Wednesday, October 23, 2002

Two recent events lead inexorably to the conclusion that the citizens of Georgia are extremely ignorant of basic science. SAT scores announced a few weeks ago place our students at the bottom compared with students nationwide. The recent vote of the Cobb County School Board on the topic of creationism indicates that Georgia parents and educators are just as ignorant as their children and students in this subject.

So far the debaters on both sides of the issue evolution versus creationism have muddled the discussion with emotional outbursts and vague claims of right and wrong. Only a more reasoned, less emotional account of this apparent conflict can lead to a clear understanding of this issue and lead to a determination of the limits of both views.

Just the facts

All of us must agree on the physical facts before we can make any definitive claims pro or con about the correctness of either viewpoint. Here is a simple experiment that yields a very important fact about the world we live in and illustrates the experimental method in science.

Take a 10-pound bag of flour and a 5-pound bag of sugar and climb up to the top of the statehouse dome. Repeatedly drop both bags at the same time and note when the 2 bags hit the ground. Careful measurements of time and distance will lead you to the conclusion that both bags hit the ground at the very same time. More experiments with objects of different weights and shapes will eventually lead you to the conclusion: different masses bricks and feathers in a vacuum fall exactly at the same speed.

Now you have a fact. But how do you explain this fact? Newton proposed a universal force of gravity, Faraday proposed a force field that fills all of space, and Einstein proposed a curvature of space.

All proposed explanations must agree with the facts at hand and must predict additional facts. A theory in science is a collection of "faith statements" that we hold dear and that explain all the facts at hand. A theory in science gains more and more credibility as further facts are gathered which the theory can explain. A single fact that contradicts the theory is sufficient for us to question our faith statements hypotheses and either correct them or reject them outright and seek more compatible beliefs.

A theory in science is never proven; it is only verified more and more or replaced by a more inclusive theory. Einstein's theory of gravity replaces those of Newton and Faraday because it explains all the facts they explain and more -- the weird orbit of the planet Mercury.

Measurement of long times

Now we get to the crux of the debate with a discussion of time measurement. You mark a moment in time when you look at your watch, and you measure an interval of time when you set your alarm clock. You mark longer periods of time with a calendar when you write down birthdates and other notable events.

But, tell me how old is that big tree in the backyard or in the park? There is a way to determine its age: cut down the tree and count its tree rings; there is 1 ring per year of growth. Now use this fact to gauge the age of the Earth. (A tree named Methuselah in the northwest is over 5,000 years old.)

There are other ways to measure long times: The erosion of rock by flowing water to form riverbeds and canyons, the drift of star constellations, the decay of radioactive elements, etc. All of the long time measurement methods yield the fact that the Earth is extremely old. Any theory that contradicts this fact is incorrect and some or all of its faith statements need to be corrected or rejected.

Now, what does long time measurement have to do with creationism and evolution? It yields facts that all of us can verify and lets us test the correctness of both views.

Creationism

Creationism is based on faith statements presented in the Bible, many of which make claims about the physical world. We can also infer from scripture other claims about the physical world. Consider pronouncements about the Earth: it was created in just 6 days, a statement in Genesis; the Earth is at most 6,500 years old, an inference from the genealogy of biblical figures. Both claims contradict the measurements of long times made in geology, physics, anthropology, botany, cosmology, etc. The faith statements in the Bible that yield erroneous time periods are invalid or all the time measurements made in all the physical sciences are in error. Cobb County citizens must place warning stickers on books in these areas of study as well as those on biology texts if they are to maintain their belief in creationism.

Evolution

Again, we must separate the physical facts from the theory offered to explain them. Darwin's great achievement is as an observer of nature. Plants and creatures were meticulously observed, gathered, catalogued, and examined over decades. You can go to a museum of natural history and make similar observations yourself. These observations show unequivocally chains of variation in plants and animals of all kinds which require long intervals of time for their genesis. Check this out for yourself.

Darwin offered various faith statements to account for these chains of variation in plants and animals: Darwin proposed, for example, that we believe that "natural selection" causes plants and animals to vary as the environment, climate, population density, and so forth changes. The processes that are required to produce these changes take long times. But, is the long times measured in other sciences long enough to allow for the development, say, of the human eye?

Consider the question whether the human eye evolved through stages or whether it was created as is. This raises a fundamental question: Can complex designs come into being without a designer? The answer turns out to be yes, but Darwin and his contemporaries could not have proved or disproved this. Often in the history of science, questions are posed that can't be addressed at the time because the necessary mental machinery (notation, mathematics, etc.) and the physical machinery (measurement devices, computational devices, etc.) don't exist as yet. It remains for later generations to settle the questions.

The "human eye" question is answered in 2 parts: Eyes have evolved gradually and in different ways. Snakes use infrared light (heat) to sense your presence so they can bite you. Electric eels use fluctuations in their electromagnetic fields to sense you so they can shock you. Spiders spin webs with "flower patterns" on them to attract insects who see in the ultraviolet spectrum so they can eat them. In short, there are lots of different kinds of "eyes out there" at different stages of development which let their owners do better than their rivals. Now, for the human eye. Could this organ evolve (without a designer) through a multitude of stages and reach the complexity it now has? How could you demonstrate this? Modern computers come to the rescue. A computer model of the human eye, developed by Daniel Milson and Susan Pelger in 1994, describes the evolution of the human eye and gives the number of steps required to form a completely functional eye, and validates the principles of Darwinism.

Mendelian principles of genetics and the development of the gene theory in the 20th century gives a comprehensive theory of all biological changes and, at a fundamental level, verifies the principles of evolution. Cobb County citizens must place warning stickers also on books that discuss genetics if they are to maintain their faith in creationism.

Evolution and creationism are both equally based on faith. However, evolution, as a science, must adhere to methods of proof and refutation which creationism ignores. Evolution, as a branch of science, must be consistent with other branches of science -- physics, chemistry and the like. Creationism, on the other hand, contradicts not only evolution in biology but also geology, botany, genetics, and much more.

A scientific theory must be internally consistent and consistent with other well-established facts about the physical world. Creationism fails the most basic criteria of "theoryhood." Creationism shouldn't be taught in public or private schools because it is at best a mythology and at worse intellectual fraud. The Earth wasn't created in 6 days nor is the Earth only 6,500 years old. Creationism is a mere attempt to dress up a long-loved myth in scientific garb so it sounds scientific.

Peter Duran

Fayetteville