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Critical Thinking and Evolution. EVOLUTION VERSuS SCIENCE. Mike Riddle. What Is Critical Thinking?. Critical thinking is the process of analyzing questions and assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, sometimes true, or partly true. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Critical Thinking and Evolution
Mike Riddle
EVOLUTIONVERSuSSCIENCE
What Is Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking is the process of analyzing questions and assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, sometimes true, or partly true.
Three Critical Thinking Questions
How do you know it is true?
Has it ever been observed?
Are you making any assumptions?
Recognize Assumptions Evaluate Information Draw Conclusions
Applying 3 Critical Thinking Questions
Life originated in a pool of chemicals about 3.7 billion years ago.
“Scientists do know that about 200 to 300 million years after Earth cooled enough to carry liquid water, cells similar to modern bacteria were common.”
Biology, Miller and Levine, 2002, p. 425.
Critical Thinking QuestionFossils
How much of the fossil was actually found and how much was added (assumed)?
“For instance, modern whales are the descendants of four-legged land animals…”
Biology: Visualizing Life, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1998, p. 177.
Example
DeceptionPakicetus: a candidate for
whale evolution?
Artist reconstruction
Only the shaded portions of the skull were found
Updated Pakicetus
A wolf-like land mammal, with legs capable of running
More Examples Nebraska man Piltdown man Archaeoraptor Lucy (australopithecine)
Three Critical Thinking Questions
How do you know it is true?Has it ever been observed?
Are you making any assumptions?
Show me any observational evidence for evolution that does
not require me to use faith.
A Power Question
Using the Power Question The universe originated 13 billion years
ago with the big bang. Over millions of years creatures without
backbones evolved into fish. Humans evolved from ape-like creatures. The earth is 4.6 billion years old. Evolution is an observable fact.
Show me any _____________ evidence for evolution that does
not require me to use ______.
POP Quizobservational
faith
Three critical thinking questions1. ________________________________ 2. ________________________________ 3. ________________________________
How do you know it is true?Has it ever been observed?Are you making any assumptions?
Words Have Meaning
Fuzzy WordsMagic Words
How to read between the linesHow to recognize the bluff
Show me the observable evidence
Fuzzy Words We believe We think Must have Could have Might have Our opinion is We guess Over millions of years
No observable evidence
What Happened
Life Science, Prentice Hall (Grade 7), 2002, p. 410.
“Paleontologists think that Archaeopteryx and today’s birds descended from some kind of reptile, possibly from a dinosaur.”
Example
USA Today, November 5, 1013Example
“A discovery out of this world: Earth-like planets”
“There are likely ‘tens of billions’ of Earth-like planets in our Milky Way galaxy…. In fact, the nearest Earth-like planet may be ‘only’ 12 light years away… And with a universe of hundreds of billions of galaxies, ‘our entire universe must contain billions of Earth-like planets.’”
“The first cells could not have needed oxygen to survive. They probably were heterotrophs that used the chemicals in their surroundings for energy….. At some point, some of the cells may have developed the ability to make their own food.”
Prentice Hall, Science Explorer: Life Science, 2002, p. 46.
Joseph Silk, Ph.D. Astronomy, The Big Bang, 2001, p. 170.
“Imagine that infinitesimal fluctuations in density were present in the early universe…. The expansion of the universe must have exerted a stabilizing influence on such irregularities. The expanding universe has the effect of greatly impeding what otherwise might have been catastrophic forces…. Nevertheless, the process of growth of fluctuations went on for a very long time,…”
Meet “Cousin” Ardi
Ardipithecus ramidusDiscovered in 1992 in Ethiopia
“A partial skeleton and indirect evidence from skeletal fragments indicate that Ar. ramidus may have walked upright….Other fossils found with Ar. ramidus suggest that it may have been a woodland forest dweller.”
www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/humans/humankind/b.html
Ardi
Speculation and GuessworkIn the eleven papers in Science:
“Probably” appeared 78 times “Suggest,” “Suggesting,”
“Suggestive,” or Suggests” appeared 117 times
Magic Words Appeared Emerged Arose Gave rise to Was on the way to becoming Burst onto the scene Evolved itself Was making a transition to
How It Happened
“Evo-devo proposes that genes involved in cobbling together flesh and bone during early growth were repurposed to develop new structures throughout evolution's history, by combining their functions in new ways.”
USA Today, “Why did bugs grow wings to fly?”, Mar 29, 2010.
“The 185-million-year-old specimen is a sauropodomorph, a category of plant-eating dinosaur that stood only four feet at the shoulders and could walk on its hind legs. They evolved into sauropods, such as the apatosaurus ….”
The Salt Lake Tribune, “Utah's Navajo sandstone yields rare dinosaur find,” Thursday, March 25, 2010
“Into this world came the dinosaurs, initially small bipedal carnivores, and they rose to dominance at some point during the Triassic.”
The Complete Dinosaur, Edited by James O. Farlow and M. K. Brett-Surman, 1997, p. 204.
Red-Flag Words
Red Flag
DANGER DANGER
Red-Flag Words All Everybody No real scientist I believe I think Truth Fundamentalist Intolerant
Express an absolute
Express a personal idea
Used to label an opponent
Red-Flag Statements All real scientists believe in evolution. Everyone knows the Bible is just a
book of stories. No one has the whole truth. People should decide for themselves
what is right and wrong.
Red-Flag StatementsWhy are Christians so intolerant?
Challenge
Do you believe in evolution?
Yes: WrongNo: Wrong
Challenge
Do you take the Bible literally?
Yes: WrongNo: Wrong
A Primer on Natural Selection?
“Over a long period of time, natural selection can lead to evolution. Helpful variations gradually accumulate in a species, while unfavorable ones disappear.”
Life Sciences, Prentice Hall, 2002, p. 151. (seventh grade textbook)
Natural Selection
“Natural selection is a mechanism by which populations adapt and evolve. In its essence, it is a simple statement about rates of reproduction and mortality: Those individual organisms who happen to be best suited to an environment survive and reproduce most successfully.”
www.amnh.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/darwin/evolution-today/how-does-natural-selection-work
Natural Selection
Source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25
1
43
2
Natural Selection: Two FACTS
Natural selection does not add any new information.
Natural selection can only “select” from information that already exists.
Critical Thinking and Natural Selection
Natural
Caused by nature (natural processes)
Selection
Selector(Intelligence)
Natural Selection: The Real Meaning
Douglas Futuyma (professor of evolutionary biology), “Natural Selection: How Evolution Works,” http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/futuyma.html.
“Natural selection is a very simple natural mechanism that explains the appearance of design in living things.”
Natural Selection and Change
Exposure interface
Pre-programmed information
1. What is it that natural selection actually does and how does it work?
2. Selection implies intelligence. Who or what is actually doing or causing the selection?
3. Is there any observational evidence for where the vast amount of information in DNA came from that does not require me to use faith?
3 Questions to Ask
What Is Natural Selection?It is an artificial mechanism devised by man to replace the power and intelligence of God.
According to evolutionists the design in all life comes from:
God EvolutionNatural Selection
Engineered Adaptability(Intelligent Designer)
Created by God for a purpose Love, joy, peace,
longsuffering,kindness, goodness,
faithfulness,gentleness, self-control
Hot, coldThink, be creative
Know GodRespond to our Creator
The Bible says that people lived to be 900 years old. Do you believe people really lived that long?
So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.
Genesis 5:27
Bible Challenge
Final Exam
Dinosaurs evolved into
birds.
What questions could I ask?
Final ExamLife must be on other planets. It’s arrogant to believe we are the only life in the universe.
What questions could I ask?
Training Courses
Basic Creation TrainingTeens and above
Advanced Creation ApologeticsNext step in evangelism
Christian Teacher TrainingTeaching based on biblical standards
Treatment 2
Building an Army of Christian Educators
For more information www.CreationTraining.org
Email: [email protected]
