Steve Jones and Hans Christian Andersen

posted in: Evolution | 2
Steve Jones failing to engage the argument
Steve Jones failing to engage the argument
What do Steve Jones and Hans Christian Andersen have in common? They both tell great fairy tales.
 
Evolutionary geneticist Steve told a beauty in his latest article Islam, Charles Darwin and the denial of science published in The Telegraph on 3 December 2011. Here is how he starts:

The story began long ago, when our ancestors were fish. …

Our ancestors were fish?! You must agree that is an imaginative story! But Steve is serious and he gets upset because some of his students at University College London don’t believe him.

Some [muslim students], unfortunately, refuse to accept Darwin’s theory on faith grounds, as do some of their Christian fellows.

But why should anyone accept Darwin’s theory on faith grounds? (Sorry, couldn’t resist that.smiley) Steve should provide evidence. What evidence does he give that molecules once turned into a living, self-replicating cell—presto? (It had to be “presto” because all the interdependent, nano-machinery had to appear suddenly at the same instant or it would not work.) Further, what evidence does he give that this single cell evolved over billions of years into people?

Evidence is what makes science different from fairy tales. To be fair, Steve says he did appeal to his students with evidence:

I have tried asking students at quite what point they find my lectures unacceptable: is it the laws of inheritance, mutation, the genes that protect against malaria or cancer, the global shifts in human skin colour, Neanderthal DNA, or the inherited differences between apes and men?

Steve, there is no argument over this evidence. What we don’t accept is your belief that this evidence supports molecules-to-man evolution. It doesn’t.

  • the laws of inheritance These work on information already present in the genome. They do not create any new genetic information.
  • mutation These are copying mistakes and spoil the genetic information. In some environments these can have beneficial outcomes but they still degrade the genetic information. Mutations have been observed to take feathers off a bird but not put feathers on a lizard.
  • the genes that protect against malaria or cancer These are just specific examples of the previous two points of inheritance and mutation—no new genetic information.
  • the global shifts in human skin colour Just another example of inheritance and mutation that likewise goes the wrong way for bacterium-to-biologist evolution. Actually, accumulating genetic information for humans supports biblical history, not evolutionary scenarios.
  • Neanderthal DNA So? Neanderthals were human. They were early post-Flood migrants from Babel into Europe.
  • the inherited differences between apes and men Inherited? Who observed that? Apes and humans are distinct creations. The similarities are due to common design, and are evidence that there is one Designer.

Do a search on creation.com on relevant key words (e.g: ‘inheritance’, ‘mutation’, ‘natural selection’, ‘malaria resistance’, ‘human skin colour’, ‘human genome’, ‘Neandertal DNA’, ‘ape human similarities’). You will find lots of articles that address the evidence and present the arguments why it does not support evolution.

When you read them you will see why your students think your interpretation of the evidence is not compelling. So, instead of calling them names and saying that they deny science, respect their skepticism and engage the scientific arguments.

2 Responses

  1. Laurie Appleton

    Thank you for your message. May God continue His blessing on you and CMI

  2. Ricky Keane

    Why should anyone accept Darwin’s theory on the grounds of the blind faith (blinded by ignorance that relatively teeny-tiny cone volcanoes’ discharges of lightnings today are very likely negligible compared to what a Super-Ocean of a Super-Volcano [cataclysmically outbursting from the Supercontinent our planet evidently broke up above and scattered away from where it subsequently uplifted its 49,700-mile Mid-Oceanic-Ridge] discharged, making nuclear reactions that released nuclear energies, inluding build up of free neutron densities and interactions altogether relevant to the RATE group’s accelerated decay rate evidences [not to mention really massive expansion of confined/compressed supercritical water jetting out the ~50,000 “slit” of the ruptured Supercontinent had gigantic cooling effects, like refrigerators and air conditioners on a humongous scale that explain why halos and fission tracks weren’t annealed away]) in the relative isotopic abundances (even in rocks that Earth’s former “great deep” pressure-pulsed out its explosively fractured open Supercontinent in hypersonic bursts that jetted them out of its gravitational sphere of influence) indicating the Earth Supercontinentally divided before man’s presence on it?!

    “These suggestions arose in theoretical studies from several directions and do not represent the result of consideration of any one model. They are an extraction of those features which . . empirical facts imply almost independently of any model.”

    (apologies to Nobel laureate Dr. Richard P. Feynman)