God is evident in what we DO know

Answers in Genesis has a list of arguments they feel creationists should avoid using. I too have heard Christian apologists making very weak points and I just shake my head wishing they'd stop. I've thought about making a list similar to AiG's but many of the items would overlap and AiG has a much bigger audience than I so what would be the point? There is one particular argument, though, that I've heard used frequently and no one is telling them to stop. The argument goes something like this:

A Christian will hold up a piece of paper or draw a circle on a whiteboard. He asks an atheist to pretend the circle or the paper represents all the knowledge there is in the universe. He then asks the atheist to draw another circle inside the larger circle to represent all the knowledge we actually possess. I've never really seen an atheist actually draw a circle; usually an answer is provided by the apologist. The apologist might put a tiny circle or even a dot, meaning we only know a tiny, tiny bit of everything there is to know. In other words, of all the things there are to know in the universe, we probably know less than 1% of it. The Christian then delivers the “death blow” by saying, “If this paper represents everything there is to know, and we only know this little bit, how can you be sure there's no evidence for God among everything you don't know?!”

This video shows Glyn Barrett making this very argument, recounting a supposed debate he had with an atheist. I've seen other videos where Christians make the exact same argument and I don't want to embarrass them by calling them out. Here, however, Barrett sufficiently embarrasses himself by obviously inventing the entire debate so if he should object to my using it as an example, I say he's brought it on himself. But I digress.

I guess the teeth of this argument is that it illustrates the fallacy of claiming a universal negative. That is, I really can't say a certain thing doesn't exist anywhere in the universe unless I already know everything that exists in the universe. Note – many people claim it's impossible to prove a negative but that's not true. For example, I can prove I don't have $100 in my pocket by turning my pocket inside-out and showing you it's empty. I can prove I don't have $1,000,000 in my checking account by showing you my account balance on my smart phone. However, I can't prove life doesn't exist anywhere else in the universe because I can't show you everything else in the universe.

Most atheists understand the impossibility of proving a universal negative and so won't claim to know that God doesn't exist anywhere. Instead, they simply say that they've never seen evidence for God. In that case, what does the argument above accomplish? We're just basically telling the skeptic there could be evidence we haven't found yet and he'll probably say, “OK, I'll look at it when you find it.” You see? There's nothing compelling in just saying there could be evidence out there somewhere.

Besides not being convincing, this argument actually reinforces some of the criticisms of Christianity made by atheists. For example, critics often claim that Christians only have blind faith and not evidence. This illustration tacitly admits that the evidence for God still hasn't been discovered, we just believe it's out there. Critics also accuse Christians of believing in a god-of-the-gaps; this argument seems to do just that by saying the evidence for God exists in what we don't understand.

Instead of saying the evidence for God can be found in what we don't know, I assert that God is clearly evident in what do know! We know that everything that begins to exist has a cause. We know that life cannot rise spontaneously from non-living matter. We know that nature displays design and purpose which are characteristics of created things. From everything we know scientifically, there must be a transcendent, powerful, intelligent Designer who made it all.

Another claim made by skeptics is that our advances in understanding have continuously pushed back the need for God. Ha! If anything, we see more and more the need for God. Darwin, for example, believed a single cell was a “simple” blob of goo that could just fall together by a fortunate arrangement of amino acids. However, we now know that even a single cell is enormously complex. The more we learn about a cell, the more we realize such a thing requires a Creator.

The irony in all this is that it is the atheists who have put their faith in what we don't know. We know, for example, that matter/energy cannot be created naturally. How then can all the matter/energy in the universe have just appeared out of nothing? Even space and time had to appear out of nothing. So what must have happened flies in the face of what we already know can't happen yet atheists still cling blindly to the belief that an answer lies somewhere in what we haven't discovered. Neither have we observed a living cell form from non-living chemicals. Neither have we observed novel features appearing in a population. Many things necessary for secular theories of origins to be true have absolutely no evidence yet atheists sincerely believe the evidence for these things are going to be found someday.

I would say to all atheists that it's OK to ignore arguments that ask you to think evidence for God exists in what you don't know. Instead, I would ask you to think hard about what you do know and seriously question the evidence for what you believe. Do you have evidence that matter/energy/space/time can just appear out of nothing? Do you have evidence that life can rise from non-living matter? You know that you don't. Can you see that design and purpose are evidence for a creator? You know that it is. There's no need to wait around, wondering if clear evidence for God will someday be discovered. I'm saying that God is clearly seen in what you already know is true!

Five quick arguments for the existence of God

My blog is mostly apologetics – with a little politics and theology thrown in once in a while. I try to write in such a way that I cover my points pretty well, while still keeping my posts reasonably short. It occurred to me, though, that even two, typewritten pages can contain a lot of material and if people want to use some of my points in discussions with non-believers, they might need some quick bullet-points that are even shorter and easy to remember.

To that end, I thought of what might be the five simplest, yet still effective arguments Christians could use when talking with atheists. If you remember only these five points, you'll find they'll go a long way. I tried to think of a 5-letter acronym to help remember them but nothing came to mind. If anyone has a suggestion, comment me.

1) The existence of matter and space

There is a law in science called the conservation of matter. It basically says that matter can never be created nor destroyed. You can convert matter into energy, but the net amount of matter/energy in the universe remains constant. This begs the question: if matter is not being created, where did it all come from in the first place? Logically speaking, nothing can create itself so the universe must have been created by something outside of itself. There has to be a supernatural, eternal, First Cause. I call Him, God.

2) The origin of life

Once upon a time, people believed maggots sprang out of rotting meat through a process called, spontaneous generation. Through experimentation, though, all examples of spontaneous generation were shown to be false. In every case, another living organism was determined to be the origin. In the case of maggots, for example, it was flies lying eggs on the meat. Darwin, however, stilled believed that spontaneous generation could occur in single-celled animals. That's because he believed uni-celled creatures were “simple” blobs of goo – a fortunate arrangement of amino acids. We know now that even single-celled creatures are incredibly complex. In spite of all of our efforts, we've never been able to create a living thing nor seen one rise spontaneously in nature. The true origin of life is a bona fide miracle. God created life.

3) Absolute morality

Is it wrong to lie? Is it wrong to steal? Is it wrong to rape? We all know it is but why? Among animals, we can find numerous examples of deception, cunning, or forced mating. Why are these things wrong for humans but not animals? Some people think society decides for itself what is right and wrong. If that is true, then we could hardly condemn Nazi Germany for the holocaust since that is what they thought was best for them at the time. It just seems we instinctively know that some things are always wrong but again, why? Obviously the universe doesn't care what happens. Objective right and wrong can only exist if there is a moral code that transcends human opinion. If good and evil exist at all, it is only because God exists.

4) The historical fact of Jesus

Pick any person from the past and try to prove – scientifically – that he ever lived. You will soon find it's an impossible task. When we study historical figures, we look at historical evidence. What was written down about them? In the case of Jesus, we have the gospels and the letters of Paul. We have the extra-biblical writings of historians like Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the younger. We have eyewitness accounts of the miracles of Jesus and His promise of eternal life to those who believe in Him. We have eyewitness accounts of people who saw Him die and saw Him alive again. We have accounts of the empty tomb, the martyrdom of the apostles, and the explosion of the first century church. We have more evidence for the historical fact of Jesus than any other person of antiquity. Jesus lived, died, and rose again.

5) The lack of evidence to the contrary

This is where the rubber meets the road. You see, atheists proudly boast that they've never seen compelling evidence for God. If you run down the above four reasons why there must be a God, they will merely shake their heads and say it's not enough evidence for God. Next, they accuse Christians of believing in a god-of-the-gaps and wherever we lack scientific understanding, Christians want to just say, God-did-it. I think they have a weak argument. How can they say God didn't do it unless they can provide strong evidence to the contrary? Let me show you how this applies to the above points:

• Point #1: Suppose I'm walking through the woods with a friend and we come across a crude log cabin. I might wonder who built it but my friend says, “No one built this. Look at all these sticks lying around here. I'm sure they just arranged themselves into the shape of a cabin – we just need to look for some natural mechanism.” Before I abandon the obvious conclusion that the cabin had a builder, my friend has to convince me that no one could build something. Furthermore, he has to convince me that his explanation is more likely than mine. You see? He has to provide evidence to the contrary of the most reasonable conclusion. I'm willing to listen but I don't think any story he could invent would convince me yet atheists believe that nothing created everything!
• Point #2: The origin of life poses a similar problem for atheists as the origin of matter. Atheists still cling to spontaneous generation only now they call it abiogenesis. Regardless, it's still the idea that life can arise from non-living matter. What compelling argument can the atheist make that would have me reject everything we've learned up till now and consider an idea that was discarded not long after blood-letting?
• Point #3: If atheists believe there are such things as good and bad, they need to show how they transcend human opinion. Atheists often ridicule the Bible, for example, saying that it endorses things like slavery. What makes the atheists' view of slavery more “right” than the societies who thought it was OK to own slaves? If they have no alternate, objective standard of morality, they need to stop using their personal opinions of right and wrong to criticize the Bible's standards.
• Point #4: Atheists often attack the Person of Jesus saying He was a myth or an embellishment. They say the Scriptures are of dubious origin and have been corrupted through centuries of translating and editing. So where is their evidence for these claims? Where are the uncorrupt autographs that I can compare with our modern Bibles to see the differences? How do they impeach the testimonies of people who claim to be eyewitnesses to the miracles of Jesus – including His resurrection? What am I to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls or the thousands of Greek and Latin manuscripts? It's fine that they choose to ignore the evidence but I would ask them what other historical figures have as much evidence and which of those with less evidence do atheists dismiss as myths?

There are compelling reasons to believe in God. Atheism, on the other hand, suffers from a glaring lack of evidence. I've never heard a sound argument for why atheism is true and correct. I only hear criticisms of Christian arguments.

Atheists can say they reject the evidence for God. They just can't say why.

The first cell formed in the universal solvent?

There are a lot of theories regarding the origin of the first life form. Actually, there are no “scientific” theories about the origin of life because anti-creationists are quick to point out that theories are well-tested and substantiated by the evidence. When it comes to abiogenesis, however, evolutionists are a little more relaxed over the use of the term “theory.” Any idea about how life could have formed from non-living chemicals cannot be tested because it has never been observed to happen. Not even once. Ever! So when they're talking about the origin of life, they say “theory” when they mean “guess.”

Anyway, the various theories... er... I mean “guesses” concerning abiogenesis all center around the idea that life began in the oceans. The most popular guess currently is that life first formed near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Of course, Phys.org reported a couple of years ago about a team of scientists that challenged that idea. According to their research, “the sea is just too salty to provide the ideal conditions necessary to spur life into existence.” Now that's funny. No one has been able to create life under any conditions so how do they know what the “ideal conditions” are? Regardless, they suggested then that hot pools of fresh water formed by thermal vapor are the more likely place where the first life form emerged. Um, but just a couple of days ago, Phys.org published another article saying we've been wrong about the origins of life for 90 years. Now it's being suggested that it's electrostatic discharges or UV radiation that drove life's first chemical reactions in the primordial soup.

Do you see how they are a little bit all over the place with their abiogenesis stories? Regardless, you can see the common theme in all of these guesses is water. Most evolution-believing scientists are so convinced that life began in the sea that, if liquid water is ever found on another planet, they are certain we will find life there also. Oh, really?

According to the US Geological Survey's website, “Water is called the "universal solvent" because it is capable of dissolving more substances than any other liquid.... ¶It is water's chemical composition and physical attributes that make it such an excellent solvent. Water molecules have a polar arrangement of oxygen and hydrogen atoms—one side (hydrogen) has a positive electrical charge and the other side (oxygen) had a negative charge. This allows the water molecule to become attracted to many other different types of molecules. Water can become so heavily attracted to a different compound, like salt (NaCl), that it can disrupt the attractive forces that hold the sodium and chloride in the salt compound together and, thus, dissolves it.” Isn't that interesting? Water is capable of dissolving more substances than any other liquid!

Now, water is vital to every form of life. Water aids in digestion by breaking down our food. Our kidneys use water to filter out harmful substances from our bodies. But in these examples and others, organized systems are using water to break down compounds. Water by itself, though, tends to be destructive. I admit that I'm no chemist but it just sounds odd to believe the first life form organized itself in water. It's sort of a catch-22 for evolutionists: water is so necessary that life could not exist without it. But water, being the universal solvent, would tend to break down amino acids – not allow them to arrange randomly into complex proteins.

The fact that water tends to break chemicals down instead of organizing them doesn't deter evolutionists. No matter how impossible it sounds, they'll just keep guessing until they come up with a plausible-sounding way a complex cell could randomly form in the universal solvent.

It's Because of Science that I Believe Creation

Per RationalWiki:

The "god of the gaps" is a bit of theological reasoning which invokes divine intervention as a way to understand natural phenomena that science is presently unable to explain; since we don't know how x happens, it is assumed that Goddidit. Of course, scientists and most rationalists would argue that naturalistic explanations for still-mysterious phenomena are always possible.... The human brain appears to be hardwired to find causes for any "effect" experienced in the world, from eerie sounds, to scary thunder, to terrifying ground shakes, and deadly diseases. Early humans, just beginning to seek explanations for natural things they experienced in their world found answers by saying those things were caused by gods, or other supernatural figures (like ghosts or witches); many early "gods" are storm gods (such as Thor) or gods of the wind (the Kami, in Japan).... But as humans explored more, they found naturalistic answers to simple things they once attributed to gods. As humans developed a simplified scientific method, more "gaps" were filled with naturalistic answers. God or the supernatural were no longer needed as an explanation.

Creationists are often accused of using a god-of-the-gaps argument to bolster creationism. That is, it's sometimes said we point to a lack of any natural explanation for some phenomenon as though that were evidence for a supernatural explanation. I suppose that happens sometimes and we should be careful not to let that be our entire argument. On the other hand, it's not entirely unreasonable to suppose a natural explanation for the evidence doesn't exist because there truly is no natural explanation.

Consider, for a moment, that a suspect's fingerprints were found in blood at a murder scene. The most obvious conclusion is that the suspect was at the murder scene at about the time of the murder. His defense attorney might deny his client was there but without any plausible alternative of how his fingerprints got there, the jury will probably stick with the most obvious conclusion. The same is true about creation. One simple explanation for the existence of the universe is that it is the creation of God. Secular scientists might object but without any credible alternative explanation of how everything came into existence (aside from poofism), why should I summarily reject a very plausible explanation? Besides, if scientists don't know how matter came into existence, on what grounds can they insist it wasn't an act of God?

Let's set all that aside, though. My belief in creation isn't limited to what can't be explained by science. I believe in creation because of the things I already know are true! I'll start with design.

If I found pebbles stacked in the shape of a pyramid, I would know they were intentionally stacked that way. It doesn't matter that I didn't see them being stacked or that I don't know who stacked them, I would still know that they were arranged with intent and purpose. How do I know this? It's because I've learned that organization is the product of design.  Everyone has learned this.  We recognize design seemingly without effort.  In an instant, we can tell the difference between a pattern painted on the floor and paint spilled on the floor.  

Scientists know this already. If the Mars Rover found a rock with weird symbols engraved on it, they would immediately know some intelligent being carved them. It wouldn't matter if they couldn't read the symbols. It wouldn't matter if they never found out who carved them. The presence of the symbols alone would prompt a barrage of headlines saying, “Intelligent life was once on Mars!”

Life is remarkably organized. The DNA molecule is exceedingly complex – far more complex than a stack of pebbles or symbols carved on a rock. Our bodies are incredible machines with thousands of intricate parts. Our circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems are complicated and extremely fine tuned. Life is far more than a collection of chemicals – it's about organization.  Simply finding amino acids in nature is a far cry from believing amino acids could arrange themselves into a DNA molecule.  It's like the difference between pebbles strewn along a beach and pebbles stacked in the shape of a pyramid. It all screams of design. It screams so loudly that scientists go to great lengths to explain why things might seem designed but really aren't.

The organization of living things (from bacteria to basketball players) is evidence for creation. It's not that we don't know how life could happen so, therefore, goddidit. Instead, we know it's created because we know organization is the result of intelligence. So, yes! God did it!

But besides the obvious design we see in nature, there's another scientific principle I've learned that tells me the universe was created. I believe it was in my 9^th grade physical science class where I first heard the phrase “matter can neither be created nor destroyed – it can only change forms.” It wasn't until much later that I understood this is a scientific law called the conservation of matter/energy. You can convert matter into energy (as in Einstein's famous formula, E=mc²) but the total amount of matter/energy in the universe remains constant.

So if new matter isn't being created, where did all the existing matter come from? Scientifically speaking, I know it can't be created naturally. Therefore, it must have been created supernaturally. That is the only other option. I think secular scientists truly want to have it both ways. When pressed about the origin of matter, they sometimes weakly appeal to some quantum mechanism where electrons seem to appear out of nothing but they still refuse to abandon the trusted certainty that the net matter/energy in the universe doesn't change. They want us to believe the universe poofed into existence while simultaneously telling us matter doesn't poof into existence. It's funny. I already know matter doesn't poof into existence. Therefore, I know that matter and time and space were supernaturally created.

There are probably other examples I could give but let's wrap this up. Creation is sort of like the miracles performed by Jesus. If I lived in a 3^rd world country, I might think David Blaine was a sorcerer. However, I know they're really just card tricks. They may be clever, but they're not magic. It is by that same principle that I can identify the miracles of Jesus. People can't really walk on water. People can't really rise from the dead. It is because I can understand how nature works that I know Jesus performed miracles.

Matter exists but it couldn't have been created naturally. Organization exists but it couldn't have been created naturally. They're miracles. And I don't believe they're miracles simply because science doesn't have any explanation for them. It's precisely because I understand science that I understand the creation is a miracle.

Carl Sagan's Invisible Dragon

Carl Sagan is perhaps best remembered as the host of the PBS series, Cosmos, but another, enduring legacy he left us is his analogy, “The Dragon In My Garage.” I invite you to read it for yourself but here's a summary. Sagan claims to have a fire-breathing dragon in his garage and invites you to see it (he refers to the reader in the second person, “you”). However, when you enter the garage, you see nothing. Sagan then claims the dragon is invisible. So how do you know it's there? You think of a few possible ways to try to detect the dragon: flour on the floor to see if it leaves footprints, spray painting the dragon to make it visible, or an infrared sensor to detect the heat from its flames. However, Sagan has an excuse that shoots down each experiment: the dragon flies so it doesn't leave footprints, it's incorporeal so paint won't stick to it, and its flames don't produce heat.

The story is meant to be an analogy of how atheists see Christians' belief in God. It's clever in a couple of ways. First, Sagan predicts a few possible objections to his argument and attempts to address them in the story. This isn't necessarily novel since most apologists will try to consider possible objections to any point they make, but the fact that Sagan does it here shows that he thought through his analogy a little better than the ordinary critic.

The other clever thing that Sagan does in his story is refer to the reader as, “you.” By doing this, he attempts to put the reader in the shoes of the atheist, making him sympathetic to the atheist's plight. He's very complementary to the reader, making him feel very fair, open-minded, and inquisitive. The reader almost forgets that the skeptic in the story represents atheists! Sagan deftly paints atheists as being painfully open-minded and their skepticism as being healthy, ordinary, and rational. Also, since Sagan makes himself the keeper of the dragon, he is able to portray Christians as deranged or delusional without seeming to direct these insults toward them.

Consider these two quotes from the story:

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold.

… the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

Do you see what I mean? “You” (reader) = atheist = enlightened thinker; Sagan = Christian = loon. It's clever to the point of being maniacal. I can almost hear Sagan laughing as he wrote it, “bwa ha ha!”

I disagree with his characterization of atheists. It's been my experience that atheists in general aren't merely withholding judgment about the existence of God until they see more evidence. Instead, they reject a priori any possibility of there being a God. Any evidence for God, like miracles, is rejected in favor of a natural explanation – even in those instances where no natural explanation exists. Dawkins, for example, would rather believe that life on earth was planted by aliens rather than believe God created life. Some atheists go even further. Rather than simply not believing in God themselves, Dawkins, Myers, and others of that ilk openly mock and ridicule the idea of believing in God. They aren't anything like the friendly skeptic in Sagan's story, optimistically looking for any evidence for the existence of the invisible dragon.

Regardless of how clever the analogy is, it fails on the grounds that it doesn't accurately represent the way Christians believe in God. In other words, it's a straw man. There are several subtle ways the story is wrong but the primary error is this: Christians don't ask people to believe in God while offering excuse after excuse why there is no evidence that He exists. To the contrary, Christians offer many reasons why people should believe in God and it's the atheist, the supposed “open-minded” skeptic in the story, who rejects them one by one.

First, God is revealed in His creation. The simple fact that the universe exists strongly suggests there is a cause behind it. To believe that God is the First Cause seems far more reasonable than believing that the universe just poofed into existence without a cause. Furthermore, the universe doesn't just exist, it's also sublime. The enormity, the beauty, and the complexity all suggest design. Design always suggests purpose, purpose always suggests intent, and intent always suggests a designer. To believe that “uncaused” matter randomly, purposelessly arranged itself into the complex cosmos is far less credible than believing it was intended to be so by the design of an intelligent Creator. The existence of the universe and the design of the universe is evidence for God whether or not the skeptic wants to accept it.

But the greatest evidence for God is the Bible. While the universe might reveal there is a God, the Bible tells us Who He is. The Bible is a written record, the testimony of people who were first hand witnesses to God. These are the people who have heard His voice and seen His miracles. He is Jehovah of the Old Testament, the One Who spoke the universe into existence; He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He is the One who delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt and made them a great nation. He is also Jesus of the New Testament, the I AM Who was before Abraham; He walked on water, calmed the storm, healed the sick, and raised the dead; He shed His blood on the cross as the payment for our sins and, three days later, rose from the dead; He now sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us.

The words and miracles recorded in the Bible bear witness that there is a God. Critics are welcome to suggest natural causes for the miracles. They're welcome to suggest the history of Bible is somehow not as trustworthy as other books of antiquity. However, they cannot credibly say the Bible cannot be considered by Christians to be evidence for God.

There are more things I could discuss as evidence for God but it really isn't necessary. The analogy fails. No matter how cleverly it was written, it doesn't accurately represent Christians, nor does it fairly depict how skeptics evaluate the evidence for God. It's a straw man. It has endured only because it is an amusing straw man.

If the only thing that would convince someone that God exists is that he saw Him with his own eyes, then perhaps he will be disappointed because that's not likely to happen.  Even so, I suspect that even if it did, it wouldn't convince some people anyway. Regardless, there is plenty of evidence for God available to anyone who truly seeks Him.

Believers in Poofism

“Where did matter come from?” That question strikes at the heart of the problem with all secular explanations of our origins. Natural science has no theory or even a credible story to explain the ultimate origin of matter. The mere existence of matter lends itself strongly to the idea that there was a supernatural cause for the universe. This is commonly called the “Kalam Cosmological Argument.”

Evolutionists have a very short list of possible replies to what is, by any standard, a very reasonable question. Their replies can usually be assigned one of three categories: 1) They will try to divorce the question of origins from the entire rest of science, 2) they will apply divine-like qualities to matter by saying it is eternal, or 3) they will resort to a pseudo-philosophical “uncaused” origin of matter. None of these options are very scientific.

The question, “where did matter come from?” is more profound than some people might realize at first hearing. Without the Big Bang, there is no “where” from which matter can come. “Before” the Big Bang there was nothing. Actually, I can't even use the word “before” because even time did not exist. There was no place. There was not even space. Nothing! Then, suddenly, there was everything. All the matter, all energy, all space, and even time itself just appeared. Poof!

Of course, I've heard some people invoke “exotic” theories like quantum mechanics and other principles of physics in an attempt to explain the non-origin of everything but that just begs the question. Where did physics come from? One cannot invoke any natural law to explain the origin of the universe without first presupposing the “uncaused” existence of natural laws. If natural laws – like gravity – exist, then they too must have poofed into existence with the rest of the universe.

I think we should change the name of the Big Bang to the Big Poof!

Poof! Time began!

Poof! There was space!

Poof! There was matter!

Poof! There was energy!

Poof! The matter began to expand!

Poof! Chemicals became alive!

There was no cause. There was no purpose. There was no god. These things just happened all by themselves.

Sometimes, evolutionists ridicule creation by calling it, “magic.” It's a rather blatant attempt to make creationism sound unappealing by describing it with loaded words. I usually try to avoid using such a lazy argument myself but, in this case, I'm not sure how else to describe it. People who deny a supernatural origin of the universe are believers in poofism.

The Drake Equation: It Might Sound Good on Paper

Evolutionists are believers in junk science. I've know it for a long time yet I've never become used to their level of absurdity. These people, who claim to be the epitome of scientific inquiry and objective thinking, should simply resign themselves to the fact that they are producing science fiction and not actually practicing science.

Have you heard of the Drake Equation? According to Wiki, it's “a mathematical equation used to estimate the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.” The formula has been around since 1961, but in spite of decades of searching for extraterrestrial life, the actual number we've detected remains at zero. Of course, secular scientists remain undaunted. Their theory virtually demands there be extraterrestrial life so they continue under the delusion that the universe teems with alien civilizations and the Drake Equation is a way to estimate just how many there might be. From Wiki:

The Drake equation states that:

N = R* · f_p · n_e · f_e · f_i · f_c · L

where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on our current past light cone);

and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy

f_p = the fraction of those stars that have planets

n_e = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

f_e = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point

f_i = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life

f_c = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space

Now, I'm a firm believer in probability. In a recent post, I discussed the Law of Large Numbers where I explained that, given a large enough sample, we can predict the outcome with uncanny certainty. However, we can still calculate probability even in small samples. Consider a deck of cards: I know that there is a 1 in 52 chance of drawing the ace of spades at random. I know there is a 1 in 13 chance of drawing an ace of any suit. I also know there is a 1 in 4 chance of drawing any spade. I am able to calculate the odds because I know the number of cards in the deck, the number of aces, and the number of spades. As we read through the Drake Equation, though, we see a lot of variables have unknown values. How should we go about finding the probability of them? Let's look at a few.

R* is the rate of star formation per year in our galaxy. That's curious. What is the observed number of stars being formed each year? Would it surprise you to know that, even with all our advanced technology, we've never once observed a star ignite? We've seen many extinguished but none formed. Not one time. Ever! So the actual observed rate of star formation per year is zero. Since the rest of the formula is multiplying by R*, the product is necessarily zero but let's look at a few of the other variables for the fun of it.

f_e is the fraction of habitable planets that actually go on to develop life at some point. Now that's funny. We've never once observed life formed spontaneously. Not one time. Ever! So how do we estimate the fraction the planets that would develop life? If we apply the scientific standard of observable and repeatable, then this variable must also be zero. That is the only scientifically valid possibility. Any value other than zero assigned to this variable is merely fanciful speculation.

If we understand the value of f_e to be zero, then f_i and f_c must necessarily be zero as well. After all, if life does not form, then neither will intelligent life nor technology. Once again, any value other than zero assigned to these variables are merely invention. Any other value that scientists assign to these variables does not have any basis in science.

Drake himself assigned some crazy values to these variables. He estimate that 1 star per year has been formed over the life of the galaxy (remember, we've observed zero). He estimated that 1/5 to 1/2 will have planets and stars with planets will have between 1 and 5 planets capable of supporting life (we've actually discovered extra-solar planets so I'll not press this point). Here's where he really looses it: he says that 100% of planets capable of supporting life will not only evolve life but will also evolve intelligent life. Ha! We've never observed abiogenesis and he claims it happened on every planet that could support life. When it's all said and done, Drake believed there are between 1,000 and 100,000,000 civilizations in our galaxy! Incredible!! We've observed none and he believes there could be 100 million.

How does this kind of stuff not get laughed at by the rest of the scientific community? Where is “peer review” and critical examination? Where is going wherever the evidence leads? Are we really supposed to believe there is evidence for even a single, extraterrestrial civilization (never mind many)? This is obviously a case of having a conclusion then looking for the evidence to support it.

OK, I admit that Drake has his critics. However, a belief in extraterrestrial life is mainstream in the scientific community. Sagan, Dawkins, Hawking, and many others have all endorsed it. They have endorsed it without a shred of scientific evidence for it. They believe it merely out of faith in their theory. So even though some scientists might nit pick at Drake's equation, they will never dismiss his premise outright because they are too invested in the crackpot idea of ET.

The Drake equation might sound good on paper but it's no more scientific than an episode of Gene Roddenberry's, Star Trek. Drake might as well have calculated the odds of discovering Vulcan.

Abiogenesis is Not Science

In my last post, I spent a good deal of time explaining that even events of the past can only be studied scientifically in the present. The past cannot be repeated but many mundane events can be repeated so even if we can't repeat one, particular event, we can still compare it to similar events that we can observe. For example, comparing fingerprints of suspects to the fingerprints found at a crime scene is a scientific method that can be repeated and tested even though any particular crime cannot be repeated. However, if some event were absolutely unique – that is, it happened only once and nothing like it has ever happened since – then how could we study it? We can't, scientifically. If something were unobserved and if there is no way to repeat it, in simply cannot be examined with a scientific method that demands repeatability. Therefore, such an event is outside of the realm of scientific inquiry.

I believe Abiogenesis is such an event. Abiogenesis has never been observed. Ever. It not only does not occur in nature, we have also not been able to create life in a lab.  If it happened, we missed it.  Neither have we ever seen anything like it.  Any idea about how it happened is merely speculation.  It's a guess.  There is no scientific "theory" of abiogenesis.

Once upon a time, people believed in such a thing as “spontaneous generation.” They believed that maggots simply sprang out of rotting meat and mice were born out of bags of grain. They eventually discovered the true origins of these higher forms of life but the belief in the spontaneous generation of “simple” organisms – like an amoeba – endured to the time of Darwin.

Louise Pasteur challenged the idea of spontaneous generation and tested supposed examples where people believed it occurred. He discovered that when water clouded, it was because of the multiplication of microscopic organisms that were already present in the water. He established the Law of Biogenesis that basically says life comes from other life.

The idea of abiogenesis is simply a fancier name for spontaneous generation. It is still the idea that life came from non-life. So abiogenesis has not only never been observed, it is a throw back to an idea that was discarded by science not too long after blood-letting was. It cannot be studied by the scientific method because it is not observed, testable, or repeatable. It's worse than science fiction; it is a fairy tale.

The other thing about abiogenesis is that, even if we someday create life in the lab, there is still no way to know if that was THE way it supposedly happened billions of years ago. If I invented a clever way to stack large stones, for example, it doesn't mean that's exactly how the builders of Stone Henge did it. What's more, if we created artificial life, it's not even evidence that abiogenesis ever occurred. In my opinion, the simple fact that it does not occur naturally but can only be created by design (if we ever create it at all) is evidence for my theory!

So let's sum up: Abiogenesis cannot be studied with the scientific method. It has never been observed. It cannot be repeated. It cannot be tested. Does that cover it?

Abiogenesis is the god of the gaps to evolutionists. There is no scientific evidence for it. It only exists in theory because the “natural only” premise of evolution demands it. It's not science. It's not even close.

Science is Only Done in the Present

A few weeks back, I wrote about the absurd improbability of abiogenesis. In that post, I remarked that, “The supposed first ancestor of everything was not observed. Neither can it be repeated or tested. It's outside of the scope of scientific inquiry.” Steven J, a frequent visitor to my blog, took issue with that and replied with the following statement:

“The death of a particular person is often unobserved, and always unrepeatable, yet for some reason governments still keep medical examiners on hand. You can't burn the same building down more than once, yet arson investigators still exist. The investigation of past events from present evidence is the basis of many different fields of investigation. The prehistoric past is no more beyond scientific investigation than last night in an unobserved alley.”

I didn't address this point in my comment back to him because I had intended to use his point as the subject for a future post. I just didn't realize it would take as long as it has. Anyway, I've heard this point before and I've meant to write about this many times so I thank Steven J for the opportunity to clear up the subject.

Science in only ever conducted in the present. Always! A fossil, for example, may have been created in the past but we can only study it in the present. We can measure it, x-ray it, compare it to the bones of living animals, compare it to other fossils we've found, and subject it to a wide battery of tests. All the things that we can do to learn more about the fossil can only be done in the present. We cannot go back into the past and “observe” the suspect animal. I can repeat the tests done on the fossil in the present. I cannot repeat the animal and nor can I repeat the alleged “millions of years” the fossil has been buried. The idea that science is only conducted in the present seems to me to be self evident.

Of course, simply because we cannot repeat the past does not mean we cannot draw conclusions – even correct conclusions – about events we did not see. As Steven J pointed out, we do it frequently. When a person dies, we certainly cannot repeat the death of that person yet we still are usually able to determine the cause of his death. The difference here, though, is that people die every day. Many times we observe people die. We've seen enough heart attack victims to know the symptoms of a heart attack. We've seen enough shooting victims to know what a gunshot wound looks like. So in the case of a suspicious death, we can examine the body, compare it to other conditions which we have observed, and draw a reasonable conclusion about the cause of death.

Furthermore, in the case of something like a shooting, we may not have seen the gun being fired but if we have a suspect gun, we can fire the gun again then compare the bullet we observed being fired to the bullet we recovered from the victim. Perhaps we can conclude if the same gun fired both bullets.

In any shooting, as well as in cases of arson, or burglaries, or plane crashes, or train derailments, or any event we wish to examine, we can gather clues left by the event we didn't witness, and compare them to things we know to be true. We often can learn things about the past event but we still can only study it in the present!

Now, when we're talking about evolutionary science, there's a key difference between studying things like abiogenesis and investigating homicides. Both are events from the past but we've observed homicides; To this day, we've never observed abiogenesis. We can see how a gunshot wound to the heart is always fatal. We have never seen how non-living chemicals can be arranged to become a living cell. What's more, abiogenesis is such a unique event and so far removed from us that, even if we should someday create life in a laboratory, there is ultimately no way to confirm that is how it supposedly happened billions of years ago. Studying mundane events like homicides is science. “Studying” abiogenesis is mere speculation.

Another thing we can't observe is age. Using again the example of homicide, we've seen how victims decompose over a day, or a week, or a year (sorry to be gory) but we've never observed “millions of years.” We can observe the condition of bodies we know have been dead a certain length of time and compare that to a body which has been dead an unknown length of time.  We cannot see the time; we can only see the known effects of time on the body.  So to say a particular fossil is “65 million years old” is dramatically different than saying a victim has been dead for a week. One can be repeated and tested empirically and the other cannot.

“Age” simply cannot be seen. When we see an “old” person, we aren't really seeing his age but are seeing things like wrinkles, a stooped posture, and gray hair. We have seen these similar characteristics in people whose ages we know and so when we see these features on a stranger, we can estimate his age. However, when we're talking about the age of the earth, we've never seen what a 4 billion year old earth looks like.

I don't want to make this post too long but I have to mention one other thing because I know some evolutionist will bring it up. Scientists love to say that when we're looking at space we're looking into the past. Even the light from distant stars is only observed in the present! It's true that the light has taken time to reach us but we are still seeing the light in the present. We are not seeing the supposed “millions of years” it took the light to reach us.

This is one of the things I'm really tired of arguing with evolutionists about. I can understand reaching different conclusions about the same evidence but believing we can literally see the past is ridiculous. It also frustrates rational discussion since many evolutionists cannot see the circular nature of their view. When we look at a fossil, we are not looking at the past: if a person believes he sees “millions of years” when he looks at a fossil, he is assuming something about the fossil that he should be seeking to discover. How did the fossil come to be? When did the fossil come to be? We can use science to explore these questions but we can only explore them in the present.

The Law of Large Numbers Meets an Infinite Number of Monkeys

In my last post, I talked about the weak responses of evolutionists when addressing the statistical improbability of abiogenesis. Basically, they say that the first living cell evolved from simple, self-replicating molecules. It's funny for two reasons: first, because they usually say that abiogenesis isn't part of evolution. Why then do they use evolution to explain abiogenesis? Secondly, they really have no idea how the first living cell formed so from where do they have grounds to assert a gradual, molecule-to-cell story of evolution? There is no scientific theory of abiogenesis.

In this post, I'd like to explore another tactic sometimes employed by evolutionists in their effort to climb “mount improbable.” Even though the odds of amino acids combining to form even one, simple protein are astonishingly small, evolutionists place their hope in a near infinite number of trials. After all, even the most improbable combination – even a seemingly impossible combination – will be accomplished if all possible combinations are tried. In a universe as large as ours, there are chemical processes occurring everywhere. If you have billions of years of trial and error, even something as unlikely as abiogenesis becomes almost a certainty.

There's an old analogy used to demonstrate this principle: if there were an infinite number of monkeys typing randomly on typewriters, eventually they will type all of Shakespeare's plays. Now, I'm not a math wizard but even I can understand that books are merely combinations of words and words are merely combinations of letters. If someone could attempt every possible combination of letters, then of course he will chance upon the same combination of letters found in a Shakespeare play. If I may be so bold, I might even correct the analogy: in an infinite number of attempts, the correct combination would immediately be reached, not eventually.

However, there's something that's always nagged me about the monkey analogy (besides evolutionists' seeming obsession with monkeys – he he). Like I said, I'm not a math genius but I do have a degree in business and have worked in financial services for nearly 30 years so I'm not a stranger to math. There's a widely understood principle in the business world known as the law of large numbers. The law is used in many different ways but basically the law predicts that the larger a sample is, the more typical it will be. Let me explain how it works, If I tossed a coin 10 times, I should theoretically get 5 heads and 5 tails. However, 10 trials is not a large sample so my results are not easily predicted. I could get 7 heads and 3 tails. 10 is just too small to be representative. If I next tossed the coin 100 times, I still might not get exactly 50 heads, but it will likely be closer to 50/50 than 70/30. If I tossed the coin 1,000,000,000 times, I can almost guarantee that approximately 50% of the tosses will be heads. As a matter of fact, if I got 70% heads after 1 billion tosses, I would suspect that the coin is not truly random.

The difference between the law of large numbers and the theoretical monkeys is that the law of large numbers has been tested many times over. Casinos, insurance companies, lotteries, and many other businesses rely on this principle in their business models. For example, an insurance company with 5,000,000 customers can predict with uncanny accuracy how many 45 year old, insured men will die this year. If slot machines are truly random (which they are), I could theoretically win 100 jackpots with 100 pulls. The odds of doing that may be remote but they exist in theory. Yet by using the law of large numbers, casinos know almost to the penny how much they will pay out in winnings for every 1,000,000 pulls of a slot machine.

The law of large numbers puts a kink in the infinite monkey analogy. I'm not sure how many words typically make up a play but let's say it's 200,000. We'll further assume an average word length of 5 letters. Therefore, a typical Shakespeare play is 1,000,000 characters long (we'll also assume that includes spaces). There are 26 letters in the alphabet plus a space so each peck of the typewriter could yield 27 possible outcomes. 1 million pecks is a reasonably large enough sample that the law of large numbers should apply so we know that 1/27^th of the letters will be “A,” 1/27^th will be “B,” 1/27^th will be “C,” etc. In other words, after 1 million pecks, you will have about the same number of “X” as “A.” Don't forget too that there are punctuation marks are the keyboard so you will actually have as many $, @, and % as you have A, B, or C. In English, the letter A occurs far more frequently than the letter X so I don't care how the letters are arranged, you can never have a Shakespeare play when there are as many X's and #'s as A's!

Even in an infinite number of trials, the letters typed out by each monkey should be distributed evenly if each trial is truly random. In each 1 million letters, any 1,000,000 long string of characters will look approximately the same as any other 1,000,000 long string. There will roughly be equal numbers of A's, Q's, X's, spaces, and punctuation marks. An infinite number of monkeys will yield an infinite number of manuscripts that will all resemble each other and will all be gibberish.

Time is not a magic formula that suddenly makes the improbable likely. Amino acids combining over and over could be likened to letters being spit out by the monkeys. In a large number of trials, they will randomly combine in similar sequences over and over. There's no certainty or even likelihood that they will ever combine in that fortunate sequence that creates life. Some things are truly impossible.

Defending the Indefensible: How Evolutionists Address the Improbability of Abiogenesis

Evolutionists are rather cavalier in their attitude toward abiogenesis. The supposed first ancestor of everything was not observed. Neither can it be repeated or tested. It's outside of the scope of scientific inquiry yet evolutionists, because of the religious-like tenets of methodological naturalism, dismiss any possibility of divine intervention in the origin of life. It's not a scientific conclusion; it's a faith based one.

Outside the revelation of the Creator, we could not possibly know about the true origin of life. How it did happen can never be known scientifically because it was a unique event in history and we weren't there to see it. However, scientists are also in the dark about how it even could happen. In spite of years of trying, scientists have not been able to create life from non-living chemicals. They've not even devised a plausible scenario. The best they have are fanciful, “just so” stories that are no more scientific than Dr. Seuss.

Seeing that scientists have not been able to create life via their own intelligence, it's rather far fetched to believe that life could randomly begin without the aid of any intelligent design whatsoever. Many creationists have ridiculed the idea of abiogenesis using a purely statistical perspective. That is, given the length of even the simplest protein, the odds of that many amino acids lining up in just the right order to create life seems impossible. Talk Origins summed up the creationists' argument this way (source):

So the calculation goes that the probability of forming a given 300 amino acid long protein (say an enzyme like carboxypeptidase) randomly is (1/20)300 or 1 chance in 2.04 x 10390, which is astoundingly, mind-beggaringly improbable. This is then cranked up by adding on the probabilities of generating 400 or so similar enzymes until a figure is reached that is so huge that merely contemplating it causes your brain to dribble out your ears. This gives the impression that the formation of even the smallest organism seems totally impossible.

That's not a bad summary of the creationists' position and I think the improbable odds is a serious objection to abiogenesis. Now, don't get me wrong. By citing them, I'm not saying TO is not a bunch of closet creationists nor do they cringe when hearing the probability argument. It just that evolutionists aren't daunted by the mind-numbingly small chance of abiogenesis. In a textbook example of circular reasoning, they know that abiogenesis has happened because we're here!

When considering abiogenesis, evolutionists usually dismiss the matter with the tired argument, “that's not part of the theory.” That's rather odd because they always seem to include something about the “primordial soup” or the Miller-Urey experiments in biology text books. So even though they like to claim it's not part of their theory, they spend a lot of their own time talking about it. I'll come back to that point in a moment.

On some occasions, evolutionists have even attempted to address the improbability of abiogenesis. Some rebuttals are more intriguing than others but I've not heard any that are very convincing. Of course, my bias toward creationism casts doubt on my objectivity. Yet there are a couple of things that I've spotted in the evolutionists' argument that betrays their entire point. See if you can spot them in this quote:

“If [a 300-molecule-long protein forming by total random chance] were the theory of abiogeneisis [sic], and if it relied entirely on random chance, then yes, it would be impossible for life to form in this way. However, this is not the case.

Abiogenesis was a long process with many small incremental steps, all governed by the non-random forces of Natural Selection and chemistry. The very first stages of abiogenesis were no more than simple self-replicating molecules, which might hardly have been called alive at all.” (italics in original)

I think the weaknesses in this argument are rather glaring. First, this argument claims a certainty of the pathway from non-living chemicals to a living creature. That's rather presumptuous of them, don't you think? I mean, scientists don't really have any idea how life began so how can they credibly say, “The very first stages of abiogenesis were no more than simple self-replicating molecules”? Could someone please show me these alleged, “self-replicating molecules”? Please show me how they became living molecules. I want scientific evidence please – not more of your Dr. Seuss theories.

The other weakness is a little more subtle. Do you remember how evolutionists usually respond to questions about abiogenesis? They usually say that it's not part of their theory, right? However, in this quote, they actually seem to invoke their theory! They are essentially saying that self-replicating molecules “evolved” from simple to complex via Natural Selection. Yep, that's evolution, all right. How about that? They say that abiogenesis isn't part of their theory yet they use their theory to explain abiogenesis. That's just goofy.

There are a few other things I have to say about their attempts at rebuttals but I'll save those for another post. I think these few points are damning enough for the moment. Let me conclude by saying this: abiogenesis is a fatal flaw in the evolutionary theory. Not “the” fatal flaw, mind you, because there are others, but it alone dooms the whole theory as incredible. If the supposed, first ancestor of all living things could not have arisen without divine intervention, then the entire rest of the theory is academic. Evolutionists dismiss the subject with little more than a wave of their hand. They're simply whistling past the graveyard.

So Who Are The Crackpots?

Creationists are often called crackpots, nuts, and wackos. A usual theme in the insults is that we're “science haters” or believers in “pseudoscience.” I've commented before that many evolutionists are completely unable to carry on a rational discussion without resorting to insults but my usual response is to ignore them. If I bothered to respond to every insult directed at creationists, it would consume my entire blog. And I think a blog that posts nothing but answers to insults would be about as interesting as listening to a 9 year old saying, “Nuh uh!” Having said that, though, I came across an article that casts a new light on these types of insults.

While doing my usual research (I like to call surfing the net, “research”), I came across a survey from 2008 that discussed public attitudes toward UFOs. It included some interesting demographics about the respondents. It seems only 38% of evangelical protestants say it is either "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that intelligent life exists on other planets. However, 66% of the people with no religious preference said the same thing. Given that information and the obvious attitudes of each group toward the Bible, one could reasonably conclude that the more likely someone is to believe the Bible, the less likely he is to believe in UFOs. Furthermore, less religious (or non-religious) people are almost certainly evolutionists so, by connecting the dots, I think it's safe to say that people who believe in UFOs are probably evolutionists.

Do you think I'm generalizing? Perhaps I am a little – but only a little. Evolutionists have a real stake in the existence of extra terrestrials. If abiogenesis occurs naturally, and if the earth is not unique in the universe, then it's almost a statistical certainty that life has sprouted up many different times throughout the vast universe. The late Carl Sagan made this very point and the group SETI has spent millions of dollars listening for alien radio signals which evolutionists are sure must be out there.

There are also shows like the History Channel's, Ancient Aliens. These shows interview “scholars” and “scientists” who engage in their own brand of pseudoscience and claim that ancient cultures had frequent contact with extraterrestrials. These same “experts” often attribute miraculous events described in the Bible to encounters with aliens. For example, they claim Elijah's ascent into heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11) is actually his being taken away in a space ship. Now, I haven't heard any of these people state their position on Biblical creation but I doubt they hold to the same “ordinary meaning” of the Bible that most creationists have. It's more likely that they're evolutionists.

Still another evolutionists who notably believed in aliens is the late Dr. Francis Crick. This Nobel prize laureate and co-discoverer of DNA understood that abiogenesis is so absurdly improbable that it couldn't have happened multiple times. He proposed the theory of “directed panspermia” which claims that life began somewhere else in the universe and was intentionally planted here by aliens.

The same tendency for UFO nuts to be evolutionists exhibits itself in other kook-theories as well. Cryptozoology is an obscure “scientific” discipline which aims to “study” elusive species like Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster. It escapes me, though, how anyone can “study” a species that can't be found. Why not study Leprechauns? Anyway, cryptozoology also has a firm foundation in evolution. Laypeople have suggested that Big Foot is a missing link. The more “official” position (I chuckle when using words like “scientific,” “study,” or “official position” when discussing Big Foot) is that Big Foot is another large primate and so is an evolutionary cousin to humans, similar to the way gorillas are. The Loch Ness Monster is claimed by some to be a plesieosaur-like species that became trapped in the Loch when it was cut off from the sea. A small population of the critters has survived unchanged in its little niche for 65 million years.

Now, I realize my observations are anecdotal and not a scientific samplings of evolutionists' attitudes. Nevertheless, I'm reasonably confident in my opinion. If I were a betting man, I would be willing to wager that a lopsided majority of UFO-ists are evolutionists as are believers in Big Foot/Nessie. I would even say the same of believers in ghosts. And don't forget that we're certain that the president of the Flat Earth Society also happens to be an evolutionist. Do you see a pattern here?

Please note carefully that I've been careful to not say the majority of evolutionists believe in Big Foot or UFOs. Instead, I'm voicing my opinion that the majority of people who believe in these crackpot theories are evolutionists. Do you see the difference? So you may be wondering where I'm going with this. Am I making a guilt-by-association argument? No. Am I making a sweeping generalization to imply that the few evolutionists who believe in UFOs represent all evolutionists? No. More than anything I guess I'm taking enjoyment in linking fancy unto fancy. I think it's just funny and ironic that the most outrageous beliefs are held by the people who accuse creationists of being scientifically illiterate. Who's the crackpot now?

Kidding aside for a moment, I think there are a few things we can take away from this: First, I think it's clear that “junk science” does not appeal to creationists. If it did, the ranks of UFO and Big Foot enthusiasts would be flush with creationists.

Second, no group is represented by its extremists. Unless evolutionists want to associate themselves with Big Foot hunters, they need to stop holding up people like the convicted Kent Hovind as an icon of creationists. At least most creationists are honest enough to denounce the bad behavior or weak arguments of its members. People like Sagan are mainstream evolutionists and their cohorts seem reluctant to speak a word against them.

Finally, we should acknowledge that beliefs have consequences. I've seen the photos and videos of UFOs. Is that really the best evidence for the existence of aliens? Why then do so many people believe in life on other planets? I say it's merely a consequence of believing in evolution because the theory virtually demands there must be. I've written before that a worldview that rejects God and the Bible is not rational. A person who rejects the Bible is foolish; it's no wonder then that he should embrace foolish beliefs.