Challenging questions concerning Evolution and Creation

[AronRa]

I get a lot of private messages that are much longer than I have time for, and which can't be adequately addressed in the message boxes of YouTube. And if they are posted there, they're lost to the ether after a week or so. I should keep a blog for this sort of thing, but I don't know that I have the resources to build or maintain one. That's why I come here.

For example:

AronRa,
My family sent a Christian fellow to my apartment not too long ago. Said he was here to talk to me about religion, and why I should reconsider. I don't plan on going back to Christianity by far, and I am in no way on the edge of converting. But i'd be blind if I didn't look into evolution further for myself. Most of the statements mainly seem to take the attempt to bash evolution and point out its flaws, making it untrustworthy. He presented me the following arguments:

1.(This question summarizes all the flaws in evolution as an indication that evolution is an act of faith. This perhaps bothered me most of all.)

1. Creationists have to make science seem untrustworthy because their own position is an unreliable as it is possible for anything to be. I grew up listening to them criticizing me for "building my house on shifting sand". This was meant to imply that changing one's mind in accordance with an improving understanding was somehow bad, but that being so unreasonable that you would not be reasoned with no matter how wrong you are is somehow good. My 'shifting sand' are hard facts, while their 'rock' is the unwarranted interpretations of the unsubstantiated assumptions passed down to them by their ignorant and deceitful authorities. There's your double-standard already. They criticize you for being honest enough to change your mind in accordance with the facts. At the same time, they expect you to believe impossible absurdities without hesitation, without reservation, without question, and without reason. Or if there is a reason, it is not evidence. Rather it is because of some indefensible fallacy based on emotion rather than intellect, something that cannot make sense logically.

The next element of their double-standard is where they will readily admit that faith is dishonest whenever they want to project that fault onto you, whereas for them to assert as fact things that are not evidently true is somehow virtuous. This is why they offer unimaginable rewards only for those who believe, and why they threaten unbelievers with a fate worse than death. It doesn't matter how wonderful you've always been in life, your works are like filthy rags if you don't buy whatever nonsense the local religion is selling. The only sin that can't be forgiven is disbelief. Morality was never the issue. You're judged solely on your gullability, and the reason for that is that it is not God who is judging you; it is the clergy trying to con you into tithing to them for the rest of your life.

If you are to accept the teaching of evolution as true, you must believe that agnostic or atheistic scientists will not let their personal beliefs influence their interpretations of scientific findings.

No, you must believe that they WILL do that, just like religious people obviously do. But unlike religion, science has several applications in place to minimize bias, correct errors, and expose fraud. The rules are simple:

(1) Positive claims require positive evidence. That means it has to be objectively verifiable even for people who don't want to believe you. (2) All such claims must be presented for indefinite analysis by anyone and everyone hoping to find something wrong with whatever you said. Referring to this process of ruthless critical analysis as "peer" review is almost ironic. These people are not your friends, because (3) the best way to become rich and famous in science is to challenge the status quo and prove that the whole world is wrong. Religion is quite literally a matter of make-believe, but science is a highly effective system of doubt. Remember, nothing can be as dishonest as the philosophy of faith.

You must believe that mutations and natural selection produced all complex life-forms, despite a century of research that shows that mutations haven to transformed even one properly defined species into something entirely new.

This is both a dishonest strawman and a deliberate lie. The strawman is the qualifier of being "entirely" new. The lie is the claim that we've never seen speciation. In the last century or so, we can show dozens of new species emerging from every type of biota, but according to the law of monophyletic hierarchy, each new species must still belong to every parent clade as its ancestors did. Creationists demand that we show lizards turning into birds or trees turning into people, and so on. They will not except any new species of fruit fly or fish because it is "still" a fruit fly or fish.

You must believe that all creatures gradually evolved from a common ancestor, despite a fossil record that strongly indicates that the major kinds of plants and animals appeared abruptly and did not evolve into other kinds, even over aeons of time. Does that type of belief sound as though it is based on facts or myths? Really, belief in evolution is an act of "faith".

Belief in creationism is an act of willful deceit. The fossil record shows that there were many forms of life which predate multicellular forms, and that during the Cambrian explosion, the only chordates represented were the most primitive jawless or even boneless fish. No mammals, reptiles, or birds of any kind, just things that are basic, they're little more than swimming worms. Tell your family they sent someone to lie to you. Ask them if that's how their 'truth' should be defended?

2. (This first question speaks of the U.S.A, Asia, and Europe launching a well funded research program using methods promised to speed up evolution. A boom in science that took place after 1930s.) In the 1930s, natural selection became known as fact among scientists. The magazine put natural selections into its own words as a process inwhich the organism best suited to its environment is most likely to survive and breed - could produce new species of plants from random mutations. Therefore, scientists now assumed that artificial, or human guided, selection of mutations should be able to do the same thing but more efficiently.

After more than 40 years of intensive research, the results came down to this: "In spite of an enormous financial expenditure," says researcher Peter von Sengbusch, "the atempt to cultivate increasingly productive varieties by irradiation [to cause mutations], widely proved to be a failure."

Shortly after, German scientist Wolf-Ekkehard Là¶nnig stated that, "By the 1980's, the hopes and euphoria among scientists had ended in worldwide failure. Mutation breeding as a separate branch of research was abandoned in Western countries. Almost all the mutants . . . died or were weaker than wild varieties."

After 100 years of mutation research in general and 70 years of mutation breeding in particular enable scientists to draw conclusions regarding the ability of mutations to produce new species. After examining evidence Lonnig concluded: "Mutations cannot transform an original species [of plant or animal] into an entirely new one.

Again, the operative word is "entirely" new. Creationists will not accept anything that is evidently related to its own ancestors, which of course they would have to be, if they had evolved at all.

This conclusion agrees with all the experiences and results of mutation research of the 20th century taken together as well as with the laws of probability."

Never trust a creationist argument for probability. These are the people who say that their book of fables must take priority even when the whole of reality demands otherwise. For example:

"Any so-called "truth" in conflict with God's Truth is no truth at all; it is a lie, a manifestation of the one great Lie that tells us the God of the Bible is not the one God and King over all. The war between the Truth and "truths" is really the war between Truth and the Lie. But the Lie doesn't come to us openly announcing, "I'm false, I'm deceptive." It comes to us pretending it is true."
-Campus Crusade for Christ

Of course the greates irony here is that the Bible doesn't come to us openly announcing "I'm false, I'm deceptive." It is presented as being 'absolute truth'.

Can mutations cause one species to evolve into a completely new kind of creature? If highly trained scientists are unable to produce new species by artificially inducing and selecting favorable mutations, is it likely that an unintelligent process would do a better job? If research shows that mutations cannot transform an original species into an entirely new one, then how, exactly, was macroevolution supposed to have taken place?

I have numbered this argument as the 11th foundational falsehood of creationism.

3. Most of this question presented to me was mere facts addressing Darwin's research with finches. Summed up into summary: Darwin's research on finches can prove that evolution is a ridiculous belief that one species can evolve into another. Indeed his finches changed over time, but did they become anything new? They are still finches and the fact that they are interbreeding casts doubt on the methods some evolutionists use to define a species. In addition information about these birds exposes the fact that even prestigious scientific academies are not above reporting evidence in a biased manner.

My video on the 11th FFoC deals with the creationist's deliberate misrepresentation of the finch argument too.

4. Scientists leave the impression that the fossils found by scientists more than adequately document macroevolution. A paleontologist declares, "So many intermediate forms have been discovered between fish and amphibians, between reptiles and mammals, and along the primate lines of descent that it often is difficult to identify categorically when the transition occurs from one to another particular species." This statement is surprising. Why? - Niles Eldredge, a staunch evolutionist, states that the fossil reccord shows, not that there is a gradual accumulation of change, but that for long periods of time, "little or no evolutionary change accumulates in most species."

To date, scientists worldwide have unearthed and cataloged some 200 million large fossils and billions of small fossils. Many researches agree that this vast and detailed record shows that all the major groups of animals appeared suddenly and remained virtually unchanged, with many species disappearing as suddenly as they arrived.

Dynamic environments and variable ecologic niches can increase selective pressures, but there is nothing to keep them going in a stable environment. That's why periods of relative stasis are longer than periods of accelerated change. This is another of the laws of evolution. However I can still show you unambiguous transitions happening even in the periods of relative stasis.

5. Everything is perfect. Therefores intelligence must of had soemthing to do with our creation. A perfect earth was put in the perfect area in space, to create a perfect area to create life. Perfect recycling system of oxygen for us to breathe. I mainly would like to know.. is it really perfect? Could it be better?

I could argue that because everything is so grossly flawed, that there's obviously no sense behind it. What this snake-oil salesman is doing is noting that because we're so well adapted to this environment, that the environment must have been adapted to us instead. The analogy is that of a puddle noticing that it fits its hole so well that the hole must have been custom fitted to the water going into it.

Then came the questions that really weren't presented in much of a scientific way..

The questions above weren't scientific either. Falsehoods and fallacies are all this guy has.

1. If monkeys arn't extinct, why are the supposed man-ape species extinct, yet humans exist?

Many monkeys are extinct. Dozens of species of apes are extinct now too, as are several earlier species of humans, Neanderthals, Hobbits, Pithecanthropus, and so on. So we out-witted or killed off everyone else who looked like us. What is that supposed to mean? And how does this guy explain the fact that humans are currently classified as apes, and that apes are a subset of Old World monkeys?



The "earlier videos" referred to here are the 9th and 10th foundational falsehoods of creationism.

2. Why isn't there a species in the process of becoming another species? Such as a fish that has recently grown legs and began crawling on land during the past couple of centurys. Wouldn't evolution imply that?

No. While there are several species of fish who have obviously developed legs independent of the tetrapod transition, that development in our lineage evidently took over 100 million years to complete. This guy expects us to show that entire sequence happening in just one lifetime?!

3. If a meteor caused the extinction of dinosaurs, and the earth is billions of years old, why haven't we been hit by another meteor? Obviously a god is protecting us.

We have been hit by millions of meteors, many of them large devastating ones. It seems we were once even hit by a whole planet! That is apparently where the moon came from. Just in my lifetime, I can remember several planetoids coming within lunar orbit. One exploded in our atmosphere with the force of a nuclear bomb. That was over the Yokon in 1990. There are craters all over this world, some of them attached to legends from the people who were close enough to see them created.

Show this post to the people who sent that liar to see you. Let them see where I told you that they should be ashamed of that guy, and that he should be ashamed of himself. He's not, because to him the ends justifies the means, and in his perspective, whether you believe it is more important than whether it is true.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I get a lot of private messages that are much longer than I have time for, and which can't be adequately addressed in the message boxes of YouTube. And if they are posted there, they're lost to the ether after a week or so. I should keep a blog for this sort of thing, but I don't know that I have the resources to build or maintain one. That's why I come here.

Perhaps AronRa could be given a Contributors account, thus he can make posts like this into blog posts.

 

[nemesiss]

perhaps he can make a video, advocating for forums such as this one, where people with questions about evolution, religion and all sorts of things can go to...
then he can simply reply with, "want answers? watch this instruction video."

 

[Prolescum]

I would read them here if they were in the blog section. Not that I didn't read them before... It posts an automatic discussion thread too, so I'm for he_who_is_nobody's suggestion.

 

[Demojen]

Am I the only person who hears Aronra's voice in my head as I read this thread?

 

[WarK]

Am I the only person who hears Aronra's voice in my head as I read this thread?

Nope, this is quite common actually

 

[Cnidarious]

Am I the only person who hears Aronra's voice in my head as I read this thread?

No, i don`t think so.
actualy he has got a fantastic narration voice in my opinion.

 

[Visaki]

Am I the only person who hears Aronra's voice in my head as I read this thread?

Nope. I do the same thing. Arons narration in the tFFoC series is quite catchy. Not sure if he actually practiced it (I hope not in front of a mirror) or if it just comes naturally for him but it's a beauty to listen.

 

[Inferno]

Nope. I do the same thing. Arons narration in the tFFoC series is quite catchy. Not sure if he actually practiced it (I hope not in front of a mirror) or if it just comes naturally for him but it's a beauty to listen.

Having talked to him and listened to one of his talks live, I'd say it comes naturally. Or maybe he just practised so much it's now second nature.

 

[TheOnlyThing2Fear]

To quote the author, "Creationists demand that we show lizards turning into birds or trees turning into people, and so on. They will not except any new species of fruit fly or fish because it is "still" a fruit fly or fish." I assume for the sake of argument that you meant "accept" and not "except".

How is a fruit fly or fish a "new species" if it is still a fruit fly and still a fish? No matter how much Frankenstein science is performed on the fruit fly, it remains a fruit fly, unless related to its forced deformity it is classified as something else.

Isn't it factual that before modern theories arose out of modern technology that this is precisely what was and is taught? (except the part about trees turning into people, but I give the "worms to humans crowd" credit for their attempts) Lizards are turning into birds, especially in museum dioramas and public school textbooks. I'm expecting hunting license fees for veloci-pheasants to be higher than last year.

 

[australopithecus]

How is a fruit fly or fish a "new species" if it is still a fruit fly and still a fish?

Fruit flies and fish aren't species, they're a family (Drosophilidae) and paraphyletic group respectively. Felidae is also a family but you wouldn't argue that a Tiger and a house cat are the same species.

Actually, I wouldn't be shocked if you tried.

Isn't it factual that before modern theories arose out of modern technology that this is precisely what was and is taught?

No, that strawman of reality exists only in the minds of creationists.

Lizards are turning into birds, especially in museum dioramas and public school textbooks.

Another strawman. No one has ever claimed lizards turn into birds. It's very well evidenced that therapod dinosaurs are an ancestral lineage of modern birds however.

I'm expecting hunting license fees for veloci-pheasants to be higher than last year.

Appeal to ridicule.

 

[Dean]

TheOnlyThing2Fear

["¦] How is a fruit fly or fish a "new species" if it is still a fruit fly and still a fish? No matter how much Frankenstein science is performed on the fruit fly, it remains a fruit fly, unless related to its forced deformity it is classified as something else. ["¦]

How much have you read about evolutionary phylogenetics, and taxonomy? I don't know you well enough to judge that, but I can take a guess...

First of all, "Fruit Fly" is NOT a name of a species, but rather an ENORMOUS family of insects, divided into two main sub-divisions, Tephritidae, and concomitantly Drosophilidae. And both of these groups encompass a broad range of "species" within the same taxonomic genera. The same goes for fish. NOT a species name, but rather an extremely broad term, a paraphyletic group, comprising all of the related sub-divisions of aquatic vertebrates (or craniates) that are classified within this group.

When one sexually reproductive population becomes so genetically differed that it can no longer interbreed with its ancestoral population and produce reproductively viable offspring, then by the biological definition, they have become two different species. This is called speciation, as I'm guessing you've been told before, though likely with no lasting effect. :roll:

A new species OF these groups could emerge quite readily, and still be considered "fruit flies", or "fish". And indeed, the rules of evolutionary taxonomy would disallow otherwise. Any more questions?

 

[Inferno]

How is a fruit fly or fish a "new species" if it is still a fruit fly and still a fish? No matter how much Frankenstein science is performed on the fruit fly, it remains a fruit fly, unless related to its forced deformity it is classified as something else.

Aron explained this in his video Turns out we DID come from monkeys!

My aunt's maiden name was Brunner, when she married she adopted the name Nolz. Did she stop being a "Brunner" simply because we now call her Nolz?
Americans once came from Europe and we now call the Americans, but that changes nothing from the fact that they are Europeans by descent.

Even if we ignore the nit-picking from Dean and Austra, we're left with the above. In the same vein, a fruit fly will always be a fruit fly... and a bird will always be a dinosaur.

Isn't it factual that before modern theories arose out of modern technology that this is precisely what was and is taught? (except the part about trees turning into people, but I give the "worms to humans crowd" credit for their attempts) Lizards are turning into birds, especially in museum dioramas and public school textbooks. I'm expecting hunting license fees for veloci-pheasants to be higher than last year.

Nowhere in evolutionary biology does anyone suggest that "trees turn into people" or "lizards turn into birds" or any other kind of nonsense like that. Aron addressed that too, in his 15th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism Pt 1, where he says:

Script[/url]"]Opponents say evolution isn't allelic variance in reproductive populations over successive generations because that doesn't mean spontaneous generation of something coming from nothing, or dirt coming to life, and fish turning into giraffes, or some other ridiculous thing no scientist could ever endorse. But none of those things are evolution; They're all strawmen fallacies created to obfuscate what evolution really is by those who refuse to admit that it really happens. So they call it something else instead.

Here's a quick explanation:

Are you willing to admit that your portrayal of evolution is nothing more than a Straw-man? Are you further willing to admit that you obviously don't know enough about the subject to "debate" it?

 

[Laurens]

To quote the author, "Creationists demand that we show lizards turning into birds or trees turning into people, and so on. They will not except any new species of fruit fly or fish because it is "still" a fruit fly or fish." I assume for the sake of argument that you meant "accept" and not "except".

How is a fruit fly or fish a "new species" if it is still a fruit fly and still a fish? No matter how much Frankenstein science is performed on the fruit fly, it remains a fruit fly, unless related to its forced deformity it is classified as something else.

Isn't it factual that before modern theories arose out of modern technology that this is precisely what was and is taught? (except the part about trees turning into people, but I give the "worms to humans crowd" credit for their attempts) Lizards are turning into birds, especially in museum dioramas and public school textbooks. I'm expecting hunting license fees for veloci-pheasants to be higher than last year.

I've done turds that demonstrate a better understanding of evolution than this.

Trees turning into people? Can you find me a text book or a journal article from a reputable source which says that is what happens?

If you want people to take your criticisms seriously you have to at least have a rudimentary understanding of what evolution is. No evolutionary scientist would ever tell you that worms or trees became human. Please, for your own sake at least read the wikipedia article on evolution...

 

[Inferno]

I've done turds that demonstrate a better understanding of evolution than this.

 

[rareblackatheist]

How is a fruit fly or fish a "new species" if it is still a fruit fly and still a fish? No matter how much Frankenstein science is performed on the fruit fly, it remains a fruit fly, unless related to its forced deformity it is classified as something else.

So you don't know what species means? Didn't you say were reading a lot of creation and ID material? Well i guess that would explain why you don't know what speices means.

 

[Gnug215]

To quote the author, "Creationists demand that we show lizards turning into birds or trees turning into people, and so on. They will not except any new species of fruit fly or fish because it is "still" a fruit fly or fish." I assume for the sake of argument that you meant "accept" and not "except".

How is a fruit fly or fish a "new species" if it is still a fruit fly and still a fish? No matter how much Frankenstein science is performed on the fruit fly, it remains a fruit fly, unless related to its forced deformity it is classified as something else.

Isn't it factual that before modern theories arose out of modern technology that this is precisely what was and is taught? (except the part about trees turning into people, but I give the "worms to humans crowd" credit for their attempts) Lizards are turning into birds, especially in museum dioramas and public school textbooks. I'm expecting hunting license fees for veloci-pheasants to be higher than last year.

No matter how much you disbelieve it, misrepresent it (whether you actually understand it or not - it looks mostly like the latter from what you're saying, I'm afraid) and ridicule it, it doesn't change the fact that there are massive amounts of evidence supporting the theory of evolution, and it's the concensus of just about all the scientists involved, who by the way are 10 times more knowledgable than you and I combined on the subject, that the theory of evolution is the best explanation for diversity of life we see today.

Your stubborn denial of the theory and your desperate attempts at ridicule, just after you've demonstrated a lacking understanding of the theory, only make you look worse here.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

TheOnlyThing2Fear, define species in a biological context. Define evolution in a biological context.

 

[Dean]

TheOnlyThing2Fear, define species in a biological context. Define evolution in a biological context.

I've already done that for him. As has australopithecus. So we have that.

(out of curiosity, why do you always ask this question, and in virtually the same wording every time?)

 

[Prolescum]

To be able to define something accurately in your own words shows how well you grasp a concept, Dean.