Institution for Creation Research…Come At Me Bro!

As I have previously mentioned I do not believe it is intellectually honest to only view one side of the argument, especially if the side you are viewing agrees with your own pre-existent opinions; due to this I have set myself the aim of reviewing information from creationist sources (see “Answers in Genesis…facepalm”) to try and discover if they have any valid points.

Today I have set my sights upon the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), if anyone should have valid information on the creationist side surely it’s this lot. The piece I have chosen to critique is “Is Evolution an Observable Fact” by Dr Nethaniel T.Jeanson Ph.D. Dr Jeanson gained his Ph.D in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard University, due to this I expect it is safe to assume that Dr. Jeanson has been provided with and fully understood the evidence supporting evolution. You would assume due to Dr. Jeanson’s education that this article would contain equally strong evidence against evolution…and you’d be wrong.

The first paragraph of this article is claiming that “evolutionists” go around claiming evolution as a fact, since Dr. Jeanson has got this wrong we’re already off to a good start; most of us who understand science call evolution a (scientific) theory, which in the world of Biology is about as close to a fact as you will ever get.

The second paragraph makes two arguments:

1. Since God created each creature after their kind the concept that we all evolved from a common ancestor is wrong.

2. Evolution requires millions of years but the Bible shows that the earth is only about 6,000 years old.

Both of these arguments are logically poor, the bible is not a reliable source of information so should not be used as if it were scientifically accurate; since the bible is the only source of evidence against evolution in this paragraph both arguments can be immediately dismissed.

Next Dr. Jeanson claims all “evolutionists” believe any form of change is evolution; this is spectacularly incorrect, evolution is change caused by genetic mutation, driven by “evolutionary pressures”. It appears to me that Dr. Jeanson is in the process of building a straw man argument.

In the next paragraph Dr. Jeanson goes onto make the argument of “kinds”, which is a claim that Noah only brought two of each kind (2 dogs, 2 bears, 2 monkeys, etc) rather than two of each species. In his next paragraph the Dr. then goes onto suggest that all the species we know today have come through variation since “the flood” and that this variation is not evolution but “change within kinds”. The Dr. then further states that if a species could evolve from one “kind” into another then God’s command to Noah would be superfluous. Once again Dr. Jeanson is mistaking the bible for a legitimate scientific document, and once again the above mentioned segments of the article can be dismissed.

Dr Jeanson then goes onto make the claim that we can only ever have a “change within kinds” but that we will never be able to observe in real time anything beyond this, and, to an extent he is correct; it is highly unlikely that we will ever see the process of evolution occur, due simply to the fact that evolution of one species to the next would take millions of years. Dr Jeanson attempts to drive home his point even further by remarking that all the textbook examples of evolution (the Galapagos finches, HIV and E.Coli) are only examples of changes within a kind. What Dr.Jeanson is trying to do is make the age old macro/micro evolution argument, what he doesn’t seem to understand is that this concept is nonsense, there is no such thing as macro/micro evolution, instead there are stages of evolution, small mutations that over time lead to speciation (read up on ring species if you want a good example of this at work). 

This is where the story turns to pure deception and we get the following quote:

“The evidence for the biblical model is so strong that even the world’s most famous living evolutionist, Richard Dawkins, must concede this point. “We can’t see evolution happening because we don’t live long enough,””

Just to set the record straight let’s clear this up; Dawkins did state that we can’t see evolution, not because of the evidence for the biblical model but because evolution takes millions of years. Dr. Jeanson then moves onto his next ridiculous conclusion:

“Wow. Not only is the “Evolution is fact!” claim false, but the complete opposite is true. Furthermore, since evolution is not observable, evolution isn’t even science!”

“Wow” is the right word, this is so utterly stupid it amazes me, without providing any evidence against evolution this guy has claimed that evolution is not scientific (the irony is so strong here I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy was a troll). He seems to think that unless you can directly observe something it can’t be scientific (which amuses me since he believes in a God that is by definition not observable) which is completely ridiculous in itself, but not only that, technically we can observe evolution; through the fossil records, genetic analysis, observation of ring species and population studies within species under various evolutionary pressures we can observe the processes of evolution and come to understand it in considerable depth.

My real issue with this article lies in the fact that the author is not stupid and is not ignorant of the evidence which can only lead me to one of two conclusions:

1. Dr. Jeanson has deluded himself to the point that he truly believes his own nonsense.

2. He knows he is being intellectually dishonest but doesn’t care, which considering who pays him I personally think is the more likely option.

In summary, this article is full of poor logic, fallacious arguments and dishonesty. There is a good reason why you will not see any ICR articles/studies in a reputable journal; no peer review board would read past the first couple of paragraphs. I urge you to check out this article, it will give you an idea at how utterly dishonest ICR is.