150 years since the death of creationism
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species", arguably the most important book about science published in the last two centuries (or perhaps forever). By providing an explanation of how the "endless forms most beautiful and wonderful" of life could all have come from a common ancestor it tolled the death knell of the need for any creation myth based on a literal reading of religious texts. Unfortunately that idea has refused to die, and there are still people out there who defy logic, science and even theology and continue to claim that evolution doesn't happen and everything we see is as it was at the time of supernatural creation just a few thousand years ago. They even want this nonsense taught in schools as science.
As creationists insist that there has not been time for evolution to work and even claim to be scientists, I ask them to act like scientists and provide some evidence to back the most important principle behind their claims – the age of the Earth.
Please provide some unambiguous, positive evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please do not offer uncertainties in the 13.7 billion year estimated age of the universe, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Do not tell me that humans and pineapples share a large proportion of their genes in order to allow humans to eat pineapples, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Do not say that atheists lack a moral perspective because they do not believe in God, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Do not say that the Grand Canyon might have been made in eight months, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please do not bring up that old canard about how you can't understand how an eye could evolve so therefore it must have been created, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please do not tell me that the creation story in the King James Version Genesis 2 is wrong, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
An opinion poll about how many people believe in special creation is irrelevant, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Do not suggest that the rates of radioactive decay may have been millions of times greater in the past unless you are prepared to offer evidence, because wishful thinking is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago
Do not tell me that something is true because you said it somewhere else in the past, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Do not misquote Stephen Jay Gould about the probability of finding transitional fossils, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Do not tell me that Darwin was completely wrong and then tell me that natural selection is how evolution works unless you want to be accused of sophistry and hypocrisy, and in any case that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please don't say that everything looks designed and therefore there must have been a designer, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please don't make any comments about whether Adam possessed any or all of nipples, a navel, a pelvis appropriate for bipedalism, or even a penis, because none of this is evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please do not misrepresent the work of Claude Shannon and information theory, because even if Shannon were to be proved wrong and all global communications systems, including the Internet, stopped working tomorrow it would not be evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Do not say that the fossil skeleton nicknamed Lucy is really the skeleton of a monkey, because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago, and please don't say that you don't know whether Archaeopteryx was a bird or a lizard but it must have been one of them, because that again is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please do not say "God did it", because that is not evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
Please provide some unambiguous, positive evidence that the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.
And one last question, one which real scientists address every day:
Please tell me what evidence it would take to prove that you are wrong.
A version of this article was published on the Yahoo! 7 News Blog on November 24, 2009
Readers' comments
Earlier comments were deleted from the Yahoo!7 site before they could be captured and reproduced here.
Trevor
12:09pm Thursday 21st October 2010 EST
Why not, are we not a Country of free speach? After all evolution is only a theory
suzyoz
12:30pm Tuesday 02nd November 2010 EST
A theory based on considerable evidence
Roger
12:09pm Saturday 15th January 2011 EST
Only a theory? Like gravity. Like atoms. Unlike creationists are rational, thinking beings.
