Reply to: Creationist Thinks Charles Darwin Was an Idiot

Patrick Reany

12 November 2023

I am a huge fan of SciManDan for his anti-flat-earth videos. But I take issue with his belief that
science favors Darwinian evolution over creationism. I claim that science still can't decide the issue
because the bulk of required evidence has yet to be collected and vetted and displayed to the public
(at least according to Darwin himself).

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." --- Carl Sagan

Gee, I guess that makes me a Saganist so far as this standard of vetting goes.

Hard-core evolutionists have lived for so long with the notion that Darwinian evolution is true,
that they have lost the appreciation of how incredibly extraordinary is the claim that from the base
elements of the universe, by the unplanned and accidental changes in the world, out popped the modern
world of biological life. And because they cannot see their claim as "extraordinary," they do not feel
the need to apply Sagan's test against their prime secular assumption of evolution through common
ancestry.

"Quote mining is one of the most disingenuous things you can do when you're trying to prove
someone wrong." --- SciManDan

My on-line dictionary claims that "quote-mining" is to take a quote out of its proper context,
and hence to misrepresent or twist what it means. Although SciManDan seems to be using the term
correctly, it seems to me that it should be instead referred to as "misquote-mining."

I will be commenting on the video response SciManDan made to the video made by Matt Powell:

YouTube video by SciManDan, "Creationist Thinks Charles Darwin Was an Idiot."

SciManDan reveals Powell making a number of ad hominem arguments against Darwin, which I
personally find to be disgusting and irrelevent and unChristian. The issue of the truth of evolution
by common ancestry does not depend on Darwin's character or lack thereof. But I intend to keep
this essay short and keep my comments few.

Nevertheless, SciManDan, I would not myself characterize the bulk of Powell's errors as
"quote-mining," but rather as character assassination against Darwin. The problem is that evolution
through common ancestor is what's on trial, not Darwin's character.

Anyway, I am a Christian and a young-earth creatioinist, yet I harbor no ill feelings towards
Charles Darwin. I certainly don't think that Darwin was an idiot, though I don't think he was a genius,
either. I'll leave that award to Newton, Faraday, Einstein, Feynman, and others. Unlike some of the
biologists quoted in the video, Darwin did not inspire my intellectual curiosity when I was a child,
though Einstein did.

But who better than Darwin himself to give us the criteria of what that "extraordinary evidence"
Sagan told us to require before we accept of Darwinian evolution?

In his own words, folks:

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?
Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps,
is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation
lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

The Origin of Species, (1859) [Chapter 9, On the imperfection of the geologic record].

Look, a theory of evolution plus a bunch of excuses why the innumerable fossil that should be
in the fossil record are not in the fossil record do not add up to extraordinary evidence. What
they add up to is extraordinary evasion of the truth.

Now, I want to make it clear that I do not promote the claim that creationism is 'scientific'.
Darwinism is a belief, as is creationism. Take it from me -- the 'pro-Darwin', 'pro-Sagan' skeptic.