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I think that it is essential that we kill off this rubbish before anyone speaks to prof Dawkins. I have met him, briefly, and attended some of his lectures. He does not debate with creationists, and he is absolutely devastating towards people who have not thought through their arguments properly. If anyone tries to push creationism on him I think they will get their fingers badly burned.

I recently wrote an article for a magazine, which for various reasons did not get sent to them. I have reproduced part of it here in the hope that it will put an end to this creationist talk. I am not qualified to speak for him, but as far as PE is concerned I think he will probably respond to questions.


THE LOGIC OF EVOLUTION


"The World is flat!" - This is Premise One.

Premise One is false. We know it is false because of the overwhelming preponderance of multifarious and independently corroborative evidence uncovered by various and disparate scientific disciplines.

"Evolution Happened!" - This is Premise Two.

Premise Two is true. We know it is true because of the overwhelming preponderance of multifarious and independently corroborative evidence from various and disparate scientific disciplines.

The evidence from Geology, Dendrochronology and Radio Chronology all show that the age of the Earth is not as the biblical account of creation suggests. The morphological and behavioural similarities between living organisms powerfully support the idea of common ancestry. The presence of vestigial organs, atavisms and similarities in vertebrate embryos all support the premise. The presence of a complex fossil record, that shows a gradual increase in complexity in morphology throughout time, and shows forms intermediate between different animal and plant groups - by itself - provides proof of the fact of evolution, which to any disinterested reader would seem conclusive. And if all that were not proof enough, the DNA evidence also indicates a common ancestry of all life on Earth.

The only way Premise Two could be denied would be if some mischievous spirit had deliberately set up the Universe in such a way as to make it look like evolution happened, by leaving a large number of false trails for scientists to find. This argument cannot, of course, be refuted evidentially. The main defence against it is the lack of parsimony in the explanation (The more obvious solution is that evolution had simply happened.). If it were true of course it would leave as many difficult problems for theologians as the more obvious explanation.

Most reasonable people would consider people who accept Premise One to be true, to be possessed of faulty judgement. Such people might (justifiably?) be derided as cranks or nutcases.

Why then do otherwise intelligent, sensible people expose themselves to potential ridicule by denying Premise Two? The implications of Premise Two are admittedly profound and might seem to be counter-intuitive, but part of the reason for its rejection is undoubtedly ignorance: it takes time and effort to seek out the evidence. Those with political or religious agendas may not encourage a dispassionate reading of the evidence, and might present it selectively or deny it altogether. It is easy to pick out and discredit a piece of evidence that by itself has not been particularly well investigated, or where conclusions have not been properly interpreted, and by implication, discredit the whole theory, when the theory stands comfortably on its own without that piece of evidence.

It would seem then to be a case beyond the even the expertise of Perry Mason to defend those creationists who argue that the universe was created in six days in 4004 BC as Genesis appears to imply, given the overwhelming strength of the case in favour of Premise Two.

"In order for us to accept the fact of evolution, we must also accept the fact that evolution happened as a result of Darwinian Natural Selection." - This is Premise Three.

Premise Three is false. It is a non sequitur. It is true that there must have been a mechanism by which evolution took place, but Premise Two stands on its own by virtue of the evidence in support of it, irrespective of whether we can identify the mechanisms involved. The presence of a corpse which has a knife in its back, a bullet in the back of its head, and a garrotte round its neck should be proof enough that a murder has taken place even if we don't know whom the murderer was.

In a recent article in a science magazine Robert Mathews referred to the case where population levels of the Peppered Moth were alleged to vary as a result of Natural Selection operating in the wild. He argued that the evidence was weak and the conclusions of the observations flawed. His implication was that somehow this has some bearing on Premise Two. He is obviously wrong. There is an awful lot of muddled thinking going on regarding evolutionary ideas these days. Adding to the muddle may be quite fashionable but it is no less reprehensible.

One might infer from the above that Darwin could have been wrong about Natural Selection being the driving force of evolution. Given that we know evolution happened and given the fact that there is no other known theory that can account for morphological and behavioural change there may seem to be an inevitability about its acceptance. Whatever one might think, it is an elegant and compelling solution to the problem and incidentally the only one on the block.

So haven't I just accepted the - fallacious - Premise Three? No! The problem is that if we allow any theory to become sacrosanct, especially Darwin's theory of natural selection, we - quite rightly - fall into the creationists trap, whereby they argue that evolutionary theory is just another belief system. The way science works is that all scientific theories are open to critique. If one turned out to be wrong it would eventually be overturned. This is the great strength of the scientific method, the problem - for the creationists - is that their theory has been overturned while Darwins theory has become better and better established over the decades since Darwin wrote "The Origin".

The fact that we evolved, and that it almost certainly happened as a result of natural selection, might be an uncomfortable one. But this fact must be absorbed into whatever syntheses emerge whether we like it or not.

You should tell the detractors that they should start a campaign to release all convicted murderers except where there was a witness to the crime. That should get them thinking

In response to those who have asked to see extracts from my book and to enlighten any remaining quasi-creationists I have posted an extract , it is in the writing centre entitled "Demolishing creationism - An extract" in which - I believe - I have undermined the creationist argument more comprehensively than in the article in my previous post.

I am ashamed to admit that writing this part of the book gave me a deliciously perverse sense of enjoyment far out of proportion to the ease at which it was accomplished. Creationism is not just wrong: it is spectacularly, gloriously and dangerously wrong.

Those who might still want to bring this up on Saturday should read the extract so that you are, at least properly acquainted with the facts - unfortunately I won't be there I'll be in church - I'm a wedding photographer

Anyone is obviously free to present any argument they wish.
But you have been warned!