "the tide is coming in, extrapolating that back means that 100 years ago the oceans were dry". (and the original evidence of a change in diameter doesn't seem right anyway. See CE 310.

#5 - too incoherent to deal with.

#6 - That's only for a closed system. The Earth is getting tons of energy from the sun, so the 2nd law doesn't apply - the argument assumes that the whole sun doesn't exist! This argument is so bad that it is easy to mock, so I'd expect there are some funny youtube videos out there on this one.

#7 - See the index above.

#8 - Right, that's why we know that mountains can't form and that continents can't move!

#9 & 11 - see the index.

All of these are common creationist PRATTs (points refuted a thousand times). I've seen them each so many times that I'm wondering when the creationist clowns will come up with new material.

I've left #10 for last because it illustrates an important understanding of natural selection. I find it really cool to think about a process so robust that it could make 10 harmful mutations for every good one, and still work!

#10. Mutations are "bad" (usually seen as negative),

Here is a story I wrote earlier to illustrate this for students:

Take a population of, say, 100,000 (which is really quite small, the population of deer just in Michigan is over 2,000,000 - 20 times as much). So the mutations will usually be on separate individuals, not on the same individual. Thus, the mutations will or will not be transmitted to the next generation according to the common sense observation of whether they help or hurt.


So let's try an example:


So, out of that population of 100,000 there will be around 20 to 80,000 births in one breeding season, depending on the species. (actually, it's much higher in many species that have litters of more than 2 babies). Of those 50,000 say there are 5000 harmful mutations and 50 beneficial mutations (that's 100 to 1 harmful to beneficial). So those 5,000 fail to reproduce (they're hampered by harmful mutations), the population isn't affected (only 10,000 of the babies will reproduce anyway, most just lose the competition even being unmutated), and most importantly, of course those 50 beneficial mutants are more likely to reproduce, so say that 40 of them do so, giving just 3X babies, or 120.

**
Now, next generation. Remember that you had 40 with good mutations. You get another batch of 50,000 babies, and we'll assume the same mutation rates. So that gives:

5,000 new harmful mutations.
50 new beneficial mutations
120 offspring from the previous generation's good mutations
0 offspring from the previous generation's harmful mutations

So, just like before, let's look at the competition phase next.
Those with harmful mutations fail to reproduce (they're hampered by harmful mutations), the population isn't affected (only 10,000 of all babies will reproduce anyway), and most importantly, of course those 170 beneficial mutants (120 + 50 new ones) are more likely to reproduce, so say that 150 of them do so, giving 450 babies (again, only 3X, a conservative number since it's much higher in many species).

**
Now, next generation. Remember that you had 450 with good mutations. You get another batch of 50,000 babies, and we'll assume the same mutation rates. So that gives:

5,000 new harmful mutations.
50 new beneficial mutations
450 offspring from the previous generation's good mutations
0 offspring from the previous generation's harmful mutations

So, just like before, let's look at the competition phase next.
Those with harmful mutations fail to reproduce (they're hampered by harmful mutations), the population isn't affected (only 10,000 of all babies will reproduce anyway), and most importantly, of course those 500 beneficial mutants are more likely to reproduce, so say that 400 of them do so, giving 1,200 babies (again, only 3X, a conservative number since it's much higher in many species).

**
Now, next generation. Remember that you had 1,200 with good mutations. You get another batch of 50,000 babies, and we'll assume the same mutation rates. So that gives:

5,000 new harmful mutations.
50 new beneficial mutations
1200 offspring from the previous generation's good mutations
0 offspring from the previous generation's harmful mutations

So, just like before, let's look at the competition phase next.
Those with harmful mutations fail to reproduce. Those 1,250 beneficial mutants are more likely to reproduce, so say that 1000 of them do so, giving 3,000 babies.

**
Now, next generation. Remember that you had 3,000 with good mutations. You get another batch of 50,000 babies. So that gives:

5,000 new harmful mutations.
50 new beneficial mutations
3,000 offspring from the previous generation's good mutations
0 offspring from the previous generation's harmful mutations

So, just like before, let's look at the competition phase next.
Those with harmful mutations fail to reproduce. Those 3,050 beneficial mutants are more likely to reproduce, so say that 2,700 of them do so, giving 8,000 babies.

**
Now, next generation. Remember that you had 8,000 with good mutations. You get another batch of 50,000 babies, and we'll assume the same mutation rates. So that gives:

5,000 new harmful mutations.
50 new beneficial mutations
8,000 offspring from the previous generation's good mutations
0 offspring from the previous generation's harmful mutations

So, just like before, let's look at the competition phase next.
Those with harmful mutations fail to reproduce. Those 8,050 beneficial mutants are more likely to reproduce, so say that 7,000 of them do so, giving 21,000 babies.

**
Now, next generation. Remember that you had 21,000 with good mutations. You get another batch of 50,000 babies, and we'll assume the same mutation rates. So that gives:

5,000 new harmful mutations.
50 new beneficial mutations
21,000 offspring from the previous generation's good mutations
0 offspring from the previous generation's harmful mutations

So, just like before, let's look at the competition phase next.
Those with harmful mutations fail to reproduce. Those 21,050 beneficial mutants are more likely to reproduce, so say that only 18,000 of them do so, giving 54,000 babies.

Hold on though. Our land can only support 50,000 babies per generation, so we only get 50,000 of those.

But look at what has happened! Even though there were always 100 harmful mutations to only 1 good mutation, what one would naively think is an overwhelmingly bad rate, yet at the end of the day we have seen that the good mutations have now spread to every single member of the population, and the harmful mutations are gone!

You can run this again and again with different ratios of good to bad mutations, different mutation rates, and so on. I've changed all those numbers, and you know what? Biologist have too, both by looking at different actual animal populations, and by computer simulations. Both the real world and the simulations show that same things. Those are:

1. The higher the overall mutation rate, the faster the good mutations add up.
2. The faster the reproduction, the faster the good mutations add up.
3. The rate of harmful mutations has no effect. 3 to 1 bad to good, or 20 to 1, or 50 to 1, or 100 to 1 or whatever, has no effect because the harmful mutations are removed by selection anyway. Try it for yourself and see.
4. The larger the total number of good mutations, the faster they spread though the population, but this is less important than conclusion #2.

Does that all help? Looking at it in detail shows that it's all common sense, nothing that's hard to understand.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[grandvizier1006]

Thanks for all the info! I had no idea there was a whole website dedicated to this sort of thing!

That thing about mutations is very fascinating. But I do want to ask one thing: how does having a harmful mutation guarantee that a species won't reproduce? And a helpful one guarantees that it does? Would it depend on the mutation? And what if the mutation is something that can't really be passed down? Of course, when you were mentioning mutations in your sample thing I take it you meant like something a bit more subtle but very "making or breaking", like a good immune system, maybe?

Otherwise, though, I'm fascinated by all of the logical explanations for all of this stuff. It's really disappointing how all of this YEC stuff has really permeated homeschooled environments.

 

[Papias]

Thanks for all the info! I had no idea there was a whole website dedicated to this sort of thing!

You're welcome! Yeah, it's a good resource. It's been praised by top science institutions like the Smithsonian, etc., too.



That thing about mutations is very fascinating. But I do want to ask one thing: how does having a harmful mutation guarantee that a species won't reproduce?

Right, a harmful mutation just makes it less likely. Remember that it's a tough struggle out there, and even most healthy creatures don't live to reproduce. In that tough an environment, even a small disadvantage is often enough - and even a disadvantaged mutant, by luck, lives to reproduce, then any offspring that inherit the bad mutation will have to be that lucky again to reproduce, and so on. By math, say that the normal odds of reproducing are only 50-50, and a bad mutation is only a little bad, going from 50% to say, 40%. If not knocked out in the first generation, it won't take very long. And of course the strength of the "removal" force (the "selective pressure") is proportional to how bad the mutation is. A mutation that is only very slightly bad may well persist for a long time - but that doesn't help the creationists argument, since then those mutations aren't that bad after all.

And a helpful one guarantees that it does?

No, it just makes reproduction more likely. You can see that in the model in the earlier post - it has some of those with helpful mutations still failing to reproduce in every generation - just by bad luck. Just as in the case of the harmful mutation described above, the better results (faster spread) are in direct proportion, over time, to how beneficial the mutation is.

Would it depend on the mutation?

Yes, exactly.

And what if the mutation is something that can't really be passed down?

Then it is completely irrelevant, and gone in the first generation. Like think of a mutation that both gave a creature the ability to fly, and also rendered it sterile. Irrelevant.

Of course, when you were mentioning mutations in your sample thing I take it you meant like something a bit more subtle but very "making or breaking", like a good immune system, maybe?

Most mutations are small changes. So these basic principles then work over many generations and slight changes to the odds of reproduction. Everything still works the same as in the model, but it takes 500 or 5,000 generations instead of 10 - and that's too long to type in a post. The model uses "bigger" mutations simply to be more practical in our discussion. There are "big" mutations, but they are less common.

I'm fascinated by all of the logical explanations for all of this stuff. It's really disappointing how all of this YEC stuff has really permeated homeschooled environments.

yes. It's a pretty bad thing for Christianity, I think.

-in Jesus' name

Papias

 

[grandvizier1006]

Ok, thanks for the clarification on mutations!

 

[grandvizier1006]

I checked out the index. Some of it seems useful, while some of it just seems like anti-Christian drivel disguised as science, which unfortunately only validates the idea that evolution is bad because atheists can use it to bash religious people over with. Unfortunately, I seemed to see a lot of that there, but also rational objections to creationism. Oh well. :l

 

[Willtor]

I checked out the index. Some of it seems useful, while some of it just seems like anti-Christian drivel disguised as science, which unfortunately only validates the idea that evolution is bad because atheists can use it to bash religious people over with. Unfortunately, I seemed to see a lot of that there, but also rational objections to creationism. Oh well. :l

This is one of the unfortunate consequences of conflating creationism with Christianity... by creationists! One kind of anticipates non-Christian sources to accept the conflation. Someone who's educated about evolution easily opposes "Christianity" because creationism is such an easy target. Not that this is the intent of the site. The philosophy, theology, and talk about the Bible is basically side material.

We, non-creationist Christians, would very much like to talk about the side material, more, but the existence of creationism makes it hard. When I talk to friends about Christianity, I find that just a little push-back on some of the popular non-creationist-related talking points changes perspectives (e.g., slavery, misogyny, etc.). But where those friends are originally from the English-speaking world, it's much harder to make headway against preconceptions of the association of Christianity with creationism.

IMO, it's to be expected that a site that opposes creationism -- that isn't explicitly made by non-creationist Christians -- will have some of the other talking points.

 

[grandvizier1006]

Yeah, IKR? For the most part, I think I'm basically an orthodox Christian, and YEC is just one thing. I still have traditional views on sexuality (long, personal story, it's not just a simple matter of being brainwashed), and I'm neutral on the whole election thing and have no idea what to make of end-times stuff. I'm still figuring things out, but I'm no straw man.

 

[Johnnz]

YEC's polarize the issue by insisting Genesis as about the 'how' and 'when' rather than the 'why'. Science addresses the first two questions. We have the bigger story that begins with the Genesis record.

John
NZ