| email - February 2018 |
| by Do-While Jones |
Why don’t we refute the Wikipedia article on common descent?
Hunter gave us this suggestion:
|
Hello, If evolution is false, you should refute this article. It will make a lot of skeptics reject evolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent |
Depending upon how you count headings and subheadings, there are about 70 pieces of “evidence of common descent” in the Wikipedia article. For our 6-page newsletter to refute them all, we would have to refute more than 11 per page. Clearly, we can’t do it in a single issue. However, we have refuted nearly all of them individually in past newsletters. One we hadn’t addressed previously was the vas deference argument we addressed in this newsletter. You can search our back issues using the search box on our Topics page 1 and you will probably find several articles related to the alleged evidence.
The arguments on the Wikipedia page are the same old arguments that have been debunked on creationist websites for decades. One that really stands out is the horse evolution argument. That fictitious series of evolving horses was completely refuted by the respected paleontologist, George Gaylord Simpson, in 1951. Even the Field Museum of Natural History admitted it was bogus, as we told you 16 years ago. 2
This is a NEWS letter. We don’t like to rehash arguments which have been refuted for years. We like to address what appears in the latest professional scientific journals and what appears in the current supermarket science tabloids, and waste as little attention as possible on old outdated arguments. Occasionally we feel obligated to address things like horse evolution and peppered moths, but we don’t want to bore our readers by repeating the same old arguments that can be found on countless creationist websites.
You might wonder, since all these arguments are false, why doesn’t somebody correct them? Anybody can edit Wikipedia articles. People have written to us saying that they have tried; but their corrections are immediately deleted, and the people who made the corrections were classified as “vandals” and were blocked from making any more corrections.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about these false “evidences for common descent” is that they are stated as undeniably true. We would not object to Wikipedia presenting the arguments for common descent if they would also allow the arguments against them to be presented.
Evolutionists firmly oppose teaching both sides because they say teaching the controversy undermines science by making creationism seem credible. We are somewhat sympathetic to that reasoning because we usually don’t refute Wikipedia directly because that gives Wikipedia more credibility than it deserves.
We have, over the past two decades, been careful to present an accurate synopsis of evolutionary arguments, with footnotes pointing to the evolutionary source. Then we present the other side and allow you to make an informed decision. We can afford to do that because we have the truth on our side.
Evolutionists in general, and Wikipedia in particular, don’t dare present both sides because they know you are smart enough to see through their false arguments, if given the chance. That’s why they just state their case as if everyone believes it.
| Quick links to | |
|---|---|
| Science Against Evolution Home Page |
Back issues of Disclosure (our newsletter) |
| Web Site of the Month |
Topical Index |
Footnotes:
1
http://scienceagainstevolution.info/topics.htm
2
Disclosure, February 2002, “Horses and Peppered Moths”