- It claims that every living creature on Earth descended from a single common ancestor yet life cannot originate without intelligence. 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. The chances are beyond the law of probability at 1 in 10^40,000 as a generous estimate. In science, things beyond 1 in 10^50 are deemed impossible. I have never seen empirical evidence of chemical evolution without any intelligent input.
If life cannot originate without intelligence and intelligence cannot originate without life...
I would like to say that I find those probability numbers somewhat doubtful. However, the fact is that nobody knows exactly how life began. There are a few competing hypotheses, but it's important to remember that there is no scientific consensus for how life was created.
But you know what? It doesn't matter. Evolution can proceed regardless of why life is there-it only talks about what happens to life after it exists. The Catholic Church accepts a theistic view of evolution-if over 1 billion Christians can believe in both God creating life and evolution occurring, it's hard to say that their belief is invalid. What I'm trying to say is that the lack of a scientific theory for the origin of life isn't a reason to doubt evolution-it isn't concerned with evolution.
- The DNA 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. Code systems are only developed by intelligent agents. DNA is useless unless it has the specific protein translation machinery which is itself encoded on DNA. There has been no empirical evidence of meaningful DNA code forming on it's own.
That really depends on your definition of a 'code system'. You could just as easily claim that chemical reactions do follow a set code despite not being created by an intelligent being. DNA is represented by alphabetical letters, but the amino acids aren't really creating words. They just form patterns which lead to a specific function.
- Mutations are known for their destructive effects, including over 1,000 human diseases such as hemophilia. Rarely are they even helpful. The rare beneficial mutation has very minor effects & has never been shown to produce a novel functional feature in any lab experiments. Probably why experiments trying to evolve bacteria & fruit flies don't work.
So a mutation in bacteria to allow them to synthesize nylon as food is a relatively minor effect? I'd say the opposite.
- Natural selection decreases the information in the genome. It makes a creature more specific so that it can adapt to its environment, using the existing potential for variation. This is how speciation occurs & why we have degenerates like poodles & pugs coming from wolf ancestry. Natural selection is not a creative process.
Why does natural selection necessarily have to decrease information? A mutation could potential introduce new, beneficial information, and natural selection would select the new genome.
- 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.
If they didn't occur then life wouldn't be able to exist. So chance and time are able to do the job there.
- We've never seen any empirical evidence for cells learning to co-operate on their own to build up more complex creatures in the environment. You have to have apoptosis & a bunch of other systems in place for multicellularity to even exist.
Experiments are currently being done in that area, and early results, such as that of a multicellular yeast, are promising.
- How do male & female sexual organs evolve simultaneously. Non-intelligent processes cannot plan for future coordination of male and female organs. Just saying sex is advantageous does not explain the origin of these systems.
Another very important question. Similarly to that of the origin of life, this one has several competing hypotheses. However, the answer to this question is that we don't know.
- Fossils should not be used as "transitional forms". No one can determine from bone whether a creature was ancestral to another. The coelacanth was thought to be a possible ancestor to tetrapods but now that it's alive in the oceans, we know that's not the case. If a chihuahua & a great dane were found in different strata we might contend that the chihuahua was ancestral to the great dane. We cannot even tell if a creature is mosaic like the platypus. Are humans transitions to something else?
Humans may be a transition to something else-but we don't know yet. For example, if all of humanity dies in nuclear war, we probably won't be transition organisms.
Technically a coelacanth could be both a transition to tetrapods and a currently living organism-if it split into two distinct branches.
Even if we were to accept your claim that it's impossible to know if something is a transitional form, that's saying something completely different than that there are no tradition forms-so I don't really see how this goes against evolution.
- There's too much stasis in the fossil record.
How much development would you expect to see if evolution were true? It's hard to determine whether its 'too static' if we don't know our expectations.
- I have never seen 1 single example of upward evolution. I've only seen examples of adaptation, natural selection, speciation & variation.
I believe Chris Blanks dealt with this one.
In summary, I'd like to say that, while you have legitimate questions about the theory, they are currently being addressed. We don't know everything about evolution yet-but that fact alone isn't enough to doubt it. The fact is, there is enough evidence to know that evolution, broadly speaking, is true. Specifics may be uncertain, but we know the general process.
Interesting thing I learned recently. Did you know that light is actually slowing down? According to some calculations, at 3000 BC, light could have been traveling at over 100 times the speed it is now. That would change a lot of things, especially the movement of time, and could allow a Young Earth Theory to hold some weight.
I find this rather doubtful. Source?
