PZ Myers. 2005 Feb 14. I don't think the news is all that good for creationists. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/i_dont_think_the_news_is_all_that_good_for_creationists/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, February 14, 2005
I don't think the news is all that good for creationists
Left2Right announces some good news for creationists—they've got a chance at becoming a credible contributor to the scientific community, just like Alfred Wegener.
Of course, there's also some bad news:
Good news is often accompanied by bad news, of course, and this case is no exception. The bad news for creationists is this. Since the front door of the scientific establishment is clearly open to you, as demonstrated by the eventual acceptance of the Pangaea hypothesis,- you have no excuse for trying to sneak in the back door, by using political pressure to insert your views into science textbooks. Pangaea made it into the textbooks the honest way, without any help from lobbyists. Your theory, too, can make it into the textbooks -- as soon as you have won over the scientific establishment, as the proponents of Pangaea did.
Until then, you are not entitled to complain about receiving skeptical treatment. Every hypothesis gets the skeptical treatment, and rightly so. If you insist on forcing your way past the skepticism of scientists, society should treat you as insurgents seeking to undermine one of its greatest institutions. If legitimacy is what you want, you'll have to accept the task of convincing the experts -- the task that Alfred Wegener was engaged in when he died on the ice of Greenland.
Yeah, you've got to work to earn respect. That's only fair, after all.
However, I have to say that their chances of winning out are very, very slim, and nonexistent as things stand now. The reality of the situation is that there is a vast amount of data in support of evolutionary theory, and any theory that manages to replace evolution is going to have to also accommodate that data. The current crop of creationists are either oblivious to that data, or intent on ignoring or destroying it. Any theory that does reconcile all the available information and incorporates the beliefs of creationists is not going to be recognizable as creationism, and is not going to resolve any conflicts. It might even generate more conflict: I would think a persuasive heresy more of a threat to religious creationism than outright apostasy.
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Washington, D.C.
29 August 1922
Dear Professor Curtiss:
May it not suffice for me to say in reply to your letter of August 25th, that, of course, like every other man of intelligence and education, I do believe in organic evolution. It surprises me that at this late date such questions should still be raised.
Sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson
Skeptics of evolution should ask if Wilson got it wrong and whether evidence for evolution is now better or worse than in 1922. -
Nice letter, but I suspect we'd best not base our arguments about science on what presidents have said.
#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 02/14 at 09:58 AM
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It's a bit off-topic, but I was pleased to see a nice evolution-based article in our local paper. I suppose the good news for creationists is that it's another opportunity to distort and mischaracterize something:
http://starbulletin.com/2005/02/13/news/index7.html
I don't know how long the link will last.#: Posted by on 02/14 at 12:01 PM -
"If you insist on forcing your way past the skepticism of scientists, society should treat you as insurgents seeking to undermine one of its greatest institutions."
That is, if society considers science to be one of its greatest institutions.#: Posted by on 02/14 at 01:51 PM -
"I have to say that their chances of winning out are very, very slim, and nonexistent as things stand now."
Perhaps they have already lost the scientific case. But things look very different in the political realm. Every individual vote counts the same, and many people neither understand nor care about the scientific issues. They only know the "truth" they hear dogmatically coming from their pulpits - that God created us and evolution is evil. Of course many religious people do support evolution and we need to embrace them as allies.#: Posted by on 02/14 at 02:09 PM - That's interesting, but even more fun is the link found in that article. High-speed plate tectonics! Coooool! And giving Pangaea theory credit where it's due: Moses!
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Skeptics of evolution should ask if Wilson got it wrong and whether evidence for evolution is now better or worse than in 1922
Much worse. That was before the advent of the electron miscroscope -- so they wrongly assumed cells were mere "undifferentiated globules of protoplasm"
What do I win?#: Posted by on 02/14 at 03:22 PM -
Go away, Bob. All you win is a booby prize.
You're making stuff up. Weismann, Golgi, Cajal, Flemming, Kuhne, Strasburger, Roux, Fischer, Hertwig, His, Sherrington, Miescher, Pfeffer...all had made clear that cells were more complex than your stupid claims suggests, and all before the end of the 19th century.
Now you're done. You've long worn out your welcome. Just bugger off like a good little troll. -
Bob Flynn posts:
That was before the advent of the electron miscroscope — so they wrongly assumed cells were mere “undifferentiated globules of protoplasm”
and:
Until the electron microscope, there was a lot of “hit and miss” at the cellular level.
Your point is what? That cells were assumed to be "undifferentiated globules of protoplasm" or that they had recognized organelles the function of which was as yet undetermined? By the way, there is no way in hell that cells were regarded as undifferentiated globules in the 19th century. I have a Micrscopic Atlas in my office dating to 1859 that has about 900 pages of detailed drawings and descriptions of cellular anatomy. The anatomic and functional complexity of cells was a given to late 19th century biologists, even if the details were as yet unclear.
What do I win?
You win "Jack". Bad troll, no billy goat!#: Posted by on 02/14 at 06:06 PM -
But one comment made in that article is absolutely laughable:
... the hypothesis of a single primordial continent, dubbed Pangaea by Wegener, bears a striking resemblance to the creation story in Genesis, which tells us that God began by making a single division between land and water.
Which is absolute rubbish. The Bible quotes cited in that article's linked article are:
And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. (Gen 1:9)
Two sons were born to Eber: one was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan. (Genesis 10:25)
One has to be grasping at straws to consider those quotes anticipations of continental drift. Just the same, I think that it would be fun to see a similar sort of argument for evolution. Like what are all those genealogies doing in the Bible.
And this reminds me of one long-time criticism of continental drift -- did it only occur in the last 200 million years, after the breakup of Pangaea? However, the "drifters" eventually answered that by discovering evidence of pre-Pangaea continental drift, and even pre-Pangaea supercontinents.
Continental drift has been happening for nearly 2 billion years, producing these supercontinents along the way:
Pangaea (300 - 200 Mya)
Pannotia (600 - 550 Mya)
Rodinia (1100 - 750 Mya)
Columbia (1800 - 1500 Mya)#: Posted by on 02/14 at 07:43 PM - Chris (#2) Touche, but one rotten apple doesn't mean that prior presidents didn't have their wits about them.