Guest opinion; Dr. Tim Ball
Most of the loudest and most vociferous responses to my last article were predictable. Several topics trigger immediate, irrational, and emotional responses. The mention, or at least the questioning, of Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory, is one of them. All I got was arm-waving and references, but not one piece of empirical evidence to prove the theory. This is the same response you get when you ask for empirical evidence to prove the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW).
There is another parallel between the two. Many call AGW a hoax, but it is not, partly because a hoax has a humorous component and there is nothing funny about the deception and its impact. A real and very effective scientific hoax involved the obsession with proving Darwin’s theory. It is called the Piltdown Man Hoax after the quarry in which the event occurred. As a traditional hoax, it was designed to prick pomposity, to underscore the weakness of unjustified and arrogant claims, to open eyes closed by obsession. The irony is the victim of the hoax, Charles Dawson, was determined to find the so-called ‘missing link. He sought the empirical fossil evidence that would provide the final link in the evolution of man from apes.
Dawson was so obsessed with his search and the belief that such a fossil existed that he was easy prey. It is this kind of blind obsession that is the sad situation with all those arm-waving supporters of Darwin’s theory. What is amazing is that the academic and professional world of museums and societies believed Piltdown for 41 years. There were doubters, but they were brushed aside. Eventually, in 1953, the hoax was revealed when it was shown that the Piltdown skull comprised a cleverly aged mandible and some teeth of an orangutan and the cranium of a human.
A major problem with this search for human ancestry is the entire fossil record more than 1 million years old fits on a dining room table. It is as sparse as the data for anthropogenic warming. However, this is only one part of the entire problem of determining evolutionary theory from the fossil record.
Estimates indicate that on average it takes 15 million in a species for one to survive in the fossil record. How many of today’s species will show up in tomorrow’s record? Don’t forget that is in species that have parts that can become fossilized. A remarkable discovery put this entire issue into perspective in a quarry called the Burgess Shales. This is on the boundary between the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Ironically, the original discovery by Charles Walcott occurred in 1909 before the Piltdown hoax. He recognized the importance of the discovery because it consisted of soft-bodied creatures that rarely survive in the fossil record. Unfortunately, the full significance of these fossils was not recognized until 1962 when Alberto Simonetta re-examined the fossils and realized the full extent of their significance.
Today, we are no further ahead because we have no idea how many species exist on our planet. Of course, that does not prevent the fanciful speculators who will do what Mark Twain said,
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
Consider the fact that we don’t know how many plant or animal species exist. A 2011 estimate said approximately 8.7 million, 6.5 on land and 2.2 in the ocean. This sounds definitive until you learn that the error range is ± 1.3 million. In a recent ten-year span more than a million new species were discovered. How many remain undiscovered? PLoS Biology suggests,
“…a staggering 86% of all species on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be discovered, described and catalogued.”
In 2012, a story appeared with the headline, “One Million New Plankton Species Found.” The expedition led by Dr. Chris Bowler was actually looking at the uptake of carbon dioxide in the oceans. Bowler said, “It’s the first time that anyone’s done this expedition looking specifically for plankton life, and that’s why we found so many.” How does that change the formulae for CO2 cycles in the Earth’s system?
It is not just about small species. There are stories all the time.
• 2010 report said, “30 unknown species found in Ecuador’s highland forests by a team of U.S. and Ecuadorian researchers,”
• 2010 report said, Over 200 New Species Found In Papua New Guinea. The lead scientist said, there are, “large areas of New Guinea that are pretty much unexplored biologically.”
• 2012 report “New species of monkey identified in Africa.”
The importance of the Burgess Shales event entered the public awareness with Stephen Jay Gould’s book, “Wonderful Life” and a cover story in National Geographic. The discovery pushed the origin of the earliest species back 50 million years before the previous estimates. It also seemed to indicate a different evolution scenario than the Darwin tree of life. It suggested that there was an explosion of life with a multitude of species most of which became extinct. In other words, it was a decreasing number of species, not increasing. By the way, it was Darwin who likened his ideas to a tree. In his comments on Alfred Russel Wallace’s work he said, it was nothing new and “Uses my simile of a tree (but) it seems all creation with him.” But more of that later.
I was always disturbed by the number of biology students who didn’t know the definition of species. The Oxford English Dictionary provides this definition.
A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g., Homo sapiens.
That sounds clear and concise, but it is not the case even among today’s species. It is even more difficult in the fossil record. For example, we know that mules and horses cannot produce viable offspring. If we found such similar species in the fossil record, there is no way of knowing. How many other natural hybrids exist today or in the fossil record?
The designation of species originated with the system of classification developed by Carolus Linnaeus and known as the Linnaean System. Classification systems are a wonderful idea for trying to make sense out of a plethora of data. The trouble is, like all structures, they are rigid and fail to accommodate new discoveries. The classic example that challenged the Linnaean system was the Platypus. Not surprisingly, and appropriate to our story, many scientists considered it a fake and a hoax. Just like with Piltdown some believed an Asian taxidermist sewed a beak onto a water-dwelling mammal. The reality is the Linnaean Classification is a fanciful, arbitrary rigid system that determined most thinking about evolution.
Some of the more fanciful, such as birds evolving from dinosaurs illustrate the problem (Figure1).
There is no empirical evidence to support this supposition. A good deal of this is based on the fact that some creatures look alike. This is clear in the case of humans and apes (Figure 2).
I don’t mind being descended from a gorilla. They are better than some of the relatives I have, however, many people do. That resentment speaks to the issue Darwin knew about but never dealt with effectively.
Alfred Russel Wallace published a paper on natural selection in 1858, a year before Darwin’s Origin of Species. Some say it pushed Darwin to publish. Others say it caused Darwin’s supporters to push for publication. Wallace’s paper challenged Charles Lyell because it opposed his idea that species were immutable.
The ongoing Wallace and Darwin debate is not over the idea of natural selection. It focused on the place of humans in the pattern of evolution. Wallace publicly supported Darwin’s work. In 1889, he published a book titled, Darwinism. His differences with Darwin emerged from a different area, the large gap between humans and all other species, especially apes. He said a theory must include an explanation for that difference and Darwin evolutionary ideas didn’t. Darwin tried to address the issue twelve years after Origin in his book The Descent of Man. He failed. He did not explain how humans are superior to every other species. His ideas led to the satire about how if you had a number of chimpanzees working on typewriters they would eventually type Shakespeare’s plays (Figure 3).
Figure 3
Former genetics professor David Suzuki provides a good example of the bizarre thinking when he said,
“Economics is a very species – chauvinistic idea. No other species on earth – and there are may be 30 million of them – has had the nerve to put forth a concept called economics, in which one species, us, declares the right to put value on everything else on earth, in the living and non-living world.”
He is incorrect about the number of species. He is wrong about putting a value on things. All animals put a value on everything. Can I eat it? Only humans put other values on things. No other animal could even think of a concept like economics. Instead of realizing that humans are achieving success and adaptability better than any other species, as Darwin suggested, he considers these as failures. He doesn’t even see the philosophical contradictions in his view.
The question is what is really behind all of this illogic and attacks on anyone who questions Darwinism or the prevailing wisdom of his Evolutionary Theory? The gap between humans and any other animals is one of them. It is so great Wallace had the audacity to introduce the idea of what we now call “intelligent design.” His challenges are part of the questions today that speak about the origin of the Universe. The problem for Darwin and the Big Bang theory people is that the ultimate question remains. Who or what created the material for the bang and who triggered it.
Then there is the problem of accurate dating. I recall at a conference on the fur trade, a historian presented a paper about a sequence of events he claimed changed the pattern of exploration. His sequence derived from entries in the Hudson’s Bay Company journals prior to 1752. He didn’t know that in September of that year the government removed eleven days to the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Hubert Lamb devoted a large section of his Volume 2 Climate Present, Past and Future to discussing the methods, limitations, and importance of both absolute and relative dating. The problems exist across all attempts to reconstruct the past, from climate to fossil records.
Incorrect dating makes any attempt to determine cause and effect impossible. Relative dating is when you have a specific date for a known event and can say whether something occurred before or after. Absolute dating is when you have a specific natural measure such as rate of conversion of radioactive material from one form to another. The two most common are radiocarbon and Potassium/Argon (K/A) dating. This has caused problems in climate reconstructions before. For example, the Milankovitch sequence indicated ice conditions in a region of Alaska then radiocarbon on fossilized trees indicated they were growing at the same time. This was a major reason why Milankovitch, who was initially accepted, was later rejected. In my early career mention of Milankovitch immediately triggered derision. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that I attended a conference and Milankovitch was mentioned and nobody reacted. climate conference. Of course, it turned out the fancy new ‘scientific’ measure of carbon dating was wrong because it assumed a constant rate of solar energy output. As recently as 2012 a new calibration method developed to provide more accurate reconstructions. Then, in the first week of June 2018, we learn,
Archaeologist Sturt Manning and colleagues have revealed variations in the radiocarbon cycle at certain periods of time, affecting frequently cited standards used in archaeological and historical research relevant to the southern Levant region (Israel, southern Jordan and Egypt). These variations, or offsets, of up to 20 years in the calibration of precise radiocarbon dating could be related to climatic conditions.
The problems with K/A dating are more profound, especially for the fossil record. A study in Hawaii gave an age for rock of 2.3 ± 0.3 million years. I don’t care about the specific age except that it is relatively recent geologically. What troubles me is the ± 0.3 million years. That is 300,000 years or a full error range of 600,000 years. How much happened in the last 600,000 years? Of course, as you go back in time the error increases. A one-million-year error range is not unusual.
It is interesting that when you search the web for information of accuracy of geologic dating methods, several appear that are sponsored by religious groups. Some specifically identify themselves as creationists.
I am not arguing for creationism, but it appears to influence science so that there is irrational and blind determination to confirm Darwin’s Theory. Ironically, we witness belief in the environment and AGW taking religious, blind belief, positions. So it is with Darwin. The minute you even raise the topic you get hysterical arm waving responses, with no empirical evidence to support their position.
People outside of science have warned about these irrational reactions. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, speaking through his character Sherlock Holmes wrote,
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
Alternatively, as Mark Twain said,
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
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To cast doubt over the reliability of science, Dr. Ball brings up controversies about evolution … and distorts and ignores some of the evidence. We know from laboratory experiments that spontaneous random mutations are introduced by errors made during replication of DNA. Using species that reproduce quickly and produce many off-spring, we can show that mutants that have superior capability to thrive and reproduce will “evolve” and come to dominate a population. So the theory of evolution is a consequence of two things we can observe, spontaneous random mutagenesis and survival of the fittest. The fact that all species use the same basic molecular machinery for performing the most basic chemistry of living (encoding and replicating genetic information as DNA and synthesizing proteins from that information) is reasonable evidence of a common origin.
Man, of course, did not descend from the apes; we both evolved along different paths from a common ancestor. Birds and reptiles have a closer common ancestor (dinosaurs) than other mammal. We don’t need to rely on common appearance (though that is often correct). Today we can assess the relative relatedness of species and therefore descent by DNA sequencing. We don’t need to rely on fossil evidence suggesting feathered dinosaurs.
Humans not only descend from apes. We are apes, just as we are primates and mammals.
Birds not only descend from dinosaurs. They are dinosaurs. Also reptiles.
Humans did not descend from apes. We share a common ancestor. We are in the same taxonomic family as the great apes, chimps and bonobos. Hominidae.
Depending on your definition of “dinosaur,” birds did descend from them. Modern birds aren’t reptiles, according to the current taxonomic definition.
This all just demonstrates the difficulty that exists because there ARE no natural categories of things. The entire system of taxonomy is artificial. It allows humans to exchange information using a standard vocabulary.
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
I have to disagree. While you always postulate with reasoning based on observation, you do need conjecture before you design your experiments and get the data that you need so that that the philosophical musings evolve into science. Such bloody hard work that you need the stubbornness of someone like Felix. You just need to grow up as well.
I always find it odd that people quote a fictional character for scientific guidance.
I’m going to start quoting Gandalf.
Here’s my first one:
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
-Gandalf
Yes, Tim, never, ever, ever even suggest that evolution might have problems or point out that it can never be verified. You get a horrified look, like you just accidently stepped on someone’s new puppy. You become a horrible person. Truly, there are some sacred things in “science” that are 100% exempt from any of the rules. Evolution is one.
Evolution obeys the rules of science. It’s not sacrosanct. Just the facts, ma’am.
Creationism, as espoused in Dr. Ball’s spew of gibbering gibberish above, is not only unscientific but antiscientific and a huge embarrassment to this allegedly scientific blog.
My outrage is not that he said that evolution is not proven to be true, but that he thinks that a scientific theory – any scientific theory – can be ‘proven to be true’.
Such a total misunderstanding of what science actually is, from a well respected and qualified scientist, is alarming.
https://imgur.com/QE80ZKn
Excerpted comments posted by Dr. Tim Ball
IMLO, the one piece of empirical evidence that proves Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory of “descent with modifications” is the fact that all known past and present life forms are/were the product of their inherited/mutated DNA.
And just who was given the right to say that humans are superior? Because humans are superior predators, maybe? But so were some dinosaur species. And cockroaches are far superior survivalists as a species than are/were any of the Homo species.
Is there not several different animal species that put a “high value” on their chosen “hunting territory” because of it economic value to the survival of its members ….. by marking its boundaries and avidly defending said from trespassers?
There were literally billions of Passenger Pigeons, which are now extinct, and no fossil record of their ever existing. Fossils are actually the result of “natural occurring accidents”.
And how would “knowing that number” …… put us further ahead. Or ahead of what?
Sea levels are normally (geologically speaking) 400+- feet lower than present, therefore the vast majority of fossil evidence is surely buried under the aforesaid water depth.
I personally think trees are superior beings. Just sitting there, contemplating, taking nutrition from soils and atmosphere, serenely harming no-one (other than the odd accidental falling limb).
Surely, with all this global warming alarm, humans are intent upon doing just this?
Any post modern techno shaman will tell you that the trees themselves influence humanity, when humanity cut down so many of them, to dig for coal in order to burn it to release CO2 into the air to help trees grow back bigger and better,
I myself have hugged trees and not one has told me otherwise.
Which proves my case completely…
>>
Is there not several different animal species that put a “high value” on their chosen “hunting territory” because of it economic value to the survival of its members ….. by marking its boundaries and avidly defending said from trespassers?
<<
For many, many weeks, I’ve been listening to robins singing. They sing to claim their territory, and they are very territorial–at least to other robins.
Jim
And if it also attracts a mate, so much the better.
Probably not too many species lost due to lower MSL for most of the Pleistocene. When sea level rises, the animals can move and the plants’ seeds are carried inland on wind, by water and animals.
“When sea level rises” ….. they can also build an ark like Noah did, and float away to dry land.
Get a clue, Felix, ….. SLR has nothing to do with it other than its hiding the fossils thus preventing their discovery.
Its all about the “length of time” that earthly land animals expended on solid ground during “short” interglacial periods (30K+- years ) …….. verses ……. extremely “long” glacial periods (200K+ years).
Theory: Natural evolution, defined as the natural processes by which “goo” turns to “you” is un-testable in a laboratory and therefore, unscientific.
Assumptions:
1) Per Felix above: “To qualify as scientific, theories have to be based upon observations and hypotheses tested by making falsifiable predictions.”
2) Per Dr. Ball: “Empirical evidence is evidence relating to or based on an experiment.”
3) Per the IPCC: The climate system is a “non-linear, chaotic, system.”
4) Per #3): The biological system, by its nature dependent upon the climate system, is therefore by necessity also a “non-linear, chaotic system.”
Therefore:
It is impossible to empirically test natural evolution in a laboratory environment. By definition, in order to test the processes by which natural evolution are theorized to occur, the experiment must be at least as non-linear, random and chaotic as the climate system.
If this is true, then designing an experiment to test the hypothesis of natural evolution would necessarily be logically impossible, since the designers, by their “designing,” would invalidate assumptions 3 and/or 4 or both.
What say you?
The fact of evolution can be and has been repeatedly confirmed by observation and experiment in the wild and in the lab. Creationism, never.
There is no theoretical or physical reason for evolution not to be subject to observation and experiment.
It’s disturbing that Dr. Ball didn’t bother to read the numerous instances of such observations and experiments provided him in his prior post, instead dismissing all commenters’ work as “arm-waving”.
You didn’t address my argument, you simply restated your premises again. I’m interested in the former, having heard all about the latter.
🙂
Yes, I did address your “argument”.
Of course we can and do make experiments testing natural selection, reproductive isolation and other evolutionary processes. They work.
Of course we can and do make experiments testing natural selection, reproductive isolation and other evolutionary processes. They work.
Then I would argue you must deny assumptions #3 and #4.
Why do you disagree with them?
No, I didn’t. You’re spouting gibberish.
The biological system isn’t chaotic. Natural selection is in a particular direction. If the climate changes, living things will change in response. It got colder during the Pleistocene, so northern populations of steppe mammoths evolved into woolly mammoths.
You simply fail to understand biology. Nor do you know what “chaotic” means in the context of climate, which includes chaotic systems, but is in fact cyclical, under the control of repeating phenomena.
No, I didn’t.
You did if my assumptions are true.
You’re spouting gibberish.
Fallacy #1: argumentum ad hominem
The biological system isn’t chaotic. Natural selection is in a particular direction. If the climate changes, living things will change in response. It got colder during the Pleistocene, so northern populations of steppe mammoths evolved into woolly mammoths.
1) You’ve confirmed the subjection of the biological system to the climate system (assumption #4), in which case, the biological system must also be subject to chaos. As evidence, if natural selection were enough to counter chaos, extinction would never happen. Hence, the biological system must also be chaotic.
2) Natural selection’s processes are subject to the biological system, so if they do appear to move “in a particular way” (if they do, Leo would argue otherwise) doesn’t preclude the system subsuming those processes from being chaotic any more than the ability to predict weather means the climate system is also predictable.
3) I deny the premise that natural selection is natural evolution (“goo to you”). Natural evolution (chaotic processes in the wild producing “goo to you”) doesn’t presuppose natural selection, nor vice versa. You don’t need one to prove or disprove the other.
You simply fail to understand biology.
Fallacy #2: argumentum ad verecundiam
1) You contradict yourself. For example, you comment about the fallacy of AGW consistently here, yet you “fail to understand” the climate system any better than the best climate scientist, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, you’d be lecturing where everyone was listening and I’d be reading about you in the news. That’s not a criticism of you personally, because:
2) No one understands the climate system with any real clarity to have much of really practical use to say toward describing it at this point, therefore, I object to your objection on the basis of your own hypocrisy regarding the subject matter.
3) My argument doesn’t depend on understanding biology at all, just as my argument against AGW doesn’t depend on understanding climate science in any depth. I object to both for logical reasons; to natural evolution as I’ve described above.
Nor do you know what “chaotic” means in the context of climate, which includes chaotic systems, but is in fact cyclical, under the control of repeating phenomena.
1) You contradict your own argument again. If the systems are chaotic, then by definition they’re “under the control” of nothing at all. The observation that the system is cyclical is true, but you have no inkling of why its “under the control of repeating phenomena,” other than you believe by faith that it is. As evidence, you’ve designed no experiment to test your theory (because it can’t be done) and therefore, you’re theory is unscientific.
Therefore, the best you can say is that so far, the chaos of the system has produced observed cycles. You can’t prove it won’t in the future. More importantly, in this context your objection to my argument is nullified.
So, on the basis of your acceptance of assumption 4), then by default you must also accept 3); in which case in order to design an experiment to test the theory of natural evolution (“goo to you”), one would be forced to recreate the entire universe (or at least, earth) in a bottle and watch it from there. Since that can’t be done, natural evolution (“goo to you”) is an untestable hypothesis and therefore by your own definition, unscientific.
I’m still having fun, and you’re the one making me smile!
Your scholastic nonsense is meaningless, but glad you’re enjoying your pointless, idiotic passtime.
You’re not mad at me are you?
I wouldn’t do it to you if I didn’t think it would be a challenge.
You don’t have to be so serious all the time, you know…have some fun, it’s good for you!
xoxo
🙂
Your dumb attempt to refute science and objective reality with twisted “logic” might amuse yourself. It doesn’t me. It’s a waste of time.
Thomas Aquinas did it a lot better. He, like you, are only unintentionally funny.
I’m not serious. If someone is actually funny, I laugh. When someone is idiotic, I’m just sad or ticked off.
Yep. You’re mad.
I’m sorry. I won’t do it again (probably).
🙁
Please feel free. If you enjoy wasting time.
Please feel free. If you enjoy wasting time.
Logic games are never a waste of time in my mind…so okay!
Your material, sir, what you wrote, it’s not funny, sir. I’m begging you, don’t go on air with it:
See? It’s true. You’ve already postulated that talking about this is “a waste of time,” however, you’re still talking about it.
People don’t do that unless they’re mad…I didn’t mean to make you mad!
Nope. Talking about your “logic” was a waste of time.
Pointing out that it isn’t funny is a different topic.
Oh, “logic” in quotes…now you’re just trying to hurt me. You wouldn’t do that unless you were mad.
Would you?
Your scholastic nonsense is meaningless, but glad you’re enjoying your pointless, idiotic passtime.
Oops…before I forget (because you’re mad and I want to put that out of my mind)…
Fallacy #3a: argumentum ad hominem
Therefore:
QED
Nope…wait:
Fallacy #3 (no ‘a’): argumentum ad lapidem
Therefore:
QED
There, fixed it for me.
Would you forgive me if I got you a fun logic book, Felix…say from Popper…then you and Leo can hang out and talk about how the only thing we can really know is that the entire universe is a big lie?
🙂
Evolutionary theory makes predictions, that can be verified. For example: https://youtu.be/dK3O6KYPmEw
I was always disturbed by the number of biology students who didn’t know the definition of species. The Oxford English Dictionary provides this definition.
“A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g., Homo sapiens.”
There are several speciation concepts in biology and they aren’t taken from the OED! Here are some.
The Biological Species concept is one:
The biological species concept defines a species as members of populations that actually or potentially interbreed in nature.
Also the Phylogenetic Species Concept:
The concept of a species as an irreducible group whose members are descended from a common ancestor and who all possess a combination of certain defining, or derived, traits.
And the Morphological Species Concept:
Characterizes a species by body shape and other structural features and is applied to asexual and sexual organisms and useful when information on gene flow is unknown.
They don’t all give the same designation of species between two populations.
That sounds clear and concise, but it is not the case even among today’s species. It is even more difficult in the fossil record. For example, we know that mules and horses cannot produce viable offspring.
Mules are the hybrid offspring of horses and donkeys, and are sterile indicating that horses and donkeys are separate species.
If we found such similar species in the fossil record, there is no way of knowing. How many other natural hybrids exist today or in the fossil record?
The idea that somehow the fossil record is invalidated because we don’t know if any of the fossils were sterile hybrids is rather stupid.
Did you just equate not accepting the conjecture from little evidence with the evidence being invalidated?
Mules are the hybrid offspring of horses and donkeys, and are sterile indicating that horses and donkeys are separate species.
I wouldn’t go there. Some interspecies crossbreeds are in fact fertile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholphin
Pretty much all dog species are – wolves coyotes dingoes jackals etc all interbreed successfully. With each other and with domestic dogs.
Homo sap. apparently interbred with homo neanderthalensis.
Creating the modern ‘liberal’ 🙂
“Homo sap. apparently interbred with homo neanderthalensis.
Creating the modern ‘liberal’”
That made me laugh! I should probably be ashamed of myself but I just couldn’t help it. 🙂
Roger Pielke Jr exposes the fantastical solutions for global warming, fudging the evidence, presuming irrational improvements, that under gird current climate policy. See
Opening Up the Climate Policy Envelope
We need to confront reality, solid foundations, and seek possible solutions.
You are talking crap.
The evidence for conventional evolutionary theory is overwhelming and
what’s more its fundamentals are basically common sense.
Just my 2 cents.
I once had dinner with the Pastor (had I known it was to be an Inquisitional dinner, I might have demurred, but I digress) and he asked me, “What are your thoughts on how we came to be…?” (or something like that). And I replied, “It’s not worth arguing about.” He looked startled, “What do you mean?” So let me elucidate to y’all as I did to him:
My Bible tells me God created the Heavens and the Earth, and I believe that 100%, and how he did it is entirely up to him. Science will always delve into the question of exactly how, but they’ll never get all the way to the bottom of it. It will be like if I bake a cake, and I bring it to a Scientist and tell him I made a cake, and he takes the cake into his lab and analyzes and dissects and etc. (which seems like a waste of a perfectly good cake), and comes back out to tell me I took flour and milk and eggs and sugar and… Or, I opened a box from the store, added an egg and some oil, stirred and… He still hasn’t changed the fact that I made a cake. He has only expounded upon the way(s) I might have accomplished that (and don’t anyone for a minute think that I’m trying to pretend I’m God, far from it).
So, when God created the Heavens and the Earth, and we look back on it from our perspective today, and analyze and etc., we may be able to prove the way God did it looks a lot like the idea we now call The Big Bang. Or we may analyze further, when we know a little more, and have better instruments, and find it looked like something else entirely. Likewise,
And I believe through faith that God did this. Looking back on it from today’s perspective, we may conclude the way God did it looked something like the process called Evolution. Or it may have looked like the process we call Creation. Or it may have looked completely different, and I still believe God did it.
All these things, Science should look into. Knowledge is good. Many times we will find things that are useful and can be applied to make life easier for all of Mankind. But every question we answer should raise multiple more questions for us to look into. For after all,
Now, just to prove that this relates to the original post, I agree with Dr. Ball, the Theory of Evolution remains unproven. We can be sure Natural Selection exists, else we would have only one dog breed, for example, not thousands. But that was only one element in Darwin’s theory (really it should still be labeled a Hypothesis, because it only moves from a Hypothesis to a Theory after some experimentation and/or collection of data, that support the original Hypothesis; or refute the Hypothesis and it’s back to the drawing board, come up with another Hypothesis. It remains in the literature only because it has not been disproven), and there has still been no experiment designed, nor data collected, that so much as proves a scintilla of it. My own personal belief…? It may be a good starting point. But too much remains unexplained, most especially…
And I have run on well past my threshold of knowledge. Bring on the Peanut Gallery!
The actual history of the universe, galaxy, solar system, Earth and life upon it looks nothing at all like the two contradictory creation myths in Genesis 1 and 2, and elsewhere in both Testaments.
Evolution is a fact, not an hypothesis. As such, it has a body of theory explaining it, composed of hypotheses confirmed by testing according to the scientific method.
In 1864, Wallace published a paper applying the theory of natural selection to humanity. Darwin hadn’t yet specifically addressed human evolution, which is why Wallace said it was necessary to do so.
Wallace was prescient in attributing our evolution to upright walking, freeing up our hands and elevating our gaze across the grasslands. He was unfortunately interested in spiritualism, so got our brains wrong. He thought that the gap in imagined mental function between humans and other animals was too great to be explained naturally. The subsequent discovery of extinct members of genus Homo and advances in genetics showed that after a key mutation, our brains grew gradually from H. habilis through H. erectus to the size of H. sapiens.
Chimp brain volume ranges from 282–500 cm^3. Our australopithecine ancestors’ brains weren’t much bigger, if any, averaging ~400 cc. The modern human brain, in contrast, is about three times larger, with a reported average volume of about 1330 cc. H. habilis’ volume was about 680 cc, and H. erectus 900 cc.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248413001358
How exactly do you imagine that Darwin “failed” in the “Descent of Man”? Humans aren’t superior to every other species. Being smarter than most in some ways doesn’t make us “superior”. Chimps have better spatial memories than people. Dogs and bears have far superior senses of smell. Antarctic krill have greater biomass. Cetaceans are bigger, can drink seawater and echolocate. Bats can fly and also echolocate. Other animals have electric sensory organs. Ants developed agriculture tens of millions of years before humans.
Every species has adapted and evolved to improve its ability to survive and reproduce in its environment.
“My Bible tells me God created the Heavens and the Earth, and I believe that 100%, and how he did it is entirely up to him.”
But that’s not getting to the bottom of it either. I agree that we’ll never know, because we can’t go back in time and observe. But I just can’t bring myself to believe, without evidence, any such nonsensical thing as a god.
On the other hand it could just be a parable of consciousness.
God the holy ghost being your consciousness, which ‘creates the phenomenal world’ (god, the son) from whatever existence really is made of (God the father).
Moving on, we find that before a person is self-conscious, life is idyllic and no sense of sin or guilt is possible, but the apple of Knowledge induces self consciousness, and with it the possibility of shame guilt and so on.
Perhaps the mystics who wrote genesis were a lot smarter than you are…
“Moving on, we find that before a person is self-conscious, life is idyllic and no sense of sin or guilt is possible, but the apple of Knowledge induces self consciousness, and with it the possibility of shame guilt and so on.”
In other words, ignorance is bliss. The sense of sin or guilt is also possible when it’s hammered into you day in day out through scripture and preaching, that you’re a sinner whether you did anything or not.
“Perhaps the mystics who wrote genesis were a lot smarter than you are…”
Maybe, I don’t claim to be smart. But you’re reading into what they wrote, as opposed to what they actually wrote. One could interpret things in many ways.
“The problem for Darwin and the Big Bang theory people is that the ultimate question remains. Who or what created the material for the bang and who triggered it.”
Okay, you’re losing credibility. That’s not an ultimate question. It’s not even a question we necessarily need to ask. Nothing created the material for the big bang. Nothing had to. It’s always been here. To dispute this you’re going to have to falsify laws of conservation of matter/energy.
Why must something be created in order to exist?
Good God. The personification of God in the Bible is a literary device. The God of Abraham is that which 1) created and governs the universe, 2) watches and judges, and 3) determines a particular future from all potential futures. Bronze Age men called this God; we call it the laws of physics and society. Read the Bible as you would a novel like “Animal Farm” and the truth of it in its lessons are apparent.
“Read the Bible as you would a novel like “Animal Farm” and the truth of it in its lessons are apparent.”
I would add: Throw out all the supernatural garbage, and the inane laws, and keep the obvious words of wisdom, written by humans.
Just to keep this discussion from winding out of control:
Please NOTE that Tim Ball wrote in the 2nd-last paragraph above:
“I am not arguing for creationism”
Tim also wrote above:
“A real and very effective scientific hoax involved the obsession with proving Darwin’s theory. It is called the Piltdown Man Hoax…”
And here is the irrefutable link between evolution vs creationism and global warming alarmist fraud – it’s called “the Piltdown Mann Hoax”.
Mere coincidence? I think NOT!!! 🙂
Ta Daaahhh!
“out of control”
======
Whose ?
uk us:
Several people on this thread have already started to foam at the mouth because they did not read Tim’s sentence: “I am not arguing for creationism”
Repeating: Ta Daaahhh!
But he is, despite his baseless disclaimer.
He proposes no alternative to evolution but creation.
Who is foaming?
Who is foaming? Right now, you Felix!
How can you contradict Tim on what he thinks when he has clearly stated his position? He is simply saying “where is the evidence”?
BTW, I do not like Tim’s argument, but that is another story. I think the relatively small differences in DNA between different species is a significant piece of evidence that tends to support evolutionary theory – but that is just my prejudice – I suppose others could claim it supports an alternative theory.
If there’s any foaming going, it’s the creationists here, who have nothing but packs of lies, which they keep spewing. I’m presenting science.
I can easily point out that Tim’s claiming not to be a creationist is BS because all of his ignorant drivel is straight out of the lying creationist playbook.
As I said, if he really doesn’t believe in creationism, let him present what alternative he sees to the fact of evolution. He won’t because he can’t. All he has is creationism.
Right-O Felix – you know what Tim thinks better than he does.
How about telling us next what Michael Mann thinks?
How about the Pope? Trump? Hillary? Let us hear more of your incredible insights into the minds of others.
Repeating: Ta Daaahhh!
Well, that’s pretty much it. I’ve never been very impressed by what you write about climate, Tim Ball, but now I have confirmation that you write about things you have no clue whatsoever.
From now on I will pass on your articles.
False in one, false in all?
Maybe in a court of law, but not necessarily in science. Dr. Spencer is also a creationist. Doesn’t mean he’s not a good scientist in his own speciality.
IMHO.
Newton spent years trying to prove God existed.
I don’t care about anybody’s beliefs. Roy Spencer has my respect as he writes about things he is an expert. My problem with Tim Ball is for what he writes, not what he believes. Everybody is entitled to their beliefs no matter what I might think of them.
Please NOTE that Tim Ball wrote in the 2nd-last paragraph above:
“I am not arguing for creationism”
That’s what he said, but what is his alternative to the fact of evolution, if not creationism. He doesn’t say.
Dr. Ball is not arguing. He’s spouting errant nonsense, out of preposterous, ludicrous, total, complete, utter and deep ignorance.
That is just his apology. A case where his reactions speak louder than a few words.
In the broad sense, there isn’t any “theory of Darwinism” to be proved wrong. No more than one could prove “science” is wrong.
The simple distillation of Darwinism is really just a common sense illustration/explanation of how small accumulated changes in living organisms (or self-replicating molecules) can lead to very large changes over time. That, in itself, is very difficult to argue against or prove to be generally “wrong”.
If someone has a specific disagreement over human evolution or how the Burgess shales should be interpreted, then they are welcome to take it up with geologists or someone who cares. It matters not one jot to the general thrust of Darwinism.
Evolution of new species can also happen in a single generation, so the process of speciation and evolving new genera doesn’t have to gradual.
For higher classifications, ie families and above, yeah, it’s usually gradual.
The question is what is really behind all of this illogic and attacks on anyone who questions Darwinism or the prevailing wisdom of his Evolutionary Theory?
What is it that you are disputing?
Random variation?
Natural selection?
All reconstructions of possible evolutionary histories?
Temporal ordering?
Overconfidence in particular dates?
Mr. Ball, I would like to add that another similarity between these two conceptualizations is how people are forced to pay for the indoctrination of their own children into these beliefs (without exposure to any alternatives), even though they themselves don’t believe, and don’t want their children indoctrinated.
(Way to get suckered into backing a dreadful precedent, O Evo Justice Warriors ; )
Science is the study of natural law, not supernatural.
Evolution isnt a faith, it’s merely the only explanation we have that matches all the data without invoking a steady stream of miracles.
It will ease your mind, Tim, to learn that humans share 98.8% of their genome with chimps, according to numerous studies based on DNA — thus proving unequivocally that chimps and homo sapiens have a common ancestor. See https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/human-origins-and-cultural-halls/anne-and-bernard-spitzer-hall-of-human-origins/understanding-our-past/dna-comparing-humans-and-chimps/
While there are a great many other reasons to accept the Darwinian view of evolution, this evidence should settle the matter. As for all the many other questions you raise, many have been explained, others remain to be explained. But the basic idea behind Darwin’s theory has held up very well over many years of careful study. Climate change is another matter entirely.
Sexual selection and natural selection 100% explains human evolution, just as the Bible represents it in narrative form. “Eve” the animal selects mates critically and the result is knowledge of right, wrong, future, death, and taxes (lol), etc. and eventually “Eve” the human.
Ah but you are assuming some relationship between DNA and inheritance you see. In short you assume Darwin, and find evidence to support it!
I could as easily say that the keratin in our hair is 100% the same as the keratin in a chimps fur, this proving almost anything.
🙂
It behoves us to look into the philosophy of science carefully to understand what the relationship between theory and evidence is, before jumping in feet first..
What shows incontrovertibly that humans and chimps share a common ancestor is that we have the same nonfunctional sequences in our genomes, among other irrefutable evidence.
Having sequenced both genomes, we can see precisely which genetic changes led to our phenotypic divergences. The difference is mainly in control sequences, not in “genes”, ie the protein-coding sequences. We have the same number of body hair follicles per square inch of skin as chimps. The difference is that our hair grows shorter rather than longer. Ours legs grow for relatively more time, while our arms for less, for instance.
Well the story is internally consistent…
Its still just a story…
It’s not just a story. It’s an unavoidable inference from the observations.
In fact, when you look at human chromosome #2 and compare it to the two smaller standard great ape chromosomes which fused to form it, our common descent can only be considered a fact.
No Felix, it is neither an inference, nor unavoidable.
I respect utterly your knowledge of the biological sciences.
Respect my knowledge of the philosophy of science.
Everything we know is a narrative, a model..science is just a subset of narratives that can be tested and shown to be not in accordance with the observations they predict.
Creationism COULD BE TRUE. And all the history of the world back to the big bang an implanted trick by a malicious Creator, and you and I were in fact born yesterday complete with false memories.
That is a narrative that explains everything. And it cannot be shown to be false because it is a METAPHYSICAL narrative.
But it makes no predictions and cannot be tested, so its not a scientific narrative.
The world is a story we tell ourselves to remember and categorise our experience. Its all a narrative.
Do not confuse ‘facts’ with reality, and do not confuse theories about facts, with facts.
its very sad, quite alarming, and ultimately depressing when people who evidently have minds, and allegedly have scientific qualifications appear to utterly and completely misunderstand the philosophical relationship between ‘evidence’ and ‘theory’ to the point where such an article could even be contemplated, let alone written.
One might always say that the existence of this article shows that Darwin has been refuted, and that the most unfit descendants of homo sapiens are thriving.
Ecce homo paleas!
Sad indeed, made sadder by the likelihood that alarmist stooges are even now altering the Wiki entry to use Dr. Ball’s posts on evolution, a scientific discipline in which he is clearly profoundly ignorant, and all that he imagines he knows is false, to demonstrate that, as per their frequent charges, “climate change” skeptics oppose all science.
For the sake of the herd, believe as the cows!
🙂
Yes.
I just looked up his wiki entry and it too is one straw man after another.
Its true science and philosophy now dead?
Are we reduced to squabbling over opinions with no real understanding of how to test them or how we arrived at them?
+ 100
This turns out to be a great post. Not for what Dr. Tim Ball wrote, but for the discussion he has provoked. Even if a theory has achieved consensus, we still have to keep an open mind. Evolution is an every day fact; the “evolution” that is being argued here is “the mechanism of evolution of species”, and for that there is considerable evidence for and very little evidence against. That doesn’t mean it is proved as Dr. Tim Ball demands; but the theory is so good that very few see any point in looking for evidence against it. Just like most researchers are trying to confirm that CO2 causes global warming. If that is Dr. Tim Ball’s point, it is a valid one.
Humans are known for taking religious, blind belief, positions. So what? First, you have to expect that. Second, you invent the scientific method. Scientists (and pundits and journalists and politicians) are still human, prone to above mentioned errors. And then there is the “scientific method”, an evolution from certain religious thought, and there is no bible for it, although some think Popper wrote that bible.
Popper was a philosopher who was not impressed with Freud’s theories, so he expanded on Kant, Marx, and Hume and invented “falsifiability”. The idea of falsifiability caught on, although it’s not the last word.
Popper removes “the demand for empirical verification in favour of empirical falsification”. Scientific theories, for him, are not inductively inferred from experience, nor is scientific experimentation carried out with a view to verifying or finally establishing the truth of theories; rather, all knowledge is provisional, conjectural, hypothetical—we can never finally prove our scientific theories, we can merely (provisionally) confirm or (conclusively) refute them; hence at any given time we have to choose between the potentially infinite number of theories which will explain the set of phenomena under investigation. Faced with this choice, we can only eliminate those theories which are demonstrably false, and rationally choose between the remaining, unfalsified theories. Hence Popper’s emphasis on the importance of the critical spirit to science—for him critical thinking is the very essence of rationality. For it is only by critical thought that we can eliminate false theories, and determine which of the remaining theories is the best available one, in the sense of possessing the highest level of explanatory force and predictive power. It is precisely this kind of critical thinking which is conspicuous by its absence in contemporary Marxism and in psychoanalysis.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
I’m not sure why, or whether anyone else has already notice or posted on this, but Dr Tim Ball’s head post is reader-editable. Might this be a glitch associated with the new WUWT web host which I believe allows Comments to be edited for a brief time after they are posted? Or perhaps Tim simply forgot to turn something off before posting? A bit risky, Tim, you could be misquoted!
Let me give two examples on differing results relating same type of experiments or analysis:
When I was a M.Sc. [Tech] student my uncle was doing Ph.D. on aerobiology. While conducting experiments I used to go and help him in the field trials. He submitted his thesis to his guide. He found that these results are exactly opposite to what his earlier student got and received Ph.D. for that thesis. The guide asked my uncle to take up another topic. He agreed and completed his thesis and got Ph.D. — He worked as head and prof. of environmental studies.
When we do analysis in climate, based on the selected truncated data, people are getting contradictory results. Based on the influence the person holds get publicity over the other. Here, instead of trying to understand why differing results are observed!!! Now World Bank released a sensational report relating to climate change with reference India. Media is interested in such bogus reports. Politicians are interested in such reports. In India lot of institutions are there, no body cares to get feedback on such trash reports.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
I had never thought about the theory of evolution until I recently had a heart attack.
As a consequence of this, I have been placed on a couple of blood thinners and anti-clotting agents.
I recently had a minuscule cut on my finger; it was about 1/8 inch long and barely broke the surface. Yet, it bled for three days, and only stopped when I flooded it with crazy glue.
Apparently, for blood to clot, 13 individual things need to happen; all in precise sequence. If any one of those steps is missing, blood will not clot. Apparently hemophiliacs are missing step 9.
Darwinian theory states that this clotting process evolved as a consequence of numerous random mutations, occurring over millions of years.
Do I really need to explain the total implausibility and stupidity of that proposition?
Now that my consciousness has been awakened, I can go through numerous biological processes which are similarly implausible under the Darwinian scenario.
I am embarrassed to admit that I once believed in the Darwinian nonsense; but I was young and stupid. All of twelve months ago.
That countless mutations occur is a fact. Genetic variation also results from other sources.
It’s not the innumerable mutations that matter, since there will also be lots of those. It’s what natural selection does with them. Selection is the opposite of random.
Step-by-step evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19667012
Understanding the evolution of clotting has helped us understand diseases of its dysfunction.
Evolution provides clue to blood clotting
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110720151545.htm
Sorry, these arguments and the links just don’t cut it.
The fact that the genome has genes related to clotting doesn’t say anything about the sequence at which these appeared, or when.
Think about it logically: I am a creature going about my business; but without a blood clotting mechanism. I cut myself, as inevitably I would do.
Then, while waiting for evolution to occur, I bleed to death.
In other words, I don’t live long enough for a blood clotting mechanism to evolve, regardless of the sequence or the timing. I either have a blood clotting mechanism, or I am dead.
My eyes were opened when a trivial cut, which I previously would not even have noticed, bled for three days.
Please read how clotting occurred, instead of using what you imagine to be “logic”. This is the same lame thinking which imagines that eyes and kidneys can’t evolve.
The mammalian clotting system evolved from steps which on their own were advantageous.
Yes, I have read several hypotheses regarding how clotting is supposed to evolved.
The common factor in all of them is that they are highly speculative, not testable, and require several miracles to occur.
In the meantime, while waiting for those miracles, the organism bleeds to death.
I am a non believer in miracles. But I did have a cut that bled for three days.
Clearly, you haven’t read them. They are not speculative. They are based upon observations. No miracles required.
You just can’t handle the truth.
Then, while waiting for evolution to occur, I bleed to death.
Exactly. You fail to reproduce and natural selection removes your genes from the gene pool.
Och William . . come on! Bleeders don’t breed (bcause they won’t live long enough) is maybe the crudest way to put it, but optimised coagulators will . . You are imagining the necessity of a Lamarckian mechanism . . . . .
For “also be lots”. please read “always be lots”.
>>
Apparently, for blood to clot, 13 individual things need to happen; all in precise sequence. If any one of those steps is missing, blood will not clot.
<<
Shades of Michael Behe and his "Black Box!"
Behe made the same claim long before you. He also didn't know that dolphins and a certain sea snake didn't read his book. They are missing steps in the clotting sequence and don't have any trouble with blood clotting too much or too little.
Jim
Not a relevant argument. How did their clotting process come about?
Next you will be telling me the idiocy about how land creatures one day decided they are fish, and returned to the ocean.
Even you must know that land creatures don’t decide one day to return to the sea, but evolve slowly, over millions or tens of millions of years, to become aquatic or marine, whether reptiles or mammals.
In the case of the lizards which evolved into mosasaurs, however, the evolution did occur remarkably rapidly.
http://oceansofkansas.com/RapidMosa.html
Knowledge of whale evolution has made some great leaps recently. The information is easy to find.
Jim
Yup. Gaps filled in by leaps and bounds. Or breachings:
Do I really need to explain the total implausibility and stupidity of that proposition?
I am afraid you have to do more than that.
You really also need to explain the total implausibility and stupidity of your statement above.
Massive complexity from simple laws iterating over time (or space)is the norm
The mandlebrot set is as simple as can be in terms of the ‘natural laws’ that govern its construction.
But the complexity of structure is breathtaking
Or listen to the wind in the trees – no gods involved
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNk1B8H4wmQ
Complex or what?
William: I recently had a minuscule cut on my finger; it was about 1/8 inch long and barely broke the surface. Yet, it bled for three days, and only stopped when I flooded it with crazy glue.
Apparently, for blood to clot, 13 individual things need to happen; all in precise sequence. If any one of those steps is missing, blood will not clot. Apparently hemophiliacs are missing step 9.
Do you imagine that the clotting mechanism always works the same? Or that it even always works other than in hemophiliacs?
What you read is a schematic of a process that isn’t exactly the same in everyone, and can fail (as it evidently did with you). Every measurable, estimable, or countable attribute varies from person to person: thrombin coagulation rate; composition and count of platelets; specific binding sites on the platelets; rate of production of the platelets, and so on. Besides hemophilia, people are plagued with disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, phlebitis, idiopathic thrombocytopenia (a relative of mine had this), and others. People die of these disorders every day; for those who have not died yet, it looks as though the mechanism is fine. There are similarities and variations across species (exact composition and structure of prothrombin and platelets, for example), but no two individuals of the same species (or lineage, when lineages can be studied) are exactly the same.
Random variation and natural selection (the dying out of the individuals with the least adequate clotting before they can reproduce) through long descent, is far and away a more reasonable explanation of all the documented details and failures than any other alternative such as “design”. It is not complete explanation for all details, but neither is design or anything else.
We have empirical evidence of creation/intelligent design. Scientists all over (myself included) have intelligently designed and created new genetically engineered animals with traits that have never existed before.
We are creating nucleotides that have never existed before. New tRNAs and new amino acids. New synthetic genomes.
One of the BIG QUESTIONS is about information. How did life spring forth from the cosmos? A self replicating molecule is a favorite theory. Sure, replication is essential. But one of the other things modern scientists have done is try to reduce life into its most simplistic form by eliminating all non essential genes. Even under optimal controlled conditions, the number of distinct essential genetic elements and associated functions is somewhere between 150 and 250.
How do you generate the information in those 150 distinct elements, collect it all in one place, and simultaneously exclude any other elements that would interfere with the essential ones?
Monkeys on typewriters, right? That just makes it worse, because some monkeys would have to type a sentence, others a paragraph, others a letter. If they stop too soon or go on too long, that sequence gets tossed on the garbage heap.
Design by humans might be intelligent, but “design” by nature isn’t. It’s intensely stupid.
The first protocell may have had only one gene, ie a protein-coding sequence. Or maybe even none, if an RNA ribozyme catalyzed its own replication.
A self-replicating molecule isn’t a favorite theory. It is life, if combined with metabolism and the ability to evolve.
A functional protein coding sequence?
Please calculate the probability of that occurring by random chance.
Again, you fail to understand elementary biology.
Mutations arise more or less randomly, but selection is the opposite of random. It’s highly directional.
The probability of sequences coding for proteins is 100%. Maybe you don’t know how the system works. Three nucleobases code for an amino acid, based upon their shapes. RNA strings these together at the ribosome (itself functionally made of tRNA) to form proteins.
Intensely stupid? When scientists can achieve miraculous things by mimicking nature?
There are plenty of brilliant people mimicking nature, i don’t see many tossing it all aside and starting from scratch.
When someone begins from first principles and generates a life form without all the intensely stupid biochemistry we currently study, let me know.
We mimic those features, structures and products of nature that work well, thanks to millions of years of evolution.
But what competent engineer would design a foot like ours? Clearly, it’s a jerry-rigged adaptation of a grasping foot to a plantigrade walking foot.
Only an Idiotic Designer would have mammalian gonads develop in the fish position, ie in our chests, then migrate into and, in the case of males, out of the abdomen, leaving behind two holes, hernias waiting to happen.
We use evolution to make new drugs and other useful products.
The more you know about biochemistry, the more you realize how needlessly clunky it is. So is the way in which most organisms are “designed”. It’s Rube Goldberg all the way down.
There is no evidence in support of ID, ie creationism, and all the evidence in the world against it.
Mimicking nature?
If by that you mean copying te result of a million years of natural selection thats has evolved creatures that can do things, well then yes, that’s not a bad starting place if you want to build machines that work like animals
Airliners look like seagulls because the same aerodynamics and
material structure properties govern their shapes.
But I can’t think of a single bird that flies using a gas turbine 🙂
Man, not God, designed those.
Paleontology certainly corroborates evolution and most of the development of the fossil record development post dated Darwin. The fossil record neednt be dated precisely. Superposition of strata will suffice and did so a century before radioactive dating and was found to have been sequenced correctly. Indeed, sedimentary beds that had been turned over or fault- thrusted over younger beds were identified by the fossil records of these beds.
I dont like the reader to be de-educated by overstatement of your cases. The evolution of the horse from a 5 toed to a 3 toed to a one toed animal in a sequence of beds is compelling evidence. The 3- toed horse had two vestigial ‘splints’ of bone beneath the skin. The one- toed modern horse has two splints as reminders of the 3- toed relative. This is explained by the appearance of the vast grasslands where the former forest dwelling small horse raised up on three toes and so 9ne as the animal converted over to this new developing ecology. The grasses were getting taller and sowas the horse, partly by rising up on his tip toes and partly by growth in length of limbs.
Also check the “keyhole” brachiopod (a bi-valved shellfish). Earliest strata show two lobes of shell protruding out from the hinge-line. Intermediate strata show development of the lobes fanning- out and rejoining at the peripheries to leave a hole through the shell. The youngest strata show only the immature shells to have a ‘keyhole’ which fills in as the shell matures.
The keyhole brach illustrates perhaps something about evolution that neither Darwin or Wallace knew and it was formulated (apparently) in 1820. It is termed “Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory
The idea is that embriology from one fertilized cell through growth and maturation repeats a creatures evolutionary development. In the case of humans, the single cell develops as a sea creature (fish) in its saline world until it is born (ventures out onto land). Raising a large family, I felt they had ended the evolution of a human too early: they have a pre language simion stage, and then the child goes through a demanding, bullheaded Neanderthal stage, a more reasoned Cromagnon stage and finally, when you are about to crack, they suddenly begin to civilize at about 18 or so!
Okay, it aint perfect, but it is a hellofalot more beautiful and wondrous a science than you would have your readers believe. You are not a paleontologist but have read the iconolastic literature, a lot like the stuff these days that attacks Shakespeare as a fraud, or Newton as a religious idiotic alchemist. Ive even seen the ugly deligitimization of Einstein. Its all in fashion these days.