Let's lay it out on the table--Creationism vs. Evolution. Two stories to describe one event that we have never witnessed nor will ever prove conclusively. Which story sounds better? Why? and/or why waste your time discussing it?
Evolution?
by Sarge
Lots of people study the bible because they hate the concept of a being that is more powerful and more wise than they are. I'd be willing to bet Mr. Hawkins is more than a little egocentric. You would almost have to be to devote so much time and energy into bashing a god you don't even believe in.
Let's start with the question "is there a God?" (not to be confused with the Godhs which we know exist.) I'll start with microbiology and work my way up. Science has found that the complexity of a single cell is more complex than a modern day supercomputer and operates in similar ways to a large factory. The statistical probability of that occurring by chance is impossible. It takes an intelligent designer to create something that complex just like it takes intelligence to create a supercomputer.
Moving on to the larger lifeforms, while the theory of evolution doesn't rule out the possibility of God, without evolution there is no current explanation of how life could have been created and therefore rules out the chance that there isn't a God (unless you believe aliens placed DNA on the planet.) Even if I wasn't religious there is no way I could put my faith in evolution as it's already been proven to be a false theory. First, if evolution were true you would see a gradual progression of more complex lifeforms over the course of the earths history. That simply isn't the case. In fact, fossil records have shown that most (if not all) kinds of lifeforms came into existence during the same time period. To clarify, if you were to play the history of earth in fast motion over the course of 24 hours, there would be no life and then within 30 seconds you would have every species that ever existed pop up out of the blue.
That's one piece of evidence against evolution but I'm not done yet. Next, if macro-evolution were true we would simply be able to witness it. Some would argue that it hasn't been witnessed because it takes dozens of generations for the gradual change to occur. That's a good point but the problem there lies within the simple fruit fly. Humans have been doing experiments on fruit fly's for many years now because they mature quickly and lay hundreds of eggs. Their genome has been mapped and the little guys have been put into every imaginable environment to see what affect it plays on them. They've even been tested under radiation! Despite all the trillions of fruit fly's we've created and all the experiments we've done to them we have yet to produce anything other than more fruit fly's. The probability of that occurring if evolution were possible once again is statistically impossible.
There is much more evidence against evolution but I think that's more than enough to disprove that theory. Back to if God exists, let's look at physics. The big bang theory is a good start. I'm not going to insult anyone intelligence by explaining what exactly happened but science has shown that the universe was created from a single point where all the matter in the universe exploded out of. This point wasn't a big ball of matter that just blew up. There was literally nothing there to begin with. The four laws of physics didn't even exist until the big bang because time and space need matter to exist. Science doesn't even attempt to explain how this is possible simply because God is the only possible explanation.
That proves there is a god but that doesn't prove which religion is the right one or if any of the known religions are correct. I'll stop here for discussion and continue once everyone has had time to say their piece.
Macro-evolution would involve a person or a dog giving birth to a different species such as a rat. Nothing close to macro-evolution has ever been witnessed simply because it doesn't happen. A simple protein strand is not a cell and cannot reproduce. A cell isn't 4 or 5 protein strands tied together. As I stated recent finding have shown each cell is more complex than we could have ever imagined. Yes, copper and gold can be created naturally just like your protein strand but copper and gold cannot just happen to form together to form a super-computer that is capable of producing more super-computers. If you want to believe that you can but once again it takes a lot more faith to believe that than it does to believe in a god.
What a bunch of worthless nonsense! You don't honestly believe anything you say in this post makes sense, do you?? You're just another example of a religious yockel trying to desperately deny reality. Evolution is a fact, get use to it.
Often Creationists make comments about evolution based on their own flawed understanding of a number of terms including the term 'theory'.
Here are some concepts and their actual and more accurate definitions:
Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as "true." Truth in science, however, is never final, and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.
Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are verified, it becomes more probable that the hypothesis is correct. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis can be abandoned or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.
Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.
Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.
The difference between Evolution & Creationism - funny
by Miguel
Evolutionist:
This man has been shot.
Creationist:
How do you know? You weren't there.
Evolutionist:
He has a bullet wound in his skull, he has a bullet in his brain, he has scorch marks consistent with gunpowder on his forehead, here's CCTV footage of someone shooting him, there's a strong smell of gunpowder in the air, and look, here's a smoking gun.
Creationist:
That's unscientific! It's impossible to know about the past! Your belief that he's been shot is a religion! Waaah!
Evolutionist:
If you ever get called for jury service, please recuse yourself on the grounds of idiocy.
....its always been both amusing and annoying that certain Christians feel the need to impose their own faith upon the rest of the modern world.
Usually this is done with a lack of understanding of history & science in general, biology in particular.
Another facet of this mindset is how little about scripture they are actually conversant with. Indeed I've often wondered at the mindset that argues that without a literal Genesis there can be no 'fall' and thus no need for Jesus.
Invariably they listen neither to reasoned arguments about science or theology.
After over 20 years of existence we still hear about Intelligent Design (ID).
Why is that?
In fact just what IS ID?
Here's a simple explanation based on Michael Behe's, Phillip Johnson's & William Dembski's works:
Intelligent design asserts that:
"...certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
Technically, ID avoids specifying the nature of the Intelligent Designer though its three 'founders' (the 3 men noted above) created the hypothesis in order to circumvent the legal restrictions on teaching religion in science classes (for evidence of this see 'The Wedge Document' here: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf).
Many ID proponents use it to support their belief in God.
The main rhetorical props of ID are:
Irreducible complexity:
The central supporting argument of the ID thesis.
Micheal Behe specifies this term as being:
"...a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning".
Specified Complexity:
Michael Dembski defines this as:
"...anything with a less than 1 in 10 to the 150th power chance of occurring by (natural) chance.
Fine-tuned Universe:
An argument which asserts that the 'fine-tuning' of universal constants which make matter and life possible are not solely attributable to chance.
Some examples are:
Gravity between fundamental particles, the relative strength of nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and the ratios of masses of such particles etc.
ID proponents argue that if any of these values are different even by an infinitesmal degree, the universe would be dramatically different, thus making it impossible for many chemical elements, reactions and other features of the Universe (base elements, galaxies, electro-magnetic, biochemichal or even thermal processes).
Given the above premise is true, it is argued that an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve any particular phenomenon, process, element, organism etc.
The reasons that these central props fail to support the concept of ID are as follows:
Irreducible complexity:
Behe's favorite examples for IC include the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting cascade, cilia, and the adaptive immune system.
The problem with IC is that it assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary and therefore could not have been added sequentially.
One part of a system can develop at first to be merely advantageous and then later become necessary as other components change.
In addition evolution often proceeds by altering preexisting parts or by removing them from a system, rather than by adding them.
Interestingly Behe himself has admitted that he has used "sloppy prose" in describing IC, and that his "argument against Darwinism does not add up to a logical proof".
In fact each of the systems Behe has used to illustrate the concept of IC have been shown to have had antecedent systems with various component elements from that system (cilia, flagella, blood clotting system etc.) missing but still producing a functioning sytem - though performimng a different function.
In fact during the Dover Trial testimony from Behe and opposing expert witnesses like Fedducia and Miller proved that:
"Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large".
Specified Complexity:
The basic conceptual soundness of Dembski's argument has been widely discredited by the scientific and mathematical communities. Some of these counter-arguments can be referenced in:
- Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens, Elliott Sober (1998)
How Not to Detect Design: A review of William A. Dembski's The Design Inference—Eliminating
Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge University Press,
http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/dembski.pdf
- Richard Wein (2002).
"Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolates: A critique of William Dembski's book No Free Lunch."
http://www.toarchive.org/design/faqs/nfl/.
In addition SC has yet to be shown to have wide applications in any other field despite Dembski's assertions to the contrary.
Dembski's "explanatory filter" is eliminative, because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. John Wilkins and Wesley Elsberry argue that this procedure is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions.
This and other critiques can be read here:
- John S. Wilkins, Wesley R. Elsberry (2001).
"The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference and Arguing from Ignorance".
Biology and Philosophy 16: 711–724.
http://www.talkdesign.org/cs/theft_over_toil.
- Mark Perakh (2005).
"Dembski 'displaces Darwinism' mathematically -- or does he?".
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/newmath.cfm.
- Jason Rosenhouse (Fall 2001).
"How Anti-Evolutionists Abuse Mathematics".
The Mathematical Intelligencer 23 (4): 3–8.
http://www.math.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf.
Note that the criticisms are not just from biologists but from mathematicians too.
Fine-tuned Universe:
Almost all scientists have responded that this argument cannot be tested and is not scientifically productive. Even when taken as mere speculation, these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence.
In essence these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the Universe is able to support life.
The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible.
Life as we know it might not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. A number of critics also suggest that many of the stated variables appear to be interconnected and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable.
A similar argument is the often-used Creationist canard of evolution contravening the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
This is a misapplication of thermodynamic principles. The second law applies only to closed systems whilst the Earth is an open system since it obtains energy from an independent, external source - the Sun.
If this argument were applicable to biological systems, living things could not be born and grow, as this also would be a decrease in entropy.
However, like evolution, the growth of living things does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, because living things are not closed systems—they have external energy sources (e.g. food, oxygen, sunlight) whose production requires an offsetting net increase in entropy.
In addition, despite its more than 20 years of existence, ID has yet to produce a single solid piece of research or peer reviewed paper.
No established scientific journal has yet published an intelligent design article.\
Instead, intelligent design proponents have either published popular books in order to take make a populist appeal, or they have set up their own journals with "peer review" which lack impartiality and rigor, consisting entirely of intelligent design supporters.
"..."ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly "peer-reviewed" journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of "peer review" that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows."
"..."With some of the claims for peer review, notably Campbell and Meyer (2003) and the e-journal PCID, the reviewers are themselves ardent supporters of intelligent design. The purpose of peer review is to expose errors, weaknesses, and significant omissions in fact and argument. That purpose is not served if the reviewers are uncritical"
In addition Judge John E. Jones, a conservative Judge ruled on the Kitzmiller vs. Dover School Board Trial that:
"For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID [intelligent design] would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child. (page 24)
A significant aspect of the IDM [intelligent design movement] is that despite Defendants' protestations to the contrary, it describes ID as a religious argument. In that vein, the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity. (page 26)
The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism. (page 31)
The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory. (page 43)
Throughout the trial and in various submissions to the Court, Defendants vigorously argue that the reading of the statement is not ‘teaching’ ID but instead is merely ‘making students aware of it.’ In fact, one consistency among the Dover School Board members' testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath, as will be discussed in more detail below, is that they did not think they needed to be knowledgeable about ID because it was not being taught to the students. We disagree. (footnote 7 on page 46)
After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science.
They are:
(1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation;
(2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and
(3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. (page 64)
[T]he one textbook [Pandas] to which the Dover ID Policy directs students contains outdated concepts and flawed science, as recognized by even the defense experts in this case. (pages 86–87)
ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID. (page 89)
Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause. (page 132)
Articles illustrating the above criticisms include:
- Brauer, Matthew J.; Forrest, Barbara; Gey Steven G. (2005).
"Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution".
Washington University Law Quarterly 83 (1).
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/83-1/p%201%20Brauer%20Forrest%20Gey%20book%20pages.pdf.
- Isaak, Mark (2006). "Index to Creationist Claims". TalkOrigins Archive.
http://www.toarchive.org/indexcc/CI/CI001_4.html.
- Jones, Judge John E. III. (2005)
Decision on Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District/4:Whether_ID_Is_Science
To summarise:
Whilst ID might technicaly not be religious in its arguments, it is unquestionable (see the Wedge Document described earlier) that its founding proponents had one clear agenda in mind - the reintroduction of Scientific Creationism into Public School science classes via the arguments inherent to Intelligent Design.
ID is NOT Science because it is neither predictive, testable, nor useful to science.
ID does not attempt to explain scientific phenomenon but rather attempts to muddy scientific inquiry by the inclusion of supernatural and unscientific philosophies.
Irreducible Complexity, the central argument underpinning ID, has proved unsupportable via example or evidence and stands refuted by the continuing research being undertaken in all the various examples used by Behe.
Many thanks to the author/s of the Wikipedia article on ID and the many valuable references and links he/she/they supplied.
After over 20 years of existence we still hear about Intelligent Design (ID).
Why is that?
In fact just what IS ID?
Here's a simple explanation based on Michael Behe's, Phillip Johnson's & William Dembski's works:
Intelligent design asserts that:
"...certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
Technically, ID avoids specifying the nature of the Intelligent Designer though its three 'founders' (the 3 men noted above) created the hypothesis in order to circumvent the legal restrictions on teaching religion in science classes (for evidence of this see 'The Wedge Document' here: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf).
Many ID proponents use it to support their belief in God.
The main rhetorical props of ID are:
Irreducible complexity:
The central supporting argument of the ID thesis.
Micheal Behe specifies this term as being:
"...a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning".
Specified Complexity:
Michael Dembski defines this as:
"...anything with a less than 1 in 10 to the 150th power chance of occurring by (natural) chance.
Fine-tuned Universe:
An argument which asserts that the 'fine-tuning' of universal constants which make matter and life possible are not solely attributable to chance.
Some examples are:
Gravity between fundamental particles, the relative strength of nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and the ratios of masses of such particles etc.
ID proponents argue that if any of these values are different even by an infinitesmal degree, the universe would be dramatically different, thus making it impossible for many chemical elements, reactions and other features of the Universe (base elements, galaxies, electro-magnetic, biochemichal or even thermal processes).
Given the above premise is true, it is argued that an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve any particular phenomenon, process, element, organism etc.
The reasons that these central props fail to support the concept of ID are as follows:
Irreducible complexity:
Behe's favorite examples for IC include the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting cascade, cilia, and the adaptive immune system.
The problem with IC is that it assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary and therefore could not have been added sequentially.
One part of a system can develop at first to be merely advantageous and then later become necessary as other components change.
In addition evolution often proceeds by altering preexisting parts or by removing them from a system, rather than by adding them.
Interestingly Behe himself has admitted that he has used "sloppy prose" in describing IC, and that his "argument against Darwinism does not add up to a logical proof".
In fact each of the systems Behe has used to illustrate the concept of IC have been shown to have had antecedent systems with various component elements from that system (cilia, flagella, blood clotting system etc.) missing but still producing a functioning sytem - though performimng a different function.
In fact during the Dover Trial testimony from Behe and opposing expert witnesses like Fedducia and Miller proved that:
"Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large".
Specified Complexity:
The basic conceptual soundness of Dembski's argument has been widely discredited by the scientific and mathematical communities. Some of these counter-arguments can be referenced in:
- Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens, Elliott Sober (1998)
How Not to Detect Design: A review of William A. Dembski's The Design Inference—Eliminating
Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge University Press,
http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/dembski.pdf
- Richard Wein (2002).
"Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolates: A critique of William Dembski's book No Free Lunch."
http://www.toarchive.org/design/faqs/nfl/.
In addition SC has yet to be shown to have wide applications in any other field despite Dembski's assertions to the contrary.
Dembski's "explanatory filter" is eliminative, because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. John Wilkins and Wesley Elsberry argue that this procedure is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions.
This and other critiques can be read here:
- John S. Wilkins, Wesley R. Elsberry (2001).
"The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference and Arguing from Ignorance".
Biology and Philosophy 16: 711–724.
http://www.talkdesign.org/cs/theft_over_toil.
- Mark Perakh (2005).
"Dembski 'displaces Darwinism' mathematically -- or does he?".
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/newmath.cfm.
- Jason Rosenhouse (Fall 2001).
"How Anti-Evolutionists Abuse Mathematics".
The Mathematical Intelligencer 23 (4): 3–8.
http://www.math.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf.
Note that the criticisms are not just from biologists but from mathematicians too.
Fine-tuned Universe:
Almost all scientists have responded that this argument cannot be tested and is not scientifically productive. Even when taken as mere speculation, these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence.
In essence these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the Universe is able to support life.
The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible.
Life as we know it might not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. A number of critics also suggest that many of the stated variables appear to be interconnected and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable.
A similar argument is the often-used Creationist canard of evolution contravening the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
This is a misapplication of thermodynamic principles. The second law applies only to closed systems whilst the Earth is an open system since it obtains energy from an independent, external source - the Sun.
If this argument were applicable to biological systems, living things could not be born and grow, as this also would be a decrease in entropy.
However, like evolution, the growth of living things does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, because living things are not closed systems—they have external energy sources (e.g. food, oxygen, sunlight) whose production requires an offsetting net increase in entropy.
In addition, despite its more than 20 years of existence, ID has yet to produce a single solid piece of research or peer reviewed paper.
No established scientific journal has yet published an intelligent design article.\
Instead, intelligent design proponents have either published popular books in order to take make a populist appeal, or they have set up their own journals with "peer review" which lack impartiality and rigor, consisting entirely of intelligent design supporters.
"..."ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly "peer-reviewed" journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of "peer review" that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows."
"..."With some of the claims for peer review, notably Campbell and Meyer (2003) and the e-journal PCID, the reviewers are themselves ardent supporters of intelligent design. The purpose of peer review is to expose errors, weaknesses, and significant omissions in fact and argument. That purpose is not served if the reviewers are uncritical"
In addition Judge John E. Jones, a conservative Judge ruled on the Kitzmiller vs. Dover School Board Trial that:
"For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID [intelligent design] would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child. (page 24)
A significant aspect of the IDM [intelligent design movement] is that despite Defendants' protestations to the contrary, it describes ID as a religious argument. In that vein, the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity. (page 26)
The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism. (page 31)
The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory. (page 43)
Throughout the trial and in various submissions to the Court, Defendants vigorously argue that the reading of the statement is not ‘teaching’ ID but instead is merely ‘making students aware of it.’ In fact, one consistency among the Dover School Board members' testimony, which was marked by selective memories and outright lies under oath, as will be discussed in more detail below, is that they did not think they needed to be knowledgeable about ID because it was not being taught to the students. We disagree. (footnote 7 on page 46)
After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science.
They are:
(1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation;
(2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and
(3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. (page 64)
[T]he one textbook [Pandas] to which the Dover ID Policy directs students contains outdated concepts and flawed science, as recognized by even the defense experts in this case. (pages 86–87)
ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID. (page 89)
Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause. (page 132)
Articles illustrating the above criticisms include:
- Brauer, Matthew J.; Forrest, Barbara; Gey Steven G. (2005).
"Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution".
Washington University Law Quarterly 83 (1).
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/83-1/p%201%20Brauer%20Forrest%20Gey%20book%20pages.pdf.
- Isaak, Mark (2006). "Index to Creationist Claims". TalkOrigins Archive.
http://www.toarchive.org/indexcc/CI/CI001_4.html.
- Jones, Judge John E. III. (2005)
Decision on Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District/4:Whether_ID_Is_Science
To summarise:
Whilst ID might technicaly not be religious in its arguments, it is unquestionable (see the Wedge Document described earlier) that its founding proponents had one clear agenda in mind - the reintroduction of Scientific Creationism into Public School science classes via the arguments inherent to Intelligent Design.
ID is NOT Science because it is neither predictive, testable, nor useful to science.
ID does not attempt to explain scientific phenomenon but rather attempts to muddy scientific inquiry by the inclusion of supernatural and unscientific philosophies.
Irreducible Complexity, the central argument underpinning ID, has proved unsupportable via example or evidence and stands refuted by the continuing research being undertaken in all the various examples used by Behe.
"EducationCreationism, roughly, is the belief that the earth and all life was created by the Judeo-Christian god in ***literal accordance with the Genesis description***.
There are also Islamic creationists and Hindu creationists (and probably others as well), but they do not factor into the American political sphere.
It is a common misconception that creationists can be lumped under one heading. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There are flat earth creationists, young earth creationists (who believe the earth is 6000 years old), old earth creationists (who accept the scientific evidence that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, but do not believe evolution happened), and Intelligent Design creationists, to name a few.
As creationism has been soundly rejected by the court system for being overtly religious in nature, our focus for the future should be upon Intelligent Design Creationism.
Intelligent Design is the idea that one can, using science, detect the presence of a Designer in nature. Like William Paley’s Watch argument, which asserts that if you find a watch in the forest you know it had a designer because it shows characteristics of design, IDists claim that evolution is inadequate to explain the origins of cellular machinery, which is clearly designed. They do not go so far as to publicly suggest that “God” is the designer; instead they publicly state that aliens could just as well have been responsible for design in nature; thus, ID presents a clear danger in the courts because it attempts to circumvent 1st Amendment principles, unlike other forms of creationism which are clearly religious in nature.
However, the ID movement is the brainchild of Christian lawyer Philip Johnson, a member of the Discovery Institute and Center for Renewal of Science and Culture. Mr. Johnson is the author of the infamous Wedge Document, a strategic 5 year plan to undermine what IDists see as a subversive “culture of materialism” brought upon us by the forces of Darwin, Marx, etc.
The focus of the ID movement is on convincing legislators and school boards that there is a controversy in science, that increasingly large numbers of people advocate the teaching of ID. However, to date they have no peer-reviewed scientific endeavors published, no experimental models, and no data. Instead, ID arguments consist almost entirely upon a few ill-defined terms such as “irreducible complexity” and “complex specified information” which do not actually reflect what happens in nature. ID is primarily an argument from ignorance; a claim that there is no way certain structures could have evolved, therefore evolution is lacking. Even if this were true, no positive argument or evidence for ID is presented."
--- From: Alliance for Science at:
http://www.allianceforscience.org/understanding_creationism
"There are many misconceptions propagated by creationists regarding the theory of evolution. Below are a few of the most common ones.
"Evolution is..."
"A theory on the origin of the universe"
Cosmology and Big Bang Theory deal with the origin of the universe, and are separate fields from biology. While "evolution" is sometimes used poetically in these fields, they do not refer to biological evolution. Creationists typically have to make this erroneous connection in order to claim silly things like evolution is trying to replace God.
"A theory on the origin of life"
No. The study of the origins of life is called abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is a young, exciting, and most importantly a distinct field, and evolutionary theory is valid no matter what abiogenesis researchers discover. Perhaps someday enough evidence will be gathered and the two theories will be merged, but for now they remain separate entities.
"A hierarchy, with humans at the top"
No modern organisms are more or less “evolved” than others. All are equally well adapted to their respective environmental niche. There is no direction to the process; species cannot "devolve".
"Survival of the Fittest"
Darwin did not even coin this term. Creationists like to use it and suggest that since evolution chooses the best possible outcome, "humans should have wings and fly; since this isn't the case, evolution must be wrong". Evolution does not necessarily choose only the organism with the highest possible degree of "fitness", but merely selects the ones that meet the bare minimum criteria for survival in a particular environment. So more appropriately, evolution is survival of the barely adequate. Of these surviving organisms, some may be better off than others, and they will leave more offspring.
"Cats giving birth to dogs"
Individual organisms do not evolve. Evolution does not suggest a cat would give birth to a dog, or banana trees would sprout kangaroos. Groups of organisms (populations) evolve, by changing gradually over time.
"Random chance"
While some of the mechanisms of evolution are random, others (i.e. natural selection) are not.
"An evil, atheistic attempt to drive God out of our lives"
This notion is not only ridiculous, but offensive to many believers. In science, people of all faiths and none can work together in the same lab and have no conflicts regarding the work they do. Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics, and yes atheists, they all strive towards a common goal of better understanding the natural world.**"
--- from: Alliance for Science at: http://www.allianceforscience.org/what_evolution_is_not
** See 'The Clergy Letter Project' at:
http://www.uwosh.edu/colleges/cols/clergy_project.htm
"SIR – Your Editorial about the promotion of ID in schools and universities (Nature 434, 1053; 2005) asks us to persuade our students that science and faith do not compete, but for Christians this should always have been clear.
In the Bible (John 20: 25–29), Thomas doubts that the man speaking to him is the
resurrected Christ until Jesus reveals his wounds. Thomas then believes, but Jesus
says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”.
The Bible throughout teaches that faith is more valuable when expressed in the absence of evidence. For a Christian, when science is allowed to be neutral on the subject of God, science can only bolster faith. In contrast, and I imagine without realizing it, ID proponents have become professional Doubting Thomases, funded by Doubting Thomas Institutes.
When advocates of ID use the vocabulary of science to argue for God’s presence in cellular machinery or in the fossil record, they too poke their fingers through
Jesus’ hands. In so doing, ID vitiates faith.
Not realizing this, many Christians now believe they are making a stand against evil by supporting religion-infused alternatives to evolution. For them, the fundamental debate is not over which is wrong and which is right, but over which is good and which is bad, and the majority opinion is clear. So if we want to ensure the continued learning of evolution in our schools, we cannot only argue that science and faith can be reconciled; we also have to show that ID actively undermines the basis of Christianity."
--- Douglas W. Yu
Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation,
School of Biological Sciences, University of
East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
I agree in essence with what Mr. Yu says, but would clarify his closing comment by adding: "...in the precincts of the Comparative Religion, or Religious Studies, or even Bible Study classroom - NOT the Science classroom.
An excellent article by a practicing Muslim Ali Arshad, from the Post of the Month archives at Talk.Origins, November 1996.
I especially like his final paragraph:
"God's greatest gift to humans is reason"
" Recently, within the past couple of decades, there has been a revival of the debate between evolutionism and creationism. By creationism, believing that God created life without the process of evolution, is meant. The Christian creationists believe that God directly created life from clay. The process by which He created the world is not explainable, according to them, because the laws involved were not the same as the existing laws of the universe. Many Muslims are left wondering where they should stand on this topic. Almost every educated Muslim believes in the evolution of lower life forms, but not as many believe in the evolution of man. Do they believe this because of the Qur'an, or because they were fed these beliefs by their parents and teachers?
When one studies the Qur'an to see references to creation, it makes much sense to look at Muslim scientists interpretations of certain verses of the Qur'an, who lived in the early days of Islam. When this is studied it is realized that Darwin, who gets the credit for the idea of natural selection and evidence for evolution, was one thousand years late in the discovery. The Muslim scientists ibn Kathir, ibn Khauldun, ibn Arabi, ibn Sina, among other scientists, such as the Ikhwan school of though, arrived at the same conclusions as Darwin with a convincing amount of evidence. Every Muslim school and mosque used to teach evolution up until a few hundred years ago. Some westerners, including Darwin's contemporary, Sir William Draper, called it the Mohammedan Theory of Evolution. Draper admitted that the Muslim version was more advanced than Darwin's, because in the Muslim version, the evolution starts out with minerals. The Muslim scientists used the Qur'an as their guide in doing this. Even in the most simple statement of human creation that is mentioned in the Qur'an, evolution is implied: 'We initiated your creation (khalaqa), and then we shaped you...' (7:11) The Qur'an says that humans were alive while still being shaped. This implies that either humans were made from clay, but were alive even before being molded into shape or that the initiation of creation represents the first life and the shaping is the evolution. A time lapse is definitely implied. The word 'khalaqa' is derived from the root kh-l-q, which is usually translated as simply 'to create.' This definition does not give the word justice, though. The original dictionary meaning is 'to create gradually in successive stages, each one being different from the previous.' The word is almost interchangeable with the word 'evolve,' which is defined, according to The American Heritage Dictionary as 'to undergo gradual change.' For this reason, khalaq will be used instead of create and will be treated as an English word.
Another verse of the Qur'an implies that there was a time lapse in the creation of man: 'And lo! Thy Sustainer said unto the angels: "Behold, I am about to khalaq mortal human out of sounding clay, out of dark slim transmuted; (time lapse) and when I have fully formed and breathed into him of My Spirit, fall prostrate before him!"' (15:28-29)
The clay represents the organic and inorganic matter which makes up living organisms. This interpretation is supported by the fact the Qur'an also says that man is made from 'dust' and from 'the essence of clay.' Since the Qur'an uses different objects to represent the same thing, the author of the Qur'an (which Muslims believe is God) either kept contradicted himself, or was speaking metaphorically.
Another verse dealing with time and the creation of humans is: "Has there not been an endless time span when humans were not even a thing thought of? Verily, it is We who have khalaqed man out of a drop of sperm intermingled (with the female ovum)...We made him a being endowed with hearing and sight (ie; wisdom and reason)." (76:1-2)
The Muslim evolutionists make the comment that the phrase used for 'a thing thought of,' implies the human existence at a time when it was nothing special. They contend that this can only imply that before humans were in a different form, since the creation of them is in the next verse. There are some almost identical verses which can be interpreted in two ways. Neither way explicitly contradicts evolution, though one interpretation leans more towards evolution and the other leans more towards creation. One example of this is: '...will you blaspheme against Him who has khalaqed you out of dust and then out of a drop of sperm and in the end has fashioned you into a human?' (18:37) This can be interpreted to refer to the initial act of creation, or as two both the initial creation and the successive one which happens daily. If it refers to the initial creation, then the first human was conceived like any other human and therefore had parents. The Muslim scientists of the past looked at this verse, along with scientific evidence, and interpreted it this way. There is also another repeated verse which can also be interpreted as either referring to the initial creation or the daily creation: '...He has khalaqed you in successive stages.' (71-14) Three verses after this, the Qur'an says: 'And God has caused you to grow out of the earth in (gradual) growth.' (71-17) There is one verse, which is almost identically repeated throughout the whole of the Qur'an, which explicitly states what the evolutionists say about the origins of life: 'And it is God who has created all 'dabbah' from the water...' (24:45 and other places) Dabbah is defined as anything which has life and spontaneous movement. This includes all animals, including man, and every other one of the eight kingdoms of life (bacteria, protozoa, etc.) excluding fungi and plants.
Some say that the Qur'an is actually just stating that life consists of mostly water (in 1973 the Noble Prize awarded to two men who showed that life is about 80% water), denying that it is referring also to evolution. They say that people are just trying to bend the Qur'an to modern science. Considering that the original Muslim scientists inferred the same interpretation before Darwin, however, is a sufficient rebuttal against this argument.
Another verse of the Qur'an which can be interpreted in two ways is: 'It is We who have khalaqed them (time lapse) and strengthened their make...' (76:28). How did God strengthen human's make? Could it be through evolution? If this verse should be interpreted otherwise, then why does it not simply state, 'It is We who have created them in a strong make,' instead of implying two separate steps and a time lapse? The same argument pertains to one translation of the following verse: 'He...designed you and (time lapse) perfected your design...' (64:3)
The reason why many Muslims were lead to believe in a creation story like that of the Jews is because the Jewish converts to Islam brought their traditions with them, which became mixed up with the hadith, or the traditions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Most of these hadith were discounted in the past, but they gradually became reaccepted as the educated class in Muslim countries dwindled and the illiterate class exploded.The original Genesis, from the Bible, must have been general like that of the Qur'an. Throughout the years, considering that the Bible is two thousand years old and was passed orally in the beginning, the story was changed and many additions were made. The concept that God changes all the laws of nature in order to accomplish something was a concept that the Babylonians had. This is because of the amount of natural disaster in that area, which makes God look like a constantly, and not suddenly, intervening God. Genesis borrows very heavily from Babylonian creation myths. Some people cannot distinguish between the two when they are compared side by side. It makes sense that God is more powerful if He does not need to change the laws of nature to do His will, but planned out the universe so that the laws would naturally carry out His will. Since God knows the future, He would be able to plan the laws to allow miracles, though others may have been changes in the usual laws of nature in order to demonstrate a certain point. According to the authentic hadith, w hen the Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) only son, Ibrahim (or Abraham), died, an eclipse occurred the next day. Followers thought that God, or nature, was displaying His, or its, grief. Muhammad said that God does not simply change all the laws of the universe in order to grieve for somebody. If anything, God had calculated the event to happen for the followers to learn this lesson. So, if the laws of the universe existing today are the same as those during the creation, and evolution is proven to be currently happening, then evolution must have been the process by which life exists. Creationists accept this, but they believe that the laws are different now, than during the original 'six days'. It is very difficult to have a scientific debate, when the ground rules cannot even be agreed upon.
As mentioned, in the areas where the original Jews and the Babylonians lived, life was heavily affected by natural disasters. This is why throughout the history of these people, they imagined God as one Who is constantly intervening with His power. This contrasts to the people of the Nile, who were used to the gradual rising of the floods helping their crops and benefiting the villages. These people naturally imagined God to create things in stages and not to keep changing the laws of nature. Historians have trouble explaining why Muhammad (PBUH) talked about creating things in stages if he supposedly was simply a plagiarist of the Bible.
Some Muslims may question how evolution was possible if Adam and Eve were created in Heaven. The Qur'an, when analyzed, never states that Adam and Eve were in heaven. It actually implies that they were created on Earth as the modern Christians and Jews believe. During the time of the Prophet (pbuh), the Jews and Christians believed that Adam and Eve were created in Heaven; so again, their beliefs were mixed into Muslim beliefs. According to the Qur'an, in Heaven, there is no such thing as aging or decay. Yet in the Qur'an Adam and Eve knew they were going to die, and Satan tried to deceive them by telling them that the metaphorical tree would give them eternal life. "But Satan whispered unto him, saying, 'Oh Adam! Shall I lead you to the Tree of Eternal Life, and to a kingdom of that will never decay?'" (20:120)
If they were in Heaven, they would have no need for this fruit. Also, what kingdom would Satan be referring to if they were already in Heaven? In addition, the place where Adam and Eve stayed had the sun. There is only one sun, and that is in the Earth's solar system. '...and thou shalt not thirst here or suffer from the heat of the sun.' (20:119) Unless Heaven is in Earth's solar system, which would contradict statements of the Qur'an which say otherwise, they must have lived on Earth.
Another example of how Judeo-Christian beliefs were mixed into Islamic ones, is that many Muslim children are taught that Eve was made from Adam's rib. This, though stated in the Bible, is never in the Qur'an. Firstly, the Qur'an never even states whether Adam or Eve was created first. The Qur'an says that humankind 'was created from one soul and its mate.' The word for soul, 'nafs,' is feminine. So there is no implication that Adam was created first. Yusuf Ali, under the influence of the Bible, mistranslates those verses into, 'mankind was created from one soul and his mate.' Though the Qur'an does say that the 'mate was created from the it (the first soul),' it does not say by which process. The most logical way to interpret this, is that God means to say that the mate was from the same essence, or scientifically, the same species as the first soul. Muhammad Asad, a German Jew who converted to Islam, agrees with this in his famous translation and commentary of the Qur'an.
The names Adam and Eve even imply the allegorical nature of their story. Adam comes from a Hebrew word meaning, 'the dark-colored one' or 'humankind' and Eve means, 'the mother of the people.' Therefore, the names are very much like descriptions of the first people who could differentiate between right and wrong. They may have never even had direct communication with God. They originally followed their preprogrammed instincts, but they did something which let them reason for themselves. This something is symbolized by the tree. Even the way the tree is described as the Tree of Eternal Life or the Tree of the Knowledge between Good and Evil, displays its metaphorical nature.
The creationists try to disprove evolution in many different ways. They almost always use negative arguments. For example, because of this and this, the present evolutionary theory is false, therefore creation is true. Look in any book on how to argue, take any debate class or look at the p implies q logic used in math. Creationist have committed the converse error argument. One of the most common things they say is the the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not allow evolution to happen. Scientists, therefore, for scores of years, completely forgot one of the most basic laws of science when arriving at the conclusion of evolution, according to them. This law states that everything tends to change from order to disorder (entropy), or that all usable energy tends to be lost as unusable energy, namely heat. For example, one's hair begins the day nice and combed, but ends messy. A teenager's room starts out being clean, and in a few days becomes a mess. When a ball drops, it may only bounce back up on e-third of the way, because energy was lost in the form of sound and heat, and some energy was absorbed into the ground. Therefore, the originally chaotic world could not have gone the reverse of the law and have attained more orderliness. The problem with this argument is that the law only applies to a closed system. This means that no matter or energy is added or subtracted from it. Hair can be fixed nicely all day if it is brushed again now and then. The earth is not a closed system. The earth has matter added to it every time a meteor comes in the atmosphere and has energy added to it from the sun. Therefore, the argument is useless. The creationists cannot even get their basics in chemistry correct, it seems. Another argument is that the earth is only 6,500 to 10,000 years old. These numbers are calculated from the genealogies contained in the Bible. The earth can be dated through a variety of methods. This includes dating by the ratio of uranium to lead, rubidium to strontium and strontium-8 7 to strontium-86. Every single method of dating the earth leads to approximately the same conclusion. The earth is around 4.5 billion years old. The suns size, color, heat and other things can used to be calculate the age of it. The same number is reached by all methods. By the laws of chemistry, these methods are completely reliable. All of the creationists' arguments against these methods have been completely futile. The methods are not even explained correctly in the books written by the ICR, which use the art of distortion to try to convince readers of their viewpoint. Some creationists state that though the original proportions of atoms can be known, the time period in which they were in that proportion is merely conjecture.
This is completely against the commonly known algebraic rule which says that if the formula of the decay is known, which even the ICR agrees on, the graph can show the time of equilibrium from the interceptions of the graph. The only thing that creationists can still say, which some do say, is that God purposely made the earth appear old, therefore not letting humans find the origins of the earth. Muslims cannot accept this view, because according to both the Qur'an and the authentic hadith, God provides humans with all the evidence of how the earth was created. This evidence serves as proof of His existence, according to Muslims. If God told humans one thing and gave the evidence for another, this would do the opposite of proving His existence. Some Muslims even try to say that one cannot question the origins of the earth, but must blindly accept the common view of the Muslim world. This is completely a western idea, not supported by the Qur'an. Some Qur'anic passages which exemplify the previous statements are:
'Say: Go all over Earth and observe how He has created (man) in the first instance.' (29:20)
'When they are told, 'Follow what God has revealed herein,' they say, 'We follow what we found our parents doing.' What if their parents did not understand, and were not guided?' (2:170)
'They found their parents astray. And they blindly followed in their footsteps.' (37:69-70)
'He is the one who continuously show you proofs and sends down provisions from the sky. Only those who truly submit will be able to take heed.' (40:13)
'We shall show then Our signs on the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the Truth.' (41:53)
'...We have distinguished the signs for a people who understand.' (6:97)
'...Say, 'Show us your proof, if you are right.' (2:111)
'Most of them follow nothing but conjecture, and conjecture is no substitute for the truth. God is fully aware of everything they do.' (10:36)
'And they (who will go to Hell) will say: 'Oh, our Sustainer! Behold, we followed our leaders and our great men, and it is they who led us astray from the right path.' (33:67)
'Verily, the vilest creatures in the sight of God are those deaf and dumb and do not use any of their reason.' (8:22)
Whole books have been written on the subject of creationism vs. evolution, this essay introduces some of the basic arguments for evolution in light of Qur'an. A soon to be published book, written by Dr. T.O. Shanavaz extensively covers the Qur'anic and Muslim scientist view on the creation of the universe and of man. This essay touches on the major points of evolution in the Qur'an, including some points not advanced by Dr. Shanavaz's book. Muhammad Asad's and Muhammad Ali's translations of the Qur'an also support evolution. There are also many other books written on this subject, including the available original works of the Muslim evolutionist of the past.
Muslims must understand that religious ideas can be interpreted in different ways in order to match the changing times. There is only one absolute truth, but as long as it does not contradict whatever truth exists in a certain point in time, the latter is acceptable. If Muslims were to go to the original source of Islam, the Qur'an, without biases from their teachings of their parents and teachers, the Muslim world will once again prosper. When people stopped questioning, the Muslim empire fell. One must remember the famous saying of the Prophet (PBUH), 'God's greatest gift to humans is reason.'"
Ashley Montagu. Science and Creationism. New York, US. Oxford University Press, 1984.
Maurice Bucaille, translated by Alastair D. Pannell and the author. The Bible, the Qur'an and Science. Indianapolis, Indiana, US: North American Trust Publications, 1978.
Ahmad Mahmud Soliman. Scientific Trends in the Qur'an. London, England: Ta-Ha Publisher Ltd., 1985
Seyyed Hossein Nasr. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Albany, US: State University of New York Press, 1993
Muhammad Asad. The Message of the Qur'an. Melksham, Wiltshire, Great Britain. Redwood Press Limited, 1993
A. Yusuf Ali. The Holy Qur'an. Lahore, Pakistan. Muhammad Ashraf Publications, 1990.
Tyrannosaur 'Missing Link' Among New Dinosaurs From China
by Miguel
An interesting article illustrating how we are learning more and more about the evolutionary relationships and histories of dinosaurs every year.
ScienceDaily (Apr. 22, 2009)
"During the summers of 2006 and 2007, an international team of researchers from China and the United States excavated a treasure trove of dinosaur skeletons from Early Cretaceous rocks in the southern part of the Gobi Desert near the ancient Silk Road city of Jiayuguan, Gansu Province, China. Two of their discoveries represent new species of theropod dinosaurs.
The new species are described in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The papers will appear in print later this year in a special volume entitled "Recent advances in Chinese palaeontology."
An early precursor to T. rex
One of the new animals is an early relative of T. rex, and is named Xiongguanlong baimoensis (shong-GWAN-long by-mo-EN-sis). The generic name derives from the ancient Chinese name Xiong Guan ("Grand Pass") for Jiayuguan and long for dragon. The specific name baimoensis comes from "bai-mo," for "white ghost," in reference to a dramatic landform in the field area known as the "white ghost castle."
Xiongguanlong would have stood about five feet tall at the hip and weighed close to 600 pounds. It had a skull over a foot and half in length and armed with over 70 teeth. "Although impressive by today's standards, Xiongguanlong was still a fly weight predator compared to its heavy-weight relatives such as T. rex," says Peter Makovicky, PhD, Curator of Dinosaurs at Chicago's Field Museum, and corresponding author on the study of this animal. The world's largest known T. rex specimen, housed at The Field Museum and popularly known as SUE, was nearly 14 feet tall at the hips and is estimated to have weighed between six and seven tons.
Xiongguanlong represents a "missing link" in the fossil record of tyrannosaur dinosaurs. Large tyrannosaurs that lived near the end of the age of dinosaurs like T. rex and Albertosaurus have been known to science for over a hundred years, and the last decade has witnessed the discovery of some of the earliest tyrannosaurs from China and England. However, until recently there has been a huge gap between these early and late chapters of tyrannosaur evolutionary history.
According to Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, another member of the team that worked on the two new dinosaurs, "Xiongguanlong sheds light on the missing 40 to 50 million years of tyrannosaur evolution." Xiongguanlong is unusual among tyrannosaurs in having a very long and narrow snout, rather than a wide, massive skull optimized for powerful biting as is seen in T. rex. Despite this difference, Xiongguanlong does mark the earliest appearance of several hallmark traits of larger, geologically younger tyrannosaurs, including a short, broad braincase, broad struts of bone near the temples, expanded areas for jaw muscle attachment on the skull roof, modified "nipping" teeth at the front of the mouth, and expanded vertebral structures to support a large head. Many of these features represent structural modifications for increasing bite forces and presage the specialized skulls of larger tyrannosaurs.
Norell notes that "Xiongguanlong underscores that tyrannosaurs started as small to mid-sized predators, but a number of the traits related to the enormous bite forces of T. rex were already evident at this relatively early stage of tyrannosaur evolution."
Adds Makovicky, "The proportions of Xiongguanlong's skull are similar to those of juveniles of large tyrannosaurs, confirming that massive skulls of T. rex and its closest relatives evolved from animlas with long slender snouts like Xiongguanlong."
Second find: A giant "ostrich-mimic"
The team also discovered three specimens of a remarkable, second theropod from the Yujingzi basin during the 2006 and 2007 field seasons. Beishanlong grandis (bay-SHAN-long gran-DIS) is a new species of ornithomimosaur, or ostrich-mimic dinosaur. Ornithomimosaurs are a lineage of theropods that evolved a toothless beak and were likely omnivorous or herbivorous, superficially resembling present day ostriches.
With an estimated body mass of almost 1400 lbs. (626 kg), Beishanlong is one of the largest ornithomimosaurs yet described, rivaling the Late Cretaceous ornithomimosaur Gallimimus in size. Bone microstructure analysis on a cross section of one of the lower leg bones of the principal specimen by co-author Gregory Erickson of Florida State University reveals that the holotype individual was not yet fully grown when it died. According to Dr. Erickson, "Growth line counts revealed that the animal perished during its 14th year of life. Although it is hard to fathom, this giant was still actively growing when it died. Growth line spacing in the bones of the teen-giant show only moderate decreases in width towards the periphery. Somewhere out there are even larger specimens awaiting discovery."
Beishanlong was equipped with hand claws up to six inches in length and relatively powerful forelimbs compared to most other ornithomimosaurs. "We know the forelimbs could not be brought far forward or elevated too much" says Makovicky, who is the lead author on the study, "but their range of motion and the shape of the claws suggest they may have been used for digging or raking the ground."
Profound implications for Asian dinosaur faunas
Other dinosaurs found together with Beishanlong and Xiongguanlong include the beaked and probably herbivorous therizinosauroid theropod Suzhousaurus, primitive relatives of duck-billed dinosaurs, the small horned dinosaur Auroraceratops, and both small and large sickle-clawed theropods. Most of the famous Cretaceous dinosaur faunas of China and Mongolia, like the ones that include Velociraptor and Protoceratops, comprise members of the same dinosaur lineages as those found in Gansu, but very few others. Interestingly, horned dinosaurs and sickle-clawed dinosaurs tend to dominate red rocks deposited under dry conditions across almost all Cretaceous localities in the Gobi Desert, whereas tyrannosaurs, ornithomimosaurs, and duck-billed dinosaurs tend to occur in rocks deposited in wetter environments. The fauna collected by the Chinese-American team in Gansu shows evidence of such environmental separations between different kinds.
The fauna collected by the Chinese-American team in Gansu shows evidence of such environmental separations between different kinds of dinosaurs, and represents one of the earliest instances of both the environmental sorting of animals and the very stable, but depauperate, lineage composition of Cretaceous Central Asian dinosaur faunas that reined for the next 50 million years. Professor Gao Ke-Qin of Peking University, who also took part in this research, notes, "The abundance of new dinosaurs from Chinese localities like the Yujingzi Basin, allows us to study the long history of dinosaur evolution in light of both geographic and environmental parameters in a way that is impossible elsewhere in the world."
The researchers were funded by the US National Science Foundation, the National Science Foundation of China, and a Grainger Foundation grant from The Field Museum, and were joined in the field by students and post-docs from their institutions."
References:
Daqing Li, Mark A. Norell, Ke-Qin Gao, Nathan D. Smith, Peter J. Makovicky. A longirostrine tyrannosauroid from the Early Cretaceous of China. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2009
Peter J. Makovicky, Daqing Li, Ke-Qin Gao, Matthew Lewin, Gregory M. Erickson, Mark A. Norell. A giant ornithomimosaur from the Early Cretaceous of China. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2009