I'm not normally the type to write on this subject, but after
seeing tons of pictures online last week of Creationists who were trying to attack
evolution using invalid arguments, I decided to use my biology degree
for the only purpose it has: writing random blogposts that no one will read.
I’m a Christian myself, I promise you. I believe God created the world. And I’m
not here in any way to debate creationism or persuade someone to believe
exactly what I do. If I’ve learned anything growing up,
trying to convince people to have the same worldview as me usually leads nowhere.
In an age
of technology, everyone is apparently a bleeping expert in everything. Next blogpost I
write could be about the best ways to start a business (I’ve never taken a
single business class), and somehow that blogpost would go around the internet
as “expert” advice while I sit back laughing maniacally. Similarly to how the
only marriage posts I saw going around the internet last year were been written
by random single people calling me an idiot for getting married. My point here is that it’s okay if you’ve never taken more than the required biology course you were supposed to
take in high school or college. I’m not asking you to be some expert in
evolution and everything related to biology. However, I do know the problems first hand that people can face growing up in the church their entire life without learning evolution in the first place. I was taught by some people that the mere understanding of it and reading up on it could "lead me away from God," and from others that there's no point in learning about it if we already know "the truth." Because of this, I never so much as picked up a
book containing anything related to an understanding of evolution by the time I graduated high
school. And if I was able to get by with this in 2009, I know there were a ton
of other people out there who also haven’t studied details of evolution, but are still bothering to debate it. So the
main reason I’m writing this post is to bring up a few arguments I’ve seen over
and over again by creationists that could never work when talking to an evolutionist.
And lucky for me, in the process of trying to find examples, I found out that they were already written for me in giant signs after the debate last week.
The first argument is “if we
evolved from monkeys, how come monkeys still exist?” This is one of the most
obvious signs someone has not properly studied what evolution is in the first
place haha. What evolution teaches is that we share a common ancestor with a bonobo (type of ape). Picture a
family tree. Let's say you have a grandmother who was born with blue eyes, and a
grandfather with brown eyes. She had a boy with brown eyes and a girl (your
mother) with blue eyes. You have blue eyes, but your cousins all have brown eyes.
You look at your mother and say “how the heck do brown eyes still exist if we
all have blue eyes?” This is what that argument sounds like to someone who has been studying evolution. When
you look at a family tree (called a phylogenetic tree when comparing
species), one branch goes one way, and another branch goes another
way. That’s about as basic as I can possibly put it. Not everything is going to
evolve the same way. Taking micro-evolution into consideration, you have tons
of domesticated dog breeds that share a common ancestor with a dog 31,000 years ago that most closely resembles a Siberian Husky. Even within a species, some breeds last and others don't. A husky and a golden retriever sharing a common ancestor does not mean that the husky will become extinct and only golden retrievers will last. In the case of macro-evolution, believing species have the
capability of evolving does not always mean the original species is eradicated.
Another argument involves anything
with the phrase “just a theory.” This makes me (or anyone in the field of
science) cringe even more than hearing someone pronounce the word “espresso”
like “expresso.” A theory is a huge term in science. Please do not ever confuse
the words “hypothesis” with “theory.” These two words have completely different
meanings. In the field of science, the two highest labels are “law” and
“theory.” The word "law" in the field of science pertains to an analytical
statement, usually in the form of a mathematical formula. Newton’s Law of
Universal Gravitation, for instance, provides one with the ability to measure the
gravitational pull between an object and the earth. A theory, on the other
hand, explains why something happens. Gravity could also be considered a theory
due to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. This theory has been greatly supported
through countless experiments. Even a GPS working properly after scientists
accounted for the gravitational time dilation helps support this theory. It’s
just common knowledge in the field of science that you can’t ever use the word
“proven” when supporting a theory. Not because it isn’t accurate, but because
you can’t “prove” something completely that isn’t entirely explained with a
formula. Luckily for people in the field of math and physics, mathematics is
the only area in the entire planet where we can actually prove something with mathematical proofs (I might
be exaggerating a tad, but not really). In the field of science, a theory is
practically the same thing as saying “fact,” except you have to always leave
the option open to disprove it (falsifiability). The Germ Theory, for instance, will never be "disproven." Bacteria cause diseases. We know that. However, we just can’t prove it
with math. Saying the word “just a theory” to a scientist is pretty much saying
“but it’s just fact!”
The Theory of Evolution is a much broader term than many people assume. If you believe in micro-evolution, the fact that species change over
time (basic knowledge), then you believe in aspects of the Theory of Evolution
even if you don’t believe in macro-evolution - the portion of the theory that postulates large scale change between major groups of organisms over large spans of time. However, there are different
hypotheses/postulates that contribute to the theory of evolution that have not been
supported enough to be considered a theory. If you disagree with one of these, you should argue against these specific hypotheses. Perhaps you don’t think that Haeckel’s
famous embryos were an accurate representation of comparing species at their earliest stages of development. But saying
“evolution is just a theory” ensures the individual you’re conversing with of your complete lack of understanding in the area of scientific inquiry. This isn’t going to start out the
conversation well. Also, there is no "theory of the Bible" as one of the signs being held by an individual in the photo above says. The Bible is a book. I follow the Bible's scriptures, I love the Bible, but it's still a book.
First of all, the Big Bang is not part of the Theory of Evolution. There are plenty of evolutionists that don't believe the Big Bang ever occurred in the first place. For those that do, dying stars become black holes, they don't form planets. I have no idea where this kid got the idea of a star. The Big Bang did not originate with an exploding star...that's called a nova or a supernova if it's particularly large. The prevailing consensus is that the Big Bang was an explosion that involved an extremely-hot, and infinitely-dense core of energy. And no stars were involved since by definition, stars didn't exist yet, haha. Although I have to say that when I found out there was a giant explosion growing up, I thought "holy crap, that explains Genesis when God said 'Let there be light!'" I thought it actually helped explain the Bible more than just some light bulb going off. From my understanding of God, I think He's a little more powerful than saying "let there be light" and simply *bloop* happened. I would imagine some giant explosion took place. But yes, this kid could have used a similar (and more effective) argument to attack another worldview and say "where did the original matter or energy come from?" just like Creationists have to support the idea that a Creator was always there to begin with. Either way, something had to exist in an eternal state (whether a supernatural God or the universe itself) from the perspective of either worldview.
Science is not a theory; it is a method of gathering knowledge about the world around us. And a theory IS testable, observable, and repeatable. That's actually practically the definition of a theory. And by saying science instead of "evolution" (which would have made a lot more sense), you're pretty much saying that neither creationism nor the theory of intelligent design can be remotely supported by science because science is inversely related to intelligent design. That's a bad thing. This is probably the most face-palming of all face palms.
*There
...and if you're going to explain your view that the gorgeous world that surrounds you supports your idea that a Creator is behind it all, I would highly suggest not making it sound like science hasn't actually figured out what causes sunsets in the first place.
