KellanStec

I went into the event with as open of a mind as I could have. The ones who put it on seemed genuine in their efforts to have a real, rational discussion on creationism and evolution. I was, however, very disappointed. The preacher’s main point was to convince the audience to be critical of science and what it tells us. This is good, but his methods were not convincing in the least. His presentation indulged in non-sequiturs, false dichotomies, false analogies, out-of-context quotes to set up strawmen, and question begging. I didn’t expect to hear much in the way of science at this event, but he could have at least had logical arguments rather than authoritative dogmatic assertions of biblical inerrancy.

Brian Young cited few sources, and the sources he did site were some off-hand, foreign magazine or something. There were no peer-reviewed sources cited. A peer-reviewed source would have been much more acceptable since peer-review generally is a quality control mechanism that filters out things that do not hold up to scientific scrutiny. I doubt he cared about scientific scrutiny though, since science is typically wrong in his eyes. And he said this while using a microphone system and projected his powerpoint presentation from his computer. Biologists use the exact same process (the scientific method, experimentation, and peer-reviewed research) that brought us such innovations as these. The only difference was that modern biology doesn’t fit into his bronze-age mythological interpretation of history. Aren’t double-standards fun?

I have some suggestions for Brian:

• Take science courses: If you’re going to act like you’re educated in the fields, at least follow through. Your education level in the sciences is obviously not as high as I was led to believe. Some of the comments you made (such as that man and woman evolved separately or that suddenly a new species is born of another) are patently untrue. Any person enrolled in an intro to Biology course could could tell you this much. We didn’t “come from monkeys”. Educate yourself so you don’t look like such a fool.
• Update your information: Update the image of the skeletal remains of Ambulocetus to reflect what we actually have now. Remove the airplane example that supposedly refutes ice layer dating–this is not a parallel representation of how ice core samples are taken. See part 2 for more detail. Having updated information means more accuracy in your presentation, and it also means that people like me won’t call you on your deception.
• Cite your sources, and present real evidence: A story in some foreign magazine is not evidence. This is called anecdotal evidence, and it should not be considered real evidence unless it has more external verification to back it up. This type of evidence should be considered fallacious by default.
• Don’t screen questions: I provided typed questions with sources cited in hopes that they would be answered. I was assured that they would not be screened. This was one of my main gripes about the format of discussion: the audience could never know if you really answered the question. You didn’t make an attempt to answer my question specifically, but only parts of it that you had a prepared answer in your powerpoints for. The rest of the question, it seemed was intentionally skipped over. Incidentally, these were the parts I would have preferred an explanation for.
• Remember the burden of proof: Providing evidence against science does not, be default, prove your case. When you are the one making the claim (the earth is ~6,000 years old), you must provide evidence positive that this is the case. Doing the opposite is called the negative proof fallacy. You can’t just make an assertion that is assumed true by definition. This is not how to make a good case for what you believe.

At the conclusion of this presentation, I was honestly stunned. Stunned that someone would take his ignorance and misinformation and mislead an entire audience of people. Some of this was demonstratively false, such as the misrepresentation of the completedness of a fossil discovered 15 years ago. Some of it defied common sense, such as suggesting that the banana sized, razor-sharp teeth of a Tyrannosaurus would be “perfect for eating something like a pumpkin”. This is completely unacceptable from someone who claims to be an informed speaker on the subject. He could have at least kept up-to-date on the literature and refreshed his knowledge of the subject.

Finally, I’d like to write a couple of points from a discussion I had after the presentation with a creationist student here on campus. The conversation itself I think represents something greater: a patten of misinformation and willful ignorance on behalf of the creationist students as a whole. I have had a number of conversations with some of them in the past, and there is always a false factoid or misconception that I’ve had to clear up. It’s sad that some people either don’t know how or choose not to do the research necessary to validate or falsify their claims or beliefs.

At first, we were discussing the lizards that grew an entirely new structure, a cecal valve after ~30 years of isolation from the parent population. Not only that, but they had fundamentally changed other parts of their anatomy. Their legs grew smaller, jaws larger, and they slowed down to adjust to a life as vegetarians. This student asked me “But, is it still a lizard?”. This was obviously the “only produce after their kind” nonsense that is perpetuated in the creationist community. I agreed that it was still a lizard. The difference, I noted, was how different this species had become from the parent population. I don’t know if he expected a wombat to hatch out of a lizard egg or what. I told him that studies had not been done to determine if they could still breed with the parent population, but that it would be a good indicator of how changed they really were.

He proceeded to tell me of a blue bird book that his uncle/grandfather/family friend had (I can’t remember which) that said that a sparrow and a robin could breed and produce viable offspring. I was unable to find such a case anywhere. I am guessing this is the book he was talking about, but I can’t find any commentary to confirm that it contains that piece of information. I also wasn’t able to find a biography to verify the author’s credentials. But seriously–this is the evidence he had? I had a peer-reviewed scholarly article depicting the measurements taken, and all the research done to show that the lizards had changed dramatically, and he had a book written by someone who seems to be an outdoors man who writes about nature and preserving meat.

This is the standard for evidence that was presented at this event. I doubt I will be attending an event similar to this in the future, as it provided nothing useful to me.

“If you’re willing to abandon any requirement for evidence, you can also ignore any evidence that counters your opinion.” — PZ Myers

Filed under: Science, Religion by kellanstec
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Let’s talk about transitional fossils. One bold statement was made by Mr. Young: There is no such thing as a transitional fossil. Based on his knowledge of evolution that he had demonstrated thus far, there wasn’t much reason to believe the things he said at this point. Once again, Mr. Young makes a number of either false or deceitful claims in a failed attempt to turn evolution on its head.

First, not every living being is fossilized. This is why we do not have a complete fossil record, showing gradual transitions within a species. So, expecting to have abundant transitional forms is a very demanding expectation. Additionally, how many transitional forms would it take to create a gradual timeline of evolution? For each transitional form entered into a morphological timeline, it opens up two more holes that need to be filled.

One of my questions dealt with whale evolution. Here is my exact question:

There are a number of examples of transitional fossils for many currently existing organisms. One of these examples is the cetaceans, or the group of animals that includes whales, porpoises, and dolphins. We know that these animals’ ancestors were probably land dwellers because 1) they require to resurface for air, 2) their bone structures in their hands resemble land mammals more than they do fish, and 3) the movements of their spines are more characteristic of mammals than they are of fish, who move their spines horizontally. Thus, we would expect to find some transitional fossils filling this gap between land dwellers and sea dwellers.

We’ve found them. We have numerous fossil examples that demonstrate a transition from land-dwelling to sea-dwelling creatures. Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, and Basilosaurus were discovered in successive geological strata, and have bone structures we would expect to find in an animal that is slowly changing for life at sea. We see shortening of hind limbs, change from feet to flippers, and shift of the nasal cavity towards the top of the head, as well as numerous other developments. We also see the partial development of hind limbs in the embryos of modern whales today. Does creationism have a rational explanation for the existence of this phenomena accounting for both the skeletal similarities between the seemingly transitional fossils and modern whales, and the embryonic development features of today’s cetaceans?

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. May 30, 2006 vol. 103 no. 22 8414 – 8418

Mr. Young proceeded to open up his powerpoint of prepared answers, and showed the audience a picture of only one of the specimens I mentioned (pictured right). He did not even bother to answer the rest of my question, and skimmed the first paragraph, so there was no context for the question. His point in showing this photograph was that we don’t even have a complete skeletal specimen, and that there wasn’t even a pelvis in this fossil. He mocked scientists for jumping to conclusions.

The problem is, he was either blamelessly wrong, or was deliberately trying to fool the audience. The photo is sort of deceiving anyway, since it is two-dimensional and does not show us the other side of the skeleton. The fact of the matter is, we have much more of the fossil than the photo leads us to believe. He was absolutely dead wrong.

Pictured to the left is that we actually have of the fossil now. This is after another summer of digging, and more of the specimen being collected. This remainder was dug up 15 years ago. We now have much of the pelvis, and much of the spine. It might not look like much, but remember that animals are usually symmetrical. Having a bone on one side means having it on the other. Mr. Young has had plenty of time to fix his mistake, why didn’t he? Why didn’t he analyze the other specimens I mentioned in this manner? Wasn’t this speaker supposed to be well-informed on this very subject?

I’m not finished. Another tool used to mock science was the Lucy skeleton. He used a clip from the Nova Evolution series in which it demonstrated a scientist piecing together the pelvis. The way it was originally pieced together didn’t fit with other skeletal features that showed it was bipedal. He again used the clip to mock scientists for forcefully making the pieces fit the assumption that Lucy was bipedal with a grinder, after which he dismissed the fossil as “just a chimpanzee”.

First of all, there is much more than a simple preconceived notion of bipedalism that made Dr. Loejoy believe that the bone was in the incorrect form. There are biological reasons they believed this; one of them being the knee joint:

I was surveying late one afternoon when we were out collecting some elephant teeth, and I looked down on the ground and found in a couple of pieces of this knee joint … As Lovejoy pointed out, the joint had all the hallmarks of a creature that moved around on two legs, not on all fours. Walking upright is something that only humans can do. And it needs a special kind of knee joint, one that can be locked straight. A chimp gets around on all fours. If it tries to walk upright, its knee joint doesn’t lock. It’s forced to walk with a bent leg and that’s tiring.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2106hum1.html

You can read more about Lucy and reconstructing the pelvis here. I won’t go into further detail, but the article does a good job of describing what happened and why.

Young himself made the point in his presentation that one can not be absolutely certain of anything, because absolute certainty is omniscience–something that only a supernatural being possesses. He contradicted himself with the bold, absolutist statement “there is no such thing as a transitional fossil”. Omniscient Brian ignores evidence and recycles bad Answers in Genesis arguments.

I disagree with his statement that you can never be certain of everything to a degree. I believe that through rational thought and scientific inquiry, one can know the world to near certainty. To step outside of the bounds of evidence should lead to an “I don’t know” conclusion. Through numerous fossils, biological and behavioral similarities, and DNA evidence, we can be nearly certain that Humans and other primates share a common ancestor. This is not based on belief in anything besides physical and empirical evidence, for me at least. Had Young at least kept up with the scientific literature in the past decade, he could have avoided these gaping holes in his argument and done some actual research.

This concludes posting number three. The next will most likely be the last. I will conclude with my thoughts on the speaker, and discuss a conversation I had after the presentation.

Filed under: Science, Religion by kellanstec
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Throughout Brian Young’s presentation, he seemed to offer many reasons to believe that the theory of evolution is false and offered little evidence of why Creationism is the logical choice other than presenting it in such a way that it was self-descriptive within the context of itself. What I mean by this is that he seemed to have an explanation for everything, and it all seemed to make sense under the YEC (Young Earth Creationist) world view.

However, there are two things wrong with this method of persuasion. First, the whole argument is a logical fallacy called a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is also known as a false dilemma: a problem in which only two solutions are offered, when in fact there are more (often many more) alternatives. Mr. Young offered us two options: either evolution or creation. There are many alternatives to this, particularly other religions’ creation myths.

Second, the fact that the creationist world view makes sense within itself is not convincing at all. After all, science does the same thing–as do many other religions. Mr. Young seemed to be presenting the case that this alone was reason enough to cast doubt upon the theory of evolution, therefore, making creation more likely.

To put this into perspective: take the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. One can adopt this world view to explain things, and the Church seemingly does it. Why are the earth’s temperatures on the rise? The pirate population is decreasing. It only makes sense that, as pirates grew smaller in number, the global temperatures rise. Recently, there has been news of pirate numbers increasing. And wouldn’t you know–the temperature has been going down in the past couple years. Even Google Trends highlights this link. Furthermore, it has explanations for natural phenomena. Why have humans been growing taller recently? Simple. He is running out of noodly appendages which he uses to push us all down since our population is expanding.

This world view makes perfect sense within the context of itself. It has explanations for everything. And if something can’t be explained? It is simply the will of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The beauty of this world view is obvious: a Flying Spaghetti Monster (God) can’t be disproven. Therefore, the theory of evolution is false.

This is essentially what was done. Mr. young had bits of anecdotal evidence (I’ll get to that later) that evolution was wrong, so YEC must be right. Disagree? Prove him wrong. Note that he didn’t use much evidence to support his Creationist conclusion. He only supplied anecdotal evidence that evolution and science were flawed. Incidentally, he supported any science that agreed with his conclusion, disregarding the strength of the evidence supporting it.

For example, he offered a case of a World War II aircraft being buried under ice. The layers of ice visible seemed to reflect hundreds of thousands of years, when this is impossible based on the time buried. This was to cast doubt upon ice core samples. Not surprisingly, he didn’t cite a reputable source aside from a creationist magazine. For all we know, no research at all was done at all to support this conclusion. Was an alternative explanation offered for this case? No. Only the usual “science is wrong” response, and the conclusion that ice cores don’t take thousands of years to form was provided to the audience.

So, what happened to this plane? No idea. But there’s a rational explanation both for the discrepancies between these layers and the scientific ice core studies as well as the validity of the studies. Since the plane was near the coast, it could be that it simply snowed that much since it crashed. The many layers could represent melting periods, rather than seasonal differences. The Greenland coasts do receive snowfall in the order of feet per year, and it’s not quite as cold as where the scientific ice core samples are taken, especially on the southern coast. This means more melting periods throughout the year.

Furthermore, glaciologists and the like do much more than a superficial “counting of the layers”, as Mr. Young seemed to believe. This link will tell you about the different methods used in dating ice cores at GSIP2. One of the methods involves testing volcanic ash content in the cores against known eruption dates, and has at numerous times verified the validity of ice core sampling. What evidence was presented that supported the conclusion that the scientific dating model is wrong? None besides a superficial layer count by non-scientists, done outside the normal, peer-reviewed relevant scientific field of study.

Young had other examples of science being wrong, such as Archeoraptor. He mocked the science community for believing it was a missing link discovery from dinosaur (he said reptile) to bird. Yes, it was a hoax. And scientists now recognize it as such. The irony here is that the hoax was created by combining multiple animals. One of them was Microraptor–a dinosaur in the Dromaeosaur family with feathers both on its front and hind limbs. I am sure Mr. Young would dismiss this animal as “just a bird” as he did with Archaeopteryx. I’m sorry, but this comment is incredibly stupid. These animals had teeth and a bony tail. These features alone would uncategorize them as “birds”, but what do people like Young do? Glance at an artist rendition, see feathers, and conclude “bird!”. No science here.

This concludes the second posting. The third will cover “missing links” and Young’s misconceptions about them.

Filed under: Science, Religion by kellanstec
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Recently, a campus group presented a creationist speaker. I thought it would be nice to have a voice of reason in the audience, so I decided to go along with some of my heathen friends. I compiled a list of questions, and even cited some sources from the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.

I had never been to a creationist speaker before. I had watched some of the videos from Kent Hovind, and was never convinced. I had a struggle determining if they were serious about what they were saying. This speaker was not much different. His name is Brian Young, and he is the founder of the the Creation Instruction Association. I can’t find a video or anything, but trust me when I say he used most of the same tired creationist rhetoric–right down to T-Rex eating pumpkins nonsense. Just youtube Kent Hovind and you will find basically the same thing.

I will be going over some of his talking points in this series of posts, and replying to some of the things he said. I will also cover his responses to my questions, as well as pointing out things he said that are entirely untrue factually. Additionally, I will go over some of the things that were said to me after the presentation by a few of the attendees. I will start with some misconceptions he seems to have about evolution itself.

Mr. Young, at one point, said that “evolutionists” (why do they use this term?) believe not only that man had evolved to its complexity today, but a woman had also evolved alongside man, separately, as if they had nothing to do with each other before they started reproducing. I’m not sure if this is really what he meant or if I am incorrect in my understanding, but either way, what he said was wrong. It was either wrong because it is not factual (gender and sexual reproduction far pre-dates humanity according to the theory) or because it was misleading (he was preaching in front of an audience eager to nod their heads at his every word). Bad comment either way.

Another comment he made was that evolution is racist. He made the comment that “white people are more evolved than black people” and looked at the colored people in the audience, as if questioning them if they believe this. This is also completely false for both reasons mentioned above. Racism is the idea that certain races are “better” than others. The theory of evolution takes no position on “good” or “bad”. The only related claim it makes is that some adaptations are more beneficial. Now, the misunderstanding here is that, since the idea is that white men migrated out of Africa, they are somehow more evolved since their skin became lighter, thus, evolving. This is untrue. There is nothing inherently better in evolving, because the organism is only adapting to its environment. Better for the environment, yes, but there is no ideal formation here. Only different formations. Black, white, green, and purple skin are all equally evolved.

Another misconception was the constant referral to dinosaurs as reptiles. Note to creationists: do not do this. It is wrong (partially). The common perception of dinosaurs is scaly skin, and reptile-like. They, however, were not reptiles. Scientists classify animals based upon a lot more than outward appearance. Dinosaurs are in the same class as reptiles under the current taxonomy system based on skull and skeleton structure. and are technically considered Reptilia. However, so are birds. I wouldn’t call a bird a reptile any more than I would call a dinosaur one in the same context as Mr. Young’s comment.

One related misconception is that he seemed to think that evolution tells us that all dinosaurs evolved into birds. He made the audience laugh by envisioning a T-Rex turning into a chicken. Not many serious biologists will believe anything close to this. The idea is that only some of the dinosaurs evolved into birds. Again, this is not based on a superficial glance at either group. This is based on specific skeletal similarities and other features, such as behavioral habits.

Another misconception that he seemed to have, is that organism lose things that are not useful by choice. He used a tail example (again, with a comic on screen of a person opening a door with their tail) as reasoning we never should have lost our tail, because he would use it all the time if he had one. This is just silly. No organism (except perhaps for humans in the future) is able to choose which body parts to evolve. The theory of evolution says that there must have been some type of selective pressure to evolve without a tail. It is not based on how much our ancestors liked their tails.

Think of it this way: when our ancestors were not bipedal, they needed their tail for things since they couldn’t use their hands all of the time. Perhaps it was balancing in a tree or something. Once the primates moved from the trees, the primates were able to use their hands to carry things, and no longer needed their tails to support themselves in a tree. It also could be that they were incapable of supporting themselves in a tree due to weight–look at gorillas. I don’t know why the apes lost their tails, but there must have been some type of selective pressure against them. Saying “Hell, I’d use one if I had one” is a horrible argument, and represents a huge misunderstanding of how evolution works.

One thing that bothered me about these misconceptions is that the speaker was advertised as talking about creation and evolution in a fair manner. However, with so many misconceptions about evolution–even ones that have been used by creationists for years–leads me to believe he doesn’t know a whole lot about evolution or science in general.

This is all for the first posting. The second will cover the idea that demonstrating that since scientists are occasionally wrong, this leads us to believe that the Judeo-Christian creation story from the Bible is accurate.

Filed under: Science, Religion by kellanstec
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This semester, I am taking a course that is new to my college’s catalog: Philosophy of Religion. It is an introductory Philosophy course, and in it we cover various topics pertaining to problems within theistic religion. The first topic of discussion is the Problem of Evil. The syllogism is as follows:

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omni benevolent, and omniscient.
2. If God is omnipotent, then he would have power to eliminate evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God would know of all the evils that exist.
4. If God is omni benevolent, then God would have a desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil and God exist, then God either can not eliminate evil, will not eliminate evil, or doesn’t know about evil.
7. Therefore, God (as defined) doesn’t exist.

The syllogism is logically valid, but are the premises true? 1-4 are true by definition, so let’s look at just 5 and 6. 5 is probably the most debatable, because what can be defined as evil? There are a number of defenses to explain the existence of evil: the Free Will Defense, the Greater Goods Defense, and the Greater Unknown Purpose Defense. I will look at these defenses and see if they hold up.

Free Will Defense
The Free Will Defense states that in order to have beings that are significantly free willed, they cannot be causally determined to do only what is right. In other words, free will necessitates evil because in order to choose between good and bad, a bad choice must be made available. This seems reasonable at first, because it shifts the blame for the existence of evil towards free-willed creatures making evil choices. God didn’t voluntarily choose these evils. In order to create free creatures, he had to allow evil as an unfortunate byproduct.

However, there are certain cases in which this does not apply. For example, in cases of natural evils. That is, evils independent of man. These evils can include the suffering that occurs as a result of some animals being carnivorous. Surely there are ways around allowing animals to be killed for food by sharper-toothed animals. Perhaps all animals could be vegetarian–or even photosynthetic. Other natural evils include hurricanes, disease, and earthquakes. How necessary is it to have such things on our earth?

The Greater Goods Defense
The Greater Goods Defense states that perhaps some evils are necessary to create a greater good in the end. This goes along with Leibniz’s work, and is his core argument in attempting to solve the problem of evil. In his writings, he called this world the “best of all possible worlds” by which he meant that maybe there was no other way to create a better world containing any less evil. He reverses the problem and states that since God possesses the qualities stated in the premises, that this must be the best of all possible worlds. However, this creates a weak argument, because one only has to find a single example of something that would make the world better off overall. It also suggests that God is constrained to do all that is good. In that case, then in what sense does God exercise free will?

This argument is demolished by my photosynthetic animal I mentioned above. If no animal consumed meat, then there would be much less gratuitous suffering in the natural world, and as a result, a better overall world. It’s also hard to see why the world is better off with things such as AIDS, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Sure, things like that bring people together, but there must be alternatives to putting thousands of people through misery, death, and displacement. It doesn’t seem like a reasonable trade to me. Maybe I just can’t understand the purpose. This brings me to the final major defense: the Greater Unknown Purpose defense.

Greater Unknown Purpose Defense
The Greater Unknown Purpose Defense states that we as humans are incapable of understanding what the purpose of evil might be. It is outside of our boundaries to judge something that God does as good or evil anyway, since he makes the rules. But then, on what criteria do we say that God is benevolent?

Some say that we must go through this period of injustice, which is justified in the end through eternal life in either heaven or hell. However, if evil is a necessary byproduct of free will, then how will evil be kept out of the afterlife? Will there be free will in the afterlife? If choices are prevented from being made in the afterlife and we experience only eternal bliss, then why even bother with this period of injustice and free will business? Why not skip to the bliss part?

Other responses
There are some more, less popular responses to this problem. One states that we as humans are sinful creatures, and that evil is punishment for sins committed. However, I do not see a child being tormented by a pedophile as a sinful creature. Children are innocent to me, incapable of truly understanding something is wrong and choosing to do it. In addition, if this were true, we would see proportionally more bad things happening to bad people. Instead, we see both bad and good things happening to both bad and good people.

Here is my response to the problem of evil: I question the fifth premise: evil exists. The universe I see is one with no good and no evil. There is nothing inherently evil about anything. Nature is indifferent to everything. It just keeps moving along, unaware of anything going on within it. Yes, there are people who choose to do what we call “evil”, but the fact that carnivores, hurricanes, and diseases exist do not mean that evil exists. I think the way that evil is defined, it is constrained to human activity. A creator, nature, or whatever you want to call it is not evil, because evil is something that man does. I would also question the first four premises since there is nothing to indicate that any of them are true, but I will probably get to those later on.

Conclusion

If we are going to suggest that a creator being could be evil, I would do it like this:

1. If God exists, then God is omniscient.
2. If God knows through his omniscience before creating anyone whether or not they will spend eternity being punished in hell, then God can be considered evil.
3. Hell bound people are created.
4. Therefore, God is either evil or imaginary.

It’s not an airtight syllogism, because I am not a trained philosopher, but my logic is this. The more data we are able to collect from our surroundings, the more accurate our predictions can become. If we know the weight of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the force that object will have when it hits the ground. If we know the mass of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the kinetic energy that object will have when it hits the ground. (Thanks, Nick.)

Similarly, an omniscient being would know all data that is possible to know about everything–right down to the atomic level. This would allow this being to make ~99.9% accurate predictions about everything, accounting for all variables that can affect any outcome. This includes our thoughts, since our thoughts are ultimately products of (presumably predictable) physical processes. With this knowledge at hand, God would know whether or not a person will end up in hell (he has the criteria for determining such a fate), and chooses to create that person anyway. This sounds evil to me. Free will doesn’t even come in to play–the person’s free choices were known beforehand!

Predeterminism and free will seem to be mutually exclusive, so we are right back in square one. What do you think?

Filed under: Religion by kellanstec
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