Common Creationist Arguments - Pseudoscience

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creationism/Arguments/Pseudoscience.shtml ^

[VadeRetro]

Do you not understand the difference between intelligent design and optimal design? Was the AMC Pacer example difficult to understand?

Quite a slam on your Creator, that one. Tell me, why did He experiment for two billion years with just prokaryotes? Why did it take Him so long to get interested in multicellulars? Did he not know how? Why such a long learning curve? Why such a tremendous rush of achievement right in the last half a billion years? Why did the invention of sex seem to make such a big difference?

Here's the problem:

What does ID tell us?

[Junior]

You got the posting of the beast.

[VadeRetro]

You got the posting of the beast.

Thus exposing myself. (Whoops!)

[VadeRetro]

No, I'm just busy laughing.

D.O.A. (Delusions of Adequacy)

What is the barrier that prevents "microevolutionary" changes from accumulating indefinitely to "macroevolutionary" in reproductively isolated populations? (Note that an arbitrary distinction cannot function as a real-world barrrier.)

[Lev]

Lev: Are mixed drinks "less fit" than other drinks??? No, they are more fit! They have to be. They are the result of intelligent design!

Uh, as opposed to ... animals?
Ok. Let's take squirrels. Are flying squirrels less fit? What about the time when they just started to develop their skin flaps? Were they less fit than squirrels that didn't have the flaps yet?

btw, are you taking back your claim that I contradicted myself? See 645.

[PatrickHenry]

... intelligent design does not mean optimal design ...

At this point, your ID "theory" cannot be distinguished from evolution, which is also very sloppy.

[VadeRetro]

Then I think I'll abandon ID for evolution. Gasp! The clouds have left my mind! The scales have fallen from my eyes! (Those scaly eyes were a big nuisance, anyway. Bad as a $%^&*! cataract!)

[PatrickHenry]

I intended my post #686 to be adressed to you.

[Aquinasfan]

What is the barrier that prevents "microevolutionary" changes from accumulating indefinitely to "macroevolutionary" in reproductively isolated populations?

The minor problem of the lack of fossil evidence, your example of the shell notwithstanding. The thing is, all of the fossil record should show transitional forms. Stable morphology should be a rare exception, rather than the rule.

[Aquinasfan]

Quite a slam on your Creator, that one.

Not necessarily. You're the one insisting that ID means optimum design, not me.

Tell me, why did He experiment for two billion years with just prokaryotes? Why did it take Him so long to get interested in multicellulars? Did he not know how? Why such a long learning curve? Why such a tremendous rush of achievement right in the last half a billion years? Why did the invention of sex seem to make such a big difference?

Maybe you could tell Him how He could and should have done it differently. Personally, I hesitate to second guess Him.

[Aquinasfan]

At this point, your ID "theory" cannot be distinguished from evolution, which is also very sloppy.

Indeed, at this stage ID doesn't have much more predictive power than evolutionary theory, but it does better explain irreducible systems like the eye and the flagella, the existence of intelligence itself, the existence of specified complexity and the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. I prefer to go with the theory that better explains the empirical evidence.

[Aquinasfan]

The mutations within any given generation are never going to be so great as to prevent the individual with them from mating within his population -- otherwise the mutation immediately disappears from the gene pool.

If a member of the "daughter species" never mutates enough to become "reproductively isolated" from other members of the "daughter species," how then does it become "reproductively isolated" from the parent species?

[DoctorMichael]

Evolutionary Bump.

[Junior]

The entire population of the daughter species is reproductively isolated from the parent species. It doesn't work with one individual -- you need a breeding population.

[Heartlander]

“The change in spots on wings or moth colors does not involve the development of any new traits, only changes in proportions. Natural selection works here because there are already functional traits. This says nothing about the ability of natural selection to develop a complex system "from scratch." The same is true for drug resistance, which is another fine tuning of already developed systems. To make matters worse, drug resistance development requires the killing of millions of organisms just to make one change. This rules out application to almost any animal species, especially in evolution models where only a few members of a species evolve to a new one (ie punctuated equilibrium models).”

[Doctor Stochastic]

Perhaps you could give an example of something that is not designed to compare with an example of something designed.

[Junior]

btw, are you taking back your claim that I contradicted myself? See 645.

gore3000 never admits when he is wrong. Ask VadeRetro about that one.

[PatrickHenry]

Indeed, at this stage ID doesn't have much more predictive power than evolutionary theory, but it does better explain irreducible systems like the eye and the flagella, the existence of intelligence itself, the existence of specified complexity and the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. I prefer to go with the theory that better explains the empirical evidence.

I think you've been given numerous links to transitional fossils, but you just don't accept them as evidence. Mexican standoff there, if you won't seriously deal with the data. Now as for the so-called "irreducible systems like the eye and the flagella," if evolution had an explanation for those, would you then abandon ID?

[Aquinasfan]

Perhaps you can tell me what sequence of minor, beneficial mutations led to the woodpecker's tongue wrapping around its head?

I found this humorous explanation.

And this Creationist account.

Which account better explains the evidence? Which explanation examines all of the facts, and which explanation is a gloss?

[Junior]

Stable morphology should be a rare exception, rather than the rule.

Why? If the situation is stable, so should be the critters adapted to take advantage of that situation.