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Rebuttal #2
& Closing Argument
- Budikka, 4/16/2000
The Creation Fallacy - Part 3
Key:
MO = My Opponent
ToE = The Theory of Evolution
TBC = The Big Creation
I apologize for the delay - it wasn't through lack of argument! I had
to whittle 100K of notes to
under 40K. Fred kindly allowed an increased limit, and I thank him for
this and the debate. He is
unique in my experience in allowing evolution material to appear, unedited,
on a creationist web
site. Usually, on such sites, you will be hard pressed to find any evolution
URLs and harder
pressed to find ToE fairly depicted. I hope this offers some redress.
MO characterises this URL as "a dogmatic web site that is rabidly
anti-creation":
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/other-links.html#evolution
On it, you will find over 90 creationist URLs. I'm betting there is hardly
a reference to a ToE site
among that same 90. Dogma and rabidity?
Down to business.
MO dances a jig with archaeopteryx, but the jig is up. He fails to address
the thorough mix of
reptile and bird and avoids the many other examples. Here is another transitional:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/dinobird000320.htm
Consider these:
frogfish (Antennariidae) (fish with legs!)
http://www.starfish.ch/index.html
walking catfish (Clariidae) (walks on fins over dry land)
http://www.nrm.se/ve/pisces/clarias.shtml.en
lungfish (Neoceratodus) (fish with lung!)
http://www.austmus.gov.au/fish/species/nforsteri.htm
mudskipper (Periopthalmus - moves around out of water)
http://www.yorkshirecoast.co.uk/sealife/index.htm
All the above are alive now. I challenge MO to explain why such obviously
intermediate types
could not exist in the past.
MO: "Budikka lauds evolutionists for exposing the "Turkeysaur""
Interesting that my "no vitriol" opponent chose this characterization.
It isn't a weakness to admit
error. When was the last time a creationist changed his views? When was
the first time? Every
error that creationists take such delight in, was revealed by evolutionists,
but look at these TBC
distortions:
http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/students/kornreich/lfg/index.html
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/marlincoms/RQB.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jw-dishonesty.html
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9917/evolution/creationistbull.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Station/8030/
>From Mark Vuletic:
http://www2.uic.edu/~vuletic/cefec.html
"[Reverend Carl] Baugh...appeared on an area television station's
evening news claiming that a
Cretaceous fossil tooth...was human...They later recanted when microscopic
examination
demonstrated that the item in question was a fossil fish tooth."
(R.A. Eve, F.B. Harrold. 1991. The
Creationist Movement in Modern America. Boston: Twayne. P129)
Will MO include this alongside his "Nebraska man" caricature?
I think not.
If creationists disagree with ToE they must submit papers to peer-reviewed
journals offering
scientific evidence. No creationist has ever done this. Could that be
because of an unsupported
"theory" and incompetence among TBC's leading operatives? See:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_lippard/gishreview.html
http://www.onthenet.com.au/~stear/bartelt_dissertation_on_hovind_thesis.htm
http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/factfaq.htm
So why is it that 99.99% of fossils are aquatic? If there was a global
flood, billions of organisms
were sluiced together in only 40 days, dumped in massive layers of sediment,
and turned to rock
("Every thing that is in the earth shall die." - Gen 6:17).
This was a perfect fossilization scenario for
all organisms, land and sea - so why is the record of land-dwellers so
poor? TBC has no answer.
I challenge MO: where in the fossil record is there a mix of marine life,
past and present? Where
are marine mammals mixed with marine reptiles of the dinosaur age? Where
are modern birds
mixed with pterosaurs? Where are humans mixed with dinosaurs and the earliest
amphibians?
Nowhere.
Check out the fossil record:
http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/encyclo/
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/fossils/contents.html
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/fossils.html
This one discusses precursors to vertebrates
http://helix.nature.com/nsu/000309/000309-6.html
Lab molecules mimic life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_217000/217054.stm
Proteins transmit heritable traits:
http://www.hhmi.org/news/lindquist2.htm
If the Cambrian explosion (which covers 15 million years - hardly sudden)
represents the week of
creation, then what does the 3 billion year period prior to the Cambrian
represent? What are
creationists really saying when they cite the Cambrian as proof of TBC?
Think about it. It is a
major flaw in their argument, because the fossil record does not demonstrate
creation even by
creationist rules. It does not record what was brought to life: it records
what lost its life - not what
was created in 6 days, but what died in 40! It is impossible for the Cambrian
explosion to prove
sudden creation!
MO's warped "logic": "Budikka's other answer was just as
spurious, by posting references to
books and a link to an evolution class without providing any information
from them, as if the reader
should just trust his opinion on this."
Where is the intelligence behind this remark? I post references so that
readers don't have to take
my word - that is the point of references! I've referenced books, magazines,
newspapers, and
web sites. MO offers unsupported assertion, expecting you take his word
for it. I gave 2.5K of
references, with comments, including observed invertebrate speciation,
all of which MO has
ignored. I don't want to make your mind up for you. I do want you to have
all the facts honestly
presented before you make up your own mind.
MO: "The onus is on Budikka to do the research himself and post his
evidence here in this forum."
No! The onus is on the creationists, who deny the researched, tested,
and fully documented ToE,
to submit scientific papers to the journals.
MO on Neandertals: "Ever since these fossils were discovered, they
have slowly moved from
monkey-man to virtually full human status."
Another grotesque caricature. The first official Neandertal (fragments
were found earlier, but not
identified until later) was seen as human at once. The idea of it being
anything less was never a
scientific position. Its intelligence and deportment has been debated,
but the idea of a brute
caveman is an artifact of popular culture. It does not help honest discourse
when creationists
persistently caricature and misrepresent. Recall that it was inaccurate
caricatures on MOs web site
which began this debate!
The latest genetic information seems to show that Neandertals are not
directly related to humans
(USA Today, 3/29/00 and
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000331091126.htm).
Creationists need to explain why the creator made two species of 'man'.
I guess they now have to
admit that there are two creation stories in Genesis! Perhaps ch.1 describes
Neandertals and ch.2
describes humans? URL on hominid evolution:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/apeman/chronology/2_5.shtml
I mistakenly thought MO had some scandal on Ramapithecus, but all he has
is a report of science
doing its job. It was identified as a possible hominid by David Pilbeam,
because of its teeth. Other
scientists disagreed. It was Pilbeam himself - pursuing the truth - who
revised his assessment upon
finding further evidence. This is the way science works. Unlike the creationists
who
blasphemously claim to be "as gods, knowing good from evil"
and to have the answer to
everything, all that scientists assert is the best theory accounting for
all the evidence currently
available.
This story does reveal TBC's absurd bias. If something seems to embarrass
ToE (such as the
Ramapithecus episode), the creationists trust the scientific method completely.
Yes - science
proves it's an orangutan! but when those same scientists say another fossil
is an ancestral hominid,
creationists cry, "It's an ape! It's an ape! The scientists don't
know what they're doing!" It isn't
science (it isn't even intelligence) to arbitrarily evaluate evidence
solely upon your preconceived
dogma.
MO: "The reason the Bible doesn't mention ape-men is because they
never existed!"
I didn't say "ape-men" I specifically said, "intelligent
apes." It is an undeniable fact that
Neandertals, Homo erectus, habilis, and Australopithecines existed. Isn't
it odd that large-brained,
tool-using hominids were not remarked upon at all, by any writers anywhere
on the planet? When
the creator, who apparently couldn't plan ahead, tries to find a companion
for Adam by (how
strange!) offering animals, why do the intelligent apes not get a mention?
This goes back to the
creationist dichotomy: either there was evolution as the best evidence
shows, or there was an inept
creator. Why do creationists force their creator to be short-sighted and
incompetent? How can
this glorify any god?
MO: "When you run the numbers, you get 40 births required to produce
one defect free offspring"
O.K, you've run the numbers! Now compare it with the real world and ask:
where is the evidence
that only one of 40 offspring survive?" If this were true, there
would be no species left except for
highly prolific ones, therefore there must be something wrong with the
figures, or with the study, or
with the interpretation.
I read recently that we share 90% of our genes with mice. I don't know
how many functional
genes mice have, but if it is even close to our number, that would mean
a difference of only about
8,000 genes between us and them. Creatures like mice existed 65 million
years ago. Based on
that difference, it would require only one successful mutation every 8,000
years for one of them to
become one of us. I challenge MO to explain, scientifically, why this
is impossible.
>From Mark Vuletic's page:
"[Gene] locus HLA-DRB1 - one gene in the human leukocyte antigen
(HLA) complex...has 59
alleles (F.J. Ayala, J. Klein, N. Takahata. 1993. "MHC Polymorphism
and Human Origins." and
also: Scientific American 269(6):78-83. December.8)"
There are 59 alleles (versions) of DRB1, but we carry at most, two - one
from mom, one from
dad. 8 people on the ark can have a maximum of 16. Where did the other
43 come from?
Creationists deny "chance" mutation on the basis that it is
almost exclusively harmful. Without
frequent beneficial mutation, where did those extra 43 alleles come from?
DRB1 is not the only
gene with many more alleles than can be accounted for by eight survivors
4300 years ago
(especially when MO allows only 3 mutations/generation).
MO: "If we assume very little inbreeding, we roughly get 225 fixed
deleterious substitutions in 6000
years"
Very little inbreeding?!! This from a guy who believes that our 6 billion
population came from only
eight people (half of whom from the same gene pool) only 4,300 years ago?
Is this a joke?
MO: "...However, if we use the evolutionist's estimated time since
the split between ape and man
of 5 million years, we get 187,500 bad mutations!
Since the latest information coming out of the human genome project supports
the contention that
some 95% of DNA is noncoding, most mutations are going to fall into that
wasteland and do no
harm at all. 187,500 mutations looks to me like less than .007% of the
3 billion base pairs How is
this a problem even if it's true? Note: "A total of 39 percent of
the chromosome is copied into
RNA (exons and introns), while only 3 percent of the chromosome encodes
protein."
http://www.nhgri.nih.gov/NEWS/chromosome22.html
(this is hardly out of date).
MO: "I think we have already seen many [evolution] "predictions"
that have not come true, such
as...gradual lineage in the fossil record"
This has been demonstrated. The fact that creationists have failed to
even attempt refutation in
scientific forums refutes MO's claim.
MO continues: "Lamarckism (inheriting acquired characteristics)"
This was never a part of Darwin's theory. It was argued against by Darwin
himself in "On The
Origin...."
MO: "recapitulation in embryology"
This was not a prediction of ToE. Embryology does show evolutionary links
if approached from
the right perspective - for example, the human fetus' tail and lanugo
are inexplicable by TBC. For
more info, see:
Embryos, Genes, and Evolution: The Developmental-Genetic Basis of Evolutionary
Change, by
Rudolf A. Raff and Thomas C. Kaufman, Macmillan, 1983.
MO: "vestigial organs"
Here's one right off the top of my head: sebaceous glands attached to
hair follicles. They coat and
protect hair, giving animals the characteristic sheen of health which
more practically expels water.
What possible purpose do these have in humans, who have no significant
hair? In fact, why do we
have body hair at all? If that isn't a vestigial organ, I don't know what
is!
MO: molecular phylogenies."
TBC's failure to address this in scientific forums refutes MO's claim.
MO: "For example, mutations in non-coding DNA is now suspected of
causing various cancers..."
Let's see what MO's quoted reference actually says:
""there were problems in the cutting and pasting. Some of the
useless introns in the EAAT2 gene
were being kept, while an exon was discarded. That produced defective
RNA...""
Note: 'useless introns'. So the problem was not the functioning of an
intron, but the fact that
defective splicing failed to remove introns. Junk is junk precisely because
it is non-coding. It does
not contribute to protein production and cannot 'cause cancer'.
MO: " Here's a well referenced online article
http://www.jps.net/bygrace/evolution/junkdna.html
refuting junk DNA."
Here is a quote from that article:
"Researchers discovered that the amount of non-coding DNA was proportional
to the size of the
nucleus, " This means that the more junk DNA that is accumulated
- the larger the nucleus has to
be to accommodate it!
The real story on junk DNA:
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/dna_virus.html
Pseudogenes are gene copies that are either missing a vital segment, or
do not have an "on" switch,
and are therefore nonfunctional. Evolution can explain these. TBC can
only explain them with an
incompetent creator. See:
http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BIO48/12.Molecular.Evolution.html
In, "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" (Ballantine, 1992), an
excellent primer on evolution, Carl
Sagan says: "In the kangaroo rat...the sequence AAG is repeated 2.4
billion times, TTAGGG 2.2
billion times and ACACAGCGGG 1.2 billion times."
Does MO have an explanation for stuttering DNA occupying half the rat's
genome? The kangaroo
rat is not the only owner of such DNA, it is found in many organisms -
but not in bacteria.
Invertebrates have fewer genes contaminated by introns! Given that this
universe and planet seem
"designed" so well for bacteria, who have (far more so than
humanity) gone forth and multiplied, is
it possible that the chosen race is bacteria?
MO: "I also found this in Britannicca: "The role of the introns
is not firmly established...researchers
have shown that several forms of thalassemia...stem from intron mutations
that interfere with the
splicing action.""
First of all, isn't it cute how scientists are the scum of the Earth when
they disagree with
creationists, but when they offer something TBC thinks it can use, scientists
are solid pillars of
wisdom?!
Secondly, in order to save this paper-thin "theory," MO requires
that a creator filled 95% of our
DNA with malevolent genes!
Thirdly, introns are parts of genes that contribute nothing. When RNA
transcribes DNA, before it
takes the 2nd step of building the amino acid, it goes through the 1st
step of snipping out introns. I
wonder if MO would care to elaborate on how, having been snipped out,
these introns cause
cancer?
Fourthly, it is unclear whether this "regulating" idea is correct
(note, "not firmly established" in MO's
quote), but because MO sees this as an argument against evolution, he
swallows it whole. If I had
made such an argument, he would have dismissed it as a just-so story.
Introns preventing proper
cell function can hardly be considered "regulating" in any meaningful
sense. This is like claiming that
non-functioning brakes in your car are actually a safety feature because
they prevent you from
being rear-ended! Would you buy a used car from this salesman?
MO: "Once again we have Budikka trying to redefine evolution as "nothing
more than a change in
allele frequency in a population.""
MO is definitely being dense here. On his very own web site he quotes
this selfsame definition!
Earlier, he cited Encyclopedia Britannica. It's a pity he didn't cite
this: "Evolution is, in the last
analysis, change of gene frequencies." I rest my case.
MO: "Since creationists obviously agree that allele frequency change
occurs, Budikka somehow
thinks this is the end-all to the debate! "
Until and unless TBC defines and publishes the genetic control preventing
DNA from changing one
"kind" into another, it is the end of the debate!
MO: "As I mentioned in my opening argument, it is wild conjecture
to suggest "allele frequency
change" can lead to complex new organs and features"
Then put up or shut up! The best evidence shows it happens. What evidence
do you have refuting
it?
MO: "Was evolution always defined this way...why was the definition
changed?"
Changed from what? It has been defined this way as long as we have known
about genetics.
Darwin didn't know about genetics, but it was implicit in his theory that
there was an engine driving
evolution. He identified one component: natural selection. He partly identified
the other: variation
in individuals. This variation is now known as...change in allele frequency!
MO: " It is fairly certain that a "kind" would fall anywhere
between the Linnaean classification of
species to family."
This is MO's scientific definition? "Fairly certain"? "Would
fall anywhere between"? Talk about a
just-so story! A definition so vague is incompatible with their claim
of specific and immutable
"kinds" (not that the Bible makes any claim of immutability).
If there are such things, an exact
definition ought to be a breeze. Why can't they come up with one?
It is revealing that MO's response to my challenge was to run immediately
to the Bible - the very
thing creationists insist they do not need when it comes to "scientific"
creationism! Another
creationist sham exposed! MO claims: "A "kind", or baramin,
refers to a group of organisms that
either reproduce among themselves, or are linked by common ancestry."
How can a created kind have a common ancestry when there are no beneficial
mutations? It is like
Lenny Flank says: creationists do accept that evolution happens - but
only a little bit! What
prevaricating nonsense! The word, "baramin" is Hebrew for "created
kind" so MO's definition of
the created kind is that it is...a created kind. Hmmm!
MO has failed to offer any way of determining which organisms share a
common ancestry. Are we
supposed to look at web pictures? His entire argument consists of circular
reasoning: a created
kind has common ancestry, and those with common ancestry constitute a
created kind!
How is one member of this undefined kind supposed to change into another,
somewhat different
member of that kind? Well hello, by precisely the same mechanism creationists
insist cannot
successfully exist - mutation and natural selection! This destroys MO's
web site denial of natural
selection.
If a wolf can "vary" into something the size of a large rat
(chihuahua) and the size of a small horse
(great dane), with long snouts and short snouts, small stiff ears and
large floppy ears, short tails and
long tails, hairy and bald, large teeth and small teeth, then I challenge
MO to show why a small,
hairy prognathus bipedal primate called Australopithecus cannot vary into
a larger, flatter-faced,
small-toothed, bald primate called human.
Does MO agree that the African and Indian elephants are of the same "kind"?
I will assume so,
since I do not see how creationists can deny it. There are 42 species
of a bird called the vireo.
Since creationists have never denied that Darwin's finches on the Galapagos
are one "kind," does
MO agree that the red-eyed vireo and the white-eyed vireo are the same
"kind"?
If MO agrees to either of these cases, then he must also agree that humans
and chimpanzees are
the same kind, because there is less genetic difference between humans
and chimpanzees than
there is between the two vireos or between the two elephants (see "Next
of Kin" by Roger Fouts,
Avon Books, 1997). If the one vireo can vary into the other, if the one
elephant can vary into the
other, then there is no case whatsoever than any creationist on the planet
can make against
something akin to a chimpanzee varying into something akin to a human.
MO: "Through the years, information is slowly lost as mutations occur..."
And MO's evidence of this is where? This claim is refuted by the huge
number of genetic alleles in
modern populations which cannot possibly be explained if all living species
came from a tiny set of
pairs a mere 4,300 years ago. Plants often speciate by polyploidy - which
is an increase of
available information, refuting creationist claims that information cannot
increase.
See also:
"Monkeyflowers hint at evolutionary leaps" Science News October
16, 1999 [156:16] p. 244,
where a single gene mutation created a 50% reproductive advantage in Monkeyflowers.
MO: "Nevertheless, there are out-of-place fossils that evolutionists
conveniently ignore. The Laetoli
footprints and Kanopi elbow (fully human, yet found in strata dating around
4.4 mil)..."
>From an honest and unbiased interpretation, the jury is still out.
The footprint size certainly was
not human, but why cannot an ancestor of a human have a human elbow and
foot?!!
MO: "As a engineer, I can attest that this is ludicrous beyond words.
If there were no unifying
pattern, life would look exactly like it was either 1) not created, ie
evolved via a naturalistic
process,"
Can anyone even begin to understand this totally backwards "logic"?
If life had evolved from a
common ancestor there would be no unifying pattern? Is MO serious?
MO: "So, Budikka's "slight surplus" based on just TWO meteorites
somehow led to universal
amino left-handedness in life?!
MO ignores large quote immediately after the above, which finished my
argument. It would
seriously help the whole creation-evolution debate if the creationists
would actually review all the
facts with an open mind before jumping in with blind assertion.
MO: "This is the epitome of story-telling. I don't know dit about
quantum mechanics...perhaps
[Budikka] can pull a rabbit out of his hat and demonstrate to us that
"something can be created out
of nothing"."
MO's confession that he knows nothing about it ought to have prompted
him to actually look it up.
"The Physics of Star Trek" by Lawrence Krauss (Basic Books,
1995) will explain some basic
physics. Before MO jumps all over this: Krauss is a physics professor
who uses the Star Trek
series to launch discussions of real physics, including virtual particles.
Stephen Hawking has
theorized how a black hole can effectively "evaporate" by means
of these particles. You can
educate yourself about it here:
http://www.newscientist.com/nsplus/insight/startrek/startrek.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html
http://www.superstringtheory.com/blackh3.html
The May issue of Discover magazine has a cover article which mentions
this, too.
MO: "Finally, to suggest that something can come from nothing, is
a clear contradiction of the 1st
law of Thermodynamics"
If something cannot come from nothing, where did the creator come from
and how could he make
a universe out of nothing? The logic is flawed. The "laws" of
physics are actually human
conventions explaining what we see. Our ignorance of nature's habits puts
no lien on them, and the
laws of physics do not apply to events prior to Planck time. Having said
that, the universe does
not indicate it came from nothing, but from a singularity.
MO: "The website ultimately leads to what are called genetic algorithms
(GAs)."
MO dances the creationist sidestep! I specifically mentioned a computer
program called "Tierra."
MO ignores that (because he has no answer?), obsessing on something which
has nothing to do
with the point I made.
MO: "Unfortunately, much of Budikka's second post was laced with
sour grapes. On several
occasions I am accused of "vitriolic" and "virulent"
attacks..."
For someone who ought not to bear false witness, MO seems to be long on
assertion, and short on
example. Where are the sour grapes are that made him whine?
Here are some of his attacks:
"... his very opening argument is laced with misquotes...."
I'm still waiting for MO to offer any evidence.
"... Budikka twists the words of the creationists ..."
Again, I still await the evidence.
"... The Jesus Seminar is a rouge fringe of far left liberal theologians..."
That isn't vitriolic?
I count 19 challenges to MO in my last post. He has
effectively answered none, despite being
asked twice in some instances. So far, MO has:
1. Failed to acknowledge that creationists testified under oath to god
that TBC is not science.
2. Failed to answer 3 Biblical errors (and check out:
http://www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm
for more!
3. Failed to establish creation "science."
4. Failed to explain why a creator designs sharks so badly that they need
cleaner fish.
5. Failed to explain why a benign creator made parasites - or viruses,
harmful bacteria and
virulently venomous animals. (see "Parascript: Parasites and the
Language of Evolution" by Brooks
and McLennan, Smithsonian Press, 1993, for information on how parasites
demonstrate
evolution).
6. Failed to explain why many plants are inedible (even for animals) or
poisonous, or covered in
thorns given the Biblical claim that they are for food (Gen 1:29).
7. Failed to explain why evolution couldn't evolve a giraffe, given that
the okapi is pretty much half
way there.
8. Failed to acknowledge that his caricature of the whale/wolf is deceitful.
10. Failed to explain why snakes have vestigial legs and hip bones, including
at least one fossil
snake with legs (http://www.ngnews.com/news/1999/12/121799/snakelegs_8255.asp
)
11. Failed to explain why a creator, supposedly the most perfect engineer
ever, chose the same
design for all vertebrate limbs: horse, bird, bat (differently configured),
whale, mole, elephant,
leopard, kangaroo. Would you consider an engineer divine if he built an
airplane wing and claimed
it was adaptable digging holes?
12. Failed to explain the archaeopteryx, given its 50-50 mix of bird and
reptile.
13. Failed to acknowledge other transitionals: Caudipteryx, Confuciornis,
Gobipteryx,
Protarchaeopteryx and Sinosauropteryx (
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/protocaud.html)
14. Failed to define how TBC beats ToE given that ToE looks at what is
actually there, and tries
to explain it, whereas TBC begins with fixed dogma taken from ignorant
and primitive texts, none
of which are even close to original, with stories demonstrably stolen
from other cultures.
15. Failed to explain why creationists focus tightly on modern living
species in their anti-evolution
examples rather than address fossil ancestors, and why focus on anatomy
rather than genetics.
16. Failed to illustrate any misquote after claiming my original essay
was "laced" with them.
17. Failed to explain why creationists do not challenge evolution in the
science forums.
18. Failed to back up this assertion: "Anybody familiar with the
major science mags knows of their
dogmatic protection of their sacred cow of evolution, and their snubbing
of anti-evolutionists who
try to challenge it." which he pretends answers #17.
19. Failed to demonstrate that evolution is even close to being religion.
20. Failed (along with every other single creationist on the planet, throughout
the entire history of
modern TBC) to demonstrate any mechanism which could prevent change between
"kinds."
21. Failed to define "kind."
22. Failed to justify this self-contradictory claim: "An infinite
God is the only possibility. There must
be a first Cause..." If there must be a first cause, how can there
be an uncaused, infinite god?
23. Failed to demonstrate why there must be a first cause.
24. Failed to show why a creator had to base all living things on the
tiny minority of amino acids
and 6 basic elements if he was omnipotent and made them all from scratch.
25. Failed to show any mix of fossils that would support TBC's flood scenario.
26. Failed to explain poor quality of fossil record if it is so recent.
27. Failed to explain why fossil record shows five separate, distinct,
major extinctions in aquatic
life, and nine separate land plant extinctions which do not match up with
the other five. (See "The
Evolutionary Biology of Plants" by Karl J. Niklas, University of
Chicago Press, 1997).
28. Failed to demonstrate how a perfect genetic code designed by a supreme
being could mutate
at all or mutate so badly in only 6,000 years.
29. Failed to demonstrate how 40 individual instances of eye formation
demonstrates the
competence of a creator who apparently could not make one all-purpose
eye.
30. Failed to demonstrate how evolution defies the laws of thermodynamics.
31. Failed to demonstrate why something akin to an ordinary squirrel could
not, over the course of
time, grow flaps between its fore and hind limbs which demonstrably contribute
to gliding ability.
32. Failed to show examples of where good science refuting evolution has
been turned down by
the peer-reviewed journals.
That's quite a list, isn't it? I'd be embarrassed by it.
MO:" I found it particularly disappointing that Budikka would refer
to a link referring to Kent
Hovind's "300 lies"."
Why - because neither Hovind nor MO can answer them? If any creationist
can refute the lies, I
will happily withdraw them. The truth is that they have been out there
for the best part of two
years utterly unrefuted, not even by their original author who dare not
debate them with me on the
internet. When someone sidesteps the truth, that is what I call a lie,
and I am not the only one who
addressed these:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/matson-vs-hovind.html
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9917/hovind/wild_hovind.html
http://www.onthenet.com.au/~stear/kent_hovind's_challenge.htm
MO's sole response was a half-hearted reference to the "invert"
square law. The fact is that there
is no "invert" square law. A so-called science teacher who claims
to have a PhD ought to know
better than to misname the 'inverse square law'. If that kind of sloppiness
is what creationists call
scholarship, they have a long way to go. MO indulges in it himself by
referring to the 'Kanopi
elbow' instead of 'Kanapoi'.
I made it clear that I had let many of Hovind's half-truths and distortions
go by and so I was going
to call that one, but let me grant it to MO for the sake of argument.
Now he only has to answer
299 more, for example:
When someone says that if you drive 60mph and turn on your headlights,
the light from them is
traveling at the speed of light + 60mph, that person is a liar or a complete
idiot. It is not a matter of
opinion.
When someone describes punctuated equilibrium as "giant leaps"
or as a reptile laying an egg and a
bird hatching out, that is a lie. It is not a matter of opinion.
When someone intimates that sound waves are part of the electromagnetic
spectrum and therefore
it is possible to see them, that is a lie, it is not a matter of opinion.
Why not read the rest for
yourself at:
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Pier/1766/hovindlies/index.html
And remember that 300 was just a nice round number. There are actually
many other instances
dealt with in those essays that I did not choose to count for one reason
or another.
MO's challenges: "1) Cite what you believe are the three best evidences
for molecules-to-man
evolution."
MO is setting me up: I offer 3 evidences, he claims to knock them down
in his final word, and thus
wins the debate. He is seriously deluded if he thinks that ToE, or any
scientific theory is decided
by debate. It isn't decided by public opinion or majority rule or by looking
at pictures online. It is
decided by what the facts, honestly interpreted, reveal. If creationists
wish to "win the debate" they
need to set out a clear, widely agreed-upon (among creationists) and cogent
theory, including
evidence to back it up, and submit all of this to a respectable science
journal. The fact that they
have not done this - indeed, are utterly unable to do this - completely
refutes creationism.
Why MO should imagine I should answer any more challenges when he has
ignored or
inadequately addressed over 30 of mine, I have no idea. Maybe if I tackle
his he will feel bad and
quit trying to pull down ToE, and try to build up TBC.
First let me say that I used to be a creationist - many years ago, when
I was a child, but I grew up.
While I'm forced by weight of evidence to be an evolutionist, I am still
not a scientist. What I
consider to be the best evidences may not coincide at all with what real
scientists would offer, but
here are 3, not in any special order:
#1 The fossil record. Contrary to TBC's bizarre claims, it fails to support
a flood myth. The
fossils are not sorted hydrologically. The layers in the geologic column
were demonstrably laid
down over many millions of years. The so-called "Green River varves"
show at least 12 million
years of seasonal deposition which cannot be emulated by a catastrophic
one year flood. Within
the layers of the geologic column (which itself is in no way sorted with
respect to granularity) are
animal burrows and tracks, evidence of airborn volcanic activity and erosion,
"fossil" meteorites,
and raindrop imprints. None of this could have happened under a global
flood.
#2 The DNA Record. Despite MO's claims, our DNA is no more than 10% functional.
The rest
is non-coding. Some of it is regulatory, but most does nothing. Useless
introns (included within the
gene sequences) are snipped out before the RNA is transcribed. Genes contain
on average, 10
introns each. Either the introns are the result of evolutionary junk accumulating,
or the creator was
so incompetent that he could not design a straightforward gene. The only
way TBC can escape
this dichotomy is to claim the gene has deteriorated. Let's look at that.
The human genome consists of 80-100,000 genes. Let's take the lower figure.
80,000 (genes) X
10 (introns per gene) = 800,000 introns since Adam. This means 133 introns
per year for 6,000
years. So about every three days, since Adam, we have acquired a fresh
intron? Can TBC
demonstrate a rate of deterioration of 4,000 introns per (30 yr) generation?
No!
Chimpanzees share not only our real genes, but also our pseudogenes, such
as yh-globin. There is
no way to account for this sharing of defects without ToE. See also:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/index.html
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/dna_virus.html
Genetic sequencing also refutes TBC:
http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/argresp/sequence.html
#3 Metorite impacts. Whether you think the moon is 4 billion years old,
or only 6,000, it has
masses of impact craters. Erosian has hidden the evidence, but the larger
Earth had to have
sustained at least as many as the moon. ToE has no problem with this because
they were spread
out over 4 billion years, but can you imagine all of those impacts in
only 6,000 years?
TBC seriously needs to explain why geology shows that Earth was massively
bombarded, yet there
is no mention of it whatever in any written documents, including the Bible.
The Earth was
populated from the earliest time with humans - according to TBC. How did
they survive this
torrential rain of falling stones? How did humanity survive the massive
extinction impacts such as
the one that hit the Yucatan peninsula and wiped out the dinosaurs? How
did they survive the
massive volcanic eruption that is now known as Yellowstone National Park
in northern USA?
MO's second challenge: "Explain why you believe the assumption that
humans and apes share a
common ancestor is true...."
It's not a belief, and I already answered it. Try reading: "The origin
of man: a chromosomal
pictorial legacy," by Jorge J. Yunis and Om Prakash (Science, Vol.
215, 19 March 1982, pp.
1525-1530).
MO regurgitates Haldane's Dilemma, which I already answered in my last
essay. I'm sorry he
missed it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/sep99.html
MO: "3) Search the internet for any site that provides evidence of
evolution of any complex
invertebrate in pre-Cambrian strata. No sites with just-so stories. Find
a credible source,
preferably with pictures, so we can examine them for ourselves to determine
if we see evolution at
work leading to even just one complex invertebrate."
Every plausible story he dislikes is a just-so story to MO. First he wants
transitionals, I give them.
Then he says, "NO! I want Invertebrate transitionals." and I
give them. Now he wants
Precambrian transitionals. He swears that no creationist has ever insisted
that evolutionists
demonstrate every little step and here he is expecting to be shown pictures,
no less!
The real problem with his challenge is not that it is unanswerable, but
that he even made it in the
first place. Does MO seriously think that the science of taxonomy is conducted
by looking at web
pictures? To even pretend it can be resolved like this is foolhardy.
Suppose I showed him a complete sequence, would he accept it? Of course
not! He cannot - his
mindset is utterly incapable of entertaining anything other than his mindset.
He would ignore it with
no refutation and demand more as he has so far done.
Suppose there are no sequences? Does this utterly invalidate ToE? NO!
Absence of some fossils
does not automatically mean there are none to be found. There were no
known Precambrian
fossils at all at one time - did this mean there were none to be found?
No! It takes only one
transitional to utterly refute TBC and I have shown many more than one.
For example, in Nature, Vol. 293, 8 October 1981, pp. 437-43, P.G. Williamson
of Harvard
writes an article called "Palaeontological documentation of speciation
in Cenozoic molluscs from
Turkana Basin" which shows transitions between fossil clams and between
snails from about 400
yards of Plio-Pleistocene strata at Lake Turkana in Kenya. Will MO accept
this? No!
He ignored the fact of the 2.5K of material I posted in my last essay
directly addressing a
challenge. I took the liberty of posting a question to talk.origins and
got 25 references which I
emailed to MO. In my last essay, I listed no less than eight books and
an observed example of
invertebrate speciation. He ignored those. Why would he pay attention
to anything else I offer?
Support for ToE is voluminous:
A ToE primer:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/interact/longterm/horizon/010897/evolutn.htm
A theist's view on ToE:
http://publish.uwo.ca/~cwinder/
Other material:
http://geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/talk_origins.html#trilobites
http://www.duke.edu/~bhj/anthro.html
http://bob.nap.edu/html/creationism/evidence.html
http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/argresp/sequence.html
And so are TBC rebuttals:
http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/rebuttingcreationism.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/ten.html
http://riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/things.htm#footprints
MO: "4) Given that many evolutionists acknowledge that there is no
evidence of evolution among
the invertebrates"
Another unsupported assertion.
MO: "...polls show 90% of Americans are creationists..."
This URL:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/poll1.html
reveals that "83% of Americans say Darwin's theory of evolution belongs
in the nation's science
classes."
There are two billion Christians on the planet, and fifty percent of these
are Catholic, a faith which
has recently fully embraced evolution. I can argue from authority, too
- so what?
According to Frank Zindler of http://www.infidels.org,
"The 17th edition of
American Men & Women of Science lists over 90,000 prominent scientists...Of
the 90,000 names
listed, I have been able to find only six that are creationists!"
Conclusion:
Suppose, at work, a colleague was found on the floor with a knife in his
back. Suppose they sent
a creationist detective and an evolutionist detective, and they discovered
a bloody fingerprint on the
knife, bloody footprints leading to a named parking spot outside, and
money missing from the
corpse which was later discovered in the wallet of the guy who had the
named parking spot. Who
do you think would catch the murderer?
Well it wouldn't be the creationist, it would be the evolutionist. Even
though he had not seen the
crime, he would observe the evidence, piece together available clues (although
many might be
missing), and come up with the most likely theory, apprehending the villain.
The creationist on the other hand, having abandoned empirical science,
would only be able to
declare the crime happened sometime in the last 6,000 years! Convinced
that there is no way to
tell what happened in the past by examining clues in the present, the
creationist would have to
declare that since the crime was not witnessed, but took place in the
past and is not going on
today, god most likely did it, citing Biblical texts which "prove"
that god has killed people in the
past The creationist would declare that, since there was only one fingerprint
on the knife, we are
looking for a one-fingered assailant! In short, they would be completely
confounded.
See? Anyone can caricature, but the sad thing is that this caricature,
in a much more subtle way
and far more pervasively spread, is what we face if creationists are allowed
to get away with their
unsupported claims, using caricature instead of hard science, and bypassing
the rules of fair play
and logic. Think about it.
One problem with this debate, I feel, is that it covered too wide of a
topic such that it was very
difficult to address issues properly in the space allowed. I would like
to conclude therefore, by
challenging MO to a second debate at his convenience, same rules, but
this time confined to a
single subject: the likelihood of the Genesis flood.
Budikka
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