I got in a debate of sorts the other day on Facebook.
Truthdig posted a link to an article detailing some research by two PSU political science professors about how high school science teachers are cautious about teaching evolution in the classroom. The message essentially boiled down that science teachers are intimidated by Right-Wing Fundie Creationists, to the intellectual demise of American students.
See the left posting comments about how the FB debate ensued. Paul Wilson, who original posted under the icon of Project Reason and now has some other photo of an ancient–a young Darwin?–as his profile picture, did not deal with my argument and two points of contention with Evolutionary dogma. Instead he dismissed my Ph.D. training as a waste of money.
This is a pretty typical tactic, as if my points didn’t even merit a response. Mr. Wilson was arrogant, lazy, and immature in his reply. I have heard 9th graders come up with better retorts to cafeteria conversation.
Little does Mr. Wilson know that I have studied this issue in-depth. Also, I was privileged to have a high school science teacher in several of my doctoral classes who was a dedicated Evolutionist, so some of my thoughts and perspective have been honed by keen debate with an educated proponent of Evolution.
Also unknown by Mr. Wilson is that the theorist who I based my doctoral dissertation on was Swiss biologist and psychologist Jean Piaget, who had a Ph.D. in Biology and whose theories of cognitive development titled Genetic Epistemology. More commonly, it is know as Constructivism.
One of the fundamental premises of Evolution is that the individual organism is stagnantly genetically structured where its chromosomal constructs cannot change in response to the environment within its own lifetime/existence. The environment, instead, through the mechanism of Natural Selection, either is compatible or incompatible to the organism, leading to growth or extinction in the succeeding generations of that organism’s progeny. Variability within the organism’s genetic pool is solely determined by survivability of succeeding generations and there is no evidence, none, that this variability can create new species, instead it can create diversity within a given species.
Think about the breeding of dogs…a Beagle is a dog, a German Shepherd is a dog, a Poodle is a dog (maybe), but they are dogs. Not cats, gerbils, slugs, or humans. And dogs will always be dogs.
The second problem with Evolution is Biogenesis, how non-life became life. Think of it as this way. Do we really think inorganic matter on its own–let us say a rock–has any chance of coming alive. What mechanism can create life starting with non-living ingredients? Logic suggests, as well as sound scientific reasoning, that only life begets life. So, one is forced to accept that some superintending agency acted on inorganic matter to make it living. These are either life forms from far galaxies (this had a fancy name called Transpermia, but what or who created these life forms?) or God. The Bible teaches that God has always existed and this is a great mystery. But it only makes sense that something outside of creation created the Universe, or one is forced to accept the thesis that the Universe created itself…how nothing became something and made everything. Talk about the leap of faith!
Don’t be afraid to challenge argumentation that is weak. Get educated first, though, either informally or formally. It is funny how I can earn a Ph.D. with Honors from an avowedly secular Liberal institution–to get the training and credentials–and to be dismissed as ill-informed and ignorant.