It's Simple: Intelligent Design Is Not A Scientific Idea. Period.

Intelligent Design (ID) is not a scientific idea.  Its just not.  And if you think otherwise, then you need to actually learn what "science" is, because right now you're demonstrating that you know less than nothing about it.


Part of the problem is that the terminology used in "design theory" aren't actually defined.  The way that the ID movement uses the word "design", for example, has nothing to do with the definition of "design" as it is normally understood.  "Design" is defined in terms of some intelligent agent actively and purposefully arranging something.  The IDers, on the other hand, define "design" by pointing out what "design" isn't (known regularity and chance), therefore making their definition of "intelligent design" the product of an argument from incredulity.


In engineering, a solution to a problem must address the parameters of the problem, or else the "solution" is no solution at all.  Any theory about design must, therefore, address the agent and the purpose, or else its not really about design.  No proponent of Intelligent Design has ever included the agent or the purpose in any attempt at a "scientific" theory of design, and some absolutely come right out and say that these two factors cannot and  should not be included.  Thus, even if the ID crowd were to somehow prove that the universe was purposefully put together, this proof would be practically meaningless.  And it would certainly say nothing about the design in the usual sense of the word.


The idea of "irreducible complexity" also isn't scientific because it, too, is an example of an Argument from Incredulity fallacy.  "I think this is too complex to come about naturally, therefore it must have been created."  Anyone paying attention should recognize how utterly subjective this is.  Whenever one person can think something "too complex to be natural", but another person can say, "No, its still not complex enough... its still natural", the idea behind it isn't science.  Science is either true, or its not.  There's no "might be true" in science.


Lastly, at its core, intelligent design just makes no damned sense at all.  Take spider webs, for example.  Intelligent design says that, because spider webs are complex acts of engineering, the spiders that make them must be intelligent.


And by "intelligent", they mean the spiders must be as smart as people.


Or, it might be that the spiders aren't the intelligent ones, but rather its the spider's designer who instilled into the spider the ability to create heavily complex webs.  The problem being that it could just as easily be argued that the spider's designer isn't intelligent... its just that the spider designer was himself instilled with the ability to create complexity, and was designed that way.


So the question would then become "who designed the designer?"  Or was the designer's designer merely designed?


Such infinitely regressive nonsense gets us nowhere.


But anyway, last and certainly not least, its been admitted by several of its proponents that the entire "Intelligent Design" thing has nothing to do with science and everything to do with sneaking religion into our science classrooms in a way intended to avoid the First Amendment non-establishment clause.

Why Relativity is True: A Basic Primer on How We Know It Isn't Bullshit

This is subtitled "An Open Letter to Michael Heilman.  Mr. Heilman, you see, is of the opinion that the theory of relativity is nonsense and has called it all "bullshit."  He is further of the opinion that science in general cannot be trusted and that the only things humanity really needs to know can be found between the covers of the Bible.

Michael, before I begin explaining how it is that we (that is, intelligent humans) know that the Theory of Relativity is true, you should know that the generic term "Relativity" actually refer to two related theories, known as the Theory of General Relativity and the Theory of Special Relativity.  General Relativity has to do with the effects of the bending of Space/Time by massive physical objects, while Special Relativity deals with effects like the changes a physical object undergoes when it moves at speeds approaching the speed of light.

There have been a variety of experiments over the years that have shown the Theory of General Relativity was accurate, and as the years have gone on, these experiments have only made the Theory better and better understood.  The best example of a supporting experiment would probably be the one that earned Dr. Russell Hulse and Dr. Joe Taylor the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics, when the two discovered the binary pulsar known to astronomers as 1913+16.

This binary system consists of two neutron stars which are orbiting around their common center of mass so quickly they complete an orbit every 7 hours, forty-five minutes.  That’s amazingly fast for stellar objects.  Over time, these two neutron stars are getting closer and closer to each other due to their mutual gravitic attraction.


This attraction was predicted by General Relativity.  (That would be the same Relativity you said made no predictions, Mr. Heilman.)

The strongest direct evidence for Special Relativity comes from particle accelerators.  Since its clear that you know less than nothing, let me explain what those are:  particle accelerators are machines that fire streams of subatomic particles and accelerate those particles to speeds that are to within a few inches per second of the speed of light.  We can then observe, very clearly and accurately, the changes in these particles as they accelerate.  We can, for example, tell when one of these particles dramatically gains mass as it approaches the speed of light (just like Special Relativity says that it should).  In fact, these particles gain so much mass that heavier particles can be created from lighter particles by making counter-rotating beams of both electrons and positrons and causing these particles to collide head on.

As I said, there are mountains of other experiments that confirm Relativity.  The ones I mentioned are merely the ones I consider to be most notable and important.  And I am not even a physicist.  My formal education in physics stopped at the High School level.  Everything I've learned since has been through reading the literature.

Speaking of reading literature, perhaps if you took your nose out of your Bible for two minutes, you might learn something.  And if you learned something, you might stop saying silly things like "Relativity is a myth."

Sincerely,

Jack V. Butler, Jr. 

The Scientific Method For Dummies

I've had a couple of the usual suspects, plus a few new ones, come at me with variations on the "Science is a work of Man and therefore can't be trusted; God's word is eternal" and "You can't trust science because it always changes its mind" theme.

These two statements are evidence that there is a real lack of understanding on just how science works out there.  We're falling down on the job when it comes to educating our children, folks.

Anyway, in the hopes that someone will read this and understand it and become less confused about science in general, I'm going to try and give a short, to the point explanation of just what the scientific method is.  Now, I'm not a scientist except in the broadest definition of the term, so if I get some details wrong, I invite the professional scientists I am honored to call friends to correct me.

Anyway according to the dictionary, the "scientific method" is:

Principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experimentation in search of an explanation for the problem, and the formulation and testing of a hypothesis that explains the problem.

Seems simple enough.  Let's go step by step through the process:

1. I identify a problem I want to solve.  In this case, I want to answer the question, "Do objects of different masses fall at differing rates?"  Seems pretty intuitive, right?  Heavier objects should, intuitively, fall faster.  But we can't just go by intuition, so we're going to seriously investigate the question.
2. I collect data through observation and experimentation.  For example, I notice that two oranges of different sizes fall from the same tree and about the same speed and hit the ground at the same time.  Likewise, when I drop a relatively lightweight tennis ball and a much denser chrome ball bearing from the same height, they hit the ground at just about the same time.  I repeat this enough time to have a representative sample.
3. I formulate a hypothesis:  I think all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass, so I create the hypothesis, "In a vacuum, all solid bodies fall at the same rate regardless of their mass."  I specified "in a vacuum" because wind resistance and friction can cause some objects to fall more slowly.
4. I devise an experiment to test my hypothesis.  For example, I can rig up two airtight tubes, one containing the aforementioned tennis ball and the other the aforementioned feather.  I'll suck all the air out of the tubes, creating a vacuum in each, then rig an electronic device that drops both the tennis ball and the feather from the top of the tube simultaneously.  I'll set up a high speed camera to record the results, then start dropping the objects from the top of the tube.
5. After reviewing the data, I discover that every single time, the feather and the tennis ball hit the bottom of the tube at the same time.  In addition, every time I changed out the objects for different objects (nails, scissors, chicken eggs, my car keyes, my cellphone, whatever), the objects would nevertheless hit the bottom of the tube at the same time.  
6. Conclusion:  All objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum.

I have, in fact, just confirmed my hypothesis.  You'd think that would be the end of it, but no.  Its just the beginning.

Now that I have my conclusions, I submit all my findings to my peers (that is, the other scientists).  These other scientists review my data, go over my findings, read my notes, watch endless reels of film wherein I drop everything from a salt shaker to a Buick Skylark from the top of a vaccum tube.  These other scientists will go over my work with a fine toothed comb.

They will not be kind or generous, because its their job to PROVE ME WRONG.

Yes, you read that right.  "Peer review" is a polite term for inviting every other human being... not just the scientists, but everyone who wants to give it a shot....  to try and overturn my work and prove me wrong.

So these peers who are reviewing my work will try and find errors in my methodology, or in my analysis of the data.  Some will build vacuum tubes of their own and drop their own ball-bearings and car keys and Buick Skylarks, just to see if they can get different results from the ones I got.  They will try their damnedest to show I am a fraud and a huckster and a bad scientists by trying to find something.... anything.... with my research.

And if they do, I go back to step one and start all over from the beginning.

On the other hand, and this is important, if my conclusions survive the process, then the hypothesis will be considered valid.  Now, it still won't be a theory.  Its still just a hypothesis; one that most people think is true, but it still needs further experimentation and observation to try and refine the idea, to make it even better and even more accurate.  And even after decades of research, when my hypothesis is still accepted as a theory, it will still be subject to testing and observation.

And if, at any point, even centuries after my idea has been accepted by the world in general as true, someone discovers that no, its not true after all, my theory will be abandoned for the new one.  This is how the scientific method works.  This is why no scientist worth the name ever claims to have all the answers or the definitive truth or the unquestionable truth.  Because something can always come along later on and force us to rethink our theories.

As Maya Angelou says, "We do better when we know better."  That's the very guideline by which science works.

The fact that scientists occasionally prove themselves wrong and change their mind isn't a weakness.  On the contrary, its the greatest strength of scientific inquiry:  when you have new information that changes old ideas, you change the idea to fit the new information.  You don't ignore the new information that overturns the old idea... that's how religion works, not science.

People who are familiar with science and how science works understand that we don't know everything.  We can't know everything; new things to learn are always out there.  The world would be a boring, boring place if we knew everything there was to know, and we'd no longer need science if we did. The real challenge and joy of science is that there is always something new to learn, new hypotheses to test, new conclusions to draw.

Science is a never ending pursuit to find better answers to how the world we live in works.  That's all it is.  There is no absolute truth.  The uneducated and overly-religious see this as a sign that science is not to be trusted.

This just shows how ignorant they truly are.

Five Lies That Creationists Think Are True For Some Reason

One of the most frustrating things about arguing with a Creationist over evolution is that they quite commonly use arguments that have not only been refuted already, but have been conclusively refuted over and over and over.  These lies are ideas that no educated, intelligent person believes anymore.  These ideas are not only wrong, they're stupidly wrong.  But despite this, Creationists seem to believe them.  Not only that, they refuse to accept the fact that they are wrong even after having it shown to them how wrong they are.

These are hardly the only lies in the Creationist arsenal, but I do believe they are the most common ones used.  Others include misunderstanding how radiometric dating techniques are used, trying to apply moral value to science, lies about the origins of Evolution and Charles Darwin, and so on.  I don't have room to list them all, so I only handled the top five.

Lie #1:  Evolution has never been observed, therefore evolution is false.

Way wrong.

Evolution is a change in the genes of an entire species over time.  The rise of bacteria who are resistant to anti-biotics is a perfect example of evolution that's observed all the time.  In addition, the origin of several new species has been directly observed in laboratory conditions, including one case where scientists filmed a species of yeast mold move from being single-celled organisms to being a mutli-cellular organism.

But even without these cases of direct observation, its ludicrous to say that just because its never been seen (and it has, remember).  Evidence isn't limited to eye witness accounts.  You don't have to see things with your own eyes to know they're true.  Evolutionary Science makes predictions about what you ought to expect to see when examining the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetics, geographical distribution of animal and plant species, and so on.  In the overwhelming percentage of cases, these predictions have been accurate.  The number of observations that support Evolutionary Theory are countless.  Evolution is literally the most well-supported concept in science.

A variation on this lie is "No lizard has ever given birth to a bird" or something similar  This is absolutely true.  But this is also not what evolution says should happen.  In fact, a lizard giving birth to a bird would be evidence against Evolutionary Theory.

Lie #2:  Evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Wrong again.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics reads as follows:  "The entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems always evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium, a state with maximum entropy."  What this means, when put in simpler language, is that heat (energy) will never transfer from a cooler object to one that is hotter.  To put it simply, it means that in a closed system, the amount of available useable energy does not increase.  And that's basically all it means.

You might be wondering what that has to do with Evolution.  Well, the problem is that Creationists insist on defining the word "entropy" to mean "disorder", and thus they interpret the Second Law of Thermodynamics to mean that order cannot arise naturally from disorder.  This is a blatant falsehood.  Its an attractive idea, especially to those whose scientific education is, to put it bluntly, lacking, there is no evidence that shows that order cannot arise from disorder naturally.

Ever open a brand new, shrink-wrapped box of paper clips and found several of them linked together?  That wasn't the result of someone at the paper clip factory playing around.  Most paper clip factories, like nearly all factories today, are automated.  The paper clips link themselves due to the jostling chaotic mixing going on as they are dumped in the box.  Order from disorder, naturally and randomly.   A similar phenomenon is sometimes seen when nuts and bolts are kept in the same container:  the nut will spontaneously thread itself onto a bolt just through the jostling the pile of nuts and bolts receives while the container is moved.  Order from disorder, naturally and randomly.  Dust bunnies.  Fibers from blankets, lint from clothing, pet hair, human hair, and other materials fall to the bedroom floor, and circulating air moves them around so that they congregate in places where the air is calmest.  In the process they combine and cling together into little fuzzy clumps.  Once formed, they persist, until swallowed up by a vacuum cleaner.  Order from disorder, naturally.

In addition, when Creationists make this argument, they're ignoring the fact that the earth is not an isolated system.  Maybe you've noticed this big, bright glowing thing in the sky during the day called the sun.  The sun drops terrawatts of energy onto the earth every single second of every day, twenty four hours a day.  Thus, the useable energy of the earth is constantly increasing.  Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things in their lets them create order and since that information comes "from God", its not really a natural process.  This ignores the fact that life is irrelevant to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  I've already demonstrated this in my examples of paper clips, nuts and bolts, and dust bunnies.  In any system which has a lot of energy flowing through it, you'll find order arising somewhere.

Lie #3:  There are no transitional fossils.

Nope.  Sorry.  Wrong again.

The phrase "transitional fossil" is defined as a fossil that looks like its "in between" two other species (usually an ancestor species and a descendant species), carrying a mix of features from both.  

To say there are no transitional fossils is simply false.  We have truckloads of them.  Oh sure, there are still gaps in the fossil record, but there always will be.  Erosion and the rarity of conditions that promote fossilization will always make it rare that an entire lineage of fossils can be presented.  But more fossils are discovered all the time, and the gaps in the fossil record are closing.  We have many cases where entire sequences of transitional fossils have been found.  Some of the notable examples where there aren't a lot of gaps are the transition from reptiles to mammal, from land animals to whales, and from early ape to humans.

For the most part, this misconception is perpetuated through a self-serving manipulation of definitions.  A Creationist will look at a transitional fossil that marks where dogs and their close cousins, the bears, separate and will say, "But that's still just a dog", despite the fact that the earliest common ancestor between bears and dogs had a mix of features that any zoologist worth his degree could point out.  Similarly, they will look at theArchaeopteryx fossil and declare it "100% bird" when it is clearly a mix between bird and reptile (in fact, it has more reptile features than bird).

The problem is, these categories are man-made and artificial and have little to do sometimes with actual groupings.  And animals are included in the wrong groups all the time.  For example, during the early days of taxonomy, hyenas were classified as a dog species.  Scientific examination in the late 1800s and early 1900s put them in their own category because they weren't quite matching up with the other dogs.  Modern genetic sequencing, on the other hand, has shown that hyenas are actually an evolutionary branch of the feline family.  That's right.  Hyenas are a type of cat and not dogs at all.  Who knew?

Lie #4:  According to evolution, life arose from, and is the product of, random chance.

Except evolution doesn't say that, and anyone who says this has no idea how evolution actually works.

First, evolution has nothing to say about the origins of life.  The Theory of Evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began.  It has nothing to say about how life arose at all.  But let's consider the problem for a moment.  Some Creationists will argue about the probability of life arising by itself, but their argument ignores the fact that on the early earth, there were literal oceans of organic molecules to start with, and billions of years in which life could form.  And we're here, so it obviously did.  A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it can recognize the immense range of starting materials that the first life form might have formed from, the uncountably high number of different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been completely non-random to start with.

Second, while there is a certain role random chance plays in the evolutionary process, the truth is that evolution is far more driven by natural selection than random chance, and natural selection is the exact opposite of random chance.  Random chance, in the form of mutations, does provide for genetic variation.  But genetic variation is the raw material that natural selection uses to construct new species.  Natural selection sorts out which genetic variation will be passed on to the next generation and which variation won't using very specific standards.  Those variations that make it easier for a creature to thrive and reproduce meet the standards.  Those variations that make it harder don't meet the standards and are discarded.  When the environment changes, so do the standards, leading to entirely new species.

Lie #5:  Evolution hasn't been proven because its just a theory.

This lie is what I call the "idiot test."  Anyone who says this isn't just ignorant, they're stupid.

The irony here is that calling Evolution "just a theory" is technically the truth.  Its the reason they are saying it, and what they mean when they say "theory" that is wrong.  According to the Random House American College Dictionary, a scientific theory is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a group of phenomena."  That's a fancy way of saying "an idea that has a metric fuck-ton of evidence behind it, to the point that no one with an ounce of sense argues with it anymore."  A "theory", in science, is not a guess but a near certainty.  In science, a theory differs only from a scientific law in the fact that you can usually explain a scientific law in fewer words.  Being declared a theory means that an idea is self-consistent, agrees with observations, and is useful.

Science deals with levels of certainty based on observed evidence.  The more and better evidence we have for something, the more certainty we assign to it; when there is enough evidence, we label the something a fact, even though it still hasn't been "proven" to 100% certainty.  What evolution has is what any good scientific theory has is evidence, and lots of it.  Evolution is one of the single-most supported scientific ideas in the history of the human race, if not the most supported.  Evidence for evolution comes by way of genetics, anatomy, ecology, biology, zoology, paleontology, and many other scientific fields.

Why Theocracy is a Bad Thing

So, Michigan passed the so-called "Restoration of Religious Freedom" act.


For those of you who are unfamiliar, this law allows people to discriminate against other people based on religious grounds.  Don't like gays because you're a fundamentalist Christian?  Well, now you get to treat those dirty fags exactly the way you want to and no one can stop you because its part of your "religious freedoms".  Hate Muslims?  Hate women?  Hate Jews?  Hate left-handed people, for that matter?  Want to punish those annoying atheists?


Go for it.  Be as discriminatory and unfair as you want.  The law now backs you up.  Does anyone else see this as dangerous, Anti-American bullshit?  I certainly do.  This sort of thing is the first step toward a theocratic dictatorship.


Before I go any further, let me tell you what I mean when I use the word "theocracy". A theocracy, as any political science major will tell you, is "a form of totalitarianism and authoritarianism whose ultimate authorities are religious leaders."

Under a theocracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, freedom to assemble, freedom to redress grievances, freedom of person and property... pretty much every freedom we are used to here in the United States are stifled unless these freedoms serve the interests of the governing religions.

If you want to speak against the governing religion... well, you can't. Neither will you be allowed to assemble if you hold differing views, nor publish works that disagree with it, and so on and so forth. Holding differing views than the religious leaders of a theocracy is heresy, and the traditional punishment for heresy is being burned alive (if you're living in a Christian theocracy), being stoned to death (if you're in a Jewish theocracy), or being hacked to pieces with a sword (if you're in a Muslim theocracy).

It goes without saying that since the leadership of a theocracy is perfectly willing to have practitioners of other religions murdered or at the least tortured to death, they're not going to be too keen on atheists like myself.

Under a theocracy, you are not allowed to disagree with the government. In fact, education is out the window because they're not even going to want you to know that an alternate opinion exists. And trying to spread such a alternate opinion... well, where do we begin?

In 1327, the Bolognese astronomer Cecco d'Ascoli was burned alive by the Catholic Church for daring to suggest that human beings might just live on the other side of the Earth (which, at the time, was still widely thought to be flat despite the fact that the Greeks figured out that the Earth was a sphere back around 230 BCE).

In 1624, Italian astronomer and scientist Marco Antonio de Dominis was tortured and then burned at the stake for figuring out what causes rainbows.

Nicholas Copernicus was subjected to constant harassment, house arrest, seizure of property, and torture for discovering that the Earth went around the Sun instead of the other way around.  Natural philosopher Giordano Bruno was tortured and finally burned alive in 1600 for not only agreeing with Copernicus and teaching the Copernican model of the solar system, but for theorizing that the space in between the planets was an absolute vacuum.  And of course, Galileo was imprisoned for decades, threatened with torture, and in the end forced to recant his absolute proof that Copernicus was right all along on threat of being tortured to death.


Lucilio Vanini was burned alive in 1619 for daring to suggest that perhaps man should be counted as part of a species of animal instead of being some special unique snowflake unique among all living creatures.  Isaac La Peyrere suffered a similar fate for daring to suggest that humanity must be older than the 5000 years implied by the Book of Genesis.


And before you think this sort of thing only happened 400+ years ago, think again.  In 1921, a woman named Banu bint Ka'hab was beheaded in Cairo for the "heretical practice" of seeking pain relief during childbirth.  Because apparently "women were meant by God to suffer" while creating life because they are being punished for leading Adam astray.

Or something like that.


The point of all this is that Theocracy is an end to creative thought.  Its an end to all scientific progress.  

Consider: once upon a time, the best and brightest thinkers, teachers, and scientists in the world were Muslim. And then the Muslim world came to be ruled by harsh enforcers of Shariah... and within 200 years the Muslim world went from the source of all new science to being the most backward culture on the planet outside of Christendom.

People living under theocratic rule are oppressed by threats of punishment to not only themselves but their families, and are lured by promises of reward in the afterlife if only they are loyal to the theocracy now. Such religious beliefs are easy to exploit, especially in people who are so badly educated that they buy into them.

Since they receive their authority from "God", the ruling priests are essentially unaccountable to anyone. Historically, such people tended to treat regular folk as expendable pawns and cannon fodder. Just look at most of European history if you doubt me.

Here's something that those of you who are paranoid of government intrusion should keep aware of: compared to what a government-sponsored Religious Inquisition can do to you, being put in a police file for attending an anti-government rally, or being fingerprinted and retina-scanned just for wanting to enter a country is a walk in the park.

I am a liberal because I believe no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. Religion is nothing but uncontrolled power over others.  Period.  The higher the pretensions to power of religious men, the more dangerous I find religion.

This is why I believe theocracy is the worst form of government in the history of the world. If we must live under a tyranny, I'd rather be ruled over by a robber baron or a crime lord than a priest.  The crime lord might be cruel, but he won't necessarily be constantly cruel.  His wants and desires can be predicted, dealt with, and sated, and when sated a crimelord is just another ruler.  In addition, its possible that a crime lord can realize that the cruel manner in which he treats the common folk is harmful to his own interests, and while not abandoning his role as crime lord it is possible that he could begin to at least try to mitigate the harm he does.  We know this because it has happened in the past.

Same for a robber baron.  Sure, he will make sure that all wealth flows upward to him, but he also knows that without a minimum of care for those under him, his wealth vanishes.  He has an interest in providing at least some stability and support for his people.  And its possible that he could come to realize that the more support he provides, the more wealth he enjoys.

Not so a priest.  A priest can be trusted to always mistake his own cruelty and lust for power over others as the voice of God, and will torment the common folk so much worse because he believes that such torments are justified and righteous.  Any feeling of regret or repentance for his evil ways will be seen not as redeeming urges to be followed but rather by temptations against the will of God, and thus will be suppressed and ignored.

Governments by religious belief are the worst form of rulership in the world, and the nearer a government gets to theocray, the worse the practices of the government become. Theocratic rulers will never admit any grain of truth or moral good in their opponents, and are sanctioned by their "God" to do whatever they wish to the people they rule in order to preserve the power and authority of the ruling church, because any doubt at all in the purity of said authority is considered a mortal sin to be punished with death.

No government is every completely in the right. We know this. We all know this. Thus, how bad would a government that allows no doubt, that slaughters those who question it, that tortures those who disagree and who murders those who hold other views be?

This is why theocracy must be avoided at all costs, using any means necessary.

Creationists and the Problem of Mutation

So... we've got this quote from Young Earth Creationist Chris Callesen:

"The thing that debunks evolution in simple terms is math.  Being that the number of possible code combinations to even form one molecule of DNA is the numeral 4, with a THOUSAND zeros behind it. Given that margin for error, and coupled with the fact that there are 1000 DESTRUCTIVE mutations in a row before a supposed "beneficial mutation" (oxymoron) the numbers defy this backward logic that every complex and beautiful creature developed slowly over millions of years until these random mutations "accidentally" got it right. Its absolutely profoundly stupid when you do the math."

Well... no.


Sorry, but your reasoning is faulty on many levels.  Your understanding of basic probability is faulty, but even worse is your understanding of how mutations work in combination with natural selection to drive evolution.  The fact that you think "beneficial mutation" is an oxymoron makes that clear enough.


So, a quick refresher on just that subject.


Your average species sees several dozen mutations appear in each generation.  The overwhelming majority of these mutations are perfectly neutral.  That is, they neither help the individual creature that possesses them, nor harms the creature.  They just are.  When and if that creature reproduces, there's a chance the mutation will be carried to the next generation, but since the mutation provides no benefit, its just as likely that it won't.


I'll give you a for instance:  I have webbed toes.


My webbed toes are from a mutation that causes the individual toes to not separate from one another.  Each of my toes is still there, they have individual bones and muscle and toenails, but the toes themselves are not separated past the first "knuckle" of each individual toe.  It gives my feet the appearance of being short and stubby.  My mother's toes are the same way, as were her mother's toes.  We're not sure how far back they go, to be honest, but I do know that none of my children have webbed toes, so its possible that the mutation stopped at me.  However, its just as possible that my grandchildren or great-grandchildren could get them.


The point being, they are a neutral mutation, and as such are just sort of there.


Interestingly enough, a neutral mutation has every chance of becoming a beneficial or harmful mutation, depending on changes the creature's circumstances and environment undergo.  For example, if I was suddenly left to fend for myself in an environment that required I have normal toes (just go with it), I'd be in trouble, and so would any of my descendants that inherited my mutation.


After neutral mutations, the most common form of mutation are, in fact, the harmful ones.  These are the ones that are bad for you.  A harmful mutation will do all kinds of nasty stuff, like cause a baby to be born with acephaly (a lack of most of its brain) or non-functional organs, or be unable to process a certain needed enzyme, and so on.  Most harmful mutations either prevent or make it very, very difficult for the creature to reproduce, and they do this usually by simply killing the creature that possesses them.


Now, I can hear the Creationists out there screaming "AHA!  SO YOU ADMIT MUTATION CAN'T CAUSE EVOLUTION AND THAT EVOLUTION IS A LIE!"


Shut up, sit down, and listen.  That's not what I said.


What I said was harmful mutations kill the creature that posseses them, usually before they can reproduce.  What that means is that the harmful mutations are almost always weeded out of the population almost as fast as they are introduced.  They are very rarely passed on to the next generation of creature because of this.


Which leaves us beneficial mutations.


A beneficial mutation is any mutation that gives an individual creature a leg up when it comes to survival and reproduction.  And because they grant advantages to the creatures that possess them, they invariably get passes on to the next generation of creature.  Since the mutations that are being passed on are advantageous, they accumulate and spread throughout the population of the species.


And when enough changes accumulate, you end up with a new species.


So, Mr. Callesen, that's how mutations work with natural selection.  Next time, I'd advise you to keep your trap shut about things you don't understand, lest you look even more like an idiot than you already do.

Why Evolution Is Not A Religion

On the subject of Evolution being a religion, let's just dispose of this nonsense once and for all. To me, this accusation is ridiculous. I can't ever decide if Creationists who make this accusation are trying to weaken Christianity by equating it with Evolution as “just another religion”, or are trying to strengthen Evolution by doing the same thing.

Here's the thing. Evolution is not a religion. It is a scientific theory that describes one small, if overwhelmingly important, part of the natural world. The fact that this one small part is overwhelmingly important, and thus is taken seriously by billions of people around the planet, does not make it a religion. The fact that it deals with a part of nature does not make it a religion. In fact, nothing makes it a religion, and people who think that Evolutionary Theory is a religion are idiots.

Let's just make a side by side comparison of the two, shall we?

Religions are designed to ultimately explain all of existence; not just the physical realm, but the spiritual as well. Evolution, on the other hand, specifically and solely deals with the proliferation of animal species. Evolutionary Theory doesn't even include the origins of life; merely, its about why there's so much diversity in life. And that's all.

Religions describe humanity's place in the universe. Evolution does not. Evolution explains solely our biological background in relation to other animal species.

Religions almost always include recognition of and reverence for some supernatural power or powers. Evolution does not.

Religions have inherent social structures built around their beliefs. While there is a social structure amongst scientists, there is no social structure that pertains specifically to evolutionary biologists, and even if there was one, one would not be required to participate in it in order to be an evolutionary biologist.

Religions impose a moral and ethical doctrine on their followers. While evolution has, in the past, been misused in order to justify certain moral or ethical opinions in the past, those opinions are not a part of Evolutionary Theory, but rather are political and social opinions made by human beings that have nothing to do with the science of Evolution itself.

Religions have rituals and sacraments. Evolutionary Theory has no similar components.

Religious dogma is static and unchanging, and its adherents are often violently hostile to change, sometimes to the point of provoking bloody and destructive wars whose purpose is to somehow prove who is “right” and who is “wrong.” Ideas in evolutionary biology change rapidly, sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis, as new information is uncovered. This is in keeping with modern scientific methodology.

So, if Evolutionary Theory were, in fact, a religion, it would be a religion without adherents, doctrine, dogma, restrictions, ritual, or beliefs. The truth is, if asked their religion, the overwhelming response from people who are familiar with and who accept the truth of religion would label themselves as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on. None would identify their religion as “Evolution”, because the idea of doing so is simply too stupid to be comprehended.

It Evolutionary Theory is a religion, it is unique in the whole wide world as being the single and only religion ever rejected by 100% of its so-called “members.”

There is, of course, one definition of “religion” that does apply to Evolutionary Theory. That definition is “something pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.” However, insisting that Evolutionary Theory is a religion on this basis also makes stamp collecting, baseball, raising chihuahuas, watching soap operas, NASCAR, jazz dancing, Star Trek, Harlequin romances, playing video games, putting together jigsaw puzzles, and Republican politics all religions. Calling Evolutionary Theory a religion in this manner makes the word “religion” effectively meaningless.

Lastly, its important to note that Evolutionary Theory has been ruled to not be a religion at all by the US government in Epperson v. Arkansas, Willoughby v. Stever, Wright v. Houston Independent School District, and in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education.

So give it up already. Evolutionary Theory is not a religion, and you saying so over and over and over does not change this.