Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups

Evolution: A Fairy Tale for Grownups: 101 questions to Shake Believers' Blind Faith in the Theory is a book, published in 2008, where Ray Comfort asks a series of questions that he hopes will undermine people's acceptance of the theory of evolution. The problems with Comfort's dishonest approach are detailed below, with a side-by-side commentary, critical analysis of this book, and highlights of certain fallacies that keep cropping up throughout the book.

Explanation
To make it easier to review Comfort's stupidity, we've categorized it. Here's the explanations of the categories:

Fallacies
First and foremost, what must be carefully observed is if the quote provided even addresses the theory of evolution. Many of the quotes brought up by Comfort's sources do not address the theory of evolution in the slightest. For example, several of Comfort's sources address the religiosity of Albert Einstein or try to prove the historicity or credibility of the Bible. The arguments presented by these sources (even if they were correct) do not have any relevance whatsoever to cellular biology or the theory of evolution.
 * Not relevant to evolutionary theory or biology

Comfort, and several of his sources, deliberately and maliciously confuse the theory of evolution with abiogenesis and cosmology, the fields that address the origin of life and/or the origin of the universe. However, the truth is that the theory of evolution does not and is not meant to explain such questions. Evolution only explains and answers the divergence of life after it started (just as chemistry doesn't seek to explain how chemicals came into existence).

Next, we must check to see if the sources are coming from credible scientists. Despite Comfort's claim that he would be using quotes from "evolutionary experts" (Introduction, pg. 5), many of these quotes come from men who are not qualified biologists or any other relevant fields (or even qualified scientists at all). Throughout this review of the book, every quote mine will be pointed out and revealed, as well as every instance when the person is not a biologist or a scientist.
 * Not a qualified biologist

Oftentimes, Comfort provides sources from apologetic sites, usually written by men who are not scientists or anything like that. Many of them are ministers, apologists, or freelance journalists who write whatever they want. Regardless, none of these men are “evolutionary experts” who submit their papers to academic sources for peer review – rather, they are all tired, old rants that have been addressed countless times, but these religious men continue to kick the dead horse.

This is regarding references that actually DO address relevant fields such as cellular biology, genetics, taxonomy and paleontology. There are handfuls of the references provided by Comfort that stay on point, but they do not damage the theory of evolution as Comfort wishes they did. References that fit under this category usually address the Cambrian explosion, lack of fossils, or try to present several evolutionary “hoaxes”. However, these typical creationist arguments do not damage the theory of evolution for multiple reasons. Creationists tend to use the Achilles Heel fallacy, and think if they can prove that there are no fossils or that a few of them were faked, then the entire theory of evolution is destroyed. That's not the case at all. There are vast amounts of data and peer-reviewed papers (which creationists obviously and deliberately ignore) examining the evidence for the Cambrian explosion and transitional fossils, and the fact is these “arguments” are wrong and have been known to be wrong for a very long time.
 * Does not damage evolutionary theory

A large portion of the quotes Comfort provides are quote mines - distortions of what the author intended to mean. While other quotes may be legitimate, they come from creationists or are not even addressing the theory of evolution all.
 * Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

Important note: Please be careful when you read a reference that includes one or more “...” spaces. Chances are very likely that something very significant was purposefully left out to alter the person's main message in favor of appearing anti-evolution. This is a common tactic amongst creationists.

Many of the quotes in this book are highly outdated; Less than half (about 40%) of these quotes were made within the last 20 years. The rest are over 20 years old. In fact, 15% were over 40 years old, going all the way back to Darwin's day and even one reference to Isaac Newton.
 * Outdated Source

Oftentimes, the quotes and claims that are outdated no longer apply because years of scientific research has built a stronger understanding of the theory of evolution (as well as many other scientific fields). For instance, quoting a source over a decade old about the lack of transitional fossils is useless, especially over the past recent years of many findings of numerous transitional fossils, making the older claims moot and worthless.

Comfort hopes to accomplish this by using quotes from various sources as evidence. However, there are several major problems with Comfort's approach. For starters, rather than presenting actual scientific evidence, Comfort resorts to quotes, which is a fallacy known as appeal to authority.
 * Appeal to authority

Comfort cites the popular press as though they are legitimate scientific sources who represent the full scientific consensus. For example, he claims that the 1999 archeoraptor hoax fooled the entire scientific community, although no one was fooled but a few people at National Geographic, which, although it has an important-sounding name, is a magazine, not a peer-reviewed journal.
 * Non-Academic Source

Comfort also includes several sources that are not in the least scientific, academic, or scholarly: such as World Net Daily and Fox News. Some of his sources are Christian apologetic sites. Sites like these are not concerned with providing accurate scientific material (and often provide rather anti-scientific material). They only write and publish anything that fits into their dogmatic views, and dismiss all legitimate scientific evidence if they think it contradicts their personal beliefs. To understand how closed-minded they are, here are several examples of creationist and apologetic sites that openly proclaim their dogmatic biases on their websites (as if it is something to be proud of):

"By definition, no apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."– Answersingenesis.org

“verbal inspiration guarantees that these writings, as originally and miraculously given, are infallible and completely authoritative on all matters with which they deal, free from error of any sort, scientific and historical as well as moral and theological.” – Institute for Creation Research

“Revealed Truth: That which is revealed in Scripture, whether or not man has scientifically proved it. If it is in the Bible, it is already true without requiring additional proof. …Fallacy: that which contradicts God’s revealed truth, no matter how scientific, how commonly believed, or how apparently workable or logical it may seem.” – Bob Jones University, Biology Student Text (3rd ed. – 2 vol.)

Notice that they all admit that they will automatically and thoughtlessly reject without consideration any and all evidence that may presented should it appear to disagree with their preconceived religious conclusion.

Finally, many references throughout this book are false and blatant attacks against evolutionary theory and science in general. Many references make serious mistakes and errors in regards to the nature of science or the evidence in favor of it. For example, many of the questions claim there are no transitional fossils, but this is absolutely not true. The next section will provide and explain several more examples.
 * Distortion of Science

Table
Here is a table counting each fallacy discovered by RationalWiki (due to change as more is collected);

Throughout the 101 “Questions” of this book, Comfort provides a total of 272 references (some of which have no sources provided to verify their validity). As this chart shows, most of Comfort's book is entirely outdated and does not even address the theory of evolution. Most of his citations are not from academic sources or even biologists.

Common criticisms towards evolution
Many of the questions attack the fossil record, since Ray Comfort still insists that the greatest evidence for evolution is fossils, and thus showing weakness in this field shows the inferiority of all science. This is not the case, because even if we did not have a single fossil at all, we still have mountains of evidence to prove evolution: Virtually all scientific fields not only support evolution, but confirm it in great detail. Certain fields of science depend on the fact of evolution, such as agriculture and medicine (Ray admits he does go to the hospital to get treated or vaccinated). One more note, he does not understand what a transitional fossil is, despite his repeated pleas that he does indeed know. To Comfort's mind, a transitional fossil would not be something similar to Cameron's crocoduck. However, ducks are not descended from crocodiles, nor are crocodiles descended from ducks, so there has never been a transition from crocodiles to ducks, or ducks to crocodiles, so we wouldn't expect to find any such fossils. In fact, Darwin explained in detail why we should NOT find anything like this. We’re not looking for a blend of two species that both currently exist. Such a thing would actually be evidence against evolution. Instead, Darwin said that if his theory were true, then what we should find would be a basal form potentially ancestral to both current species. And in this one case alone, we’ve found dozens of them in a near continuous lineage dating beyond the dawn of the Mesozoic era.
 * genetics
 * phylogeny
 * taxonomy
 * ontogeny
 * biogeography
 * not to mention that we observe speciation (macroevolution) right now.

Comfort also makes several attacks against gradualism. Gradualism was the notion that evolution occurs slowly and steadily. However, we now know that this is not the case, due to all the science that we've done since Darwin. Apart from attacking gradualism and transitional forms, Comfort tries to refute the entire fossil record by naming a few hoaxes, but these are only a few rare exceptions made by actual qualified scientists and they don't refute archeology. He also ignores both the fact that creationists have several hoaxes of their own (such as the Paluxy footprints, the Calaveras skull, Moab and Malachite Man, and others). More telling is how people deal with these hoaxes. For example, when Piltdown was exposed, it stopped being used as evidence. The creationist hoaxes, however, can still be found cited as if they were real. Piltdown has been over and done with for decades, but the dishonesty of creationist hoaxes continues.

Comfort also tries to refute the theory of evolution by attacking other scientific fields (abiogenesis, the Big Bang, carbon dating, the anthropic principle, quantum theory, etc.). Evolutionary theory has no connection with any of these fields and has nothing to contribute or say about them, so trying to refute them is no help in refuting evolution.

Comfort also attempts to refute evolution by trying to provide "evidence" for the Bible, such as archaeology and several passages that could be interpreted as scientific foreknowledge. While Ray's sources are wrong, simply attempting to add credulity to the Bible (or any other religious text) does not refute evolution in any way, just like it doesn't refute atomic theory or gravity. All of these (evolution, atoms, and gravity) are scientific theories and facts, independent of any religious texts.

Arguments in favor of Young Earth Creationism
Several of the "101 questions" are attempts to prove Young Earth creationism. Here are a few examples,
 * man co-existed with dinosaurs (Question 74)
 * carbon-dating is flawed
 * the geological column does not exist (Question 101)

Despite Ray Comfort's attempts to distance himself from revealing his thoughts on how old the earth and universe is, this book provides a demonstration of his views.

Introduction
Anti-evolution work will be shown throughout the book; talkorigins made an article that explained the creationists' fallacious and dishonest methods of presenting such quotations.

Question 21
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In-Depth Comments
{{sbs|1=“I believe that our failure to find any clear vector of fitfully accumulating progress...represents our greatest dilemma for a study of pattern in life's history.” (Source: S. J. Gould, “The paradox of the first tier: an agenda for paleobiology,” Paleobiology, Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1985, p. 3). The full quote reads as follows (with words omitted in bold): "I believe that our failure to find any clear vector of fitfully accumulating progress, despite expectations that processes regulating the first tier should yield such advance, represents our greatest dilemma for a study of pattern in life's history. '''I shall call it the paradox of the first tier. In principle, two types of solutions might resolve this paradox (both, I suspect, with considerable validity). Perhaps, first of all, processes at the first tier do regulate life's history (as Darwinian tradition assumes), but we have been wrong about the nature of these processesand that an appropriate revision will no longer yield an expectation of progress (which may never have had any deep justification beyond culturally conditioned hope in any case). Only in this context can we understand the passion that surrounds some contemporary debates about the first tier-particularly the challenge to competition's hegemony as the regulator of diversity, structuring agent of communities, and motor of change. (See Hutchinson {I9591 and Dawkins and Krebs {I9791 for the classic statement and its macro-evolutionary extrapolation; and Simberloff {1983, 1984) for its sharp critique.) Simberloff, I think, is correct when he writes (1984, p. 22): "Still to be explained is why competition dominates ecological thinking, given the paucity of hard data to support it. The main reason, it seems, is the strong philosophical and religious appeal of the idea that something keeps nature in balance." Believe me, it is a pleasure to sit back, sip a beer, and watch something evoke more passion than punctuated equilibrium.'''
 * 2= Quote Mine/Distorted message of author

'''The second solution holds that forces of the first tier may indeed yield fitful progress, but that distinct processes at the second and third tiers reverse, dilute, or undo whatever the first tier can accumulate. This paper is dedicated to a defense of this second solution to the paradox of the first tier and therefore to what Maynard Smith (1984) has celebrated, in his quintessentially English metaphor, as the return of paleontology to the high table of evolutionary theory.'''" As we can see here, Gould provided two plausible solutions (both of which he approves of) to this "dilemma". He then goes on to explore Punctuated equilibrium.

As Ray Comfort stated in the Introduction of this book, "when I uncover an evolutionary expert quietly admitting that he has no evidence to back up his theory, I don’t see any value in the soil of his surrounding words. I merely extract what I believe is of value for those who want to discover the truth about the theory of evolution." So basically what he's done here with Gould's quote is take out a few sentences while explicitly leaving out the evidences or any plausible scientific explanations.

Outdated Source

Does not damage evolutionary theory }}