tmh@ihldt.UUCP (Tom Harris) (01/26/84)
.SA 1 .P 2 Why do evolutionists reject creationism? As an evolutionist I find several major reasons to "ridicule" Creationism. Foremost is that Creationists believe the Bible to be literally true. The Bible in no way, shape or form can be viewed as a scientifically written text. Since it wasn't meant to be, its use as such is pretty outrageous. To use it as the basis of a "Scientific theory" is therefore going to be a strike against the theory. This is not to say that it might not work i.e. Schliemann took the Illiad as literally true and then went out and proved it had some basis, but he had to find overwhelming evidence before his idea was accepted (fortunately for him that was fairly easy). Similarly for Science to stop ridiculing Creationist theories, they must not only surpass those that came about from more scientific processes, but in fact invalidate them (i.e. they need overwhelming evidence against Evolution). The worst part about Creationism is that the whole idea is so unnecessary, as there is no reason not to see the hand of God in Evolution. There is enough chance leading to any single population that God can easily be seen as steering the course (not to mention creating the mechanism). Jesus used parables to explain concepts, there is no reason Moses couldn't have done the same in Genesis (etc.). .P 2 When you look at the vast amounts of data that we have on Evolution it is pretty apparent that a literal interpretation of the Bible will have problems in comparison. Every fossil we have is evidence that the Bible can't be interpreted literally. There are also many language loopholes (like where Cain's wife came from) that prevent literal interpretation. Yet this does not invalidate the Bible as a spiritual guide or mean that the Bible and Evolution can't both exist as the truth. The Bible was not written for people with the knowledge we have, and it can't be expected that it would have been written in a format they wouldn't understand. .P 2 Another problem with creationism is that it is completely inflexible to new ideas and new data. The theory of evolution has changed substantially since I was born, Creationism is unable to change (as they are tied to a single source). The data on Evolution does have blank spots, but these are taken into account by the theory itself i.e. we expect new species to evolve in small groups which probably won't leave any trace. Yet even within the time span of human history we can see (albeit by human hands) substantial modifications in certain of our food crops (compare corn from 1600 (not to mention the earliest corn from Mexico) with that from today). Look at the great variety of dog breeds (the differences between a chihuahua and a great dane is effectively a speciation). These are both examples of what can be done in a relatively short space of time by selection. The Creationists want evidence of speciation, but seem unable to comprehend that the time span of human history is but a second of the evolutionary day. If you had a clock where the second hand showed millennia, how long do you think it would be before you noticed that the clock's second hand moved. Considering that we have been looking at the process of speciation for less than 200 years i.e. since Darwin, there is no way we can show results (except through the fossil record and by pointing to populations that are similar enough to have fairly recently separated (one good example the donkey vs the horse)). .P 2 Creationism obviously does not surpass evolution in amount of data, but it is also a much less elegant (kludgy) and an uglier system. It makes the Christian God out to be a rather dull and unimaginative fellow and nature out to be a rather pointless and awkward process (i.e. bam ice age everybody outside the tropics dies cause they can't adapt). Evolution on the other hand is a very beautiful theory by comparison. It can work anywhere on anything i.e. we see the universe evolving, the solar system etc. With it we can see ourselves as the end product of 10,000,000,000 years of development, not a mere seven days. If you believe in a supreme thinking being then this is surely a greater attribute to him then the creationist view (it can also be seen to mean that he can have the relationship with this planet with thousands of planets which shouldn't hurt his image either). The main part of the beauty of evolution lies in its sweep. It has a constant progression and diversification. There is no reason not to attribute such detail and beauty to God. .P2 The real question the argument is about is can Creationists contribute to science. The only way I can see that they can is by keeping real scientists honest. No scientist should assume anything is literally true. This doesn't mean that he can't accept the current theory as true, but that he has to be flexible enough to change if the evidence presents itself. The Creationist "dogma" that the Bible is literally true puts them into the same box as the statistician who fits the data to his results. His only flexibility is in the data not the theory (which is puts him into psuedo science not science). As far as I can tell there is no evidence for Creationism at all (or at least none that can withstand Occum's razor). I will not claim to have read much of the Creationist drivel, this is in fact because I have rejected it out of hand as unscientific. I see no point in wasting my time, it's based on data I rejected as untrue a long time ago. (Some people might see the last statement as contradicting the way I used God throughout this article (and you'd be right), but I don't presume to reject other peoples Gods as false (that's a Judeo/Christian/Moslem(etc.) trait and I'm not one of those)). Evolve, you'll like it, Tom Harris