Is Anything Possible?

In this post I want to take a brief look at a common claim among people who write about evolution, that anything is possible.

Quotes and comments;

A. ' Time to rewrite the textbooks again. The story of plant evolution is wrong. Lignin, a chemical that gives wood its stiffness, was thought to be unique to land plants. Now it has been found in red algae, reported Science Daily, with the title, “Billion-year Revision Of Plant Evolution Timeline May Stem From Discovery Of Lignin In Seaweed.” [1.]

“The pathways, enzymes and genes that go into making this stuff are pretty complicated, so to come up with all those separately would be really, really amazing,”says Denny. “Anything is possible, but that would be one hell of a coincidence.” [1.]

- There's a big problem with this statement; contrary to Denny, anything is Not possible. I read this comment ("anything is possible") continually from evolutionists, but it's simply not true. Students should not be deceived in this manner. (As an example; squaring the circle isn't possible.) You can either dismiss this as simply careless use of language (as defenders of E. would) or you can claim that this is a deliberate attempt to foster in students a state of mind that's willing to accept any claim at all. (i.e. as long as it bears the Darwin trademark, or the E. stamp of approval.)

- To say that anything is possible comes close to saying that if we can conceive of something it has to be true. This would be a kind of secular version of the Ontological argument for the existence of God. i.e. that we can imagine a perfect Being, means this Being exists. (If he didn't exist, He wouldn't be perfect.) Evolutionists tend to think that if they can imagine something happening this means it probably did. This is not a rational argument, but only wishful thinking.

- If anything is possible, it's opposite would also be possible.

- To say anything is possible creates an intellectual atmosphere where criticism has a hard time being taken seriously; where logic has a hard time being taken seriously. (If anything is possible, then all of what we now take for scientific truth might be false. If anything is possible, no physical law is truly a law.)

- Anything is possible only if you abandon mathematics and logic.

- Anything is possible sounds like the world of your average fantasy trilogy, not like the real world we live in. (To say anything is possible, is to say reality doesn't exist.)

- To say anything is possible is to dream, not to think rationally.

- I maintain that it's impossible for a rock to turn into a human being. (I don't care how long said rock hangs in space, or orbits a star. We might as well imagine a rock cracking open and a human being crawling out.)
E. theory (molecules to man) is replete with impossible claims and imagined scenarios. Over and over, known science is abandoned in favor of metaphysical storytelling of a kind that only has a place in science fiction. (e.g. one of the basics of science is that life only comes from life; but this knowledge is abandoned in E. theory, as if it didn't exist, or didn't matter.)

Notes;
1. Plant Lignin Found in Red Algae Creation/Evolution Headlines 01/29/2009