by Sam C.

Created on: February 07, 2010

There is only one legitimate side that actually has evidence in this "debate": science. No matter what the religious fanatics tell the ignorant, gullible masses, their claims don't hold water, never held water, and can't ever hold water. These arguments are seldom coherent arguments, and almost all of the coherent arguments are riddled with logical fallacies, the rest are just factually inaccurate.

There is, of course, the argument from authority: something must be true because an authority figure (in this case, a religious leader or religious text) says it is. Religious leaders generally don't have degrees in science, and you shouldn't just blindly believe everything about science that a scientist says, no human knows everything. One example that I frequently use to prove the absurdity of this argument is that Kim Jong-Il says that the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea has the best quality of life in the world. This is obviously completely false, but by the logic of the argument from authority uses the same logic, so should be treated with the same respect.

There is the argument from design. This states that "every creation needs a creator," which is completely true. The problem with this argument begins with the fact that it's not entirely clear if we're actually a creation, calling into question whether or not there is a creator.

Intelligent design advocates frequently misinterpret the Second Law of Thermodynamics as an argument against evolution. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in a closed system, order will gradually become disorder. Apparently, evolution is things becoming more ordered, which isn't true. Even if it was true, the biosphere in which we live isn't a closed system. We're not even entirely sure if the universe is a closed system, so the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply in this case.

There is also the cosmological argument. It states that everything that is finite and contingent must have a cause, something finite and contingent cannot cause itself, and there cannot be an infinite causal chain, so there must have been an infinite first cause. It is not true that there cannot be an infinite causal chain, so this argument is invalid.

There is the argument that the advocates of intelligent design do not have the burden of proof, those who state that they are wrong have the burden of proof. This is absurd because in rational discussion, things are assumed to be false until there is sufficient evidence to the contrary. Carl Sagan once said that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," and a designer certainly is an extraordinary claim, which we have absolutely no evidence for.

In conclusion, the side of science has evidence, while the side of religion cannot, by definition, have any evidence.

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