Defense of Evolution (Jesus Christ, Creator, Darwin, Earth, creation)

[Pinecone]

Well, my other thread got locked, so heres one a lot less inflammatory. It seems to me that there are a lot of misunderstandings about evolution, and most people who understand it don't take the time to put forth strong evidence for it, so I'll do it in this thread. Once again, this is something I've posted before, links have been removed since I can't post links yet, my main source though was wikipedia (I know it's not always accurate, but it's so damned convenient). I hope this thread doesn't tread on anyones toes.

DEFENDING EVOLUTION AND EXPOSING MYTHS

This post will have a few parts. The first will be evidence in favor of evolution, the second will be answers to popular critiques of evolution and the third will correct lies and misinformation started by creationists (I always find lies in the name of god extraordinarily funny, but still annoying).

EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION

TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS

One claim that creationists make almost constantly is that there are no transitional fossils. Well technically almost every fossil is transitional, sense evolution is an ongoing process, but that’s not what they’re asking for. There is a great list of transitional fossils on wikipedia, all you have to do is go look it up.

VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES

If evolution is correct, you’d expect to see vestigial structures: Organs and body parts that once had a use but no longer do. You see them all the time. Here’s a list of a few that you can see by standing naked in front of the mirror (you may have to be flexible): The Appendix, goose bumps (we don’t have any fur, so they’re useless now), Male nipples and wisdom teeth.
The VAST majority of our DNA is completely useless, 80%(ish) of it is noncoding, it doesn’t do crap. But as long as it’s not harmful to us, there is no reason for evolution to get rid of it. There’s certainly no reason for a designer to stick that in us. You can find information on junk DNA at wikipedia, I love that site.
Whales have a pelvis, so do dolphins. It’s completely useless, it’s just kind of sitting there chilling, not connected to anything. What’s the use of that? It makes perfect sense if evolution is true, and none at all if they were designed.
If you have a pet python flip it over sometime and look closely at it. Pythons actually have very, very tiny vestigial claws. Once again, no intelligent designer would have put those there.
Animals that have lived in caves for many generations are blind but still have eyes. You’d think a creator would have left those out if he were going to make the critter blind anyways.
Many animals can produce their own Vitamin C, we can’t, we spent too much time with it naturally in our diet and we lost the ability.

CRITIQUES OF EVOLUTION

THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS


The Second law of thermodynamics states: "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Creationists use this to say that sense life is a closed system, evolution is impossible, order cannot increase in a closed system.
Too bad life isn’t a closed system. We get energy from the sun and from the earth. If life were a closed system it could not exist at all. Never mind evolution.

IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY

There are a ton of these, and I don’t have the time or patience to deal with them. Ask me about one and I’ll tell you how evolution could have handled it (if I can, just because I can’t explain one thing, doesn’t mean it can’t be explained, it just means I’m a layman or that no scientist has tackled it yet), but there’s just no way I can make a dent in this. Nothing has evolved all at once, every adaptation we have had was functional before it became what it is now, just maybe not in the same way. No one is claiming that these very complex systems came into existence all at once, but none of them are irreducibly complex.


EVOLUTION IS ONLY A THEORY, NOT A FACT, IT HASN’T BEEN PROVEN


This is a misunderstanding of what a theory is. A scientific theory is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" [Random House American College Dictionary]. Evolution is that. So is gravity. Scientific theories are never proven, they can only be disproven. Any theory that does not make disprovable predictions is pseudoscience (intelligent design is a great example).


OBSERVED EVOLUTION


Evolution has been observed, most clearly in viruses, but you can also see it in domesticated animals (this is artificial selection, not natural selection, but it does a wonderful job of showing how much variation you can get out of just the genes in one species) take a look at a poodle, now stick it next to a great dane, a wolf or Chihuahua. If you didn’t know that these were all dogs, you would almost certainly think that they were different species.


EVOLUTION CAUSES PEOPLE TO BEHAVE LIKE ANIMALS


Maybe, I doubt it. It seems to me that the more educated a person is the less likely they are to behave like an animal. Either away this has nothing to do with whether or not evolution is true; it’s just a plea to consequences.

LIES

CARBON DATING


A lot of creationists talk about how carbon dating shows objects that are over a million years old to be several billion years old or vice versa. Carbon dating is not useful for objects more than 60,000 years old, whenever you hear a reference to an object that is older than that as evidence that carbon dating doesn’t work, you’re being lied to.


WOMEN HAVE ONE LESS RIB THAN MEN

I’ve heard this a bunch of times, and every time I do I almost laugh, then feel depressed. I have no idea why they always say it’s women with the missing rib, you’d think one of them would have thought “oh yeah, that should be Adam”. Either way it’s untrue, men and women have the same number of ribs, go look at a skeleton, and stop believing everything your aunt emails to you.


DARWIN RECANTED EVOLUTION ON HIS DEATH BED

This myth was started by Elizabeth Reid Cotton, who claimed to have been present at Darwin’s death. She claims to have witnessed him recant his lifes work and become a Christian. She was not present at his death bed. His children who were present wrote articles and letters specifically refuting her claims. Even if he had recanted Evolution on his death bed, it would have no bearing on whether or not the theory is true.

[Pinecone]

If anyone has any questions about, or wants to discuss any of this with me I'd be more than happy to chat with you. I don't know all the answers, but maybe I can do a little to illuminate this issue.

[rocketman]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

This post will have a few parts. The first will be evidence in favor of evolution, the second will be answers to popular critiques of evolution and the third will correct lies and misinformation started by creationists

What are you trying to show that hasn't already been shown around here before? I for one am not interested in getting into a full blown debate about something as generic as the whole of the theory of evolution, it'd take forever. But I did want to point out to you that it is improper to paint all of the creationists with the same brush. Also, some of your claims are out of date. It might be better if you go a bit deeper than wikipedia on this. (I still love wiki though) If you do you will find that creationism itself is an evolving philosophy which is [very gradually] becoming more sophisticated. At least know what you are disagreeing with.

A few random points:

(coloured words are links to AIG, which it is by far the biggest and most representative creationist website)

Originally Posted by Pinecone

The VAST majority of our DNA is completely useless, 80%(ish) of it is noncoding, it doesn’t do crap...There’s certainly no reason for a designer to stick that in us.

Creationists have long predicted that psuedogenes would be found to have purpose. It's early days but they seem to be right. The whole psuedogene argument agaisnt creationism will have to wait until the facts are fully in.

"The other 97% or so of the genome was said to be made up of "junk" DNA - so called because it had no known biological function. However, junk DNA may soon need a new moniker." [Hubbard:] "We are now seeing the majority of the rest of the genome is active to some extent. This is a remarkable finding, since most prior research suggested only a fraction of the genome was transcribed. The genome looks like it is far more of a network of RNA transcripts that are all collaborating together. Some go off and make proteins; [and] quite a few, although we know they are there, we really do not have a good understanding of what they do. This leads to a much more complex picture. "

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Human genome further unravelled

"..we have also encountered a remarkable excess of experimentally identified functional elements lacking evolutionary constraint, and these cannot be dismissed for technical reasons. This is perhaps the biggest surprise of the pilot phase of the ENCODE Project, and suggests that we take a more ‘neutral’ view of many of the functions conferred by the genome..."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ature05874.pdf

(Goes to show that having an evolutionary bias does not always help science! At least they admit their view was filtered.)

Originally Posted by Pinecone

... every adaptation we have had was functional before it became what it is now, just maybe not in the same way.

This statement really needs some serious evidence to back it up. You cannot just pull ideas out of thin air and present them as if they are established fact. (I'm talking here about general debating skills.)

Originally Posted by Pinecone

... No one is claiming that these very complex systems came into existence all at once, but none of them are irreducibly complex.

We don't know that yet. We don't know every system yet. Better to say 'none of what we have seen so far'.

Originally Posted by Pinecone

This is a misunderstanding of what a theory is. A scientific theory is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" [Random House American College Dictionary]. Evolution is that. So is gravity. Scientific theories are never proven, they can only be disproven.

When creationists do say that (getting rarer these days) they are usually speaking to a general audience. They are mostly coming around to the correct terminology when talking to scientists. This is really a moot point, because, like it or not, the theory has very large chunks that are still hypothetical which is what the creationists are really on about.

" ... scientists use it to mean a well-substantiated explanation of data. This includes well-known theories such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Newton’s Theory of Gravity, as well as lesser-known ones such as the Debye–Hückel Theory of electrolyte solutions. It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture...."

(They are talking about the big picture, not observable stuff)

Originally Posted by Pinecone

Evolution has been observed, most clearly in viruses, but you can also see it in domesticated animals (this is artificial selection, not natural selection, but it does a wonderful job of showing how much variation you can get out of just the genes in one species) take a look at a poodle, now stick it next to a great dane, a wolf or Chihuahua. If you didn’t know that these were all dogs, you would almost certainly think that they were different species.

This is a serious misrepresentaion of the majority of creationists. They do believe in speciation, they also believe in mutation and selection. They just don't think it can do what the theory requires of it. Like many people, you don't understand what the creationists are saying. Have a read of the pages linked below if you really want to know what you are arguing against.

"..creationists have never disputed that organisms change; the difference is the type of change. A key difference between the two models is whether observed changes are the type to turn particles into people..."

"But no reputable creationist denies speciation—in fact, it is an important part of creationist biology." "Scientific American tries to make hay with this straw man, devoting two points to ‘proving’ natural selection and speciation. Informed creationists don’t teach against these biological processes..."

Originally Posted by Pinecone

A lot of creationists talk about how carbon dating shows objects that are over a million years old to be several billion years old or vice versa. Carbon dating is not useful for objects more than 60,000 years old, whenever you hear a reference to an object that is older than that as evidence that carbon dating doesn’t work, you’re being lied to.

You seem a little mixed up. They know it is only meant to be good for so many years:

"Anything over about 50,000 years old, should theoretically have no detectable 14C left. That is why radiocarbon dating cannot give millions of years."

Thier underlying thrust is that dating methods often clash. A good example is the finding of C14 in diamonds. This is hardly a lie. It still has science scratching it's head. I am yet to see talkorigins address this one. Maybe I missed it. Read what the creationists reckon at the link below (with technical responses to objections at the bottom of the page).

Diamonds: a creationist’s best friend

Originally Posted by Pinecone

I’ve heard this a bunch of times, and every time I do I almost laugh, then feel depressed. I have no idea why they always say it’s women with the missing rib, you’d think one of them would have thought “oh yeah, that should be Adam”. Either way it’s untrue, men and women have the same number of ribs, go look at a skeleton, and stop believing everything your aunt emails to you.

You seem to be pushing an old wives' tale as if it were the modern creationist view. Can you show me where a creationist uses this argument in the modern day?

"AiG has long pointed out the fallacy of this statement, which seems to be more popular with dishonest skeptics who want to caricature creation. The removal of a rib would not affect the genetic instructions passed on to the offspring, just as a man who loses a finger wouldn’t have sons with nine fingers."

Originally Posted by Pinecone

DARWIN RECANTED EVOLUTION ON HIS DEATH BED

Most modern creationists do not hold to the view you accuse them of.

"..it is almost certainly not true, and there is no corroboration from those who were closest to him—even from Darwin’s wife Emma, who never liked evolutionary ideas."

[Shadow Wolf]

You seem to be pushing an old wives' tale as if it were the modern creationist view. Can you show me where a creationist uses this argument in the modern day?

Actually, that was used at the last church I went to. It was stated as scientific fact that women have one more rib than men. Even the home school material I had stated that as a fact of science. I even read some small book, how many ever top reasons evolution is wrong, and that was mentioned in this book. I would find a link, but I cannot even begin to guess the correct title, and there is no possible way I could find the author's name.

[rocketman]

Originally Posted by Luke Wolf

Actually, that was used at the last church I went to. It was stated as scientific fact that women have one more rib than men. Even the home school material I had stated that as a fact of science. I even read some small book, how many ever top reasons evolution is wrong, and that was mentioned in this book. I would find a link, but I cannot even begin to guess the correct title, and there is no possible way I could find the author's name.

Hi Luke. What church did you go to? I'd like to track it down as I study these things. Thanks.

[Malach1]

Every material thing produced within our realities have come about through the utterance of a word- and word does not evolute- it simply creates- for evolution still cannot define the factor from which evolution began- meaning- THat which was there before evolution - therefore it is but a scientific thing- but when a man tells you that a Word is a Reality then you become aware- Christ himself said- within them is death and life

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by Malach1

Every material thing produced within our realities have come about through the utterance of a word- and word does not evolute- it simply creates- for evolution still cannot define the factor from which evolution began- meaning- THat which was there before evolution - therefore it is but a scientific thing- but when a man tells you that a Word is a Reality then you become aware- Christ himself said- within them is death and life

Malach, I'm not talking about the genesis of life, I'm talking about evolution. That's another discussion.

as for the rest of the replies, I'm too drunk to answer them, and if all goes well I won't be in a rational frame of mind for the next few days (Jesus Christ! I love college!). I'll get to ya'll though, you'll probably have to wait till sunday or monday though. :-D

[painted wolf]

Rocketman can you give me a definition of the term "kind"?
I've always wondered about this one but I've never gotten a real answer.

"Anything over about 50,000 years old, should theoretically have no detectable 14C left. That is why radiocarbon dating cannot give millions of years."

No, anything over 50,000 years will give a false reading. That is why any dates are double checked by multiple methods of testing.
This is a misleading argument at best.
This includes the false information they spread about diamonds.

Humphreys also discussed how he and his fellow creation scientists have been finding radiocarbon in diamonds, regarded as far too old (billions of years) to have any amount of fast-decaying radiocarbon left in them. In this regard, I had contacted Dr. R. E. Taylor, of the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Riverside, and the Keck Laboratory for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at University of California, Irvine. Taylor is a serious radiometrics scientist. Like Humphreys, he also looks for radiocarbon in diamonds, but Taylor does so as a way to monitor instrument background and noise. Diamonds are so old, they shouldn't have any residual radiocarbon (C14 decays with a half-life of under 6,000 years), and indeed, they don't. So diamonds are as close to a carbon-containing C14 "blank" as scientifically possible.
The abstract that got me talking to Taylor is called "Use of Natural Diamonds to Monitor Radiocarbon AMS Instrument Backgrounds." I contacted Dr. Taylor late last year, and inquired about the creationist group's misuse of radiocarbon methods.
On October 18th, 2005, Dr. Taylor replied (with his permission to cite) that

My take on their problem is that they [RATE creationists] apparently have little or no understanding of operational details involved in AMS technology and the nature of how ion sources and AMS spectrometers work since, as far as I know, none of these people have any direct research experience in this field. They are thus not aware of the many potential sources of trace amounts of radiocarbon in the blanks and how a detector can register the presence of a few mass 14 events that are not radiocarbon. Regards, Ervin Taylor

When creationists crow about radiocarbon in diamonds proving that the diamonds are only thousands of years old, you can remind them that they're just measuring noise in an atomic mass spectrometer!

* information taken from : The C-Files:*D. Russell Humphreys

wa:do