Several years ago, at Embrey-Riddle Aeronautical University, a debate took place between a Creationist and an Evolutionist.
The Creationist, demonstrating that Macro Evolution, (the belief that one kind of animal can produce a different kind of animal), which has never been observed, stated that, “animals produce after their kind. Dogs produce dogs. You might get a big dog or a little dog, a white dog or a brown dog, or one with curly hair or straight hair, but you always get a dog.”
The Evolutionist professor responded by stating, “Well, of course dogs have only produced dogs over the past six thousand years since that isn’t long enough for them to produce a non-dog.”
In other words, we have no proof and this has never been observed, but if you add the magical ingredient of “billions of years”, we believe that dogs produced or were produced by a different kind of animal.
See, right there, you have left the confines of science and entered the realm of faith.
If we cannot observe it, test it and repeat it through demonstration, it is not Science.
Whilst a distinction can be made between science which can be analysed via experimentation and science which cannot, that distinction isn’t between science and non-science. Both are valid.
After all, prior to the advent of GPS general relativity (or special relativity, I can never remember which) was only testable via observations of heavenly bodies moving around. These are hardly demonstrable in a lab and, with orbits meaning its often hundreds of years before they can be examined again, push the definition of “repeatable.”
And then there’s forensic scientists who can’t travel back in time to observe a murder, nor can they repeatedly murder people in their lab to look at the different results. Whilst they can repeat some things via approximation, these are never perfect and are far from the data the LHC, for example, might produce.
Yet I don’t see any young earth organisations campaigning for Einstein’s ideas to be stricken from textbooks or criminals convicted due to forensics to be released en masse since those disciplines don’t fit into their strict definition of science. No, this is a concern they only bring up when it is convenient, which straight away should tip you off to the fact it isn’t valid.
An pretty decent post on Naturalis Historia (written by a Christian, no less) discusses this issue in a bit more detail
http://thenaturalhistorian.com/2012/04/22/nature-historical-science-origins-observational-experimental-science/
So apparently, I could have avoided your entire criticism by adding one word to my last sentence.
From: If we cannot observe it, test it and repeat it through demonstration, it is not Science.
To: If we cannot observe it, test it and/or repeat it through demonstration, it is not Science.
Who said you need a lab to test or repeat an experiment? Olaf Roemer determined in 1677 that light was not infinite and that it was measurable by employing a technique involving measurements of the eclipses of Jupiter and Io, one of its moons. That, of course, was laughed off by the followers of Descartes and Kepler until 1729, when British Astronomer James Bradley came along and confirmed Roemer’s work.
A forensic scientist examining murder via gunshot for instance, would not need to murder people in their lab in order to properly utilize forensics. They would simply need to be able to reproduce a round from the suspected weapon and compare the striations of the projectiles.
Since Einstein’s work was verified in 1971 through the Hafele-Keating experiment using four cesium clocks, two circling the globe in opposite directions, why would we want to strike Einstein’s work from the textbooks?
In attempting to furnish verifiable examples as proof that the umbrella of science includes the unverifiable, you have missed my point.
To deny the scientific validity that dogs only produce dogs in exchange for the BELIEF that given a long enough period of time, dogs can produce non-dogs, which is precisely what this Professor had done, is to have abandoned Science for Religion and evidence for imagination.
What you have to remember is that the three fundamental principles behind natural selection have been confirmed, beneficial mutations are known to occur (a fact even Answers in Genesis admits), genetic variation can result in divergence and speciation has been observed too. On top of that there’s no known “barrier” to prevent evolution occurring in the right situation.
Evolution postulates nothing new, nothing that is not observed today. To accept that a dog can result in a non-dog doesn’t require imagination, just the acceptance of the fact that known physical processes will occur when nobody is watching.
Appealing to Christian (AiG) or so-called Christian (Naturalis Historia) sources does not invalidate what I am saying. Natural selection selects from what is presently available, it does not create something new.
Here is what Across the Fruited Plain says:
http://sepetjian.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/on-why-natural-selection-does-not-prove-evolution/
Whilst natural selection can only pick from what exists there are a variety of other mechanisms which can increase what exists. For example (as I’ve said before), duplication would create a copy of a gene which then changes so you wind up with two different genes.
And this is not mere speculation, we’ve seen an increase in genetic material (see here for example), new genetic material (see here for example) and increased genetic variation within a species (see here for example).
Like I said, accepting evolution doesn’t require accepting anything other than what we can see and observe in the natural world.
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In case you can’t read them, the first paper is detailing an experiment where they basically watched some bacteria for a while. At the end of the experiment they had more genetic material when they started as some duplication had occurred. The second paper reports on a population of bacteria that changes something or other; the chemistry escapes me somewhat. Finally, the third paper is just noting that they let some bacteria evolve for a while (I’m sensing a theme here) at the end of which there was more genetic variation between species than when they started.
In the last sentence “between species” should read “within the species.” Apologies.
“Like I said, accepting evolution doesn’t require accepting anything other than what we can see and observe in the natural world.”
If that were so, we’d have no argument.
There are at least six definitions of the word evolution. Only the sixth kind, Micro Evolution is observable and scientific.
Evolution Definition #1 – Cosmic Evolution
In order for Evolution’s Big-Bang to have occurred, Time, Space and Matter all had to come into existence randomly. That means that without direction, intention or information, the dimensions of Time, Space and Matter, not only had to spring into existence, they had to do so at the same time. Why? Well if you have Time and Matter without Space, where would you put it? If you had Matter and Space without Time, when would you put it? Yet when you say the word “evolution”, this is automatically assumed to have occurred without a shred of evidence or scientific substantiation. Having to “imagine” something happened is not good Science.
Evolution Definition #2 – Chemical Evolution
The second type of evolution bundled into the generic use of “evolution” is Chemical Evolution. Chemical Evolution requires that all of the elements on the periodic table must all have evolved from Hydrogen. Anyone paying attention in Chemistry knows that it is impossible from Hydrogen alone to produce every known element. You think we got Uranium from Hydrogen? Some desperately submit that through fusion, this could in fact have happened. However, the truth is, you cannot fuse past Iron. This is also circular reasoning because they claim the stars made the elements, but also purport that the elements made the stars. Once again, no scientific proof offered. Science is testable, repeatable, demonstrable, not something you have to accept by faith.
Evolution Definition #3 – Stellar & Planetary Evolution
The third type of evolution that would have been necessary is Stellar & Planetary Evolution. Stellar & Planetary Evolution means that all the planets, stars, moons and sun had to have evolved from absolutely nothing. Scientists offer no explanation as to how this occurred either. Also, don’t forget that all of the energy and universal laws guiding these celestial bodies would also have had to come from no where as well. Where did the matter come from? Where did the energy come from? Where did the laws like Gravity, Inertia, Centripetal Force come from? Laws require a Law Giver.
Evolution Definition #4 – Organic Evolution
The fourth type of evolution necessary in order for the Big Bang and Evolution to be true is Organic Evolution. Organic Evolution simply means that organic life appeared from nothing. Science has absolutely no explanation for how life got started. Also, Urey and Miller never created life in the laboratory contrary to what our textbooks teach. They created a toxic tar-based substance that was 97% fatal to life. They created a few single facing amino acids when they really needed to produce a library of dual facing acids by comparison. If a frog becomes a prince quickly, we call it a fairytale. If a frog becomes a prince slowly, we call that science.
Evolution Definition #5 – Macro Evolution
Macro Evolution is the fifth type of evolution that is packaged into the belief system. Macro Evolution is the preposterous notion that one kind of animal becomes another kind of animal. “Origin of Species” misses the mark entirely because we are not discussing “species”, we are discussing “kinds”. A “kind” defines animals that can “bring forth”. A horse and a donkey can being forth. A whale and a chihuahua, not so much. Since the fossil record is completely barren of transitional forms, proponents have been forced to conclude that perhaps the changes occurred so rapidly, that they were not preserved in the strata. This gave rise to the silliness of Punctuated Equilibrium which states that perhaps a reptile laid an egg and a bird flew out. Besides there being only about a million differences between reptiles and birds, who did that bird find to marry, hmm? And if that occurred, why do we no longer observe animals producing off-spring of different kinds today?
Evolution Definition #6 – Micro Evolution
The sixth definition of evolution is called Micro Evolution. Micro Evolution is observable and scientific. However, it is not evolution at all, but merely adaptations within the kind. No new information is entering the gene code. The variations that can and do occur are often related to climate. For instance, the 5 types of bears in the world all come from the same two bears that were on Noah’s Ark. The bears that traveled north to the Arctic, developed thicker coats of fur, while the bears that went south to the desert, developed thinner coats. This however is not a mutation or evolution because the genes for thicker and thinner coats were already in the DNA of the bear. Therefore, there is no new information introduced, which is what evolution demands.
In the end, all of the components of Evolution, except Micro must be accepted, not by scientific scrutiny, but by faith.
I would’ve thought it self-evident from my reference to genes, speciation and mutation that I was talking about biological evolution rather than any of the others. For they are, after all, distinct. Whilst the various “evolutions” can be built into an overarching narrative they are ultimately distinct ideas because one could be false (or true) and it would have little impact on the validity of the others. Darwin himself wrote at the end of the 1st edition of Origin that the evolutionary process he had described only occurred after a creator had “breathed life” into the common ancestor, clearly denying “organic evolution” yet accepting the last two. Thus care should be taken not to conflate the ideas since they are actually separate, despite all being described as evolution*
#1 My understanding of physics is woeful so there’s not much I can say regarding cosmology (as it is technically known) except that big bang theory doesn’t deal with the genesis of time, space and matter. The various models only go back to just after the “formation”** of these things, describing the early universe as hot, dense and expanding but ultimately not what caused this state of affairs. Research into what is the ultimate cause of all these things is to the big bang what abiogenesis is to evolution. Interesting but ultimately speculative and irrelevant. Regardless of what set things off, ~13.7 billion years ago the universe was very dense and very hot and has expanded and cooled since then.
#2 Again, I’m no physicist. However, my understanding is that it wasn’t fusion which developed heavier elements because, as you said, iron can’t undergo fusion. So much energy is needed that the process consumes energy rather than produces it. As such the equilibrium which keeps the star stable begins to fall apart, so the star explodes. In the course of the supernova the constituent parts of the exploding iron core (neutrons, protons etc.) get flung in all directions. When they hit the outer layers of the star they mingle with the atoms already there, adding neutrons to them.
These enriched elements are the heavier elements, with all the neutrons from the core adding to their atomic mass and moving them up the periodic table. As the star continues to explode these outer layers with the heavy elements are blown off into space where they make the next generation of stars and the whole thing happens again. The sun, for example, is a third generation star. This process is used on earth (albeit with less supernovas) to produce the synthetic elements such as einsteinium. Nuclear reactors or other similar equipment is used to bombard lighter elements with neutrons, moving them up the periodic table.
I’ve already described this process, please take a minute to read what I write to avoid such repetition. Also, since the star itself does not require these heavier elements to function it is not “circular reasoning.”
#3 Once again, I’m no physicist, but I do know the stars would not have come from “absolutely nothing” since – as described above – the big bang is detailing the expansion of a hot, dense universe. That’s something right there. As it did expand and the universe cools energy could be converted (through some process which escapes me) into the component parts of matter which in turn produced atoms. Gravity acting upon these atoms would cause them to come crashing into each other, building up density until they became the stars and planets we know and love. Now, this does prompt the interesting question of where gravity “came from” but currently science cannot answer that, as far as I know. However, that does not make it viable to plug a preferred explanation into this gap unless that explanation has evidence behind it
#4 There are many potential explanations for how life started although they have not been confirmed. Experiments into them are on-going and we should know whether the problem has been solved or we need to come up with better explanations in the near future.
#5 “Kinds” are not discussed because it is ultimately a non-scientific concept. Regardless of whether evolution happened or not a creature would always give birth to members of the same population, aside from infertile crosses. Not even under punctuated equilibrium would one group suddenly give rise to another, that kind of drastic change would not be expected. All models of evolution, even punctuated equilibrium, describe a change in the allele frequency of a population leading to genetic divergence from other populations and thus speciation. It is the population which gradually shifts (via slight individual changes) rather than any sudden shift at the personal level. The main difference with punctuated equilibrium is it suggests that these gradual shifts occur relatively rapidly during certain periods. When the environment changes, or an organism moves into a new location, for example.
#6 I’ve already described above that the addition of new genetic information is seen in the world. Again, please read what I write.
Each of these is a valid scientific explanation (aside from abiogenesis and discussion of what caused the big bang, which remain speculative) because they all employ the same scientific method of testing hypotheses against observations. Regardless of whether that observation is produced in a lab, by looking at a fossil or up at the background microwave radiation of the universe, it is ultimately all science.
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*Whilst evolution could be used to describe many of the concepts it is often not to avoid confusion. “Organic evolution” is abiogenesis and “cosmic evolution” is called cosmology, for example.
**Some even suggest there was no formation and the universe is infinite, cycling through expansion to contraction, to expansion again.
Actually, I thought we were discussing Macro Evolution since we were discussing big dogs and little dogs and how they have never produced a non-dog.
Well, I know it would certainly be convenient to not have to account for all the necessary steps in between nothingness becoming everything, but the fact of the matter is, you do not have a coherent theory if it does not take you back to the beginning. Therefore, to say that each definition and theory of evolution exists independantly of the others or that to disprove the Big Bang leaves evolutionism unrattled is not so. If the origin or foundational piece of the theory is false, how much more the “truth” on which it is built?
1. Cosmic Evolution (Big Bang)
“Each of these is a valid scientific explanation (aside from abiogenesis and discussion of what caused the big bang, which remain speculative)”
Therefore, since you admit this is not scientific, I’ll move on.
2. Chemical Evolution
Across the course of our various discussions, I have pointed several examples of circular reasoning used by evolutionism. (Dating fossils by strata and dating strata by fossils, protein made DNA and DNA made protein, which evolved first, termites or the critters in their intestines, etc). Regrettably, I have been unable to demonstrate these various circularities to your satisfaction.
You cannot have the stars forming the elements AND the elements forming the stars. I’m perfectly fine with someone believing that, but please don’t call that science.
(Adam said) “In the course of the supernova the constituent parts of the exploding iron core (neutrons, protons etc.) get flung in all directions. When they hit the outer layers of the star they mingle with the atoms already there, adding neutrons to them.”
How could supernovas be exploding before star formations during the Big Bang?
This point is further sunk by the fact that if stars evolved, how come we never see one forming?
Once again, we have the “believe” it happened since this too is unobserved.
3. Stellar and Planetary Evolution
How did Jupiter fit into the tiny dot that spun faster and faster? You can’t even squeeze a Volkswagon into a dot.
(Adam said). “However, that does not make it viable to plug a preferred explanation into this gap unless that explanation has evidence behind it”
So since you have no evidence for this one either, we’ll keep going.
4. Organic Evolution
(Adam said) “There are many potential explanations for how life started although they have not been confirmed. Experiments into them are on-going and we should know whether the problem has been solved or we need to come up with better explanations in the near future.”
Ok, so no evidence on this one either.
5. Macro Evolution
“Not even under punctuated equilibrium would one group suddenly give rise to another”
A scant glance at the definition of punctuated equilibrium should apprise you of the fact that that is EXACTLY what punctuated equilibrium is—one species or kind giving rise to a completely different kind of animal rapidly so that the changes were not preserved in the strata. This is a proposed idea for the origination of birds…that a reptile laid an egg and out flew a bird! Aside from a mere million differences between a reptile and a bird, who did that bird find to marry?
6. Micro Evolution
This is the only one that is scientific because it is observable and demonstrable.
We have no argument on this one. God created a very flexible DNA code which allows for very interesting variations within the kind.
You say that each definition does not require the others, but it just so happens that you believe in all of them. Is that a coincidence?
It sounds like you are saying that something does not have to be verifiable to be scientific. Is that so?
Once again we see that of the 6 definitions of evolution, the first 5 are purely religious, not scientific.
If you thought we were discussing biological evolution then why bring up all these tangents? Don’t get me wrong, they’re interesting and I don’t mind discussing them. I’d just rather we stuck to the topic at hand first.
Also, I completely disagree with the notion that an incomplete idea is somehow incoherent or invalid. Whilst a theory has to explain something it does not have to explain everything. Other theories can explain other things (and it’s perfectly acceptable to say “I don’t know” where no valid explanations exist) and together they can combine into a more complete view of reality but ultimately the individual theories are distinct. Like pieces of a puzzle you can put them together to make a picture but having a piece that isn’t really a jigsaw piece, or missing one entirely, does not stop the other pieces being puzzle pieces.
1. To clarify: The big bang itself is a valid scientific concept, discussion of what caused it are purely speculative at the moment.
2. To clarify: Over the course of the big bang (and subsequent cosmological events) the lighter elements, such as hydrogen, were created. These then clumped together to form stars which in turn produced the heavier elements via the method I described. It is early cosmology to light elements to stars to heavy elements, rather than the more cyclical version you suggest.
Whilst we haven’t seen a star form, which is understandable given it takes longer than we have had telescopes for, we have seen the various stages of such formation. Astronomers have found the clouds from which models suggest stars form as well these clouds with proto stars in them.
3. Remember, most of the space within an atom (>99%) is empty. You can actually condense them into a very small space by removing that emptiness. And that’s forgetting that during the big bang matter wasn’t in the form of atoms but energy. And energy, again, can be condensed quite a bit. Of course, such a set-up is very unstable hence the whole “rapid expansion” thing.
4. I wouldn’t say there’s no evidence. There are models and some evidence for those models. The evidence is just rather weak.
5. You’re unnecessarily equating “rapidly” with “instantly.” Punctuated equilibrium does not necessarily result a major change and it still takes hundreds, if not thousands, of generations to occur.
Science is based around the “hypo-deductive” method. You observe the world, make a hypothesis over how it works and then predict something based off that hypothesis. You then test that prediction against further observations to see if it is valid. Ultimately the nature of the observation against which a hypothesis is tested isn’t particularly important. I could test my prediction against stars I see in the sky, an experiment I do in a lab or bones I find in the ground. Science does have to be verifiable, but not in the limited “operational” manner creationists often demand.
This method has time and time again demonstrated itself to be the best way of developing the most accurate descriptions of reality. As such I accept its conclusions (after as much critical analysis as I am able to give since science thrives on peer review), with the caveat that it is a self-improving process and so they may change in the future. In that sense it is not a coincidence that I accept these scientific conclusions since they are all based on the same vindicated way of figuring stuff out.