A evolutionist's review of a creationist's review of an evolutionist's book

Let's do some evolutions, whatsay? This one was in my mailbox for a while. Better now than never. It was Sean McDowell's review of Jerry Coyne's recent Why Evolution is True. I was clogging the pipes at Worldview Weekend. Animala is waiting to get onto the computer, so I will jump right in.

"Evolution is a fact. And far from casting doubt on Darwinism, the evidence gathered by scientists over the past century and a half support it completely."

"Today scientists have as much confidence in Darwinism as they do in the existence of atoms, or in microorganisms as the cause of infectious disease."

"Evolution is far more than a scientific theory: it is a scientific fact scientists need no more convincing."

These quotes all come from Professor Jerry Coyne's recent defense of Darwinian evolution entitled Why Evolution is True (Viking Publishing, 2009). Like most books that defend Darwinian evolution (if not all), [1.] the author acts as if the evidence for evolution is simply overwhelming and conclusive. From his perspective, [2.] it's only scientific novices or cranks that believe in creationism or intelligent design (ID). And [3.] the future of science itself rests upon defending Darwinian evolution against its critics.

1. It is. It's not an act, and he's not putting on airs. He is a professor. He's, a Harvard Ph.D., a Guggenheim fellow, peer-reviewed and published molecular and evolutionary biologist, You publish with discredited scientists at novelty presses and list the fact that you married your high school sweetheart as a professional qualification. 2. You are absolutely right. Only cranks and novices believe in ID/creation as a scientific explanation for the origins of life. 3. Science is neutral. Its application is not. It is absolutely imperative that our democratic citizenry, to guide public policy with respect to the implementation of science, understands basic science. You are a barrier to this. As a result, we have a third-world science education system. Way to go, Sean!

The evidence Coyne offers for evolution includes vestigial organs, embryological similarities, the fossil record, imperfect design, and the geographical distribution of species. With the exception of the last point, William Dembski and I respond to ALL of these points in our book Understanding Intelligent Design (Harvest House, 2009).

Haha! I’m sorry, you just publicly linked yourself to the laughing stock Bill Dembski. Dumbasses.

Let's consider one example from Why Evolution is True. Coyne says, "It is a remarkable fact that while there are many living species, all of us-you, me, the elephant, and the potted cactus-share some fundamental traits. Among these are the biochemical pathways that we use to produce energy, our standard four-letter DNA code, and how that code is read and translated into proteins. This tells us that every species goes back to a single common ancestor, an ancestor who had these common traits and passed them on to it descendants." There are two problems with this "evidence" that Professor Coyne conveniently ignores.

Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t. But let’s hear your stupid shit out. After all, it is easier for me to read fiction than to write it.

First, evidence for common descent is decidedly not evidence for Darwinian evolution. There are many proponents of ID who believe in common descent, but they doubt that Darwin's mechanism (natural selection acting on random mutation) is a sufficient causal explanation for all the diversity and complexity within the biological world. Coyne needs to show that a blind material process can generate all the biological information that pervades the natural world. The only evidence he offers is finch-beak variation and bacterial resistance, which demonstrate minor genetic shuffling rather than the generation of novel information and structures.

Horseshit, retard. Your monkey-level ignorance of information theory speaks volumes as to why nobody should ever, ever listen to you on matters relating to science and why children should throw mud at you while mocking you mercilessly.

Consider this. You have a bacterium. Call it seanis ignoramus. Just for fun, its entire genetic code is 10 letters long: OMGSTFULOL. It’s in its natural habitat, on the rectum of the red panda. One day, the adorable red panda’s diet changes slightly (we’ll say because of global climate change), and he starts eating increasing amounts of a plant with a substance that 1) he does not fully metabolize and 2) is poisonous to the seanis ignoramus. So, as this substance, called “reasonium,” flows out of the backside of the red panda, the seanis ignoramus has an increasingly bad situation. Let’s say that over some significant span of time the panda poops .5% reasonium, up from .4% during the earlier diet. Well, the seanis ignoramus that could not handle the .1% increase is going to die out, and the average resistance of the colony is going to go up. There will be of course, variance due to mutation…in this case, degrees of resistance to resonium. In the first generation, the 1% reasonium poop is fatal to all seanis ignoramus. As the amount of reasonium in the panda poop slowly goes up over time, the bacteria that cannot handle increasingly higher concentrations die out, while some small fraction of the seanis ignoramus survives and thrives because there is less competition. The resistance goes up again. As the reasonium doses increase slowly (and mind you, if the dosage of reasonium went up too quickly, all the ass bacteria would die), only increasingly stronger bacteria survive. Over several thousand generations, as the dosage of reasonium increases and only increasingly resistant bacteria survive, one day we will find ourselves with panda poop that is 1.1% reasonium and an ass colony. Remember that none of the bacteria of the first generation would have survived such a deadly dose of panda poop. There is something new there. A property that was not there before. Even by your lame definition of “information” there is something new, something that was not there before. This is evolution. Whether it is antibiotic resistance or structures related to mobility or brain size, this is evolution—do it long enough on enough structures and you get all sorts of speciation. Dickhead. Get it through your thick fucking idiot skull. It’s evolution.

What do you mean by information, asshole?

Second, it is true that the arguments Professor Coyne makes here are consistent with Darwinian evolution. But here's the problem he overlooks: these considerations are also consistent with intelligent design. Here's why: If there is a common designer, then it should be no surprise that we find a common "fingerprint" over all nature.

Says who? You just made that shit up! By the same logic, and based on the same amount of evidence, could I not just say that if God were really super clever, surely could have come up with something other than carbon-based life forms. Apparently God is a very limited one-trick pony. You would expect an all-powerful megalomaniac to show off a little. Nope.

Since the evidence Coyne cites is consistent with BOTH Darwinian evolution and ID it cannot be used as evidence solely for one.

But one hypothesis doesn’t require that we make up a sky-daddy, a hierarchy of angels and, dare I say it again, talking snakes, to explain the world.

[…]

Evolution is a "how" not a "that"

I am amazed at how frequently Darwinists admit that there is debate about HOW life evolved but not THAT life evolved. Coyne puts it this way: "These mysteries about how we evolved should not distract us from the indisputable fact that we did evolve" (209). Once again, this raises a troubling question: If there is debate about the how of evolution, then what right do Darwinists have to claim that we evolved with such confidence (as we saw above)? Evolution is a theory specifically about how life developed. The significant debate (and lack of evidence) for the mechanism of evolution undermines the theory itself.

There is no debate about the mechanism. It’s natural selection. Passing on beneficial traits to offspring that actually reproduce at the expense of those that are not able to reproduce. This holds. The crinkly bits around the edges of the theory, for instance, what evolutionary path did species X go down, or is Z-adaptive mechanism older than Z’-adaptive mechanism. Those are the questions that are being asked and debated. But natural selection is as solid as a rock. I guess you could say that the workings of the nature of gravity are mysterious, but there is no doubt that we are standing on firm ground. Could be particles of gravity jumping instantly in between attracting objects, could be little angels pushing down on us. And we know a lot more about evolution than we do about gravity. Really staggeringly huge lots more.

I'm tempted to close this article by claiming that the evidence for evolution is underwhelming, weak, disputable, and unconvincing. But that would be to use the very tactics I criticize in Coyne. So here's my question: Why can't we have a balanced, thoughtful, non fear-mongering discussion about the question of our origins? What are (many) Darwinists afraid of?

Get this through your skull. They aren’t afraid of you. They have nothing to gain by talking down to you. You are incapable of learning. The fact that you think that there is no evidence for natural selection while admitting that there is “genetic shuffling” and having written a book about the subject proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are incapable of learning and that I would have a more intellectually satisfying experience cleaning my cat’s litter box than speaking to you. You are less than an amateur. You are a fantasist and have a reality problem. Your opinion does not mean shit to a scientist. Nothing. Seriously, a biology lab couldn’t use your services as a doorstop because it would put more intelligent doorstops out of work.

Richard Dawkins is releasing a book soon in defense of evolution called, "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution." Maybe this will finally be the conclusive evidence in favor of Darwin's theory. I'm not holding my breath.

Boy, Sean, I hope your head is underwater!

HJ