For the Bible tells me so
In the midst of one of our seemingly frequent late night religio-philosophical discussions on Morey 3N, there were two claims made a pair of the more prominent Christians on my floor that startled me. I would like to mention them and thoroughly debunk the claims made. Before I get started, I must state that I have absolutely no problem with opening religion up to debate. If you oppose someone’s political position, you are free to criticize it. But, question an opinion about how the Universe began and who created it, and you’ll find yourself at the business end of a metaphorical (or in the case of historical times, real) torch. I have absolutely no problem with religion, and these two men are among the nicest and most well-mannered of all that I know. But, at the same time, I am not obligated to respect their beliefs just because they are considered “holy”.
Claim 1: Charles Darwin recanted on his deathbed; accepting Christianity and rejecting evolution.
To many Christians (Young-Earth Creationists at least), Darwin was a villain who postulated a godless creation. I’m not exactly sure what this claim is supposed to mean in an argument regarding the truth (or fiction) of evolution. Even if it were true, so what?
I can debunk this one with a single quote, but I’ll elaborate on details first. It has been said that a woman by the name of Lady Hope visited Darwin while on his deathbed, and upon reading the Epistle to the Hebrews, changed his mind saying, “How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution as I have done.” This story has unfortunately been repeated by the religious for decades in an attempt to delegitimize evolution–in spite of many Christian websites testifying the truth. This seems unlikely due to the fact that Darwin, while repeatedly rejecting Christianity throughout his later years, generally avoided controversy. Darwin was at most a deist and at least an agnostic in terms of his religiosity.
The lie, however, was laid to waste in 1922 when Darwin’s own daughter denied claims of a deathbed conversion. “I was present at his deathbed,” she wrote “[and] Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A….the whole story has no foundation whatever.”
Claim 2: A freshly killed penguin was carbon-dated to be 1,000 years old.
At first, I thought this one had just been fictitious. But, after a quick Google search, it turns out to be true–though the implications of this do not discredit the use of carbon-14 dating, as is the intention of the argument. It was a seal rather than a penguin, but that isn’t important. We know exactly why this happened. Read the link for yourself, but I’ll summarize. Basically, Antarctica has a slightly different carbon exchange than what is expected in the rest of the world. Old carbon is up welled along the Antarctic coast from deep in the ocean, and is introduced into the plant life, and eventually this “old carbon” makes its way into the animals higher in the food chain. This is one of the limitations to radioactive-dating, but it does not invalidate the tool.
These are just a couple of little things mentioned in the conversation that I can remember, and I don’t usually concern myself with things such as these. But, it’s been on my mind since last night, so I figured that I would write about it to get it off my mind so I can concentrate on finishing my midterm papers. It is just frustrating to me that some people snub some facets of scientific advancement if they are irreconcilable with their religious beliefs, and yet take advantage of all advancements that do such as cell phones, central heating and air, automobiles, and electricity. The evidence for evolution by natural selection and that we share a common ancestor with primates–indeed, we are primates–is so utterly overwhelming that to deny it, you may as well deny that the Sun is a star.
[…] 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 […]