Download The Purpose of Critical Thinking

The Creation/Evolution Debate
Topics
 What
is critical thinking?
 10 logical fallacies
 An amazing case study in deception
 Amazing creatures
Thinking About Thinking!
Critical thinking is the art of thinking
about your thinking while you are
thinking in order to make your
thinking better
What did
he say?
The Purpose of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking involves the use of
questioning or inquiry techniques
The purpose of critical thinking is to:
 Achieve understanding
 Evaluate view points
 Solve problems
This is why evolutionists do not want
critical thinking in the biology class
PART 1
10 tactics and logical
fallacies used to
discredit creation and
promote evolutionism
1
Fuzzy Words
 We
believe, we think
 Given enough time, it will happen
 Might work
 Must have…
“Those life forms must have evolved in
the absence of oxygen,…”
Biology, Miller and Levine, 2002, p. 426.
 Could
possibly have been
 My guess is
 Seems like
2
Half Truth
 Half
true and half false
 Often more effective than the
complete lie
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
only applies to isolated systems, so it
is not relevant to evolution, because
the earth is an open system.
3
Bandwagon
The appeal to “everyone agrees”
All scientists accept evolution
No real scientist accepts creation
www.AnswersInGenesis.org
www.ICR.org
4
Ridicule
Attempting to provoke a dislike against
a person or idea by name-calling
Creationists are troglodytes and
flat-earthers.
5
Either-Or Fallacy
Presenting only one possible solution
when others are justified
If we teach creation then we will have
to teach every other creation myth.
6
Analogy
Improperly drawing parallels while
ignoring pertinent differences
Evolution is a fact like digestion or
gravity.
7
Shifting the Burden of Proof
Forgetting that it is your responsibility
to prove a claim, not your opponents to
disprove it.
The claim that creation has no proof and
therefore should not be taught, when
evolution has never been proven or is
even capable of proof.
8
Equivocation
Confusing the issue by using vague
terms or changing the definitions of
words
Changing the definition of science to
support only evolution
Not defining terms such as natural
selection or microevolution
9
Bluffing
Appearing to know more than you do
Making the claim that the fossil record is
full of transitional fossils
Dinosaurs evolved into birds.
10
Appeasement
The appeal that we're not really so
different
Most religions don’t have a problem
with evolution.
Lucy and the
Australopithecines
Critical Thinking
What we see and read in textbooks is
not always what was found or real
Pictures and Reality
Artistic conception
Australopithecus
africanus
What do you notice
about this picture?
Evolutionary Preconception
John Gurche, artist, National Geographic, March,
1996 p. 109.
“I wanted to get a human soul into
this ape-like face, to indicate
something about where he was
headed.”
Lucy: Two Questions
 What
was found?
 Did Lucy walk upright?
Note: Lucy is
our ancestor
What Was Found?
 Lucy
discovered in 1974
 About 40% of the fossil was found
 Claimed to be 3.5 million years old
 Claimed bipedal
Lucy
No foot bones
Did Lucy Walk Upright
To determine if Lucy walked upright three
areas of anatomy can be examined
1. The rib cage
2. The pelvis
3. Leg and foot bones
Rib Cage
 Ape
ribs are conical shaped
 Human ribs are barrel-like
Human: Barrel-like
Ape: Conical shape
Lucy’s Rib Cage
Peter Schmid (paleontologist at the Anthropological Institute
in Zurich) Quoted from Origins reconsidered: In Search of
What Makes Us Human by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin
“I noticed that the ribs [Lucy] were more round
in cross-section, more like what you see in
apes. Human ribs are flatter in cross-section.
But the shape of the rib cage itself was the
biggest surprise of all. The human rib cage is
barrel shaped, and I just couldn’t get Lucy’s
ribs to fit this kind of shape.”
Lucy’s Rib Cage
Brad Harrub (Ph.D. Anatomy and Neurobiology)
and Bert Thompson (Ph.D. Microbiology), The
Truth About Human Origins, 2003, p. 47.
“In Lucy’s case, her ribs are
conical, like those found in apes.”
Human
Lucy
Chimp vs. Human Pelvis
Chimp
Human
Lucy’s Pelvis
J. Stern & R. Sussman, “American Journal of
Physical Anthropology,” 1983, pp. 291 & 292.
“The marked resemblance of AL 288-1
(Lucy) to the chimpanzee is equally
obvious…
It suggests to us that the mechanism of
lateral pelvic balance during bipedalism was
closer to that in apes than in humans.”
Knee Joint of A. afarensis
15° carrying
angle (valgus)
Human = 9°
Gorilla = 0°
Chimp = 0°
Critical Thinking
Orangutan
= 9°
Spider monkey = 9°
Rib cage
Pelvis
Carrying angle
Lucy could NOT
walk upright
How Evolution Hinders
Critical Thinking and
Science
Footprints in History
Apes and Humans – a Test
Human
Which footprint is human?
Laetoli Footprints
Footprints discovered in 1978 in Laetoli,
Tanzania. The footprints were dated at 3.5
million years old.
Who made these
footprints?
Ape and Human Footprints
Human Shape
Human
Ape
(Lucy)
Laetoli footprint
Human Footprints
Tim White, “Evolutionary Implications of Pliocene
Hominid Footprints,” Science, April 1989, p. 175.
“The uneroded footprints show a total
morphological pattern like seen in
modern humans.”
Who made these
footprints?
Lucy’s Feet
David Catchpoole, Ph.D., “New evidence:
Lucy was a knuckle-walker”,
www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4256news5-52000.asp
“…anatomist Dr. Charles Oxnard has
shown that the big toe [Lucy’s] actually
sticks out as in chimpanzees.”
A Dilemma
 The
footprints in Tanzania are
human in shape
 Lucy’s feet are ape-like
 The
footprints are 3.5 million years
old therefore they cannot be made
by humans
What will the evolutionists do?
Lucy: What Nice Feet You Have
Drawing from Life:
The Science of
Biology, Purves,
Orians, and Heller,
1992, p. 604.
Lucy: Saint Louis Museum
Human foot on Lucy
Evolution Rejects the Evidence
“Professor Betsy Schumann,
evolutionist expert, admits that the
statue's feet ‘probably are not
accurate’, but when asked whether the
statue should be changed, she says,
‘Absolutely not’.”
Confusion about Lucy
Robert Boyd and Joan Silk, (professors of anthropology),
How Humans Evolved, 2000, pp. 331-334.
“Anatomical evidence indicates that A.
afarensis was bipedal…”
…some anthropologists are convinced
by the anatomical evidence that A.
afarensis was not a modern biped.”
Why the confusion?
Why aren’t students told about this?
10 Unique Characteristics
1. Fine balance
2. Flat face
3. Upright skull
4. Straight back
5. Fully extendable hip joints
6. Angled femur bones
7. Fully extendable knee joints
8. Long legs
9. Arched feet
10.Strong big toes
Textbooks and Accuracy
Eye socket
2
3 Flatter face
Teeth 1
Biology: The Web of Life, 1993
Amazing Creatures
That Defy Evolution
Giraffe
Leviathan
Out of his mouth go burning lamps,
and sparks of fire leap out.
Job 41:19
Bombardier Beetle
Chemical
storage
chamber
Woodpecker
 Hard
beak
 Special tail feathers
 Special cartilage
 Tongue



Barbs
Glue
Long
Chuckwalla Lizard
Chuckwalla Table Manners
Pass the pepper
and chuckwalla
please
Chuckwalla and salt
Chicken Egg
 Each
shell has about 10,000 tiny holes
or pores
 Question: How does the chicken form
a shell around a soft, messy egg and
design the shell with pores?
 Blood vessels
Chicken Egg
 Nineteenth
day the chick is too big
 The “egg-tooth”
 Each step of the chicks development
defies evolutionary thinking
True Science
The history of astronomy
The history of geology
The history of biology
The history of anthropology
Tuning Up Our
Baloney Detector
Let’s go baloney
hunting
False information
Misleading information
Deception by omission
Pure baloney
Biology: Visualizing Life, Holt, Rinehart,
and Winston, 1998, p. 221.
“Another important find was the
footprints of a group of bipedal animals…
They reveal small but very humanlike
feet,…”
Baloney
Baloney Detector
Biology: Principles and Explorations, Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 2001, p. 307.
“Lucy’s leg bones indicate that she
must have walked upright. She
stood about 1 m (3 ft) tall.”
Baloney
Baloney Detector
Biology: Concepts and Connections,
2000, p. 404.
“Some 3.7 million years ago, several
bipedal (upright-walking) human
animals of the species Australopithecus
afarensis left footprints in damp volcanic
ash in what is now Tanzania in East
Baloney Detector
Africa.”
Baloney
Biology, Miller and Levine, Prentice Hall,
2000, p. 757.
“But all researchers agree on certain
basic facts. We know, for example, that
humans evolved from ancestors we
share with other living primates such as
chimpanzees and apes.”
Baloney
Baloney Detector
Artist’s depiction of an
australopithecine family
Biology Concepts and
Connections, Campbell, Mitchell,
and Reece, 2000, p. 404.
Baloney Detector
Baloney
Prentice hall, Science Explorer: Earth
Science, 2002
“An animal dies and sinks into shallow
water.”
Baloney Detector
Baloney
UN- Scientific American, July, 2002
“… laying the foundation for cellular
biochemistry. Astrochemical analysis hint that
quantities of these compounds might have
originated in space and fallen to earth in
comets, a scenario that may solve the
problem of how these constituents arose
under the conditions that prevailed when our
Baloney Detector
planet was young.”
Baloney
Colossians 2:8
(A Warning)
Beware lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world,
and not after Christ
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