Scientist Genie Scott's Last Word to Creationist Ray Comfort: There You Go Again
Here's the final post in a God & Country debate between scientist Eugenie Scott, who heads the National Center for Science Education, and creationist Ray Comfort about Comfort's new antievolution edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Check out Comfort's opening post explaining his book here, and Scott's critique here. This post rebuts a follow-up post from Comfort. As always, neither God & Country nor U.S. News necessarily endorses their views. -Dan Gilgoff
By Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D.
I am delighted that Ray Comfort has decided to provide a near-unabridged version in his next giveaway of On the Origin of Species. It's still missing a crucial diagram from Chapter 4 as well as the epigraphs from Bacon and Whewell, which Darwin chose with care, but it's more complete than the first version, which was also missing four chapters and Darwin's original introduction.
In his response to my post, Comfort strangely failed to explain why he expurgated that material from the first version. Elsewhere he wrote that it was "abridged because it was too many pages (too expensive) for a giveaway." But now he's going to try to give away even more copies of this more complete version? I'm glad I'm not his accountant.
Anyhow, now I am even more enthusiastic about encouraging students to accept a free copy of Darwin's valuable book. But I stick by my advice: Students who are interested in learning about science can skip Comfort's introduction, which, despite a few cosmetic revisions, remains a hopeless mess of long-ago-refuted creationist arguments.
Consider Comfort's view on the evolution of sex: "No one even goes near explaining how and why each species managed to reproduce (during the millions of years the female was supposedly evolving to maturity) without the right reproductive machinery." Of course not. That's because no biologist thinks males and females evolved separately!
Birds do it; bees do it; even educated fleas do it: but so do the majority of plants and even certain single-celled organisms. But they do it in radically different ways. A male bee has no father and cannot have sons, for example, while there are animals, even vertebrates—bonnethead sharks and Komodo dragons—in which virgin birth occurs. So it's not just for the obvious reason that sex is a fun topic for biologists.
The myriad ways in which organisms reproduce, sexually and asexually, have fascinated biologists for decades and have been examined, in a thoroughly evolutionary context, since Charles Darwin and August Weismann. But none of them have thought that lonely males waited patiently for millions of years for the first females. And anyone who, like Comfort, tells you otherwise is ignorant—or worse.
Comfort complains that I didn't provide enough detail in my brief essay about those fossil whales. You want a list of fossil whales showing the transitional features marking the evolutionary transition from land animal to marine, such as changes in the ears, nostrils, and limbs? Indohyus, Icthyolestes, Pakicetus, Nalacetus, Remingtonocetus, Ambulocetus . . . . Never mind. Start here, for a nontechnical review by a team of whale paleontologists.
Comfort trots out the old creationist warhorse that because scientists revise their theories in the light of new information, science is untrustworthy. Far from it. The ability to revise explanations in the light of new information is a strength of science, not a weakness. It is why we have learned so much about the natural world over the last few hundred years and why we have longer life spans, more reliable food supplies, fewer women dying in childbirth, and many other advantages of modern life.
Because science is a practical endeavor, when a theory is revised, the change is usually to the periphery rather than to the core. For example, the early fossil Ardipithecus ("Ardi") changed our understanding of the details of human evolution, but it didn't cause us to reject the common ancestry of humans and chimps. The common ancestor of two descendant species isn't expected to be identical to either of them. With Ardipithecus and other fossils, we are closer to knowing what that common ancestor of humans and chimps looked like.
Darwin himself knew that scientists need to change their minds when presented with new evidence. When he mentioned his "cold shudder," he was not—as Comfort misleadingly suggests—expressing serious doubts about his research. Rather, he was praising his friend the great geologist Charles Lyell for his eventual acceptance of evolution:
I rejoice profoundly that you intend admitting the doctrine of modification in your new edition; nothing, I am convinced, could be more important for its success. I honour you most sincerely. To have maintained in the position of a master, one side of a question for thirty years, and then deliberately give it up, is a fact to which I much doubt whether the records of science offer a parallel. For myself, also, I rejoice profoundly; for, thinking of so many cases of men pursuing an illusion for years and often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a phantasy. Now I look at it as morally impossible that investigators of truth, like you and [Joseph] Hooker, can be wholly wrong, and therefore I rest in peace.
Whenever a creationist quotes Darwin, check for yourself to see if the original context reflects the creationist's claim. It's easy to do so at The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online.
I close with another quote. Todd C. Wood is a young-earth creationist—indeed, the director of the Center for Origins Research at Bryan College, founded in honor of the creationist hero William Jennings Bryan—who rejects evolution for biblical reasons, just like Comfort. Wood insists, "The Bible reveals true information about the history of the earth that is fundamentally incompatible with evolution."
But unlike Comfort, Wood is a trained scientist. And as such, he recognizes that the scientific basis of evolution is strong:
Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.
Anyone who honestly examines the data supporting evolution—even a young-earth creationist—concludes that the science is strong. If you reject evolution, you are doing it for religious reasons. You're entitled to your religious opinions—but not to your own scientific facts.
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Reader Comments
JEF of MN part 3
<"The snowflake is a result of the laws of chemistry and physics—crystals form because they have to. DNA by the laws of chemistry and physics can’t self assemble from amino acids on its own-they don’t have to--and they won’t. DNA or any living thing has high complexity and won’t self assemble even with all the right parts present--a snowflake is simply H2O lining up due to chemical interactions that have to happen—water always turns to ice under a certain temperature and conditions.">
You're repeating your baseless assertion that DNA can't develop via natural processes. And what's more, you're dismissing the complexity inherent in snow flake crystals. You still avoid telling us how "complexity" is quantified so that we can measure both and determine that life is indeed designed and snow flakes are not.
What's more, if the "designer" also happens to be responsible for the "creation" of the universe, I understand how one would have some difficulty in determining a "designed" object from a "non-designed" one, since there would be nothing to base a comparison on.
This is why ACTUAL designs stick out in a natural environment. Bird's nests. Beaver-dams. Computers. Watches.
These do not arrive via natural non-intelligent processes. Life does. Whether or not an intelligence was ultimately responsible (or not) for abiogenesis, remains to be seen.
.
Nothing you've put forward is a problem for evolution. Your main beef seems to be with abiogenesis, which you try to say is impossible with nothing but baseless claims. In the meantime, we're still waiting on the "theory" of IDC.
What IS the "theory"? WHO or WHAT is the designer and how can we tell? By what MECHANISM did it do whatever it is you think it did, WHERE can we observe this process, and WHEN did it do it? WHAT useful scientific predictions does it make? HOW can it be tested? HOW can it be falsified?
So far all that Intelligent Design Creationism can tell us is: that SOMETHING did it. SOMEHOW. SOMEWHERE. At SOMETIME.
I can't imagine for the life of me why no-one would be impressed with this incredibly amazing "scientific theory". Let's teach it in schools!
JEF of MN part 2
<"Creationists look at the complexity of life including DNA and state, scientifically, this could not have arose on it’s own—breaks the rules of chemistry and physics.">
Really? And where are the peer-reviewed scientific papers that support this? (not that it matters to evolution)
<"DNA does not self assemble from amino acids in any scenario of early earth atmosphere or concocted solutions. Where in the lab have they produced a cell from scratch?">
This is being researched. They've managed to get RNA which they think is the precursor to DNA. Time will tell. Until then, your categorically firm statement has no basis.
<"By the way, all the amino acids need to be “left handed” which does not occur in nature—you’ll get right and left handed amino acids.">
You keep making these categorical statements, like "the odds show X to be impossible", "DNA can't arrive via natural process", and now "no left handed amino acids". The Miller-Urey experiment produced both.
<"Concerning DNA as information--the study of language/information dictates that symbolism cannot arise without intelligence—its antithetical to logic. The DNA code is a “language” if you will, with letters (base pairs) that when strung together are code for actual proteins. This, to creationists, is clear evidence of design along with irreducible complexity.">
The clue is in the word you used: symbolism. The "code" is an analogy. Put two chemicals together, they'll do nothing. Put another two together, they react violently. Put another two together, they start to replicate. Irreducible complexity is nothing more than an anti-evolution argument, it provides no evidence of ID. It is mere argument from incredulity. What's more, no research has been done to support it - and Behe doesn't wanna do it.
<"As for the designer—the designer won’t be a part of the design and the evidence for the designer will only be the work left behind. I know that is unsatisfying to pure naturalists like yourself, but it is logical and reasonable.">
You have strange definitions of "logic" and "reason". You take any example of design you can think of, we can point to a designer. A bird's nest. A beaver-dam. A human computer. The mechanisms are observed. The designers are observed. Their methods determinable. ID? Says SOME THING did it. SOMEhow. SOMEwhere. At SOMEtime.
Thats a real fantastic "theory" you got there.
(continued)
JEF of MN part 1
<"Detrimental mutations vastly outnumber positive mutations. You need to count on extraordinary odds to rack up only the positive mutations you need and never get a detrimental mutation as well as the positives you gain don’t re-mutate back to the original. The odds can become astronomical to the point where statisticians consider it impossible.">
False. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that organisms with positive mutations will have a reproductive advantage over those with negative ones. We agree that detrimental mutations do not re-mutate back to a former state. However, none of this rules out the possibility of future positive mutations making up for detrimental ones. That of course depends on the survivability of the species with the detrimental mutation.
<"But again, to gain those compounding beneficial mutations to drive positive change is mathematically daunting.">
Not when weighed against natural selection, which you still fail to account for. Those with beneficial mutations and their reproductive advantage will pass on their genes to the next generation, until they eventually out-reproduce those with detrimental mutations.
<"Of course not. Your definition of new appears to be that of someone who gets a used car and calls it my new car. It’s already been made—it’s not new as in a new model with extra advantageous features.">
No, if you want to go with that analogy, I was pointing out that you can add another two wheels to a bike and make it a car. Or more wheels to a car until you have a tank.
<"We are talking about macro evolution—you need new, fully functional, integrated (the brain has to be ready and wired for the new organ as well) information that gives you new (original) functions. Borrowing from another organism (cells) doesn’t count, it still won’t answer the question of how it arrived.">
New traits arrive via mutation.
<"I tried the link one of your comrades gave and couldn’t find reference to this. Be careful how you define new.">
Ok.
<"Natural selection drives adaptation through selecting from the species best phenotypes--that is all that has been proven.">
And adaptations can accumulate.
<"You’d better be able to show your work in chemistry and physics (hard sciences) or your theory is pseudo-science and you end up simply with creative charts, drawings and just so stories of how it might have happened. Which is fine, hypothesis’ are good, but don’t call it fact or near fact as many postings have stated."
Chemistry and physics? Not biology? If you want to see work supporting evolution, simply search PubMed.
<"No one was here in the beginning so neither side can empirically prove how it all got started but we can look at the evidence and decide how we might provide an explanation.">
I repeat: evolution does not rest on abiogenesis.
(continued)
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