critical thinking and evolution

Critical Thinking and Evolution

Mike Riddle

EVOLUTIONVERSuSSCIENCE

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the process of analyzing questions and assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, sometimes true, or partly true.

Three Critical Thinking Questions

How do you know it is true?

Has it ever been observed?

Are you making any assumptions?

Recognize Assumptions Evaluate Information Draw Conclusions

Applying 3 Critical Thinking Questions

Life originated in a pool of chemicals about 3.7 billion years ago.

“Scientists do know that about 200 to 300 million years after Earth cooled enough to carry liquid water, cells similar to modern bacteria were common.”

Biology, Miller and Levine, 2002, p. 425.

Critical Thinking QuestionFossils

How much of the fossil was actually found and how much was added (assumed)?

“For instance, modern whales are the descendants of four-legged land animals…”

Biology: Visualizing Life, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1998, p. 177.

Example

DeceptionPakicetus: a candidate for

whale evolution?

Artist reconstruction

Only the shaded portions of the skull were found

Updated Pakicetus

A wolf-like land mammal, with legs capable of running

More Examples Nebraska man Piltdown man Archaeoraptor Lucy (australopithecine)

Three Critical Thinking Questions

How do you know it is true?Has it ever been observed?

Are you making any assumptions?

Show me any observational evidence for evolution that does

not require me to use faith.

A Power Question

Using the Power Question The universe originated 13 billion years

ago with the big bang. Over millions of years creatures without

backbones evolved into fish. Humans evolved from ape-like creatures. The earth is 4.6 billion years old. Evolution is an observable fact.

Show me any _____________ evidence for evolution that does

not require me to use ______.

POP Quizobservational

faith

Three critical thinking questions1. ________________________________ 2. ________________________________ 3. ________________________________

How do you know it is true?Has it ever been observed?Are you making any assumptions?

Words Have Meaning

Fuzzy WordsMagic Words

How to read between the linesHow to recognize the bluff

Show me the observable evidence

Fuzzy Words We believe We think Must have Could have Might have Our opinion is We guess Over millions of years

No observable evidence

What Happened

Life Science, Prentice Hall (Grade 7), 2002, p. 410.

“Paleontologists think that Archaeopteryx and today’s birds descended from some kind of reptile, possibly from a dinosaur.”

Example

USA Today, November 5, 1013Example

“A discovery out of this world: Earth-like planets”

“There are likely ‘tens of billions’ of Earth-like planets in our Milky Way galaxy…. In fact, the nearest Earth-like planet may be ‘only’ 12 light years away… And with a universe of hundreds of billions of galaxies, ‘our entire universe must contain billions of Earth-like planets.’”

“The first cells could not have needed oxygen to survive. They probably were heterotrophs that used the chemicals in their surroundings for energy….. At some point, some of the cells may have developed the ability to make their own food.”

Prentice Hall, Science Explorer: Life Science, 2002, p. 46.

Joseph Silk, Ph.D. Astronomy, The Big Bang, 2001, p. 170.

“Imagine that infinitesimal fluctuations in density were present in the early universe…. The expansion of the universe must have exerted a stabilizing influence on such irregularities. The expanding universe has the effect of greatly impeding what otherwise might have been catastrophic forces…. Nevertheless, the process of growth of fluctuations went on for a very long time,…”

Meet “Cousin” Ardi

Ardipithecus ramidusDiscovered in 1992 in Ethiopia

“A partial skeleton and indirect evidence from skeletal fragments indicate that Ar. ramidus may have walked upright….Other fossils found with Ar. ramidus suggest that it may have been a woodland forest dweller.”

www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/b.html

Ardi

Speculation and GuessworkIn the eleven papers in Science:

“Probably” appeared 78 times “Suggest,” “Suggesting,”

“Suggestive,” or Suggests” appeared 117 times

Magic Words Appeared Emerged Arose Gave rise to Was on the way to becoming Burst onto the scene Evolved itself Was making a transition to

How It Happened

“Evo-devo proposes that genes involved in cobbling together flesh and bone during early growth were repurposed to develop new structures throughout evolution's history, by combining their functions in new ways.”

USA Today, “Why did bugs grow wings to fly?”, Mar 29, 2010.

“The 185-million-year-old specimen is a sauropodomorph, a category of plant-eating dinosaur that stood only four feet at the shoulders and could walk on its hind legs. They evolved into sauropods, such as the apatosaurus ….”

The Salt Lake Tribune, “Utah's Navajo sandstone yields rare dinosaur find,” Thursday, March 25, 2010

“Into this world came the dinosaurs, initially small bipedal carnivores, and they rose to dominance at some point during the Triassic.”

The Complete Dinosaur, Edited by James O. Farlow and M. K. Brett-Surman, 1997, p. 204.

Red-Flag Words

Red Flag

DANGER DANGER

Red-Flag Words All Everybody No real scientist I believe I think Truth Fundamentalist Intolerant

Express an absolute

Express a personal idea

Used to label an opponent

Red-Flag Statements All real scientists believe in evolution. Everyone knows the Bible is just a

book of stories. No one has the whole truth. People should decide for themselves

what is right and wrong.

Red-Flag StatementsWhy are Christians so intolerant?

Challenge

Do you believe in evolution?

Yes: WrongNo: Wrong

Challenge

Do you take the Bible literally?

Yes: WrongNo: Wrong

A Primer on Natural Selection?

“Over a long period of time, natural selection can lead to evolution. Helpful variations gradually accumulate in a species, while unfavorable ones disappear.”

Life Sciences, Prentice Hall, 2002, p. 151. (seventh grade textbook)

Natural Selection

“Natural selection is a mechanism by which populations adapt and evolve. In its essence, it is a simple statement about rates of reproduction and mortality: Those individual organisms who happen to be best suited to an environment survive and reproduce most successfully.”

www.amnh.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/darwin/evolution-today/how-does-natural-selection-work

Natural Selection

Source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25

1

43

2

Natural Selection: Two FACTS

Natural selection does not add any new information.

Natural selection can only “select” from information that already exists.

Critical Thinking and Natural Selection

Natural

Caused by nature (natural processes)

Selection

Selector(Intelligence)

Natural Selection: The Real Meaning

Douglas Futuyma (professor of evolutionary biology), “Natural Selection: How Evolution Works,” http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/futuyma.html.

“Natural selection is a very simple natural mechanism that explains the appearance of design in living things.”

Natural Selection and Change

Exposure interface

Pre-programmed information

1. What is it that natural selection actually does and how does it work?

2. Selection implies intelligence. Who or what is actually doing or causing the selection?

3. Is there any observational evidence for where the vast amount of information in DNA came from that does not require me to use faith?

3 Questions to Ask

What Is Natural Selection?It is an artificial mechanism devised by man to replace the power and intelligence of God.

According to evolutionists the design in all life comes from:

God EvolutionNatural Selection

Engineered Adaptability(Intelligent Designer)

Created by God for a purpose Love, joy, peace,

longsuffering,kindness, goodness,

faithfulness,gentleness, self-control

Hot, coldThink, be creative

Know GodRespond to our Creator

The Bible says that people lived to be 900 years old. Do you believe people really lived that long?

So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.

Genesis 5:27

Bible Challenge

Final Exam

Dinosaurs evolved into

birds.

What questions could I ask?

Final ExamLife must be on other planets. It’s arrogant to believe we are the only life in the universe.

What questions could I ask?

Training Courses

Basic Creation TrainingTeens and above

Advanced Creation ApologeticsNext step in evangelism

Christian Teacher TrainingTeaching based on biblical standards

Building an Army of Christian EducatorsA.C.E. Project

www.CreationTraining.orginfo@CreationTraining.org

Treatment 2

Building an Army of Christian Educators

For more information www.CreationTraining.org

Email: Info@CreationTraining.org