15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense [THE FINAL DEBUNKING]

Scientific American ^ | 17 June 2002 | John Rennie

[PatrickHenry]

Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up

When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.

Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change. Some antievolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a "wedge" for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God.

Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage.

To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.

1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

14. Living things have fantastically intricate features--at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels--that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

15. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution. [Rebuttal omitted to save space. See the original article.]

CONCLUSION
"Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Thus, physics describes the atomic nucleus with specific concepts governing matter and energy, and it tests those descriptions experimentally. Physicists introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena. The new particles do not have arbitrary properties, moreover--their definitions are tightly constrained, because the new particles must fit within the existing framework of physics.

In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)

Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life's history? By creating the first DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design. Instead they pursue argument by exclusion--that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain.

Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for scientific ideas.

Time and again, science has shown that methodological naturalism can push back ignorance, finding increasingly detailed and informative answers to mysteries that once seemed impenetrable: the nature of light, the causes of disease, how the brain works. Evolution is doing the same with the riddle of how the living world took shape. Creationism, by any name, adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort.

The Author(s):

John Rennie is editor in chief of Scientific American.

[VadeRetro]

Put another way: The number of children that will have this new mutation will be (on average) 1/2 the number of children! If the mutated parent has 6 children over its lifetime, then the mutation will spread to three individuals. If the parent has 50 children, then this mutation will spread to 25 individuals, where before there was only one! There is no problem spreading a neutral mutation from one to several individuals.

Just wanted to see this again.

[VadeRetro]

Another relevant model:

The answer is no, drift at one generation is always around the allele frequency of the previous generation only; and allele frequencies in more ancient generations are totally irrelevant. THERE IS NO TENDENCY TO RETURN TO ANCESTRAL ALLELE FREQUENCIES.

Genetic Drift: The Role of Finite Population Size.

[VadeRetro]

A biologist disagrees with the mathematicians at that Wistar Symposium back in 1966 which some cretastrophists love to quote:

But the point the biologists want to make is that that isn't really what is going on at all. We don't need 120 changes [in hemoglobin -- VR] one after the other. We know perfectly well of 12 changes which exist in the human population at the present time. There are probably many more which we haven't detected, because they have such slight physiological effects...[so] there [may be] 20 different amino acid sequences in human hemoglobins in the world population at present, all being processed simultaneously...

Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept?

[PatrickHenry]

You're missing some of the fun, Patrick.

I know, I know. But when after maybe a thousand posts, it becomes obvious and totally beyond debate that someone is just not going to respond to evidence and reaason, I lose interest in anything such a person may say. This is my attitude toward both of the blues brothers, the bat man, and the OOBFOO boy. I have no interest in probing the functioning of their minds. It's fun, sometimes, to catalog their blunders, but that's my sole interest in them.

[gore3000]

This is my attitude toward both of the blues brothers, the bat man, and the OOBFOO boy.

Yup, anyone that contradicts your theory must be insulted because you can never present scientific evidence to refute their statements. Very lame, very dishonest.

[jennyp]

Try and stay with me, gore...

No, you are absolutely wrong and if you look it up instead of looking for excuses for you phony evolution, you would stop repeating that nonsense. The chances are 50% because there are two alleles and by all scientific research either one is as likely to be chosen as the other. Since a new gene would have no allele it would only have a 50% of going on to the next generation. If it survived, it would only have a 50% chance of continuing to the next one and so on until such time as it had spread enough that sometimes both parents would have such a gene, so stop talking garbage and start facing the truth.

This is true only if there is always only one child per family.

You must remember this is a new gene - no one else has it. The chances of its spreading are very slim indeed. Because there is no selective advantage in a useless gene the chances of its spreading are always the same 50% at each reproduction.

Repeat after me: "The chances are 50% per child." OK, let's try a simple experiment & see what happens:

Take a quarter & flip it. What did you get? There's a 50% chance you got Heads.

Now flip it 9 more times. What's the chance that at least one flip turned up Heads? It's 75% after the 2nd flip, 87.5% after the 3rd flip ... and 99.9% (1023/1024) after the 10th flip.

Still don't believe me? Try the experiment again. Flip the quarter 10 times & record how many tries produced at least one Heads. Keep trying until you get no Heads after 10 flips in a row or until it's bedtime. (Trust me: Bedtime will arrive first, virtually every time.) Now try this variation:

Take the quarter & flip it 10 times. Record how many Heads you got. I'll bet it was more than one. Now do it again - flip it 10 times. Record how many Heads. And again. And again.

You'll come up with an average of 5 Heads for each 10 flips.

By this time your stomach should be churning, and for good reason: At some level you realize that each flip represents one child for the parent. Each Head represents each child who got the neutral mutation. When you get 5 Heads after 10 flips, that represents our neutral mutation going from only one individual - the parent - to six individuals - the parent & the 5 Heads.

(I told you that'd be scary!)

[jennyp]

Here's my results of the coin flip experiment. What were yours? Did you dare?

o = child with original gene

M = child with mutated gene

Mutant parent's family #1: o o o M o o o o M M = 3 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #2: M M o M o o M o o o = 4 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #3: o M o o M o M o o o = 3 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #4: M o o o M o o M M M = 5 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #5: o o M M M o o M o o = 4 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #6: M M M M o o M M o o = 6 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #7: M o M M M o o M o o = 5 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #8: o o M o M o M o o M = 4 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #9: o M o o M o o o o M = 3 mutant children

Mutant parent's family #10: o M o M M M M M M M = 8 mutant children

Out of 100 children, 45 were mutants. Pretty close to 50% odds per child, wouldn't you say? In fact, if it wasn't for that last outlier family the results would've been 41% mutants instead of 45%. Maybe the mutation was slightly harmful! LOL!

[jennyp]

AndrewC, you fancy yourself an objective judge of the facts. Is gore3000's argument #3 from post 1605 correct - that a neutral mutation only has a 50% chance of surviving to the next generation - or is he wrong?

3. that the duplicate gene gets spread through the species at chances of 50% survival at each generation (note no selective advantage since the gene is just a duplicate at this point).

[gore3000]

This is true only if there is always only one child per family.

I keep telling you that your premises are false but you do not listen. Each person has two copies of a gene. A mutated gene or a duplicated gene will have only one copy of the mutation or of the duplication therefore your statements are false. Further, since this is a completely new mutation or duplication no one else in the species has it. Therefore whoever this individual mates with will not have a copy of the mutated gene or of the duplicated gene. That is why the math is so depressing for evolution. It does not matter whether the normal reproduction rate of a species is 1,2, or 50,000. The new gene has a reproductive disadvantage. This disadvantage is HUGE. It is half as much as that of any normal gene because there is only one copy of it. Normally genes have two copies in each individual and one gets chosen. These normal genes are slightly different sometimes but perform the same function. With the normal genes one gets chosen at random, the other does not. Since the mate also has the same old gene, and one gets chosen at random and one does not, the progeny will definitely get 2 copies of the gene according to the laws of genetics. See the diagram below:



From the article explaining genetics (maybe all the evolutionists here should read it) at: Introduction to Mendelian Genetics

A new duplicate gene (and it has to be dominant) would only have one copy - one "S" in the diagram, the mate would have nothing. Since it is dominant but there is no copy of it in the individual that has it, it only has half a chance of being reproduced in the progenitor. The same situation will occur if the progenitor gets it. He will again have half a chance of passing it on. Even if he has sex with a sister (who got the gene also by half a chance), it is still not certain that it will be passed on but it is highly likely that it will, however, the descendant of those two, still having just one copy of the gene will only have half a chance of passing it on. Only after many miraculous chances (equal to flipping heads consecutively many times) will the gene be able to become 'fixed' - meaning that it will be reproduced for sure in the species. However, any mutation would again have to go through the same series of steps and it would be just as hard for a single point mutation of such a gene to get spread throughout the species.

This problem is so devastating to evolution that Gould and Eldredge postulated their silly punk-eek which by supposing small populations made it easier to spread such a gene. It also led Kimura to throw out natural selection in favor of 'neutral drift' which really does not solve the problem but just covers it up.

You also keep failing to address my statement that if evolution supposedly creates whole new species, genes, etc., thanks to new genes which only give a slight advantage to the individual of much less than the 50% which we are talking about here, the opposite is not also true - that a disadvantage giving a gene a tremendous disadvantage in reproduction will not lead to its demise. Explain that one instead of playing silly numbers games.

Also, kindly note that all the other items I mentioned in post#105 not only remain unrefuted, but even unchallenged.

[PatrickHenry]

Even numbered post.

[balrog666]

If you read BlueBoy's last post, he proves that he doesn't understand elementary math or ultra-simple genetics. I'm afraid I don't see how you can proceed further against such invincible ignorance.

[PatrickHenry]

If you read BlueBoy's last post, he proves that he doesn't understand elementary math or ultra-simple genetics. I'm afraid I don't see how you can proceed further against such invincible ignorance.

Indeed. Why I No Longer Debate Idiots.

[medved]

Your man says:

An idiot, therefore, is a person who continues to stand by an opinion by ignoring or knowingly misrepresenting evidence.

That pretty much makes all evolutionists idiots, doesn't it?

[RightWingNilla]

So essentially to get a new working gene, just one, you need what amounts to a miracle. You need: 1. a mutation which produces a duplicate gene. ...

This is generally how new genes are made. I gave several examples before of gene duplication. From the Nature report cited often here:

"Another approach to genomic history is to study segmental duplications within the human genome. Earlier, we discussed examples of recent duplications of genomic segments to pericentromeric and subtelomeric regions. Most of these events appear to be evolutionary dead-ends resulting in nonfunctional pseudogenes; however, segmental duplication is also an important mode of evolutionary innovation: a duplication permits one copy of each gene to drift and potentially to acquire a new function. Segmental duplications can occur through unequal crossing over to create gene families in specific chromosomal regions. This mechanism can create both small families, such as the five related genes of the -globin cluster on chromosome 11, and large ones, such as the olfactory receptor gene clusters, which together contain nearly 1,000 genes and pseudogenes."

How else do you explain these clusters of very closely related genes all adjacent to each other on the chromosome? The authors who sequenced the genome do not doubt for a second that these arose from gene duplication and then subsequently acquired more distinct functions via mutation and selection. Are you arguing that they were “created” that way right off the bat? How do explain pseudogenes? Did the creator purposely put those in there too?

Basically your entire point about the survival value of duplicated genes is pure speculation on your part. Sometimes overexpression of a gene is beneficial to an organism. This has actually been observed in the laboratory:

From here :

“Some early molecular biology experiments concerned how bacterial cells evolve in response to various changes in conditions. These experiments used chemostats - fermentation vessels in which the conditions could be varied. One of the interesting experiments concerned depriving cells which normally required glucose of glucose and providing them instead with another sugar, xylose. Cells from the chemostat were analysed and found to have gained multiple copies of genes responsible for an early stage in glucose metabolism. These additional genes occurred as tandem repeats, a section of DNA repeated a number of times over in sequence. In this situation multiple copies were advantageous because the gene responsible for glucose break down was not 100% specific for glucose. The enzyme had a weak side specificity for xylose. By amplifying the gene, that is having multiple copies, enough of the enzyme was produced to metabolise xylose. The repetition of a section of DNA is believed to occur through an error in copying DNA. A loop can form from a stretch of one strand of DNA and rather than copying this loop once as it should, DNA polymerase may traverse this loop two or more times. Multiple copies also have an indirect advantage. They increase rapidity of subsequent evolution. With multiple copies: The genome makes more experiments with changes to that gene per generation. Mutations that damage one copy only of the duplicated gene are not lethal. It makes possible evolution of a new option. In this example it makes possible the evolution of a xylose metabolism option without destruction of a previous option, glucose metabolism.”

Now it doesnt take much of an imagination to see those extra glucose metabolism genes aqcuiring mutations which make the enzyme more specific to xylose. Run for the hills everyone, we just observed how new "information" is made without a need for intelligent design!

But even if there is no initial beneficial effect in the case of higher organisms, these duplicates are very likely to make it to future generations by virtue of their proximity to the critical genes (the parental gene which gave rise to the duplicates for example) In time some will gain valuable function.

Good recent evidence for duplication of genes evolving into distinct functions in higher organisms:

Here and here

Also you are too hung up on assigning value to every bit of DNA. Maybe much of that "junk" does have a yet to be discovered beneficial purpose, but there certainly looks like a lot of genetic "accidents" which have become trapped in the genome. How in the world do you explain proccesed pseudogenes? Unitary pseudogenes (ex L-GLO)? Whoever "designed" the genome purposely put errors in there? The point is DNA doesn’t have to be “important” to stay. Our chromosomes are so large it would be a trifle to carry around unimportant/non-functional sequences especially if they segregate with pieces of chromosome which DO contain vital genes. Generally you tear the page out of the newspaper that has an interesting story on it. For higher eukaryotic organisms it is completely unnecessary evolve a costly pair of scissors.

6. After all the above though, we still do not have a working gene! Now we need another miracle, we need the gene to: a) be expressed in the cells where the new function, ability or whatever should go.

You are still greatly underestimating the ability of the genome to respond to change! Who are you to say that when new genes arise naturally that they will not be tolerated by the genome? The effects are for the most part are unpredictable; you must think of the genome as more of a recipe book than a blueprint. Adding brown sugar just gives you a different kind of cake. Nature makes sure the recipes which encode for good cakes persist.

I will give you Gore that most changes are likely to be deleterious but surely in the millions of years in the history of life on Earth some of these mutations initially conferred a slight advantage initially and after many of rounds of selection were further improved upon both in regards to their specific function and how they fit into the overall context of the developing organism. Think in terms of tiny, gradual steps.

[RightWingNilla]

Well I have quite a few problems with natural selection being true. For one there are still a lot of fools in this world.

LOL. I agree with you Gore3000, but couldn't this argument also be used the other way? Why would a creator make fools? Natural selection doesn’t care about perfection, its all about being good enough to survive. Gazelles don’t have to run faster than cheetahs, they just have to run faster than their neighbors.

For another even the simplest species are still around and totally in contradiction to natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc., etc. they are the most successful species around!

Survival is really about occupying a niche. The bacteria we see today have cornered the market in the niches we find them, yet multicellularity now allows you to occupy a multitude of different niches....an obvious example - you can now use the unicellular organisms as food. The unicellular guys keep proliferating like gangbusters, and a balance is eventually reached. Sometimes a symbiotic relationship emerges and everybody is happy. Once cellular cooperation picked up steam, many strategies for surviving and making a living developed.

Natural selection only kills the unfit. It is not a cause of anything....

You couldnt be more wrong. A simple example to help you conceptualize the power of natural selection: In the lab, it is a common practice to have bacteria grow massive amounts of specific DNA. This is generally done by including a gene which encodes for antibiotic resistance along with your gene of interest. Add both genes linked on the same DNA (plasmid) to the bacteria, then add antibiotic. Initially, very few of the bacteria contain your DNA yet the next day you have a swarming culture of bacteria which are all contain your gene. Here all we are really doing is killing the unfit - those bacteria which fail to acquire the DNA (most of them actually). Yet what we are left with is a far more “ordered” homogeneous population of bacteria all containing your gene. See how "killing the unfit" can leave you with "something". Nature can be just as unforgiving and has far more powers of selection. Also keep in mind the term “natural selection” includes “sexual selection” – which generally refers to females selecting males based on positive traits (many of these overlap with traits that enhance survival). Death is only one side of the coin.

Further, when species, such as single celled bacteria can survive for billions of years and continue to be the most prolific species on earth, there is clearly no need for increased complexity, the kind required by evolution, for species to survive.

You have it backwards. The great success of bacteria was likely the driving force for organized complexity. Your mitochondria are the descendants of ancient bacteria. Also, when cells teamed up and gave rise to multicellular organisms, the bacteria now serve as food. Read what I wrote previously on this.

Complexity which arises from a far simpler set of rules (or beginnings) is a rapidly emerging scientific paradigm.

I doubt very much that there is any substance to the above except the wishful thinking of materialist scientists.

Can someone here explain Chaos Theory to Mr. Gore?

[RightWingNilla]

I keep telling you that your premises are false but you do not listen. Each person has two copies of a gene. A mutated gene or a duplicated gene will have only one copy of the mutation or of the duplication therefore your statements are false...

Gore this isn’t communist China where everyone is limited to 2 offspring. The individuals with the good genes will give rise to FAR more progeny than their “average” competitors. Consider an extreme example of this: in certain sea-lion species the entire female population live in harems which are controlled by just 4% of the males (the very best of the best at survival). Genes with even a slight beneficial effect should expand greatly over time. Genes that acquire substantial survival value will spread like wildfire.

[jennyp]

I keep telling you that your premises are false but you do not listen. Each person has two copies of a gene. A mutated gene or a duplicated gene will have only one copy of the mutation or of the duplication therefore your statements are false.

You know what? Your argument proves that males will soon go extinct! Yep, the father has an X & a Y, and the mother has an X and an X. There's only a 50% chance of passing along the father's one Y chromosome - just like there's only a 50% chance of passing along the mutated gene.

According to your logic, we ladies should soon be bereft of male company. (what a relief - badaBING!)

From the article explaining genetics (maybe all the evolutionists here should read it) at: Introduction to Mendelian Genetics

You mean the article titled "The page cannot be displayed"?

A new duplicate gene (and it has to be dominant) ...

No it doesn't. We're talking about a neutral mutation, remember?

... would only have one copy - one "S" in the diagram, the mate would have nothing. Since it is dominant but there is no copy of it in the individual that has it, it only has half a chance of being reproduced in the progenitor.

<cough> <ahem> <giggle> HAAAAAAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH...

Aw, gore3000, you're in rare form today, and you've been very entertaining. But I think PatrickHenry's admonition of the futility of debating with idiots applies.

Toodles...

[medved]

Gore this isn’t communist China where everyone is limited to 2 offspring. The individuals with the good genes will give rise to FAR more progeny than their “average” competitors. Consider an extreme example of this: in certain sea-lion species the entire female population live in harems which are controlled by just 4% of the males (the very best of the best at survival). Genes with even a slight beneficial effect should expand greatly over time. Genes that acquire substantial survival value will spread like wildfire.

That pretty much says that after 10 million years of breeding like that while humans breed the way we do, sea lions should by all rights be running this planet.

What about it? Why aren't they??

[jennyp]

p.s. NOBODY ever inherits a YY configuration, so your idea that homozygosity is what's required for a gene to get fixed in the population can't kick in to save MANkind. Think about it, using GoreMath. According to you, lesbians should inherit the earth.

[jennyp]

That pretty much makes all evolutionists idiots, doesn't it?

PLEASE enlighten us about gore3000's Argument #3 from his post 1605. I'm DYING to see if you'll defend it. (i.e. the supposed 50% problem)