Adventures in Creationism

"People Trying Really Hard to Sound Sophisticated for $1000, Alex."

I'll take Words Ending In '-sinine' for $500.

You probably know more about this than I do. I am not a creationist, but from what little I know about evolution, it sounds like there is a lot yet to be explained. How do highly complex systems with many interdependent parts -- take a bat's sonar, for example, or the different aspects of a bird's anatomy that permit flight -- evolve? Especially when, as often seems the case, the parts by themselves have no apparent evolutionary benefit.

Don't get me wrong, I pick evolution over creationism. But I get annoyed by people who treat evolution almost as a religion itself.

Wow! Look's like we have a budding Einstein of cryptozoology. This is a concept worth more discussion.

Until stumbling across this blog, I never gave any thought to the "debate" between evolution and creationism. It all seemed a complete waste of time. If someone believes the world is 5000 years old, logic isn't going to change his mind.

I just assumed someone was fighting school board creep (not creeps, though there may be some overlap) and science would prevail. Maybe that someone is you, Ed.

Who was it who said you cannot use reason to move someone from a position he did not attain with it in the first place?

Carpundit-

I am indeed one of those people who is fighting the attempts by creationists to weaken science education. I am one of the founders of Michigan Citizens for Science, which works against the efforts to weaken evolution education in my state, and I'm also involved with the National Center for Science Education to fight the battle nationwide. While it's true that there are people fighting it, it's not a foregone conclusion that science will win, for many reasons. First, because the other side is very, very good at political campaigning and public relations, something that the vast majority of scientists are very bad at. Second, because the public views the issue largely as a question of science vs religion, and in that battle science will lose every time, because while most people know virtually nothing about science, they believe strongly that their religious views must hold sway or all hell will break loose.

Patterico wrote:

You probably know more about this than I do. I am not a creationist, but from what little I know about evolution, it sounds like there is a lot yet to be explained. How do highly complex systems with many interdependent parts -- take a bat's sonar, for example, or the different aspects of a bird's anatomy that permit flight -- evolve? Especially when, as often seems the case, the parts by themselves have no apparent evolutionary benefit.

Of course there is a lot yet to be explained. That is true of any complex scientific theory (evolution is more properly described as a set of theories, not just one). There are all sorts of details yet to be worked out in terms of how specific systems evolved at the molecular level, or where in the phylogenetic tree yhe splitting off of many species took place. But in many ways, there are fewer unanswered questions in evolution than comparably complex theories. Newton's theory of gravity has held sway for centuries now (with some modifications, of course), yet we still don't know what gravity is - a particle? A force? A wave function? We really don't know. But the theory is enormously successful at explaining the data we have. The same is true for evolution.

There simply is no other explanation for the data in a dozen separate fields of science. The patterns of appearance in the fossil record are so universal and so perfectly in line with what evolution would predict that it provides powerful evidence for evolution. Let me paste something I wrote about order of appearance in an essay from several months ago:

If evolution is true, and each of these major animal groups split off from the previous one, then what would we expect? Well, we would expect that since each of these new groups split off from an already existing one, the order of appearance within those groups should be as conspicuous as the order of appearance in general. If the first amphibians split off from fish, then the first amphibians could only be slightly different than fish; if birds evolved from reptiles, then the first birds must have been very similar to reptiles; and so forth. And what does the fossil record show? Precisely that. The first amphibians to appear are the most fish-like, so much so that they retained internal gills and were still primarily aquatic. Over time, amphibians become more and more diversified and less fish-like, with later forms being successively more terrestrial and less aquatic. The first birds to appear are so reptile-like that they would be classified as theropod dinosaurs if not for the feathers. We now have multiple feathered theropod species to bridge the gap, and they all appear very early and share most of their traits with reptiles, not with modern birds. Over time, they diversified and became less reptile-like. The same can be said of the first mammals, which are so identical to the therapsid reptiles that they evolved from that where exactly you draw the line between the two groups is largely academic. And just like the other lineages, they start out with only one or two species that looks just like their presumed ancestor, then over time new branches appear that are successively less like those ancestors and more like modern mammals. This is exactly what evolution would predict. Indeed, if it wasn't that way, evolution would be falsified. If modern birds appeared all at once in the fossil record, with entirely avian skeletal structure and feathers and fully adapted for powered flight, there would be no way to link them to reptiles, and the same is true of every other major animal group. But they don't appear that way, and the order in which they do appear is precisely what evolution predicts.

Much more could be said on that subject, of course, and the basic pattern holds true in every single lineage that you look at.

The other thing is that the arguments that the creationists make against evolution are just so uniformly bad. I think that's why you see us defenders of evolution sometimes behave as though we are "true believers" in a religious sense - we just get so tired of seeing the same old nonsense over and over and over again. We still have to hear from some idiot how the moon doesn't have enough dust for the earth to be billions of years old, and we still get to see the same old quotes taken completely out of context, or just plain being made up and passed along, despite having shown that to be the case a million times over. It gets frustrating, believe me.

Les-

Oh, I think of it more as a cartoon. Hovind is the Batman of cryptozoology and Gibbons is Robin.

Good response.

Learn what a degree from Cambridge means today.

One has to wonder what separates a summa cum laude graduate from a run of the mill graduate?

Don't you mean "a run of the diploma mill graduate"?

Don't you mean "a run of the diploma mill graduate"?

LOL. Excellent.

Creationist astronomy. Richard Paley would like this one.

Les-

Wow. What a welter of nonsense that is. Their "fictional journey in search of the Oort Cloud" need only have looked at the recent discovery of Sedna, a planetoid found either at the outer edges of the Kuiper belt or the inner edges of the Oort cloud.

I love the sheer dishonesty of the creationists, who pretend that the Oort cloud was just an ad hoc argument to explain away the lack of long-period comets in the solar system. That's just a lie, plain and simple.

For a university, they got an awful lot of pop-ups going on....

By the way, Ed, thanks for the tip a couple of weeks back. It's a great resource, and I've only looked at it a little.

I meet William J Gibbons again

Hello,

Thanks for the "honorable" mention.

Allow me to comment on your posts concerning yours truly. So, my doctorate is from a diploma mill? Why - because its from a Christian school? Go ahead and prove that Cambridge is a diploma mill - you may as well claim the same thing for Harvard, Cambridge and Princeton, none of which are officially accredited anyway. But, then we mustn't discriminate must we?

Yes, I have been on four expeditions to Central Africa in search of Mokele-mbembe. And no, its not like camping in Oregon and looking for Bigfoot. Just think of the paperwork, travel, logistics and dangers of exploring remote rivers, swamps and lakes of Equatorial Africa. How many people do you actually know who have done the same thing?

I'm off to Cameroon in January 2005 for expedition number 6 (the 5th was back in November 2003). Our man in Cameroon is camped in an undisclosed location (thanks to satellite mapping) and believe me, we are on the verge of a major breakthrough. But, don't believe me -I'm a creationist and not to be trusted, isn't that what you "unbiased" folks believe?

Even if we do not find what we are looking for, at least I'll have some good adventures to tell my grandchildren one day (and lots of video footage too).

In closing, please give me you ten best evidences for evolution. Don't come with the excuse (and I've heard them all) that there are thousands. Just tem will do.

Best Wishes,

Bill Gibbons

So, my doctorate is from a diploma mill? Why - because its from a Christian school? Go ahead and prove that Cambridge is a diploma mill - you may as well claim the same thing for Harvard, Cambridge and Princeton, none of which are officially accredited anyway. But, then we mustn't discriminate must we?

Of course we must discriminate, in this case between academically rigorous universities and those who are not. First, it should be noted that I never claimed that your alma mater was a diploma mill. Ruidh made a play on words with that phrase in it but that was it. I don't know if it is a diploma mill or not.

Second, if you are seriously going to compare Harvard and Princeton to a distance-learning institution that can't even get its own domain name for its website and appears to be little more than a P.O. Box, people are going to question your sanity. While grad students at your alma mater are busy writing papers with subjects like How My Belief in the Nature of the Scriptures Affects My Life and Ministry, grad students at Harvard and Princeton are writing serious dissertations and mapping genomes. The very fact that one can obtain a degree in "Creation Science Apologetics" is pretty much a sure sign that it's not exactly a reputable university. And no, this has nothing to do with it being a Christian school. There are many fine Christian universities in the country with high academic standards - Calvin College, Baylor, Georgetown, Loma Linda, and many more.

Yes, I have been on four expeditions to Central Africa in search of Mokele-mbembe. And no, its not like camping in Oregon and looking for Bigfoot. Just think of the paperwork, travel, logistics and dangers of exploring remote rivers, swamps and lakes of Equatorial Africa. How many people do you actually know who have done the same thing?

Uh, none. And I think there's a reason for that.

I'm off to Cameroon in January 2005 for expedition number 6 (the 5th was back in November 2003). Our man in Cameroon is camped in an undisclosed location (thanks to satellite mapping) and believe me, we are on the verge of a major breakthrough. But, don't believe me -I'm a creationist and not to be trusted, isn't that what you "unbiased" folks believe?

Well when you make that major breakthrough and come back with some actual evidence (not supposition, not grainy photographs or 100 year old newspaper stories told by breathless missionaries) of a living sauropod in the Congo, please bring it. I will be more than happy to see such evidence, as will pretty much any biologist in the known universe. My guess is that you will be on the verge of this major breakthrough for a very long time, without ever actually breaking through.

In closing, please give me you ten best evidences for evolution. Don't come with the excuse (and I've heard them all) that there are thousands. Just tem will do.

Let's just start with one, shall we? In my response to Patterico above, I discussed biostratigraphy and laid out the order of appearance of the major animal groups. Do you have another reasonable explanation for the biostratigraphic patterns other than evolution? I'd be more than happy to discuss flood geology and "hydrodynamic sorting" and show why it is a complete failure as an explanation.

Dear Mr. Brayton,

Thank you for your prompt reply.

Second, if you are seriously going to compare Harvard and Princeton to a distance-learning institution that can't even get its own domain name for its website and appears to be little more than a P.O. Box, people are going to >question your sanity.

Take a look at the qualifications of the Faculty before you judge, plus the fact that Cambridge Graduate School is approved by the Akansas State Council for Higher learning. It is the academic standards that count here. My sanity has nothing to do with the question. Princeton has on its faculty a professor (Peter Singer) who openly advocates beastiality and the "right" for a mother to kill her handicapped child up to ten days after it has been born. And your tax dollars support him! HIS sanity needs to be examined, not mine.

Uh, none. And I think there's a reason for that.

What reason would that be? Consider that Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans and Dr. Roy Mackal who are secular acadmemics have conducted serious field research into Mokele-mbembe. Consider that the board of the International Society of Cryptozoology is made up of secular scientists, many who hold university chairs worldwide take reports of all kinds of mystery animals seriously and even fund expeditions to search for the without a creationist in sight. Should we question the sanity of topm Chinese biologists and zoologists who openly pursue the yeren or wildman? such things are not exclusive within creationist circles, though I would be interested to see just how evolutionists would handle a living dinosaur.

Well when you make that major breakthrough and come back with some actual evidence (not supposition, not grainy photographs or 100 year old newspaper stories told by breathless missionaries) of a living sauropod in the Congo, please bring it. I will be more than happy to see such evidence, as will pretty much any biologist in the known universe.

I intend to. I am not aware of any 100 year old newspaper reports by missionaries, but I have interviewed native hunter and fishermen, indigenous pastors, military personnel, riverboat captains and yes, modern-day missionaries, all who have had some pretty hairy encounters with Mokele-mbembes from 1985 to 2002.It left them pretty breathless too.

My guess is that you will be on the verge of this major breakthrough for a very long time, without ever actually breaking through.

Don't "guess" too hard will you? You have no idea what we found four months ago, and that is precisely why our Cameroonian director is in the "hot zone" right now - and why we are returning to that same area in January 2005. Seasonal timing, plus new technology and satellite mapping will help us to put the icing on the cake very soon. And you will be eating your words.

Let's just start with one, shall we? In my response to Patterico above, I discussed biostratigraphy and laid out the order of appearance of the major animal groups. Do you have another reasonable explanation for the biostratigraphic patterns other than evolution?

I would be delighted.

Why do all animal groups "appear" in the fossil record with no ancestral lineage? This is particularly true of the "mammal-like" reptiles. The so-called mammal-like reptiles are believed by evolutionists to be the ancestors of the mammals and to have become more mammal-like with the passage of time. Evolutionists consider anatomical traits to be mammal-like if they occur in modern mammals but not in other modern vertebrates. Evolutionists repeatedly claim that their assembled chain of mammal-like reptiles shows a step-by-step morphological progression to mammals. Despite this, a close and simultaneous examination of hundreds of anatomical character traits shows no such thing, even if one takes basic evolutionary suppositions as a given. Very many, if not most, of the pelycosaur and therapsid traits used in recent evolutionistic studies to construct cladograms actually show a contradictory pattern of progression towards, followed by reversion away from, the presumed eventual mammalian condition. Furthermore, gaps are systematic throughout the pelycosaur-therapsid-mammalian sequence, and these gaps are actually larger than the existing segments of the chain. These sobering facts demonstrate that, however the supposed evolutionary lineage of mammal-like reptiles towards mammals is interpreted, it is divorced from reality.

The highly-touted, alleged succession of mammal-like reptiles towards increasing mammalness is not found at any one location on Earth. It can only be inferred through the correlation of fossiliferous beds from different continents. Judgments are made as to which stratum on one continent is older than another stratum on another continent. Moreover, intercontinental correlations are made even when the fossil genera do not correspond with each other. Instead, the correlations are based on the general similarity of specimens, as well as their assumed degree of evolutionary advancement. The circularity of such reasoning is obvious. Thus, despite the claims of some evolutionists, it is clear that such biostratigraphic correlations are not empirically self-evident:

However, for purposes of an argument, it is acceptable to start with premises accepted by the evolutionists, even if I dont accept them myself, and show that they imply a conclusion that undermines the opponents positionin logic, this is called reductio ad absurdum. Thus, in this work, Ill presuppose that the evolutionists intercontinental correlations of therapsid fossils as true and valid. The same holds for evolutionary phylogenies and cladograms, as well as the anatomical deductions behind them. Despite granting all these concessions, it soon becomes obvious that many of the anatomically-based evolutionistic claims, when analyzed, turn out to be questionable. A more fundamental issue, however, is that evolutionistic claims about transitional character states (however these states are defined) typically centre on a relatively small number of features. These features are pieced together and cited as examples of evolutionary change towards reptiles that are increasingly mammal-like. This claim is made despite the fact that evolutionists are usually not concerned with ancestor-descendant relationships, but rather the degree of presumed evolutionary relatedness between mammal-like reptiles. Yet, using isolated bits of evidence, we could construct just about any progression we wanted. We could, for instance, arrange a sequence of spoons to show a progression in size, thickness, etc. And this would be all the more questionable if only parts of the spoons were considered (e.g. the spoons arranged to show a trend towards greater bowl size while the handles showed no trend at all). Kent Hovind demostrated this rather well, showing how a careful arranging of cutlery could show (theoretically) how a fork could evolve into a spoon.

Clearly, a comprehensive approach is needed. All the anatomical features must be considered, not just a few. Accordingly, this work evaluates the claim that mammal-like reptiles, as arranged in succession by evolutionists (from pelycosaurs to mammals), show an essentially unbroken chain of progressively more mammal-like fossils. We examine large numbers of inferred morphological changes, simultaneously considering literally hundreds of characters that have been used by evolutionists in the construction of cladograms (branching patterns showing alleged degrees of evolutionary relatedness of one form to another). Even though cladograms are not intended to identify ancestor-descendant relationships, each node (branching point) in the cladogram is taken by evolutionists to be, more or less, morphologically intermediate between the previous node and the successive one.

However, when analyzing character polarities in actual fossils, a few cautions are in order. To begin with, as discussed elsewhere, genera of mammal-like reptiles are inflated by taxonomic oversplitting, a fact that is substantiated by more recent studies. Another concern lies in the way that changes in anatomical characters are scored. This can always be done, deliberately or subconsciously, in a way which favours the desired evolutionary outcome. One evolutionary phrase that is often used in the linking of supposed evolutionary ancestry is 'biologically associated.'

Of course, the phrase biologically associated smacks of evolutionistic just-so stories. Even if we make generous concessions to the evolutionist, and I have not as yet disputed the validity of intercontinental biostratigraphic correlation, the temporal succession of mammal-like reptiles, the objectivity of anatomical analyses, the fact that cladograms are not intended to identify ancestor-descendant relationships, etc. Despite all these concessions, the evidence, taken as a whole, fails to conform to all the evolutionary ballyhoo surrounding the mammal-like reptiles.

Remember that mammal-like reptiles are not just any group of extinct creatures. They are supposed to be the very showcase of step-by-step, transition-filled evolutionary change. On this basis alone, the mammal-like reptiles should be subject to the strictest standards for evaluating alleged gradational evolutionary changes. Thus, the significance of morphological discontinuities becomes magnified. Second, whatever step-by-step changes to the mammalian condition do exist, these come only at the cost of having to discard large numbers of anatomical traits because they are reversingi.e. appearing, disappearing and reappearing in the chain. If, despite such treatment, the discontinuities can be shown to be significant in those relatively few traits which are unmistakably progressive to the mammalian condition, the credibility of mammal-like reptiles as genuine evolutionary transitions becomes all the more doubtful.

Probably the most informative analysis of mammal-like reptiles as (alleged) transitional forms is the one which focuses, in detail, on the presumed changes from advanced cynodonts to the earliest mammals. The cynodonts (Tritylodontidae and Trithelodontidae) rival each other for the status of the closest non-mammalian relatives to mammals. Yet, when all of the characters are considered, one is struck by the chasm between these advanced cynodonts and the earliest presumed mammals. Here, a giant evolutionary leap is required to make the presumed change from fairly advanced cynodonts to the advanced cynodonts. From there, another great gulf must be spanned in order to link the cynodonts with the earliest mammals.

Mammal-like reptiles may indeed qualify as the very best examples of transitional evolutionary change that evolutionary theory has to offer from the fossil record. This only shows the barrenness and intellectual poverty of macroevolution. The use of mammal-like reptiles as an argument for transitional change (however one strictly defines it) rests upon special pleading (like everything else in evolutionary theory). So let us permit the evolutionist special pleading and pretend that the large numbers of reversing traits dont exist, so that the argument can be based solely on the progressive characters. Even this does not let the evolutionist off the hook. To the contrary, the chain of mammal-like reptiles, when examined closely and with attention to many (instead of just a selected few) anatomical characters is full of major discontinuities. And very many of these discontinuities are as large, if not larger, than the ranges of characters which both precede and follow them. Therefore, the oft-repeated evolutionistic claim about mammal-like reptiles showing a series of intermediate stages to the mammalian condition is, at best, an exaggeration.

Could not the evolutionists argue that, as more fossils are discovered, the gaps will close? At least they have been trying to do so since the days of Darwin, but with little success, despite a vastly larger known fossil record. Remember that, as shown elsewhere, new fossil finds can just as easily accentuate the gaps as reduce or close them. Consider three new genera that have been described in the 1980s and 1990s: Sinoconodon, Adelobasileus and Haldanodon. As noted earlier, not enough is preserved of Adelobasileus to include it. When it comes to Sinoconodon, its existence does narrow the gap that would otherwise exist without it, but not by much in comparison with the gap that remains afterward. Haldanodon, on the other hand, cuts the other way. By virtue of the fact that its characters fall within the range for previously-known primitive mammals, its very discovery actually reinforces the gap between cynodonts and mammals.

But wait, What if mammal-like reptiles never existed? Would evolutionary theory be crippled? Certainly not. Evolutionary theory is so plastic that any series of observations in the natural world could be cited in its favour!

Evolutionists claim that it was a fossil found in the Karoo in 1838the skull of a mammal-like reptile with two large tusk-like teeth in its upper jawthat first convinced the scientific establishment that mammals had evolved from reptiles, not directly from amphibians. And T. H. Huxley (1880), for instance, proposed that amphibians gave rise to mammals. This conclusion was based on aortic arch patterns, heart morphology and features of the pelvis. Subsequent workers rejected Huxleys ideas when theriodont pelvises, which were not known to Huxley, were found to be intermediate in structure between the pelvises of amphibians and mammals.

Clearly, the ruling evolutionary paradigm existed before the discovery of mammal-like reptiles, and would have flourished had these reptiles never been discovered. In that event, todays evolutionists would be extolling some extinct amphibian group as the transitions (or stratomorphic intermediates) leading up to mammals. Cladograms would be constructed to show the close branching pattern between that chosen group of amphibians and mammals.

All else would fall in place according to the dictates of evolutionary dogma. The evolutionist triumphalists would be telling everyone that evolution is fact because of the many obvious similarities between the ancestral amphibians and the descendant mammals. Compromising evangelical evolutionists would preach about the fact that God would never mislead us by separately creating mammals and amphibians with so many shared structures. Leading humanist scientists would inform us that anyone who questions the amphibian-mammalian transition cannot possibly be a scientist, no matter his degrees or publications. And, of course, the secularist fanatics would whip up considerable hysteria about the fact that the questioning of the amphibianmammalian transition is a dangerous threat to the very survival of science and reason, and that, if not quickly reversed, it will soon return us to the Dark Ages.

And the prevailing myth of macroevolution goes on.

Next!

Bill Gibbons

Mr. Gibbons-

I have moved this discussion to its own thread near the top of the page so it will get the attention it deserves.

Mr. Brayton,

Thank you for the note.

I will reply more directly (hopefully tonight) regarding your question on biostratigraphy.

Best Wishes,

Bill Gibbons