If you've ever seen or heard any creationist garbage, you may have come across the idea that there are six kinds of evolution:
(a Chick tract)Of course, they're making this up. If a college professor actually writes these six kinds of evolution onto a blackboard for any reason other than to debunk this ridiculous idea, then either he's incompetent or you're in bible college. In the latter case you might want to consider hitting your head into a wall instead of attending class; it has the same overall effect of making you stupider, but it's cheaper and less trouble, assuming there's a wall in your house. Learn at home!
The first four "basic concepts of evolution" have absolutely nothing to do with the theory of evolution. The fact that astronomers call the birth of stars and planets "evolution" doesn't mean it has something to do with the theory of evolution regarding natural selection and so forth. Neither do such matters of cosmology as the Big Bang or nucleosynthesis, which is what I presume "chemical evolution" means.
Of course, the idea that something like the creation of heavier elements is based on faith is preposterous. It's based on physics. That's a science, not a faith. Similarly, theories on the birth of the solar system or even the universe are not being put forward by scientists as pieces of religious dogma or theological armchair theoretizing; they're scientific theories which are rigorously examined, tested and often falsified. To a creationist, the fact that some theories are falsified means all theories are false; to a sensible person, that means the theories that are not falsified are likely to be true.
Cosmologists didn't invent the Big Bang because they wanted a piece of religious dogma; the theory was put forward because it explains several observable phenomena. If you look at some of the incredibly silly problems creationists run into, you'll easily notice that so-called creationist "theories" come about in exactly the opposite way: first the theory is invented, and then the facts are fitted into it.
When the kook in the Chick tract says that the "first five kinds" are accepted on faith only and there's no evidence for them, he's quite simply lying. If the class really agrees with him on that, again, either they're amazingly dense or it really is a bible college.
But on to evolution qua evolution. The last two kinds of evolution, "macro" and "micro" are not diferent kinds of evolution as such. The difference between them is solely one of definition. Where does a species begin and end? It's a matter of definition. One of the unspoken assumptions of creationism is that all living things divide irrevocably and obviously into different species. They don't. The creationist assumption that they do has created the incredible pseudo-science of "baraminology", the attempt to divide all living things into eternal, immutable baramins. The attempt is ridiculous.
Furthermore, the theory of evolution is simply a mechanism that describes how living creatures evolve. Denying that they evolve is pointless; even creationists have to admit that. That's the reason for the division between "microevolution" and "macroevolution", of which the latter is properly called speciation. Even a trip to the Wikipedia page points out that speciation has been observed several times, and really, anyone should know that. The fact that creationists constantly claim the opposite is only proof of their level of intellectual honesty.
To reiterate, macroevolution is simply the end result of enough microevolution. Any divide between the two is totally arbitrary, and is being made only to rescue the creationist criticism of evolution.
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The debate on evolution is a classical example of the argument by definition. The creationists can't deny the evidence behind the theory of evolution, so they circumvent the problem by redefining evolution. The most malicious attempt of this kind is the "fourth kind of evolution", "life from rocks". The birth of life is called abiogenesis, and once again, has absolutely nothing to do with the theory of evolution. As far as I know, science still hs very little idea of how abiogenesis happened, but as I'm writing this blog entry and you're reading it, it obviously did.
Looking at two of the things Jack Chick, or whoever it is who actually writes those things these days, calls "kinds of evolution" is actually instructive. For most of the 20th century, the vast majority of Christians had absolutely no problem with the theory of evolution, and they still don't in the 21st. When the Big Bang theory gained popularity, again, the great majority of Christians had absolutely no problem with it. Yes, it contradicts a literal reading of Genesis. But then again, Genesis contains two separate creation stories that contradict each other, so it's really hard to see that as a problem. Most Christians never did.
The great majority of Christians were content to accept that the universe was born in the Big Bang, and life somehow came about on Earth a fairly long time afterward. If you want to believe in divne agency, then maybe you believe God was behind the Big Bang, and God created life on Earth. Science currently holds that we can't know what, if anything, happened before the Big Bang, or even if the question is meaningful. We also don't know how life came about. The science is basically compatible with the belief that a divine something set it all in motion; the old idea of God as the original cause of all causality.
Only a small lunatic fringe of Christians ever believed that the Earth is literally 6,000 years (or whatever it is these days) old and the Universe was created "as is" by an old man sitting on a cloud (which, incidentally, is how Chick tracts portray him). The idea that the Earth is only a few thousands of years old obviously doesn't co-operate with anything we know about geology, paleontology or the world in general, and the thesis leads to this kind of madness:
click here to find out! (don't)
That is one of the most batshit crazy Chick tracts ever, only equalled in my mind by the one where Jesus kills a kid who prays for him and this is a good thing. It belongs to the school of creationist thought that is quite happy to ignore all evidence to the contrary when they've decided to believe in something, as religious people will often do. It's just that they rarely do it to that extent.
The more mundane creationists try to prove their point by using the argument by definition outlined above. It's blindingly simple: either define your point of view in such a way that makes it logically inevitable, or define your opponent's point of view as indefensible.
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The argument was deployed in this blog when I quoted documents saying that humanity cannot be divided into races. I was opposed by a whole bunch of people; most of them degenerated to name-calling and abuse very quickly, but one particularly enterprising person decided to redefine race as "the existence of genetic variation in humanity". He then accused me of claiming humans don't have genetic variation.
This is obviously a lunatic proposition. If genetic variation inside humanity didn't exist, we'd all be identical because we'd have the exact same genes. No sane person would argue that we are. The only argument my challenger had to make ended up being a redefinition of race.
I don't know if I'm just imagining it, but it seems to me that this argument is becoming more and more popular. In the case of the race argument, it seems to stem from an attempt to make a politically controversial pseudo-scientific belief seem like the obvious truth. In my opinion this is because to a racist, it is plainly obvious that humanity is divided into different races, which have different characteristics. To someone like Mikko Ellilä, the idea that races exist is so obvious that he doesn't even bother to argue for it; he simply assumes that all African people share an African "biological racial nature" that defines their personality and behaviour.
If you question this as absurd and unproven, they really have nothing to fall back on because the existence of races is an implicit assumption to a racist. That's why they fall back on redefining the concept of race to mean something no sane person could argue against. I was totally puzzled by the fact that people quoted studies at me that didn't, in any way, prove the existence of a race. How is the fact that a certain gene is more prevalent in people living in Africa somehow proof that Africans constitute a distinct race? It isn't, unless you believe a priori that they do.
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The argument by definition is, though, most commonly used to advance religion(s). I took an introductory course in Comparative Religion at the University of Helsinki several years ago, and the textbook contained the claim that all people throughout history have always been religious. I don't exactly believe that, as I'm a LaVeyan Satanist and am therefore more or less by definition not religious. At face value, their definition would make me not human.
Of course, this depends rather heavily on how you define "religion". If I remember correctly, the definition given in the textbook was that anyone who believes in anything supernatural at all is religious. Given that comparative religion, by definition, compares religions as specific sets of beliefs, simply stating that everyone who believes in anything is religious seems illogical.
The Wikipedia definition is somewhat more specific.
A religion is a of way of life based on tenets (or a belief system) about the ultimate power. It is generally expressed through conducts such as prayers, rituals, or other practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality (the cosmos, and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.
For that definition of religion, not everyone seems to be religious after all. If your way of life is not based on tenets of the supernatural, you're not religious. That seems like a more commonsense definition.
It's also easy to see why it won't do for religious people. At this point it should be pointed out that Comparative Religion classes at the University of Helsinki are run by the Faculty of Theology, and are a mandatory class for theology majors. They greatly outnumber the few Faculty of Arts students in attendance, and the class is geared toward them. Theology majors at Helsinki mostly become priests or religion reachers. For them, it's useful to argue that all people are, in fact, religious; then all atheists are lying.
Do you think I'm exaggerating? When I went to high school in Finland, our religion and philosophy teacher taught us that atheism means a positive denial that any kind of god can ever exist, while agnosticism means that one is unsure of whether God exists or not. The point was very strongly made that atheism is a religious or quasi-religious view as well, and that agnosticism is somehow more rational.
Logically speaking, this is unadulterated bullshit. Atheism has, traditionally, meant disbelief in the existence of a god or gods (wikipedia).
Hilariously, Conservapedia claims that "Charles Bradlaugh, in 1876, proposed that atheism does not assert "there is no God," and by doing so he diluted the traditional definition of atheism. Since 1979, many atheists have followed Bradlaugh's thinking further and said that atheism is merely a lack of belief in any god. The motive for such a shift in meaning appears to be to an attempt to shift the burden of proof regarding the existence of God to the theism side."
Even a brief reference to the Wikipedia article on atheism, which, unlike Conservapedia (the Trustworthy Encyclopedia!) has actual sources, will quickly show that the Conservapedia claim is laughable. However, it is significant, because it isn't just blatantly false; it is, in fact, more or less the exact opposite of the truth.
The idea of the burden of proof is that anyone making a positive claim will need to cough up some kind of evidence. If you say there's a giant, fire-breathing dragon in your garage, no-one will believe you unless they see it or get some kind of compelling, verifiable evidence that it's there. That's common sense.
Theists of all shades, however, insist that imaginary fairytale creatures like gods exist. Logically speaking, it's abundantly clear that we shouldn't believe anything they say without some kind of proof. So "God" is a guy who created the universe 6,000 years ago and gave a certan nomadic people stone tablets with his law on them, divinely inspired a series of texts for them, and later sent his son, who is actually both his son and him, to Earth to be killed for an obscure reason? This is a very, very specific claim. Funnily enough, it comes with no proof at all. Absolutely nothing about the Christian Bible can convince a skeptic that it was somehow divinely inspired or contains "great truths" about life and the universe. There is no evidence to back up anything that Christianity claims about the universe.
Any rational person must, if they think logically, disbelieve the Christian account of the universe until some kind of proof for it shows up. There's no reason to believe it. Not only is it not backed by evidence, but it actively contradicts science and is diametrically opposed to the worldviews of practically all other religions. Why believe the Christian story? The Hindu religion also claims to know the nature and history of the Universe. Why not believe the Hindu story instead? Neither is backed up by logic or evidence, so they appear equal to a disinterested observer.
The only way a Christian can rescue themsleves from the burden of proof is by definition. If atheism can be defined as making a positive claim, then it can be argued that the burden of proof is on atheists. Further, this allows people like my (Christian) high school teacher to define atheism as "irrational" and "faith-based", discrediting it. The basic argument Christians try to advance by claiming that atheists "can't prove" God doesn't exist is that atheism is no more rational than religion. This is a monstrous lie.
As a completely unnecessary aside, some readers may want to remind themselves of the argument from ignorance. I'll also be returning to the subject of agnosticism later.
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The point of this whole rambling post is to posit that the argument by definition is becoming a more common fallacy these days. For example:
All people are inherently religious. Therefore, atheists are not really atheists.
First, define people as religious; then apply the definition to atheists, and find that either atheists are not people or they are lying. Similarly, as some people did on this blog, assert that "race" means "the existence of biological diversity inside homo sapiens", and therefore humanity can be divided into distinct races.
In both cases, the definition is absurd, and the entire argument is fallacious because of it. But the whole form of the argument is often questionable. For some reason, it appeals to people to treat definitions of words as literal, logical truths; therefore for many people appealing to a definition is something like as conclusive as scripture for believers.
Often the argument becomes a fallacy simply because it is used in an attempt to avoid debate altogether. Over the years most Christians have come to recognize that they simply cannot prove the existence of their God. They can't even prove that Jesus existed as a historical person, let alone as a magical three-in-one demiurge. Therefore they argue by defining belief in God, theism and atheism in such ways that they can avoid the debate and place the onus on their opponents.
Somewhat worryingly, this argument is not being used so much to convince their opponents but to convince their supporters that they must be right.
