Spread the word – Evolution is a scientific fact
| January 9, 2008 | Posted by idnet.com.au under Intelligent Design |
Nature wants all science organisations to preach the word of evolution by natural selection.
“Evolution is a scientific fact, and every organization whose research depends on it should explain why. Three cheers for the US National Academy of Sciences for publishing an updated version of its booklet Science, Evolution, and Creationism (see www.nap.edu/sec). The document succinctly summarizes what is and isn’t science, provides an overview of evidence for evolution by natural selection, and highlights how, time and again, leading religious figures have upheld evolution as consistent with their view of the world.
For a more specific and also entertaining account of evolutionary knowledge, see palaeontologist Kevin Padian’s evidence given at the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial (see http://tinyurl.com/2nlgar). Padian destroys the false assertions by creationists that there are critical gaps in the fossil record. He illustrates the fossil-rich paths from fish to land-based tetrapod, from crocodile to dinosaur to feathered dinosaur to bird, from terrestrial quadruped to the whale, and more besides.
Creationism is strong in the United States and, according to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, worryingly on the rise in Europe (see http://tinyurl.com/2knrqy). But die-hard creationists aren’t a sensible target for raising awareness. What matters are those citizens who aren’t sure about evolution — as much as 55% of the US population according to some surveys.
As the National Academy of Sciences and Padian have shown, it is possible to summarize the reasons why evolution is in effect as much a scientific fact as the existence of atoms or the orbiting of Earth round the Sun, even though there are plenty of refinements to be explored.
Some actual and potential heads of state refuse to recognize this fact as such. And creationists have a tendency to play on the uncertainties displayed by some citizens. Evolution is of profound importance to modern biology and medicine. Accordingly, anyone who has the ability to explain the evidence behind this fact to their students, their friends and relatives should be given the ammunition to do so. Between now and the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth on 12 February 2009, every science academy and society with a stake in the credibility of evolution should summarize evidence for it on their website and take every opportunity to promote it.”
36 Responses to Spread the word – Evolution is a scientific fact
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Lutepisc: Religion is not a monolithic entity. The opposition to the teaching of evolution in Dover was clearly religiously motivated to some extent. But it is nevertheless possible to be religious (to believe in a supernatural god) and to simultaneously believe that Darwinian evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life on Earth.
Thank you, congregate. I see I moved off JPCollado’s finely-tuned point that the NAS document is internally inconsistent.
Mr. congregate,
where did the article state that the evolution these so called “leading” religious figures ascribe to is necessarily darwinian in nature? Not only that….as if on an effort to enhance the misunderstanding, the author(s) doesn’t even mention the name of a single religious personage as an example.
Religion, like you wrote, is not monolithic. This also applies to evolution, and the article did a terrible job (as well as the editors of Nature for failing to correct the error) in not highlighting the necessary distinctions.
This was a logical categorical error, and a magazine devoted to screening mistakes of this sort, should know better.
Modifying the first premise will not change the outcome of the article’s fallacious argument, as long as the second premise still holds. To clarify:
Let C = creationism
P1: D does not accept E, because of C
P2: E and R are perfectly compatible with each other
What is the conlusion?
The article is forcing us to make a few untenable affirmations, one of them being that R and C are not compatible with each other. But we could see that this does not make sense because C is a sub-set of R. The only way that R is compatible with E and C at the same time is if E shared some element of C (Theistic Evolution?). The problem is that the article is not making any kind of distinction. Evolution is a big word encompassing a wide variety of ideas and positions. Likewise with religion.
Another fallacious conclusion is the agitation behind D coming from fringe religious groups, because, certainly they are not coming from “leading” religious figures. It goes on and on. The editors of Nature should be ashamed of allowing such shoddy scholarship and/or writing and misleading the public.
mohammed.husain (#12): “Really, I’m not as concerned about whether or not ID can acommadate an old-earth or a young earth, I’m more interested in how confident we can be with any sort of scientific dating claims.”
vjtorley in #22 gave two good links on radiometric dating. Wiens’ paper is especially good. I think the radiometric dating data for igneous rock strata is compelling, and most of the dating of fossiliferous sedimentary rock layers used by evolutionists is derived from this. Accordingly the dating of the fossil record is on a very firm foundation. Of course, it can be speculated that isotopic decay rates have changed with time, or that the whole assemblage was created instantly with all the supposed evidence of age incorporated to deceive us.
Is that the best that NAS can do? See CMI’s refutation: Science, Creation and Evolutionism
Response to the latest anticreationist agitprop from the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Science, Evolution and Creationism.