TheChez.net

by ssjrem

Let me first say that I am no biologist. I have no degree in such a field or any related ones. I do not profess to be and will openly admit that. However, I do not believe that this disqualifies me from discussing something such as evolution because I’m not getting to delve terribly deeply into the theory itself in this blog. I’m just going to go over misunderstandings regarding the theory of evolution that greatly irk me. And it’s very easy to get your head around. I hope to do a similar blog to this one regarding misconceptions about atheism, but for now let’s stick to this.

So, evolution, eh? Haven’t much discussed that yet in blogs. I went into a little bit in one of my “Some Thoughts” blogs. It’s funny how I don’t even really think about it. I just take it as a given that everyone reading that blog would believe in evolution. I just forget that there are actually people in the world who don’t believe in such a thing. Most of these people seem not to accept evolution on some sort of religious basis. Personally, I think that’s completely ridiculous, but I’m not going to get into that; people get too touchy. Here shall follow some common arguments against evolution and my rebuttals against them.

“I’m not related to a monkey!”

The first misconception about evolution that I want to go over before I go on is when people say something like “We’re not descended from monkeys!”, “Fine if you want to believe you’re just a monkey!” Okay, let me just say that that is absolutely ridiculous and shows a gross misunderstanding of what evolution is. Most of the time when evolution is being criticized, the critic has misconceptions about what evolution is and how it works. You should know what you’re talking about before you criticize something.

The whole monkey argument is ridiculous. Say I tell someone I recently met that I believe in evolution. He or she says something back like, “So, you believe we come from monkeys?” I’d say in reply, “No, I don’t. Humans did not come from monkeys. That’s ridiculous.” And it’s true. Humans didn’t come from monkeys. That’s just a horrible misunderstanding. Yes, humans and monkeys are in fact related. We share a common evolutionary ancestor, but our paths diverged long ago. We’re cousins of sorts, but to suggest that humans actually came from monkeys just shows how little one knows about evolution.

This argument is so ridiculous that if I were ever debating evolution with someone and this point was brought up, I would automatically take it as an admission of defeat. It would just show how ignorant the other person is regarding evolution, so any further debate on the subject would be completely fruitless. I’m a skeptical person and there’s not really much that I take at face value. I like to do my research. Anyone that says evolution says we came from monkeys clearly didn’t do their research. This is a more comical point, but I figured I’d open with a bit of humor before delving into some more serious points.

No Transitional Fossils

This is another ridiculous argument, though it’s not as comically bad as the first one. That this continues to brought up time and time again like it’s some sort of fact baffles me. It tends to be brought forth mostly by creationists who completely refuse to open their eyes and actually look at the evidence all around them. Much like the whole monkey thing, the argument that there are no transitional fossils shows nothing but ignorance.

I’m reminded of the debate between ardent Christian and evangelist Kirk Cameron and his partner Ray Comfort against two members of the Rational Response Squad, a group of atheists who seek to expose how ridiculous religion really is. Kirk made the point that there are no transitional fossils and then proceeded to show some drawings of ridiculous creatures, such as a literal a literal cross between a duck and a crocodile. Following this, Brain Sapient of the RRS took the podium and absolutely dismantled that argument in about twenty seconds. You watch more or less the entire debate on Youtube. I’ll provide a link to the first part and the subsequent should be easily found in the “related videos” section. Here you go. I might suggest not watching the section where the audience asks questions. Some of the atheists in the crowd are rather angry and disrespectful, a sad stereotype of atheists that those fools merely perpetuated. Anyway, moving on.

Basically, every single fossil that has ever been found is transitional. We, that is humans, are transitional. Evolution is a constant process, one that continues to even today influence organisms. But if you’re looking for more concrete examples, well, there are tons. How about archeopteryx, an obvious example of the transition from dinosaurs to birds? Or the entirety of tetrapods or synapsids? There’s way too much evidence there to ignore. Yes, I know Wikipedia isn’t the most credible thing in the world, but just take a look at their article on transitional forms. And that’s a remarkably incomplete list. Fossilization is by no means a common occurrence, so of course there are going to be “gaps” in the record at points. We’re fortunate to have fossils at all.

I just can’t get over the fact that I still see this argument made. I’ve spent hours upon hours on the internet researching evolution, the existence/nonexistence of god, religions and all such things. And I’ve tried to look at things from both sides and I’ve sought out answers for questions posited by the detractors of evolution. And most of the time when creationists ask questions, this always comes up, sometimes even with the audacity of stating “there are no transitional fossils.” It’s ridiculous. Hit up a museum and go look at them. Or just go outside and look. You’ll find plenty of transitional forms.

Evolution Can’t Account for the Origin of Life

This is an interesting criticism and I can somewhat see where it’s coming from. Much like the whole thing with the monkeys, I actually agree with this statement, but for wholly different reasons. The origin of life, known more formally as abiogenesis, is a tricky subject and once again I will reiterate that I am no scholar on these subjects, but they’re rudimentary enough for me to understand and explain to others.

Yes, evolution doesn’t account for the origin of life. However, it doesn’t have to. Abiogenesis is an entirely different subject, one distinct (though related) to evolution. The theory of evolution and the process of natural selection have to do with what occurred after life first formed. It can’t account for the origin because that’s not what it’s supposed to do. That’s not part of the theory. Abiogenesis is just a different matter all together. I’d suggest giving this article a read to learn a bit more.

I will readily concede that as of now the origin of life is actually still unexplained. Scientists have thus far been unable to produce what in essence would be a “second origin.” We’ve never been able to observe living things emerging from nonliving things. It in some ways doesn’t seem possible. However, this supposed impossibility doesn’t invalidate evolution because the two are separate subjects.

And besides, science is closing in on this “second origin” anyway. Scientists have conducted experiments and seem to be getting close. This article is a good read. ” If a second origin occurs in a lab, then it would finally answer one of the greatest questions we have: how did life begin? And if we can actually manage to create living things from nonliving things, then that suddenly puts a massive nail in the coffin for arguing that God must have done it. Yes, the origin of life is as of now unexplained. But just slapping God in there and saying that he/she/it did it is literally just giving up. It’s far more satisfying to the intellect and human curiosity to seek out an actual answer. But for now, it’s a mystery. And I eagerly await the day when I open up the morning paper and read an article stating “Scientists create life in the laboratory.” Perhaps I won’t live to see that day. A man can dream, though.

Evolution is Just a Theory

This argument, exactly like the others I’ve gone over, is made almost entirely out of sheer ignorance of evolution. The evidence for evolution is absolutely staggering and to deny it borders on sheer lunacy. But this final one is one of the most prevalent and probably the most irritating because most of the time when someone brings this up, they have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about and that makes it all the more unforgivable.

Okay, so first of all, let’s just go over what exactly the word “theory” means. It’s a word that has a number of definitions. Dictionary.com has seven, so allow me to just post those hear.

As you can see, there are some pretty noticeable difference. It’s particularly the last two that I would think cause most of the problems. Contemplation, speculation, conjecture and especially “guess” all imply a degree of uncertainty, that the theory of evolution is little more than smoke and mirrors, that there’s not very much of a base to it at all. That’s simply not true.

Scroll down the page at Dictionary.com a bit and you’ll notice that there is a definition for theory from a science dictionary, which would be far suited to our purposes. It is as follows:

“A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena. Most theories that are accepted by scientists have been repeatedly tested by experiments and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.”

As one can plainly see, that is completely different from merely a “guess” or pure speculation.This is once again where ignorance comes in. The thing I want to point out is repeatedly tested. Scientific theories have been scrutinized and tested many, many times and they are all based on observable and empirical data. The theory of evolution is no exception.

By calling evolution a theory, in stark contrast to what the ignorant think, it’s actually saying how strong the theory is. Not the other way around. Evolution has mountains of data, in DNA, fossils, vestigial organs and so on.  It neatly explains how organisms could go from single celled to the complex flora and fauna today. Given all the available data that we have, it’s the most logical conclusion at which to arrive.

Conclusion

Those are my rebuttals to three (one was more of a joke) common arguments against evolution. I’m well aware there are even more and I may follow up this blog with another, covering some of the other criticisms. However, I liked this one because there seemed to be a common thread among all of these ideas, in that they’re all based on ignorance and misunderstandings of the theory of evolution. If I do a follow-up, I’d like to keep some sort of common theme.

For now, if any readers have any further criticisms, any objections or anything that I did or said wrong (I’m only human), then sound off in the comments. I’ll try my best to be quick, courteous and thorough in my responses to any comments. But if you don’t extend to me some degree of civility, I will not do the same to you. Any zealously religious comments that don’t actually say anything will also be completely ignored.

With that, I take my leave. School just started back up for me and before the workload gets too intense, I’d very much like to get out a somewhat similar misconceptions about atheism blog, but I guess we’ll have to see. Anyway, because of the whole “ignorance” theme of this blog and because it’s a damn good song, here’s the song “Ignorance” by the band Paramore. Any attempt to upload the actual video would likely result in it getting removed, so here’s a lyrics video. Enjoy.

Until we meet again.