List of Common Fallacies by Creationists

hgc said:
The first point is a strawman. Natural Selection is not a random process. Thus irrelevant and refuted.
Are you saying that the way genes combine during sexual reproduction is not random? Are you saying that the existence of mutations is not a random process? Are you saying that evolution could occur without the randomness?



[QUOTEThe second point has been refuted for each example the ID'ers have proposed, from the eye to bacterial flagellum.
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I've read lots of those refutations. And in fact, I believe them. But, really, they aren't refutations at all. They are plausible sounding explanations that, although they haven't been experimentally verified, seem reasonable to me.

I have never seen, from either IDers or real biologists, any quantifiable measure of biological complexity, nor any description of any reasonable rate of change in complexity. Without that, you can't refute the claim that life is "too complex", nor can you support it.

ETA: If you could provide a link to a specific refutation of the assertion that a bacterial flagellum is an irreducibly complex structure, I will demonstrate why it isn't a refutation at all.
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Have you ever heard of genetic "knock out" tests? Pharmaceutical companies perform them in labs all the time.

Many supposedly irreducibly complex systems have had the coding for specific proteins removed. The animal functioned just fine.

Why?

Because that protein was also manufactured by another gene for a completely different system. This kind of redundancy is precisely what you would expect in a system that arose through evolution and natural selection.

Evolution just modifies existing componants for new functions, it doesn't necessarily produce new information.
 
Meadmaker said:
hgc said:
I've read lots of those refutations. And in fact, I believe them. But, really, they aren't refutations at all. They are plausible sounding explanations that, although they haven't been experimentally verified, seem reasonable to me.

I have never seen, from either IDers or real biologists, any quantifiable measure of biological complexity, nor any description of any reasonable rate of change in complexity. Without that, you can't refute the claim that life is "too complex", nor can you support it.

ETA: If you could provide a link to a specific refutation of the assertion that a bacterial flagellum is an irreducibly complex structure, I will demonstrate why it isn't a refutation at all.
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But that's part of the point. The "least informed" position (in the technical sense) supports evolution, not ID. The ID proponents claim specifically that the blood clotting cascade cannot arise from evolutionary precursors, while the evolutionists claim merely that it can -- by providing a so-called "plausible sounding refutation," they refute the claim that something cannot be done, even though they haven't actually done the thing in question.

(Think of it this way. I know personally of no one who has actually flown from Amsterdam, Holland to Tokyo, Japan. However, I myself have flown from Amsterdam to LA, and from LA to Tokyo, as parts of two separate trips, and therefore I conclude that it's possible to combine the two legs. I've demonstrated the possibility without proving that it necessarily took place.)

So I'll take your challenge, as long as we understand the rules. There's a brief discussion of the bacterial flagellum at this page from Talk.Design. Behe's claim is that such a creature cannot evolve. The page authors argue that it can, and provide a plausible explanation as to one possible path. The fact that they cannot prove that such a path was actually taken does nto make the path less possible.
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Meadmaker said:
hgc said:
The first point is a strawman. Natural Selection is not a random process. Thus irrelevant and refuted.
Are you saying that the way genes combine during sexual reproduction is not random? Are you saying that the existence of mutations is not a random process? Are you saying that evolution could occur without the randomness?


I've read lots of those refutations. And in fact, I believe them. But, really, they aren't refutations at all. They are plausible sounding explanations that, although they haven't been experimentally verified, seem reasonable to me.

I have never seen, from either IDers or real biologists, any quantifiable measure of biological complexity, nor any description of any reasonable rate of change in complexity. Without that, you can't refute the claim that life is "too complex", nor can you support it.

ETA: If you could provide a link to a specific refutation of the assertion that a bacterial flagellum is an irreducibly complex structure, I will demonstrate why it isn't a refutation at all.
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Complexity not quantifiable? No kidding. Take it up with the ID'ers. They're the ones building a case around "complexity."

Here's a flagellum link... http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_1.html

Here's a link about how randomness... http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/
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That's one heck of a link, hcg.

First, an observation. It's really hard to understand. I mean really hard to understand. I've had one graduate level course in neuropsychology, a whole bunch of engineering, and I only partially understand it. Moral of the story: If someone else doesn't understand it, that doesn't mean they are stupid.

But let's see why it doesn't refute intelligent design, or even that specific claim made by Behe that bacterial flagella could not arise through mutation
and natural selection. Here's a quote from the link.

One plausible path for the evolution of flagella goes through the following basic stages (keep in mind that this is a summary, and that each major co-option event would be followed by long periods of gradual optimization of function):


A passive, nonspecific pore evolves into a more specific passive pore by addition of gating protein(s). Passive transport converts to active transport by addition of an ATPase that couples ATP hydrolysis to improved export capability. This complex forms a primitive type-III export system.
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First, note that we are starting with an existing cell, anyway, which is already an extremely complex structure.

But, given that, how did we just happen to have a gating protein lying around? Wasn't that convenient? I mean, what are the odds that there would just happen to be an appropriate gating protein around, and that it would add its blueprint into this organism's DNA in such a way that it actually improved the organism's survival chance. I (speaking as the ID supporter) would say that's pretty astronomical, wouldn't you?

What? You, as the evolutionist, (yes, I hate that word too, but I don't know a better one) say that no it is not astronomical. It's extremely likely, in fact. A trivial example. Happens all the time.



So here we are. Stuck. One side says that it is extremely unlikely. One side says it isn't unlikely. The only way we can resolve that is to compute the probability that such a thing could happen.

We can try to do that theoretically. Perhaps someone knows how to do that. I don't.

We can try to do that by observation. How often have we seen it happen? The evolutionist might say that we have seen lots of DNA that looks like this happened, so by observation, the probability of it happening with enough cell divisions and mutations is very near 1. The IDer might say that we have never seen it happen. All that DNA that looks like it could have happened in is actually the result of design. The probability is near 0. (Do these sorts of bacteria even have DNA? Do they have nuclei? I'm not even sure. However, whatever structures they have, they pass on.)

So what we have here, and in every step of the path given, is a situation where one side will say that it is easy to see how it could happen through mutation and natural selection because it is highly probable given enough iterations of the process, and one side says it is almost impossible.

Ahh, but you might object, and Dr. K did object, the assertion of the ID crowd is that such a scenario is impossible. We have shown that it is possible, even if improbable. That refutes ID!

Well, no. The theory of evolution asserts that such a scenario is of high enough probability that it could happen without assistance. The "theory" of ID says that the probability is so low that it could not happen without assistance. To resolve the conflict, we would have to compute the probability. Since we cannot do that, we're stuck. Each is an unproven theory. ID remains neither supported nor refuted by the argument.

So, you might ask if I am saying then that ID and evolution are both unproven theories that should be given equal weight in education. No. I am not saying that. I am saying that evolution is a plausible theory that explains all the available evidence, and is the only natural theory that does so. ID, on the other hand, also is compatible with all available evidence, but that is almost a definition. No matter what is presented, the ID believer can assert that the designer wanted it that way.

To futher complicate matters, back when I was a Christian, I believed that evolution worked, but that God would, at particular times, introduce a "random" mutation, to guide the process along. I think that may even be considered a form of intelligent design, wouldn't it? And yet it is entirely compatible with Darwinism. Natural selection, which we have been told is not a random process, after all, was the means the designer employed to make his creations.


More thoughts on the implications of this for discussing ID later. I agree that ID is not really science, and doesn't belong in classrooms, and that evolution is science, and does belong there, but it isn't so clear exactly what can and can't be said about each one without going beyond real science and getting into philosophy.
 
gnome said:
Could you please describe to me an example of science performed under the assumption that the physical may not exist?
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All of it. What don't you understand about the axiom "a rule-based, objective, reality exists"? Notice the word "physical" is not needed (well, except by materialists & dualists).
 
hammegk said:
All of it. What don't you understand about the axiom "a rule-based, objective, reality exists"? Notice the word "physical" is not needed (well, except by materialists & dualists).
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If it's "all of it", then you should have no trouble coming up with one concrete example of science where the question of whether objective reality exists can be assumed not to be true (and is still relevant)

Don't just point at the whole thing. Pluck a piece off and show it to me, it's far easier to understand that way.
 
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I have said that it is impossible, given the current state of knowledge, to distinguish between evolution and ID as the way things really happened. That may seem like a bizarre statement for a skeptic to make, but it really isn't. For one thing, there is at least one variation on ID which is actually totally compatible with Darwinism.

So what do I think we should do as science teachers? I am particularly concerned with high school education here.

I think we should stop teaching "facts" and start teaching "theories", in the accurate sense of the word "theory". And then, we should examine all the widely held competing ideas of how life on Earth came to be, and see if these theories explain the available evidence.

If we did that, young Earth creationism would be easy to dismiss. One of the reasons it survives is because teachers don't take it seriously enough to bother dismissing it. If they spent a week in a high school class discussing scientific ways of determining the answer to "how old is this rock?" It would be very educational, and it would destroy young Earth creationism in the process. Instead, most high school students get presented with "this rock is 3 billion years old", and that's pretty much the end of it.

Evolution, meanwhile, would be easy enough to uphold as a plausible scientific theory. Here's the evidence. Here's the fossil record. Notice how things appear to evolve. Also, here's DNA. What would happen if it mutated? Wouldn't that cause evolution? Note that we haven't proved that evolution occurred. That isn't possible. What is possible to prove is that it explains the available evidence. Those two things aren't quite the same.

Old Earth creationism would then be somewhat more difficult to dismiss. But it would have two problems. First, you have a creator that creates things from nothing, but does so in a way that looks like they evolved. Second, you have a mechanism, DNA mutation, that exists and would tend to cause evolution. The creationists would be left pondering how God might stop this from happening.

And finally, you have ID. First, they would have to put forward their claims in a coherent manner, at which point it would be obvious they are untestable, at least given the current state of knowledge. Second, you could point out that ID is not inherently incompatible with evolution, anyway, so what are we arguing about?
 
Meadmaker said:
First, t is very important to recognize that Intelligent Design doesn't say that. They are saying that some sort of divine thingy did it, but they don't say anything about the nature of that divine thingy. They are saying that life could not have happened by a random process.
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Yes it does. ID is just creationism. It is basically the same thing they just removed reference of god and bible. I would venture to say all the ID advocates are Christians. So I doubt they are proposing the world was created on the back of a giant Turtle.
 
merphie said:
Yes it does. ID is just creationism. It is basically the same thing they just removed reference of god and bible. I would venture to say all the ID advocates are Christians. So I doubt they are proposing the world was created on the back of a giant Turtle.
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Before Meadmaker comes back to point out that what they don't say does not constitute evidence in a scientific discussion, it sure does make a point about what's important to ID as a political movement, which is surely what it is. It is a new political tactic at trying to wedge biblical creationism into public education around those pesky court decisions previously having thrown it out.
 
You can't build a nuclear reactor on faith.

Creationism, ID, whatever it's called these days, it's just not science.
 
I started a thread over in the religion forum to address my concerns about the refutability of ID. For those interested, it is called "Can ID be disproven."
 
Proof of creationism because of Good and Evil and contradictions thereof...

Dogs could not have evolved. They were created to show the good in the world by a loving and caring Lord God Almighty.

Cats could not have evolved. They were created to show the evil in the world. Satan created cats.

Kittens are good but turn into evil cats when they discover they can spray behind the sofa and not die. Because of this they take advantage of human and doggie goodness and become emblematic of evil.

Cats are, in fact, symbolic of the evil slave in the New Testament who takes his Masters money and buries it along with dead birds and mice heads in a symbolic sacifice to Baal.

Well that's what I was taught in Parochial school. And the Nuns (Sisters of St. Bernard) never lied.
 
Supercharts said:
Dogs could not have evolved. They were created to show the good in the world by a loving and caring Lord God Almighty.

Cats could not have evolved. They were created to show the evil in the world. Satan created cats.

Kittens are good but turn into evil cats when they discover they can spray behind the sofa and not die. Because of this they take advantage of human and doggie goodness and become emblematic of evil.

Cats are, in fact, symbolic of the evil slave in the New Testament who takes his Masters money and buries it along with dead birds and mice heads in a symbolic sacifice to Baal.

Well that's what I was taught in Parochial school. And the Nuns (Sisters of St. Bernard) never lied.
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If that's not parody, then holy guacomole!!!.
 
hgc said:
Before Meadmaker comes back to point out that what they don't say does not constitute evidence in a scientific discussion, it sure does make a point about what's important to ID as a political movement, which is surely what it is. It is a new political tactic at trying to wedge biblical creationism into public education around those pesky court decisions previously having thrown it out.
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I agree. Since it is a political movement I don't have to worry about scientific discussion.
 
merphie said:
I'm speaking of the context of the political movement in the USA.
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So am I. Unless by "advocate" you meant one of the high profile leaders or people who are behind the current drive to get ID included. My coworker is not one of those. However, he supports the people who are. He thinks that ID should be taught in American public schools.
 
hammegk said:
All of it. What don't you understand about the axiom "a rule-based, objective, reality exists"? Notice the word "physical" is not needed (well, except by materialists & dualists).
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What the hell you talking about? You know perfectly well that, in the context of scientific speech, "physical reality" is virtually synonymous with "a rule-based, objective, reality". If you're saying that all of science has no basis in "objective reality" (that's what i think you're saying, maybe I'm wrong), then I suggest you jump off a high window and experience the objective reality of the effects of gravity.
 
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