ATHEISTS what would you say to a CREATIONIST who put up THESE ARGUMENTS?

Question

1. The complexity of living systems could never evolve by chance—they had to be designed and created.
A system that is irreducibly complex has precise components working together to perform the basic function of the system. (A mousetrap is a simple example.) If any part of that system were missing, the system would cease to function. Gradual additions could not account for the origin of such a system. It would have to come together fully formed and integrated. Many living systems exhibit this (vision, blood-clotting, etc.). When you look at a watch, you assume there was a watchmaker. A watch is too complex to "happen" by chance. Yet such living systems are almost infinitely more complex than a watch. They could not be random—they simply had to be designed and created.

2. The high information content of DNA could only have come from intelligence.
Information science teaches that in all known cases, complex information requires an intelligent message sender. This is at the core of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). DNA is by far the most compact information storage/retrieval system known. A pinhead of DNA has a billion times more information capacity than a 4-gigabit hard drive. Ironically, evolutionists scan the heavens using massive radio telescopes hoping for relatively simple signal patterns that might have originated in outer space, all the while ignoring the incredibly complex evidence of superior intelligence built into every human's DNA. While we're waiting to hear signs of intelligence behind interstellar communication, we're ignoring those built into us.

3. No mutation that increases genetic information has ever been discovered.
Mutations which increase genetic information would be the raw material necessary for evolution. To get from "amoeba" to "man" would require a massive net increase in information. There are many examples of supposed evolution given by proponents. Variation within a species (finch beak, for example), bacteria which acquire antibiotic resistance, people born with an extra chromosome, etc. However, none of the examples demonstrate the development of new information. Instead, they demonstrate either preprogrammed variation, multiple copies of existing information, or even loss of information (natural selection and adaptation involve loss of information). The total lack of any such evidence refutes evolutionary theory.

4. Evolution flies directly in the face of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics.
This law of physics states that all systems, whether open or closed, have a tendency to disorder (or "the least energetic state"). There are some special cases where local order can increase, but this is at the expense of greater disorder elsewhere. Raw energy cannot generate the complex systems in living things, or the information required to build them. Undirected energy just speeds up destruction. Yet, evolution is a building-up process, suggesting that things tend to become more complex and advanced over time. This is directly opposed to the law of entropy.

5. There is a total lack of undisputed examples (fossilized or living) of the millions of transitional forms ("missing links") required for evolution to be true.
Evolution does not require a single missing link, but innumerable ones. We should be surrounded by a zoo of transitional forms that cannot be categorized as one particular life form. But we don't see this—there are different kinds of dogs, but all are clearly dogs. The fossils show different sizes of horses, but all are clearly horses. None is on the verge of being some other life form. The fossil record shows complex fossilized life suddenly appearing, and there are major gaps between the fossilized "kinds." Darwin acknowledged that if his theory were true, it would require millions of transitional forms. He believed they would be found in fossil records. They haven't been.

6. Pictures of ape-to-human "missing links" are extremely subjective and based on evolutionists' already-formed assumptions. Often they are simply contrived.
The series of pictures or models that show progressive development from a little monkey to modern man are an insult to scientific research. These are often based on fragmentary remains that can be "reconstructed" a hundred different ways. The fact is, many supposed "ape-men" are very clearly apes. Evolutionists now admit that other so-called "ape-men" would be able to have children by modern humans, which makes them the same species as humans. The main species said to bridge this gap, Homo habilis, is thought by many to be a mixture of ape and human fossils. In other words, the "missing link" (in reality there would have to be millions of them) is still missing. The body hair and the blank expressions of sub-humans in these models doesn't come from the bones, but the assumptions of the artist. Virtually nothing can be determined about hair and the look in someone's eyes based on a few old b

Answer 1

I'd accuse him of putting up a lame and false text wall.

Why do you ask?

Answer 2

What I think: ~There are no beneficial mutations. There are. But deleterious or neutral mutations outnumber the beneficial ones 10,000 to one. ~ If we evolved from monkeys/apes, why are there still monkeys/apes? This argument shows a lack of understanding of Darwinian evolution. You should not refute the other side unless you understand their beliefs accurately. ~ No new species have been produced (That's a doozy!). Yes and no. Yes in that 'species' is variously defined. Some definitions of 'species' would have the various ethnic groups of mankind as separate 'species.' Different dog breeds would be separate 'species.' No in that there hasn't been a new 'species' that has arisen that under no set of circumstances can be made to interbreed with the species from which it arose. ~ Evolution is just a theory. Bad argument. Shows no understanding of the definition of a scientific theory. However, I think it can be shown that evolution isn't even a scientific theory, and should be more properly termed a hypothesis. ~ Microevolution is true, but macroevolution isn't. This is true (see above about 'species.'). However as a blanket statement it isn't very affective. ~ The speed of light has decreased. This has zero scientific evidence, and is an argument made only by Young Earth Creationists. ~ There are no transitional forms (another doozy). Not a good statement to make without offering more information. There are quite a few fossils that have been interpreted as being transitional forms. (The atheist argument that ALL fossils are transitional is a bad argument - it is only based on the *assumption* that evolution is true.) The better argument to make is that the majority of the fossil record shows stasis or slight variations around an average mean, and that only about 5% of the fossil record can be interpreted as directional change.

Answer 3

1. Complexity is pretty easy to make. The universe is complex. And complex living systems can evolve by natural selection, because the system that works the most is often more complex than the one that doesn't work as well.



2. The complexity of DNA arrived from simplicity. Like in #1, the DNA that has more capability to store genes will work more.



3. Meh. I'll have to think about that one for a while.



4. Well, the thing that lives longer and produces more of itself will survive, whether it follows entropy or not.



5. #6 rephrased.



6. If an ape with a bigger brain learns to use tools, it will survive for longer and have a greater chance to create offspring. Those offspring will have bigger brains too, which will also live for longer. This creates two different groups, one of the regular ape and the bigger-brained one. Soon the two split apart noticeably, leaving humans and apes. It's not impossible to happen; on the contrary, it's pretty likely. This doesn't mean that humans certainly evolved from apes, but it does mean that they most likely did. The lack of "missing links" doesn't prove that it never happened.

Answer 4

I'm a lazy atheist so I'm only gonna answer numba one. Interesting analogy a mousetrap. You're not accounting for the fact that some traits may be complex but take away one part and it becomes something else. A mousetrap minus the little wire thingy that holds the killing device could function as, say, a tie clip. Just like the device the plague bacteria uses minus one protein becomes a flagella. Of course I'm just getting this from from some "darn devil-worshiping evolutionist TV show I watched like five years ago. My guess is you may have watched it too judging by the mousetrap analogy. If i were you i would worry more about proving Christianity. Evolution has infinitely more evidence than that. But no you're just gonna rag on evolution just cause it pisses you off. Remember We're not claiming evolution is the "One holy truth". Its a well tested theory, just like gravity, we know there are holes in it and we know that we could be wrong. Science has been wrong before and it will undoubtedly be wrong again. And that's why I put my faith in it. Through trial and error it proves and disproves itself toward higher understanding. It doesn't use hearsay and outdated texts to manipulate logical thinking human beings from the time they are born. But hey Im just a 14 year old who's got no real sources. You probably won't even read this far. You'll stop as soon as you realize i still disagree with you. You angry religious types never listen. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing wrong with religious people, it just scares me that in these modern times so many good people can be brainwashed by ancient superstitions.

Answer 5

I would ask if the person had several hours, as each of those point could take some time to cover completely. If they were easy to understand, it wouldn't need explaining, neh?



But if you want the short, short version:



1 is an unproven assertion, and the counter-argument is seen all over the place. I would particularly point out the 'face' on Mars.



2 is an unproven assertion and actually involves dramatic distortions of the truth. You could easily put the information in the DNA of everyone you know on an iPod.



3 is a complete misstatement of genetics. And it's very easy to demonstrate by substituting letters in a word one by one until you have another word.



4 is a complete misstatement of thermodynamics. It's not even close to correct.



5 is true only because anything MIGHT be disputed. Most of its other claims are outright false; there are some very well filled-in transitions, they don't have to all be present, and nobody expects fossil records to have every version of every creature that lived.



6 I will largely grant you. The depictions are largely artistic and many of the old, less accurate ones persist because they convey an idea better. Human evolution, however, is only a specific example of the process of evolution at large, and there are reasons to believe our fossils would be particularly spotty.



If you really want to talk at length about it, there is no shortage of opportunity. Take a biology class. Send an email to willing members of this forum. But you can hardly expect to compress years of study into a short blank like this, can you?

Answer 6

I'd say:



[1] evolution is not "by chance" - it is s directed process (moving inexorably in the direction of better "fitness"). That is the importance of SELECTION in natural selection.

Provide a rigorous, scientific definition of "complexity" in this context for me, please.

And the "Irreducible Complexity" / Watchmaker Argument is an "Argument from personal incredulity" - essentially, you are saying "I don't understand how [feature X] evolved, therefore no-one will ever understand how it evolved, therefore it didn't evolve." This demonstrates nothing except a collossal intellectual arrogance on your part.



[2] define "information" in this context for me, please.

Also - this argument is another argument from personal incredulity ("I do not understand how the 'complexity' in DNA could have evolved, therefore no-one will ever understand how it evolved. Therefore it didn't evolve.")

Also - evolutionary biologists, particularly those who mathematically model evolution, have a fine graps on the mathematics of probability and complexity, and they seem to have no problems with it. I admit that this is an "Appeal to authority", but don't you think that there is the faintest possibility that they might just know what they are talking about?



[3] define "information" for me in this context please.

Also - a gene duplication event (a simple mutation, observed to occur thousands of times) will give rise to two copies of the same gene. Subsequent point mutations will cause the two genes to become different from each other (also observed thousands of times). In what way are these two divergent genes not "informationally" different from each other?

Finally - "evolution" does not imply an increase in complexity - it merely means "change".



[4] the second law of thermodynamics only applies to a closed system NOT to an open one. go and learn some basic physics.

Neither organisms, nor the earth as a whole are closed systems (organisms consume external energy, either in the form of light or chemical energy; the earth is bombarded by vast amounts of energy from the sun).

The sun, by radiating this energy, is experiencing an enormous increase in entropy, more than enough to offset the small-scale, localised decrease on earth.

By your argument, no living things could ever grow - as their growth is a decrease in entropy.



[5] there are literally thousands of examples of "transitional forms" in the fossil record, despite what you might claim. Here are some lists:

http://www.talkorigins.org/pdf/faq-transitional.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

Also - ALL species are a "transitional form": the kangaroo of today are transitional between the "proto-kangaroo" of a million years ago and whatever kangaroo evolve into over the next million years.

PS - please provide a rigorous , scientific definition of a "kind". Is a wolf the same "kind" as a dog? Is a coyote? A fox?



[6] oooh. This one requires several points:

- humans *are* apes. We are classified in the Hominidae family of primates, which also includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orangoutans (and we've been classified thus since long before Darwin, so it's not an "evolution" idea).

- please give a convincing demonstration of a contrived reconstruction of a fossil of human evolution (remember to first get a qualification in anthropology/paleontology, so you can be considered as qualified as the scientists actually doing the work you are maligning)

- the "monkey to man" ladder is misleading - evolution branches, it is not linear.

- there are many, many examples of fossils charting-out human evolution, and they all tell a consistent story. check out this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_evolution_fossils

and pay particular attention to the second sentence - "As there are thousands of fossils, this overview is not meant to be complete, but does show some of the most important finds."

Answer 7

1. Actually, given enough time (and there was apparently enough), they'd have a 100% chance of happening.



2. A large percentage of our DNA has no known function whatsoever, and is probably completely useless.



3. There is a way to increase genetic information, only I've forgotten what it's called. Okay, maybe I won't answer this one.



4. Thermodynamics has nothing to do with evolution--just like the rules of cricket don't apply to football.



5. There's always a few idiots who will dispute anything, thus "undisputed" evidence is simply not possible.



6. That's just simply untrue. It's a questionable opinion at best and cannot be put forward as fact.

Answer 8

1. with natural selection the chance is taken out a bad mutation becomes a dead animal thats simple isnt it



2.It has taken 3.5 billion years to get to that data and life is more then a collection of data. Also I have a terabyte of data in my computer over 3.5 billion years imagine how much I would have then.



3."genetic information"? mutations are small and almost always helping the survival of that species, also your wrong look at going from Apes to Man changing an X chromosome to a Y there is more info for you



4."universal principle of entropy, stating that the entropy of an ISOLATED system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium" notice the word Isolated where not Isolated the sun is always adding energy and there is also global core heat as well.



5. the only reason they are "disputed" is because creationist cant except the proof, and there are plenty of transitional forms like a land based mammal to a whale, or even your horse example its earliest stage is more rodent like then horse like.



6.you wrong crime labs do it every day to piece victims when all that is left are the bones

Answer 9

1. No scientific explanation of biological systems says they *did* "evolve by chance." (straw-man argument). Nothing has ever found to be "irreducibly complex." The rest is an argument from ignorance/incredulity.



2. Invalid premise, and argument from incredulity/ignorance.



3. False premise in two ways ("increasing information" is not the basis of evolution by natural selection, and mutations that *do* "increase information" have not only been observed, but intentionally done as well).



4. Debunked a long time ago.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html



5. No, there isn't. The only ones claiming to need them are creationists, and the only ones that deny the hundreds of thousands of "intermediate form" fossils we do have are creationists. Creationists irrationally dispute something, then claim because there's no undisputed example it's invalid. Dishonest.



6. Artist interpretations of "ape to human missing links" are never claimed as evidence. Fossils, however, are -- and we have extremely accurate "fleshing out" of those based on solid forensic techniques. Several flat-out lies in that one, as well.



I should point out that "disproving" evolution (which none of those inane arguments come close to doing) would simply mean we don't how how live got to be what it is on our planet -- it would not be evidence that "creationism" is correct. Their myth doesn't win by default. They should be focusing on evidence to show their myth correct, not on trying (badly) to "disprove" evolution. Of course, since they don't *have* any evidence to show creationism is correct, this is all they can do..



Peace.

Answer 10

I'd start by saying "Gee, nice unsourced copy-and-paste job there."



1) Oh great, another creationist who assumes the two and only two answers for everything are "a big invisible man did it" or "random chance". Guess what? It was neither. Complexity can come about from the accumulation of gradual changes.



And "irreducible complexity" has already been debunked. And by a Christian biologist, at that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_HVrjKcvrU



The "watchmaker argument" is bogus too:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/arguments.html#design



2) See above. Nobody is claiming that the first replicable DNA sequences came purely from the arrangement of chemicals. Anybody making that argument is dishonestly ignoring one BILLION years of process in abiogenesis.



3) Once again, we see an idiot here who can't wrap his mind around the idea that change can become accumulated enough to make significant changes over time. It's like saying no new genres of music can form because we all use the same 12 note system.



4) This argument is so bad, that even Answers In Genesis (one of the leading creationism websites) admits it and advises people not to use it.

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html



5) This is a lie. We have plenty of them:

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

And the claim that we need "innumerable" transitional fossils to demonstrate evolution, is like saying I need continuous video footage of myself since birth to prove that I'm the same person in my childhood photographs.



6) No, they aren't:

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Big_daddy

Answer 11

1. Torn to shreds in court.

2. Meaningless claim. Define information.

3. Outright lie. Same problem with defining information. However, we've seen mutations increase "information" by any meaning of the word.

4. Another lie based on severe ignorance of thermodynamics.

5. Lie. There are thousands known.

6. No, we have dozens of individual fossils.



All creationist claims are dishonest. Those are no different.

Answer 12

All I can say is, this person searched for evidence to back op their beliefs, not the other way around. Every third or so sentence is either reveals a huge misunderstanding of the very theories that are being refuted, or is an opinion.



I can't even begin to refute this point by point, it's just a load of crap. I would tell them to do a some more research on evolution and the scientific method, and then get back to me. (Not that it would help, they're way too biased).



Oh btw NOT ATHEIST. I detest your implication that you have to be atheist to understand science.

Answer 13

Copy paste.



Palm making connection with face in 3.. 2.. 1..

Answer 14

Copying and pasting from a creationist website is bad enough, but when you don't realize that you haven't even posted all of it demonstrates that you haven't thought enough the question on your own.

Answer 15

I'd say



"Go back to school and make sure to have a science book shoved down your throat instead of saying that "God did it" for everything you don't understand."



Oh, and complexity does not mean that God made it.

Answer 16

I'd say backup your claims with peer reviewed research or GTFO and take your fail with you.

Answer 17

I haven't ever heard your third point before. That's interesting. Time to do research!

Answer 18

(not an atheist)



I'd tell him to quit lying because nothing he just said was true.

Answer 19

I'd just let my penis do the talking

Answer 20

I would say, CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL.

Answer 21

I wouldn't attempt to argue with someone who believes the myth of "creation."



"The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it."

----------------------------Voltaire

Answer 22

I would say "really?"