Sunday, 23 February 2014
How creationists distort evolution
The courageous folk who prefer the God hypothesis have the odds stacked against them. For starters, they do not have any evidence that their creation mechanism (God) exists whilst those who accept evolution understand and can demonstrate the existence of the mechanisms that power evolution (genes, reproduction, genetic variability, environmental pressures and so on).
But, the God hypothesists have even bigger problems. When we look around us we find a huge mass of evidence that could falsify one or both approaches. There is the fossil record, the DNA relationships between species, faulty genes shared between species and "design" glitches that are perfectly explained by evolution but can only be explained by the God hypothesists by assuming God had a "bad day".
In summary, all of this and much other evidence supports evolution and falsifies the God hypothesis. So where do the the God hypothesists go from here? Well, many of them create strawman versions of evolution which they can show to be false. This Muslim video is one such example.
This video attempts to show the absurdity of constructing a toy helicopter by randomly shaking a bag of Lego bricks. This is presented as an analogy to the probability of life evolving but, of course, this is not how evolution works—not even close.
But, there is a way to make this analogy represent evolution rather better...
Firstly, evolution does not create a sophisticated organism at one attempt—it relies on multiple attempts and many failures with a selection process to weed out the less effective organisms. So let's imagine instead of one bag of lego, we have 1,000 bags of Lego. And let's imagine we have 1,000 trained monkeys each attempting to build a helicopter.
Secondly, evolution is a cumulative process whereby each successful change becomes the starting point that future changes build upon.
To build our helicopter will take 100 pieces of Lego. We start by asking the monkeys to put any three pieces of Lego together randomly. Then have a selection process.
What are the chances that one monkey has unknowingly assembled 3% of the helicopter? Pretty good. Then give all the moneys this assembly as a starting point and let them add another three pieces of Lego. Now select again and see if any of them has assembled 6% of the helicopter. Again, there's a pretty good chance and if they haven't, just try again.
Continue like this until you have a complete helicopter.
This is not perfectly analogous to how evolution works but it's much closer than expecting that shaking a bag of Lego will produce a fully complete helicopter at one attempt. If you remove "selection" from Evolution by Natural Selection, you won't get evolution but that's exactly what the helicopter analogy does.
Using my model, what are the chances of coming up with a complete helicopter? Quite close to unity. In other words, you're almost certain to get a helicopter.
Finally, why do the God hypothesists so often argue, not against evolutionary theory but against an invented and distorted version of it? And why do they focus almost exclusively on picking holes in evolutionary theory, rather than presenting the evidence for their own hypothesis?
Perhaps, it's simply because they have no evidence?
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About Me
- Nildogma
- As a 20-year-old I was insatiably curious about the world and passionate about rejecting superstitions and all kinds of false beliefs. I still am today. Sometimes when people believe things that are not true, it make little or no difference but sometimes the consequences can be disastrous and deadly. Now, I do what I can to help people improve their thinking skills, especially in how they impinge on core beliefs, such as cultural values and religious beliefs. I have an active Facebook page for which I create memes and write articles almost daily. I also engage people in on-line debates. You can find me here: https://www.facebook.com/bill.flavell.1 I lecture at universities around the world and present or debate at public meetings. I also, draw on my management consultancy background to help freethought groups, almost anywhere in the world, to get organised, develop strategy and improve their media and presentation skills. If you would like me to present at your university or for your church group or freethought group, please contact me.
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