There is a difference between the holocaust and evolution in that, with the former, there were human eyewitness to the atrocity as it was happening. However, Mr. Mohler should show a little more respect to Dawkins, who is far more qualified to write about evolution’s veracity or falsehood than he is. Evolution is supported by a mountain of evidence that would hold up (and has) in any courtroom.

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Playing into the hands of his critics by bringing the holocaust into the argument was an incredibly stupid tactic. I see politicians stumble into this trap time and again. Regardless of the context, as soon as you begin to argue on that level and draw such analogies, it becomes a no-win situation. As much as I appreciate the work Richard Dawkins is doing, he should really know better and deserves all the flack he gets for this.

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I would be careful with bringing out the eyewitness accounts, in a scientific context they are inadmissible as evidence but besides this the point stands and is a valid analogy.

Crying about the holocaust being as real as evolution in light of the evidence seems borderline denialist.

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While the Holocaust had eye-witnesses, there are fewer remaining all the time.  Soon there will be none.  Will it be less true then?  On the other hand, there are eye-witnesses to evolution in labs and greenhouses all over the place, and more all the time.  It could well be that the eyewitnesses to evolution already outnumber those for the Holocaust, although this was not Dawkins’ claim.

Also, evolution is not merely “all the inferential reasoning”, which is the true misrepresentation here.  It has been witnessed, and the means by which it operates has been described adequately, if not in total detail.  Each year we learn a little bit more.

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Er…ad hominem?  His argument seems to be based solely around not liking Dawkins.  He says nothing significant to contradict the evidence presented in the book.  I suppose I should stop being surprised by this kind of article.

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Humans have witnessed evolution. Some moth species in Europe changed color during the Industrial Revolution because the soot changed the color of their habitat. Antibiotics get outdated because viruses evolve. Scientists have also witnessed evolution in bacteria in labs many many times. Also, simple sexual reproduction is enough proof of evolution provided you also add the condition that those with characteristics more fitting to their survival in their environment and propagation will be more likely to survive and pass on their genes. It’s just common sense. If you don’t believe in evolution then you must believe that a black woman and a white man can give birth to an asian baby, or a chair for that matter, because the problem with evolution must be in sexual continuity and not in the redundant and self-evident fact that those with genes more fit to their environment will more often survive longer and reproduce more.

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Scott, I stand corrected. We’ve witnessed bacteria form nylonase and maybe even the formation of a new finch species right before our eyes. Those young-Earthers I work for must really be getting to me. I hope I don’t become one of them. Still, it was probably wrong of Dawkins to use the holocaust in this way.

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Pick any fact to draw comparison.  To me it is a moot point that he picked the Holocaust, although it was probably picked as an argument to match the atrocity of denying evolution.

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But we HAVE eye-whiteness accounts of new life forms evolving.  In addition, populations of living systems MUST evolve.  There is nothing factually inaccurate about Dawkins’ statement.  You are objecting only to his rhetoric.

Well too bad!  First off, people who deny evolution SHOULD be derided for their ignorance, AND their immorality.  Clinging to ignorance is an immoral act.

And he is immoral for doing so.

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I just wasted 5 mins reading that rubbish from the christian post. Religious apologists are really sad people, they can not reason and are living in a bubble. I guess its hard to give up your “beliefs” when you have invested so much time in it and your livelihood depends on it.

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@Paul Susac: I’m curious to know how you see the derision of others’ ignorance playing out in your mind.  I’m not sure I understand what you expect to be the end result.

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I just finished the book “Refuting Evolution.” If you’ve got a basic understanding of logical fallacies then the book can be found to contradict itself after a couple of reads. But in avoiding the temptation to start critiquing the book now I thought that it gave some good insight to what some of the young earth creationist are teaching.

In summary the author, Jonathan Sarfati, claims that God initially created all organisms as perfect and having all the genes necessary for their environment. Mutations are viewed as purely destructive events that remove information or genes from the gene pool. To use the example of the moth, he would have asserted that the moths already had the genes to be black or white from the beginning of time but the changes of the industrial revolution caused the moths that were of the darker phenotype to survive longer to spread their genes.

He will admit to micro evolution in bacterial, but doesn’t believe that microevolution could ever lead to more complex beings.

It’s an interesting book and worth reading just for understanding the mentality.

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The psuedo science (AiG, ICR…) is bad enough.  When I read articles like this it fills me with wonder…I honestly can’t comprehend how people like this can be (are) taken seriously…

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@joel:  this argument is one of the more common ones I have come across: there’s never addition of genetic information, only removal, and therefore this refutes evolution.

It’s blatantly not true, of course.  Anyone taking a basic genetics course understands how, through processes such as conjugation, transduction, etc, genetic material absolutely CAN be added.  But sometimes creationist types like to sound sort of scientific or something and then this BS comes up.

As far as what Dawkins said, he is right.  Evolution is witnessed everyday.  In fact you can see it for yourself if you work in a hospital where antibiotic resistant organisms are becoming more and more of an issue.  Whether or not this was a wise choice of words…I don’t know how I feel about it to be honest.  On the one hand, I feel like we should stay above these kind of tactics that these Fox news idiots use.  Plus, its comparing evolution to a horrific tragedy, and this is bound to play into the hands of these idiots.  But at the same time, the analogy is actually true, and it has the shock power to get people talking.

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