Difference between revisions of "Talk:Question evolution! campaign"

Revision as of 02:38, June 25, 2011

Do we want these 15 questions answered? I can answer some of them right here --HarabecW 14:27, 20 June 2011 (EDT)

I'll answer some now, I may not be able to get to all of them right now.

1. How did life originate? Evolution does not deal with the origins of life, it deals only with it's diversity. The dictionary definition of evolution is "change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift."

2. How did the DNA code originate? I do not have the background to properly answer this question

3. How could mutations create huge volumes of information in living things? What is "information" in this context? This is never defined.

4. Why is natural selection taught as‘evolution’ as if it explains the origin of the diversity of life? Natural selection is the mechanism that works with speciation to produce an effect we call evolution.

5. How did new biochemical pathways, which involve multiple enzymes working together in sequence, originate? I do not have the background to properly answer this question

6. Living things look like they were designed, so how do evolutionists know that they were not designed? Because we can see many examples of things we know and can see were designed naturally but look like they should have been designed by human hands. The snowflake is a prime example; it appears extremely complex and designed however we know snowflakes are formed via natural processes. Living things also dont appear designed, at least not designed by anyone with any sense. The human body has some quite complex features but if taken as a whole, it's incredibly poorly thought out.

7. How did multi-cellular life originate? I do not have the background to properly answer this question

8. How did sex originate? I do not have the background to properly answer this question

9. Why are the countless millions of transitional fossils missing? Simply, they arent. We have BOATLOADS of fossils and scientists have spent a great deal of time arguing just were in the evolutionary spectrum many of them fit. Fossils themselves are uncommon simply because the conditions necessary to form them are rare, but we have an incredibly diverse fossil record already (http://www.transitionalfossils.com/)

10. 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? Evolution has not changed "worms into humans." These organisms havent changed because they have had very little evolutionary pressure to do so, they are very well adapted to their environment.

11. How did blind chemistry create mind/ intelligence, meaning, altruism and morality? It didnt, humans did. These are names we have given to things that help us reinforce our social groups, one of the key reasons humans have become dominant.

12. Why is evolutionary ‘just-so’ storytelling tolerated? It isnt. If you can demonstrate another theory that explains what evolution explains in a better way with more data, prepare a place on your mantle for a Nobel. Science encourages informed dissent.

13. Where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution? There are far too many to list here, most of our modern understanding of biochemistry, genetics, and large parts of our medical science rest on evolution being factual; if it werent, these sciences simply wouldnt work.

14. 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? Evolution is not a theory about history, it is an on-going biological process.

15. Why is a fundamentally religious idea, a dogmatic belief system that fails to explain the evidence, taught in science classes? Evolution is not a religious idea. --HarabecW 20:13, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

Several of your arguments are critically flawed.

1. Because life was divinely created, even if evolution did occur, it would be affected by the divine grace of God, and not just random chance.

Can you demonstrate that life was divinely created? Additionally, no one has claimed that random chance guides evolution.

3. Information is basically stored knowledge, such as God storing the exact series of proteins needed for an organism to survive as DNA.

You're talking about instincts, right?

4. Because of natural selection, specialization could never occur, as hypothetical "transitional animals" could never out compete a specialized animal. Thus, the number of species should only decrease as time goes on.

You misunderstand what speciation is. If you have two groups of the same animal that become separated by some sort of barrier, they will become genetically different as time goes on via genetic drift. Once enough time goes by, those two species will no longer be able to reproduce together because their genes are too different. It's not a question of out-competing one animal, it's a question of adapting to different evolutionary pressures.

6. A snowflake is not a self-replicating series of biochemical reactions, so it is not an accurate comparison. The human body contains no vestigial organs, even organs previously though of as "useless" have been discovered to have important functions. The human body no redundancy, unless said redundancy is extremely important or advantageous for survival, such as having two eyes or two lungs. random chance could never produce such a perfect system, the only logical explanation is that there was some kind of divine plan for us.

The human body is FAR from perfect and we have many vestigial features, one example being the goosebump response. In other animals, this response makes the hairs on their bodies stand up when frightened or cold to make them appear larger or trap a thin layer of insulated air. We humans do the same thing, however we do not have enough body hair to make it work as it does in other animals and serves no other purpose. Having two eyes is not an example of redundancy, it's an example of binocular vision which is what helps us perceive in three dimensions.

9. Those fossils barely contain proof of an organism, let alone a true transitional species. We can't even be sure that they are legitimate fossils, and not just hoaxes propagated by the organizations that claim to study evolutionary "science".

They show the bone structure and often the physical form of an dead organism, what more do you need? Except for a handful of fakes that the scientific community has expelled from the research, we have no indication that others were faked and I'd like to see your proof that current fossils are faked.

10. Although a slight oversimplification, the "theory" of evolution does in fact state that over a series of generations, humans did evolve from worms. In addition, because evolution is caused by mutations, shouldn't millions of years of random mutations eventually lead to evolution? Even if only neutral or positive mutations remained in the gene pool, eventually, these ancient species should look at least slightly different.

No, it does not. It states that we share a common (VERY distant) ancestor, not that we evolved from worms. To the other point, with very little evolutionary pressure to select for a specific set of mutations, the population changes very little because natural selection is not weeding out the weaker genes.

11. And why do only humans have true morality and altruism? Chemistry has no emotions, and the expression of true, human empathy can only come from a god-fearing Christian.

You dont know that only humans have morality, you assume that. And altruistic behavior has been demonstrated in many other species. In us, it's a way to reinforce the social group. I cant speak to the existence or not of a "nice" gene, but we are biologically programmed to need and want to be part of a group, it's what helped us survive our days before our dominance.

12. Such as creation theory, which is more logical and explains the origin of life, among other things, much better.

Creation theory is poorly supported by established science and rests mainly on supposition, anthropomorphism, and a lack of understanding in science.

13. Those disciplines study phenomena God created in the first place. Nothing about medicine relies on evolution, even the study of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance occurs because of the transfer of already existing antibiotic resistance plasmids between bacteria.

There is actually a paper written on the subject, it explains why medicine rests on evolution much better than I can http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0050112

14. It's impossible to preform experiments that test evolution, and any attempts have either failed or have been critically flawed. Thus, evolution is not operational science, or really science at all.

It is not impossible to test at all, but it takes an extremely long time to test as you have to breed MANY successive generations such that they are genetically dissimilar from their parent species to the point where they can no longer breed. Most universities are not willing to fund a study that would last probably three or four human lifetimes, even with an animal that reproduces quickly, to get it's results and prove something the scientific community accepts as true from evidence gathered by other means.

15. Evolution requires more faith than any religion I have ever encountered, and it is certainly taught religiously by the few teachers who haven't realized how critically flawed it is.

This claim is repeated again and again but I have seen no indication of it nor has any been presented to me.

Don't feel bad, if there is one thing evolutionists are good at or understand, its how to deceive and lie like any liberal. Critical thinking is important to any academic study, so you can't accept something as true unless you are willing to appreciate that you might not be learning the truth, as liberals are willing to lie for their own agenda. FCapra 19:44, 24 June 2011 (EDT)

I'm not interested in this descending into partisan bickering, so I'd thank you to not take the first step down that road and stick to objective discussion rather than name-calling.--HarabecW 22:38, 24 June 2011 (EDT)