Let's
pretend, for a moment, that we have no ideas how mountains were
formed so I put on my thinking cap and begin making observations. On
beaches, I notice how the waves sometimes make ripples in the sand.
In the desert, I notice how sand dunes are formed by wind. These
observations lead me to hypothesize that mountain formation is the
cumulative effect of millions of years of wind and water moving dirt
around. Sounds plausible, right?
Working
on this theory, I look around to find examples of mountains being
made taller by the wind and rain – but I can't find any. All I
find, instead, are mountains being worn by erosion caused by wind and
rain. In other words, they're becoming shorter, not taller. Not
willing to abandon my theory, I define “mountain forming” to mean
“any change in the elevation of a point of land.” Now, even
examples of erosion can be used to support my theory.
Instances
of erosion may fit my definition but they do nothing to support my
claim that these processes can form mountains if they just continue
long enough. Ideally, I should abandon my theory. At the very
least, I should change my definition to include, “a rise
in the elevation of land....” But I do neither. Instead, I double
down on my definition and begin arguing that even a lowering of land
elevation is mountain formation because it creates valleys!
Clever,
huh? Employing such an ambiguous definition actually thwarts
criticism of my theory. It may make my theory somewhat unassailable,
but it doesn't make my theory true. Vague definitions like this
probably hinder science more than help it. Using this definition, I
could continue citing new instances of erosion, call them examples of
“mountain formation,” and never once find an example of a
mountain truly forming!
So
where am I going with this? I've often written about the word games
evolutionists play. They constantly want to define terms in their
favor. And it's not just scientific terms, they also want to
redefine words like “faith.” The word they equivocate over the
most is evolution.
The
Oxford
Dictionary defines evolution as, “the
process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to
have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history
of the earth. ”
When we talk about “evolution,” most people think of things like
fish becoming frogs, dinosaurs becoming birds, and apes becoming men.
Am I right? Yet, when we look around, we never seen examples of
things like this happening. Oh sure, we see animal populations
change,
but they don't change into other kinds of animals.
Enter
the ambiguous definition.
Talk
Origins, a rabidly pro-evolution website, prefers this
definition:
[E]volution
can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles
within a gene pool from one generation to the next.
Wow,
that sounds fancy. This is THE definition used by most, militant
evolutionists. Notice, though, that it doesn't do anything to
qualify the kind of change. There's no condition that the change has
to add any new characteristics to the population, for example. If a
population of gray and black mice were to go from 50% gray to 45%
gray over successive generations, then they've evolved according
to this definition. Yet it doesn't explain how something like a
mouse could turn into something like a bat over “millions of
years.”
For
evolution to be possible, biological populations have to acquire new
characteristics. To turn a dinosaur into a bird, you would have to
add feathers. To turn a reptile into a mammal, you would have to add
hair. The supposed first common ancestor didn't have feathers or
hair. Neither did it have skin or scales or bones or blood or organs
of any sort. How many new traits would you have to add to make turn
molecule into a man? So just to say a population has “changed”
doesn't mean the population is on its way to becoming something else
unless the change adds something. Removing the gray mice from a
population, for example, can't add new colors to the population.
The
definition of evolution most favored and championed by evolutionists,
the one cited above, is very much like my ridiculous definition of
mountain formation. Any change in a population is called evolution,
even though it doesn't add anything new to the population. Indeed,
no new traits ever need to be found and evolution could still be said
to be happening. In fact, I believe that's precisely why zealous
evolutionists prefer it. Consider this except from the Talk Origins
article I cited:
Unfortunately
the common definitions of evolution outside of the scientific
community are different. For example, in the Oxford Concise Science
Dictionary we find the following definition:
"evolution: The gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is believed to have been continuing for the past 3000 million years."
This
is inexcusable for a dictionary of science. Not only does this
definition exclude prokaryotes, protozoa, and fungi, but it
specifically includes a term "gradual process" which should
not be part of the definition. More importantly the definition seems
to refer more to the history of evolution than to evolution itself.
Using this definition it is possible to debate
whether evolution is still occurring....”
I
have to shake my head. They're right, it's hard to debate whether
evolution is occurring if they are allowed to call any kind of
change, “evolution.” Just like no one could question my theory
of mountain formation as long as I'm
able to include mountains being eroded as examples of mountain
forming.
This
is why evolutionists spend so much time haggling over terms. They
want to bolster their arguments by defining words in their favor. It
may be clever but it's still a gimmick. It's subtle. It's lying by
definition.
Related
articles
Talk Origins, a rabidly pro-evolution website, prefers this definition:
ReplyDelete[E]volution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.
Rabidly? Are there "pro-evolution" sites that you don't consider "rabid?" If not, the adverb is prolix; if so, perhaps you could do us a favor and see how they in turn define evolution.
Anyway, the definition deals with effects, not causes: it doesn't specify whether the change is caused by natural selection, or random genetic drift, or mutations, or some combination of the above. It does exclude changes caused purely by changes to the environment, without changing the genes: e.g. the greater height of people today compared to people a thousand years ago is generally attributed to better nutrition, not changes in gene frequencies.
For evolution to be possible, biological populations have to acquire new characteristics.
You know, of course, of antibiotic resistance emerging in what start as genetically uniform populations of non-resistant bacteria. You've probably heard of the emergence of cecal valves in the intestines of Italian wall lizards living in isolation on the island of Pod Mrcaru. Now, you can argue that we don't observe millions of years' worth of genetic and morphological change in hundreds of years, but that's the same as saying that we don't see "new traits" emerging at all.
Also, that we don't see millions of years' worth of genetic and morphological change occurring in hundreds of years is a problem for the young-earth creationist notion that, e.g. lions and tigers and snow leopards and cheetahs all derived from a single pair of the "cat kind" aboard Noah's Ark ca. 5000 years ago.
You are unhappy that evolutionists don't concede that there is some sort of impassable barrier to evolution between vaguely and inconsistently defined "kinds." They have no reason to suspect that such a barrier exists and no reason to worry about fiddling with the definition of evolution to accommodate it.
Steven J,
ReplyDeleteYou said, “Rabidly? Are there "pro-evolution" sites that you don't consider "rabid?" If not, the adverb is prolix; if so, perhaps you could do us a favor and see how they in turn define evolution.”
I wouldn't say you are rabidly pro-evolution. The Friendly Atheist probably is an evolutionist but I wouldn't describe him as rabid either. In fact, most people who believe in evolution aren't “rabidly pro-evolution.” Most people are passive believers. You're a committed believer. Rabid evolutionists believe science is doomed unless everyone believes in evolution. They not only try to promote evolution, but spend a near-equal amount of time trying to shame creationists for not believing evolution.
You said, “Anyway, the definition deals with effects, not causes: it doesn't specify whether the change is caused by natural selection, or random genetic drift, or mutations, or some combination of the above. It does exclude changes caused purely by changes to the environment, without changing the genes: e.g. the greater height of people today compared to people a thousand years ago is generally attributed to better nutrition, not changes in gene frequencies.”
When you say, “the definition,” which definition do you mean? Judging by the last sentence, it sounds like you're OK with “evolution” being applied to a population of mice going from 50% gray to 47% gray.
You said, “You know, of course, of antibiotic resistance emerging in what start as genetically uniform populations of non-resistant bacteria. You've probably heard of the emergence of cecal valves in the intestines of Italian wall lizards living in isolation on the island of Pod Mrcaru.”
In a colony of bacteria, there may be a only few that are resistant to antibiotics. If an antibiotic is introduced that kills nearly the entire colony, those very few resistant bacteria are left to reproduce. They will become a colony that is very resistant to antibiotics. It's just like the peppered moths where the population went from mostly light moths to mostly dark moths because birds ate the light ones. Just change “antibiotic killing non-resistant bacteria” to “birds eating light moths” and it's the same effect.
The cecal valve already exists in other species of lizards. Also, I've read that the cecal valve will appear and disappear in the population in response to changes in the environment so it probably exists as a latent feature that becomes expressed when needed.
You said, “Also, that we don't see millions of years' worth of genetic and morphological change occurring in hundreds of years is a problem for the young-earth creationist notion that, e.g. lions and tigers and snow leopards and cheetahs all derived from a single pair of the "cat kind" aboard Noah's Ark ca. 5000 years ago.”
But we do see rapid speciation. It doesn't even take hundreds of years; sometimes it's a few generations. I've written about it many times on my blog. It happens frequently but evolutionists act surprised every time.
Thanks for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley