Another Discussion with an Evolutionist pt. 1

ME: Had a discussion with an atheist on youtube, and this is how it went:http://spiritualspackle.blogsp​ot.com/2011/07/atheismwhy-so-s​erious.html

HE: First, I'd like to see the video where this conversation happened. Second, and I don't mean to say this harshly, but you are clearly uneducated about how science works (and that extends to evolutionary theory).

ME:  

It was not in a video, it was comments to a video. I have never live debated evolution versus creation. I have discussions, but my forte is motivational and inspirational speech. The kind that let's drug addicts and criminals step into new ways of life through the power of the Holy Spirit. I know that power, and how a life of addiction and crime can be instantly reversed through faith. 

 

HE: 1) Chance is a part of evolution, but only in the form of mutations. You ignore natural selection, which is the exact opposite of chance. Mutations change genes and create variety. These changes are fed into the mechanism of natural selection, and those that are successful (or even neutral) get passed on, whereas those that are detrimental are weeded out and removed.

2) With an understanding of evolutionary processes I think it's easy to see how a small, simple brain can evolve into a larger, more complex one. I think you're trying to make some irreducible complexity argument, but ignoring the known and understood evolutionary history of life on earth. There's a reason why we use mice to study the human brain. It's because we share a common ancestor and most of the working parts are the same (albeit on a different scale). It's why biologists, anthropologists, and primatologists study apes and monkeys to learn about their behavior and social interactions to help figure out what makes us tick. 

‎3) The watch argument fails on several levels. First, the watch is not living. That's all there is to it. You cannot try to apply biological processes to inanimate objects. Second, it fails a reduction test. If a complex watch required an intelligence to make, then whatever made the watch must also be complex. So, what made the maker of the watch?

ME: ‎1) Natural selection is tautology at its finest. Some dwindle and die out while others multiply because some multiply while others dwindle and die out. When have we ever been able to breed and form a whole new species, though? And that would be on purpose, yet you believe that natural selection could do that? There is a limit due to the DNA barrier that insures only so much change can occur. How did natural selection create life out of non-living material? When have we ever created or observed living matter from nonliving matter? When have we ever seen offspring from the animal kingdom create new species? Changes within species happen all of the time, that is observable. 

2) Since when is there a known and understood evolutionary process? It has never been observed. I fall back to my last answer. Since when has a rabbit been observed to become a mountain lion? A rose turning another color or a variation in brain sizes is simply that, a variation in the species. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, teaches that those changes will cross from one species to another and produce new and different species. Since it has never been observed, an evolutionist must rest on his belief that it is true.

3) In the watchmaker analogy, you say that a reduction test states that it takes something complex in order to make something complex, yet you believe in evolution? Where is the reduction test for an atheist when it comes to the universe, let alone mankind? Or is neither man or the universe complex? If they are complex and based on your reduction test they had to have a creator, who was that creator of the universe and of man?

HE: In most cases, speciation over time can be represented by a gradient. I hate using analogies, but here goes: If you look at a rainbow, where does red stop and yellow begin? By your argument, you would say there is only red and only yellow...there is no orange, and that is nonsensical. Orange clearly exists, we can see it with our eyes. We can see these gradients not only in the fossil record, but with living organisms. We can measure these gradients through measurements, statistics, and DNA. Your fixation and insistence that new species suddenly appear shows your limited knowledge and/or understanding. Bluntly, you're doing yourself (and your readers) a disservice by making an argument against a topic you don't have a solid grasp on. That, and your toolkit of arguments are old-hat and have been debunked and explained-away by many people who are a lot more eloquent than I, and I recommend you do some Googling. Generally speaking, your arguments will work on people who are less-educated than you, but will be found as straw-men to anyone who has greater understanding. If you find people getting angry or frustrated with you, it's probably because you are re-hashing these old anti-evolution arguments. Some just handle it better than others. I personally love educating people and would be happy to provide you with some book recommendations and other reading if you would like.

And somewhat of a thought exercise, how would you explain ring species? http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Ring_species an example: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ev​olution/library/05/2/l_052​_05.html

ME: The amazing thing is that if you look at the strata you will find that species suddenly exist. Why has the coelacanth, once thought to been a missing link for fish becoming amphibians that lived 380 million years ago based on fossil records, now been found still living off the coast of Indonesia. Why has it not evolved in 380 million years! Or is 380 million years not gradual enough for change. We have never truly evolved. At our simplest, we are still made up of DNA, which is both sophisticated and complex. How did that evolve?

Secondly, microevolution does occur, but what we need to see is macroevolution for evolution to have occurred. If we all came from one set of parents, then how are we all so different? That is microevolution, or adaptation. Macroevolution is one cell evolving to man over time. That is not based on the scientific method at all. Scientific method involves:

Define a question
Gather information and resources (observe)
Form an explanatory hypothesis
Perform an experiment and collect data, testing the hypothesis
Analyze the data
Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results
Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

Since evolution has yet to be duplicated no matter how hard evolutionists have tried, there is no true scientific method at use. It is based on untestable science. Do evolutionists come to their conclusions with an open mind? No, so instead they make proclamations based on faith and belief!

HE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/E._coli_long-term_evolu​tion_experiment

ME: That is a great argument for adaptation, not evolution. Is it still E. coli? 50,000 generations in and it has yet to become a completely different organism. I said that micro does occur, this is an experiment that proves that. Where is macro change in this experiment?

‎"However, although this mutation increased fitness under these conditions, it also increased the bacteria's sensitivity to osmotic stress and decreased their ability to survive long periods in stationary phase cultures, so the phenotype of this adaptation depends on the environment of the cells."

So we can cause change in a controlled, scientific environment.....survival of the fittest is not shown here. The bacteria has become more sensitive to stress as well as developed a decreased ability to survive! Thanks for backing my point up.

HE: Coelocanths were once a wide-spread and highly-varied group of fish. The group Coelocanth is a taxonomic Order (Order->Family->Genus->Spe​cies) Last I heard, there have been three different Coelocanth species discovered in the past century.

"adaptation" is evolution :/

Check this out, a pretty big list of observed speciation: http://www.scienceforums.n​et/topic/13511-observed-sp​eciation/

ME: Adaptation is microevolution. Adaptation is not change from one species to another. If corn adapts to where it lives, does that make it no longer corn? Of course not. It is genetic variety, or genetic drift. How about a dog, when it breeds over and over again to create different breeds, does it change species? A hound and a labrador and a beagle are still dogs.

HE: Drosophila paulistorum and Brassica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Brassica) are the classical examples of observed speciation, as are ring species.

Sorry about link bombs, haha. Here's another:http://evolutionwiki.org/w​iki/Observed_speciation

ME: http://creation.com/refuti​ng-evolution-2-chapter-4-a​rgument-natural-selection-​leads-to-speciation:

"The biblical creation/Fall/Flood/migrat​ion model would also predict rapid formation of new varieties and even species. This is because all the modern varieties of land vertebrates must have descended from comparatively few animals that disembarked from the ark only around 4,500 years ago. In contrast, Darwin thought that this process would normally take eons. It turns out that the very evidence claimed by evolutionists to support their theory supports the biblical model.

Biologists have identified several instances of rapid adaptation, including guppies on Trinidad, lizards in the Bahamas, daisies on the islands of British Columbia, and house mice on Madeira.6 Another good example is a new ‘species’ of mosquito that can’t interbreed with the parent population, arising in the London Underground train system (the ‘Tube’) in only 100 years. The rapid change has ‘astonished’ evolutionists, but should delight creationists.7 Scientific American admits as much.

These days even most creationists acknowledge that microevolution has been upheld by tests in the laboratory (as in studies of cells, plants and fruit flies) and in the field (as in Grant’s studies of evolving beak shapes among Galápagos finches)

Again, do these profound changes increase information? No populations are seen losing information, and adapting within the constraints of the information they already have. In contrast, goo-to-you evolution requires something quite different—the progressive addition of massive amounts of genetic information that is novel not only to that population, but to the entire biosphere."

HE: The creationist "information" argument makes my head explode. It's just another argument built upon not understanding what evolution is. The argument is only really ever discussed between Creationists. DNA is not information, it is a molecule with chemical properties that follow the laws of chemistry and physics. If you hear a biologist use the word 'information' in reference to DNA, it is being used as an easy way to describe what's contained in it. It's not being treated as a book. Sometimes scientific terminologies are misunderstood and used improperly, and it causes conflict. Think about the colloquial use of the word 'theory' vs what scientists mean it to be.

Gene and/or chromosomal duplication kinda nullifies the ID "information" argument, as well.

 

As for science, other than a meager education with Chemistry and Biology that I got at MSU, you are probably correct. Unfortunately, I did not go to a top tier college. I only have 3 degrees, and none of them are terminal degrees.

I have however read the presumptions that are made in evolutionary theory, like a bird came from a reptile. Yet how did 100 million minute hooks evolve and from where? Furthermore, how can you mathematically explain our brain with 100 billion neurons. If each neuron were to be placed end to end the line would be 600 miles wide, yet they all fit inside of our head. Or the 1 quadrillion synapses (that is a 1 followed by 15 zeros) or 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and capillaries in our body.

Sorry, I just cannot leave that to chance. A watch is so much less complex than we are, but when you find one on the ground do you wonder who made it or do you wonder what it evolved from?