For creationists: give me your arguments against evolution.

[Loudmouth]

In my opinion, if you cannot say what started it, how can you state where it went from there?

We have evidence of where it went once life was here. That is how.

Just at what point do you guys take the reigns anyway? When it has DNA and Enzymes? When it is a blob of infantile life? or when it has all the components of a cell and can replicate?

Evolution starts when you have something that can evolve through evolutionary mechanisms. This would require a population of imperfect replicators that compete for limited resources. Before that point, you don't have evolution.

If the first simple replicator was put here by a deity, and all life we see evolved from that replicator, then the theory of evolution would be unchanged. Evolution does not require abiogenesis. They are independent theories.

If an replicating little fella keeps doing his thing and his clones their thing when does one, sorry, two little fellas decide to grow perfectly mating male and female sex organs. One in their own little morphication and the other in their little morphication. Yet, voila they fit.

Why would you need male and female sex organs? Bacteria do just fine without these organs, and they can even have sex. Here is an electromicrograph of two bacteria having sex.

Don't you see? This is why we will never win a war against the soul-less terroists. You walk into a village of women and children. They treat you like your are god's with chocolate and everything. Then when you turn around, they throw a grenade at ya. They train their children to wear bombs and walk into bus stations...

These would be terrorists who think they are doing the will of their God.

Right you are. Some chetah's are faster than others too. However I'm talking about different races of people. Evolution would provide a hierarchy within races. My creator made all men equal. Black, white, brown... no human is "better" than another. Even if they are Carl Lewis or Wayne Gretzky.

Evolution would produce populations that are best fit for their environment. People with pale skin are better adapted for higher latitudes with less sun. People with darker skin are better adapted for lower latitudes where the sun is stronger. In areas with endemic malaria, you will find a higher incidence of the sickle cell trait which protects against infection. These are not "better" or a hierarchy of people. These are groups of people with alleles that evolved to increase their fitness in those areas.

Ya, tell that to a skin head or Hitler. Evolution is the foundation for that mindset. A true God founded mentality makes all mankind equal.

Hitler rejected evolution, and believed that God created mankind.

 

[JacksBratt]

Using your logic, we would also have to throw out DNA fingerprinting and DNA based paternity tests. If we can't know where the first life came from, how can we say who a baby's father is, right?

Wha.....

In no way do I follow that logic..I said, how did complex DNA etc miraculously form, out of the blue. That's an Olympic jump to your statement.

Where is your evidence for this claim?

Oh ya, your Loudmouth... always looking for "evidence"

So, without complex systems your little guy is going to internally change in a way that it can manufacture or take on energy and somehow, develop a reproductive system, then split itself into two little living organisms. All given enough time... Tadah... and for my next trick..

Man, try the buffet, I'm here all week.

Why is this evidence against evolution?

Due to the fact that the intricate complexity is beyond anything but a designer. Your little bitty one celled dude changed into the infinitely more intricate, complex systems of all the different organisms on the earth... oh ya.. given enough time.

That's simple enough to falsify. Meet an animal species with no male or female sexes. The common earthworm. It has both sperm and eggs in a single individual.

In fact, there are simple chordates that are also hermaphroditic.

In your mind you may believe this... I'm not bite'n. Sex organs are far too intricate and specific to each organism to have just happened through changes over time.

Are there female and male bacteria?[/quote\

Yes, your point?

It's called "Muller's Ratchet". Shuffling alleles as part of sexual recombination can get rid of deleterious mutations. In asexual reproduction, deleterious mutations are irreversible.

Muller's ratchet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good for Muller. He has a ratchet. Still doesn't convince me. I can find a dude to back my statement too but they would be from a creation site and you would call it biased.

Evolution is not random. Evolution works through natural selection. Selection is the opposite of random.

Not random equals, has a design. A design means a designer.

It comes from our empathic big brains that evolved.

Yes, over time, brains "developed" without a designer and then somehow empathy showed up too..... all in the right amount of time.

Some humans are better at certain tasks. Have you ever watched the Olympics?

Right you are. Some chetah's are faster than others too. However I'm talking about different races of people. Evolution would provide a hierarchy within races. My creator made all men equal. Black, white, brown... no human is "better" than another. Even if they are Carl Lewis or Wayne Gretzky.

Do you marvel at how the coffee cup is exactly the same shape as the coffee?

Life evolved to fit the Earth, not the other way around.

Ya, which came first, the chicken or the egg. I get cha'

 

[Loudmouth]

Wha.....

In no way do I follow that logic..I said, how did complex DNA etc miraculously form, out of the blue. That's an Olympic jump to your statement.

This is what you said:

"In my opinion, if you cannot say what started it, how can you state where it went from there?"

According to your logic, we have to know the origin of life before we can use DNA for paternity tests.

Oh ya, your Loudmouth... always looking for "evidence"

So, without complex systems your little guy is going to internally change in a way that it can manufacture or take on energy and somehow, develop a reproductive system, then split itself into two little living organisms. All given enough time... Tadah... and for my next trick..

Man, try the buffet, I'm here all week.

Where is your evidence that it had to be complex? It is your claim. You have to evidence it.

Due to the fact that the intricate complexity is beyond anything but a designer.

Where is your evidence for this claim?

In your mind you may believe this... I'm not bite'n. Sex organs are far too intricate and specific to each organism to have just happened through changes over time.

Yet another baseless assertion. Where is your evidence?

Yes, your point?

Bacteria are sexless, and they have very simple sex organs that they use to exchange DNA between species. Your claims are falsified by simple bacteria. Also, you claimed that sex organs had to be separated into male and female. This isn't true. There are plenty of hermaphroditic animals that have both sex organs in a single individual. Your ignorance of biology is causing you to make false claims.

Good for Muller. He has a ratchet. Still doesn't convince me. I can find a dude to back my statement too but they would be from a creation site and you would call it biased.

The point being that nothing would convince you. Such is the problem with religious dogma.

Not random equals, has a design. A design means a designer.

Yet another baseless assertion. Please show that non-random processes require an intelligent designer.

Yes, over time, brains "developed" without a designer and then somehow empathy showed up too..... all in the right amount of time.

What is the "right time"? That makes no sense. Bacteria don't have empathy, and they do just fine.

Ya, which came first, the chicken or the egg. I get cha'

The egg, obviously. The first amniotes evolved well before the first chickens.

 

[FreedByte]

Wha.....

Lol you might want to change your quotes, I didn't say many of those things

 

[Split Rock]

There are other views on this. I don't know enough about them, however, this gentleman seems to have all his cards in his deck.

Just another look at it..


Taxonomic nested hierarchies don’t support Darwinism — transformed cladism rocks | Uncommon Descent

Loudmouth debunked that ID sight of hand easily enough. The term "fish" is not technical. This source of yours is saying since we don't call birds or humans "fish," that evolution fails. The joke is, he doesn't deny the nested hierarchy, he just plays word games instead. Read "Your Inner Fish," by Neil Shubin. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body: Neil Shubin: 9780307277459: Amazon.com: Books

 

[juvenissun]

No, it is limited to any form of genetic descent, as I already indicated. Therefore, it works for human and dog pedigrees as well.

Do tell.

How do you work out any genetic relationship on fossil record?
Simple: you CAN NOT.

If you can not, then how do you build up that hierarchical evolution system based on genetic descent?

 

[juvenissun]

Let's start with:
DNA similarities
Fossil record

DNA similarities on fossil record? Do you know what you are talking about?

 

[Split Rock]

How do you work out any genetic relationship on fossil record?
Simple: you CAN NOT.

If you can not, then how do you build up that hierarchical evolution system based on genetic descent?

Scientists use morphology and genetic relationships among current groups. While genetic analysis of fossil species would be very helpful, it is not necessary. Just as one can determine if two living individuals are genetically related (without looking at the genetics of deceased ancestors), we can determine if two living species are genetically related.

 

[juvenissun]

Scientists use morphology and genetic relationships among current groups. While genetic analysis of fossil species would be very helpful, it is not necessary. Just as one can determine if two living individuals are genetically related (without looking at the genetics of deceased ancestors), we can determine if two living species are genetically related.

Morphology is not a reliable criterion.
Genetics can only be applied to living species.
One way or another, the suggested fossil sequence, and even the idea of common ancestry, is simply a wishful story.

If you like to continue the argument, we can examine a specific example. Otherwise, we can quit here.

 

[Loudmouth]

How do you work out any genetic relationship on fossil record?
Simple: you CAN NOT.

If you can not, then how do you build up that hierarchical evolution system based on genetic descent?

The fossil record and the DNA of living species are two independent data sets. With fossils, you use cladistics to produce a tree. Cladistics uses shared and derived features to create the trees:

The cladistic method interprets each character state transformation implied by the distribution of shared character states among taxa (or other terminals) as a potential piece of evidence for grouping. The outcome of a cladistic analysis is a cladogram – a tree-shaped diagram (dendrogram)[17] that is interpreted to represent the best hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships.
Cladistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia​

There is no physical or natural law that says similar morphology must have similar DNA. Since creationists like to use computer code as an analogy for DNA, here is an explanation from Talkorigins:

As a close analogy, consider computer programs. Netscape works essentially the same on a Macintosh, an IBM, or a Unix machine, but the binary code for each program is quite different. Computer programs that perform the same functions can be written in most any computer language—Basic, Fortran, C, C++, Java, Pascal, etc. and identical programs can be compiled into binary code many different ways. Furthermore, even using the same computer language, there are many different ways to write any specific computer program, even using the same algorithms and subroutines. In the end, there is no reason to suspect that similar computer programs are written with similar code, based solely on the function of the program. This is the reason why software companies keep their source code secret, but they don't care that competitors can use their programs—it is essentially impossible to deduce the program code from the function and operation of the software. The same conclusion applies to biological organisms, for very similar reasons.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1​

The theory of evolution makes the testable prediction that a phylogeny based on DNA should correlate with the phylogeny based on physical characteristics. For ID, there is no such prediction. An intelligent designer could have used an entirely different codon table for humans and chimps, or could have used millions of mutations that would not have affected the function of the genes. Therefore, comparing the DNA phylogenies and morphological phylogenies is able to differentiate between evolution and design.

What do we see? We observe, repeatedly, that DNA phylogenies correlate to morphological phylogenies, just as the theory of evolution predicts.

 

[Loudmouth]

Morphology is not a reliable criterion.

Why?

Genetics can only be applied to living species.

Why is this a problem? The genomes of living species are a direct record of their ancestry. Why can't they be used to test the theory of evolution?

One way or another, the suggested fossil sequence, and even the idea of common ancestry, is simply a wishful story.

Based on what evidence? We are going to need more than just flat denial. Why can't we use the morphology of fossils to test the theory of evolution?

 

[sfs]

Morphology is not a reliable criterion.

Morphologically, all birds share certain features. Why is that not a reliable criterion?

Genetics can only be applied to living species.

This is both false and irrelevant. False, because complete genomes of extinct species and subspecies are now being sequenced more or less routinely. Irrelevant, because the genetic relationship between living species is more than enough to demonstrate common descent.

One way or another, the suggested fossil sequence, and even the idea of common ancestry, is simply a wishful story.

Common ancestry is a story that explains a vast range of data and makes numerous, specific and successful predictions. Contrast that with creationism, which can explain no feature of genetic data, and avoids discussing it.

If you like to continue the argument, we can examine a specific example. Otherwise, we can quit here.

What argument? All you've done is make some assertions that have no grounding in science.

 

[Split Rock]

Morphology is not a reliable criterion.

While its generally not as reliable as genetic comparison, its still reliable. The genetic and morphological line up very well, though there are some exceptions.

Genetics can only be applied to living species.

Sequencing can be done on extinct species, depending on how long ago they became extinct and if there is recoverable DNA present in the specimen. Nonetheless, it isn't necessary for the reasons I already gave you.

One way or another, the suggested fossil sequence, and even the idea of common ancestry, is simply a wishful story.

Why, because you say so?

If you like to continue the argument, we can examine a specific example. Otherwise, we can quit here.

What example would you like? How about placental mammalian phylogeny? Eutheria

 

[FreedByte]

DNA similarities on fossil record? Do you know what you are talking about?

I'm not sure how what I said was remotely confusing. I'm talking about two different things, DNA similarities between species, and the fossil record.

 

[JacksBratt]

Lol you might want to change your quotes, I didn't say many of those things

Thanks for pointing that out. I never would have caught it.

 

[JacksBratt]

The fossil record is extremely limited. Especially compared to what Darwin expected to be found. Evolutionists and Creationists use the same data available to everyone to back their theories. Well educated people from both lines of belief can use this information to explain their view and argue the other.

The living animals, no matter how closely their DNA is to other species, are not related as many would have you believe. Wine that is left to fruit flies becomes vinegar. Close in composition, very different in qualities.

 

[Loudmouth]

The fossil record is extremely limited. Especially compared to what Darwin expected to be found.

That is completely false. Darwin spent an entire chapter in "Origin of Species" explaining why we should see a gaps in the fossil record.

But I have reason to believe that one great authority, Sir Charles Lyell, from further reflexion entertains grave doubts on this subject. I feel how rash it is to differ from these great authorities, to whom, with others, we owe all our knowledge. Those who think the natural geological record in any degree perfect, and who do not attach much weight to the facts and arguments of other kinds even in this volume, will undoubtedly at once reject my theory. For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which the history is supposed to be written, being more or less different in the interrupted succession of chapters, may represent the apparently abruptly changed forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but widely separated formations. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.
The Origin of Species: Chapter 9​

Darwin's explanation is correct. It is the geologic record that is incomplete. There are massive gaps of time between different sediments which means that the fossil record will necessarily be spotty.

Evolutionists and Creationists use the same data available to everyone to back their theories.

Creationists ignore the fossil record. Don't believe me? Try this on for size.

What features would a transitional fossil need in order for you to accept it as being transitional between modern humans and an ancestor shared with chimps? I bet you can't even come up with a list of criteria for determining whether or not a fossil is intermediate. That's because creationists ignore the data.

The living animals, no matter how closely their DNA is to other species, are not related as many would have you believe. Wine that is left to fruit flies becomes vinegar. Close in composition, very different in qualities.

More proof that you ignore the data. We can add DNA data to the things you reject without even looking at it.

 

[Split Rock]

The fossil record is extremely limited. Especially compared to what Darwin expected to be found.

I guess you have never read On the Origin of Species. Darwin would be thrilled with what we have found. Transitionals between fish and tetrapods.. between early tetrapods and reptiles... between reptiles and mammals... early whales.... and even better, early hominids.

Evolutionists and Creationists use the same data available to everyone to back their theories. Well educated people from both lines of belief can use this information to explain their view and argue the other.

Creationists use cherry-picked data to defend their religious dogma. Scientists use all available data to formulate their theories. For creationists, the conclusion preceeds the evidence. For scientists the data preceeds the conclusion. See the difference? For you guys the data is just a tool for defending an entrenched position.

The living animals, no matter how closely their DNA is to other species, are not related as many would have you believe. Wine that is left to fruit flies becomes vinegar. Close in composition, very different in qualities.

What does that even mean???

 

[MarianaT]

The living animals, no matter how closely their DNA is to other species, are not related as many would have you believe.

What method did you use to determine this? Show your work.

If evolution happened, then the pattern of DNA similarities and differences is the figurative paper trail of evolutionary relationships. The advent of genetic sequencing validated and superseded cladistics. In the "easy" cases, cladistics and genetics give the same answers. When cladistic-based trees (being subject to human judgement, at least in which characters are important, independent, etc.) are ambiguous, genetics offers much better resolution, but in no way contradicts the cladistic models.

That is, if evolution happened.

If it didn't, then you have the problem of explaining the unimaginably improbable coincidence that the cladistic patterns exist, the genetic patterns exist and the two presumably independent patterns should somehow converge. The best you can do is say that God made things appear that way for His own inscrutable Reasons.

It's like saying that the Synoptic Gospels were written independently of each other and the shared passages and obvious examples of editorial fatigue are just coincidence (or the inscrutable work of the Holy Spirit). There are certainly people that say that (loudly and with conviction), but anyone that's had a junior high math class should know that they're wrong.

 

[juvenissun]

Morphologically, all birds share certain features. Why is that not a reliable criterion?

I don't know much. But I know this:

Chimp and human have very similar morphology (skeletal), but have HUGE difference in nature.

I think the rest of the morphological arguments NEED to be reminded by this critical example.

[Another example I can understand is the dog and wolf. They have the same (?) skeletal morphology, but are different animals.]