Proposed evolution scenarios are just-so stories

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Contents 1 Claim 2 Source 3 Responses 4 Fallacies contained in this claim 5 External Links 6 See Also 7 Acknowledgements

Claim

Evolutionist explanations are just-so stories. They are entirely speculative and don't qualify as evidence.

Source

• Pathlights, n.d., FAIRY TALES FOR BIG PEOPLE. [1]
• Dembski, William A. (2002) No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence, Rowman & Littlefield. p. 39-41.

Responses

1. A Just So Story is any proposed explanation meant to account for a phenomenon (often animal characteristics), which consistently lacks any sort of physical evidence or ability to be verified by current or future data. This does not describe science at all, but rather creationism and other forms of pseudoscience.
2. While it is true that just-so stories do not constitute scientific evidence, they do serve to counter arguments that there is no conceivable scenario by which a particular trait could evolve.
3. All scientific hypotheses are made up on the spot (ad hoc), like "just-so stories", until they have evidence supporting them. Some have been called "just-so stories" when in this first stage, for example by Stephen Jay Gould. A good hypothesis will make predictions concerning the trait it seeks to explain.
4. Creationists do not realize, nor do they seem to even care that scientists always seek to find evidence to support any hypothesis made. Creationists also do not realize, nor do they seem to even care that when scientists find evidence that does not support a particular hypothesis, the scientists alter or abandon that particular hypothesis as the situation demands.
5. Hypocritically, almost all of the explanations creationists give to support and describe their own models are just-so stories. For example, all of the explanations given to describe the circumstances of the Great Flood are nothing but just-so stories, including the explanations of what the environment was like before the Flood, how the Flood occurred, its after-effects, how Noah got all of the animals into the Ark, as well as how the diversity of life repaired and restored itself after the Flood.
6. add more responses

Fallacies contained in this claim

• Tu Quoque (insists that evolutionists do this too, therefore they're wrong)

External Links

• Lindsay, Don, 1998. Scenarios And "Just So" Stories [2]

See Also

• Why is Creationism not a Scientific Theory?
• Theory of Evolution

Acknowledgements