Some of them were aggressive, like Thomas Huxley.
Some still are, like Dawkins and Coyne, only too happy to play the ridicule card and overwhelm people by referring to the sheer volume of "scientific evidence" to fend off any opposition.
Some, like Darwin, were not so aggressive but couldn't escape from the sheer weight of evidence supporting evolution, and the coherence it brought to the understanding of nature.
Nor can thoughtful folk today.
This does not take into account that the Creator is not testable by any means of man's contrivance. The fact that his existence is not testable could also mean that humans are not yet advanced enough to comprehend a being with power capable of creating the universe. That would be tantamount to a slug trying to comprehend quantum physics. Does it ever occur to humans that they may not be the sharpest tools in the shed?
What's an example of this?
One would be calling adaptation "evolution" without qualification. Science has proven in a lab that adaptation is indeed a mechanism 'installed in the software' of all living things. Ability to adapt to new surroundings and food sources is a survival mechanism...and an awesome one. But taking what can be proven in a lab and insinuating that they have good evidence that adaptation can be carried over into the creation of new organisms is not exactly truthful. They have no evidence for that unless they manufacture it....and manufacture it they have in vast volumes of "evidence". The thing they neglect to mention is the suggestive nature of their claims and the inference and assumptions that take place in those explanations. Calling it all "evolution" implies that it can all be proven, when that is simply not true. They can prove adaptation but that is where the truth ends and fantasy begins.
And does it matter to the modern theory of evolution, which has been confirmed and expanded ever since Darwin, not least when genetics became available as a tool by which the old morphological taxonomies were reexamined and where necessary redefined.
I would like to see the actual evidence for "morphology". As far as I have ever researched, this "morphology is based on nothing but suggestion as to what "might have" or "could have" happened all those millions of years ago. Anything based on a "might have" or a "could have" is not a fact....it is an unsubstantiated assumption, put forward as a suggestion and then embellished with a heap of biased interpretation of evidence. We see fossils lined up in a 'chain' of supposed evolutionary changes and yet no one can even prove that they were ever in a line, or that there is any relationship, let alone a morphing.
I don't think you could say that if you were aware of the sheer volume and consistency of the evidence.
The sheer volume is just that.....sheer volume of claims....not real evidence. All that volume is not provable and therefore there are no "facts" in science. How is it taught as truth when it is only suggestion supported by biased interpretation of evidence?
But the arguments against an Intelligent Designer are numerous and very strong.
No they are not. The arguments against ID are as weak as dishwater because of the way science demands evidence to be presented. If you can't prove something by their methods, then it can't be considered "scientific". And yet science cannot even substantiate their own claims by the same criteria. They can prove nothing, which puts them on equal ground with those who believe in ID. They have a belief system just like we do, dependent on faith in what science asserts.
No evidence supports the claim, for instance. If you remember the Dover trial, Michael Behe gave evidence about 'irreducible complexity', the only purported evidence for ID (and I say 'purported' because even were it correct it wouldn't be evidence for ID). Yet every single one of his examples was explained by real scientists as the result of exaptation. Behe had known he had a problem with exaptation since no later than 2002, but he hadn't fixed it by the Dover Trial (2005) and he hasn't fixed it since.
OK, lets look at "Exaptations"....
An "exaptation" is just one example of a characteristic that evolved, but that isn't considered an adaptation. Evolutionary biologists Stephen Gould and Elizabeth Vrba proposed vocabulary to let biologists talk about features that are and are not adaptations:
- Adaptation — a feature produced by natural selection for its current function (such as echolocation in bats, right).
- Exaptation — a feature that performs a function but that was not produced by natural selection for its current use. Perhaps the feature was produced by natural selection for a function other than the one it currently performs and was then co-opted for its current function. For example, feathers might have originally arisen in the context of selection for insulation, and only later were they co-opted for flight. In this case, the general form of feathers is an adaptation for insulation and an exaptation for flight.
What did the Dover trial accomplish? It simply stated that ID was not "science" (by science's own definition) and should not be taught in a science class. I have never argued with that, but at the same time, it was tried under the definition of man's law and by the "scientific method", invented by scientists, neither of which has anything to do with God or creation. God does not need man's law to establish himself as Creator and I am sure he laughs when scientists claim that he can't exist by using their own limited means to establish his non-existence.
And of course the case is famous for the attempts of Dembski, Meyer and Campbell to get ID statements into evidence without having to be cross-examined on them; and how when it became clear that if they did so they couldn't avoid cross-examination, they turned and fled for the distant hills like Bold Sir Robin.
I'm not technically an atheist, but if I'm wrong I'm always pleased to be put straight.
I have been a Bible believer for most of my life, being raised in a "Christian" home and being sent to "Sunday School" and doing my confirmation and feeling as empty as a bucket walking out of church every week. When my parents told me that after my confirmation I could choose to do as I pleased, I never set foot inside that church again. But I never lost my faith in God...only in the hypocritical church system. Searching in other denominations brought me no closer to finding the God I saw so clearly in creation....so I gave up and took an excursion into evolution to see if I had been wrong all that time. I found it so unsatisfying that I couldn't believe what was being shoved down my throat in a stronger fashion than religion was.
I was in limbo searching for a while, not knowing where to turn next......and then JW's knocked on my door. I didn't see them as any different to all the rest until I started asking all the hard questions. No one could answer them...but these people did, not from their own belief system, but straight from the Bible. I became a Bible student right then and there, as opposed to being a church-goer...a mere pew warmer. I haven't stopped learning since and I have a passion for the God of the Bible that has not waned in over 45 years. I don't need science to tell me that God doesn't exist.....I know he does, and he has proved himself to me over the years in more ways than I can count. God is as much an experience as he is a personage. So explaining God to someone who hasn't 'experienced' him is like explaining colors to someone born blind. You can know color exists because people tell you it does, but unless you experience color with your senses, it is just talk.
As for God showing up, what test are we going to use to determine whether the being making the claim is a god or not? What is a real god? For my part I have no idea and no one will tell me.
I do not claim to know 'what' God is....all I know is 'who' he is, and what he has accomplished from what he has revealed to all in his communications with humankind.
A Spirit Being is not in the realms of our experience to describe, or to portray in words.....we are just not equipped with any means to quantify such a Being. But, according to the Bible, when he "shows up" it will be one of those events that will leave us in no doubt about his existence.....mankind will be judged and the judge will chose the ones who qualify for citizenship in his kingdom. All I can hope for is his nod of approval.....