Wikipedia Is a Godsend

Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena. -- National Academy of Sciences

This is a note for both theists and atheists. When reading someone's claim, why don't you at least read the Wikipedia article on it before rebutting it? Below is one thing from theists I wish they would turn to Wikipedia about and one thing from atheists I wish they would turn to Wiki about.

Theists: Theory vs Science

One of the biggest irritations from theists I commonly have is statements about science. I won't even be as specific as false science statements as "evolution is unfalsifiable" or that "light is invisible." I mean general statements. Flinging dust points out two comments on Ray's blog by theists making completely false statements about general science principles and terms.

The second comment says:

Wow! You guys think gravity is a theory! You need to get out more. It was proven to be a Law a long time ago.

The commenter is a Christian. What always baffles me about comments like this from Christians is I was raised with a fundamentalist father who is currently working on correcting translations of the Bible. God removing a rib from Adam to create Eve is far different than removing a part from Adam to create Eve. One would think Christians, in general, would have a better appreciation for terms.

Of course, there is no hierarchy in validity among law, theories, and facts. In lay terms, a theory is more a hypothesis or conjecture while a fact is something proven. Scientific illiteracy is shown when you then bungle the lay uses with the scientific uses. A quick search of gravity or theory and fact on Wikipedia would have removed the words from your mouth which made you a fool.

One of the top results, in fact, is an article on evolution and gravity BOTH as theories and also as facts. You could also go straight to Newton's law of gravity which introduces it in the first sentence as a theory.



Atheists: Newton's Religion

As much as we hate when people like Ray Comfort make ignorant statements about the religious views of people like Einstein and Hawking, it is always quite shocking to see an atheist doing the same to Newton. I have never seen quote-mining on the part of atheists with respect to Newton's religion. What I usually see is them making some ignorant statement about him or saying they are skeptical about the claims that Newton believed the Bible.

Why? Because it's quite shocking to them that a scientist as great as Newton could believe such a thing. In this, they are as guilty as Ray Comfort in claiming what he does about Einstein because it's shocking to him that Einstein couldn't believe in his definition of God.

A quick navigation to the Wikipedia article on Isaac Newton would quickly clear it up. In fact, you can read the article dedicated to his religious views.

The Black Hole in Evolution

Ray's latest post was such a mess that I was not sure if I wanted to even make a post on it. It seems something written by a high schooler, or a high school dropout. The science is wrong at every point, the thoughts are scattered, no topic or question is really address, and it is riddled with fallacies. I'll just write a few thoughts on it.

Firstly, Ray personifies evolution throughout (for the same reason he always uses "look around at creation"):

• evolution had no end in mind...
• when it created all living things...
• it is incredibly intelligent, ...
  
• but it forgot that they would go spinning into space without the law of gravity

Why? For the same reason his brand refers to the scientific theory of evolution as Darwinism: to portray it as a religion, dogmatic, and unscientific. He paints rational folks as deifying evolution and instituting it as our religion. This ties into a later point below.

it forgot that they would go spinning into space without the law of gravity. So it was fortunate for us that gravity just happened to be around to stop that disaster.

And while the scientific theory of cells is "structuring" living things, it forgot that they would go spinning into space without the law of gravity. And while the scientific theory of plate tectonics is "moving" Earth's lithosphere, it "forgot" that they would go spinning into space without the law of gravity.

What is the point of this?

Where did gravity then come from? If evolution had nothing to do with it, who or what created it? "Chance" or "accident" is too bigger leap of blind faith for me. The evolutionist's version of "just believe" isn't good enough. I want verifiable scientific facts.

I will look into obtaining Ray's address and will collect funds to mail him a book on evolution. You can examine it cover to cover and see that evolutionary theory does not address gravity, just as cell theory doesn't, just as plate tectonics theory doesn't. I've studied automata theory, and that didn't address gravity, so it must be invalid? They have nothing to do with one another. But this will tie into the previous point at the end.

Of course your "scientific" answer will be, "We don’t yet know where they came from, but one thing we are sure of, God didn’t create them."

Of course it wouldn't. Two paragraphs above you said that you "want verifiable scientific facts." And yet, your answer to the scientific questions is "God did it," an inherently unscientific, unverifiable assertion. I am perfectly open to the possibility that God created them just as I am to any other explanation, including that the FSM did it. As scientists, though, we don't just grab some non-answer conjecture and say, that's it!

I could give you an answer for it as I could give you an answer for everything. You answer everything with an unproven book with an answer of "God did it." I could just as easily make something up and have that be the answer for anything I don't know.

It was Newton's law of gravitation that showed science that the gravitational constant is in direct proportion to the product of the masses divided by the square of the distance apart.

You're a little behind in your science, about two hundred thirty years behind it. Why did he use Newton, though, instead of Einstein?

However, that doesn't explain the nature of gravity. Despite its mystery, the brilliant Newton attributed its origin to the genius of Almighty God. So do I.

To set up an appeal to authority; especially an authority who died a hundred thirty years before Darwin's Origin of Species which proved that gravity was created by biological evolution.


Two drive home the two points of this post, though:

Firstly, his point of personifying the theory of evolution is to portray it as a religion; a deity of sorts. But we rational people don't look at sexual reproduction which "creates life forms" and say, yep, sexual reproduction created gravity and the universe. We recognize it as a biological function which propagates life and, as such, we don't worship it. Similarly, we rational people don't look at evolution which "creates life forms" and say, yep, evolution created gravity and the universe. We recognize it as a biological function which propagates life and, as such, we don't worship it.

If you can be religious and still accept that sexual reproduction "creates life forms," then you can be religious and still accept that evolution "creates life forms." My understanding of science in no way prohibits some deity at the origin of our universe. I don't happen to accept that but, if I did, it wouldn't require me to reject evolution and sexual reproduction any more than it would require me to reject anything else of science. If there was a God, it seems that he created a universe which perpetuates itself through natural processes, such as evolution and sexual reproduction, and keeps itself from spinning into space with natural forces such as gravity.

His attack on evolution is to force religious believers into a false dichotomy of the scientific theory of evolution or the unscientific notion of "God did it."


Secondly, this ALL is from a man who wrote a book called Scientific Facts in the Bible. This is the man who thinks that evolutionary theory teaches that evolution "created gravity" or that light is invisible or any of the countless other ridiculous and completely false things he states about science.

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Others on this topic:

• Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes
• Of Microbes and Men