Debate: 15 questions for evolutionists

In May 2011 Creation Ministries International launched the Question evolution! campaign. Core to this campaign are 15 Questions for Evolutionists. In this debate, I want to collect answers to these questions - and replies to these answers by creationist. I'll try something new: this debate will be somewhat moderated - as I want to get concise arguments, I'll take out all personal attacks on the debate page.

How did life originate?

Evolutionist Professor Paul Davies admitted, “Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.” Andrew Knoll, professor of biology, Harvard, said, “we don’t really know how life originated on this planet”. A minimal cell needs several hundred proteins. Even if every atom in the universe were an experiment with all the correct amino acids present for every possible molecular vibration in the supposed evolutionary age of the universe, not even one average-sized functional protein would form. So how did life with hundreds of proteins originate just by chemistry without intelligent design?

What an evolutionist would say

Darwin's 1859 book was called On the Origin of Species, not On the Origin of Life, his theory didn't cover the very beginnings of life, but what happened when speciation started.

Similarly, we have helpful physical theories about the behavior of objects in the universe, though we there is debate about the creation of the universe...

There are well-understood processes by which the chemicals present in the environment of the ancient earth could have combined into peptides, and eventually into self-catalyzing proteins that gave rise to DNA and unicellular organisms. This is the theory of abiogenesis, a relatively new branch of science distinct from evolutionary biology. As stated above, the theory of evolution does not say anything about how the first lifeforms formed, only how they developed afterwards.TonyPark 15:55, 12 January 2012 (EST)

How did the DNA code originate?

The code is a sophisticated language system with letters and words where the meaning of the words is unrelated to the chemical properties of the letters—just as the information on this page is not a product of the chemical properties of the ink (or pixels on a screen). What other coding system has existed without intelligent design? How did the DNA coding system arise without it being created?

What an evolutionist would say

DNA is not a code, which is encoded information intentionally transmitted by an intelligent agent. The "information" present in DNA is the result of natural selection, which screens out DNA sequences unsuited to reproduction and increases the frequency of those which are useful. The result is a highly complex molecule capable of a large variety of functions, but it is still a chemical, obeying the laws of physics and chemistry in a highly predictable way.TonyPark 15:55, 12 January 2012 (EST)

How could mutations—accidental copying mistakes (DNA ‘letters’ exchanged, deleted or added, genes duplicated, chromosome inversions, etc.)—create the huge volumes of information in the DNA of living things?

How could such errors create 3 billion letters of DNA information to change a microbe into a microbiologist? There is information for how to make proteins but also for controlling their use—much like a cookbook contains the ingredients as well as the instructions for how and when to use them. One without the other is useless. Mutations are known for their destructive effects, including over 1,000 human diseases such as hemophilia. Rarely are they even helpful. But how can scrambling existing DNA information create a new biochemical pathway or nano-machines with many components, to make ‘goo-to-you’ evolution possible? E.g., How did a 32-component rotary motor like ATP synthase (which produces the energy currency, ATP, for all life), or robots like kinesin (a ‘postman’ delivering parcels inside cells) originate?

What an evolutionist would say

DNA mutations alone cannot drive evolution. This is why "living fossils" do not evolve; they are in an environment with little to no selection pressure on them because they are so well adapted. As a result, the animals change very little over time, aside from a small amount of random genetic drift.

When natural selection is added to the equation, there is a mechanism by which good mutations can be screened from bad ones, and a mechanism for gene frequencies to change in a way that allows a species to slowly adapt to their environment. Not all mutations are beneficial, obviously, but the environment punishes bad DNA very quickly, and after billions of years life has become very sophisticated, even on the smallest scales.

Why is natural selection, a principle recognized by creationists, taught as ‘evolution’, as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life?

By definition it is a selective process (selecting from already existing information), so is not a creative process. It might explain the survival of the fittest (why certain genes benefit creatures more in certain environments), but not the arrival of the fittest (where the genes and creatures came from in the first place). The death of individuals not adapted to an environment and the survival of those that are suited does not explain the origin of the traits that make an organism adapted to an environment. E.g., how do minor back-and-forth variations in finch beaks explain the origin of beaks or finches? How does natural selection explain goo-to-you evolution?

What an evolutionist would say

By definition it is a selective process (selecting from already existing information), so is not a creative process. What definition is that? Of course, selecting can be a creative process! A sculptor selects the pieces of marble which have to be chipped of...

Most evolutionists - I think - would subscribe to the sentence: It might explain why certain genes benefit creatures more in certain environments, but not where the genes and creatures came from in the first place!

In addition, in no science classroom is natural selection taught as the entirety of evolution. This is a misconception resulting from the phrase "Survival of the fittest" being used to describe evolution. The other half of the equation is genetic mutation, which provides new material, so to speak, to be vetted by the natural selection process.TonyPark 16:04, 12 January 2012 (EST)

How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence, originate?

Every pathway and nano-machine requires multiple protein/enzyme components to work. How did lucky accidents create even one of the components, let alone 10 or 20 or 30 at the same time, often in a necessary programmed sequence. Evolutionary biochemist Franklin Harold wrote, “we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”

What an evolutionist would say

Biochemical pathways do not arise out of nothing; they are built over millions of years, piece by piece, adding new functions as they become useful and dropping functions as they become superfluous. These pathways are, like all of DNA, merely chemical reactions, obeying well understood laws, and provide some function to an organism at every level of complexity. Natural selection allowed new variations on old pathways to be tried, and if they succeeded, propagated.TonyPark 16:09, 12 January 2012 (EST)

Living things look like they were designed, so how do evolutionists know that they were not designed?

Richard Dawkins wrote, “biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.” Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, wrote, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.” The problem for evolutionists is that living things show too much design. Who objects when an archaeologist says that pottery points to human design? Yet if someone attributes the design in living things to a designer, that is not acceptable. Why should science be restricted to naturalistic causes rather than logical causes?

What an evolutionist would say

The appearance of design in natural phenomena is not proof of design, just as seeing a face in a cloud or a piece of rock does not indicate that it is designed. The only "designer" necessary to explain the diversity of life on Earth is the combination of DNA mutation, to create new genetic material, and natural selection, to screen out harmful mutations from the new material.

What we see as "designed" structures and organs are in fact the result of an evolutionary process, without any kind of plan or input besides the environment killing off any variants that don't confer enough of a reproductive advantage.TonyPark 16:17, 12 January 2012 (EST)

How did multi-cellular life originate?

How did cells adapted to individual survival ‘learn’ to cooperate and specialize (including undergoing programmed cell death) to create complex plants and animals?

What an evolutionist would say

Like our cells, bacteria use chemical signals to communicate with each other, and in large numbers are capable of cooperation in creating structures and solving problems of resource gathering. The ability to cooperate, and eventually form multi-cell colonies and then multicellular organisms, would have conferred a massive survival advantage to the first bacteria who developed the trait. TonyPark 16:24, 12 January 2012 (EST)

How did sex originate?

Asexual reproduction gives up to twice as much reproductive success (‘fitness’) for the same resources as sexual reproduction, so how could the latter ever gain enough advantage to be selected? And how could mere physics and chemistry invent the complementary apparatuses needed at the same time (non-intelligent processes cannot plan for future coordination of male and female organs).

What an evolutionist would say

Sexual reproduction provides a huge evolutionary advantage by increasing the genetic diversity of offspring, and therefore increasing the rate of evolution. This is why almost all of the complex organisms on Earth reproduce sexually. Even some bacteria have been shown to have "sex", in the sense of exchanging DNA information in order to produce offspring with a combination of both organisms' genes.

The complex sexual specialization we see today in animals did not arise randomly; it is not as though male and female versions of animals evolved separately, by sheer luck. They have existed together since almost the very beginning of life. TonyPark 16:36, 12 January 2012 (EST)

What a creationist would reply

If sexual reproduction is such a huge evolutionary advantage, how is it that there still exist so many species which reproduce asexually ? If it is a huge advantage, we would expect to see every organisms evolve in this direction, wouldn't we ? PhilipN

No, we most certainly would not. Just because a trait is advantageous does not mean every organism will independently develop it. Your argument could be applied to the traits of flight, intelligence, or any other advantageous trait to equally absurd results. TonyPark 17:36, 12 January 2012 (EST)

I don't follow your reasoning.

• You say that sexual reproduction is a huge advantage
• You say that Evolution is based upon natural selection
• Therefore, Evolution should favor species with sexual reproduction and natural selection should wipe out those who do not reproduce sexually.

I did not mean that every organisms should have independently develop it but that the organisms which do not reproduce sexually should have been replaced by others who have this huge advantage. I appreciate that you talk about absurd results, I agree with you on that point.--PhilipN 17:58, 12 January 2012 (EST)

I think what User:TonyPark is trying to get at is that sexual reproduction is advantageous to MOST organisms. Some species may get along quite well with asexual reproduction, and hence have no reason to change. --RedGoliath 23:07, 12 January 2012 (GMT)

I can understand how flying or intelligence might be an advantage to some species and not others but how is it possible that genetic diversity (as you presented the advantage) can not be advantageous to some species ?--PhilipN 18:24, 12 January 2012 (EST)

Why are the (expected) countless millions of transitional fossils missing?

Darwin noted the problem and it still remains. The evolutionary family trees in textbooks are based on imagination, not fossil evidence. Famous Harvard paleontologist (and evolutionist), Stephen Jay Gould, wrote, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology”. Other evolutionist fossil experts also acknowledge the problem.

What an evolutionist would say

The term "transitional fossil" is not used outside of creationist discussion. Every fossil is a transitional fossil, just as every animal is a transitional form, from what they were in the past to what they will be in the future. The term is usually used to describe fossils with traits from two different taxons, such as Archaeopteryx or Tiktaalik, but it is important to remember that taxonomic categories are human inventions, and there is nothing essentially different about one of these "intermediate" forms and other fossils in other stages of evolution.

In addition, the theory of evolution was formulated by studying animal anatomy, without the benefit of fossil evidence. Though fossil evidence has bolstered and improved the theory, it is not the only, or even the primary, source of evolutionary data. That distinction falls on DNA sequencing, which has provided huge amounts of data to scientists with a level of precision that Darwin could not have dreamed of.TonyPark 16:48, 12 January 2012 (EST)

How do ‘living fossils’ remain unchanged over supposed hundreds of millions of years, if evolution has changed worms into humans in the same time frame?

Professor Gould wrote, “the maintenance of stability within species must be considered as a major evolutionary problem.”

What an evolutionist would say

DNA mutations alone cannot drive evolution. It is necessary that the environment exert some kind of natural selection pressure on the organism for evolution to occur. This is why "living fossils" do not evolve; they are in an environment with little to no selection pressure on them because they are so well adapted. As a result, the animals change very little over time, aside from a small amount of random genetic drift.

In addition, the statement that evolution has turned "worms into humans" is inaccurate. It would be more accurate to say that evolution has turned a small colony of bacteria in a pool of ooze into the entire majestic diversity of life on Earth. This is more impressive, as well.

How did blind chemistry create mind/ intelligence, meaning, altruism and morality?

If everything evolved, and we invented God, as per evolutionary teaching, what purpose or meaning is there to human life? Should students be learning nihilism (life is meaningless) in science classes?

Why is evolutionary ‘just-so’ story-telling tolerated?

Evolutionists often use flexible story-telling to ‘explain’ observations contrary to evolutionary theory. NAS(USA) member Dr Philip Skell wrote, “Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive—except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed—except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.”

Where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution?

Dr Marc Kirschner, chair of the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, stated: “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.”9 Dr Skell wrote, “It is our knowledge of how these organisms actually operate, not speculations about how they may have arisen millions of years ago, that is essential to doctors, veterinarians, farmers … .”10 Evolution actually hinders medical discovery.11 Then why do schools and universities teach evolution so dogmatically, stealing time from experimental biology that so benefits humankind?

What an evolutionist would say

This is an appeal to authority. The truth of evolution is in whether or not it explains the diversity of life, not whether a Harvard professor approves of it. This question uses quote mining to misrepresent the attitudes of scientists, but it is not relevant to a debate of whether or not evolution is true.TonyPark 17:00, 12 January 2012 (EST)

Science involves experimenting to figure out how things work; how they operate. Why is evolution, a theory about history, taught as if it is the same as this operational science?

You cannot do experiments, or even observe what happened, in the past. Asked if evolution has been observed, Richard Dawkins said, “Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it hasn’t been observed while it’s happening.”

What an evolutionist would say

• There are experiments: e.g., Richard Lenski's experiments on the e-coli bacterium, which got some attention in 2008.
• Astronomy is equally a science about history, the history of stars. We can't plan experiments on a galactic scale, but we can observe the experiments of nature.

Obviously, it is impoosible to observe events that occurred before the dawn of history, or indded at any point in the past. It is by studying the evidence left behind that we can draw conclusions as to what has occurred. This is the same epistemological basis behind history, archaeology and even crime scene investigation. It is disingenuous to assert that nothing can be learned about the past unless a direct eyewitness account survives.TonyPark 17:24, 12 January 2012 (EST)

Why is a fundamentally religious idea, a dogmatic belief system that fails to explain the evidence, taught in science classes?

Karl Popper, famous philosopher of science, said “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical [religious] research programme ….”Michael Ruse, evolutionist science philosopher admitted, “Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.” If “you can’t teach religion in science classes”, why is evolution taught?

What an evolutionist would say

Evolution is not a religion, and to call it one is ridiculous. It has no prayers, no churches, and no dogma. Proponents of evolution come from every faith background. The asker of this question is misleading the audience by forcing the assumption that evolution is a dogmatic belief system and not what it properly is, a highly respected scientific theory that explains and unifies a huge amount of evidence collected over many years by thousands of scientists working in a startlingly wide array of fields. The question also implies that dogmatic ideas that don't explain the evidence have no place in science classrooms, a sentiment I agree with. By those criteria, intelligent design should be discarded post-haste.