Wednesday, December 4, 2002

I offered a concrete example of how simple measurements can help decide the veracity of a particular Biblical claim. Readers were asked to determine whether Noah's Ark could hold all the animals and keep them out of harms way. Jeremy Conley offered a reply and also commented on other statements I made in prior articles.

I do apologize to Jeremy for not being more explicit, for he, and no doubt, other readers still don't understand my various points. Let me endeavor to focus on some of Jeremy's remarks and show why they miss the mark and lack critical thinking. Hopefully, my remarks will help Jeremy gain a better sense of what science is and how scientists work.

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, as I wrote previously, to be yes, but Darwin and his contemporaries could not have proved or disproved this.

Jeremy, you quote Darwin (who had no way to prove or disprove this possibility) instead of refuting the evidence I offered: 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.

Jeremy, a teacher would expect you to find the article, study it, and offer critical statements why, or why not, the author's assumptions and methodology are valid and support the article's conclusions. You sidestepped the issue! A teacher would deduct points for that behavior and science journals would reject any articles like that. Jeremy, please look up the article, for it provides an example of how scientists think and work. Ask your science teacher to help you with its more technical points.

Jeremy, you quote the Bible to show how all the animals could fit on the Ark. You don't, however, critically analyze the quoted material or the conclusions you drew from it. You would be expected to do this if you were asked by a teacher to write an essay on this topic. Let me show you how a scientist might analyze your comments about the Ark. Here are the salient paragraphs from your article:

In Genesis 6:19-20, the Bible says that Noah was supposed to take two of every kind of bird, land animal, and "every kind of creature that moves along the ground." It is significant that "kind" is used several times. For example, wolves, dingoes, coyotes, etc., are all part of the dog "kind," or canine family.

Noah needed to take one pair of canines, not all of the species on earth today. Similarly, he did not have to take lions, leopards, panthers, jaguars, and saber-toothed tigers; he just had to take one pair of the feline "kind."

How did Noah (or God) tell all the animals about the voyage? Did he send them telegrams? Use a giant Star Trek transporter to bring them to the Ark?

A scientific enquiry would focus on the "mechanism" by which this event could occur and gauge the plausibility of such a mechanism.

Please clarify what you believe is meant by "kind" of animal. Define "kind" using the normal classification scheme used today by biologists: kingdom, phylum, genus, etc.

A scientific enquiry would use standard terminology so all could follow the discussion and could have a common conceptual framework.

Jeremy, you apparently believe that only certain "kinds" of animals were brought on board the Ark. Did all the animals without boarding passes perish? Where did all the life forms present on Earth today come from if only the animals on the Ark survived? Do I infer correctly from your remarks that the animals on board the Ark, after the flood, "evolved" to account for all the life forms we have today?

Please offer a mechanism by which the Ark animals gave rise to all the other animals.

Jeremy, what happened to the plants? Did all plant life perish? No mention is made of Noah building a greenhouse.

The animals climbed down the gangplank after the rain ceased. How did they get back home? What did the herbivores eat?

Jeremy, in my last article, I asked you to consider the "biomass" of the Earth at the time of Noah. I did that for a reason: All the life forms mentioned in Genesis account for a tiny fraction of the life on Earth then and now.

Biodiversity is unevenly distributed across creature types and unevenly distributed across geographical areas. (Most life forms on Earth actually reside in the southern hemisphere.) More than half of the cataloged creatures are insects there are, for example, about 300,000 kinds of beetles. Was there room for them on the Ark?

Jeremy, you claim that the "animals would have occupied only about 13 percent of the Ark!" This is nonsense.

Conservative estimates of the number of life forms on Earth range between 5 million and 7 million. About 1.6 million of these life forms have been studied so far. Jeremy, your idea of "what is an animal" needs to be clarified and refined. Evolution theory attempts to explain all this diversity; creationism seems to offer a much narrower notion of "life on Earth." Extend your idea of "animal" just a little, and the Ark is seen to be far too small just for the insects on Earth.

Jeremy, I criticized your use of a dictionary for a definition of science because you picked such a poor definition, not because you used a reference work. Think about the definition you offered: "systemized knowledge derived from observation, study, and experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of what is being studied."

This is good enough for junior high school but is inadequate for high school or college work. Ask yourself these questions:

What makes a physics book different from a cook book? Does this definition help you tell one from the other?

What is missing from this description of science? Does this definition help you tell astronomy from astrology or numerology from number theory?

Your science teacher can suggest books for you to read that clarify what makes a discipline a science instead of a pseudo-science. Here is one example to whet your appetite: A scientific theory is predictive. Correct predictions validate the theory and duds invalidate the theory. Evolution theory makes correct predictions so far; creationism makes no predictions at all. (Give me an example of a prediction derived from creationism that has panned out if you can.)

Jeremy, you and other readers have said over and over that "evolution is only a theory." You are using the word "theory" (I think) as a synonym for "hypothesis." This couldn't be further from the truth! Evolution, as a branch of biology, is as well established as other branches of modern science. I made reference to Mendel's theory of genetics in my last article; I didn't appeal to him as an authority! Go to your school library and look up a few books on classical genetics. You'll find that they discuss "genetic principles" not Mendel's opinions.

Evolution is happening right now as I write! Ask your science teacher to recommend a few books at your skill level that tells you how and why this is. New creatures appear all the time in nature, and geneticists create new life forms almost weekly. None of this could be possible if creationism were true. Genetic engineering would be impossible if creationism were even remotely possible.

Jeremy, the claims of creationism contradict most branches of science, not just evolution. You must explain why most sciences are "wrong" if you are to uphold creationism to any degree. Ask yourself these questions:

Why don't the geology books in your school library mention creationism when the formation of the Earth is discussed?

Why don't the astronomy books in your school library mention creationism when planet formation and the origin of the solar system are discussed?

Why is the word "creationism" never found in the index of any physics book in your school library?

Why aren't articles on creationism ever found in reputable science journals?

Jeremy, when I was a young graduate student, I would read absolutely everything on a topic. I would often only sleep two or three hours a night. Finally, a professor of mine admonished me, "If you spend all of your time reading the junk out there, you won't have enough time or energy to study the good stuff. The good stuff is the hard stuff; that is why most people prefer to read and believe the nonsense stuff."

Jeremy, most people prefer simple and easy answers, even when they are clearly wrong. This is why newspapers publish horoscopes; this is why people call psychic phone lines; this is why people go to fortune tellers; and this is why people believe in creationism.

Science is hard; math is harder. But, these are the tools that let you figure out the world. As another professor once said to a class of mine: "You can lead students to knowledge, but you can't make them think." Jeremy, ask your teachers to lead you away from the junk out there and to the stuff that makes our civilization work.

Peter Duran

Fayetteville