Sam

Several readers wrote to us about Sam’s emails in previous newsletters. ¹ Al asked,

We need to emphasize that Sam’s credentials (or lack thereof) don’t matter because Sam isn’t important. We never make the claim, “Sam’s argument is wrong because he is poorly educated.” We never make the claim, “Sam’s argument is wrong because he is stupid.” We never make the claim, “Sam’s argument is wrong because he is an atheist.” We claim “Sam’s argument is wrong because his argument has no scientific merit.”

Sam’s argument has no scientific merit because, as Jeffrey points out, he never even tries to make a scientific argument.

We don’t print emails from people like Sam simply for entertainment value, or to embarrass them. We print them because, as Jeffrey says, Sam is “like many others.” If Sam’s emails were unusually foolish, we would not bother to print them. We print them because there is value in exposing typical evolutionists’ invalid arguments.

Here is his latest offering:

We

We use first person pronouns very carefully. First person plural (“we”) is used when stating the official corporate position of Science Against Evolution. First person singular (“I”) is used when giving my personal experience or opinion.

Lies

Sam has not yet given us a single example of a lie we have printed—because we don’t print lies. Claiming that our arguments are lies might convince a third party who has never read what we have written that we are lying; but it certainly won’t convince us because we know we aren’t lying. Does he think we will believe we are lying just because he says so?

Satire Impaired

Of course, we are not going to claim that we didn’t write the quoted section of the “98% Chimp” feature article. In fact, we are so proud of the points made in that article that we expanded upon them in the March 2004 feature article, “Comparative Anatomy.” ³

Some people argue just because they like to argue. They get some sort of satisfaction by winning an argument through their debating skills. I personally don’t understand how a defense attorney could feel satisfied by getting a guilty person acquitted by clever rhetoric; but apparently some do. Sam seems to be one of these people—but again, that doesn’t matter. What matters is to recognize that he misrepresents our position by pretending to misunderstand.

Sam pretends to be “satire challenged,” to put it politely. He pretends not to understand what we write just to try to win the argument by misrepresenting what we wrote. We use satire to apply the same logic evolutionists use to a different set of facts, showing that the evolutionary logic is invalid because it leads to an absurd conclusion.

In the essays which he considers to be “stupoid,” we pointed out the similarity between the motor mounting brackets found on an evaporative cooler, table saw, truck alternator, and sewing machine. These four machines have nothing in common, except for the fact that they use a drive belt. The mounting brackets are very similar because the use of these brackets is a good way to tension a drive belt.

We hope it is clear to most people that the use of similar brackets on these four different machines does not prove that one evolved from another. Since their similarity does not prove evolution from a common ancestral machine, why should similarity in plants and animals prove evolution from a common biological ancestor?

Sam is right—it would be stupid to claim that the similarity of these mounting brackets proves common ancestry. That’s exactly the point we are trying to make. It is equally stupid to claim that similarity of DNA proves common ancestry.

Furthermore, in our last two newsletters ⁴ we showed that evolutionists claim that DNA similarity is proof of descent from close common ancestor—except when they claim it proves DNA similarity is the result of convergent evolution in species that don’t have a close common ancestor. Similarity is proof when it advances their claims, and not proof when it doesn’t.

The mounting brackets on the four different machines are similar because an engineer recognized that it is a good way to properly tension a drive belt. That certainly DOES NOT PROVE that similar biological features were intentionally designed. Because similarity COULD be the result of a conscious design decision, or COULD be the result of biological descent, or COULD be the result of an accident, similarity doesn’t prove anything.

It is worth repeating that evolutionists sometimes claim similarity as proof of biological descent, and sometimes claim similarity as proof of unrelated accidents. The logical conclusion is that similarity doesn’t prove anything at all.

Sam had more to say in a later email to us.

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Footnotes:

¹ Disclosure, June 2014, “Religion and Probability”
Disclosure, July 2014, “June Newsletter Reactions”
Disclosure, February 2015, “Intentional Ignorance”
² Disclosure, January 2003, 98% Chimp
³ Disclosure, March 2004, “Comparative Anatomy”
⁴ Disclosure, January 2015, “For the Birds”,
Disclosure, February 2015, “Daffy DNA”