Even extraordinary claims require only ordinary evidence!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post describing how some critics of Christianity use demands for “evidence” as a way of dodging tough questions rather than dealing with them. In that post, I described a hypothetical example of two strangers: one tells me he has a pet dog and the other tells me he has a pet sloth. In these cases, I would be apt to believe the claim to own a dog but be skeptical of the claim to own a sloth.

A few people have tried to point out to me that my heightened suspicion of the claim to own a sloth actually contradicts a point I made later in my post. Carl Sagan made a famous claim that, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” By me being more critical of the claim to own a sloth than a dog, they say I'm engaging in exactly the kind of skepticism Sagan said was necessary before believing an extraordinary claim. I don't think so, but since a few people have accused me of the same thing, I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to expound my earlier point.

First off, Sagan's claim is self-contradicting. If it were true, then where is the evidence for Sagan's claim? I'm not even asking for extraordinary evidence, mind you. I mean any scientific evidence whatsoever to justify the claim that claims require evidence? If Sagan were here and I asked him to present the evidence for his claim, I'm sure he would resort to logic and reason which proves my point. Through logic and reason, we can make judgments about the truthfulness of a claim – even a claim for which there may be no scientific evidence! In my example about the sloth, you will notice that not once did I demand to see the sloth. My point in asking more questions was so that I might judge the truthfulness of the claim using only my skills of logic and reason.

But let's examine that a little but further. What if I were an especially stubborn skeptic and demand to see a picture of the sloth? If he pulled out a photo of him holding his sloth, that really still wouldn't prove anything. How do I know he didn't have that picture taken some exotic petting zoo somewhere? How do I know it's not a Photoshop? Maybe he could take me to his home and show the sloth in person. It's still not enough because, if I were especially bullheaded, I could ask for proof that this was his home. You say he has the deed? So what?! Maybe he's leasing part of his property to someone else who actually owns the sloth! No matter what evidence he shows me, I could sit cross armed and skeptical saying, “That's not enough evidence!”

This is my frustration with many unbelievers. I try to give reasoned arguments and ask they consider them objectively yet they respond only with a demand for more evidence. For some people, I could say that it would take God appearing to them personally to make them believe but I know even that wouldn't be enough because they could still dismiss God's appearance as a hallucination. For someone who truly doesn't want to believe, no amount of evidence – not even extraordinary evidence – is sufficient.

Now back up a minute. Remember about the person claiming to own a dog? If I were just as skeptical of his claim, what evidence might he produce that is different than the evidence that I demanded from the owner of a sloth? In other words, how is the evidence that proves someone owns a dog substantially different than the evidence that proves someone owns a sloth? If I am truly a “blank slate” and will never believe something unless I have evidence for it, then the evidence necessary to prove someone owns a dog need not be any different than the evidence necessary to prove someone owns a sloth.

To prove conclusively a person owns a dog or a sloth or even a stegosaurus, it would take roughly the same evidence: 1) look at his address on his ID, 2) drive to that address, and 3) see if the animal is there. One claim may seem more extraordinary than another, but the evidence to prove any of the claims is rather ordinary. The critic might ask, “what if he doesn't really own the animal? Maybe he's caring for a friend's or relative's pet.” Regardless, whatever could be said of a pet sloth could also be said of a pet dog. The evidence to prove either is still the same.

What if I claimed to own a Big Foot? Simple – drive to my house and see it for yourself. What if I claimed to own a unicorn? Drive to my house and see it for yourself. What if I claimed to have a flying saucer in my backyard? Drive to my house and see if for yourself. What if I claimed to have created a to-scale model of the Grand Canyon in my backyard? Drive to my house and see it for yourself. What is so “extraordinary” about the evidence that could prove any of these extraordinary claims?

Besides the famous quote we've discussed here, Carl Sagan also left us the analogy, The Dragon In My Garage. In that story, he pretended to have dragon in his garage and invited his skeptical friend to see it. Of course, the garage appeared to be empty. Sagan explained the dragon was invisible. The friend thought of ways to see if the dragon was there: spray paint the dragon to make it visible, sprinkle powder on the floor to see its footprints, or use a sensor to detect its flames. One by one, Sagan explained why none of these would work. A subtle irony here is that the skeptic only seems to be looking for ordinary evidence: he wants to see the dragon! Owning a dragon is an extraordinary claim. According to Sagan, it should require extraordinary evidence to substantiate that claim but in this analogy, merely seeing the dragon seems to be enough. So even Sagan, who made this famous quote, seems to understand that the proof for owning a dragon really isn't any different than the proof for owning a dog.

In Isaiah 1:18, God says, “Come now, and let us reason together.” To have the clearest picture of reality requires that we employ our God given gifts of reason and deduction. For someone to set the ridiculously high standard of evidence before believing anything is a guarantee to have a distorted view of reality.

The word “extraordinary” is enormously subjective. It describes more about the person hearing the claim than the nature of the claim itself. When a claim is labeled, “extraordinary,” it means the person hearing the claim has a hard time believing it. Maybe he just doesn't want to believe it. But even extraordinary claims require only ordinary evidence. To say one claim requires “extraordinary” evidence simply means the skeptic is likely to reject most of the evidence you present because of his own incredulity.

Further reading:

When asking for evidence becomes a red herring

Carl Sagan's Invisible Dragon

How many jellybeans are in this jar?

Bill Nye on video lying about evidence!

Because there cannot be a married bachelor, there is no God. Um... what?

A while back, I came across a forum with a thread titled, A Library Of The Best 40 Atheist Arguments Against God. I wrote about the first argument then and had intended to visit the thread from time to time and discuss more of the arguments. However, the thread failed miserably to live up to its title and I didn't feel any urgency to get to the other arguments. It's been 2 years now and I happened across the same thread so I thought I'd look at the second argument on the list. It goes like this:

The paradox of omnipotence

We agree that a "married bachelor" can not exist because it is contradictory and self-refuting. An omnipotent God is self-refuting and contradictory.
-Omnipotence is the ability to do all things. To have all abilities
-However, some abilities are contradictory to each other. or some actions negate each other
-To sleep means you are not awake, for instance. You cant be alseep and awake at the same time.
God has the ability to live for ever. Eternal life. However, that means that he can not die and he doesnt have the ability to kill himselfy
God has the ability to be everywhere. he is omnipresent. However, that means that he doesnt have the ability to leave a certain place or the ability to be absent.

The author's point is that, since we can imagine things that God cannot do, there cannot be a God that can do all things. This is called, “the omnipotence paradox” and has been put forth many times, although, usually not so clumsily worded as above. A more succinct example is to ask, “Can God make a rock so big that even He can't lift it?” Either He can't make a rock that big or He can't lift the big rock He created – either way, there's something He can't do.

As we consider an answer to this, we have to consider what does “omnipotent” mean? The author above defines it as “the ability to do all things” but I couldn't find a mainstream dictionary with that definition. Oxforddictionaries.com defines it as, “Having unlimited power. Having great power and influence.” Merriam-Webster has, “Having virtually unlimited authority or influence.” Dictionary.com defines it as, “Almighty or infinite in power, as God. Having very great or unlimited authority or power.” You can see that the ordinary meaning of omnipotent is having all power and/or authority. To redefine it to mean, “able to do anything” gives a critic the opportunity to create a strawman, then suggest some logical absurdity that God can't do.

There are certainly things that Christians will admit that God cannot do and still be omnipotent. Here are some examples: God cannot lie, God cannot be wrong, and God cannot stop being God. All of these things can be true of God and yet God could still be described as omnipotent. Indeed, if God could lie or be wrong, it would diminish His omnipotence; how could someone lie or be wrong and still have “all authority”?

To justify their unusual definition of omnipotent, some critics will point to Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Their claim is that this verse seems to say Christ should be able to do anything – even create a married bachelor. As usual, though, the verse is taken out of context. Paul suffered many things throughout his ministry – shipwrecks, stonings, beatings, and even imprisonment. Through it all, he learned the secret to bearing all the ups and downs – the power of Christ. Here are verses 12-13 together: “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” What Paul is saying is that he knows he can prosper whatever his circumstances because Christ strengthens him. Clearly, he is not saying the “all things” he can do through Christ would include an ability to make a square circle!

The omnipotence paradox is a sort of logical gimmickry. Think about this: by asking if God can make a rock so big even He can't lift it, critics want you to believe that God should able to become unable. That sounds sort of ridiculous when it's put that way. It's a classic strawman argument. Critics redefine omnipotence to mean, “able to do anything,” invent logically impossible scenarios, then say there can't be an omnipotent God because He can't do what is logically impossible. Just as I don't believe God's omnipotence is diminished by saying He cannot lie, neither do I feel it's diminished by saying God cannot do what is logically impossible.

However, I don't want to sell God short. On many occasions, the enemies of Jesus would attempt to trap Him using clever arguments; in every case, Jesus would turn the table on them and they would look the fools. It became so bad that Luke 20:40 says eventually, no one dared asked Him any more questions. Perhaps God, who is also omniscient, would know a clever way to solve what seems to be logically impossible. I don't expect Him to have to, but I would laugh my head off at the skeptics if He did!

Christians should be glad the straw god of atheists doesn't exist. Their god would be able to lie. Their god would be able to err. Their god offers no hope. But there is hope in the God of the Bible. Because He cannot lie, I know I can trust His promises. Because He cannot err, I know I can trust His judgments. Because He cannot sin, I know Jesus was the spotless Lamb who was able to take my sins. Because He cannot change, I know my future is secured.

Praise the Almighty God!

Further reading:

Rejecting a straw god

Loving God with our Minds: A Series in Logic

The best argument atheists have is that they have no argument

Evo Speak

Does a new species of finch mean the finch has evolved?

A headline from ScienceAlert.com reads, “A New Bird Species Has Evolved on Galapagos And Scientists Watched It Happen” The opening sentence claims, “For the first time, scientists have been able to observe something amazing: the evolution of a completely new species, in the wild, in real-time. And it took just two generations.” Wow! Scientists watched evolution happen in real time? I guess I should just give up and quit blogging! //RKBentley shakes his head//

I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about. First off, this isn't even news. The ScienceAlert.com article was published 11/24/2017 and it cites a Psy.org article that was published a day earlier. However, I found this same study discussed on Wired.com on 11/6/2009. Second, the article is talking about hybridization – the cross-breeding of two different species. Hybridization is ridiculously common. It's been observed and understood for centuries. For example, how long have there been mules? A mule is the offspring of a donkey bred with a horse.

Hybrids are usually (but not always) sterile so we wouldn't necessarily consider a hybrid a new species. Species is a largely subjective term but when speciation is determined to have taken place, there is always someone anxious to label it “evolution.” Here are a few examples I've talked about before:

• Scientists watch as a new species evolves before their eyes: “Speciation, the formation of new species through evolution, is not usually an event you can directly observe. Organisms typically take many generations to accumulate enough changes to diverge into new species; it's a slow process... But biologists working at the University of California, San Diego, and at Michigan State University, may have just put a rest to all of those naysayers. They report to having witnessed the evolution of a new species [of virus] happen right before their eyes, in a simple laboratory flask, according to Phys.org.”
• World-first hybrid shark found off Australia: “Australian scientists hailed what they described as a world-first discovery of two shark species interbreeding Tuesday, a never-before-seen phenomenon which could help them cope with warmer oceans... It’s very surprising because no one’s ever seen shark hybrids before, this is not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination... This is evolution in action.”
• Pressured by Predators, Lizards See Rapid Shift in Natural Selection: “Countering the widespread view of evolution as a process played out over the course of eons, evolutionary biologists have shown that natural selection can turn on a dime -- within months -- as a population's needs change. In a study of island lizards exposed to a new predator, the scientists found that natural selection dramatically changed direction over a very short time, within a single generation....”

God created organisms “according to their kind.” Grass, herbs, and fruit have kinds (Genesis 1:11); Marine animals and birds have kinds (Genesis 1:21); Cattle, beasts, and every animal that walks upon the earth has kinds (Genesis 1:24-25). At the time of the Flood, representative animals from each terrestrial kind were brought aboard the Ark to keep them alive (Genesis 6:19-20). All of the various species of animals that exist today are descended from the smaller kinds originally created by God.

When I read headlines like these, it's my opinion that what we observe is better explained by Genesis than by evolution. For example, we have several instances of speciation happening rapidly. Creationists have been saying this is the case all along yet evolutionists still act surprised every time it does. They're so ingrained into their “millions of years” way of thinking that they act shocked when a new species forms in only few generations. They see a a new species of finch appear in two generations yet they scold creationists by claiming the 4,000 years since the Flood is not enough time for a bear to become a polar bear or a wolf to become a dog.

Which brings me to another point – how are these people defining evolution? When most people think of evolution, they think of dinosaur to bird or ape to man. However, evolutionists describe any change in a population of animals as evolution. If there were a population of moths where 60% of the moths have light pigment, the population is said to have evolved if the next generation has only 50% with light pigment. It's evolution by definition. The examples of “evolution” we observe don’t demonstrate any mechanism that could eventually turn a molecule into a man.

The sensational headlines that talk about evolution happening before our eyes are seldom anything more than hype. Even if we are occasionally surprised, it is ultimately nothing more than an anecdotal example of a rather mundane phenomenon – a new recombination of traits that have already existed in the population. Two lizards giving birth to a bird would be news. Two finches giving birth to a finch is click bait.

Further reading:

The Ham v. Nye Debate: Millions of Species

“Kinds” versus “species”

Hybrids: Different Species, Same Kind

Is Creationism a Belief in Hyper Evolution?

Natural Selection is the Opposite of Evolution!

Are creationists arrogant? A review of King Crocoduck's series: Introduction

I recently came across a 5-part series of videos titled, “The Arrogance Of Creationism.” They were made by a belligerent evolutionist who posts under the name, King Crocoduck (who will henceforth be referred to as KC). For anyone unfamiliar with the term, crocoduck, it's an imaginary creature invented by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort to highlight evolution's glaring shortage of transitional creatures. I'm fairly certain it was done half in jest but evolutionists have seized upon it and now tout it as an example of creationists' supposed lack of understanding of evolution. The term isn't really relevant to my series; I just mentioned it to give some background.

Anyway, KC's biography describes him as, “Just a physics graduate, here to debunk pseudoscience of all varieties.” His mission is to “crush” the beliefs of “those who seek to defecate all over [science.]” By that, he means creationists. His YouTube channel boasts over 57,000 subscribers and over 4.1 million views. In the first video, he introduces a young-earth creationist identified only as, “Tom.” In the description, he says his first video in this series is a response to a 15 minute video made by Tom and provided a link to the original video. When you click on the link, though, you find the original video has been removed.

KC says that Tom is a member of a group that identifies themselves as the Truth Defenders. I googled “Truth Defenders” and found a FaceBook page, a Twitter account, and a website that all appear to belong to the same group but I couldn't find anywhere where they talked about creation. There are also a couple of YouTube videos that have “Truth Defenders” in the title but none seem to deal with creation. KC describes Tom as having a trait common to all creationists – arrogance. Without knowing anything about Tom besides the short snippets KC includes of him in the video, I can't say if KC is representing Tom fairly. It's a little frustrating too because, when I hear the contempt and condescension spewing from KC as he narrates his own videos, I would love to know what he considers to be arrogance.

Actually, I know what KC means by arrogance: creationists are arrogant because they disagree with secular theories of origins. Yes, that's precisely what he means. In KC's world, science is the ultimate method of gaining knowledge, only what can be known scientifically is true, and anyone who disagrees with a scientific conclusion is a pompous jerk who “defecates” on all of science (KC pronounces it as “dee-fe-cates” which I find amusing). It's a sort of No True Scotsman argument – everyone who agrees with KC is normal, rational, and cool. Everyone who disagrees is an imbecile.

KC is certainly a ardent follower of the scientism I discussed a couple of months ago. He considers science to be the final arbiter of what is true and any opinion held by a majority of scientists is a fact. Throughout the series, KC cites questionable ideas, that have only been published in scientific papers and never observed, and asserts them as though they are settled science. In his first video, for example, he talks about the ultimate origin of matter and energy (a subject that is certainly controversial and far from settled) as though it's yesterday's news. He fearlessly asserts “facts” he cannot possibly know are true then insults and belittles creationists who are skeptical of them.

I'm going to do a short series critiquing each of the videos in KC's series. A critique of the first video will be in my next post. I'm using this post as a sort of introduction so that I might highlight a few things to look out for. Logical fallacies abound: appeals to authority, ad hominem, equivocation, conflation, and plenty of old-fashion name calling. Curiously absent from the series, though, are concrete examples of how creationists are being arrogant.

KC said creationism cannot survive without arrogance. He even named his series, “The Arrogance of Creationism,” so you would think he would spend his time showing us supposed examples of arrogance. Instead, KC spends most of the time presenting an argument for his theory, then calls creationists arrogant for disagreeing. The arrogance and mellow drama in KC's voice make for a certain irony. It's a sort of pot-calls-kettle-black approach.

Check back soon for my first critique. God bless!!

Read the entire series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Why even teach evolution?

I don't have anything against education. As a matter of fact, if I won the lottery and didn't have to work anymore, I'd be a professional student for the rest of my life. I love learning. Some people like to study very narrow subjects – something like Russian literature. These might not be very practical degrees to have when you look for a job but, if you like Russian literature, then go for it. Studying evolution is sort of like studying Russian literature. No, it's actually more like studying Big Foot. There's no practical use to it, really, but if you're interested in pseudo-science, then the theory of evolution is for you. I won't stop you – not that I could anyway – but I do object to the way evolution is being taught in many public schools now.

Several years ago, I wrote about a NY Times article that talked about teaching evolution in the classroom. The article cited a dilemma faced by a FL biology teacher:

ORANGE PARK, Fla. — David Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote “Evolution” in the rectangle of light on the screen.
He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.
“If I do this wrong,” Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, “I’ll lose him.”

Never mind the Constitutional concerns for a moment, where a government employee sees it as his personal mission to rid his students of a religiously held belief, I'm more interested in this idea that learning evolution is somehow critical to kids' education. Bill Nye, my arch-nemesis (at least, my “would be” arch-nemesis,” if he knew I existed), is on record for saying the following:

[T]here are more people in the world — another billion people all trying to use the world’s resources. And the threat and consequences of climate change are more serious than ever, so we need as many people engaged in how we’re going to deal with that as possible.... My biggest concern about creationist kids is that they’re compelled to suppress their common sense, to suppress their critical thinking skills at a time in human history when we need them more than ever.... There are just things about evolution that we should all be aware of, the way we’re aware of where electricity comes from.

I'm just puzzled by this idea that a kid can't understand technology or science unless he believes in evolution. I've seen no evidence, anywhere, to support the idea that people who believe in creation suffer academically (except perhaps being discriminated against by teachers). Furthermore, I've never seen a compelling example of how a belief in evolution is critical to any other field of study.

I've linked before to an article by Dr. Jerry Bergman: a survey of college text books showed that most barely discuss evolution. The anatomy and physiology text books examined didn't mention evolution at all. Of the colleges surveyed in Ohio and Michigan, biology majors were required to only take one class in evolution. Also from the article, National Academy of Science Member and renown carbene chemist, Professor emeritus Dr. Philip Skell of Pennsylvania State University (see Lewis, 1992), did a survey of his colleagues that were “engaged in non-historical biology research, related to their ongoing research projects.” He found that the “Darwinist researchers” he interviewed, in answer to the question, “Would you have done the work any differently if you believed Darwin's theory was wrong?” that “for the large number” of persons he questioned, “differing only in the amount of hemming and hawing” was “in my work it would have made no difference.”

If colleges are supposed to be equipping scientists in their various fields of research, they must not think evolution is very important, considering it's barely mentioned. And you can see that even people who work in biology have admitted that evolution isn't really relevant to their research. Consider this too: can anyone name a single invention or technological advance in the last century that hinged upon an understanding of evolution? Maybe somebody could name one but that is dwarfed by the virtual explosion of technology we've seen in the last 100 years that didn't depend on evolution at all!

If evolution is so ancillary to science, if there is no study linking understanding evolution to improved test scores, if evolution is something that kids learn in school but never use again, then why is there this grim determination that students still must learn evolution? We're facing an education crisis where kids lack proficiency in critical skills like reading, math, and history. Why are we wasting time and resources teaching them a skill that is so useless yet still so controversial? Why force public schools into court to defend a sticker in a text book or to remove a teacher who mentions creation? Let's just stop the controversies altogether. I'm not saying, “give equal time to creation.” I'm not saying, “teach the difficulties.” I'm saying stop teaching evolution!

Stop spouting facts... the science is settled!

According to Wikipedia, scientism is a term used to describe the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or the most valuable part of human learning—to the exclusion of other viewpoints. Followers of scientism tend to be zealots, more devout even than the average followers of traditional religions. What makes them especially stubborn is that they tend to not think of their beliefs as their “religion;” instead, they think scientism is simply the default way of thinking for any person and so they cannot comprehend any argument made from a different point of view. To them, if something can't be examined scientifically, it can't be true.

Now, you would think that people who practically worship science would welcome scientific debate. They say they do. Actually, they brag that they do. In the new Cosmos series, Neil deGrass Tyson offered these five, simple rules for science:

(1) Question authority.

(2) Think for yourself.

(3) Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment.

(4) Follow the evidence wherever it leads.

(5) Remember: you could be wrong.

Ignore the self-contradiction going on here – like, how can someone test the idea that we should test ideas by evidence? My point in citing these “rules” is to show how skepticism is supposed to be at the heart of science. According to Tyson, I'm not supposed to accept a conclusion just because someone in authority says it's true. I'm supposed to think for myself. Right? I could be wrong but maybe it's the person making the claim who is wrong.

There are real scientists who are skeptics. At the risk of sounding cliché, scientific advancement often comes when people think outside of the box. Science Alert once published a list of 8 scientific papers that were rejected during peer review before going on to win a Nobel Prize. Obviously, these authors were on to something and the scientific establishment just couldn't see it. How often has one radical idea, one that other scientists may have thought sounded crazy, turned out to be true? Maybe we should ask Galileo.

Devout members of scientism aren't skeptics. They claim to be but they aren't. They blindly follow the majority opinion without question. You can often identify them by their frequent use of the phrase, “The science is settled.” To them, truth is whatever is accepted by a majority of scientists. Anyone who disagrees is considered a heretic. Actually, they don't call them heretics – they call them, “science deniers” but, in scientism, it means the same thing. Doubters of some scientific theory aren't ever called “skeptics” or “free thinkers;” they're “deniers.”

Let me give you a few examples of scientism's doctrine. The first is obviously evolution. I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard rabid evolutionists defend their theory by saying no credible scientist denies that evolution happened. Note the use of the word “credible,” but never mind blatant No True Scotsman fallacy. Truth is not decided by popular vote. Evolutionists often refuse to debate creationists on the grounds that “the science is settled,” “there is no debate among scientists whether evolution is true,” and debating the theory with a creationists gives the impression there is still doubt over the theory. Followers of scientism want to squelch any dissent over evolution by suing public schools who want to “teach the difficulties,” rejecting any creationist paper submitted for peer review, and even protesting a privately funded, religious organization like the Creation Museum.

Another long standing doctrine of this godless faith is climate change. Once upon a time, it was called “global warming” but after decades of no noticeable increase in the global, mean temperature, they had to replace “warming” with the much more ambiguous term, “change.” Actually, none of the dire predictions made by these alarmists have happened. In 2008, ABC aired a video montage showing all the terrible things that would happen by 2015 because of climate change: New York flooding, hundreds of miles of scorched earth, and skyrocketing food and fuel prices. I remember 2015. It was nothing like the predictions made by the video but followers of scientism aren't embarrassed by their failed predictions; The “science is settled” concerning climate change and bad things are going to happen unless we do something now. //RKBentley shakes his head//

Bill Nye was recently embarrassed by Tucker Carlson when he tried to pull that “the science is settled” crap. Carlson was asking basic questions about climate change and Nye was obviously making up the answers. Before we spend trillions of dollars on this “crisis,” we need to have some answers: the most fundamental question is, is there even any warming? The trend for the last few decades says no. If it is happening, to what extent are humans causing it? If we could stop warming, should we? What is the earth's temperature supposed to be? Every air-breathing animal produces carbon dioxide. Humans produce about 2 pounds of CO2 per day. Even if we converted the entire world to 100% emission-free energy, humans will still produce billions of pounds of CO2 every day just by breathing. How can that be bad? Plants require CO2. What will happen to our forests if we could reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? These are legitimate questions but they are heresy to dogma-driven zealots like Nye. A real scientist on CNN recently brought up some of these points and Nye scolded CNN for, “having one climate change skeptic, and not 97 or 98 scientists or engineers concerned about climate change.”

The most recent political discussion which followers of scientism have weighed in on is the transgender issue. Scientists now “know” that things like gender identity or even our biological sex aren't immutable but exist on a spectrum. You would think that after 6,000 years of human history, the science would at least be settled about who is a male and who is a female. Wrong! Now we're being told that doctors sometimes got it wrong when they checked “male” or “female” on a birth certificate. I'm a 51 year old white guy. Why can't I identify as a 65 year old person and start receiving social security? Why can't I say I'm a black guy and maybe qualify for affirmative action programs? But I can say I'm a woman and folks like Nye will rush to defend my delusion as being normal, usual, and healthy. Anyone who disagrees is a hate-filled, homophobic, bigot. Colleges are adopting strict policies requiring the use of gender-neutral pronouns. If I call a female, “she,” suddenly I'm the one who has the problem. Several years ago, I wrote about California's ban on gay-conversion therapy for minors. Really? So after little Johnny was abused by an uncle, he seeks help because he doesn't like the sexual feelings he now has toward men and the only acceptable response is, “You're gay, Johnny, you can't change it. You'd better learn to live with it!”

Bill Nye has said that being a creationist suppresses critical thinking. I believe Nye's religion of scientism is a far worse assault on critical thinking than being a creationist could ever be. He does not want debate. “Science deniers” must be ridiculed and insulted until they have lost all credibility. Maybe they should even be put in prison. Nye and folks like him have their minds are made up. Stop confusing them with facts. The science is settled.

It's a numbers game... and evolution is losing!

Evolution is a theory fraught with difficulties – so much so that I'm genuinely surprised that people still take it seriously. I'm not talking about answers we don't have – like, a plausible explanation for the origin of the first common ancestor or not finding any fossils for the “innumerable” transitional species Darwin understood must have existed if his theory were true; I'm talking about things that we do know, scientifically, that make evolution impossible.

Let me give you a thumbnail sketch of how the theory is supposed to work. Some people conflate evolution with natural selection. Natural selection is the opposite of evolution. If you start with a population of light and dark moths, and birds continuously eat (i.e. “select”) the light moths, you will eventually have a population of only dark moths. Natural selection can only “select” from traits already present in the population. You cannot add new colors by continuously removing colors no matter how long it continues. For evolution to be possible, you have to add new traits to a population. To turn a dinosaur into a bird, for example, you would have to add feathers. Get it? Natural selection is not a mechanism that can add new features to a population.

The only candidate for a mechanism that adds new features to a population is genetic mutation. Mutations are an observed phenomenon where duplication errors in the DNA of a the parent creature are passed along to its offspring. Most of these errors are neutral and are not expressed in the offspring. Even though they aren't expressed, though, they still exist in the genome. Sometimes, the mutations are expressed and can be harmful or fatal to the host. On very rare occasions, a mutation can convey a benefit to its host.

One example of an observed, beneficial mutation is tusk-less elephants. Ivory poachers will shoot elephants for their tusks. However, due to a genetic mutation, some elephants are born without tusks and so poachers won't shoot them. This is a benefit to the elephant. These elephants tend to live longer and pass the “tusk-less” mutation onto its offspring. In recent years, there has been a noticeable surge in the numbers of elephants born without tusks. But this type of mutation is not the trait-adding kind of mutation that could make evolution possible. Elephants being born without tusks does not explain how dinosaurs could acquire feathers.

The supposed first ancestor did not have feathers, hair, skin, scales, bones, blood, eyes, or organs of any kind. To turn a molecule into a man would require a billions of years long parade of novel features being added generation after generation. If evolution has happened, we should have many examples of observed, trait-adding mutations. We don't. In all my years of asking for examples of novel features appearing in a species, I continuously hear the same 3-4 questionable examples.

Trait-adding mutations are either astonishingly scare or non-existent. Evolutionists, however, are not deterred by the glaring lack of examples. Time is the hero of their fairy tale. In a 4 billion year old world, a new feature every million years or so is enough to rescue their theory. I'll tell you why it doesn't.

Are we agreed that trait-adding mutations are infrequent? OK. How often can we agree that they happen? Is it once every hundred mutations? Surely, it's not that often. I don't think it happens at all but, for the sake of argument, I could say it's more like 1 in 10,000 or even 1 in 100,000. Actually, in a moment you'll see why higher numbers are worse for evolution but I'm going to be very, very generous and say it's 1 in 1,000. Now, let's look at some math.

If 1 in every 1,000 mutations is a beneficial, trait-adding mutation for the host, then for the host to inherit 2 beneficial mutations means there will have been 1,000,000 neutral or harmful mutations (1,000 x 1,000). To inherit only 3 means there will have been 1,000,000,000 neutral or harmful mutations in the genome (1,000 x 1,000 x 1,000). Can you see where this is going? The genome is deteriorating 1,000 times faster than it is improving. To inherit even a handful of successful mutations comes at the great expense of billions and billions of unsuccessful mutations. How many successful mutations would it take to turn a molecule into a man? How long could such a wasteful process continue before the entire genome becomes too corrupted to sustain life? Remember, this is assuming 1 beneficial mutation in every 1,000. If it were 1 in 10,000, then 2 successful mutations comes with the burden of 100,000,000 other mutations!

In 1995, A.S. Kondrashov published a paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biology where he discussed contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations. Over time, the ratio of harmful mutations to good mutations should become unbearable and he says, “This paradox cannot be resolved by invoking beneficial mutations or environmental fluctuations.” In the title, he asks, “Why have we not died 100 times over?” Can you see now the problem that he saw? Any small success a mutation might mean for a species comes with many more mutations that should eventually kill it. It's a numbers game... and evolution is losing!

Not so simple beginnings

Richard Dawkins has said this:

If the alternative that's being offered to what physicists now talk about - a big bang, a spontaneous singularity which gave rise to the origin of the universe - if the alternative to that is a divine intelligence, a creator, which would have to have been complicated, statistically improbable, the very kind of thing which scientific theories such as Darwin's exists to explain, then immediately we see that however difficult and apparently inadequate the theory of the physicists is, the theory of the theologians - that the first course was a complicated intelligence - is even more difficult to accept.... Complicated things come into the universe late, as a consequence of slow, gradual, incremental steps. God, if he exists, would have to be a very, very, very complicated thing indeed. So to postulate a God as the beginning of the universe, as the answer to the riddle of the first cause, is to shoot yourself in the conceptual foot because you are immediately postulating something far far more complicated than that which you are trying to explain.

Dawkins tends to be a little wordy so let me simplify it: he is saying that the explanation for any phenomenon should be less complicated than the thing it tries to explain. Can I say that I find it humorous and somewhat ironic that he would use so many words to explain how things should have a simple explanation? Anyway... according to Dawkins, God would necessarily be far more complicated than the universe and so a Supreme Being as the First Cause is not a satisfactory explanation for the universe. It's a stretch, I know, but he makes this point frequently so he must think it's compelling.

Dawkins' argument suffers from a flawed premise. What objective, testable, scientific principle exists that requires a cause to be less complicated than its effect? He is trying to make a logical argument but it's more like philosophical “wishful thinking.” I utterly reject the notion that an explanation must necessarily be less complicated than what it explains. Such an idea runs contrary to everything we observe.

Consider a painting on a cave wall. How did the painting get there? It's not rocket-science: someone must have painted it on the wall. But isn't a human being more complicated than than the painting? So, according to Dawkins' reasoning, a human painting a picture on the wall isn't a satisfactory explanation.

Of course, Dawkins is not so easily stymied. He's heard this rebuttal before. He claims that the human who made the painting is, himself, the product of simpler beginnings. Through a billions of years long chain of events, the human has evolved from more primitive creatures, which evolved from a single celled creature, which rose naturally from non-living matter, which was fused together from simpler elements, which ultimately came from hydrogen atoms in the big bang. It's a sort of cosmic “butterfly effect” where an expanding cloud of hydrogen in space becomes a painting on a cave wall. How convenient.

The death knell of Dawkins argument lies in our understanding of cause and effect. We've learned that every phenomenon we've ever observed must have sufficient cause to explain it. In every case, the cause is not simpler than the effect but rather is always greater than the effect. In other words, a big bad wolf cannot huff and puff and blow a house down; it takes something like a hurricane or tornado to blow a house down. A ship cannot float unless the weight of the water it displaces weighs more than the ship itself. A bird cannot fly unless the shape of its wings creates more lift under its wings than the bird weighs.

Now, no system is perfectly efficient – there is always wasted energy. If a little input could create a greater output, then something like perpetual motion should be possible. It's not. The cause is always greater than the effect. Always! Therefore, the universe could not have come from nothing. Nothing can only produce nothing. It could never produce something – not even a single atom. The cause of all the matter and energy in the universe must necessarily be something greater than all the matter and energy in the universe.

Dawkins' rhetoric is really nothing more than clever semantics. There is no reason to expect the cause of the universe must be something less complicated than the universe. The exact opposite is true. God creating the universe is by far the most reasonable explanation.

“Kinds” versus “species”

The term “species” is surprisingly difficult to define. When asked, most people offer a reproductive test; that is, creatures that can reproduce naturally together and have fertile offspring are the same species. Of course, this definition is not without a myriad of exceptions. Wolves and dogs, for example, can mate and have fertile offspring yet they are considered different species. So can bison and cows, polar and grizzly bears, and dozens of other mammals. Hybridization is ridiculously common in plants. All of these are examples of different species mating so the ability to reproduce is not a rigorous definition of a species. Neither can a reproductive test be used to identify species of asexual organisms like bacteria.

Species is an invented term, I understand that. And, in spite of the many problems of defining it, I usually don't have a problem with the word. However, in some cases, an exact meaning of the term is necessary. I came across just such an instance the other day. On FaceBook, someone posted an article titled, Scientists watch as a new species evolves before their eyes. From the article:

Speciation, the formation of new species through evolution, is not usually an event you can directly observe. Organisms typically take many generations to accumulate enough changes to diverge into new species; it's a slow process. In fact, the difficulty of directly observing speciation is a reason cited by skeptics of evolution for why they have doubts. ¶But biologists working at the University of California, San Diego, and at Michigan State University, may have just put a rest to all of those naysayers. They report to having witnessed the evolution of a new species happen right before their eyes, in a simple laboratory flask

You can see from this paragraph, the author of the article is suggesting that the emergence of a new species (in the article, it's a new species of a virus) is somehow evidence of evolution.  If the rise of a new species is to be used as an example of evolution, then yes, I'm going to ask what criteria are the scientists using to define a species?  In this case, a reproductive test is not sufficient since viruses are also asexual and cannot “mate” with the parent population in any manner.

Did you notice, too, how the author seems characterize critics of evolution as people who deny speciation happens? He was very careful not to use the word, “creationists,” but we all know that's who he means. It's typical of evolutionists to make this straw man argument. The reality is that most creationists don't deny speciation. In fact, it's a critical part of young earth creationism. God created animals according to “kinds.” Noah took terrestrial animals on the ark in pairs of “kinds.” All modern species are descended from these narrow groups. The 30+ species of modern cats are all descended from the 2 felines on the ark, for example.

When told that creationists accept speciation, evolutionists respond in one of two ways. One way is to ridicule the creation model as a type of “hyper-evolution” because the amount of diversification that has occurred during the time since the Flood is much faster than the slow, gradual process theorized by evolutionists. In a previous post, I've discussed the claim that creationism is a belief in hyper-evolution. It's also somewhat hypocritical of them to criticize creationists for believing in rapid speciation when they post articles like the one above talking about speciation happening before their eyes – but never mind that now.

The other way they respond is to throw out a red herring and ask the creationist to define the term, “kind.” It's a red herring because, whether or not a creationist can define the word, “kind,” it doesn't excuse the evolution from having to define a species when it's being used in the example above.

When I was discussing the article above on FaceBook, one critic actually said he couldn't respond to any of my points until I gave a precise definition of “kind.” Really? I doubt that. I mean, there may not be an iron clad definition of the word species but I understand the term well enough to discuss it. I use the term frequently myself and only ask for a rigorous definition when evolutionists try to leverage “speciation” as evidence for their theory. Am I supposed to believe that evolutionists can't understand the concept of “kind” well enough to discuss it unless we give them an iron clad definition first? Like I said, it's a red herring.

I've discussed species and kinds on my blog before. I might not be able to give a rigorous definition of either but here are some practical definitions. A species is a population of organisms that have enough traits in common that they can be identified as belonging to the same group. I admit, my definition may have a few difficulties but at least it's rid of the need of a reproductive boundary. A kind is a group of organisms originally created by God that would reproduce organisms similar to themselves and includes all the varied species descended from the original group. Maybe I could come up with a better definition but, I daresay, this one is more precise than nearly any definition of species that I've heard from evolutionists.

Think about examples of species and kinds. Dogs, wolves, and coyotes can breed together and have fertile offspring yet they are considered different species. Because of their very different anatomies, Great Danes can no longer reproduce with chihuahuas yet they are still considered the same species. Evolutionists and creationists both agree that all canine have descended from a common ancestor yet if creationists call the members of the canine group a “kind,” evolutionists act like they can't understand the term at all. //RKBentley scratches his head//

Evolutionists play word games. They constantly conflate natural selection and evolution. I talked in my last post about how they casually use the word theory but harp on creationists for calling evolution a theory. They claim macroevolution is evolution above the species level but they can't even define what a species is. When pressed for a definition of species, they attempt to derail the conversation by asking creationists to define a kind instead. I agree you can't have a conversation with someone if there isn't a clear understand of the terms being discussed. In the evolution/creation debate, evolutionists aren't interested in discussion. I know they're not stupid – they're just playing dumb. Conflate, equivocate, obfuscate. That's the tactic of evolutionists.

Evolution is “just” a theory after all

Creationists sometimes criticize evolution by describing it as “just a theory.” In other words, it's a “theory” not a “fact” or a “law.” In response to that criticism, Scientific American said the following:

Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.

Now, it's typical for people in different lines of work to have industry specific terms or even specialized meanings for common words. It's called “jargon.” The word, “load,” for example, might mean something different to a truck driver than an engineer. It's always been a pet peeve of mine, wherever I've worked, to hear my employees use jargon when talking to customers. I would always have to remind them not to use terms like LTV, DI, or DDA when talking to customers. It's fine that people use jargon, but when you're communicating with the public, you need to use terms the public understands.

Scientists have a special meaning for the term, “theory.” I get it. Even so, I think evolutionists need to be a little more gracious when attempting to “educate” non-scientists in the scientific meaning of the term. I think their snobbery is unjustified in at least two ways: 1) Scientists are also a little casual in how they use the word and 2) the meaning intended by a lay person is not entirely incorrect. I'll expand on both of these points.

If the word theory is supposed to mean a “well-substantiated explanation” of some phenomenon, why do evolutionists habitually use the word “theory” when talking about abiogenesis? We have never observed life rising from non-living matter in nature; neither have we been able to artificially create life from non-living chemicals. There is no “well-substantiated explanation” of how it happened so there can be no theory of abiogenesis. All they have are guesses – wild guesses – about how it might have happened but none of the guesses have actually produced a living thing. Still, they call them “theories” about the origin of life. Why do they do that? It could be that they are trying to minimize the embarrassment of having no natural explanation for the origin of life by assigning to their guesses the “scientific” term, theory. It could be that they're really not as hyper-sensitive about the word as they pretend to be with critics and just use the technical definition of the word as a red herring to derail the debate. Either way, when they are so loosey-goosey with the term themselves, they lose credibility when they harp on how non-scientists use the word.

The other thing, though, is that, even according to the scientific definition, the “theory” is still just an explanation of something. It may be “well-tested.” It may seem to explain the thing well. But at the end of the day, the scientific meaning of the word isn't terribly different than how the non-scientist means it. They both mean explanations.

Let me give you an analogy: I can open a carton of eggs and see there are a dozen. That's an objective fact. But why are there a dozen eggs? In other words, why do they sell eggs in dozens rather than, say, in tens? If I had to inventory eggs, it's easier to count by tens than by twelves. If I had to guess, I would say it's because there are more ways to divide dozens than tens. If a farmer ships eggs to multiple families or a family is feeding several members, how many ways the eggs can be divided evenly is important because it reduces left overs. This could be my hypothesis and I could test it by questioning farmers or doing historical research into the practice. Maybe my hypothesis will be confirmed or maybe not. Regardless, why there are a dozen eggs will never be an objective fact in the same sense as there are a dozen eggs. Do you see? No matter how confident we may be with the theory, it will never be held in the same regard as the fact.

I've said before that calling evolution, “just a theory” is a weak criticism. I didn't mean, however, that it's wrong to say it. I think it's weak in the sense that it doesn't really address any particular weakness in the theory. It's sort of like saying, “evolution is stupid.” I think it is stupid but if I want to convince someone about why it's stupid, I'd better have something a little more substantial. On the other hand, evolution is not correct simply because evolutionists use the word, “theory” to describe it. When a critic expresses his doubts by describing evolution as “just a theory,” it means he's questioning the explanation. Scolding him about the technical meaning of the term, theory, doesn't really help the evolutionist. Let's face it, no matter how much smugness... er, I mean confidence evolutionists have, it really is just a theory after all!