KellanStec

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