Then Why Are There Still Apes?
Every now and then I have to give a good creationist smack down. It’s like therapy for a skeptic, a catharsis or good colon cleansing (OK, maybe not the colon cleansing). Sure, they make the same fallacious arguments over and over again – but just like taking out the trash, you have to do it on a regular basis or the stink piles up. So here are a few house cleaning creationist rebuttals.
Transitional Fossils
This remains one of the most frustrating contentions (someone who is not charitable or afraid of being sued might say “lies”) of the creationists – that there are no transitional fossils. Meanwhile, there are countless beautiful transitional fossils telling a clear story of common descent. How can two sides have such a different opinion about what appears to be a factual claim – are there transitional fossils or not? Well, the fossils are there, and the scientific community is pretty solid on their interpretation. Creationists simply deny their existence as a naked assertion, or (the more industrious) trot out logical fallacies and their own personal ignorance of evolutionary theory in order to deny the transitional status of fossils.
What this latter strategy amounts to is pointing to legitimate scientific debate about how to assemble an evolutionary tree (what evolved from what and when) or cladogram from the fossil evidence. Reverse engineering hundreds of millions of years of the evolution of millions of species from the fossil record is challenging, and so there is constant debate about the details. Creationists make the mistake of confusing debate about these details with debate about the bigger picture – that the fossils show a picture of common descent.
But perhaps the most common creationist fallacy used to dismiss transitional fossils amounts to saying – “if humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes.” Casey Luskin from the DiscoTute, a particularly sloppy apologist for ID/creationism, makes this exact fallacy on a recent post from the Evolution News and Views propaganda blog.
Here’s the logical fallacy – it assumes evolution is like a ladder or chain – one species changes into another, and then another, in a direct sequence. But that has never been the scientific consensus on evolution. Rather, when speciation events occur, one species become two. These two branches can now go off in different directions. In many cases what we find are many such branching events within related groups of species. It may happen that one branch leads to significant morphological change – a new group. And then there will be many species within a morphological space between the original species and the one branch that lead to the new group. Many or all of these species may be considered morphologically intermediate or transitional – but very few will be on the direct line that led from the original ancestor species to the new group.
Further, after a speciation event one species may remain relatively unchanged for millions of years, while the other branches further, perhaps adapting to a new environment. The relatively unchanged species may retain features that are considered primitive for the highly changed cousin branch for millions, even tens of millions of years. And so we still have amoeba, even though some distant cousin of the modern amoeba branched off and eventually led to people. But we expect that there are creatures (extinct and extant) that exist in the morphological space between amoeba and humans – and not surprisingly, there are.
This is an extreme example, so lets give some that are more pertinent. We hypothesize that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs. This led to the prediction that we would find creatures that occupy the morphological space between birds and dinosaurs. And we have – starting with archaeopteryx, but exploding in recent years to a host of feathered dinosaurs, some flying, some not. Perhaps not a single one of the creatures discovered is an actual bird ancestor – it matters not. They are transitional. Further, as the fossil record of these creatures was scant it seemed that feathered dinosaurs were all from a later period than the earliest birds. But as we found more and more fossils, and the picture started to fill in, as predicted the time of the oldest feathered dinosaurs moved closer and closer toward the earliest birds, and now we have specimens that predate them – problem solved.
Luskin is now arguing that Tiktaalik – the fishapod that is a fish filling a morphological space when one branch of fish were evolving fins into feet and adapting to walking, is not transitional. It is a fabulous transitional species, from a time and place and with the features we would generally expect for such a specimen. But we are talking about evolutionary events that happened about 380 to 400 millions years ago, and while we have many specimens they represent a tiny fraction of what would be necessary to create something close to a complete picture or cladogram. And so scientists connect the dots as best they can, but understand that each new fossil discovery is likely to revise the cladogram. The big picture is clear – fish evolved into tetrapods around this time. The details are sketchy and subject to change with each new find.
So it is not surprising at all that recently, as presented in Nature, scientists discovered the tracks of an early tetrapod that dates about 10 million years before Tiktaalik. This only means that Tiktaalik was a cousin of the slightly older species that led to tetrapods – like a chimpanzees to humans. Imagine a hypothetical future scientist millions of years from now trying to piece together human evolution from the fossil evidence. Their only primate specimens are lemurs, monkeys, and Homo erectus. They hypothesize that Homo erectus is a primate, and therefore predict that they will find transitional species between monkeys and H. erectus, and they find the remains of a chimpanzee from today – a million years younger than their erectus specimen. This find would confirm the evolution of hominids from non-hominid primates, even though the chimp specimen comes from a time later than the hominid specimen – because it fills the morphological space between monkeys and hominids.
Luskin does not get this, writing:
The fossil tetrapod footprints indicate Tiktaalik came over 10 million years after the existence of the first known true tetrapod. Tiktaalik, of course, is not a tetrapod but a fish, and these footprints make it very difficult to presently argue that Tiktaalik is a transitional link between fish and tetrapods. It’s not a “snapshot of fish evolving into land animals,” because if this transition ever took place it seems to have occurred millions of years before Tiktaalik.
If tetrapods evolved from fish, why are there still fish?
PZ Myers goes into more detail about what these new tetrapod tracks mean for our cladogram of the evolution of tetrapods from fish. It does make changes, putting certain lines further into the past than previously believed. I fully expect that every new fossil find (until a much more thorough picture emerges) will modify this cladogram, and buffoons like Luskin will declare each time he notices that this must call evolution itself into question.
The Creationist Editorial
Local papers frequently publish editorials from local creationists, who demonstrate clearly the effect that anti-evolution efforts have had on the quality of science education in this country. Often they just regurgitate the creationist propaganda they have soaked up and pass them along as unsupported assertions. You might say that picking on such editorials is not fair because they do not reflect the best arguments of the creationists. The sad fact is that they do – the Luskins of the creationist movement use more sophistimacated words, but their arguments are the same. And, in any case, it is good to address popular public belief.
Oleson Joe Lyng wrote in the Mesquite Public News a representative editorial (yes, we can make the obvious joke that he forgot the “i” in the middle of his last name).He goes through a fairly standard list of false creationist claims, including that there are no transitional fossils. He wrote:
Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the world’s leading astronomers and mathematicians said before the British Academy of Science that the probability of life arising from chance were the same as the probability of throwing a six on dice 5 million consecutive times!
He starts with a bit of an argument from authority, but the assertion is simply wrong, and has long been refuted. No one believes that a modern cell arose directly by chance (a straw man). Living cells themselves evolved over millions of years. There was likely a period of chemical evolution, which requires only the existence of a molecule that can make a crude copy of itself. From that the various components of the cell could have slowly come together. We certainly have only scanty knowledge about how this process occurred – but it simply wrong that evolution requires the spontaneous assembly of something close to a modern living cell.
He continues (I am picking a few of his arguments – he strings many of them together):
The law of entropy in nature says that time itself causes degradation by natural processes.
Just put a new car in that junkyard and watch it rust and fall apart over the years.
Things in nature tend to deteriorate into chaos over time or become more disorganized than organized.
The old second law of thermodynamics gambit. Here’s a tip to future creationist editorial writers – before embarrassing yourself (it’s Luskin’s job to embarrass himself, but you don’t have to do it) by vomiting forth a fallacious argument that has been destroyed numerous times in public discourse, exercise your Google skilz and find out what the counter argument is. I have dealt with this one myself numerous times.
But quickly – I wonder how Mr. Lyng thinks an oak tree grows from an acorn. If nature only results in deterioration and chaos, that should be impossible. Oh yes, acorns are alive and can use energy to grow and organize matter into an oak tree. Right – and life, which can use energy to grow and organize, can also evolve.
It gets better:
God created everything, and when he created light he created it already present from far away stars so we could see them!
Is anything too hard for God?
Thank you, Mr. Lyng, for proving that creationism is not science. If God can do anything, and therefore all disconfirming evidence of creation can be dismissed by waving the magic wand of divine omnipotence, there is no way to scientifically test the assertions of creationists. They are not scientific hypotheses – and creationism is not science.
While Mr. Lyng is skeptical of evolution, his standards of evidence are somewhat more forgiving when it comes to the Bible:
They espouse the bible as being totally non-literal when in fact predictions about Jesus’ first coming to the earth were fulfilled literally.
For example, Jesus was supposed to be crucified between two thieves.
Jesus was to be buried in a rich man’s tomb.
Jesus also said that the temple would be destroyed in Jerusalem.
That happened in 70 A.D.
Essentially his argument is that a literal interpretation of the Bible proves a literal interpretation of the Bible. So he starts with a straw man – “they” (I think he means evolutionists) don’t necessarily claim that the Bible is “totally non-literal” – there are many books in the Bible, and some are more historical than others. But in any case, many biblical scholars maintain that the authors of the New Testament were aware of the predictions of the Old Testament at the time they were writing, and so used these details as literary devices to make the point that Jesus was fulfilling the messianic predictions of the Old Testament.
Answering a Commenter
By coincidence, a comment popped up on an old creationist blog entry from about a year ago. I might as well add them to the pot. Bostonbruins writes:
One day, when we die we’ll see who’s right, won’t we?
And, if the Creationists are right, then we’re happy in heaven, and if we’re wrong then who gives a crap anyways, right?
But, if the Evolutionists are wrong then it matters a whole lot… because you’ll be in hell. So I’m thinking it’s a far better bet to believe in Creation.
Most skeptical readers of this blog will immediately recognize this line of reasoning as Pascal’s wager – it’s such an old canard it has a name. But wait, Mr. bostonbruins, what about the other 180 odd religions of the world, many of which are mutually exclusive? What if they are right? And in any case, he is equating accepting the scientific consensus on evolution with atheism, which is incorrect, and also assuming that if there is a God he would mind terribly much if we spend our seven or eight decades in the flesh flexing that meat between our ears. What – you used logic and evidence to arrive at your own conclusions rather than believing uncritically the primitive words of my prophets, distorted by centuries of retelling and translation? Eternity in hell for you.
Next we get the false equivalence argument:
And, to whoever said that individuals who believe in Creation are ignorant… Creationists are definitely NOT ignorant. Neither creation or evolution can be proven. Don’t even bother trying to tell me that they can be, because you’re just straight up retarded if you try to say that. Both are theories, because science means you can create it over and over again. You CANNOT create evolution again. Neither can you create Creation. ‘Cause we’re not God. So it’s a matter of what you want to believe in.
Science is not about proof – its about logic and evidence. Evolutionary theory has explanatory power and (more importantly) is very successful at making predictions that are validated by later observations and research. Evolution is a successful scientific theory. Creation is not even a theory – it is faith.
And science does not require creating stuff over and over. Only some sciences deal with laboratory experiments. What about astronomy. I guess unless we can make our own suns we cannot scientifically investigate the nature of suns – what powers them, how they evolve over their lifetime, and what happens to them. As long as there is a way to test claims (like, say, comparing genetic sequences or digging up fossils) you can do science. You don’t need to cook up stuff in a lab.
And as further evidence that creationism is not science, bostonbruins then repeats the omnipotence fallacy – God is all powerful, so that magically explains all the problems with creationism that you might think of. So there.
Conclusion
Aah. I feel a little better now. At least until the next time a creationist looks at me cross-eyed.
Thanks Steve for the post. I know that it’s old hat to you, to take on the Creationists and comment on their arguments – but to us new skeptics, this is good stuff. I especially like the two arguments that you stated (imagining a million years from now and looking back at primates, making suns to prove their nature).
An argument I have tried recently was when a Creationist said there were no transitional fossils. I told him that there were, and he needed to read more about evolution. His reply was “but everyone is saying there are no transitional fossils – and surely they all have read up on evolution.” So I used an example that he might understand. I replied, “it’s sort of like the argument that if Jesus saved the souls upon his death, then what about all the people who lived and died before him?” And this person sort of stammered through an explanation before I told him “you may want to go look up the counter-argument to this – because it’s been made. My point is that if you want to argue about a topic, you should really know both sides of the issue.”
*ALL* fossils are transitional. Pretty-much by definition, right?
Yeah, the whole transitional fossil thing is a big misunderstanding of what a transitional fossil is. Often, creationists when presented with archaeopteryx usually say “It’s just a bird” or “It’s just a dinosaur” I can’t remember which. In other words, they think God created a bunch of distinct units (usually kinds, but occasionally they revert to species) and animals have evolved within those units but never between them. Thus when they find something that seems to have characteristics of more than one, they just sort it into one. I imagine this is especially easy since they can define them however they want or (more commonly) not at all.
So often when they say there are no transitional fossils, they often mean that there are no fossil remains of animals with some of the necessary features of one kind and some of the necessary features of another (no crockoducks) despite never defining what features are necessary for any given kind.
Of course that’s just one of the many muddled lines of potential creationist thinking.
I think you have an incomplete sentence: Luskin is now arguing that Tiktaalik ( the fishapod that is a fish filling a morphological space when one branch of fish were evolving fins into feet and adapting to walking.)
All species are transitional, in that they fit somewhere in the tapestry of life. No species is an island.
But – what is generally meant by “transitional” is a specimen that bridges the gap between two known groups. Which, of course, we have in abundance – between apes and man, dinosaurs and birds, reptiles and mammals, land animals and whales, fish and tetrapods – and many more.
Creationists use multiple strategies to deny their transitional status. I discussed just one above – ignorance about timelines.
But they also use creative labeling. Take an obvious transitional species and just label as one of the two group between which it is transitional. Take the more primitive hominid fossils and call them “apes” and the more modern half and call them “human” and deny the sequence. Amusingly, over the years they keep changing their minds as to whether or not Archaeopteryx is a bird or dinosaur – right, because it’s half-way in between.
Just a pet peeve, Steve, but humans are apes (as you know) and it always jumps out at me when someone writes something like “between apes and man”. I have the same problem with “The difference between humans and animals…” and such. To be really pedantic, I guess I could also call you on “between…dinosaurs and birds”, but that would be just mean.
Steve the pedant
Steve – I have to disagree with your pedantry. If you are talking cladistic designation, you are correct – but I did not use a technical term like hominoids. Humans and apes are both in the hominoid family, but it is generally understood that the term “ape” refers to non-human hominoids.
Similarly, birds are in the dinosaur clade, but that is only because we now know there is a link between birds and dinosaurs. The classic use of the term “dinosaur” is now often clarified (now that we know birds are dinosaurs) as non-avian dinosaurs.
I think the key is the difference between the colloquial use of these terms and the technical use of taxonomical terms. I am not going to say “non-avian dinosaurs” in my everday reference to dinosaurs, nor “non-human apes” when referring to apes. And if I need to be technical to be precise – I will be technical.
An interesting read.
So how do you feel about evolutionary creationism?
As a Muslim and a science teacher, I have no qualms in finding faith and science in harmony, whether that be ideas of the big bang or in fact evolution.
I think the distinct difference between myself and an ‘evolutionist’ (is that the right word?), would be that I would find distinction between evolution of the body and that of the soul – in that I would not believe in the latter.
Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.
(I’m not here to attack, just curious…)
What was the first species with a soul?
If “human”, please be more specific (no pun intended).
This stuff is silly because you people aren’t genuinely looking for answers that can be answered on the level that you want an answer on. You are asking theists such as myself to comment on “doctrine”, when doctrine is different for every theist, which is the nature of theology. So stop fishing for something to “reel” us in on as if you think you can discredit us on something that you can catch us on. Theology is subjective because it is internal to a person’s own experience, or inherited from a person’s tradition.
What if the doctrine is not logically sound, or it makes demonstrably false scientific claims?
Some beliefs may look sillier now than they did originally. For example, the realization that humans gradually evolved from single-celled organisms, and that they develop from an embryo which can split into identical twins, makes one wonder at what point the soul enters the picture.
Then you can rest assured that any doctrine that is silly is not true. If the doctrine of soul is silly to you, then your existence has no purpose. Theology is search for purpose. I have found purpose in my brand of subjectivity, as I have no other subjective experience to hold than my own, and only my own subjectivity on which to have confidence. Thus I aim my skepticism at anything that contradicts my on subjective experience. If you say that my subjective experience is flawed, I don’t have to accept your explanation of what I have experienced. Because that only means that you have denied what I have experienced based on your utter lack of ability to falsify what I have experienced.
Oh, and here is another thing. I think you will find that religion has to undergo constant redefinition when any claim is falsified. You people that are reading this, I assume, are skeptical so you treasure science as something that is a rough cut diamond that is cut more and more perfectly all the time as theories get more and more precise, as their predecessors get falsified. Sometimes a theory is not precise enough, and what is false about it is falsified, only for something more precise to emerge after a redefinition. Similarly, theists who are not tied to dogmatism are fine with a similar constant redefinition of what is “true” about theology if there is such a thing. So what may seem silly to you about such a thing as soul may just need redefinition by more precise understanding, not utter abandonment. You seem to be willing to let science get more precise, but you are more willing to abandon religion rather than allow science to help redefine it and make it more precise.
I’m going to have to correct you there: You cannot redefine religion. Can Not. If you redefine it to fit with the evidence, you contradict the doctrine. And when you contradict the doctrine, you begin to follow a path seperate to religion.
I used to be a Christian, but as a massive fan of Dinosaurs (The non-avian variety) I wondered where they fit in to the Bible (They don’t) So I was apologetic about it and pretended Genisis was wrong. Then I learned of Evolution, which further discredited Genesis. Then I read the damn thing, especially Leviticus, and found myself picking and choosing what to believe.
I didn’t just suddenly say, “I’m an Atheist”. I went through the journey, but sooner or later, apologist reasoning and cherrypicking falls apart to the rational mind, as you realise you agree with less than half the doctrine. And if you redefine the doctrine, you aren’t following the doctrine. Tell a religious person you’re rewriting the Bible to make it acceptable to you. They’re not going to listen: If you contradict the writings, the scripture, then you don’t follow the scripture, and if you don’t follow the scripture, then you aren’t following the religion. You can’t refine Religion: It’s defined as fact. Science can be, because it operates on the best confirmed hypothesis in accordance with predictive power and evidence. If a better explanation comes along, we need not destroy something we defined as fact: we don’t need to hold anything as fact. Trust, but verify. Correct everything. Test all assumptions. Fill in the gaps of knowledge, until you can explain everything that you could ever explain. It’s a convergent process, and it converges on the truth.
When religion redefines itself, it is no longer religion, it is observably people making shit up. Unless they define it to what they can prove and show: in which case, it will converge to a scientific basis, and destroy itself.
Don’t defend dogma, it doesn’t want or need it.
uh, as an ordinary person of few labels and distinctions, I have no qualms in finding faith and science in harmony either. I bet we could all, if we stopped dividing ourselves into little groups of really no significance, find a lot of harmony. Anyway, the argument about if man evolved from apes, why are there still apes is far from logical. Dogs have wolves as a common ancestor and we still have wolves, although there are those humans who would like to change that!
In regards to evolutionary creationism as far as I understand it, you might run into trouble when having to explain things according to evidence versus faith. I used to hold this belief when I was Catholic (I am now atheist), and I actually recommend it as a happy medium to others who are trying to reconcile their religious beliefs with current science. In that belief I went by the mantra: “God created the Universe and evolution is one of the tools He used to get things the way they are.”
In your example on souls, because there is no evidence nor is there hard logic for the existence of souls, you would leave the realm of science when you bring souls into the discussion.
I think you might find that faith and science cannot coexist in a thorough explanation of the creation of the universe (or the universe as we know it).
Bob, Here’s the problem with your logic when you say that faith and science cannot coexist in a thorough explanation of the Universe, though it is good that you put in parenthesis (as we know it). The fact of the matter is that nobody can make a thorough explanation of the universe with current science, because only now is science going into the realm of things it cannot easily detect!
Once we are farther along, you will find that such things as dark matter will be explained and new, creative ways of detection will be invented. If you want to have a good explanation for souls, you cannot get it from science yet.
But science is already going into the realm of things they CANNOT SEE NOW BY GOING INTO THE REALM OF DARK MATTER AND WIMPS (WEAKLY INTERACTING PARTICLES), not unlike neutrinos. So if you want to deny souls because you are atheist, that is ok, but that is your own unscientific choice, just as much as my choice is to believe in souls, which is an unscientific shoce. Don’t pretend that your science does not deal with things that it cannot see now just as religion does with souls. You are right that anything like a discussion of souls leaves the realm of science, but your denial of religion leaves the realm of science just as much.
If it turns out that souls do exist, we will find that they would be hypothetically made of some species of dark matter, because by the description from religion, they (1) weakly interact, and (2) do not interact with the electromagnetic force so as to interact with photons or atoms so they cannot be easily seen or touched.
So we are finding now that science is now finding that there are things that they cannot see, and they have to figure out how to DETECT those things. And when those things are detected, THEN, science can say something about them. IF THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE SOULS, WE WILL FIND THAT THEY ARE SOMETHING LIKE LIFE MADE OUT OF SOME SPECIES OF DARK MATTER.
If chemical reactions can create life out of chemicals, then we have no idea what can emerge from some kind of chemistry among structures based off of dark matter particles analogous to atoms! All of this is a GREAT BIG IF, but my point is that you will find that science is now acknowledging the existence of things not easily detectable.
What’s a soul?
If you want a religious explanation, go to your pastor or priest or cleric, or open a Bible, a Torah, or a Quran. If you want a so-called “scientific” explanation of how one does not exist, then you will either get someone to deny the existence of what religion has described going off of an unscientific use of current science to comment on something that it has no evidence or methods to falsify. Or you will get an “I don’t know” from a real scientific person who doesn’t abuse science in an unscientific/pseudoscientific way like atheists do.
Let me try. What do YOU think a soul is? It doesn’t need to be a scientific explanation.
Tmac57, Then I would set myself up for YOU to drag me into a religious discussion on a skeptical website. It is enough for me to say that I’m a theist.
Oh, one more thing, as one more note of explanation. I said previously that I don’t believe in the word belief, as it is a bad word to describe religious experience, since religious experience constantly changes and varies. Religious experience is not necessarily always about discovery of “truth” but rather making commitments to God and keeping them. I don’t generally respond to queries about my personal thoughts on theology, because my thoughts will change on theology, the more experience I have with God, or what people call God, whatever that turns out to be. Dawkins ironically is very perceptive in that God, if he exists from Dawkins perspective, is not a supernatural being, but would be very natural, a being that evolved. I don’t believe in belief as much as I sense the existence of God and his workings internally in my own experience. And I am not going to just allow my pearls to be trampled on by people who aren’t genuine, who don’t share the same type of experiential understanding. In making this statement, you don’t need to assume that I THINK that God is a supernatural being of any sort. You would then follow that up with a question similar to my atheist friend who said, “well, if such a being exists, what right does he have to demand worship? What would make him more worthy of worship than any other intelligent person that exists.” My choice to worship an intelligent being is mine to make, as is my subjective manner of worshiping him.
If such a thing as a soul exists, trying to define what it is is foolhardy. It is the conviction of survival of essence beyond death. That will take the form of whatever it NATURALLY turns out to be, and is not supernatural.
By the way, I who formerly went by Skeptics of Skeptics with a Capital S, will now be switching to the online name of SkepticTheist on here. So those of you who see me on here with this name will know that I am the same person.
Well,that was quite an exposition dump for a simple question, but I see that in the end you did finally answer it.
I’m going to call you an idiot now, since you used the term science abuse and unscientific to describe atheism.
Here’s why you are an idiot:
I can’t prove something (See Sagan’s dragon). Don’t believe me, because there is no reason too.
I can prove something:
Believe me or prove me wrong.
I don’t know if there is a soul. But I shouldn’t believe there is likely one simply because I don’t know. That’s making shit up. It’s a flawed arguement, which lends itself to any number of things I could make up, and to any religion you care to name.
I don’t know if there is a God. I used to think there was one. I don’t any more. I doubt the existance of a God, and I believe we’ve adequately proved most religions flawed. I do however, HOPE there is a good God of some kind, because I want to live forever. That doesn’t mean I believe there is. I’d like there to be one, but I know that it’s unprovable, untestable, and unknowable, bar killing myself and finding out (No thanks).
I can’t prove what I hope to be true, so I don’t believe it, I do believe what I can show, be shown, or observe to be true. I believe in gravity, I believe in evolution by natural selection, I believe the death penalty in an imperfect justice system is wrong, I believe I have ten fingers and ten toes. I don’t believe in mudmen, I don’t believe in leprechauns, I don’t believe in Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, the power of reincarnation, psychic abilities, ESP, Alien Encounters, magic or the power of homeopathic medicine. Neither do I believe in the flying spaghetti monster, or Sagan’s invisible garage dragon.
Until someone proves something, the only skeptical position, the only rational position, is disbelief. You can always change to belief if they prove it, but if you believe without evidence, you’re wasting everyone’s time, and you are, in my mind, the enemy of rational thought.
Actually, no, it is not unscientific to believe in souls, and now I’m getting annoyed. If I told you there was a heatless, intangible, invisible dragon in my garage, would you believe me? You haven’t, and probably can’t prove me wrong. That doesn’t make it rational to believe me. The scientific viewpoint is agnostic towards untestable beliefs, and to deny this is wrong. If I say there are souls, and I can prove them, and do so, then I scientifically believe. But I can’t prove that souls exist, or the dragon exist, or that invisible leprechauns exist, etc. Untestable claims are unknowable. That’s science. There is no rational reason to believe an untested claim. To do so is pseudoscience, using agnosticism to justify irrational beliefs. If it can’t be proved, disbelief is the logical position. If it hasn’t been proved, disbelief is the logical position. If it is proved, or demonstrated logically, then belief is the logical position.
You aren’t th “Skeptic of Skeptics”. Being skeptical demands some form of empirical proof. Belief in a soul is unskeptical, unsceintific, hogwash. Simple hogwash.
Sorry, I meant not to believe in souls: “Actually, no, it is not unscientific to [dis]believe in souls”
This is not true. Untestable claims are indistinguishable from the imaginary.
Isn’t that the point I made? If the difference between an untestable claim of any kind, an imaginary claim, or an artificially untestable claim is nonexistant, then belief in any of these things is irrational.
I think we believe the same thing here, as I agree with your statement entirely, and that was what I was representing, although more in protest of someone’s assertion that not believing in souls is unscientific.
Apes are here because we need them to take over our planet. I simply don’t trust any other animal to do a better job….*looks out window and watches Sushi the Rottweiller lick his own arse*….I rest my case.
I have a friend who’s creationist approach to everything is frustrating. I’d have a better chance arguing with a brick wall.
All fossils except for the last of a species is a transitional fossil (and how do you establish that a particular fossil was in fact the last of its kind). If you go to the nearest graveyard and dig up some corpses, each one will be a transitional form (though how many of them will fossilize is anyone’s guess). When you look around virtually every animal you see is a transitional form, but creationists have their book of superstitions and a truly bizarre cockeyed view of the world. Imagine in a few hundred more years someone finds a decrepit copy of a book by the Grimm brothers – it talks of marvelous creatures that roam the land – will a future generation worship Hansel and Gretel and fear the wicked witch?
“….probability of life arising from chance were the same as the probability of throwing a six on dice 5 million consecutive times!”
I actually agree with this, but if you get to throw the dice a few *trillion* times, you’ll hit your mark, no?
No, you’d have to throw it 6^(5 million) times on average, because each throw is independent of the rest, unlike components of a molecule or a cell.
The original quote wasn’t exactly calculated with that in mind.
My point is that very extreme probabilities can become inevitabilities when given enough chances to occur. Even if incredible probability is required, it can still be easily offset.
Of course, you (the metaphorical you) might only have to throw it once.
Clever arguments do nothing when you’re faced with someone completely mired in their own ideology. Creationists know, at some unspoken level, that the arguments they’re presenting are stupid. It’s not about convincing your opponents anyway. It’s all about asserting your tribal identity.
When a Patriots fan screams “GO PATS!” while watching the game in a sports bar he’s not trying to persuade the Green Bay fans that the Patriots are an inherently better team and the logical course of action would be to change their support and buy new souvenir t-shirts. He’s pumping his monkey brain full of nice happy “in-group status” chemicals. That’s just what Creationists are doing when they make these stupid arguments, it’s what political partisans are doing when they drop gratuitous slams at the other side into unrelated discussions, and (to be honest) it’s what we’re doing here.
On the one hand, I understand and agree with some of what you are saying, and it is frustrating to have to repeatedly fight the same battle over and over. But, I see this position as a ‘why bother’ fallacy, because it assumes a false dichotomy between the two sides of an argument, when there is really a continuum of beliefs from one side to the next. The worst thing that people that believe in science can do, is to just go about their business, and hope that their ideas will speak for themselves without them fighting for them. If you leave a public opinion vacuum in the vast middle, who do do think is going to rush in and fill it? That is what we’re up against, and that is why supporters of science and critical thought must never concede the field of struggle for the minds of the those looking for answers.
Right on Tmac! Very well said.
Then you should pick your battles, like Brian Dunning said in one of his latest podcasts. You shouldn’t always assume that an creationist SHOULD be engaged in battle. But if you find yourself such a warrior for the cause of skepticism, you should spend it where it is most effective.
Steve, in answer to your comment #6, I do of course realise that you are fully aware of the correct taxonomical relationships and agree that using the technical term in place of the usual colloquial conventions can sometimes cause one’s writing to appear awkward and unnatural. However, I had a reason for my comment beyond pedantry for pendantry’s sake. I feel that the use of phrases such as ‘humans and animals’ or ‘man and apes’ serves to reinforce in the mind of the reader the special status that religious people in particular like to give to humans. Using instead ‘humans and other animals’ drives home the fact that humans are just part of the crowd and I think it behoves us to be accurate in such cases. It’s a bit like Dawkins’ objection to the widespread use of ‘christian child’ or ‘muslim child’. Writing ‘child of christian parents’ may be more awkward, but it makes the point.
Anyway, sometimes it’s possible to do it right without sacrificing too much stylistically. For example, you could have written “…between humans and other apes, birds and other dinosaurs …, rather that being forced into the convoluted “non-human apes and man, birds and non-avian dinosaurs…”
By the way, although the term ‘ape’ is indeed commonly used to refer to our non-human cousins, Wikipedia (for what it’s worth) says “An ape is any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates, and includes humans”
Cheers,
Steve ‘the pedant for a good cause’
I get nasty comments from reviewers when I submit manuscripts with “humans and other animals”; the delusion that humans are not animals and that humans are not apes is still quite strong around the world.
Ha, I know what you mean. As the only native English speaker at my institute, I frequently get manuscripts to ‘polish’ and I guess my colleagues groan every time I correct to ‘humans and other animals’ etc. I have noticed, however, that the need to correct is becoming infrequent. Either my efforts at consiousness raising are bearing fruit, or they’re just humouring the pedantic English crackpot who gets to modify their papers.
The common response to why are there still apes if humans evolved from them, is that humans and todays apes had a common ancestor about 6 million years ago.
Dawkins does an excellent job of addressing transitional fossils in several books, especially his latest ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’
If you don’t believe in creationism why do you spend so much time and energy ranting about it. I personally don’t believe in the evolution theory but I’m not gonna spend time blogging about how angry I am about those that do. I find it interesting that nothing seems to piss off people who don’t believe in GOD as much as other people believing in GOD. I find no problem mixing my faith with true science.
Linds, your point is quite valid in most circumstances where opposing opinions have no consequences, and ranting about it is akin to yelling at another driver 3 lanes away. However, this is a case where the more zealous advocates of creationism are trying to force their singular religious story into the curriculum of secular public education. Even to the point of adding deliberately misleading, and outright lying, writings to the science works of others and passing them out on campuses- al la Ray Comfort. It is interesting to note that these people have years with their children, as well as Sunday school and church services, and yet feel threatened by the ideas of a science educator to whom the children are exposed perhaps 1 hour a week for only 2-3 years. How weak they must actually feel is their position.
MadScientist says: the delusion that humans are not animals and that humans are not apes is still quite strong around the world.
-Anthropologically speaking, humans are not the same as apes (pongids). The distinction is made, not because humans deserve special treatment, but because humans and other hominoids have significant differences in behavior and anatomy. The primary difference is habitual bipedalism and the adaptions that support bipedality.
Chief among these adaptations are changes to the skeleton itself. In humans, the legs and hips are positioned so that weight is balanced directly over the feet, giving humans significantly better balance on two legs than other hominoids. The advent of bipedality also necessitated the migration of the foramen magnum, which is the opening at the base of the skull. In humans, the foramen magnum is positioned at the bottom of the skull rather than the back, allowing the head to sit directly on top of the spinal column. Other significant changes are the shape and size of the pelvis, as well as structural changes to the feet, ankles, and heels. Our dentition also differs from that of other hominoids- we lack a diastema and have significantly shorter canines than other homonoids.
There are more differences too, both physical differences and behavioral (such as female sexuality and male-female bonding).
Furthermore….in regards to the actual post.
“They hypothesize that Homo erectus is a primate, and therefore predict that they will find transitional species between monkeys and H. erectus, and they find the remains of a chimpanzee from today – a million years younger than their erectus specimen. This find would confirm the evolution of hominids from non-hominid primates, even though the chimp specimen comes from a time later than the hominid specimen – because it fills the morphological space between monkeys and hominids.”
It would confirm no such thing. It would hint that there was great variation amongst primates, but it wouldn’t conclusively prove that hominids evolved from non-hominids. Your statement suggests the common, and wrong, idea that humans evolved from chimps or that somehow chimps are an intermediate form between humans and the common ancestor.
Chimps and humans evolved FROM a common ancestor, and there’s no reason to think that chimps haven’t moved as far from the common ancestor over the past 6 millions years as humans have. They are a distinct and separate species that evolved along a different evolutionary line. Either way, it would require a much larger sample population to draw any responsible conclusions.
(Ardipithecus ramidus would be a better example than H. erectus since it has a curious mix of traits.)
But, there would be no need to ‘hypothesize’ that H. erectus is a primate. It is clearly and obviously a primate, at least to anyone qualified to infer an evolutionary relationship on the basis of three fossils… The characteristics of primates are forward facing eyes, pentadactylism, prehensile appendages, opposable thumbs, rotating forearms, a relatively large brain in proportion to body size, reduction in the olfactory bulbs with simultaneous expansion in the visual area, ect.
(None of these traits are necessarily unique, but this particular complex of physical traits are unique to primates, though not all primates possess all traits.)
Since H. erectus possesses these traits, examination of H. erectus would identify it immediately as a primate.
Then finally, a better way to say what you’re trying to say is ‘upon examination of the fossil record, insofar as it pertains to the human species, it reveals directional adaptations across multiple hominid species that would support the consensus that modern humans evolved from an as-yet-unknown ancestor. Review of the information from a multitude of sources strongly suggests that modern humans and chimpanzees shared a ancestor.’
Creationists have a valid point, which they exploit time and time again- there is no certainty. While an anthropologist can ethically say that in all probability, A. ramidus was ancestral to modern humans, that’s all that can be said.
The same principle applies to the argument that humans are closely related to chimps. I can state that chimps are the closest relatives to modern humans, and that this closeness implies that humans and chimps shared a common evolutionary ancestor- but I can’t tell you I am 100% certain of this, as much as I would like to.
Period.
100% certainty is all they will accept,and that’s a tall order. Assembling a picture of human evolution (or any animal for that matter) is not an exact science. Sorry.
I wouldn’t even say that they’re after 100% certainty. Their faith requires almost no evidence, and has even less, yet they believe it.
They have moved the goalposts, yet don’t realise that the level of evidence they require for evolution is far beyond what can be provided for creation, and the evidence for evolution still outstrips that for creation by far.
Most sciences are not perfect (Barring Pure Mathematics of course) but go with the best possible answer, I’d say that anyone asking for a high level of evidence in support of a theory which contradicts theirs should realise that they’re obliged to provide the same. To do otherwise is criminally unscientific.
I did very much like your detailing of physiology and grouping, I’m certainly more knowledgeable than when I logged on.
Your point on the transitional fossil record is an interesting one. It seems to be a cliché that many creationists make to disprove evolution. However, it is a good one. If you suppose the Earth is millions of years old then you would expect there to be millions of fossils, hinting that evolution occurred. My question to you is where are those fossils? If the Earth is millions or billions of years old, don’t you think there would be some evidence to support the claim of evolution. Dinosaurs are supposed to be millions of years old and we find many fossils of them, so shouldn’t we find fossils of half apes, half humans or other creatures that are evolving. Now you can make a case that there are, and maybe so, but why haven’t we seen them in the academic community.
Now I do have to say that one can see that natural selection occurs. It’s obvious that species die off because they are not well equipped to deal with their environments. Nature simply weeds them out. I am not denying that. However, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that by some miracle, apes became humans, or fish became birds. Richard Dawkins book, The Blind Watchmaker, makes the claim of how wings were developed on mammals. In his hypothesis, he describes animals jumping from place to place and without wings would fall to their deaths. But over a period of time they would begin to form humps or “wings” that would allow them to gain some air dynamics that would allow them to jump further, or in essence “fly.” Now if that is true where are the fossils for these animals?
Now I may be making a fallacy in saying these things because roughly, only 5% of the fossil record has been discovered. However, I could also say that means there is more evidence to find to disprove evolution. In conclusion, we can go in circles in discusses what the fossil record shows and what it does not. What we really need to find out is what is truth? Were we all created by a big bang and slowly mutated from a pool of jelly to a intelligent culture, or were we designed for a purpose, by a Creator who has a detailed plan, and has exercised that plan into what we now call Earth.