Creationist Nonsense, Part Two

Prominent conservative Christians have attacked evolution like nothing else.  Many of them can’t even define science, as evidenced by public figures such as former US Representative Tom DeLay.  Displaying an ignorance that would be amusing were it not so common, Mr. DeLay once blamed the Columbine school shootings on the theory of evolution being taught in schools.  This foolishness resulted from the fact that one of the Columbine killers quoted some nonsense he attributed to Darwinism on tape.  Mr. DeLay apparently believes that presenting the reasonable and well-documented evidence for evolution will erode the morals of young people.

DeLay and those like him are mistaking a scientific theory for an ideology.  DeLay, a conservative Christian, views the theory of evolution as an anathema to his own ideology.  His argument is that evolution is teaching bad morals.  Such a statement is not wrong; it’s meaningless.

It is simply irrational to believe that the theory of evolution (or any scientific theory) can or should offer advice on morality.  We’re talking apples and oranges here.  Many conservative Christians are under the impression that evolution counters their creation myth, and so it also must counter their moral philosophy.  Forgive my use of pop psychology, but do they possess some deep-seated need to be told what is right and wrong?  Can they not decide for themselves that the thoughtless slaughter in nature should not be mimicked?  Do they truly believe that by accepting the evidence of evolution, they might be compelled to abandon human decency?

In his 1893 Evolution and Ethics lecture, staunch evolutionist T.H. Huxley said, “Let us understand, once and for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combatingit.”  (Emphasis mine.)  Even Richard Dawkins, the Darwinist and atheist that Christians love to hate, has said that it’s perfectly okay to accept Darwinism as a scientist and reject it as a human being.  Here is the crux: We have brains to decide for ourselves what is moral and what is not; we have no need to resort to imitation or appeal to authority.

Saying that a scientific theory is responsible for eroding morality is a mindless cop-out.  One may as well say that since Einstein taught us that everything is relative, a serial killer can justify his crimes as relatively moral.  Maybe the Columbine killers could have justified their acts with the entire envelope of modern physics: “All of our classmates are just collections of unthinking, unfeeling subatomic particles, so we’re doing nothing wrong.”

It would be safe to say that the two Columbine killers were about as ignorant of evolutionary biology as is Mr. DeLay.  But even if they’d been experts, even if they’d strapped bombs to their chests and screamed, “Darwin!” as they exploded, it would not change the fact that they committed those crimes not because they were Darwinists but because they were murderers.  Where is the vaunted conservative principle of personal responsibility in this case?

Yes, people have murdered using some warped version of Darwinism as a justification.  So what?  Science is not responsible for how idiotic murderers interpret a theory.  Darwinism is is taught because it’s viable science, not because scientists are trying to push some sort of ideology.  The way human beings feel about a scientific theory says nothing about its legitimacy – indeed it says nothing about it at all.

Evolution Irrationality, Part Two

In part one of this post, I did two things.  First, I gave some very specific examples of transitional fossils.  Second, I challenged the creationists who continuously claim that all so-called transitions are dead ends or separate species to put their money where their mouths are and specify what exactly would qualify as a transitional (if not a four-limbed walking creature with gills like Acanthostega, for example).

In response, Bud left a comment with some quotes – one by no less an authority than Ernst Mayr - that seem to profess problems locating certain transitional fossils.  This is one of the clearest illustrations I’ve seen of creationists cherry-picking quotes that seem to fit their belief, and ignoring all others that contradict it.  Anecdotes do not make science, Bud, and neither do they comprise a rational argument.  Ernst Mayr, as you pointed out, is one of the biggest defenders of Darwinism alive on the planet.  Why don’t you quote any of the bazillion different things he’s said in support of evolution and the fossil record?  Or do you only take him seriously when he says something you like?

What’s interesting is that you also admit that Mayr points out “a few alleged transitions where millions should exist.”  Oh really?  Why should millions exist, Bud?  Because it fits with your view?  As a matter of fact, plenty of fossil transitions should not exist.  The fossil record not only has gaps, but it’s biased.  Some animals fossilize better than others.  Animals don’t simply fall on the ground and become fossils.  Fossilization is a rare event.  These are simple facts of geology and paleontology, and by ignoring them, you’re taking the argument away from reality to fit your preconceived notions.

What’s also interesting is that you completely ignored the examples I gave, and my challenge.  The fossil record has many missing transitional forms – that’s no surprise to anyone, least of all evolutionary scientists.  But that doesn’t change the fact that there are still a great many beautifully clear examples to be found.  What’s your counter for all of them?

Your comment was also indicative of yet another common creationist tactic:  Interpreting debate about evolution in the scientific community as a weakness in the general theory.  This is like tossing out all of modern cosmology because a scientist says we don’t understand black holes or dark matter.  Maybe there should be a creationist movement against the germ theory of disease, because we can’t fully understand the vectors of certain viruses.  Or how about we doubt the theory of gravitation, because we haven’t observed the graviton?

When are creationists going to learn?  But, you can’t honestly believe that a quote like, “The question of the origins of dinosaurs is one that has puzzled paleontologists for many years,” is some sort of evidence that the fossil record is irrelevant, can you?  The equivalent would be an atheist like me finding some random quotes from Christian apologists questioning the meaning of biblical verse and proclaiming, “Aha!  This guy here can’t even explain the Trinity, and this guy can’t know for sure what Jesus really meant in this particular verse!  Therefore, Christianity is obviously a big sham!”

Get real.

Darwin’s Transparent Box

I just finished reading Darwin’s Black Box, the Intelligent Design manifesto by Michael Behe.  Along with Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial, this is the must-read book for anyone who rejects the evidence for evolution and wants to put on a shroud of pseudo-legitimacy.  (If you’ve also read Ann Coulter’s book Godless, it’s clear where she gets her nonsense.)

Behe’s the biochemist who came up with the term “irreducibly complex” to describe biological systems.  His claim is a slightly updated version of the old creationist canard of personal incredulity:  “This [insert whatever structure you want] is just too complex and/or beautiful to have arisen by natural causes, so an intelligent being must have designed it.”  You could also say it like this:  “Since I personally can’t think of a way this might have developed through Darwinian selection, I”m going to claim that it isn’t possible.”

The problem here is that Behe’s examples (bacterial flagella, cilia, the immune system, the blood clotting cascade) have been shown to be wrong.  Simpler (that’s “reduced in complexity,” for Mr. Behe) versions are found elsewhere.  For anyone interested in the science behind these examples, I would suggest Kenneth Miller’s book Finding Darwin’s God.  Miller is the biologist who testified, along with Behe, at the Dover, Pennsylvania trial over creationism in public schools.

Of course, it’s not just that Behe’s examples are wrong, it’s the fundamental idea behind trying to hold up such examples.  He has a good point that evolutionary scientists should be actively formulating theories for how these biological systems originated (and they are), and science welcomes all challenges (in fact it thrives on being challenged).  But Behe has concluded that nature screams out “intelligent design” while ignoring the fact that it simply doesn’t exist.

One of the most common arguments against intelligent design is the imperfection, waste, and vestigial structures in living organisms (junk DNA, pelvic bones on snakes, backwards wiring in the vertebrate eye, etc.).  Behe’s answer to things like this is twofold.  First, he says that maybe these inefficient structures really have a purpose we haven’t figured out yet.  Yeah, maybe.  Maybe there’s a designed purpose for wisdom teeth, hemorrhoids, and DNA that doesn’t code for any protein. Maybe there are also microscopic fairies that live in our mitochondria.  This is the courtroom equivalent of trying to introduce reasonable doubt by saying an invisible alien committed the crime.  Without any evidence backing it up, without a theory, without even a guess, it’s inconsequential.

Second, Behe accuses scientists who bring up this argument (like Miller and Richard Dawkins) of making assumptions about the mind of a designer.  A designer isn’t under any obligation to make us perfect, Behe argues, and we can’t know why he made us this way or that way.  Not only is this argument non-scientific (it can’t be tested), but it smacks of the same old religious hocus pocus: You just have to trust what God did even if you’ll never understand He did it.

Behe makes perfectly clear his delusion by using the following analogy.  He says that if a photocopier that has made ten perfect copies suddenly makes one copy that has smudges on it, that’s not a reason to assume the photocopier was developed by gradual Darwinian steps.

Nice try.  But a more appropriate analogy would be if the photocopier had a completely useless circuit or gear inside it.  A circuit or gear that does nothing, and indeed looks like a usable part from an earlier, less sophisticated model of photocopier.  Machines designed by intelligence never have things like that; living machines designed by natural selection do.

Typical Creationist Pseudoscience, Part Four

It’s amusing when Christians use their very ordinary and cliched tactic of trying to debunk science.  Rather than provide any evidence for their belief, rather than try to elevate it to some sort of rational legitimacy, their tactic is to attempt to lower a scientific theory to their level (which is to say, faith and opinion).  You see it all the time:  They say evolution is “only” a theory and that creationism should be taught alongside it as an equally viable theory.

This position is born of pure ignorance in what a scientific theory is.  The next time a creationist tells you evolution is “only” a theory, ask them if the germ theory of disease is “only” a theory, or the atomic theory for matter, or the theory of relativity.

Lately I’ve heard that quantum theory – even though it has produced lasers and television – requires faith or “belief” in it because it is incomplete and has unanswered questions.  Here’s what one of these typical Christians says: “It’s as incomplete as you say Christianity is, and yet you have faith in [it].”

First of all, I’ve never claimed that Christianity is incomplete.  It’s not a scientific theory.  It’s a belief based on knowledge gained from authority and revelation.  I’m not saying Christianity is automatically wrong; what I’m saying is that to place it on the same level as a testable science like quantum theory is absurd.

Secondly, I don’t have faith in quantum theory.  It’s not necessary; lasers work whether you believe in them or not.  Here’s a Mirriam-Webster definition of the word “faith” that is appropriate to the context we’re talking about: “Firm belief for something for which there is no proof.”  We have proof that quantum theory works.  We experience that proof every day.  The fact that it has unanswered questions does not invalidate the proof that television is real.  Similarly, there are plenty of unanswered questions in astrophysics and cosmology (black holes, quasars, dark matter, etc.) but that doesn’t mean we should demote the standard model of the universe to “faith.”

Thirdly – and this is the most important part – a scientific theory is provisional.  If aspects of quantum theory turn out to be wrong, even if we have to throw the whole thing out and start over from scratch, then that’s what we’ll do.  Scientists follow the evidence.  Scientists know that they may be wrong, that gaining knowledge is a tentative process filled with mistakes and false starts.  That’s how it works.  In contrast, no only are most Christians completely closed off to the idea that they may be wrong, they have no method for even testing whether they’re right or wrong!  And they call scientists arrogant?  It sounds to me like Christians are the ones “professing themselves to be wise.”

Christianity is not incomplete; that would imply that some part of it has been shown to be factual.  It’s nothing but a personal belief.  An opinion.  Claiming that it’s incomplete like quantum theory would be a gross insult to quantum theory, which has actual evidence to back it up.  Where’s the evidence for Christianity?  I ask this of Christians all the time, and the only thing I ever hear is some variation of this: “Millions of people have personally felt it.”  Somehow, in the creationist mind, this is regarded as evidence.  Suppose Richard Dawkins wrote a book claiming that evolution is real because millions of people believe in it, that millions of people have felt some mystical connection to all living things on earth?  How hard would all of you Christians laugh at something like that?  How frustrated would you be, trying to talk sense into him?  Welcome to our world.

Defining My Position

I feel that I should explain my position on the existence of God, because in some of the discussions I’ve been involved in, I’ve stated that I’m not an atheist (just a skeptic).  But I’ve also labeled myself an atheist in other instances.  Before I start to sound inconsistent or unsure, I should clarify.

First, there are two main definitions of “atheist” that I use.  The first is what I’ll call a “true atheist.”  This is a person who says, “There is no God; He does not exist.”  A true atheist might even claim that they have proof that God doesn’t exist, or, at the very least, that they are certain He does not.  I tend to think that this is just as much a leap of faith as believing in God.  I don’t think any of us can be certain that God doesn’t exist.

The second definition of an atheist (I’ll call a “soft atheist”) is someone who says, “I have no belief in a god.”  This is fundamentally different from true atheism.  A soft atheist generally holds the position that although we can’t know for certain that God doesn’t exist, there doesn’t yet seem to be any evidence that He does.  A soft atheist is basically saying, “I don’t think there’s any reason to believe in God yet, but I can’t rule out that it’s possible.”

Never in my life have I said, “God doesn’t exist.”  I am a soft atheist.  If I ever refer to myself as an atheist, this is what I mean.  I also use it almost interchangeably with “skeptic.”  I’ve heard Richard Dawkins refer to this position as a “de facto atheist,” or an atheist in practice only.  That is, until I see some evidence for God, I’m going to live my life as if He doesn’t exist.  (Just like until we see some evidence that astrology is real, many of us are going to live our lives as if it isn’t.)

I don’t think this is quite the same as agnosticism.  The way I understand it, I’ve heard two definitions of agnosticism.  The first is that we (any of us) can’t know anything about God.  The second is what someone like Bill Maher says: “I just don’t know and neither do you.”

The first one doesn’t seem logically sound.  After all, if you make the statement that we can’t know anything about God, you’re actually admitting that you do know enough about Him to make such a statement!  The second definition is pretty close to soft atheism, in my view, or Dawkins’ de facto atheism.

I’ve taken this position because, as I said, I haven’t yet seen anything – certainly anything that is the least bit compelling – that would lead me to even entertain the notion that God exists.  In fact, the great majority of commonly accepted instances have turned out to be hoaxes, delusions, personal experiences, or easily explainable phenomena.  I also think that each of the three big logical arguments for the existence of God (the cosmological, the Teleological, and the ontological) is at best flawed (or outright ridiculous, in the case of the ontological).

I’ve also taken this position because I understand the limitations of human experience, bias, and perception.  I think it is incumbent upon us all to be intellectually humble, to treat knowledge as provisional, never as irrefutable (when something is irrefutable, it becomes faith).

Why Kids Need Evolution

I can imagine the red flags over the title already, so I should make this clear: The theory of evolution is not an ideology to be taught to kids or anyone else.  No biology teacher wants to instruct kids that “the strong kill the weak.”  No scientist is advocating applying Darwinism to the moral education of your children.  The theory of evolution is not an authority on how we should treat each other.  Period.

Nor am I saying that evolution is a belief that needs to be spread.  Something a great many creationists never seem to understand is that scientists defend evolution because it’s a strong theory grounded in a mountain of evidence.  They do not defend it because they want to further some sort of ideological belief.  I don’t necessarily want to see people become evolutionists – I just want them to be rational.

I suppose that a push for rationalism can be seen as an ideological goal.  But we must not mistake a need to convince people of the validity of Darwinism as ideology.  It is not.  Rationalism suggests that we at least accept the evidence supporting evolution, and reject manifest nonsense such as the notion of a young earth, the Great Flood, and a belief that all humanity descended from two created progenitors in a garden.  The resistance to evolution is just one rather poignant example of how blind faith can erode the rationale of literally millions of people.

This type of irrationality is a thorn in the side of human efforts and scientific progress.  At the very least, we have to keep it from getting worse.  Please understand: I’m not saying that anyone who doesn’t believe in evolution is being irrational.  I’m saying that the majority of people who reject it have no idea what they’re rejecting, and, even if they do, they ignore rational arguments based upon concrete evidence in favor of mythology.  That is irrational.  That is the type of thinking we must teach children to avoid.  Learning to understand the evidence of evolution – even if it contradicts a sacred book – is a good way to do this.

It must be reiterated that I’m not asking anyone to read a sacred book and take up a faith or a belief system.  I’m not saying, “Study this ideology and you’ll be convinced to become one of us.”  That’s pure nonsense.  I simply want people to see the evidence and decide for themselves.  There’s a plethora of it.  Read Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth Miller, or Why Darwin Matters, by Michael Shermer, or anything by Richard Dawkins.  But do not take these books or their authors as authorities, like you’re asked to do with a sacred book.  These texts will not tell you anything that you can’t go check out yourself.  You can look at the same evidence the authors present.  Their scientific credentials are meaningless; the evidence is what matters.

Why Prisoners Need Richard Dawkins

I remember a particular point Dawkins made in his book The God Delusion that struck a chord with me, for obvious reasons.  He was discussing the correlation between religion, skepticism, and crime, in part to answer the ridiculous creationist claim that people are more prone to commit crimes if they’re atheists.  Dawkins suggested the opposite: that he would be surprised if there were very many atheists in prison at all.

(I think he was also making a point about education.  That is, since prisoners are in general woefully uneducated, it would be difficult for many of them to be informed atheists anyway.  Prostrating oneself before a higher power and having faith doesn’t require any education; learning about actual evidence in the natural world does.)

I think Dawkins is right.  As an insider, I can state two things with some amount of certitude.  The first is that there are plenty of religious felons in prison.  The second is that there are very few atheists.  Further, there are very few atheists who have devoted any efforts to actually pondering and studying the idea.  This is a shame, because I’ve found that those who make such an effort tend to be more adept at using their brains than is usual for prisoners.  I’m not saying that religious prisoners are unintelligent.  There are guys with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, but then there are also guys with an encyclopedic knowledge of football.  Neither one is going to teach us how to think critically and use the tool of reason.  For prisoners, this should be priority number one for improving ourselves.

One thing standing in the way is the fatuous notion that religion is the answer.  Some prisoners do become better people through embracing religion, and I have no quarrel with that.  For this purpose, I think the destination is more important than the path.  But my main problem is the idea that religion seems to be required.

Despite the title of this article, I’m not saying that prisoners need to share Richard Dawkins’s views to be productive individuals who can function in society.  This isn’t about “converting” prisoners to an ideology; it’s about teaching them to think rationally.  It is not even imperative that they agree with Dawkins.  For the purpose of this argument, the content of his books is not as important as the method he uses and the language and skill with which he presents his arguments.  If convicted felons can learn to sue the powerful tool they have inside their heads, if they can learn to approach their problems, trials, and decisions with rationality rather than tradition or uninformed reaction, they’ll have the foundation they require.  Reading Dawkins is a good place to start.

One sign of hope:  The library here purchase The God Delusion last year, and ever since that time, it hasn’t been able to stay on the shelves.  It’s being borrowed and read as quickly as it’s returned.  Perhaps this will lead to prisoners putting down the Bible and reading something by Carl Sagan or Ayn Rand.  Perhaps they’ll listen to visionaries of the civil rights movement rather than prison chaplains.  Perhaps they can learn to see that the path to morality is reason, not obedience to mythology.

Why Ann Coulter Thinks Evolution is False V

“The evidence found in nature supports creationism.”

Here’s how creationists like Ms. Coulter seem to prove that their deity exists: “Since there are gaps in the fossil record, unanswered questions about the evolutionary history of life, and debate in the scientific community, evolution must be wrong – which of course means that creationism is correct.”

For once, I’d like to see them stop trying to attack something that doesn’t fit their creation myth and instead come up with some evidence of their own.  You can’t prove God exists by trying to poke holes in the theory of evolution; this is applying the either-or logic fallacy.  The creationists are saying that either Hypothesis A is correct or Hypothesis B is correct.  Oh really, why is that?  Can there not be a Hypothesis C?  But this is how they operate.  If they find any question about evolution that a scientist can’t answer, they crow triumphantly: “Ha-ha! We will by default.”

This tactic is the best they can come up with.  They do it because they have no case.  They can produce no evidence whatsoever, and their only explanation is that divine magic explains every tough question.  Imagine Einstein trying to prove relativity merely by trying to poke holes in Newton’s theory.  Moreaptly yet, imagine if Charles Darwin had tried the creationist method rather than actual science: “There are things you creationists don’t know about God?  Very well, we automatically win.  God must not be real, and a natural process must have created life.  No, we can’t explain how this process works, and we don’t even have to because Nature works in mysterious ways, but obviously it’s true because you can’t answer every question about God.”  Absurdities are more humorous when they’re close to the truth.

Leaping to “God did it,” is not only intellectually torpid, it also fails as a reasonable replacement.  Why did God spend two billion years of history watching only microbial life before He decided to make something more complex?  Why did He wait 570 million years after His Cambrian “creation event” before creating humans?  Ninety-nine percent of all the species that have ever existed are extinct.  Did God create all the uncountable species that have ever lived, including all the unsuccessful ones, each at different points throughout billions of years?  If so, why does it appear as if He tried out some species, allowed them to go extinct, then moved on to other species that appear more like the modern ones we see today?  Why did He create dozens of species of elephant-like creatures, each progressively more like modern elephants, and allow all but two to go extinct?  Why did God put so much junk in our DNA that just happens to look like detritus from an evolutionary past?  Why did God give chimpanzees twenty-four chromosomes, then fold two of the human chromosomes together to give us twenty-three?  In tracking mitochondrial DNA, why haven’t geneticists found a bottleneck that would indicate when and where God created the first man and woman?  Why did God give whales nonfunctional hipbones and femurs?  Why did God give give us wisdom teeth, flawed spines and knees, and an appendix?  Why did He create so many intermediary species between aquatic creatures and four-limbed walking creatures?  Between reptiles and mammals?

In her book Godless, Ms. Coulter never goes any further than trying to discredit evolution.  She doesn’t present an alternate theory to answer any of these questions.  Even if we take away the theory of evolution, she can’t even begin to explain how the geological record and life’s history supports the idea of a creator, let alone the anthorpocentric interventionist deity from her particular fairy tale.  She never presents on shred of evidence that points to the existence of a creator.  The only so-called argument she makes is this: “My opinion is that the evidence for evolution is inconclusive, so therefore (my) god exists and designed everything.”

Why Creationists are Delusional About the Fossil Record

No one seems to have let the creationists in on this, but the fossil record is loaded with transitional species.  Here are a few that creationists either don’t know about or choose to ignore.

1. For the evolution of human beings, we have many examples, beginning with the oldest known hominid, Ardipithecus ramidus.  There are the many Australopithecines such as anamensis, afarensis (Lucy’s species), africanus, and ghari.  There is the Homo genus: rudolfensis, habilis, ergaster, and erectus.  All of these species – at least from the standpoint of intelligence, walking upright, tool-use, and language and culture - are more advanced than modern apes and less advanced than humans.
2. Archaeopteryx is a prime example.  It had feathered wings like a bird, but it also had teeth and a tail like a reptile.  No modern bird has teeth.  This is clearly transitional between a reptile-like creature and a bird.
3. Tiktaalik is another beautiful portrait of evolution.  It was discovered just a few years ago in Canada.  It’s a 375-million-year-old fish that has the precursor structures for shoulders, elbows, and even fingers.  This is clearly a transition from fish to land animals.
4. We have a good description of the evolution of even-toed land mammals into whales, with clear transitional fossil species such as Ambulocetus natans.
5. Pikaia is a Cambrian transitional species between invertebrates and vertebrates, and there are older protovertebrates in the Lower Cambrian, as well.
6. Acanthostega, an amphibian-like creature with full gills, is a transitional species between fish and amphibians that is often described as a “fish with legs.”
7. We have a great many fossil transitions between reptiles and mammals such as the therapsids, they cyndonts, and the ictidosaurs.
8. We have an excellent picture of the evolution of the elephant, from little Paleomastodon 34 million years ago, to Gamphotherium, Primelephas, the extinct Mammuthus, to the twenty-two distinct species over the last six million years, to the modern Elephas maximus (the Indian elephant) and Loxodonta africana (the African elephant).

Of course, the creationists always say the same thing:  These are separate species, not transitional.  Perhaps they should be asked how they know this.  Perhaps they should be asked what standard of evidence they utilize for determining if a fossil is transitional or not.  Perhaps they should be asked how many such examples have to be shown before they’re willing to admit even the possibility.  Perhaps they should be asked that if the above examples are not transitional, what exactly a transitional species would look like.

There are many gaps in the fossil record, especially between closely-related species.  One reason is that times frames shorter much than ten million years are difficult to view in the geological record; there isn’t “room.”  Another reason is that fossilization is simply a rare event.  But a plenitude of transitions between large groups of animals is present.  The supposed rarity of transitional species in the fossil record is a myth.  Don’t ever let a creationist try to tell you otherwise.

Why Ann Coulter Thinks Evolution is False III

“Evolutionists can’t explain the Cambrian Explosion.”

This is another claim from Ann Coulter’s best-selling book Godless: The Church of Liberalism.  It includes a criticism of some warped version of Darwinism that Ms. Coulter appears to have gleaned from watching the movie Waterworld (in which Kevin Costner’s character had evolved gills and webbed feet).  I can only hope that her readers understand that the application of her otherwise impressive acumen does not extend to the theory of evolution.

In this, however, Ms. Coulter finally makes an honest point.  She infers from it the wrong conclusion, but the point is valid.  About 570 million years ago, there is a place in the fossil record where something like forty different phyla (major groups of animals based body plan) seem to arrive suddenly.  Before this time, there were only a couple of major phyla.  Then, boom – an amazing diversity seemingly overnight.

Of course, the “overnight” is in geological terms, which in this case means ten to fifteen million years.  To be sure, that is still a relatively short period of time to explain all the various body types that appeared, but let’s keep the record straight.  When Ms. Coulter and her peers state that the animals of the Cambrian era appeared “suddenly as if placed there by a designer,” remember that their goal is to take any unanswered question in science and use it to validate their creation story.

No, scientists haven’t been able to explain the relative abruptness of the Cambrian Explosion.  So what?  No one has yet explained how quantum theory can encapsulate gravitation, or why most of the matter in the universe is “dark.”  Should this invalidate all the evidence for quantum theory, gravitation, and modern cosmology?  I hate to break this to creationists like Ms. Coulter, but here it is: Scientists don’t have all the answers.  Indeed, they’ve never made any such claim.  Their only claim is that they try.

Conversely, it is the creationists who seem to suffer from a lack of humility.  They have the answer to everything – if you can call it an answer.  “God did it” is their solution to everything that hasn’t been explained yet.  They used to say it when a volcano erupted or when people got sick; now they search for “irreducible” complexity in parts of cells that somehow keep getting less and less complex.

Perhaps the notion of increasing oxygen levels in Cambrian times spurring rapid evolution has a ring of truth.  Perhaps there was no real “explosion,” and the answer is simple that most of the Precambrian ancestors didn’t fossilize.  This probably has some validity since many had soft bodies that usually don’t fossilize well.  Try this, Ms. Coulter:  There are whole groups of Cambrian creatures that are totally absent from the fossil record after the so-called explosion – does that mean we should stop looking for them and say God whisked them all out of existence?  Who gets to decide which questions are deserving of more study, and which should be abandoned for the notion that “God did it?”  Should we assume that a magic spell is the answer for every difficult question about the natural world, or only the ones that directly challenge the biblical creation myth?

This type of Dark-Ages thinking thwarts discovery and human progress.  Imagine of Crick and Watson, for example, had scratched their heads and said, “Well, I just can’t see how this double-helix thing could work.  It’s never going to be solved.  Since we can’t understand it, there must not be a natural explanation.  Let’s just say an intelligent designer is required and scrap the whole project.”  Unexplained does not mean inexplicable, Ms. Coulter.

Science makes provisional claims and allows for constant testing and revision.  It is an ongoing process that answers more questions as we progress – but we only progress because we continue to try rather than towel and attribute every tough question to God waving His magic wand.