The following is my idea of a good defense of science and truth. Tell me what you think, mistakes, etc.
Of course some non-natural being with unlimited power (let's call it God, we usually do) could have created all the universe and everything, for it is, well, allmighty. God could have created the universe yesterday already with a past and false memories in all of us. He, or she, or it, could have created it 6,000 years ago and implanted fossils, fake atomic half-lives, geology, etc. Or the universe could have sprouted from a lotus flower out of Brahma's navel, like the Hindus believe. Or he could have created the universe 10 billion years ago with all the natural complex needed for complex atoms, molecules, and life and species to eventually evolve at least on one planet.
But what happens when we, by ourselves, with our own intellect and research, look into the world and try to come up with the best conclusions on how things work? That's science. Science in a primitive form has existed since ancient times. If your religion tells you that if you plant a rock a tree will grow from it, you try it and it doesn't work, you might think then that it is an evil force that is preventing God's word from being realized. But eventually you figure out (Im talking primitive farmers here!) you need a seed and that religion was wrong. Of course this is a pretty obvious exemple, but let me go on.
Unlike most religions, Abrahamic ones (Chr, Jud, Islam) and Zoroastrianism believe that a god created the world a number of years ago, and life and humans were created directly by him. All species were created separately, they do not share common ancestors.
How do we test that hypothesis? Well, farmers have, unwittingly, "tested" the hypothesis for a number of millenia, creating many breeds and sub-species of plants and animals through artificial selection. It is true, however that at least in recorded history, no life form was so radically altered as to become a new species, but wait...
take dogs for instance. They are all a single species, but man has created several breeds. Some of them, like the chihuahua and the saint-bernard, differ however so much in size that they cannot naturally mate, and the foetus's growth would kill the poor chihuahua mother. A path has been taken, no coming back. The same goes for thousands of artificially selected species of animals and plants created by generations of farmers.
No one can deny that the natural environment can also select the survival of specific traits, for instance a single population of a species of tiger can have a few individuals with slightly better nails, enabling them to survive and thus reproduce more successfully, whereas the ones with worse nails could either die without reproducing or find another habitat. That would change the gene-pool of every population.
How do we know that this natural selection can actually generate different species? Of course they can generate different sub-species, but can we find in nature examples of species which are splitting into other species?
Yes. Several related animals have varying degrees of reproductive compatibility, like the horse with the donkey and the zebra. That is a hint that naturall selection could have pushed these species apart a long time ago, but not enough for incompatibility.
So there is no exact "cutting point" where we can say that two populations have become different species, its a continuum, commonly and abundantly found in nature.
That makes it almost undeniable that the best way to understand the origin of species is through natural selection plus a long time, countless generations. Of course mammals share a common ancestor, but could ancient fish have turned into reptiles and mamals? I mean, can radically different animal groups have evolved from common ancestor? What would an intermediate between a fish and a mammal be?
We can always know that because 99,999% of all organisms have died without fossilizing. But even if 100% didn't fossilize, could we still come up with a hypothesis? Yes, because we see several animals and plants today which form a continuum between all kind of organisms. There are fish with only gills, fish with gills and mini-lungs, fish with gills and lungs, fish with tiny gills and huge lungs, fish with only lungs and legs... ooops, that's a reptile. There are land mammals, mammals who swim a lot, mammals which have webbed paws, mammals whose webbed feet have become almost fins, mammals with fins, mammals with fins and no rear legs, i.e., whales. The so-called "intermediates" abound in nature, only there are no intermediates, every individual is a full individual, it's our classifying minds that create the need for "intermediates".
We can't possibly fill the gaps because life is the most complex part of nature and certainly life will be the last puzzle solved by science, if at all. It is extremely unfair and biased to expect that just because we haven't figured out each step, that evolution through natural selection is wrong or impossible. It's like saying that Newton's mechanics was wrong just because Einstein came up with a more accurate theory.
Now how could one honestly criticize Evolution through Natural selection? Every person of reason and science should constantly try to find mistakes with currently accepted theories.
No one can deny that evolution through selection happens because we can see it within our lives in a very tiny way, and within human history from farmer's selection in a slightly broader way, and since fossil records show different animals and plants in different time-scales, as opposed to all blended together, also complying with order of appearance expectations, we can hardly come up with a better solution for how life came to be the way it is today. Gaps exist, and always will, but the facts collected match the Evolution through Selection model.
Of course life could have appeared through other means, but no one has come up with a better model yet. But just because Earth isn't 100% round, it doesn't mean it's flat.
The problem with creationism is that it's just a "Gap-Filler" theory. Oh, science doesn't explain every tidy bitty detail on how platypuses evolved, so some (unspecified) "higher force" must have intervened. Of course a supernatural could intervene at any time, the problem is figuring out exactly how.
I call upon creationists and people who don't believe in Evolution by means of Natural Selection to state EXACTLY what is your theory of what happened, when, where, by what means. And if no proof is given, at least show me some complete method of reasoning. Pointing out mistakes is easy, too easy. Feel free, however, to point my mistakes though!
Of course some non-natural being with unlimited power (let's call it God, we usually do) could have created all the universe and everything, for it is, well, allmighty. God could have created the universe yesterday already with a past and false memories in all of us. He, or she, or it, could have created it 6,000 years ago and implanted fossils, fake atomic half-lives, geology, etc. Or the universe could have sprouted from a lotus flower out of Brahma's navel, like the Hindus believe. Or he could have created the universe 10 billion years ago with all the natural complex needed for complex atoms, molecules, and life and species to eventually evolve at least on one planet.
But what happens when we, by ourselves, with our own intellect and research, look into the world and try to come up with the best conclusions on how things work? That's science. Science in a primitive form has existed since ancient times. If your religion tells you that if you plant a rock a tree will grow from it, you try it and it doesn't work, you might think then that it is an evil force that is preventing God's word from being realized. But eventually you figure out (Im talking primitive farmers here!) you need a seed and that religion was wrong. Of course this is a pretty obvious exemple, but let me go on.
Unlike most religions, Abrahamic ones (Chr, Jud, Islam) and Zoroastrianism believe that a god created the world a number of years ago, and life and humans were created directly by him. All species were created separately, they do not share common ancestors.
How do we test that hypothesis? Well, farmers have, unwittingly, "tested" the hypothesis for a number of millenia, creating many breeds and sub-species of plants and animals through artificial selection. It is true, however that at least in recorded history, no life form was so radically altered as to become a new species, but wait...
take dogs for instance. They are all a single species, but man has created several breeds. Some of them, like the chihuahua and the saint-bernard, differ however so much in size that they cannot naturally mate, and the foetus's growth would kill the poor chihuahua mother. A path has been taken, no coming back. The same goes for thousands of artificially selected species of animals and plants created by generations of farmers.
No one can deny that the natural environment can also select the survival of specific traits, for instance a single population of a species of tiger can have a few individuals with slightly better nails, enabling them to survive and thus reproduce more successfully, whereas the ones with worse nails could either die without reproducing or find another habitat. That would change the gene-pool of every population.
How do we know that this natural selection can actually generate different species? Of course they can generate different sub-species, but can we find in nature examples of species which are splitting into other species?
Yes. Several related animals have varying degrees of reproductive compatibility, like the horse with the donkey and the zebra. That is a hint that naturall selection could have pushed these species apart a long time ago, but not enough for incompatibility.
So there is no exact "cutting point" where we can say that two populations have become different species, its a continuum, commonly and abundantly found in nature.
That makes it almost undeniable that the best way to understand the origin of species is through natural selection plus a long time, countless generations. Of course mammals share a common ancestor, but could ancient fish have turned into reptiles and mamals? I mean, can radically different animal groups have evolved from common ancestor? What would an intermediate between a fish and a mammal be?
We can always know that because 99,999% of all organisms have died without fossilizing. But even if 100% didn't fossilize, could we still come up with a hypothesis? Yes, because we see several animals and plants today which form a continuum between all kind of organisms. There are fish with only gills, fish with gills and mini-lungs, fish with gills and lungs, fish with tiny gills and huge lungs, fish with only lungs and legs... ooops, that's a reptile. There are land mammals, mammals who swim a lot, mammals which have webbed paws, mammals whose webbed feet have become almost fins, mammals with fins, mammals with fins and no rear legs, i.e., whales. The so-called "intermediates" abound in nature, only there are no intermediates, every individual is a full individual, it's our classifying minds that create the need for "intermediates".
We can't possibly fill the gaps because life is the most complex part of nature and certainly life will be the last puzzle solved by science, if at all. It is extremely unfair and biased to expect that just because we haven't figured out each step, that evolution through natural selection is wrong or impossible. It's like saying that Newton's mechanics was wrong just because Einstein came up with a more accurate theory.
Now how could one honestly criticize Evolution through Natural selection? Every person of reason and science should constantly try to find mistakes with currently accepted theories.
No one can deny that evolution through selection happens because we can see it within our lives in a very tiny way, and within human history from farmer's selection in a slightly broader way, and since fossil records show different animals and plants in different time-scales, as opposed to all blended together, also complying with order of appearance expectations, we can hardly come up with a better solution for how life came to be the way it is today. Gaps exist, and always will, but the facts collected match the Evolution through Selection model.
Of course life could have appeared through other means, but no one has come up with a better model yet. But just because Earth isn't 100% round, it doesn't mean it's flat.
The problem with creationism is that it's just a "Gap-Filler" theory. Oh, science doesn't explain every tidy bitty detail on how platypuses evolved, so some (unspecified) "higher force" must have intervened. Of course a supernatural could intervene at any time, the problem is figuring out exactly how.
I call upon creationists and people who don't believe in Evolution by means of Natural Selection to state EXACTLY what is your theory of what happened, when, where, by what means. And if no proof is given, at least show me some complete method of reasoning. Pointing out mistakes is easy, too easy. Feel free, however, to point my mistakes though!
