The Fantasy of Evolution: History of science

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Diary more than anything else

I'm not much of a blogger if the objective is to make contacts with others of similar interests, and I've thought that eventually I would go out and connect with other blogs on my favorite topics; but I've come to think of my blogs as more like a diary or journal, a place to organize my thoughts. I enjoy it when someone does come by and comment, even if the comment is loudly negative, as many are of course on the subjects I pursue.

Lately I've been blogging less and reading more. Still in my favorite subjects. Bought some books I really can't afford and am having a very enjoyable time of catching up on the history of science. I wish I could afford more. In fact I wish I could live inside the most complete libary on earth. The internet is wonderful that way, but it's not complete and I do get frustrated at times.

I've been reading mostly in the history of geology lately. I started out reading in genetics but found myself in geology before long. Both of course are related to the issues surrounding evolution. Read a biography of James Hutton, "the father of modern geology," very entertaining as well as informative. Accumulating a big wish list at Amazon on geology books, such as Hutton's friend John Playfair's Illustrations of Huttonian Theory. I wish I had access to a whole slew of pictures of the geological formations on which Hutton developed his theory of the earth -- I may find that in a more modern book on geology, of which I have one in my wish list too. Again, the internet is a great source for these things, I just wish there was more available. I also wish it were less expensive to print out the sources that ARE available. If wishes were horses .... Academic books are often prohibitively expensive. Sometimes you can find a decent deal on used books through Amazon but if the book is a classic the used copies will be too expensive too.

I can't go out and look at these formations for myself so pictures are absolutely necessary. There are photos and diagrams of Hutton's Siccar Point available on the internet: Here's a good one and the comment about how Hutton simply looked at it and "realized" the earth was old is priceless. This site speaks of "environments of deposition." I find this very amusing but of course geologists take it seriously.

I have plenty of thoughts about Hutton's theory, but I'm not going to post them here right now.

About This Blog

What I want to do here is try to do my best job of stating my own favorite arguments against evolution. There are a couple I think really, logically speaking, ought to bring the whole system crashing down but of course it isn't that easy, human stubbornness being what it is.

There's the geological argument which is basically that you can see with your naked eyes that this world once went through a global Flood, as the Bible reports. That takes care all by itself of the whole Old Earth theorizing that evolution depends on.

And there's the biological argument: It is known that genes DON'T increase although evolution depends on increase. The MORE evolved a species the LESS genetic capacity to evolve it actually has. Breeders certainly know this; and conservationists also know this because genetic depletion in highly specialized species (such as the cheetah) makes them vulnerable to extinction rather than candidates for further variation.

I hope to post on these and other arguments as time permits.

==========================

Ah heck, Mr. Dawkins, we CAN TOO imagine macroevolution by natural selection, same as you can. We can follow out the same Rube-Goldberg sequence of improbable events, acting in a homologically graded series of imaginatively fleshed-out fossils, events that have never been observed in living reality, to the same preconceived conclusion you come to. Our problem is that we know it flies in the face of probability, reason, logic and any other law of rational inquiry and science that may exist, AND that there is no evidence for it, whereas design OBVIOUSLY implies a designer -- obviously, intuitively, rationally, logically, reasonably and probabilistically -- and I'd add "absolutely" if I could get away with it.

IT ISN'T FOR LACK OF EXPOSURE TO SCIENCE

A description of my own experience in answer to the usual denigrating assumption that creationism requires ignorance of science -- not that I claim any scientific sophistication of course, merely a basic understanding of some basic facts and principles.

Before I became a Christian I absorbed a lot of the thinking about evolution and tried my best to understand it. Even then I was often frustrated that evidence trails could just about never be found or followed out to any kind of certainty and I found that I always had to give up trying to follow them and just take the conclusions of the scientists pretty much on faith. I definitely had an interest in understanding evolution. I believed in it; I wanted also to understand it, but I found my desire thwarted by the lack of evidence. I read the Origin of Species, I read lots of stuff by Stephen Jay Gould, very entertaining stuff, I read Skeptical Inquiry regularly, and so on. I investigated the science claims for evolution about as far as the average intelligent non-scientist can be expected to.

It was only after I became a Christian that I got into studying the creationist answers and took seriously my earlier experience of frustration with the lack of evidence for evolution. I strongly wish that those who find it convincing would rethink it a lot more carefully because the evidence is really not there to the extent you think it is, I suspect you are accepting as evidence all sorts of clever speculations that are not evidence, and are taking most of it on faith in spite of yourself.

The Fantasy of Evolution

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Diary more than anything else

My other blogs

MOST IMPORTANT BLOG POSTS

EVOLUTIONISM IS A STRONGHOLD TO BE SPIRITUALLY TOPPLED

About This Blog

Labels

Blog Archive

IT ISN'T FOR LACK OF EXPOSURE TO SCIENCE