Evidences Class

Evolution vs. Creation

Rachel Carson

Carson Alleged• DDT is a carcinogen

• DDT leads to thinning of egg shells in birds

The Reality• DDT eradicated malaria in the

southern United States

• DDT is not a carcinogen

• DDT may lead to thinning of eggshells in a some birds (raptors)

The Tragedy• Banning DDT possibly saved thousands

of raptors

• Malaria infects between 300 and 500 million people annually

• 2.7 million die each year (mostly children)

Eugenics• Theodore Roosevelt

• Winston Churchill

• Woodrow Wilson

• Alexander Graham Bell

• Luther Burbank

• Leland Stanford

• National Research Council

• American Medical Association

• National Academy of Sciences

The Evolution of a HitlerEugenics – postulated a crisis of the gene pool leading to the deterioration of the human race. The best human beings were not breeding as rapidly as the inferior ones --- the foreigners, immigrants, Jews, degenerates, the unfit, and the "feeble minded.“ (Closely related to evolution)

The Lessons• The scientific consensus is not always

right

• The government stance is not always right

• The media portrayal is not always right

• The consequences can be deadly

Remember• The scientific consensus is not always

right

• The government stance is not always right

• The media portrayal is not always right

More information content in a single cell than in the Encyclopedia Britannica

Selling Evolution

H. L. Mencken

Civic Biology ???

• If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved upon, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of the future generations of men and women on the earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection.

• To have children with tuberculosis, syphilis, epilepsy or feeble-mindedness is "not only unfair but criminal”.

Selling Evolution

H. L. Mencken

Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan

William Jennings Bryan

"[Evolution’s] only program for man is scientific breeding, a system under which a few supposedly superior intellects, self-appointed, would direct the mating and the movements of the mass of mankind -- an impossible system!"

Equated Evolution with Eugenics

Dover, Pennsylvania

• Dover Board of Education required the teaching of Evolution and Intelligent Design

• ACLU brought a suit against the Dover BOE

• 2 million dollars in legal fees to the ACLUFirst Pennsylvania and then Ohio

If We Are Evolved …• The origin of the human brain “wasn’t

God, it was our ancestors … choosing their sexual partners”. (Geoffrey Miller --- PBS Evolution)

• The NYT and 9/11

• The Natural History of Rape

• Steven Pinker and infanticide

• Heavy Petting

• Are we engaged in child abuse this morning?

At first glance:

The Strongest Evidence for Evolution is the Fossil Record

The Usual Suspect

University of Florida Website

Step 1: Hyracotherium or eohippus

A horse is a horse of course

Step 2: Orohippus

Found in the same strata

eohippus

18 Ribs

15 Ribs

Step 3: Mesohippus

Big gap between steps 2 and 3

18 15

19

17-18

Numbers of Ribs

The number of lumbar vertebrae also changes from six to eight and then back to six.

What are you left with?

Akin to the differences in dogs????

The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky … What appeared to be a nice progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic.

Raup (an evolutionist)

… it comes from a very deceptive picture that has been presented over and over again in the literature … This chart is so persuasive that most readers will be shocked to learn that it is an illusion … They are fossils that were taken from different times and places, and were then strung together, perhaps innocently, to show how evolution might have handled the matter.

Saiff and Macbeth (Evolutionists)

Each genus is itself a bush of several related species, not a rung on a ladder of progress … The species of these bushes tend to arise with … suddenness and then to persist with little change for long periods … Bushiness now pervades the entire phylogeny of horses.

Gould (an evolutionist)

Not this … But instead …

The Fossil RecordThe history of most fossil species includes two

features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.

2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed”. Stephen Jay Gould

The Fossil Record

The fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Steven Stanley

The missing links are all missing.

A Broken Record

Archaeopteryx “seems to be on a separate line from modern birds”.

Chatterjee

Archaeopteryx “provides clues as to how birds evolved … They are documents without which the idea of evolution would not be as powerful.”

Wellnhofer

If you can’t find the link … Make it

National Geographic