Kenny boy takes exception to an op-ed written by biologist David Barash, and takes a moment from lecturing God about how Christianity works to instead lecture biologists on how biology works. It’s a whole cascade of wrong.
Now, something that Dr. Barash fails to mention in his article is that naturalistic evolution actually goes against a principal law of biology: the Law of Biogenesis.
I just checked my cell biology textbook (Essential Cell Biology, by Alberts et al.), and it doesn’t talk about this “law”. Biology isn’t that big on establishing “laws” — we’ve got theories up the wazoo, and we’ve got mathematical descriptions of certain phenomena, but in general, biological processes have so many variables that reducing them to a “law” tends to generate long catalogs of exceptions.
The only thing close would be cell theory, which states that all known life is made up of cells, and that all the cells we see arose from other cells. He is actually just reciting Pasteur, the creationists’ favorite scientist, who showed that spontaneous generation doesn’t occur. Which is true. I agree with it. Complex cells don’t just pop into existence from rotting straw in a flask.
This scientific law states that “life only comes from other life.”
He keeps emphasizing that word “law”, as if he expects the Scientific Police to pull evolutionists over and giving them a ticket for breaking the Principal Law. We’re all outlaws and rogues, though, who get rewarded for showing how to do novel things. Tell a scientist there’s a law like that, and they’ll rush to violate it, so the Science Cops will write them a ticket for a Nobel Prize.
In order for biological evolution to begin to occur, life has to have arisen at least once from non-living chemicals.
Why, yes. Do you think we don’t know that? That’s the whole point of research into abiogenesis — to puzzle out the long transition from the chemical evolution of replicators to the standard properties of replicating cells. You know, since biologists are aware that the Earth had a beginning 4.5 billion years ago, and that life had to have arisen at some early point on rock without life on it, you’d think Ken Ham would realize that we know that life had to have started at some point, and we wouldn’t invent a law that says that that is impossible.
But this has never been observed, has no support from modern science experiments, and actually goes against everything we know about life.
Part of that is true: we haven’t seen the generation of new life from chemicals in the lab. I don’t see how we could: this would have been a long, slow process on a human scale, under conditions that are very difficult to replicate. Current thinking is that life arose around deep sea vents, where plenty of high-energy chemical compounds are constantly generated to fuel cyclic chemical reactions — an early metabolism.
But the rest is lies.
This model does have considerable support from modern science experiments. We know that the complex compounds that are the building blocks of life form spontaneously. We know the history of genes in existing life, which points to an early period of anoxic chemical reactions. There are people working in labs right now reconstructing the chemical reactions that would have been occurring in proto-life.
If there’s one thing you ought to know about life, it’s this: life is chemistry. There’s no magic going on in biochemistry, there is no vital essence that can’t be generated by natural physical processes. It’s all a self-sustaining, long-running chemical reaction driven by thermodynamic principles. The origin of life is an event that is consistent with everything we know about life.
The biblical worldview doesn’t have this problem; the Law of Biogenesis is never violated because all life, including the original creatures God made to inhabit the earth, comes from the Life-giver, our Creator.
According to Ken Ham, the “Law of Biogenesis” is that life only comes from life. So is his god a living creature? Did he spawn all other living creatures by replication and mitosis? Is he made of cells? And where did his god come from?
It seems to me is that this “Law of Biogenesis” is one that both scientists and creationists recognize as only being applicable within certain boundary conditions, and that Ham only brings it up to selectively demand biologists accept certain conditions that we’ve already rejected.
Also, when we look at nature we see animals reproducing according to their kinds. Dogs give birth to dogs, bats give birth to bats, and whales give birth to whales.
Oy, the creationist mantra. “Kinds”. Yes, dogs only give birth to dogs, so all descendants of dogs will still be dogs. Only different. Whale ancestors looked rather doglike (or piglike), but represent a clade that still exists. So, sure, anthracotheres have always given rise to more anthracotheres, but that just means that we have a group that encompasses hippopotamuses and whales.
Similarly, we’re all eukaryotes. All the descendants of the early eukaryotes are also eukaryotes. So yeast and people are all of the same “kind”?
However, biological evolution requires that one kind of creature gives rise to another—something that has never been observed.
Actually, it has. All the time. I’ve got three children: they’re all different from me, my wife, and each other. Darwin called this part of his theory “Descent with Modification” — that every generation accumulates small differences. The only requirement here that biological evolution has is that progeny can be different in some small degree from parents (if they aren’t, then evolution doesn’t work).
So biological evolution actually requires something that is observed. It’s creationism that requires bizarre restrictions on change in a population that are not observed, and are actually completely contrary to what we know.
So evolution is actually going against observational science!
Noooope. Nope nope nope. Evolution is built on a framework of observation and evidence — right from the start, with Darwin’s Origin.
Of course, biblical creationists expect creatures to reproduce according to their kinds because this is exactly what the Bible teaches (Genesis 1). The observable evidence confirms biblical creation. Evolution is not fundamental to biology but, rather, goes against the evidence we see in nature.
The existence of variation within species, and the ongoing gradual shift in form over geological time, therefore contradicts what creationists claim, and disconfirms biblical creation. Making your religion require a “fact” which was proven wrong in the 19th century is pretty much certain to make your ideas irrelevant to modern science. That he wants so desperately to prop up bogosities by redefining science, and evidence, and observation to conform to his predetermined answer makes it quite clear who the anti-scientific person is here.
Oy!
How many times will he bleat those same refuted points? It’s like a skipping record that won’t jump out of the groove – despite being whacked repeatedly.
Has creationism finally stopped evolving? Ken Ham recycles old, refuted arguments and acts as if we’re suddenly going to change our minds and take them seriously. Creationism hasn’t spawned any sexy new tropes since advocates of “intelligent design” refurbished the watchmaker argument and started seeing gears and springs and “information” everywhere.
I have encountered the argument about the law of biogenesis from creationists multiple times. They won’t care, but the proper rebuttal is what PZ states here, which is that the law of biogenesis relates to spontaneous generation of new living matter from dead matter. The history behind this “law” is that at one point in the past, it was hypothesized that complex living organisms like bacteria spontaneously generated on the surface of rotting substances, like meat, and Pasteur demonstrated this isn’t the case.
Creationists have taken this out of context to claim that life cannot come from ANY non living matter. Its a complete strawdog argument. Essentially they conflate the “law” of biogenesis to mean that abiogenesis isn’t possible by natural causes, and only the magic sky wizard can make life spring from “non life” as they like to label it.
Ham, stick to lying about the Bible. You’re too ignorant about biology to lie about it.
Has Ham presented any evidence on how his creator was created? What poofed out the poofer of life?
We have chemistry, they have magic. We fucking win…
At this point i am convinced that Ken Ham must have heard detailed explanations why the idea of “reproducing after their own kind” in terms of limitations to how much variation can occur within a population, is complete and utter bullshit so many times that it is impossible that he doesn’t comprehend it….and yet, he continues to spew that nonsense in the face of all the evidence against it. This man lies, knowing perfectly well that he is lying and not caring at all, because the end justifies the means and all that matters is that gullible, ignorant people continue to be gullible and ignorant.
I despise Ken Ham….and not least of all because he is so intent on robbing people of experiencing and comprehending the wonders of biology. It is extraordinary, it is beautiful and it is profound, and you are taking that away from people….fuck you!
Once again, Verne Grant, Origin of a New Species of Gilia in the lab,in nineteen sixty fucking six. This is not new information he hasn’t had the time to notice yet.
But with Ham’s head buried in the sands of religion, he isn’t looking. Very strong blinders has he.
One thing that creationists miss about abiogenisis (well, in addition to lacking the imagination of what a billion years multiplied by a low probability event can lead to that event happening) is that right now all living things have to compete for resources with all the other living things. Before there was life, the first quasi-living thing could be terrible inefficient and have no defenses because there was nothing around to eat its lunch.
Give this man a Nobel!
We do, of course, see clay statues transmuting into flesh and blood people all the time, after ageless energy beings blow into their noses.
Ham isn’t trying to convert the heathen. He’s preaching to his followers so they’ll send him money.
How is it that a person can be as boneheaded as Ken Ham? Amazing how he reinterprets stuff to fit his preconceived notion. And all because he takes one hodgepodge of a book as the literal word of a supernatural magician. Dumbass.
On the other hand, he echos you when he says the implication of the scriptures about gender being false means there’s no reason for sexist gender essentialism to be given any credence or support:
Of course, he says this like it’s a bad thing.
Ken may live long enough to see someone create a self-replicated, evolving, quasi-RNA genetic crystal from an ordinary crystal. I assume he will just say something like “it’s children will always be of the rock kind.”
Living things cannot come from nonliving things so I guess the whole plant kingdom is an illusion.
“How is it that a person can be as boneheaded as Ken Ham?”
See #12.
It’s always about the money.
You know, us science minded people should do a better job at collaborating on places such as Iron Chariots to make their articles so good, that we don’t have to repeatedly say these kinds of things, we can just link to the best online refutation easily.
Iron Chariots Evolution.
Iron Chariots Abiogenesis.
Also, the index of creationist claims is fairly good, and debunks each individually.
Ah, yes, give that man a “No” Bell. He seems to need one desperately, going around saying it eternally. He’s trying to “ring out the no sense” for all to hear. {smirk}
This represents my biggest gripe from dealing with creationists in my life: rather than going “back to the lab” for their own evidence (like, you know, actual scientists), they simply repeat their same tired nonsense louder. And louder. AND LOUDER!
I almost get the idea that they’re not really all that interested in science.
Step 1. Sign a pact with satan.
Step 2. Become an atheist.
Step 3. Go to a university and get a couple of degrees.
Bingo!!! You are now a biologist fully qualified to hate that god that you secretly know exists while leading xians astray. As well as keeping pet cephalopods.
(This is of course, the fundie xian mythology version. There is as much real evidence for this as their Flat Earth and Geocentrism.)
No no no… the Weeping Angels “are as old as the universe (or very nearly), but no one really knows where they come from. …”
Kenny the Hamster needs to try harder to write entertaining fiction. And he should probably avoid trying to write any science fiction until, at the least, he has looked up both words in the dictionary.
Al Dente @4
Ham, stick to lying about the Bible. You’re too ignorant about biology to lie about it.
His ignorance of the BIble is also astounding. Anyone who isn’t a member of his weird creationist cult can poke holes in his appeals to Biblical nonsense pretty quickly. Even as an atheist I appear to know more about the BIble than he does, though he could probably beat me in a “mine the bible for out of context prooftexts to support my position” duel. It seems to be the only Biblical thing he has any practice doing, so he’s pretty good at it.
I’ve used a different approach. I once spent an interesting half hour at a YEC booth at my local county fair. There were two creationists, a young, keen man in a suit and an older gentleman who seemed more relaxed (or at least less interested in dealing with an atheist.) After a bit of sparring which involved the Paluxy footprints and those painfully bad South American pottery hoaxes which depicted humans running away from a T-Rex (seriously?), he settled on his one killer question:”Can you give me one example where life comes from nonlife?”
“Sure. You.”
“?”
“You are made of nothing but atoms, right?”
“Yes.”
“Are atoms alive?”
This threw him because it’s not what he thought he was asking — but technically speaking, it was. At the heart of creationism is a fundamental belief in vitalism. As PZ says, “If there’s one thing you ought to know about life, it’s this: life is chemistry. There’s no magic going on in biochemistry, there is no vital essence that can’t be generated by natural physical processes.” So I kept hammering this point over and over again, leading the man through the small incremental steps where it’s not life, it’s mostly not life, it’s mostly life, and then it’s life. He kept shaking his head — this is not the point of the question — but I asked him to keep thinking about it. The more you think about it, I told him, the more it’s going to bother you.
At one point I asked “are electrons alive?” and the older man spoke up “yes they are!” The younger guy quickly corrected him and there was a little debate there. It was fun to watch. It was clear that the veteran realized that using science was going to backfire because he kept trying to get the conversation back to faith and different “world views.” But I am a grizzled old veteran myself, and ignored him. Excited, intelligent, keen young Young Earth Creationists who sincerely believe that yes indeed, science and reason are on their side are fair targets.
Sastra, #24:
I like that one. Cos then you’ve a nice ‘pair production equals abiogenisis’ argument based on 65 year old particle physics observations. I wonder if you could persuade them to state that light was alive, too?
It seems to me that the concept that holds the idea of creationism together that connects it to the “common sense” of peoples experience is time. It all hinges on time as experienced by short lived human experience. Once the real dimension of time is understood then all the “that is impossible ” events can occur the tiny changes can accumulate. It is the contrast with the six days and then “HE” rested that then stands out as unreal.
At root is the idea that this universe was here before I was born and it will be here after I am dead that is key.
When I was in catholic school they would emphasize pride as the thing that was most in the way between you and god but that is wrong, that is the key element of the con that they bought hook line and sinker it is what Kenny boy sells (and probably believes). Too look at the universe and imagine some all powerful being that created it for you is the pinnacle of self involvement and self importance.
The observed truth of all we can demonstrate does not put earth or anything else let alone our lives at the center of anything.
uncle frogy
Sastra @#24:
Nit: not pottery, but engraved stones from Ica Province, Peru.
Or perhaps a reference to something I haven’t seen yet. There’s always more fakes, and there’s also authentic finds which have been woefully distorted and misinterpreted in being described by creationists.
Owlmirror, @#27
How about these?
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks-acambaro-dinos.htm
Painfully bad, depicts humans petting a…not sure, but it might be a dinosaur.
These are Mexican though, that’s technically North America.
uncle frogy:
decades before i began to follow creationists, one phrase from high school biology stuck with me to this day: “time is the hero of the plot.” this was of course george wald’s famous quote, which, ironically, seems to have become today far more famous as a favorite “debunking” point for creationists. its clarity is an obvious threat to their pseudo-explanatory mumbo-jumbo.
So we’re made from some of god’s cells? That seems to be the argument he’s making here. You have to have life to give life. You can’t just make it out of chemicals. So neither we nor god(s) are capable of making life.
And organic chemicals only come from living beings.
That would be good.
Then He could be killed.
@Christina Rose #28: TBH those figurines do seem weird.
Few of them could just be crocodiles, turtles or iguanas though.
When the derp goes that deep, the rules of discussion are thrown down and danced on. These responses to Ham’s claims have been on the table from the very beginnings of “creation science” (I know PZ knows this). But Ham et al. show no signs of adapting to them, say, by coming up with responses (it’s ignoratio elenchi all the way down). Of course this is what evolution would predict, given that they exist in a cultural niche where serious discussion of alternative points of view and the evidence for them is simply not wanted on the journey. That’s the poisonously narrow niche they survive in, and their main aim is to keep recruiting enough people willing to live in it to go on paying the bills and spreading the crazy.
Ken obviously doesn’t write these silly things for our benefit; he knows he won’t reach us, he knows he’ll just get ridiculed and he knows he can’t argue on the same level as someone with a modicum of applicable knowledge. These little sermons are entirely about reassuring the flock that he’s still there, still taking the fight to the lab-coated godless and still happy to take the flock’s money.
That’s not to say he doesn’t actually believe his own PR, but being a successful businessman requires you to be able to appreciate certain realities. Ken knows the people he’s talking to and he knows what they want to hear. He’s been engaged in this culture war long enough to know how to convince people he knows what he’s talking about and how to convince them that the enemy is on the back foot, even as said enemy is making long and glorious strides forward with barely a backwards glance at a trifling little troll like Ken Ham.
Fundies are like any other spiritual type: whatever their specific beliefs, they all need frequent topping-up. Less demented spiritualists will sit by a river and absorb Gaia’s love and some are satisifed by a single hour of church a week – Ken’s kooky kreationists want to hear, constantly, that scientists are either misguided buffoons and/or conspiring to conceal Truths from The Children.
These are the people that will thank God when scientists figure out a way to stop Ebola.
I don’t remember when I first encountered Ham, but I have to say that this was his standard spiel back then. It hasn’t evolved one bit.
Yes, he knows better. But this is what earns him his living. He’s not changing it because it still pays well down in the sticks.
So, when I cross a horse with a donkey I get a… MULE (or a hinny) which is neither.
Pleased to explain, Kenny.
Also, please explain how the magic sheep sticks worked:
Is the answer ‘Goddidit’? Why didn’t he just use his mega-watt juicy-juice powers and zap the sheep into the required patterns without requiring Jacob move bundles of sticks around?
How come this “technique” has never been successfully duplicated over the subsequent 2,000+ years? Godgottired?
Silly PZ. A Law is simply a scientific Theory that has received our Blessed Lord’s Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. That’s the reason Einstein only has a Theory of Gravitation while Newton has a Law of Gravitation. Who better is there to know God’s opinion than Ken Ham?
Most creationists don’t even understand creationism, let alone evolution. All they require is to hear one of their “super smart guys”, like Ham, to pop up every now and again to make sciencey sounds, to reassure them that they’ve go the issue covered. It doesn’t matter that it’s been said and debunked a hundred times before. Your average creationist doesn’t stick their head out of the echo chamber long enough to realise that there are even any objections, let alone that the argument was destroyed a generation ago. How do I know? I was one.
PZ I think you give the Hamster too much attention. He’s not talking to you, as others have noted.
I wonder, though, how all the trees survived the flood. In a new reservoir, all the land plants die in a matter of days from being waterlogged. And there’s nowhere in the bible that says two of each plant seed.
wcorvi, Oh, that’s easy! Dinosaurs. Specifically, dead ones. Dead big ones. They all sank, covered the plants and trapped sufficient air. The methane they released as they decomposed ignited, providing sufficient light and heat.
Of course the bigger problem is the biblical worldview has the Law of *POOF*, which has never been witnessed in nature and seemingly violates most known laws, even those accepted by creationists ( hey, if he can pull laws out of his ass so can I).
The more I see of Ken Ham, the more I admire dogs. OK, now that I’ve stolen someone else’s wit, I’ll chime in for myself. This man (Ham) is one of the most ignorant, stupid and blinkered “thinkers” I’ve ever encountered. How the hell did we let Australia send us their charlatans and frauds? PZ, please keep up the good fight. It must be so obvious to anyone with a few functioning brain cells that Ham and his cohorts are full of crap. In the end, all they have is “belief” in the inerrancy of the Bible. Hmm, a book cobbled together from bad translations of ancient Aramaic and Greek, translated thence in to English by the greatest minds of…the 17th century. Yeah, sure, I’ll believe that load of untruth long before I’ll buy in to the scientific method. I also have my body leeched every few days to remove the bad humors. Please.
@24 Sastra
That’s actually pretty brilliant. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna steal that. Probably even if you don’t mind, but it’s polite to ask.
epicurus @43:
From what I’ve observed of the “Faithful” any brain cells they have turn off when they hear the word of the lard.
I went from old earth guided evolution to good ol’ regular evolution. Can any one describe their path from full blown creationism?