San Francisco Atheists - Darwin Day 2005

Darwin Day 2005 Debate Transcript:

“Is Evolution True?”

Moderator: Thank you, everyone, for coming here today. You’re in for a very special treat. Let me introduce our speakers:

Dr. Eustace J. Paluxy is the founder of Creationist Research Against Paleontologists’ Humanist Education And Deception (CRAPHEAD), a conservative research institute which promotes true, Bible-based science, and combats its counterfeit -- Evolution -- from being forced on the children of America. He is a professor of Paleotheology at the Foursquare Gospel Tabernacle Bible College, a division of Fertilizer Science Agricultural School in Snakehandler, Missouri. He is author of the books Darwin’s Lie Makes Baby Jesus Cry and You Can’t Call My Grandpappy a Monkey! Please welcome Dr. Paluxy.

Charles Darwin is an internationally acclaimed figure whose discoveries of the mechanisms of Evolution have led to it becoming the central organizing principle for all of biology. Evolution's influence on progressive modern thought continues to be both profound and wide reaching today. He is author of many books, including On The Origin Of Species and The Descent Of Man. We’re very privileged to have this eminent man of science with us here today. Please welcome Charles Darwin.

Since we are here to celebrate Darwin Day, perhaps we should start with Mr. Darwin.

PALUXY: Now, why do all you Atheists need a Darwin Day Holiday? I thought Atheists already had a holiday – on April 1st! (chuckles)

DARWIN: Thank You, Mr. Moderator. I am immensely gladdened to see that the theory has led to such plentiful results. I must confess that I was scarcely the first or only to investigate the natural processes with which all species have arisen and unfolded into such a variety of forms, and the scientific minds who followed my humble efforts have admirably corrected my shortcomings and missteps. And so the principle of Evolution by Natural Selection continues to enrich our understanding of life and the universe. I remain grateful for that.

PALUXY: (Chuckles) Well now, I’m reminded of the old story about the zoo-keeper and the Orang-utang. Seems that one day the zoo-keeper noticed that the old orang-utang was reading two books-- the Bible and Darwin's Origin of Species. In surprise, he asked the ape, "Why are you reading both those books"? "Well," said the orangutan, "I just wanted to know if I was my brother's keeper, or my keeper's brother." (Chuckles) Now then, that was a right pretty speech, folks, but our friend Mr. Darwin here is just a mite confused. Evolution, or as I like to call it , Devil-lution is nothing more than a theory with no evidence, whereas Creation Science is built on the very bedrock of truth itself – the Holy Bible. After all, is it likely that the author of the Universe would be mistaken about its age? I don’t think so! That’s just not logical! (pulls off glasses for emphasis)

DARWIN: I think you are confusing “Theory” with “hypothesis” or even mere speculation. A theory is not simply a “guess” or a “hunch.” Scientific theories are explanations that are based on lines of evidence, enable valid predictions, and have been tested in many ways. Evolutionary theory is as much a law of science as the Theory of Gravity or Relativity or the Structure of the Atom.

PALUXY: Let’s face it: Godless Atheists like Mr. Darwin here would have us believe that an accident of nature created the entire universe, and then an endless string of random accidents all simply lined up perfectly millions and millions of times in a row, like dominos! Why it’s preposterous! Friends, you just have look at the marvelous complexity and perfection of life to see that all its parts were created in total harmony by a loving creator. If you stumbled over a pocket watch in the woods, would you suppose all its intricate little cogs and screws all came together by accident? Of course not! It is clearly our Lord’s Intelligent Design. (pulls off glasses for emphasis)

DARWIN: You re-hash an argument that was old in my day! –that of Paley's analogy that a watch needs to have a maker. This intelligent design idea is nothing new, and has been thoroughly answered by my fellow biologist Richard Dawkins in his book “The Blind Watchmaker.” Natural forces of selection and variation are quite sufficient over time to result in great magnitudes of complexity.

PALUXY: Well, let’s take the human eye, then. Logic dictates that if Evolution is true, the eye must have been built from nothing to its present state of functional wholeness. At some point, then, it must have been only half of an eye! Now will someone tell me how half an eye does anyone any good? What would keep all the eye jelly from spilling out? How could such a bizarity be possible? The answer is it cannot! Only a whole eye with all its many functioning parts work can afford sight to the sightless! (pulls off glasses for emphasis)

DARWIN: The truth is, the eye has evolved in several stages, from primitive light sensing cells to the intricate modern eye, and each intermediate stage is still able to pass on a measure of vision. Complexity can build up step by step to a very high degree. Also, organs can take on new functions, helping each step of the way be adaptive (called exaptation).

PALUXY: Oh come on now! You expect these good people to believe that such an extraordinary instrument could just come together like magic? (Chuckles) Well sir let me tell you, you can have a chimpanzee banging away on a typewriter for 100 million years, but it will never come up with Shakespeare’s Hamlet!

DARWIN: Yes, if randomness were all, that might well be true. However, let us say you were to preserve the few letters that your typist typed correctly, and return the page to him. Repeat this process, each time preserving those letters which quite by chance matched Shakespeare’s, and in short order, you would have the first page of Hamlet. Indeed the entire play would follow, in perfect formation. This is analogous to the actual workings of Evolution, your "random monkey” analogy is not.

PALUXY: Mr. Darwin may know a great deal about monkeys, but he is quite mistaken about biology! What he’s conveniently forgotten is that these “changes” or “mutations” are never beneficial! If some unfortunate mutant does manage to survive, they most likely will wind up in a circus freak show, but they’ll never be able to compete with healthy, normal decent animals. (pulls off glasses for emphasis)

DARWIN: On the contrary; most mutations are not monsters, but simply very minor variations of structures, as indeed all of us possess to some degree. And in time, natural selection weeds out those harmful mutations. In fact, all the genetic variation we observe indicates that life has been undergoing Evolution for a very long time.

PALUXY: Let's be up front about this. That's deviation, not variation, and yes, there is a lot of deviancy out there. That just shows that there has been a lot of Sin since the Garden of Eden. (chuckles) But real scientists know that Evolution is impossible because it is violation of the LAW (not the theory now, the LAW) of Thermeo-dynamics. Every schoolboy knows that if a tornado blows through a junkyard, it’s not going to put together a brand new 747 jet aeroplane! But that’s exactly what those Evolutionists want you to believe!

DARWIN: Not at all. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says entropy (that is to say, disorder) must always increase in a closed system. The good Dr. is implying that Evolution results in a net increase in order on earth. But the earth is not a closed system--it gets energy to increase order from an outside source: the sun.

PALUXY: (Chuckles) Well, now he’s playing word games with us, folks. But then again, that’s just the kind of dishonesty we have to expect from Evolutionists, because they have no physical evidence for their wild claims. That’s right –there is no evidence! All it is, is university professors writing papers for each other. If they didn't write papers they wouldn't have jobs.

DARWIN: Nonsense! What about the Fossil record!

PALUXY: The real fossils are the ones who blindly follow Evolutionism instead of Jesus! Darwinists, like Darwin here, are reeling in shock since they found that the fossil record does not provide a lick of evidence in support for Evolution! It shows that Life did NOT evolve, but it appeared all at once, in what secular scientists call “The Cambrian Explosion!” (pulls off glasses for emphasis)

DARWIN: Life flourished long before the Cambrian period. The relative abrupt appearance of fossils in this period is because this was when hard shells and carapaces first began to evolve. Before that, organisms were soft-bodies, and very, very few have fossilized. However, some have, and what’s more, the tracks of others have been preserved in seafloor mud. So we do have quite substantial evidence of Precambrian life.

PALUXY: Hold on now – You yourself admitted that the fossil record doesn’t support your own theory – and that every geological formation and every stratum should be full of intermediate forms- but there are none! None at all! Friends, I tell you fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory, but they offer strong witness for the concept of Creation! Glory! Hallelujah!

DARWIN: (sighs, lowers head) Yes, it’s true; I must confess I did say that. (pause)

And it was true –in 1859! But in the time since a great many fossils have been discovered, and more are unearthed every year!

We now have documented entire lineages for a great many species, including the horse, the whale and of course our very own Human species. And I assure you there are indeed a vast wealth of intermediate forms which have been discovered, such as Archaeopteryx…

PALUXY: Wait a minute now, you old Evolutionist, you!

Ar-K-E-Op-ter-rixy is certainly not a transitional form –it’s patently obvious that this Evolutionist hoax is just a lizard with feathers, or possibly a bird with teeth – but it is NOT an intermediate form – because none exist! (pulls off glasses for emphasis)

DARWIN: Rubbish! Not only does Archaeopteryx share features of both dinosaurs and birds, but it possesses still other features different from the two, marking it clearly as a separate organism than either!

PALUXY: That’s just a smoke screen to disguise that the whole so-called fossil record is hopelessly filled with gaps and holes, and all the prayers Evolutionists give to their atheist god of science can’t change the fact!

DARWIN: First of all, one expects gaps in the fossil record, since the formation and preservation of fossils is extremely rare. One modern theory, that of punctuated equilibrium, even argues that evolution goes by fits and starts that would produce a pattern of discontinuity in the fossil record. And even so, we still see more than abundant evidence for the unfolding of new species from older ones.

PALUXY: (Chuckles) More Evolutionary guesswork. Were they there? Of course not. These secular scientists don’t know what really happened anymore than you or I do, folks. Because you see, my friends, no one has ever even seen Evolution happen. As the scripture tells us, the creatures God created reproduce after their own kind. We know that from the canine ancestors carried aboard the Ark of Noah, we get all manner of dog, from the mighty German shepherd to the lowly weiner dogs and the little Mexican Chi hua hua. But you will never see a dog evolve into a lungfish, or a frog into a hippopotamus, or a hummingbird into a duckbilled platypus, as Evolution theory insists.

DARWIN: Well, Evolution makes no such claim of those family trees. But in fact all life on this planet is related, however distantly, to each other. As for macroevolution, (which is what you describe) given time, a species can indeed undergo large changes merely through the accumulation of small changes. To concede that small adaptations can occur and macroevolution can't happen is thus a contradiction in logic.

We also see Evolution in action when we observe organisms which are not optimally adapted. For example, the panda has an imperfect thumb resulting from its evolution from carnivore to plant eater--it evolved a "makeshift" thumb from a bone spur in order to scrape bamboo leaves from their stems.

PALUXY: Sir, you are very presumptuous in assuming you can do a better job than the Lord God Almighty! He does not make mistakes, and the panda’s thumb has worked just fine for as long as there have been pandas. Are you trying to imply that the panda got a bum deal?

DARWIN: No sir, I am not implying it; I am forcefully stating the fact!

It is very poor thumb, really; no deity would create such an inefficient makeshift structure deliberately, but evolution worked with the materials available, and in the future, the panda’s thumb will look and function much differently than today.

PALUXY: And again we hear a ridiculous allegation, but no proof!

DARWIN: It is no allegation; it is a simple fact. Still another proof of evolution is that fossils are always found in the correct order with respect to increasing complexity; that is in the lower, older strata, We find older, simpler life forms. As the strata progress upward, we find later, more complex forms. This pattern holds true everywhere around the world.

PALUXY: Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you, because footprints of humans and dinosaurs dating from before the flood of Noah have been found, together, in the very same strata, in Glen Rose, Texas!

DARWIN: No, even your fellow Creationists have admitted these were just a hoax. The hoaxers used sand to obscure parts of dinosaur prints to make then appear to be human footprints when photographed. But let me ask you this: How does Creationism account for the great age of the earth, as evidence by continental drift, for instance?

PALUXY: Oh, it’s clear the Earth is only about 10,000 years old. If some scientists think that the earth's continents are drifting around on top of a molten interior, well they‘re only confirming what the Bible says: that beneath the surface of the earth is a Hell where there is eternal fires and brimstone. If the continents appear to be moving around, that is Satan's doing.

DARWIN: What about radioactive dating?

PALUXY: Hey, everybody knows that radio-active stuff is bad for you. Stick with dating good Christian girls. (chuckle)

DARWIN: (sighs, rolls eyes) Geologic strata also prove that the Earth is millions of years older than Creationists allege.

PALUXY: The geologic layers prove that some things are on top of other things and some things are underneath other things. But we already knew that, didn't we, folks? (winks)

DARWIN: And then there is the light we see from stars light years away, which conclusively demonstrates that the age of the universe is measured in billions, not thousands, of years.

PALUXY: (Chuckles) Well, I don’t know about that…

DARWIN: It would seem that you have no desire to respond to any of these points.

PALUXY: Friends, now we see the real face of Evolution – spiteful arrogance and pride. It’s this hateful pride that makes the elite scientific establishment into an unrelenting cabal dedicated to spreading confusion and to squelching the truth about Creation Science Research! That’s why they don’t let Creation Scientists publish in their scientific journals, and why they refuse to debate us! They can’t accept the truth, and they don’t want you to know the truth either! (pulls off glasses for emphasis)

DARWIN: Utterly preposterous! In my day, the scientific establishment was indeed united and dogmatically calcified against my findings. But it is precisely because Evolutionary theory withstood their best attempts at disproving it, showed itself to be remarkably apt in making predictions, and was increasing supported by evidence that Evolution emerged triumphant, and continues to flourish.

MODERATOR: Gentlemen, let me stop you there. It’s time for your closing statements. Dr. Paluxy?

PALUXY: Friends, we’ve been given no arguments here. We’ve been shown no evidence. You might want to think about the shape the world is in since the Evolutionists and the Liberal Secular Humanists captured academia. Evolution is hand in hand with Godless Communism, the Nazism of Adolph Hitler, Homo-sexualism, Abortion, crime in the streets, and downright Atheism.

Don’t be fooled by the slick talk of secular scientists. There is no greater scientist than the one that starts with all the right answers.

And that scientist is ... Jesus! – And he has told us all we need to know in his precious word, the Bible. And because he is all-powerful, he can do anything he wants to – Flood the whole world, create starlight that only looks like it’s very old, stack the layers of earth any old way he pleases, just to confound those that lean unto their own understanding! Put your trust in real science, my friends, because real science confirms the Bible. And the Bible will never change!

Friends, real scientists know that you didn’t come from a monkey – You came from the God-breathed dust of a beautiful garden of perfect happiness far, far away, surrounded by angels, and filled with talking snakes and magic fruit. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Mr. Darwin?

DARWIN: Thank you. I wish to return to this matter of Scientific discipline further, because I believe it is at the crux of the matter. Let me state quite unequivocally that it is because these so-called “Creation Scientists” refuse to subject themselves to the demands of true science that they prove themselves to be unworthy of the name.

They start first from their desired dogma that the Christian scriptures must be inerrant and infallible, and then work backwards to support such a position. They engage in campaigns of propaganda and political lobbying to pass legislation that either censors threatening scientific theories, or mandates "equal time" for "scientific" creationism whenever objectionable theories are taught in the science curricula of public schools. Their initial assumption is not subject to revision or replacement in the face of disconfirming data, and they neither do any real science nor publish in peer-reviewed science journals. Thus, contrary to their claims, their dogma and their agenda are religious rather than scientific.

On the other side we have Evolution, which is real science, practiced and acknowledged by real scientists doing the real work of science. Scientists collect and investigate data and then attempt to formulate explanatory theories. Those theories are always subject to revision or even replacement in the face of new data. They often publish their research in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and their data, hypotheses, and theories are subject to independent verification and replication.

Evolution is supported by reason and experimentation, and by the fossil record of an entire planet. It is factual, testable, and falsifiable. It is the underlying and unifying foundation for the biological sciences. It is not even remotely in dispute in scientific circles. The evidence is overwhelmingly undeniable. If I may be permitted to quote from my own work:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

(Q & A session follows)

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Evolution-Palooza 2005!