I’ve been seeing this argument a lot lately: it’s a brand of exceedingly indiscriminate relativism that is being prominently peddled by Answers in Genesis.

Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians, all have the same evidence–the same facts. Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same.

The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions; these are things that are assumed to be true without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. All reasoning is based on presuppositions (also called axioms). This becomes especially relevant when dealing with past events.

It’s true, I do have some presuppositions. I think that explanations should deal with as much of the evidence as possible; they should avoid contradictions, both internal and with the evidence from the physical world; they should be logical; they should make predictions that can be tested; they should have some utility in addressing new evidence. It’s not too much to ask, I don’t think. “Darwin” is not one of my presuppositions, however. Charles Darwin provided a set of explanations that, after some modification, meet my criteria. I am quite prepared to throw Darwin out, however, if a better explanation came along or if evidence that contradicted his ideas were discovered.

I am not prepared to throw out logic and consistency. The creationists are.

Their cartoon version of equivalence highlights their problem. If we all have the same facts and just different interpretations based on what book we use as a starting premise, how do we discriminate between better interpretations? Are they all equally valid? Imagine “Darwin” replaced with “Koran” — do they really want to argue that the Islamic vision of the world is just as useful as the Christian view? (I would, of course, but that’s because I think both are foolish and narrow.) Swap in the Book of Mormon: that does not mean that suddenly there is truth to the notion of pale-skinned Hebrews warring across the New World in bronze chariots. The existence of Lord of the Rings does not imply that Tolkien fans should believe the world really was populated with elves and orcs, once upon a time.

There are presuppositions, and then there are presuppositions. We should at least try to test our premises, and I think we can all agree that it is possible to rank different presuppositions on the basis of how well they describe reality. Most of us can recognize that Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars are fictions, that what they describe doesn’t exist, and that they probably aren’t very good filters to use in evaluating paleontological evidence. That someone who has accepted The Force as his one true religion does not mean that his claim that Homo erectus is a Wookie requires recognition as a reasonable interpretation.

Similarly, the Bible does not hold up well as a rational presupposition. Its descriptions of how the world works (and, as every rational person knows, it was not intended as a science textbook) are inadequate and full of errors. The portions of the book of Genesis that creationists use as their sole source for the origin of life on Earth is only a few lines of vague poetry, with two self-contradicting accounts of the sequence of events…and it’s a sequence that does not correspond at all well to the observed record of events, and that blithely lumps fish and birds into one useless catch-all category. If this is their lens for viewing the world, it’s a cracked one that is almost entirely opaque.

And no, the fact that the Bible contains one line that mentions a mythical creature called Behemoth does not mean it adequately accounts for all of large animal zoology, nor can one simply claim it is equivalent to a dinosaur, and therefore the Bible is a complete account of the history of life. Dinosaurs were diverse. And shouldn’t it be a greater omission that the Bible fails to mention anything about bacteria?

The patently incomplete nature of the Bible’s descriptions of Earth’s history led honest creationists to admit that further understanding of the Creation required evaluation of the physical evidence. You can’t just claim that humans and dinosaurs coexisted 6,000 years ago: there is no fossil evidence that they were contemporaries, there is no sign of dinosaurs existing so close to the current time, and even within the period of the Mesozoic we can find evidence of faunal succession — the forms found in the Triassic are different from those of the Jurassic are different from those of the Cretaceous. It is not sufficient to simply claim the Bible is your presupposition, therefore you can freely invent facts to fit it — there ought to be some corroborating evidence that shows your interpretations are reasonable. There aren’t any.

And please, when your presuppositions lead to ridiculous assertions, it’s time to question your premises. One of the examples this silly AiG article uses to justify its peculiar relativism is the interpretation of dating methods. Can you see the glaring problem in this rationale from the disgracefully sloppy work of Russell Humphreys?

Consider the research from the creationist RATE group (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) concerning the age of zircon crystals in granite. Using one set of assumptions, these crystals could be interpreted to be around 1.5 billion years old based on the amount of lead produced from the decay of uranium (which also produces helium). However, if one questions these assumptions, one is motivated to test them. Measurements of the rate at which helium is able to “leak out” of these crystals indicate that if they were much older than about 6,000 years, they would have nowhere near the amount of helium still left in them. Hence, the originally applied assumption of a constant decay rate is flawed; one must assume, instead, that there has been acceleration of the decay rate in the past. Using this revised assumption, the same uranium-lead data can now be interpreted to also give an age of fewer than 6,000 years.

Using their Biblical presupposition, they need to explain away the evidence of the accumulation of radioactive decay products by assuming that decay rates were roughly one million fold greater in the recent past. They are making a “revised assumption” that would mean that the planet should have exploded into a great glowing cloud of hot vapor a few thousand years ago! Shouldn’t that sort of compel you to rethink your excuses? But no, these guys just sail past the glaring contradiction with empirical reality as if it didn’t exist.

There’s a good reason creationism is not regarded as a fair equivalent to the scientific point of view. It’s because the former fails to pay attention to the physical evidence, while the latter is built, not on presuppositions, but on that evidence.

An amusing take on my battle with the Creation “Museum”: it was me against Jesus.

The good news is that I won. I had an edge, though, in that I’m not an imaginary being.

First of all, I have to point out that sometimes, amazingly cool people are incredibly stupid about biology. Case in point: Jack Kirby was an evolutionary ignoramus.

Now that’s just sad. Of course we share this world with related forms of life — we’ve been looking for years, and what would be a disturbing enigma would be if we found a species that was not related to every other species on the planet. So I’m afraid those panels contain three characters, every one of whom is babbling complete drivel. Still, you have to concede that Jack Kirby was a major influence on comic book art, and stylistically, he’s one of those artists whose work is instantly recognizable.

I doubt that Martin Patterson has quite the name recognition, but he is recognizable as a stereotype: the pompous, stupid creationist with a pocketful of fallacies that he thinks trumps the work of nearly every biologist on Earth, and isn’t shy about pontificating on the subject.

First of all, I am somewhat disappointed that the blogs require you to be an atheist or agnostic to post a discussion. There is no point in having a blog if only individuals who share the same views are allowed to join. That only defeats the purpose of hearing other opinions for consideration or research. If I were to start a blog only for people who believe that the earth is flat, what would we learn from each other? That is the blind leading the blind. I hope you will share that with your fellow bloggers so that they might consider opening a real scientific debate on the issues.

Well, you see, I developed this special mind-reading software that can instantly discern the philosophical position of my readers, and block them from commenting if they try to argue with me. The only catch I’ve discovered so far, and that you readers may have noticed as well, is that creationists are still able to freely post — it turns out that mind-reading software is completely stymied by mindless people.

I know. You read that first paragraph, even that first sentence, and you immediately realize that the writer is an utter moron. That impression is not corrected by the second schmear of a paragraph.

I primarily wanted to write to you to make a statement about the debate between “Science” and “Religion”. One thing that must be made clear in the debate between “Evolution” and “Creation”, is that it is not “Science” vs. “Religion”, it is “Religion” vs. “Religion”. They are both religious world views. The basis for that is this: If you look at the evidence that is used to support the evolution theory, that same evidence can be used to support the creation theory. It is all a matter of perspective. Why then do “Scientists” have such a hard time admitting this? All the evidence that is used to support the Evolution theory as a whole is based off of other ideas and theories that cannot be empirically verified (assumptions based on other assumptions). That is not science. Often times, in the “Scientific” community, when evidence arises that brings to question the validity of the evolution theory, that evidence is simply ignored, or actively suppressed by threatening the source with repercussions or raising doubts about its credibility. That is not science either. Science is using factual information as a basis to test and verify or disprove new ideas. It is also un-bias and leaves all options open for investigation. But in reality, the scientific community is extremely bias on issues that bring to question the validity of evolution, which so much of their work is based off of. The “Big Bang” theory is a great example because it can easily be disproved by the Law of Angular Momentum, the second Law of Thermodynamics, and a number of others. All it takes is one, but it always seems to be that “one” that gets left out when they are trying to convince us of something that isn’t true. Yet some still teach it. Why call a theory “science” when it can be scientifically proven to be false? When we look at Evolution, Micro Evolution is scientific because it can be observed, tested, and verified. But that is a far stretch from the fantasy of Macro Evolution, Cosmic Evolution, Molecular Evolution, and others. Yet “scientists” try to bunch them all together using Micro Evolution as their example so they won’t be forced to answer questions about the others. There are a lot of theories out there about the others, but there is no scientific evidence to prove them. Why then are these subjects taught to our children as fact? If the “Scientific” community wants to have any credibility anymore, they are going to be forced to answer questions about the overwhelming evidence that supports Creation and admit that Creation is no more a religious belief than Evolution. There is far more scientific evidence for creation than there is for evolution, so they are going to have a hard time explaining why creation should not be taught in schools. To give validity to what I have said, feel free to contact me with any questions or challenges. I will be more than happy to answer them with verified scientific evidence (that is legitimate, it has just been ignored) including sources. I can be contacted at martinj803@gmail.com. It is not my intention to come across as hostile, so if I sound as if I am on the attack or have offended you in any way, I do apologize. I am simply concerned about the credibility of the scientific community and want to develop an open forum for all views to be discussed in a professional an respectful manner (in the true nature of the scientific method). FYI, I used to be an evolutionist until I did my research. I just want to share what I have learned with other intellectuals so that they can make educated conclusions based off of factual evidence.

What a mish-mash. Evolution is a religion, the mangled micro-macro distinction, disproof by the second law of thermodynamics, creationism has more evidence than evolution…it’s just the usual gallop through the garbage of creationism that accumulates year by year through the repetition of lies, all dressed up in the pompous pretense that this ignoramus is an “intellectual”. I am not going to discuss such stupidity with any creationists, especially not in email. It’s a total waste of time; do I really need to go over the inanity of their second law arguments again? That’s what Mark Isaak’s The Counter-Creationism Handbook^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)} is for — it succinctly rips up those trivial fallacies and gets them out of the way. Creationists, if you want to write to me, and you haven’t done your homework, I am going to rightfully regard you as a thumb-sucking moron and throw your mail in the trash.

Here’s a better strategy. Show me that you really have done your research (Martin Patterson clearly has not), and bring up specific issues from any of these excellent pop-sci books on the subject of evolution. They all bring up various points that are routinely mumbled by creationists, and they dissect them in detail, showing the positive evidence for evolution. Just once I’d like one of these gibbering lackwits to actually question something significant in evolutionary theory, with some modicum of facts to back up their claims, rather than parroting the same old crap they got from the clueless clown in a clerical collar on Sunday morning. Read these!

• Donald Prothero’s Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}

• Carl Zimmer’s At the Water’s Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea ^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}

• Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}

• Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}

• Sean Carroll’s The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}

This is not an onerous demand. These books are not overly technical, they aren’t part of the specialist literature, they are just general introductions to the ideas and evidence of evolution. If the stuff I get in my email is at all representative, it’s obvious that these jokers haven’t even done as much as read one of these kinds of books.