Refutation of "Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups" - Questions 1 - 10

Question 1

Comfort begins the first question with the following: “In what year did USA Today report: Paleontologists have discovered a new skeleton in the closet of human ancestry that is likely to to force science to revise, if not scrap, current theories of human origins?” The discovery left scientists confused, saying, “Lucy may not even be a direct human ancestor after all.”

Rays answer: 2001.

(Source: Tim Friend, "Discovery rocks human-origin theories" USA Today, March 21, 2001 http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2001-03-21-skull.htm)

Does not damage evolutionary theory

The fossil in question is Kenyanthropus platyops, estimated age is between 3.5 and 3.2 million years. This is a mostly complete cranium which came in two pieces: a skullcase which was heavily distorted, and a face which was much better preserved. The fossil has an unusual combination of characteristics, most notably a broad flat face and small teeth. The name Kenyanthropus platyops means "Flat faced man of Kenya". The brain size is similar to that of australopithecines.

However, this fossil does not disprove the theory of evolution. It is still undergoing investigation of where it may fit into our lineage, but it does not disprove the fact that humans are apes and share a common ancestor with other apes. What the author of this article proposes is that humans may belong to a separate genus, but they remain unsure. The article includes the following quote "I and many others believe Lucy needs to be replaced, but I'm not sure Kenyanthropus is the one," says Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History.

Even without a fossil, we still can prove that humans share a common ancestor with apes based on genetics, taxonomy, phylogenetics, and much more.

Non-Academic Source

USA Today is not a scientific journal. Any body can publish their material and opinions onto such magazines and newspapers, and USA Today does not provide proper peer-review.

In-Depth Comments

“Paleontologists in Africa have found a 3.5 million-year-old skull from what they say is an entirely new branch of the early human family tree, a discovery that threatens to overturn the prevailing view that a single line of descent stretched through the early stages of human ancestry. The discoverers and other scientists of human evolution say they are not necessarily surprised by the findings, but certainly confused. Now it seems that the fossil species Australopithecus afarensis, which lived from about four million to three million years ago and is best known from the celebrated Lucy skeleton, was not alone on the African plain. Lucy may not even be a direct human ancestor after all.”

(Source: John Noble Wilford, “Skull May Alter Experts' View Of Human Descent's Branches,” The New York Times, March 22, 2001 )

 

Non-Academic Source

The New York Times s not a scientific journal. Any body can publish their material and opinions onto such magazines and newspapers, and New York Times does not provide proper peer-review.

Does not damage evolutionary theory

At best, this fossil piece only offers that the proposed hominid fossil Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) was not the only species of hominidea in Africa at the time. The paper says Lucy “may not” even be a direct human ancestor – specifically note the “may not” part. It is not concrete proof that Lucy is therefore dismissed or rejected. Lucy to this day remains the prime candidate of our early evolutionary ancestry. Furthermore, while Kenyanthropus platyops may be a early species of hominidea, nothing about this refutes the fact that humans share a common ancestor with other primates.

Distortion of Science

Recent evidence has proven the Lucy did not walk quadrupedal but upright. The first comment says that the find might "overturn the prevailing view that a single line of descent stretched through the early stages of human ancestry." Observing the conclusion of this comment, which is a little more obvious: "Lucy may not even be a direct human ancestor after all." Interesting, but it has no bearing on our confidence in evolutionary theory in general.

“The evidence given above makes it overwhelmingly likely that Lucy was no more than a variety of pygmy chimpanzee, and walked the same way (awkwardly upright on occasions, but mostly quadrupedal). The 'evidence' for the alleged transformation from ape to man is extremely unconvincing.”

(Source: Albert W. Mehlert, Former Evolutionist & paleoanthropology researcher. “Lucy - Evolution's Solitary Claim for Ape/Man.” CRS Quarterly, Volume 22, No. 3, p. 145)

 

Non-Academic Source

CRS Quarterly is not an academic source where a person's material is subject to scientific peer-review. In fact, it is the very antithesis of a scientific paper. It is in fact a quarterly journal of the Creation Research Society

Distortion of Science

“Lucy was a chimpanzee. The 'evidence' for the transformation from ape to man is unconvincing.” This point also might go over your head if you're not scientific, but the title of the article makes the point obvious: “Lucy: Evolution's Solitary Claim for Ape/Man.” This article is talking strictly about the relationship between Lucy and humans. It's not saying anything fundamental about evolutionary theory. It is not challenging the the evolutionary model that humans share a common ancestor with other primates.

Neither of these comments is saying anything about scrapping evolutionary theory, or even revisiting the idea that we are apes descended from apes. They're just talking about scrapping the prevailing views concerning "the early stages of human ancestry." All they're talking about here is the details of the family tree that we share with the other primates. Neither one of these comments says anything incriminating.

“Evidence from fossils now points overwhelmingly away from the classical Darwinism which most Americans learned in high school... The missing link between man and the apes … is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. In the fossil record, missing links are the rule... The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms between species, the more they have been frustrated.”

(Source: Adler, Jerry “Is Man a Subtle Accident?,” Newsweek, November 3, 1980)

Not a qualified biologist

Comfort said in the Introduction of this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist. Jerry Adler is a contributing editor at Newsweek. He is not a scientist.

Non-Academic Source

Newsweek is not a scholarly or scientific source.

Distortion of Science

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Finally, the last comment: the evidence points away from Darwinism? Another look at the article reveals something different;

“Evidence from fossils now points overwhelmingly away from the classical Darwinism which most Americans learned in high school: that new species evolve out of existing ones by the gradual accumulation of small changes. Increasingly, scientists now believe that species change little for millions of years and then evolve quickly.”

Context certainly does seem to be important here. The part that Ray Comfort quotes seems to say that evolutionary theory itself is in crisis. In proper context, we can see that the author is not saying anything about evolutionary theory. He's saying that the changes in species are often sudden, contrary to the prevailing gradualist view at the time. He even goes on to say that “the new theories are intended to explain how evolution came about—not to supplant it as a principle.”

Clearly, no quiet admissions of lack of evidence concerning evolutionary theory are apparent in any of this commentary. The question itself and the first two comments simply say nothing negative at all about any facet of science. The third comment was quote-mined and grossly misrepresented. Finally, let's look at the sources for all these excerpts: USA Today in 2001; The New York Times in 2001; Newsweek in 1980; and CRS Quarterly. Even if any of these quotes did say something incriminating about evolutionary theory, we should be very careful not to grant them too much credence, given that the first three are popular press and the last one is the quarterly journal of the Creation Research Society. Not to mention that two of the articles were already seven years old when Ray published his book, and one of them almost thirty. An awful lot of knowledge can be gained since in three decades. Question #1 is empty.

Question 2

 

"Who said it? "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to have been satisfied to get it going"? Comfort answers “Sir Francis Crick”

(Source: Life Itself, Its Origins and Nature, 1981, p. 88)

Comfort adds, “Francis Crick (1916-2004) was an English molecular biologist, physicist, and neuroscientist who is most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. He, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.””

 

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

What Ray Comfort, and many other anti-evolutionists, did not post was the rest of the sentence and the rest of the paragraph by Francis Crick:

" . . . so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against."

It's obvious that whoever posted the sentence cut off in the middle as it was either was deliberately dishonest, or never bothered to read the original.

In-Depth Comment

"Leslie Orgel is one of the leading figures in origin-of-life research since many years, and he is one of several researchers who independently from each other proposed in the 1960's the RNA world as a precursor of the current DNA/protein world. Gerald oyce is also a top scientist in the field. The authors argue in a joint article published in The RNA World, 2nd edition (2000), p. 68, on solid chemical grounds that, because of the complex and stereospecific chemistry required, 'the de novo appearance of oligonucleotides on the primitive earth would have been a near miracle'....They go on to say that although the presumed RNA world should be considered a milestone and a plateau in the early history of the earth, the concept 'does not explain how life originated' (p.74). They conclude (p.74): 'One can sketch out a logical order of events, beginning with prebiotic chemistry and ending with DNA/protein based lief. However it must be said that the details of these events remain obscure and are not likely to be known in the near future.'”

(Source: Albrecht Moritz, “The Originof Life” October 31, 2006).

 

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

The quote by Albert Moritz provided by Ray does not appear anywhere in the source he provided.

 

Question 3

 

Fill in the blank. David Kitts, an evolutionary paleontologist, said “Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires ________ between species and paleontology does not provide them.” Comfort's answer: "intermediate forms"

(Source: Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 467).

Comfort goes on to add, “Although faced with no paleontological way to show one species changing into another, Kitts holds on to his belief in evolution.”

 

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Aside from the presence of a dash between “promise” and “that” in the original text, the quote is accurate. But does Kitts believe that these gaps disprove evolution? On page 468 we find this:

“The claim has been repeatedly made that the fossil record provides a basis for the falsification of synthetic theory [Neo-Darwinism] and Simpson has demonstrated that this is not the case.”

Kitts outlines several different hypotheses as to why the fossil record appears the way it does, among them Punctuated Equilibrium, but at no point does he abandon evolution as an explanation for what is seen.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-3.html

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In-Depth Comments

 "Given the fact of evolution, one would expect to find fossils to document a steady gradual change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what paleontologist find. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series."

(Source: Ernest Mayr, What Evolution Is, 2001. p. 14)

 

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Notice Ernest Mayr calls evolution a fact, but Ray is giving the false impression that intermediate fossils do not exist and there are huge gaps in the record. In the same page, Mayr answers why this is and how it is not a problem for the theory off evolution. Mayr states that there are several lineages that are complete — he mentions the lineage between therapsid reptile and mammals, as well as land-dwelling animals to whales AND humans from australopithecus ancestors. Mayr states many intermediate transitional fossils have been found (he even names Archaeopteryx). Mayr explains that it is very rare for an animal to fossilize because most animals and plants are eaten. So basically, Mayr is not saying that these gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution, nor is he saying it is a problem for the theory. In fact, Mayr provides an explanation why this is, and how it compliments the theory of evolution.

"A persistent problem in evolutionary biology has been the absence of intermediate forms in the fossil record. Long-term gradual transfigurations of single lineages are rare and generally involve simple size increase or trivial phenotypic effects. Typically, the record consists of successive ancestor-descendant lineages, morphologically invariant through time and unconnected by intermediates."

(Source: P. G. Williamson, Paleontological Documentation of Speciation in Cenozoic Molluscs from Turkana Basin, 1982, pg. 163.)

 

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Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

This is actually from the journal Nature 293:437-443 and occurs on page 440. Possibly the original quote-miner got it from a later collection of papers. The quote is at the start of the concluding section of the paper, where Willianson discusses the implications of his research (and in fact the section is called “Implications”). Williamson certainly believes that evolution has occurred, because earlier in the paper he writes: "The 19 species lineages in the section represent 18 genera and 12 families, thus ancestor-descendant relationships between species lineages and their derivative taxa are unambiguous." The quoted section introduces the idea of punctuated equilibrium, and Williamson feels that his research conforms to that idea. He sampled roughly 3,300 individuals.

"The majority of major groups appear suddenly in rocks, with virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors."

(Source: D. Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82.)

 

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Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Finally, and rather ironic, Futuyma immediately follows this with the observation of an early example, by Gish, of quote mining. A little later he says: "The transitional forms that evolve so quickly, and in such a small area, are very unlikely to be picked up in the fossil record. Only when the newly evolved species extends its range will it suddenly appear in the fossil record. Eldredge and Gould have suggested, therefore, that the fossil record should show stasis, or equilibrium, of established species, punctuated occasionally by the appearance of new forms. Hence, the fossil record would be most inadequate exactly where we need it most -- at the origin of major new groups of organisms." p. 83

Question 4

 

Question 4 uses a quote from Dr. Tim White that anthropologists want to find a hominid fossil so much that "any scrap of bone will become a hominid fossil" from a New Scientist article were a dolphin bone was mistaken for a hominid collarbone. (Source: New Scientist Hominid collarbone exposed as dolphin)

 

Distortion of Science

This tries to portray scientists as biased and dogmatic. Scientific results are tested. This has two very important consequences: First, the scientists know that their results will be subject to challenge, so they work harder to make sure the evidence really does support their results. Second, published ideas that the evidence does not support will get rejected, especially in times or places with different cultural biases.

Creationists find what they want to find. Since their entire world view is threatened by finding disconfirming evidence, they are very highly motivated not to see it. Scientists, on the other hand, usually welcome disconfirming evidence when it comes along. But as it stands, there is no evidence confirming or supporting creationism.

In-Depth Comments

“Evolutionists present much of their finds as if they were compelling and factual explanations to human evolution. In fact, they base their conclusions on mere speculation and often the flimsiest of `finds'. Many discoveries of supposed hominids consist of only a mouth fragment, a leg bone, a hip bone, or a knee joint. On this alone, they have considered it to be a hominid. They even name it, reconstruct what it looked like, and present it to the public as a fact. Some of these finds have turned out to be those of a pig, donkey, or the result of a hoax. One hoax consisted of someone placing a human skull with an ape's jaw. Evolutionist declared it to be a hominid for fifty years without having done an in depth study of it. Some finds consist of an assortment of fragments found miles apart and then placed together to look as though they came from the same individual. Sometimes rocks as simple as those found in any backyard are called tools of hominids and are pictured in books. Footprints that look identical to any person's today are sometimes declared in books and accepted as those of hominids. The brow ridge that supposedly marked the hominid appears only in one skull.”

(Source: Doug LaPointe, “The TopEvidences Against the Theory of Evolution”)

Not a qualified biologist

Doug LaPointe is not a scientist, he is a pastor who graduated with a degree in Communications at Rutgers University. (Source)

Non-Academic Source

This is actually an of-shot web page from www.bestbiblescience.org.

Distortion of Science

Regarding LaPointe, his arguments are way off. Evolution is not based on fragmentary fossils. The theory would still be extremely robust with no fossils at all, based on evidence from modern life. Furthermore, there are more than enough substantially complete skeletons to support evolution. The whale transitional sequence, for example, is based on several excellent skeletons. A single bone, even in isolation, can give a surprising amount of information. A tooth, for example, can show generally what kind of food an animal ate and give an idea of its size. These conclusions, in turn, tell how the animal fits into the ecology. Bones are never considered in isolation; rather, they are compared with other bones from more complete skeletons. If you have a bone that looks like an Iguanodon femur but smaller, to give a simple example, the reconstruction would look a lot like a smaller Iguanodon. A complete reconstruction, however, is possible only if you can match the single bone to an animal for which there is a complete skeleton already.

 

“A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the success of the Origin [of Species] was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculation...This situation, where scientific men rally to the defense of a doctrine that they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science.”

(Source: From “evolutionist” W. R. Thompson, Introduction to The Origin of Species 6th Edition (New york; e. P. Dutton & Co., 1956), p. xxii.)

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Distortion of Science

The quote from Thompson is highly inaccurate and outdated.

Thompson offers nothing more than "Such is the effect of Darwinian fantasy on biological thinking."

Thompson was not a layman, but a scientist with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto, a Master of Science degree from Cornell, a "D.Sc." from the University of Paris, and a Ph.D. from the University of St. Maximin. He was a practicing entomologist (one who studies insects) and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Yet despite all this, and in spite of a background that should have provided him with the skills necessary to construct a logical critique of Poulton's article, and the claim that experiments have shown that this variety of Lantern Fly is mimicking an alligator, all Thompson can do is state that it's a fantasy.

If Thompson truly felt that he had a point, he should have backed it up with evidence.

Question 5

This question asks who said it? "To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance and mutations (Ray's footnote: In biology, mutations are changes to the base pair sequence of the genetic material of an organism) seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross oversimplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and so readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without a murmur of protest." Comfort answers “Sir Ernst Chain,” co-holder of the 1945 Nobel Prize for developing penicillin.

(Source: Ronald W. Clark, The Life of Ernst Chain [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985], pp. 147-148)

 

Not a qualified biologist

Comfort said in the Introduction of this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist. Ronald W. Clark is not a scientist, he is a biographer and author.

Outdated Source

Appeal to authority

Chain was a biochemist, but his personal views does not agree with the actual evidence. Chain's primary objection to evolution is that the probability of the origin of DNA molecules by sheer chance is too small to be seriously considered - however, this is an outdated objection to abiogenesis, not evolution. Additionally, his objection is an argument from ignorance - even if we were to discover that the true probability was enormously small, that has no bearing on whether or not it actually occurred because 'unlikely' does not equate to 'impossible'.

Modern theories refute Chain's objection by noting that it's based on fundamentally flawed assumptions. The first 'life' forms need not resemble modern proteins, they could have been single, self-replicating molecules or any number of other simple living things. The formation of these simple polymers is a natural function of chemistry and the element of 'sheer chance' is limited.

In-Depth Comments

“'Survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection.' No matter what phraseology one generates, the basic fact remains the same: any physical change of any size, shape or form is strictly the result of purposeful alignment of billions of nucleotides (in the DNA). Nature or species do not have the capacity for rearranging them, nor adding them. Consequently no leap (saltation) can occur from one species to another. The only way we know for a DNA to be altered is through a meaningful intervention from an outside source of intelligence: one who knows what it is doing, such as our genetic engineers are now performing in their laboratories.”

(Source: I. L. Cohen (officer of the Archaeological Institute of America) taken from the book Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities (New York: New Research Publications, Inc., 1984, p. 209)

 

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Not a qualified biologist

Comfort said in the Introduction of this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist.

Cohen is a mathematician, not a biologist, so already he is making claims outside his field. Rearrangements of DNA do happen naturally, and no scientist (not even Cohen) has provided any evidence of supernatural influence regarding evolution. The best argument they come up with is the flawed argument from probability. Mutations are degrees of variation which are usually quite subtle but cumulative, normally harmless, and occasionally advantageous. Any change in information is different information, not already present, and therefore can only be considered “new”. But of the many types of mutations known to occur, there are additions and duplications as well as deletions and the rest.

Question 6

A true or false question. "There is ample fossil evidence to support mankind evolved from ape-like creatures." Comfort (unsurprisingly) answers false and then provides another quote: “Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendents. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.”

(Source: S. M. Stanely, The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species (New York: Basic books, 1981), p. 95)

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Here is the full quote (words Comfort omits are in bold);

“Superb fossil data have recently been gathered from deposits of early Cenozoic Age in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming. These deposits represent the first part of the Eocene Epoch, a critical interval when many types of modern mammals came into being. The Bighorn Basin, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, received large volumes of sediment from the Rockies when they were being uplifted, early in the Age of Mammals. In its remarkable degree of completeness, the fossil record here for the Early Eocene is unmatched by contemporary deposits exposed elsewhere in the world. The deposits of the Bighorn Basin provide a nearly continuous local depositional record for this interval, which lasted some five million years. It used to be assumed that certain populations of the basin could be linked together in such a way as to illustrate continuous evolution. Careful collecting has now shown otherwise. Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time. David M. Schankler has recently gathered data for about eighty mammal species that are known from more than two stratigraphic levels in the Bighorn Basin. Very few of these species existed for less than half a million years, and their average duration was greater than a million years.”

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Does not damage evolutionary theory

There are mountains of evidence to prove that man evolved from ape-like creatures, Ray Comfort is only asking for fossil evidence. We have found many fossils that our lineage is not considered complete, but even without a single fossil, we still have plenty evidence of common descent. Demanding an “ape-man” is actually just as silly as asking to see a mammal-man, or a half-human, half-vertebrate. How about a half dachshund, half dog? It’s the same thing. One may as well insist on seeing a town half way between Los Angeles and California. Because the problem with bridging the gap between humans and apes is that there is no gap because humans ARE apes –definitely and definitively. The word, “ape” doesn’t refer to a species, but to a parent category of collective species, and we’re included. This is no arbitrary classification like the creationists use. It was first determined via meticulous physical analysis by Christian scientists a century before Darwin, and has been confirmed in recent years with new revelations in genetics. Furthermore, it is impossible to define all the characters exclusively indicative of every known member of the family of apes without describing our own genera as one among them. Consequently, we can and have proven that humans are apes in exactly the same way that lions are cats, and iguanas are lizards, and whales are mammals. So where is the proof that humans descend from apes? How about the fact that we’re still apes right now!

In-Depth Comments

“...the gradual morphological transitions between presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by most biologists, are missing.”

(Source: David E. Schindel (Curator of Invertebrate Fossils, Peabody Museum of Natural History), “The Gaps in the Fossil Record,” Nature Vol. 297, 27 May 1982, p. 282.)

 

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Distortion of Science

 

“Indeed, it is the chief frustration of the fossil record that we do not have empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of most complex morphological adaptations.”

(Source: Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge, “Species Selection: Its Range and Power,” Nature, Vol. 334, 7 July 1988, p. 19)

 

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Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

The quote by Stephen J. Gould is aquotemine. Gould was explaining punctuated equilibrium, but his work before and afterward explicitly showed that he did accept there were hundreds of transitional fossils.

Question 7

 

This question address archaeology and the Bible. Somehow, Ray Comfort thinks this refutes evolution. The question is which publication reported the following: "In an extraordinary way, modern archaeology is affirming the historical core of the Old and New Testaments, supporting key portions of crucial biblical stories." Comfort answers “Readers Digest”

(Source: Jeffery L. Sheler, “Is the Bible True?” June 2000).

 

Not relevant to evolutionary theory or biology

First of all, the reliability of biblical history is irrelevant to the subject of evolution. Even if the archeology provided any support to the biblical stories (which they don't), it wouldn't damage the credibility of the theory of evolution in any way. If we discovered that Jericho and the Exodus happened, that would not instant change the reality that we (humans) are apes by definition nor would it automatically make the evidence for evolution vanish.

Non-Academic Source

Second of all, Readers Digest can publish whatever they wish and it is rather pathetic that Comfort uses this as a valid argument. How about a legitimate historical journal, or at least by an authentic historian or archaeologist. Jeffery Sheler is a freelance journalist, who worked for the U.S. News & World Report for 24 years, including 15 years as the religion editor. Lets take a look at what two authentic historians and archaeologists and see if they support Ray's claim that archaeology supports the Bible,

•  William Denver, an archaeologists normally associated with the more conservative end of Syro-Palestinian archaeology, has labeled the question of the historicity of Exodus “dead.”
• Israeli archaeologist Ze,ev Herzog, provides the current consensus view on the historicity of the Exodus: “The Israelites were never in Egypt. They never came from abroad. This whole chain is broken. It is not a historical one. It is a later legendary reconstruction—made in the seventh century [BCE]—of a history that never happened.”

In-Depth Comments

“Following the 1993 discovery in Israel of a stone containing the inscriptions “House of David” and “King of Israel,” Time magazine reported, “The writing—dated to the 9^th century B.C., only a century after David's reign—described a victory by a neighboring king over the Israelites...The skeptics' claim that David never existed is now hard to defend.”

(Source: Michael D. Lemonick ("Are the Bible stories True?" Time June 24, 2001)

Not a qualified biologist

Comfort said in the Introduction of this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist. Michael D. Lemonick is a journalist, not a scientist.

Not relevant to evolutionary theory or biology

The quote by Lemonick is also misleading. Skeptics do not question the existence of David, but the size of his empire. Archaeological evidence does not support the description of his empire as described in the Bible, but none of that matters anyway to the theory of evolution. Even if the archeology provided support to the biblical stories of David, it wouldn't damage the credibility of the theory of evolution in any way. Discovering a stone with several engravings on it does not instantly change the reality that we (humans) are apes by definition nor would it automatically make the evidence for evolution vanish.

 

“During the past four decades, spectacular discoveries have produced data corroborating the historical backdrop of the Gospels. In 1968, for example, the skeletal remains of a crucified man were found in a burial cave in northern Jerusalem...There was evidence that his wrists may have been pierced with nails. The knees had been doubled up and turned sideways and an iron nail (still lodged in the heel bone of one foot) driven through both heels. The shinbones appeared to have been broken, perhaps corroborating the Gospel of John.”

(Source: Jeffery L. Sheler. “Is the Bible True?” Readers Digest June 2000)

 

Not relevant to evolutionary theory or biology

This does not mean squat to the theory of evolution. Despite whether the act of crucifixion was common or practiced back then is irrelevant. None of it does not instant change the reality that we (humans) are apes by definition nor would it automatically make the evidence for evolution vanish.

Non-Academic Source

Sheler's quote proves nothing except crucifixion was practiced back then. Nobody argues against this. What the problem is that there is no evidence for a crucified man who rose from the dead several days later. There is no evidence of a massive earthquake, a solar eclipse, nor a mass resurrection of the dead who walked in the streets of Jerusalem for all to see.

We know that Greek heroes were often buried in certain fashions, and we have evidence of these burials, but that does not mean mythical Greek heroes described in Homer's epics as real.

 

“At the present stage of geological research, we have to admit that there is nothing in the geological records that runs contrary to the view of conservative creationists, that God created each species separately, presumably from the dust of the earth.”

(Source: Edmund J. Ambrose (Emeritus Professor of Cell Biology, University of London), The Nature and Origin of the Biological World (John Wiley & Sons, 1982) p. 164)

 

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Turns out this is a quote mine. The full quote is provided below, with omitted words in bold;

“We need to remember that the only evidence about the way events occurred in the past is found in the geological records. However sophisticated advances in molecular genetics and molecular engineering may become eventually, the fact that a genetic change or even a new species might be generated eventually in the laboratory does not tell us how new species arose in the past history of the earth. They merely provide possible mechanisms. At the present stage of geological research, we have to admit that there is nothing in the geological records that runs contrary to the view of conservative creationists, that God created each species separately, presumably from the dust of the earth. My own view is that this does not strengthen the creationists' arguments.”

Does not damage evolutionary theory

So Ambrose believes that the fossil record is incomplete, but doesn't feel that this strengthens the creationist's hand. But he does feel that the geological record supports evolution, as we can see on page 103:

“It is strikingly clear in the geological records, when life had reached the stage where organisms were capable of living in a previously unoccupied region of the planet, such as the move from estuaries to dry land, the appearance of plants growing to great heights which provided a location (habitat) for climbing animals, or when birds and insects actually moved up and flew in theair[sp] above the earth's surface. Large numbers of new species appeared at these times; this has been called radiation, a spreading out of life.”

Outdated Source

Distortion of Science

Taking the quote-mine at face value, Ambrose would be completely mistaken. The geological record does not support a young earth, global flood, or any other myth in creationism.

Question 8

 

Fill in the blank question. Richard Dawkins said "feathers are modified reptilian ______" Ray answers "scales" (put provides no source for this) and argues this is false. Ray Comfort uses arguments from Jonathan Sarfati, and creationist author with a PhD in chemistry. Sarfati formerly worked for Answers in Genesis (AiG), presently works for Creation Ministries International (CMI) as co-editor of their magazine, Creation.

 

Not a qualified biologist

Comfort said in the Introduction of this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist. Sarfati is not a paleontologist, biologist or skilled in taxonomy. Here is asite that reveals Sarfati's fallacious works. Sarfati's work has been known as "crude piece of propaganda"by the National Center for ScienceEducation. Reed A. Cartwright and Dr Douglas L. Theobald, have criticized Sarfati's claims such as one that accuses scientists of continually changing the definition of vestigial to match the evidence.

Distortion of Science

Feathers are indeed modified reptilian scales.

In-Depth Comment

Comfort quotes E. Mayr, “Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism...and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phylogenetic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quiet abruptly in the fossil record.”

(Source: E. Mayr, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), pg. 138)

 

Outdated Source

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Not surprising, the quote by Mayr is a quote mine. Continuing on, it reads, “During the synthesis it became clear that since new evolutionary departures seem to take place almost invariably in localized isolated populations, it is not surprising that the fossil record does not reflect these sequences.”

Ernst Mayr there is paraphrasing Steve Gould's findings and he's talking about species levels. In other words, the level at which punctuated equilibrium applies to single lineages of one species moving to the next as we talked about before. Mayr is not not talking about things like the origins of birds and feathers and whales and getting land creatures out of that. Ernst Mayr was not a paleontologist and did not familiarize himself with the date of the fossil record.

 

Question 9

 

Addressing transitional fossils. Does transitional fossils prove macroevolution as a scientific fact? Ray Comfort answers “No.”

Comfort then provides a quote from Luther D. Sutherland's book Darwin's Enigma. “Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums are filled with over 100-million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track.”

(Source: Luther D. Sunderland (Creationist), Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, 1988, p. 9 (Emphasis added by Comfort)

Ray Comfort claims that nothing has changed in 30 years.

Does not damage evolutionary theory

Darwin's Enigma is a rather infamous creationist book piled with dishonesty, but several years later the author Sunderland changed his views.

Distortion of Science

Transitional fossils do prove macroevolution is a fact, but so does phylogeny, speciation, specie rings, and much more.

We have discovered many transional fossils that prove macroevolution. A decade ago, Kathleen Hunt, a zoologist with the University of Washington, produced a list of a few hundred of the more dramatic transitional species known so far, all of which definitely fit every criteria required of the most restrictive definition. Myriad transitional species have been, and still are being, discovered; so many in fact that lots of biologists and paleontologists now consider that list “innumerable” especially since the tally of definite transitionals keeps growing so fast! Several lineages are now virtually complete, including our own.

Apparently, Ray Comfort, A LOT has happened in thirty years.

In-Depth Comment

"Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state of motion, with ongoing but slow and gradual change accruing over long periods of time, it follows logically that the fossil record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from the less to more evolved...But when the dust settled, and the fossils were assessed in terms of whether they validated Darwin's evolutionary predictions, a clear picture of slow, gradual evolution, with smooth transitions and transformations from fossils of one period to another, was not forthcoming. Instead of filling the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational intermediates between documented fossil species."

(Source: Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes and the Emergence of Species (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999), p. 89).

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Here is the full quote (with words omitted in bold)

“Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state of motion, with ongoing but slow and gradual change accruing over long periods of time, it followed logically that the fossil record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from the less to the more evolved. Not only had Darwin put these thoughts into words but he had also illustrated them in a diagram that consisted of hypothesized ancestors giving rise over time to hypothesized lineages of descendant organisms. In various places in this diagram, Darwin indicated the extinctions of hypothetical lineages as well as the origins of a multiplicity of species from the same ancestor. In words and in illustration -- the only illustration in On the Origin of Species -- Darwin breathed new life into the discipline of paleontology, which was the only field of study that could provide the scientific world with an actual picture of his view of evolution.

Fueled in no small way by the role that paleontology could assume -- reconstructing and also demonstrating the course of evolution -- the world's leading museums of natural history focused on fossil collecting. When these institutions were first founded, they were envisioned as the forums for displaying, in often overfilled and poorly labeled cabinets, unorganized geologic and biological collections of plain old specimens. Now, armed with the possibility of being able to exhibit not just an array of fossils but the drama of evolution itself, museums vied with one another to secure the best fossil localities and discover increasingly older representatives of the lineages of now-extinct animals. In the American West, fossil hunting took on the stereotype of the ruthless Old West. Fossil localities were kept secret and guarded by men with rifles. Armed guards also accompanied the trainloads of plaster-protected and crated fossils that often traveled by night in order to avoid detection. Sometimes, however, these attempts at secrecy did not work, and gangs from rival museums would successfully raid and loot the paleontological spoils of the competition.

But when the dust settled, and the fossils were assessed in terms of whether they validated Darwin's evolutionary predictions, a clear picture of slow, gradual evolution, with smooth transitions and transformations from fossils of one period to another, was not forthcoming. Instead of filling in the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational evolutionary intermediates between documented fossil species. Without fossil intermediates to back up Darwinian predictions of how evolution works, the turn of the century saw [P. 90] both paleontology (an evolutionary discipline) and gradual change via natural selection (an evolutionary model) fall on hard times. Even the paleontologists' special plea---that the gaps in the fossil record were the consequences of poor preservation, the loss of fossils through erosion or other destructive processes---did not work.'

The egregious omission of context is evident from the sentence immediately following, but omitted from, the original quotation. The most natural interpretation of the quotation, as originally given, is that in the second sentence Schwartz was referring to the contemporary status of palaeontology. However, in the section of Sudden Origins from which the quotation was taken, Schwartz was giving a historical account of the fate of Darwin's theory, and of palaeontological activities, in the years immediately following the publication of On the Origin of Species. It is clear from the missing context that in the last sentence of the cited quotation Schwartz was referring to the status of palaeontology towards the end of the 19th century.

Schwartz's opinion about the state of palaeontology may be at the time he was writing (c. 1999, when his book was published) which may well be much the same as it is about its state towards the end of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the cited quotation provides no evidence whatsoever that this is the case, since, as already noted, Schwartz was there referring only to the situation as it stood at the earlier period.

As the complete version of the quotation shows, the omitted text indicated by the second ellipsis in the original version comprises three full sentences at the end of the paragraph where it starts, the entire following paragraph, and one sentence at the beginning of the next. If the proper context, as indicated above, had been otherwise provided, the omission of this text would not seem to me, by itself, to have substantially changed the meaning of the quoted text. Nevertheless, the quotation, as given, suggests a much closer connection between its first and second sentences than there actually is between them in Schwartz's original text.

In the second sentence of the original quotation, the word "evolutionary" has been omitted from between "transformational" and "intermediates". Presumably this was an inadvertent copying error, since it does not appear to favor any particular interpretation of the original text over any other.

Question 10

True or False question. Does the first law of thermodynamics state energy and matter cannot be created? Comfort correctly answers “True” but argues that this proves the the Bible true and the Big Bang Theory false, because Comfort claims the Big Bang Theory says everything came from nothing. Ray Comfort quotes Genesis 2:1 to argue that the “heavens and the earth were finished” and Genesis 2:2 that “God rested from his work of creation” – therefore, according to Ray Comfort, “our present universe prevent any possibility of matter springing out of nothing today.”

 

Not relevant to evolutionary theory or biology

How does the Big Bang prove the Bible? The Bible says that the universe was created magically from nothing. The Big Bang does not say at all that the universe was created magically or from nothing. While some scientists may claim that the universe originated from nothing, they no not mean that all matter was created from nothing. To clarify, they say that space and matter was so small that it seemed almost irrelevant to include it in their equations, but they understand that there was always something. Dr. Sten Odenwald (Raytheon STX) for NASA, Education and Public Outreach program, 2001 spelled out what scientists mean when they say "nothing:"

“How can 'nothing' do anything at all, let alone create an entire universe? When physicists say 'nothing' they are being playful with the english language, because we often think of the vacuum as being 'empty' or 'nothing' when in fact physicists know full well that the vacuum is far from empty. The primordial 'state' at the Big Bang was far from being the kind of 'nothingness' you might have in mind. We don't have a full mathematical theory for describing this 'state' yet, but it was probably 'multi- dimensional', it was probably a superposition of many different 'fields', and these fields, or whatever they were, were undergoing 'quantum fluctuations'. Space and time were not the things we know them to be today because our world is a lot colder than the way it started out. Nothingness was not nothing, but it was not anything like the kinds of 'somethings' we know about today. We have no words to describe it, and the ones we borrow (that are listed in the Oxford English Dictionary) are based on the wrong physical insight.”

In-Depth Comment

 

“First Law of thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another. The First Law of Thermodynamics (Conservation) states that energy is always conserved; it cannot be created or destroyed. In essence, energy can be converted from one form into another.”

(Source: Michael J. Farabee, Ph.D.,Online Biology Book, 2007)

 

Not relevant to evolutionary theory or biology

The quote provided is correct, but Ray Comfort's conclusion is not. Ray's position, creationism, states God created everything. In the book of Genesis, God said "Let there be..." and it was. This is basically an incantation (i.e. MAGIC) that created everything out of thin air (nothing). It does not explain how God created anything, nor does Ray provide anything that is only the result of supernatural creation.

TOTALS FOR THIS SEGMENT (Q 1 - 10)

Fallacy	Number of Fallacies
Quote Mining	12
Appeal to Authority	1
Outdated Source	11
Non-Academic Source	7
Not a qualified biologist or scientist	6
Not Relevant to Evolutionary theory or Biology	5
Not Damaging to Evolutionary theory	5
Distortion of Science	10
Total	57

There are a total of 28 quotes in this segment. Almost half of them are quote-mines

Refutation of "Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups" - Introduction

Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups is a book authored by Christian creationist Ray Comfort, published in 2008. In this book, Ray Comfort provides a series of “questions” that he hopes will “undermine people's acceptance of the theory of evolution.” Each of these questions are centered around a specific quote from what Ray Comfort describes as a “evolutionary expert” (Introduction, pg. 5). There are a total of 101 Questions, but some of them are followed by one or several quotes.

However, there are legions of problems with Comfort's rather dishonest piece of work. This article will provide each of the quotes, followed by a refutation and critical analysis of each quote, including highlights of certain fallacies throughout the book.

Unfortunately, due to the vast number of quotes to examine, this will have to be covered in a series of articles.The very last article will summarize the book and calculate the total number of fallacies.

But before I begin, I want to give a special THANK YOU to Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of National Center for Science Education, Inc. for all the help he has provided. I cannot begin to appreciate the help he had offered me, everything from his comments about my work to helping me find dozens of sources of these quotes to verify if they were taken out of context. Thank you very much Glenn, I wish you the best. Keep doing what you do.

Moving on, granted that this Book Review/Critical Analysis will be massive, which will have to be covered in numerous blog articles, you can follow along by clicking the appropriate links below, or in the side bar under "Refutation of "Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grown Ups" by Ray Comfort"

Questions 1-10

Questions 11-20
Questions 21-30
Questions 31-40
Questions 41-50
Questions 51-60
Questions 61-70
Questions 71-80
Questions 81-90
Questions 91-101
Vestigial Chapter
FINAL REPORT CARD of "Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grown Ups."

***Anti-evolution work will be shown throughout the book, but as a bonus, talkorigins made an article explained the creationists fallacious and dishonest methods of presenting such quotations.

Fallacies

Not relevant to evolutionary theory or biology

First and foremost, what must be carefully observed is if the quote provided by Ray Comfort even addresses the theory of evolution. Many of the quotes brought up by Comfort's sources do not even address the theory of evolution in the slightest. For example, several of Comfort's sources address the religiosity of Albert Einstein or try to prove the historicity or credibility of the Bible. The arguments presented by these sources (even if they were correct) do not have any relevance whatsoever to cellular biology or the theory of evolution.

It must be noted that Comfort, and several of his sources, deliberately and maliciously confuse the theory of evolution is meant to also explain the origin of life and/or the origin of the universe. However, the truth is that the theory of evolution does not and it not meant to explain such questions. Evolution only explains and answers the divergence of life, nothing more.

Not a qualified biologist

Next, we must check to see if the sources are coming from credible scientists. Despite Comfort's claim that he would be using quotes from "evolutionary experts" (Introduction, pg. 5), many of these quotes come from men who are not qualified biologists or any other relevant fields (or even qualified scientists at all). Throughout this review of the book, every quote-mine will be pointed out and revealed, as well as every instance when the person is not a biologist or a scientist.

Often times, Comfort provides sources from apologetic sites, usually written by men who are not scientists in the slightest. Many of them are ministers, apologists, or freelance journalists who write whatever they want. Regardless, none of these men are “evolutionary experts” who submit their papers to academic sources for peer review – rather, they are all tired-old rants that have been addressed countless times, but these religious men continue to kick the dead horse.

Does not damage evolutionary theory

This is regarding references that actually DO address relevant fields such as cellular biology, genetics, taxonomy and paleontology. There are handfuls of the references provided by Comfort that stay on point, but they do not damage the theory of evolution as Comfort wishes they did. References that fit under this category usually address the Cambrian explosion, lack of fossils, or try to present several evolutionary “hoaxes.” Unfortunately, these typical creationist arguments do not damage the theory of evolution for multiple reasons. Creationists tend to use the Achilles Heel fallacy, and think if they can prove that there are no fossils and a few of them were faked, then the entire theory of evolution is destroyed. That is not the case at all. There are vast amounts of data and peer-reviewed papers (which creationists obviously and deliberately ignore) examining the evidence for the Cambrian explosion and transitional fossils, and the fact is these “arguments” are wrong and have been known to be wrong for a very long time.

Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

A large portion of the quotes Comfort provides are quote mines - distortions of what the author intended to mean. While other quotes maybe legitimate, they come from creationists or are not even addressing the theory of evolutionary all.

Important note: Please be careful when you read a reference that includes one or more “...” spaces. Chances are very likely that something very significant was purposefully left out to alter the persons main message in favor of appearing anti-evolution. This is a common tactic amongst creationists, as this review will point out.

Outdated Source

Many of the quotes in this book are highly outdated; Less than half (about 40%) of these quotes were made within the last 20 years. The rest are over 20 years old. In fact, 15% were over 40 years old, going all the way back to Darwin's day and even one reference to Isaac Newton.

Often times, the quotes and claims that are out-dated no longer apply because years of scientific research has built a stronger understanding of the theory of evolution (as well as many other scientific fields). For instance, quoting a source over a decade old about the lack of transitional fossils is useless, especially over the past recent years of many findings of numerous transitional fossils, making the older claims moot and worthless.

Appeal to authority

Comfort hopes to accomplish this by using quotes from various sources as evidence. However, there are several major problems with Comfort's approach. For starters, rather than presenting actual scientific evidence, Comfort resorts to quotes which is fallacy known as appeal to authority. Comfort often times quotes a lone great scientist (often times are not even biologists) that does not accept the theory of evolution, and therefore this somehow means the vast numbers of scientists in multiple fields in all the professional academic all around the world are wrong.

Non-Academic Source

Comfort cites the popular press as though they are legitimate scientific sources who represent the full scientific consensus. For example, he claims that the 1999 archaeoraptor hoax fooled the entire scientific community, although no one was fooled but a few people at National Geographic, which, although it has an important-sounding name, is a magazine, not a peer-reviewed journal.

Comfort also includes several sources that are not in the least scientific, academic, or scholarly; such as World Net Daily and Fox News. Some of his sources are Christian apologetic sites. Sites like these are not concerned with providing accurate scientific material (and often rather anti-scientific material). They only write and publish anything that fits into their dogmatic views, and dismiss all legitimate scientific evidence if they think it contradicts their personal beliefs. To understand how closed they are, here are several examples of creationist and apologetic sites that openly proclaim their dogmatic biases on their websites (as if it is something to be proud of);

"By definition, no apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.” – Answersingenesis.org

“verbal inspiration guarantees that these writings, as originally and miraculously given, are infallible and completely authoritative on all matters with which they deal, free from error of any sort, scientific and historical as well as moral and theological.” – Institute for Creation Research

“Revealed Truth: That which is revealed in Scripture, whether or not man has scientifically proved it. If it is in the Bible, it is already true without requiring additional proof.

…Fallacy: that which contradicts God’s revealed truth, no matter how scientific, how commonly believed, or how apparently workable or logical it may seem.” – Bob Jones University, Biology Student Text (3^rd ed. – 2 vol.)

Notice that they all admit that they will automatically and thoughtlessly reject without consideration, any and all evidence that which may presented should it appear to disagree with their a priory preconceived conclusion.

Distortion of Science

Finally, many references throughout this book are false and blatant attacks against evolutionary theory and science in general. Many references make serious mistakes and errors in regards to the nature of science or the evidence in favor of the theory of evolution. Example, many of the questions claim there are no transitional fossils, but this it absolutely not true. Other examples include the false claims that the geological column does not exist, the peppered moths do not provide proof for the theory of evolution, mutations do not provide any proof of evolution, and such. Each and every scientifically false statement will be addressed and explained.

Common criticisms towards evolution

Many of the questions attack the fossil record, since Ray Comfort still holds that the greatest evidence for evolution are fossils, and thus showing weakness in this field shows the inferiority of all science. This is not the case, because even if we did not have a single fossil at all, we still have mountains of evidence to prove evolution;

*genetics

*phylogeny

*taxonomy

*ontogeny

*biogeography

*not to mention that we observe speciation (macroevolution) right now – both in the lab an in nature.

Virtually all scientific fields not only support evolution, they confirm evolution in great detail. Certain field of science depend on the fact of evolution, such as agriculture and medicine (which Ray admits he does go to the hospital to get treated or vaccinated). One more note, Ray Comfort does not understand what a transitional fossil is, despite his repeated pleas that he does indeed know. To Comforts mind, a transitional fossil would not be something similar to Kirk Cameron's crocoduck. However, ducks are not descended from crocodiles, nor are crocodiles descended from ducks, so there has never been a transition from crocodiles to ducks, or ducks to crocodiles, so we wouldn't expect to find any such fossils. In fact, Darwin explained in detail why we should NOT find anything like this. We’re not looking for a blend of two species that both currently exist. Such a thing would actually go against evolution. Instead, he said, that if his theory were true, then what we should find would be a basal form potentially ancestral to both current species. And in this one case alone, we’ve found dozens of them in a near continuous lineage dating beyond the dawn of the Mesozoic era.

Comfort also makes several attacks against gradualism. Gradualism was the notion that evolution occurs slowly and steadily. However, we now know that this is not the case, due to all the science that we've done since Darwin. Apart from attacking gradualism and transitional forms, comfort tries to refute the entire fossil record by naming a few hoaxes, but these are only a few rare exceptions made by actual qualified scientists and does not refute archeology, and ignores both the fact that creationists have several hoaxes of their own (such as the Paluxy footprints, the Calaveras skull, Moab and Malachite Man, and others). More telling is how people deal with these hoaxes. Example, when Piltdown was exposed, it stopped being used as evidence. The creationist hoaxes, however, can still be found cited as if they were real. Piltdown has been over and done with for decades, but the dishonesty of creationist hoaxes continues.

Comfort also tries to refute the theory of evolution by attacking other scientific fields (abiogenesis, the Big Bang, carbon-dating, anthropic principle, quantum theory, etc.). Evolutionary theory has no connection with any of these fields and has nothing to contribute or say about them, thus any such comments are therefore irrelevant.

Comfort also attempts to refute evolution by trying to provide "evidence" for the Bible, such as archaeology and several passages that could be interpreted as scientific foreknowledge. While Ray's sources are wrong, simply attempting to add credulity to the Bible (or any other religious text) does not refute evolution in any way no more than it refutes atomic theory or gravity. All of these (evolution, atoms, and gravity) are scientific theories and facts.

At the end of each article will include a chart summarizing the number of each fallacies. The Concluding article will add up all the numbers and calculate how much of this book is bogus.

Arguments in favor of Young Earth Creationism

Several of the "101 questions" are attempts to prove Young Earth creationism. Here are a few examples,

*man co-existed with dinosaurs (Question 74)

*carbon-dating is flawed

*the geological column does not exist (Question 101)

Despite Ray Comfort's attempts to distance himself from revealing his thoughts on how old the earth and universe is, this book provides a demonstration of his views.

Introduction

Comfort starts this introduction retelling the story of Charles Darwin, claiming he was disillusioned about God, and came up with a theory to explain the “amazing order and complexity came from nothing and randomly evolved over time.”

As already explained to Comfort countless times, the theory of evolution does not claim anything came from nothing (that is what creationists argue for) and natural selection is not random.

Ray Comfort states that throughout this book, he will demonstrate that the theory of evolution is not a fact, but a theory. He stresses that again by saying "it is just a theory."

 

Obviously, Ray does not know what a theory is. Evolution is a theory AND a fact. The following are also scientific theories: the earth orbiting around the sun (heliocentrism), germs causing disease, gravity, atoms, cells, etc. These are all theories and facts, just like evolution. But Ray Comfort and his ilk are not arguing against any of the others, they single out evolution because they think it conflicts with their religious views. Because of this, Ray will not accept any evidence provided for evolution.

Bear in mind, the word “theory” in laymen's terms is VERY different from scientific terms. Theories are grand fields of study, each supported by facts. Creationists like Ray Comfort proudly parade that “theories” can never be proven. Well, if music theory is a field of study, and as such can never be proved, then neither can the theories of evolution or even economics, and for the same reason. THAT notion is silly. Even if a theory passes every test forever, we still wouldn’t say it was proved, because positive proof exists only in matters of mathematics or law, wherein evolution actually has been proven. Otherwise, no theory has ever been proved, nor can be. They can only be dis-proved. And when that happens, a theory that doesn’t work must be replaced by one that does. We can’t discard any theory just because we haven’t perfected every part of it yet. You can’t trade something that works for nothing that doesn’t. If the original theory works at all, you’ll still have to use it, and perhaps fix it. But we can’t dismiss it until we can replace it with something better. And Darwin’s theory is actually better-supported than Newton’s theory of gravity.

Ray claims that throughout his book, many people will claim that some of the quotes will be quote-mined (and indeed they will be and we can prove it). Ray explains that quote-mining is using a quote in a way that was not intended by the author. This is correct and Ray cannot claim ignorance of this fallacy. Ray responds with the following;

“This book will no doubt be seen by some as “quote mining.” This is the practice of taking a quote (often out of its context), and using it in a way that was never intended by the author. However, every gold nugget is legitimately mined out of its context. No one seriously values the earth that encases the gold. So, when I uncover an evolutionary expert quietly admitting that he has no evidence to back up his theory, I don’t see any value in the soil of his surrounding words. I merely extract what I believe is of value for those who want to discover the truth about the theory of evolution.”

 

Basically, Ray Comfort just openly admitted that he knows he is quote-mining on purpose and is deliberately misleading and lying to the reader. Comfort knows what he is doing and now we all know: Ray Comfort is a lying hypocrite. Ray is known to straight up call strangers, lay people, or anybody in general liars and tell them lying is wrong since it violates God's Law. Ray claims that the Ninth Commandment demands that "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. God is a God of truth and His Law demands absolute honesty from the heart."(The School of Biblical Evangelism, Lesson 13: The Ten Commandments Part 9, Ray Comfort) But it seems lying for Jesus is perfectly okay? Wrong. If Ray firmly believes that Christianity makes you a moral person, an honest person, then under no circumstances are you to knowingly lie. But here in the Introduction, Ray announced he knew full well that he was being deceitful, and had to make an excuse ahead of time to counter the immense criticism that would follow after the publication of this book.

Also note the part where Ray says “I don’t see any value in the soil of his surrounding words. I merely extract what I believe is of value...” this basically means that Ray went out of his way to look through entire publications and crop the bits to make the authors appear they do not support the proposition they are trying to prove. This also means that Ray deliberately overlooked all the physical evidence provided by these scientists that are meant to prove the theory of evolution. So not only is Ray a hypocritical liar, it seems he is also willingly ignorant.

Ray Comfort likes to praise himself as the champion of truth. But if you have to lie in order to support and declare your position, they you obviously know that your position is not true. Ray Comfort, you are a liar.

Next, Ray Comfort goes on to explain what a transitional fossil is. Ray Comfort defines a transitional fossil as “a fossil showing one life form evolving (or changing) to create another, new form of life.”

Ray Comfort is still convinced that the strongest evidence for evolution is fossils, which is not true at all. This is not an accurate definition of a transitional fossil. A transitional fossil is a creature with a mosaic of features shared between older creatures and modern animals. Evolution does not argue that "new life" will evolve, since nothing can escape its heritage. All life on earth is carbon based, and no "new life" has evolved since.

The only evidence Ray Comfort claims evolutionists have are drawings of monkeys slowly straightening upright into modern humans. Next, he defines evolution in “simplistic terms” (that is, his own twisted version that is far from what evolution actually is)...

The universe began with a "big bang" where something suddenly came from nothing, and from there water formed, primitive life appeared in the water, it came up on land, became male and female primates, then eventually evolved into modern man. In other words, simple life forms "transitioned" from one species to another until apes became men and women. however, there is a big problem for those who believe in this theory. Scientists cant find a legitimate "missing link" between apes and man in the fossil record.

Where to begin. The first half is one big straw man of cosmology, abiogenesis, and biology. Again, evolution has nothing to do with the Big Bang Theory. Life would still evolve regardless how the universe formed. The Big Bang does not claim everything came from nothing, that is what creationists argue for: that everything was "magically" created out of thin air. Ray mocks the idea that animals can come from the water and live on land, but he is ignorant of dozens of modern animals that do just that, like the mudskipper. Does Ray seriously think that male and females did not exist until apes originated? Also, the missing link is no longer missing and it hasn't been for many years. We have found dozens of authentic and proven transitional fossils, but creationist will do anything to dismiss it outright. They demand to see a half-man half-ape, which is like asking for a half-duck half-bird, or where is the midway point between Los Angeles and California? So where is the evidence that man evolved from apes? How about the fact that we are apes right now.

Comfort claims to have searched and studied quotes from paleontologists, and concluded they were all “quacks.” He says he has interviewed evolutionists, and they are forced to admit they have a “few” transitional fossils that they may fit into a coffin.

 

Ray Comfort just admitted, he was only searching for "quotes" and not the actual evidence and discoveries. He is basing these "quacks" on quotes, not based on their models, proofs or data. As for stating he interviews "evolutionists", this is not true. As already seen on his show Way of the Master about evolution, he only interviews random people on the street. Also, we have millions of transitional fossils that it would be impossible to fit into a coffin (unless the coffin was as bigger than the state of Montana).

 

Ray includes a quote from the Indiana University website (LarryFlammer, "Class Cladogram of Vertebrate/Human Evolution.") that claims that transitional fossil evidence is “few” and “very spotty.” Ray however disagrees and claims that none exist at all. Not one. They only exist in the imaginations of pseudoscientific evolutionists. When the website mentions the word “hypothesis,” Ray says that just means “imagination.”

Here is the full quote from the website (bold are lines Ray omitted),

According to the theory of evolution, the “descent with modification” road to humans (or any other group, for that matter) is paved with a sequence of transitional fossils, spaced out in a time sequence reflected in the ages of the fossils found. Since fossils of soft-bodied animals are relatively rare (they don't fossilize easily), the record is rather spotty prior to the first appearance of vertebrates (in the form of jawless fishes), so this lesson will focus only on the fossil record of vertebrates.

...

However, most of those groups along the way apparently failed to survive in their original forms. They became extinct. But fortunately, some members of some of those groups were fossilized, and a few of those are found from time to time, giving us the hit-or-miss, very spotty record of fossils which has lead us to hypothesize that picture of a branched tree of being which we call evolution. New fossils are being found every day, helping to fill in some of the gaps, and those fossils continue to confirm and strengthen that picture of life through time with ever-increasing detail.

Ray says evolutionists speak in what Ray calls the “language of speculation;” that is, their responses do not include absolute terms. They use words like probably, possibly, perhaps, maybe, could be, etc.

Ray still does not understand that science never claims to be absolutely correct. Scientific theories must remain falsifiable, as new collected data could alter, improve or disprove any given scientific law or theory.

Next, Ray Comfort says two Gallup polls in 1982 and 2007 show that over 80 percent of the American population believes God created man, claiming the people have not been "fooled."

What he does not explain is if these people believe God used evolution as a tool for making humans. Also, scientific legitimacy and truth is not based on popular vote. Plus, Ray Comfort is asking the wrong people. Over 95 percent The National Association of Scientists, the elite and brilliant scientists of America, accept evolution as a fact.

Ray Comfort claims to not be an expert on the subject of evolution, therefore throughout this book he will quote (quote-mine) from “evolutionary experts” what they believe about the theory of evolution and that it requires blind faith to accept evolution.

Ray Comfort does not claim to be an expert on the subject — no duh, we already knew that. Someone who is not trained int he field of science, has no scientific degree of any kind, should not be making a book on something they do not understand. Ray Comfort is attempting to refute the strongest theory in science with quote (actually, quote mines), which is like using a few altered quotes from scientists to disprove gravity. Unfortunately, gravity nor any scientific theory is refuted with quotes.

Evolution does not requires faith, since we actually have evidence that Ray is careful not to share and the fact that we observe evolution now.