My encounter with a creationist and a....something?

[evilotakuneko]

Ohai League of Reason.

On one of the forums I spend time on, evolution "debates" crop up once in a while. Usually it's a comedy of pwnage as idiot creatards show up to take their licks. Sometimes, you get one who is weak in their belief, only a creationist out of ignorance. Sometimes they seem to start coming around and abandoning their fairy tales.

I think I had one such creationist here. I engaged him a couple posts later, at #400. His reply at 402 led me to believe perhaps I could bring him around, if I could just get him to correct his misconceptions of what evolution is. Thus my as-polite-as-an-evil-cat-can-be response at 404. His reply directly after gives me some slight hope I reached him, and I've continued referring back to that post as more people came by, as I did here. That one ended up running off with his fingers in his ears.

One of those people I referred back to it though, was this guy.

You can probably see why I chose to engage him. He starts off his post with

Evolution exist 100%, but what is not proven is the if, who, where and when of the issue.

There is no proof that we evolved from another species, there is evidence that we have evolved AS a species, also the possibility exist for evolution from one species to another but in the case of humans there is far to much scattered and missing evidence to form a conclusive theory that humans evolved from another species.

Okay, wat? He accepts evolution, accepts that "humans have evolved as a species" but not "humans evolved FROM another species"....wat?

I decided to try my previously-successful tact and directed him to the link-laden post I made on the previous page. His response?

What was inaccurate in my post?

He didn't even read it!

Naturally I responded, trying to point out all his errors...(with a link to AronRa's monkey video for good measure. )

His response was basically to dismiss everything and insult me, and toss out creationist canards like "evolution is weak" and "scientists are biased." (And, at another poster, the whole "radiometric dating is flawed" thing) When I called him on it, he again insults me and returns to the same "evolution is weak" crap.

At this point, I'm not sure what to do with this guy. I don't think I know my shit well enough nor am I eloquent or angry enough to go full Ra on him, though that's clearly what he deserves.

So, what say you all?

 

[Inferno]

So, what say you all?

Only one thing to say: Sucks.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

evilotakuneko, point him to any recent scientific articles regarding the relationship between Humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Then see what he makes of it.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Frenger]

Yes evolution exist 100% but not every detail of it is known, it was not a contradiction, we can prove evolution but we have less than perfect evidence as to what actually happened. That statement was for the people saying evolution does not exist at all.

I have no problem here with the words he uses, it's the sentiment I don't like. I think he is trying to say that until we know absolutely everything the theory remains imperfect? Although I am not sure. I would say to that (if that's what he is saying) that of course we are not going to know every detail and we might very well be wrong on a lot of things. We use the best evidence we have to create a hypothesis and then try and disprove that but the fact is we don't and will never have "all" the evidence. It seems silly to suggest though that because we don't know everything we don't know anything.

A computer model was used to determine the date of the last common ancestor could have existed, and the only real evidence of that being correct are a fistful of fragmented, broken and incomplete bone fragments,

I would ask what does he mean by "last common ancestor", does he mean our species most recent common ancestor? If he does he is exactly wrong about this. We didn't use a computer model and "bone fragments" (and by the way how can you determine a common ancestor by bone fragments alone?). For our species most recent common ancestor we use mitochondrial DNA, I shall let Potholer54 explain.



Of course I don't want to put words in chappies mouth so if he means the common ancestor of ALL living species then I would point him in the direction of this wiki article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent the size of it alone should hopefully help him understand that we do better than a computer model and a few bone fragments.

I'm not even going to go into the inaccuracies of carbon dating but many of the remains being found are constantly being moved around in the supposed chain of evolution due to problems properly dating them.

Again, I shall hand over to our friend potholer54

They have a weak ever changing string of a few bones, mostly chimp-like and a computer generated DNA model that assumes there is a connection between them just to get a date. The claim is made that a theoretical computer model that assumes we have a common ancestor with chimps and a monkey skull they found that may be from around the same era is proof but without hard evidence it is little more than manipulated speculation, to many gaps are filled in by the assumption that they are correct, If the scientists that built the atomic bomb were this careless with what they call proof they would have failed and most likely died.

Again, we do a little better than computer models http://www.genome.gov/15515096

We also do better than a few skulls, we have thousands, here are just a few

It isn't just a few skulls, the point is we can see morphological changes that is consistent with what we know in comparing our anatomy now. Take two examples, the first being increased intelligence and brain power, we know we need bigger brain cases, look at the above picture, you see this fits.

Also bipedalism, Laurens (if he is reading) has done quite a lot on this and so would be a good person to ask, but the fact is we can see increased bipedalism (flatter feet, thinner pelvis, straighter spine) throughout the fossil record.

Show me a DNA sample from an ancient ape that will give proof to the fused chromosome. Saying it just fused without empirical evidence other than it has to work to make the theory work is erroneous.

He seems to misunderstand how the fused chromosome was discovered. Here is Ken Miller to explain (plus he is a christian if that helps)

I did read some of the links in your previous post and commend you on evolving enough to learn how to Google "How to prove evolution" but most people want empirical evidence not arguments slanted and oversimplified supporting the theory you believe in without the existing counterpoints.

This is a little rude, I would ask that the reason people simplify explanations is because the real world of biology is complicated. I think AronRa has stated that to understand evolution properly you have to understand a wide range of scientific disciplines and it's simply not practical to drown people in evidence. Instead biologists offer models that people can understand, in the same way physicists talk in language instead of mathematics. Not everyone will understand mathematics so they try and relay the information so the lay person will understand it.

Evolution is a constant ongoing theory

Of course it, but then so is EVERY scientific theory. Gravity is, does he want to dispute that? He can't have it both way, either all scientific theories are bunk, or none of them are.

and is presumed as fact for those that want to believe it is which are the scientist that have an agenda to prove it right which leads to a high possibility of corrupt data/evidence

Oh so it's a conspiracy now? Well that makes sense. All the scientists in the world have converged to trick the world into believing....erm....I don't know, why are they fooling us again? What do the gain? Oh, is it fuck all? I think it is.

therefore people like me need better proof that a pile of monkey bones and a computer model giving a date to when we shared a common ancestor with monkeys if we ever did, then there is the "reason" for evolving but I wont get into that.

People like you actually need to look at the evidence, understand what is meant by biological evolution and to stop being a baby.

On the issue of evolving from another species, if we evolved AS a species through natural selection we may have just looked different 1 million years ago but still have been human.

I have no idea what he means here? I would get him to define what is meant by a species.

Want me to believe evolution 100%...find me my monkey/fish link.

How about a reptile fish?

 

[evilotakuneko]

Pretty sure I did have links to potholer in the post I referred him back to.

However, it's all pretty much moot. He ran off.

 

[Laurens]

Pretty sure I did have links to potholer in the post I referred him back to.

However, it's all pretty much moot. He ran off.

I find that this is often the last resort of the creationist...

I have a creationist mother, unfortunately, and whenever she (I add emphasis here, because I don't go looking for confrontation with her, I'm happy to let her believe what she wants without causing too much antagonism) brings the topic up she will simply change the subject or say "I don't want to talk about it any more" if I say anything that makes her too uncomfortable.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

After reading through the thread, it appears you were dealing with someone that did not want to be pin down on his objections. One of the users on that forum kept asking Spearmaster, what his main objections were to the theory of evolution and Spearmaster would only respond with vague posts that never answered the question completely.

One of Spearmaster's main objections was that we only have a hand full of fossils and a computer-simulated program, which links us to chimpanzees. He never elaborated on this issue, which originally led me to believe that he is a troll because he was trying not to become pin down. Because he is wrong, we have hundreds of fossils, representing dozens of species that link humans to our last common ancestor with chimpanzees.

Furthermore, he is never clear about what he means about the computer program. I would have to say that there are phylogenetic analyses using DNA that show in detail our relationship, not only with chimpanzees, but also with all multi-cellular life. The phylogenetic analyses are also made on different sections of DNA, not just one gene, thus there is not one computer simulation if this is in fact what he is meaning.

He is also ignoring comparative anatomy, biogeography, and other physical evidence that links us to the apes. Not to mention that his objection to radiometric dating was juvenile at best.

The fact that Spearmaster never gave proper examples of what exactly he was objecting to when it came to evolutionary theory leads me to believe he was just trolling. However, he could have also been a sophisticated creationist, in that he already knew his objections were wrong, thus, he never elaborated so he could not be corrected on it again. In addition, he did not have to be a creationist per se, just someone that for whatever reason, usually to be a contrarian, denies evolution.

 

[evilotakuneko]

I think that's probably a fair assessment. I couldn't help but be unsure of his actual position since, as I showed in my last post to him, he kept using the exact same arguments creationists do, not to mention his constant dismissal of any and all evidence presented to him. I doubt showing him papers (which, most likely, had already been cited by things I'd shown him before) would've worked anyway.

His accusations that I was the rude and dismissive one kinda pissed me off, too. I probably wouldn't have dignified that with a response even if he hadn't run away, and kinda sealed the "he's a troll" judgment.

That he was less reasonable and civil than any of the creationists who came out this time should've been a big red flag, I guess...

 

[Deleted member 619]

Since I prefer to look at the thinking of right-thinking individuals, I spotted this, which I have just realised is you (didn't realise it before I'd honed in and come back here to comment):

There is no macro/micro evolution. There is evolution, full stop. Asserting that there is some sort of difference requires you to show proof of a mechanism to stop micro from becoming macro and is like saying we could never reach the moon because the Wright brothers didn't get there.

This is incorrect. The macro/micro distinction is a valid distinction in evolutionary biology, but it doesn't mean what the cretinists think it means.

Evolution is defined as variation in the frequencies of alleles, where an allele is a specific iteration of a given gene. Microevolution is defined as variations in the frequencies of alleles below species level, in a population of organisms. Macroevolution is defined as variations in the frequencies of alleles at or above species level, or in populations of populations. The easiest way to think about this is that evolutionary biologists study frequencies of alleles that are shared between two species so, for example, there are many genes that are shared between humans and chimpanzees, which is to say that humans and chimps carry exactly the same version of the gene.

Another useful example is extinction, in which the frequency of all alleles in a species go from some to none.

What the creationist is actually talking about here is something that would falsify evolutionary theory wholesale, namely a cat giving birth to a dog. This, of course, doesn't happen. What does happen, though, is speciation, and in fact there is a beautiful example of extinction and speciation in a single event, namely an extinction event in a ring species. If a selection of sub-species in the middle of the ring go extinct, by a bolide impact, for example, and the remaining subspecies are no longer reproductively compatible, then we have an extinction event that is also a speciation event, both of which are correctly defined as macroevolution.

A minor niggle, but a common mistake, and an argument that can trip you up against the better-educated creationist.

 

[nemesiss]

i had one of those yehovah's coming around often, nowadays they just put their booklet in the letterbox instead of having a conversation with me. I always found it entertaining these door2door christians, mostly because they can be so damn polite that its hard to hate them.

But anyway, one time, the guy started talking about how killing is wrong... so i asked if this means if he's a vegan. That point startled him, because he totally did not see that coming and had no answer to it.

The next time i get one, i'd like to ask him or her why the commandments in the bible are almost all prohibitions, meaning they contain the term "no" or another form of negation.