Response to Kitty Foth-Regner

This is my response to a comment left by Kitty Foth Regner, author of the book Heaven Without Her.

Original comment is here.

You mentioned several different topics in your comment to me, which you probably realize have already been addressed and answered hundreds of times by more qualified people than me, and that the responses are available for you to see on the internet and have been for a long time.

Clearly if the answers were enough to change your mind, you would have, just as if your arguments were enough to change my mind I would have already done so. Your arguments and mine are not original thoughts, but things that have already been thoroughly discussed by many qualified people.

So these answers are not really for you, because I know you are aware of the responses to your arguments and that they will do nothing to change your mind coming from me. But I have decided to try to provide responses to your arguments point by point mainly because I want those responses to be available to anyone who happens to see your comment.

Now, I am the first person to admit that I am no scientist, and I believe that you are not either. But I spent a lot of time researching the arguments you referenced against evolution and I will try to either answer them or refer you to existing responses:

Why do so many people oppose evolution? Is it because they do not like its implications? Regardless of whether we like the conclusions, the evidence overwhelmingly points to this. Just because it makes many people uncomfortable, does not make it any less true.

…children are not learning “differing viewpoints.”… They are learning only evolutionary fairy tales.

Intelligent design does not deserve equal standing in a science classroom with evolution because it is not a science. Science is a system of acquiring knowledge and intelligent design is based on personal religious belief.

Equal time would mean teaching every other creation story that mankind has believed in (Muslim, Hindu, Native American, and countless others). But they obviously do not want fair and equal time, because that would be ridiculous. What they really want is for the intelligent design to get preferential treatment simply because the Christian faith is dominant throughout the western world. But that does not give it any more validity.

The main argument for intelligent design is that the world seems like it was created. If that is the case, then why, necessarily, was it created by your creator? You have no specific proof that it was created by the God of the Bible.

Intelligent design is creationism disguised as a science in an effort to get it taught in schools, after the Edwards v. Aguillard made it unconstitutional. It is promoted by Christian groups because its main purpose is to promote the idea of the Biblical God as designer.

For more information on why intelligent design is creationism visit Talk Origins.

Another reason intelligent design does not deserve equal footing with evolution is that it has no evidence. On the other hand, evolution has mountains of evidence, and many other fields of science support the fact of evolution. Evolution is one of the most heavily criticized theories of science, and yet it has stood up to all of this intense criticism. If the evidence for evolution were not extremely strong, people would have succeeded long ago to refute it. But they cannot because the evidence is there.

Instead its proponents merely try to poke holes in the theory of evolution. But just because you think you can disprove Theory A, does not necessarily prove Theory B. You have to provide evidence for the “theory” of intelligent design, not just try to poke holes in evolution.

No taxpayer-funded teacher or professor ever mentions, for instance, that before he died, the late great evolutionist Stephen J. Gould of Harvard resorted to resurrecting the “hopeful monster” theory of our origins – “punctuated equilibrium,” he called it to give it more dignity – because, as he admitted, the transitional fossils that evolution theory requires simply do not exist.

This is an example of quote-mining and a misrepresentation of what Gould actually said in his essay “Return of Hopeful Monsters”.

Please visit Answers in Genesis Busted for more info on the misuse of this quote.

"Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists--whether through design or stupidity, I do not know--as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. Yet a pamphlet entitled 'Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax' states: 'The facts of punctuated equilibrium which Gould and Eldredge...are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that Bryan insisted on, and which God has revealed to us in the Bible.'"

That was a quote from Gould’s essay “Evolution as Fact and Theory”

And you can visit Talk Origins for more discussions of misquotations commonly used by antievolutionists.

No taxpayer-funded teacher dares to look at the irreducible complexity or at the fact that positive, additive genetic mutations do not occur.

Irreducible complexity implies that a system cannot function if one of its parts is missing, therefore it couldn’t have evolved by the addition of single parts without a loss or change of function. But there are still other evolutionary mechanisms that have been observed in genetic mutations:

• deletion of parts
• addition of multiple parts
• change of function
• addition of a second function to a part
• gradual modification of parts

Even if irreducible complexity did provide difficulty for the theory of evolution, intelligent design does not necessarily follow. This is an argument from incredulity or “god of the gaps”.

For more information on irreducible complexity: Talk Origins.

Here are Responses to Michael Behe

And here is more about the argument from incredulity, or “god of the gaps”.

No taxpayer-funded teacher dares to even wonder aloud how the laws of thermodynamics or biogenesis fit into evolutionary thought.

Intelligent design supporters believe that the second law of thermodynamics does not permit order to arise from disorder, therefore showing that macroevolution is not possible. But the second law of thermodynamics says no such thing.

“It says that heat will not spontaneously flow from a colder body to a warmer one or, equivalently, that total entropy (a measure of useful energy) in a closed system will not decrease. This does not prevent increasing order because: the earth is not a closed system and entropy is not the same as disorder.”

“The only processes necessary for evolution to occur are reproduction, heritable variation, and selection. All of these are seen to happen all the time, so, obviously, no physical laws are preventing them. In fact, connections between evolution and entropy have been studied in depth and never to the detriment of evolution”

For more information on the second law of thermodynamics and entropy check out Talk Origins: here and here.

The law of biogenesis states that modern organisms do not spontaneously arise in nature from non-life.

“The spontaneous generation that Pasteur and others disproved was the idea that life forms such as mice, maggots, and bacteria can appear fully formed. They disproved a form of creationism. There is no law of biogenesis saying that very primitive life cannot form from increasingly complex molecules.”

For more information check out Talk Origins Abiogenesis FAQs

Essentially, “no taxpayer-funded teacher dares to even wonder aloud” about these things, because they have already been addressed many times over by scientists. It is not as if these points are being hidden, they are discussed in the open and not viewed as a threat to evolution. These issues require a lot of background in biology to even understand, and that is why they are not taught to beginning students.

Also, attempting to expose weaknesses in the theory of evolution does not in any way make intelligent design more viable. This assumes that evolution and intelligent design are the only two possible models, which is false. Problems with one model do not imply that the remaining model is true. Another unknown explanation could be correct.

… why are evolutionists afraid of having the arguments for intelligent design and creation science presented alongside their proofs for evolution?

Scientists are not afraid of intelligent design. Intelligent design does not even qualify as a scientific theory because all of its claims of evidence have been shown to be invalid.

The threat is not to science, the threat is to education and the separation of church and state in this nation.

I am afraid of having the arguments for intelligent design presented alongside evolution in science class because I am concerned with children learning about the actual scientific method and learning critical thought. Intelligent design is simply a wedge used to get religion into schools. They only attack evolution because they see it as a threat to their Biblical explanations of the world. When intelligent design is given equal standing in science classes with the theory of evolution, it will mean that the nation’s children are not learning what actual science is, and they are not being taught to use their critical faculties.

Intelligent design relies on supernatural explanations. But science is about finding natural, reproducible, testable explanations. Teaching our students otherwise is harmful to their development of critical thinking. It is also harmful to our nation’s scientific and technological development.

The truth is, real science confirms Genesis, not Darwin. But real science does not get a hearing in our schools these days. That was my point: For nearly 50 years, our schools have been teaching that evolution accounts for the universe, that anti-Christian worldviews are intellectually sound, and that tolerance is the highest virtue. Our courts have in fact outlawed any mention of Christianity in our schools. So who’s closed-minded?

Please explain to me what your notion of “real science” is?

Distinguishing science from pseudoscience requires a definition of its methodology:

Science is a method of acquiring knowledge that uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena. It must be testable and reproducible.

Intelligent design is not based on any of these things, but simply on the desire for the Biblical explanation to be true. But wanting does not make it so.

…Our schools have been teaching…anti-Christian worldviews…

This may come as a surprise, but there are many different worldviews that differ from your own. A person who can’t see the value in learning to view the world from a different perspective is being closed-minded and ignorant. The Christian worldview has as much validity as any other worldview out there, and to claim that it is superior merely because it is dominant in the western world, would be arrogant.

In science, worldview is irrelevant. Worldview should not be taught in science class because science is fact regardless of one’s worldview. The vast majority of scientists from all over the world with many different worldviews all come together in agreement on the fact of evolution, as well as on many other scientific facts.

As I mentioned before, just because science does not fit your worldview or because you don’t like its implications is not enough reason to disqualify it. You must provide other valid alternatives that are based on more than religious beliefs and emotions.

…our schools have been teaching that…tolerance is the highest virtue…

Are you advocating the teaching of intolerance to our children in schools? Would it be better to teach our children to hate and disregard those that are different? We have seen the kind of hatred and violence that results from intolerance too often during our recent history and I honestly cannot believe that you would suggest that the teaching of tolerance is a bad thing.

Do you consider it a good thing that some Muslim children are being taught religious intolerance? Is racial intolerance a good thing? I honestly don’t understand where you are coming from on this one. Is it your idea that Jesus promoted intolerance?

Our courts have in fact outlawed any mention of Christianity in our schools.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

That was the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which prohibits the government from establishing a religion, from showing preference to one religion over another, or from showing preference to religion over non-religion.

Any mention of Christianity is not outlawed in our schools, but the promotion of Christianity above other beliefs is. This is the right that our founding fathers fought for, and this is a right that also protects Christians, so I honestly cannot understand why they would want to get rid of it. If ever in the future Christianity is not the majority religion in the United States, Christians would surely lament the loss of this freedom in the event that someone else’s religious beliefs were being imposed on them.

These rights were set out from the beginning, so to imply that they are something that has been imposed on you and other Christians or that religion has been “taken out” of schools or the public sphere, is blatantly false. These are rights that protect us all and rights that we should try very hard to preserve for future generations.

For more information about the First Amendment and the freedoms it provides us, look here.

In conclusion, I would like to remind the reader that I am not an expert, but I was able to find all of these answers online and you can do the same yourself. All of the typical arguments of antievolutionists have been refuted. Unfortunately this fact does not prevent them from being continually used.

The best source by far, and which I relied heavily upon for this response, is Talk Origins where you can find a long index to creationist claims and responses and tons of other helpful information about evolution.

Orangutan Love

I love orangutans. They are so amazing! Check out this video:



Thanks to Atheist Media for the video.

The Hitler Card

In almost every heated debate somebody inevitably plays the Hitler Card.

What is the Hitler Card? This is associating your opponent's position with either Hitler or the Nazis, and basically claiming guilt by association.

This is basically seen as a last resort or a dirty trick to use in an argument, as associations made to Hitler are often factually incorrect, or are insufficient to discredit an idea.

Frequent uses of the Hitler Card appear during debates on topics such as atheism, evolution, abortion, and eugenics.

The association with atheism, as I have said in previous blogs, is a false one because Hitler was clearly not an atheist. He believed in a higher power. It may not have been your higher power, but it is enough for him to be defined as a theist.



Other uses may be ineffective because mere association is not enough to discredit an idea.

Examples:

Hitler is responsible for the Volkswagen.
Therefore, Volkswagens are evil.

Hitler liked to paint.
Therefore, painting is evil.

Hitler had a mustache.
Therefore, mustaches are evil.

The Hitler card is often employed as a dirty trick used to incite emotions about a terrible time in the past. It is often over- or mis- used, specifically when an opponent wants to distract or anger their opponent.

Some of the most recent uses of the Hitler Card that I have noticed:

Ben Stein associating scientists and evolution with the Nazis in the film Expelled and claiming that science leads you to killing people. Hitler used science, science must be evil!



Fox News and many other media outlets repeatedly trying to associate Obama with Hitler. One example has been by claiming the Victory Column in Berlin is associated with Hitler and was a bad choice for Obama's Berlin speech. I challenge them to find a place in Berlin that is not associated with Hitler!



Or associating Obama with Hitler because his speeches draw large crowds (200,000 in Berlin last Thursday). Yeah, being a good orator must be bad, because Hitler was a good orator!



Another dirty trick employed by Ann Coulter is associating Obama with Saddam Hussein by repeatedly using his middle name. Same idea, different evil dictator.







So let's all lay off the Hitler Card, folks. It's ridiculous and over-used. Don't always fall for it, and let's stop abusing it and come up with some better arguments.

The Monotony

...in which the Amiable Atheist gets a bit snippy. If you're looking for a more amiable post please see this one, or this one.

Your caller is entitled to his belief, it is however false.



It must get old having to hear the same bad arguments time after time. And frustrating that apparently none of these people have bothered to read his book or listen to anything he has said repeatedly before making fools of themselves.

It's fine if you want to believe in Adam and the Bible as literal truth. But please admit to yourself that this is based on faith and is not based on rationality. Please don't try to argue with Dawkins who has destroyed your silly arguments countless times through logic and rationality.

If that's what you want to believe, then admit that it does not stand up to logical argument and stop trying because it only looks silly and also gets boring and predictable after awhile.

I think one of these times, after someone challenges Dawkins with an argument he has heard and refuted countless times, he should say,

"Wow, I never thought about it that way. I think you're right! What have I been doing all of this time? Thank you for opening my eyes to the truth!"

No? Well, I thought it might be funny.

Thanks to Atheist Media for the video.

Reconciling Evil With Faith

I am responding to a USA Today opinion article by Michael Novak in which he says

The New Yorker (of all magazines) gave a good number of pages early last month to a quite brilliant book reviewer, James Wood, for a long essay on why he could no longer be a Christian. Stories like his are widespread. They usually cite the natural evils that too often crash upon humans — in China a stupefying earthquake, in Burma a cyclone, elsewhere tsunami, or tornado, disease, flood, or cruel slow-working famine. They then add the evils that humans inflict upon other humans.

Apparently he thinks this is the only argument that atheists use...

Of course, ceasing to be a Jew or a Christian does not wipe these evils away. They continue. They roar on. The rejection of God does not diminish evil in the world by a whit.

Nobody is claiming that atheism will rid the world of evil. We are only stating that it is difficult to reconcile the idea of a loving and all powerful god with all of the suffering that goes on in the world. We have trouble with the idea that we should worship a god who would allow such things to occur to his creation and then claim that the blame lies with us.

In fact, the turn of Russia and Germany from more or less Christian regimes to boastfully atheist regimes did not lessen, but increased, the number of humans who have horribly suffered, by nearly 100 million. Even under atheist interpretations of science, the vast suffering under ferocious competition for survival, for a vastly longer era than was known, far exceeds the evils earlier generations knew.

I don't know how many times I will have to tell someone this: Hitler was not an atheist and Nazi Germany was not an atheist regime. All you have to do is read Mein Kampf or some of Hitler's quotes to see that he clearly believed in god and his religious beliefs drove his hatred of the Jews.

Let's take a look at the definition of an atheist again: a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings

Hitler believed in a god. Hitler was not an atheist. Just because you don't agree with how or what he believed about this god, does not make him an atheist just as much as it doesn't make every other denomination or religion you don't agree with athiesm.

And no, I do not want to blame Christianity for Hitler. Hitler had issues that went far deeper than his religious beliefs. But some religious people constantly try to pin the blame on atheism, and I only want to show that this is totally false.

Good, glad we got that one cleared up.

Here is one of my favorite quotes:

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg

One can find similar statistics if we look at suffering and death in religious countries all around the world, such as the Middle East or in Africa. One could also point to the longer life span and overall better health of human beings thanks to the scientific advancements of society that were made despite religion's attempts to squelch them (germ theory, cell research, birth control, and processes that make childbirth easier).

Worse, the world seen by evolutionary biology alone is even more rife with suffering, yet rather more merciless. That world is characterized by raw chance, accident and the death of about 90% of all species that have ever lived.

I find the idea of an omnipotent creator sitting by while we suffer to be much more disturbing. What makes people think that life or the universe owe them more than raw chance?

Would a conviction that our sufferings are meaningless, and due to blind chance, ease the pain of the poor and the unjustly tortured? Raging against the night seems to be an evasion of reality.

If you were going to die, would you rather your doctor told you the truth, or would you rather he told you some comforting lie to give you hope? Now that would be an evasion of reality.

Sustained public conversation about these matters — long, intelligent conversation — can help to diminish mutual misconceptions about the terms of this argument. That conversation could be critical for the future of liberty on this planet.

I agree, but I hope you bring something a little more substantial to the table next time.

Simply Amazing

Sorry, for some reason I couldn't embed this video.

It is Susan Savage-Rumbaugh talking about Bonobos. Really cool.

If you haven't visited the Ted website yet, you should. Lots of cool videos, you can waste tons of time there...

Hamming it Up

In the city of Philadelphia, nine academic, scientific and cultural institutions are holding a Year of Evolution, a series of exhibitions, seminars and lectures to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin next February, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, “The Origin of Species.”

The intent of the citywide event, said Janet M. Monge, one of the organizers, is to increase public understanding of evolution and science in general at a time when polls show that a majority of Americans believe God created man in his present form and that the number of people who accept the evolutionary model of human origins is declining.

She said the Philadelphia events were also intended to encourage people to consider the evolutionary alternative to the biblical account of the origins of man, as represented by the new Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., a $35 million institution that has attracted more than 400,000 visitors since it opened in May 2007.

Ken Ham, the president of the Creation Museum, said he expected to see more pro-evolution events as the Darwin anniversary approaches. Mr. Ham said that in response his museum was planning its own exhibits on the origins of life.

He rejected the possibility that Christians could believe in evolution. “If you take Genesis as literal history, then of course the two are exclusive,” he said. “Christians who believe in evolution are being inconsistent.”

I tend to agree. From the NY Times Article, via the Denialism Blog

An Idea is a Greater Monument than a Cathedral

He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind:
and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart. Proverbs 11:29

Bananas

Now I know where my fear of bananas come from, they're my worst nightmare!

I have one big problem with all of their arguments. Why does the creator necessarily have to be the biblical god? Why not any other creator that man has thought up? Why not any creator that man hasn't thought up?

This is the kind of thing that makes it hard for me to be amiable.

So I will just shut up and let you watch it yourself.

Failing Grade

Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times calls Expelled

One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time

a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.

Blithely ignoring the vital distinction between social and scientific Darwinism, the film links evolution theory to fascism (as well as abortion, euthanasia and eugenics), shamelessly invoking the Holocaust with black-and-white film of Nazi gas chambers and mass graves.

Every few minutes familiar — and ideologically unrelated — images interrupt the talking heads...This is not argument, it’s circus, a distraction from the film’s contempt for precision and intellectual rigor

“Expelled” is an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike. In its fudging, eliding and refusal to define terms, the movie proves that the only expulsion here is of reason itself.

Visit Expelled Exposed.

Open Letter

On RichardDawkins.net, Prof. Dawkins responds to a letter they received from a Jewish man who had recently seen Expelled and believed the movie's claim that Hitler was motivated by Darwinism. Here was his message:

Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States!

Richard Dawkins was concerned that many people would believe the lies in this movie, so he wrote an open letter in response. Here are some excerpts, but you can read the entire letter here.

"[Hitler's] horrible bidding was done by millions of ordinary German footsoldiers, and the great majority of them were Christians...Very few were atheists, and whatever else Hitler was he most certainly was not an atheist

And Hitler himself used religion to justify his anti-Semitism. For example, here is a typical quotation, from the end of Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf.

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

Hitler's obscene anti-Semitism was able to hold sway in Germany because there was a deeply embedded history of anti-Semitism in Germany, and indeed in Europe generally.

I have several times said that a society based on Darwinian principles would be a very unpleasant society in which to live.

Darwinism gives NO support to racism of any kind.

There is no mention of Darwin in Mein Kampf."

PC Liberalism?

After watching Outfoxed yesterday I was slightly amused by this term (PC Liberalism). But for your comic relief, here are some excerpts from a positive review of Expelled. (The only way someone can enjoy this film is if they are misinformed or willfully ignorant. All of the facts are there on the internet showing that the movie is deceitful trash.) Thanks to RichardDawkins.net for the link.

By Brent Bozell III, Ben Stein vs. Sputtering Atheists

"It is a reality of PC liberalism: There is only one credible side to an issue, and any dissent is not only rejected, it is scorned. Global warming. Gay "rights." Abortion "rights." On these and so many other issues there is enlightenment, and then there is the Idiotic Other Side. PC liberalism's power centers are the news media, the entertainment industry and academia, and all are in the clutches of an unmistakable hypocrisy: Theirs is an ideology that preaches the freedom of thought and expression at every opportunity, yet practices absolute intolerance toward dissension....Evolution is another one of those one-sided debates. We know the concept of Intelligent Design is stifled in academic circles"

"[Stein] allows the principal advocates of Darwinism to speak their minds. These are experts with national reputations, regular welcomed guests on network television and the like. But the public knows them only by their careful seven-second soundbites. Stein engages them in conversation. They speak their minds. They become sputtering ranters, openly championing their sheer hatred of religion."

"He points out... that Hitler's mad science was inspired by Darwinism"

"Everyone should take the opportunity to see "Expelled" — if nothing else, as a bracing antidote to the atheism-friendly culture of PC liberalism. But it's far more than that. It's a spotlight on the arrogance of this movement and its leaders, a spotlight on the choking intolerance of academia, and a spotlight on the ignorance of so many who say so much, yet know so very little."

Exposed

This is an audio of an interview after some of the editors of the Scientific American watched a screening of Expelled. This is a discussion they had with the associate producer of the film, Mark Mathis. This interview is very revealing about the dishonesty of the film.
Also, check out the Expelled Exposed website.

Science Education

Science education in the United States is obviously lacking somewhere. Many people are completely ignorant about what a "theory" is in science, and what evolution is. Here are some examples of where America is failing in educating its students in science (not to mention grammar and spelling as well):

Macro evolution is where you breed two like beings/creatures whatever and instead of getting the young of that species you get a completely different species. It's never happened - NEVER and NEVER will! that's why the unbeliever tries to make us believe the world is over a million years old - that's the only excuse they have for why they cannot reproduce Macro evolution.

If you feel like Monkey .. then believe in evolution

Evolution has fundamental flaws and is a lame alternative to the Genesis. You shouldn't believe in evolution.

Evolution is not an illusion. It was an assumption, which has been scientifically disproven. Today, it continues only as a religious belief. Evolution is not true, science does not claim it is true; only evolutionists do. Evolutionists attempt to convince others of a lie - that science accepts evolution. Scientists no longer accept this lie, and neither should you.

Evolution is not a proved fact. It's still a theory.

evolution is crap talk... god created everything

"Evolution" is not a fact, it is a way of people trying to get out of having to follow God. If you want to believe that your great great great great... grandfather was a type of monkey than that's up to you. Does that mean that apes, monkeys etc. are as smart as us? Apparently that's what people who believe in "evolution" believe in. If the "evolution" theory is true, than where are you going after your life here on earth?Who's to say that God didn't create everything using completely different laws than we know of now, and just left us with laws that we could understand, or laws that were deliberately inferior to the laws He used so that we couldn't create or destroy a universe ourself? Think about it. Then ask yourself, do we really know how the universe was created and should we?

I love the irony in the last one, "do we really know how the universe was created?". Apparently he does!

Family Guy on Evolution

Check out this short (30 seconds) video posted on Atheist Media. It's a clip from the cartoon Family Guy.

Support for Science

A BBC report shows 68 academic societies from around the world expressing their support of teaching evolution. Excerpt:

"We, the undersigned Academies of Sciences, have learned that in various parts of the world, within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data, and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied, or confused with theories not testable by science. We urge decision makers, teachers, and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature. Knowledge of the natural world in which they live empowers people to meet human needs and protect the planet.

We agree that the following evidence-based facts about the origins and evolution of the Earth and of life on this planet have been established by numerous observations and independently derived experimental results from a multitude of scientific disciplines. Even if there are still many open questions about the precise details of evolutionary change, scientific evidence has never contradicted these results:"

In summary...

1. Our universe has evolved for some 11 to 15 billion years and our Earth was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.

2. The Earth has changed as a result of numerous physical and chemical forces, and continues to do so.

3. Life appeared on Earth atleast 2.5 billion years ago and has evolved into its present state.

"Human understanding of value and purpose are outside of natural science’s scope. However, a number of components – scientific, social, philosophical, religious, cultural and political – contribute to it. These different fields owe each other mutual consideration, while being fully aware of their own areas of action and their limitations.
While acknowledging current limitations, science is open ended, and subject to correction and expansion as new theoretical and empirical understanding emerges."