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OVERVIEW OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF EVOLUTION AS
IT CONCERNS HUMAN HISTORY. |
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POINT OUT SOME STREGTHS AND WEAKNESSES THROUGH
EVIDENCE. |
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Here is a starter…listen, learn, study, then
decide. |
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Your beliefs shape your desires. |
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Your desires dictate your actions. |
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Do you ever act contrary to your desires? |
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Your actions shape the present and future.
(remember for eugenics presentation) |
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Many of you asked what evolution is, anyways. |
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At least 5 types of evolution, so lets be
specific. |
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In this class and in your textbook, we are
speaking primarily about biological evolution, or the theory that the diversity
of organisms we see today all came from one common ancestor, likely a
single-celled organism. |
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Evolution draws heavily on natural selection and
mutation for support |
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Phylogenetic |
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Tree for |
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Animals |
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An estimated 90-98% DNA similarity (depending on
the methods used) |
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Consider: Humans have +/- 3 billion base pairs. |
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10% of 3 billion is 300 million base pairs. |
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2% of 3 billion is 60 million base pairs. |
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Consider: Pig heart valves are used to replace
human heart valves. Chimpanzee valves are not used. |
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There is confusion on the part of evolutionists
because the evidence is fragmentary, subjective, and may be considered
contradictory. |
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Fossil data is not the basis for the belief in
evolution of apes to humans. The notion that man evolved from an ape-like
ancestor came first, and there is an effort to make the data support that
conclusion. Evolutionists are trying to come up with a scenario of how apes
evolved into man that takes into account the fossil evidence. |
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“Evolution [is] a theory universally accepted
not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but
because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible 1
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~D.M.S. Watson, biologist. |
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1 D.M.S. Watson, “Adaptation,” Nature,
124:233, 1929. |
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“At this point, it is necessary to reveal a
little inside information about how scientists work, something the
textbooks don’t usually tell you. The fact is that scientists are not
really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you
to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works
not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild
guesses… |
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…As
individuals, they often come to believe something to be true long before
they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it
is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his
peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his
theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he
hopes will support his position.2 ” |
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~Boyce Rensberger, science author
(Washington Post, New York Times), university lecturer (Johns Hopkins
Univ.), and Director of Knight Science Journalism Fellowships Program, MIT |
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“We take the side of science in spite of the
patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to
fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, is spite of
the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so
stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism… |
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“…It is not that the methods and institutions of
science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the
phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori
adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a
set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how
counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover,
that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the
door.3” |
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~Richard Lewontin, American evolutionary
biologist, geneticist, professor (NCSU, U. of Chicago, Harvard), researcher
(Harvard) |
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3 Richard Lewontin, “Billions and
Billions of Demons,” The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31. |
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A prominent authority on the subject, Erik
Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist from New Mexico University, writes: |
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“Detailed comparisons of Neanderthal skeletal
remains with those of modern humans have shown that there is nothing in
Neanderthal anatomy that conclusively indicates locomotor, manipulative,
intellectual, or linguistic abilities inferior to those of modern humans. 1
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1Erik Trinkaus, "Hard Times
Among the Neanderthals," Natural History, vol. 87, December 1978, p.
10 |
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See also: R. L. Holloway, "The Neanderthal
Brain: What Was Primitive," American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Supplement, vol. 12, 1991, p. 94. |
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Notes