Creationist Crap (in Singapore)

The church is doling out lies (as usual). And this one is about anti-scientific misinformation. The following image is taken from outside St Andrew's Cathedral in... Singapore. Yes, American creationist crap on display at an Anglican church in Singapore.


I'll ignore the large chunk of text that constitute the bottom half of the poster. If you want to believe the words of a compilation of books written by unknown authors, probably altered by innumerable scribes through the ages, about stories transmitted orally for centuries by a Bronze Age tribe of desert nomads who have no scientific knowledge whatsoever, that's your thing. I don't think that is prudent to say the least. But if you want to call it your holy text, whatever.

I take issue with the top half, just three line stating:

The Theory of Evolution is false!
Even science has discovered that.
Human beings are not descended from apes.

False. Lie. Trivially true.

Firstly,

The Theory of Evolution is false!

Wrong. That's one of the stupidest thing anyone can state about biology.

The Theory of Evolution is one of strongest scientific theories around. Some would even argue that it's the strongest theory we have. Every piece of evidence gathered thus far are in agreement with the theory. In addition, the Fact of Evolution is not in dispute at all; Biologists may be working on the details in the theory but no sane scientist would challenge the Fact itself.

So, if you believe that the theory of evolution is false, go get educated. Seriously.

Check out:
Evolution 101
The Scientific Case for Common Descent

And if you prefer videos, check out my playlists:
The Collapse of ID (Kenneth Miller lecture)
Evidence for Evolution
Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism (Content-heavy Youtube series)
Intelligent Design on Trial (Nova Documentary)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (BBC Documentary)


Next,

Even science has discovered that.

Wrong. Again. The theory of evolution is accepted amongst scientists in general. But more importantly, accepted by biologists.

By the way, a few fringe biologists and non-biological scientists dissenting does not demonstrate the rejection of the theory. I hope this doesn't require explanation.

Regarding the scientific consensus, the Wikipedia has a rather comprehensive article on the issue. Check that out. The National Center for Science Education (USA) has some information on the scientific consensus as well.


Finally,

Human beings are not descended from apes.

Only trivially true. Because, while we didn't descend from modern apes, we ARE apes.

If "apes" in that statement is taken to mean "modern great apes", then yes, we cannot have evolved from modern animals. That makes no sense. The theory of evolution does NOT make such a obviously false claim.

However, we DID evolve from a common ancestor that we share with Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Gorillas and  etc. It makes sense to call the common ancestor an ape since it would have the characteristics of one. In that sense, we ARE descended from apes.

This video should shed some light on how this is the case.



To end off, I want to say that it is arguably fine and dandy for creationists to hold their religious beliefs about the origins of humanity. Freedom of religious belief is granted in Singapore. However, if you cross the boundary and make factual claims about reality, then be assured that there will be people  to call you out on your lies.

Additionally, making something a matter of faith does not render it immune to rational criticism. If a religion were to claim that 2+2=5 on the basis of their religious faith, they would be factually completely WRONG. Similarly, it would be just as wrong to claim that evolution is false.

Science is evidently NOT on the side of creationist religious claims. Evolution is a FACT and the THEORY have overwhelming support from the scientific community. To state the contrary is to LIE (by the way, doesn't that contravene the 9th commandment?).

2 comments :

Unknown said...

My apologies for the claim in that poster that Evolution is false. When Theists talk of Evolution being false, they mean the Darwinian idea that everything has a common ancestor, but all Theists agree with what Scientists are discovering regarding small changes within a Species, to a Theist, this is not technically Evolution but rather Speciation. They agree with the Facts that are being discovered, just not the interpretation. Therefore they cannot be guilty of breaking the 9th commandment.

Atheozoa said...

Common ancestry is evidenced by our genetics -- that is why we can build a phylogenetic tree from our genes. This tree is also congruent with the tree of life constructed from morphological evidence. Hence the "twin nested hierarchy".

The unusual distinction you're trying to make here is the same old "micro vs macro" evolution. This arbitrary distinction is not scientific -- there is no reason to suppose that accumulative "microevolution" is barred from producing new species (speciation). Indeed, examples meeting the definition of what speciation is has already been observed.

Granted they may not be deliberately lying, they're still guilty of spreading misinformation while making no effort to actually learn what the theory and facts of evolution encompasses. And that is still intellectually bankrupt.