Evolution and the Creationists Quiz

Answer: Living things are related to each other through common ancestry from earlier forms that were different from them

In order to understand the arguments over evolution, we must first understand what it is! It is a theory that encompasses all living things, not just humans.

Answer: False

The difference here is between the scientific meaning of theory and the everyday 'detective story' meaning. In the everyday world, a theory is just a guess. To the scientist, a theory is a system of facts and hypotheses that is accepted as the explanation of a given phenomenon.

Theory formation is the purpose of science. In this sense, evolution is a theory- but so is gravity (the theory of gravity), electricity (electromagnetic theory), quantum theory, the theory of relativity, and so on.

Answer: Natural selection

Natural selection, the process made famous by Darwin, is the most important means of evolution. As one scientist defined it, 'Natural selection dictates that individuals with traits and variations better suited to the environment are more likely to survive than others who are less well-suited. Because they compete more successfully for mates and limited resources, and live longer, the fitter individuals leave more offspring, and their favorable traits are passed on to succeeding generations.

The traits spread through the population, and eventually, perhaps, cause it to evolve into a new species.' However, creationists seek to deny natural selection by ignoring it. Duane Gish, mentioned below, has written a book for young people called 'The Amazing Story of Creation From Science and the Bible'.

As one reviewer wrote, 'Not once in the book does he mention natural selection, the most important mechanism of evolution. By downplaying and ignoring the role of natural selection, Gish makes evolution seem absurd.

He represents it as occurring entirely by chance and mutations.'

Answer: False

'The Academy states unequivocally that the tenets of 'creation science' are not supported by scientific evidence, that creationism has no place in a science curriculum at any level, that its proposed teaching would be impossible in any constructive sense for well-informed and conscientious science teachers, and that its teaching would be contrary to the nation's need for a scientifically literate citizenry and for a large well-informed pool of scientific and technical personnel.'

Answer: Complex molecules don't form by chance alone

While this argument correctly demonstrates that no given protein could have come into existence all at once by pure chance, such a demonstration is irrelevant to current origin-of-life research. As Iris Fry points out, 'origin-of-life theories rely on various organizing principles, including selection mechanisms and catalysis, that are supposed to have limited and constrained the wide scope of possible prebiotic possibilities, thus constructing the scaffolding out of which the living arch eventually emerged'.

Answer: False

This misinterpretation of the Second Law is common. This law applies only to a closed system, with nothing going in or out. Environments on Earth are not such systems. In addition, nothing in the Second Law contradicts local reverses in entropy. For example, snowflakes and mineral crystals are more orderly than their components.

As one scientist said, 'Everything in this world that works, works by temporarily and locally reducing entropy. ' All the Second Law says is that, for the system as a whole, entropy will increase over time. Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel prize in 1977 for his work on the Second Law.

His papers include one on how the Second Law does not contradict evolution. Arch-creationist Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research responded 'Prigogine's theoretical ideas are buttressed with a large amount of complicated mathematics which few biochemists and molecular biologists can understand, but it all does look deliciously scientific.' This is a classic example of poor logic.

Answer: True

A delicious (although not entirely accurate) witticism on this situation is that 'Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,' or embryonic development mirrors the evolutionary process. Although the human embryo doesn't entirely follow the evolutionary path, it does in some respects. If we never had creatures in our background with tails, why would our embryos ever have them?

Answer: False

Although the Bible states that Eve was created from Adam's rib, males have exactly as many ribs as females.

Answer: False

If the Bible were an inerrant source of factual scientific information, one would expect it to display at least some knowledge of germ theory, not to reflect the understandable ignorance of people in a time before microscopes. However, there is no mention or revelation whatsoever in the Bible of any scientific facts that were not already common knowledge among the people of the day.

Answer: Our ancestors looked bigger when they were frightened if their hair stood up

To get an example of this physiological phenomenon, one need look no further than the family cat when it's scared by a dog, puffing up and hissing. This 'piloerection' is nearly universal among mammals- chimpanzees do it too. However, in modern-day short-haired humans, the gesture has lost its original significance. If it is not an evolved response, why should we have it at all?

Answer: Our ancestors were warmer when they fluffed up their hair

Again, this is easily observable in modern-day birds and mammals. Also, again, it's easily explainable by evolution, but not by creation. As one scientist put it, 'Goosebumps were obviously 'created' to erect and 'fluff up' the hair or fur on a hairy or furry mammal ancestor, thereby improving its insulation value against the cold. Since most of us nowadays have so little body hair as to render it useless for insulation purposes, goosebumps are another vestigial reaction whose tool (fur) is no longer with us.'

Answer: They are examples of inferior design

One would expect that if humans were created by a perfect creator, in his image, as the pinnacle of his creation, that they would be examples of perfection in design. Alas, it isn't so. We, along with all other living things, have plenty of 'jury-rigged' and non-optimal designs that do the job, but lack elegance. Our aching backs and varicose veins are legacies of our four-footed ancestors. Humans are relatively recent bipeds, and our structure is still very much like that of a four-legged animal. We lack the necessary musculature to strengthen our backs, and our veins are not well-designed for the pressures that an upright stance puts on them. Female pelvises are not optimally designed for the passage of large-headed infants, as the human species has only recently undergone a tremendous spurt in brain growth.

Answer: Squid

The eyes of mammals, including humans, have retinas that are are inside-out. The nerves and blood vessels come out through the light-sensitive area of the retina, producing a blind spot. They then spread over the light-sensitive area of the retina, providing a barrier to light entering the eye. An ideal design would be to have these nerves and capillaries behind the retina. Human eyes aren't designed this way- but squid eyes are. Once again, why should the pinnacle of creation have an imperfect design?

Answer: Supposedly, all animals were originally designed as herbivores, so why were the carnivore modifications (like fangs and claws) created in the original animals?

In the supposed idyll of Eden, all animals were herbivores, implying that all were created as herbivores and were to remain so. Then, of course, Adam messed things up. But, if all the original animals were herbivores, why would they need fangs, claws, poison, webs? And why would herbivores need great speed, chemical defenses, quills or bad tastes?

Answer: Five digits per limb- either complete or vestigial

Yes, that includes whales that have five digits per flipper, bats that have five digits per wing, horses and antelopes that have vestigial remains of five digits, etc. Five digits isn't the most effective design for many of these creatures- so why should all show the remnants that are easily explained by theorizing that they all descended from a five-toed ancestor? The answer is not "Give birth to live young" because the monotreme mammals, the platypus and echidna, lay eggs.

Answer: As embryos, all mammals start out phenotypically female

Only later in development, after the nipples have formed, does a hormonal surge form male sexual structures. This would be an odd thing for a perfect creator to explain, as male nipples are not only useless, they can be dangerous (males can get breast cancer!)

Answer: 2100

Obviously, this would be a very crowded Earth!

Answer: False

The opposite is true. Very few religions have doctrines opposing evolutionary theory.

Answer: Alabama

Similar laws have been thrown out in all other states that had them.

Answer: Science is not a democratic process

We should decide which scientific theory is superior and should be used in education by its power to explain successfully, not on how popular it is. Creationism is not a science, it is a religious belief system. As such, it may have its place in a humanities class, alongside other religious belief systems, but not in a science class.