Evolution for Dummies. A response to Fredric Hereen, and his article 'Making the easy sale' (Nature/2006)

Quotes and comments;

1. Article summary;
'In this modern parable for Nature’s “Futures” page, Heeren tells the story of a future when everyone owns a PAD, a Personal Advice Device. This smart, well-proven program provides the best options, displayed on our retinas, as we navigate through life’s decisions. But a problem develops for creationists when their young people start using it to evaluate claims from their preachers, such as “There is no evidence that primitive hominids ever existed.” Young people equipped with PADs find themselves looking at a sequence of hominid skulls with increasing cranial capacities over time. Those denominations whose leaders most insistently dismiss evolution have the most ‘splaining to do — until someone comes up with a PAD that thinks like we do: it rationalizes away anything its owner dislikes.'

- Best options? oh really? according to whom? forced upon us by whom? according to what standard? a relativist standard? a political statist standard? Let's be serious. The idea some PAD device could provide people with the 'best options' is laughable. Does the device program itself? is it neutral? obviously not. Are all devices the same? is that state going to enforce only a pc version it approves of?
- apparently biblical creation is going to be disproved by imagery; by showing people a sequence of 'hominid' skulls with increasing cranial capacity. That's so laughable one doesn't know where to begin. (And again we ask; who is going to draw up such a sequence?) What is or isn't a 'hominid' skull is a matter of great controversy; and it's impossible to prove the varying opinions one gets. Is there such a thing as a hominid? doesn't this just assume evolution? i.e. instead of proving it. (In my opinion there is no such thing as hominids; this is an evolutionary myth. All that has ever existed has been human beings and apes. There never was an 'progression' from one to the other. Such a thing is clearly impossible. It would require massive amounts of new information, and mutations only destroy information, they don't create it.)
- the fact you can take a number of skulls and arrange them in some kind of a pattern says nothing about evolution... or how the 'hominids' supposedly evolved into man. There are endless ways you could arrange the skulls used in textbook illustrations of so called hominid evolution. What kind of arrangement you get depends on what you're trying to prove. (The skulls aren't labled after all.) Human skulls come in many sizes and shapes; as do apes and monkeys. If you throw into the mix distortions caused by disease, malnutrition, burial damage, etc. you have a hopeless mix that is impossible to untangle. Any image of 'hominid evolution' is a work of art, not a piece of science.
- The idea great skull size is a sure indicator of higher intelligence is fallacious, both logically and scientifically.
- The idea lower layers in the fossil record are sure indicators of greater age is unprovable. Anomalies exist in abundance. The simple syllogism; the lower the older is logically fallacious. This is merely an assumption of the E. model. (And one I think is false.) The biblical model assigns most rock layers (and most fossils) to the Noahic flood; to the actual year long event, or to the several centuries thereafter..... when the great cataclysm worked its way out.
- So we can conclude by saying any such sequence of images would be entirely misleading. Of course we have to admit that evolutionists have been very successful at using deceptive imagery in the creation/evolution debate. (My favorite example of this is the infamous Nebraska Man, complete with family, that was illustrated on the evidence of a pig's tooth :=) Evolutionists hate serious debate; they much prefer fooling students with pretty pictures. (ie. of things that never happened.)
- I guess we could call this 'Evolution for Dummies' or evolution for the illiterate. (Soon the textbooks won't have any words in them at all, only nice pictures drawn by the Haeckels of the world.)
- of course what evolutionists don't like (and try to rationalize away) is evidence for the Creator, and the truth of his word.

2. 'People have come to trust their PADs implicitly. More than their spouses. More than their pastors. What human being can compete with this advice from a mind programmed to think according to our individual tastes, but immeasurably smarter, continuously updated from a world of information according to our present needs?
- isn't it interesting to find that this device has a mind, while human beings, our professors tell us, do not :=) Gee. I wonder how that works?
- the PAD device imagined (so naively) by Hereen is obviously a substitute for God. The idea that men don't need moral truth but merely information goes at least back to Aristotle. (And no doubt a lot further.) This is the basic pretense of Humanism; that man doesn't need special revelation, but only more and more information.
- but if this device is 'immeasurably' smarter (whatever that means) than people how would people know this? how would they know how to use such a device? how would they know how to use the information it provides? how could they know it was true or false information? The only way to use such a device would be to accept (ie. believe) whatever it told you. (And again I say; who is programming it? are people going to be told? will they know? will it be a tool of the collectivist state? I would imagine so.)

3. "That might have been fine in the day when, to check out that claim, a person would have had to sit down at a PC and hunt around for hours — who has time for that? But now for those who have PADs, questions like that get answered with just a few thoughts and a quick menu selection on their retinas. Presto — they're looking at a sequence of hominid photos with increasing cranial capacities over time. And seeing is believing, even if you've been home-schooled and never heard of evolution except as a naughty word. The result: anti-evolution leaders were voted out by an informed electorate.''
- the idea you can get the truth of a matter with a click is the most naive (not to mention idiotic) idea there has ever been.
- 'seeing is believing' Fred tells us. Really? That doesn't sound like science to me. If seeing were believing the sun would go around the earth.
- the dig against homeschooling is unjustified; and not a little revealing. (That a statist would slam it isn't surprising. "All hail the glorious and all powerful state.") Home schooled children are much better educated than the gov. schooled, and usually know more about evolution, not less. (Of course in government schools creation is a 'naughty' word, and one that's in fact illegal in many places... thanks to authoritarians like Hereen.)

4. 'It suggested that several of the questions were based on false preconceptions.'
- can Hereen possibly be that naive? How does this device know what is a false preconception? This is laughable. Hereen apparently doesn't know what a 'preconception' (better presupposition) is. Presuppositions (basic assumptions) aren't true or false; that's why they're pre-suppositions. i.e. they come before everything else; they're the foundation on which one builds out a world view. One doesn't prove materialism or theism; one adopts one or another because it better fits how one wants to view the world. Materialism isn't true or false in the philosophical sense; instead it's a basic life commitment. (As is a belief in creation.)

5. "It shouldn't be," said the biologist, "because the more genetics or history our bodies share with other animals, the greater the wonder at what we humans uniquely experience: morality, humour, literature, science, faith."
- that makes no sense to me. It's incoherent.... without meaningful content.
- sez who?
- the fact humans have humor, literature, etc. and animals do not, is strong evidence man did not evolve from the fruit fly.
- the fact humans and animals share some 'genetics' says nothing about evolution. It in no way proves man evolved from wombats.
- of course evolution can in no way provide us with a basis for morality. Animals aren't moral, they just are. If men are just animals why should they be moral. If man is just an animal, morality is a delusion. (But then again Hereen just rationalizes that evidence away; as he does all the rest of the evidence.)

Conclusion; a better title for this 'parable' would be 'Destroying Christian faith for fun and profit.' A truly venal bit of work. (But at least he made his easy sale to Nature; always ready to buy the latest bit of spit lobbed at biblical creation.)

p.s. In a cutesy note at the end of the 'parable' (sf short would be a better term) we're told Hereen is writing a book on evolution... and is afraid he'll evolve into something other than human before he's done. I'll give him my opinion. It is utterly impossible for chemicals (or the laws of physics if you will) to write code; i.e. to create genetic code. If anyone is under the illusion this is possible they need to read up on the matter.