Conservapedia has published (what they call) an essay, titled, “Capsizing people’s evolutionary views via 15 questions,” which attempts to explore why evolutionists (or, those who believe evolution) are just dead wrong in their understanding of how the world works.
Unfortunately, the article does little more than ask questions which for the most part seem irrelevant to the study of evolution all together. Here are the questions.
Most of what the article seems to be trying to promote, however, is the new Question Evolution! campaign, consistently citing instances where evolutionists are stumped on answering some of the infamous 15 questions posed.
We all know evolutionists are utterly powerless when it comes to the 15 questions that evolutionists cannot satisfactorily answer. Just imagine seeing videotaped interview after videotaped interview of people being stumped by the 15 questions that evolutionists cannot satisfactorily answer. Of course, once people see these interviews, many will want to do their own videos. It is going to be very educational and a lot of fun.
I have a few objections to make. Actually, no; these aren’t objections. This is me calling out the bullshit.
1) Nothing is hard fact. Nothing.
Science is an ever-changing atmosphere because knowledge is an ever-changing atmosphere. Half of what we discover in this century may be rewritten in the next. Anyone who has taken a basic philosophy course realizes that everything we observe (and things we can’t observe) are subject to change at any given point; the often cited example is how mankind used to believe our world was flat, when in actuality (well, this is how we see it now) the world is a sphere. It is because things can always change that rational human beings call things relating to nearly all subject areas, including science, theories.
2) Science & Evolution are separate from religion for a reason.
That reason is because science flat-out attempts to answer questions we as mankind have about the natural world, whereas religion is there to help us answer questions about the spiritual world. You see the difference? Science is based upon things strictly observed — which is why it is easier to pile evidence or backing on theories we develop from science. Religion, however, is something much different. We use religion to help us answer things we can’t necessarily just observe — like the existence of a god, or a heaven, or magic for all that matter. The study of evolution doesn’t even attempt answering how life originated from the very, very beginning; the best links it can provide are how organisms have evolved from other organisms — which does not answer how the universe & life itself was created — and that’s fine, because evolution is not supposed to try answering those questions.
I think what people don’t realize a lot of the time is that most aspects of evolution and religion can exist cohesively, for the most part. Just because one believes in the science of evolution & natural selection does not mean that some all powerful deity didn’t create the process of evolution in the first place. The only conflicting aspects might be in regards to time — in particular, how old the earth actually is. Yet that still doesn’t mean one cannot believe in the Christian faith, or any other faith, and at the same time not look to scientific findings & research as a basis for how they view the world.
3) Creating a conflict between the two is nothing more than bigotry.
I just fucking love how this video tells students in schools to question their instructors on how evolution works and whether or not it is fact. I’ve already established that evolution is not fact, just like everything in science (philosophically, that is); but no shit, of course students should question their teachers on things they’re taught in school — just like how kids should question their history instructors about the great depression and what other casual links may exist, or how kids should question their pastors in church to understand, fundamentally, why their pastors believe what they believe so strongly, so that they themselves can judge if it works for them.
The Question Evolution! campaign even cites itself as:
…a worldwide “grass-roots movement to challenge the anti-Christian dogma of evolution”.
Evolution is not anti-Christian in and of itself, OK? Are there people who use evolution as backing to condemn the Christian faith? Absolutely. (I’m looking at YOU, Dawkins.) Should they be doing that? No, I don’t think so. But the writers of this article on Conservapedia seem to do the same thing by condemning evolutionists worldwide. They even go as far as to pool evolutionists and atheists into the same category, as if they are interchangeable terms (which they are not, by the way. Go back to my second point.) Creating campaigns/groups like this are the same reason American politics is a failure in today’s two-party system — all you’re doing is creating more “Ravvle”!
If there’s anything you or I can take away from this post, let it be this:
Science is as much a belief system as any religion is. Get the fuck over it.