re rawlins debunks creationism john e king king ctron com posts a whopping one liner the modern theory of evolution is so inadequate that it deserves to be treated as a matter of faith francis hitching i have a few points to make about the above posting science is not based on and does not consist of quotes from either real or alleged experts critical reasoning evidence and if possible experimentation are necessary creationists frequently display a massive confusion about this by merely quoting both non experts and experts alike some of the latter quotes are in fact false and steadfastly refusing to follow any kind of rigorous scientific procedure this strongly suggests that a their claims completely lack any scientific merit and b they are aware of this fatal deficiency of course you may not actually be a creationist and this may not be your real intent you have failed to identify hitching and the surrounding context of his statement why is that if hitching is a scientific illiterate then the quote would merely display his profound ignorance of evolutionary biology creationists are frequently known to quote real scientists out of context and to fabricate statements that they subsequently attribute to legitimate scientists of course you may not actually be a creationist and this may not be your real intent evidence supporting the alleged inadequacies of the modern theory of evolution would be a much more powerful argument than a contextless one line quote from an unidentified nobody it is also important to note that disproving biological evolution does not automatically prove some alternate claims any more that disproving that the earth is shaped like a hockey puck proves that it is a hyperbolic paraboloid creationists seem rather fond of diving head first into this logical fallacy of course you may not actually be a creationist and this may not be your real intent since evolution is central to virtually all of modern science an attack on evolution either the fact or the theory really represents an attack on science while the theory will unquestionably continue to evolve b the fact of evolution will not ever go away creationists lost the battle long ago more than years in fact but are simply too willfully ignorant and irrational to acknowledge the fact of course you may not actually be a creationist and you may not really be that ignorant warren kurt vonroeschlaub kv iastate edu asks neither i nor webster s has ever heard of francis hitchings who is he i like hitchings am not to be found in webster s b francis hitchings is a scientifically illiterate creationist or perhaps he is just playing the part of one who wrote a quite ignorant book attacking evolution the neck of the giraffe in that publication he quotes a creationist jean sloat morton using the standard invalid creationist probability argument that proteins could not have formed by chance thus not only confusing abiogenesis with evolution the two are quite independent but also concluding with a non sequitur i e the conclusion does not follow pp hitchings also misquotes richard lewontin in an effort to support creationism pp hitchings book was reviewed by national park service ecologist david graber in the los angeles times and repeated in the oregonian the article was titled giraffe sticks scientific neck out too far excerpts include francis hitchings is not a biologist he goes after darwin like mark antony after brutus he flips from scientific reasoning to mysticism and pseudo science with the sinuosity of a snake oil salesman he suggests a mystical organizing principle of life using the similarity of organs in different creatures as evidence sic note that the last statement above is actually evidence for evolution not against it if john e king is quoting from this reviewed book it wouldn t surprise me much it s also interesting that king had nothing to add i e he only posted a quote uucp uunet tektronix sail mikec or m cranford uunet tektronix sail labs tek com mikec principal troll arpa mikec sail labs tek com relay cs net resident skeptic csnet mikec sail labs tek com teklabs tektronix
