Evolution: the catch-all explanation

I find one of the most irritating things in much modern scientific writing, or in television 'scientific' programmes is the notion that evolution explains everything. These days if a writer starts to tell me (without any evidence) that something evolved in such and such a way - and particularly if they introduce this without any necessity - I stop reading, or switch off. Evolution has become the catch-all approach to science, and is basically so nonsensical in the way much of it is used that I just can't be bothered to follow these sorts of 'arguments' through. You could say that my own 'bias' is showing here, and that I should 'inform' myself by reading things that I don't agree with. I do, if there's a good reason to do so, but when someone supposedly claims things happened by evolution and does it without anything to back up the statement, I know I'm in the presence of a writer who hasn't really thought through the implications of what they saying. And in case you think that my bias is showing and that I should read things I don't agree with in order to be more informed, check out Dr Cornelius Hunter on the same subject. I quote: ...evolutionists have a seemingly never ending list of mechanisms they use to explain everything in between. Whatever we find in biology, evolutionists say it must have evolved. Their predictions and expectations are often falsified and they have to patch their theory repeatedly. And there is no distinction between a new, fantastic design and a repeated design--both are equiprobable under evolution. If a new, fantastic design appears such as the trilobite eye, then evolutionists ascribe it to natural selection. If similar designs are found in different species, then it is ascribed to common descent. If later cousin species are found to lack the design, then common descent can be dropped as an explanation and the design can be said to have evolved independently. The evolutionary explanation is extremely flexible. More on Cornelius Hunter here.

Modern-day myth

Cornelius Hunter sums up one of his recent posts in the following way:

Evolution is a modern-day myth. No better than Zeus up in the sky, throwing down lightning bolts. But today we should know better. At least Lucretius and the Epicureans can claim scientific ignorance. Today’s version of the myth, evolutionary theory, is a religiously-driven mockery of science. The religion is explicit in the evolutionary literature, as is the mockery of science. Religion drives science, and it matters.

In the comments following the post (amongst the usual sneers from pro-evolutionists) is this:

Even the Greeks didn't put a lot of stock in their Zeus myths. Unfortunately evolutionists actually believe their superstition.

The philosophical background to evolution

So what is the scriptural problem with evolution? The problem is that evolutionary thinking is, and always has been, motivated by non biblical claims about God. I have discussed this in this blog, but the best place to find these claims is in the evolution literature, both before and after Darwin. Simply put, evolutionary thought is motivated and justified by various claims about how God would create the world. God wouldn’t create all of the many lowly creatures—that is beneath him. God wouldn’t create evil or inefficiency—that would be against his nature. God wouldn’t create particular patterns—that would be capricious. And so forth. In all about a dozen theological and philosophical arguments, that mandate evolution, arose in the Enlightenment years before Darwin. And they were and remain today tremendously influential. They are the reason that evolutionists today insist evolution is a fact, not merely a theory. Evolution is, at bottom, a religious idea developed in polite Christian settings. Today’s atheists, like a conforming teenager who thinks he is in rebellion, rehearse these same arguments as if demonstrating a religious skepticism.

Cornelius Hunter: Creation v Evolution - the real story (blog post)

The Mould Hunter

Every year my wife points out the (small) area of mould high up on the wall (11ft stud in this room) of one of out lounges. It’s an outside wall, and she says, every year, that perhaps there’s a leak in the spouting in that area, or that water is accumulating in the spouting there.
We used to blame it on the gas heater, something we’ve long stopped using. I liked gas heaters but sometimes there was a smell that permeated and became intolerable after a while. Usually it was a problem with the heater rather than the gas. I liked them because they were close to open fires in ‘feel.’ Open fires – I miss ‘em. We used to have two in our house: one was absolutely pathetic, but it survived quite some time. The other we got rid of early in the piece when we made two rooms into one. But there’s nothing quite like an open fire. (Now with global warming stuff going on all around us, open fires in houses are almost unheard of.)
Back to the mould. I came across the New Jersey Mould Company (sorry, guys, I can’t spell mould the way you spell it – it just don’t look right at my end of the world). And when I checked out their site, lo and behold they have a Mould Dog.
I quote, "Traditional mould sampling won't find the mould hiding inside your walls. Hunter the mould dog will."
I’ve included a picture of Hunter, who looks like a nice friendly feller. The people at NJMC go on to say: "Dogs have been trusted for hundreds of years to detect and locate things that humans can’t find. Since 2003 we have been using specially-trained dogs, trained just like bomb dogs or drug dogs, to detect and locate the source of mould growth by detecting the gasses (MVOC’s) mould growth gives off."
I find this most intriguing. I’m not sure that Hunter would have much trouble tracking down the annual mould at our place – although he might have a bit of trouble reaching it…! However, he might also find mould we hadn’t discovered ourselves. Now that would really give my wife something to "mention" each year!

Disclosure statement

The NJMC has a link to a very interesting article on the use of dogs in tracking down mould. Well worth a look.