Thursday, December 28, 2006

Dawkins: Big Mistake

Richard Dawkins takes on creationist  and their big mistake in using the the second law of thermodynamics to support their six thousand year old earth argument. To quote Dawkins "It is important to understand the sheer magnitude of the error that creationists are attributing to their scientific colleagues."

I can't find the original volume so I may have got the exact words wrong, but I recall one of those marvellous old Punch cartoons in which every last detail is painstakingly explained. A devoted mother is looking proudly on at a military parade as her son's platoon marches past: "There's my boy, he's the only one in step!" On The Guardian letters page of December 19th 2006 , I initiated an exchange about Professor Andrew McIntosh of Leeds university, who has publicly stated that he believes the world is only 6,000 years old, and publicly stated that the theory of evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. Both these beliefs place McIntosh out of step with his scientific colleagues, not just his platoon but the entire regiment - to paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, the whole ruddy division.

Source: The Guardian: Big Mistake

 

2 comments:

Robin Edgar said...

Well Professor Andrew McIntosh would be out of step with most people who believe in God if he believes the world is only 6000 years old. I expect that most believers would agree that our world and the God who created it are some billions of years old and only a small minority would believe that the world is only 6000 years old.

Lexcen said...

Scientists (geologists) realized that the earth was older than 6000 years long before Darwin came up with his evolution theory. Even if the theory of evolution never existed, the evidence would be overwhelming for anyone to see that the earth is millions of years old.In fact geological evidence supports the theory of evolution more than anything else. There weren't many fossils in Darwin's time and the one's that existed were of course beyond explanation until the theory of evolution came about.