1. You can see your car work, but you can’t see evolution work, therefore evolution is unscientific and invalid.
2. God created the natural world, therefore we should always defer to him when studying it; he could have made things any way he pleased and we should presume to elevate our human knowledge above his divine plan.
3. I and all other scientists are simply repeating a dogma created by one naturalist 150 years ago. Everyone automatically accept(s/ed) his idea without a second thought, and we are now unwilling to listen to any argument that goes against this dogmatic belief.
4. Refusing to consider and give equal weight to all proposed hypotheses for a certain natural phenomenon is unscientific.
5. Evolution is “just a theory” (kill me now) and there is no empirical, factual proof for it.
6. Evolution is more or less an atheist plot to disprove God and by extension get our children to reject God.

1. Once again, you fail to understand basic concepts of the operation of science.
Science is useful exactly *because* it allows us to have knowledge about things we cannot directly observe. It allows us to expand out knowledge beyond out limited bodily senses. If science only gave us information about things we could directly observe… It wouldn’t be telling us much of anything, would it?
I know you can experience the fact that your car moves when you put gas in it and turn it on, but you can also see that there is a diversity of organisms in the world, all of them uniquely suited to their environment with a specific set of biological adaptations. You can know these from your direct personal experience. But what is important is not the initial crude observations, but rather the not-directly-observable mechanisms that produce the results you DO observe. Science lets you explore those mechanisms. You can no more see the hydrocarbon molecules reacting with oxygen, dissociating, and forming CO2 and H2O molecules than I can set up a magical time-travelling camera to record evolution. If the two competing theories for the movement of your car are direct divine intervention and chemical combustion, neither can ever be confirmed or disconfirmed if you reject outright all knowledge not derived from direct observation. The same goes for evolution. I suppose you’re welcome to reject this type of knowledge and decide you prefer to not believe evolution, but please be aware that if you choose to ignore that evidence then you also have no basis for belief in atomics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, germ theory, history, or anything else that relies on that type of information.
(also, see point #5 for explanation of scientific proof)

2. I guess I don’t disagree with this, but I’m not sure how it’s relevant to the discussion. God could have chosen to create the diversity of life any way he pleased, yes, but what’s to prevent us from discovering his method? If he chose to create a world that conforms to a universal set of natural laws, there’s no reason why we can’t strive to better understand those laws. If he’s making shit up as he goes, I guess there’s not much we can do, but there does seem to be more evidence for the idea of stable universal laws than the idea of god supernaturally intervening in the development of the universe in significant ways.
Saying that god could have made stuff any way he wanted does not really have anything to do with the specific nature of his method or if we can know anything useful about it.
Basically… No matter what mechanisms the universe follows, if those mechanisms are consistent, science works.

3. The “dogmatism” of “Darwinism” is not an honest portrayal of either history or science. Scientists still aren’t really sure how you guys came up with this one, since it has essentially no basis in reality.
Darwin began as a creationist, and only developed his theory after vast amounts of evidence convinced him that his current belief about the way the world functions was not valid. He also faced huge criticism when he introduced his theory, and it underwent intense scrutiny by the scientific community of the time. It is only used as an “assumption” now because it has been thoroughly examined, consistently supported, and not challenged in any serious way by any other competing scientific theory. Science continues to critically examine the theory of evolution in every experiment that in any way involves the application of this theory. Data has no preference for one theory or the other, so if the data are not consistent with the current paradigm, something would have to be done. If a significant amount of evidence that unequivocally went against evolution were ever to amass, the theory would be reexamined and either revised or replaced by a better theory. This evidence has yet to surface. Evolution, though subject to constant minor revision and addition, has not developed any major flaws that would require such a reexamination. Scientists only “assume” evolution when designing their experiments because there is no serious evidence against it, making it a robust and useful framework of thought.
Evolution is not any more “dogmatic” than chemistry or physics, and if you believe otherwise you are simply ignorant of the history, development, and current functioning of science.

4. This is just silly. I do not need to give the hypotheses “my bread grew mold” and “a unicorn pooed on my sandwich” equal weight. If I am at all aware of reality, one of these hypotheses is clearly absurd, and need not be considered in a rational analysis of the situation.
I do not need to give ID and evolution equal weight because one is scientific and the other clearly is not. I HAVE considered the opposing view, and I have determined that it is not applicable to science and therefore should not be scientifically pursued. This is not “unscientific” if you know anything at all about science.
ID appeals to a supernatural power that intervenes in the world in ways that contradict otherwise constant natural laws. It therefore cannot be studied by science. End of story. There’s really nothing else to it.

5. The smoking gun, the missing link, the physical proof, the alligator-duck, the ape giving birth to a human. Can I give you a scholarship to college instead?
Science doesn’t deal in certainty. I’m sorry if you find that unsatisfying, but we can only tell you what is most likely, not what is absolutely True. You’re not going to find The Truth in evolution or anywhere else in science. That’s what you have Jeebus for. How shiny for you.
Science can’t give you the kind of proof you want, but neither can my chocolate bar tell me how to correctly conjugate Spanish verbs.
You just don’t seem to really understand what “proof” and “empirical evidence” consists of in science. You toss around the phrase “scientifically proven,” but you apparently are unaware of how to actually go about scientifically proving something.
I really do HATE linking stuff instead of using my own words, but the page I’m going to give you takes barely a minute to read and describes the nature of scientific proof probably much more clearly and concisely than I can: http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evolution/blfaq_evolution_evidence01.htm
Evolution is strongly supported by inferential evidence. That’s how science does stuff. If that’s not good enough for you, you’re just a big whiner.

6. I am sick to death of seeing evolution equated with atheism, rejection of god, decline of moral values, blah blah blah blah (BTW if you bring up Hitler ima hafta punch you in da face for failing hardcore at thinking, kthxbai). Plenty of religious people find evolution acceptable, and plenty of scientists believe in god. And none of them are going around raping goats and eating babies, so just STFU.
Quite frankly, I think atheists are as retarded as you are (OH WAIT FOR THE BURNS). We cannot have absolute certainty about the nature of the universe either way, and anyone who thinks they can is deluded. Scientists especially should not “believe in atheism” because it, just like religion, requires you to be absolutely certain about something you cannot gather evidence for. In fact I tend to sympathize more with religion than with atheism (for lots of anthropological and philosophical reasons that are a better subject for another time).
So yeah. You suck, atheists suck, moral relativists suck, (Hitler sucks,) the crusades sucked, and finding dead spiders in your shoes really sucks too. The thing is, none of this has anything to do with evolution.
True, evolution does not *require* god, but neither does it *deny* god. It simply doesn’t deal with god. Again, you yourself admitted that evolution could be the tool god himself created to shape life. Evolution isn’t any more atheist than your stapler is. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is just being an asshole, and you have permission to kick them in the shins no matter which “side” they belong to.

Also, If your religious belief is so weak that some natural phenomenon that does not seem to absolutely require god annihilates your faith, your precious Jeebus is probably going to be pretty annoyed.

So either stop believing in your microwave, or acknowledge that science is the most effective tool we have for learning about the natural world, accept that evolution is the only scientific theory we have to explain the diversity of living organisms, recognize that evolution does not conflict with or damage God any more than the heliocentric universe did, and GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE.

(PS: You get all in a tizzy because I’m “not listening,” but you totally failed to even acknowledge almost half of the points in my post, specifically those dealing with the teaching of ID and creationism in schools. I’d be interested to hear your reply to that section of my initial post)

Wes Robertson:
I’m not going to waste my time refuting specific creationist claims because every creationist challenge to evolution has been solidly answered many times by many scientists. The only reason these “arguments” persist is because creationists generally don’t take the time to do any research and often don’t understand the explanations even when they do find them. If you want me to deal with the supposed arguments against evolution, please email me, because I don’t want to spam up this page with such nonsense.

I’m also not going to take up space outlining the evidence for evolution because… Well, it’s impossible. Not because it’s not there, but rather because there is so much of it that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
People spend their entire lives studying evolution. Students have to take full college courses to even begin to understand the basics of the theory. Tens of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers, not to mention entire textbooks, have been written on the subject. Evolution is the foundation of biology and all its daughter fields, and is supported by hard, factual evidence from almost every other branch of science.
The claim that evolution is “unproven” is shamefully ignorant, maliciously manipulative, and shockingly arrogant. It displays a profound misunderstanding of the scientific process and a total lack of decent science education. Oh, and it’s wrong. It is a complete, flat-out, bald-faced, unequivocal LIE. Sorry if I’m coming on a little strong, but have I made my point yet?
If you want proof for evolution, go back to school. Get a decent education and do some actual research.

Evolution is a sound and fully mature scientific theory. It is not labeled as a “fact” simply because it encompasses not just one, but a vast number of concepts and mechanisms. The components of the theory of evolution, are, however, fully factual and scientifically proven. It is not based on mindless dogma, it is based on the sound methodological principles of science. Evolution is no more a “religion” than optics or car mechanics. All scientific fields use the same methodology, and you can’t just reject one because you find it personally distasteful.
If you want to reject evolution, be honest about it and reject the rest of science too. I’ll be glad to take your car, your house, your possessions and your money when you move to a dirt hovel in the middle of the wilderness.

Evolution and creationism are absolutely not equally scientifically valid. They are NOT on par in terms of evidence, logic, ability to offer reliable predictions, or anything else that matters in a science classroom. To tell students that they are is dishonest and dangerous.

Furthermore, even if your claims about evolution had any merit whatsoever, how exactly would you go about incorporating the creationist story into schools?
Do you teach young earth-creationism or old-earth creationism? Day-age or gap interpretation? Intelligent design? And what about all the other religions? I’m sure there are plenty of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Pagans who contribute to our schools as well. Should we teach their creation stories in class as well? What about religions that have no issue with evolution because they see God as working through natural laws instead of violating them, like Deism?
And should we incorporate religion into the rest of our education? To be Biblically consistent, if we teach creationism, we should also teach the story of Babel in language classes, change the curricula of geophysics classes to cover catastrophism and the Noachian flood, and teach doctors how to perform exorcisms.

Of course, you may say we should just forget the religious specifics and teach intelligent design.
But the problem with intelligent design is that it isn’t a science.
Intelligent design relies entirely on negative argumentation; that is, evolution can’t explain this, therefore it must have been designed. These negative arguments rely on a false dichotomy (how do you know there isn’t another, perfectly natural explanation besides evolution? etc), and also make intelligent design an unviable “science.” Because it can offer no positive claims, it can make no predictions, and cannot generate hypotheses for study. This becomes obvious once one reviews the scientific literature and finds that intelligent design “research” does not exist.
But the biggest problem with intelligent design is that it destroys science at its most fundamental level. This is not poetic hyperbole; intelligent design is simply incompatible with the basic requirements of scientific inquiry. At what point are you justified in saying that something is designed? How can you quantify the line between something that could have arisen from natural processes and something that coultn’ve? There are plenty of natural phenomena that were at one time thought to be only explicable through god, but which were later found to have perfectly natural explanations. When do you stop researching something? Just because you don’t have an explanation now doesn’t mean you’ll never have one. When do you halt research? Intelligent design is a universal, one-size-fits-all explanation, and is therefore can never be a part of science. Whenever some question seems too hard to answer, scientists could just give up and say, “I don’t get it, it must be God.” And scientific progress would come to a screeching halt.

I certainly haven’t dealt with everything I wanted to discuss, but this post is already far too long, so I’ll just have to stop here and leave the rest for later. I’d also be more than willing to continue this discussion through email so as not to totally monopolize Alex’s blog space.

I think we were all Gnostics in a past life…lol

From my own point of view, it’s all a crock of shit–but hey, whatever gets you through the day. Being a nice person and not intentionally hurting anyone, is good enough for me. If one needs a book of fables like The Bible, and to attend a church and follow the teachings of that nice Jewish boy, Jesus–I got no beef with them. Just keep it away from me and out of the political arena.

Tommy, when did you hire the ‘grammar cop’ known as Wes?

Hi Michelle!

Alex, keep up the good fight–you are doing great!