15 answers to creationist nonsense.

Since all creationists keep reffering to works of other fellow creationists saying "It is worth taking a look, at least take a look at both sides!" I felt that I might just as well do the same thing. This site sumarises a detailed list of answers to the most common nonsense claims by creationists.

http://www.museumstuff.com/articles/art114621042751109.html

These are the 15 creationist claims that the site adresses (tears appart) by pointing out teh fundamental errors in them:

1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest.
3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.
4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution.
5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution.
6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.
8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance.
9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa.
10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.
11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life.
12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve.
13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance.
14. Living things have fantastically intricate features--at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels--that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution.¨
15. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution.


All of the above is of course nonsense and was adressed by Scientific American (The Magazine which first published these 15 answers). Once again I invite everyoen to check out the site.

http://www.museumstuff.com/articles/art114621042751109.html

I'm not a creationist at all (I firmly accept evolution) but evolution is a theory, not a fact.

I'm not a creationist at all (I firmly accept evolution) but evolution is a theory, not a fact.

It comes down to wordlplay. Yes evolution is a theory, but creationists would use this to suggest that it thus lacks validity which isnt true.

The thing is that in science there is no such thing as "facts". Thus to say that Evolution is a theory and not a fact is rather meaningless since a theory is the highest status something can ever obtain within Science.

The thing is that in science there is no such thing as "facts". Thus to say that Evolution is a theory and not a fact is rather meaningless since a theory is the highest status something can ever obtain within Science.

By the same token, we could argue that it is 'just a theory' that water is made up of H20, or that matter is made up of atoms. But creationists do not argue this.

If they are to make their position defensible they simply cannot turn on the point that our data doesn't guarantee every scientific theory.

The problem is that scientists are very sloppy with language and still talk (and think) in outdated terms like "facts" etc which philosophy has long since abandoned.

Creationists are perfectly correct to say that evolution is 'just a theory', not a proven fact. But it is never possible to prove that a scientific theory is true, in the strict sense of proof, for the inference from data to theory is almost always non-deductive.

By the same token, we could argue that it is 'just a theory' that water is made up of H20, or that matter is made up of atoms. But creationists do not argue this.

If they are to make their position defensible they simply cannot turn on the point that our data doesn't guarantee every scientific theory.

I think you yourself are being rather sloppy with your usage of language. Firstly, the source of the criticism of evolution due to its status as a theory is that this makes it nothing more than an idea, and by extension holding no scientific value; it is not a point of semantics, rather an exploitation of them.
Secondly, very few scientists I've met discuss facts; phrases such as models, structures, frames, theories, concepts, and the like are much more common. The first biologist I ever spoke to on the subejct of evolution concluded a discussion with "remeber, it would take only one fossil to compeltely disprove this theory", leaving no doubt that this was merely the most accurate model available and no more.
Finally, water is H2O, because it is defined as that. The two words mean precisely the same thing. Any sample of water, of course, won't be entirely H2O be that is because it is impure.

The knowledge that water is H20 exists only in our minds – it does not exist externally. It is a symbol that we apply. All theories exist in the mind alone and are not the objects which they seek to describe.

The knowledge that water is H20 exists only in our minds – it does not exist externally. It is a symbol that we apply. All theories exist in the mind alone and are not the objects which they seek to describe.

What are you talking about? The labelling of water with these letters is not a theory... you're getting confused. I can't even make sense of the last part:

By this reasoning you can extend everything to exist in your mind only, that is, we are only figments of yoru imagination. Then you may ask why you bother to argue with us...

Since you seem to like quotations, I’ll give you one from Stephen Hawking:

“Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it.” (p 11, Brief History of Time)

I have been looking for the past 5 minutes for where Hawking says that these theories only exist in the mind but I cant find it at present.

You must be conscious that your theories, values, judgements etc are not the thing they are about.

What we call ‘science’ has been and will continue to be that combination of words (a theory) that yields the greatest understanding, and thereby control, over the subject in question.

Your problem is that your not conscious of that.

Yes I know about Hawkings, I know about Roger Penros and I know about Richard Feynman and Einstein, and guess what: They all have different interpretations of what a theory is!

It is a theory, its taught as such in 1st year university chemistry. The structure of a compound cannot be proved, we can only hypothesise as to what it would most likely be.

Not the labelling of it - the theory I pressume is that water "particles" are made from two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Whether we call these atoms H, O, Z, P etc. is not theory - it is defenition. Whether these defenitions are correct is not the issue, as a hydrogen atom is defined as "H". Whether this atom is a component of water is theory. That's my point in response to:

"The knowledge that water is H20 exists only in our minds – it does not exist externally. It is a symbol that we apply."

But the "atom" is a theory too, which the Greeks came up with...

Are trees theories? I think its safe to assume that scientist are as sure of atoms existing as trees